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sanacrowStill banging head on desk repeatedly while trying to get a computer *reliably* working for consistent net access and various other projects... but for now...
On the Butch/Femme dance, but fitting other queerdoms as well:
It is quite a spectacle, really, once one sees it, these humans so devoted to dressing up and acting out... the theory that there are two sharply distinct sexes and never the twain shall overlap or be confused or conflated... marking a distinction between two sexes as though their lives depended on it. It is amazing that homosexuals and lesbians are mocked and judged for dressing in "butch-femme drag", for nobody goes about in full public view as though decked out in butch and femme drag as much as respectable heteronormatives when they are dressed up to go out in the evening, or to go to church, or to go to the office. Critics of queers' styles ought to look at themselves in the mirror on their way out for a night on the town to see who's really in drag. The answer is, everybody is. Perhaps the main difference between heteronormatives and queers is that when queers go forth, as butch, femme or anything in between, they know they are engaged in a gender theater. Heteronormatives usually are taking it all perfectly seriously, thinking they are in the real world, thinking they *are* the real world. (Marilyn Frye)
On the Butch/Femme dance, but fitting other queerdoms as well:
It is quite a spectacle, really, once one sees it, these humans so devoted to dressing up and acting out... the theory that there are two sharply distinct sexes and never the twain shall overlap or be confused or conflated... marking a distinction between two sexes as though their lives depended on it. It is amazing that homosexuals and lesbians are mocked and judged for dressing in "butch-femme drag", for nobody goes about in full public view as though decked out in butch and femme drag as much as respectable heteronormatives when they are dressed up to go out in the evening, or to go to church, or to go to the office. Critics of queers' styles ought to look at themselves in the mirror on their way out for a night on the town to see who's really in drag. The answer is, everybody is. Perhaps the main difference between heteronormatives and queers is that when queers go forth, as butch, femme or anything in between, they know they are engaged in a gender theater. Heteronormatives usually are taking it all perfectly seriously, thinking they are in the real world, thinking they *are* the real world. (Marilyn Frye)
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-20 03:40 am (UTC)I guess I'll never understand what makes someone or something feminine vs masculine.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 03:15 am (UTC)I dunno. There's something that's unquantifiable that has nothing to do with any of the usual determining bits that seems to make a difference. And it's totally separate from orientation or sometimes even preferred gender identity.
It's what's going on when you have folks in the exact same clothing and can tick off "gid-male", "butch", "tomboy femme", "femme in drab" and "poser" just by the way they carry themselves and how they "feel".
I'm afraid it's a lot like art and obscenity - I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it and feel it.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-21 03:18 am (UTC)