Sex, or something like it...
I've been consistently polyamorous in relationships for the last 25 years. I've been in kink relationships for the past 25 years. I've been consciously Genderqueer for the last five or so, but I've never been particularly Normal in terms of gender/sex identification. When I say that my relationships have been primarily Sapphic that might seem like I'm sticking myself in a female pigeon hole. I'm okay with that.
When I came out as Genderqueer I lost some lovers who decided that me putting a word to something I've always been made me no longer qualified to bed them. I don't much talk with those people any more. They remind me too much of the people who decided that I was no longer the same person once I got sober and they weren't going to spend time with me any more.
I suppose it's perfectly normal for me to worry that others will decide that I'm not Genderqueer enough to be acceptable.
I wonder why people make it so hard to be good enough for them. Is it because they fear that they're not good enough either and they have to double down on enforcing the rules or they won't be winning the game anymore?
When one of my old lovers (by which I mean someone I've been intimate with on and off for thirty years, and with whom I have most of my other lovers in common) started exploring gender some fifteen years ago, we had a lot of fun with it together. In the last two years she's pretty much settled in on her female identity and has also had that experience of falling out of other people's expectations.
Last night we got together in person in a place where we could be intimate for the first time in well over two years.
Previously we'd spoken about many many kinds of intimacy. We're both kinky as Q-Bert and enjoy discussing the dynamics, techniques, technology, theory, and practice of psychological, emotional, and physical intimate play. One time, recently, I said to her, “You know, I've never approached you intimately the way I would seduce and enjoy fucking with a fellow Sapphic. Would you be interested in trying that sometime?” She was all, “Yeah, okay. Sure. I'll try it.”
So, I did.
We had fun, and I was much more in charge of things than normal for our in person encounters. She seemed to enjoy it, even if she was a little bit confused.
Today, she messaged to apologize to me about last night.
I asked if she'd felt uncomfortable or scared. I asked if I'd pushed too hard or too far. I asked if she'd enjoyed herself. I asked if she wanted not to do that again.
No, she'd had a great time and wanted more like that, but she felt bad because she hadn't performed up to her expectations.
(Sometimes I wonder that in the complicated intimacy community if we don't get a little too dedicated to our roles and our performances.)
I've taught kink classes and discussed communication and care for ages, and it's amazing how I can still be surprised at how hard it can be to simply relax and let things happen. Maybe sometimes we micromanage and try to control the things that frighten us and when we enjoy them we can feel like we're failing somehow to control our enjoyment.
I wonder if that's why people sometimes dump folks who suddenly seem to exist outside of their expectations. I wonder if feeling like someone else has changed the variables without their permission is too much to process and things become too scary to risk messing up somehow.
It's not easy to get sober. It's not easy to tell the social conventions of gender and sex to go fuck themselves. It's not easy to choose personal authenticity and personal self-acceptance over the attention and support that comes with conforming to the ideas of others.
If those choices seem impossible, then someone who has made those choices might just seem more than a little terrifying. Threatening. Shaming. A constant reminder that different choices are possible.
Maybe some people dress up their defenses against that kind of fear as dedication to tradition and the sanctity of their known rules of society.
That may explain the mechanism of intolerance and hate, but it certainly doesn't excuse it. But if it does explain the mechanism, maybe those of us who can and choose to do so, can check our own thoughts and understandings of how society works so that we don't emulate that mechanism against ourselves and others.
I suspect that the most important step in that process is not refusing to shame others for not living up to our expectations, but refusing to shame ourselves. To choose, every time, to sit with our feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and fear of rejection and make time to care tenderly for those parts of us that are feeling that way. Not shove it in a box. Not ignore it. Not pretend it's not there. Not scold it. Not encourage it, or built it up, or play narratives that reinforce it, either.
Care for it, as tenderly as we would a good friend with a head cold. We can know that these feelings will pass along and some good soup, some bad tv, and a couple dozen naps will help us live in this moment of discomfort and come through it without making it the center of our universe all the time forever. If we care for a physical cold, we can get better. If we don't care for the cold or pretend it's not there, we can get much worse. If we continue resting and eating like we're sick, we may not build our strength up again after.
So, having made this much stew out of the single oyster of one intimate encounter I don't think I can ever tease anybody else about overthinking or micromanaging their sex lives ever again. That's probably a really good thing for me to remember.