How do you know if you are being tricked into bed with someone?
This is an interesting question because I think as is typical for a therapist, I read a question and it brings up for me a whole bunch of other questions that I want to know information about in order to more adequately answer it.
Being tricked into bed with someone, the way that I think about it is about someone who is deceiving you or who is in some way convincing you to move past your own boundaries or past what feels good or comfortable for you.
And so like, how do you know if that is happening?
I think that answer is what is it that you are doing to see how this person is when they don’t get what they want and are they responding in a way that seems to indicate they are someone who cares about what you want and is attune to your wants and needs or is it indicating that they are someone who cares about what they want and is attuned to their own wants and needs?
For me, when I’ve been with people in the past who were just like looking to fuck and didn’t really care about me as a person or who were trying to convince me to sleep with them through either deception or pressure or something else, it felt wrong.
It didn’t feel like I was saying yes from a place of like enthusiasm and excitement. It felt like I was kind of allowing them to do things.
I was going along with it.
I was assenting rather than consenting.
I was not an active participant in it.
I was instead kind of the recipient of this and I could either go along with it or have a fight.
And so I think if you are being tricked into bed with someone, part of it is about like do you feel like you’re present in yourself, in your body?
Do you feel like you have access to your yeses and nos?
Do you feel excited and really enthusiastic about what’s going to happen or are you just kind of going with the flow?
The thing is that like to some extent, there is no way to know for sure if someone is being honest with us about anything.
Aside from being able to get like outside references or evidence about things, there’s no way to know.
And then when it comes to something like someone’s feelings or intentions, unless they have explicitly talked to someone else about what their intentions and feelings are, we have no way to know what those are aside from what they tell us.
And sometimes people lie about those things.
If someone is tricking you into bed, again, I think the question here is like what does that mean and what does that mean that they are doing and what does that mean that – what does that mean for you?
If for you, the idea of someone being dishonest with you in order to have sex with you is really, really challenging, which totally understandable then I think that may indicate that for you, you need either to like be playing with people who you are able to vet through friends or people you trust or take a slower process in terms of who you hook up with.
If you meet someone at the bar and you hook with them that night, there is no judgment there.
I’ve done that so many times in my life.
And it is harder to know who they are and how truthful they are being and what’s going on there than if it’s someone that you’ve known for a while or your friends know or you have other context on.
So the more context you have, the more time you have to see this person, the more you are able to like give them nos that are genuine and see how they respond to your nos, the better information you will have.
And at the end of the day, if someone wants to be a deceptive jerk, there is very little you can do to like a hundred percent prevent that.
We can ask questions, we can set boundaries, we can do the things within our power to try to set ourselves up for as much success as possible and like none of us are immune to getting tricked or deceived.
In therapy world, we often called it getting snowed.
Everyone gets snowed.
Therapist, it is our job to figure out like what’s going on with people, what’s happening, where do we need to dig further, what are we not hearing, where is the truth that we are missing?
And every therapist I know has been snowed by multiple clients over the course of their career because if someone really wants to lie, if someone really wants to deceive, there is not a ton that you can do preemptively to stop that or avoid it or make sure that it doesn’t happen.
Again, you can make questions, you can get more context, you could take things slower, you can see how people respond to nos, but you’re never going to be able to guarantee it.
And so I think that the question here that might be more helpful is, like how do we evaluate what for us is a good process of determining who is a good person for us to play with or have sex with and who is a person that we either don’t know well enough yet or is giving us red flags or isn’t a good fit?
So I think it’s this question of like what is it that you use to evaluate who you are getting into bed with and are those criteria serving you?
Are there things that you may need to shift in order to be sure that the people you are inviting into bed with you are people who are aligned with what you want and are on the same page with you?
And what does that look like?
For some people, that may mean having a conversation with them and seeing how they respond to that conversation.
One of the things that I use as a litmus test for people is going through a safer sex conversation and seeing how they respond to it.
If they are able to talk through it pretty quickly and easily, they understand, they know when they were tested, they know what they were tested for, they talk about their barrier use, they talk about what their current partnerships look like, that’s someone who probably is more upfront about things especially if they disclose having like HSV or having had a history of Chlamydia or gonorrhea.
Letting me know those things makes me feel like this person is more likely to be honest.
I also tend to find at least a couple of things that I can say no to for a person that are honest nos so that I can see how they respond when I tell them no to something that they want, because a lot of times especially with cis gender straight men, when you tell them no, their response is to figure out how to get around your now, not how to respect it.
And so, if someone is more invested in getting around your no than figuring out what you want, that’s a bad sign.
That’s someone who is interested in their own satisfaction and pleasure, not in something mutual and mutually satisfying.
I think too that again, I’m a huge fan of one-night stands.
I’m a huge fan of having sex with strangers.
And for the last several years, most of the strangers I’ve had sex with have been people who are strangers to me but who are lovers, friends, connections of people who I know well and trust.
So they’re already pre-vetted.
I already know something about them.
I already know people who are in their life.
I already have a feeling for like what those folks would be OK with and not OK with so it gives me a better read on this person and where they are coming from than if they were just a random stranger at a bar.
I’ve had a lot of one-night stands and many of those one-night stands were with people who never really wanted to hook up with me again.
I didn’t really want to hook up with them again, and that was fine with me.
I don’t feel like grossly used by any of those people or in those ways.
It just like we were both looking for something that was going to last that night.
We were looking for a good time, not a long time.
We were both fine with that.
If for you, it is important that someone you have sex with wants you as a person and cares about you as a person and has more of that connection to you then the less time you have known someone, the less time you have spent getting to interact with them, the less information you have to make that choice.
So get more information, see how they respond, see what kinds of things you can do as part of your negotiation process or as part of like the build up to the hook-up that gave you the information that you need and then go from there.
What do you do when your libido doesn’t match your partner's?
The biggest recommendation I will make here is that I think almost everybody should read Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski.
It is a book primarily about how sexual desire functions in women.
But it also applies to people of all genders.
What she talks about in the book is that in our brains, we have two systems related to sexual desire.
So we have our sexual excitatory system.
That’s like a gas pedal.
It’s what increases our sexual desire.
It makes it go.
We also have this sexual inhibitory system, and that is like a brake pedal.
It is what stops things even if they are already moving.
So when you have a mismatch of libido, it can be helpful to look at are there things that are slamming on the brakes for somebody and are we able to like let up off those brakes to help them get more in touch with their desire or have a better flow of their desire.
Is there something that is slamming on the gas pedal in a way that is not helpful for one of the people?
Some folks when they are depressed or stressed or struggling, they go into a space of having a lot of increased desire where there’s like a seeking of sensation, a seeking of pleasure that is not necessarily a problem but that may mean that they are experiencing desire differently than they would otherwise and that their gas pedal is more sensitive or is kind of jammed down more than it would be at other times.
So like look at if there are factors contextually that are affecting folks’ libidos that are making this mismatch more prominent or more significant or severe.
If you can address things that way, that’s a good first place to start.
After that, the question of mismatched libidos becomes a really complicated one because the cultural narrative that we have is that the partner who has more desire, so the partner who wants more sex should just like learn to live without so much.
They should masturbate more and that should be fine for them and they should be good to go, or sometimes it is the person with less desire should just have some sex anyway like what’s the big deal?
Just have the sex.
The metaphor that a friend of mine used that I think has been really great and that I’ve used since then is if you had a marriage with someone and one of the partners in the marriage only wants to eat one meal a day and another partner in the marriage wants to eat five meals a day.
What’s the compromise?
Because there isn’t really a good compromise here where everybody wins, there are compromises where people are eating when they don’t want to eat or people are not eating when they do.
And that’s not really great for anybody.
Nobody is actually getting served by that compromise.
Nobody is happy.
Nobody is feeling much better than they were when it was a problem before.
When your libidos are mismatched, I don’t think that the person who wants less sex should feel like they are obligated or forced to have more sex.
I also don’t think that the person who has more desire should feel like they are obligated or forced to want less sex or to use masturbation as a way to fulfill them because masturbation is good but it is not the same.
When I talk to people who have mismatched desire, the desire is not just to have an orgasm.
The desire is about sex and all the things that come with it.
When we have sex, it’s not just about the orgasm for the majority of us.
For the majority of us when we are having sex, it’s about connection.
It’s about presence with each other.
It’s about the ways that we can use that special – that sexual place as play or as intimacy or exploration or vulnerability.
There’s so much that can happen within that and they want to experience that with their partner, not just have an orgasm and get off.
And so, when there is a mismatch, this is something that is a very real problem for both people.
If it is something that is not changeable then the question that everybody needs to ask themselves is, can I be OK if this is how it will be from here on out?
And if not, what are the options that I see in terms of how to deal with or cope with that?
And how do I feel about those options?
So options for mismatched libido might include like finding a way to support desire for the person who has less desire.
They might include – so to go back to the example of like a married couple, a lot of people who have kids, a lot of what impacts desire is that there is so much to be done to take care of a household and kids.
And if your partner isn’t pulling their own weight, that can very significantly impact the ability you have to access your desire for them or to be present to and act on that desire.
So is there a way to like alleviate that, to let the brakes off?
If not, can the person with higher desire be OK with a relationship where they are just not having sex as often as they want or need to? Can the person with lower desire be happy or – so OK and happy here are definitely – we will get that in a second, be happy with having sex even when they don’t really want to.
Sometimes for people, they have more responsive desire rather than spontaneous desire.
So responsive desire is that for some folks, they don’t necessarily when they’re sitting around feel like, “Oh, I really wish I could do sex things right now.”
They do however experience desire when they have something sexually relevant happening.
So like once you start making out with them, their desire comes through and they are fully into it.
So maybe the person with lower desire has a more responsive desire cycle so they are OK with trying out, with starting some sex, and seeing if that desire comes out first before saying it’s an absolute no.
Is that possible?
If not, also totally OK.
People get to say no.
But if this is a case where one person wants a lot more, one person wants a lot less, neither of them can be happy with either saying yes when they don’t really feel like it or not having sex when they really, really want or need it then there is a question here of like, how does this relationship fit for us?
I think a lot of people would expect me to say, “Then be not a monogamous,” as if that will solve the problem.
But the thing is, sometimes opening up your relationship can help with a mismatched in libido or desire but that’s not always the answer because again, it’s not necessarily just that this person wants to have sex with whomever.
Often, it’s about wanting to have that connection and that time with a particular person with whom they are already partnered.
So if it is a kind of more generalized desire for the higher desire person, then it’s like opening up the relationship or bringing in new or different partners, something that could work or that could be a good option.
If it’s about desire for this particular person then I think it’s a question of, is this a temporary mismatch in desire or is this a more permanent one?
And if it’s a more permanent one, is this relationship a good fit for everybody?
I am fully of the opinion that a lot of people need to break up more often, more early, more frequently than they do.
Breakups are not terrible.
They are not the end of the world.
They can be very painful and hard but sometimes they are the best choice we can make.
If there is a relationship where one person wants to have sex every day and one person wants to have sex once a month, and neither of them want to open the relationship or the desire that person A has is mostly or entirely for the person who only wants to have sex one time a month, I don’t know how that works over the long term because what I see when people come to me for therapy around this is that they already have years and years of resentment built up from asking and getting turned down all the time from saying yes when they don’t really mean it, from feeling badgered.
Neither person tends to feel good in that situation where there’s a huge mismatch.
And so that may be a circumstance where it’s worth looking at like is this working for us as a sexual relationship?
And if not, do we want to restructure or transition this relationship to be a different kind of relationship where we get to preserve the stuff about us that works really well or at least some of it but we let go of the pieces that aren’t serving us, that are not working, that are causing conflict and pain?
I wish I had a better answer here. I think people expect that sex therapists or couples therapists are going to have some magic answer for when people’s desires are different, when people have different libidos or different amounts of desire that they experienced, but sometimes it’s just not a good fit.
The same way that someone who wants to go out to dinner five nights a week is maybe not a good fit for someone who wants to go out to dinner once a month.
Can you make that relationship work?
I mean maybe, but for what definition of work?
So I think the question is again, is there something getting in the way of desire for the lower desire partner?
Is there something artificially or unhealthily amping up the desire for the higher partner?
Are there contextual or structural things that can or should be changed in order to help kind of free up anything that might be getting in the way of sexual connection or desire?
And if not, can either or both parties be happy in this relationship as it is?
I think a lot of people make a choice to say with the assumption that their partner will change and that’s not healthy for anybody.
You can’t stay with someone because of who you hope they will become in order to make you happy.
They are who they are to make them happy.
You get to be a part of their life and you can let them know like what would work well for you or what you might like from them but I don’t think that you get to tell people who to be just to meet your needs.
If this person is happy having sex once a month, you don’t get to say that they have to change that because you want to have sex more often.
So I think it’s important to look at, if this is not going to change, can I be happy in this relationship?
And if not, maybe it’s time to transition or restructure.
And that’s not the end of the world.
Again, I’m close friends with a ton of my exes.
I just moved to Atlanta, to move in with a former partner.
I have close friends all over the place who I previously dated and with romantic relationships with.
You can absolutely nail that landing and I think it’s easier to nail that landing if you acknowledge earlier on before the resentment has built up.
If you keep waiting and letting that resentment get like greater and greater and build up between you, it’s much, much harder to have a good breakup.
It’s much, much harder to be able to separate and part on good terms and be able to preserve the good parts of that relationship.
So in one of my YouTube videos somebody asked, “Do you have any suggestions for questions to ask myself when I’m trying to examine my relationship patterns?”
This is a really good question.
I think that because it’s broad, it’s a little bit tougher to answer.
But I think I would ask myself like when I’m in relationships, what do the most common conflicts tend to be about?
Where do things tend to go wrong?
Where do things break down?
When I think back over my relationships from the past, what do I wish I had done differently?
What do I wish was happening?
Anyway, so questions to ask yourself to examine your relationship patterns, I think asking yourself like where do things go wrong?
Where does it break down?
When is there a problem?
Secondly, I think asking yourself like when you are selecting people, are there certain things that you have selected for in the past that have served you well and are there things you have selected for in the past that have not served you well?
I think there’s also an element of looking at what it is that we value in a connection, particularly early in the connection.
So I know for myself, for a long time what I value the most was this like rushing sense of passion.
It’s very like huge, rushing sense of passion.
And what I figured out after a while is that actually, a lot of times for me, that feeling that I was attributing to passion was this kind of like destabilization of kind of either like sacrificing my boundaries or being with someone who was going past my boundaries or offering too much too early that it was not actually a healthy feeling for me.
And so, are you looking for something that is serving you or are you selecting for options or traits that are actually creating more problems for you?
A lot of us when we date we end up kind of unconsciously seeking out characteristics or traits that are aligned with ways we have been hurt in the past.
There are ways that we can try to like re-experience things that hurt us to try to have a better ending this time where we think like, “Yes, in the past, when I dated someone who had this characteristic, it was really terrible and didn’t work. But this time, it will be different. This time it will work.”
And I think if you have noticed that you are doing that, it’s important to pay attention too and to really think about is going through those choices like is essentially kind of putting yourself back through the same traumas over and over actually serving you or is it not?
Another question you might ask yourself in looking at your relationship patterns is, what do you do really well?
Like if you were to poll your former partners, what would they say that you are really good at or that is like your best skill?
And what might your former partners say is your biggest drawback?
One of the benefits of being friends with a lot of my former partners, is we get to talk about where stuff went wrong.
We get to talk about their experience of it and my experience of it and share the different ways in which we saw the relationship and the conflicts in the relationship and the successes in the relationship.
And I’ve learned a lot about my patterns by having frank conversations with my former partners and hearing from them about their experience of things and how the way that I was experiencing and perceiving something didn’t necessarily line up with how they were.
And I think also talking to your friends.
Sometimes our friends because they may be who we go to to talk about relationship problems, they may have heard us talk about stuff that goes wrong and have a better idea of what those patterns are than we do because they’re on the outside.
So ask your friends as well like, “What do you think are my relationship patterns? What are the things that are good patterns? What are the things that are not so great patterns?”
So that you can get a better feeling for it.
2023 is just around the corner! Many of you are likely reflecting on the last year and creating resolutions, which is great, but please keep these things in mind:
Among my circle of friends, I’m known as the one who’s VERY into Christmas love movies. I come by it honestly - my dad loves Hallmark Christmas movies and watches tons of them every year. I’ve been meaning for years to put together a guide to my favorite (and most hated) Christmas movies, and this year I finally got around to it. I’ve included a wide variety of options, from the genuinely good to the deliciously terrible, and even some that aren’t about love at all, so, hopefully, there’s something here for everyone.
These movies are ones that I think are genuinely well done, not just as holiday love movies, but as media in general.
• The Holiday - Look, this is not just my favorite holiday love movie, it's one of my favorite movies. You've got a killer cast bringing you excellent performances, great editing, beautiful locations, personal growth … everything you could want! Plus, this movie shows how much we've all been missing by not having more rom-coms with Jack Black as the romantic lead. He's spectacular!
• Home for Christmas - This is a series, not a movie, but it's worth the longer watching length. We follow Johanne on her quest to find a boyfriend before Christmas Eve so that her family and friends will get off of her case. If you've ever been the single person in a room full of people who show their love by reminding you how single you are, then you know how she feels. If you've had to navigate the frustrating and exhausting world of dating, you'll feel so seen. It's a fun, sweet show about being open to finding yourself and love that doesn't look how you expect it to.
• Holidate - Want a holiday love movie that's about lots of holidays and also about people who hate holidays? One that's also about how shitty holidays can be when you're single? This movie has you covered! It's funny, sweet, and a great take on the genre.
• Christmas in the Wild - Do you want to watch Rob Lowe take care of baby elephants in the African savannah? What if I throw in Kristin Davis as a veterinarian who gets fairly brutally dumped by her husband as their kid leaves for college? When you combine baby animals, conservation support efforts, and a sweet love story, this one is for you!
• A Bad Mom's Christmas - Look, this isn't technically a rom-com, but it's here for a reason. This one has a great cast and primarily is about what it is to be a mom and to have a relationship with a mom, but it's also got an amazing love plot: a woman who waxes a hot male stripper with a heart of gold and gets his big dick in the end.
• A Castle For Christmas - Brooke Shields and Carey Elwes in a movie about a recently divorced romance writer trying to buy a Scottish castle. I mean, come on. There are also some knitters, including a delightful gay bear who knits. Is this movie tropey? Yeah, for sure. But it's still great.
• Love Actually - It's a classic for a reason. Is it good? Debatable. Are the relationships healthy? Absolutely not. Do I still love it? Yes.
• The Noel Diary - This is the best of the 2022 releases that I’ve seen. We’ve got the wealthy author who’s a devoted bachelor, going back home to take care of his dead mother’s house, and the mystery woman whose mother may have worked for his family. It’s a family mystery, with plenty of brooding and will they/won’t they suspense. Is it as good as some others on this section of the list? No. But it’s the best of this year’s contributions.
• White Christmas - I only mean the version without the horrible minstrel number, obviously, but I love this classic. It’s a sweet story about a couple of dudes who wear some drag and throw a show to help out their former commanding officer. It’s a war movie, a musical, and a Christmas movie all wrapped in one. And, I’ll admit, I always cry at the end.
Sometimes you want a beautiful steak, and sometimes you want a hamburger. These are the hamburgers of holiday love movies
• The Knight Before Christmas - An old crone gives an amulet to a knight so he can complete his quest and become a true knight. Said amulet transports him from 1334 to 2019. It’s a gloriously ridiculous fish-out-of-water romance that’s so goofy it’s endearing.
• A Christmas Prince Trilogy - Look, these movies are bad, but they’re also delightful. Rose McIver, of iZombie fame, plays the world’s most inept journalist who manages to still marry into royalty. There are so many wacky, hilarious moments in each of these movies, and the leads are very easy on the eyes.
• The Princess Switch Trilogy - If A Christmas Prince is bad, The Princess Switch is badder, but that also makes it better in some ways? Each of the movies is thoroughly ridiculous and yet they manage to be somehow endearing. Vanessa Hudgens, who also stars in The Knight Before Christmas, plays up to 3 identical women who are all swapping places in different ways and for different reasons and it’s beautiful chaos.
• The Spirit of Christmas - I have shocking news for you - what you need in your life is a movie about a big city lawyer who falls in love with the ghost who spends December 13th to 26th haunting, in a corporeal form, the B&B she’s been tasked with selling. Our ghost is a handsome man who was a rum runner and died mysteriously back in the 1920s. Yes, it’s ridiculous, and there’s no way any of it makes sense, but goodness is it fun.
• Single All The Way - Finally, something for the gays! We get a classic “we’ll pretend to be a couple to get my family off of my back,” but queer this time. I expected to be disappointed with this movie, but it actually won me over.
• Last Christmas - I want to tell you something about this one, but it would be a spoiler. Let's just say that it's odd I have 2 movies on this list with the same very unusual trope.
• Love Hard - Did you always want a rom-com about catfishing? I mean, neither did I, but it turns out this one was fun. It’s also one of the few bigger-budget movies that doesn’t have only white leading actors.•• The Knight Before Christmas - An old crone gives an amulet to a knight so he can complete his quest and become a true knight. Said amulet transports him from 1334 to 2019. It’s a gloriously ridiculous fish-out-of-water romance that’s so goofy it’s endearing.
Sometimes you don't want a hamburger, you want midnight Taco Bell. Something so bad that it circles back around to good again, or something where its terrible-ness ends up making you kind of actually like it even though you'd never admit it. For when you want to hate-watch, or at least pretend that you’re hate watching
• The Christmas Wedding Planner - This is one of the worst movies ever and I actually kind of love it? Nothing about it is good. It does have Joey Fatone? But it's exactly what it says on the label. This movie is the most greasy, disgusting Taco Bell at 2 am when you're drunk, which makes it disgusting and perfect somehow.
• Mistletoe Mixup - Remember the Lawrence Brothers? What if I told you that there's a movie where they play brothers and, even better, their actual mom plays their mom? But wait, there's more - the two brothers meet and want to date the same woman, and their mom encourages it. This movie is AWFUL but it's also perfect and you need to experience it at least once in your life.
• A Princess for Christmas - Look, there are more movies about royalty romance plots than you can imagine. So why this one? Well, it has Sam Heughan and unf.
• The Holiday Calendar - Is a magical advent calendar helping our protagonist find love? Of course. Will it be the guy who's great on paper or the artistic long-term friend? Lol, obviously you know how this will go.
• Falling for Christmas - This is kind of like a live-action Looney Tunes Christmas rom-com starring Lindsay Lohan. Look, I don't get it either, but somehow it manages to be kind of charming?
We all have that friend who insists that the perfect holiday movie is Die Hard, so here are some holiday movies that aren’t romance movies:
• Die Hard - It’s the example that everyone gives of a Christmas movie, but For Dudes I guess? It’s a good example of the late 80s/early 90s action genre and it’s been referenced in tons of other movies, so it’s worth a watch at least once.
• Anna and the Apocalypse - If you're looking for a Christmas zombie apocalypse musical this one has you covered. It’s a great little musical, a good zombie movie, and a great Christmas movie for people who don’t like Christmas movies. Honestly, the “Turning My Life Around” alone is a funny enough scene to watch this movie all on its own
• Batman Returns - Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, Danny DeVito as the Penguin, and Michael Keaton as Batman: was there ever a better cast? Michelle Pfeiffer did her own whip stunts and even as a 4th grader I wanted her hot leather ensemble. It’s technically set at Christmas, so throw it on and watch with your chosen family!
• Gremlins - I debated whether to include this one because there is some stuff that’s definitely racist and some stuff that might be racist, so keep that in mind before watching. It’s still a fun horror movie with adorable puppets who happily cause murderous chaos.
• Edward Scissorhands - This Tim Burton classic (unfortunately starring notorious abuser Johnny Depp) is almost a Christmas love movie, but with that special Tim Burton twist. Even though it’s over 30 years old, it’s still a lovely and thoughtful look at the ugliness of the suburbs and the beauty of a weirdo.
These are movies I never ever ever want to see again. I watched them so you don't have to.
• Happiest Season - This isn't a movie about lesbian love or about the struggles of queerness, it's about a manipulative, selfish jerk who somehow still gets the girl. Fuck this movie.
• Christmas Inheritance - I've watched plenty of "big city work-obsessed woman discovers love in a small town" movies that didn't piss me off, but this one did. This feels like trad wife propaganda somehow.
• I Hate Christmas - This is literally just Home for Christmas but in Venice instead of Oslo. Not similar, exactly the same. Somehow it manages to turn a show that was lovely and sweet into a lifeless husk. I'm furious that this exists.
• Switched for Christmas - Candace Cameron Bure plays twins who swap places and fall in love. So why is it on the naughty list? Cuz the people who wrote and shot this movie have clearly never been to Colorado and butcher Colorado geography to an extent that I cannot even describe. As someone who grew up in Denver, this is unforgivable.
Today is the shortest day and the longest night of the year, the time we can choose to face our darkness and decide what we wish to be and build and become as the light returns to us. The winter solstice is a time to reflect on what we’ve done over the last year of light and darkness, as well as a chance to face down the fear and uncertainty of this longest night. Some people have a candle or fire burn all night on the solstice, a bit of light to chase away this deepest dark. Others honor the shortest day with food, ritual, dance, a sleepless night, or any number of traditions lost to time (and colonialism). And, as I’m sure you know, the Christian celebration of Christmas borrowed its timing and some of its traditions from celebrations of Yule, one of the terms for the day after the longest night.
To me, the solstice is like Christmas and New Year’s Eve rolled into one. It’s a time to find warmth and light to get through the struggles of darkness, a prompt to examine what I’ve been doing and what I want to be doing, and an excuse to celebrate and share gifts and time with the people I care about.
Whether you celebrate any of the various December holidays or none of them, I hope you see your way through this darkest night to the dawn of a new day and the return of light, ever-growing for the next 6 months. May your solstice bring you joy, healing, peace, kindness, love, and warmth.
THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us—Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
It’s the solstice, Christmas, and Hanukkah this month so, like most folks out there, I’m putting together a gift list! Overall, I believe in supporting ethically sourced, inclusive brands, especially focusing on small businesses owned by women, BIPOC folks, LGBTQ+ folks, and fat folks.
With no further ado, here are some websites and products that I love:
Who doesn’t love a great sex toy? But who hasn’t felt LOST looking at all the options out there? Here’s a selection of my favorite toys this year as well as my favorite places to buy them.
Funkit Toys NoFrillDo ($20-40)
By now, we’ve probably all heard at least a little bit about how important it is for sex toys to be made of body-safe materials. However, lots of the brands that are most prominent in these discussions can be out of the budget for most folks. Enter the NoFrillDo - a premium silicone dildo in fun colors for a very affordable price. Bonus - if you get a cyan or magenta NoFrillDo you’ll help support the Baltimore Abortion Fund! Funkit Toys also has a plethora of dildos, plugs, and GORGEOUS custom toys in a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors if you’re looking to splurge on something nice.
ShotPocket Pleasure Sleeve ($24.99)
Unlike most of the products on this list, I haven’t yet gotten to personally try the ShotPocket. However, as I’ve been doing a bunch of research to find a good stroker for folks with bottom growth from T, this is the one that everyone is raving about. Plus, you don’t end up supporting a person who’s encouraging transphobia and transmedicalism when you buy it (looking at you, Buck-Off, and Kiss X).
Ruby Glow Dusk ($39 at Walmart, $69 at Babeland)
If you want a toy to grind on, The Ruby Glow Dusk is a great choice. It’s got 2 vibrators, a smooth side and a side with ridges, and it’s super portable. It does use batteries instead of being rechargeable, so be aware if that’s an important distinction for you. (I know that many people recommend the Enby by Wild Flower, but Wild Flower attempted to copyright the word “enby” and sued a BIPOC-owned small sex shop over it even though their trademark application was denied, so I would stay far away from Wild Flower.)
Rodeoh Harnesses (price varies)
While I think many of us love the posh feel and look of a leather strap-on harness, we can all agree that they can be tough to keep clean. Plus, sometimes I don’t want to fiddle with straps and buckles, I just want to slide on my dick and get going. Enter the Rodeoh harness. They’re designed to fit like underwear while still giving you all the control you need to wield the dildo of your choice. Rodeoh offers a huge variety of cuts, colors, patterns, and sizes (up to 5x) and, like regular underwear, they’re all easy to wash after use. These days, Rodeoh also has packing underwear, vibrators, dildos, packers, and other fun toys and accessories. My current favorite harness is this Jock Harness ($49.99) which has been giving me all the gender euphoria feels. I also recommend getting the neoprene stabilizers to both cushion the thruster and ensure the dildo is nice and secure while in use.
Satisfyer Pro 2 ($58)
Clitoral-sucking vibes have been a big deal for the last 7-8 years since Womanizer first debuted their model. Now, there are lots of options in the field. I love the Satisfyer Pro 2 because the suction opening is wider than many other brands/models, so it’s easier to find the right place to put it to create that delicious suction. It’s also much easier to use if you have bottom growth from T than most other brands.
If you want some gorgeous, high-quality toys from a small US company, then look no further than New York Toy Collective. I’m deeply into the Carter ($179), a thick, perfectly squishy dildo with a bendable rod at its core. I also love the Sam STP ($75) and the accompanying STP strap ($29) for days when I want to be able to pack and, well, stand to pee lol. I’m very intrigued by the Jack 2-in-1 stroker ($59) and will be adding it to my own holiday wishlist.
Doxy Die Cast ($189.99)
If you want to really splurge and you love deep, powerful vibration, I strongly recommend the Doxy Die Cast. It’s a hefty beast that can make you scream with rumbly vibes and enough power for fans of the strongest vibes. It comes in 2 sizes, plus has a new rechargeable version; I’ve only personally used the full-size, wall-plug one (not the Die Cast 3 or the rechargeable), so I can’t say whether the other versions are as rumbly as their original counterpart. For those who care about looks, you can buy it in multiple colors and now patterns to match any sense of style!
There’s a reason that most of the best sex educators and bloggers are SheVibe affiliates: it’s simply one of the best places to get sex toys, books, and more online. Unlike lots of web stores, SheVibe groups the toys by how you use them, rather than needlessly (and inaccurately) gendering things like vibrators and butt plugs. They have a HUGE selection and often have some great deals around the holidays. Plus, we’ve got a discount code for you - Use code docliz for 10% off!
I’ll admit, I’m a bit biased because I love Zoë Ligon, but Spectrum is my favorite online store and almost always the first place I check when I’m shopping for something new. The toys are all high quality, the blog is super educational, and you’re supporting a small, woman-owned business out of Detroit. Plus, we’ve got a discount code for you - use code DrLiz for 15% off!
Lube is, I think, one of those simple things that separate those who might be good at sex sometimes from those who know their way around a sexual encounter. No matter what kind of bodies are involved, lube can make everything more smooth and slick, and easy. It is important to check that what lube you’re using is going to be okay for your body (this guide can help). Here are some of my favorite lubes
My go-to lube, no matter what, is pretty much always Uberlube. It’s a silicone lube that just freaking does the job for a good long time without feeling gross or wrong. It can take some practice to get used to their bottles and the pump action they use, but the fact that their products are in glass containers instead of plastic makes them one of the most ecologically friendly companies for packaging. If you’re using silicone toys, be aware that using silicone lube with them can cause problems over time, so either use a condom to protect the toy or be sure to spot-test the lube and always wash the toys right after use. Plus, we’ve got a discount code for you - use code DrLiz for 10% off!
If I’m using water-based lube, I tend to reach for Sliquid Sassy. It’s thick and lasts much longer than many other water-based lubes I’ve tried. Sliquid lists the pH of lubes on their website, making it easy to choose ones that are closest to the pH of the body area you’re using them on. Sassy is also great for butt stuff since it’s thicker texture really helps to reduce friction.
As a trans masc person who has a love/hate relationship with my breasts, I figured I’d give some binder recommendations in case folks are looking for some gifts to support their gender this year.
Look, if what you want is a fairly affordable binder ($35 for most half-lengths, $37 for tanks, $45 for racerback), you can’t go wrong with gc2b. They’ve been around for a long time and sell binders that are pretty darned comfortable and even cute sometimes. They have a great guide to measuring yourself in order to pick the right size and they’ll happily walk you through sizing if you have questions.
The top of my list for gifts to buy myself (after I recover from my recent move) is a For Them binder. Everyone I talk to says these are the most comfortable binders they’re ever worn, so you know I’m intrigued. All their binders are custom to your measurements, which is pretty awesome, and at $48 they’re still pretty reasonably priced. They even go up to 62 inches in size so they really are made to fit any body that wants to bind. If you want to get a binder for someone else, they even have a specific gift option you can purchase!
Last, I want to share a few shops that I love who work on inclusive clothing and/or undergarments for people of all genders and sizes.
Full disclosure: my assistant is the one who told me about this company, but now that I’ve looked at their website I am planning a shopping trip. Origami Customs does undergarments, swimwear, and lingerie as well as binders, gaffs, and packing undergarments. For each item, you can either choose from a standard size or get it customized for free. Yes, really. They center trans, non-binary, and queer folks in everything they do and every item has pictures of it on a variety of body shapes and sizes (including trans and fat people). I’m so into their offerings and can’t wait to see what they offer next.
For trans masc folks, Dapper Boi has been a go-to source of masculine clothes that fit bodies with the kinds of shapes that most “men’s” clothing isn’t designed for. Their clothes can be on the pricier side since they’re generally done in pretty small runs. Their business model is different than most clothing brands I’ve seen. They run pre-order/crowdfunding campaigns for new garments which get you the best prices and deals, so if the price is an issue for you (and let’s be real, who isn’t it an issue for these days), it’s worth either signing up for their mailing list or checking the website regularly.
When I was drafting this list, I wanted to include Bawdy Love as they made the most FABULOUS lingerie, centering fat people in both the items made and their marketing. But, unfortunately, Bawdy Love has been going through a major restructuring in the second half of this year. One of the founders is going to be transitioning to a new company, Chub Rub Clothing, and you can sign up at the link above to be the first to hear about their clothes once they’re available. Until now, you can scroll through the Chub Rub Instagram page to see all the fabulous garments they made in their previous incarnation.
How do you know if your fantasies or kinks are healthy?
So this is a super timely question because there’s a whole lot of debate on Twitter right now about – well, in articles about incest fantasies or the different kinds of writings that may happen on a website like AO3.
So AO3 is a fan fiction website that also has a lot of sexually explicit content, some of which includes things that are illegal or that people may find really off-putting or disgusting or wrong.
So there are fan fics about bestiality.
There are fan fics about underage including very under aged people.
There are fan fics about things like snuff.
So there’s a bunch of stuff on there.
It is luckily, mostly highly tagged and very searchable.
And a lot of people feel like if something would be wrong in the real world, you should never think about or fantasize about it or enjoy reading smutty porn about it because that is – that means you would do those things in the real world or are condoning them in the real world.
An interesting hot take that I saw on Twitter today was that there was an article that came out that was talking about House of the Dragon that was like maybe incest fantasies are super hot.
And this person was like, “You only think it’s hot because the people are hot. You don’t think that the horror or incest people are hot so you don’t think that incest is a turn-on. So it’s not the incest that’s a turn-on. It’s the people.”
And like look, isn’t that true with anything?
I’m super into fucking.
If the show is showing people fucking in a way that is intended to be horrifying rather than arousing, most likely, they are going to make casting selections, lighting selections, angle selections, pacing selections, all sorts of things that evoke the feeling they are aiming for which is horror or disgust rather than the feeling that I might feel about sex in other ways.
The thing is, fantasies and kinks can be healthy or unhealthy, and that has almost nothing to do with the actual content of those fantasies or kinks.
There is a ton of research that shows that people being into these edgier, more taboo fantasies does not in any way translate to them doing those things in the real world.
So people who like reading bestiality porn don’t actually fuck animals.
People who love reading incest porn aren’t fucking their relatives.
People who enjoy reading underage porn, they are not having sex with people who are under age.
And there’s also a debate about like is it OK to fantasize about these things if they are wrong in the real world because like aren’t you creating harm?
And the answer is no, you’re not.
These people don’t exist.
The fantasy people you’re reading about, they don’t exist.
No children were harmed in the making of this erotica.
I think that the thing to ask yourself about whether it is healthy is more about your engagement with it and relationship to it and about how that relates to your behavior in the real world.
So like if you really love reading underage porn and the more you read it, the more you feel tempted to do something inappropriate with someone who is under aged, that’s probably not a healthy kink for you to be exploring in that way.
That’s probably something that is a problem and that you might need support around.
If however, you like reading some underage porn sometimes but you have no desire to do anything with an actual under aged person, it’s a fantasy.
It’s a kink.
Our brains are messy places.
The thing is, when we start trying to police the fantasies or the kinks that people get to have, we start getting into thought crime.
And conservatives love to talk about thought crime as a thing that liberals are always policing, and like it’s a lie, right?
You can’t trust fascists.
They lie all the time.
And I think that sometimes those of us who are leftists who are very progressive, who are working are really hard on creating worlds founded on justice and accountability and equity, sometimes we end up taking things to a place that is like so far beyond what it needs to be.
Someone enjoying reading a story that has something in it that would be not OK in the real world is not the same thing as that actually harming people in the real world.
The kinks that we are into are often about things that we find repulsive or reprehensible because for the majority of us, particularly in these cultures of the United States, Canada, England, like a lot of Western cultures, almost all of us, our introduction to sex is tied up with shame.
We are told our bodies are shameful.
We are told our desire is shameful.
And so, it would make sense that things that bring up those disgust, repulsion, discomfort, shame feelings might also bring up sexy feelings for us because for us, since our childhood, sex has been associated with shame.
And the more that you pair those things, the more they are going to fire together in both directions.
In addition, the thing about taboo fantasies and kinks is that they are like sex roller coasters.
When we go on a roller coaster, the reason a roller coaster is fun is because it feels like you could die but you are not going to.
It activates all of the parts of your brain and your body that responds to threat in a way that is safe for you to engage in.
Kinks and fantasies do the same thing in the realm of sexuality, sensuality, engaging with our bodies.
They take these things that are forbidden, scary, taboo, shameful, that bring up these strong reactions in us and give us a safe container in which to explore them and face them and dance with them and play with them.
As long as the way that you are interacting with these fantasies and kinks is not creating harm in the real world, there is nothing necessarily unhealthy about it.
If however, your relationship to those is starting to cause harm to yourself or other people or other living entities then that’s something worth looking into and getting support around.
And if you are noticing that there is a potentially relationship with your fantasies or kinks, I strongly recommend finding a sex positive therapist to work with around it.
The reason being, sometimes what is happening there is something that requires a therapy level of support and if you go to a regular mainstream therapist who is not sex positive, who does not have radical ethics, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble very quickly by talking about these taboo fantasies that you are engaging with.
So again, the health here is not necessarily about the content of the fantasy or kink.
There are very few fantasies or kinks that the content on their own is necessarily unhealthy for you to be into or engaging with.
The unhealthy part is how is translating to your life?
Is it that you engage in it so much that it’s making it hard for you to do other things?
That’s a problem.
Is it that engaging with it in a fantasy realm makes you want to do it in real life?
And that would harm people.
That’s a problem.
So just check in about what is the way this impacts the real world because in fantasy and kink land, it’s really hard for that to be a problem.
The stuff that happens in our brains – our brains are messy, chaotic places.
We love to think of them as these like beautiful, smooth, perfect machines, but they are not.
They are not at all.
They are fucking disasters and they are far more in common with the internet as that actually functions than they do the kind of thing we imagined.
The internet is basically a series of things held together by band-aids on band-aids on band-aids that are constantly being patched in an emergency way by people who didn’t build it and hate the way that it was built but cannot actually completely change it.
That is kind of how our brains are.
They are full of chaos and muck and mystery and they are garbage fires some of the time.
So just because something is half for you in your brain does not mean that you are a bad person or that it is unhealthy.
It means that brains are messy and weird and sometimes we are super into fantasies that we are super against in real life, and that is totally normal and OK.
Why do some nonbinary folks consider themselves trans and others don’t?
So this relates a to the last question where I talked about how labels need to be thought of as descriptors, not prescriptive.
Labels aren’t telling us what we can do and should do.
Labels are there for us to talk about ourselves.
People who are nonbinary are people who do not identify with a binary gender.
They may be a gender.
They may be gender queer.
They may be gender fluid.
They may be bi gender.
They may be two spirits if they are Native American.
There is a lot of different ways that nonbinary can show up.
It is a huge umbrella for a lot of different experiences of gender that people have.
A lot of nonbinary folks – I’ll speak for myself.
So when I first started identifying as nonbinary, I didn’t feel like it was OK for me to identify as trans unless I was going to do some sort of medical transition or some more significant social transition by like changing my name.
I had changed my pronouns but I felt uncomfortable saying that I was trans because I felt like I didn’t qualify because I hadn’t done the things to meet the standard.
And I’m also a bisexual.
And the biggest bisexual thing is feeling you’re not queer enough for bisexuality or for queerness club.
So again, the biggest thing with bisexuality often is like feeling like you’re not queer enough to count as queer or like you’re somehow appropriating queerness by being bisexual if you are dating someone of a different gender than your own.
I think a lot of nonbinary folks feel like if they identify as trans but are not medically transitioning or changing their name or doing something of that sort then they are like taking up space or resources from transpeople who need it.
And I think that there are ways in which that could be true, right?
If you start centering your perspective above all others when you are someone who is not necessarily medically or socially transitioning much, not changing much your life, that could be a problem.
But there is no limit in the amount of space there is for transpeople or queer people.
We aren’t going to reach the societal cap on queers.
We aren’t going to reach the societal cap on transpeople.
So I think that a lot of this is about ways that a lot of the narrative around transness has to do with things like medical transition, things like more significant or serious social transition has to do a with a much more binary experience.
And so, when looking at what it is to be trans based on the stories that are available, a lot of nonbinary folks look at those stories and are like, “Well, I don’t really want to get surgery. I don’t necessarily want to change my name. So am I even trans?”
And to be frank especially on the internet, there are some binary trans folk who are awful to nonbinary people and do not count them under the label and get very upset when nonbinary people identify as trans.
So this is not just something that nonbinary people make up in their heads.
This is a very real thing that happens and that people experience.
And again, a label is something you get to choose to describe yourself.
If you feel like trans is a label that would be helpful for you in describing yourself when you’re nonbinary, even if you don’t intend to medical transition, even if you don’t want to change your name, you still get to use that label.
Whatever it means for you, if you – like trans just means you do not identify with the gender you were assigned at birth.
So if you are nonbinary, that is a label that can apply to you even if you never take hormones, even if you never get surgery, even if you never changed your name.
If you are identifying as nonbinary, I can almost guarantee that your birth certificate did not say nonbinary but you did not come out of your parent and then have the doctor say, “It’s a nonbinary!”
So you are trans if you want to be.
I also think that again, part of labels is about ways that we join groups or signal our affiliation with groups or seek community from those who are like us.
And the trans space is not always super welcoming to nonbinary people.
And so, a lot of nonbinary people may not want to identify as trans because it just doesn’t feel like it’s for them.
It feels like that space is very much for people who are not like them, for people who are binary, for people who are just going from man to woman or woman to man, and that is where they are.
And like that is also valid.
So when it comes to why does some people who are nonbinary say that they are trans while others don’t, the answer is that it’s a label that has a lot of very complicated feelings for nonbinary people and there’s a lot of very complicated community dynamics that also make it challenging in terms of whether that is a label that feels right for you.
I do identify as trans and nonbinary.
I have taken hormones.
I haven’t been taken hormones recently.
Part of my experience of my gender is I’ll start taking hormones and be like, “Man, it will so great when this thing happens and my body changes in this way and then my body starts changing in that way and I freak the fuck out and have to take a break from hormones for a bit.”
And so like that is the stage that I’m in right now is that I had very much been enjoying having more hair on my legs and seeing it go further on my legs.
And then I started seeing hair on my upper thighs and like some more hair on my pubic area and I was like, “Oh, absolutely not! This is wrong. I need to stop.”
And so, that may change and maybe go back on testosterone soon.
It may not.
It’s hard to say.
But my experience with medical transition is that it’s very challenging to navigate medical transition as a nonbinary person whose gender shifts and changes a lot because the changes that you get from hormones are very static, whereas my experience of my gender is very fluid and beautiful.
And so, it’s hard to know what changes and how much change is good for me because what I really want is hot swappable body parts.
I want to be able to just click my tits off when I don’t want them and put them back on when I do.
I want a live bio dick that I can clip on when I feel like it and unclip when I don’t.
I want the flexibility to be able to shift my body to fit what’s happening for me in my gender that day.
And we don’t have that technology.
So instead, I have to use these very blunt instruments of change that I don’t even get to pick which of the changes that are going to affect.
I just have to take them and see what happens.
And I think that that’s much more complicated.
So, I do consider myself trans.
I had a lot more difficulty speaking about myself as trans before I did hormones because it felt like almost like stolen valor of like I don’t deserve to be able to use the trans label because I haven’t trans-ed in the right way or hard enough or something.
And that is bullshit.
But it’s not a hundred percent bullshit.
It is very much a thought that is shared by many binary transpeople and cis folks.
So it’s complicated.
The short answer is it’s messy and complicated because of internal ideas about what labels mean because of interpersonal dynamics, because of community dynamics, because of social dynamics, because of social media dynamics, because of discourse.
All of that makes figuring out where you fit under the trans umbrella or not as a nonbinary person much more complicated and messy.
So if a person is nonbinary, they may or may not identify as trans and the only way you will know is if they talk to you about it.
And there’s no right answer here.
If you are a nonbinary person who feels like you haven’t earned the ability to identify as trans, you have.
You can use that label if you want to.
You don’t need to do anything else to use that label.
If you don’t want to use that label for whatever reason, that is also super valid.
Don’t use that label.
So make the choice that’s right for you.
Don’t feel like you have to earn it or do a specific thing in order to qualify.
What’s the difference between gender identity and sexuality?
So this is such a complicated question to answer and I wish that I had even like had even more knowledge about queer studies, queer theory, queer history because the answer to this is that there are a lot of differences and there are no differences.
To start with differences, someone’s gender identity may or may not have anything to do with their sexuality.
So for instance, someone may be a trans woman and be straight.
They are attracted only to men.
Someone may be a trans man and be gay, so they are only attracted to men.
Someone who is transgender is not necessarily someone who also identifies as gay or lesbian or bisexual.
They may identify under queer since queer is kind of a larger umbrella term and often a more political designation than a specifically like behavioral designation.
But I think that there is a misconception that like people are transgender when they are so, so gay that they can’t be straight or even their own like assigned gender at birth.
And that’s not necessarily true.
And in fact, for many, many, many years, you could not get gender-affirming care including hormones or surgeries unless you were homosexual.
So like if you are assigned male at birth, you are only into men.
So if you a trans woman, you had to be a straight trans woman.
You couldn’t be a lesbian trans woman.
And so, I think that there are ways in which for a lot of folks, there is this assumption that being extra gay is what makes you trans, and that’s not necessarily true.
People may be very, very gay and cisgender.
People might be trans and queer.
There is no necessary correlation in that way.
However, I do think that a lot of the push that we see right now to distinguish between sexual orientation and gender identity comes largely from TERFs, people who are transphobes and who want to somehow say that gay and lesbian people and maybe bi people, they usually hate bi people too but they are like quieter about that.
So like gay and lesbian people are fine.
It’s the transpeople we have issues with.
And that never seemed the case.
Trans is always the gateway into the rest of homophobia, which is why the umbrella term of queer is something that I prefer strongly over a lot of the acronyms because the reality is that acronyms are always going to leave people out and when it comes down to it, we are united by the ways in which we are not CIS HET more so than anything else.
And transpeople and queer people of all flavors have way more in common in terms of their struggles in the society than they do differences.
So in terms of the differences you can generate into the sexuality in a political sense, in a coalition-building sense, there really isn’t one because anyone who has an issue with transpeople is going to eventually have an issue with queer people too.
They don’t tend to stop at transphobia and they would be like, “But we are actually totally fine with the gays.”
Usually, it goes all the way through from transpeople and once the transpeople are out, the get to start targeting the queer people.
In addition, people who are nonbinary don’t tend to have an alignment along monosexual lines that makes a ton of sense because if we think of someone who is straight as a person who is attracted to people of their same gender, for nonbinary folks, we tend to be a whole set of flavors.
I don’t know that I’ve met anyone who has my same gender identity because it is a very personal experience of gender.
So by that token, I couldn’t necessarily be gay and because every attraction that I have is just someone who has a different gender than mine that would maybe mean that I’m straight all the time.
But the way that I’m attracted to everyone is queer.
If I’m hooking up with a cisgender man,
I’m hooking up with them in a very queer way, not in a straight way.
I don’t tend to get along super well with cis straight dudes because they tend to need me to be a woman and I’m not.
Likewise, a lot of times with like strictly lesbian-identified people, especially people who are drawn towards or identify strongly with lesbian separatism or the ideals that came out of that, they don’t tend to want to have a lot to do with me either because I’m not just a lesbian.
I’m not a woman, and I like having sex with people who have penises which a lot of lesbian separatists are not OK with it at all.
So again, gender identity and sexuality are not completely separate.
They are also not exactly the same thing.
It is messy and complicated in terms of how they overlap.
And that’s why again, the umbrella term of queer I think is one of the most useful ones that we can use.
There is a big push right now coming from predominantly straight transphobes to say that queer is a slur in a way that gay is not.
And I hate to inform you all but almost every term that queer folks use to talk about themselves was a slur that has been reclaimed.
Gay, definitely a slur, lesbian.
There have been some people arguing that the poet, Sappho, would not qualify as a lesbian because she had attractions to people of a variety of genders.
So even though the term lesbian is named after Sappho, the poet from the island of Lesbos, a lot of modern lesbians who are TERFy think that she does not qualify as a lesbian because she would have been attracted to some men.
So like when we look at a lot of the ways that people are trying to very discreetly divide identities, very discreetly divide these labels and these buckets for people, almost always it ends up being for bad reasons.
Labels at their best are there for us to help describe ourselves.
They are not there to define us or to prescribe how we should be.
The labels that we choose are descriptive, not prescriptive.
And I think that we run into a lot of trouble when we start falling into discourse and dialogue that essentially says that the labels that you choose get to determine who you and what you do or should determine who you are and what you do, and that is just bullshit.
There is no world in which that is real or makes any sense.
The labels that we choose are ones that fit for us.
And I think that again, the more we try to like granulate and have these tiny, tiny boxes and tiny, tiny labels, just be aware of like where it’s coming from and why people are doing it.
Are they doing it because they want better terminology to describe themselves?
Are they doing it to gate keep and exclude?
Because if they are trying to gate keep and exclude, that is bullshit.
You need to kill the cop inside your mind and stop that.
We don’t police each other’s identities here. That is not how we do things.
So gender and sexuality, not the same, not completely separate, more aligned in terms of their struggles and their need for liberation than they are different.
