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 18th 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.
