S2 E13: How Kath Got Her Groove Back

Kath (formerly known as Akiva) explains why she changed back to using her birth name, and why “harmless” name changes aren’t guaranteed harmless in the current climate. Rachel talks about her own name and voice as sex markers she cares about, and drawing the line on pluralistic tolerance when it comes to butches getting yoked to maleness. The conversation turns toward butch-femme as a deep structure that persists against the perceived male ownership of structure and rationality. We can have our own nice things, thankya very much. Women deserve to stake out stability and structure on our own terms.

Rachel and Kath also philosophize HARDCORE about what sex EVEN IS, because they’re nerds who find that sort of thing fun.

On the docket:

* Kath’s previous belief that no one would see her as a woman unless she tried to be more feminine, and how she got her groove back and decided to rep reality

* Historical narratives/images about butches “having always passed as men” when most of those people talked a ton about being women AND sex is why they made history (looking at you, Anne Lister)

* How we relate to the past at SBD; butch-femme as a transhistorical structure regardless of whether it’s being named in a given moment or what it’s being called

* Women’s burden of being aware of how we are seen (this is John Berger’s line, “Men act, women appear,” critiquing the history of Western art; Berger is a true diamond in the rough of 20th century male philosophers)

* Femmes describing attraction to a “contrast” between our masculine sexuality and our womanhood, i.e., how we are versus the expectations a patriarchal culture imposes upon our female bodies (But are we too in the patriarchy’s head if we’re conceiving of it as a contrast instead of its own natural phenomenon?)

* How in-vulvement in sex (sorry not sorry) makes the physical characteristics of the strap and any analogies to maleness absolutely comically meaningless

* Why it’s not “top” and “bottom” for women — another failed analogy to men

* Lesbian sameness doctrine’s hold on U.S.-globalized queer culture: “There is immense pressure on women…to state that they are the same as their partners.”

* It is both possible and necessary to describe butch-femme as a central lesbian phenomenon

* “You can't say the main trait of lesbian community is that it's diverse. That's not a trait.”

* Butch-femme beyond attraction and beyond sex acts: are you an internalizer or an externalizer?

* The importance of self-awareness to being a good partner in relationships. Butch-femme’s utility as a framework to learn and reflect on our responsibilities and needs: “You have to admit what your tendencies are so that you can be a responsible human being.“

* Connection between Rachel’s experience in behavior analysis and butch/femme: “We literally...classify behaviors that could harm people as externalizing or internalizing. And that's for a reason. Because this is so fundamental to the human condition. It is how you guide little humans into not harming people. It is how you guide little humans into taking care of themselves.”

* We discuss sexiness, disgust, disinterest, and other dramatic feelings: Rachel thinks everyone is an 8, while Kath would say everyone is a 4. Kath: “The reason I'm naming this is because…I hit the point that I was like, ‘Wow. The thing that I want is too sexy to be lesbian. I think I'm actually a straight man.’ I thought that I could not get what I wanted in a stable way as a lesbian. So that's why I have to name it. I'm not being mean. That's not the point.”

* Rachel agrees: “It's coming from the fact that those folks have not had our experience of thinking, I must be straight because it's sexual. Like, because butchness is sexual, I must be straight. That is the way that the trans ideology came after you and me. And that is what we are writing against….People looked at you and me and went, if you're going to keep doing it this way, if you're not ever going to switch, then you need to be male.”

* “Butch [the term] for me comes from the identification of my experience in the historical record as something women have been denied.”

* “What drives you? What are your drives? Be honest about them. Where do you feel the safest?“

* The need to be willing to ask people why they want to take on a masculine aesthetic, and to explain our own reasons: “You're actually stopping people in their development if they can't ask themselves what they're trying to symbolize when they're attached to having a certain label or a certain aesthetic.” (Is it a distance from femininity or a closeness to femmes?)

* Luce Irigaray, we love you, but no: we can’t leave rationality at the door of maleness and declare that women can’t have structure or logic because vulvas. (Email us for this whopper of a pdf, .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}