An edited collection of over twenty essays and fictional works on the theme of butch and femme identities, which seeks to think both creatively and intellectually about the significance of these designations in both lesbian culture and more broadly.

Table of Contents

Loaves and fishes, hotel room, Cherry Smyth; staging the scene - representation of gender and the butch/femme dynamic in contemporary performance, Nina Rapi; on butch identity, Sue Ellen Case; the knowledge of the femme, Heather Findlay; "The Marriage of Heaven y Hielo" (poem), "Sailor" (poem), Gerry Gomez Pearlberg; "Econobox" (prose poem), Linda Smukler; butch types, Judith Halberstam; hairpins and piercings - the making of neo-femme visibility, Lisa Walker; "Alice-Hunting" (fiction), Esther Newton; "femme" femininity and the problematics of masculinity, Lynda Hart; public discourse and the re-closeting of butch/femme lives, Shane Phelan; the hegemonic regulation of butch performance, Anna Marie Smith; untitled fiction, Holly Hughes; Sheila dances with Sheila - a femme-to-femme interview, Lois Weaver; a tale of two Annies, Emma Donaghue; untouchability and vulnerability - stone butchess as emotional style, Ann Cvetkovich; Harlem renaissance's Gladys Bentley and gendered lesbian blues, Laura Harris; theorizing queer butch identity, Liz Crocker; gendered desire and bisexual femme subjectivity, Clare Hemmings; butch in the sheets / femme in the sheets, Sharon Holland; femme to femme - a love story, Clare Whatling; butch and femme contradictions in Greek culture, Nina Rapi; girl talk - femmes in discussion, Catherine Bewley and Louise Carolin.