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An irreverent, tender, funny, difficult, sexy narrative, Butch is a Noun
tackles growing up butch and coming out butch, wrestling with it and
embracing it and then wrestling with it some more. Butch is a Noun is a
story of butch in its best moments and its worst, about butch in the context
of femme and butch in the orbit of another butch and butch trying to stand
alone - sometimes bravely and sometimes foolishly, sometimes successfully
and sometimes fatally. In this book that began its life as a popular lecture
by the same title, butch is revealed as a rich, complex, and highly nuanced
gender in its own right.
Written by award-winning playwright and inveterate storyteller S. Bear
Bergman, Butch is a Noun picks up where gender theory leaves off. It makes
butchness accessible to those who are new to the concept, and its finely
observed detail makes gender outlaws of all stripes feel as though they have
come home if home is a place where everyone understands you and approves
of your haircut.
Stark stories of life on the margins and stories of being embraced by
community; rough moments and tender moments and delicious occasions of both;
from girls' clothes to men's underwear and what lies beyond, Butch is a Noun
chronicles the pleasures and dangers of living life outside the gender
binary.
Click here to read "I Know What Butch Is,"
the first chapter of Butch Is A Noun.
Click
here for a video clip of Bear reading "I Know What Butch Is."
Order a signed copy today!
"Bear's poetry of butchness lets us see into facets of gender that usually aren't so transparent. And made me fall in love with butches all over again."
-Carol Queen
author of The Leather Daddy and the Femme and Real Live Nude Girl
"S. Bear Bergman is one of the finest wordsmiths I've had the pleasure to read,
and one of the most gentlemanly butches I've had the pleasure to read about.
Butch Is A Noun is a book that...
a) should be required reading in any gender studies curriculum
b) femmes should read whenever they're feeling unloved, lonely or misunderstood
c) butches should read
d) all of the above.
The answer, of course, is d. Thank you, dear Bear."
-Kate Bornstein
author of Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide
for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws
"Butch is a Noun, and also a brave, whipsmart, and passionately human tour through a portion of the gender/cultural map normally marked 'Here Be Dragons,' to which author S. Bear Bergman is a most insightful, funny, and gracious native guide."
-Hanne Blank
author of Unruly Appetites and Virgin: The Untouched
History
"I'm not sure I can even begin to describe how good Butch Is A Noun is: it's funny, and charming, and substantial - much as I suspect its author is as well. I really can't recommend this book more highly: it made me laugh first, then cry some, think seriously about the world, and by the end I felt I'd been given a great big Bear hug."
-Helen Boyd
author of My Husband Betty
"This sassy essay collection is savvy about the theory of being a butch - about the physicality and the psychology of moving through a world normally divided into this-is-a-boy and this-is-a-girl certainties. For that alone, it's an impressive guide to the emotional and practical intricacies of gender transgression. But the best bits are personal. Some are sexy: about the rush of wrestling, the power of a strap-on, a butch being bottomed. Some are demoralizing: about slurs on the street, snubs while shopping, washroom confusion. Some are instructive: why a pocketknife is the best accessory, how to bind breasts, why boxer briefs make the best undies. Some are melancholy: an apologetic letter to Mom about denying her the fun of girl talk, a pained memory of Dad's explosive anger. Some are comic, such as a butch and a femme signing up for their bridal registry. And one is a really useful pronoun primer: how using "ze" and "hir" takes care of that pesky his/hers, her/him, and he/she rigidity - and, like this book, "opens up a space for a gender that is not man or woman."
-Richard LaBonte
BookMarks
"I wish I could distribute "I Know What Butch Is," the first chapter of S.
Bear Bergman's Butch is a Noun, to everyone: those who don't "believe" in
butches and butch/femme, those who don't understand it, those who think it's
only about fashion, those who think it's mimicking the patriarchy, and those
who get it, embrace it, love it, struggle with it, and are turned on by it.
Here are a few bits from "I Know What Butch Is":
"(B)utches are monosyllabic, until you get to know them, which they
will not allow but want, or will allow and want, or will allow but don't
want, or won't allow and don't want, so you may or may not get to know
them but you should try, or not... Butches are not beginner FTMs, except
that sometimes they are, but it's not a continuum except when it is... Butches
who do those sorts of things either are Real Butches or are Not Real Butches,
depending on who you ask. There, that should be perfectly clear."
This book is illuminating, emotional, thought-provoking, and respectful. Chapters
on gender-neutral pronouns (ze - pronounced zee - in place of she or he, and
hir - pronounced here - instead of her, him, or his), manners, dating, body
image, hair, butch brotherhood, relationships with parents, dealing with femmes,
online flirting, shopping, and mentorship explore the many facets of butch as a
noun, adjective, and verb. Naming a favorite is impossible for me; it changes
each time I flip through the book. Favorites include Taxonomy ("We need to know
about gender so we can know about language") and Foie d' Butch, where ze wishes
for an organ that takes in both the difficult and nourishing parts of being a butch
"and then processes and balances and filters them until we are healthy enough to go on."
But I think the one I'm most impressed by is Border Wars, in which ze tackles
some of the scary questions in the dyke community about butches and FTMs - who
has the right to what terminology? Does "butch flight" exist? What are the
generational differences? From that chapter:
"When people speak admiringly of a butch, what I see is someone who has taken
on the best gendered characteristics of both woman and man, left a lot of the
stuff born of misogyny and heterosexism behind, and walked forward into the
world like that without apology..."
"And they (butches) are grieving, some of them, that after being thrown
out of the women's movement for being too male-identified they are now being
ridiculed or having their identities questioned for being not male-identified enough."
There's a lot of there there in this book. The author's not afraid to roll up hir
sleeves and get in the muck of it all: the fear, the anger, the passion, the loss,
the delight, the benefits, the grief, the discovery, the confusion, and the
certainty. This is the book that had me crying, laughing, and reading aloud
to friends and my lover this month. Check it out."
-Suzanne Corson
Books To Watch Out For
"Butch Is a Noun, by S. Bear Bergman, finally hit the shelves a few weeks ago. Bergman delves into a topic that only few theorists have attempted in very hard-to-read/academic texts: the butch. While Judith Halberstam's work Female Masculinity is an awesome resource for all things butch, Bergman takes these social theories and makes them accessible to anyone whose interested. "Following in Bornstein's footsteps, Bergman explains how butches live outside of the inane gender binary, and how society responds to gender rebellion. Bergman covers all sorts of issues from cocks to hair, to relating with femmes, and your father. It's a great book for anyone who is new to gender theory, or to any butch or femme that wants to read about the possible influences and facets of their own lives. Plus, Bergman's witty style interjected with personal stories is super fun to read."
-Chelsey Clammer
Chill Magazine