#Lesbiansafe

[breederbutch]

"The homogeneity of the lesbian bar population makes a striking contrast with gaymale culture, which has a long tradition of explicitly erotic cross-class socializing. In general middle-class women did not go to the bars, because they were afraid of being exposed and losing their jobs. Charlie, a chic and competent white fem, remembers how rarely a gym teacher friend would go to the bars:

'Once in a while she would go. She was very nervous about her job. And I can understand it now because that many years ago, and sometimes even now, people want to make problems. They feel that somebody might attack their children.'

However, upper-class lesbians in Buffalo were more public about their behavior. Working-class lesbians knew about them through gossip— for instance, from a gay man who worked for them, or a friend who sometimes went to their parties— or through newspaper stories, particularly about an older group that had been quite prominent in the social life of the city in the 1920s and 1930s. But the upper-class lesbians did not socialize with working-class lesbians in the bars or any other settings. Joanna, a popular and worldly white fem who socialized in several groups, remembers:

'The people [they'd] hang around with were all like professionals, and [their] families were influential, very affluent, and I don't think that [they] would have considered even hanging around with us, say at the bars... Maybe they did go slumming once in a while, but they sure never came to the bars when I was there. And I used to always think, gee, where do they go? Then I found out... to the Westbrook and the Park Lane... can you imagine? and Beatrice was very butchy looking. Wish I had a picture of her, cause you would have died when you [saw] her. Very very masculine woman, and I mean really masculine looking.... They could get in anywhere, are you kidding. They wouldn't have turned her away. Probably spent a fortune in these places.'

In addition to not [sic] going to working-class bars, the upper-class women did not welcome working-class women into their own parties. Arden remembers going with a friend to one of the parties, and the hostess asked 'Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?' Arden took the question in stride and had a pleasant evening, but did not go back frequently.

All narrators are adamant that these upper-class women had little impact on their lives, and the fact that they were known lesbians did not make it easier for working-class lesbians. They think the difference was greater in the old days between those with money and those without. They were more concerned with making ends meet—working everyday, setting up an apartment—while the upper-class women had the money they needed and could concern themselves with more leisure activities."

- Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, by Elizabeth L. Kennedy and Madeline Davis (1993)

[breederbutch]

cw for d slur reclaimed, sexual content.

"Reclaiming femme... again" by Mary Frances Platt, featured in The Persistent Desire: a Femme-Butch Reader (1992)

ID below the cut. I also want to direct you to a section of a piece by Arlene Istar also in this collection, but I'm gonna link this here once I publish it separately so this isn't too long.

[ID: Scan of pages of a book. Title reads: "Reclaiming femme... again" in big text. Above that, slightly smaller text says "Mary Frances Platt". The story reads: "Yes, it's true: I was the type of young femme who managed the girls' basketball team in high school, just to be able to take in the sight of those butches parading their muscles up and down the court. I found Girl Scout camp to be femme heaven and reveled in being able to explore my athletic self and still maintain my femmeness. And, to my horror, I have to admit pushing Tina away from my breasts in the back seat of a Buick while attending Mount Saint Mary Seminary.

And then there was feminism ... Although I came out as a "gay" woman before reading The Feminine Mystique, the seventies brand of white feminism had me trimming my nails and cutting off my hair. Soon I was outfitted in farmer jeans and high tops. And still I was told by my 'sisters' that I didn't 'look like a dyke' (read: I didn't look butch).

I began to lead two lives — one as an outrageous, skirted, lipsticked femme while I worked in and traveled with carnivals, and another as an imitation butch back home in the women's community. Eventually, I pulled the pieces of my being back together and proclaimed boldly, 'I am a working-class lesbian femme.'

So, I had maybe six years of revelling in unleashing my seductive femme self when, as lives go, mine changed: slowly at first and then more dramatically.

Recurring back pain and limited range of motion were finally diagnosed. Soon after came decreased mobility. No more mountain climbing. No long mall walks in search of the perfect piece of sleaze. No more standing against kitchen walls while being gloriously fucked by some handsome butch. I stopped using alcohol and drugs, became ill with what is now known as CFIDS (Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome), and began to use a three-wheeled power chair.

The more disabled I became, the more I mourned the ways my sexual femme self had manifested through the nondisabled me: cruising at the local lezzie bar, picking a dyke whose eyes refused to stray from mine,

dancing seductively, moving all of me for all of her. Cooking: love and suggestion neatly tucked into the folds of a broccoli quiche. Serving my date in varying, sleazy clothing, removing layers as the meal and our passion progressed. And making love ... feeling only pleasure as my hips rose and fell under the weight of her. Accomplishment and pride smirked across my face as her wrists finally submitted to the pressure of strong, persistent hands. These are the ways I knew to be femme, to be the essence of me.

It's been five years now since I began using a wheelchair. I am just awakening to a new reclamation of femme. Yes, I still grieve the way I was, am still often unsure how this femme with disabilities will act out her seduction scenes. I still marvel when women find passion amidst the chrome and rubber that is now part of me.

There have been numerous dates, lovers, relationships, sexual partners, and flirtations along the way. Cindy, Jenny, Ellie, Emma, Diane, Dorothy, Gail, June, Clove, Lenny, Cherry, Diana, Sarah I, and Sarah II. You have all reminded me in your own subtle or overt, quiet or wild ways that I am desirable, passionate, exciting, wanted.

Yes, I am an incredibly sexual being. An outrageous, loud-mouthed femme who's learning to dress, dance, cook, and seduce on wheels; finding new ways to be gloriously fucked by handsome butches and aggressive femmes. I hang out more with the sexual outlaws now — you know, the motorcycle lesbians who see wheels and chrome between your legs as something exciting, the leather women whose vision of passion doesn't exclude fat, disabled me.

Ableism tells us that lesbians with disabilities are asexual. (When was the last time you dated a dyke who uses a wheelchair?) Fat oppression insists that thin is in and round is repulsive. At times, these voices became very loud, and my femme, she hid quietly amidst the lies.

Now, my femme is rising again. The time of doubt, fear, and retreat has passed. I have found my way out of the lies and the oppression and moved into a space of loving and honoring the new femme who has emerged. This lesbian femme with disabilities is wise, wild, wet, and wanting. Watch out." End image description.]

we need so much more love for androgynous femme dykes who don’t fit a very narrow idea of what it is to be a femme. femmes don’t always wear makeup, shave, wear skirts or dresses, and might seem masculine by society’s standards and I love them so much.

this should go without saying but this goes doubly for femmes of color & trans femmes. society sometimes questions and invalidates your presentation & femininity for not fitting into the narrative that is pushed and you are loved the way you are 🧡

[riotkittiesarchive]

beware of attack lesbian!! reblog if you too are, indeed, an attack lesbian

[riotdyke]

2017 -> 2024

Butchness is about becoming, lesbianism is about growth, life is about transitions.

Take up your space.

[blasphemouspat]

yall keep trying to reinvent women's land but it's still around and the women living there are begging you to join them

I wish there was a women only country or island or town I could live in.

[tytonidyke]

Was feeling my fit today

[tactfullyinappropriate]

Ohhh boy, I'm gonna get a lot of flak for this one but... masc lesbian =/= butch. You can be the most masculine presenting person the world has ever known and that does not automatically make you butch.

Butch is an identity and you kinda need to fit that identity, not make the identity fit you. E.g. "lesbians" who are attracted to cishet men. Sorry, hun, you're just not a lesbian. Find your own identity that fits. You are allowed to be your own kind of bisexual or pansexual but what you are not, is a lesbian.

Sure, there is a lot of room for being your own person within an identity. I am not the same kind of lesbian as the next dyke. But if I did not fit (or if I no longer fit) the definition of the lesbian identity, I wouldn't call myself one and insist that lesbians expand the definition to include me.

'Butch' as an identity exists within a certain context. It *is not* a synonym to man, and it's also not a synonym to 'a masculine presenting lesbian'. If you don't vibe with the whole 'chivalry' concept and the specific ways in with butch/femme courtship (as an example) happens, maybe consider if this is the right label for you before insisting that we expand or rather completely rewrite the definition to exclude those things from it.

Some of the discourse around 'we should redefine butch!' reminds me of the discourse around redefining manhood. "It's not fair that men are expected to have masculine hobbies," they say. "It's not fair that men cannot wear glitter and makeup and retain their manhood. It's not fair that men are expected to open doors, and carry heavy things, and to-to---" Yes. You are exactly right. But butches are not men.

'Butch' is an opt-in identity, not something that society at large expects and requires from you. In other words: if you think femmes gushing about being courted by their butches in what to you appears to be a 1960s play-pretend of patriarchy, is silly, objectifying or demeaning toward one of the parties... consider that maybe 'butch' is not the identity for you. That maybe you are a masculine person with their own unique take on masculinity.

But insisting that we redefine butch is like me insisting that we redefine 'yoga' because I vibe with the gymnastics but I don't like the spiritual aspect of it. I can just go to Pilates instead. Or do yoga and accept that other people in the practice experience it differently.

What I am endlessly tired of, as a femme, is being lectured on what I *should* and *should not* find attractive. I am not somehow betraying feminism, objectifying people and degrading myself by daydreaming of a butch who opens the car door for me or - the absolute horror - brings me flowers on a date. I recognize that other people have the right to their own attraction and that masculine lesbians deserve the freedom to explore masculinity on their own terms and be treated with dignity and respect regardless of where that exploration takes them and regardless of who does or does not find them attractive.

That being said, the whole narrative of 'if you find chivalry hot, then you are objectifying butches and you are, in fact, an entitled selfish person' is tiresome. Not all femmes are women but in being chastised for our turn-ons and romantic daydreams (unless we're the Cool Girl who doesn't like flowers and rolls her eyes at romance) I see a lot of the admonishment directed toward cis straight women who dare to swoon when they read romance where the male lead is courteous and generous.

Except, again, butch/femme *is not* man/woman. It's a particular subculture within the lesbian identity and no one is pressuring anyone into conforming to it.

[depressed-lesbian420]

Show me who’s In charge mistress

[blasphemouspat]

example werewolf pack if you even care.

we could maim and kill men in werewolf form and then turn back and no one would be the wiser. we could howl at the moon together and also frolick at incredible speeds, day or night.

also i love hairy pussy.

[breederbutch]

Shar: To be a good butch, you need to have manners. You need to respect the position that you're taking and polish yourself up. Learn how to do these things, learn how to pick the wine, be on time....

Susie: [laughing] What is this thing with being on time? Are butches on time and femmes aren't?

Shar: Exactly. One of the nicest dates I ever had was with a fortysomething butch. She showed up at my house, and I was literally half-dressed. I had one stocking on and one off. We had an eight o'clock reservation at a nice restaurant, and I was running late. It was our first date, and I was younger and already feeling nervous. As we arrived, I whispered, "Do you think they'll be mad at us?" and she patted my hand and said, "Don't worry honey, I made the reservations for eight-thirty."

Susie: Oooh, that's so cute!

"The Joys of Butch," a conversation between Susie Bright and Shar Rednour* published in Dagger: On Butch Women (1994)

*warning: piece contains anti-stone language that propagates rape culture, discussions of "femme" identity in m/f relationships, and transphobia. the d slur is also used but reclaimed. shar rednour is also an outspoken zionist as of today.

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

some people worry about lesbian identity being too ''limiting'' and i want you to know that if you feel that way you just might not be a lesbian!!

lesbians aren't forcing ourselves to ignore real desires to be with men, we're not cutting ourselves off from things that would be fulfilling or good for us.

i felt stifled and limited when i was trying to force myself to like men, when i was interpreting every feeling of anxiety or combativeness as "attraction", when i was dreading what felt like an obligation to entertain men sexually and perform for them romantically.

lesbianism is me finally giving up on limiting myself!!!

lesbianism is me finally giving myself permission to admit, to myself as well as others, what i actually want and do not want, and not trying to conform to the painfully limiting life mapped out for me by the cultural and economic coercion of compulsory heterosexuality.

lesbianism isn't for everyone. for some people, the lesbian label would be limiting and stifling because it's not what you genuinely want or need!! if you feel genuine desire for men of course trying to be a lesbian would feel bad, you're denying a desire you actually have!! there's no reason for you to force yourself to try to be a lesbian, just like it was bad for me to try to force myself to be bi!

but please understand that for those of us who need the lesbian label, it is freeing and healing, not restrictive.

[dorothylarouge]

Hope you're ready for 2025 to be the year of the Clark Kent butch 😊

Clark Kent butch reporting for duty

[riotkittiesarchive]

[ art by @sweatermuppet ]

[draculovemp3]

The femme voice is underrepresented in historical records, though markings of her presence abound. Often, she is the security behind the butch display, the one who makes the public bravado possible. Lady Una Troubridge's words to Radclyffe Hall, while spoken by a white, upperclass, Christian woman, capture some of the enduring aspects of femme power: "I told her to write what was in her heart, that so far as any effect upon myself was concerned, I was sick to death of ambiguities..." Yet to others, the femme woman has been the most ambiguous figure in lesbian history; she is often described as the nonlesbian lesbian, the duped wife of the passing woman, the lesbian who marries. Because I am a femme myself, I know the complexity of our identity; I also know how important it is for all women to hear our voices. If the butch deconstructs gender, the femme constructs gender. She puts together her own special ingredients for what it is to be a "woman/' an identity with which she can live and love.

— Joan Nestle, Flamboyance and Fortitude: An Introduction from The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader (edited by Joan Nestle)

[pokebutch]

Finished up this gym leader design from way back in my drafts.. if gamefreak weren't cowards she could be real