01/11/2004
Boi Crazy
In New York magazine's recent article "Where the Bois Are" by Ariel Levy, the phenomenon of young butch lesbians who prefer to call themselves "bois" is given a thorough analysis.
Says Levy, Being a boi means different things to different people—it’s a fluid identity, and that’s the whole point. Some women who call themselves bois are playing off “boy” in the gay-male S/M sense of the term, as in Daddy/Boy: The boy or boi is the submissive and, in the case of lesbians, has sex with dominant butches (tops). Some of the people who identify as bois are female-to-male transsexuals in various stages of the transition process, ranging from having had top surgery and taking testosterone (“T”) to simply adopting the pronoun he.
Some, like Lissa, date other bois and think of themselves as “fags,” while others only date femmes. And others simply think being a boi means that they are young and cool and probably promiscuous. What all bois have in common is a lack of interest in embodying any kind of girliness, but they are too irreverent to adopt the heavy-duty, highly circumscribed butch role. To them, butch is an identity of the past, a relic from a world of Budweiser and motorcycles gone by.
Confused yet? The concept was new to me too, but what the article fails to mention is that "boi" is a term that the gay male community has co-opted for a while. We've seen it creeping in on AOL screen names and as a term for the type of guys that read and appear in XY and Xodus magazines. It's also evident in personal ads like this one from Craigslist. XY even has a personals section just for gay bois.
Gay men have adopted the term as a way to give off the impression of youth and innocence while still retaining enough of a masculine sensibility to not be considered effeminate. It's the anti-bear. Lesbians seem to have adopted it as a butch alternative to the older stereotype of the football-watching, beer-guzzling bull dyke. Says Levy, "Boihood has nothing to do with earth mothers or sisterhood or herbal tea, and everything to do with being young, hip, “sex positive,” a little masculine, and ready to rock."
Is tomboy pop star Avril Lavigne to blame for all this? Not likely. Her single Sk8er Boi contains lyrics that are distinctly heterosexual. Apparently there are straight bois as well.
So, with the breaking awareness of "boi" as a lesbian label, will young gay men, and those gay men that aspire to be young begin distancing themselves from it? That remains to be seen.
In the meantime, you can order a boi T-shirt here.
Related stories: The (Q)ueer Revolution
Sphere: Related ContentPosted 12:50 PM EST by Andy in Current Affairs | Permalink
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I also noticed that there was no mention of uses of the term outside lesbian culture ... which is kinda weird being that the journalist was writing about this 'new thing that's just happening'.... I was also struck at just how mean some of the 'boiz' comments seemed so be. Might have just been my mood, but I thought, 'wow, this has nothing to do with power relationships ... it's just a blank ticket for being selfish' ... ah...to be young again ... or rather ... to pretend to be young again.
Posted by: Evil Robot | Jan 11, 2004 3:17:40 PM
and if i see any more ads or screen names that say "AnF Boi", I'm gonna barf. Where are all the AE Boiz?
Posted by: brent | Jan 11, 2004 6:02:52 PM
Crap. What to do now?!?
Posted by: BoiFromTroy | Jan 12, 2004 12:17:17 AM
Jimbo (of jimbo.info) once told me the correct collective noun for boi is party. So it's a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, and a party of bois.
Sounds about right.
Posted by: chrisafer | Jan 12, 2004 11:52:29 AM
I've been a Boi for years. Granted I just turned 25 so maybe I should think of a new title anyway. This all reminds me of the time I invented the word "kewl".
Posted by: Jason | Jan 12, 2004 3:42:25 PM
cool site...need to look around more...check out my site!
Posted by: Butch | May 10, 2004 10:31:29 PM
hmm.. this was written in 2004.. i remember first being identified as a boi back in 1995 due to the fact that i was in a relationship with an older woman who was also butch. she was involved in s & m and i was young but taking an interest in it as well.. i believe i was about 15. now the term boi is used as a "cool" term but rarely has anything to do with what it originally was identified with, which was the daddy/boi s & m relationship. interesting to see how people identify with the term boi these days.
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