#imagined bodyspace as the building blocks of eros

[gatheringbones]

["In thinking specifically about sexual experiences, and what I have and haven’t experienced with men of the realm I know is possible with women, I run into a vocabulary problem. We barely have words for the most concrete, physical elements of our sexuality, let alone the mental, emotional, and spiritual elements of it.

   One experience I’ve had only with women is associated with fisting, in a context where it went both ways in the relationship. (Non-reciprocal fisting feels different for me, even with women.) At times, this has been much beyond a bodily experience, transcendent perhaps. From a “bottom” perspective, I have sometimes moved through the physical sensations, letting them go, and traveled to another plane of consciousness. From a “top” perspective I have moved through fucking a woman with very conscious care to a place where my body did it, without thought, but closely in tune with her and feeling what she felt. To a certain extent I was also in tune with her on the other dimension, not going with her so much as seeing where she went. Probably some form of transcendent sex is possible with men, but I haven’t experienced it, and I imagine it would be quite different.

   I think some lesbian-specific facets of sexuality are about making love with someone with a body like my own. This allows me to understand what she feels, and to be understood, in a much clearer, more immediate way than is possible in much of heterosexuality. This kind of knowing is particularly strong with women whose sexuality is like my own. There are other, more specific elements. The feelings of being very inside someone, of that kind of openness in a woman lover, and of being enclosed is something I like a lot and don’t have with men. I feel men open to me, but in a different way, and I never really feel enclosed by them.

   Another lesbian-specific feeling has to do with being a woman wanting a woman, and the amazement which stays with me, even when I know she wants me, that she wants me. Subconsciously I think I’m still affected by the social messages that women want men, and therefore, women don’t want me. In a sense it still surprises me when they do. It doesn’t surprise me that men want me. I’ve been conditioned all my life to expect it.

   These are things I feel are fundamentally different with men and women. There is also quite a bit that I think is not necessarily exclusive to one or the other gender, but in practical terms usually is.

   One dimension of sexuality I have explored with men, but not with women, is taking the position of “top” for my own pleasure. I have played with clearly defined sexual roles with women, but as “top” when I have taken a woman, it has always been with a focus on her pleasure, and my own has come secondarily through pleasing her. With men I have sometimes taken a position of absolute control for my own pleasure.

   The most extreme instance was my first sex with a man since I came out. It was an affair at a conference which I began very ambiguously, unsure of whether I could get what I wanted sexually from a man. Once I decided that I wanted him, I also decided that the responsibility for my pleasure was my own. I took him, and I had my pleasure with him. In later discussions with lesbian friends I was asked whether I didn’t think I had “used” him. I feel clearly that I did not. It was something that he wanted and enjoyed, and, though my focus was on my own pleasure, I wasn’t insensitive to him. He was responsive to me, and gave freely what I demanded. He had his pleasure through mine. I can’t really imagine having this kind of sex with a woman, though I’m sure it’s possible, and that women do it. I think it would be a delicate thing, psychologically, but with this man it was easy.

   My experience of role dynamics, in both explicit and unacknowledged forms, is very different, in sex with men and women. I would like to hear from gay men who have started being sexual with women in relation to this. I have also found it very different making love with “straight” women, or women who are accustomed to sex with straight men, and with “lesbians,” or women used to sex with women. And this is not only a question of knowledge or technique, but also of the perspective with which women come to sexuality.

   For the last year I have been sexual a lot, mainly with a man whose sexuality has been shaped by making love with straight women, while mine has been shaped by making love with lesbians. We’ve both changed. Some of these changes are good in our relationship, but some of them don’t work for me.

   Have you ever been with a person of one sex and wanted something impossible with that combination of bodies?]

Karen Klassen, talking about sex, gender, and desire, from bi any other name: bisexual people speak out, edited by Lorraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu, 1991