Queer Advice #81: lonely butch4butch top

"off-the-chain bananas drool-emoji levels of attraction to fellow mascs..."

Hi! I’m back in your inbox with a new edition of queer advice. Today we’re talking about being masc4masc in a mid-size city, and how casual relationships are actually a lot of work. An earthquake happened when I started writing this column and an eclipse is imminent as I’m hitting send, so I’m feeling very blessed be, very ~*Gaia is my guide*~ right now. If you missed my last column, which asked the question, “HOW DO YOU GO BACK IN TIME AND NEVER MEET ANYONE?“ You should go read it now.

In other news, I went on Mutual Reception, a new podcast about astrology and how creative people make their living by Rose Blakelock. We talked about the sorry state of IG in 2024, the time I copyedited a book of financial advice for millennials, and MORE. You can listen to the interview here.

I also made a new zine, Choose Your Own Dyeventure: Country Living and re-released the original Choose Your Own Dykeventure zine. This zine benefits my dog’s vet bills and Palestine Legal, an org that helps people in the U.S. who have lost their jobs or faced retaliation for supporting Palestine. These zines make great gifts and I will gladly write a special message to you or a friend, just let me know in the “special instructions.” Order here. Thank you :’)

GodGaiaspeed, Maddy

choose your own rural lesbian fantasy

I've been struggling a lot with feelings of undesirability over the past few years.

I identify as both butch and transmasc, and I'm into androg + butch women (cis and trans), transmasc enbies, trans men, and generally anyone who's some flavour of masculine and not a cis man. It's taken me a long time to figure out my gender identity (being butch/masc) and my sexual identity (being attracted to butches and mascs), and honestly I'm really proud of myself for figuring all that out. It's hard to be something when you don't see that thing anywhere (even in queer media), you know?

The problem is that now I can't find anyone who's really into me. Some examples:

-- I went on a second date a few days ago with this person who I thought was really into me. Then on our date she talked all about this girl she slept with recently and how super hot she finds her. (no idea what this super hot girl looks like, but I know her ex is quite femme because I've seen her on tinder lol.) She also texted me later, after I asked her for some clarity about the vibe, saying that she's only interested in me as a friend.

-- I recently had a brief but intense infatuation with a person who broke things off with me because I told them I'm not ready for anything serious (which is valid even though it left me pretty heartbroken). Their tinder profile came up on my app the other day and their bio says, and this is a direct quote: "Attracted to all genders but femme tops are 🔥🔥🔥" Also, this person initially told me they were only interested in me as a friend, and then started to be attracted to me after this one dinner we had where I happened to show them pictures of me in my former life as a high femme. They denied this when I brought it up with them but it still lingers.

-- I recently saw on insta that the last person who I slept with, a year ago, who lives in a different city and who I find ridiculously attractive, is now in a relationship with a very hot queer femme. She was kind of ghosting me towards the end of my holiday in her city and I know she was sleeping with one other person while we were seeing each other, and she went public with this relationship very soon after I left, so I assume she was ghosting me for this femme person? She also never really complimented me on my looks/attractiveness whereas I would do so constantly.

-- The last partner I had, a few years ago, and I broke up I'm not poly and they are. After we broke up (and also a bit before), they slept with various extremely conventionally attractive, thin, feminine women. (I know because they told me when I saw them at Pride that year.) I just feel like every masc person that I'm into, turns out to be really into femmes, and it makes me worry that everyone I date is not very physically attracted to me. I feel off-the-chain bananas drool-emoji levels of attraction to fellow mascs, and I just want to feel that same intensity reflected back at me: I want to feel like people are actively attracted to my presentation, as well as my personality or whatever.

A parallel worry that I have is about sexual preferences. I'm a stone top and I'm constantly so anxious that the people I sleep with miss being able to do sex stuff to someone, and that they're unsatisfied, and wish they were with someone else instead.

-- I have less extensive proof for this, but I do have some. After we broke up, my poly ex told me, UNPROMPTED, that she'd had really good sex before we dated and was now having really good sex again, and I know her sex life before and after involved topping. So I've interpreted that as meaning that she missed topping when she was with me (also because the alternative interpretation would just be that I'm generally bad at sex, and I'm not sure I can handle that right now).

It's especially stressful because I'm now 32, which is not old by any means, but a lot of people my age are coupled off and the pickings are already slim even without factoring in my specific preferences. I'm not looking for a serious relationship right now -- I have some pretty debilitating CPTSD from earlier intimate relationships that really affects my ability to be in relationships, so I'm going to spend the next year focusing on doing EMDR for that -- but I know that I will want that in the future, and I still want to have cute entanglements and hot sex with people who are super into me in the meantime, and I just am getting increasingly worried that none of the people I'm into are into me.

Sad Butch Blues, 32

***ADDING VERY SHORT PIECE TO MY EARLIER QUESTION*** [realised that I forgot to ask a question in my long letter about being a lonely butch4butch top] Am I being overdramatic and irrational? Or am I actually going to be alone forever?

ADDING TO MY EARLIER MESSAGE ABOUT BUTCH4BUTCH LONELINESS (LAST ONE, I PROMISE) [to go at end of long list of butches liking femmes more than me] -- fellow mascs are also generally indifferent to me on the apps. I swipe right on them but hardly ever match with them, and even when we do match they never respond to my messages, or they don't keep responding after the first few messages back and forth. (I know apps in general are a hellscape, but I do notice that femmes frequently swipe right on me and actively message me, so there does feel like there's a clear difference in terms of attention I receive)

LAST BIT OF BUTCH4BUTCH QUESTION -- I have also tried Lex a number of times, both with being explicit about what I want (butch4butch booms) and being not so explicit. Every time it's crickets in response. (I live in a mid-size, not super queer, city.)

This question has strong Pepe Silvia energy, so I just want to put out there that the following things are all trauma responses: feeling hyper-attuned and responsible for other people’s emotions, not trusting your partner to simply tell you how they feel and so it’s on you to uncover the hidden meaning behind everything they say, and believing that if a relationship doesn’t work out, it’s because of a failure on your part. I will also say that brief entanglements and sex-centric friendships are still relationships, so a lot of the problems around trust and intimacy that come up for you in long-term relationships are also liable to impact you in situationships.

It’s hard to give a satisfying answer to your question because attraction is a really slippery concept that can ebb and flow, and sometimes has literally nothing to do with who you actually choose to bone and date. Beyond the matter of sheer “wow! This person is super hot!“ chemistry, we’re all swimming in pre-determined societal standards about what kinds of bodies, people, and relationships are desirable—see also: internalized homophobia, the sway that colonial beauty standards and thinness have on queer communities, etc.

A lot of people who are flexible in their sexuality and attraction are gonna regress to the mean — that is, date the “easiest,” most societally acceptable option. I’m going to lightly push back re: butch-femme as a standard or norm, but I also acknowledge that queer communities vary so much by geography and are super stratified along class, race, and gender lines (there’s a specific brand of masc-on-masc couple I see all the time in rural New England who I would describe as “tentmates“ and “lesbian farmers.“) A lot of the lesbians and lesbian-adjacent couples in mainstream and queer media veer femme4femme (or if there is a butch, it’s always someone who’s looking very Shane today. This is tangential but I just watched Anyone But You, a very mediocre romcom starring Sydney Sweeney that’s set at a lesbian wedding in Australia, and the lesbian couple consists of one very soft butch and one small improv lesbian. Nothing about their wedding seems particularly queer and I thought it was an interesting costuming choice to put both of these women in very formal white wedding dresses. Also the family dog’s name is Klonopin for some reason and it’s never explained.)

All this to say that for some people--I might go so far as to say that for many people--attraction is very mysterious and random. The fact that your exes are into femmes, or dated femmes before and after you, doesn’t mean they aren’t into butches. Ditto re: someone can enjoy topping when they’re with other people, but still love having sex with you (please see this topical ¡Hola Papi! column where JP writes: “… being “good” or “bad” at sex sounds like a pretty subjective declaration, and dependent on one’s personal preferences and the chemistry between the parties involved.“) tl;dr who your ex is dating and the kinds of sex you think they might be having says nothing about you. Also it’s generally not a good idea to look at an ex’s social media or Tinder profile. It’s just going to make you feel shitty and give the illusion that you know what’s up with them, when you actually have no idea.

I agree that queer dating presents many unique challenges like limited inventory, toxic U-Haul culture, the prevalence of serial monogamy in the lesbian community, the way patriarchy conditions us not to express desire or pursue our own romantic interests, the lack of dyke bars and other irl spaces to meet ppl, and so much more! When you are a specific kind of queer looking for a specific kind of person and relationship, it’s going to be a lot more difficult when you don’t live in a giant urban area where queer people have congregated since the dawn of time. But no matter what, I think dating is just really, really difficult. If you’re going to have an okay time and keep your self-esteem intact, you have to accept that it’s not going to work out with *most* of the people you meet. Not because you’re unattractive or too butch, but because connection is rare. Sometimes the vibes are just off, the timing is wrong, or you’re not compatible in basic ways—you, for instance, describe a relationship that ended because you didn’t want something serious, and another that ended because you’re not poly. I also think a lot of people tend to treat both butches and casual sex partners with less care and empathy, which might account for the dismissiveness and ghosting you’ve experienced. And even if your fears are true and someone isn’t attracted to you and your butchness, that’s just their opinion. It doesn’t mean all butches, including you, have to feel that way. It’s information that tells you that that person is not right for you, and you should be with someone else.

You write that you’re geared towards long-term commitment, but casual things are what feel manageable and good to you right now. I love that you know your boundaries and needs when it comes to relationships, but the difference between where you’re at and what you ultimately envision for yourself might explain some of the misalignment you’re feeling between you and the people you date. In addition to my earlier comment about people putting less effort into their casual relationships, it actually takes a ton of communication, intention, and logistical follow-through to have casual sex, especially if you want to have casual sex multiple times with the same person. You still have to deal with the really un-fun parts of relationships like processing and rejection.

You can probably guess what I’m going to say next and I’m not sorry about it. If dating is messing with your self-esteem and making you feel like a stinky, undesirable husk of a human, that’s a sign that you need to step back for a little bit, maybe just for a year while you’re focused on yourself and on seriously committing to therapy. Another evergreen piece of advice I have for you is that irl community is the solution to having a miserable time on the apps and most problems in life. I’m talking friendship, barbecues with other butches, exploring your interests, and doing more of what makes you feel content, affirmed, and butch in your body. You’ll cultivate a less permeable sense of self and expand your irl social network, which will hopefully connect you with mascs you have more in common with than polyamorous randos on Tinder.

P.S. I know hook-up apps vary so much from location to location, but a lot of masc4masc people I know use Grindr for sex. Just a thought.