Last week, I mentioned that my Fourth of July would be dyketastic. The plan was that me, my DGF (dear girlfriend), my DXH (dear ex-husband), his DGF, and R & J (a very nice butch-femme lesbian couple) would go backpacking. My acquiescence to the plan was a Big Deal, as I have zero desire to camp. Yes, this makes me a bad lesbian. My objections to camping are fivefold:
My DXH loves camping, and tried (without success) to persuade me to camp while we were married. My DGF also loves camping. Now that they are friends and we all hang out happily, it was only a matter of time before they conspired to drag me into the wilderness. Now, let's be clear: I like nature. Indeed, I spend quite a bit of time in it. But I also like bookstores and coffee shops, and I don't feel compelled to sleep in either of those places. They are places for visiting, not temporarily relocating, and I feel that forests occupy the same category. Anyhow, the DXH and DGF persuaded me to try a one-night backpacking trip. I was secretly hoping to like it enough to do it in the future, because it would make me seem dashingly rugged while providing me with new excuses to go to REI. Also, I wanted to use my pocket knife. Loading heaps of our belongings into giant backpacks for a one-night stay felt a little absurd, but as we scaled the two-mile uphill trail to the campsite, I found myself enjoying it. We arrived and set up camp. (Admittedly, I had a short "OMG WTF my life is so strange" moment upon pitching a tent ten feet from my ex-husband's, but then I realized how awesome it is that he and I are such good friends, that the disparate parts of my life are so integrated, and BLAH BLAH BLAH.) My DXH's DGF consulted a map and suggested we hike to the nearest body of water. The farthest I'd previously hiked was six miles, and this would add up to nine or ten, but--butch that I am--I stayed silent and tried to exude "I'm cool with whatever, 'cause I'm so tough" vibes. A mile into the hike, the back of my neck began to itch. After another half mile, my thighs itched. Then my arms and face. Two miles in, my throat started to feel funny, and another half mile later, I asked my DGF to examine the back of my neck--which, it turned out, had sprouted giant hives. Meanwhile, R (the butch in the aforementioned butch-femme duo) was having other allergic reactions: sneezing, congestion, and a swollen face. (My DXH commented that two out of three butch lesbians were apparently allergic to local flora.) I had never had a reaction like that, and--truth be told--I was a little worried. But going back at that point seemed silly, since we were nearly there. I grew increasingly miserable. Little hives sprouted on my arms and I itched all over. I quietly braced myself for anaphylaxis. (R had an EpiPen, so I was semi-confident that death was not imminent.) Eventually, we passed a campsite and accepted Benadryl from some kind strangers. R and I still felt lousy, but at least our symptoms stopped getting worse. When we reached the water's edge, I sat and reflected upon several important things, namely: (1) how in God's name would I hike four more miles? and: (2) would I finally get to use my pocket knife? Meanwhile, my DGF had approached the water. She stepped in with one foot, then--in response to its chill, turned around quickly and started to run back to shore. Only... she didn't get far. She was suddenly limping, then her calf gave out. Luckily, one of my DXH's DGF's talents is medical expertise, and she quickly determined that it was a muscle tear. My girlfriend was no longer ambulatory, and we were four miles from our campsite. This, I thought, did not bode well. It soon became clear that my DGF wouldn't be hiking back to the campsite. The map showed a parking lot a mile and a half away. We figured we'd try to hitch a ride to my car, drop my DGF there, hike back up to the campsite, then I'd pack our stuff and hike back down and drive home. (Admittedly, this prospect had perks: I'd get to be super butch AND not have to deal with the actual "camping" part of camping.) The six of us made our way toward the parking lot. R and J ran up ahead to begin assessing the generosity of strangers. But they soon returned with an armed federal ranger. The ranger asked my DGF lots of questions and made notes on a pad of paper. He also shared the freeze-dried ice cream that R had cleverly brought along. My DGF flirted shamelessly with the ranger (in her defense, he was in uniform), who seemed startled and flattered at the attention he was garnering from our little group (half of which, I'll remind you, was butch lesbians). Our ranger called another ranger, who arrived in a white ATV. My DGF and I got in, but the others weren't allowed to come (some nonsense about "seatbelts"). We said our goodbyes, then my DGF and I peppered Ranger #2 with questions as he drove us back to our campsite: Why did he have two giant guns in a locked cage next to the passenger seat? (A: "Because you never know who you'll be dealing with.") Was the pay reasonable? (A: "We get paid in sunsets.") Had he ever seen a mountain lion? (A: No, and he sounded sad about it.) What was the most dangerous situation he'd ever been in? (A: Raiding illegal marijuana fields.) Did people ever try to live in the woods permanently? (A: Yes.) Who does that? (A: "Crazy people.") At the campsite, Ranger #2 told my DGF to stay in the car, and told me to pack up fast while he "checked out" nearby campsites. As I have mentioned, I am not much of a camper. I hadn't broken down a tent in at least 12 years. Picture a stereotypical prissy gay man trying to break down a tent. Then double his confusion and give him a pocket knife, a small hammer, and some zip-off cargo pants. That was me. I managed to get the task done with only one serious injury (a large cut/blood blister on my left thumb). When the ranger returned, we loaded in the bags and he drove us back to my car. On the drive home, my DGF and I stopped at an excellent Italian restaurant. We were dirty, sweaty, and my DGF couldn't walk, but we had a great meal and spent a lot of it laughing. It occurred to both of us that my DGF's injury may have saved me from midnight anaphylaxis, and also that it was a little pathetic that two butch lesbians couldn't make it through a one-night camping trip. So there you have it, friends: I tried camping. "Dyketastic?" Maybe not. But I've concluded that camping isn't half bad--as long as it doesn't involve sleeping on the ground, and it ends with some great Italian food, a drive home, and a nice, hot shower.
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Ah, straight girls... Nearly all of my butch friends have an anecdote or two about dating straight women, trying to date straight women, or straight women trying to date *them*. So when I received the following [edited] email from a BW reader, I decided it was time for an entry about the topic:
Hey there. I am really bad at telling if a girl is straight or gay. I've hung out with this girl a few times and I want to ask her out. She doesn't have a boyfriend. Should I try to date her if she's straight? LOTS of complications packed into that email, no? In no particular order, here is my (admittedly scant) wisdom on straight women and butches:
I cannot, however, speak to is how straight women respond to dating trans men. I know a handful of trans men-straight women couples who seem to be dating without incident. If any readers want to speak to this (or anything else I've left out), please comment! One of my favorite butches, M, is moving halfway across the country, and her impending departure has affected me waaay more than I would have predicted. On the surface, it’s no big deal: she’s in a sort of supervisory position over me, and though we’re friendly and have a similar sense of humor, we hang out socially only on occasion.
And yet, the idea of facing work without M there is startlingly depressing, and I have been surprised at the depth of my reaction. I’m not the only out lesbian in my workplace, but I'll now be the only non-gender-conforming person there. And where I work, lack of conformity to gender norms is a bigger deal than sexual orientation.* No one blinks upon learning you're a dyke, but give a presentation in a tie and you'll get double-takes. In fact, my current supervisor (a terrific person--and a lesbian I wouldn’t describe as femme, but who’s gender-conforming at work) has essentially told me I’ll never reach a position of power in my field if I keep dressing like a dude. Partly for these reasons, M has become very important to me.** It's been nice not being the only chick in men's clothes. But it goes beyond physical appearance. M is a kickass woman with loads of charm and masculine energy. She offers a model for skilfully negotiating professional spaces while being gender-nonconforming. M claims she doesn't think about gender much, and I doubt she identifies as butch (though, trust me, you'd categorize her that way). But by being who she is, she has made my life better.*** Stuart Dybek has a line in the story "Pet Milk" where he talks about "missing someone you're still with." That's how I've been feeling about M the past few weeks. There's a kind of premature loneliness that now hits me every time I walk into work. I'm going to miss her. A lot. Has anyone out there experienced something similar? * I know it's not this way everywhere, and I'm certainly not denying that feminine-presenting queer women face their own set of struggles! ** Goodness knows what I'll do if C and her wife ever move. Geez. Butch buddies are so important! *** I'm getting a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. For some queer women, “butch” means short hair and sensible shoes. For others, it means sexual dominance. For still others, it’s an attitude or a way of life. To paraphrase former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous take on pornography, the collective wisdom on defining butchness can be boiled down no further than: “I know it when I see it.” So why bother to identify as “butch” at all if there are so many possible definitions?
My DGF argues that it’s pointless to label one's self (ironic that she’s dating someone whose blog does exactly that, eh?), but I disagree. When I first came out, I was scared of the word "butch." I thought it meant that I wanted to be a man (I don’t), or that I could fix cars (I can’t), or that I’m attracted to femmes (I’m not). But since then, I’ve come to embrace the word "butch." Here are five reasons why: 1. Identifying as butch made me feel less deviant. Instead of seeing myself as "failing" at being a woman, I could see myself "succeeding" at being a different kind of woman. I could finally put a name to my collection of “defects”: wearing cargo pants, feeling like an alien every time I opened a women’s magazine, or finding it inexplicably crucial that I learn to tie a tie. Viewed through this lens, countless moments of frustration and discomfort suddenly made sense. Before identifying as butch, I had a collection of random dots; when I connected them, they finally made a picture. 2. I wasn’t alone. Putting a name to my masculine-of-center femininity allowed me to identify others with similar traits--most importantly, to find others whose experiences echoed mine. In some fundamental respect, there were people like me. Even before I had butch buddies of my own, simply knowing that other butches existed made me feel less alone. 3. It helped develop my fashion sense. Wearing women’s clothes made me feel like I was in drag. This was part of the "defectiveness" I mention above; I just wasn't "doing" attractiveness properly. But "butch" put a name to my style and categorized me as a possible recipient of others' sexual interest (though not my DXH's) even if I dressed as I wanted to! Clothes became a source of fun rather than frustration once I realized I could be myself and look attractive in some recognized "sense" (albeit not a conventional one). These days, I even enjoy shopping with my girlier female friends for their clothes, because I feel zero pressure to look like them. 4. It helped me define my attraction to others. I spent a long time believing that if I wasn’t attracted to “feminine” women, I couldn’t be a lesbian. If Rachel Maddow made me swoon, but Rachel McAdams left me cold, I was attracted to masculine people... So, I reasoned, I was actually straight. (This reasoning may strike some of you as silly, but I performed all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince myself I wasn’t gay.) Recognizing “butch” as a category showed me that there was a common denominator among the objects of my attraction. Yes, I was attracted to women--specifically, women of a certain type. This helped me come to terms with my sexual orientation. 5. It gave me a useful vocabulary. "Butch" is a great shorthand to express the idea of "a chick who looks sort of, but not really, like a dude," which was frequently something I wanted to express. The term also came with useful attendant vocabulary, such as "bro date" (hanging out with a platonic buddy who also sort of, but not really, looks like a dude), "boi" (a queer woman who looks like a gay male high schooler) and "soft butch" (somewhere between androgynous and butch, which I studiously practiced through online use of the phrase, "soft butch seeks same"). Theoretically, I didn't need to identify as "butch" to accomplish any of this. And maybe if I had been more confident, I wouldn't have. But we are social creatures, and the word "butch" validated aspects of me that had never felt valid. Ironically, putting a label on myself was pretty darn liberating. You can have straight buddies, trans buddies, tall buddies, and small buddies. But you definitely need some butch buddies. There's a unique, comforting tenor to my relationships with my butch friends that I just can't get anywhere else.
See, butch buddies share some cultural commonalities. Other butches know what it's like to be called "sir" at a coffee shop, have experienced the indignity of wearing a bridesmaid's dress, have struggled over whether to wear a tie to a job interview, and have lived through near-flat-top experiences at the local barber shop. It's important to have people with whom you can bond (and laugh) about this kind of stuff. Sure, you're not going to be friends with some chick just because of your shared affinity for Axe deodorant. But if you DON'T have a trusted cadre of butch buds, seek 'em out--they can be useful in a multitude of situations:
Each of my friends fills an important role in my life, but I know I'd feel a peculiar loneliness without butch buddies--one that stems from having a part of yourself that no one else can really "get." |
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