Middle-aged political nostalgia

[moominmuppet]

My current "commute and break" audiobook is Speaking Sex to Power: The Politics of Queer Sex, by Patrick Califia. It's a collection of his late-nineties/early-2000s essays, just as he was really starting to transition, with some wonderful additionally contextualizing notes and introductions. His writings about both kink and parenthood are

Comments

[brujah]

After I was raped as a teen, I found myself in the care of a psychiatrist who changed the way I viewed sex. He was the very first person who got me to understand that the real damage from my personal experience wasn't the physical, that it was the emotional and psychological fallout that caused the lingering damage. He was also the first person who let me know that I could engage in sexual contact and be in complete control of that contact (with partners who were looking for exactly that

[moominmuppet]

Blessings on that man.

One of my most transformative moments was a single night with a friend, back in early college. For reasons to do with my asshole older cousins, up to that point I wasn't able to be emotionally open and physically open at the same time; it felt like giving up too much control of the situation. Emotionally present _or_ sexual. You couldn't have both at once, not from me, no way no how.

I think it mattered that the friend in question was a _friend_ not a romantic interest. I don't even recall if we actually got around to standard old PIV sex, honestly. What I do recall, vividly, was waking up the next morning knowing my world had shifted on its axis. That could not have been less of a "walk of shame" on any level; it was glorious!

[mac_arthur_park]

I've been thinking a lot about that lately, too. This new generation both confounds and delights me. I am thrilled that there are so many more resources out there and there is more of a dialogue, but, damn, it's confusing to an old fogey like me sometimes.

In other words, I had a 15 year old introduce me to a half dozen new terms they're using for the gender fluidity spectrum. Apparently, you won't hear of them unless you're young enough to have a Reddit account.

Hand me that back issue of Anything That Moves, will ya?

[livredor]

Many thanks for asking this question, it's been really good for me to think about how to answer it. In case you want very belated links from random people from the internet, my answer to: Who was transformative in your life, sexually?