I wish I had had someone to tell me that there should never be parts of your sex life you have to dissociate to "get through." Maybe it's obvious to other people but I literally could not conceive of sex where I didn't have to reciprocate physically. In my circles it was a given: you either want to touch your partner, or you don't love them. It was the unspoken truth that no one in "real life" was always-the-bottom, and my private high fem fantasy stories were considered immature at best, fetishistic at worst. In my world, I was not permitted to even conceive of having that boundary, only to dream of it, guiltily.
None of my past partners, I am absolutely certain, would have wanted to have sex with me if they had known what happened to my internal state when I topped. But I was so desperate to be loved, to be wanted, I tried to become their fantasy of what I should be. Because I really did love them! But it was wrong to deceive them. It couldn't last. I couldn't keep it up, the real me would slip through the cracks.
There is something about stone which is repulsive to queer people outside the scene. It is alienating and strange to them. How can you be a gay woman, if you don't want to fuck women? How can you be a gay woman, if you don't want to be fucked by women? It's a repression to be overcome, a Freudian repression, that must be diagnosed by psychoanalysis and cured by exposure therapy-- "You'll learn to like it. It's a part of growing up." It's not a boundary, it's a personality flaw. A red flag. An ick.
If you live in that world, it's hard to imagine any other. But you try, because it's essential to your survival. Little etchings of stone, like a medieval illuminator who has never seen a giraffe, but has heard a fourth-hand description of one. The stone world is as unreal to you as the giraffe is to the monk-- you will never see it, and it might not even be real.
How many failed relationships does it take to reach the realization that you cannot deceive your way to being loved? How long can you ignore the voice in your head who begs, don't ask me to do this, please, don't ask me to do this? How small can you make yourself? How empty?
The stone world is real. It's out there, and I've seen it. I've been there as a tourist and now I hope to make it my home. I'll build a house right here, and put my name on the mailbox. I can't let you in, not yet-- I haven't finished unpacking-- but we can sit on the porch, and talk. I'll make you tea. You can put your feet up. It's a good little house. It's mine, and there's a lock on the door. Someday, someday, I'll have 'em cut you a key.
