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

I also want him to play “Cunty”

we all do

It was very gratifying to fill out the “list your favorite songs” sheet and have the DJ come back with “omg you have amazing taste”

i bet it's even more gratifying for the dj ;)

I’m trying to reign in some of my impulses but one thing I’m extremely proud of is that the wedding party is going to be introduced to “Give If Up” by The Goodmen

congrats btw!!!

Thanks!

kinda thinking this through

i am, once again, considering just going on grindr and finding some random dude to fuck me

i've never really done that kind of thing before but i figure that's no real reason not to

concerns:
1. there might not be any takers

i've always been told any woman can find someone if she sets her standards low enough but look. i'm clearly, totally, unambiguously a woman, and i don't even have a penis. honestly i might be better off stealthing and picking up some straight dude. i mean if i got clocked he might get violent, but there's an _extremely low_ chance some straight dude would clock me. the bigger concern is...

the question always comes down to "how low do i want to go", how desperate _am_ i. am i so desperate i'd have sex with a _straight guy_?

and the implicit question is _why_ do i want somebody to fuck me? and the answer is "low self-esteem", like, that's it, there's no question there. i have low self esteem and i'm wondering if getting fucked by some rando will help me with my low self-esteem. that's kind of a questionable proposition. it doesn't always work out like that.

particularly since i got some kinda... conflicting feelings about the whole thing. most of the sexual experiences i've had were of me being sexually assaulted. "horny" for me isn't, just, like, kink. it's me actively wanting to be dehumanized and treated like shit. which, like. if my chief issue is low self-esteem, i'm not sure being dehumanized and objectified by a stranger is gonna _help_ with that?

but here's the problem, my brain is telling me that literally nobody would find me attractive and, uh, i don't know how to answer that without finding someone who is sexually attracted to me. and kind of my expectation is that anyone who would be interested in me would treat me like a piece of fuckmeat and probably also sexually assault me. that would be bad. that's what i _want_ but that would be bad.

aaaaagh it's this catch-22, how am i going to find someone who's going to treat me well when i don't _want_ to be treated well, but on the other hand why would i believe people i'm intimate with would treat me well when the people i've been intimate with historically _haven't_ treated me well? fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. oh wait, i know the answer to this one. cry. thanks, estrogen!

someone kissed me last week and then decided she didn’t want to kiss me anymore and unfortunately now i’m addicted to lesbian kissing

Kate I've twice hired sex workers when I've been in the headspace you're in. The first was following a breakup and I hired somebody to come over and spoon me until I fell asleep. The second was also following a breakup and I just wanted somebody to come over and fuck me until I felt dead. Both were expensive (and I tipped well) and both were extremely useful at the time. When it's time for "having questionable sexual activity"-- that is, sex to restore self-esteem, sex to obliterate selfhood, or even (theoretically) good threesomes, I'm an advocate for hiring a sex worker. It feels so much easier to just be frank with somebody you're paying about why they're there and what they can do for you. Much easier than trying to communicate the same to a horny civilian. You might consider trying that once or twice before venturing into the horrible world of hookups? I volunteer this information just because I'm not ashamed of this fact about myself and I don't think anybody else should be, either.

Also @ ivy the "she decided she didn't want to kiss me anymore" is how the lesbian kissers get you hooked

i feel like the medication i'm taking for my mouth sores is effective enough that i might actually enjoy kissing. my mouth's not constantly in pain, at least.

i guess i could try sex workers. it's again, one of those things where i don't know where or how to _find_ a sex worker other than, i mean, a bunch of my friends are sex workers. there's one in particular, i like her a lot, she's fucking brilliant and probably actually less emotionally stable than me. last time we hung out she was too high to talk. the time before that she said being a sex worker was awesome and i should be one. she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself of this than convince me. i don't judge her for it. i've had my own emotional stability issues this past month. plus, this week my therapist is also, i think, less emotionally stable than me. she's not professionally inappropriate about it, but she was pretty open that she wasn't having a good week and yeah it's pretty obvious that she's doing badly.

i talked to my psych today and we're not changing my meds this month. i know this is the gay thread and not the mental health thread but they kinda get mixed up in my mind lately. cuz sometimes the meds that are affecting me aren't MH meds. for instance i ran out of my estradiol cypionate and i've switched to estradiol valerate and i feel a lot less stable. i don't even know where to get more cypionate. the doctor who was prescribing my cypionate retired. well, i got a scrip in with a compounding pharmacy but they're out, as per usual, and god knows when they'll get more. i've been thinking off and on about DIY but the dark web and bitcoin and, i mean, it's less safe than compounded meds. it feels like it would be taking a step and i'm not sure it's a step i want to take. so i'm taking compounded valerate. maybe it's the valerate and maybe it's the weather and maybe it's life being really stressful and maybe it's me running out of my prog and not having the energy to get it refilled. i'm trying to get my hormone levels checked. i sent my endo a mychart and she sent some pdf order and said to print them and bring them into the lab. print them! because my endo isn't in-network, and i don't know where to find an endo who _is_ in-network. so i email my PCP, who is in network, and ask them if they know how to get these lab orders to my in-network lab. and then i gotta take time off from work and schlep myself into the lab and get tested.

she didn't put in an order for my T. i'm pretty sure my T is, like, zero. i've had my balls off _and_ i'm taking two separate anti-androgens. the flomax, improbably enough, i need to be on. i tried going off it and i couldn't pee. fuck knows what's up with that. the finasteride i'm not really sure about. that hair transplant, you know, it cost me a lot of money and i don't want to start losing hair again. it's probably fine, but i haven't, like, asked somebody. you see a doctor and they only want to talk about one thing a visit. i understand, but i kinda have a lot of things i'm worried about. in the meantime, my having a testosterone level of about zero might account for the way i'm constantly exhausted and struggle to function in my daily life. or it might not!

honestly, it's less about the professionalism of whatever sex worker i find and more a matter of... right now what my brain is telling me i want is for cw kind of, uh, self-harm them to come over and call me i'm disgusting and old and ugly and worthless and force me to fellate them and beat me to a bloody pulp and call me pathetic and leave. which is, uh, i think kind of a desire for self-harm. same with the kink. last time i was at a kink convention i picked up a cw extreme kink rattan cane encrusted with seashell fragments all over. haven't used it on myself but i _have_ used another cane i have to cane my inner thighs badly enough that they were severely bruised for weeks afterward. like that was pretty blatantly self-harm. i don't feel _bad_ about it but i kinda try to not do that stuff, but god, there are _so many different ways to self-harm_. and most of the sexual desires i have, well, they're hard to differentiate from self-harm.

idk. the main thing is that when i'm feeling emotionally unstable i've learned to not act on my desires. a lot of my desires are healthy and normal! it's just that my strongest and most intense desires _aren't_ healthy and normal. it's like, you know, the thing where i crave an entire pint of ice cream when i should have, like, a container of probiotic yogurt instead. except a couple orders of magnitude more intense. i got a seriously problematic relationship with food for reasons that are _strongly related_ to childhood abuse, but i haven't, in fact, ever been sexually assaulted by ice cream.

anyway! it's pride this weekend! i will seriously consider your suggestion of a sex worker. i do think it's a basically good and healthy idea, i am very in favor of sex work, and i mean, i got some friends i can ask. i don't know. mainly i want, like, somebody to tell me i'm an worthwhile and desirable person and _not_, like, hideous broken and ugly, and i just, like. if i'm paying someone to tell me that, it's hard for me to trust that they're not just saying that because i'm paying them to say that, you know? also i'm kind of... i know it's not a healthy attitude, but i do kind of have this toxic idea in my head that if i pay someone to tell me i'm worthwhile and desirable, that somehow reflects badly on me as a person. which it doesn't! i don't feel that way about paying someone for sex. why would i feel that way about paying someone to, like. treat me in a loving, compassionate manner?

i guess, like... someone on ilx has expressed anxiety about getting a therapist, about making themselves emotionally vulnerable to a therapist, and i kinda feel that same way about, like, seeing a sex worker. which i guess means i probably should see a sex worker!

anyway maybe that all was overdisclosure, but tl;dr, that's a good suggestion! thank you!

having thought about it more there's also a whole gender dysphoria angle that gets in there. obviously plenty of women see sex workers, it's totally normal, but there's this whole patriarchal narrative of, like. this internalized belief i have that wanting sex makes me a bad woman, and being submissive makes me a bad feminist. i don't have dysphoria about, like, anything else, but in terms of sex, i feel like people still see me as a man. which is, absurdly enough, i think true to a _certain extent_. not the extent i feel like it is.

so yeah. it's fucking complicated. honestly i need a partner i can trust who'll be patient with me crying at them, like, a lot. except that's not really _practical_. so i'm trying to figure out how and where to compromise, in terms of... learning to be in a healthy relationship. gaaaaah. it's so complicated.

grindr is full of trolls and flakes ime. kate, scruff isn't bad, you might rustle up something there esp in p0rtland? idk

@ Kate, well, first of all, I can only speak for myself, but I think you're extremely worthwhile, your posts here are a huge draw for me, long and insightful documents that I always look forward to reading. I admire your candour and appreciate your presence here immensely!

I could type all day but I need to be disciplined today, a lot of work to get through. Some notes in point form:

- the sexual scenarios you've described would seem to me to fall under the umbrella of BDSM experiences, which-- and I don't actually know, but I intuit-- might not be best examined in the context of professional engagement with a sex worker. If you have friends in the BDSM community, maybe talk to them about it? I'm not into BDSM so I haven't been on it myself, but my friends who are into it and use FetLife have nothing but positive things to say about it.

- if you do elect to seek out a sex worker, don't look within your social circle. If I was looking for one, now, I likely would get a recommendation from one of my friends who do work in that field, but I wouldn't attempt to engage a sex worker friend in a professional capacity. It'd be like asking a therapist friend to take me on as a client, they'd almost certainly recommend another option.

Oh hey, I’m married again (and also exhausted)

Kate, have you been to or looked at Sanctuary or other spaces in our fair city? There are nights/events that could fit what you're looking for. I guess if you're concerned about being clocked (or about passing / not passing), arranging something with someone in advance (paying or not) would let you get that out of the way beforehand. Or if you want an experience where you want to transcend having to explain anything, then maybe there's a club or space out there that would be a fit.

Congratulations DJP! Tell us everything!

I will start that it was an absolutely fantastic night filled with a lot of joy and love preceded by a week and a half of some horrendous heinous shit completely out of our control.

Planning-wise, everything was very straightforward and simple once we booked the venue, which was a hotel where we could do the entire event in effectively the same space (courtyard ceremony that led to the indoor foyer for the cocktail hour that led to the hall for the reception). The coordinator at the hotel gave us a list of vendors they generally use and all of them were available for our date, plus the DJ steered us to the photographer. All the printed materials were done by us using The Knot, following the same design theme as our invitations. We invited something like 178 people and 88 were coming, which was pretty much perfect. My brother agreed to be the officiant and my husband asked his brothers to be his groomsmen while I asked my sons to be mine.

This is where things took a turn because one of my sons not only didn’t want to be a groomsman, he didn’t want to be at the wedding at all, primarily because he couldn’t stop thinking about the divorce. I talked to him quite a bit about it and while I was mad at first, I’m the adult and he’s a kid, plus it’s a difficult situation. So I told him he didn’t have to do it and just had one son as a groomsman.

I then got a call from former ILXor Fluffy Bear who told me he and is wife couldn’t come because he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. This was absolutely horrible but the general prognosis seems favorable, so I am hoping for the best outcome for his impending surgery and trying to help as I can from halfway across the country.

Then, seven days before the wedding, my mother had a medical incident that put her in the hospital. She was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism in both lungs and put on blood thinners. They couldn’t find a direct medical cause after multiple days of tests and discharged her with a surprisingly clean bill of health all things considered, but she was told unambiguously that she shouldn’t travel for several months. My dad of course planned to stay with her but then had his own terrifying but ultimately minor medical incident which fully put the nail in the coffin on their travel plans, meaning they would both miss the wedding.

I scrambled with the DJ and photographer to see if either of them did livestreaming. Neither did, but the DJ ran through his contacts and found me someone who could do it within 90 minutes. (Side note: Party Excitement in Woburn, MA is the greatest party DJ operation I have ever encountered and I will try to use them if ever I need to do any large scale event with dancing.) I had a lot of intense sadness and upset over this but I took some solace in that they could watch the ceremony, plus now a lot of the people who couldn’t come could now watch the ceremony, so there was a net positive out of this.

This brings us to Crowdstrike Friday.

Most of my family was flying in for the wedding and three of my first cousins ended up having their flights cancelled out from under them and offered alternatives that would not get them to the wedding in time. Others ended up having their previously reasonable flights turned into next-day redeyes. There was a point where it looked like an additional 10-12 people were going to be prevented from attending. Fortunately, that didn’t happen and the other travelers made it, but we had another guest who actually works for Cloudstrike who made the wedding but then had to leave before dinner because of the global shitshow.

Despite all of this, the ceremony itself was beautiful. My brother was absolutely amazing. Everyone who was forcefully grounded watched over the last-minute livestream as well as others around the globe, which was amazing. The food was outrageous. The cake was gorgeous and delicious. The DJ played “Bring In The Katz” and later thanked me for introducing him to the song. He also played “If Madonna Calls” during the dancing and a shit-ton of Massive Attack and SAULT during the cocktail hour. The photographer was absolutely wonderful. The hotel staff made us feel like we were the most important people in the world. My dad’s sister and her husband stood in for my parents and were just wonderful. Large portions of the night did not go the way I had envisioned and yet everything as it was went so well.

I’m starting to develop a maxim for life along the lines of “there are few challenges in life that can’t be conquered by the right blend of love and professionalism” which is possibly the most aromantic thing I’ve ever written

love this, DJP, and so glad that things worked out despite all the bad things happening. i also hope you get to celebrate with your parents sometime soon

Thank you! It was a great time. We were going to see my parents this week but we hadn’t made travel arrangements yet and, after the Crowdstrike fiasco, we are going to wait a few weeks.

i'm glad to hear it ended up being a wonderful time. what a super dj! a wedding with a livestream feels very 'now' so way to be cutting edge lol! i'll never do a family wedding cuz reasons but we do want something wedding-adjacent down the line, something pagan and friends only and relatively low-stress and logistically very simple would be good. kinda looking like our third might be the major reason for it :D. all of the party-throwing stuff i'm not so good at so i'd want to involve other artist friends who i will hopefully make more of as the years roll by.

I love all this DJP, thank you for sharing <3

first off congrats djp!

anyway

I could type all day but I need to be disciplined today

is that a double-entendre

did you make a double-entendre

@ Kate, well, first of all, I can only speak for myself, but I think you're extremely worthwhile, your posts here are a huge draw for me, long and insightful documents that I always look forward to reading. I admire your candour and appreciate your presence here immensely!

awwww that's super fuckin' sweet, i'm not one to compliment fish (cuz, like, it's kinda easy for me to try and use compliments from others as a substitute for, like, actually valuing myself, which isn't such a great idea) but it means a lot to me when people say that kinda stuff, particularly people i like and respect. thank you!

anyway it's mostly, like, i've been through some kinda rough shit that i don't really want to get too deep into, in both the trans and kink scenes (and there's a lot of overlap)

there's a saying i hear a lot around here, "hurt people hurt people". even people like me who are relatively privileged are hurting kind of a lot. and what i heard, what i _said_ towards the beginning, was fuck it, t4t baby, the cis don't understand, we can be here for each other

except that we've got each other and most of us have _nothing else_. when i started i put caring for other people over caring for myself, it seemed easier. and i got burned out hard. burned out real hard. and when i looked to others... they did the only healthy thing they could do. which is to care for themselves first.

and all that work i did, learning to... express myself, speak my truth to other people, believe that people would not just tolerate me, but celebrate me... that kinda all went out the window. when we feel most hurt, a lot of times we lash out, and when we lash out, it's at the people who are around us. it's that old "footsteps" glurge, about jesus walking beside someone in the sand but when shit gets tough there's only one set of footprints, except for real. for real, when stuff gets bad people step back because we've learned the hard way that _we can't save anyone else_. because people die, people i care about die, and the closer i am to them, the more it hurts.

and i'm afraid to ask for anything from anybody.

there's this old green lantern story by alan moore. one of those lying oracles tells the green lantern abin sur "you'll die when your power ring fails you at a critical moment". so he says "oh shit, i better stop relying on that power ring so much". he uses it less and less. eventually he starts forgetting to charge it, which you gotta do every 24 hours or it stops working. well, one day it turns out he needs it, but he forgot to charge it.

i'm not a big alan moore fan, but i think about that story a lot. i relate to that story a lot. people need other people. it's just fundamentally part of who we are. and t4t, right now... we just _can't_ give each other what we need. not the way things are now. there are so many things we need, so many things we deserve, and it's just... not there. i mean, we're not special. i know it's not just us, it's like that for everyone. we just have it worse than some people do. no matter how well anybody is doing, we're all just trying to keep our heads above water.

i fell in love with someone, a couple years ago, and she was having problems, like a lot of us have problems, and i worked so hard, gave so much, in the hopes that she would be ok, that i could help her, support her, and it would be ok. just one person. it doesn't seem like much.

and i couldn't. she's alive, we talk every day, but she's... gone through a lot. she could die at any time. it feels terrible. it feels terrible to give everything you have for a person you love and have it not be enough. and to watch her every day in the direst need, and just... having to confront that. i know it's not my fault. i know i didn't fail. but i'm afraid. i'm afraid to give anyone everything after giving her so much and getting hurt so badly.

so i'm kind to everyone like i'm kind to her. i'm upbeat and positive work really really hard to not cry around other people. because if i cry around my ex-girlfriend, she gets triggered. and you know... there's nobody else i trust, even today, like i trust her. there's nobody that close to. the entire basis of my relationship with her, kind of the pitch she made to me when she asked me out, was "i want to be the person whose shoulder you cry on." and i can't do that with her anymore. more than anything else that's why i broke up with her. it wasn't that she couldn't do kink with me, wasn't that she couldn't have sex with me. it's that i can't cry around her.

i mean, what do i do with that? it's even more important to me than being tied up, and that's saying something. i'm sad and lonely and i need to cry a lot and what i want more than anything is someone who can be there for that, there for me, who won't walk away. i got no fuckin' idea how to make that happen. i feel most of the time - and i know this isn't right, but it's how i feel most of the time - that i _shouldn't want_ that, that healthy people don't need that. that i don't deserve anybody unless i can find a way to be with them without crying.

anyway. i'm glad i could say that here. a lot of times, particularly when i'm just around other trans people... there's a lot of stuff that it's not super safe to say. it's too hard for a lot of people to hear.

idk. pride was last weekend and it was awesome and i got a lot of things to say about it, but i'm not gonna say them now. just know that my life isn't all sadness and gloom, there's good, positive stuff in my life as well. :)

i'm not one to compliment fish

except for trout, rainbow trout are gorgeous, and so, so gay

Thank you, everyone! I just got some sneak peek proofs from the photographer and MAN we looked good.

map, your ideas sound awesome.

Wow this was all wonderful/harrowing to read. But dang am I glad it all landed well in the end. :-)

fish are fucking magical, miraculous things. i'm in awe of them.

i feel most of the time - and i know this isn't right, but it's how i feel most of the time - that i _shouldn't want_ that, that healthy people don't need that.

yeah i have def felt like i need to keep some distance from "healthy people" because my darkness would only harm or corrupt them.
you're right that this is a mistake! i know you know! but it bears repeating. avoiding relationships with people who aren't troubled enough is just robbing everyone.

congrats DJP!

The DJ played “Bring In The Katz” and later thanked me for introducing him to the song.

forever in my heart and the back section of my own wedding playlist thanks to you. congratulations my friend :)

Haha thank you! I was definitely thinking of your wedding playlist when I made the suggestion to add it to our song list

DJP i'm so happy you guys had a wonderful day in spite of everything that happened in the week leading up to it. fwiw, my parents couldn't attend our wedding either because of illness - my father's cancer started to get more aggressive the month of our wedding (he succumbed about six weeks after the ceremony), and my mom stayed behind in NJ to be by his side. we were extremely lucky that wi-fi was good enough in our venue that my brother was able to use his ipad to skype our parents in from my dad's hospital room. but yeah, i still remember that pit-of-my-stomach feeling when my mom called to say that they couldn't make it. i'm really glad you were able to figure out a livestream situation. also i am THRILLED that you guys had "bring in the katz" played at your wedding and i'm kind of angry at myself for not thinking to include it on our playlist lol

DJP, I'm coming to this late, but so proud of you. Congrats to you and your mate.

The DJ played “Bring In The Katz” and later thanked me for introducing him to the song.
forever in my heart and the back section of my own wedding playlist thanks to you. congratulations my friend :)

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 23 July 2024 02:29 (eighteen hours ago) link

Just listened, also thanking u

Thank you all! Honestly if my wedding raises the profile of “Bring In The Katz” then I feel I will have done more than just pursue happiness; I will have improved the world

I love Bring in the Katz, was reminded of it a few months ago when I dove into the early 2010s Night Slugs catalog again. Still hits.

I could be forgetting something but i think it's all i've listened to in the last 24 hours. not keeping count but i must be over a dozen plays

it is a gem

even tho it’s different scenes/genres, “Bring in the Katz” always reminded me of “100% Dissin You,” probably because the song operates at the level of synth stabs and a hype ass vocal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB5FOcmus1U

congratulations Dan! - just saw your pics on FB