troublefemme

[troublefemme]

Yea, your girl is a masochist, but have you confirmed the types of pain that she's comfortable with??

Sure, your lover is into petplay, but have you talked about whether you're supposed to yank on that leash??

Absolutely, she's into degradation, but do you know whether that name makes her think of a bad ex??

Mhmm, your girl is into getting choked, but do you know how to grab her without endangering her?? Do you even know if she wants you to stop her blood flow and/or airways???

I see, your darling is into rope, but do you know whether you're tying them up in a position they don't like?? Did you even remember your rounded edge scissors in case of emergency??

Okay, so it's into CNC, do you react with care and compassion if/when it safewords??

Yea, your Dom/me is hot and scary, but have you communicated your needs, and wants, and appreciation for them?? Are you ever making sure they're having fun?? Are you ever even using your safewords, if not why?? You might need to!

Just please, I'm so so tired of hearing people pushed away from/out of kink spaces whether, online or irl, because there are some kinksters out there that cannot practice safely.

[troublefemme]

kali uchis for gay times magazine

#she's so beautiful it makes me sad #like holy hell

[troublefemme]

[troublefemme]

[troublefemme]

stone butch hands

[troublefemme]

Helloooo I am back— like, fully!

Please enjoy a little self indulgent doodle as I get back in the saddle (mechanic butch forgot her lunch, and her femme sweetheart brought it to her at the shop. Thinking about following this one up with some, ah…lunch break fun :3)

[troublefemme]

Well, fuck.

"The developments in 1950s lesbian culture moved with accelerating force toward ending secrecy. In the context of severe repression, the forms of resistance became a dead end. By the late 1950s, the butches’ constant confrontation with the straight world, and the unmitigated disapproval it generated, led to extreme stigmatization and, therefore, isolation. Narrators’ sentiments of pride were commonly accompanied by equally powerful feelings of self-hate.

This is especially true of the leaders of the late 1950s. Vic remembers her embarrassment during a summer picnic in her backyard during the 1960s:

“Now Dana comes in, she’s got tattoos runnin’ up and down her arms, and size eighty-four boobs, and Jamestown Gerry and then my landlord comes out. Should I be embarrassed at my friends? I was. I say, ‘Never again will that happen.’ Y’know I’ve been embarrassed at myself, many times, but if I have to be embarrassed at the people that are around me… and I was.… And my landlord goin’… he’s checkin’ arms, he’s checkin’ tits, then he’s lookin’ at flies, he don’t know what to make of the God damn [whole thing]. This is never gonna make it then.”

The pain and degradation has stayed with her and is perhaps even heightened by the lack of appreciation for who she was and is in today’s lesbian community.

“Like people say to me, i could be a butch, I could do this. I could do that.’ Anybody could be, y’know, for a weekend or a week. But go through life… dressing the way I dress, being with women who are [fem, and] men pick on you because you are with them. This is a different story.” At another point in her story she explains: “Well, it’s like I have to low-grade myself, don’t have to but I do, because of what I am. … Well because it’s been in my head. You have never had your face broke for being a queer, I have. For like twenty years of my life. And now, because you can go to a gay dance or something I’m supposed to say, ‘Oh wow, now I can go there.’… But I can’t even go there and do that cause I’m a butch and they don’t want me either. Where do I go, I don’t have where to go? I had to stay right where I’m at.”

- Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis

#trouble posts #Bella's books 📚

[troublefemme]

"Women who were new to the life and entered bars have reported they were asked: “Well, what are you—butch or femme?” Many fled rather than answer the question. The real questions behind this discourse were, “Are you sexual?” and “Are you safe?” When one moved beyond the opening gambits, a whole range of sexuality was possible. Butch and femme covered a range of sexual responses."

— Joan Nestle, “Butch-Femme Relationships: Sexual Courage in the 1950s” in A Restricted Country

#trouble posts #Bella's butch/femme tag 2.0 #Bella's books 📚

[troublefemme]

thanks to everyone motivating me to sexualise my religious trauma I do have thoughts about it, might write about it later

#praying on my knees to a butch god #for my butch god #random trouble

[troublefemme]

daddy this, daddy that. You know what? I'll do you one better, you're my god now, how about that?

Been looking for a new god for a while, the last one was a big disappointment, you know what I mean? Christianity and all that jazz

#random trouble #idk folks #I'm just saying things today

[troublefemme]

I can't use suspension of disbelief when people try to write about fucking on a motorcycle, if you tell me you're grinding on the seat while it's moving, my only thought is the driver will not only notice that immediately, but the driver will notice it immediately because that'll make them lose balance and you're both gonna fall from the bike and hurt yourselves lol

#random trouble #wth folks

[troublefemme]

So I always considered the nautical star tattoo on the wrist to be a butch thing, which I'm assuming it mostly is, however, according to some narrators on Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, at the start of this symbol, some femmes also got the tattoo to become identifiable in their communities by other lesbians and to be seen as lesbians. The more you know.

#trouble posts #Bella's butch/femme tag 2.0 #Bella's books 📚

[troublefemme]

"The butch and butch-fem image, as projected in this community, contained three explicit elements of resistance. First, butches, and the butch-fem couple, by “not denying” their interest in women, were at the core of lesbian resistance in the 1940s and 1950s. By claiming their difference butch and fem became visible to one another, establishing their own culture and therefore became a recognizable presence in a hostile world. Second, in the 1950s the butch, who was central to the community’s increased boldness, had little inclination to accommodate the conventions of femininity, and pushed to diminish the time spent hiding in order to eliminate the division between public and private selves. Third, butches added a new element of resistance: the willingness to stand up for and defend with physical force their fems’ and their own right to express sexual love for women.

This culture of resistance was based in and in turn generated a great deal of pride. Narrators are fully aware of how powerful their visibility was, challenging gay oppression and thereby creating a better world for lesbians today."

- Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis

#trouble posts #Bella's books 📚

[troublefemme]

Trying to read while being sick is annoying because I have to keep taking breaks and stupid naps because I'm so fucking tired for no good reason

#random trouble

[troublefemme]

It's interesting to see the intense desire for distinction from this particular butch/femme community (I say that because I can't say if it's a general sentiment or a sentiment prevalent in that region with the community interviewed) with passing women (term used at the time for people who passed and lived as men)

These butches very strongly wanted to not be seen as men and to not be treated as men and strongly disliked the comparisons with passing women. As the excerpts following imply:

"Butches of the 1940s and 1950s actively worked to create a unique image. Their goal was not to pass as men. Although many of them knew passing women or might even have passed as men for short periods in their lives, as part of the lesbian community they were recognized on the streets as women who looked 'different' and therefore challenged mainstream mores and made it possible for lesbians to find one another."

"In the 1950s women who passed were also known to the lesbian community, but they were not considered an integral part of its daily life. Butches chose to look simply-and dangerously-like butches or "queers."

"From the perspective of the 1980s and 1990s it is difficult to separate being butch and passing as a man, but for members of this community, the difference was significant. Many narrators, like Vic, are resentful about this modern confusion. (Disliking people who thought they wanted to be men)"

- Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis

It continued on the next chapter over, but if I see a change in the way the narrative goes, I'll update this. I'd love to know what was the general sentiment about this, but as it is, it makes sense.

#random trouble

[troublefemme]

"The pressure on butches and studs not to deny their difference and to defend themselves generated an extraordinarily complex and confusing relationship to maleness, which is vividly expressed in Sandy’s statement quoted above: “You were there, you were gay, you were queer and you were masculine. Men hated it.” These 1950s butches, particularly the leaders, were extremely masculine, and often thought of social dynamics in terms of male and female roles and relationships. At the same time, they were not men, they were “queer.” Throughout their life stories they counterpose acquiring masculine characteristics with not being male. The prominence of masculinity in their vision of themselves and in their understanding of the world is perhaps responsible for the contemporary confusion between these butches and passing women (people passed as men and otherwise lived as men), and the assumption that these women must have been trying to be men. But to recognize their masculinity and not their queerness distorts their culture and consciousness and negates their role in building lesbian community."

- Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline Davis

#trouble posts #Bella's books 📚

[troublefemme]

#maybe they should wrestle me just to show me how easily they can overpower me #maybe i love seeing how strong they are #maybe if one thing leads to another it's not my fault 😇