| Runa216 said: Every bit of this makes me smile. I wish I had some sort of cutesy tale of flirtation with other boys or something, but I wasn't bisexual until I grew up. I liked, uh 'being a bottom', but not for boys if that makes any sense (Fingers, toys, produce, whatever, I just didn't like being with other guys). Then, I grew up a bit, tried to pretend I was straight 'but I liked butt stuff' (which was and kinda sorta is still true...it's complicated as fuck), when everyone was trying to make me 'come out'. I could write a whole book about my sexual preferences, my journey to realizing who/what I am, and my general opinions on the matter, but I should be spending that time writing a novel or something. As it stands...I'm just 'fluid' in basically every day. I run the gamut from completely asexual (As in, the thought of having sex actively repels me) to being so horny for a partner I'll do anyone. I range from identifying as my birth gender - male - to being exclusively female to the point where I actually get offended if people call me a man (I don't speak it outwardly, as I can't reasonably expect anyone to keep up with my fluctuating moods.) I go from having guys completely gross me out (Straight as an arrow) to wanting every guy I see (Gay as fuuuuuuuck), while also fluctuating. sometimes I want all the sex, sometimes I don't want anyone touching me and the thought of being intimate just makes me super uncomfortable. My default setting is asexual and agendered. like 90% of the time I have absolutely no interest in sex, regardless of gender...while not conforming to either gender identity. That's why I stopped correcting people whenever they assigned me a gender. people IRL see me as male, and I'm fine with that because sometimes I Feel that way. Online I tend to present as female, because oftentimes I feel that way (And the allure of it being something I am not IRL makes it the more appealing of the two options; forbidden fruit or something). I want to get a Gender Reassignment Surgery and have since I was a teenager, but I know it'll never happen for a few reasons. I don't HATE my male body, I'm not suffering any sort of gender dysphoria or anything. I don't agree with or idealize any gender stereotypes, so the idea of 'living as a woman for a year' while under hormonal treatment sounds like hell to me, because society's image of a woman is not the same as my chosen manner of expression (No dresses or high heels or makeup, I'd act the exact same, but I'd have female parts instead of male parts). Also, I hate breasts and would never want them, and I know the hormones would change that. I'd never pass a psychological test, I'd not be willing to do what most psychologists demand before allowing the procedure, and I'm not suffering, so it'd never happen. I just feel it's sort of a 35/65 split in favour of female. not 100/0 or anything. Or, more likely, 70 neutral, 20 female, 10 male. And this...this post here? This is why I mostly keep this shit to myself. I know what I am, but it fluctuates and changes with such frequency that explaining it is remarkably challenging and I don't want to be identified as some wannabe special snowflake seeking attention. I don't want attention, I mostly just want to be left alone (which is what most LGBT+ people want). I love discussing it, but I'm aware that I sound like some overly sensitive, liberal arts major with too many letters after their name. Anyone who meets me knows that's not me, but any time I try to explain myself, I sound exactly like the kind of person that 'traditionalists' love to disparage and disrespect. Even though I could probably kick the ass of most of those 'hardedged masculine' types. Ideally, my body would be devoid of any externally visible genitals. No penis, no testicles, no breasts, not particularly curvy hips...just a barbie without any body hair. That's my lifelong goal. It'll never happen, and I've come to terms with that. I think self-awareness is important, especially when it comes to gender identity and sexuality. |
Sorry it's taken a bit for me to reply. Yesterday was a hunting day for me after work. I was pretty exhausted.
Anyway, wow. That all sounds orders of magnitude more complicated and exotic than my lived experience has been around sexuality and such. A couple things out of that that I can relate to though are feeling like I'm on the relatively asexual side and having experienced some change in my sexual orientation.
I've always strongly leaned toward favoring girls/women (as applicable to my age at a given point in life) when it came to romantic attraction, but there was a time when I also would sometimes feel attracted to guys that way as well. My hardcore Southern Baptist parents obviously didn't approve of the first of those things. Between them, my church (which basically runs the town I live in), kids at school, and the media always portraying romantic love as heterosexual, I couldn't help feeling like there was something wrong with me. I mean there wasn't social media or anything like that back then either, so it's not like I had a ready connection to others who were like me that way. It was lonely. So anyway, since I did feel like I at least had the option of only indulging my muted interest in boys, there came a point where I decided to try doing so for a while, in part to try and "fix" myself and in part to just avoid more unnecessary conflict with...seemingly the world. It didn't work out well.
The summary version of it all is that going that route led to a lot of confusion about the nature of my sexuality during my teen years. It was also just a painful experience. I found that boys didn't want to say date me or fuck me because I was thought of as sorta "one of the boys", i.e. not that kind of girl they were attracted to. This led me to try and radically change who I was, to transform myself into a "girly girl" so that the guys would be into me that way. Lacking practice, I wasn't very good at it though. It all led me to make all kinds of...just horrible decisions in desperation, like my decision to come to school in a two-piece bathing suit one day for example. I did somehow manage wind up with boyfriend experiences "under my belt" if you will in the end. Discovered that I found being physically penetrated (anywhere) painful and degrading, among other things. Also that boys don't understand how the female anatomy works. And other things. This ended with me starting to think of myself as properly lesbian. I really do think that environmental factors and lived experiences, not just genetics, play a role in one's sexual orientation because nowadays I'm no longer attracted to guys at all. Like I can look at gay male porn all day and it will do nothing for me. There was a time when I could look at a guy and feel physically attracted to him, but that never happens anymore and hasn't in ages. So in that sense I can relate to the feeling of one's sexuality not being set in stone from birth to death necessarily.
Also like you, sex itself is not like a central focus of my life. I don't mean that just in the sense that I'm not very successful romantically, but in the sense that even in relationships, I just feel like...once a month maybe is fine with me, you know? I don't need to have my socially mandated 2 to 4 romps a week and I simply can't do casual sex. I just don't have that desire. It's special circumstances, special experiences of intimacy between me and my partner that make me want to take that next step. I get called prudish.
But as to like feeling that I'm female in the morning and male in the afternoon and androgynous in the evening and all that, that's beyond my ability to understand at this time, I'm afraid. I think that stuff is what's supposed to be encompassed in the general term "queer" if I'm not mistaken at least. The honest truth of the matter is that I have a tough enough time trying to wrap my head around the whole transgender thing -- like "feeling male" or "feeling female"...I don't even know what that means...and it prolly doesn't help that I've only ever met trans people online and not in real life -- so the whole like gender-queer thing is way outside of my ability to comprehend. I mean I think people think of me as being on the "guyish" side of gender expressions, but I also believe that people often feel that way about just working class women (like poor black women or "white trash" like me) in general. You're simply thought of as not being very feminine and graceful. I've also felt like I wished I were male before in some moments of self-hatred, but I'm pretty sure it's not exactly the same thing at all. That's the closest I can come though from my lived experiences and I'm pretty sure it's not even close. Experiencing all that all the time must make life complicated!
