New Orgasm
Sexuality and physical intimacy can have a certain intensity that some people might not want to talk about. Lust and sensual desire are often mentioned as obstacles for liberation. Monks and nuns are most likely celibate. At many silent retreats, participants refrain from any sexual activities. I have a total respect for whoever decides to step away completely from anything for their own reasons — sexual activities, intoxicants, certain food types, media, people… I think the baseline is to treat with care when activities involve intensity in some sense, otherwise we all end up in the place of shame, fear, regret, and doubt. AND there’s a place for renunciation all together. This is my attempt to talk about sexuality and physical intimacy with care and humor. I’m an open queer being so I don’t shy away from details. You have been warned! (Just to reiterate that all the changes I have experienced on hormones are very individual and how I have described them is very subjective.)
I have lived as a sexually active gay man for well over a decade, and experienced fair share of romance, one night stands, relationships, and masturbation. I was not hooking up left and right (which is completely fine if you do), but my sexual desire on testosterone was pretty strong. I would often take care of myself by watching tumblr (until 2018), twitter, and some other NSFW contents online.
After a few weeks of HRT (hormone replacement therapy), my sex drive went down to almost zero. This is not always the case for everyone but I found that it is often the case from reading Reddit threads. (Also my doctor told me that was normal :) I did not have much to worry about because my husband and I are in an open relationship, and I did not plan to have my biological children. I still love cuddling with him, and he can fulfill his needs elsewhere. I was actually grateful for the lack of my sexual desire because there’s so much to process that I rarely had time or metal space for masturbating or fishing for hookups. I’ve tried to masturbate out of curiosity because I wondered if it still worked. It did although the sensation was different for me.
Orgasm came like an intense wave washing over my whole body in and up, not just down and out.
Intensity used to be very local but now much global.
But I was not interested at the moment, and it took a lot for me to get to a point of arousal. More than that, wow I really used to masturbate frequently.
I guess it helped me to have sexual experience as a gay man. I knew that sex, for me, did not have to involve my erection. Of course, it often did, but I knew it did not have to… probably not in the sense that if I were a straight man. That's an important perspective for people on estrogen when orgasm might become not accessible like it used to be on testosterone. (I’m just using these terms for fun but I understand it’s not black and white with hormones or anything)
It brought much appreciation being queer. My queerness made it easier for me to explore my body and how I am to some extent once I “came out”. I don’t know what it feels like to be cishet, but I’d imagine it would be a greater jump from cishet to trans than from gay to trans with different variables. I’ll never know, considering how individual transition really is. No need to compare but I think about these things.
After 7-8 months on HRT, I started to feel a bump of sexual desire from time to time. I’ve explored a bit on my own and with some folks. Porn does little to nothing for me now, which is new, but I get excited when someone I know sends me a NSFW video. I’ve made a temporary conclusion that I need personal non-physical connection to feel sexual pleasure. I found that I don’t even need to touch my body when I can sense intimacy. When I see a good intimate scene on TV with amazing actors, my lower belly area and spine produce a jolt of electricity and vibration. So fantasy works too. I recall it used to be like this for my first testosterone puberty, then it turned into something else.
I’ve met someone I really like. I started having mini-jolt when they texted me something really sweet or sexy. Just texting words. No pics. When we finally kissed, I felt a lot of things that I would not have felt just by kissing before. I’m grateful to meet a person like them because it is often not easy to date as a transfemme person even though trans people are statistically amazing ;) It’s fun and new but it is not like I’m 13 again. I know the honeymoon phase and the butterflies of new connection are exciting but fleeting. I’ve felt deep joy from mutual interest and care in each other — that’s how I married my husband— but my body on estrogen is now capable of feeling something subtle with more intensity. I cannot help but to imagine what if I could relive my puberty with some experience I could not have!?
Relationships are dukkha, but I’m not going to avoid it either. There's a fine balance between being present for the vulnerability and being overwhelmed by it. I do not want to shy away from my new discovery around sense pleasure, nor want to feel shame around it. I have been there since the first puberty. It did not go down well. I see that the sense pleasure is like a bait for wanting, fear, and doubt to appear with resistance as a notification. PING! And I want to bring a sense of awareness and loving-kindness to the resistance, wanting, fear and doubt as well as pleasantness itself. Because it is joyful for me to feel sensuality on estrogen. I feel lucky to be in the condition that allows me to do so. And actually it gives me the opportunities to build different relationships with wanting, fear, and doubt, which can bring subtle calmness even though I’m not pushing myself to connect for some kind of imagined liberation.
I would like relationships (romantic or not) that I encounter to be based on autonomy, gentleness, and flexibility, yet I keep finding myself wanting to solidify and label what and how I’m relating to my husband and other possible lover friend partners, whatever the label might be. I find that part of human nature so endearing and fascinating because it’s trying to construct familiarity for security. Sometimes that’s all I can see… thoughts after thoughts. Association. Reasoning. Expectation. I promise I’m not high but the mind is wild, and seeing that from time to time inspires me to practice.
