#gender subversion

"Wait", I may hear you ask. "Aren't lesbians, you know, women?"

Well... often yes. (Though there are some who are not women, and identify as other genders, such as non-binary, like me.) However, there are also specific gender identities that lesbians may use to describe their identities in more detail, using gender markers unique to lesbians, most notably butch and femme.

In Western popular culture, butch and femme are held in opposition to one another and are often paired in romantic or sexual couplings, seen as a sort of gay version of a heteronormative man-woman pairing. But there is so much more nuance to these personas than these assumptions of butch and femme gender identities.

Multiple authors, like Lucy Jones, Alison Eves, and Don Kulick consider butch and femme identities to be subversive critiques of the hegemonic position of heterosexuality, created in specific contexts. These identities are distinct forms of gender presentation, play, and even erotic role-play, used in the mirroring of desire, approaches to emotional connection, and other aspects of gender and sexuality. They are spectrums of feminine identity, using conscious choices of styles, gender performance, and stereotypes to build distinctly lesbian personas.

Butch identity is not necessarily the acceptance of 'masculine' ways of doing and being, but instead a rejection of the 'feminine' ways. There may be a focus on the feminine stereotypes of dress (skirts, long hair), behaviour (polite, nurturing), posture (sitting upright, taking up little room), and so on, and a distinct choice to not follow those stereotyped behaviours. Rather than being an inversion of feminine gender to masculine gender, butch is instead a projection of a specifically lesbian gender identity, distinct from both normative femininity and masculinity.

Femme identity, on the other hand, is a different projection of lesbianism as gender. Feminine stereotypes, especially regarding style and beauty, are leaned into and subverted. Presentations of femininity or hyper-femininity are used to comment and critique heteronormative standards by emphasizing certain aspects of visual appearance and behaviour, while embodying other non-normative feminine practises, namely attraction to, and relationships with, other feminine people.

Both butch and femme lesbian genders are used as, "specific patterns of sexual practice and desire, as well as being subversive re-appropriations of masculinity and femininity". However, since there are so many different ways of presenting butch, femme, or otherwise, there is a bit of an issue with homogenizing so many different identities into two very general categories. Historically, lesbian gender identities (as well as queer people in general) have been grouped together for cultural, political, and academic purposes, despite there being a huge variation in identity, presentation, and community practises. While these identities all subvert the mainstream gender and sexual structures of Western society, they all have a range of different practises, ideologies, and performances. Additionally, butch and femme are lesbian genders used by relatively few people, and lesbian as a label also does not include other cultural perspectives on gender and sexual identity. In academic studies on lesbian identity, many do not take other WLW or other gendered attraction into account (whether that be those who are not women, who experience multiple gendered attraction, or otherwise do not identify as lesbian), and also do not note the other categories which play into identity-building, such as racialisation, class, age, (dis-)ability, and so on. Keep these issues in mind when reading my posts, or others' works on lesbian gender identity.

I feel guilty. I understand people might not like what I do, that their fantasies could be the opposite of mine. At the same time I'm afraid of being labeled as anti-women and, I don't know... I can't avoid to think that it is hypocritical to want Ben to be the one being saved (and, I want to be really clear, I absolutely don't think it's wrong in any way, everybody might fantasize about whatever they want) an to be labelled as problematic if I want the opposite. To me it's just reallyromantic and heart-wrenching... Is it wrong? I don't think so.

Anon, both fantasies are valid and there’s nothing wrong to be attracted by the idea of being saved. However, it’s important to not relegate Rey to a passive role in the canon story, either. She needs to retain her agency---which doesn’t mean that she can’t be saved by Ben, but that her actions and choices need to remain relevant and be crucial in determining the outcome of the story.

I'm still moved to tears by how Revan just refuse to battle her, risking his life (and the Universe, btw) and saves her through the declaration of his undying love. I think it's beautiful, not sexist

I don’t think such a scenario applied to Reylo would even require Rey being a /damsel in distress/? the power of saving a “monster” through love is typically feminine---it's what the heroine usually does in batb-adjacent fairytales. It’s the opposite of the standard action hero rescuing the damsel all guns ablazing trope. So Ben being the one to save Rey from darkness would actually be a nice gender subversion.

But to do that, he’d have to have already resolved the darkness within himself. I don’t think you can build up the question of “can Kylo Ren be redeemed” for 2 movies and then sidestep it completely by making his redemption coincide with someone else’s redemption---someone who we didn’t even know needed redemption until the last film. Well, actually, you CAN, but it’s complicated.

KYLO THE HOMME FATALE

But at the same time, look at the way he kills Snoke: not with a showy display of strength, not in a "fair” duel, but by essentially outsmarting him, concealing his true intent as he maneuvers the blue saber into position and *backstabs* him (I know it isn’t literal backstabbing---sidestabbing?---but he still succeeds only because he takes Snoke off guard). It’s not necessarily feminine-coded, but it also doesn’t fit the chivalric ideal perfectly as it involves treachery and deception. If you allow me a marvel metaphor, it’s the way Loki would kill Snoke, rather than the way Thor would kill Snoke. (treachery, deception, poisoning: murdering methods traditionally associated with women, “cowards”, disabled people, because they don’t use “fair”, honest virile violence). 

Sure it did!

For starters: Is Kylo Ren Queer-Coded? Well, Yes And No (this is post-TFA and kind of short and cursory, but it's a good place to start and I liked the point about Kylo killing the traditional masculinity embodied by Han, as well as the comparison with Ra’s unmasking in Stargate, which is… probably one of the most iconic villain moments of my childhood);

This post and these metas discuss the dark side as feminine-coded magic (basically a space stand-in for traditional witchcraft), and consequently Kylo Ren being coded as, essentially, an evil witch. (this ties in nicely with Snoke being originally conceived as a woman in early drafts of the story). Note: I don’t agree with everything said in these posts, because the op’s are strongly dark side-positive and they tend to have a reading of the story that is almost diametrically opposite to the authorial intent (which they’re admittedly very critical of), but it’s worth reading, and the coding stuff is on point, and they also raise some interesting questions re: what this feminine-coding of Kylo’s dark side means in a story where he’s obviously going to be redeemed. Will he still be coded as a witch-prince even after redemption? Or will he be normalized into standard, “good” masculinity?

This post on the feminine-coded traits in Kylo, Hux and Loki, and this (on the yin/yang dichotomy between masculine-coded heroes and feminine/queer-coded villains). Feminine coding in villains is often used as a stand-in for deviance, perversion of the natural order of the world. Such villains are usually negative foils to heroes who radiate natural charisma—as opposed to gaining it with “tricks”—and effortlessly perform a “healthy”, stereotypically gender compliant, unsubtle kind of masculinity (though modern media have started to erode that image and give us softer heroes who are more and more in touch with their feminine side—I think Steve Rogers and even the latest Thor are a good example of that). The interesting thing with Kylo is that he’s a female character’s foil; Rey filling the role of the masculine (yang) principle in this binary has good chances to subvert it all completely (which has in fact already happened);

Here’s a meta on Kylo’s (and Rey’s) androgynous characterization. Kylo Ren’s appearance & costume, especially in TFA, is somewhat androgynous. On the one hand, Adam’s impressive height and muscular build ( + his phallic lightsaber) definitely scream male. On the other hand, the guy has long, soft raven curls, pale skin with a distinct lack of facial hair, big red pouty lips (note that plump lips, like most feminine traits in male characters, are often coded as repulsive, see: Joffrey Baratheon), he’s essentially a male version of Snow White in dark robes. His TFA attire is not only reminiscent of a knight templar, but also of a witch: his clothes are long and billowy with a belt emphasizing his waistline like in a woman’s dress, shaping his figure as an elongated hourglass, while the turtleneck conceals Adam’s muscular neck. His mask is scary, but genderless. If not for his size, fully masked Kylo Ren could be easily mistaken for a woman (interestingly in TLJ his costume is more traditionally masculine, though still medieval/renaissance inspired, with the classic doublet + cloak combo);

A side thought that would be worth exploring is how Kylo is constantly shifting between masculine and feminine coding. TFA Kylo has more androgynous looks and more “yin” (feminine) imagery (dark, cold, wet), but he’s also the aggressor, the pursuer most of the time. TLJ Kylo is superficially more manly (the clothing, the facial hair, the scars, the blatant display of muscles, the association with fire and machinery), which contrasts with how passive—reactive, rather than proactive—he is throughout the film; until he loses Rey and regresses to childish, trauma induced rage;

A lot of things about Kylo, from the layers and layers of thick cloth forming a barrier between him and the rest of the world, to his discomfort to be seen without his mask, to his nervous/awkward body language (staggering gait, clenching/unclenching fists, self-contained demeanor punctuated by sudden outbursts of movement/violence, extreme oscillations in his concept of personal space, etc.) suggest that he’s not entirely comfortable in his own body, he’s both touch starved and afraid of contact. He reads as a virgin, or as someone who hasn’t quite come to terms with his own sexuality yet;

not about queercoding per se, but essential to understand why Kylo’s relationship with masculinity is very layered and interesting, are these posts on Kylo’s emotionality, compassion and vulnerability (which he tries to suppress over and over under a self imposed, but unsuccessful, performance of toxic masculinity); on Kylo’s similarities with Kay’s character in the Snow Queen fairytale (i.e. “the prince in the tower” archetype); on the “whiny crybaby” label and what it says about the cultural perception of male emotions; on Robert Bly’s influence on The Last Jedi ( + more posts on this);

Ben is coded as a “troubled” child, with Han and Leia struggling to deal with his /diversity/ (from various sw novels and canon sources like Bloodline, Last Shot and the novelizations we know they were “frightened of him, he realized, and so they got rid of him”, that Leia had been keeping Ben’s force sensitiveness as a secret, that she blames herself for sending him away and for hiding things from Han). It’s really strong subtext, and can be read as a metaphor for mental illness, for drug addiction, but also for queerness, especially in conjunction with Snoke being clearly coded as a child predator and an abusive mentor.