Real love -- I'm, like, searchin' for that Queer Love -- LGBTQIA+ Love // A Thread for the Real Ones

good morning Alfred

not getting laid this year i mean - i'm no grandma - i just like, can't be working and doing drugs and drinking coffee all the time, it's just, not gonna cut it

Can relate! Without all the coffee.

hung out on Monday with a friend. she's gotten back to doing grindr hookups after some time off for health-related reasons. it's been really positive for her.

i forget sometimes that there are people who actually want sex for its own sake, and not because they want to feel loved and attractive. i wish i was like that. my QPP was telling me that i overcomplicate things and i said do i, or am i just complicated? i feel like i'm complicated.

i want to feel physically attractive, but the most common way people express physical attraction is, you know, sex. if i want physical intimacy, i gotta find someone i'm attracted to, figure out if they're attracted to me, figure out if i can deal with whatever drama they got going on, and also we have to be kink compatible _and_ they have to be ok with an intimate relationship that doesn't require sex. oh, also, i don't feel safe in kink-centered social spaces (for what i want to be clear are _very good reasons_).

i hate being asexual.

"Sex for its own sake" has never been my thing, and I've found myself incompatible with individuals who find it to be their thing. I was derisively painted by a former boyfriend as being some kind of "demisexual" or whatever, but that's not the case at all. I can't fuck unless I feel safe, and I don't feel safe unless the potential fucker is somebody I know and trust. This isn't to say I haven't _ever_ had sex with a stranger, but there's always been a feeling of dissociation accompanying it, like I'm forcing my cognitive brain to surrender to, well, something else... or it feels like I'm taking myself up on a dare.

I need to know I can have Negronis or mocktails with my potential fuckmate.

i agree but would also posit that there are many kinds of intimacy. like we don't have to be talking flowers and cotton candy. i'm learning to lean into the side thing at least. apparently there are a few of us out there.

my big decision this year is if my summer fling is going to be a furry guy with some meat on his bones and brown hair, or a younger twink type

i'm practicing making big decisions in 2024

"Sex for its own sake" has never been my thing, and I've found myself incompatible with individuals who find it to be their thing. I was derisively painted by a former boyfriend as being some kind of "demisexual" or whatever, but that's not the case at all. I can't fuck unless I feel safe, and I don't feel safe unless the potential fucker is somebody I know and trust. This isn't to say I haven't _ever_ had sex with a stranger, but there's always been a feeling of dissociation accompanying it, like I'm forcing my cognitive brain to surrender to, well, something else... or it feels like I'm taking myself up on a dare.

― frociaggine e figaggine (flamboyant goon tie included)

yeah that's kind of how i feel

"demisexual" to me i don't know what that means

if that's meaningful to other people sure, but only wanting to be intimate with people i trust and like... i don't see there being anything wrong with that?

---

ok real gay shit here

there's this manga i read a while back, last year maybe, called "bokura no hentai" and thinking about it still fucks me up

it's about three kids who meet on a crossdressing forum

one of them isn't important for the purposes of what i'm talking about

one is just a trans girl and doesn't know where else to meet people like her

that's why i read the manga, there's not a lot of actual trans representation in manga

and she's an interesting character, but fundamentally i'm not _like_ her. her gender identity is pretty simple and uncomplicated. she's a girl, she's always known she's a girl, her mom is accepting and affirming. she has to deal with bullying at school and stuff but ultimately she gets on puberty blockers and transitions.

nah the character i relate to is the third one

he dresses as a girl because he wants boys to like him

the boys he gets with are fucked up and ashamed and treat him like shit

and that matters

his arc is him trying to figure out sexuality vs. gender

and at the end of the story he comes to accept his sexuality, does a play where he dresses as a woman but after the show confidently comes out to the people around him as a gay man

except it's not really that simple

except one of the other people he knows from the forum notes that he's a lot happier, more confident, more outgoing when he dresses as a woman

and then there's a question of the kind of guys he was into

he was sexually abused as a kid by a neighbor boy who encourged him to dress as a girl

in the epilogue he finds the strength to tell his mom what that boy did to him

and his mom doesn't believe him, she says "no, not him, he was a good kid"

and he goes out and does the same thing he always does

he goes to a bar dressed as a girl and picks up a guy and the guy takes him back to his place and ties him up and fucks him and humiliates him and tells him how disgusting he is, that he's not a real woman

i'm sure y'all know the narrative that comes with those kinds of experiences

and i also hope y'all know how bullshit that narrative is

that guy isn't gay because he was abused

that guy doesn't dress as a girl because his abuser encouraged him to dress as a girl

wanting to be fucked by guys, whatever one's gender identity, is normal. dressing as a girl, whatever one's gender identity, is normal.

being abused _isn't_ normal.

this is the fucked up thing about abuse, in my experience

things that are normal and healthy to desire get all mixed up with stuff that's awful and _feels_ awful

one gets exactly what one wants but in this awful, awful way

---

i wasn't sexually abused when i was young. i was emotionally and physically abused. i wasn't sexually abused.

unless you count spending much of my childhood watching a kids' tv show where a huge part of the "humor" was making boys wear dresses and humiliating them for it. unless you count the porn catalogs my dad got in the mail, the ones my mom made fun of him for while showing us the catalogs. the porn was like all the other porn of that type. sissy fetish. humiliation. nothing worse or more shameful than an AMAB being _feminine_ and _submissive_.

opinions differ, i guess, on whether or not that's a form of sexual abuse.

it's really complicated. there's part of me that thinks that being hurt and degraded and humiliated is what i deserve. i've had that belief reinforced over and over again for much of my life.

it's complicated because wanting to submit isn't fundamentally _bad_ or _wrong_ or _unhealthy_. it doesn't make me inferior in any way. it certainly doesn't make me any less of a woman. there are all different kinds of women who want all different kinds of things.

when i started questioning my gender, it was the scariest fucking thing in the world. i was afraid of being rejected, of being shamed, of being humiliated, of being _hurt_.

that wasn't my experience, though

people celebrated me, people affirmed me, people were proud of me, said i was brave, for doing this thing i was so scared of doing

when it comes to expressing my sexual desires, that... hasn't been my experience

nobody thinks i'm "brave" for wanting to be hunted, for wanting to be prey

i wish i could be like other girls. i wish i could be happy finding someone on grindr and having hot sex with them and feeling good about the sex, good about myself. unashamed. that's not what i _desire_, though. i don't do that because it's not what i _desire_.

i want to feel like what i want is normal, as much as i feel like my being a girl is normal (which is to say, completely). i want to feel like i deserve to have my desires met in a healthy way, as much as i deserve to be able to out in public wearing a dress without people calling me a "faggot", without bigots accusing me of subjecting them to my "fetish". i'm not subjecting anyone to "my fetish" by going out in public wearing a dress. i am a faggot, and i'm proud of being a faggot, and that's normal. it's nothing to do with them. there's nothing wrong with wanting to suck dick. there's nothing wrong with wanting to be hunted down and made to submit by someone who genuinely _respects me_ and _values me_.

being genuinely hurt and degraded and abused just seems so much _easier_. it feels _normal_. i don't... not only do i not have a lot of positive experiences, i don't have a lot of positive role models. the people who are most like me, the people i'm most attracted to, are other hurt, desperate, traumatized people, doing what we know best. re-enacting the cycle of abuse on each other.

i have a really hard time believing there's genuinely nothing wrong with me. it's a real struggle for me. i know there's nothing wrong with me, but sometimes it's hard to not _want_ to be different.

most of all i'm afraid. i've never stopped being afraid. i transitioned when i was more afraid of _not_ transitioning than i was of transitioning.

i'm more afraid of asking for what i want than i am of being "forever alone". i've tried to experiment, to try things, like i did with gender presentation. the more i try, the more i'm hurt. the more afraid i get of my own desires.

"Sex for its own sake" has never been my thing, and I've found myself incompatible with individuals who find it to be their thing. I was derisively painted by a former boyfriend as being some kind of "demisexual" or whatever, but that's not the case at all. I can't fuck unless I feel safe, and I don't feel safe unless the potential fucker is somebody I know and trust. This isn't to say I haven't _ever_ had sex with a stranger, but there's always been a feeling of dissociation accompanying it, like I'm forcing my cognitive brain to surrender to, well, something else... or it feels like I'm taking myself up on a dare.

otm, you are always so articulate! except for me this also extends to, like, dating :/

i hate being asexual.

otm, it is the fucking worst.

I need to know I can have Negronis or mocktails with my potential fuckmate.

I love the extent to which your life revolves around Negronis, how do you feel about phoney Negronis?

unless you count spending much of my childhood watching a kids' tv show where a huge part of the "humor" was making boys wear dresses and humiliating them for it.

You Can't Do That On Television, by any chance? I was a little young for that show, so my reading of it was quite surreal.

i have a really hard time believing there's genuinely nothing wrong with me. it's a real struggle for me. i know there's nothing wrong with me, but sometimes it's hard to not _want_ to be different.

most of all i'm afraid. i've never stopped being afraid. i transitioned when i was more afraid of _not_ transitioning than i was of transitioning.

i'm more afraid of asking for what i want than i am of being "forever alone". i've tried to experiment, to try things, like i did with gender presentation. the more i try, the more i'm hurt. the more afraid i get of my own desires.

wow, I relate very much to all of this. it's so painful! I def feel your pain, it's bottomless and overwhelming.
and I am also dealing with these same problems.

one thing I will say, about being "brave" vs. "afraid",

if I look back on my life so far, I think my experience is defined more than anything else by being cautious and afraid, and self-doubt has held me back a lot... *but also, on the other hand* being very reclkess and cavalier at certain times. not out of bravery, but more because I have certain blind spots, or a clueless kind of brazenness where it doesn't really occur to me to be afraid of things that are terrifying to most people? Idk I would think you know what I'm talking about

have you been out with that girl again, the one with the antique sourdough starter? :D

it's nice to look back and realize you were brave, in moments. truly grateful for that.

i hope we can all reflect deeply and even more superficially on what pride means to us all this year. corny, but true. wishing well for summer!

I love the extent to which your life revolves around Negronis, how do you feel about phoney Negronis?

I haven't mixed or ordered one in days. I mixed a martini last night, though. What's a Phoney Negroni? Bony Maronie? You mean a mocktail? I don't mind them at all.

I don’t understand how so many of yall drink so much. No judgment, I just feel awful if I have more than one.

I have a cocktail and a glass of wine on weekdays -- I don't consider that quantity at all dangerous. I've never had a problem metabolizing alcohol. I know when to stop. It's rare these days that I get blotto.

liquor is good for the arabian blood, it's a tale as old as time, also my nerves - i once had a psychiatrist say to me after careful discussion of anxiety unresponsive to common treatment - "you know, do you ever think of, sometimes just having a drink?"

i truly believe the settling of stress via certain modes sometimes uncouth can reap more calm than havoc!

i…disagree.

What's a Phoney Negroni?

https://stagrestis.com/collections/st-agrestis-non-alcoholic-products/products/phony-negroni

surprised you didn't know. never tried one but i'm curious. a negroni-liker in my life who just had a baby was drinking them.

I haven't mixed or ordered one in days

oh no :( that's way too long <3

arabian blood, it's a tale as old as time,

you are getting your Disney renaissance movies mixed up 🤔

my favorite bar carries the phony negroni. i really like it

i…disagree.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Wednesday, June 5, 2024 4:37 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

as is your right! and surely i'm not arguing that i am a healthy individual. but like, we all deal with different circumstances. there really is no walking in another person's shoes when it comes to what a mind and body need in order to survive this world.

i'm really not feeling pride this year after i kinda feel like i was dumped and forgotten about as a dj this year, although the new owner of my old bar might be interested in my services. busy with other things, trying to find a next step career-wise, working out a bunch because i love it and it keeps me from getting depressed. working through some issues with the throup, we're all pretty stressed right now, but still hanging tight.

this year has been one of the hardest i've ever had. covid was a breeze compared to this. anyone else feel that at all?

yes. i just got through a season that almost broke my body and spirit. i am lucky to be on the other side. feel you.

as always, glad you're here and glad to hear ya

<3 <3 <3 ditto!

This year has honestly been my happiest year since… 2013? Certainly the least stressful

After a dismal 2020 and partial 2021 the last two years have been good to great.

I’m getting remarried so this year is pretty classic for me

I raise a Jasmine in your honor!

aw congrats DJP!

the last year has felt very discomfiting in kinda specific ways, mostly owing to larger world events. simultaneously, it’s also been a great year for me personally (financially/career/hobbywise). idk it’s a lot to sit with.

Congrats DJP!

I hear that DR, the best years I've had (2017ish-2020) coincided with a lot of dreadful things happening.

Love to the throuple, a soul killing job is not an easy thing to fix but I sincelrely hope the stressors ease up soon. and agreed, pride is a non-thing this year, not that I was ever way into pride it's fallen off my gaydar (sorry) completely

I've never been to a Pride parade.

I've been to a couple but the last one was oppressively corporate, so I'm done (at least, as long as I'm in nye)

weho pride was last weekend, forewent it in order to cook and go record shopping instead (not that i ever go to WP anyway). this weekend is all the gay events that i actually enjoy going to (eg dyke day, which is the best official pride event by light years). i’m also DJing a not-gay event at the italian club on friday and going to a friend’s film screening on sunday. donna is BUSY yall

hope you and the fellas are less stressed soon map <3

why don't y'all come over this Saturday. We'll use the pool, fire up the grill, pass some joints.

aw thanks dr glad to hear things are going well - sending my love to you and yours. thank you deflatormouse! i'm taking on the wise words of sade, "keep looking".

congratsssss djp!!!

i hope hot dogs are on the menu and pools always need usin' ;) i've been taking a break from weed because job stuff. it's been a good thing but i miss getting high in the great outdoors.

congrats DJP!

have you been out with that girl again, the one with the antique sourdough starter? :D

― Deflatormouse

no but mostly for scheduling reasons. life happens, and i'm taking it slow. related:

this year has been one of the hardest i've ever had. covid was a breeze compared to this. anyone else feel that at all?

― he/him hoo-hah (map)

i don't know. yes. no. maybe.

last year i hit bottom. i haven't seen bojack horseman - i feel like it would hit too hard, emotionally - but someone did share the last scene, where bojack says "well life sucks and then you die", and then the other character "sometimes. sometimes life sucks and then you keep living", and then the show ends, and oof i feel that one in my bones.

i haven't done the fucked up shit bojack seems to have done. i've made some mistakes and faced consequences for them. maybe those consequences were disproportionate, maybe they weren't. it doesn't matter. late '22 through '23, shit just fell apart. '24? i keep living. things haven't gotten better particularly but they haven't gotten worse, and to me that's good. things can always get worse. complaining about being "old", a lot of it is just that i look at myself and i'm _weathered_. i got lots of health problems and i'm not great at taking care of them, and because of that i'm at higher risk of dying at a younger age than people who aren't queer. that's what the demographic data shows, that's what i see in queer people who die of "natural causes", particularly gender non-conforming people. yesterday i realized that this lady i know who looks pretty old is actually younger than me. a lot of it is that her camera is a potato but a lot of it is that like me, she's _weathered_.

i have a hard time getting out and relating to people on a more than a superficial level because when i try to do that i get overwhelmingly sad and i want to cry. to me, having healthy relationships means being able to talk about my emotions with other people without breaking down into tears. i'm not there and i don't know how to get there. i'm working hard to show compassion towards myself and to take care of myself. radical acceptance, though, means accepting that my life kinda sucks. i've had to deal with shit that a lot of other people haven't had to deal with. i have lots of privilege as well, but that doesn't erase the fact that i've dealt with a lot of shit and am dealing with a lot of shit on an ongoing basis.

-

random anecdote. yesterday my QPP took me out to fedex so i could print a label and return a work laptop. there were two printers i could use to print stuff on and they were both occupied by people doing very large printing projects. i just had one page to print, but because of the way the systems are programmed neither of them could interrupt their processes to let me print One Page, or rather, it would financially disadvantage them to do so. in fact, due to corporate policy, nobody in the store had the ability to get my prepaid return label printed, so me and my QPP wound up waiting an hour for one of the two of them to be finished.

it's one of those inconveniences that would've really upset me pre-transition, because My Time Is Important or whatever. and it _is_ but i've learned to make the most of whatever situation i find myself in. i wasn't inclined to go off driving to other fedex shipping locations in the hope that one of them would have a shorter line for the printer. there was nothing i was doing that was genuinely so important that i couldn't wait there for as long as it took. so i just stood there pleasantly chatting with my QPP about our shared interests, which was mostly gay leftism. we weren't rude or offensive about it, we didn't curse or talk about explicit topics. we were just there conspicuously being queer leftists. i mean the fact that we were waiting an hour to get one piece of paper printed, that's not about me personally, nor is it a random one-off event. to me, that's indicative of a systemic failure of capitalism. but anyway, it felt good to be able to do that, to be able to respond to that inconvenience in a fundamentally emotionally healthy and queer way. and in a way where we were also visibly queer, in a way that reinforced the ways in which our queerness and our leftism are not coincidentally related. that was good.

-

my work interview for pride is coming out (lol) soon. i'm kinda nervous. one never knows, you know, how people wind up taking it, if people are hostile about it. i don't know that i've _ever_ been as visible as cis people as i'm going to be. visibility is a double-edged sword. you get too visible and people go after you, particularly if someone's openly trans right now. being visible out on the street or in a fedex store is one thing. where i live it's not that much of a risk. this, though, this is different. i'm really glad to have the opportunity to do it - it's something i've been wanting to be able to do for years - but it's scary!

-

pride around here is mostly next month. the middle of july isn't the _most_ amenable weather for pride but fuck it, pride came out of a long hot summer. i've long ago given up on the idea of pride being something _fun_ and _celebratory_. it's mostly a matter for showing up for me. being visible and present. i'm not against it but i'm really struggling a lot with internalized shame right now - i'm not really in the mindset for fully living out pride. just showing up even when i don't _feel_ super proud... to me, that's about the most important thing i can think of.

Thank you, everyone. The past few years have been a journey tbh, much more so than I would have expected

Wow DJP that is amazing news I’m so so happy for you!!

congrats DJP!

that's amazing news DJP, hope it's a wonderful day

i posted in the lisbon thread but i also want to post in here that my bf & i are gonna be in lisbon for 3 days in june, i'm curious if anyone has gay specific recs ... beaches, bars, clubs, parties, bookstores, spas, cruisey spots etc

DJ!!!! amazing - how beautiful for you. i hope it is a joyous and serene event!

kate what is this work interview??

jordan i do not but reminds me that i would still love a hang with you one of these days!! r u still in nyc?

yes babe and loving it!!

yessss. i just moved to the southern tip of prospect park on the east side - will reach out for a plan!

i think i've been happier this year than i have been in a long while. i'm really enjoying new york. i'm biking more than i ever have in my life. my bf & i have been in the process of figuring a lot out about our relationship, what exactly our individual wants and needs really are. i think an aspect of a relationship growing naturally and wonderfully over time is you may not often stop and think about or articulate exactly what you want the relationship to be, what kind of arrangement actually makes you happy, how exactly you picture the other person being in your life. we're trying to be more intentional now. it's been weird at times, confusing, existentially stressful; also freeing, fun, experimental. i'm having more sex than i ever have in my life by far. i'm in the best shape of my life easily. building a more specific relationship is intellectually stimulating at the same time as it is emotionally turbulent. we have a community that we really value. the weather here has been really nice lately. getting another office job kinda turned everything around for me. i like being in manhattan a lot. i need to feel new york.

this is such an amazing update jordan. i similarly am having a fruitful feeling about this year, truly amazing to "feel new york" in a new way as you say. getting a new job has also turned everything around for me and i love to hear i'm not alone! here's to getting a lot done this year!!

kate what is this work interview??

― Swen

this might sound silly but i kinda don't want to give too much detail about it, not because it's important or a big deal or anything like that but because this is a publicly accessible site and i don't want to do anything that might make it easier for someone to doxx me. i'm probably being overly cautious! i wish i felt comfortable talking about it more :(

funnily enough i just found that one of the discord servers i'm on is being targeted by transphobic trolls. the server admin has set up a lot of safeguards to prevent the trolls from being able to do much, but it does take work to mitigate the risk to users.

being trans is kinda wild, you gotta do opsec for doing things like "going to brunch"

like, it's _probably_ fine? but you can't just take it for granted the way i did in the Before Time

Sharing happiness always puts me in a strange position, but I love y'all and I gotta say it's been a great couple years. I write every day, I'm working on longform fiction, and I'm getting a work promotion. I'm sorry if this sounds smug or something

if i envy other people being happy (and i do sometimes, but not now), i mean, that's on me. i think it's great when people get to celebrate themselves! one of the things i hear talked about a lot and practiced less often is trans joy, and like any kinda queer joy there is, i love that