[Relationships] Preferred Pairings / Polycules (Patreon)

This turned into something of a long winded statement, just to say that one can like a sex or a gender or an identity and not necessarily all of them at the same time. So, give this a read if you are interested in my thoughts on attraction to a sex and a gender identity--otherwise, choose as many or as few of the very broad options below. I will have follow up polls about specific configurations of each.

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Okay! Now lets talk sex / gender preference real quick. 

This might be a controversial opinion to some, but I feel that it is perfectly reasonable to be attracted to

• A general kind of gender expression regardless of a person's sex or identity. 
• Wildly different gender expressions from members of the same sex or identity. 
• A gender identity regardless of sex or expression. 

Each of those depend entirely on how much you are attracted to physical aspects, personality aspects, or aesthetic aspects. If that does not make sense, consider this handy graphic for a moment...

Created by Sam Killermann for It's Pronounced Metrosexual, the genderbread model breaks gender up into a few pieces and while I feel that the Attraction Continua are a bit simplified--they should really be a matrix where identity, expression, and BioSex are on X,Y,Z axes--it is a very good graphic to explain why those things are each distinct aspects you can be independently attracted to.

However, throughout the sex/gender discourse there is a lot of earnest discussion (and a lot of noise as well) about that comes into conflict with social expectations. Lesbians not wanting to have date or have sex with trans women, for example, and how that preference is transphobic. 

As someone who has spent much of their life depressed and ridiculed for having a wildly different gender expression from my sex, and having a build which does not match my sex either, I can empathize with the feeling others no doubt experience when rejected because all of a sudden they are just their genitals and none of the attraction built up on those other axes matters at all.

That situation sucks. It hurts to open oneself up like that only to have hate poured in. One can find their identity crumbling, maybe only a little, maybe a whole lot, but the fact is the evening went from "hoping for sensual intimacy" to "feeling utterly alone"--and no one wants that.

The truth is, some lesbians like feminine gender expressions, regardless of BioSex or Identity. Some lesbians like having sex with other vagina owners, regardless of expression or identity. Neither of these things is inherently awful. Much like how I cannot stand sushi or that I like chicks with short hair, these are preferences that should be something one can feel safe about confiding in their date. However, that is hardly ever the case. Quite often, speaking up is not safe like, at all. 

That is the actual expression of transphobia. That mentioning how one's sex and gender are different could lead to bodily harm is more than just liking guys with beards. That one's potential partner could experience a panic or rejection so visceral that it leaves the romantic and/or sexual hopeful emotionally battered, physically bruised, and sometimes in states worse than that. 

Sure, random violence is far more likely to target queer targets, but the dangers in dating are much more personal. The victimizing is done by people that seemed to care about them, or were even just those who seemed really interested in getting into their pants until they realized something was "wrong." 

I do not claim to have an answer for this impasse, but I would like to believe some of what I write can help open that conversation up a bit more. As a linguist, I feel like this social quandary is due, in part, to our language having evolved from a binary that only became stricter as the grip on culture by those in power grew tighter. I feel like not having the words to discuss the idea that sex and gender are separate parts of a person's identity only deepens the irrational fears of those predisposed to hate towards "others." Without the ability to discuss, developing a societal understanding is likely impossible and that only results in escalation born of desperation.  

I will not always hit the mark perfectly, but I promise to be as respectful as possible when it comes to writing what are typically vulnerable, intimate moments between people just starting to get to know each other. I want nothing more than to treat those moments of great trust with the dignity they deserve. I want to keep making stories about these moments which end in something besides cruelty.

Many might say never having cruel things happen is fanciful escapism. However, if one considers the premise that humans might actually someday possess even a small shred of empathy for others to be an escapist fantasy too far from reality to enjoy, well, I weep for them. 

I write Speculative Fiction. I write the stuff of dreams and hopes and of fantasies. I spin tales of fears and regrets and of doubts. This sand box is full of adventures in space and worlds unknown. There are stories during times of peace and during war. This genre of the fantastic is home to billions of other people living in other times and other places. Surely there is some reality where being trans or even altersex is just part of who people are. And I invite you to join me there.