About Butches Q & A

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Deborah*

Again I'm asking.. please answer, I've been curious and would like to know.

What percent of butches do you think are attracted to femmes, and what percent are attracted to butches? To clarify, I'm not referring to this website, but the public in general.

Deborah

I doubt that anyone would be willing or able to give you a number. It varies wildly from region to region. For instance, I've met a relatively large number of butch women who partner with other butches in the Bay Area of the US, and similarly found that there are plenty of regions in the US and Canada where there just aren't very many butches of any type. At all. I really have trouble figuring that one out. Then there's the problem of self identification varying from place to place and generation to generation. In some places the women who might identify as butch don't seem at all butch to me because I'm accustomed to a specific style of presentation, and those self identified butches would never ping my radar. And then I meet younger people who I would most certainly call butch, but they would never call themselves that. They identify as genderqueer, stud, ag, MOC, or anything else as long as it's not butch. So they may look like butches partnering with other butches, but that's far from how they would categorize themselves.

I'm sorry to tell you that your question doesn't have an answer.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by CherylNYC

I doubt that anyone would be willing or able to give you a number. It varies wildly from region to region. For instance, I've met a relatively large number of butch women who partner with other butches in the Bay Area of the US, and similarly found that there are plenty of regions in the US and Canada where there just aren't very many butches of any type. At all. I really have trouble figuring that one out. Then there's the problem of self identification varying from place to place and generation to generation. In some places the women who might identify as butch don't seem at all butch to me because I'm accustomed to a specific style of presentation, and those self identified butches would never ping my radar. And then I meet younger people who I would most certainly call butch, but they would never call themselves that. They identify as genderqueer, stud, ag, MOC, or anything else as long as it's not butch. So they may look like butches partnering with other butches, but that's far from how they would categorize themselves.

I'm sorry to tell you that your question doesn't have an answer.

Exactly. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Everything you listed.

In regards to what imperfect cupcake said about people (in this case butches), not being honest and having dates or slept with other butches, that is something that I have never considered. I think it is pretty ridiculous to not be upfront about that. I have never slept with a butch, but who the heck cares? I guess I get it though, people are so worried about what others think. Is it like a person is a "gold star butch" to have never slept with anyone but a femme?

[imperfect_cupcake]

I don't think I've ever known a butch who has slept with *only* self identified femmes.
there are
straight women
feminine androgynous dykes/just me lesbians
men
genderqueers of all kinds
various kinds of butches
lipstick lesbians
etc etc

I think it would be very, very rare for someone to have only had sex from puberty till now with only self IDing femmes.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by imperfect_cupcake

I don't think I've ever known a butch who has slept with *only* self identified femmes.
there are
straight women
feminine androgynous dykes/just me lesbians
men
genderqueers of all kinds
various kinds of butches
lipstick lesbians
etc etc

I think it would be very, very rare for someone to have only had sex from puberty till now with only self IDing femmes.

I know you weren't directing this at me, but my post saying that I have never slept with a butch may have prompted your thoughts. I said that because you said you didn't think there was anyone who had not had sex with a butch at some point. I really haven't. Whether they identified as butch, or just looked masculine, I really haven't slept with any masculine presenting females, nor any females who had "masculine energy". Just like people who haven't had sex with someone of the same sex or with someone of the opposite sex, I have personally not had sex with someone who presents/has the energy of a butch/masculine female.

I have slept with two "straight women", but didn't have relationships with them.

My preference is to date/partner with queer femmes. I don't believe I would partner with a "straight woman". Even though I have medically and socially transitioned to "male", I am still queer and a woman who has only ever lived as "straight" and has only ever "lived" in the mainstream, heterosexual community just would not suit me. They wouldn't "get me".

But, like Cheryl said there are a lot of people who "ping" as butch (or femme) to us that don't identify that way.

[JDeere]

I've never slept with another butch or a trans person. Always been femmes.

Nowadays I am not opposed to sleeping with a butch or trans person, I don't discriminate.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by JDeere

Nowadays I am not opposed to sleeping with a butch or trans person, I don't discriminate.

Is this because your attractions changed (you didn't use to be attracted to butch of trans people), and you now are? Or were you just worried what people would think, so you always stuck with people who identified as femme

[JDeere]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Is this because your attractions changed (you didn't use to be attracted to butch of trans people), and you now are? Or were you just worried what people would think, so you always stuck with people who identified as femme

Just worried about what others would think. Nowadays i dont care lol im getting older and too tired of nonsense to worry about what others think these days.

[Ascot]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Whether they identified as butch, or just looked masculine, I really haven't slept with any masculine presenting females, nor any females who had "masculine energy".

Nor have I. And, while perhaps not every woman I've been with self identified as Femme, I suspect that's at least in part owing to a lack of vernacular. That essence has always been there. It is that exquisite energy that somehow manages to be intangible and palpable at once. I am every ounce the moth willing to be singed by that flame. Long before I had the language for it, I knew who my counterpart had to be. I'd go so far as to say it's not at all a choice for me. Air, water, light, Femme; all elements crucial in the development of my best self.

I don't feel as though I was ever drawn to being butch because I was never on the outside of it. As others have mentioned, I know beyond doubt that I burst into the world this way. When I was younger, when I had long hair, for example, I know my presentation might have not screamed butch, but my core has never changed and these days my external and internal are more aligned. I've never given much thought to defining butch. I guess I simply prefer to live it.

[Martina]

My impression is that in the SF Bay area, more butches and transmen are into other masculine folk, including cis men, than into femmes or andogynous folk.

[imperfect_cupcake]

Dapper, from what you are telling me, you have only partnered with self identifying femmes from the age you were first partnering with people.
Not feminine androgynous lesbians who "ping" femme to you and your concept of femme, but actual self identifying femmes.

this is kind of what I am trying to say. Not every feminine accented dyke is a femme, not every slightly masculine lesbian is a butch - this is *WHY* I personally have slept and partnered with more than just butches, because some of my masculine flavoured parters don't ID as butch.

And this is also why many butches also sleep with more than just self-identifying femmes. There are feminine presentations personalities in outwardly gender neutral, tomboyish, or only slightly feminine that "ping" attractions in the "right" way, despite not having a self proclaimed femme ID.

So when someone who is I dunno, my age-ish, and says "I've only dated femmes" I want to know if they mean "I've only dated/partnered with feminine presenting dykes that I considered to be femmes even though the didn't use the ID and we were both really young at the time anyway."

or what. I am sure there are rare instances of someone 50-60 years old only dating and partnering with self identified femmes since they were 15, when they were first sexually active, cause some self ID'd femme found them and educated them about it all in the back of a car or something... but I tend to think most butches when they say stuff like that are either fudging the info a bit slightly, *or* they mean feminine presenting lesbians
and not actually
self identifying femmes.

And we all know how much femmes hated being told they were the same as lipstick lezzos back in the late 90s on the dash site, eh?

*taps finger on side of nose*

ok, just steppin out of thread, it is in the butch zone. Sorry.