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The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader
Surveys a decade of the attempt to reconstruct and understand the meaning and value of butch-femme relations for the contemporary lesbian, drawing on oral history, fiction, poetry, and fantasy.
502 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1992
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6928 people want to read
About the author
Joan Nestle
28 books116 followersJoan Nestle writes and edits essays, erotic fiction, poetry, and short stories. She is an activist, and among many actions has co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives to preserve records of lesbian lives and communities and currently coordinates the Women in Black protests against Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 72 reviews
January 17, 2023
this book is an IV drip of life for me I have never felt more seen uplifted euphoric full of lesbian pride knowledge history and culture than while and after reading this like THE DESIRE LITERALLY PERSISTS......!
February 22, 2025
I've been looking for stories like these for a long time. I'm glad I finally found the time to read them.
I would love for there to be an ebook version someday so this text could reach a wider audience. Here are some quotes that jumped out at me:
"After I left home my brother found out that I hung out in the Starlet Lounge and he and his friends used to come and taunt us. There was nothing that could be done about that, because that’s what the bars were, that’s where they made their money—with the tourists coming to look at the queers. We were only a small part of the population of the bar actually—we were the sideshow. No wonder we all did drugs and stuff. I didn’t acknowledge to myself that I was part of a sideshow and that I was on display, but that was exactly what it was."
- Doris Lunden, 117
"Many of today's feminist see us as ahistorical, as if we are stuck in a time and never change, as if we are a bad fifties thing. But I am always learning more about this way of loving. I have changed in the last twenty years. Now I want to incorporate into my femmeness my new layers of experience. I want to be the best of our desire without apologizing for it, and I want us to know our own history. Butch and femme can change and grow."
- Joan Nestle, 265
"Being a butch has been the most troublesome and delicious experience of my life. Being butch—like being a woman, a lesbian, having a soul—is not something I can dismiss. I believe butches are born, not made. Since this is my birthright, I choose to glory in it. When I comb my hair back and strut out my front door, being butch is my hallelujah."
- Jeanne Cordova, 272
“The main justification for invalidating butch-femme is that it's an imitation of heterosexual roles and, therefore, not a genuine lesbian model. One is tempted to react by saying, "So what?" but the charge encompasses more than betrayal of an assumed fixed and "true" lesbian culture. Implicit in the accusation is the denial of cultural agency to lesbians, of the ability to shape and reshape symbols into new meanings of identification. Plagiarism, as the adage goes, is basic to all culture."
- Lyndall MacCowan, 321
"My life has taught me that touch is never to be taken for granted, that a woman reaching for my breasts or parting my legs is never a common thing, that her fingers finding me and her tongue taking me are not mysterious acts to be hidden away, but all of it, the embraces, the holdings on, the moans, the words of want, are acts of sunlight."
- Joan Nestle, 486
I would love for there to be an ebook version someday so this text could reach a wider audience. Here are some quotes that jumped out at me:
"After I left home my brother found out that I hung out in the Starlet Lounge and he and his friends used to come and taunt us. There was nothing that could be done about that, because that’s what the bars were, that’s where they made their money—with the tourists coming to look at the queers. We were only a small part of the population of the bar actually—we were the sideshow. No wonder we all did drugs and stuff. I didn’t acknowledge to myself that I was part of a sideshow and that I was on display, but that was exactly what it was."
- Doris Lunden, 117
"Many of today's feminist see us as ahistorical, as if we are stuck in a time and never change, as if we are a bad fifties thing. But I am always learning more about this way of loving. I have changed in the last twenty years. Now I want to incorporate into my femmeness my new layers of experience. I want to be the best of our desire without apologizing for it, and I want us to know our own history. Butch and femme can change and grow."
- Joan Nestle, 265
"Being a butch has been the most troublesome and delicious experience of my life. Being butch—like being a woman, a lesbian, having a soul—is not something I can dismiss. I believe butches are born, not made. Since this is my birthright, I choose to glory in it. When I comb my hair back and strut out my front door, being butch is my hallelujah."
- Jeanne Cordova, 272
“The main justification for invalidating butch-femme is that it's an imitation of heterosexual roles and, therefore, not a genuine lesbian model. One is tempted to react by saying, "So what?" but the charge encompasses more than betrayal of an assumed fixed and "true" lesbian culture. Implicit in the accusation is the denial of cultural agency to lesbians, of the ability to shape and reshape symbols into new meanings of identification. Plagiarism, as the adage goes, is basic to all culture."
- Lyndall MacCowan, 321
"My life has taught me that touch is never to be taken for granted, that a woman reaching for my breasts or parting my legs is never a common thing, that her fingers finding me and her tongue taking me are not mysterious acts to be hidden away, but all of it, the embraces, the holdings on, the moans, the words of want, are acts of sunlight."
- Joan Nestle, 486
May 30, 2022
very fun and educational read minus the stories with obvious bisexual women considering this is a book about yknow…lesbians but I think this book is required reading anyway. Love you lesbians xx
July 19, 2022
Some contributions are definitely better than others, but this was a delightful lesbian book, I love lesbians <3
February 4, 2025
HAPPY FEMMERUARY <333 this was a bit of a mixed bag due to its nature of being an anthology and i will admit that it was kinda hard to get into at first but once i got into the flow, i really enjoyed it and looked forward to reading more. felt meh towards the poems but the essays TOOK IT HOME! i also never thought i'd enjoy leisurely reading academic articles so much. i appreciate nestle's choice in including non-american perspectives. it was very insightful learning about different cultures' approach to lesbianism.
the highlight throughout was definitely learning more about the life experiences of femmes like how they experienced the world with little representation (oh how times have changed) and how they were excluded from the queer community. LOVE how i was continuously hit over the head w the fact that feminine ≠ passive which is #true bc real femme lovers know femmes pull the reins. perfect book to start femmeruary with <3
the highlight throughout was definitely learning more about the life experiences of femmes like how they experienced the world with little representation (oh how times have changed) and how they were excluded from the queer community. LOVE how i was continuously hit over the head w the fact that feminine ≠ passive which is #true bc real femme lovers know femmes pull the reins. perfect book to start femmeruary with <3
April 28, 2022
weird to rate this but that's my legal job. v glad i finally read this, a real gamechanger that goes sharply downhill once we hit around 1980 and it's just joan's friends writing horny poems, nothing against horny poems
May 26, 2025
'For my femme sisters - the queerest of the queer [...] - this book is only the beginning.' - Joan Nestle, Introduction.
I hoped that this book would help me to explore my own identity as a femme, and it did just that. It forced me to let go of my desire to have my individuality validated by popular media. It made me wonder: what does being a femme mean to me? I hesitate to cite my attraction to butches, because I don't want my identity to exist only in relation to something else. If I said wearing skirts and doing my makeup and painting my nails, I would risk sounding incredibly shallow, but the truth is: that is a huge part of it for me. But it's not just the fact that I do those things; it's the way I do them and the reasons behind them.
Joan Nestle puts it best (in The Femme Question): 'Deep in my gut I know what being a femme has meant to me, but it is very hard to articulate this identity in a way that does justice to it's fullest nature and yet answers the questions of a curious reader.' Reading my description of my own femininity, it is easy to see how people might think that it is a mask I put on; a mimicry of the most egregiously strict heterosexual gender roles. But it is not any of that to me. I am someone who has adopted many different masks at many different times, and I have come to realise that femme is who I am when the mask comes off. I am a very theatrical person, but femininity in itself is not an act: I am camp and flamboyant not because I am posturing, but because it is the most natural way for me to be. Though mainstream media tries to push the femme as the most 'acceptable' type of lesbian, it doesn't do justice to femme as an identity. For myself and many other femmes, our identity is a subversion of what is expected of us, not a mark of our conformity.
My favourite piece was Lyndall MacCowan's Re-collecting history, renaming lives. It forced me to let go of my desire for my identity to be validated. I didn't expect to feel so seen whilst reading this book, but MacCowan's writing felt like it could have been lifted directly from my head (or my heart). When MacCowan wrote that people told her that she couldn't be a femme because she was '"too tall/too intellectual/too small breasted"', I felt as if she had taken it directly out of my brain. I do not question my own femininity per se but, in moments of insecurity, I question whether I am femme enough. Am I too assertive, too weird, too awkward to be accepted as a femme? This piece reinforced what I always knew deep down - that it doesn't matter; the femme identity is entirely separate from the rigid standards of traditional femininity.
The Femme Tapes - a discussion between three femmes (one of them Joan Nestle) - also hit me hard, but I wouldn't say it was a favourite. In fact, you might say that I hated it. It frightened me; it made me wince and recoil, purely because of how close to home it hit. Though I didn't relate to the experiences of the femmes, I related to their overarching feelings and messages. The insularity of the discussion made me feel simultaneously seen and ignored. Most of the people I grew up around were white and working class, and most of my friends have fitted that description. Given this, it is no surprise that I related most to Joan Nestle and her exploration of femmeness.
I am mixed race, but perceived as black by most people, and I have long ago let go of the desire to feel represented by other people's accounts of queerness. But, whilst reading this book, I felt acknowledged and appreciated. There were pieces by black femmes, disabled femmes, femmes who grew up outside of the US. I was overcome by a desire to meet these people who have given me the words to describe the most intimate parts of myself; to thank them.
Audre Lorde's description of a room full of black lesbians in From "Tar Beach" made my heart sing; Leslie Feinberg's Butch to Butch: A love song almost made me cry; and "They was no one to mess with" sated my appetite for historical, semi-academic exploration of lesbian identity. I found it very valuable to read about other people's experiences with identity and the challenges American lesbians faced in the past. I loved reading about the bar culture of the 1950s, because it is something that has pretty much died out and something which it is essential to keep alive through historical records. I definitely preferred the first section of the book to the second. I found the second section heavy handed at times, and annoyingly repetitive (don't get me started on how most of the poems said the exact same thing), but I still liked lots of the pieces from it.
This book also made me appreciate butches even more (something I didn't think was possible). It is sad to see the butch identity being mostly phased out amongst younger lesbians, with many opting out for the seemingly more casual 'masc' (which I'd like to stress is a valid identity of its own). 'Femme' now appears to be assigned to any woman who isn't actively or visibly masculine, and both groups are pitted against each other in online lesbian communities. I hardly see any lesbians my age self-identifying as femme, and without the meaning and power afforded by self-identification, there can be no butch-femme dynamic. I understand that butch and femme aren't identities which every lesbian fits into, but they have been such an important part of queer history that it would be devastating to see them disappear.
I realise that this review is incredibly subjective and rambling, but the nature of this anthology means that it is far too personal for me to review with any objectivity. The best I can offer is the following. This book is for you if you're tired of people equating femininity with conforming to the male gaze; if you get frustrated when people compare butch and femme to heterosexual roles; if a little piece of you dies inside every time someone says 'If I wanted a man, I'd get a real one'. It is an incredibly important documentation of lesbian history, and if this review can convince even one person to read it, I will be happy.
I hoped that this book would help me to explore my own identity as a femme, and it did just that. It forced me to let go of my desire to have my individuality validated by popular media. It made me wonder: what does being a femme mean to me? I hesitate to cite my attraction to butches, because I don't want my identity to exist only in relation to something else. If I said wearing skirts and doing my makeup and painting my nails, I would risk sounding incredibly shallow, but the truth is: that is a huge part of it for me. But it's not just the fact that I do those things; it's the way I do them and the reasons behind them.
Joan Nestle puts it best (in The Femme Question): 'Deep in my gut I know what being a femme has meant to me, but it is very hard to articulate this identity in a way that does justice to it's fullest nature and yet answers the questions of a curious reader.' Reading my description of my own femininity, it is easy to see how people might think that it is a mask I put on; a mimicry of the most egregiously strict heterosexual gender roles. But it is not any of that to me. I am someone who has adopted many different masks at many different times, and I have come to realise that femme is who I am when the mask comes off. I am a very theatrical person, but femininity in itself is not an act: I am camp and flamboyant not because I am posturing, but because it is the most natural way for me to be. Though mainstream media tries to push the femme as the most 'acceptable' type of lesbian, it doesn't do justice to femme as an identity. For myself and many other femmes, our identity is a subversion of what is expected of us, not a mark of our conformity.
My favourite piece was Lyndall MacCowan's Re-collecting history, renaming lives. It forced me to let go of my desire for my identity to be validated. I didn't expect to feel so seen whilst reading this book, but MacCowan's writing felt like it could have been lifted directly from my head (or my heart). When MacCowan wrote that people told her that she couldn't be a femme because she was '"too tall/too intellectual/too small breasted"', I felt as if she had taken it directly out of my brain. I do not question my own femininity per se but, in moments of insecurity, I question whether I am femme enough. Am I too assertive, too weird, too awkward to be accepted as a femme? This piece reinforced what I always knew deep down - that it doesn't matter; the femme identity is entirely separate from the rigid standards of traditional femininity.
The Femme Tapes - a discussion between three femmes (one of them Joan Nestle) - also hit me hard, but I wouldn't say it was a favourite. In fact, you might say that I hated it. It frightened me; it made me wince and recoil, purely because of how close to home it hit. Though I didn't relate to the experiences of the femmes, I related to their overarching feelings and messages. The insularity of the discussion made me feel simultaneously seen and ignored. Most of the people I grew up around were white and working class, and most of my friends have fitted that description. Given this, it is no surprise that I related most to Joan Nestle and her exploration of femmeness.
I am mixed race, but perceived as black by most people, and I have long ago let go of the desire to feel represented by other people's accounts of queerness. But, whilst reading this book, I felt acknowledged and appreciated. There were pieces by black femmes, disabled femmes, femmes who grew up outside of the US. I was overcome by a desire to meet these people who have given me the words to describe the most intimate parts of myself; to thank them.
Audre Lorde's description of a room full of black lesbians in From "Tar Beach" made my heart sing; Leslie Feinberg's Butch to Butch: A love song almost made me cry; and "They was no one to mess with" sated my appetite for historical, semi-academic exploration of lesbian identity. I found it very valuable to read about other people's experiences with identity and the challenges American lesbians faced in the past. I loved reading about the bar culture of the 1950s, because it is something that has pretty much died out and something which it is essential to keep alive through historical records. I definitely preferred the first section of the book to the second. I found the second section heavy handed at times, and annoyingly repetitive (don't get me started on how most of the poems said the exact same thing), but I still liked lots of the pieces from it.
This book also made me appreciate butches even more (something I didn't think was possible). It is sad to see the butch identity being mostly phased out amongst younger lesbians, with many opting out for the seemingly more casual 'masc' (which I'd like to stress is a valid identity of its own). 'Femme' now appears to be assigned to any woman who isn't actively or visibly masculine, and both groups are pitted against each other in online lesbian communities. I hardly see any lesbians my age self-identifying as femme, and without the meaning and power afforded by self-identification, there can be no butch-femme dynamic. I understand that butch and femme aren't identities which every lesbian fits into, but they have been such an important part of queer history that it would be devastating to see them disappear.
I realise that this review is incredibly subjective and rambling, but the nature of this anthology means that it is far too personal for me to review with any objectivity. The best I can offer is the following. This book is for you if you're tired of people equating femininity with conforming to the male gaze; if you get frustrated when people compare butch and femme to heterosexual roles; if a little piece of you dies inside every time someone says 'If I wanted a man, I'd get a real one'. It is an incredibly important documentation of lesbian history, and if this review can convince even one person to read it, I will be happy.
April 17, 2023
Oh man, this took me an unusually long time to get through. Not because it was a bad book, just because the essays were so thick thought-wise that I often had to stare at the wall a while to process, also I was reading this book online for a hot minute as a PDF, then somehow got a copy in my hand for $40 ... what a fucking steal.
So this is 500 pages of genius published in 1992. I still think that somehow The Femme Mystique is my favorite lesbian anthology, but GOD is it close. At the halfway point in The Persistent Desire I didn't think TPD could catch up to TFM. What a fool I am for doubting Joan Nestle's editorial power ....
There are about 84 essays, excerpts, and poems here in this anthology. We got stuff about butches, stuff about femmes, stuff about butch-femme fucking, sucking, and conflicts. We get into gender, we discuss patriarchy, we discuss the damage radical and TERF-ish feminism has had on the lesbian community. It blessedly includes, loves, and dotes on trans people--do not be confused, this is not a book a TERF would enjoy. It gets into economic and racial differences (though as always I would kill for more writers of color, though this lesbian anthology is definitely the most multi-ethnic I've picked up thus far.) It discusses bar culture, and how lesbianism and discussion of vital dynamics of butch-femme were presently being received both in the world and the classroom. It hates police, and fascism, and puritanical models of sex that demand lesbians be both simple and con-formative in their desires to meet a standard considered appropriate by what the feminists at the time thought properly feminist ways to have sex (no gender roles, no roles at all, no S/M, BDSM, penetrative sex, or gender variance.) It covers once again the re-assemblage of the lesbian community after the wave of (often destructive to its queer participants) feminism that occurred in the 1970s. I stick to my original beef that there aren't enough femme perspectives in this anthology; however I must temper this criticism slightly, for the sections addressing butches, butchness, and the role of the butch in this anthology starts so-so and goes on to better and more thoroughly address the overlap of butchness with transgender issues & roles, the rebuttal it makes to patriarchy & misogyny, and of course the persistent stereotype I dislike so much personally, that the only reason a person might become or be butch is internalized misogyny (by confronting radical, separatist feminism at its core, and telling it to keep its long, man-hating nose out of the business of butches, who are not the foundations or espousers of patriarchy even if a butch may later transition into a man, or delights in stealing men's shit and taking it for themselves.) I keep finding essays and perspectives elsewhere that treat butches very theoretically and want to make butches out to be woman-hating, or inherently misogynistic, or just a trans man waiting to be unearthed, or beleaguered by mental issues in need of correction or taming, or something in need of fixing and liberating--rather than just leave butches alone and take them at their word when they make some statement about their gender or present one way or the other. There were some instances of that in this anthology, particularly when coming from femme perspectives that seemed to really want to psychoanalyze their butch lovers as existing in some kind of gender torment--and then there were other essays that hit the nail on the head of butch being a very big fat wide SPECTRUM and complicated, and best left alone instead of endlessly scrutinized. Fucking thank you.
This anthology often got heavy on the theoretical and to great effect (I'll be cutting up the PDF later to share certain essays.) There is not as much smut here in this anthology as I have found in other lesbian anthologies (though oh god, there is plenty of smut lol.) The works of Joan Nestle, Pat(rick) Califa, Mary Frances Platt, Arlene Istar, Paula Austin, Madeline Davis, and Amber Hollibaugh I'm quite smitten with. The poetry was very good. Some stuff I read and felt an immediate urge to copy and paste into Tumblr or something because hot damn it's good. I have spent so much time thinking about this anthology that my brain has gone to mush about it and I really don't feel clever here as I'm trying to describe it.
TLDR; I know I'll be rereading it again. And again. And yes, again. This anthology is probably not for the faint of heart, it takes some commitment. But then again, if you're familiar with the persistent desire this anthology so loves to describe, then I imagine you're used to persistence, and if not persistence, then having a damn stubborn spine and some grit to you. When will I stop being in love with Joan Nestle??? Enjoy!
So this is 500 pages of genius published in 1992. I still think that somehow The Femme Mystique is my favorite lesbian anthology, but GOD is it close. At the halfway point in The Persistent Desire I didn't think TPD could catch up to TFM. What a fool I am for doubting Joan Nestle's editorial power ....
There are about 84 essays, excerpts, and poems here in this anthology. We got stuff about butches, stuff about femmes, stuff about butch-femme fucking, sucking, and conflicts. We get into gender, we discuss patriarchy, we discuss the damage radical and TERF-ish feminism has had on the lesbian community. It blessedly includes, loves, and dotes on trans people--do not be confused, this is not a book a TERF would enjoy. It gets into economic and racial differences (though as always I would kill for more writers of color, though this lesbian anthology is definitely the most multi-ethnic I've picked up thus far.) It discusses bar culture, and how lesbianism and discussion of vital dynamics of butch-femme were presently being received both in the world and the classroom. It hates police, and fascism, and puritanical models of sex that demand lesbians be both simple and con-formative in their desires to meet a standard considered appropriate by what the feminists at the time thought properly feminist ways to have sex (no gender roles, no roles at all, no S/M, BDSM, penetrative sex, or gender variance.) It covers once again the re-assemblage of the lesbian community after the wave of (often destructive to its queer participants) feminism that occurred in the 1970s. I stick to my original beef that there aren't enough femme perspectives in this anthology; however I must temper this criticism slightly, for the sections addressing butches, butchness, and the role of the butch in this anthology starts so-so and goes on to better and more thoroughly address the overlap of butchness with transgender issues & roles, the rebuttal it makes to patriarchy & misogyny, and of course the persistent stereotype I dislike so much personally, that the only reason a person might become or be butch is internalized misogyny (by confronting radical, separatist feminism at its core, and telling it to keep its long, man-hating nose out of the business of butches, who are not the foundations or espousers of patriarchy even if a butch may later transition into a man, or delights in stealing men's shit and taking it for themselves.) I keep finding essays and perspectives elsewhere that treat butches very theoretically and want to make butches out to be woman-hating, or inherently misogynistic, or just a trans man waiting to be unearthed, or beleaguered by mental issues in need of correction or taming, or something in need of fixing and liberating--rather than just leave butches alone and take them at their word when they make some statement about their gender or present one way or the other. There were some instances of that in this anthology, particularly when coming from femme perspectives that seemed to really want to psychoanalyze their butch lovers as existing in some kind of gender torment--and then there were other essays that hit the nail on the head of butch being a very big fat wide SPECTRUM and complicated, and best left alone instead of endlessly scrutinized. Fucking thank you.
This anthology often got heavy on the theoretical and to great effect (I'll be cutting up the PDF later to share certain essays.) There is not as much smut here in this anthology as I have found in other lesbian anthologies (though oh god, there is plenty of smut lol.) The works of Joan Nestle, Pat(rick) Califa, Mary Frances Platt, Arlene Istar, Paula Austin, Madeline Davis, and Amber Hollibaugh I'm quite smitten with. The poetry was very good. Some stuff I read and felt an immediate urge to copy and paste into Tumblr or something because hot damn it's good. I have spent so much time thinking about this anthology that my brain has gone to mush about it and I really don't feel clever here as I'm trying to describe it.
TLDR; I know I'll be rereading it again. And again. And yes, again. This anthology is probably not for the faint of heart, it takes some commitment. But then again, if you're familiar with the persistent desire this anthology so loves to describe, then I imagine you're used to persistence, and if not persistence, then having a damn stubborn spine and some grit to you. When will I stop being in love with Joan Nestle??? Enjoy!
July 25, 2011
On a major Joan Nestle kick. Even though The Persistent Desire gets referenced all the time in newer books, I couldn't find it in any bookstore and had to special order. Well worth the postage, and a great one to read aloud. The book feels like a conversation held under a big warm tent that could only have been pitched by a great humanist editor like Nestle. Her busy mending and minding of these stories is evident in the way it's knitted all together, beautifully patterned by Nestle web-spinning. You can still see the individual threads distinct, filament wrapped round filament; the bumps and carcasses are woven into the whole as opposed to dried out by editorializing about "problematics." I felt so human, and so aware of others' humanity, while reading this book.
July 3, 2017
I've never felt any affinity with a butch or femme label, but (to my surprise) I loved this. There is a great variety of talented voices captured here in a variety of prose and poetry, fiction and not.
I recently read a lesbian history book, and reading an overview of all the lesbian cultures that sprang up throughout the years made me tired. For the most part, the cultures came off as exhausting and restrictive. But this book shed a different light on Butch/Femme culture and hearing about different people's experiences and feelings about the topic was enlightening. (The Lesbian Feminists of the 70s however? Still exhausting, in my opinion. Especially according to this book.)
I recently read a lesbian history book, and reading an overview of all the lesbian cultures that sprang up throughout the years made me tired. For the most part, the cultures came off as exhausting and restrictive. But this book shed a different light on Butch/Femme culture and hearing about different people's experiences and feelings about the topic was enlightening. (The Lesbian Feminists of the 70s however? Still exhausting, in my opinion. Especially according to this book.)
August 15, 2007
Crucial to the femme-butch history, this anthology is diverse, incredible, and well written.
February 2, 2008
Very good history of the butch/femme dynamic...obviously a bit out of date for current dynamics..but we should all know the stories of those who came before us.
April 14, 2019
This has some issues and not just due to its age.
July 5, 2025
Absolutely perfect, I loved this all so much. I love butches, and I love femmes!!!! I love lesbians!!! Thank god for lesbian culture and lesbian love and lesbian heartbreak and lesbian friendship!!! Thank god for lesbians!!!!!
Read
July 28, 2025took me quite a while to get through this! i'm a little sad to be done with it but i'm very sure that i will return to it.
joan nestle is incredible (fem of all time!!!) as are all the contributors to this collection. as someone currently trying to map out my own desire this was hugely affirming and answered so many of the questions i'd been thinking myself into a corner with. femme required reading etc. obviously some parts are dated as contributions span decades and the collection was published in 1992 but there is a real core of love, acceptance, critical thinking, honesty, righteous anger, vulnerability, and earnest effort towards intersectionality and celebration of difference that underscores the whole collection. been thinking a lot about the inescapability of the body and obviously for me this is a concept i consider often in relation to queer desire. this is very aptly titled because there is such a wide breadth of experience backgrounds and voices within lesbianism featured in this collection but at the nucleus of it all, where all the gravitational pull is, is desire! is queer desire! and that is, in the end, what it's all about! me when the desire is persistent... + important + revolutionary + beautiful + visible + here its still here always.
i think if everyone on twitter spent their time and energy doing some reading instead of engaging in online dyke discourse they'd find much more peace and love and light in their hearts but maybe thats just me. #worldpeace. i love you #women and i love you #lesbians
joan nestle is incredible (fem of all time!!!) as are all the contributors to this collection. as someone currently trying to map out my own desire this was hugely affirming and answered so many of the questions i'd been thinking myself into a corner with. femme required reading etc. obviously some parts are dated as contributions span decades and the collection was published in 1992 but there is a real core of love, acceptance, critical thinking, honesty, righteous anger, vulnerability, and earnest effort towards intersectionality and celebration of difference that underscores the whole collection. been thinking a lot about the inescapability of the body and obviously for me this is a concept i consider often in relation to queer desire. this is very aptly titled because there is such a wide breadth of experience backgrounds and voices within lesbianism featured in this collection but at the nucleus of it all, where all the gravitational pull is, is desire! is queer desire! and that is, in the end, what it's all about! me when the desire is persistent... + important + revolutionary + beautiful + visible + here its still here always.
i think if everyone on twitter spent their time and energy doing some reading instead of engaging in online dyke discourse they'd find much more peace and love and light in their hearts but maybe thats just me. #worldpeace. i love you #women and i love you #lesbians
December 15, 2022
This book is such a lesbian essential (certainly, a butch/femme essential) and I’m so glad I’ve now read it in its entirety. It has been incredibly comforting to dip in and out of over the last year and a half, diving into my history every now and then when I needed to be reminded of our resilience and courage. I was moved to tears many times, from pride, anger, and just from the power of feeling seen as the femme I am. I love our community and our culture and our history ♥️
(A real highlight in this anthology for me was Gayle Rubin’s ‘Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries’. The nuance, sensitivity, and empathy displayed in that essay is something I really think we as the modern day lesbian community, and LGBT+ community as a whole, could really benefit from putting into practice more often.)
(A real highlight in this anthology for me was Gayle Rubin’s ‘Of catamites and kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries’. The nuance, sensitivity, and empathy displayed in that essay is something I really think we as the modern day lesbian community, and LGBT+ community as a whole, could really benefit from putting into practice more often.)
May 28, 2023
girl this is my BIBLEEEEEEE. when i tell you every page had me hollering and clapping and cheering and crying!!! so grateful for these talented authors that collected years of anecdotes, writings, photographs, etc. that compile lesbian thought, life experiences, poetry, and story-telling. i’ve never felt so seen and understand than when i read the thoughts and experiences of butches and it overall made me so much more confident in finally understanding my own identity <3
July 4, 2014
MUST READ! without a doubt my favorite Butch/Femme book - a beautiful and powerful anthology that has held up to the test of time, core to a Butch/Femme literary cannon
February 26, 2024
I LOVE BEING A LESBIAN!!!!!!!!!!!
April 24, 2025
“my life has taught me that touch is never to be taken for granted, that a woman reaching for my breasts or parting my legs is never a common thing, that her fingers finding me and her tongue taking me are not mysterious acts to be hidden away, but all of it, the embraces, the holdings on, the moans, the words of want, are acts of sunlight” ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎ ✧ ⚢ ☾ ﾟ｡⋆
what a blessing poder conocer las vidas de tantas personas tan lejos de mi y tan cerca de mi deseo. lesbian & queer history are sacred ☆
what a blessing poder conocer las vidas de tantas personas tan lejos de mi y tan cerca de mi deseo. lesbian & queer history are sacred ☆
Read
September 27, 2024I only read the academic texts, articles and interviews, not the prose and poems. Overall a very insightful and interesting collection of texts
February 14, 2025
lesbians ♥️💋💕💘🌹👩❤️👩🥵🌶️
August 17, 2025
2 outta 4 isn’t so bad for my summer tbr?? I mean, I gotta a week left, who knows.
Joan Nestle is a god. She put together a collection that spoke for itself. That introduction was like being seen for once. And having a complicated niche identity does not lend well to that experience. Even so, not all the pieces did that. 80% of them gave me that feeling. But they all gave me a feeling of history and community. That is what I think this book is to me. A big sense of community and history.
I think a strength of this collection is its variation. Normally I kinda pick at this in collection reviews. Collections, I think, are best when they have a consistent point and thesis. This work would have been greatly harmed by that. Femme and Butch are talked about with varying definitions and contexts in mind. Sex, gender, and presentation. Definitely takes a couple of sentences to get where we are coming from. I think it shows a linear change in what butch and femme labels have meant through the 20s to the 90s (the publication time of this book). Yet I would still consider a lot of the pieces relevant. It is a collection. I definitely didn't mesh with everything, but I still appreciate it within its context. And think they all put a lot of nuance into this being a collection.
In some of the pieces, the language comes off as binary or terfy, but I 100% believe this is just a result of the time of these writings and that they're not intentional in this. Not to mention a lot of people are talking about their specific experiences being butch femme as binary women. I think just as a non-binary femme, the labeling of butches and femmes as invariably binary women throughout many of the pieces didn't? Idk, resonate? I don't know how to explain this without critiquing, because I don't actually think there's anything wrong with this. After all, we're describing people's personal experiences for the most part. And some pieces go directly against this, advocating for non-conventional gender and appreciating it within the butch/femme context.
This book made me ache for community. Genuinely pissed off to be living in Buffalo, knowing that there is not a scratch of butch/femme culture there anymore after digging for it. But this book made me feel loved and less alone in my identity and idk if I can thank it enough for that. The reading experience was magical at times. Like my soul on paper. This book is a feeling for me. I think I will remember it as that.
Rating a collection 5 stars does hurt me so tho. More accurately, I would probably rate this book a 4.5, just because collections are varied experiences, and this one is not an exception to that. YetGoodreadss can redo the entire reading challenge, obviously, but giving us half-star ratings is an impossible task.
My personal favorites
Flamboyance and Fortitude: An Introduction
The Femme Question
Butches, Lies, and Feminism
Re-Collecting History, Renaming Lives: Femme Stigma and the Feminist Seventies and Eighties
Femme-inism
Of Calamities and Kings: Reflections on Butch, Gender, and Boundaries
Joan Nestle is a god. She put together a collection that spoke for itself. That introduction was like being seen for once. And having a complicated niche identity does not lend well to that experience. Even so, not all the pieces did that. 80% of them gave me that feeling. But they all gave me a feeling of history and community. That is what I think this book is to me. A big sense of community and history.
I think a strength of this collection is its variation. Normally I kinda pick at this in collection reviews. Collections, I think, are best when they have a consistent point and thesis. This work would have been greatly harmed by that. Femme and Butch are talked about with varying definitions and contexts in mind. Sex, gender, and presentation. Definitely takes a couple of sentences to get where we are coming from. I think it shows a linear change in what butch and femme labels have meant through the 20s to the 90s (the publication time of this book). Yet I would still consider a lot of the pieces relevant. It is a collection. I definitely didn't mesh with everything, but I still appreciate it within its context. And think they all put a lot of nuance into this being a collection.
In some of the pieces, the language comes off as binary or terfy, but I 100% believe this is just a result of the time of these writings and that they're not intentional in this. Not to mention a lot of people are talking about their specific experiences being butch femme as binary women. I think just as a non-binary femme, the labeling of butches and femmes as invariably binary women throughout many of the pieces didn't? Idk, resonate? I don't know how to explain this without critiquing, because I don't actually think there's anything wrong with this. After all, we're describing people's personal experiences for the most part. And some pieces go directly against this, advocating for non-conventional gender and appreciating it within the butch/femme context.
This book made me ache for community. Genuinely pissed off to be living in Buffalo, knowing that there is not a scratch of butch/femme culture there anymore after digging for it. But this book made me feel loved and less alone in my identity and idk if I can thank it enough for that. The reading experience was magical at times. Like my soul on paper. This book is a feeling for me. I think I will remember it as that.
Rating a collection 5 stars does hurt me so tho. More accurately, I would probably rate this book a 4.5, just because collections are varied experiences, and this one is not an exception to that. YetGoodreadss can redo the entire reading challenge, obviously, but giving us half-star ratings is an impossible task.
My personal favorites
Flamboyance and Fortitude: An Introduction
The Femme Question
Butches, Lies, and Feminism
Re-Collecting History, Renaming Lives: Femme Stigma and the Feminist Seventies and Eighties
Femme-inism
Of Calamities and Kings: Reflections on Butch, Gender, and Boundaries
February 26, 2023
five stars for provoking political discussion and dialogue foundational during its time with an ongoing relevancy today (considering 1992 publication date.) advanced-level intersectionalism (again for its time!!) for including the voices of BIPOC and trans activists and authors.
i enjoyed the timeline-like structure of the chapters including theory and analysis, poetry and prose, short stories and memoirs written by a range of lesbian authors outlining 200 years of lesbian history. however, i wish the timeline was more explicit; it was often difficult to pinpoint an era if not stated.
very mixed bag composition and woven content; alternating between academic political feminist history to literary lesbian fiction to erotic poetry though all concentrating on the topic of butch and femme identities.
my favourite pieces were:
dancing with dennie (myrna elana, poem),
photograph (myrna elana, poem),
lullaby for a butch (melinda goodman, poem),
billie (laurie hoskin, poem),
butchy femme (mykel johnson, philosophical memoir centring around gender expression),
sex, lies and penetration: butch finally fesses up (jan brown, critique on sex and sexuality from a butch sex worker),
the dance of masks (barbara smith, butch musings on feeling yourself lol this just made me realize how much i need to read more literature from the butch perspective, this was sexy),
a letter from the phillipines (marivic r. desquitado, letter, political)
an academic affair : the politics of butch-femme pleasures (joan parkin & amanda prosser, co-written romantic memoir structured like scenes from a play of both authors meeting each other in a university classroom, very cute)
i also enjoyed the refreshing all dressed up, but no place to go? style wars and the new lesbianism for its takes on a more recent popularization of lesbian styles and methods of signaling in new wave fashion, although this was written in the 90s and some references were lost on me. i could personally speak on a new "grey-area" that exists in which lesbian styles and fashion has been adopted by the average cishet woman causing a lack of visibility (literally i have been called straight-passing like please my eyebrows are bleached, i buzzed parts of my hair, i am dressed in men's clothing like let's be real).
i personally had a distaste for some of the more erotic poetry (while i did enjoy the sexual critique and theory, re: sex, lies, and penetration) but that is entirely preference-based, it was beautiful and definitely resonates with other readers.
also included an excerpt of stone butch blues, goes without saying, but loved it and love leslie feinberg.
it's hard for me to find an affinity with either butch or femme labels for myself, i went into reading this almost searching for a long-awaited answer. both can feel concrete and definite, and while i appreciate the societal value they hold and the rich history of both labels, expression feels trivial and fluid to me so neither term resonates fully. though i find today's butch is looked down upon and misused as we opt out for "masc", and femme is a loose and open term synonymous with any remotely feminine lesbian (if visible at all), and often, both identities are pitted against each other in online discourse (the femme4femme fetishization, lack of butch representation). i understand both identities are not a catch-all, but a proposed butch-femme scale is also often rejected as they are, again, a definite way of identification. i wanted to use this book as a tool to further pragmatic research into butch-femme labels, propped up by its histories and theory, as well as explore my own identity and likeness to the labels. am i butch or femme? where is my place in the lesbian community measured by these terms?
i did not exit with an answer LOL... i think ive come to the realization (once again) they are coalescent labels for the lesbians they are finite to. i am a mixed-race non-binary lesbian. of course i cannot connect to either one label entirely, my identity makeup is complex. i find, in today's world, style and expression has become very fluid that calling yourself either masculine or feminine entirely is a shorthanded way of labelling. i am so masculine when i am at the airport or in love. i am so feminine when someone puts sza on. i am so masculine to the straight girl. i am so feminine twirling my hair kicking my feet when i see a butch with short hair. i am so dykey to my mom. i am neither masculine nor feminine with my dyke friends. i just am idk
this novel included a study conducted by a womens and gender studies professor who, concentrated on lesbian history, asked their students to describe their feelings on both the butch and femme label after placing themselves in either one. the class of 1977 easily placed themselves on either side of the hall, then detailed how they fit (ex: "i work with my hands, i cut my hair short and wear slacks, i prefer to lead and have a preference for feminine women, therefore, i am a butch"). however, the class of 1988, a decade later, felt butch and femme to be non-feminist and non-lesbian, refused to place themselves (ex: "i wear a blend of men's and women's clothing, i wear makeup but keep my hair short" .. later this will be known as the chapstick futch LOL), rejected them as normative roles among their friends and social circles and even deemed them exclusionary, restrictive and borderlining heterosexuality (i do not agree with this final note). i think the study moreso emphasizes the movement of expression within a decade rather than deeming powerful traditional lesbian labels as trite. to reject butch and femme and conflate the labels as a mimicry to the binary male and female roles is to not take lesbianism seriously. to exclude or phase out butch and femme is to dishonour lesbianism.
there existed another lesbian separatism between the "old gays" that came out in 1969, pre-stonewall riots, and the political lesbians, who came out after 1969 and had a different understanding of the political meaning of love for women. (even now i note a similar modern discordance, for example, the terfs that reject nonbinary and trans lesbians as we open our landscape of language within points of identification, and the millennial vs gen-z lesbians, did you take the am i gay quiz on buzzfeed or uquiz). rejecting butch and femme does not remove yourself from an identification continuum. instead, the butch and femme label has become as specific to me as myself identifynig as a south asian lesbian, a biracial lesbian, a non-binary lesbian. neither butch or femme is a complete fitting description to my experiences, but they are to some, while i can find (or create) other terms that do frame them as well. i will always see value in butch-femme, i will always be in love with its history.
i think the one major critique i have is the lack of butch4butch or the mainstream narrative of a butch will always pursue a femme. for that i could relate more to the gay man than i do the cisgender lesbian. sorry. leslie feinberg was so real for representing the societal rejection of butch4butch couples in stone butch blues.
anyway why fuck up good sex with analysis?
i enjoyed the timeline-like structure of the chapters including theory and analysis, poetry and prose, short stories and memoirs written by a range of lesbian authors outlining 200 years of lesbian history. however, i wish the timeline was more explicit; it was often difficult to pinpoint an era if not stated.
very mixed bag composition and woven content; alternating between academic political feminist history to literary lesbian fiction to erotic poetry though all concentrating on the topic of butch and femme identities.
my favourite pieces were:
dancing with dennie (myrna elana, poem),
photograph (myrna elana, poem),
lullaby for a butch (melinda goodman, poem),
billie (laurie hoskin, poem),
butchy femme (mykel johnson, philosophical memoir centring around gender expression),
sex, lies and penetration: butch finally fesses up (jan brown, critique on sex and sexuality from a butch sex worker),
the dance of masks (barbara smith, butch musings on feeling yourself lol this just made me realize how much i need to read more literature from the butch perspective, this was sexy),
a letter from the phillipines (marivic r. desquitado, letter, political)
an academic affair : the politics of butch-femme pleasures (joan parkin & amanda prosser, co-written romantic memoir structured like scenes from a play of both authors meeting each other in a university classroom, very cute)
i also enjoyed the refreshing all dressed up, but no place to go? style wars and the new lesbianism for its takes on a more recent popularization of lesbian styles and methods of signaling in new wave fashion, although this was written in the 90s and some references were lost on me. i could personally speak on a new "grey-area" that exists in which lesbian styles and fashion has been adopted by the average cishet woman causing a lack of visibility (literally i have been called straight-passing like please my eyebrows are bleached, i buzzed parts of my hair, i am dressed in men's clothing like let's be real).
i personally had a distaste for some of the more erotic poetry (while i did enjoy the sexual critique and theory, re: sex, lies, and penetration) but that is entirely preference-based, it was beautiful and definitely resonates with other readers.
also included an excerpt of stone butch blues, goes without saying, but loved it and love leslie feinberg.
it's hard for me to find an affinity with either butch or femme labels for myself, i went into reading this almost searching for a long-awaited answer. both can feel concrete and definite, and while i appreciate the societal value they hold and the rich history of both labels, expression feels trivial and fluid to me so neither term resonates fully. though i find today's butch is looked down upon and misused as we opt out for "masc", and femme is a loose and open term synonymous with any remotely feminine lesbian (if visible at all), and often, both identities are pitted against each other in online discourse (the femme4femme fetishization, lack of butch representation). i understand both identities are not a catch-all, but a proposed butch-femme scale is also often rejected as they are, again, a definite way of identification. i wanted to use this book as a tool to further pragmatic research into butch-femme labels, propped up by its histories and theory, as well as explore my own identity and likeness to the labels. am i butch or femme? where is my place in the lesbian community measured by these terms?
i did not exit with an answer LOL... i think ive come to the realization (once again) they are coalescent labels for the lesbians they are finite to. i am a mixed-race non-binary lesbian. of course i cannot connect to either one label entirely, my identity makeup is complex. i find, in today's world, style and expression has become very fluid that calling yourself either masculine or feminine entirely is a shorthanded way of labelling. i am so masculine when i am at the airport or in love. i am so feminine when someone puts sza on. i am so masculine to the straight girl. i am so feminine twirling my hair kicking my feet when i see a butch with short hair. i am so dykey to my mom. i am neither masculine nor feminine with my dyke friends. i just am idk
this novel included a study conducted by a womens and gender studies professor who, concentrated on lesbian history, asked their students to describe their feelings on both the butch and femme label after placing themselves in either one. the class of 1977 easily placed themselves on either side of the hall, then detailed how they fit (ex: "i work with my hands, i cut my hair short and wear slacks, i prefer to lead and have a preference for feminine women, therefore, i am a butch"). however, the class of 1988, a decade later, felt butch and femme to be non-feminist and non-lesbian, refused to place themselves (ex: "i wear a blend of men's and women's clothing, i wear makeup but keep my hair short" .. later this will be known as the chapstick futch LOL), rejected them as normative roles among their friends and social circles and even deemed them exclusionary, restrictive and borderlining heterosexuality (i do not agree with this final note). i think the study moreso emphasizes the movement of expression within a decade rather than deeming powerful traditional lesbian labels as trite. to reject butch and femme and conflate the labels as a mimicry to the binary male and female roles is to not take lesbianism seriously. to exclude or phase out butch and femme is to dishonour lesbianism.
there existed another lesbian separatism between the "old gays" that came out in 1969, pre-stonewall riots, and the political lesbians, who came out after 1969 and had a different understanding of the political meaning of love for women. (even now i note a similar modern discordance, for example, the terfs that reject nonbinary and trans lesbians as we open our landscape of language within points of identification, and the millennial vs gen-z lesbians, did you take the am i gay quiz on buzzfeed or uquiz). rejecting butch and femme does not remove yourself from an identification continuum. instead, the butch and femme label has become as specific to me as myself identifynig as a south asian lesbian, a biracial lesbian, a non-binary lesbian. neither butch or femme is a complete fitting description to my experiences, but they are to some, while i can find (or create) other terms that do frame them as well. i will always see value in butch-femme, i will always be in love with its history.
i think the one major critique i have is the lack of butch4butch or the mainstream narrative of a butch will always pursue a femme. for that i could relate more to the gay man than i do the cisgender lesbian. sorry. leslie feinberg was so real for representing the societal rejection of butch4butch couples in stone butch blues.
anyway why fuck up good sex with analysis?
July 21, 2025
I found some of the longer passages tough to get through at some points. That being said…
Every time I get to read something from this I am so overwhelmed with adoration and passion. What a treat that this was written and compiled. It feels so beautiful and cosmic (stay with me here) to be a part of something so intergenerational as butch-femme dynamics, as lesbianism. It makes my heart swell to know that we have always been here, especially butch women and the femmes who love them. I love who I am and I’m proud of it too! Thank God for Joan Nestle. Thank God for butches. I would do anything for my community.
Every time I get to read something from this I am so overwhelmed with adoration and passion. What a treat that this was written and compiled. It feels so beautiful and cosmic (stay with me here) to be a part of something so intergenerational as butch-femme dynamics, as lesbianism. It makes my heart swell to know that we have always been here, especially butch women and the femmes who love them. I love who I am and I’m proud of it too! Thank God for Joan Nestle. Thank God for butches. I would do anything for my community.
May 8, 2017
Some of my favorite pieces from this [for my reference]
Gayle Rubin "Of Calamities and Kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries"
Pat Califa "Diagnostic Tests"'
Bonni Barringer "When Butches Cry"
"Recollecting History, Renaming Lives: Femme Stigma and the Feminist 70s and 80s"
Rita Laporte "The Butch Femme Question"
Barbara Smith "The Dance of Masks"
Gayle Rubin "Of Calamities and Kings: Reflections on butch, gender, and boundaries"
Pat Califa "Diagnostic Tests"'
Bonni Barringer "When Butches Cry"
"Recollecting History, Renaming Lives: Femme Stigma and the Feminist 70s and 80s"
Rita Laporte "The Butch Femme Question"
Barbara Smith "The Dance of Masks"
August 24, 2024
I cannot describe the gratitude I have for this book. I have no words. I want to reread this book immediately. I feel so close to everyone in these chapters and essays, even though years separate us.
November 24, 2023
I had a review for this but Goodreads crashed while I was writing it so I’ll keep it short and sweet: I love lesbians!
January 27, 2024
Man I love lesbians 🥹
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