sex

Sex and Dating Updates

Things in my sex life have finally been going much better. I still have only orgasmed on my own the once but it’s starting to get a lot more reliable with good partners. One person even managed to give me the best orgasms of my life two dates in a row! It’s nice to not end sex frustrated and worried about when and if it is going to happen. Instead I get to have that nice satisfied feeling and all the happy endorphins that I missed so much after my first surgery.

The new orgasms feel so different than with my old parts. Before it was like climbing a mountain, seeing a beautiful view, and then coming down much faster than you went up. Now it’s more like cresting waves that build on each other until they crash on a beach and slowly ebb away. It’s a lovely feeling that always leaves me feeling so happy and contented. I’m really glad I got the revision surgery.

I’ve also continued to experiment with men and it’s really solidified for me that while I may be a little bit bisexual and it is very validating to be attractive to straight men, I really am very lesbian leaning. I enjoy dating women and enbies in a way that I just don’t get the same fulfillment with men, whether they’re cis or trans.

I’ve started doing more dating lately, still with a lot of COVID precautions in place, and it feels good to have that fun new relationship energy and to delve more deeply into existing relationships in my life. I’m really thankful to have so many supportive and loving people in my life.

Solo Adventures

I did it! After well over a year of trying I finally orgasmed from masturbation!

This feels like a major milestone for me. Sex with a partner is absolutely wonderful but it feels empowering to be able to give that to yourself when you need a release. I’m so happy to finally have gotten to this point in healing.

It’s been 17 months since my initial surgery and 3 months since my revision. It took a lot of experimentation and some fancy toys from Babeland but I finally got here!

Full orgasm!

I did it! 1 year and 7 weeks after bottom surgery I finally had a full orgasm! I’m not sure what the magic formula was this time but I was trying out a new toy my partner got and a new topical cream that includes Viagra.

It definitely feels very different than my old parts did. It comes on slowly and has a more sustained high point and headiness to it. And I forgot just how wonderful all the happy hormones are that come with it.

I’m excited to have more of them and find out what works. And maybe someday I can get there on my own.

Mini Orgasms

Finally a year after my bottom surgery I’m starting to have mini orgasms! I had the first one about a week before my surgery anniversary but I wasn’t sure what it was and I just had three more last night.

They feel like small crests of pleasure but nothing compared to what I was used to before surgery where there is a Big Bang and I’m done. I do come away from sex feeling happy and satisfied though instead of the disappointment and frustration of the last 9 months.

I was hoping for a lot more out of my first orgasm but at this point I’ll take anything I can get. Hopefully my revision surgery will make it a little easier to achieve and they continue to grow in amplitude.

Trying to have patience

I’m still trying to have patience and I’m beyond frustrated with the pace of nerve healing and sensation. But there are a few areas I’ve made progress.

Last night I tried out vibrator number 5, a simple slimmer model I bought specifically for this stage of healing, and it seems to be a hit. No orgasm but I felt closer than I’ve been and I learned that being able to move it in and out easily is important for me which is easier with this style.

The missing part of the picture is definitely the clit area. It feels like there is a void where there should be a something important. But last week when we tried to wake it up with the Hitachi magic wand, we overdid it and made it bleed so I have to let it rest for now. It is has been bleeding on and off so I don’t dare try the other new toy I got, a clitoral suction vibrator. Hopefully soon the nerves there will wake up. I am terrified that they were damaged when my clit fell off and that they are dead cells. But again, all I can do is wait and keep trying.

But the other exciting thing I did last night was upgrade finally to the largest size dilator that I was given. It’s exciting to finally be there and once I get used to it, it opens up a lot more toy possibilities as well as the option of PIV sex after this pandemic is over. There is apparently an even bigger size I can special order if I want but most people stop after getting to this level.

Trying to orgasm

Content Warning: Talking about sex

I got my new rabbit vibrator in the mail today so I decided to try again to see if I can orgasm or at least feel pleasure. The last time I tried having sex with my partner 2 weeks ago I could barely feel anything.

I was disappointed to find that even though I got a toy that was smaller than my old favorite, I still couldn’t insert it all the way. But I was able to get it far enough in that I could feel the vibration internally and externally. I played with myself for quite a while but sadly I couldn’t reach orgasm. The good news is that I can definitely feel it now and it feels great internally, though not much sensation in my clitoral erogenous zone yet.

I’ll keep trying because the vibration is supposed to help the nerves wake up but I think I need to go up another size on the dilator if I want to use penetrative toys made for more elastic vaginas. I’m definitely disappointed but less so than last time I tried so I’m trying to recognize the progress. Hopefully it doesn’t actually take me the full 9 months to orgasm because I’m already pretty frustrated after 4 months without that release.

How I knew I needed Surgery

Content Warning: I’m going to talk explicitly about sex in this post.

How did I know I needed surgery? It is a question I get a lot in different forms and it’s a good question, particularly for other trans people to ask each other.

My earliest inklings were from when I first learned what vulvas were. I was immensely curious as a child so I secretively turned to my local library and sex education websites to find out what women had that made them so amazing and supposedly so different. That’s when I found out the beauty that was the human vulva, vagina, and especially, the magical clitoris.

What was initially curiosity quickly turned into an obsession. And I doubt it was the same kind of obsession that my cisgender peers were starting to have as their libidos awakened. It crept into my psyche and my dreams. It wasn’t long before I was having both sleeping dreams and daydreams that involved strong, powerful women with both penises and vaginas. Because to me, the peak of human achievement would be having the best of both worlds. This was before I even knew that trans or intersex people existed.

It took me years of suppressed queerness before I finally admitted those dreams in group therapy as an early adult. And in the meantime I went through phases of hyper-masculinity as I tried to reconcile these desires to experience a vagina that kept pestering my brain. When I first had oral sex with a woman, the obsession only grew.

Eventually I finally got enough exposure to trans people that I realized I was one too. Not out of peer pressure like the media tries to paint it, but from seeing examples of people like me. I started out slowly and it took me awhile of my social transition before I decided to take any medical steps. You can see a lot of that progression if you read the early posts on my blog.

I had a lot of hesitation about starting estrogen because I was worried it would change how my already anxious/depressed brain worked. But once I started, I knew I could never go back. After the initial adjustment period, my brain had never felt more “right” and like I finally had the right operating system installed. But it did fundamentally change how I experienced sex.

I have always been hesitant and anxious about using my penis. But after starting hormones, there was some significant rewiring of my nervous system that took place and changed how I felt sensations. Suddenly an appendage that felt like a blunt tool now felt like a fine tip brush. It honestly felt like I imagine an inverted vagina would feel with a clitoris on the tip. My sensitivity increased immensely and I also lost all desire to use it for penetrative sex.

I had already started to think about surgery but my initial explorations had all been about whether or not it was possible to have a vagina and a penis simultaneously. I thought for sure that’s what I wanted because that’s what all my dreams still involved. I scoured the internet and couldn’t find anyone except naysayers who claimed it was anatomically impossible.

Finally, the first surgeons started to do what they called “penile preservation vaginoplasty” and my dreams were vindicated! Except ironically, by the time I discovered that, I was beginning to realize that it wasn’t what I wanted. I came to understand after almost 2 decades of dreaming that that form was more about what I was attracted to, not about what I wanted for myself.

Once I finally accepted that I wanted a vaginoplasty, the rest was just about getting through the medical gatekeeping. Last year when I went for my consult, I was sure that it was what I wanted. Now I am 120% sure and for months now I have been counting down the days (12) until I could finally achieve what I’ve secretly desired for so long.

I’ve been trying to decide for a couple years now if I am asexual or if I just have a low libido and as I think about life post surgery and all the sex I can have uninhibited, I think I finally have my answer. I just needed the right parts!

I’m in the home stretch now and I’ve started taking the pre-surgical meds. The Gabapentin is making my brain a bit hazy and I’m rather scatterbrained so hopefully this blog post makes sense. But in 6 days I pack up the car with my partner who will be my caregiver and her partner who lives with us and we drive down the coast to San Francisco.

12 more days!

The queer dilemma

I feel like one of the constant queer dilemmas in figuring out your identity is whether you want to “do them or be them” (or the demisexual equivalent, date them or be them). When you get your first glimpse of queer representation or that gay awakening moment, it’s sometimes hard to tell if you are attracted to that asthetic or person because you want to become like them or whether you have pants feels for them. 

For me, that moment came in my teen years when I first heard in the sex ed books I covertly read in the public library about people with both/all kinds of genitals. Sadly at that time I wasn’t reading anything by actual intersex or trans people so the terms I learned initially were highly problematic but the idea still stuck with me. That it was possible to have both a vagina and a penis at the same time.

It wasn’t long before that idea had seeped into my imaginations and people with hybrid genitals dominated my teenage fantasies, both waking and dreaming. For a long time, even after I started transitioning, I thought that was my goal. Two years ago, I tried researching whether it was possible and at that time there wasn’t anything published about it yet so it was only theoretical. Last year, I discovered two surgeons who had started offering a penile preservation vaginoplasty which gave me the chance to think about it seriously.

Now I am planning for my “classic” vaginoplasty and I couldn’t be happier about it (other than that it’s not soon enough!). I don’t feel any confusion or serious doubts anymore. But as I have thought about it more and why I thought I wanted more nonbinary genital options for so long, I’ve realized that it’s because I’m very attracted to that kind of body. The people I find hottest in the world are the folks who have a penis and boobs on the same body. And I’m so glad that the many people I’ve met who want that body now have more options to achieve that.

Statues

Reinterpretation of the Tres In Una statue by Paul Richer

I need new genitals like, now

Content warning: I’m going to be talking explicitly about sex here so proceed at your own risk.

I can’t wait for bottom surgery. As in the idea of waiting another 11 months seems like torture. I need it so badly and while it feels good to finally have it planned and even some of the money raised, it still feels like forever away.

I tried for so long to feel comfortable with the body that I had, but I only had mild success. There were times where I was comfortable with partners who I felt truly saw me that I was able to have enjoyable sex, but for the most part it always felt awkward and performative. I wanted the connection and release so badly but the means I had of accessing that weren’t great.

The best sex I’ve ever had has always been with queer sex. The kind of sex where someone’s fingers or toy is inside of me and they are using their mouth in the ways that it seems only a queer person can. And the most comfortable I’ve been penetrating others is when I’ve worn a strap on. Otherwise being in that role feels weird for the most part.

This week I decided to try having sex “the old fashioned way” one more time to see if there was anything I’d miss about it. I took some generic Viagra because I can’t have those kinds of erections otherwise anymore and had some anniversary sex with my spouse. And while I love having sex with her, it just felt awkward and I was distracted the whole time by how uncomfortable I was. It felt like I was using body parts that didn’t belong to me but that somehow still transmitted sensation to my body. And not in the good way like I’ve managed to access a couple times. We eventually stopped and switched over to the ways we know we both like.

I feel like that was the moment that any last shreds of doubt I had were banished. I’ve proved to myself that my dysphoria really is “bad enough” to warrant the amount of money I’m spending and the amount of pain it will take to get my new vagina. Which is a terrible way to feel. Like you have to justify not wanting to be dysphoric all the time by degrees of severity.

So this week when I met with the PhD level psychiatrist to get my letter for the red tape of insurance approval, I was able to say with confidence that I know I’m making the right choice. And luckily I can also say that I have the right support in my life now to make that plunge. My work and my spouses work are both being very supportive in giving us the time off to go down to San Francisco for a month. And my community has been so generous in helping me raise $880 in less than a month already (plus a promise of airline miles) to put me well on my way.

If you are able to donate to support me as well, I would be very grateful. I can’t wait to finally get this surgery. https://www.gofundme.com/f/haven-gender-confirmation-treatments 

What is dysphoria?

So I’ve talked quite a bit here about my experiences with dysphoria but I’m not sure I’ve ever attempted to define it, partly because it is a tricky concept to convey to someone who has never experienced it. But I’ll take a stab at it with the disclaimer that trans people don’t all experience dysphoria in the same way and some trans people never experience it because contrary to what psychologists think, being trans doesn’t require dysphoria. Some people are lucky enough to discover their true self through the experience of gender euphoria which is when you have extreme joy in finding something about your body, presentation, or the way people perceive you that affirms your gender.

On most days, I have a low level of background dysphoria going on. Some of it has always been there and I was kinda successfully ignoring it and some of it may not have been and has developed or been revealed as I’ve gotten closer to bring other parts in alignment with my gender. It’s hard to look back and accurately know what I was thinking in the past because one of my experiences of gender dysphoria is that my brain blocks out a lot of memories that don’t align with who I really am. A lot of my past is fuzzy or completely blocked from my consciousness due to trauma as well.

What I do know is that there were times that do clearly stick in my head where I experienced bursts of gender euphoria as a kid such as when I would play dress up and walk around in heels, or when I would play imaginary fairies or mermaids with my sister, or when I felt accepted as “one of the girls” in my friend groups. A lot of that went away as I reached an age where gender roles were more strictly enforced and in particular, a lot of my puberty is blocked from my memory both due to how I was treated by society and because more of my dysphoria started becoming apparent as the wrong hormone was taking front seat. I am so jealous of kids who have affirming parents and figure it out early enough to use hormone blockers or transition early on before the wrong puberty goes too far. It makes a lot of things easier.

One of the things I do know is that early on, stubble gave me dysphoria similar to how it does now. That, and my dysphoria around my prominent chin, are the biggest reasons I grew a beard at 18. I was getting to the point that I would have to shave my chin twice a day to look clean shaven. At first it was just a goatee but by 21 I think I was able to grow a full beard. A positive for combating dysphoria at the time but unfortunately now I have to get rid of all that thick, dense hair very painfully.

On a daily basis, dysphoria is like having little pin pricks constantly poking your skin. Or like wearing shoes that are too tight. It’s annoying and eventually it brings you to a breaking point. Everyone’s tolerance of that breaking point is why some people don’t come out until later while others figure it out early on. That can also be helped along by someone effectively helping you find the right size shoe and suddenly you realize how they didn’t fit all along. And trying to push past that background pain every day is exhausting and means that you can’t bring your full self to what you are doing until it is dealt with. I sometimes wonder where I would be in life if I had been born cis and been able to just move along happily through life without having to stop and deal with the dysphoria or the self worth issues that go along with it.

On days when my dysphoria is more acute, that pain is brought more to the forefront of my mind. Sometimes it is bad enough that I will look into a mirror and I can see enough to style my hair or assess my outfit but my face will be completely blurred out – as in I physically cannot get my brain to see my facial features. Dysphoria, as far as I can tell, is the brain not being able to handle the cognitive dissonance between the reality of your brain’s self image of you and what is physically in front of you. It also means that even on less bad days, parts of my body are often distorted so that what other people see isn’t the same as what I see. For me that most often revolves around my chin, or shoulders, or body hair. I will look at myself and all I can see is what feels to me like a giant, cartoonishly distorted chin with a cleft so big that I feel like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

Another way that dysphoria plays out for me, especially lately, is that an area of my body may feel completely absent. Most days now my genital area essentially feels like a black hole. It doesn’t exactly feel like there’s nothing there but almost the opposite of nothing like antimatter or something. That’s probably the biggest reason I’ve been much more asexual lately, at least with my own body. It is hard to think about sex when your mind is actively avoiding thinking about what body parts you might use. I’ve had to be much more creative and luckily when you have queer partners, using your own genitals isn’t as essential.

I’ve found that what helps the most when I’m feeling actively dysphoric is to focus on the parts of my body that I do like. Often it doesn’t help to have people compliment the areas you are feeling dysphoria around because it just brings more attention to them. But focusing on things like how great my legs are or how soft my skin is gets my mind to see the positives and less of the negatives. Sometimes affirmations can be helpful though, even if in the moment you can’t hear them. Lately I’ve been feeling more dysphoric around my speaking voice but when I’ve told people that, many have told me that it isn’t particularly deep and is actually rather feminine. Those are the things that I come back to later and think about when I’m struggling.

The reason that it is so essential to have insurance that covers gender affirming treatments and low barriers to accessing them is because dysphoria is such an insidious beast. It often feels like you can’t be a whole human until these parts of yourself are aligned with who you really are. And ultimately, all most of us really want is to be fully seen as ourselves. So please, don’t put up barriers to keep trans folks from getting there.

PS – I just remembered another trick I found to help combat dysphoria. Find things that you can do with your body to make it feel like your own that you can focus on when the rest of it feels wrong. For me it really helped me to be able to see myself to get my ears pierced, get fun glasses, get visible tattoos, and dye my hair. These things remind me that I can make changes because it is my body and my rules.