What about love, sex, and relationships?

One of the big taboos in talking about transsexualism is mentioning the word sex as in "doing the nasty" as some would say. If you jump around the trans blogosphere the most common word is asexual and that I find bizarre. I am amused by that concept because if there is one thing we humans are it is sexual by nature and anyone that says otherwise is lying to themselves. Sex has been important for both procreation and as important pleasure and here is where we get to the interesting part of those of us born transsexual.

For girls and women sex is about penetration. I always thought this was a heterosexual girl thing but one of my best friends in England is a lesbian and tells me it is most certainly not. I have received an education from her on the subject because like me she was a child when she realized she was a girl and despite her attraction to girls she wanted to be penetrated.

The big taboo for both of us was we could never have sex with a girl as a boy.  In fact it was so abhorrent to us it frightened us because like most young transsexuals we hated that thing and using it on another girl was disgusting. I honestly believe a high percentage of women are bi-sexual in a way. We have no issues showing extreme affection for each other.

Since I was born in the mid 40's I sort of grew up or was raised in an era or repressed sexual expression but was lucky enough to have parents that loved each other openly and warmly. I knew as a child I wanted my Prince Charming to Ride in on his great white steed and take me off to happiness.  Like most kids of my era I really had no clue about sex but by 12 I knew I liked boys which was weird because most boys seemed to want to hurt me.

The first time I saw a vagina was in one of my brother's porn books when I was around 11-12 and I knew that was what I needed and my brother gently told me what boys did with the thing I despised and it both shocked and intrigued me. It shocked me because my initial thought was why would god give me this thing I had when I was a girl and needed one of those vaginas to be a "real" girl. It intrigued me because my instincts before that moment told me I wanted a boy inside me. Don't ask me where that came from because I had no clue. The irony of the porn book was my brother hid my girl fashion and teen magazines with his porn and my grandmother, a sleuth of amazing ability, found the full stash and left the porn and threw out my fashion magazines.

My brother's playboys and other porn was okay because it made him a healthy young male but my magazines marked me as something significantly less. Eventually my mother let me hide my magazines in her room where not even Inspector Grandmother would tread. The concept that a boy would stick his "thing" in me was weird at first but as I became sexually aware that I liked boys and they were cute it actually increased my intense need to just be a "normal" girl with the correct body parts which included breasts, hips, and this vagina that I needed to be complete.

The other weird thing was my almost instantaneous realization that no boy was touching that thing between my legs nor was  any boy going to have access to me unless I was a girl or treated as such. The sick irony about a lot of this is that these feelings would precipitate the one suicide attempt I had where pills of some sort were not involved.

I was with a noted Psychiatrist in Massachusetts who had told my mother he could help me.  She was writing to Harry but she wanted me cured somehow because what Harry told her seemed impossible to grasp and in all honesty I really understand her rationale. My life would have been a lot easier if I was just a normal boy and even though mom was thinking of me more as her daughter she did have this one last hope.  Harry had told her not to do it but she did.

I was 13 at the time and I had a boyfriend. My belief that nobody knew about us was a myth because everyone in both families knew about us and maybe that was my mothers reasoning for this new Psychiatrist. I will not go into details but I told this man all my desires and feelings about boys and the fact I was "really" a girl and that somehow I needed to get "corrected" and lets just say he was less than kind to me. He was appalled when I told him I wanted to be able to have sex with a boy like girls can and if I remember correctly this was what he said.

"What man would want to have sex with a freak like you? You will always be a boy to everyone."

In my world that was crushing and after some not so gentle pushing a week later on Thanksgiving I did my best to kill myself and came damn close despite the failure of my initial attempt. By this time in my life I knew how wonderful it felt to be held by a boy and kissed by a boy.  I also knew that was not enough.

When I learned from Dr. Benjamin that doctors could create a vagina for me it was liberating in so many ways. My boyfriend was a complete gentleman, I was far from ladylike at times, and we had a deal that the second I had my surgery wherever he was I was going there when ready and we would have sex. It is kind of a weird thought process but by then he knew or at least we felt we would be together forever. Teenage love seems that way but it was not to be.

After his death while I was in college I had two other boyfriends that knew everything about me and dated me despite the obvious issues. I was a sucker for seduction in the stacks of the large on campus Library. I found not being complete very frustrating but they were gentleman also and I do thank them for that.

Working in Houston was even worse because those flyboys are gorgeous and I went from one secret crush to another until I met one particular man and I eventually needed to leave because what I wanted I could not have and despite the fact they all knew about my state relationships were not possible.

When I eventually arrived in NYC it actually got worse. Now I was totally transitioned and to be honest boys for some reason found me attractive and I found myself frustrated beyond words. Well, Harry would not say beyond words because I talked about sex a lot and he often commented on it in his amusing way.

I was so put off by the Tranny Chasers I stopped going to the Tranny clubs quickly. It was weird because I had young men constantly hitting on me while I was trying to push them away because it was becoming more and more frustrating for me. Eventually I had surgery in January of 1971and in my little girl way I had this dream of finding Mr. Right. Lord was I wrong!

I no longer had to worry about a guy touching me somewhere I didn't want to be touched but things got weird because I suddenly realized a lot of the guys I looked at fondly were cretins. There was also the thoughts about would a guy know it was not "real". My guitar playing friend ended that worry when in his usual brash manner he showed up at my place about 2 months after surgery and bluntly asked to see it. With his 'seal of approval" that it passed muster that thought was gone. I will admit I would have liked him to be the first but they were off touring or recording so I was still looking.

Every genetic girl dreams about her first sexual encounter. My girlfriends and I have talked a lot about this and it turned out my feelings were the same as theirs. I was nervous and scared I would not please a guy but I was also so anticipating it and dreamed it would be magical which it unfortunately is often not.

I think this need for sex as a girl might be part of the internal belief I was always a girl and sex with a guy is a natural part of being a girl in my world. It was actually getting weirder because I wanted the first guy to be someone I wanted to be with and my first choice was off doing what he did best. Like most girls I wanted to be romanced but by June of 1971 I just wanted a decent guy to take my girl virginity.

I met that man at a Cuban party and he really did seduce me and that part might have been the most amazing event in the evening. I was so scared and so nervous at first I did what came naturally, I sort of blathered about silly things and said some dumb stuff. I started with "I am a virgin" and ended with "I am not sure what to do" and you can fill in the blanks with sillier things like "I am not sure how well I lubricate" but Rico was on a mission to deflower me, his words, and he did. In reality it exceeded everything I ever wanted in many ways but it was disappointing because I thought I had small orgasms of some kind but not "the big one". In retrospect I was just too tense to have one and in the back of my mind I was wondering was the surgeon right that an orgasm was something I would probably never have or was the other surgeon correct that I would be fine.

I pushed Rico into a second try or at least initially I thought I did and by the time I dozed off there was no orgasm but damn it sex was so much fun. I got kissed and held and fondled and everything I could imagine and then I was penetrated by this man's beautiful warm penis that felt so much better than that stupid dilator. Even if an orgasm never came I loved the process of making love or having sex. Heck, I loved the foreplay a lot but being held and caressed afterwards was just as amazing.  The one feeling I distinctly remember was that I wanted him deeper when he was in as far as he could go.

I fell asleep naked in his arms and that was as amazing.  I no longer had to be ashamed of my body and Enrique or Rico made me feel amazing.  The first feeling I had the next morning after nearly two hours of sex the previous evening was that every part of my being seemed to ache. It seemed like it took an hour to make it to the bathroom and I might have needed crutches except for a long hot shower.

I did have my first orgasm during our next liaison and that was so cool and amazing. The orgasm actually got more and more intense as I healed and they were the first orgasms I had ever had. Rico initially did not know of my transsexual past and when he found out it ended badly and that was my fault.

I thought all sex would be like that but it of course is not. For the time we were together sex was a big part of our life but not the only part of the relationship. The intimacy that two lovers have is a key thing for me. I like the feeling of giving myself to him knowing he will love me and not hurt me. I loved the hardness of the male body in contrast to the softness that was me. I love being his girlfriend and his lover. I love everything about the relationship that develops between partners when they connect.

Sex is very important in a healthy marriage or relationship. It is along with the interpersonal relationship that develops the glue that initially binds a couple. I have no concept how anyone could exist in a relationship without the intimacy of sex. My only sexual experiences are those I have had as a girl and woman. I never wanted to or thought about sex as a boy with a girl and most of my friends are similar.

I do have a friend who was married and had kids very young and she has told me she has no idea how she did it. Harry said they had sex by pretending they were the girl but it is all beyond me what fantasy let it happen but it did and does. Immediately after her SRS she met a guy and as she says fucked his brains out and felt correct for the first time. Maybe it was the chemistry of estrogen at work but she never looked back.

This brings me to those individuals that like to claim  being transsexual has nothing to do with sex as in physical sex between adults. In Harry's vision of transsexuality the Type V transsexual was often asexual before SRS but not afterwards. Many were married as both men and women which might relate to the belief that women are inherently bisexual. Maybe my friend in England is correct.

The ones I do find a bit humorous are those that have SRS and stay with the wife and claim they are asexual. The asexual part comes before the SRS and it can get a little interesting after SRS. I can name more than a few that are now expressing interest in men and sex.

I have been thinking about those that stay with their wives after SRS and I wonder if it has to do with the female need for a relationship of some kind and maybe even an asexual relationship is better than no relationship at all. I just have a hard time understand the dynamics of a relationship that seems so static but then I was an early transitioner and they are late transitioners. we are so very different in many ways but alike in some and if they have SRS I will not deny them any longer.

After Enrique I learned the hard lesson many girls and women learn. Most men are so clueless about how to make love to a woman it is pathetic. I went from bad sex in a first marriage to indifferent sex in relationships, some were great also, til I reached the point where I decided love would never come into my life again.  I was of course wrong.

When that man swept me off my feet I learned what love really was. He was the one and I knew it from day one. Sex was a big part of our marriage but it was far more than that. It was so much more than sex it is hard to put into words. The only way I can put it is to say that when he died from a stroke I thought my soul had been ripped from my body and crushed. I felt my very being had no meaning. He was as much a part of my being as I was. It took over two years to partially recover and maybe that is why some transsexuals stay with their wives after SRS. It is hard to lose something that is so much a part of your being.

This brings me to the bigger question. How can some claim they are transsexual and keep a penis. Of what value is a penis to those that claim they are transsexual and women while keeping their male parts on purpose? There is one noted loon that claims men like her 7" neoclit during sex which implies she uses it on them which means she penetrates them I assume. Sounds more like the local she-male hooker on the corners in certain areas of NYC than the actions of a woman.

I get this feeling that these individuals do not want to give up the concept of penetration from a male perspective. I'll even give Sandeen points for having an orchiectomy since I assume that makes her penis less than functional. In most cases the only reason you keep the male bits is because you want to use them as a man does and unless I missed the class that makes you still a man because women are penetrated even in most lesbian relationships.

Who do these self described women with a penis get intimate with? Are there women out there that find a woman with a  functioning penis attractive? Isn't someone living as a woman with a penis and liking women really a heterosexual transvestite? What kind of relationships can they have? Do you really believe them when they tell you they are asexual?

Just seems to me it is another way for men to invade women's spaces yet keep his penis, yet delude others into giving them rights as women, yet leaving them the option to return to functionality as men if they want. Typical man actually.

I do understand some just cannot have surgery but the concept of not wanting surgery and then claiming womanhood with a penis when they have not even gone through the process of girl to woman is infuriating.

These are the ones that claim sex is not part of the transsexual equation but like their penis they are deluding themselves in both cases.