In todayâs episode of Lizardho Did Not Know What Sex Was I was like RECENTLY out when this all started. I was born and raised LDS, I knew nothing of the intricacies of gayness, especially not tgirl stuff, so I was feeling kinda isolated. I didnât know any good gay bars (or even bad ones), I didnât know where to find gay clubs on campus, I didnât have any gay friends locally (because Iâd been raised Mormon), so I looked up âgay networking appsâ hoping to find something to help me meet fellow queers. And lo and behold, the App Store presents me with some newfangled application called âGrindr,â a gay networking app for all members of the LGBT community! Boy howdy did I ever luck out, right?
So I download it, I make a profile, and then a bunch of family comes into town and I set it all aside. Iâd literally JUST finished making my profile, so I thought âwell, once my cousins head out I can come back to this and start swiping,â ya know, like the naive virgin I am, and instead what happens is I spend the whole day playing with cousins and being the fun queer cousin and watching movies and playing games and telling jokes and stuff and then they leave to sleep for the night.
Once theyâre asleep I go âwell letâs start swiping and see if I can make any friendsâ which I quickly learned was NOT how Grindr worked because people can just cold message you. No swipes needed, just locked in on a profile and BAM hereâs a DM. And a bunch of these guys hadnât uploaded pictures to their profiles - weird - but at least they were being nice and sending pictures directly to me and OH MY GOD itâs a cock tsunami. The first message I open is a penis with, I shit yâall not, TWO bends in it. Like, âthis episode of sexame street is brought to you by the letter âs,â for Sexual Harassmentâ style two bends. I remember just gawking at it for a bit while I rationalized what I was experiencing. Surely this is a fluke, a bizarre mishap on a dating app, SURELY this man has sent me this in error, or barring that, heâs sent me this because as the only person on earth with a serpentine penis he is looking for someone with an s-shaped vagina and has become increasingly desperate with time. Maybe he sent this to me because he knows tgirls get our shit made custom and heâs hoping one of us has a designer pussy with a loop-da-loop in it? Who tf even knows, but surely the next one wonât be GACK itâs cock itâs just penis and balls all the way down. I got 20 messages that first evening WITHOUT prompting and all 20 messages were dick pics from faceless accounts.
By the end of that day I came to learn what most people know already, which is that Grindr is attempting to redefine the word âcockpitâ in the worst way. Once I knew that, I acclimated quickly - I only messaged trans women, I always messaged an opening that was something like âHey, I promise Iâm not a chaser Iâm just recently out and desperate for friendsâ which worked shockingly well. I learned to ignore DMs from faceless accounts, I learned to ignore dick pics, I wrote a better profile for making my intentions on the app clear, I even made some friends! It was so nice! I was chatting with people, I was getting support and finding places to go and itâs all coming together to help me feel more confident. I even got some good makeup tips that really had me feeling like hot shit.
At this point, about three months have passed, Iâm not looking for a relationship, but Iâm also open to the idea of maybe going on a date? Like a normal chill low-stakes first date or two? Which didnât seem to be the norm on Grindr but I wasnât desperate so I could wait.
Well one day I get a message from a guy with a face pic on his account. He looks cute. He is respectful and interested in me. He sends me pics of his recently-painted fingernails and his hands are stunning so when he asks if I would ever wanna hang out I say âsure.â Later that evening he messages me âNetflix and chill?â and I swear to God I did not know what that meant. I knew NOTHING but I was also cursed with the Dunning Krugerest of brains and so I thought âOmg, that sounds like such a cute idea! Watching Netflix, calm conversation, no expectations, I love that!â And I ignored all the red flags my big smart brain was throwing out because I was in the midst of Puberty 2 and was coping with it by being stupid.
So I put on some makeup and a dress and headed out. I walk through the kitchen out to my car and drive over to his place. I scope it out because Iâm not a total idiot and see that he wasnât lying about having roommates, although it looks like theyâre doing something outside. But that means I at least have some witnesses to my arrival in case this guyâs a phobe or whatever.
So I go up, I knock on the door, and the guy answers the door, and there are a few things that become immediately apparent.
One - this guy lied a LOT about his height - I am like 6 inches taller than him, which meant I was probably around 30 lbs heavier than him, which meant I felt like a huge cinderblock. Just looking at him made my brain do to my shoulders what Christmas magic did to the Grinchâs heart - I felt like a dysphoric cartoon linebacker.
Two - this guy also lied about his âlengthâ because despite being on HRT for like 7 months I was still bigger than him by a lot. Homeboy was flying at full mast and was about the same size as me when I was flaccid.
Three - I could accurately assess point #2 in the front doorway to his house because he was NOT wearing pants. He was wearing a shirt, but was what one of my friends called âWinnie the Pooh-ing itâ in the sense that he ONLY had that shirt on.
Four - He was stoned as FUCK and physically trembling a little bit. It was probably excitement, but because I was now feeling hella dysphoric it made me feel even bigger and manlier than I had before.
So here I am, 6â0â, 180 lbs, pre-FFS so I still am insanely clockable, looming over some 5â6â cis guy with his dick out and my brain was fully lying to me - the dysphoria was awful, I thought I scared him with my massive body, AND heâs evidently expecting sex instead of a chill conversation and Netflix because heâs got his lâil unwashed peener out flopping around like a Republican pixie stick and he says âWow, youâre stunning! Can I have a hug?â and I immediately burst into tears because I feel dysphoric and I hate that, I also feel HELLA shallow because Iâm fully judging this guy for not being taller than me (which I actually care VERY little about, Iâve had crushes on guys who were barely 5â1â, but he said he was 6â2â on his profile so I was expecting to feel small and felt a bit miffed), then feeling like an asshole for being shallow, then feeling like an idiot for not considering that Netflix and chill might have a different meaning on the LGBT Nutworking App, then feeling like an even bigger asshole for leading this guy on, then feeling scared because Iâd never had sex before and I didnât really wanna try it out tonight, and so I just start bawling. And all of this happens mentally, internally, in the course of about 0.3 seconds, so from the outside looking at it it looks like this:
âHeyâ *penis wiggling around like a branch swaying in the wind* âWow youâre stunning, can I have a hug?â
He just kinda nervously stands there, closes the door in my face, then reopens it with pants and guides me inside. He gets me a glass of water and once I can catch my breath he asks whatâs up and I say âI thought we were gonna watch Netflix and chill togetherâ and he says âYeah, the âchillâ in âNetflix and chillâ means sexâ and I was like âOh no, Iâm so sorry, I didnât knowâ and heâs like âItâs fine, we donât have to, I mean, we CAN, Iâm obviously not gonna say no, but we CAN just talkâ and so we talked for a bit while I tried to think of what I wanted. And in the end I decided Iâd rather have sex with someone in a moment where I knew thatâs what I was getting into so I could likeâŠactually be ready and I left. Iâm skipping some steps, there were some awkward attempts to show me it could be fun that mostly ended with me holding an unwashed flaccid penis while he smoked joints the size of tampons and swore that he had never not been able to get hard before and he was SO sorry, but thatâs mostly just awkward and tedious so Iâm skipping it.
The moral of this story came later (unlike me lol) - despite everything in that interaction being WAY better than it could have been (after-all, I could have been killed, or physically harmed, or forced to do something I wasnât ready for) I still felt consumed by this oppressive feeling of guilt. It was overpowering, it was nauseating, I felt dirty and evil, like I had *sinned* in some way. It was awkward, I hated it, and it was just endless. I didnât know how to talk to trusted people about it because in hindsight I was ignoring a lot of risks to have a date because I was excited to go on a date as a woman!
Fortunately, I was playing World of Warcraft Classic at the time. My guild master was a therapist who thought I was hilarious. So she knew Iâd been off for a few days and asked what was up. I said it was NSFW, they said weâre an adults-only guild and I could dish, so I started sharing and partway through this she asks,
âSweetie, were you likeâŠMormon or Catholic or something? Most people donât feel this upset about consensual kissing,â and Iâm like âK, listenâŠâ and she and the rest of the guild kinda calm me down and that was nice. I even ended up in like a sort of online situationship/FWB/bf-type thing with a guy from my Guild who was really sweet and understanding to me and he chatted to me about sex and there was a point where he was like âNobody feels as guilty about consensual sex as a fundamentalist Christian girlâ and I was like âwait, oh shit oh shit, I know something about thatâ and I looked it up and mathematically speaking that is true.
Women raised in fundamentalist Christian religions experience extremely frequent and shame-oriented messaging about sex, and that causes them to (surprise surprise) feel extremely frequent and intense feelings of shame related to sex. This creates problems for these religions, where these women are expected to be virgins until marriage when the shame switch is supposed to flip off enough that you can get pregnant 11 times and happily fuck your husband every time he wants so it wonât be your fault when he cheats.
Itâs a ridiculous problem set up by these churches to keep people busy focusing on silly bullshit instead of stuff that matters. Itâs set up specifically to control peopleâs relationships by bringing the church into bedrooms, so even in secret you have to feel like someone is there with you. Itâs set up to make people feel bad for being human. And it causes women to not want to have sex, even when they get married. The talk these churches give about how sex is something that permanently alters people and makes them worse and dirty and unlovable FOREVER is scary. Itâs almost mythically scary - like itâs some subtle but permanent change to my being that I can ignore or even enjoy in the short-term but that will eventually end up destroying me in ways that I cannot comprehend but will almost certainly be agonizingly painful, like the Christian version of whatever the fuck Big Tobacco was doing to people in the 40s.
And the fact of the matter is that sex isnât some kind of mythic soul nicotine - itâs a silly thing people do. Itâs like tickling, itâs like knitting, itâs like jogging for fun, itâs like board game nights, itâs just a THING people can DO with their time, itâs not a spiritual litmus test, not a divine minefield, itâs just a ridiculous thing people do with their genitals. Itâs NOT that deep (spiritually, physically it can be as deep as you can take it) but people act like it is because they know itâs a thing most people want to do and if they can make you feel alone in that by building shame around it so nobody talks about it, then you feel outnumbered and alone when it does start to become an aspect of your life (if it ever does, because this blog loves the aroace community and we all know not everyone wants sex.) It also helps churches make bodies religious in a way that allows people to assign virtue to things like weight, grooming, and hygiene.
Sex is just fine - itâs a fun thing to do when itâs right (i.e., with consent, adequate hydration, and an attentive partner.) It can help you feel closer to to them. It requires vulnerability that can strengthen some kinds of relationships. It can help you bond with people and exercise in a way that is fun. It can also be painful, it can be dangerous, it can lead to conflicting feelings or even health risks, but itâs not inherently good or bad despite the pros and cons. Itâs just fine.
And because a lot of my followers are exmo I wanted to talk about this. And also because a lot of this puritanical shit is baked into the loaf of US culture I think itâs important to address. To any followers who can relate to feeling overwhelmed by shame when thinking about sex, to any followers who feel âgrossâ or âdirtyâ because they want sex, because they did something sexual, because they think about sex, just know youâre not alone. Know youâre not the only one who got hooked by all the shame-inducing messaging. And then know that thereâs nothing wrong with you. Exposure can help the feelings of guilt and shame go away, but if youâre not ready for that, then even if you canât feel it yet you can know that youâre not some sick twisted sex freak for liking sex. This is true for women, but also for men and enbies. Itâs true not only for those who are being explicitly shamed but for those who are learning the shame from observation.
Sex is fun, it is cool, is it silly, it is exciting, it feels good, it can be risky, but itâs overall enjoyable BECAUSE ITâS OK TO ENJOY IT. And because that is true, the inverse is also true - you do not HAVE to enjoy sex. You do not have to do it at all. It is not an obligation to do it or to like it in the same way it is not do it or hate it.
Be better to each other. Be better to yourselves. Be gayer, read more Terry Pratchett, and do weird sex stuff if you wanna.
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