thoughts on dykehood

being a dyke, and specifically identifying as a dyke, has 100% to do with my political and historical responsibility. it has maybe 80% to do with the person(s) I choose to sleep with*. bagel and I used to discuss our "percentages," - as in, the percentages of who we are attracted to, like, 90% women, 10% men, or whatever. we were younger and very cut and dry in how we looked at it and there wasn't any awareness of gender ambiguity, but we were 16, so, you know. the point is that even at that age I maintained that I am gay, so maybe I had a boyfriend at a point or two, it didn't change my overwhelming faggoty ways. attraction is fluid, but that doesn't mean I have to find a new identity every 3 months to match that if the one I have already still speaks to me. since when does my identity have to incorporate anyone else?

both historically and currently, dykes have always faced the "you're not a real dyke / lesbian / whatever for the following reasons" argument. it's divisive, heterosexist, sexist, racist, classist, and any other -ist you could think of probably. example: women who were involved in butch-femme dynamics were not seen as "real lesbians" by some because they either wanted to be men (the butches) or wanted to be with one (the femmes). nevermind the oppressive basis of this argument, who was leveling the charge against whom, and the assumptions it made. amber hollibaugh was one of those not-real lesbians who went to lesbian feminist consciousness raising groups by day and the butch-femme bars by night and had to grapple with these accusations. in her oral history, she makes an interesting comment about gay male culture, and why she found liberation in it:

"So I guess the other piece in here that I think is important is gay men were important to me because while they had this extraordinarily explosive and interesting sexual culture, they were not judgmental about each other’s sexual practices... The other thing that I think was really important for me during that period of time was that I kept gay men in my life because they gave me buffer and they didn’t judge me around my sexual desire when the world of women and the women’s culture and the separatist culture was an impossible place to be who I wanted to be sexually. And gay men might not get it, but they didn’t care. If I said I was a lesbian, I was a lesbian, and if I was a lesbian fem, so I was a lesbian fem, you know? I wasn’t inauthentically queer because of my sexual choices. In separatist women’s culture, I was always suspect and so, gay men ended up playing a fundamental role in keeping alive my options sexually, where separatism didn’t."

i'm a dyke, and i'll stay a dyke. it's my gender identity, it's my political identity, my historical context. my relationship history has mostly been with women, but those boys and genderqueers who have made an appearance are not any less of how they identify just for being with me. and i'm not any less of who I am for being with them. and although I ally myself with many different identities and movements, I locate myself politically and personally among the dykes. my activism exists in many different circles, but shit son, I spend most of my energy at the lesbian herstory archives, so anyone who wants to revoke my lesbo membership card cause of my broad attraction can just try to tell me that i'm not a devoted and responsible dyke activist.

maybe if I was lucky enough to be one of those good dykes who is only attracted to female bodied, female identified people, preferably not too boyish cause you know that's just hidden straightness, I wouldn't have to feel the need to answer for my own life. I could waste time and energy pursuing the ladies that I'm supposed to pursue to be the right kind of dyke or I could do me, and then do that person over there if I want to. I could consider myself lucky that people I find hot find me hot too. and consider myself lucky that my attraction spans from high femme shark women to queer pink-wearing bearded boys to tough as nails butches to freckle-faced tomboy girls. I am, after all, a taurus and a hedonist.

I'll probably revisit this soon and tweak it as my personal philosophy evolves. but at the end of days, my little bio up there says i'm a dyke extraordinaire**, and i wear it proudly.

*i'm a social science person, not a mathemagician. whatever.
**seriously. google image search it and my picture is the fourth one.

on being gay and angry

okay seriously. I had no idea that my blog had gotten so weird and cryptic lately (thanks liz). it's easy to slip into a writing style that sounds good because it's mysterious and uses bizarre ways to explain things but it doesn't actually say anything to anyone else, and might as well just be in my paper journal.

so june was pride month. thanks a lot, obama, now I'm fucking exhausted from a whole month of being proud. In three words: drunk, hot, faggoty. I believe these are good things. In addition to that, conversations were had about the in/exclusivity of the nyc dyke march, the evolution of manhattan pride, whether or not it is appropriate to hate straight people, and how hot that-person-over-there is. seriously, my eyeballs fall out of my head whenever a horde of queers gathers. thanks, new york city, for being so damn pretty.

in any case, I was working through my $2 pbr the other night at the metropolitan (god what a gross thing to say. who have I become?), arguing as I am wont to do, and I remember a friend telling me that what I was saying was well-spoken and eloquent, but for the life of me I don't remember what I said. it has been bothering me, and not just because I speak the best when I'm on my way to drunktown. I've been working on living the phrase "the courage of your convictions," and it's so easy to be brave when it comes in a can. I wonder often where the power is in non-intellectual retaliation, also. it takes a certain level of... something (stupidity? bravery? the jury is still out) to yell at the dudes who called you a faggot to suck your dick, and I'm not sure if it does anything other than make me feel better. although if we wanna get all meta about it, I think it also represents a reclamation of space and power that someone like me can say something like that (not to forget the privilege that I'm a young white grrl and the repercussions are likely to be specific to that part of my identity) - maybe it evens the score a little, even if some day I get my ass kicked. people who decide in a split second to start shit most likely don't expect their target to respond, which is why they say it in the first place, but as the great audre lorde said in that ever quotable quote: "your silence will not protect you." I stayed silent most of my life, save my flushed face and gritted teeth, while the jerk in my physics class asked me againandagainandagain how lesbians fuck or if I hate men cause my daddy raped me, and it did me no favors, and taught him no lessons. I'm still angry about that. so I guess if I need to rationalize mouthing off to drunk dudes (I don't), there you have it.

my name is not delilah

but it's close enough.

there's probably a reason for why life happens the way it does, but I can't see it. maybe I need to learn a lesson or maybe I just need to keep being stupid and young. I guess I could call it opportunistic instead of stupid.

oh, the things we sacrifice.

dear bopu

I am writing you a letter now, now that it is too late. a day late and a dollar short, and you could have used the dollar.

I remember living with you on madtom road, and the lilacs and tiny daisies and fat bumblebees across from your house, and the way summertime smells in the vermont countryside. it rains like the seas are falling out of the sky sometimes and everything is green and the air is chewable, but at night it is cool on my skin as I would read and you would drink and the game would play on your little television.

you leant me your car anytime I asked and it was your car I drove when I discovered western massachusetts and fell in love, and your car I drove when I picked up the hairy hitchiker at the general store down the street because he reminded me of what my father must have looked like at his age.

thank you for my father, for the amazing man he is and the amazing father he is to me. I am sure you are at least partially to blame for the softness of his heart and his willingness to fiercely love his only daughter. did you know he cried on the phone today, when he told me the news? that you died in your sleep, hands crossed, finally able to breathe in whatever ether you found yourself?

who will take me to northshire bookstore now, bopu? what will I do with the crystals you used to buy me? the cards, the letters, the books I never read, the books I did read, the jewelry? you bought me my first (and only, so far) pocket watch. I still use the box.

I mourned your death before you died, but now that you are gone I regret. my family is so small, and so scattered, and there are so few that I wish to know, and now that you are gone I am feeling stretched thin already. I will possibly have more to say later, after it hits me that you are truly gone, but maybe then I will just cry.

my emotional house story always goes like this:

oh hello, welcome.
please come in.

sorry about the mess.
the dog chewed on the chair-leg, which then broke, and I just really need to vacuum. I know there are dishes in the sink and I cut my hair in the bathroom and didn't get all of the tiny pieces off of the floor, and then there's the laundry piles and I'm wearing my last clean pair of underwear. and I am down to dried beans and rice, and the trash needs taking out and the recycling needs sorting. please, please ignore the cat hair on the sofa.

but in any case, welcome, sit down.
can i get you something to drink, sugar?

there's a key under the mat.

come by any time at all.

timing

my words for the present are: accountability and integrity.

when I work that the archives, I drink too much coffee that is too acidic for my stomach and it manufactures nervousness. unsettled and hungry, annoyed that pandora radio is following my life so closely.

I have been thinking a lot about texas lately. it is the most beautiful place on earth because it was, and always will be, my home. so much pride, so little perspective. not unlike my life as a 21 year old. I think about the skies, and the fire ants, and the cactus, and the dust in my nose, the hot hot asphalt and dead and dying all around me, the constant film of sweat, and the cold shower after mowing the lawn, and I fall in love over and over again. what a human tendency - to love dearly what is technically painful but undeniably home.

I'll leave it at that.

happy anniversary

a year ago today was the day that I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about you. and here I am, and I still weaken at that look in your eye.