My Weird Relationship With Sex
This is not a clean argument about sex
It is more a record of the different ways sex has impacted my life and my life has impacted sex
Sex work. Kink. Avoiding my penis. Focusing on someone else’s pleasure. Casual intimacy. Trying to be useful. Trying to be wanted without having to receive too much
Sadly, I find that even with something most people enjoy I have uncomfortable baggage attached to it
Sex work made my femininity feel real
I was a sex worker
Meeting clients as a "femboy" was one of the first places where my femininity felt validated
Not romantically but in the blunt, physical way you imagine. It made me feel touchable and like being wanted as someone feminine feel possible
That mattered, even if I didn't consider myself trans at the time
It also changed what sex meant to me
Sex became easier to understand as an activity rather than as intimacy. Something people can do, something that can be bought, sold, managed, performed, repeated and finished. Something that can happen while my pleasure, comfort and emotional presence are not the main point
That is hard to unlearn
I do not think sex feels automatically personal to me anymore
If my partner saw a sex worker I genuinely do not think it would hurt me much. I can logically understand why it would bother most people and I can understand why it might bother my partner if the situation were reversed but for me it literally is just an activity
Them having sex with a friend is no different from them going to the movies which I know might be a bit of a crooked way of thinking about it
If they cuddled with someone else though that would hurt. That feels much closer to being replaced
Cuddling feels like being chosen when nothing is being bought, done, completed or performed. A body being present without being useful, a type of intimacy you would only ever desire with the person you're closest to
Kink gave sex a structure
Kink has been one of the ways I have tried to find intimacy in sex
I think of myself as an experimentalist in that I'm generally willing to try almost anything at least once. The specific act mattered less to me than what it meant knowing that someone trusted me enough to share their desires
The fact that someone is willing to be vulnerable and show me something unusual, embarrassing, specific or difficult to say out loud matters more than the mechanics of the act
Kink gives intimacy a structure: rules, roles, negotiation, permission. It makes closeness easier to recognise because something specific is happening
If I am teasing, controlling escalation, giving pleasure or taking a more dominant role I can be sexual without confronting my discomfort around my penis or having that avoidance be awkward. I can be active without penetrating, I can be wanted without needing to receive too much
I feel describing myself as a "stone-ish" top is accurate
I do like being touched in some ways. I like touch on my thighs, chest, face and neck. I like receiving affection and physical attention
But I do not want receiving touch to become a route back to my penis
So stone-ish is closer. I like giving. I like teasing. I like control over how much of my body becomes involved. I like being active without being cast as masculine. I like sex that is mutual but not symmetrical
I want something where we are both present, both wanted, both involved but not in identical ways
Kink lets me make that feel deliberate but I also know I can use it to hide
I can make giving look generous when it is also protective. I can make control look confident when it is also fear. I can make teasing look playful when it is also a way to decide how close desire gets
The part I usually avoid
I told my partner I was happy not using my penis during sex
On the surface it was a conversation about ED (erectile disfunction). I have trouble getting or staying hard and hormones, low libido and being trans all make that more complicated, but the real issue was not just whether my body could technically do something
The real issue was that I usually do not like my penis being touched
I can enjoy sex where I just use my hands, mouth, toys, etc. I can enjoy sex where my partner’s pleasure is the focus and I do not need much in return
I do not think I hate my penis. I think I hate the role sex keeps trying to give it
Getting hard. Penetrating. Having an erection treated as proof that I am aroused, present, functional and normal
That is the part that feels masculine in a way I cannot easily separate from the act itself
I want something closer to a type of more sapphic sex where I can be active without being cast as masculine
Even that is not clean
I do sometimes want the possibility of my penis being touched, I just do not know how to make that touch feel safe if I do not get hard. I do not know how someone could touch it, accept that it may not respond and not have the moment become about failure
Would they think I am not attracted to them? Would they think they failed? Would they pretend it was fine? Would they secretly want someone more functional?
Avoiding it is easier than finding out
Not using my penis feels like a preference but it also means I never have to find out whether that part of me could be touched without needing to perform
Usefulness is easier than being loved
I like making my partner feel good
Their pleasure is erotic to me. I like learning what works. I like improving. I like feeling like I can give them something enjoyable
That is also where it gets dangerous
Making them satisfied feels like something I can learn. I can get better at it. I can pay attention. I can adjust. I can become more competent
Being easy to love does not feel like something I can practise in the same way so sex gives me one way to contribute to intimacy without having to believe I deserve it
I often feel difficult to be loved, tolerated or kept around despite the inconvenient parts of me. Sex, especially giving pleasure lets me feel like I am bringing something useful and positive to the relationship instead of just needing to be reassured
But then their pleasure can become a scoreboard, if I can see that they are enjoying it I feel useful. If I can't tell I get anxious. I start mentally reviewing what I did wrong, I worry they are pretending to protect me. I want feedback but asking for feedback makes me feel needy instead of desirable
The places I do want to be touched
I do want to be touched
I like being touched on my thighs, face, neck, and breasts. Touch there feels good because their sensitive and touch there just simply feels good but those places also carry extra meaning
My thighs show proof of my self-harm. My chest has awkward hormonal breasts that make my transness impossible to ignore. My face is tied to my feelings of ugliness and whether I can believe someone actually likes looking at me
When my partner touches those places it feels good but it also challenges something ugly I already believe about myself "Those parts of me should make someone recoil"
It sometimes leaves me in a weird place where I can feel aroused, comforted, embarrassed, affirmed and afraid at the same time
Casual intimacy might be closer to what I want
Separate from sex I like casual intimacy
I like the idea of my partner hugging me from behind and intentionally touching my breasts without expecting it to go further. I like doing the same kind of thing back. I like touch that can stay touch without implying further expectations
It can just say "I want to touch you. I want you near me. I like your body. This does not have to become anything else"
That feels safer, it also feels more believable because it happens in ordinary life. It is not staged, it is not a formal event where everyone is trying to make sex work. It is small, repeated and probably matters more to me than it should
My partner calls me a tease sometimes. They are not wrong
Teasing lets me be sexual without needing to resolve the penis question. It lets me create desire without immediately deciding what sex is supposed to become. It gives me control over escalation. It lets me be wanted playfully, not just tolerated sexually
I want to be desired but I also want to control what someones desire is allowed to ask from me
Normal sex is not normal for either of us
One thing that helps is that my partner has limits too
I do not want to make their body the subject here but there are things treated as "normal" parts of sex that they do not always want either. Both of us also have lower libidos which lowers pressure
It also means some questions can stay quiet for longer than they should
Does this kind of sex feel complete to both of us? Do they feel desired by me or mostly cared for? Are we compatible or just not testing the things that might be difficult?
I worry that what feels like relief to me might feel like loss to them. I can say I am happy not using my penis but I do not get to decide that nothing is missing for my partner
When sex goes wrong
Good sex for me may not be sex where nothing goes wrong. Good sex may be sex where awkwardness does not become humiliation
If something doesn't work I usually want to fix it quickly. I get embarrassed, I worry my partner is disappointed but hiding it. I can turn a small disappointment into a much larger verdict on me as a person
What helps is not pretending nothing happened. It is us both choosing to continue finding comforting in staying close and staying physically affectionate. Them telling me what they want next so I do not have to guess. Laughing without the laughter becoming humiliation. Stopping without it feeling like failure
I want my body to be inconvenient without becoming disgusting
ED is inconvenient. Low libido is inconvenient. Dysphoria is inconvenient. Needing more negotiation than I wish I needed is inconvenient. The sex I want is inconvenient
I can accept inconvenient sometimes, I struggle with disgusting
I don't know how to feel about sex
Maybe my weird relationship with sex is not that I do not want it. Maybe it is that I want intimacy more and I keep making sex mean more things than it should
I do not know if I damaged my relationship with sex or if sex work just made an existing split more obvious
I do not know if avoiding penis-centred sex is a preference, dysphoria, avoidance or all three
I do not know if giving pleasure is devotion or self-protection
I do not know if my relationship with sex is broken, specific or just honest