Studs

Oh, what’s a Stud, you’d ask? Here, let me help you. 

Studs typically regard themselves as “players” in some aspect of the definition. Some may have a hard time with faithfulness, although the label doesn’t guarantee it. Some may play team sports as they have a competitive nature. Either way, they are typically drawn by a need to be the best – the best looking, the best lover, the best basketball player, the best at whatever they attempt.

KITSCHMIX

Oh, yeah. the world of gay women apparently also suffers from those nitpicky distinctions we make in the gay male world. And sometimes it gets tricky. I am not an expert (after all, I am not a lesbian), but I've read a little bit about what's going on with the girls. Bet you didn't know that you could be a Butch,  a Stud or a Tomboy. Did you? Yeah, those are all 'masculine' labels applied to lesbian women. Don't look at me like that. I didn't know that either! I had to read up to learn. There are degrees of masculinity, apparently.

The thing is, even among women who like women, masculinity is still seen as something that creates tension. I think that from society's point of view, given that women are expected to be 'girly', masculine women then get short stick, just like feminine men get it when it comes to gay men. Isn't that ironic, Alanis? Fuck me if I understand people. From my point of view, it comes from a very rotten place: misplaced toxic masculinity. And that my dear, is a Pandora's Box of fuckery. Just check what Jade has to say.

Yep, because toxic masculinity (which can affect women, too, natch) is the kind of fragile construct that feels threatened at the least provocation. Talk about snowflakes. And we know how people can react when they feel threatened. Take masculine women: they threaten toxic masculinity because they are seen as usurping male prerogatives and mannerisms. Women are not supposed to compete with men and a woman who shows traits associated with masculinity is perceived as threatening by those who dwell in the masculine. The binary, being a social construct intended to produce order, is threatened by anything and anybody who does not follow it. 

We have to be real here. Apparently some Studs seem to be very toxic (does it sound familiar? It's the Masc-4-Masc gays and their performative bullshit, all over again). The idea that what Jade Fox calls 'bulldog energy' is mirrored in the gay community almost point by point. The thing is, the word Stud is tied to butch Black women, and Black women are disproportionately targeted by racism and misogyny. Jade's point is that Butches adopt the attitude they adopt because it is varnished with some form of male privilege is something with which I kind of agree. It's what I think ' hyper-masculine' gay men do: they perform masculinity to the extent that they make it impossible -from their point of view- to be mistaken by a feminine gay man (something they see as inferior) and therefore profit from male privilege without having to suffer from homophobia and therefore discrimination.

I also agree with Jade about Studs not wanting to be men. Being a Stud should not be confused with being Trans or not conforming with the binary. Hypermasculinity makes it difficult to distinguish what is real and what is not. It's got to do with cis men and women who use their bodies and attitudes to perform in a way that may seem to deny their actual reality. And I need to differentiate between being 'masculine' and being toxically masculine. Some women (and men) are naturally masculine. I think that Jade is talking more about blowing up the aesthetic, the bragging rights, the attitude, that helps these men and women carve a space where they're shielded from the perils of being perceived as queer.  

I, for one, love butch women. For whatever reason, I think they're brave and I like their swagger. Oh, have I told you that once in a bar I was mistaken by a soft butch? Yep. You see, I cannot grow full-on facial hair to save my life (yeah, I know) and I tend to wear a lot of 'athleisure' when I'm not working. When I'm not in an office setting I forego the ties and jackets I wear at work and I live in oversized t-shirts and hoodies and big pants and layers that blur my body. So, given that I don't wear gendered clothes, people sometimes cannot pigeonhole me and cannot place me in the gender continuum. I also tend to have either very short and bleached hair or I wear it dark and longuish. So they're fucked when they look for those outward signs of masculinity. Because I never give them a clue. And because I'm always very chummy with women, some girls thought I was a lesbian. I felt honored. It didn't last, because I had to speak at some point, but it was fun.

Being butch does have its pitfalls, as you can see on the video, but I have decided that when I die I'll come back as an honorary Butch Stud Tomboy lesbian. Because of course I will.

XOXO