as a young butch, seeing older butches in public makes me so happy like !!! i just passed a middle aged butch woman and we smiled at each other and it felt so great. we exist and we are beautiful at every age! :))
youâre sitting across from me in a shitty diner in anywhere, america, and i watch you pour too much creamer in your coffee and i think âi love you.â you look up, catching me staring, and for a moment i think iâm brave enough to say it, but i take too long and the moment passes. i take the balled up straw wraper and flick it at you, pretending that was my plan all along. you laugh. i never want to go another day without hearing that laugh. i think i will have all the time in the world to say it.
The idea that was sold to us of "love is effortless and you should communicate telepathically with your partner" is false. Love is awkward as hell. It's A LOT of straight up talking and realization of your self - your own needs. It's important to make those needs heard. Do not deny yourself full love
Another little autobiographical comic I whipped together (this was drawn in like two hours tops so donât judge the drawings lmao). To clarify, I am in a happy long-term committed relationship with a non-ace girl and weâre both very happy with our relationship, and I have never had bad experiences with relationships because of my asexuality. Being ace isnât a big deal to me - I barely think about it - but asexuality is something that a lot of people seem to have trouble fully understanding, so I wanted to take some time to describe it the way I see it in my life and from my perspective. Every story is different - hereâs mine.
relationships between butches and femmes are meant to be very mutual and fulfilling. its so unhealthy how even other lesbians often fetishize butches and expect them to always be big tough strong dominant while femmes have to be small weak dainty submissive in comparison. do not project your domination fetish on butches. butches do not want to hurt or subjugate other women. butch chivalry is about loving and respecting women, not about controlling a woman. the butch/femme dynamic, and especially the stone butch/femme dynamic, is about mutually loving, supporting, and appreciating each other and giving each other what they need. itâs not just butches giving and femmes receiving. butches are people too, with their own needs and insecurities and desires. anyone who wants to love butches needs to think about what they can do for their butch, not just what their butch can do for (or to) them.
butch/femme is not a replication of heterosexuality. butches are not a stand-in for men that always have to be the strong provider because femmes are too weak to survive on their own. that way of thinking is so insulting and unhealthy for both butches and femmes. we deserve better.
my focus here is on butch/femme but this also applies to any kind of wlw who is interested in butches.
âAsk Kai: Advice for the Apocalypseâ is a column by Kai Cheng Thom to help you survive and thrive in a challenging world. Have a question for Kai?
âSo let me go ahead and reassure you, Conflicted: it is okay to want what you want. You can conceive a child in a way that is good. You can adopt in a way that is good. In cases like this, goodness lies less in the outcome than it does in the decision-making process.When it comes to environmental impact, it seems to be true that adopting a child thatâs already been born is more âsustainableâ than conceiving a totally new human being (though some would argue that itâs possible to raise a baby with zero carbon footprint). Iâd like to point out, however, that human lives and relationships arenât based on the calculation of numbers and data points. When your hypothetical adopted child asks you why you chose them, I imagine the answer isnât going to be âbecause it reduced my carbon footprint.â
Rather, Conflicted, if you do choose to adopt, I imagine it will be because that is the kind of parental love that exists within you: the kind of love that exists to be given to a child who needs parents, from parents who need a child. Children above the age of two, in particular, are far less likely to be adopted and therefore are more likely to remain in foster systems â but they all need, and deserve, parents.
Consider as well that there may be ethically compelling reasons for you to conceive a child biologically. Communities historically impacted by genocide, for example, may feel a moral imperative to pass on genes and cultural knowledge. Indigenous people in North America have been subjected to colonial discrimination and violence that have made childbirth and child-rearing both difficult and dangerous, resulting in a powerful and important movement toward decolonizing conception, childbirth and parenting. In such communities, birthing and caring for children is a powerful act of decolonized love and resistance.
In the end, Conflicted, there is no cut-and-dry answer to what the âright thing to doâ is when it comes to having â or not having â children. It depends on your specific social context, and on the specific kind of love that you want to bring into the world.
As you continue to walk down this path, I would suggest that you and your partner consider that the journey towards parenthood is also a journey toward knowing yourselves. Specifically, you will need to ask yourselves just what kind of parental love burns inside you, waiting to be realized. Having a child â by any means â is not, in the end, a project of politics or of political correctness: it is a project of love and discovering how best to love a growing human being.
Politics and ecological sustainability are one dimension of this project. So are personal fulfilment, cultural values and spiritual beliefs. You could try mapping out and expanding upon these dimensions, either on paper or in conversation, so that you have a full sense of what loving as a parent means to each of you.
Then you might take the time to think about â deeply, honestly and courageously â what that means for your decision regarding conception or adoption, as well as raising a family. Is your vision of parental love one that you can offer best and fully to a child you conceive and carry? Or is it one that is better suited to adoption? Fostering? Other forms of parenting? Who is the child that will benefit most from your parental love? And how will that love help this child to adapt, survive and thrive in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, both ecologically and politically?
I have no doubt, Conflicted, that it is indeed possible for a child to thrive in these precarious times, though it may be very challenging and we might need to adjust our definition of âthriving.â If you â understandably â are hoping for a child whose life will be easy, completely safe and free of hardship, well, the worldâs impending future makes that unlikely. Then again, across the expanse of human history, lives of ease and privilege have never been achievable for most people.
On the other hand, if your hope for your child is that they live a life full of good relationships, adventure and the kind of growth that comes from facing the challenges of moral integrity and courage that life inevitably brings â I believe that is and will always be possible. There is a difference between a life that is easy and a life that is full of meaning and love. You may not always be able to offer your child ease, Conflicted, but you can always offer them meaning and love.â
Our bodies are nothing if not places to be had by,
 as in, God, she has me by the throat,
by the hip bone, by the moon. God,
 she has me by the horn.
â Natalie Diaz, from âThe Cure for Melancholy is to Take the Hornâ published in The Paris-American
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