butch, identity & a little catchup-ketchup

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*