I Don't Want You Anymore: Butch/Femme Disappointments

Abstract

Many years ago, butch/femme lesbian relationships were an accepted way of identifying and organizing lesbian love and lust. The new and noisy women's liberation movement of the late 1960s and 70s denounced these relationships and identities as reactionary and sexist. Since then rebellious lesbians have reclaimed their history and reinstated butch and femme personas as valid and sexy possibilities. But this reclamation and celebration has obscured problems and contradictions in both butch/femme relationships and in individual butches and femmes. In a tentative exploration of my own history as a `sort of' femme and of my disastrous butch/femme relationships, my own disappointments and contradictions are exposed. Unsettlingly, these include stubborn heterosexual romantic baggage.