gender identity, sex, and the body politic
Like many awkward teenagers, i wore a lot of baggy, nondescript clothes. I was quiet and did my best to blend in and not stand out too much. I never approached anyone that i was attracted to (one because of my Queer identity, but also because if they didn’t reject me then one thing may eventually lead to another and i may find myself topless or even naked). I didn’t know who i was in terms of gender and sexuality in my teen years. All i knew was that i didn’t fit any other definition i had heard in the small town where i grew up. I wasn’t homosexual. I wasn’t a man. I wasn’t a womyn. All i knew was that i feared having someone else define who i was. So i tried to ignore the topic all together and pretend that i was a mind with no body.
As i got older and began to become involved in sexual relationships, i felt uninspired, even repulsed, by sex. But what i came to realize as i began to have a better understanding of my gender identity was not that i was not repulsed by sex in general, but rather by sex that enforced a gendered belief upon my body. I was subconsciously disgusted by genital sex in “heterosexual” positioning. I felt as though certain types of sexual activity denied or marginalized my trans identity.
My realization wasn’t an intellctual one; it was physical, very physical. One night, an innocent conversation with a friend started about our sexual desires. One thing i learned was that i never really thought about, let alone expressed, my desires. I just went with what i was programmed to believe i would like. Over time and more conversations, i began to open up a bit in terms of what i tried sexually. Recognizing how much i loved to push my body to the limits of pain (like running in 200-mile relay marathons) and how excited i got when a fingernail scratched against my skin, my partner at the time asked if i liked pain. With my knew appreciation for sexual honesty, i said yes. I did. I do. Pinching, scratching, slapping, you name it. As long as its pain on my terms, it turns me on. With this realization, i began to enjoy sex. Gential sex no longer became a necessity.
This didn’t all happen in a vacuum. I became more confortable with my body as i became more comfortable with my gender identity. And being comfortable with my gender identity allowed me to begin to recognize my body as a part of me. Maybe not a part that i was fully comfortable with, but a part that i could make fully me. As i became more comfortable, i came to love pain. No longer as a punishment against my body, but as a way to feel its every limit, its every particle of being.
Now, through BDSM, body modification (as in tattoos and scarification), and hormones i’m coming to terms with my body. I can’t say i’m all that comfortable with it yet, but i no longer deny its existance. I no longer punish myself.
[tags]Carnival of Bent Attractions, transgender, body image[/tags]
