Thursday, June 20, 2013

The Aftermath

As many of you have noticed, these last few weeks have been full of revelations--deep and earth shattering on many levels.  I've shared about my body, my desires, my spirituality, and talked about things that were buried and not fully known, even to myself.  The recent discovery of my PCOS has done a lot in terms of explaining my hormone levels, long term symptoms, and even a good deal of my gendered feelings that have begun to emerge full force as I have begun to dig internally.  However, the discovery of these truths alone has not been enough to satisfy me, nor to resolve many of my internal tensions.  In many ways I have always been a conflicted woman--one who dwells within tensions and at times (okay, often) desires things sexually that conflict with my belief system intellectually.  I posted recently about my personal experience with being on the transgender spectrum (at this time I identify as genderqueer) in response to a friend's query about switching genders as a form of "opting out" and "not fighting the good fight."  I felt called to share my story as a way of putting a human face on the transgender experience, and illustrating the deep internal struggle to reconcile a body that does not match one's inner identity.  In general, I feel called to explore my deepest truths and do deep work in the areas of gender, identity, sexuality, pornography, kink, etc. and share my research, study, thoughts, and experiences in order to educate people about things of which they are unaware, or to let another struggling person know they are not alone, even though they feel lost and isolated.  I struggle with wondering whether I am being selfish and self-absorbed to spend the majority of my time looking inward, but I think to a large extent, this is the work of being a writer.  I also spend time taking classes, attending events, and teaching, in order to gain the experience and human interaction required to actually have something to say.  If I stopped everything in order to write, the well would quickly become dry.

I have been surprised at the degree of acceptance by those that read my post (posted here and on my personal Facebook page--which is a bizarre mix of liberal college and post-college friends, and highly conservative, right wing Christians that represent the folks I knew growing up.  I still love them and share many memories of my childhood with them, but that is about all.  I find it inspiring that we still are friends on Facebook, a tenuous relationship at best, but it is an exercise in acceptance of each other's vast differences).  I post about sex, STD's, female pleasure, and transgender, and whether or not they read my posts (they certainly don't "like" my posts) they are seeing them, and they choose to keep my on their friend list.  And hey, that's something.  Some of them have even messaged me in private that they learned something and their perspective was changed.  I've also been asked by a writer friend of mine to do an interview with her for her blog on what it means to be transgender/genderqueer.  I will post that on here as well in a few days, as well as a link to her blog which address some awesome feminist, legal, and otherwise quirktastic topics.

So all that is great.  But the truth is that I am still personally struggling with these issues.  Most of my life I suppressed my masculinity, my dominance, and my bitchiness.  And it came out in all sorts of unpleasant ways.  I'm really hoping that the exploration of this side of myself in the kink world--in pre-negotiated scenes with check-ins before and after play, and work with my therapist and in my writing, that I will find a way to integrate all of these different parts of myself.  These last few days have been full of ups and downs--from euphoria at having the courage to share my story and the terror that comes from realizing you just exposed your deepest self in public, and in front of a large audience.  I've felt blissful excitement over my relationships and deep terror at the unpredictable ways they are changing.  I am excited about exploring my dominant sexual side, and have enjoyed some hot sex where I was the aggressor and imagined penetrating my partner with my cock--but at the same time I was sooooo uncomfortable with it.  It's going to take some time to get used to.  And I don't have to decide today or next week, or next year, or even in the next ten years what gender I really want to be or what that looks like.  It's okay to be me and be a lot of different things at once (even though it makes me feel like I have multiple personality disorder at times.  Not really--but the transitions between my different ways of being are still pretty choppy and awkward).

I am so honored to be with partners who accept me as I am.  Both of my lovers have expressed their love and desire for me despite my admitted inner male self, facial hair, and ovarian cysts.  In fact, neither of them have seemed overly phased by it--though perhaps curious as to what it means and how to explore it with me and support me through the process.  Both of them, I believe, have know these things about me for a long time--long before I even explicitly knew them about myself.  So when I talked to T (my husband) last night about how weird it felt for me to openly acknowledge my inner man, and how lately, I can't get off unless I visualize fucking my lovers with my penis, and how I might just be a gay man in disguise (two cocks, mmmm!), he wasn't really shocked at all.  In fact, he was like, okay, let's go with that.  Why don't you be the gay man for a while?  It was me who was shocked and uncomfortable. 

So, it's going to take some time for me to get comfortable in my female skin and flesh (something that has always been a struggle--who ever completely and perfectly loves their body), and be okay with the man, or assertive woman inside me.  Here's to the journey.

Tonight I have my first dominatrix session with my mentors in their private dungeon.  I'm excited and scared.  What should I wear? ;)  I will write more soon.

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