Sexuality Evolving

Rhett and I are both gender geeks. This comes as no surprise to anyone who reads either of us.

Our conversations, three days out of five, prompt blog posts from me on any range of topics. Whether you, dear readers, realize it or not, this guy is responsible for about half my topic ideas over the last year and a half. Long before any of you, much less I, knew about the Rhett and Jolie show.

True to form, a conversation last night prompted me to think through a post on how I came to be femme.

It seems like many of the femmes I know, that are my age or older, have histories with men, and with identifying for a very, very long time as bisexual.

I’m no different.

I think it’s because I grew up in a place and time where homosexuality wasn’t necessarily the Big Bad, but it wasn’t visible or discussed anywhere. I ran with boys because that’s where my personality fit in the best, and I had sex with boys because that’s who was available.

Looking back, I can both wish that I’d had access to a couple of cutie-pie baby butches, and be relieved that I didn’t!

I was a walking, talking hormone from the age of 14 forward.

I was also very lucky in my choice of boyfriends, especially at first. My first “serious” boyfriend was a senior when I was a sophomore. I called him Eeyore, because he was the most introspective person I’d ever spent any time with. He treated me like a princess. I was a virgin when we got together, and I was still a virgin, technically, when we broke up. Eeyore, though, introduced me to my first orgasm, held me through the aftermath, and smiled and said “Not yet,” when I asked for more.

He taught me that making love, physically, really could be just that – loving. He also taught me to talk about sex openly and without shame. In hindsight, Eeyore was unbelievably mature for a high school senior, and was very good both to me and for me.

The bullrider, Wyatt, was a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type, and we just had a good time for most of my junior year. We dated for about six months and spent a decent chunk of our time together playing around. He wasn’t the pay attention type, like Eeyore had been, but that was okay. We weren’t terribly emotionally invested in one another. It worked out just fine for all involved.

My senior year was spent with my one and only experience dating someone really far outside my social circles of geeks and cowboys. The Jock was actually a virgin when I got ahold of him. It was fun for me to be in a position to be the more experienced partner! Even still, I had lessons to learn in that relationship. Jock taught me that sex could be just as eye-opening for a boy as it was for a girl, and that there was incredible joy to be found in laughing together while exploring each other. He reminded me of what Eeyore must have been like at first. He was also very good for both my ego and my spirit, because everything between us was fresh and new and just amazing in his eyes.

Of those three, I’m actually still in touch with the Jock. We stayed friends after we broke up, and after so many years, we’re still friendly. I like him a lot – he grew from a good boy into a good man.

With experiences like these, I never really had any reason to question my sexuality. I knew that sex with boys was just fine, and in some cases really good. I also knew that I liked girls the same way.

What I didn’t know is that what I was really looking for was that package that melded the two – the masculine-gendered, female-born.

If I’d had a baby butch around, I think I would have figured it out a lot sooner. I’m just sayin’… if I’d known that dyke sex could be just as penetrative without the mess… ooh, lordy. I mean, I met my sex drive as a teenager. Something woulda caught fire.

Anyway. This is why, for so long, I identified as being bisexual, even through my first marriage and into Ho Phase ’05. It wasn’t until mid-Ho Phase that I stopped, looked around, went “Huh.”

And decided that I was going to check the box that read “No more cock that spits, please and thank you.”

So I wonder about other girls like me, and if I’m going to be the last generation that this kind of identity confusion happens to. The internet is so pervasive now that it’s hard to imagine growing up without any inclination at all that femme is a gender identity, and that there are butches/transguys out there who scratch that itch that I felt.

I evolved into myself the hard way – by making mistakes and missteps that eventually got me where I needed to be in spite of myself. It’s nice to think that it will be just a little bit easier on the baby femmes to be out there.

Looking for more? Check out the joint blog, filled with gushy marital ad nauseum, at This Side of the High Speed Rodeo.