Thoughts on Transcending Stone: The Tale of One Transgendered Man and His Journey to Find Sexuality in His New Skin
By Marcus Van • Oct 21st, 2001 • Category: Sex and CultureMy search started outside of the bedroom. I’ve spent more than five years of studying and re-constructing myself as male. I studied men and how they move. The way their shoulders stay stiff and never sway when they turn: I did that, too. I watched the way inflated chests and arms filled invisible spaces. I learned their essence like a lost language. Now I am a master of embodiment. I am shifting, almost as if unzipping the outer shell of a female skin and stepping into him, who is crisp with clean-cut edges.
In the minds of some, this thing that I am — a man in a woman’s skin — cannot exist. I’ve spent days intently watching the people around me, always wondering, “Am I passing for male? And if so, how long will it last until they know?” After this, it’s hard to feel erotic and whole. Sometimes the outside world can slip between my sheets like an unwanted ménage á trois. The half-sneered “baby” from the man at the liquor store can castrate me instantly. Sometimes, I can find my own stripped confirmation of self in the bedroom. It is a place to relax and let down the constant guard. The woes of the waning day slip away to memory.
In the bedroom I need a woman who sees the man I am, and treats me that way. It’s difficult to be with a partner who is not understanding of transgender lovers. Even though I bring a strong sense of self-awareness to any sexual encounter, if a partner does not relate to me as male, it’s hard to connect. I need a woman who can respect what I am.
My trans sexuality is the mental and physical pleasure existing in the same space. It’s a fragile world, constructed on beliefs and acceptance, and mirrored in a partner’s gaze. This is not to say that it is all a mind game: that undercuts the fact that the connection between partners is visceral and real. Our worlds are connected at some place that reaches beneath the surface. When she says “You have a shaft” I believe her, and feel myself getting mini-hard on her fingers. Never mind that my dick is enclosed in the folded skin of labia.
I have always found sex fulfilling in a different way than most people. I was once fully stone — one who accepts little or no physical reciprocation. Sexual pleasure happened in my mind much more than my body. I refused to be completely naked during sex as not to expose the “charade” of maleness, my chest and dick were always shrouded in a cotton cocoon. My own fulfillment was something that rested solely on my partner’s release. If she didn’t come, then neither did I. When I encountered a partner who couldn’t have an orgasm I understood that putting pressure on my partner’s pleasure could be overwhelming.
Sometimes I feel that taking testosterone would make receiving physical reciprocation easier and less mental. I listen to many of my friends on testosterone tell stories of monstrous desires to be touched, and I admit, I get a little jealous. I think, maybe testosterone is the catalyst. I imagine them having unrestricted sexual interludes, post-surgical chests and engorged clits basking in unfathomable titillation. I once had a friend tell me that he was far more sexual in his maleness than he had ever been as a woman. At the time, it was hard for me to understand because I was lost in a cycle of hating my own (female) body so much, I didn’t see that there could be any way to love it.
Allowing myself to be unapologetically stone was crucial to my trans development. There was power in naming my desires and finding a way to be pleasantly sexual. However, I am not striving for a life that would make Stone Butch Blues look like a happy tale. Now I am finding ways to grow and exist in my body without losing my maleness. There is certain pretense — there has to be when the body and the mind have such different ideas of what I am. There is a way to combine the strength of physically passing for male in the outside world with who I am in bed.
In the bedroom, I can drop the prefix. Trans trails off into just man. It becomes a second nature after a while. Basically now I feel like I’m a dude with a vagina but it is not a female part — it is simply a part of me as I always was and always will be. In fact, I should be the envy of biological men because I have one. What straight man wouldn’t want to have a pussy with him at all times?
Marcus Van >> a poet living in San Francisco. He uses poetry to fuse realistic tales about being a transgender poet of color with his love of hip-hop. Marcus has traveled to venues all over the nine counties of the Bay Area and beyond, spitting out bold lyrics to incense racist and homophobic minds. He has performed in San Francisco venues including the International Café, Second Sundays at the Justice League, Poetry Above Paradise, and many others. Outside of the Bay, he has been featured in Vancouver's Rock for Choice Festival and many other venues. Marcus also organizes benefits and shows to raise money to maintain artist and queer spaces.
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