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.