Scarleteen

Hello there,

Thank you for what you do at Scarleteen - your articles have talked me down from many a panic. I'm looking for an outsider's perspective on something I haven't seen covered before: I'm feeling sexually unsatisfied because I wish I was a man, but only in bed.

I do feel uncomfortable being seen as a woman but I get angry when I think of how many risks and negatives there are to being AFAB - pregnancy, pain during sex, periods, lack of investment in our pleasure, a longer time to orgasm (which is seen as an annoyance) and lack of research about our bodies etc.

I find myself wishing I had a penis very often. When I have my period or if I'm worried that I'm pregnant, but especially in bed. The idea of having a penis is very hot to me, and the idea of feeling as if I'm a gay man making love to a male partner. I'd even just like to pretend I have one or talk sexually as if I do. These are my main fantasies, and yet in almost every other aspect of my life, I'm fine being seen as a woman.

My partner and I have recently started trying things in bed which make me feel like a man - gentle butt stuff, or putting my fingers in their mouth (which feels similar to fingers in a vagina - am I actually a lesbian?) They are the best things I have ever felt in bed (I've never had a partnered orgasm, while my partner comes every time, which I'm beginning to be frustrated by) but I don't know how to explain this to my partner. They also don't seem as enthusiastic about these acts compared to PIV and view them as slightly weird and optional, whereas PIV feels inevitable. We haven't done it yet but are planning to try it very soon. It seems unequal for my partner to be able to do something so intimate and for me to not do it in return.

I feel as if there's no room for my sexuality in my relationship or any relationship I might end up in. In all other ways I am happy in my relationship and my partner is too.

Am I trans? Is it reasonable to be angry about being born as a woman? Is it selfish to be jealous of how easily my partner comes? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you

Hi Amelie!

Welcome to the message boards! It's so great to see a long-time reader make it here to ask a question (or a few in this case!)!

It's definitely reasonable to be angry about being a woman, and/or angry about all the things you are made to deal with or untangle because of how your culture oppresses people according to anatomy and the genders it associates with womanhood, whether or not that is how you will always identify. I don't know how we'd survive without anger being a permissible way to face these things. There's plenty to be angry about!

It sounds like you already know this, but I will say that the things you list...

pregnancy, pain during sex, periods, lack of investment in our pleasure, a longer time to orgasm (which is seen as an annoyance) and lack of research about our bodies

...should not be taken as a given just because you are born with a uterus, ovaries, vulva, clitoris and all that jazz. There are, unfortunately, political and cultural choices that make all of those things way worse than they could be! More of us could probably do with being angry about that.

I also don't think it's selfish to feel jealous of your partner's ease with orgasms... I think a sadness or an irritation around the feeling of loss with regards to a feeling like "I wish I had that!" is completely understandable, when you view it as an emotion and a sign of being unhappy in this dynamic. It wouldn't help to shut that feeling away. Acknowledged jealousy/envy can be a useful navigation tool which can show you where want/need to go, but unacknowledged jealousy is usually where things go wrong and we begin resenting a person, becoming passive aggressive or mean, without doing anything to change the issue.

There are plenty of ways to be trans, some of them involve more intention to change how we are viewed in the world, whereas other times it's more weighted towards how we want to be viewed and how we want to interact with our partners and how we connect with ourselves sexually and emotionally, usually it's a bit of both, and often how we want to be viewed is different depending on who it is we're interacting with. I'd say it's up to you whether you think this is a male character or persona you would like to "play" in the bedroom, or whether it's a bigger part of your identity that's more deeply connected to the rest of who you are. It's also only your perspective that can tell you whether the diverse trans community is something you feel a part of based on shared experiences (even if no two trans people share every experience).

Being trans doesn't have to mean having a single fixed gender that is different from what you were assigned at birth, it can also include experiences of fluidity, duality or multiple shifting experiences of sex and gender.

I know for me my sexual experiences are a big part of how I know I'm nonbinary and that connects me with many other people in the wide-wide field of transness, while there are also a bunch of things we don't share!

I'm going to push back on the idea that there is no room for what you're talking about in any relationship - Remember people are different in a million different ways, and I can assure you that anything that you find hot, so too will someone else, whether that's from a shared or complimentary perspective.

How are you feeling about the trans stuff? Would you like to identify with being trans, given that that can mean whatever you need it to mean?

Also what are you thinking about this relationship, and the potential for changing it given what you've already tried?