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27. AMERICA'S FEMALE BUTCH HETEROS (April 2003)
When I've
come back from overseas (but especially from Thailand, the land of ubergirls) -
shock (with no awe) is what's hit me, shock at the wreckage of American
femininity. In the L.A. airport, one trip back but last, I stood in a ticket
line behind a dumpy, obese, short-haired, makeup-less, flannel-shirted
"butch" who was with two others, a man and a woman. Yet she wasn't
necessarily lesbian. I didn't find anything particularly "gay" about
her speech, or her behavior with the others. Lord knows I've seen plenty of
Amerwomen looking just like her with kids and men in tow. America is full of
them now. Apparently American women more and more feel no responsibility to
offer their men anything feminine. Whether it's the mannish double-chinned
faces, the burger-bulging bellies, the incredibly unflattering hair (dyed a
blond about as natural as a blond penguin), the pants, or worse the sweatpants,
the parkas or sweatshirts or windbreakers - and then these incredible new
Amerifem voices: loud, harsh, cocksure (pun intended), raucous, even filthy -
it's a wonder any American man can still get it up. It's a wonder the American
divorce rate isn't 90% instead of 50%.
Let me quickly add one
scoop of P.C. to my semi-misogynistic (though not misologistic, though
definitely misoneistic) sundae. There's nothing wrong with being a lesbian
"butch". Butch is fine - if you're gay. That's your choice, and god
bless you for it. If Mary, an appealing "fem", wants her bones jumped
by Marissa, a hardcore lesbian butch, I say "Go to it, girls!" What I
don't understand is the heterosexual butch, who's still presumably interested in
appealing to the opposite sex. Well, I do understand. It's a war in this
country, woman vs. man, and unattractiveness is one weapon. And a slaying one it
is - of desire, passion, commitment - whatever it is they want to slay.
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