Viewing 1950s Butch-Femme Sexual Practice as Possibly Religious Practice/Practicing Religion

Abstract

This paper looks at the sexual practice of butches and femmes, particularly from bar culture during the 1950s in North America, as a source for a possible theology of corporeality. Based on over 20 in-depth interviews with butches and femmes from that historical and contemporary period, plus written memoirs and fictionalized accounts, as well as the author's own participant-observer status in this culture, the study focuses on the subjective experience of participants, allowing their own stories to develop. The ways in which butch-femme culture of the 1950s fixed the gaze of the participant in the sexual act on a sacrality of experience is contrasted to the absence of this discourse in the heterosexual communities of that time. The role of memory and nostalgia is brought into consideration methodolo gically.