being a butch, disabled leatherdyke

It's a bit grand to call it the butch mythos but, whatever you name our ideas of what a butch is, manual competency has a lot to do with it. This comes from the working class roots of the butch: being an academic with a tidy barber's trim¹ who can spin off arguments at the drop of a hat isn't the same as being able to fix up an engine or fit a countertop. When everyone has been able to smell the dyke on you since you started school, being able to rely on your own two hands is a necessity.

I think this is part of why butch appeals to me. It's an identity that you do, that is about the marks you leave on the world and the marks it leaves on you. It resists co-option into the Cartesian dualism of identity politics (though it is by no means immune). Butchness demands embodiment.

If only it were that simple.

When I was a kid I was bursting at the seams to volunteer whenever the teacher asked for "strong boys" to help carry some chairs, and filled with rage at the implication only boys could be strong. It didn't matter that I was the shortest and scrawniest, a fact that has never changed. But over the years my body has had ups and downs. There was a period after my ME/CFS diagnosis where I was better, for a while. I played national league basketball for four years, a testament to my sheer stubbornness more than anything else. My muscles ached for longer than everyone else's, it was harder to build strength and I would crash hard after training.

Now I've given up on ever returning to basketball, because I know that kind of exercise makes me sick. I'm extremely weak (which can still be sexy). My goal now is to exercise consistently at all, and survive the winter without giving up the sex and kink and hanging out with friends that make life worth living. While also holding down my part-time job so I can make rent.

Being disabled can make me feel inadequate in general, but it makes me feel like an imposter as a butch. Most of the butch competencies I know of require a physicality I cannot have. It doesn't matter how good I try to be at DIY, I can't practice it with anything close to regularity. I’m probably never going to be able to build up strong broad shoulders or thick sexy arm muscles.

Being frail isn't the only way in which I deviate from the archetype. Yvette once said to me "you're maybe the least stone person I've ever met". This used to make me feel insecure, until another butch in my life reminded me: "Part of being butch is about being in service to your community. The service you're providing just happens to be hole".

Leather is a material that lasts years, if you care for it regularly and properly. That's why leather is devotion: coming back to something over and over to nourish it. It used to be alive just like we are. You take care of leather like yourself, like each other. Leathercare, along with leathercraft, is a skill that can be honed. Every time I hold leather, every time I attend it with my hands, every time I punch a new hole and fit a new rivet, I'm learning something my body will remember.

Leather is a working material, in the sense that it requires ongoing work and in the sense that it has many valuable properties that make it suited to the jobsite. I love the aesthetic of leather, but like other materials I find erotic—webbing, sturdy buckles, heavy chains—the functionality is what really gets me off. It's no wonder that butch and femme fit so well into the world of leather.

I can demolish a dividing wall, or build a bookshelf, but it will put me in bed for hours or more. Some days I can't even lift a plank of wood. But reliably, I can bring down the mallet to punch a hole or close a rivet. Reliably, I can condition my harnesses and jacket and chaps. Reliably, I can care for my boots. It feels hot, but also grounding. I have to make the time to take care of my leather. It's a commitment to both of us, my leather and me. It locates me when the waves threaten to sweep me away.

Learning to craft with leather is a gift to those around me, for I would not persist without them. I've always liked making things with my hands. Making a small gift—for myself, for a friend, for nobody in particular—reminds me that I'm real. Leather is a craft far more accessible to me than woodwork or ceramics or refitting bathrooms, and far more forgiving of my lack of fine precision than embroidery and sewing. Working with leather is a butch competency I can actually inhabit.

I tried to learn to ride a motorbike a few years ago, because I thought it might make getting around the city easier and because it's hot. But my body can't tolerate the heavy protective gear (I'm sure there's high-tech lightweight stuff out there, but I couldn't afford it). So much for my fantasies of tinkering with my ride, greasy with sweat and motor oil. I have a regular bicycle, but I'm rarely well enough to ride it, so I haven't had the chance to learn its care.

But maybe I can take my desire to pick up a spanner or a monkey wrench, and bring it to my rollator. Is it sexy to watch a butch go to work on her own mobility aid at the side of the bar? Would you be turned on seeing the veins pop in the back of my hands as I tune the brakes? Would it be hot to see the muscles in my forearms flex as I purposefully work on each bolt in turn so I can refit the seating bar? And, after I'm done cleaning the metal back to a shine, would you see me differently than when I wheeled my way into the bar?

¹ Not to say that the former can't also be butch, but come on: they're different, and I want to be the latter.