Gender Euphoria and Sexual Pleasure
How I found myself by finding pleasure
Recently, my wife challenged my intense focus on wanting to have sex far more frequently than I have for the last few years. And she had a point.
For a couple of years, I was almost completely disinterested in sex, which was a stark change from the first few years of our marriage. I had a lot of “reasons” for my lack of interest. One was my lack of confidence in my performance following a few instances where I just didn’t feel like we were connecting. Another was that I felt like we were getting the intimacy that people often achieve though sex in other ways.
I’d also shared with her during that time period that I was becoming uncomfortable with public displays of affection. Over time, that became discomfort with private displays of affection too. I just thought I wasn’t a “touchy feely” person and that I was finally saying no when I didn’t want to be touched.
But in some ways, that didn’t make sense either. I would find myself jealous when my friends got hugs from my other friends and I did not. Granted, I had hinted to them that I wasn’t comfortable being touched and they were respecting that, so it wasn’t like they were just leaving me out, but I felt left out. It couldn’t have been that I wasn’t comfortable with affection.
All of those reasons were valid, but there was more to it. In hindsight, it feels stupidly obvious.
I think it’s fairly safe to say that many people learned a lot about themselves through forced isolation. Whether you were isolated with your immediate family or alone for the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, you had a lot of time to think. And maybe, if you had a companion willing to do so, a lot of time to talk through those thoughts.
I’ve made some pretty significant life changes over the last couple of years, all stemming from one question that I asked myself back in Summer 2020 — Is “woman” the right identity for me?
It started with a quick chat with my wife about not feeling 100% like a woman and asking her how she felt about that. She told me that if I felt like I identified as a man, that might be something we need to discuss about our relationship because it would challenge her idea of her own identity. But she emphasized that she didn’t actually know how it would make her feel and she didn’t want me to exclude the idea that I might identify as a man because of it.
With that permission (so to speak) to explore my identity, I think my mind opened up to understanding myself better. And what a journey it’s been.
I tried a few different identities at first, just trying to see what felt right. By that I mean that I said to myself, in my own head, “I am _____,” and judged my own gut reaction. Nothing really fit quite right at first. While, by definition, “non-binary” and “gender non-conforming” most accurately describe my idea of my gender, I didn’t like the idea of “non” being part of my identity. I wanted my identity to reflect who I am instead of who I am not. But that’s me, the word-nerd who likes to use precise language.
But while I was figuring out which word(s) described me, I didn’t want to identify as a woman. Once I said out loud to my wife that I was not a woman, the idea of people calling me or seeing me as a woman became a source of anxiety. So I announced to friends and family that I did not identify as a woman and, for the time being, I just identified as a person who used she/her pronouns.
Retaining she/her pronouns was important to me because I am proud to have spent the majority of my adulthood as part of a tight knit community of queer women athletes. That was (and still is) a huge part of my identity. I couldn’t dismiss that experience and the impact it had on me.
**I feel like I should pause to remind readers that this is how I view my experience, it’s not a reflection of how I feel about other peoples’ identities or experiences. There is nothing wrong with “non” being part of someone’s identity and there is nothing wrong with being a part of a community but wanting to distance oneself from the identities associated with that community. Everyone is unique, there are no rules, and there is no “wrong” way to express identity.**
Eventually, I determined that an identity with a broad definition was most appropriate for me. I identify as genderqueer and if you ask me what that means to me a few times, I’ll likely give you a different answer each time.
As I explored my gender, my wardrobe changed. The clothes that I previously thought made me look “too masculine” found their way into my closet. They appeared to be subtle changes, like the style of baseball cap that I wanted to wear and eliminating brief-style underwear altogether and converting to strictly boxer briefs. Mid-tops became my sneaker of choice and I stopped going to a hair stylist in favor of seeing a barber. But while they were subtle for everyone else, they were significant in how they changed how I saw myself.
And my sex drive changed significantly too. It wasn’t sudden, there was a fairly steady increase that took place over several months. I’m not sure if it was because I was feeling generally more comfortable with my body and what it meant for my identity, or if it was just a natural change in hormones, or something else. But it was noticeable for sure. We went from having sex maybe every couple of months to once a week. More if we’re having a particularly good week.
I found that I was becoming a lot more open about what I wanted sexually as well. My wife and I revived the idea of using a strap-on (for reasons I won’t describe in detail here) and with that, we started exploring other toys that might enhance our sex life. Without discussing the specifics, suffice to say that climaxing was difficult for me and made me feel inadequate for the majority of my adult life. The ways that we knew I could climax were not as intimate as we wanted and that made me feel like a failure.
So we tried a bunch of different things with one huge goal in mind — finding the thing(s) that we could do that gave us both an opportunity to climax instead of having to take turns, so to speak.
And it wasn’t cheap. I think many cis people don’t realize that there is effectively a tax on being trans or gender-diverse. Clothes tend to be more expensive because they are intended for a specific and smaller audience than traditional men’s and women’s clothing. Some people have to purchase prosthetics so their body better reflects their identity and/or pay huge sums of money for surgeries and hormones. And in many cases, people have to move to feel like they can restart their lives as their true selves.
But a few hundred bucks later, we figured it out. It wasn’t like I’d never had an orgasm before, I’d had plenty. And it wasn’t a stronger orgasm that I’d previously experienced, in fact it wasn’t nearly as strong.
But it was euphoric.
It’s hard to explain gender euphoria, just like it’s hard to explain gender dysphoria. Something… clicked. The feelings of inadequacy that previously plagued my sex life started to disappear. This thing that I felt like I’d been missing, and felt bad about myself for not having, happened. The thing that felt good and the thing that caused an orgasm matched. I didn’t feel broken.
Once you’ve experienced euphoria, especially after experiencing what I now know to be dysphoria for so long, it’s hard not to want it all the time. And I mean alllll the time. Enough that it’s annoying for my wife, and understandably so. She didn’t have this challenge before, so it’s not really all that different for her. Except, of course, that she enjoys seeing me experience something that was out of reach for so long.
I joked with her that I’m like a horny teenager that just discovered sex, but it’s only a half-joke. I basically did just discover sex. And in speaking with other people who have experienced gender dysphoria and euphoria, I found that I’m not alone. Others have described sex as a primary source of gender euphoria for themselves as well.
As talking about gender identity becomes more common, we can’t exclude sexuality from the conversation. Gender identity and sexual identity are not the same and it’s important that we continue emphasizing that, but they often impact each other.
We’re so scared to talk about sex, as evidenced above by me not getting into more detail about what precisely made sex a validating experience for me. As I write this, I’m considering whether I need to publish this under a pen name so my friends, family, and potential employers don’t find it and think differently of me because of it.
And I want to say that we should all just rip the bandaid and talk openly, but it’s not that easy. We’ve been raised in a society where sexuality is demonized and that’s hard to shake.
Did you know that the Netflix “Explained Collection” includes a series on sex? It’s buried so far in the menus that I’m willing to bet that most people reading this didn’t, despite likely having watched several episodes of the main “Explained” series. To find it, go to the main “Explained” series and scroll down until you get to the “Explained Collection” and you’ll find it there. And when you’re done with that, check out the other documentaries about sexuality that are available.
We have to try to normalize talking about sexuality, in particular trans and gender-diverse sexuality. Cisgender parents need to be able to discuss safe, consensual sex with their trans and gender-diverse children just like they need to talk to their cis children about it. If you can’t talk about what good sex is supposed to feel like, how will they knew when something feels wrong? How will they be able to talk about it with their partners? How can they consent to something they know almost nothing about?
Sex is more than just the birds and the bees. Sex education needs to include pleasure because the vast majority of the time humans have sex, they are not trying to conceive. Often, it’s actually impossible for the people engaging in those sexual activities to conceive a child, either because they are intentionally preventing it or the bodies involved literally cannot create life together without medical intervention.
If it had been easier or more widely accepted to talk about gender and sexuality, I may have been able to embark on this journey a long time before I did. Instead, I spent years fighting who I was so that I didn’t stray to far from what I perceived to be — and what I was told was — normal.
Sexual oppression is imposed by society. It reinforces and creates opportunities for other forms of oppression. Making sex an elicit topic is just another way to reinforce the patriarchy. Our idea of sex is one in which a man, or perceived masculine person, is the dominant one. And the more places we allow cisgender men to be in control, the less control we have over our own lives.
