When I was in high school, I spent a semester in France.
Now I know that sounds glamourous. But this wasn’t Paris or Provence or Bretagne… this was a really BORING part of France. A cultural backwater. The butthole of the southern Alps. My schooling was particularly boring. I went to lycee in a big box-like structure with such thin walls that I was sure the howling wind would someday blow it down. Kids had not yet learned the modern conveniences of life, such as showers, toilet paper or liquid soap. Or for that matter, private bathroom stalls where little boys didn’t wander in and bug us. It was a rough life. No one wanted to hang out with a weird American hippy-geek chick who wore purple Indian batik dresses and had a mouthful of braces. For a long time, I just kept myself entertained during my many study halls, by docking up in the library and reading subversive poetry by Gide and Rimbaud.
That was, until I entered the custody of Corrine Girod, a self-professed hippy-hating ska/punk chick who just happened to make an exception for me.
Corrine was definitely the girl my mother would have warned me about, if she were there to warn me about anything. However, she was not, so I was free to feel cautiously fascinated by this wild thing who first bonded with me by rasping, “Hey American girl, write me some American swears on my jeans!” What I noticed first was her smile: huge, fearless, leonine. And her voice. She smoked, but it wasn’t just that. It was the rough voice of a teenage boy in that tenuous moment before he changed into a man. I was immediately drawn into her spell.
Corrine was tough, but she was gorgeous in a haunting, Grace Jones sort of way. Boys secretly wanted her, but were terrified of her. She stood tall and erect as a column, and, looking back, I realize now that some of her beauty came from her mysteriously ambiguous ethnicity. At the time, I never noticed this. I just noticed her skin the color of beaten gold, her icy pale-green eyes with huge lashes, her wide pale lips and dark hair that, under her ever-present black knit cap, was always buzz-cut with a stiff flip of bangs. She always dressed like a boy, and trailed a fascinating aroma of leather, denim, tobacco and pheromones. She never wore makeup or jewelry except for a thick silver ring on her thumb, and when she walked, her stride conveyed a complete confidence and ownership of her body that I rarely see in women.
Corrine started talking to me after class, and soon my study halls started to get a lot more interesting. We used to sneak out to cafés, drink beer, and go to the candy store where she’d nurture me with gifts of gummy worms and chocolates. Part of me was always fascinated by her, and part of me a little afraid, even though there was nothing to be afraid of… she was always sweet to me. We’d feed the pigeons, walk hand in hand (as lots of friends do in France) and talk about life. I didn’t agree with all of her opinions about everything, but I thought she was beautiful, I knew that scorn came more readily to her than affection, and I was flattered that she was so protective and tender toward me. Corrine always encouraged me to challenge authority and stand up for myself, but was always more than happy to do it for me in a pinch—and I was more than happy to let her. Whenever the inevitable annoying male “drageur” would come my way, she would fend them off with such a deft flip the tongue (and sometimes finger, if necessary) that I felt swept away by her chivalry. “Don’t worry,” she’d say, putting her arm around my shoulder, “If these guys bother you, just let me handle it.”
Corrine lived by her wits. She made teachers cry, entertained herself with clever practical jokes, and openly challenged everyone in a way I never dared to do. But she had a soft side. She hated bullies. She yelled at people who hurt animals for fun. She would get murderously outraged about child abuse, and although she could use coarse racial slurs as insults, she was the one to always stick up for the half-Arab girl whom everyone teased because she believed her dad was someday coming back to her from Paris. Corrine used to let that little girl hang out with us all the time at recess, told off the kids who tormented her, and comforted her when she cried. “Cette pauvre gosse,” she’d storm after the kid left. “The world is full of heartless cunts!”
Corrine didn’t reveal this side of herself with everyone; it was a closely guarded secret. I heard it when she talked about her baby brother who was living in Marseilles, whom she missed terribly. I heard it when she talked about her family, whom she loved very much. They sounded like a free-spirited, loving family who was totally out of place here… her parents were divorced, but “toujours amis”, and they gave her a lot of freedom. When Corrine talked to me, she always said, “I don’t know why, but I like you a lot. You’re so sweet. You’re different than the other people around here. Are all Americans like you?”, which made me laugh, because I hardly considered myself a typical American in any way.
When I returned home after my exchange, I never forgot her. She was probably the one person whom I most connected with, the one gold thread that wove incoherent strands of foreignness together into a warm fabric of meaning. Even though even at that age I was already becoming aware of liking girls, it was a subtle and uncomfortable awareness, like the feeling of a wedgie you can’t remove in public without attracting snickers.
I went back to France year later with my high school class, striking out on my own the last part of the trip. On the day I was about to go back to the airport, I felt the nagging urge to go back to the café Corrine and I had spent so many truant afternoons. Maybe, while stopping in this town to visit my host family once more, I thought I might find her there. And maybe on that same day, she was thinking the same thing.
Looking back, I still think it was a miracle, but there she was. She had on the same worn bomber jacket and the same black skullcap. We hugged so hard she swept me into the air and swirled me around. She was completely surprised to see me; she didn’t even know I was in France, as I had lost her address (and regretted it terribly). We walked all day as we used to, talking at fever-pitch, visiting our old haunts and joking about her latest antics. We talked about politics, punk rock and art, exchanging dirty jokes as we always did. I had to catch a plane that night, which we tried not to think about as we caught up with old times. Our day had been pure bliss, an amazing surprise. We weren’t able to spend more time together, but I spent the last hour in Corrine’s arms on a park bench, with her holding me tenderly and telling me that she’d thought about me a lot after I’d left, and had always missed me. We talked about what could have been, but knew it was impossible… we lived on different continents, we had no money of our own. We both cried when I got on the bus to leave that town for the last time. We kissed, but it was very innocent and discreet; I think even she was conscious of being stared at. It wasn’t the kind of kiss we wanted, but it had to be enough. If it was more, I would have missed my plane and been stuck in the middle of this town forever. I went home, and got caught up with my life. We wrote each other a few times, but it was never the same reading her letters. She was a majestic person, the kind you had to see face to face, not read in sexually frustrated, inky scrawls on graph paper. And I never saw her again.
I was thinking about Corrine the other day as I do from time to time. Corrine was not the first, but maybe the first reciprocated, of many crushes on beautifully androgynous women. These crushes… on teachers, classmates, celebrities, co-workers… have shaped my identity as a woman, strengthened me, helped me find my power. It’s by no means an exclusive sort of attraction. I’ve liked many different kinds of people, on just about all hues of the gender spectrum. But, to be honest, I have a really huge thing for women who dare to walk the edge of what society calls “female.” Women who look aggressively, unapologetically QUEER. Women you’d NEVER see on a “girls4girls” site.
This isn’t something I can ever just throw away. It is a part of myself that I don’t deny, even at the times it’s been dormant, or I’ve been male-partnered. It is something I think is deep, and a treasure to me… something which teaches me constantly about the nature of gender, about myself, about the journey of the human soul.
What is butchness?
Well, for one: it’s a term of convenience which I’m exploiting right now. Ironically, I’m not crazy about the word “butch” and I know my delightfully androgynous sweetheart does not identify as such. It’s a generalized term here. It gets its point across. I can’t think of another word with quite the monosyllabic, subverted-stigma clout as “butch.” It has history, it’s controversial, it’s not flattering or politically correct. I am using this term specifically to show that while I also love the more subtle androgynous aspects in women—feyness, cute boyishness, a gayish flamboyance or the ascetic innocence of a monk, I don’t stop there. Give me the B-word in all caps. All those extreme stereotypes. The diesel dyke, the rebel punk, the crowd-parting “militant queer,” the nascent transman, the stone butch. I’m there. I don’t think there is any gender in the world that is more ridiculed and maligned than “butch” women… very effeminate men get the affection of women and some gay men, at least, while butch women are just seen as ugly, aggressive freaks. And I don’t believe women should feel apologetic for looking or acting the way we believe men are “supposed to.” It’s just another way of being, that’s all. And I happen to find it hot.
The things that most fascinated me about Corrine were the subtle juxtapositions, the incongruities. The feel of her scalp after she shaved her head (she always let me touch it). The way her long lashes and pale green eyes stood out against her stoic jawline. Her salty leather and denim scent… like boys, but not quite; there was a heady edge of girl in it. Could I picture her as a boy? Maybe. Sort of. But why? I didn’t want a substitute boy. I loved her woman’s body, her woman’s eyes, her woman’s heart. I loved the fear I felt when we’d change at gym, knowing that I’d be unable to avoid sneaking glimpses of her statuesque, gilded nakedness that made my breath catch in my throat. No matter how many times I saw her this way, each time it delighted and scared the shit out of me anew. The adrenaline rush was confusing. It wasn’t simply a matter of not wanting to stare, or feeling confused about my sexuality. It was simply the confusion of seeing breasts, these soft, vulnerable things that make milk for the young of our species, on such a badass being. But it was a delicious sort of confusion. It felt strange, but intriguing. And it was also simply the shock of seeing something so exquisite and forbidden, it felt surreal. Sometimes, years later, I wondered if our changing together was a dream. Did I dream up, also, the time that another girl giggled that I was Corrine’s lover because I was staring, and I, mortified, went into the bathroom to finish changing? Or, as often happens with me, was there more between us that I made myself forget? My mind is painfully efficient at erasing difficult memories, sometimes.
For me, butch is not an affectation as some believe, but an internal reality. One that is hard to define, but I recognize it when I feel it near me. It’s not just a tough attitude, which a femmey woman can adopt to protect herself. Nor a show of cheap, control-freak pseudo-masculinity, which I personally find creepy. If I want a man, I’ll find one, thank you very much. Nor will I let anyone with a bossy attitude get inside my heart. To me, butch is all about chivalry. It’s about courtly love, courage, honor. It’s about power, but also giving and surrendering to the higher power of a woman’s love. And while I’ll never say that a man is incapable of all these lofty qualities, somehow they just feel different to me—more intimate, coming from another woman. Women, including “butch” women, can access a deep, primordial source of power that’s very different from, and more intense in many ways than a man’s power. I always loved Ripley in Aliens, for example. She is so powerful, such a warrior. But she has this intense maternal instinct, this tenderness with the child. Her anger at the aliens is strengthened by her love for little Newt. She neglects no details in her care for the child: the first thing she asks the terrified child, is the name of her doll. This combination to me is so intoxicating. Yet she can also look monstrous aliens in the eye and yell, “YOU BITCH!” as she slaughters them, and take down a corrupt government project all by herself. But it’s not just about power… femmes and straight women can be very powerful as well.
It’s more than that. Butch is a woman who rides the horse of her anima with impeccable grace and courage, even if her hands sometimes tremble on the reins.
Butch women remind me that women contain every human trait imaginable, that all archetypes of females exist, from warrior to queen to submissive wife and everything in between. They remind me that women stem from the double X chromosome… the original, not the variant, of material energy. The Bhagavad Gita states that all matter is actually feminine in nature (prakrti, or “enjoyed”… also a part of God, of course) while God (as person) is the only REAL, TRUE masculine force in the universe (isvara… or “enjoyer/controller”). So in reality, masculine appearance of an entity is only an illusion, a heightened state of maya or delusion about one’s actual cosmic position. In the material world, the female state of incarnateness is closer to its primordial spiritual state than that of the male.
The “butch” (for lack of a more encompassing word) woman to me is like that moment when X decided to branch out and become Y. To be different, to explore Otherness. To break free of the matrix and begin the long and lonely journey of the soul. In a woman who is born butch, who carries that with her, I see the complex, faltering beauty and aloneness of that moment. And it moves me. I honor, celebrate and adore the women with the audacity to keep their sanity in a society that tells them at every turn, that their power is ugly and threatening. I honor all the many subtle manifestations of gender, and have a soft spot in my heart for this particular wavelength.
© Sarah Noack 2009
