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I hope the length doesn't scare people away (an pun of irony)

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by RayRae, May 20, 2014.

  1. RayRae

    Regular Member

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    Sexual Orientation:
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    This is something I have been dealing with all my life and for the first time I am setting down and trying to get all these thoughts down on paper. I feel some of these thoughts may be stereotypical, or misguided, or what a gay friend of mine calls "queer fear." There may be a lot of information, but I will try to organize it best I can. I am unhappy with who I am and the life I live in regards to gender and sexual identity. I am unsure if I should post this on this board or the other, but I feel the issue lies more in gender identity more than sexual. I apologize for the rambling style, but this was partially meant to be cathartic in part. The "sexual" section I feel only requires a skim since it is so long. As I was writing this I realized I really should probably take this up with a therapist.

    Physical
    I was born a male and live my life as a male, but lack some of the more subtle gender features (softer Adam's apple). I have a full beard and long hair which I am very proud of, and for special occasions (where is would be acceptable to do so) I may braid them and adorn them with jewelry. I use Renaissance fairs and role playing events as an excuse to accentuate my hair and beard since I fear that someone might find it "queer" (I live in Texas, better safe than sorry...which I hate feeling). I have full body hair, over weight, unhappy with my appearance, but wish I cared enough about my body to do something with it. My dimensions are not atypical for a man, but I am a bit on the shorter side and perhaps a little rounder and softer. I have small feet. I have a penis that is of average size, but I have fears and belief of inadequacy. I have low testosterone, possibly due to weight, but the doctor think that the weight may only account for some of the issue. I am 26 year old of European decent living in Texas.

    Mental
    I suffer from social anxiety disorder, paranoia, possible OCD (not the "quirky lol #soOCD", but the actual true disorder), all of which seem to be tied into feelings of inadequacy. I think of myself as intelligent and talented but undisciplined and overall unconfident, which I contribute to a list of failures. I think things out both logically and emotionally and try to find a happy middle between the two. I also do this on all other topics, controversial or otherwise; which leads to a passion for both mediation and debate. I don't "feel" male any more than I do female, but picturing myself as a female is more comforting and pleasing than picturing myself male. I live male, but I don't subscribe to the stereotypes. I don't follow sports, work on cars, use power tools regularly. I think my feelings of inadequacy are based in "cute" stories my mom would like to tell about my "little red worm." I have constant fear of judgement from others. A boy I had an online relationship with during my teens often judged me for "not really being gay." I chose the name RayRae because that is the spelling of my middle name, plus the female form of the name.

    History
    I married my high school sweetheart after 10 year of dating. It never really was a question of if, but when we were going to get married. I had a few girlfriends before her, couple of short flings/make out buddies, all female. I had 2 long distance relationships as early as middle school online with individuals a bit older (3 years or so) while I posed as someone in that same age category. One was male. This lasted somewhat during the start of my relationship with my wife. I honestly lead a double life, one online that felt in some way more real, until I realized I was in love with this my future wife. Prior to high school I always had strong crushes on girls but some times it felt forced. I noticed some boys but it was minor (my best friend in early elementary school turned out to be gay). I remember at some point transitioning from "gay is bad" to "gay is ok."

    Family
    My older sister is gay, I have a younger sister who may be somewhere in the bisexual range, though this is not confirmed. My mom is very open and loving and fully supportive of the LGBTetc community, thought this may not have been the case early in my life. She has become a second mother to some LGBT who lost their families when they came out. My father was very anti LGBTetc and has....sort of come around later in life...sort of. He is anti marriage equality for the most part but has finally accepted that they are not what is wrong with the world as a whole...that is liberals in his opinion. My mom has expressed that she never wanted any of her children to be gay, but only because of how much harder it would make their lives because of social views and she doesn't want to see us hurt. I have a gay second cousin who I played Life with as a kid (she a teen) and she picked a pink wife and I thought it was a mistake and couldn't understand until years later. She has since "prayed the gay away."

    Sex
    I discovered sex young. Neighbor girl a couple years older sort of thing. Pre-school age. Depressed/drunk parents on both sides with little supervision and possible incest on the other side sort of situation. After that I discovered playboys and other magazines. Me and my cousin would spend sleep overs looking at them, then we found "scrablevision," then the internet. Up through our teens we would sit around looking at porn with a "no looking at eachother" unspoken rule. I got caught once, my dad had a talk to me about it that only made me realize what I was doing was wrong for my age and that I needed to find ways not to get caught.
    In my early teens I was on private webcams for those internet relationships I talked about above, nude from the waist down. I did this also for some other online friends. It made me feel good about myself, which I didn't feel in the real world. There was a lot of sexual role playing online.
    Between middle school and high school I had a few girlfriends, with the typical making out and hand stuff. There was a boy I had a crush on. Cross dresser at school. I emulated him with the make up, some minor cross dressing. Came out as "bi" but never really felt it was true. Some "fooling around" and making out with girls. Flirting with boys. Somewhere along the way I create a persona closer to my online identity and that life falls away as I live a lie in the real world.
    I met my wife in algebra, a girl with as much potentiality to make it to the top as she does to become the school slut and possibly kill herself from self loathing. At first she was a pseudo-sex toy for me, down to make out or fool around with any time, even going as far as saying "lets have sex right here in front of all these people"...inadequacy over powers arousal of losing my virginity right here and now and publicly...but I would learn later that that was all false bravado on her part. Right when me and her are becoming more of a couple than horny teenagers, she is assaulted by a neighbor and everything changes. We instantly are thrown into this close meaningful relationship where we care so deeply for each other that our darkest secret and deepest fears only serve to strengthen our relationship.
    At this point my online life is mostly dead, but the persona is ingrained into my real self and I can't tell where one ends and the other begins, but I know I am living some lie. Things I had made up for the online persona (things I wanted to be true) became lies I told in the real world, just because I had told them once before, I had to keep that story alive. But the attitude, the confidence, even the sexuality was fading. I think I kept thinking of myself as bi who enjoyed cross dressing, but I repressed it. It would crop up from time to time, but wasn't something I lived. But I have always had sexual interests in men.
    I am not attracted to them so much the penis attracts me, with some exception. I am somewhat attracted to guys with breasts (or females with penises?) but I try to hide this side even from myself. I could see myself with a man sexually and in a relationship, but I am still more attracted females, except for fantasies about penises. I would say 1/5 of the attraction is towards males. I think when I am attracted to males is when they have their clothes on. I think to some extent I won't allow myself to really look at other men because I am unhappy with my body.
    Me and my wife tried swinging with another couple similar to us sexually, a time when I tried to embrace my "alternate" sexuality more. I wasn't thrilled with the choice of partners because I feared consequences to the friendship, but more so how I would measure up when directly compared side by side. I fear anyone seeing me naked except my wife.

    Sometimes I don't identify as anything, sometimes I identify with a little of everything, but mostly I am unsure of myself.
     
  2. Niko

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    Hi there, first off welcome to EC!

    Now, lets start with you gender.

    You say that you are more comfortable with seeing yourself as female yet you don't feel female. Have you ever tried cross dressing? If not try experimenting with female clothes and see how you feel.
    Keep in mind that you don't have to be a female in a man's body, if you like to wear woman's clothes. Gender identity and gender expression are two different things. The way you dress and express yourselfnsowsnt necessarily have to match how you feel on the inside. As long as your comfortable doing it then by all means go for it.

    Let me ask you, how do you feel about your downstairs area or lack of breasts? Do you feel like its wrong and it should be something else?

    For instance I am a FtM. I was born in a female body but I am a male on the inside. I bind my chest because it makes me anxious when I don't see it completely flat. Ever since I was 5 I was very confused about what's below the belt. It just didn't seem right and I thought maybe one day a magical fairy could grant me one wish and I could wake up in a male body.

    So now back to you.

    How would you feel if someone called you by female pronouns? Or maybe even just the gender neutral pronoun "they"?

    If you feel like you are neither a male or female on the inside it is very likely you could be agender. If you feel like you are in fact both, it is possible you could be bigender or genderfluid.

    Okay now for sexuality. It sounds like you're attracted to women. You say that you somewhat like transgender women, even though her parts; but in reality she's a woman; and there's a good chance she won't like it if you see her as a woman with a penis. Same goes for transgender men. We are men, and majority of us hate our chest. But there's no need to be ashamed of being attracted to trans people, we are people after all. We just have opposite parts of our gender, but that doesn't make us any less of a man (for ftms) or a woman (mtfs).

    Moving on, do you think you can have any sexual relationship with a guy? If not how about a romantic one?

    Romantic orientations and sexual orientations are two different things as well. Romantic just means that you can see yourself doing everything with a guy except sexual intimacy.

    In the end it sounds like you could possibly be bisexual with a major preference for women. But don't let me label you. Only you know how you feel and only you can label yourself, if you want to.
     
  3. RayRae

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    Niko, I want to thank you for taking the time to read through my post. Like I said, It was just every thought that has been accumulating in my head since I was a child and after I was done I was surprised.

    After some additional meditation I realized that I like my body the way it is. I like my long hair because it is beautiful and it makes me feel feminine. I like my beard because again, it is beautiful, but it instead makes me feel masculine. The body hair I waffle on, but without it I look like a giant baby. I have always thought that I didn't take care of myself because I didn't like my body, but I am thinking that maybe I have just never been comfortable presenting myself as a man the way society says I should.

    As for what is below the belt and the chest. I am fine with my chest. There are time I would like to see the curve of breasts, but down there, I am uncertain. I couldn't see myself not having the dangly bits.

    I have done some cross dressing before, but it was Halloween and I played it off as a joke for the most part (it was highschool). But I went all out with the makeup, the wig, the underwear, the outfit. A friend of mine who was a cross dresser felt I filled the role very well. Then there was the early 00's transition from goth to emo makeup, which I again played off as a culture thing, but in reality I wanted to look pretty. My wife loved when I would cross dress or even put on a little make up.

    And I think cross dressing might be the way to go, but I just adore my beard so much and I would like to dress it up as well with clasps or ribbon or string braided. Can I be a "bearded lady"?

    Maybe just a more feminine approach to my current wardrobe and style? Keep the beard, finally dress it up? Add a touch of makeup and nail polish and finally buy those tops I love but I feel would raise eyebrows if I wore? Is this a thing? I don't know, now I feel like I'm describing Jack Sparrow.

    I will have to look into agender, bigender, and genderfluid to see if one of these seems to apply, but from what I can guess they mean I feel like we are honing in. I have been called "ma'am" before when I was a teen because of the hair and I was maybe a little upset the first time, but when it happened again I really didn't mind at all. I can't say it bothered me, but it was indifferent.

    I honestly think a lot of it comes down to me being uncomfortable in the rules society says I should follow because I was born to this gender. I feel limited in what I can explore and what I can feel and what I can wear and how I have to present myself to others.

    Again, I am sorry for rambling but there is so much I need to think about and explore. I have a male friend who is exploring his female side. And a MtF ex brother in law, a gay sister (they are still close), a father in law who was unable to have the FtM surgery due to health concerns, but lives as a man, and many more. I just fear being rejected by them if I don't measure up to their standards....not that they have given me a reason to think they would reject me...
     
  4. Niko

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    Ah yes conforming to what society wants you to do. Trust me I know exactly what you mean. But you must make yourself happy first and don't worry about what society thinks.

    As for wanting to be a "bearded lady" you most definitely can be that. As said before if that's how you see yourself and it makes you happy then by all means go for it. Just look at Conchita Wurst, she's a drag queen with a beard. So don't think you're alone.

    It sounds like you enjoh both your feminine side and masculine side. Which means you could very well be bigender or genderfluid. Definitely do some research on those two terms and see if one fits you. If not those perhaps your just a guy who wants to dress as a woman. A.k.a. a cross dresser or drag queen. And there's nothing wrong with that.

    Definitelt try experimenting with wearing woman's clothes, perhaps around the house at first. It sounds like your wife is fairly open with all this so you probably won't have to do it on the sneak.