A.S.

Dialogue is a literary genre that attempts to capture and dissect an argument. Plato creates characters and puts words in their mouths. He does it to make the argument shorter and neater. He cleanses the speech of filler words and digressions — if the latter do not aid the argument. The characters he creates are based on real people — Socrates and his circle. But Plato knows better. By editing the text, he denies the characters their agency. He controls and violates them — technically speaking, putting words in mouths is forced penetration.

These are my notes for dialogues. I speak at you, not for you. You make me think a lot, that is clear. But I do not attempt to put words in your mouth. I know that when I give this to you to read, you will have something to say.

Maybe you will say a similar — not the same — thing, shorter and neater than I can. 

*

Sex with you made me trans.

The first time we have sex, I am identifying as cis. I have been having gender thoughts for years. I talked to my long-term partner who had come out as non-binary to me, grilled them, how did you know? What they told me — their non-gendered childhood, very gendered adolescence, discomfort, urge to escape the binary — I could relate to. I said, I can relate to that a lot, but…

What mattered to me at the time was how the world saw me. It brought me up as a woman, so how could I change that — how could I even know that I was not a woman — what would it matter if people still perceived me as one?

We have sex, you are the first trans person that I have sex with. I dread it — what if I do or say something insensitive in this, indeed a very sensitive, position.

It turns out to be not scary or uncomfortable at all.

You are the first person that I have sex with for whom sex is a set not of statements, but of questions. Non-binarity as a reason to non-assume. 

What is sex? 
How does it commence? 
Who commences it? 
Who takes the initiative? 
What do we do? In what order? 
When does it end? 
How long does it last?
Do we have to have orgasms?
How many?
If the orgasm does not come, when and how do we stop?

In bed, we talk transness. I tell you that I want to grow a beard — just to see if it looks good on me — or to be able to take off my breasts. You ask if I have considered injecting testosterone. I say that it would probably start a larger-scale process than growing a beard, and I am not ready for that. You say that it is good to be able to give oneself space.

Is it giving myself space? Is it the allotted space? The majority of others are not injecting testosterone. If I am doing what the minority of others are doing, what kind of space am I giving myself?

I start identifying as non-binary pretty much straight after that. I tell you that I am trying it on, much like I would a beard.

If my non-binarity was a book, on the page after the title page there would be a dedication: to you, for not reading into me.

Next time we have sex, we both orgasm, and it is unexpected for both of us. I do not usually do it this early into a relationship. You do not usually do it.

I am proud of myself for that. I have recently gone through a breakup. I am very self-conscious, and one way of dealing with that is hooking up with people and making them come. Making them come hard — so that they say, panting, reaching out to kiss my face smeared with spit and cum, it was the best blowjob I’ve ever had. I am all the more proud because you do not usually come.

Next time we have sex, I orgasm, but you do not.

My self-consciousness is flaring up like a bad case of psoriasis (which I also have. I feel itchy). I say things I do not want to say. Kind of accuse you of not wanting me, complain about my breakup making me vulnerable. 

Then I feel guilty, and I think a lot.

A clear sign that something has changed — before it does, I do not know that it can.

All my partners before you were considerate, mindful of me feeling good. But sex still had a linear quality to it: 

kissing — touching each other through clothes — touching each other without clothes — oral — orgasm — penetration — orgasm

I felt strange each time this oddly specific progression was disrupted. It started with my very first attempt at sex — it seems that I conceived of progressivism long before anyone put a cock in me.

I was kissing and touching my partner, we were outside, in a field, at night, so at some point I got cold and had to call the whole thing off. Some time later, I was kissing and touching my partner, there were people in an adjacent room, so we did not go anywhere from there. Both times, I felt strange, and once I cried. It felt like watching a movie trailer and then learning that the movie was never made. It felt like something in me was broken. 

In the years that followed, I wrote so much fanfiction where my characters would fuck just about anywhere. In a doorway, not being able to make it to a bed. In a room with the door open. One of them balancing on the edge of a sink. 

Next time we have sex, we do not orgasm. You embrace me from behind, trace my back and kiss my neck, and I feel myself melting. I still feel both like you do not want me and like I am pressuring you to come. Feeling simultaneously really good and really anxious. Maybe it is about being able to balance on the edge.

Next time we have sex, you tell me two things: 

• you want to be perceived as a butch woman
• you do not want anal, ever

Sometimes, non-binarity is not refusing definitions — trying on nothingness — but choosing different definitions.

Next time we have sex, we are both very drunk, and you say fuck me. I am drunkenly panicking: how do I fuck someone who does not want penetration, ever? How do I fuck someone who does not usually come? Sex can mean many things, but fucking is different. Is it not about penetration — orgasm? But being drunk means that my heart is already racing from a bottle of wine and a vodka tonic. I am already flushed and unsure of what I will do next. Drunkenness makes anxiety feel ok. 

So I find out what fucking you means. It is pushing you against the wall, pushing you onto the bed. Talking to you in a low voice. Being on top of you. Grabbing your shoulders and putting my fingers in your mouth.

Fucking means something that I like writing about. I have written a lot of fanfiction — I have never liked writing about penetration.

Technically speaking, putting fingers in mouths is penetration. But this is all about not being too technical.

A lyricist I used to like in high school has a song with lyrics нахуя мне этот секс-то, я вгрызаюсь в тело текста — why the fuck do I need [this] sex, I am biting into the body of text. But sex is text. As text, it can be non-linear. As text, it can be read into, and be read in multiple ways. As text, I can rewrite and edit it. As text, I am never the only one writing it.

I feel like this text has to have a conclusive ending. What have I come to? What have I learned? What is the fucking moral of the story. A happy ending — what clients say to workers in brothels pretending to be massage parlors.

I consciously try not to. I stop writing because I want to, not because I have come to something, or at all. 

You rearrange me till I — what?

You rearrange me till I change.

Sex with you makes me trans-it ~ trans-cend ~ trans-gress the walls of brick — glass — meaning that I put myself in. It makes me stop aligning my petty symbolisms, my Pink Floyd and Biblical references (I am indifferent to The Dark Side of The Moon, I have not read the Bible), my neat rhymes and overlaps, to meet you again — and fuck ~ write as I happen to fuck ~ write.