to wonder why lesbians go for women that look like men?

[carriedababi]

surely if you fancy women you'd want to go out with a woman that looked like \ woman not a man.
nothing against gay/lesbians at all.

but this seems a bit strange to me

Sparky - I think people find it very disconcerting if they don't know if you are a man or woman. And I think often people just glance at people and so assume gender because they don't look properly.

I had to reassure a very upset older woman who was complaining that a man had went into the ladies toilets. I think it was obvious it was a woman who looked like a butch lesbian.

In terms of barbers - I don't have personal experience of going to barbers, but my partner gets a short hair cut at a cheap hairdressers. In fact everyone I can think of who has a very short lesbian haircut goes to a cheap hairdressers rather than a barbers, but I have never asked them why.

I suspect other barbers don't want to cut your hair because it is fairly obvious you must be a lesbian and they may be homophobic and most people don't like it when women confidently step outside the accepted image of a woman in our society.

Where I live, you don't really see lesbians, even butch ones, in shirts and ties. Some might wear tuxedos (usually borrowed from male friends/relatives) at posh (for round here) lesbian do's. Some do wear mens pants and aftershave.

Actually I have read that lots of straight women use their boyfriends aftershave and some men's aftershaves are now marketed at both genders.

I always prefer aftershaves, very hard to get a perfume with a nice clean sandalwood smell.

I think a lot of women do too...

I'm enjoying this thread btw, nice turnaround folks!

this is more like it!.....I used to pass for a boy when I first came out...in fact my passport pic still looks the same! it expires next year though!...I was 19, went to a barbers and they kept asking me if I was on shcool holidays etc. I loved gender bending, started dragging etc. I had a very fun few years.

Still go to a unisex barber, still dress quite boyish. Since having dd though I have rediscovered my more feminine side(that and age in general I guess). I was a femme, completely, when I came out. I shall never forget cutting off that pony tail, shaving my head and feeling like a massive weight had been lifted! It was like a right of passage. I liked the boyish identity whilst I redifined myself as a young gay woman, rather than the straight girl I thought I had been my whole life!

Not many butches round my way though. Not many lesbians really!

hehe!...I have a similar childhood moment, my mum let me dress myself at about age 4. I went to my brother wardrobe and got on a pair of jeans and a checked shirt!....I was told to change. My dd is currenlty wandering around in her big brothers pyjamas, and wears what she likes when she likes!...similar for him, he wears her hairclips, has his nails done etc. I see no issue. You are not made gay, like some folk think.

Sadly I can never compete on these childhood clothing moments. I actually refused to wear trousers until I was a teenager. I would only wear skirts or dresses! I just thought they were more comfortable. It wasn't until I was too old (in my eyes) to wear comfy shoes with skirts that I started wearing trousers.

there's a great picture of me aged 8 or so wearing purple cords and a yellow T-shirt - I look really cool, and rather like a boy (short blonde bob!). I produce in further evidence my dislike of dresses, and my rejection of both lacy tights and patent leather shoes (at about 4, I think). Finally, I produce my obsessive devotion to a particularly nice red checked flannel shirt. I think I might have cried when it became obvious that it was, finally, more hole than shirt.

Hester you have been brilliant.

It isn't a daft question. of all of the many lesbians I know at least half of them dress in a unfeminine way. And it does seem strange that women that fancy women would fancy women that look as if they are trying to look like men. And in all honesty I didnt ever had a good answer to people who have asked. Now I do. Cheers.

You're welcome tralala

intersting thread. i am straight, married for 24 years, 3 kids but am not particularly feminine looking. Like jeans, trainers or low heeled boots or converse,shirts, sweatshirts. fleeces. Sometimes wear a skirt and heels and feel nice when I do, but it's not often.I have short hair - used to have it very short and spiky but family referred to it as my dyke lesbian cut!
Out of devilment, I have just had it done that way again!!! Probably look more butch than many lesbians.

Loads of women have short hair and wear jeans/T.shirts etc. You have to have your hair shaved at the sides - that's the difference. straight women wouldn't have hair like that -

It's not so much "Why do lesbians go for women dressed as men". It's more like "Why do men go for women who are dressed as our culturelly appropriate version of a woman"

They're not "Dressed as men". They do not "look like men". They look like our culture's image of a man, more than many women do, because they do not subscribe to the gender image imposed upon many heterosexual women.

Nicely put, Bacchus.

And other women may choose to conform more closely to the prescribed image, but they should resist the expectation that they should police and punish those who do resist conformity.

Is it not that we all - straight or gay - conform to certain stereotypes? Many lesbian posters on here have admitted that they are conforming to lesbian fashions as much as straight women are conforming to standard heterosexual expectations. I suppose what I as a straight women find hard to understand with the butch look is that my ideals of female beauty are based on the standard heterosexual ones - therefore by those standards butch women do look more 'like men'. And I do understand the OP - we see female beauty as = feminine, therefore assume that everyone has the same perspective.

But I'd argue with those here claiming that only feminine women dress according to cultural norms - after all, what has been presented here as the male norm that butch women may or may not be aiming at, is itself a very recent social construct - after all, your average 18th century beau, say would have had long hair and clothes every bit as frilly and impractical as the women's clothes.

So rather than butch women dressing that way because they don't care, I suspect they do care - as the flirting on this this thread shows, clearly lots of lesbian women do go for that as a look - though obviously lots don't.

My step-d is unbelievably butch. Regularly has old women complaining about her going into the "ladies" to the attendant.

Comes with the territory - her choice, really. She gets SHIT LOADS of hassle about how she looks, and tbh, if I didn't know her, I'd not know which way to call it.

However. I have to ask - why would you give a shit? MInd your own business, love.

Bread - Yes it is a lesbian fashion, which is why you do get lesbian haircuts rather than just short hair cuts. It is the reason why, round my way, the fashionable hair cut to have is different amongst young lesbians than amongst older lesbians.

It is also why some women change their appearance when they decide they are lesbians.

But it is also in some ways more than just a fashion as it is tied up for some lesbians so much with identity i.e. lesbians who are out and proud and so want to be publically seen as being a lesbian. That is why I think, the same fashion has been there for 20 plus years.

Lost - The OP was trying to understand it, rather than "giving a shit." I think it is fine to try and understand something and thus ask questions about it.

From how the women is dressed, hair cut, etc. But of course we don't always get it right, hence you getting the look. And some lesbians like me, never get the look unless we are with our girlfriend.

I do think from the body language of a couple you can often tell they are a couple, even if they don't look like typical lesbians.

But I also have 1 friend who hilariously thinks any women with short hair is a lesbian. We do tease her about it and she is regularly proved wrong. But also quite nice in a way that her default assumption seems to be lesbian rather than straight.

Of course there can also be subtle flirting between women as well that obviously makes you think someone is a lesbian or bisexual.

By the knowing look, do you mean gaydar, because mine doesn't work. I can never tell, even when it is really obvious to everyone else.
Neither can I ever tell who is interested in me - leading one woman to actually write me a note to get the message across (I can never really believe it)