Flashback: The Origin of Butch

"The Origin of Love" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch is in my head because I watched a video of Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig at Wigstock 2018. Thank you, YouTube. I officially don't need to ever actually go anywhere. So this is the origin of butch.

Minus the two pics in the top row because that guy's in the forest and is posing in a very faun-like way that is neither butch nor fem, whatever those mean. Well they do mean something to whoever chooses to take on those labels.

So probably the football guy is butch, though judging by his hand choreography, he might be in the middle of lipsyncing "Stop In the Name of Love" by the Supremes. As the photo does look very 1965 when that song came out. But he's holding a football and in a bikini bottom so who knows.

Then there's the tattooed guy in the machine shop in a jockstrap. But he's not really making anything, using tools isn't inherently butch (Martha Stewart is handy and not butch), and that's either a fucked up Canadian maple leaf tattoo or a fucked up four leaf clover tattoo or a fucked up Bette David portrait tattoo, so who knows.

The guy flexing his chest with his hands behind his back is for sure butch. Except he's holding his knitting.

The guy with his arms in the air is darn butch, except he has no body hair below the neck and clearly drives a pink bicycle. It's just out of frame. And in a color photo taken on the other half of the film. Clearly.

The one on the bed is thinking of what he's going to make for dinner. And it's not meat and potatoes but rather a spinach salad with spring onions, shallots, squash, sweet potatoes and slivered strawberries. That's a lot of Ss.

So my conclusion on the origin of butch is who the fuck knows. And I like it that way.

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