This journal is going to be a little meandering, and difficult at points, but ultimately I think it ends on a very positive note. It is a processing journal because I think I process best when I can write things down. This journal is for me, but I am posting it publicly so maybe others may learn something of my experience, learn something of me, and maybe if something resonates with them, learn something of themself.
I had an encounter with a friend a few days ago, and it has done so many things for me that I don’t know how to proceed. So I shall write and think and process and maybe come out the other side with some growth.
But first some history.
I will never say transition was not good for me. I will never say I shouldn’t have transitioned or that I will ever go back to the old way I was living. But, despite how much I have said I was very lucky in how well my transition had gone and continues to go, it has not been a perfectly smooth and entirely positive experience. I have had to navigate not having supportive health care, and changes in my dysphoria and coming out to places scary to come out at and oh so many things. But I did, and continue to do, these things because my life has become so much more vibrant and happy and even connected than it has ever been in my memory.
However, as I intimated in a previous journal, I have much more connection and network than I ever have. And I love it. But, wanting some portion of that network to increase in connection and intimacy has created a small crisis; I didn’t know if I could be more intimate with anyone.
I used to be deeply shut in a dark closet. I hid everything about myself from many different subsets of the public, so much that it was often ingrained and reflexive. I started drinking in high school, like many people did, but I was so good at making myself hide things from people I though should never know, I could not drink a single beer at a bar or a party where it would have been acceptable, if my mother was there, until my late twenties. This does not teach you how to be open and available for intimacy and closeness with others.
Now, I had somehow found my way into deeply connected relationships before I embarked on transition, why should it be any harder now? I am being authentic and open now; that has to help, right? Well, all things being equal, that would be true. But being transgender and transitioning throws a wrench into the works.
I need to touch briefly on sex and my sexuality now. No, sex isn’t intimacy and intimacy isn’t sex. But they are correlated. For me, in particular, I need intimacy before sex can even be a possibility.
One of the things that transition has thrown into chaos is my sexuality and my sexual response. When I was on testosterone, there was an urgency that drove me to find ways to have sex and that pushed me to find intimacy. Now that I don’t have T, I don’t have that drive anymore. Also, I have been having an issue in rediscovering how my sexual response works anymore… but that is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say, I don’t know what is ‘good touch’ anymore. I don’t know where my erogenous zones are. I still have that bundle of nerves that nature put there, but I can’t enjoy using it. It triggers too much dysphoria at times… ok, most times. The physical side of things isn’t going very well.
But, I do know I want to be sexual. To be sexual, I need intimacy, as I said above. So, the quest to find intimacy began! Ok, that’s overly dramatic. I actually have just been thinking about it, and stressing over it, and just generally driving myself nuts… because that’s what I do. I knew I needed to figure out what intimacy means to me, and what I need to get there.
Well, let’s start there. What does intimacy mean to me?
Intimacy is that state of being able to be with another person and not put up barriers, or wear masks, or close yourself off. Being open to being embarrassing and not worrying about it. Being able to give in to the moment and let it go where it will and not try to micromanage. Just be in the presence of another person. (or more than one; equally valid) This is why sex just can’t happen for me where there is no intimacy. The stress of keeping up the barriers and the masks and the posing and everything is just too much for sex to ever be pleasurable for me.
Now, what do I need to get there? Well, this is the tough part. I need to get to know someone well enough that I have some level of trust in them. Before transition, I needed to trust that when I opened up I wouldn’t be rejected for who and what I am. That I won’t be considered a freak or an abomination. Now that I have started transition I have those, with the added elements that I also need them to actually think I am a woman and not a ‘man pretending’, understand that my physical form in many ways is detestable to me, and be gentle in pushing for exploration where gender impacts what they may want.
Note: I don't wish people to not push me to go further, it helps, but where gender intersects, please be gentle.
On top of that, I need to know that the other person believes, like I do, that consent is as important an element of any relationship. I need to know that the other person will listen when I say no, that they will check in when moving from one activity to another or change in intensity, and that they will learn and respect my triggers to minimize unintentional traumas.
All of this is great, but how do we get there. You have to let people in, to find out if you can trust them, but you want to trust them before you let them in… so you have to commit to an iterative process where you reveal smaller things, see how they react, reveal greater, see… lather, rinse, repeat. I know, rocket science here. But as obvious as it is, actually doing it is the hard part, especially when every social interaction for decades before was actively against this. I think that talking, really talking, LOTS of talking, is the only way I can get there. I talk about my story and my likes and my desires and goals and whatever, because then I can try to gauge the other person’s reactions and maybe build that trust I need to find some intimacy.
Well, I have a friend that I have been talking to a lot. She only knows me as Ginny, but I have always been out as trans so she knows that, obviously. She has never treated me as anything but another woman. We have lots of common personality traits. And I have come to trust her. So when I had a particularly bad scare and really needed some closeness and comfort, I mustered up the courage to ask to cuddle.
Touch connects me, it grounds me and it helps me get centered. But, I need to trust the person I am being touched by, because with just a tiny slip I can fall into remembering trauma from my past when touch was perverted and used to hurt. I felt safe enough to try.
First we had some errands to run, and then we needed to eat. Throughout we chatted, and listened to music and laughed just a bit. That was perfect because it distracted me from concentrating on my fears. Because, though I had decided I needed and wanted physical connection, I was still afraid of opening up. But then it was time.
We got comfortable and close and we just held one another. And we talked and laughed. And, as is typical when people cuddle, at least in my experience, she began lightly scratching my arm and I had to explain how much I liked scratching, how if you just scratch at my head a little my brain falls out and I am mush. Then after checking in, she tried. I almost said no, but then I recalled my greater fear that I could never do this, never let another person see all of me, so I accepted her offer and so began an incredible experience.
I don’t know if I can actually convey that which transpired. I am not sure I was totally there for most of it, despite how present I felt for all of it. I love scratching, I know that, but I didn’t really know how much I loved it. Because for me, when I let go and just accepted the attention, I just lost all my fears and stress and I felt a chemical rush I had never experienced before. And through it all I felt connected and cared about and seen.
In a very short eternity, it was over, but it was not gone. I did find limits that I wasn’t ready to bypass, but she asked for permission and listened when I could not grant it, and so the trust we have forged was only increased. But when the night ended, that was not the end of what I had learned. It was only after in the first stages of my processing did I realize some more things.
And here is where we begin to speak of the pain I alluded to in the title.
I have always had a strange relationship to pain. My pain response is all over the map and has never seemed to be anything like anyone I have ever known. I can find injuries on myself sometimes only after the fact, and I don’t feel it until I notice it. I can have terrible injuries and I just ignore the pain. Most pain meds I have tried do nothing to lower the pain I feel. And, I don't seem to have a typical endorphin response, I never feel that haze between me and the pain others describe. So, with all this you may understand why I never thought pain would do anything for me. I knew there are people who find pain cathartic and others who actually find pleasure from pain response. I believed them and their stories, but didn’t understand them. Now, I think I do.
At one point during the night, she dug in with her nails on my leg particularly strongly. It hurt. Quite a lot, actually.
But, it wasn’t pain. It was just… right.
I felt it wash over me, and I reacted to it, but I reacted with joy and pleasure. I knew it hurt, but I looked at it, almost rationally, and I remember thinking, “oh, so this is what good pain is.” And then, it just faded away; I was done with it. I also remember gasping particularly loudly and smiling, so there’s that too. I am a bit loud when I am in that place, but I don’t care, because the person I shared that with didn’t judge me for it.
And now, I want to go back there, someday. I want to know if I can get there again and, if I can, I want to find out where else I can go. And, because of this, I am a little less scared of sex when maybe that has the chance to be a part of my life again. I am less scared, because this one incident, event, what-have-you, means I can forge intimacy. And if I can do that, I can figure out that sex thing eventually.
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