To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Mothers Who Think Sept. 23, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/09/23/girly_girl Give me a dick or give me death! Today I am a femme with an inner soft butch, but as a child, I failed to meet the demands of either gender. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Kera Bolonik Women I know, namely lesbians, are wont to inquire whether I'm a femme top or a soft butch bottom. They ask if I have an inner gay man or an inner straight woman. Do I like straight-acting, straight-appearing dykes, or do I prefer more traditional-looking Sapphists? Never having composed a personal ad, I retort, I possess answers to none of these questions. "Well," these women ask, "what were you like as a little girl?" One thing I'm certain of: I was never a little girl. It is not that I was robbed of a childhood. I was very much a kid, a small one at that. But while other girls my age immersed themselves in play worlds that included rainbows and unicorns, Barbie and baby dolls, kiddy kitchenware and cosmetics, I was drawn to boy toys like "Star Wars" action figures, Matchbox cars, Erector sets and the like. I coveted male privilege. From the age of 4 until I was 10, I actually prayed to God, Santa Claus, "My Favorite Martian," Samantha on "Bewitched" -- anyone who, in my mind, posessed the power to grant me a wish -- for a penis. The boys I knew had license to be kids, to play with games that were designed for children, not adults-in-training. I wanted those games. I longed for those privileges. Give me a dick, was my cry, or give me death. I hated wearing dresses and refused to put barrettes in my short hair to relieve my 'do of its androgyny. I was loath to get my nails painted and would have given anything to trade in my Mary Janes for Chuck Taylors. This fashion choice, though, was in no way indicative of any athletic inclination I may have possessed. As I grew older, my interest in all things "boy" refused to wane. I walked with a swagger, insisted on wearing jeans, sneakers and T-shirts, and kept male company. I prided myself on how often I was mistaken for a boy. Although I was hesitant to do so, I actually had to insist to people that I was, in fact, a girl -- even though that too felt like a lie. By the age of 11, my bravado was starting to try my mother's patience. She felt that my gait resembled that of a truck driver, and despite my compliance in getting my ears pierced two years before, she wasn't appeased. She decided to enroll me in a beginner-level ballet class at the Academy of Movement, along with my hyper-feminine 8-year-old sister, Shana. I'd seen the girls around school who went to the academy. They were in the intermediate and advanced levels, had aspirations to a life of dance and didn't strike me as particularly feminine. When they had ballet after school, the girls would sweep their thin hair back into severe buns perched atop their heads. Their bodies were wiry and lithe. Even the older, puberty-age girls had flat, broad chests, shoulders held back like soldiers and prominent, very strong thighs and calves. While they didn't exactly walk like truck drivers, they did strut like ducks. I didn't understand how emulating these aspiring ballerinas was going to make a girl out of me. These dancers looked like eunuchs. So I fought. I screamed. I even went so far as to cry like a girl. But there was nothing I could do to get out of taking ballet. In addition to my rigorous regimen of Hebrew School on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings, and my sixth-grade homework load, I had to sacrifice my Friday evenings for what my mother referred to as a "lesson in grace." Not that I had an active social life, but a kid likes to have choices, no? I had a very bad feeling about ballet, but the check was already cashed by the Academy of Movement, and money spoke volumes about commitment in our home. The first Friday, we were informed that we had to purchase a uniform that included pink Danskin leotards, pink opaque Danskin tights and pink Capezio ballet slippers. Toward the end of our eight-week session, we would each be presented with our very own complimentary pink tutu for a recital we'd perform before the entire Academy. I surveyed the room. It was filled with 15 7- and 8-year-old girls gasping in delight at the prospect of pinkocity. I turned to my 8-year-old sister on my left. Her eyes were gleeful. To my right sat a big girl who looked a few years older than me. I breathed a discreet sigh of relief that I wasn't the oldest girl in class. But upon closer inspection, I noticed that the girl's glasses were at least an inch thick, her dopey smile, unwavering. When she clapped her hands in joy at the thought of a free tutu, I suspected that she might be retarded. When she turned to me and cackled, my suspicion was confirmed: she had Down's syndrome. When our mother came to pick us up after our lesson, Shana ran to her, excitedly reciting the shopping list of pink things. I remained silent. "So, was it so bad, Kera?" goaded my mother. "I'm not going back there. I am the oldest girl in the class, and I refuse to wear baby pink." Then Shana piped up: "Georgie-Ann is 14!" "See, Kera," retorted my mother, "You're not the oldest." "Mom, Georgie-Ann has Down's syndrome." "Oh." My mother was rendered speechless, if only for a moment. "Well, the class has already been paid for, so you really don't have a choice. At least you can learn something." "Yeah, like you can't get your money back," I muttered. My mother insisted I give it a chance. She was so invested in my pathway to grace she actually tried to convince me that I might enjoy it. She knew nothing of the embarrassment I would endure, passing my middle school classmates in their intermediate- and advanced-hued leotards, while I wore my beginner's pink. I would be voted the official butt of all school jokes. I dreaded my immediate future. As an incentive, my mother offered to register me for softball in the spring if I successfully completed the ballet course. I couldn't recall ever revealing any interest in sports, so the incentive was lost on me. Would it be so bad to return home after school, and just do my homework? Wasn't Hebrew School enough? At first, I complied. I did the pliés and the demi-pliés, learned all of the positions, performed them as well as anyone else in the class. But when I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror, I was mortified. I stood at least 5 inches taller than most of my classmates. I watched my Dorothy Hamill haircut as it bounced in the air. My pink get-up, which gathered in rolls at the ankles and revealed the tangle of my bunched-up cotton panties, was about as graceful as a body cast. And if that feast for the eyes failed to satisfy my hunger for self-consciousness, my gaze found its way to the small window in the door, where I discovered three fellow sixth-graders peering into the classroom, fingers pointing at me, hands covering giggling mouths. This class, and my presence in it, was so "gay" -- in the sixth-grade, misappropriated sense of the word. How was I going to face seven more weeks? And how could I possibly show my face at school on Monday morning? Each week that followed, I devised ways to get out of attending the next class. My mother would not relent. Fine, I thought. I resolved to take the class less seriously. No longer would I try to master beginning ballet. I would resist. I would perform half-heartedly. I would become the class cynic, the reluctant beginning ballerina. This only served to get me paired up with Georgie-Ann. While she was trying in earnest to perfect her movements, I was equally earnest in making mine as clumsy as possible. Together, we became the anti-Fred and Ginger. I took her stunted fingers in my sweaty hands and tried to spot her as best I could, given my new cool and disinterested demeanor. She attempted to return the favor, but more often than not, one if not both of us ended up on the floor. I laughed at the spectacle of it all. My amusement was shared by no one -- not by my seasoned and underpaid teacher, not by the kids in the class and especially not by my younger sister, who looked at me in horror. Only Georgie-Ann laughed along with me. And it was when she laughed that I realized I might literally be dragging her down with me. I had no intention of mocking her -- I was too self-absorbed to mock anyone but myself. I mean, I had a job to do. I had to shame my mother enough to lose hope in me, and get me out of beginning ballet before the recital. It was not to be. The impending performance loomed larger with each passing Friday. The tutus arrived via UPS and were handed out two weeks before the recital. Shana pranced around the kitchen in hers, with her hair wrapped in Princess Leia-style danishes on either side of her head. I put my tutu on for my parents, in an effort to prove how ridiculous my developing body looked swathed in infantile, pre-Lycra, limited-stretch nylon. My mom stood her ground. She insisted that I looked just as she'd hoped. When the night of the recital finally came, my instructor had enough sense to put me in the back row of the stage. I mustered all of my courage to look through, not at, the audience. Sitting behind my parents in the second row were a middle-school classmate from the advanced level and several other girls I sought to avoid. My eyes darted around the room, taking inventory of the audience members who would witness my humiliation. My face alternated between bright fuchsia and deathly white. And we had only just taken our places on the makeshift stage. I don't actually remember what happened during the performance. I can assume that it passed without much ado; I was just relieved that it was over. I sauntered over to my parents after the recital, only to learn that my mother had enrolled Shana and me for another eight-week session, beginning in June, after softball. Shana was promoted to the intermediate level. Georgie-Ann and I would become reacquainted with beginning-level ballet. In a rare instance of consistency, my mother remained true to her promise, and decided that my dedication to ballet rendered me worthy enough to register for the softball league. A small reprieve, or so I initially thought. Here was an activity that required no grace whatsoever. I borrowed my father's Wilson A-2000 mitt. I got to wear sneakers, a polyester mesh baseball cap, a forest green T-shirt, jeans. There was only one problem: I was scared of the ball. I would dodge when it was pitched to me, and run away from it when it was flying toward my glove out in right field. My teammates hated me. My coach tried to teach me to slide between second and third bases, but I was too frightened to risk scraping my thighs. I ran in hesitant leaps, if I remembered to run at all. I flinched at the plate when the ball was pitched to me, even with my batter's helmet protecting me. If I could even achieve a base hit, I was a guaranteed out. I was plagued with nightmares of oversized softballs, wrapped in stiff baseball gloves, bludgeoning me to death. Even as a faux boy, I was Queen of the Sissies. I spent a lot of time on the bench, praying for rain. Ballet proved that I had failed to become a girly girl, but that hadn't troubled me because I knew as much going into it. But my stab at softball demonstrated that I also fell way short of being an adequate tomboy. Where did that leave me? Perhaps this is not a unique quandary of pre-adolescence. But I must confess that this legacy continues to plague me. While my adult body is undoubtedly feminine, with curves and fullness, it belies my utter lack of grace and athletic coordination. In an effort to work with and not against my sex, I wear my curly hair just above my shoulders, and my pouty lips are often slathered in the fine Bobbi Brown products. I boast an impressive clunky-shoe collection, and two pairs of heels. I wear lacy bras, and own an essential black dress. I even have a knack for accessorizing. Yet when I put on a dress, I see myself as a football player in drag. When I stand naked before the mirror, I half-expect to see a small-framed, flat-chested, hipless androgyne. Instead, I am confronted with a strange womanly body, one that apparently belongs to me. I still walk with a slight swagger, but I can also be spotted wearing a Prada knockoff purse. After years of studying gender theory and psychoanalysis and undergoing psychotherapy, I remain at a loss about who or what I am, just as when I was 11. For the sake of personal ads, bar inquisitors, matchmakers and any other interested parties, I will venture to say that I am versatile. In bed, to borrow from the gay lexicon, I am neither a top nor a bottom, but a "side." As an aesthetic, I alternately confess to being femme with an inner soft butch, or perhaps a femme top. I occasionally find that I possess an inner gay man, but am equally inclined to relish my inner straight woman. Like many women, I strive to feel pretty, sexy, captivating and even ravishing, but I also want to feel strong, sexual and in control. And when I was young, I just wanted to be a kid. salon.com | Sept. 23, 1999