It’s not about the fact that they look like pre-teen boys. The only reason they look like pre-teen boys is because they’re women and don’t have much testosterone, and so when you hide their feminine characteristics they look…like pre-teen boys. The clothing choices are generally closer to a skater look than anything else, and if young boys happen to dress that way too, well all right then. But the point isn’t to look like a particular age group of male. It’s a particular masculine style. I haven’t seen many pre-teen boys dressing this way myself, but lots in the 14-21 age range. Some of the quirks that might seem more childish to some–such as cartoon shirts and such–are, in my experience, the result of that particular boi channeling a bit more femininity or playfulness than most.
As for why, if you asked ten bois why they do it you’d get eleven different answers. Some are transgendered and don’t want to have surgery, as SRS is generally pretty unsatisfying for FTMs. Some are genderqueer and just like it. Some are butch lesbians. Some just like the way it looks.
And those who lust for it? Well, it’s pretty hard to explain why you lust for something. Why do some men like large breasts? Why do some women find men with chest hair attractive? I’m not a lesbian, but I find it to be an incredibly sexy look. Wearing male clothing just seems to heighten feminine beauty to my eyes by contrast. It also does create a more youthful look, since even a woman in her thirties can pass for a young man, but it’s not about them looking like kids. Plenty of androgynously attractice male pop stars have also sported looks that one might be able to claim as “pre-teen”, but I sincerely doubt every fan of N’Sync was a pedophile.
That’s a quote from an older woman who isn’t part of the subculture, though, and it really doesn’t jive with my personal experiences. She’s making a snide remark on someone’s attitude–someone to whom she didn’t even speak. It’s easy to say someone is “acting like a kid” or looking like one when you’re ten or more years older than that person and dislike what they’re doing. It’s an easy put-down.
Honestly, the masculine-identified lesbians out there that dress this way are so far from “little boy” in attitude this is silly. I’m baffled that baggy jeans and baseball caps are being associated with children, when I see male college students and older wearing this exact same stuff. It’s pretty typically adolescent, but it’s most definitely not exclusively pre-teen. The pre-teens who dress that way are trying to dress like their older siblings, not vice versa. Someone in his or her twenties dressing like a somewhat immature person in his or her twenties is hardly new.
There is a subset among lesbians who dress in as unfeminine a manner as possible. They do so more to avoid the interest of heterosexual men than to attract anyone. There is also a very strong bond among women who display this avoidance behavior and another subset among lesbians who find stereotypical femininity very effective in attracting the interest of those in the first described subset.
Pedophilia is not really a part of it at all, in the overwhelming number of cases. It’s just a variation on cruisin’ in a not quite as hidden as we like to pretend private world among the norms. There is also a community specific tendency to ride a metaphor into the ground, and then beat the dead horse until exhausted.
I thought that was probably the case. Thanks for answering.
That makes sense. I shouldn’t assume everyone’s attractions are based on looks alone.
That also makes sense. I didn’t realize that the attraction was more complex than simply the way someone looks.
Thinking about what I find attractive in a man, I realize that I like the “softer” (but not pretty) types. Every guy I’ve ever dated has been a little bit overweight and had a slightly receding hairline. I detest large muscles and I’m indifferent toward six-packs. I prefer a dorkier sort of guy who’s sweet and has kind eyes to one who is very masculine.
So I assume that’s similar to a lesbian being attracted to a butch woman. That’s another question. Is “butch” derogatory is a hetrosexual person says it, as the word “dyke” is?
It really depends on the person in question, and I’d suggest not using it unless she’s used it to describe herself first. It can be a really touchy subject, especially considering that there are some women out there that reject the whole butch/femme thing entirely and would get pretty annoyed with having such a term applied at all
Some years back, I had a girlfriend who insisted on calling me butch. Now, considering that I have romance novel heroine hair and am, in general, pretty girly this was odd. She also called her other girlfriend butch–a girl so petite that she was essentially a pair of breasts and a head, who seemed to wake up in the morning with her makeup already applied. The fact that our girlfriend was a kickboxer who wore men’s clothing and delighted in converting the straight girls, yet she called us the butch ones, was pretty odd, but it came out of a place of personal discomfort with her own femininity or lack thereof.
That girl probably would’ve decked somebody–straight, bi, or gay–if s/he called her butch.
As I said upthread, I had lesbian acquaintences. In other words, they were for the most part, friends of friends that became my drinking buddies, but never had the opportunity to become close enough that I would ask personal questions–because of the group dynamic.
The closest one girl and I came to being friends was crashing at her house after drinking and eating mac and cheese and playing Nintendo. She was pretty cool. The first time I met her, she tested me by trying to freak me out with just how gay she could be. Sort of making suggestive comments and pretending to hit on me, but when I wouldn’t take the bait, she decided I was cool enough to drink with.