Butch and Femme: Stereotype? Or True Fact?

[ToTheCeilingFan]

I was talking to my friend in study hall today and we got onto the subject of homosexuality (my poor friend--I bring this up at least twice a week in one form or another). Anyway, we were talking about gaydar and if it exists. My friend (let's call her M) said that it was pretty easy to tell if a guy was gay because he'd be very feminine, and it was easy to tell if a girl was gay because she'd be masculine. Obviously, this isn't really true, and I was explaining to her that some gay guys are very masculine and some gay girls are very feminine. M looked at me and said, "Oh, I guess that makes sense...a gay relationship has to have one butch person to play the role of the man and one femme person to play the role of the woman." (I realize that my friend sounds pretty ignorant here, but I'm working on her, I promise).

Okay, so this is definitely off base to some extent. For one thing, I don't think that in a gay relationship one person plays the role of the woman and the other plays the role of the man because it's either two guys or two girls and we just don't fit into that straight concept.

But do you think that gay relationships tend to consist of one feminine person and one masculine person? I'm not really sure...I'm kind of butch and the girls that I'm attracted to tend to be pretty butch too. What's your opinion/experience?

[concklin]

It's all about the preferences of each individual. If you have a masculine guy that likes other masculine guys, then he's going to seek out other masculine men, and be turned off by feminine men. That's just the example of how relationships between 2 masculine men form. But if there's a relationship between 2 feminine men, or one feminine guy and a masculine guy, or 2 femme women, or a butch and a femme, or 2 butch women, then it's most likely because each person in that couple is usually attracted to the "type" that their partner is.

I know some gay guys that don't really care, and some that only like masculine men (whether they themselves are masculine or feminine). It varies between everyone.

Obviously in a couple, there will be comparisons, and one will be put into the "masc"/"butch" category, and the other in the "feminine"/"femme" category unless both people in the couple are on the same point on the "scale", which I find rare, which is probably why the categorizing happens so much, and there's the idea that one must play the man and the other must play the woman.

[Lexington]

It's been my experience that this isn't the case. But here's the deal. Let's say the theory is "in every relationship, there's a tall one and a short one." Fine, but if a 6'4" guy is dating a 6'3" guy, you can simply name the 6'3" guy "the short one", and your theory is still sound. Similarly, you can call the 5'4" guy the "tall one" if he's dating someone 5'3", and keep your theory going. By the same token, you can simply assign "masculine" and "feminine" labels to whatever you wish, and this theory can remain tenable.

I once had somebody tell me that every gay (male) relationship had "a woman". I asked, "Who would be the woman? The guy who bottoms? The guy who works less, and does most of the housework?" He said, "Right - exactly." I said, "Well, in my relationship, the guy who works less and does most of the housework is the top." At which point he switched definitions.

Lex

[Hotspot]

Actually a thing I read somewhere said that only 15% of homosexuals act feminine if they are guys and masculine if they are girls, most homosexuals act masculine if they are a guy and feminine if they are a girl.

In my experience, out of 5 homosexual guys I know including myself; only one is exactly like the stereotype.
I am not feminine, but I'm not a big macho guy. I'm just me, but I don't act like a girl or sound like one (actually I sound like the stereotypical dork xD) I do have my moments though, but it's rare.
One of my friends from college I thought was straight, until I found his facebook.
My cousin is gay but acts like any kid his age.
I also have a friend who is gay, he's in the middle though. Like you can say, maybe he's gay maybe he's not. But he dresses like a guy and isn't into any fashion or stuff like that, he likes anime and video games and what not.

[mnguy]

I'm sure it would vary quite a bit. "Opposites attract" works for some people. I see myself with someone similar to me, but maybe I'll find myself really into a guy who is different in a lot of ways including being more or less masculine than me.

[Chandra]

My girlfriend and I are both somewhere in the middle on the butch-to-femme spectrum, and we both have certain qualities that would seem to fall more on one side or the other.

She plays hockey and lives in her sweatshirts and wouldn't know what to do with a makeup bag if it smacked her in the forehead, whereas I gravitate towards dangly earrings and polka-dot dresses.

On the other hand, she's romantic and sensitive, whereas I tend to be the one who has to remind myself about important dates, etc. She's the one who gets pouty if I come home distracted by work and fail to live up to her immediate kissing-and-snuggling expectations.

To be honest, I don't even think the butch-and-femme dichotomy holds up all that well in hetero couples. I know of plenty of examples where the woman is more dominant and has more "masculine" personality qualities than her husband/boyfriend.

[Austin]

Originally Posted by mnguy

I'm sure it would vary quite a bit. "Opposites attract" works for some people. I see myself with someone similar to me, but maybe I'll find myself really into a guy who is different in a lot of ways including being more or less masculine than me.

In my first class of psychology, the teacher said opposite personalities attract. Similar values and interests are better than opposite values and interests in long term relationships.

[Steve712]

False fact, I say!

[heatqueen]

Stereotype. End of.

[Gumtree]

I'm sure that there are multitudes of cases that fit the stereotype to the button, just as many that reject it in every sense, and every combination inbetween.

What I can think of though, when it comes to the spawning of paradigms like this, is that the fact that when there is someone in a same sex couple that acts the opposite to their gender-stereotype, then the couple immediately become more noticeable to friends, and to those who are witnessing them in public.

The reality is, most straight people don't know that many GBLT individuals, let alone couples; so their judgments are generally built off what they do see and hear, and in this case; some really bloody stupid form of logic.

[Holmes]

If I was dating a boy, there wouldn't be a woman in the relationship, just two men. I don't think this perception is so much a stereotype as a heteronormative view of looking at the world, an assumption that gay relationships mirror straight ones. I think if in a couple, one man seems more camp than the other, people then fit it into man-woman model, but you can't do that universally. But I don't think of myself as a type A looking only for people who fit into the class of type B.

[Harve]

To oversimplify this perhaps, i think that if you took 100 gay girls and 100 straight girls, then the most 100 feminine of them [how this would be judged is a different matter] would be predominantly straight, i think. The same would apply for guys.

Stereotypes and labels in general are not things most would want to adhere to, but i think stereotypes do exist, and yet most people would deny that they fulfil one of them simply because a certain attribute doesn't apply to them or something. Like, i could say i'm not a music hipster because i listen to No Doubt, but let's face it, i'm generally a complete music snob. On the other hand, no-one completely adheres to them - stereotypes shouldn't and don't take away someone's individuality.

[Holmes]

Originally Posted by Harve

To oversimplify this perhaps, i think that if you took 100 gay girls and 100 straight girls, then the most 100 feminine of them [how this would be judged is a different matter] would be predominantly straight, i think. The same would apply for guys.

I'll readily admit that even if I'm a little more girly than the average man. Stereotypes must have been based on something, and given what homosexuality is, it's not ultimately surprising. The part of my brain related to who I find attractive is like that of straight women, so it shouldn't be surprising that the part about feelings toward ball games is too.

But that's not what we're on about here. It's whether there will be a more effeminate man who acts as the equivalent of the woman, a less effeminate man as the equivalent of the man, and the equivalent for lesbians. Whether the man-woman dynamic in a relationship holds for gays and lesbians. And I don't think it does.

[ADTR fan]

You don't have to have a butch and femme. I'm butch in the sense that I play sports, rarely wear dresses and prefer my sneakers to flats. But in the same sense, I'm femme because I never leave the house without eyeliner, I shave all the time, I love getting the time to do my nails, which is unfortunately rare. Yet I usually go for girls that are similar in that aspect, kind of in between (mainly cause they're ex scene girls haha) but I mean, I've been interested in butch girls. My point is that there's no need for a "guy" or "girl", it just makes things easier for (some) straight people to associate with.

[thedreamwatch]

I'm in-between, so the stereotypes aren't always true. I do and say things that my straight friends think are "gay" but mostly you can't tell by looking at me.

Though before I came out I really wondered if I would have to change to be butch or femme to count as gay. Apparently not!

[Bryan90]

Originally Posted by Lexington

It's been my experience that this isn't the case. But here's the deal. Let's say the theory is "in every relationship, there's a tall one and a short one." Fine, but if a 6'4" guy is dating a 6'3" guy, you can simply name the 6'3" guy "the short one", and your theory is still sound. Similarly, you can call the 5'4" guy the "tall one" if he's dating someone 5'3", and keep your theory going. By the same token, you can simply assign "masculine" and "feminine" labels to whatever you wish, and this theory can remain tenable.

I once had somebody tell me that every gay (male) relationship had "a woman". I asked, "Who would be the woman? The guy who bottoms? The guy who works less, and does most of the housework?" He said, "Right - exactly." I said, "Well, in my relationship, the guy who works less and does most of the housework is the top." At which point he switched definitions.

Lex

^This. You can always twist your definition such that every relationship will have a 'relative' fem and a 'relative' butch.... It's called affirmative bias.

But again, stereotypes often are generalisation that is 'true on average', but does not necessarily apply to every individual.
Example: Girls are shorter than guys - Stereotype or true fact? Sure, on average, girls are shorter than guys but not every girl is shorter than guys. So it might be true that relationships tend to have a 'masculine' person and a 'feminine' person (the definition is way subjective anyway), but that doesn't mean that it's true for ALL relationships as I am sure two very 'feminine' people can fall in love.

[Allecto]

Most lesbians don't practice butch/femme anymore. It's dying out for a reason.

[RaeofLite]

Personally, I've never been hugely girly. I haven't been total tomboy either. I think everyone fits in with what they're comfortable with and if they feel pressured to be either one in a relationship with a partner, then I think they should just be themselves. If the other in the relationship cannot accept that, then the relationship isn't meant to be or proper communication needs to come into play.

[roborama]

I guess its all personal preference who your "type" is, it has nothing to do with sterotypes

[x2x2x2x2y2]

Meh. Some people have that relationship, others don't.

I think I'm in the middle. I'm def not manly, but I'm not fem either. I like to listen to Ke$ha and Rihanna, but if you asked my family and everyone around me, I wouldn't be considered fem. My friend was really surprised when I told him I was a bottom (he thought I was a top), even though I always tweet really gay stuff. lol

My voice is on the deep side, but I like movies like Easy A and Mean Girls, but I also like horror movies. I have posters of Taylor Lautner in my room, but also posters of The Joker. lol

At some point I just stopped caring what people thought, and decided that I would be myself, whether that was fem or manly.

Sometimes I wish I was fem, because then more people would automatically assume I was gay. Most people (hell, all) wouldn't guess I was gay. And that's not as nice as it sounds. That means that I have to come out to everyone which isn't always good. I tend to attract the acceptive type of people, but I still go through that "what if they're ok with it, what if they're not??" phase, which sucks.

Ok, I'm certain that I'm rambling now, so I'm going to stop. lol