Abstract
This article presents an in-depth case study of the way contemporary lesbians use labels in the niche dating site, “WomynLink.com.” Drawing on five months of online ethnography between November 2011 and March 2012, I examine and compare butch, femme, and queer members’ use of labels and bodily presentations in WomynLink’s (video) chat room, forum boards, and profiles. I also conducted 21 online interviews through WomynLink’s free chat room service or external messaging services such as Skype.
I draw on the boundary-making literature to illustrate how femme, butch, and queer members engage in different forms of boundary work to achieve online desirability by reconciling the tensions between their gendered bodily presentation, label use and other members’ perceptions of them. Femme members sought to highlight their femininity, butches’ boundary work made salient their sexual interest, and queer members defended their sex category as female and sexual identity as lesbian. These patterns of boundary work provide insight into how the salience of lesbian gender labels has evolved, particularly in the contemporary online era.
Keywords
Introduction
New members of “WomynLink” (WL), 1 a lesbian niche dating site, often use the chat room to make their initial contact with others and to get a sense of the site. Offering members free-of-charge private messaging and video chat, the chat room serves as a main thoroughfare for the discursive and visual interactions of WL members. One weeknight I logged into the WL chat room and was met with incessant chatter about looks, body shape, and crushes that competed with the visual depictions of women on video chat. Those of us on video chat could see Dottyone’s backside as she swayed her hips to the beat of some inaudible tune. Members began commenting on her physique and attractiveness, which led to a conversation about labels. Asked by zesolider what type of girl she is attracted to, Klassysassy answered, “feminine, girly girls.” Zesolider quickly responded, “I’m a pretty boi,” highlighting her subtle femininity in an effort to make herself attractive to Klassysassy. Idealistichick, disagreeing, rudely asked zesolider whether she was a transitioning female. Zesolider, in turn, defended her identity by inviting Idealistichick to meet her on camera. Bessyjones attempted to diffuse the misunderstanding by redirecting attention back to Dottyone’s gyrating hips.
Chat room interactions such as this set the tone for what I refer to throughout this article as the “hierarchy of desirability.” By using “hierarchy,” I do not intend to suggest that there were losers in WL; rather, there were certain gender identities that were more publicly extolled than others. The concept of a hierarchy of desirability focuses our attention on collective boundary contestations over gendered label use, bodily presentation, and desirability in an online lesbian dating site, the foci of this article.
This study draws on Mary Gray’s definition of queer identity as a “collective labor of crafting, articulating, and pushing the boundaries of identities” (2009: 1170). Online identity manifestation occurs through a “queer social network” in which the internet (and all of its circuits of information acquired through forum boards, chat rooms, and informational portals) provides avenues through which self-exploration can occur (Gray, 2009: 1174). Like other queer online spaces, WL offers a network of services including blogs, forum boards, a chat room, and an advice column.
In this study, I argue that WL members construct their identities through a continuous, self-proving process of collective contestation and boundary work, while simultaneously reinforcing their cultural membership in WL. These collective contestations of bodily presentation and label use affirm group hierarchies that reproduce dominant understandings of gender and the body. These hierarchies are then enacted as policing mechanisms through which self-presentations are deemed acceptable—depending on label choice—to ensure an authentic (and desirable) self-presentation. 2 In other words, boundary contestations concerning lesbian identity are largely a result of the tension between members’ perceptions of label use and bodily presentation.
This tension reflects three broader questions that I will address. First, attending to gender as a relational process, how does gender happen in groups online? Second, what purpose do labels such as butch, femme, and queer fulfill in lesbian niche dating sites? And third, how do these labels produce boundaries of sexual desirability online? Drawing on online ethnography and interviews, I illustrate how the collective labouring and negotiation of identity not only determine relationship formation, but are also infused in institutional practices that organize intimate relations (Epstein, 1994).
Legible bodies: The matrix of gender, self-presentation and desire
In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman (1959) makes the distinction between the “true” and “actual” self. True self-characteristics are possessed but not actually expressed; while actual self-characteristics are those that are expressed, which leads others to believe them to be true. Furthermore, Goffman (1959) argues that expressions “given off” are non-verbal expressions that cannot be controlled, while expressions “given” are controlled verbal offerings, both of which are integral to impression management.
Some scholars have extended Goffman’s concept of a dualistic self to suggest possible selves (for heterosexuals) in online dating spaces. They argue that like offline presentations, online self-presentations are the products of a selective process (Walther and Parks, 2002). Previous studies show that reduced physical cues and asynchronous communication (if only initially) facilitate a “selective self-presentation” online (Walther, 1992; Walther and Burgoon, 1992). Selective self-presentations are meticulously edited impressions, often tailored to meet the desires of an ideal romantic partner (Whitty and Gavin, 2001). The succession of intimate relations results in greater disclosure and transparency of the “real me” in online spaces compared to offline encounters (Bargh et al., 2002; McKenna et al., 2002). Moreover, online communication lends itself to fostering and portraying the true self because of the “hyperhonest” ethics that govern such anonymous interactions (Baker, 2005). And as Hardy points out, “the anonymity of individuals that characterizes dating sites rarely seems to facilitate the construction of fantasy selves, but acts as a foundation for the building of trust, and establishing real world relationships” (2002: 583).
While these scholars maintain the importance of text-based communication in presenting a “true” self, they are never explicit about how anonymity is trumped by the expectation of visual media. More recently, scholars argue online etiquette is predicated on the expectation of both visual and textual communication. Yet, in general, scholars have used an analysis that is less about how users employ language to highlight attractive bodily attributes, and more about users’ incongruous profile statistics (e.g. height, weight, income), chosen profile photo, and actual mate preferences (e.g. actual members contacted vs. preferences indicated in profile). 3 In these mainstream studies, 4 scholars show how members only scrutinized facial features and bodily attributes when it did not pair with profile information. Even scholars who specifically focused on lesbian and gay members’ profile advertisements within mainstream sites make no mention of the body, instead narrowing their focus to written profile content (Gonzales and Meyers, 1993).
In queer-specific online domains, however, the body is particularly important. As Chris Ashford observes, the “[q]ueer virtual space is dominated by the image” (2009: 298). The body’s matter is linked to self-definition, which enables the construction of an “embodied” self in the online space. Other queer online scholars have argued that the body plays a vital role in how inhabitants of the space collaboratively negotiate the presentation of their online self in relation to their offline self (Campbell, 2004), yet it has remained relatively unexplored in studies that specifically focus on lesbian/gay online dating sites (Burke, 2000; Gudelunas, 2008).
Boundary work
Boundary classifications by gender label.
Research methods
For five months (November 2011 to March 2012) I conducted online interviews and ethnography on WomynLink. I chose WL based on three criteria: (1) the site includes all lesbian gender labels; (2) it is a US-based site; and (3) membership is free. With regard to the first criterion, it is critical that the site’s economy of gender labels be as broad as the various labels that have emerged throughout US lesbian history. I did not consider sites that only appealed to specific gendered relationship couplings such as “butch–femme,” “femme–femme,” or “butch–butch.” The second criterion is important to the scope of my research, which explores label emergence and use in the US specifically. The third criterion not only allowed me access to a larger number of site members, but to those same site members over time.
I began my research by purchasing a Sapphic Power (SP) membership. 6 As an SP member, I had full access to the site. WL offers a range of services that include a chat room, forum board discussions, advice columns, lesbian club and bar suggestions, and a coming out blog. Non-SP membership, or free membership, allows members to post a limited number of profile photos, and only receive, but not send private e-mails. However, both levels of membership allow members to participate in chat and forum board discussions free of charge. My initial attempts to gain entry in WL resonate with some of my participants’ experiences with site constraints around label selection. As a heterosexual ethnographer in a lesbian niche dating site, my profile not only had to be demonstrative of my research aims but also had to exhibit a level of authenticity about my “true self” as a heterosexual-identified researcher. I selected “just me” when signing up, but in my profile narrative explained that I was a “student researcher … solely here for the purposes of learning about lesbian niche dating sites.” I also mentioned that I had received approval from a Research Ethics Board and included a link to my personal webpage with more information about my research interests. Most members were receptive and enthusiastic about the project, while those who were skeptical questioned why a “heterosexual would be interested in us.” This skepticism, as was explained to me, stemmed from the recent slew of lesbian imposters (read: male users) signing up for the site and trolling the chat room. My presence was initially a point of concern but my status as a researcher became less salient because members grew accustomed to my routine presence.
I also interviewed 21 members (7 video interviews and 14 synchronous text-based interviews using WomynLink’s private chat platform). Interviews ranged from 60 to 90 minutes. Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 54, with the majority between their late 20s and mid 30s. Of my interviewees, six identified as butch, eight as femme, five as queer, and two identified as either “bi” or “unsure.”
Femme valorization
In WL, I observed a hierarchy of desirability structured through negotiations of label use and bodily presentations among members. At the top are femmes whose label use and bodily presentation is largely uncontested and desired. Femme members are aware of the valorized femme label, which subsequently informs their profile construction and strategies to approach members to whom they are attracted. Mizz_Blondie, a 26-year-old, whose profile does not include photos, told me she was quite anxious about her interactions with other members, but felt she did not need photos to meet women on WL. Instead, she explained, “I wait for someone else to talk to me … except for in chat i just join in a convo where i can relate and hope that they acknowlege [sic] me.” This hope to be acknowledged exemplifies the passive boundary work engaged in by many femmes. Her lack of profile photos was indicative of her belief that the femme label alone testifies to her femininity, while at the same time serving as a conversation starter or a way to pique the interest of other members.
iRachel20, a 20-year-old self-identified femme, expressed similar sentiments. Her comments were laced with a sense of tension between her offline dependency on labels and what she saw as the lack of need to immediately indicate her identification with a particular label online. The persistent flattery from other members caused her to feel labels were less salient online. In an interview she explained: I am really a shy person, but I decided that on here [WomynLink] I was going to be all “out there.” But I don’t even have to. When I talk to people, it is not immediately about a label. I mean of course a picture matters, but I do not feel the pressure to immediately say I am butch or femme or whatever.
Despite iRachel’s expressed liberation from the immediacy of label disclosure, her profile spells out her gendered reason for joining WL: “to meet more butches,” but also to escape obscurity as a feminine lesbian in sexually heterogeneous offline spaces. In other words, online labels were only important insofar as they indicated a particular gendered attraction, in contrast to the function of labels identifying one’s sexuality in an offline space. For iRachel, the immediacy of her label use online was mitigated by WL’s lesbian-only space, and not necessarily the visual nature of it.
For other members, this move away from the immediacy of label use can be characterized as a momentary bodily utopia, allowing them to break free of the constraints imposed on feminine presentation as hyper-feminine and sexualized. The tension between label use and constituting a desirable bodily presentation threatens this freedom, particularly as it relates to femme members with less exaggerated presentations of femininity. Those bodily presentations with less discernable femininity come at a social cost. Twenty-three-year-old Lezzie noticed a change in members’ attraction to her based on the degree of her feminine displays. She described it in our interview: “I might get more approaches if I had on some sexy, slim type thing … but I mean there are also femmes [that] like femmes. So if I had on anything that was a little more androgynous then I might not be getting as many responses.” Despite Lezzie’s reduced number of approaches, the ability to manipulate her supposed immutable feminine positioning online was liberating.
Participation in video chat mitigates the tension between the alignment of bodily presentations and the gendered connotations of a particular label. In WL, video chat is known as an erotic space akin to a sort of sexual playground that enables the visual exploration of bodies and engagement in sexual play. In video chat, there is a temporary suspension of the significance of the femme label and instead, an emphasis on the erotic performances of bodies. Video chats offer a space to not only satisfy sexual needs, but more importantly to gain familiarity with bodies through carnal exploration with other women. Video chats are pedagogical in this sense—a space to learn one’s own erogenous zones through mutual engagement.
Bestgirl, a 27-year-old closeted feminine woman, revealed a sort of liberation in the online space that she felt was muffled by her offline obscurity as a femme. Her “four-girl” video chat experience best encapsulates this shift between label and bodily significance. In our interview, she was animated as she spoke about the online orgy. She excitedly but coyly recalled, “It was a four girl cam chat. It was sooooooooo hot! We played a game … when it was your turn the other three girls would talk about you and decide together what you had to do … By the end, we were all naked … and had shown everything!” When asked about the other players, Bestgirl responds, “they were all femmy like me, but it wasn’t a big deal” as she was most aroused by the communal act of performing sex for the gaze of other lesbians.
For her, at least in video chat, labels were less important than the thrill of evoking physical responses through shared sexual play. In other words, a lustful gaze supplanted specific label preference. And although Bestgirl was not forthcoming about the gender presentations of the other players, she did reveal how she felt during the game. She told me, “I am shy … but they made me feel comfortable. They kept telling me how pretty I was … how nice my body was. I loosened up in the end and didn’t even care.” The specific attention given to her body and looks was reassuring, which in turn shaped the type of boundary work she engaged in. Her boundary work was contingent on the maintenance of her feminine bodily presentation that in turn allowed her to minimize contestations and entice desire.
This was particularly noteworthy for Bestgirl, whose profile was quite bare—it had neither photos nor a self-narrative. It only indicated her status as a closeted femme. In our interview, she shared that when she first joined WL, many members thought she was “some horny guy” because her profile description was so terse. However, Bestgirl’s routine presence in video chat helped to reduce such disparaging taunts. When speaking with me, she was quite lively as she talked about what other women instructed her to do with her body. As she recounted these online experiences she became aroused. In our interview, she told me her “panties are around her knees … [and] that I have never been able to speak so freely about my sexuality.” Bestgirl, who called me “Doc,” would continue to reach out to me when I was online; she told me that since she verbalized that she was lesbian to me (something she had never uttered to anyone until our video interview) she was able to be more verbal with women she now dates on and off WL, and also plans to come out to her mother.
Butch disregard
Despite femmes’ varied relationship to and use of labels, they all had a sense of their desirability, which informed their orientation to labels and bodily presentation. They were told they were attractive, received numerous profile views and messages, and members even expressed their desire for “femmes” in forum board posts. A few butch members felt discouraged by the emphasis on and praise of femininity, and by the posts that were explicitly critical of masculine lesbians. TeeME’s forum post, “Where my butches at?” specifically called attention to femme valorization. Her post problematized the lack of congruency between femmes’ profile descriptions and their bodily presentations in profile photos. She wrote, “It’s funny how femmes can say they are femme and that is the end of it, even if visually they can double as Mike Tyson. Yet, a post will say, no butches.”
TeeME’s comment highlights the tensions between self-identification and other members’ categorizations that frequently arose in WL. Specifically, TeeMe’s criticism juxtaposes the use of the femme label in profile narratives with questionable feminine bodily presentations in profile photos. Her criticism, which illustrates her bemusement with this inconsistency, emphasizes that some femmes appear more masculine than the very identities they sometimes criticize. By publicly questioning femmes’ bodily presentations, TeeMee does not however mitigate her desire for feminine bodies. In our interview she shared her frustration, stating that she did not feel desired, and found it difficult not only as a butch, but as an older butch (she is 43 years old), to begin a relationship on WL when (younger) femmes have been so critical of her masculine bodily presentation.
Like TeeMee, other butch members felt less desired, and expressed a sense of exclusion or detachment from this hierarchy. As with offline dating experiences, there was a tension between the public repudiation of butches and the private expressions of desire for them. SammyBoi, a 32-year-old boi, revealed that she had come across a number of profiles that she felt were offensive and isolating. She confided her uneasiness about this alarming trend in an interview: “The general animosity and constant put-downs in the community surrounding butches and femmes saddens me … Yet, many think we bring it on ourselves because we can't or won't femme up. I’m not going to do anything different because of comments like that.”
Unlike femmes who choose to individually manipulate their label use and bodily presentation to highlight their femininity and to ensure an attractive performance, butches were less flexible in their boundary work. They were unwilling to compromise their masculine presentation for one that was more ambiguous or feminine since, for butches, label use and gendered bodily presentation equally mattered in constituting their identity as a butch lesbian. Like Sammyboi, other butches did not feel the need to alter their profile narrative or modify their bodily comportment in profile photos, but instead foregrounded their sexual desire by publicly soliciting femmes in forum board posts and chat room introductions. For example, Bonnie237, a 49-year-old butch, was quite exasperated by her continual denial by and exclusion from femme members. In a forum post she writes: “Hi ladies. I was just wondering about femmes in general. I find them to be into either another femme or just looking for fun. Are there any femmes left that’s into butches and[/]or looking for something serious. Thanks.”
Many older butch women, such as Bonnie237, believed that butches were “going out of style” due to the trendy femme/femme dynamic spotlighted in Hollywood representations of lesbian desire, relationships, and attractive bodies. Pokey, a 35-year-old butch, similarly described her frustrations in an interview, “The L Word has become my reality! All the hyperfemmes want each other … it sucks because the show is entertaining, but i feel like so many younger femmes have taken it as reality. its not just about the lesbian audience.” These sentiments of exclusion are indicative of how the value and visibility of labels have evolved over time, or more specifically, how “[t]he femme [is] an object of butch lust but also at times reviled for her ability to pass and for possessing ‘heterosexual privilege’” (Stein, 2010: 27). As a result of changing identity politics, poles of attraction between butch and femme lesbians—once thought to be the prototype for lesbian sexuality—has widened (O’Sullivan, 1999). As the gap has widened, it has been gradually replaced by relationship dynamics with less organized gender roles (Roof, 1998; Smyth, 1998) that instead allow for multiple ways of expressing desire and fulfilling relationship needs. Therefore, not only feminine bodies, but also femme–femme couplings have become valued and more accepted.
Like Pokey, MartaB shared a similar sentiment. In our interview, she reflected that: “What I do notice in my experience is that far more bi-sexual and extremely femme women are interested in the daylight [public acceptance] of other femmes. Yet, I have had them come at me time after time, at a party, drunk or once the lights are dimmed.” For MartaB this tokenized view of lesbian sexuality results in the relegation of a public/private demarcation of butch/femme desire. She felt feminine bodily presentations were widely regarded as aesthetically pleasing and therefore, the coupling of femmes with both heterosexual women and femme lesbians could proudly be displayed in broad daylight with a larger margin of social acceptance.
This offline day/night was manifested in WomynLink as the tension between the public repudiation of butches in chat and forum board postings and the use of private messages to express desire for them. The two-week chat exchange between SexyBEAST and NikkiSkyy, both chat room regulars, best illustrates this public/private tension. SexyBEAST was quite meticulous about her masculine presentation. As garnered from her profile, SexyBEAST loved “rough sports, hot femmes, and is a construction worker by day.” She sported a shaved head, blue jeans, solid coloured button down, had an aversion to cosmetics, and was built like an novice lifter. In her chat interactions, she often joked that she was not “gay,” which was meant as an ironic testament to her outward masculine persona. For several days, NikkiSkyy had been hounding SexyBEAST with playful jeers about her “pretty face … and soft body.” Initially perceived as a flirtatious gesture, NikkiSkyy’s playful taunting quickly became a serious form of public sanctioning as SexyBEAST’s lighthearted deflections grew fewer, followed by her solicitations for other “sweet femmes in the room.” NikkiSkyy told me in an interview that she had “been trying to get SexyBEAST’s attention for some time now … but she never acknowledges me.” NikkiSkyy’s sense of rejection led her to more seriously criticize SexyBEAST’s use of the butch label and her masculine bodily presentation. I observed that each time SexyBEAST would log into chat, NikkiSkyy would greet her with critical remarks such as “DING DONG the butch is back,” which was meant as a play on the word “bitch.” NikkiSkyy’s tirade against SexyBEAST lasted for about two weeks, until one day I noticed that NikkiSkyy’s notorious and harsh greetings of SexyBEAST had ceased. By this time, I had developed a rapport with NikkiSkyy, and sent her an instant message asking how things were. She responded that she had grown tired of SexyBEAST’s rejection, and had decided to stop sending her both private and public chat room messages.
This example illustrates butches’ common response to public repudiation: directing the attention away from themselves by engaging in boundary work that reiterates their interests in and desire for femmes. NikkiSkyy’s private messages may have facilitated SexyBEAST’s passive yet public reaction since the private messages revealed NikkiSkyy’s true desire for SexyBEAST. The relegation of NikkiSkyy’s desire to the private realm was also linked to her public attention seeking efforts. She wanted to be noticed by SexyBEAST, and thus relied on her public remarks as a conversation starter. This public/private strategy, however, failed to generate the interest NikkiSkyy had hoped for.
These contradictory public/private displays of repudiation and desire can further be explained by considering the gendered expectations that accompany butch–femme relationship dynamics. As TerriMew, a 43-year-old self-identified butch, brought to my attention, there are unspoken, yet complementary gender roles that facilitate relationship formation. She explained: “Although butches are ‘walking billboards’ for being gay, femmes do not approach them because of patriarchal dynamics … Butch women are supposed to be the aggressors, and femmes wait for these advances.” Twenty-four-year-old MaggieBoo, who had developed an undeniable confidence that stemmed from other women’s agreeable perception of her body told me, “I was a cheerleader in high school and college. I was told I was pretty and athletic. So I think I am confident and no [sic] afraid. i am more aggressive online than i am offline. but I usually wait or if i am already [sexually] excited i will send a personal message.”
This orientation to gender roles does not constitute the totality of online experiences. My findings show that lesbians’ integration into a non-heteronormative online space breaks down the binding notion of the butch–femme dynamic. The online space encourages a less rigid gender identity, where shy girls can be more aggressive or dominant without being classified as exhibiting butch-like characteristics. Unlike the malleability of femmes’ boundary work that was subject to the whims of WL members’ receptiveness to their label use and bodily presentation, butches were less giving in their boundary work and instead sought to highlight their sexual prowess without adjusting their label use or degree of masculinity in their bodily presentations. This non-accommodating response to butches, as I have shown, is largely linked to the private expressions of butch desire that reaffirmed their desirability in WL, despite their feelings of public neglect.
Queer skepticism
It was quite interesting to meet, observe, and interview members on a lesbian niche dating site who expressed an aversion to the term “lesbian.” What I first thought was a contradictory existence—that is, to be “queer” or “fluid” and an active member of a “lesbian” niche dating site—turned out to be a political stance against heteronormativity. Rather than being dictated by pre-set gendered classifications such as “butch” or “femme,” queer lesbians’ sexual identity combines their “gender identities, sexual identities, and emotional styles” (Eves, 2004: 483) to produce a personally defined presentation. Stein (2010) cautions that: “[o]nce you introduce multiplicity and fluidity into the mix, loyalties become divided, and boundaries blurred [in which the] search for personal meaning threatens to destroy the solidarity of groups” (Stein, 2010: 27, 29). And, as I show, queer members’ reflexive and multiplicative orientation to labels threatens their cultural membership in WL in two ways. On a micro level, queer members have to contend with the threat of the male spectre, and on a structural level, WL’s site architecture does not necessarily allow for complete liberation from label use. In order to achieve WL’s standards of cultural desirability, queer members engage in boundary work to validate their sexual identity as lesbian, and at the same time, their sex category as female, to ward off members’ skepticism of them.
Site constraints became evident to queer members when they first began to construct their profile. A part of WL’s completed profile verification included age, race, location, and most pertinent to this discussion, label selection including “lesbian,” “butch,” “femme,” “queer,” “bi”, or “just me” to denote site members’ identity. This compulsory label selection did not permit members to select self-presentations outside of these gender categories. Consider Lotus, who described herself as “fluid” in her profile narrative to express the range of her attraction to and sexual activity with men, women, and “everyone in between,” as she put it. Her stance was more about her right to express her sexuality in her own terms, and was “more a conviction that ‘anything goes’ sexually than any question of the idea of sexual preference” (Whisman, 1993: 56, emphasis in original).
In my interview with 25-year-old Lotus, she explains how she sought to reconcile this site constraint with her own efforts to create a profile that would accurately and freely capture her sense of self: They do not leave an option to type in what you are. That’s where my description of myself really came in … you really have to let people know exactly who you are, so that they do not judge you off of that label. I did not leave it blank, I put queer … it is kind of generalized. Bisexuals, they do not want to deal with bisexuals because you are not sure about your sexuality. You have to be this or you have to be either that … I think that classification is more so for the benefit of other folks. Not me.
Lotus’s excerpt then makes clear why her use of “queer” over “bi,” if only spatially, served as a stable and recognizable identity in a context where stability and perceptible gender presentations were valued and desired. She avoided the use of “bisexual” because she was fully aware of how labels served as “a sort of boundary police, protective of who exactly fits into the lesbian category” (Tabatabai, 2010: 563). And thus, she resolved to share as little detail as possible about her use of queer, only discussing it with WL members with whom she had developed a rapport. Furthermore, she felt specific gendered descriptions would limit her opportunities to meet a diverse group of women on the site. Although she described herself as feminine, she dared not use the femme label in her profile because she felt its use implied a certain demeanor and relationship dynamic that was predicated on deference and submission. “I am feminine,” she observed, “but would never say I am femme, especially online because then people will only think that I am interested in butches. No! I am feminine because I am a woman.” Her use of the queer label was, therefore, meant to imply her attraction to a range of (gendered) lesbians.
Through her careful parsing of labels, Lotus’ boundary work functioned to ensure that her sexual identity as lesbian was not only evident, but was clearly explicated. Lotus’ narrative reveals how she verbally navigates her unhinged identity. She was careful to describe her identity in terms that would not jeopardize her lesbian authenticity, confirming Ahoo Tabatabi's (2010) finding that “the label of bisexual does not offer authenticity … because it lacks the element of stability” (Tabatabai, 2010: 567). Paula C. Rust further iterates this point by arguing that “many lesbian-identified women do not trust bisexual-identified women socially or politically because they believe that the bisexual experience differs from the lesbian experience and that bisexuals do not share lesbians interests” (1992: 368). Essentially, bisexuality is seen as a fad, assumed to only be drawn upon during non-involvement with women, or as a means to enable greater sexual exploration.
HafiGrl, who is 24, offered a similar perspective, which demonstrates the type of boundary work queer members engaged in to ensure a legible (and desirable) self-presentation. She told me, “I am fluid … If I were forced to choose, I would just say queer … I don’t define myself as lesbian.” For HafiGirl, the implications of lesbian were too harsh and limiting. Online, she talked about her identity in terms of being queer since she felt that term was relatable and understood by many. She believed that labels carry connotations limiting her chances of meeting a diverse group of women. Simply uttering the word “femme” was indicative of a certain lifestyle, relationship dynamic and demeanor. Furthermore, it typically attracted a certain type of woman, and as a fluid person open to all women, she did not want to pigeonhole herself as one kind of lesbian.
Other queer members, however, chose to focus on their gendered presentation by strategically posting profile photos that elaborated their gendered bodily aesthetic. NotQuitePerfect, who was 32, explained to me that she is queer with “femme” looks, but a “boi personality.” She wanted to be sure that her profile photos were indicative of both her gendered presentation and personality. For NotQuitePefect, “‘butch’ and ‘femme’ were meaningful adjectives” (Eves, 2004) that she drew on to manipulate gender formulations that reflected her own personal meaning. She explained, “Like in terms of feelings, I am boi. I am more dominant, and take the lead … romantic gestures and such things … but I'm femme in terms of how I look.” NotQuitePerfect’s profile photos were extremely feminine. In many of her photos, she was clad in mini skirts, high heels, and had long flowing hair. Yet, her profile narrative suggested the masculine sense of self she described to me. In her profile, she wrote, “I like to take the lead and be in charge. I’m a bossy femme.” Although queer, she drew on labels to describe her physical identity and emotional capacity in a way that was relatable and intelligible to other members. This partitioning of identities allowed queer members to talk about their gendered personalities without having it bound to the gendered implications of butch or femme.
In my interview with DomMe, a 31-year-old PhD candidate, her discomfort with label-specific language to describe her gender persona was immediately apparent. On WL she explained that she found solace in her genderqueer identity largely because of the receptiveness in her progressive offline community. Nevertheless, DomMe said that she felt ostracized on WL because of the relentless questioning by other members: People are all about labels on this site. When I first joined, so many people kept calling me femme to my dismay … I didn’t like want to inscribe myself into a set of practices that felt just as restrictive as being heterosexual to me. But the longer I have been on the site, I have met a lot of people who identify similar to me, and I began to feel that there was enough space for me to claim that identity on here.
DomMe’s boundary work was not only collective, that is, in conjunction with other queer members as validating work, but it was also importantly a stance against heteronormativity. DomMe still wanted to be seen as attractive, but not if it jeopardized her own feelings about heteronormativity and labels. Through the collective identity work of other members, DomMe was able to stay true to her own identity politics, and engage in boundary work that still validated her sexual attraction to women without sacrificing her own identity politics.
Although explicated differently, the profile and collective identity negotiations with other members were critical for Lotus, NoQuitePerfect, and DomMe to illustrate their flexible orientations to gender. Their forms of boundary work highlight the steps queer members take to ensure they are regarded as sexually desirable or attractive to other members, and not to some lurking male. This threat of the male spectre was evident in the chat room exchange between hypnosis and beautifullyme: hypnosis: Why does your profile say you are queer? beautifullyme: Because that is how i identify hypnosis: That’s weird. I have never met a lesbian who said they were queer beautifullyme: nice to meet you too. hypnosis: I just asked a question … you are on a lesbian site duh … sure you aren’t a … beautifullyme: passing judgment … hypnosis: at least I have something to make judgments about. “look” who’s photoless
At the time of this observation, beautifullyme’s profile was sparse—without photos and profile content, except for the drop-down menu selections about her age, race, location, and identity. However, this verbal scrimmage resulted in beautifullyme engaging in boundary work that sought to validate her sex category as female through a lengthy and detailed profile narrative that meticulously elucidated her reasons for joining, what she expected (and would tolerate); a fruitful queer narrative, along with accompanying photos. This boundary work, in turn, facilitated her re-integration into the space without further public sanction from other WL members. Hypnosis’s skepticism also makes salient the symbolic boundaries of exclusion that act as a policing mechanism to reinforce intelligible presentations of lesbian sexuality. In this way, queer members’ boundary work can be understood as an effort to validate their sexual identity and sex category through meticulous profile creation and as a form of resistance work to contest the reliance on gender categories as a way to, instead, present their sexual selves on their own terms.
Conclusion
Contemporary scholarship on lesbian labels, which largely remains relegated to the offline, claims that lesbian identity politics are in flux. Labels have become less important in indicating a sexual preference and therefore they provide more fluid descriptions (Stein, 2010). Online, I found greater room for WL members to identify across multiple points of the “lesbian continuum” (Rich, 1980). However it is the body that served as both a permanent fixture and a creative tool in deciding how flexible members’ use of labels could be.
Labels remain important markers of lesbian sexuality, yet in some cases, bodies matter more than self-proclaimed labels in constituting a desirable identity. That being so, there was an emphasis on the parallel between label use and bodily presentation. In lesbian subculture, this emphasis on bodies is crucial because they “are the vehicles through which [lesbians] express [their] gendered selves” (Halberstam, 1998: 12), while gender is a “cataloguing tool” to impart meaning onto bodies (Butler, 1990: 24). I have shown how members engage in boundary work to manage their gendered presentations to ensure their authenticity and desirability as well as to maintain the clear boundaries of WL’s cultural membership.
Online boundary work, in which identities “inform notions of belonging and community” (Tabatabai, 2010: 565), affects relationship outcomes. Yet members’ boundary work is constrained by the site architecture that requires the use of labels, and at the same time, members have to contend with the speculations and negotiations of others at the micro level. In these negotiations, the body is the central site for producing and policing the use of labels.
On this contemporary online space, femininity prevails as we have seen in the discussion of femme valorization. A queer member’s public persona is preserved if it is feminine in presentation. Butch members lose in the public domain of WL’s chat and forum spaces, but not necessarily in their private communications with desiring members. These findings make clear that lesbian niche sites are not merely particularized courtship services, but are also important discursive and exploratory spaces for identity formation through collaborative practices with other lesbians.
Footnotes
Funding
The author would like to thank the Cota-Robles Fellowship for the support given during the course of this research and writing.