Dagger: On Butch Women

by Roxxie, Lily Burana

"This powerful collection of butch women's voices shocks, delights, and at times titillates. Comprised of tell-all interviews and personal essays, historical analysis, cartoons, and some quite fetching photos, this book is for those who swear by roles as well as those who just don't get what all the brouhaha is about Down and dirty, kind and generous, Dagger is a celebration of lesbian sexuality and bravery.

What is butch? Rebellion against women's lot, against gender-role imperatives that pit boyness against girlness and then assigns you-know-who the short straw. Butch is a giant fuck YOU! to compulsory femininity, just as lesbianism says the same to compulsory heterosexuality.

What is butch? Sexual power of a kind that no women is supposed to have, active power. Prowess. The calm eye of a whirlwind of pleasure, getting from giving.

"Female maleness," "female masculinity": these simplistic ways of reading butch energy do not entirely miss the mark, but they do mislead. Maleness isn't male on a female, honey - it's something else again, a horse of another color, something our gender-impoverished language doesn't offer us words to describe.

Roxxie: Can straight men learn anything from butches? JoAnn: Sure. Straight men could learn a lot about how to take care of women both sexually and emotionally.

At that time they were having all those Wonderbread commercials, where they said you could build muscles twelve ways. So I started eating tons of Wonderbread, and my parents were saying, "What's this sudden craze for Wonderbread?" I thought if I ate enough Wonderbread I'd bulk up and turn into a guy."


Review from Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1994 by Louise Rafkin

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT, Lesbian, Feminism, Queer Lit, Gender

250 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1994

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

short and sweet! a near-historical text very inDYKEative of the 90’s and it’s compelling to see the development of language and social environments within the lesbian community of the past decades through this novel. this reads more like a contemporary magazine with all the photos and interviews, all of which i loved. the essays were a little succinct and cut shorter than i expected, maybe conveying a literarily flat effect for the reader, but insightful nonetheless. it’s textually accessible in language. my favourite features were 1) the more succinct interview "A Random Sampling of Butches" very fun to read and 2) the interview with Tribe 8’s Lynn Breadlove from a butch music group that i listen to today!! there is a lot of individual-based personal narrative within the interview-approach in which the readers can apply nuance on the butch experience.

this is a really effective glossary for butch media, social protocol and rhetoric before the 2000’s. practices such as masculine dress, packing, asking a girl out, etc. were outlined with clarity, even delineating clubs to frequent and pick up other dykes in San Francisco and where to buy a binder (as well as how to bind safely)- this was all very moving because i doubt many of these places are standing today but i loved to read about what was a community staple not so long ago. there was also a pretty good balance of butch desire coming from femmes as well as from other butches and no stigma against the latter. i was less of a fan of the leather daddy erotica towards the end haha that’s not so much my thing :) but interesting to read about for those that are. tbh i would have LOVED more focus on POC voices beyond just "the Myth and Tradition of the Black Bulldagger" and some mention of Filipina butches within the queer spaces the authors frequent but again, when applied as a historical text, this is a compelling read!

i’m actually surprised with what little logged reads and reviews there are, i’ve seen excerpts of this on tumblr many times over the years and this was accessible to come by on Internet Archive. there’s soo much relevancy in butch history that you will barely find fragmented traces of on #wlw tiktok… what was it that cowboy jen said… you were butch the day you were born…

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no idea how to rate this book. It was the first time I'd ever seen pictures of trans men or maybe even heard of them (though, it could be asked what they were doing in this lesbian book). I found this book remaindered in a Borders of all places, my senior year of high school.

It's horribly dated now--as breathlessly seitgeisty books often get to be after the ink dries. Read it and appreciate how far we've come. Thank you, internet, for that.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished it and I'm about to reread it cover to cover. No one talks about butch-femme like this! At least, not anymore. Not all the essays are stellar, but enough are that Dagger has earned a permanent place on my crowded bookshelf.

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It took me some years to begin to understand why I wanted to chew on some women's thick brown leather belts and not on others"

I absolutely adored this in all of its perverse glory

[Kelli Glazebrook]

Dated? Yes. But what it gets at is as important today as it was when it was written. Sure, our language and understanding has expanded, but we still are wrestling with gender and its expression to this day. A lot of people would have their lives transformed if they truly took the time to understand their own attraction to gender expression and divorced it from the body they expect it to come from.

[Abigail Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

very of its time, but a lovely little snapshot into 90s butch culture. full of really diverse stories and lives and fun to read!

[Saoirse Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved this anthology from 90s exploring butchness from a variety of perspectives across gender , sexuality, race (altho contributors are predominantly white). the nonbinary or “androdyke” slander in some of the essays made me laugh ~ it’s so like just pick a side lol!!! cool to read about gender exploration of female masculinity & trans perspectives both mtf & ftm ~ tbh was generally more nuanced than i expected ! shout out to ending on a pat califa essay 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

[Fenriz Angelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dagger: On Butch Women is a compilation of anecdotal experiences, interviews, essays and articles from butches about the butch/femme dichotomy that exist within the lesbian community and how butchness has evolved over the years til the 90's.

Albeit dated for nowadays notions of the lesbian sexuality, i found this book quite informative and enlightening in regards to what's the difference between a dyke and a butch, why are femme/butch relationships such a distinctive type of relationship between lesbians, and got to learn about the struggles butches who fall out of the box face within the community, which i found some of these sadly relevant to today's push to palatability and moral superiority for being not as freaky as other queers.

Surprisingly, there are a few chapters about FTM transgenderism and the allyship that exists between dykes, transmen and gay men. I found those reads quite interesting and endearing.

My only gripe is that i would have liked more experiences from PoC butches.

An insightful read to discuss with others interested in the topics tackled.

[Addy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book and I really enjoyed reading it. It looked at a variety of butch experience throughout history and I loved seeing the different perspecitves and considering how things have changed since this book was published

[theperksofbeingmarissa ;) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important historical text about butchness. I really appreciated this book and the pictures. However, there were some parts of the book that made me scratch my head in confusion. Specifically, the essays about age play.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is much more focused on the less talked about/more niche topics of butchness, like butch4butch, butch bottoms, ftm, etc…
it’s very interesting but i would recommend first reading persistent desire, i think it better represents butches as a whole.
while reading both persistent desire and stone butch blues i felt like i was reading about myself for the first time ever, and i felt emotional often. i didn’t feel that with this one, but im glad to have checked it out regardless and i still learned a thing or two.

[Kai · Rating 3 out of 5]

cool to hear about gender expansiveness, lesbianism, and Butch identity. As a transmasculine lesbian it’s important to me. I will say certain parts are rather questionable to say the least. I also wish there were nonwhite butch input. Overall, it’s insightful dive into the past

[Martyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love butch lesbians and i love being one!!

[Alyx Sheridan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked how this book focused on the less talked about aspects of Butch-ness. It was really cool to read through the sections that talked about which San Francisco bars to go to when looking to pick up girls, or how to order a binder in the local area. I also think that the interview portions were beautiful and personal. I wouldn’t recommend this book for someone who is first dipping their toes into the world of the Butch label, but if you are looking for a more in-depth exploration of the term, this is a great one.

[grub · Rating 4 out of 5]

really like these vintage essay collection style book, u never know what the next chapter will bring you. i felt so seen in so many of these!! this makes me want to explore myself more but also makes me wish i could visit a dyke bar in the 50s

[A]

Not THIS “Lily Burana” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_...
???

That’s the problem with works claiming to be by “butch” women, so many of it is organized by fems or worse straight women. It’s hard to know.

[REO Bookwagon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this way back in the Nineties.

[Justin T · Rating 5 out of 5]

A piece of herstory.

[nervousyoungsam · Rating 5 out of 5]

such a cool piece of lesbian history. funny to read lynn breedlove’s interview pre-transition tho hahaha

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely dated but fun and interesting to read as a historical text. I loved all the photographs.

[Sal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wrote all the things I’ve never had the words to say

[sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wanted to learn more abt the history of my fellow gay people and this did not disappoint! Insightful!

[PH · Rating 5 out of 5]

😀

[cooldude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an awesome time capsule. I loved the chapter about Lou and Rusty, and the interviews with trans dudes.

[young lady goes by dude · Rating 5 out of 5]

love an essay book, love a dyke book, therefore I love this book.

[helen :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

not my favourite book on butchfemme culture that i’ve read, however it’s still good

[sienna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love being butch

[ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Esmée · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book, though a few of the essays might have some outdated points of view.

But definitely a must read when it comes to lesbian feminist herstory and butches ♡

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my #1 favorite books ever -- a must-read for butches and the women who love us, though the kinkier bits are skippable if they're not your bag. the first half of the book or so, though? compulsory.