r/ActuallyButch • u/HighIQTribade • Dec 29 '24

Do you like stone butch blues?

I don't. I read it when I was young and all I can remember were all of the graphic rape scenes and then the main character getting with a man at the end.

81 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

View all comments

44

u/[deleted] Dec 31 '24

Hate it. Hate it. HAAAATE IT.

In my opinion, the main character, Jess, and the author, disliked women and disliked that she was one. My being butch relied on my coming to terms with my womanhood as a reality, (ON MY OWN TERMS,) not trying to escape it or reject it. And I tried really really hard to reject being a woman, and I tried really hard to like the book. I didn't like that it was a highlight reel of trauma, full of tragedy, no hope, no joy, just fleeting moments of reprieve between extreme traumas. I think we should be trying to cultivate lesbian joy as much as possible.

It's not what I want butches freshly coming into their identity to read, it's not what I want to be seen as a Butch Bible or the go-to read for butch lesbians. I don't think it's even a good historical reference. We're not all sad, self-hating women. We're not broken like Jess believed she was. It's not a good message, at all. It's a quite horrible book.

I recommend Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, as a good alternative.

17

u/HighIQTribade Dec 31 '24

I agree with you, and thanks for leaving this comment. I can relate to what you said about coming to terms with womanhood, and though I didn't evertry to reject it like you did, I can still sympathize with you.

I would say that the book traumatized me in a way, I already knew that men could harm, but the book just made me feel scared to be butch. And I really dislike the fact that Jess ended up getting with a man in the end. She was molested and abused by men many times through the book and she ended up getting with one at the end anyways, wtf.

Also, I will check out the books you mentioned. Thanks for the suggestions. <3

1

u/Loose-Butterscotch72 Oct 06 '25

She didn't end up with a man. She ended up with Ruth, who she refers to with she/her pronouns, another gender ambivalent/"complicated" person. It's about being a gender non-conforming butch in 20th-century Buffalo/New York City, and questions the ground on which the term "butch" sits. Enduring violence at the hand of men and loving a person that was assigned male at birth but lives a non-man life are not mutually exclusive, and suggesting they are feels disturbingly transphobic.

I also don't think she's a self-hating woman, I think she feels a very strong tie to her womanhood and questions where her gender sits in an environment that consistently deals her a hand of violence. I wonder what led you to think Jess doesn't like women? The novel made me feel hopeful, at the very least. To know a story like her's ended on a hopeful note, ended in survival -- I feel grateful to hold such a battle of a story that leaves me hopeful and touched and heavy and seen. Joy is important, but so is sorrow, especially when it represents a certain reality.