So far the festive season is festering away … I’ve moved house, changed my psych meds … what a brilliant time of year to do it all eh? I’ve also landed a v cool editing contract. What I haven’t done, is hang out online and I ain’t here for long today.
First things first, I need to reblog the following:
Symposium #1: What is Butch? on Butch Lab:
- Ulla from Boxer Shorts & Bras
- Kyle from Butchtastic
- Holden from Packing Vocals
- Roxy from Uncommon Curiosity
- G from Can I Help You Sir
- Victoria from The Musings of a Lesbian Writer
- EST from A Lesbian Christian
- Wendi from A Stranger in This Place
- Jenni from Butch.org
- Ali from Made of Words
- Jolie from This Side of Changed
- Polly from Lesbian Dad
- Sinclair from Sugarbutch Chronicles
… and I also need to mention that in the process, I stumbled upon Jolie’s very excellent turn of phrase, “identity geeks.” Not only is it uber-cool, it also applies to me like a comfortable pair of ripped and faded jeans. (The ones I wore to East London Pride this year).
So Google has banned ads for the book Queers in History, because of the ooooh-verboten word “queer.” That falls under the ‘sexual content’ no no, although the book is entirely about queer figures in history and in no way about sex. This brings me on to another of my favourite rants i.e. how very, very, incredibly fed up I am of my identity instantly being associated with sex. Sexuality is a far broader matter than the sex act, thankyouverymuch world.
Back to butch … OK, here I need to add the disclaimer, again, that I am in no way trying to diss anyone’s interpretation of it, simply define my own. You google butch, you find a lot of bdsm, masculinity (radical or otherwise) and … butch cock. I hate typing that phrase.
I am not a man, I don’t want to be a man. I don’t even want to be a woman the way most of society defines us, but I am a feminist and so “woman” is what I (re)claim. I’ve said a lot on this subject, so I shall move on …
BDSM. No. I see a whole bunch of bloggers who identify both as butch and as Buddhist also way into bdsm, on a very conscious and analysed level. I would simply like (as little as I like discussing my sex life publicly) to state that I am indeed butch and a (bad) buddhist, but I am not into bdsm – not one bit. And I (we!) have extraordinarily fabulous sex.
That is all.
Beyond butch. I read a cute FAQ which stated, amongst many other things, that the mental health of queers is far better if they are out and open about their identity. It struck me that this is in fact true for all of humankind. If you know who/what/where/why/how you are and stand with a measure of surefootedness on this planet of ours – you’re a pretty well-adjusted specimen. Perhaps, we just don’t know when to be satisfied and content, perhaps many of us (*points to self*) just keep on and on questioning until we’re convinced we can never be happy. But that is a whole other discussion and I am digressing fearsomely.
Being an identity geek, let me claim the following:
Human [it’s not under threat, so not too militant about it]
Woman
Feminist
Queer
Lesbian
Dyke
Butch
Gay
Geek
Bookworm
Editor
Writer
Thinker
PTSD person
Speculative fiction fan
Alt.indie music fan
That list could go on forever.
Ima stfu now *grin*
December 18th, 2010 at 15:54
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December 18th, 2010 at 17:01
Human, woman, feminist, queer, femme identity geek here! (I won’t hijack your comments with my entire list! ;-) )
I love it.
I bet that if we all made lists of our labels like this and laid them side by side, we’d find that we have more words in common than we originally expected.
December 18th, 2010 at 18:41
I’d like to see your list. I think I should install mine somewhere and keep adding to it actually.
December 18th, 2010 at 23:57
You forgot to claim
Clever and charming (smiling)
Love all your stuff!
December 19th, 2010 at 00:03
Hey we have a mutual admiration society :)
Would be cool to do a list – two columns – one self-identified and the other from others’ comments …
December 19th, 2010 at 04:17
I <3 identity. Its a great list. I fully encourage you to keep adding to it!
And I always find it interesting to see what others would put on my list… it can be very different!
December 20th, 2010 at 22:52
In the interest of the six degrees of blog separation, I’m thinking I LOVE your list and am going to make a run with it, as I too like the term identity geek.
Another great one.
December 22nd, 2010 at 22:33
Thanks ten thousand times :)
January 11th, 2011 at 23:11
You have been busy! How’s the new meds? :) And boo too Google, I expected more of them :(
March 27th, 2011 at 06:22
]manufacturer rep
April 8th, 2011 at 15:00
]ADT monitoring
April 9th, 2011 at 13:12
]aerobics classes Ashbum
October 15th, 2013 at 20:38
Just read this and thank you. I consider myself butch, too, but am also not wanting to be male in any way. Many of us aren’t/