"Butch" and "Femme" - Truly Antiquated Terms or More Marginalization?

[Selenay]

Originally Posted by Mister Bent

Right. The hubris of the "youth scene" (not speaking to you directly, Selenay - merely borrowing your term). What they determine in the now, is the forever shall be.

Thankfully, that's not true.

For if that were true, we would no longer listen to classical music or value certain forms of art.

Because there is nothing new under the sun, and everything old becomes new again, it's safe to assume that just because one generation doesn't use or relate to certain terms that they will "die." They may be out of mode for a certain age group, but that hardly heralds death.

New York is ahead of the curve in most things, additionally there is enormous racial diversity so POC terms for identity are more likely to be adopted and heard. But that while young queers in the 5 boroughs (and parts of Jersey, yo) might not be identifying as butch or femme, there is the great American hinterland still to consider. I doubt there will be sweeping change in which the terms butch and femme cease to exist. I believe, as SuperFemme stated, that there is room for all.

If, by process of cultural evolution butch and femme get put on the shelf (until they make a comeback with the third wave of hippie fashion), I would hope that at least it is done with respect to the space they carved to make way for that evolution, and the relative freedom young queers in America experience.

I think these explorations and deconstructions are part of the process of our queer evolution, but to be dismissive of one's history and those who came before is short-sighted and arrogant.

Still, I disbelieve in the demise. If the term doesn't fit, don't wear it.

You know, we really don't listen to certain types of music. I haven't really heard baroque music on z100 recently. . . And I can't really tell you the last time I heard a friend tell me that they were going to go study their hurdy gurdy or harpsichord. They aren't extinct, no, but they are for all cultural purposes dead.

There is room for all, of course, but if the youth does not embrace a term, it will die. Just like with language, or clothing, or music, it needs a base to create it and a youth to continue the tradition. Or are we going to go back to Latin now?

I never said that I, or anyone else, doesn't respect the path that has been paved, but I'm willing to bet that if you ask 80% of the people on my extremely queer college (and by extremely queer, I mean the only state university in New York that offers a G/L Studies major, which coincides with the GLBTU, trans-action, drag queen fall ball, ad nauseam...) what the butch/femme dynamic is, they wouldn't have any idea.


Perhaps I'll start a survey and get back to you with more accurate numbers. . . I'll make sure I include on that survey "Stonewall" to find out who actually knows what stonewall is, what its significance was, and if they've been there.