2004
Female Masculinity
Female Masculinities: There are few things I have found that are as undervalued and underappreciated and undercelebrated as this. In the world I call my own I have heard many women tell me to my face that they do not find masculine or butch women attractive. Which of course for many is a round-about way of saying that they find butch or masculine women unattractive and ugly. If this were simply an issue of preference that would be one thing but there is so much more going on with it than anyone seems to realize.
Whenever I hear a bisexual girl tell me that she could never fall in love with a girl because all she really wants is a big strong man to make her feel small and protected I realize that she is talking about feminine or femme women. The presence of masculine or butch women does not exist as a factor in her statement and who knows what that statement would look like if it did. I feel like our community has been slighted as a result because women have been led to believe that they cannot be fulfilled by women when it comes to desiring masculine energy.
Which is a complete lie of course.
In the end what it boils down to is male sexuality. Because female masculinity threatens the presence of male masculinity it has been cast as ugly and unattractive in our culture. It has been cast as a gross perversion of something that is otherwise beautiful. Young women absorb these ideas and live by them. Then these same young women turn away from other women and run into the arms of men when they crave a masculine presence. They have been lied to and fooled into believing that they have no other options. After all, if they could fall in love with a butch or masculine woman then that means that they can fall in love with something ugly.
And nobody wants to love something that everyone believes is ugly.
I feel that the options would diversify and improve if our community could just diversify and improve. Female masculinities should be celebrated by our community and even if a woman does not find butch women attractive she can still celebrate them for the trials and difficulties that they must struggle with and live through. Maybe I am wrong and everything I have written is completely bogus. But it feels right to me and in my experience when a thing feels right it usually is.
by Emily Quinn
I never really though of this topic this way. It was a very interesting way to look at it. I myself have never fallen in love with a woman who identified as “butch” And thinking about it now, I can actually remember being terrified of butch women when I first came out.
I love women. I have fallen in love with femme womem up until this point of my life. But what I like about me is that I would never rule anyone out. Love is love. We can’t make it happen, it just does. And personally I can’t wait to meet the love of my life. It doesn’t matter to me what form she is in.