The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (35 page)

Lower-body surgery techniques include vaginoplasty and labioplasty. In one technique, the penis is inverted to create a vagina, which is then lined with skin from the penis and scrotum. So while the new vagina isn’t self-lubricating, it
is
made of tissue that engorges with sexual arousal. Some surgeons utilize tissue from the glans of the penis to create a clitoris capable of sensation. They may also construct a cervix from the tissue of the glans of the penis.
⁷

Some MTFs report that they have difficulty reaching orgasm once estrogen and anti-androgens render their penis nonfunctional. They must learn to experience arousal and orgasm in an entirely new way.

When I transitioned, I became friends with a bisexual girl. Since the hormone regime I was taking meant that my male genitalia no longer functioned, she taught me to experience pleasure in other ways. I had my first female orgasm, and I’ve never looked back.

Female-to-Male Transsexuals

Becoming comfortable with my body has allowed me to enjoy sex more. I haven’t physically changed my body yet, but knowing that I will has freed me somehow.

For female-to-male transsexuals, hormonal treatment involves taking testosterone, resulting in increased body hair and muscle mass, deepening of vocal pitch, loss of those curves, and, often, increased sex drive. Surgical techniques include upper-body surgery to reshape the chest and lower-body surgeries to reshape the female genitals into a penis and scrotum.

I love breasts and a dick on the same body.

Testosterone produces an enlarged clitoris for many FTMs. The clitoris can grow to as much as 3 inches long. Some FTMs further enhance the clitoris by pumping it up with a clit pump or a nipple pump. A 3-inch erect clitoris can be inserted into the slit in the base of a dildo designed to hold an egg vibrator.

Some FTMs experience a male sex drive distinct from their sense of their sexuality prior to using testosterone. They speak of an urgency to reach orgasm unlike anything they had previously known.

Upper-body surgery involves a double mastectomy and reshaping of the nipples to produce a flat, masculine chest. Some FTMs find that gender reassignment surgery rekindles an interest in nipple play. Once the physical shape of the chest fits their gender identity, they may find that where once they preferred to ignore their breasts, they now like their nipples tweaked, pinched, sucked, or bitten. Of course, interest in nipple play will vary from person to person.

Lower-body surgery techniques include vaginectomy, metaoidioplasty, and phalloplasty. Vaginectomy is removal of the vagina. In metaoidioplasty, the testosterone-enhanced clitoris is surgically freed from the surrounding structure and the tissue of the labia is used to create a scrotal sac. Phalloplasty involves construction of a penis using skin grafts from other parts of the body. Some procedures involve implanting inflatable prostheses for erection. Some FTMs also opt for complete hysterectomies.
⁸

Many female-to-male transsexuals don’t opt for genital reconstruction and so, physiologically, remain female-bodied—though they’d hardly wish to be called “women.” These transgendered men have a testosterone-enhanced clitoris, facial and body hair, and increased musculature—but they also have a vagina, a G-spot, and a cervix. Many identify as queer, bisexual, or gay.

Partners of Transgendered Women and Men

“What pronouns should I use to address my transsexual friends?” “If I date a pre-op MTF, does that mean I’m bisexual?” “What if her driver’s license says she’s female?” “Can I bring my FTM partner to a women-only party?” “My lesbian friends are acting as if I’m a traitor. Help!”

When your lovers and friends begin the process of questioning gender identity, most likely you’ll have a few questions of your own. Thankfully, significant others of transgendered people have begun to organize resources, including email discussion lists and support groups. Contact any of the transgender support organizations listed in the resources for more information—and check out the Web links at the end of this chapter.

So what pronouns should you use? The ones your transgendered partner requests of you, of course. Can you be sexual with a transgendered partner and identify as a lesbian? Some female partners of FTMs identify as bisexual or queer rather than lesbian—if nothing else, they feel it’s supportive of a partner who no longer identifies as a woman and therefore can’t be in a lesbian relationship. What you call yourself, however, is up to you. Sexual orientation is a personal matter. (See “Sexual Orientation,” below.)

A quick survey of women’s BDSM organizations and email lists reveals many different ways of defining “woman-only” space: genetic women only; genetic and transsexual women; genetic women and transgendered women living full-time (24/7) as women; those having XX chromosomes or living as women 24/7; lesbians and bisexual women; gender identity other than male; genetic females (irrespective of gender expression) and MTFs (irrespective of genital surgery); women and FTMs; and anyone who identifies as a woman.

Partners of FTMs and MTFs have much to say about gender dynamics:

When we first started dating, I asked him a few questions—but I was determined not to make him into my Educator on All Things Transsexual. I read books, went to seminars, and watched films on my own. I found it (although I understand the reasoning behind it) very difficult to learn more about who he was as a person, because he really didn’t want to talk about his life as a woman. Since that comprised about 35 years of his life, that was leaving out a lot. I don’t think it helps when a person thinks you won’t think of him as his current gender if he tells you about life as the other. I remember finding out, by accident, what his former name was. He’d never told me. At the time, I felt very strange about it. I would stare at his picture and whisper the name over and over, trying to make it fit with the person I know now. It never did fit, and it took me a little while to realize why not. It just wasn’t him, and really it never had been. It didn’t change my feelings about him as a man at all.

Most of the partners I’ve had in my adult life have been on the brink of wanting to make some move towards transition. At times it has halted their ability to be sexual with me and other times it has allowed us new places to go in our sex lives.

I enjoy touching his enlarged clitoris because it makes him fe el like he has a huge penis, especially when I talk dirty to him and tell him that he does.

The most femme dyke I ever slept with was an MTF transsexual. It was rough, though—I found that I spent a lot of time defending her.

We are conscious about terminology. Cock instead of clit. Chest instead of breasts.

My current long-term primary partner identifies as FTM. I think this has had a role in my bisexual identity.

One of my current lovers is FTM. He’s the first one I’ve ever been with. I can’t say that it’s changed my sex life, but being in public is a trip! I haven’t been out with a guy in years, so it’s funny to see how people read us when we’re out.

Well, I had to learn what it was like to touch an enlarged clit. I had to think a lot about my sexual identity (which happens to be queer). I had to think about how I could manage to not “out” my trans lover and not be read as straight. I had to learn to not gender a body as female because the person I was fucking had breasts and a cunt. After about a month, I could play with my partner’s nipples and clit and think of him only as a boy.

I really enjoy boy-on-boy sex with women/genderque er/transpeople—this is partly about stimulating the mind as much as the body—the attitude and roles involved—and partly about my sexuality/gender identity.

I like to be “daddy.” I like to be in charge, in control. It’s fun because I’m 5’2” and my MTF partner is 6’2” but somehow I’m so much bigger and taller than her sexually. I’m a generous lover. I get off by her giving me head, by fucking her anally, and by fucking her vaginally. Though she doesn’t technically have a vagina, when we are having sex, she does. And it’s as real to both of us as my dick is to both of us.

I feel more comfortable now with calling myself queer or pansexual as I am not solely attracted to women but to women, genderqueers, transmen, and sometimes even men. I have come to an understanding that it isn’t gender that matters to me but the actual person I fall in love with.

Sexual Orientation

Are you a lesbian because you desire women—or because you don’t desire men? Are you bisexual if you fantasize about having sex with men? If you
have
sex with men? Many of us are familiar with the Kinsey scale, which offers a way of looking at sexual orientation on a 0-to-6 scale, with 0 representing exclusively heterosexual behavior, 6 representing exclusively homosexual behavior, and 3 representing bisexual behavior. Forward-thinking though he was at the time, Alfred Kinsey devised this continuum in 1948.

Kinsey was looking at his respondents’ behavior. Sexual orientation is, of course, far more complex than which sex acts you perform with which partners. Whom do you desire? Who stirs your fantasies? Whom do you love? For instance, on the Kinsey scale, a lesbian who comes out in midlife after 20 years of heterosexual marriage would probably rank somewhere between heterosexual and bisexual—even though she longed for sex with women for many of those 20 years, rarely enjoyed sex with her husband, delights in her new sex life, and intends never to have sex with a man again.

Playing with the Boys

Imagine for a moment two women with identical sexual histories. One calls herself a lesbian, the other a bisexual. How is this possible? Sexual orientation is a matter of self-identification—labels others may toss onto you have little bearing on your realities. For some women, being bisexual means that they enjoy sex with both men and women equally. For others, it means that they feel they have the potential to fall in love with a person of either gender. Some women are sexual with both men and women for their entire lives without labeling themselves at all. You may have sex with men, yet feel that the term
lesbian
best describes who you are and whom you most desire.

Many women enjoy sex with partners who are as queer as they are. Your preferences may run to gay and bisexual men, or to transsexuals of all genders and in all stages of transition. The sex you have with men and women may be qualitatively very different. For instance, you may enjoy strapping on a dildo to penetrate a male partner, but enjoy being penetrated by your woman lover—or vice versa. You may enjoy nearly identical sex acts with partners of either sex. The sexual activities, roles, or styles you like may vary from person to person and have nothing to do with gender at all.

Perhaps you prefer to be sexual with women whose sexual orientation matches your own. What if you’re a lesbian who wants to have sex exclusively with women who also have sex exclusively with women? That’s fine. State your preferences without apology—but remember, yours is a preference,
not
a moral standard.

Aspects of my erotic life with men get incorporated into my sex with women—I am unable to separate the two.

Butch/Femme

Many lesbians and bisexual women find that the dynamics of butch/femme attraction intensifies sex. The gender contrast between two women sparks a
frisson
that’s very exciting. Some butches prefer “high” femmes as partners—whether they be powerful femmes fatales or cherished submissives. Some femmes prefer transgendered butches as partners, appreciating such a high degree of masculinity in someone who wasn’t born and raised male.

The terms
butch
and
femme
may describe your gender identity as much as your sexuality. For you, butch/femme is not just about romance and fashion—or, for that matter, who’s on top. After all, a femme is a femme—whether or not there is a butch in the vicinity. Her gender identity is her own, requiring no validation from her complement. Similarly, a butch is a butch regardless of whether a femme takes her arm.

What butch/femme sexuality means varies from person to person. Butches and femmes come in all genders and sexual orientations. You may enjoy butch-on-butch sex or femme-to-femme sex. You may find that you enjoy playing with gender signifiers—like hair, clothing, sexual apparatus, and roles—without adopting a full-time butch or femme identity. You don’t have to fit a certain body type or personality style to identify as butch or femme. You needn’t wear makeup to be femme or change the oil in your truck to be butch—or adhere to any other gender stereotypes you may have spent years trying to escape. Think of butch/femme as a way of looking at how gender shows up in your life. Butch/femme is a potent sexual dynamic. It’s
yours
to create.

From packing and penetration to passing, lesbians have much to say about butch/femme sexual dynamics.

I like it when butches pack. It shows me they’re forward-thinking and well-prepared. Good form!

There is something so sexy when the female gender is mixed with that masculine finish. A butch woman makes me swoon.

I love the exchange of power that goes back and forth from butch to femme. As a butch, I protect my femme partner from harm and am dominant in sex. Yet, at the same time, I am a willing servant to my femme’s desires, putting her needs and wishes before mine.