We femmes who are romantically drawn to butches have a complicated relationship with masculinity. We may have dated men for years, yearning for a kind of masculinity men seemed to promise but could never deliver. What on earth is wrong? we wondered. Is it him? Me? When we finally find our way to butch lovers, we may be susceptible to sexist and even misogynistic treatment, all in the name of securing that particular kind of masculinity we yearn for. Our coping techniques, learned over the years in order to appease and placate men, may kick in, hindering our ability to stand up for ourselves. What on earth is wrong? we may wonder, feeling cowed and confused, unable to identify and communicate what we really need and believe.
It is not our job, as femmes, to tell any individual butch how to express their masculinity, although our generous hearts often embrace this task. We are on on our own journeys of self-discovery and must guard against toxic masculinity, misogyny and sexism, no matter the source. Or perhaps, we must be even more on guard when we are opening our hearts to butch lovers, who inspire such protective and loving behavior in us. A butch who can hear and act on real feedback from a femme about the nuances of their behavior will be a better person for it, but before we femmes are even able to offer up that feedback, we have to be clear about and situated in our own femininity. Our own queer femme femininity, from which we draw strength and wisdom, and which blazes like a queer north star, rising, rising.
Every Monday, I will offer a Meditation for queer femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was a fabulous straight femme, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.
The Total Femme 