In a great piece called Butches, Lies, and Feminism by Jeanne Cordova out of The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, this story of a butch purse:
I punched my black leather purse into a tighter pillow underneath my head. My purse, whom I lovingly called ‘my yin chromosome,’ had been with me through nearly two decades of the lesbian civil wars. She’d been the butt of much harassment by lesbian-feminists and stone butches who didn’t understand the difference between a butch purse and a femme purse. A butch purse is an only child. Femmes have as many purses as shoes.
I laughed really really hard when I read that, as Betty has more bags and purses stuck into nooks in closets and cabinets and drawers than I can imagine owning in a lifetime. I occasionally go around and with the largest in hand, shove a bunch of the smaller ones into it – one bag-eating bag, as it were. And yes, you guessed it: I have one bag I use daily. I occasionally switch off to a larger bag for when I’m editing a ms, and sometimes I use a tiny pouch of a bag, like when I’m going to a club and don’t want to have to check a larger bag. But mostly I use a bag until it falls apart, and then I go find a new one. If repairs can’t be made, that is.