Humans are social creatures. Some of us can live as hermits, or close to it and some of us suffer mentally and emotionally (more than some others) if denied intimate companionship. As with most of us in this predicament, I am attracted to women, in the strange paradoxical way that that is possible, and suffer from the kinds of issues anybody who is forced to live a life of loneliness will likely suffer without companionship from an intimate partner.
I have a girlfriend who I have been with for nearly two years. We've had our ups and downs but we are generally happy and comfortable with each other. I've managed to avoid issues with my unpredictable gaps in sex drive by telling her that I have a bit of a broken sex drive and have known about it since puberty. I've told her that while I really enjoy the act of sex, which is very important for her to know so that she can also allow herself to enjoy it, that I feel like I am missing part of the normal sex instinct a man normally has; that I feel like I have a puzzle piece missing from my brain and that I just don't think about or lust after sex like I'm supposed to. I tell her that watching pornography, an attractive woman stripping, doesn't quite get me the same way ir does a normal man and that physical foreplay basically needs to start in order to turn me on. To go with that, I've explained that I get turned on in cycles and I don't know why, it's just the way I'm wired, and that when I'm in a sexually low point, it is hard for anything or anyone to turn me on. She knows that this frustrates me very much and doesn't mind accommodating me, as long as she still believes that once we're in the act, that I am turned on and enjoying the experience with her. I can't of course tell her why it actually frustrates me but in my mind, it's a suitable compromise.
You might wonder how I found a girl so understanding and accepting of this apparent aspect of me, even though women need sex just as much as the next person and you'd think if I'm not satisfying her in our first few months then it is unlikely that things would continue. In fact, during the first few months of our relationship, I had no trouble with desire in this area at all. It's not to say that I got turned on at the thought of sex with her in the normal way, but my sexual desire was definitely heightened. Then a few months in, as the honeymoon period which helped drive our healthy initial sex life wore off, I needed a corrective procedure performed in my nether regions which required a few months of healing and made sex difficult. After that, she was going through some of her own issues which interrupted that part of our life anyway. After that time, I think we'd been together long enough for things to "cement", for lack of a better term.
Am I lucky? Dishonest? I personally can't see any advantage in telling her the actual truth with what goes on inside my head. I know what turns her on, what she is attracted to and what she needs to "know" in order to enjoy her sex life and none of that includes a feminine man who wants to be female let alone a female partner, or thought of such, in bed with her. All of reality is perceived. I don't believe there is any real objectivity in life and if a lie kept keeps us happy and if revealed causes only hurt, with no upside, what is the point? If she is happy and I am careful to never expose this side of myself to her (and I am very careful), then I can see no reason this should ever be a problem.
What would I do if we broke up? I find it unlikely that I would seek another girlfriend. I was only just discovering this phenomenon when we first got together and having learned so much about it since, I think I would probably instead invest time in meditation to understand myself better and perhaps try to explore building a skill for lucid dreaming and online role play via mediums such as Second Life, in order to explore this part of myself further. I am content as I am though and having my girlfriend there keeps me sane while I work on my career and the other things I like to do, which I think would suffer without that companionship. It's nice to know though, that if we ever did break up, that I have an idea of what I might do. There are probably many men out there who have this problem, have no idea what it is and would suffer tremendously not knowing what to do with it and coping with the loneliness with which it is often accompanied.
I came over to your blog from the crossdreamer blog. I'm a woman with mild tendencies to imagine myself a man. I don't think that is terribly uncommon; it is just so easily accepted in surface ways that it isn't much named. I don't have any clear view on how you are handling things with your girlfriend--I'm in a situation of telling partial truths myself. But I wanted so say that in the very long run, don't give up on finding a partner as a crossdreamer. If you look in some groups on Fetlife you will find there are people who identify as butch straight women, if that would feel like a complimentary match to you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestion, my girlfriend are pretty close though and generally pretty happy together. I can't really imagine leaving her to go look elsewhere. I think if my needs were more strongly focussed on the actual sex, it might cause an issue, but for me it's more about the desire to have a female body, which is there irrespective of my partner's tendencies. I have a good imagination though, so I find that (usually) I can use that in the bedroom and it is enough to get "over the line", so to speak. I can very much imagine my girlfriend saying "I wish you'd never told me" if I were to come out about it. I'm preempting that but not telling her ;)
ReplyDeleteWow, your story really really resonates with me. It's nice knowing there are people out there who can relate on an issue like this. I was wondering if we could chat directly by email? Please drop me a message - my email is linked from my profile. Hope to hear from you.
ReplyDeleteI understand your difficulty. I didn't tell my wife fully about myself and my crossdressing struggles until 7 months or so after our wedding. But it was one of the most important things I ever did. For me one of the most important things in loving someone is to be fully known. I hate hiding things. I want to be known and understood, even if that means some awkwardness, or need for apology and forgiveness. It turned out really well. She was actually relieved I struggled with crossdressing rather than pornography. But she believed, like I did as well, that crossdressing was something harmful that I should stop.
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