I'm Neither Butch Nor A Top
Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 8:44PM I just returned from a trip to Lagos, where I met a girl who’d found my one of my blogs online and emailed me to see if we could meet up while I was in town. Along with my best friend, we went out to a secluded bar in Ikeja, had a few tequila shots, and chatted underneath the blasting music. When she realised that she’d left her phone in the car, I escorted her out to get it, waited as she changed from kitten heels into flats, and flirted appropriately. As we all stood around in the parking lot before leaving, she described me as ‘butch’, and I cringed. My best friend stepped in with her correction- “No, she’s a b-o-i.”
I’m more likely to see myself as a femmeboi, because while I don’t see myself as feminine, per se, I do see myself as effeminate. However, because this doesn’t spill over into my dressing much, I’m rarely read as such. While in Lagos, I was talking to a new gay friend of mine about how I’m often read as masculine and aggressive, and I wasn’t quite sure why. He said that to him, it was in how I carried myself, that my energy comes off as contained and controlled, in charge. Personally, I’ve noticed that when I’m around some of my femme friends, I definitely seek to balance the dynamic. I’ll take the heavy bags, carry the dresses while they’re picking them out in the store, give them my arm, you get the gist.
In my relationship however, it’s a bit different. I’m the one who drools over kitchen appliances, who actually likes cleaning and doing laundry, who makes the bed every morning, who makes my girl breakfast when she stays over- I’m the domestic one who puts together IKEA furniture and I love it. She carries my heavy stuff, takes me out on dates, picks up the tab more often than not, and expects to be the major breadwinner years down the line. For the record, I’m so okay with being a kept woman. Wifey for the win! This seems incongruous to some people simply because I wear mostly men’s clothes, while she wears only women’s clothes and isn’t butch/boi either. Despite how we use clothing as markers, it’s impractical to make assumptions about roles in queer relationships.
That doesn’t stop people from doing so, though. In a heartbeat, someone who wears men’s clothes is assumed to be butch or boi or aggressive or the owner of a strap. The same girl from Lagos asked me, the next night in a club, if I strapped. When I said no, she looked taken aback for a moment, then added that neither did she. Ohh-kay. Obviously, straps aren’t vital in all queer interactions, but I felt as though she was attracted to me because she assumed I was a butch who strapped. I rather get it- I’m attracted to androgynous presenting people who I cross my fingers and hope are into strapping #winkwink, because trust, I have negative interest in it. I’m rather tired of people reacting with shock when they find out I dress the way I do and identify as a bottom.
In general, I despair at hooking up *ahem* dating because I always feel as though those who I’m attracted to aren’t attracted to me. I wonder if it’s because I’m not femme (enough), if they’re assuming I’m a top who straps, if I look too similar to them, or if I just intimidate people. I want to be pursued, wooed, hit on, propositioned, taken charge of. I want people to stop thinking that being a bottom is equivalent to being passive and disinclined to reciprocation of pleasure- that’s just insulting. I resent the internalized homophobia that doesn’t support boi-boi, stud-stud, GQ-GQ, or permutations along those lines.
Part of the frustration for me is that I feel as though I’m constantly being read as a masculine of center woman, when I’m actually just genderqueer. I’m genderqueer of center. Trying to interpret me in any other way leads to confusion- such as some friends not understanding why I can’t wait for my chest to be flatter and more androgynous so I can wear dresses again. The few times I have worn dresses out and gone en femme, I got hit on by masculine-presenting women whose interest in me only lasted as long as the high heels and red lipstick was on. Any time I saw them when I was dressed in my ‘regular’ clothes, I got the friendly head nod or no recognition at all. Talk about the buddy zone.
I wonder how many others have had similar experiences. Do you feel that the way you dress and present leads people to make assumptions about your roles, sexual or otherwise? How does your actual self contradict the assumptions that are made about you?
About the author: Born and bred in the south of Nigeria, Akwaeke Z Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil free love advocate, genderqueer Nutri-C addict, and natural hair aficionado. In the space where parathas and palm oil meet, she dances reverence to dope beats and follows the Christ. As a queer bard, blogger and performer, Z infects a message of self-awareness laced thoroughly with love and bravery, believing that only in knowing and accepting oneself utterly can we truly be free. A current Brooklynite, they adore traveling and beautiful people, and are constantly pushing for a life free of fear and full of marvelous.
My preferred pronouns are she/he/they. Mix it up. Surprise me.
Akwaeke Z Emezi
Drag King| Bard| Blogger| Milliner
www.akwaekeemezi.com
Reader Comments (13)
Yup. Being six foot tall, broad shouldered, confident and courteous generally to the world leads people to fetishise what they assume to be my gender in all kinds of ways. With the result that I wind up in flirtatious or semi-sexual interactions with people, where I express what I desire and they refuse to believe it, or think it's OK to contradict me - which makes them pretty rude. Sometimes it's not even that explicit - just readable in the ways they choose to talk or flirt with me (or choose not to flirt with me, like you said - the buddy zone.)
It also leads to me forming a picture of how I am perceived by other people, and what is expected of me. This is pretty confronting because I feel locked into that picture in order to be socially intelligible as myself in different settings, often with people I like but don't know so well yet. Which is weird (and Lacanian? Even weirder.) And I can't live up to anything. Blargh gender (except when it's great.)
Z! I love reading your stuff on bbh. I feel like coming to NY now so I can proposition, hit on and woo you. Lol. I totally get you. I'm into androgynes, gender-queers and studs though I'm not really receptive when it comes to strap-ons. Will use them though *wink wink.
From my perspective race adds into people's perception of one's gender. Black women are stereotypically seen to be more masculine than white women. The got into the workforce much longer than white women and had to fend for themselves. Take the L Word, for instance. Shane and Tasha dressed almost the same way but Tasha ended up with Alice (tres femme), while Shane basically had sex with almost everyone. From the hints given, she might have had gay(male) sex with "straight acting" executives.
I think the construction of black masculinity as hypermasculine robs off on any black woman who cannot be percieved as feminine. I would love to talk more about this. Hit my skype up!
I identify with this post sssssooooo much. I'm a genderqueer androgynous woman. I don't really identify as butch or femme but rather neither and both. Mostly more as an effeminate lady fag. I'm more of a bottom and i'm attracted to masculine of center and androgynous folks. But i always feel like i'm not femme enough for the butches/studs/AGs i'm attracted to and not dude enough for the fags i like. It's confusing. Lately, i've been sort of embracing my femmier side ( in terms of how i dress). I feel more comfortable doing that than i have in a long time. But at the same time, ultimately i identify as a genderqueer woman. Like it's all over my face. I hate feeling like it's something i have to adjust so that people i'm attracted to will be attracted to me. Even if this is not actually the case in reality, it's frustrating that these ideas haunt me when i'm trying to see myself and interact with how i perceive others to perceive me. blahhh
also i agree with the last post, that race and furthermore shades of blackness and certain features, get factored into gender construction in ways that personally have really fucked with my head.
this is so right on. i'm either being called butch or a faggot most days and it's hard to reconcile that in the social pool. people never seem to believe that one person can be 'strong and silent' and 'catty and cute'. what's wrong with the evidence of your eyes people?
Z! Thank you for saying shit out loud. Love it. -mo
Thank you! This post is dead on, and I'm so glad to see this conversation happening. Especially factoring in the ways perceptions of black masculinity shape gender presentation and perception (and, I would also add, colorism within the black community and the ways we imagine gender for lighter v darker people). And I'm SO FEELING YOU with the wanting a different chest so you can wear dresses again!!! As I dress more and more in "girly" clothes and makeup, etc, I find that the body I have renders me FEMMIER as opposed to FAGGIER or just as opposed to GENDERQUEER, which is hard. And some folks are genuinely surprised that I - someone who wears makeup and tight pants - would want chest surgery, because wouldn't that mean that I'm less femme and more fag (when actually maybe I'm neither and both)??
Thanks for posting.
When i read this post, I feel as sinking in the pit of my stomach. I think I know where it comes from.
We are always navigating attractions. We are always deciding what it is that draws us to some folks and not to others. We are always out on a limb hoping our beholden finds us fit enough to be beheld. In so many ways, this is not up to us. Yet, dutifully we go out, day after day, presenting our best interpretation of self to the world..thinking "if i'm lucky... i just might get picked up.."
But, let me get at the sinking feeling.
There is no implicit harm done in being a femme/stud/butch/boi/fag/androfemme/AG/ etc etc who wants a partner who straps. Who wants a partner who is firmly rooted in a masculine identity. No implicit harm done on being clear where the boundaries and edges of one's desires lie. No harm done in walking away from folks who can't give one what they ultimately want. Desire is, at once, both deeply personal and wildly collective. And we could be here all day trying to pick apart why folks want what they want and don't want what they don't. Its not a convo I am interested in having. It begins and ends, for me, with the phrase " we feel what we feel and we absolutely do not feel what we don't feel.." you feel me?
But, there is harm done in trying to get someone to do something they don't want. In fact, that is the opposite of consent, and the very definition of sexual coercion. I am simply suggesting that by expressing their dissapointment, they have done you a favor and walked away with the knowledge, well, that it's just not going to work out. And the reality is, such a mishmashed pair probably wouldn't work. if a potential lover can't get behind genderqueer, doesn't even have that level of fluidity as a framework, then you probs don't want them any way. Unless, of course, that turns you on. So when a self proclaimed bottom walks away Its up to you to stay rooted enough in your own wants,needs, and desires not to take it personally. And, its up to you not to, in a fit of rejection, cast a shadow on their wanting. To cast a shadow on your own wanting, too, is so terribly self effacing. I know perversions are perverse. I also know they make us shiver. Embrace the things that make you tingle, even if you feel shame's warm wash over you, for they usually represent a great deal of self truth/knowledge. And, they will help you make space for the tingles of other people's lives.
And let me shine a light on the even deeper pit in my stomach. I know that we have only been given these useless roles by which to define, reshape, model, break, bend, and mold ourselves. I know that we equate femininity with housework and the desire to have, raise, and love babies. I know that we think of masculinity as reserved, strong, bread-winning, bodily sacrificing, and in charge. But damn, I am so disappointed to see these useless roles so ingrained in queer folks. So readily used to describe our self and each other.
To be queer is to embrace the possibility and the chaos that exists beyond the current way of doing things. It is like Audre Lourde says, "to define ourselves for ourselves." To which I would add, "and to create a new language and rubric by which to do it.." We've got to go deeper. This is a queer endeavor. Reinscribing the same ol shit and calling it something different is Hegemony's (white supremacist capitalist patriarchy) number one tool. We've got to go deeper with our attractions. To mine our hearts to discover our truest desires. To not let the affirmation or lack of affirmation from others direct our process. To embrace, as Gayle Rubin says, "a new erotic creativity..."
Lew - I interpreted the point of the post as more that Z's often read in a way that is a disconnect with their own mix of gendered and sexual identities. And the expectations that inform those assumptions are sometimes awkward, or uncomfortable or a bit demoralising to negotiate. That's not casting shadows - it's pretty straightforward to feel regretful because someone you find attractive is attracted rather to the assumptions they made about what your gender signifies sexually. Doesn't say anything about the legitimacy of their desires, or the legitimacy of yours. Nor is it trying to get anyone to do anything they don't wanna do. It's just a pity that the expectations are imported and attached to certain ways of doing gender in the first place - which is exactly your last point as well.
This:
"In general, I despair at hooking up *ahem* dating because I always feel as though those who I’m attracted to aren’t attracted to me. I wonder if it’s because I’m not femme (enough), if they’re assuming I’m a top who straps, if I look too similar to them, or if I just intimidate people."
Exactly! I feel like these are really common feelings to have, and hardly ever get discussed by anyone in the community.
Thank you—for your voice, your gall, and your connection.
This article is coming to me at exactly the right time. I've been thinking about this a lot recently because I met this amazing girl who identifies pretty strongly as femme, physically at least. I've only known her for a few weeks, but I like her a lot, to say the least.
Generally I switch between being a bit more femme and being a bit more neutral, but it just depends on my mood. I think it likes to permeate my attitude and movements too, depending on the person I'm with. With her, because she's pretty femme, I feel like I need to take a "butch" role, but like you said, that word absolutely makes me cringe. Physically I'm pretty boish, but I'm a girly girl in pretty much exactly the same ways you are. I like it when people pay for a date, I like to cook and clean, etc. And I definitely try to balance the femme/masc dynamic when necessary, both ways.
Thus, I always get nervous when I meet a girl I like, because what if she discovers that I'm not "truly butch" or whatever and decides to ditch. Luckily, this girl seems to balance me oddly well. The first date we went on she paid, and making out she didn't always wait for me to take the lead, which is so refreshing.
All of this said though, this article brings up an AMAZING topic which is on my mind a lot. It also makes me wonder though: how do you feel comfortable being a bit more feminine physically around a femme when you feel inclined? Is that something that you worry about, or do you usually just balance it out appropriately? You have no idea how much better this article makes me feel.
man, thanks for this. feel you so hard, when will people learn to stop making up their minds within the first few seconds of seeing someone?
I'm reading this post for the first time and wondering why the hell I was not reading it months ago. For a long time I've struggled with the dynamic between being a more masculine lesbian but not being butch, and it is nice to know that other people feel the same way. I have friends (lesbian and straight) who just assume I'm butch because I dress more "manly" and often take on the male role in a relationship, and thus leaving something to be desired on my end at least, but I never really brought it up before because I wasn't really sure about any of that stuff. While I personally identify as genderqueer, I am forced to identify professionally and often personally as female because of work. People assume my wardrobe automatically indicates I want to be male, when in fact I'm fine with my body, just not how society defines it and not how the military forces me to fall on one side of the gender binary, and will kick me out if I even approach the dividing line. And people are always really confused when I act like a femme lesbian would, and not necessarily how a butch lesbian would, and frankly, I really don't want to have to keep explaining to people that how I dress has no indication of how I act or what my expected "duties" are to my partner and in life.
So thank you - this was refreshing to read and really helpful
This is the most beautiful "About the author::" I have ever read. And I'm old and have read many.
Thank you so much for sharing and encouraging. You are a huge inspiration.