Betty and I spent Thanskgiving Day at my sister and her husband’s house – a place we frequent on a regular basis. I like to joke that our standard of living is brought up significantly by dinners at her place: good food, plentiful wine, deep sofas & a fireplace. It’s lovely.
She had a ridiculous amount of people over for Thanksgiving Day itself: a couple in from SF, CA with their two small children; a couple from DC with their dog; a friend from Tucson and three of his friends; us; them; her acupuncturist & old friend, and another old friend with his friend. I think it was 16, or 18, all told. Which is lovely: being from a big family it just feels right to me to sit at a very long dinner table. My sister’s husband, who’d taken the foot of the table, actually called my sister at the head of it twice during dinner as she otherwise couldn’t hear what he was asking. Amusing.
At some point when people had had a bit to drink, one of the friends of friends kind of plopped herself next to me and Betty on the couch. I knew what was coming. We’d met her before, at a previous party, and she had asked a lot of questions, then, too. I think I even wrote about that incident, when I just got tired of it & kind of ‘ran away’ on some trumped-up excuse.
“So, when you two make love…” she started. She did add the “if you don’t want to answer that’s okay” caveat, but still: not fun. And I realized tonight what’s not-fun about it to me – and that’s the assumption that 1) because we ‘look different’ from others we have some kind of outlandish sex life, 2) that because we look different people actually have the right to ask us about our sex life, and 3) that it was quite possible that any other couple at the dinner had a far kinkier sex life than we do.
At some point, I just returned her “So when you two have sex…” question with “Well how do you two have sex?” The thing is, these questions never get asked in a kind of ‘I’m curious’ way but in a “I’m so normal and you’re so not” kind of way. The funny thing about it was that her husband and she did not strike me as totally normally gendered: she came off as kind of aggressive, bulldog-ish, and he seemed kind of sweet and passive.
I always find it kind of funny that people are so willing to present themselves – to me, of all people – as somehow “normally gendered.” Because if anyone’s going to see anything genderqueer about anyone, I’m a safe bet. I’ll find the residue of an inkling, if it’s there. I’m thinking sometimes I should come with some kind of warning label: Abandon gender certainty, all ye who converse here.
Reproductive Rights
Nerve seems to be getting a little hipper these days: after that cool special they did on bisexuality (in response to His Idiocy’s Recent Study), they’ve currently got a Reproductive Rights special issue up (because we can’t all be having all this fabulous sex without preventing pregnancy, you know?).
Not bad. Maybe someday they’ll review my book, even.
Just a Gripe
You know, I recommend the store (Toys in)* Babeland in my book and just about everywhere I go, and they still don’t stock My Husband Betty. It’s kind of funny to be looking for a good porn flick and then feeling too grumpy to get one, even with a gift certificate.
And it’s not because they don’t carry non-sexual, non-fiction trans titles, since they carry Kate Bornstein’s My Gender Workbook and Mariette Pathy Allen’s Gender Frontier (neither of which have even close to as much sex info as MHB, by the by) and books by Loren Cameron and Patrick Califia.
They also carry het porn so it’s not about that, either.
Pah.
* They just changed their name & are now just “Babeland.”
The Dark Side: Women, HPV, and a Cancer Vaccine
Back in April, I wrote about how a potential vaccine for one form of cancer – cervical cancer caused by HPV – might be blocked as a result of our usual anti-sex, unrealistic Religious Right. The thing is, girls could be saved the chance of ever getting cervical cancer by getting the vaccination, but some people would rather those girls risk dying of a preventable cancer because they feel that giving the girls a vaccination might ‘encourage’ them to have sex.
It’s along the same line of thinking as ‘let our kids die, but don’t give them condoms.’ That is, an idiotic line of thinking.
One of the regulars over at DailyKos has written an astonishingly good piece about women, HPV, the vaccine, and why some people have a problem with saving girls’ lives. I strongly recommend reading it through to the end.
Body Mods? Mod This!
How do I love Dan Savage? Let me count the ways…
This column made me wonder if a married TG might use being en femme or making body mods precisely to keep their partner from wanting sex.
Because if they are the type of CDs who are already auto-sexual, or have low libidos, or don’t like the male sexual role, or can’t get off without wearing panties or fantasizing about wearing panties, this just works a little too well, doesn’t it?
The CDing kills the wife’s desire for sex, & the CD is free to be autosexual, as he really prefers it. No performance anxiety. No topping. No being the seducer. Just a wife who rants once in a while about how much she wants to have sex and doesn’t get it.
Not in a conscious, manipulative way, but more in a subconscious, pacifying kind of way.
Just a thought.
(Thanks to Andrea for the link.)
Under the Slide
The other night I attended a lecture by Arlene Istar Lev, author of Transgender Emergence and a respected therapist who aside from being an out lesbian herself, has worked with trans people for a long time. Likewise, she had originally worked in couples/family counseling, and as a result has worked with a lot of trans-couples (couples who, because one or more people in the relationship are trans, have to deal with gender in such – necessary ways).
Her lecture was on TransSEXuality, as the poster put it: not about transsexualism, but about the sexuality of trans people. She’s writing an upcoming paper, and this talk was delivered to a small research group that gathers once a month to talk about trans stuff. Some of the participants were trans, others of the larger GLBT, and were therapists, and academics, and scholars of various sorts. (I felt severely unlettered with a Masters in Lit., but I’ll get back to that in a minute.)
Unfortunately for all of us, the presentation was Lev’s attempt to circumscribe what we don’t know about trans sexuality: there is no research, there are no numbers. There are therapists with long backgrounds. There’s porn, and HIV rates. But mostly, we know almost nothing. We don’t really know how trans people’s sexualities develop, or really what they do, and to whom, and how they feel about it. We have stories, we have testimony, and we have guesswork. We have some literature about gay and lesbian sexualities that are only really useful if the trans person is gay or lesbian after transition, and sometimes not even then.
I was kind of struck by the fact that I felt like I knew more than most of the people in the room just by virtue of the fact that 1) I have sex with Betty, and 2) I have leant an ear to an unknown number of trans-partners, and 3) I’m not scared of seeking out porn and erotica geared to trans people or featuring them, and finally 4) because I’ve been lucky enough to meet some very honest, upfront trans folk who like to talk about sex (and who understand that I am one of them, in the odd way that I am.)
What I ended up with was this sense – as an unlettered writer who is sans ‘official’ psyche/sociology/social work background – that basically what we’re going on right now is 1) guesswork, and 2) qualitative research.
Which is pretty much what I do. So aside from the questions/frustrations that popped into my head about who I am and why I do this and legitimacy and authorship and credentials, I also realized that this is one of the reasons that narratives are so important right now. And I don’t mean narratives in the sense of “This is what I need to tell a shrink to get my letters” but rather in the sense of trans people and people who love trans people stepping up and saying “This is what we do” and “this is what works for us” and “this is how I’ve always seen myself.”
In fact, I’d say it’s vital that trans people (and those who love them) really start talking about what we DO with and to each other in the bedroom. How we identify, how we think about our (gendered or not) sexual roles, our development as sexual beings, our relationships with our bodies.
Because it strikes me that trans sexuality is about at the same place women’s sexuality was at in the 60s or so, when groups of women in CR groups were sitting on top of mirrors to look at their own vulvas for the first time.
But here’s the caveat, for me: I had this really weird feeling afterwards. I felt – exposed. And maybe a little judged. And kind of poked. What popped into my head was that Twilight Zone episode called People are Alike All Over, when a few humans are being kept at an alien zoo, and the sign on their cage says “Humans in their natural habitat.” I didn’t like the feeling, even if I understood where it came from, and why. Social workers and psychologists and therapists want to understand; one professor asked if we could develop “models” of trans sexuality – you know, to figure out their etiologies.
There was one point where I mentioned how, as a partner, I’ve stopped caring what people think I am – ie, lesbian, het, queer, bi, etc. And someone said that was a ‘sophisticated’ response, and then changed that to ‘mature.’ And I said, “No, just tired,” which it is these days, in a kind of think what you will but I’m gonna go home now and love my alien kind of way.
Ironically, it made me somewhat optimistic: at least we have the list of questions.
Typical? Yes.
I received this email through one of the partners’ groups I’m in, and I thought it was a perfect articulation of the kind of thing I’ve heard happen over and over again. She called it “Bait and Switch” which is a term I’ve used more than once in describing what it was like to go from accepting Betty as a TG to watching her wonder if she would transition.
I feel deceived.
I met my husband online – over 4 years ago. I was looking for a BDSM relationship – I wanted to be dominated. Jack* responded to my ad – and with a few emails it seemed like we might make a good fit. A few long phone calls full of “me too’s” and giggles – and finally a real date. We really hit it off!
So, we share with each other, our fantasies, our wishes, our dreams. It’s all so lovely.
He liked to dress me. Take me shopping. Put me in clothes and shoes I’d NEVER have picked out myself. Made me feel sexy and admired… wow! I ate it up!!!!
He mentioned that he’d dressed up as a woman once or twice – but felt like he made such a horrible version of the female gender he’d not done it anymore.
So, once in awhile, when we’d feel like dressing up in some fetish wear – he’d slip into a skirt. Then he began to order high heel boots for himslef online. And, while shopping with me and in the women’s underwear department – he asked if I’d mind if he bought himself a pair or two of silky, ladies underwear. Of course I said “sure” – who could resist wearing such comfy silky things – more power to him.
I’ve been openly accepting – encouraging even. Everytime he’s left alone in the house – he dresses up. Now he does it everytime we have the house to ourselves. Whatever… if it makes him happy – right?
But – then there’s me. He doesn’t dress me up anymore. He doesn’t admire me. He’s obsessed with shopping for his clothes, finding new outfits. He seems to think it turns me on – when it certainly does not! He doesn’t understand why I’ve lost my entire labido – I have NO desire for sex – because he does’t turn me on at all… I’m feeling more and more seperated, lonely, desprate, deceived.
Am I alone in this? Is his desire to dress as a woman more important than our relationship? should I accept that and move on… this sucks.
I posted it here because I want CDs to see it. I hear CDs bemoan the fact that they don’t have an accepting, supportive woman in their lives, and yet time after time, I see posts and emails like this from accepting, supportive women.
I’m sure a lot of people would just write it off as ‘gender euphoria’ or ‘being lost in the pink fog’ but I think that makes it the partner’s problem, something she should ‘wait through’ – letting ‘boys be boys,’ as it were, in the meantime. Some of you, no doubt, will say to yourselves, “Well if I had an accepting wife I’d never treat her that way” but then – why does it seem to happen so often?
Unfortunately, sometimes an email like this is followed up a few months later by the “Now he says he needs to be a woman!” email, too.
I wanted people to see this, so simply put, so heartfelt, so dejected, because these feelings are so typical of the kind of pain I see partners in, and the kind of pain I’ve felt myself. You give your CD partner some room to be himself sexually, to relieve himself of the shame and guilt he’s suffered with all his life, and for a ‘thank you’ you get neglect, a partner who seems more interested in ‘her’ than you, and an assumption that his crossdressing actually turns you on.
Pah. I’m never sure what to say, either, – especially if after I ask if she’s talked to him about it, she says “Yes, I have, in no uncertain terms.” Then what? A 2′ x 4′?!
* Jack is not his real name.
Five Questions With… Raven Kaldera
A female-to-male transgendered activist and shaman, Raven Kaldera is a pagan priest, intersex transgender activist, parent, astrologer, musician and homesteader. Kaldera, who hails from Hubbardston, Mass., is the founder and leader of the Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel and the Asphodel Pagan Choir. Kaldera has been a neo-pagan since the age of 14, when he was converted by a “fam-trad” teen on a date. His website, Cauldron Farm, contains extensive information about Pagan practice as well as his activist writings on transgender and sexuality topics.
Having met Raven and attended workshops he’s given, I’m always surprised that every time I see him I’m newly amazed by how much his presence is both strong and gentle. His answers, too, are of the ‘pulls no punches’ variety, without obfuscation, and he manages to explain complex ideas – about spirituality, sexuality, and identity – in plain language. Okay, I’m a fan! – I admit it!
1) I think the most vital thing I’d love for you to talk about is how most IS people view T issues, and whether or not they identify as T, and why.
Most intersexuals do not consider themselves transgendered, and are very uncomfortable being associated with the trans movement in general. I think a lot of this comes out of lifetimes of being shamed for being physically different; if it was a terrible thing that had to be medically corrected and then desperately hidden from the world, what’s up with these people with “normal” bodies who are seeking out changes? Not to mention that many IS folks view transpeople as freaks, and are desperate to be seen as “normal”.
The problem is with the cross-section. I don’t know how big that cross-section is, but there are more and more of us popping out all the time – IS folks who decide that they’d rather be a gender other than what they were assigned, and get sex reassignment, transsexuals who discover that they have IS conditions in the middle of their changes, and so forth. We make it difficult for either side to separate from each other. Our bodies are spread across that gap between the two movements. It’s important for me as one of those bridgers to be sensitive to the needs of both sides, getting in the way of the IS folks assumption that we’re freaks; getting in the way of the transfolks’ attempts to colonize the IS struggles.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Raven Kaldera”
Dark Odyssey #3
We’re back from our 3rd Dark Odyssey and this one topped the previous two. We arrived Tuesday around 2pm, and left Monday around 2pm, which means we had six full days of nudity, sex, workshops, sex, pagan rituals, sex, naked volleyball, swimming, and yes, more sex. Driving down with Daddy David and his girl Kate was a great way to get ready for the six days, and to process them on the way back.
I am pretty sure I now know every conceivable way a person can be tied to a tree and flogged.
We met a bunch of new and interesting people: Maggie, a liberated ex-pat who was both beautiful and multi-lingual; Neil and linda, who gave us the low-down on Master/slave relationships; Captain Beatrice and B, who each came to one of my workshops; S. Bear Bergman, who reviewed my book not long ago; Lyndon, who was wearing that cool “question gender” shirt from TIC; Sir Andrew and Fyre, who we hit it off with immediately when we picked them up at the airport, and Maria, with whom I had some interesting conversations about being raised Catholic.
We saw a ton of old friends and familiar faces, like Opn and Toni (who once again provided us with excellent “fat girl taxi” service, Joe Samson (and his girlfriend), Citizen Rahne (and her girlfriend), Susan (who is scheming to get me invited to the Trans Health Conference that takes place in Philly every year), Julie, Becky, Barbara Carrellas (with whom Betty may be starting a “partners of writers” support group, as Barbara is the inestimable Kate Bornstein’s partner), and Raven Kaldera and his boy joshua, who put on an amazing re-enactment of the Sumerian myth of Innana. Michelle Zee taught me a new shoulder stretch, too. (It just occurred to me that nearly all these people are trans themselves or a partner of a transperson, which leads me to believe I’m slightly self-ghettoizing, but that’s not a huge shock, either.)
There were folks from the MHB Boards there, too, like Dawn, the cervix-bearing fantastic partner of Nicole (who regrettably had just broken her foot and couldn’t come), uber-lusty JessicaNYC and her MonkeyGirl, and of course the lovely Penny and Jayme, who were literally hiding in the corner when I first found them, right before the workshop on monogamy that I did Friday night. Then again, they told me later that night they’d already gone skinny dipping, so it obviously didn’t take them long to come out of the corner!
We also brought home a new member of the Boyd family: little Aurora, a tiny 5 lb. tabby cat who charmed everyone — and who was fending for herself on the campgrounds without claws. She’s sleeping in our bathtub for now, being forced to eat and drink, and getting crankier about it (which I consider a good sign, because she’s got enough energy to complain, and she didn’t before.)
If I could find the people who would leave a clawless cat to fend for herself, I might come up with a new way to tie a person to a tree and flog them.
We had a great time overall, and opened a few doors ourselves. I did finally manage — in a very safe workshop given by our friend SwitchMe — to get naked in front of other people. I’m not going to make a habit of it, but it was good to do, if only even for the ability to do so if and when I choose to.
Betty and I also, erm, opened a few doors together, in public and privately, but that’s all I’m saying. You’ll have to come yourself if you ever want to see us do anything sexual in a public space, and even then you’ll have to get lucky to be in the right place at the right time. (Several people were disappointed they hadn’t been, when they heard what we’d done!)
Betty was of course a lovely co-MC with Miss Tristan for the Wheel of Destiny, and a few people are starting to mumble about them co-hosting a cable access television talk show. I’m already imagining the guest list, but we’ll see.
The biggest surprise was enjoying watching Sir C beat the crap out of someone tied to a tree while reclining under a pine tree in the dappled sunlight. (Though we did have to pick ourselves free of pine tar afterwards.)
The workshops I conducted (on Monogamy, Uneven Libidos, and of course Trans sexuality) were a pleasure to run, especially since the people who came posed thoughtful questions and had insightful comments, though of course my workshops are certainly less arousing than the ones given by Nina and Felice! Betty said at one point that I provide all the “thinking” workshops, though the one I attended given by Citizen Rahne was really thoughtful and smart, too. I was especially pleased that the workshops I gave on non-trans subjects were a success, which got me thinking about what I want to be when I grow up.
What amazes me the most is that I could write another 10 pages and still never touch the sense of what DO is actually like. We definitely encourage other couples, genderqueers, trannies, and BDSM folks to come on down! Yes, the food is mediocre at best, but the meals are full of interesting folks and engaging conversations. I’m not sure anyone gets enough sleep, either. But the sense of camaraderie, the comfort with nudity, sex, and kink are inestimable — like nothing I’ve ever experienced anywhere else. Our thanks to Greg and Tristan for the effort to put on such a remarkable event, and to Colten and the staff for working their butts off.
Off to Dark Odyssey
Betty and I are going on two brief vacations in upcoming weeks:
- to Dark Odyssey, starting tomorrow (9/13) until next Monday (9/19).
- then, to a family reunion on Betty’s side, the long weekend (Thursday – Monday) after that.
If I don’t respond to an email, it’s precisely for that reason. Be well, and we’ll see you in a while.
(Via the magic of computers, new blog entries will be posted, however.)