#tried to keep the bold/italic/underline formatting the same as in the zine but if it fucks with your screen reader lmk and i'll de-format it

[minotaurfemme]

Touch

Fucking Trans Women - Mira Bellwether

(transcription under read more)

Touch

Let me tell you about my 'no-zones' - I don't have any. I am the inverse of stone.

I love being touched and groped everywhere on my body without exception. Human touch makes me feel good, and I crave it the way I crave sunlight or air or water. Touch makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel present in my own body, which is how I prefer to feel.

So it makes me sad that since transitioning people touch me less frequently, lovers and friends included. I'm talking about everything from holding hands to friendly touches on the shoulder to vigorous rubbing of the upper thighs.

"No, I wasn't actually on edge, it's only that you're the first person to touch me today!" It sounds worse than it is. I am not a pathetic loner who no one touches, but I do wonder where all the touch went and why it went away.

I think what's going on most of the time is that people - my friends included - are afraid that they're going to touch me in the wrong place or that it will seem disrespectful or something. Basically I think its an attempt to be polite. Lovers do this too, more generally at first. I appreciate the sentiment, I guess? But it's misdirected, and if that politeness makes it all the way to sexy times it becomes a real problem.

~Please stop being polite.~

What feels friendly and polite to me is touching me. My body might feel different than what you're used to in subtle ways but really it's just my body, they're all slightly different from each other. Trans is not catching, and I don't usually smell.

I want you to touch me.

That's a hard thing to tell anyone and there is no convenient way to introduce the topic that I've found. But really, please stop being polite and start touching me more often, whether you're my friend or my lover. If you're my friend, I'm not telling you to go out of your way, although if you did I wouldn't complain.

Touch makes us feel human, it is what makes us feel welcome, and loved, and alive, and beautiful, and and utterly wanted by the people who love us.

(It's not like I don't notice when you shy away from me even when you pretend not to. I can tell the difference. anyone can.)

(I notice when my touch or my compliments give you that deer-in-the-headlights look, or you don't know how to respond. I notice when it takes you longer to hug me. I feel it when we share a bed as friends but your body is rigid. I don't say anything but I notice. These things make me feel very sad.)

But if we're fucking then I really need you to touch me more. Touch me all the time. Do go out of your way, because most lovers I've had for the past three years who weren't other trans women have erred on the side of caution and left me feeling untouched, and untouchable. "Untouchable" is a rotten way to feel, especially when you're trying to fuck. Not to dwell on the negative but when someone doesn't touch me it also suggests pretty strongly that they don't find my body sexy. I know that's not the case if we're fucking, so what's up?! Put your hands on my body! Find the parts you like to touch, then touch the shit out of them. What feels sexy to me is being touch a lot, all over. The more hands on my my thighs, arms, chest, belly, legs, hands, shoulders, and back, the better.

PLEASE stop BEING POLITE, and if you are NOT being polite, then STOP THAT TOO please. I want you to touch me, and really, I am very touchable.

Because you are my lover, because you are my date, because we are fucking,

I want you to touch my tits, even though they are small. I want you to kiss my lips even though they are thin, I want you to hold my hand when we walk down the street. I want you to suck on my body, my nipples, my fingertips, I want to feel your tongue on the inside of my thighs and in between my ass cheeks. You are beautiful, and there is no place I don't want to touch you because you are beautiful. Every part of you is gorgeous and sexy and right.

I want to feel the same way. I want to drop into your arms and be held as tight as you can hold me because I am beautiful and special. I don't want to wonder whether you're scared to touch me, I want to know that you aren't.

It can be hard to be touched sometimes, when I'm so used to no one touching me, but I want you to touch me. Even those rare times when I can't be touched, of course I wish that you could touch me and comfort me. And please know that if I'm not touching you, it doesn't mean that I don't want to. You are so very touchable, I want to touch you all the time.

(It gets to me sometimes, I admit. I start to wonder "am I touchable? Does anyone really want me?" And of course you do and I know that, but I want you to show me anyway.)

This is what I know:

I KNOW that my lovers want to touch me, I know that they see me as I am and think "that is the sexiest girl in the room, and she is my girl," and because I know that I am asking you to touch me.