The essay, “Butch Femme Relationships” by Joan Nestle and film by Martha Coolidge, “If These Walls Could Talk II”, are complementary specimens of work. They help to convey the same message, though, here we have a comparative analysis of both works in a short essay regarding some displays of sexiness. Similarly between the two, we hear the echoing conversation about Butch and Femme relationships, as well as Feminist movements. In the film by Coolidge, we saw that the Feminist perspective was shown to be biased and judgmental towards the Butch, Amy, due to shared ignorance for Butch lifestyle. Amy’s physical representation was so, in a way that portrayed her to be masculine, with a bike, short cut hair, a man’s button down and tie. Amy had a sex appeal that Femme, Linda liked and slowly began to understand. In one scene, Linda went to Amy’s house to return a shirt from the night before and we are shown how the two characters are sensually charged by one another’s differences and began to have sex. In the sex scene we saw that Linda had unwrapped Amy’s bandages that laid her breasts down. For Amy’s sake, this was done so that she could be represented as being more masculine, to be different, independently free. In Nestle’s essay, she speaks to the sexy physical nature of the Butch representation where she states, “…but all these gestures were a style of self representation that made erotic competence a political statement in the 1950’s” (Nestle, 104).

        Onward, the representation of Butch speaks to the notion that, it is difficult to let another advocate or speak on behalf of, in a manner that doesn’t include likeness and differences in a positive way. In the film, we saw feminists stating that their goal was to settle the gender gap difference; to fight for equal rights among men and women. Nestle speaks to this as well where she critiqued herself to the point where she realized that feminist were trying to talk and play in the field that they had not been living in, by saying, “ We lesbians from the fifties made a mistake in the early seventies: we allowed our lives to be trivialized and reinterpreted by feminists who did not share our culture” (Nestle, 105). The film showed three pertinent levels of conflict: 3rd wave Feminist issues; gender equality among women and men, lesbian Feminist issues; the right to sexual equality and LGBT activism, and Butch Issues; the right to representation in a more masculine way (physical representation that conflicts with general lesbian Femme representation; womanly).

        In both works, there were hints of Lesbian specific language used, as well as what seemed to be limitless reciprocation between Butch and Femme sexuality; sexual play. When the group of women whom lived in the house with Linda all shared the same space, they spoke towards pro-womanhood, and that for a woman to be wearing a tie, “that’s way more offensive”. The group was basically anti-Butch except for Linda. Compared to the scene, In Nestle’s essay, she tells us something a little different where she states, “…but there was and still is a butch sexuality and a femme sexuality, not a woman-acting-like-a-man or a woman-acting-like-a-woman sexuality…but the essential pleasure was that we were two woman, not masqueraders” (Nestle, 104).

        There are many things that can be said to contribute to the conversation of Butch Lesbian sexiness. In the way a Butch Lesbian navigates their lifestyle, one would have to be willing to observe without judgement, the same way a Butch lesbian would intend to live their lives, simply loving the person they’d work so hard to become. Butch Lesbians may have their ideas on role play that reach far beyond the expected or generic ways of performing gender roles in the bedroom. The language that is used when put to action can be reciprocated endlessly because they too still share a kind of womanhood or similar pleasure zones of the body. The most interesting of Butch Lesbians having an independant theory of sexiness is that, they’ve also developed a way of achieving a balance in their life, and interactions between other Butch lesbians and Femmes that can possibly lead to future unique, political and personal experiences.

Works Cited:

If These Walls Could Talk II. Dir. Martha Coolidge. HBO Films, 2000. Film.

Nestle, Joan. “Butch-Femme Relationships: Sexual Courage in the 1950s.”In A Restricted Country. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1987.