Slut Night

A slut night is a butch-femme social gathering (mainly for self-identified dykescite web
last=Drinkwater
first=Rhon
title=Wanna Host a Slut Night in Your Area?
publisher=butch-femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/Community/slutnight/hostingslutnight.html
accessdate=2007-08-11] and lesbians) to celebrate gender expression and the butch and femme gender roles which have a long tradition in lesbian culture. Slut night had its origins at a small bar in Oakland, California, and has spread across the United States and to Montreal, Canada thanks to online networking which has brought on the "the golden age for Butch-Femme culture."cite web
last=Drinkwater
first=Rhon
title=How did the Butch-Femme renaissance begin online?
publisher=butch-femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/Faq/renaissance.html
accessdate=2007-07-18] On "slut night" at a bar or other social meeting place, femmes dress in erotic and often hyper-feminine clothing like bustiers, corsets, and feather boas, while the butches dress in masculine suits and ties usually made for a man but customized or fitted for them including the use of binding to flatten their breasts and packing to fill out the crotch. For some participants it is a regular night out, while others may revel in the chance to explore gender roles within the butch-femme continuum like being a soft butch or a stone femme or even playing into the androgynous genderqueer spectrum where gender ambiguity can be seen as a goal.

History

Background of the Butch/Femme Socials

A grassroots social networking group, "Butch/Femme Socials of San Francisco and Oakland", regularly would meet up at barscite web
last=Han
first=Sarah
title=8 Days A Week
publisher=San Francisco Bay Guardian
date=May 19, 2004
url=http://www.sfbg.com/38/34/x_list_music.html
accessdate=2007-07-18] and other venues for socializing, game nights, film nightscite web
last=Rickman
first=Gregg
title=Repertory Film Listings
publisher=SF Weekly
date=February 8, 2006
url=http://www.sfweekly.com/2006-02-08/film/repertory-film-listings/3
accessdate=2007-07-18] and at clubs for dancing. Special events in the queer, kink and BDSM communities like annual leather events (Dore Alley Fair and Folsom Street Fair) provided a safer play space where pangenders, gender benders and stone butches are as much a part of the community as the (more) feminine lipstick lesbians who traditionally pass in mainstream society. The larger events also double as a low-cost social outing where not only could they attend but even be celebrated for their high-camp fashion and genderfuck bravado.

Defiantly diverse

The group is decidedly diverse in agecite web
title=Butch-Femme Socials of the San Francisco Bay Area
publisher=Geocities
url=http://www.geocities.com/hamlettesf/
accessdate=2007-06-16] as well as backgrounds and interests, "artists, writers, academics, blue collar, leather, professionals, students, etc. We are ethnically, spiritually, politically and sexually diverse."cite web
last=Noir
first=Roke
title=Slut Night Extravaganza
publisher=Hillgirlz
month=March | year=2006
url=http://www.hillgirlz.com/calendarix/cal_week.php?op=week&date=2006-03-20&catview=20
accessdate=2007-07-18] They also expressly welcome people of colorcite web
coauthors=Rope & Michael
title=Butch-Femme Socials Spring Slut Night !!
publisher=Indybay
date= March 12, 2005
url=http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/03/12/60223.php
accessdate=2007-07-18] who often face extra marginalization within queer cultures. Lisa Moore, publisher of RedBone Press, dedicated to the work of black lesbian writers shares, "blackness and femininity don't exactly go hand in hand in the mind of the dominant culture."cite web
last=Bashir
first=Samiya
title=Fear of a Black Lesbian Planet
publisher=Curve (magazine)
url=http://www.curvemag.com/Detailed/4.html
accessdate=2007-07-18] "Black women historically have been thought of as being very masculine, which feeds into the negative self-esteem of femme-identified black women, as well as their invisibility within butch-femme communities," states [http://www.samiyabashir.com Samiya Bashir] in her article "Fear of a Black Lesbian Planet" discussing the intersections of race, gender and sexuality.

The Bay Area group created a unity through embracing diversity of butch-femme identities which aligned with lesbian separatism claiming their own reality even if the space was only temporary and used that space to share support creating an atmosphere of defiant self-determination.

Online networking

Meanwhile online communities and mailinglists for butches and femmes including "Femmedykes" and "Boychicks" were newly established facilitating networking and coordinating both online and "real world" gatherings. In 1995, Texas-based Butch-Femme.com was created becoming "home to the first Butch-Femme-specific personals" and a few years later the first registered domain dedicated to butches and femmes. With an underlying philosophy of community buildingcite web
last=Rhon
first=Daddy
title=Who Exactly Is This Site For?
publisher=Butch-Femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/Faq/whoisthissitefor.html
accessdate=2007-07-18] the free and non-commercial site is one of the oldest and largest queer websites, with over a million unique visitors a day,cite web
last=Daddy Rhon
first=Daddy Rhon
title=2007 Fundraiser
publisher=Butch-Femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/portal/forums/donate.php
accessdate=2007-07-18] 300,000 newsletter subscribers and hosting the only chat rooms exclusive to butches and femmes helping share information including the "slut night" happenings.

A tradition is born

On one Butch-Femme Social at Oakland's White Horse bar a femme, DisasterDiva, was admonished for removing her coat revealing a cocktail dress that the gay bartender thought too revealing. Another bartender, who was a butch herself, diffused the potential trouble. In the aftermath the femmes decided to "go all out with slutwear for the next social."cite web
last=RopeBurner
title=How Real Sluts Are Born
publisher=Butch-Femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/Community/slutnight/born.html
accessdate=2007-07-18] The following month the social was officially named "slut night" possibly in honor of Jackie Collins' "New Hollywood Wives" when she wrote "The poor dear is experiencing a slut night!"cite book
last=Collins
first=Jackie
authorlink=Jackie Collins
title=Hollywood Wives: The New Generation
publisher=Simon & Schuster
date=2001, pg. 222
ISBN 0743216342
url=http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PEOPLE_BARKER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME
accessdate=2007-07-18] The femmes wore undergarments as dresses including slips, camisoles, corsets, boas and bustiers while "the gents" (butches) mostly came in suits and ties with the bar's owner welcoming back DisasterDiva with an apology and drink.

Slut nights currently

Slut nights are usually still informally called for and in regular rotation with Femmes and Butches United (FABU) chapters organizing them as needed to "bridge the chasm of cyberspace."cite web
last=Drinkwater
first=Rhon
title=Slut Night Manifesto
publisher=butch-femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/portal2/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=15&Itemid=50
accessdate=2007-07-18] Sometimes the events are held as a fundraisers for events like the Gay Games VII participants or for traditional charities like Hurricane Katrina relief.cite web
last name=Minor
first name=Michael C. Minor
title=Butch/Femme Social/ Katrina fundraiser
publisher=Indybay
date=9/ 9/2005
url=http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/09/07/75093.php?printable=true
accessdate=2007-07-18]

The original San Francisco/Oakland outing was quickly followed by slut nights in New York City and Portland, Oregon.cite web
last=Pris
first=Miss
title=Partying Properly With Slut Puppies In Portland
publisher=butch-femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/portal2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=69
accessdate=2007-07-18] On February 23, 2002 the first Washington, DC Slut Night was held and have continued every 1–2 months including "attending drag shows, to a basic dinner and night spent clubbing, to house parties."cite web
first=Mia
title=Beyond "What To Wear"?
publisher=butch-femme.com
url=http://www.butch-femme.com/portal2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=68
accessdate=2007-07-18]

The annual "Butch-Femme.com Bash" is a weekend convention held once a year in different cities across the United States to celebrate the Slut Night tradition attracting hundreds of butches and femmes. In 2008 the annual event is slated to be held in San Francisco, slut night's birthplace.

See also

* Boi
* Drag king
* En femme
* The Ethical Slut
* Faux queen
* Feminine side
* Femininity
* Girly girl
* Lesbian-identified
* Postgenderism
* Queer
* Tomboy

Footnotes

External links

* [http://butchfemmesociety.freeservers.com Butch/Femme Society]
* [http://www.butch-femme.net Butch-Femme Network]
* [http://www.ButchFemmeSocials.com/ Butch-Femme Socials of the San Francisco Bay Area]
* [http://www.butch-femme.co.uk/ Butch-Femme.co.uk]
* [http://www.butch-femme.com/portal2/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=14&Itemid=49 Butch-Femme.com Bash]
* [http://www.butchfemmedance.com/ Butchfemmedance.com]
* [http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/butch_femme_ssh.html GLBTQ.com] "Butch-Femme"
* [http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19971215 Random House, The Word Maven's Word of the Day: "Slut"]
* [http://www.straightacting.com Straightacting.com]
* [http://www.postmoderncourtesan.com/archives/000494.php The Postmodern Courtesan, "The Etymology Lesson"]
* [http://www.trans-butch-femme.co.uk Trans Butch Femme site with Information and forums]
* [http://www.samiyabashir.com Samiya Bashir]