The Butch Mystique

I am fascinated and delighted that my description of Mary Carillo as "butch" has sparked such an interesting conversation (see Comments under the post Mary Carillo's Gems from the US Open.) Here I am, living my entire adult life in lesbian culture, thinking I know everything about who we are. And thinking that Mary Carillo is the tall gallant epitome of butch. But a few of my darling readers have said, whoa, no, not the case. They say she's more accurately described as "androgynous" or "just Mary" because she occasionally wears pastels and because we have no way of knowing if she is butch-identified. These are very good points. But I do not concede the argument.

First, I want to talk about this comment: "Butchness requires a degree of self-identification, meaning I don't think that you can assume a woman is butch based on superficial characteristics." This is interesting and, to me, a little troubling. Maybe because I came out during the Reagan administration my views on such things are outdated. (Example: I still say "transgendered person" rather than what I've noticed everyone else says, "transgender." When did the shift occur? Beats me. But keep in mind the speed-of-light changes occuring in this realm: My 1993 copy of Stone Butch Blues (purchased at Shakespeare & Co. in NYC in 1994!) uses the term "transgendered" on the back cover blurb. Judith Butler's seminal work Gender Trouble, published in 1990, includes neither "transgendered" nor "transgender.") In any case, here is what I understand about the term "butch" in lesbian culture:

It's an unfortunate and uninformed mistake to view "butch/femme" as simply limited to bedroom roles and—good grief—the heterosexual construct. If we say you can't assume a woman is butch based on superficial characteristics, we are suggesting that butch is something we can't see. Or that it's strictly a sexual behavior rather than an aesthetic. A noun rather than an adjective. It also seems to belie that reliable old chestnut: "Butch on the streets, femme in the sheets," which suggests butch presentation is often just bravado concealing an emotional trainwreck. (Come on, you know there's some truth in it.)

In contrast, I think butch is something you can express when you want to. For some of us, it's diurnal. For others, it's as infrequent as chopping wood. To me, it simply describes traditionally masculine characteristics — bold, brave, macho, robust, strong, strapping, virile — displayed by a woman. Yes, there are the anachronistic "butch/femme" pairings described in Leslie Feinberg's groundbreaking novel Stone Butch Blues, but Feinberg is describing a pre-Stonewall era. Lillian Faderman documents this bygone period thoroughly in Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, and she even establishes that butch/femme roles in the 1950s and 1960s were exclusive to working class lesbians who had no other way of identifying their community. Faderman also points out that wealthy and middle class lesbians "generally rejected" the butch/femme roles and dress codes, which they found "aesthetically repulsive."

I have zero interest in igniting class warfare in the lesbian community. It is also my understanding that lesbian culture has evolved since the '50s and '60s. Yes, we still have our special "stone butches," but I don't think anyone would argue that the terms "butch" and "stone butch" are interchangeable. And these days, wouldn't a woman who seeks to pass as a man or who identifies as a man be described as trans rather than butch? Butch in my mind is inherently lesbian; it is implicit that the person is female. Judith Butler herself has spent her career asserting that sexuality is not linked to gender. And I assume that would include sexual roles assigned to the genderqueer, no? Being butch does not come with a required list of sexual behaviors. But it does more often than not seem to have a correlation with a thick neck.

Mary Carillo's gems from the US Open

I just cannot let these gems go undocumented. The inimitable Mary Carillo is providing color commentary on the women's final of the US Open, and it's just too purple—or should I say lavender. Kim Clijsters of Belgium is dominating Vera Zvonareva of Russia on the court. Let's listen to Mary:

"What do you say when you look into those big blue eyes filled with tears?" Mary asks rhetorically when speaking of Zvonareva's disappointment. "Just kiss her, Mary," was the suggestion at our house.

"We're seeing glistening tennis from the Belgian," Mary said of Clijsters. Oh, my.

If this were not enough, at the conclusion of the match we were treated to Mary running the awards ceremony while speaking in her deep voice and wearing a fine butch pantsuit and Maddowesque lesbian eyewear. Thank you, CBS Sports, for putting our big beloved butch Mary Carillo on the air.

Sapph Gaz Updates!

• Our boi Francesca Schiavone lost in the first round at Wimbledon yesterday. She fell to Russian Vera Dushevina in a grueling 3-hour match. There were high hopes for Schiavone coming off her French Open win a few weeks ago, and she was seeded 5th at Wimbledon. But the transition to grass was too much for her, and the length of the match seemed to take its toll on Schiavone—who turns 30 this week—even though she is considered among the fittest players in women's tennis. "It was a very tough match," she said. "It was different surface, a different feeling to Paris." The defeat is apparently heartbreaking for Mary Carillo in particular, who evidently has a thing for the small hot Italian. Carillo was quoted in Sports Illustrated after Schiavone's win in Paris: "Forza Francesca! So nice to see such emotion, elation. I've always admired Frankie for her fitness—especially those sturdy, highly Italian-looking legs. She walks like the women do in all the mountain villages: quickly, stoutly, resolute. So alive. Boy, I enjoyed that one."
We enjoy you, Mary.

•Over the weekend Tilda Swinton was in the gayest town in America to pick up her award at the 2010 Provincetown International Film Festival.
She told the local press that she was unaware she had won a prize—she thought she was there just to promote her new film I Am Love. She also said she's looking forward to retiring from acting so that she can tend to the chickens on her estate in Scotland. Here she is sampling some of the wicker furniture in Ptown. No word yet if she was spotted at the tea dance.

Mary Carillo, an enigma wrapped in a butch pantsuit...

I've been enjoying watching Mary Carillo at the Olympics, where she's been trading witticisms with Bob Costas and gamely carrying the torch through the most remote stretch of arctic Canada. All these years I just assumed that Mary Carillo, she of deep voice and broad shoulders, was a lesbian. And it's not just because of the aforementioned baritone and athletic build. No, I have something that stops just short of evidence, which is that I saw Mary Carillo—French Open doubles champion and celebrated broadcaster—walking down Commercial Street in Ptown a few summers ago. It was just a few weeks after Wimbledon, and, as you might know, I had spent that fortnight listening to Mary's expansive vocabulary and emotive tendencies. So when I saw her cutting a tall sapphic figure down the gayest street in America, I called out, "Hey Mary, great job at Wimbledon!" and, in response, she smiled and waved.

Considering all this, I was confused, as I so often am in these matters, to recently find out it's not widely known and publicly established that Mary Carillo is a big, fat lesbian. She apparently was married to a man for almost 20 years and has two children. Not that lesbians can't be married with children, but they tend not to be married to men. Of course I know that there are plenty of women who come out late in life. I celebrate that fact. But the thing that confuses me is, why didn't anyone just simply state the obvious earlier in life, such as: "Sir, I'm sorry to tell you this, but your wife is a lesbian." Or, to the woman herself, "Girl, the reason you are having such strong feelings about your [colleague, roommate, best friend, barista] is because you have a crush on her—because you are a lesbian."

Welcome to the party, Mary. No matter how late you arrive, it's good to have you here.