itch.io

Yeah I uh, not to derail and air a whole pile of TMI but, well. Prior to transition I didn't have a huge sex drive, didn't really partner up at all and just 'dealt with it' when it became a nuisance. One of the things I actually felt really divorced from masculinity about was the relentless pursuit of sex, I never understood why people put so much effort into chasing it, at all.  So, months into HRT and between the E and the Spiro the limited sex drive I had really went away and, oddly, I found I didn't really miss it. Which started me wondering if there was a piece I was missing?

Then as my E levels climbed, and I started crying at everything, and blah blah, I found things kicked back in, not so much sexually but I turned into a completely shameless sponge for gooey romance. Discovered via a sudden need to consume slow-burn/fluff fanfic, and any interest in being erotic suddenly turned into a yearning for emotional connection. That this also dovetailed with my orientation doing 360 burnouts in the parking lot, well it didn't help, as it would be 'hella lesbian' on Tuesday followed by 'Okay pretty bi' by Friday, and back again. 

I think nuking away the masculinity that I really struggled with also let me peel away the expectation of being capable of sex without significant emotional attachments, I mean, the few partners I had (as an ostensibly gay AMAB) tended to tell me I was 'clingy' when in retrospect, I feel I wanted more emotional availability that I was capable of getting from them. 

So now everything seems to hinge on my ability to connect with someone before any real sense of wanting to go further kicks in, and it's been hard to stand by that when so often there's this expectation of hookup first, lovey-dovey later when I seem primed to run the opposite direction, as in, cuddle-me-until-I-cry and then I might jump your bones. 

Then doing this all in middle age (43 now) is just, icing on the cake. Somedays...oy. 

But to the point, really after this long winded spiel, is maybe I wasn't allo to begin with and finding more comfort with my existence seemed to let me see what I really wanted. I honestly wonder, too, if walking away from performative masculinity also let me open up to the idea that I didn't need to be 'capable' of completely allosexual performance because while men are expected to be romantic, it's within a somewhat, to me, narrow range of performances. Men lust, women pine, is sort of how I would characterize it, at least, what I internalized. 

Then even within queer spaces, there's sometimes such an undercurrent of sex-as-liberation or as a transgressive performance or what-have-you, and that's not to say I'm not sex-positive, I'm just, positive it doesn't actually matter if you do or don't and sometimes I wish that there would be more inclusive in queer discussions where ace/demi voices are too often either sidelined as 'well you're just repressed' or worse, just ignored as one more roadbump on the highway to aspirational normativity. 

Anyway it's been a freakin' weird mix of learning and un-learning. 

Christ sorry for the essay, thanks for responding and, yeah, again, thanks for putting that piece out there because it is super, super relatable. and vulnerable and just really nice to see.