How this began:

This project started after a particularly harsh week over on Sugarbutch Chronicles, where I ran into a thread on Craigslist with some serious butch-hatred. After a few more posts, and lots of community discussion, I posted a momentary celebration of the butch aesthetic by putting up a photograph of a girl in a tank top.

The response I got from posting this photo was quite positive, and I kept posting more and more butch photos on Sugarbutch, calling them “eye candy.” The point was a bit of objectification for the butch aesthetic, to provide more visual imagery of the identity that I’d been writing about intellectually for about two years.

Eventually, the project expanded to it’s own domain, and includes not only butches, but femmes, butch/femme couples, genderqueers, and all sorts of representations of queer gender. The focus remains on butches and femmes, but is open to anyone to participate.

Mission: Visibility:

Queers are still not equal-class citizens in the eyes of the law, or in most mainstream society’s depictions. But they don’t know who we are.

We’re hot, we’re fierce, we’re vulnerable, we’re beautiful, we’re in love, we’re horribly ugly, we’re scared, we’re tender-hearted, we’re dog mommies and daddies, we’re parents, we’re children, we’re neices and nephews, we’re married, we’re bachelors, we’re rednecks, we’re blue-collar, we’re construction workers, we’re political pundits, we’re musicians, we’re drag performers, we’re community organizers, we’re angry, we’re activists, we’re just us.

Let’s show off who we are. Let’s show those who don’t know what we look like, let’s show off who we love and who we spend our time with, let’s show off our joyous communities and our heartaches and our hardships and our work and our play and our joy.

Let’s celebrate ourselves, just as we are.

Queer Eye Candy started on Sugarbutch Chronicles as a celebration of butch imagery and is still managed by Sinclair Sexsmith, a kinky queer butch top.

Amber is a queer, femme, desk monkey by day, bellydancer and alt lifestyle blogger at Dark Deep Deviant by night. She contributes to to Kinky Sex Link and The Femme’s Guide and co-curates Queer Eye Candy.

Cheree is a queer fat femme living in the sweaty armpit of northern California. A desk jockey by day, she mouths off at The Verbosery, curates Busted Knuckle Photography, gets her art on for Fat Femme Laboratory, and talks to herself (online!) on twitter. Cheree fills “Date Night Thursdays” with photos of awesome queer couples

Denise is a queer, femme, Xicana and a community organizer in Dallas.  She listens to too much pop music and is in love with Beyonce. You can follow her adventures on Twitter.

Tina is also a queer femme who pushes papers around during the day with dreams of someday making independent films (and using that damn film degree!). She blogs at Tina-cious.com, is on the advice panel for The Lesbian Lifestyle, and has been featured on Queer Eye Candy with her handsome wife. Tina heads up the new “Hump Day is for Butches” segment here on QEC. Follow Tina’s escapades on Twitter.