Sex, please!
I’ve had a link sitting in my ‘To Write About’ folder for a while: Reclaiming trans sexualities: A personal manifesto of sorts, from over at Questioning Transphobia. I’ve been wanting to respond to it, but haven’t been sure where to start. The post itself talks about the tangled relationship between the sexual and the political for many trans people:
When I began talking [about what I liked doing, sexually] I didn’t discuss the things lovers have done I’ve really liked or dynamics which I find hot, instead I found myself explaining my sometimes difficult relationship with cissexual queer women as a group and as individuals, the fucked-up attitudes about trans women I’ve encountered in various communities, the mistrust I have because of the history trans women have with cissexual queers – all of the things I write about and do activism on which intersect with sex, but I had nothing to say about the actual sex I have or would like to have. I stopped myself and apologized for not answering the question, then sat back to consider this sudden disheartening awareness of how deeply my sexuality is entangled with the politics in which I am active.
This spoke to me because of what I’ve felt recently as an uphill climb toward finding a relationship. First, I’ve been socialized in the rituals of straight sexuality. I didn’t buy into them for myself, but I did end up with a peer group that is almost exclusively straight and cis. So while I see friends all around me meeting people, hooking up with people, being introduced to friends of friends, I feel kind of left out.
At some point in college, my high school friends and I constructed a ‘sex map.’ I think we used dotted lines for making out or hooking up, and solid lines for sex.
I was the lone dot.
It wasn’t because I didn’t want to be having sex. I definitely wanted sex. It was partially because I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to be having sex as male, and much more because I was utterly clueless and totally petrified by the idea of expressing interest in a girl, as a boy. The hetero mating dances I saw swirling around me seemed utterly confusing, because I didn’t understand why any of the girls – who I wanted to be, and to be with – were attracted to any of the boys – which kinda included me, at the time.
Now I am ‘one of the girls.’ I have days where I feel more confident in that identity, and days were I feel less confident, but my confidence is slowly increasing over time. But I feel sort of like I’m coming out as gay at 25. Not because I didn’t know it was true, but because I avoided any of the lesbian socialization or community I might have been exposed to had I been able to come out earlier.
Which brings me to the title of this post. Namely, that I’d like to get laid. That I’m jealous of my friends who are having regular sex, and even of the ones who are having intermittent sex, but clearly know how the dating game works. I’ve had a total of two sexual partners in my life (two and a half, if you count drunkenly making out) and only one of those was I sexual with since I started transitioning.
I have fantasies about being the type of person who can go out and get drunk, gohome with a different stranger every weekend, have mad sexual escapades. But I know that A) that’s rather unsafe for any woman, let alone trans women, and B) I don’t think I could actually go through with it. But the idea of going out and taken back to some hot thing’s apartment is kind of appealing.
But because of my own lingering confidence issues, I sort of can’t imagine picking anyone else up. This comes back to “If I don’t like me, why would anyone else?” I can admit, when forced by the evidence, that someone else might be trying to flirt with me. But I “naturally” assume I shouldn’t be flirting with other women, “imposing” myself on them. I’d feel silly going to Spyners or t’s or Big Chicks (all not too far from my neck of the woods) and being a wallflower until someone takes pity on me.
I’ve been on OK Cupid for almost six months now, and it’s been fun to be flirty, but I still have only had one (absolutely and comically miserable) date, which hasn’t exactly been a confidence booster. I say I’m trans in my profile, which I sort of worry is scaring people away, but I’d also feel uncomfortable not saying I’m trans.
Any thoughts or suggestions on getting into the dating realm? Lacking that, anyone want to play matchmaker?
Themocracy
Well, I will keep in mind that you are looking for somebody. Last time I thought of suggesting to people that they ought to date, they already were. So that’s not a bad track record, right?
OKCupid is as much networking site as dating site. As point in fact, I’m on there. Plus, it is saturated with trans people. As point in fact, the last guy I met on there had been talking to me for three hours when he was like, “Ummm, I just realized I left something important off my profile, ummm… I’m transgender.” And I says, “Hey, yeah, me too.” And he says, “Don’t joke about that!”
Ha! Yeah, I’ve seen a good number of trans people on OK Cupid, which is always nice to see.
Also on o.k. cupid: I wouldn’t be surprised if it were difficult to find people on there. (Even as a born straight male it can be difficult sometimes.), so it might be some time before you find someone.
I would suggest being more active in looking for people. In male looking for female terms at least, this is pretty much the only way to do it, although I’m not sure how this would translate to your situation.
I think I just need to find a queer social group that I find comfortable. Right now, I love all my friends to death but there isn’t much chance they’ll be able to introduce me to any potential dates. Stranger things have happened, sure, but I think my odds might be better in a less homogeneous (heterosexual) group.
I don’t really have any good suggestions for you, but wanted to comment and just say that I really sympathize about the “coming out as lesbian at 25″ thing and not understanding how the dating rituals work (straight or queer!).
I’m not trans, but I was so confused by the dating scene as a teenager and college student that I retreated from it completely until after school . . . and by then, I had no idea how to indicate interest in someone as a sexual being. I didn’t really have a social sexual identity (other than the default straight girl identity most of us get stuck with unless we speak up!)
When I finally decided I was interested in my now-girlfriend in a “my god you are hot and I can’t stop thinking about getting you naked” sort of way, it took me several months of very tentative flirting before I screwed up the courage to ask her whether she thought we were dating (yes, this is how I posed the question!) because I would be open to the possibility.
At that point, I started what was about an eighteen month campaign of trying to initiate a sexual relationship in what I thought were very clear terms . . . and which she didn’t understand at all. I would tentatively make some move and when I didn’t get what I thought was an enthusiastic response, I’d retreat. She, meanwhile (I learned later), was making similarly tentative moves and imagined I was being all skittish, freaking out whenever she made a potentially sexual move.
We obviously managed to communicate in the end our mutual interest, but I’m sorry I don’t have a clearer sense of HOW we changed the dynamic. So I can’t really offer any advice about how to get from A to Z (or A to Sex
). . . in my case, it was focusing on building up a good friendship with my girlfriend, first, which we then had to build on with our sexual relationship. But that’s a long haul, and it kinda side-steps the question of how to date people who, from the outset, you’re exploring the possibility of having sex with.
I know the feeling! I’ve had a few people (my ex included) who I was attracted to, but they said they had no idea until they made the first move. And I do think romantic relationships that stem out of friendships are ultimately better (in my limited experience) I’m just feeling like my social circles don’t really offer that opportunity right now. Womp womp.
I started exploring my queer identity while I was dating my first girlfriend, and that turned out to be a problem and likely hastened the end of that relationship. The second knew I was queer, but she wasn’t, so it still became an issue later. Since then my partners have all been queer too, at least a bit, and it works out much better.
Which is not to say that I don’t still end up with crushes on people who are far too straight and/or cis to ever be compatible, but at least I know now that it wouldn’t work.
It doesn’t hurt that somehow I end up with a lot of queer friends (I would’ve thought you would too, with the theatre) or that I’m pretty flirty to begin with (at least, once I’m comfortable) and I can take things pretty well from feedback (hearkening back to ‘woman thing’), but I also only become interested in people I’m friends with already, which seems to be the opposite of the more typical “friends zone” experience.
So I guess the best advice I can give is that you should try to make some more friends; if you can figure out how to do this one demand, please do let us know, I’m really bad at it myself.
I’ll let you know if I come up with any brilliant friend-making strategies.
I’d just like to note that Nikki made you no longer the lone dot. Its of course completely irrelevant to the post, but the map has been updated. =)
I’m denying that happened. =p