Fuck that Mirror.......

It is easy, I think, to get kind of stuck  thinking that my Master and slave relationship  has little difference, if any difference  then  most other relationships. We go through life just like anyone else,  our bills are late, we have holes in our socks,  and occasionally I call off of work because  the sex is just that good.....


So it is easy to  get to thinking that really our relationship isn't that different, until those differences smack  me around and call me  their bitch. I mean until those differences are made apparent as I negotiate through other relationships.



Lately these differences have done everything to leaving me extremely  confused and baffled,  to  given me even more awe of my slaves  perseverance, patience, and service,   to have put a mirror  up to my own  self and to my behavior.  Ouch by the way,  fuck that mirror.....




The first big difference between  our relationship and other relationships became evident and I had to confront my own self with it. That is being told no. Sounds simple doesn't it?  No.  Ultimately I am  told no all of the time, we all are. 



No-  you can't go  90 in a 45 and get out of a ticket by  calling it  "flow of traffic."

No- having working brakes in the van  isn't just the "manufacturer's suggestion."

And  No-  putting a paper towel  over cat puke while the slave is out of the house does not mean it will pick itself up.




So one would think that I would be used to being told no. But guess who doesn't say no- my slave......

If I want to grope her, touch her boobs, stroke her parts, get her naked... OK.  
If I want to suspend all of the daily chores and spend all day in bed with her.... OK.
 If I want to  toss her across the bed, drag her up to my hips, and fulfill my carnal  fantasies.......OK.



So when  someone finally told me "no", really and legitimately  I did not hear them. Then I thought they had to be kidding,  then I thought that no really meant yes-  they just didn't know that yet-  then I just got really confused.  What do you mean  "No"?

Then I had to learn that people say "no" without actually using the word no. So it was no-  in Latin. At that point I had to start all over again,  maybe they didn't mean no....  I was so confused I had to ask my slave to step in and translate for me because I got so lost at the  "it isn't a yes"  part.



The next difference I experienced was when it came to the talking thing. I do  try really hard to listen ,but I do have the tendency to interrupt and talk over people. Now,  when I do this at home,  my slave stops talking,  smiles, listens, and then continues when I am finished. But other people don't stop talking when I start talking over them-  they just keep talking to. I hadn't realized how much I had gotten used to  my slave letting me talk -  even when I interrupt her. How rude!!!  Not her,  me-  how rude!



Finally there was the physical difference that separates our relationship from other relationships.  I am  a very touchy person, I love touch, both  giving and receiving. I am  very used to  having total  unlimited access to my slaves body  and to how my slaves body moves and feels. I am  also used to  and very comfortable with  moving her and putting her where I want her. 



Did you know that people don't necessarily like that? WTF?

When that was pointed out to me I was so confused! What do you mean  don't touch  a person  that way or I could break them? I am  so confounded....



So after all of this I came to the conclusion that my Master and slave relationship  really is very different them many other relationships. My slaves unending patience,  service,  and availability  have spoiled me rotten --for the good and the bad. 

So if I don't hear you say no, talk over you, or position you -  I am  really sorry.

 Blame my slave.   
      

 
  

    

Butch Femme history 1960's to now

We were so honored to present  at AEL in January and here is an excerpt from the speech!

In the 1960’s there was the historical Stonewall uprising and lesbian visibility was not becoming more of a three dimensional presences in the public eye.  With the lesbian rights movement and the first wave of feminism, butches and femmes were not becoming increasingly viewed with a sense of misunderstanding and hostility by other lesbians.  Androgyny was now seen as the only acceptable form of lesbian gender expression.  Sexual practices were also policed  within  the lesbian  community.  This time with the prohibition of any phallic shaped sex toy within an emphasis way from sex toys completely.  Butches and femmes who wanted to become a part of the important women’s and gay rights movement found themselves treated as unwanted.  Butch femme couples were called “aping heterosexual couples’ and patriarchal attitudes.  Because the gender expressions were so polarized the first and second wave of feminist movement didn’t know that to do with them.  The concept of aping was and still is used to degrade and devalue butch femme relationships.  It was a very effective way for the feminist movement to separate themselves from the butch femme members’ that had become so undesirable.

  In the 1970’s through the 1980’s the lesbian sex wars began in earnest and continued well into the 1990’s.  The lesbian sex wars were specifically within the lesbian community.  They were hostile and vocal and angry fights from within for the push for recognition of a wide diversity of sexualities, gander expressions, and ethnicities.  It was the fight for what defined lesbian and queer women’s sexuality.  IT was the fight for all women’s sex lives to be validated and recognized.  Women were fighting to be seen by other women as three dimensional sexual beings.  Fights over the topics such as the sue of sex toys, penetration of any kind, bdsm, the inclusion of transgendered women and a recognition of very type of gender expression opened up an explosive e dialogue ion the complexities of lesbian sexuality and gender variance.  As a result of these debates, and not so friendly discussions, butches and femmes finally began to find a platform to express their grievances’ and concerns in a public forum.  The lesbian sex wars also allowed the butch femme community to look at itself through a more three dimensional lens and start to realize that we could make our own decisions and more importantly, we could break our own rules whenever we felt like it.

    We’re not going to fast forward to the modern butch femme community where thankfully there have been a lot of changes.  One significant change is that queer women are no longer obligated  to be butch femme or even andro.  What this means is  that there is a greater freedom to make gender expression something that is unique to the individual.  It is also less likely that a person sexual expression is dictated by their gender expression.  Butches are under less pressure to be exclusive sexual tops with only femme partners’.  Femmes are less likely to be under pressure to be exclusive sexual bottoms with only butch tops for partners’ .  Now we're not saying that this has gone way completely. What we are saying is that the social consequences for being an open butch sexual bottom or femme sexual top are less severe than they used to be.  The reason for this welcome change in attitude is mainly due to the large influx of literature that has been written by and for queer women of all gender expressions’.  The internet has had a phenomenal impact on the growing butch femme community.  Because we are finally able to find each other and talk about our won realities.

  Another very positive change has been the growth of the bdsm and leather communities’.  What this community has done has given us as butches and femmes the ability to have understandable , viable, and supported three dimensional identities in a way that the e lesbian community at large still struggles with.  For example, in bdsm and leather, the  terms butch boi, femme switch, femme  sexual top, butch service top, and girl have allowed the butch femme community to truly expand.  So, although the lesbian sex wars are over and we have other communities that support us, unfortunately, the power of some of the biases from the past still remain.

  Two labels that are often negatively used when talking about lesbian sexual practices in relation to gender expression and flippable butch and pillow queen femme.  

  What it means to be a flippable butch is that the butch both gives and receives sexually.  Unfortunately still  in  our culture, it is thought that for a butch to e a real butch, they have to be stone.  In other words, they can only give and onto receive sexual pleasure.  So for butches to admit that they enjoy receiving sexual  pleasure, they are taking a change co being viewed as less fierce, less capable, and a less desirable partner.  Because a butch identity is so hard fought for , and hard won, it is something that we hold onto very closely.  So it can very difficult to have our identity come into question simply because of the joy that we have receiving sexual gratification.  Believe it or not, butches come in a variety of categories.  There is the bulldagger, the bulldyke, the hard butch, and the soft butch.  They all vary in intensity of their gender 3expression and sexual desires.  Gull daggers’, being the most masculine in appearance and behavior and soft butch being someone with butch undertones mixed with a more feminine/androgynous feel.  So to call a bull dagger a soft butch and vice versa is like smacking the cocaine out of Lindsey Lohans’ nose.  That’s just asking for a fight.

  On the femmes side, the pursuit of femmes like butches are still going through having their complex sexualities recognized and validated buy the queer women’s community at large.  While butches face an uphill battle when it comes to being viewed as always aggressive, femmes on the contrary have an uphill battle when it comes to being viewed as always passive.

(EVE SPEAKING HERE)

  The term pillow queen which is used interchangeably with the label femme, means that they do nothing more in bed than lay back look pretty, and let their partners’ do all the work.  The flip side to this is that sexually aggressive femmes are viewed with a sense of alarm if not outright amazement.  I have had many experiences with this myself in that the women I approached were very surprised to learn that for the most part I identify as a sexual top who is mostly stone.  That is to say I am more comfortable in giving sexual affection and attention than I am in receiving it.  For me, when I came out, the book Stone Butch Blues had a strong resonance for me because while I am femme identified my choice of sexual expression with women as a stone sexual top.  The book  helped me realize that one of the reasons that I was a sexual top was because of the amount of vulnerability that it took to be a sexual bottom wasn’t something that I was comfortable with.  That is until I met my wife…hee hee.  

  Another thing that helped me was finally getting in touch with other femme sexual top.  This was monument for me because I was finally able to talk with other femme identified women with similar sexual preferences and that was very freeing an empowering. 

(ME SPEAKING HERE) 

  The interesting thing here is that when I finally met eve, I had had five y ears’ of really bad sex.  Lemma say it, five years of really bad sex.  I knew that there was good sex out there, and I knew people were having good sex, and I knew that I was going to get me some.  So when Eve and I started seeing each other, I had absolutely no baggage about being on the receding side of sexual gratification.  It wasn’t until much later when I was sent the memo that I shouldn’t be so public about receiving sex from Eve that I actually first had to think about how I was being as a butch who was open about receiving sexual pleasure from their femme.  But even after I was informed of this, the sex has been so mind blowing and has remained mind blowing, that there was no way that I going to stop bragging. 

Butch femme History in the 1950's

My slave and I were honored to speak at AEL  in January-  here is an excerpt! 

There is mention in  ancient Greek passages about the hetaerae  .  The hetaerae were female courtesans that  served high lead male nobility. In their off time however, these female courtesans  were known to have masculine female lovers who they doted their time,  attention and money on.

Within the ancient African warrior kingdom of Dahomey, it was not unheard of for high ranking female Amazon  generals to take on multiple wives.

A final example would be the red light district  of 18^th  century Tokyo. There was a special section of butch  female sex workers that only catered to  female clients.

So to  start talking about the North  American  history we are going to start in the 1940’s in New York specifically. At that time more local bars started catering to openly gay crowds. The available jobs in the industrial areas  meant that there were a greater number of pants wearing women  going to and from work at all hours.  What this meant  in  terms of safety  was that it was no longer  unusual to see women in  masculine attire on the street  This mean that butches were less likely  to  stand out  and it created a safety not experienced before for butches who now had economic means and were not forced into  traditional women’s attire.

As far as the femmes  the economic power meant that you were less likely to  have to  answer for yourself on your off hours  as to why you didn’t live with your parents,  or have a traditional  husband and child household.

It was the beginning to not be an aberration  for a femme not to be married right away,  or seen as a spinster burden on her family.

 These  two segments of the community started to become economically viable  independent an  visible. Which  also meant that they were finally able to meet each other in  more social areas  that catered  to them.  Now know that we are only  talking about working class lesbians here. Not upper to high class people who had other means to have more privileges’. We are focusing on working and lower to middle class butches and femmes. 

So just like all sorts of communities, butches and femmes were held to  a certain standard of behavior.  These standards were just as rigid for butches and femmes as they were for the male and female mainstream partners in heterosexual society.

For example femmes  were to be seen in  makeup, dresses, and heels at all times, and they were expected to be sexually passive.

Butches especially in the bar culture were expected to be in  pants and starched shirts and were expected to be sexually aggressive. To be accepted into the working class social lesbian community butches had to have femme partners  and femmes had to have butch  partners. The partnering of butch to butch and femme to femme  meant that the couple would not be welcome and therefore ostracized from their very small social out lets.

Sexually  speaking, femmes  were to only receive  sexual gratification,   and butches were only allowed to give sexual gratification.  Not to say that people didn’t deviate from  those strict sexual expectations,  but it was never publicly spoke of for fear of losing face, loosing sexual desirability,  loosing potential sexual partners, or loosing social status.

In the 1950’s the butches and femme community started picking up some steam.  There were more social  venues  more jobs and there was now a slowly growing selection of literature  for example the Bebo  Brinker series  it was a lesbian pulp fiction that actually had lesbians that were not tragic characters and surprise surprise lived at the end.  Even though there was all of this good stuff,  unfortunately in the mainstream  community  the McCarthy area  lead to more police raids and greater witch hunts to ferret out anyone that was not compliant with the strict expected conformity of the day.

The butch femme community was just as influenced by this concept of conformity and regimented role as the mainstream  worlds and in response became even  more unbendable regarding its social and sexual rules.

Another change at the time was that butch identity had more  emphasis physical strength.  So there was a change from the dapper butch to  am more aggressive one. With increased visibility  came increased violence and danger. So part of the butch make up became the art of being physically imposing and intimidating. The new stance of being physically imposing came with encouraging people to keep a distance but it also came at the price of being viewed as angry and hostile.  So as the butches embraced their ability to be more socially visible, they sometimes embraced the unspoken expectation of being angry and hostile.  Good for staying safe, not so good for making a relationship last.  This also led to butches becoming more hostile towards each other, being protective became  being possessive.  This wasn’t always the case, but these lines became easily blurred through social pressure.  Another form of social policing came in the way of defining who was a true lesbian. For butch to be considered a true lesbian, and a "butch's butch", they had to meet a few stringent requirements.  They can’t have had any sexual history with men.  Be exclusively attracted to femmes.  Be butch in appearance 24/7, which meant no changing into feminine garb for work. 

  For femmes the requirements’ were just as strict, and it still didn’t mean that you were accepted as a lesbian.  Femmes had to be in a relationship with a butch.  They had to be submissive to that butch.   They had to be completely sexually  passive.  At this point, was the social beginning of femme  invisibility.  What that means is that femmes were not acknowledged as a apart of the growing lesbian community.  Single femmes were viewed as suspect if they were recognized at all.  Because femmes were able to come in and out of the straight world easier than butches, and because many femmes were sex workers’ who serviced male clientele, it was very hard for them to be recognized by a community that was still struggling to define itself and come to terms with its own many complexities.