cause i'd rather be discovered nude and tattooed, anyday

You know what I always say, “I just don’t take myself that seriously.” And you know by now that I am filled with bravado. Somewhere inside all of that I’m trying to think more seriously about things that I’ve always felt silly about taking seriously - my gender identity and expression being two of those things.

 

Something I’ve learned in this life I’ve lived so far:

Not taking oneself seriously is often a luxury reserved for those times in life when there is less confrontation.

For me, this is not now. So now I write.

 

For every online community that I join (and there are many),  I have to sit there and fill out the “profile.” And mostly the profile stays the same. And then there is the part of the profile that asks  1) sexual orientation, 2) gender or 3) sex.  Now the “sex” one is easy because I’ve had to do that one my whole life and it’s never occurred to me that I’m anything other than F. Anatomically, female. Great. That one’s done. Except --- (not so quick) my WHOLE life people read my name and still look at me and say, “We need to see Shawn Are you Shawn? Mr. Shawn... Is that really your name? Shawna? Oh someone forgot to put the a” on the end” It goes on and on. And I mean, not that I was traumatized in any way by this kind of stuff, I just think that it caused me to think about gender earlier on. Once my cousin told me that my parents gave me a boys name because really I’m a boy and they were hiding it from me. I would go hide in my closet at night searching for my penis, obviously finding my clit and that was the beginning of a  whooooole other story. For the longest time I thought my clit was my un-grown (that’s actually the word I used in my head) penis and became a source of both pleasure and shame. And really, none of it was traumatic – it all worked itself out and I eventually realized I wasn’t a boy and though I’m sure there was some confusion and leftover shame, I don’t think I was profoundly scarred. And I check the F box.

 

Sexual Orientation. Now this one is tricky sometimes but mostly because of other people. For the longest time I’d choose bi-sexual because I don’t want to be called a liar. Like, when I date a guy for two weeks and then leave him for a girl, I don’t want to hear the whole, “I knew you were gay” I just wanna be able to say, “Look man, I told you.”

Same with the girls but it’s trickier because many girls wouldn’t date me because I called myself bisexual even though I would tell them over and over I’M REALLY A DYKE JUST SOMETIMES… yeah. That one never works. But that one is the truth. And this became the point where I had to take myself seriously. So I thought and thought and took my women’s studies classes (this was before there was gender studies). And finally came to the conclusion that I was a “lesbian identified bisexual woman.” Ugh! If you know me you know I could never say that without laughing and so in my critically rebellious Shawn way I decided to be a label-hater. And I lived as a label-hater for a very long time. Actually until fairly recently. Until ONLINE COMMUNITIES. They want my labels!

 

Really, I could ignore the label boxes. And I did for so long. But then I got to thinking and then I got to thinking some more and then I started dating a woman who very intentionally identifies as “femme” or rather “femmy” because she doesn’t feel like she falls into the typical “femme” category. She and I have had lots of conversations – mostly with me rolling my eyes and ending with me annoyed and grouchy saying, “labels labels labels who needs them?” “I do,” she’d say. “Fine. Have your labels but don’t ask me for mine.” The end. Until – I started to envy that for her, she knew what boxes to check. Not that there is always the option that fits her, but that she KNEW. She had thought about and KNOWS that sometimes the box for her isn’t there, but that there was a box SOMEWHERE. And I started to wish for (NOT A BOX!) a way to explore my own sexuality and gender and gender expression that wasn’t cliché or box-y, or (god forbid) perceived as taking it all seriously.

 

So my exploration became a secret. This has a lot to do with bravado. It also has to do with my not wanting to admit to the other label-haters that I’m questioning my label-hater-ness. “I just wanna know what to put in the fucking box!!!” I’d say.

 

I like the ones that have the boxes that say “queer.” Cause that’s what I am. Funny queer. So that’s my sexual orientation if you wanted to know. I like sex. I like sex with men, I mostly like it with women, I often like it with myself, and I like sex when it’s not sex. I’m a fetisher, and a bdsm(er), and I think all those things count when I’m considering my sexual orientation. I can be equally as turned on my something smooth and metal and shiny as I can by a woman. But it’s not all about sex (so they tell me). So I can say this --  historically and as far into the future that I can tell, I want my primary relationship to be with a woman. For lots of reason that have nothing to do with sex and have everything to do with my gender expression. Queer seems like it can hold all of that. And then some.

 

Gender. This is the hard one. The secret one. Ok. So I ruled out the binaries. But that took a while because I had to think a lot about – well, I can’t really say that I don’t feel like a woman all the time because maybe to feel like a woman means to sometimes feel like a guy – and how would I even know??? And I can’t say I feel like a guy sometimes because how the hell do I know what a guy feels like? So I figured that everyone must feel at times a little bit of both. However, not everyone feels the need to express that.  This all got way over my head, so, like my name, I decided that I am androgynous. There is no box to check for androgynous. And then there is more. There is how I feel inside, how I express that outwardly and then how I am in my relationships. For instance, I have been in relationships where even though I feel pretty androgynous inside, my outward expression was a feminine one because that’s what felt right for that particular relationship. Sometimes I think the counterpoint that goes along with feeling one way and expressing another is very sexy. It creates a sort of tension that erupts in mostly sexy ways that remind me of all the reasons I love burlesque. But anyway – Now I am with a femmy girl and for some reason, it feels like home. My gender = butch-y. Because I can’t be in the box.

 

So why Butch? Because Butch sort of sums up the down-home part of me that I most identify with. It reminds me that I was the only girl in my neighborhood who could jump over (ramp) 4 kids (lying on the ground) with my dirt-bike. The girl with the boys name. The me that built 2 story clubhouses that had all the boys drooling. The me that could cast a line further than my brother and could impress all the boys (and later in life, girls) with my knowledge of boats, motors, mustangs, drag-racing, and oddly, electricity and wires. (my dad is an electrician). The me that insisted on singing full operatic concerts in pant suits even though my teacher said it would earn me less respect. The me that believes that chivalry is not dead and who opens doors, carries the luggage, and picks up the bugs and throws them outside. The me that prefers some boys clothes because they are just more comfortable. This is how I am comfortable and coupled with the social construct of my life (my sexual orientation, my sexuality, my chosen partners, my history, my cultural identity) I do believe “butch” is the term that most suits me. And this is not how it is all the time, but it’s how I’m most comfortable right now. It’s not role play. I am not the “guy” in the relationship. Sometimes I joke around and call it like a country song that I made up, “Like a Good Southern Girl, I want to be a Gentleman.” There’s me, all bravado and there’s my girl, all soft and sweet and tiny and there’s something undeniably attractive to me about knowing that she lets me go on and on acting tough and sometimes even hard and cold and wounded and then there’s all the power and beauty knowing that in an instant, with only a certain look,  I’m jelly in her palm. She’s the strong, sexy, little woman that makes me feel like a little boy found. Little butch found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

on floods, levees, and other things immeasurable

we knew the levees were bullshit. i mean, any person who grew up in new orleans knew that the levee was where you went to make out. the levee has/had nothing to do with safety. (this levee you speak of will betray you). the levee where i would drive with my mom after the orthodontist appointment and eat po-boys and watch the water and she would say, "wow, it seemed like this levee was taller when i was a kid." it was - the levees were sinking. into the lake, into the marsh, into the oily, black mud that stuck between our toes in the boot of the water ski. you get used to it.

floods. i used to like them. wading with my rolled up levis and my bare feet and my aluminum foil. we would make a boat and we would float them until the sewer would suck them down. and then we'd make more. we only had to come inside if there was thunder and lightning. how lucky we were, i thought, that our street made a pool on the humid summer days. and the next street over did too. and so did the next.

when i moved to new england to go to college, everything was crisp and my skin cracked because it's only known humidity. my nose bled. i realized for the first time in my life that i was not brown. i was white under my year round cajun tan. i talked with a drawl and people assumed i was stupid. i went home for christmas and ate red beans and rice and gumbo every day for three weeks. i drove to the levee after a night on bourbon street. sat on the steps and listened to the music coming from the cars and from the bars and i wondered about my high school friends - if they still came to the levee to make out, to get knocked up or if, like me, they had been revelling in dorm room beds and no parents and beer. i also thought about lunches with my mom and the incredible sinking, shrinking levees.

years later, recently, when we were evacuating from new orleans to houston in preparation for katrina, i had a conversation with my brother that went something like this:

me: well, kiss this city goodbye
neil: oh, it'll still be here - you can't kill bad grass
me: well, i didn't say kill. i said flood. i said we'll be swimming back. when's the last time you looked at the levee.
neil: the other day when i was fishing we drove out there - (sad, sad look on his face)
me: yeah. kiss it.
neil: (denial) are you following us? we gotta go now before the traffic gets too bad.
me: (after a fight about whether i was gonna ride out the storm or not) yeah. i'm followin you. i'm not riding in the car with those screamin kids of yours.

we ALL knew. we knew we knew we knew!!! why didn't they just ask US?? we all could have told you the fucking levees were not gonna "function properly" they were half way in the ground for chrissakes. duh!

a few weeks ago - the floods here in the north. i cannot tell you how i felt because i shut it out. i would lie in bed at night and stare at the walls and think a serious, ridiculous thought..."do the floods follow me????" and laugh - as if i have that kind of clout with the gods. i turned it off inside my head - NO MORE TALK ABOUT FLOODS! is all i could hear. she would keep talking about it and i would keep my mind focused on the window or the door. and i would think, "doesn't she know i can't fucking hear one more word about fucking floods??" but it's not her fault. cause she didn't know. because no one knows. no one knows i wake up in cold sweats still surrounded by black, oily water that smells like my room and floating around me are my words on paper and when i go to pick them up them slide between my fingers and disappear. i could not be present for floods. i have my own to deal with.

i flood. my body betrays my mind and gives me away before i am ready. it hasn't always been that way. but now you will wipe me across my leg and on the sheets and there isn't one thing i can hide when you are wiping and i am flooding. it's an unintentional but necessary cliche.
floods. levees. the things that fail us are existential. you can find them in my bed or you can find them in the landscape. universal fears. trite. cheezy. debilitating. betrayal.

i'd like a homeopathic dose of fear - like curing like. so that next time there is a flood, there is also a levee breach along side (me) so that it's not as much about levees failing but more about something bigger than you. and me.

bigger and beautiful-er.