2. I started looking at porn when I was ten years old, on
the dare of a friend. I quickly developed a need for it. I started
masturbating a few months later, after I discovered my genitals were
sensitive in a good way. We played doctor once, but mistook our anuses
for vaginas.
3. Probably my first crush was a girl in
kindergarten, but I didn't realize it. She had curly red hair and
freckles, and prominent front teeth. I always wanted to be around her.
By the time I was fourteen, her birthday presents to me had become hugs,
which I savored deeply. I always wanted to kiss her, but she grew up
in a very Christian home, and whenever she heard the term "gay," she
sneered and averted her eyes.
4. I used to keep a boy as a pet at school. He was
much smaller than me, but we were the same age. After class, I would
take him behind the buildings and force him against a brick wall and
attack his neck. It made him very uncomfortable. I also tied him to
chairs, which he did like, and declared him no longer male before my
friends on multiple occasions. I didn't want to be caught dead with a
male called a "boy." I found them utterly repulsive.
5. The men in my family gave me low opinions of
mankind. An uncle screwed one of my cousins and cheated on his wife,
another married a woman for her looks and was back-stabbed when she
divorced him and took all his cash, and my father used to yell at my
mother and brother. He broke down my brother's door in an argument, and
my brother once threatened me that he would burn the house and kill us
all. The police were called twice, that I recall. Even now, it's hard to
be with my boyfriend, who is also my dear friend, simply because I'll
remember how scary men can be.
6. Gay porn is pretty much all there is, for me. I
don't really understand why someone would look at heterosexual porn,
because I think, "But another sex is there? Why would you muddle it like
that?"
7. I used to steal porn comics from the local
bookstore because Playboy objectified women and the gay mags were made
for men. My mother found my collection next to my bed and threw them in
the fireplace. Another time, she went through my book bags and found a
gay novel. She took it out back. I assumed she threw it in the outside
trash. She repeatedly asked me, "Where do you see yourself in this?!"
That was the point; gay male relationships offered no physical mirror
for me. For a second or two, I could pretend I was male. I simply didn't
want my body or my sexuality reflected in it, if that makes sense.
8. I've never had sex with anyone or anything. Every
time I've tried, it hurt too much. The boyfriend and I have always been
interrupted before it can get too far, and 95% of the time, I'm
immensely relieved. I think it's scary. I haven't had evidence pointing
otherwise.
9. Masturbation is never more than rubbing the
clitoris. Which is perfectly fine with me, but I've been doing it for
eight years, sometimes five times a night, so it's not nearly as
sensitive as it used to be.
10. When I do look at PIV porn, it's more
T(entacle)IV. I don't like to see men with women unless they're loving,
equal, respectful relationships, and I've never seen one of those that I
believe.
11. I tell my boyfriend frequently that I prefer
women, and that being with a man is very difficult for me. He just
kisses me and says "I know." Or, "That's okay." Is it bad that I find
that particularly degrading? Like some house pet or a toddler being
momentarily placated? Sometimes I recoil from his touch, but it's not
about that. I simply can't stand having a man touch me.
12. My first really really real lesbian experience
occurred in Paris when I was sixteen. I met a girl who also enjoyed
homosexual porn, and I drew and wrote for her about our handsome male
teachers. The three days before we left for the summer, I had her tied
to the bed, pressed against walls, and bent over chairs. She was
straight, though (Texan!), so I had to hide my breasts and put on a deep
voice. But I was fine with that. I really liked her. Her brother saw
the hickey on her neck when her parents came to pick her up. We never
saw each other after that. She went back to Texas.
13. I don't want to be "eaten out," and dislike the
term. I'm curious about oral sex, though I despise seeing it in porn if
the one giving it is not being mutually pleasured. I can't watch or read
something unless the two characters are equal. Maybe that's why I have
such issues with heterosexual sex; how many positive stories are out in
the open about equal relationships? That's feminism, where I come from.
14. Church for my family was a short fascination. We
went and stopped by the time I was five. I tried again when I was
fourteen (the year of experimentation!) and attended a service dedicated
to teens. I saw fliers declaring homosexuality a sin, and touting
special rehabilitation seminars and camps. We were taken to a large room
and the girls were told to remove our socks. We sat on a long stage as
bowls of cold water were placed at our feet. Men came down the line and
dropped grapes in, then told the boys to advance to the stage. They
knelt in front of us and the pastor instructed us to feed them grapes
with our toes, and that it would be a timed competition. I won some
prize, but immediately went home, very disturbed. My mother yelled at me
for not calling for a ride, then saw my odd posture and berated me for
being on drugs. I went to bed and didn't bother changing clothes.
15. When I was thirteen, I joined the track and
cross country teams. I bulked up, cut my hair to ridiculous short curls,
and bound my breasts with sports bras, gauze, and athletic tape. One
day, when a boy addressed me as "Hey! Girl! Uh, boy! Whatever!" I felt a
different, surreal kind of accomplishment. I was gender-neutral.
Underclassmen started calling me "he-she" in the halls, and I wore a
neutral uniform with shorts.
16. At eleven, I began menstruation. I hid it from
my mother for a few days before she yelled at me and I cried on the
couch. I didn't want to be a woman. It looked positively miserable; the
end of childhood.
17. People in my old town were raped and murdered.
Everybody knew the place by the bowling alley as "Rape Alley." It wasn't
until I'd had a close call that all those jokes became very, very wrong
to me. I was angry that the police didn't do anything.
18. Even though I'm an atheist, I like stories about
angels and faeries and the like. For a long time, I wanted to be male,
and then I realized I actually wanted to be asexual. I enjoy
masturbation, but I feel like it's just wasting energy, and looking at
porn wastes time. Not that I'll stop, of course.
19. I like chubby women in their twenties, thirties,
forties. I like pixie cuts, graying hair or dyed, and androgynous, lean
bodies. I like small-breasted women and caramel, black, or white skin,
and pale birthmarks. I like cuddling naked with women, and pressing our
chests together and having a head resting on my shoulder. I like women
who wear bulky sweaters and never go out in leggings without a skirt.
Humor and kindness and sisterhood are what I'm looking for in this
world. I have very few female friends. Women mystify me, and I love them
more intensely than I think I like my boyfriend.
20. All of my male friends have kissed me at some
point, several times on my would-be boyfriend's bed. But I've hardly
kissed my female friends. I'm slightly afraid of them, considering how
attractive I find them, and worry that I'll disgrace ourselves by asking
if they would.
21. I once tried to start up a threesome with a
couple I knew from high school, but the moment I mentioned that I might
like to bring in another guy, her boyfriend started in on the "Oh, no,
that'd be gay," rant. Then what are two women? Pets? Playthings? I hate
people who are willing to take but not give in those situations. I broke
it off the second he said it.
22. As a kid, I heard my mother have sex through the
wall with her boyfriend. I used to scream and cry for an hour. Call it
an Oedipal complex, but I did NOT want anyone fucking my mother. I
though she was being dishonored, and that she was dishonoring me.
23. By fourteen I was masturbating to the sounds of their voices.
24.
I've attempted to kickstart several relationships with friends I'd come
to identify as surrogate "siblings." They gently turned me down and
said they loved me too much, or respected me too much. I didn't
understand. I had just begun to tentatively think that sex equaled love
and respect. The idea was shoved to the back shelf and even now only
occasionally resurfaces.
25. I'm always a bit jealous when I read these
entries, at least those which detail free and comfortable sex lives. I
don't understand the lack of fear; the relaxation; the disregard for
dirtying the self. How can people be so comfortable? I know it's
experience, but at this rate, I don't even really want that. I have this
crazy dream in which I remain a virgin for the rest of my life, like
Elizabeth I, and maintain a happy existence with a fun woman and a
couple of kids. To please her only would make me happy in the moment,
but telling her to not pleasure me as I freely touch her is massive
disrespect in my book. I just want for my partner to be happy, but it's
always difficult to trust.
