Butch is a Noun

S. Bear Bergman

• Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781551523880
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: LGBT Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Butch is a Noun, published by the now-defunct Suspect Thoughts, was a critical and commercial success when first published in 2006: a funny, insightful manifesto on what it means to be butch. This edition includes a new introduction by the author.

CHAT, OR HOW I LEARNED TO FLIRT, PART 1

MsG: Don’t apologize.

BearSir: Sorry …

BearSir: ::ducking::

MsG: ::thwap::

BearSir: ::backing away slowly::

BearSir: ::sticking out my tongue::

MsG: Sticking out your tongue? Hey now, don’t threaten me with a good time …

BearSir: ::letting my eyes narrow slightly, smiling:: Any day, baby. Any day.

MsG: Oooh …

BearSir: ::leaning a little closer::

BearSir: ::fixing your eyes with mine::

BearSir: ::running my hand through my hair::

BearSir: ::letting one eyebrow creep up slightly:: And I mean that.

MsG: ::breath catching in throat::

BearSir: ::reaching out one finger, running it slowly from your

collarbone up your throat to your chin::

BearSir: ::tipping your chin up to me::

BearSir: ::leaning in closer::

BearSir: ::lips nearly touching::

BearSir: ::softly, full of breath:: Anytime.

MsG: ::melt::

MsG: Oh you …

BearSir: ::big smile::

BearSir: ::tilting my head:: You, too.

MsG: Maybe I’ll have to pack that red dress of mine if I end up in Mass … The heels don’t have straps, though. The dress does

…

BearSir: ::reaching into my pocket, fingering my knife:: Oh, not for long …

BearSir: ::seeing it in a puddle on the floor::

MsG: (Don’tcha know it)

BearSir: Well. ::ducking, looking impishly up at you:: I meant the dress …

MsG: But of course you did …

BearSir: But all things can be arranged ::running my hand through my hair again, smiling at you::

MsG: (My, but it is hot in here, isn’t it?)

BearSir: ::taking off my jacket:: It is, isn’t it?

BearSir: ::rolling up a sleeve::

BearSir: ::dipping into the ice bucket, taking out a piece of ice::

MsG: Eeep!

BearSir: ::tracing it slowly across the back of your hand::

BearSir: ::sliding it up your arm, gently, carefully::

BearSir: ::pressing it into the hollow above your collarbone::

BearSir: ::opening my mouth, releasing my pink tongue::

BearSir: ::slipping the piece of ice into my mouth::

MsG: (3,000 miles away, and yer able to send a shiver up my spine … )

BearSir: ::looking down for a moment, then back up at you::

BearSir: Feeling cooler, now?

MsG: Um …

MsG: Perhaps in one sense, yes … ;-)

BearSir: Well. Good then.

MsG: ::catching breath::

BearSir: ::smiling gently::

YOUR FAITHFUL SERVANT

Let me take that for you. No, kiddo, you don’t have to carry anything, you go right ahead and I’ll just make a couple of trips. Get in the house where it’s warm. It’s not that heavy. I can get it. This is dirty, you don’t want to touch it. I’ll wrestle with it, if you could just get me a towel? Let me drop you off, it’s raining pretty hard. I’ll go get the car. It’s not that cold. Sure, I can help you. Three flights of stairs isn’t that much. You don’t have to take the shuttle, I’ll pick you up. Four a.m. isn’t that early. It’ll give me a good start on the rest of the day. It’ll be nice to have your company. Let me drive. You worked all day. I’ll get this check. No, no, you can get the next one. Did I say that last time? You can leave the tip, how about that. Just tell me what you want to do whenever you decide. Last minute is okay. See if any of the other things you’d rather do work out, and if not it’ll be nice to see you. I don’t mind; I want you to have what you want. Don’t worry about that, I’ll take care of it. Let me make a few calls for you. Hold on, I have the number right here. Did you want me to go with you? I’d be happy to; it’s no trouble at all. Sure, I have time. I always have time for you. Here’s an extra twenty bucks. Pay me back when you can. I don’t want you driving around with no cash at all. Are you cold? Take my coat. No, it’s not bad out. Here, I have an extra sweatshirt in the car. Go ahead and take the last of it. I’m not that hungry today. Call me any time, day or night. I just want you to understand that I’m here for whatever you need. Yup, I can give you directions. Sure, I have stamps. No, baby, that was great, just let me hold you now. Let me run out, it’ll just take a second. I’ll be back before you know it, and then you won’t have to wait until morning. Sure, I’ll look at it right now. It’s no trouble. Sure, I can wait. Just let me know when you’re ready, we can go. Sure, I’ll come over and bring my tools. I don’t mind. Sure, I have time. I always have time for you. Sure, whatever you need. Whatever you need.

Me? I’m all set. Thanks, though.

Don’t make a big show of the presentation—no flourishes, no milady, no preening. You have already spoken volumes about yourself with your ability to produce this item; you are already the only one with any better defense against grief or exsanguination than a crumpled receipt. Take it out and offer it quietly, folded, below her sightline. If there are people around, turn slightly away as you do it.

THE DRAWBRIDGE

I don’t always know when to let down my defenses. Then again, sometimes, I do—and I can’t. The survival skill that kept me safe turns into a barrier that keeps me separate, and I cannot let it come down.

Sometimes we’re talking, and you’re spilling out all of your tenderest secrets like treasure, making yourself naked so that you can be understood because you feel safe with me, because you know I would never betray you. And when you’re finished, when the moment comes for me to respond in kind, I am too afraid. Maybe I tell you something, something that makes you think I’ve let you in but is only the facts, and not the truth.

More likely I stay silent. I leave you alone in your confessions. I tell myself I’m doing it because I want you to feel heard, to feel like this is not misery poker we’re playing, but in my heart I know that the truth is that I am stopped by my own fear of being seen. It feels so dangerous. Sometimes you never notice, but when you do you feel shamed by your sharing and it twists me up inside, but I’m helpless. I can’t go any further.

Sometimes we’re in bed, naked and warm after I have tried my best to give you all the pleasure I can make between my hands, lying quiet and close, and then your hand is on my thigh. You have let me into your body, shown me the rich and beautiful shape of your desire, and you want to offer me the same, but I cannot accept. The chorus in my head that says that no one would really want to touch me, that you are just doing it out of politeness, is so loud that I cannot hear anything else; not my own want, never mind yours. I flinch away without meaning to. I try to explain, or distract you, but I see on your face the sharp ache of rejection and I am powerless to heal it, even though it is not you I am rejecting. My own demons are raging in my body, barbed and bloodthirsty, and you are still the one reaching out to me in this moment and I am pushing your hand away. I can’t go any further.

Sometimes you ask me what I want, what I need, knowing from the look on my face and the shadow behind my eyes that there is something I want so badly. You ask with your gentlest voice, but I continue to lie, continue to deny you; I don’t know how to do this. I am afraid of being a burden to you, a nuisance and a bother, I am afraid that if I ask anything of you I will become more work than I am worth.

I don’t want to be any work to you, just shade and shelter and fruit and fuel without any watering or pruning or feeding required. You know that’s ridiculous, and you tell me so; you remind me that you have never denied me anything I have asked for. You remind me that I have encouraged you a thousand times to tell me the same things, to let me offer you what you need if you’ll only tell me what it is. You’re right, I have, but that seems like my job, not yours. I don’t feel like I am worth the consideration, but you only know it as me refusing you the same trust you have offered to me, and it makes you so sad. But I can’t go any further.

Please understand that I want to. Please understand that I wish I could, in all those moments, please understand that I have never, not one of the times, meant to hurt you. I know I have, and it tears me up inside, and I try to make amends later, but I know the damage is done in the moment. The moment in which I cannot let that drawbridge down, cannot let you come across the moat and into the center of me, so often under siege. The apparatus is rusty from disuse, and I keep meaning to scour it down and oil it, but then I wonder if that’s really a good idea, if I should really be doing things that make me more vulnerable.

I’m trying, I promise. I am learning, I promise. And I know that I have no right in the world to ask you to be patient with me; more patient, since you have already been so kind and I have hurt you so badly in payment for your kindness. But this turns out to be the price of loving me, the toll that my butch self takes on anyone I allow close: a tax of being turned away at the exact moment that you want more than anything else to be let in. I know it isn’t fair of me to ask, that it’s just like asking you to keep sticking your hand in the fire against the possibility that one day, it will miraculously not burn you. The truth is, I need you more than I can ever show. The truth is, I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you turned away.

But don’t. Please, don’t.

DANCING

She and I both know the steps to this dance. But like a merengue or any of the more emphatic Latin dances, it has a beginning vocabulary and then an infinite number of variations, or ways to personalize, sometimes measured in speed, sometimes hand position, sometimes calculated incrementally in infinitesimal degrees of light between partners. I know this every time I meet a femme, every time I make that particular kind of eye contact, and I wonder what she expects of me, what kind of openhipped twist she’s used to putting into her spins, whether she’ll understand a certain kind of pressure on the small of her back as my signal to come in and be dipped, or whether it will make her want to turn again. So much depends, you see, on the previous instructors and partners. Once muscle memory kicks in, those old habits are very hard to break.

So I make an effort then, when I talk about the forms of butch/femme, when I want to speak or write about the mode, to stick to the basics. Gentlemen, open your arms, hold your elbows high, invite the lady into your embrace just so, welcome her but do not grasp her or collect her, merely make a space for her in your dance. Once you have a partner, take a small step forward to make sure you’re both starting on the same foot, and then a small step back to confirm it. Now is the time to be sure your partner is ready to move with you, not later.

Begin with simple movements, an eight count, medium time, something to get your hips in sync, something to show you how much she wants to move with you, take a sixteen if you prefer, no rush. Now, signal and then send her out for a single turn, no hurry, a nice slow one, let her have the full eight count if...