I’ve had people I loved when I presented as both male and female. Many of them extremely dear and precious to me. Each unique and marvelous in their own ways. I feel blessed to be able to say I’ve experienced love and sex from such a variety of people and roles.
I’m not a casual lover. I’ve only had two one-night-stands in my entire life. Neither was fulfilling. Both left me feeling sad and empty. I’ve never been great at sex for its own sake. I have always needed a heartfelt emotional connection with my partner to feel turned on. As a male, this sometimes presented a problem. I encountered women who imagined that all men immediately get hard when offered the possibility of sex with any woman possessing a vagina. I happen to know that’s not so, and it certainly wasn’t when I presented as a male.
I used to think my lack of instant erection at the mere possibility of intercourse meant I was flawed as a male. This was despite the fact that I already knew I was a Trans woman. However, when I was younger I hadn’t resolved this entirely. I didn’t see a clear path forward to transition and at the time imagined that living as a male was my one and only future. So when I couldn’t perform or didn’t feel turned on when women propositioned me, I felt like I was inadequate and that feeling reinforced my dysphoria. I knew deep down that I was Trans and could never really be a man.
But that all changed when I actually felt some emotional connection with a woman. This happened half a dozen times before I transitioned and once afterward before I had bottom surgery. When I was a new lover, I attempted to play the stereotypical male role and my lovemaking was clumsy and stiff. I was disconnected from my true feelings and so couldn’t honestly express my deepest desires. As I aged and especially after my divorce, I began to feel more and more comfortable letting go. This is where the essence of true love-making dwells. When you let go and just allow your soul to travel and mingle with another. I experienced this Nirvana with perhaps 3 or four people in my life.
I call it Nirvana because if there is a method to experience divinity on earth then this has been where I have found it. Where two souls seem to meld and mingle into one. Where I no longer feel alone but truly intertwined on a higher plane. I often see pure color when I’m in this state. Like a psychedelic light show in my head the colors flash and change in gorgeous rich deep hues. Other times I’m traveling on an incredibly thin tenuous and vibrating strand of spider’s silk. I’m like a sparkling dew-drop shivering across the strand towards the infinitely expanding web at its end. The journey impossibly slow and intense as I inch closer and closer to that vast and suddenly multi-directional pathway that is the center of everything, suddenly exploding into a web of white light and pleasure.
Suffice to say, this doesn’t happen with every lover. I imagined it might not be possible after bottom surgery. I imagined I’d left it all behind me when I traded in my original equipment for the vagina I now possess. I also wondered if any man were sensitive enough to love with such delicacy and tenderness. Or were they all ham-handed clods who just rubbed you enough to cover the bases required before getting what they wanted? I’ve met and been intimate with these men. I saw one in the grocery store just yesterday. To be sure, he’s an attractive and successful gentleman. Lots of fun too. His eyes twinkled and we hugged in the produce section. But he wasn’t able to connect. he wasn’t a traveler. His lovemaking (at least with me) didn’t cross into that magical realm. So I finally began to decline his invitations and he eventually moved on. I see him now and then with young attractive women. I still like him and we did share some fun, but our chemistry wasn’t right and I knew I couldn’t be fulfilled if that connection wasn’t present.
But I finally met a man who showed me that there are those special guys. They may not necessarily present as the dashingly handsome lovers you see in RomComs. He may be shy or quiet. Maybe even timid. But in the bedroom his hands and abilities come to the fore. My guy shocked me. His kisses took my breath away. Formerly I had thought he wasn’t my type, but after that first night together he suddenly appeared strikingly handsome and all I could think about was being with him again.
I count myself incredibly lucky to have found him and had the fortune to travel beyond this physical plane with a few special people. Life is often a difficult and trying journey filled with drudgery, sadness, and disappointment. But if I can occasionally leave and glimpse eternity and blend with my partner’s soul in a place beyond this narrow physical space it helps me believe that perhaps somewhere there is so much more.
