12.26.2007

Sex and Romance, pt I

I’m writing about sex because I need to stop ignoring it. The issues that come with sex I can usually ignore until they’re happening, and before I know it, I’m in tears. This is really personal for me, but like I said, I need to figure it out.

Gender was something that I had never actually thought about until two things happened in my life: my close friend came out to me as FTM and I started reading the comic Venus Envy. I had experienced some gender dysphoria previously, but much of it was resolved when I cut my hair at age 16. Come to think of it, this all happened around age 16. Guess it really is a time of coming of age.

I was dating Jim for a while, having come out as bi a year or so before starting to date him, and still very much identifying that way. I guess it bears saying that my identity has been consistently evolving from the moment I first considered it. I suppose that is the trouble with being someone who just doesn’t fit into traditional categories. Anyway, Jim was the first person I had done anything sexual with at all. Being shy, I assumed that my hesitations had to do with that and not any underlying identity problems. Everything went pretty smoothly, from what I remember. I also know I could be blocking out anything that didn’t go smoothly. A good chunk into the relationship, I had developed a crush on a friend, A, that turned out to be mutual, which in turned developed into my first attempt at polyamory. Besides emotional complications involved with dating two people who are not also dating each other, when A and I got into a situation that was a little hot and heavy, I got hit with a brick wall otherwise known as a gender identity crisis. Previously, I remember asking Jim on the phone, “What if I’m transgender?” and him pretty much telling me that it didn’t matter to him and it was only what I made out of it. Well, I suppose this is what I hadn’t expected to run into, that “what if” becoming a top priority.

Although the situation is fuzzy and it doesn’t help that I am ridiculously shy anyway, I remember all the sudden becoming very painfully aware that in this sexual situation, there was something missing. Something that I was supposed to have that wasn’t there. The situation ended awkwardly, nonetheless, not amounting to anything. I am pretty sure that I receded into my head for a bit, ending the relationship and putting a hold on that friendship for a while. I was left with this new realization about myself, though, which I am glad I had while I was still with Jim. With lots of research and little actually talking to people (which was a new thing for me, I used to figure everything out in the public spectrum of blogging…go figure), I figured out that what made things not so apparent with Jim was that there was a lot of projecting going on, at least on my part. With him, there had never been any defined gender roles, and there were exactly one of every part that anyone could want; a flat chest, boobs, a penis, and a vagina. I think that having that situation in an intimate situation is certainly something that I miss, although now I am much better at dealing with myself and my body now than I was back then. Once I realized that I was projecting and that I could, well, I did it a lot more. I finally blogged about it as well as have many conversations with Jim as well as a few with my FTM friend and some other friends as well.

Jim and I broke up eventually and I was left fearing for my romantic future. I was certain that I would never find another that I was physically comfortable with. I had started speaking with A again and a couple months later, was convinced to attend a college drag show. (At this point, I was still a high school senior.) I jumped at the chance to dress up in drag. I had attended a local queer youth dance bound and packing but ended up mostly scared out of my mind of someone finding out. I headed down to the college and A set me up with my next girlfriend, J. J was, well, femme. And hot. And older. And I fell hard and fast. Luckily, she fell for me too. It was a long distance relationship and she shared my ridiculous amount of shyness, so besides our initial make-out, things moved really slow. I was glad of it, but I was really questioning myself. Sometime during the course of dating Jim, I realized that he was the only guy I had ever been attracted to and that I was more likely to like girls, and had changed my outward identification to “lesbian” even though I hate the word and certainly identified at the time as queer and/or genderqueer. I certainly never identified myself as butch, but in dating someone femme, I was suddenly faced with gender roles, something Jim and I had thrown out the window. In the few times that we did things, surprisingly, I initiated them and led the way. I felt like it was my duty, being the masculine one and all.

This brings me to one thing that I have always felt very conflicted about in my identity; I am a bottom. If you look at the way society views dominance, it is considered a masculine trait. If I had to say whether, overall, I felt more masculine or feminine, I definitely feel more masculine although I have trouble relating to both terms for sure. I often wonder how I can be both masculine and submissive. I realize that it is society that has decided that masculine=dominant and that I seem to say “Society says what? Fuck that,” to everything, so why should this be any different?

When thinking about being a top, as I sometimes try (and maybe am getting better at? I don’t know), I always seem to be missing the necessary tools. And aggression. It also doesn’t help that I seem to be the most ridiculously sensitive person ever and it doesn’t take much to overwhelm my sense and turn my muscles into jello. Actually, I don’t think I’ve even figured myself out enough to deal with this particular topic at this time.

I’ve run out of momentum at this time; expect more on this topic. I’ve only scratched the surface and most of this is stuff that I have already talked about before. Why is sex so complicated?

Tell me once again
What's below the surface bleeding
If you've lost your way,
I will take you there

12.23.2007

The Return

I've long ignored my own issues, long enough to have forgotten the password as well as the existence of this blog. Long enough to settle into a weird comfort zone with myself and the conflict of my career and my identity pushed far into the background.

I probably would have continued down this road of pretending everything was okay until something happened. Rather, until someone happened. Through the grace of the never ending web of dyke drama, the girlfriend met someone over the summer who, for lack of a better term, is a lot like me. I don't know what else to say there without going into too much detail. What matters is that I finally have someone to talk to and that I've realized I can't keep running from my life, from who I am.

I also have it good because the girlfriend has some gender issues of her own. I mean, I have somewhat of an ally. Someone who takes care to pay attention to how I feel, to how I want to be seen, to how I want to be treated, to how I want to be touched and where. And that is truly incredible. I'm not sure, however, if I am stable enough in my own gender identity, which for the most part is static, to help her deal with her own fluid gender identity. I am not exactly the person to help because I don't understand wanting to be girly one day and masculine the next. I have trouble dealing with this changing identity and how to deal with it. It present a whole new set of challenges that I don't know if I am in any shape to deal with. I apologize.

This new person (who shall henceforth be denoted with the initial C) can be more of an ally, I think. At least, in a different way. Spending a week with C gave me a really interesting chance to see how the world sees me. C is my height, of similar gender presentation, and similar mannerisms (including the whole valley girl aspect). I was always fascinated watching her talk because it was sometimes akin to looking in a mirror. I was also elated that my mother got to meet her because here was someone else, like me, in my house. I quickly realized, somewhat to my disappointment, that I wasn't seeing C like the world sees C, or like the world sees me, for that matter. I was seeing C through the tainted lense of being in a similar frame of mind.

Last summer, I sat in Jim's driveway and had a conversation with him about gender. It was about how he had fallen into the gender binary and how I was still out at sea. I bring this up because I told him that I had come up with percentages. I'm not even a math person, so I don't know why I bothered putting it in terms like this, but I had come to the conclusion that my gender/sexual identity was 30% lesbian, 40% straight guy (ish), 30% gay guy. The straight guy is in sexuality only, not in personality, thank you. Although I realize the broad generalizations I am making about straight guys being douche-bags, but I don't want to be lumped into that generalization myself. Jim made the observation that, yes, that is 70% male. And of course, this doesn't really quantify my identity in any real way, only in an extremely limiting system that somewhat makes sense to the average joe. It also more applies to the laws of my attraction and not how I act and/or present.

Back to my time with C. After I realized that I wasn't seeing what the world saw, I began to think about what I did see. C emanated male energy, and I am not even one who puts a whole lot of whatever into energies and auras, but there was a definite maleness about her. (I realize that I struggle with pronouns, as I often do about myself, but I am not quite comfortable with gender neutral pronouns; I also realize that if I used them more then I would be more comfortable.) A maleness that I can't quite explain nor address adequately in this post. I, per usual, began to wonder if only she had this maleness. That I was making it up that we were similar. Yeah, we ID'd similarly, but what does that really mean in the long run if she is standing there emanating this energy that I could only aspire to in order to be taken seriously.

We talked on our last night together about this. I confided to her that I was so excited to be around her and to have finally met her and to finally be with someone who was more like me than anyone I had ever met. I sounded like a total fanboy for sure, but I have made it a point lately to tell people how I really feel about them. I think it is important if at times awkward. She seemed to echo the sentiment (at least I remember that, it was two am so hopefully I didn't make it up). I told her that I saw her mostly as a gay man and to my surprise (and excitement!) she said the same about me.

I'm not sure how my girlfriend sees me, but it meant so much to hear someone say that. Instead of someone telling me that the male illusion failed because I was too girly and giggled too much, that I was being seen as I acted. I suppose in response to the first statement of this paragraph, I need to have that conversation. Granted, she knows how to treat me most of the time, but she's never told me how I appear. I've gotten so used to being seen as male until I open my mouth, that I never thought that anyone could see past that.

I have a lot more musings about my adventures in Women's Choir and the ever looming issue of Sex. I'm determined now, with new vigor, to figure myself out in the quietly public forum so that I have a record of it, so that those close to me can read what I can't say aloud, and so that maybe even perfect strangers can have a sense of what lies beyond the binary.

But some day we'll catch a glimpse of eternity
As the world stands still, for a moment
And I guess we will be making history
When we all join hands just to watch the sky