Saturday late, after the dyke march, notes from a great conversation with M. about transsensuality versus transfetishism:

On transsensuality:

We bonded over being bi-femme-bottoms who like living around/ discussing trans identity, grey-area complexities of masculine and feminine mixtures, women’s issues and lives and histories in male-shaped life/bodies. We are both afraid of being seen as FTM-fetishizers, but are constantly getting involved with FTMs, and so we are starting to come out as transsensual. This is a quality/quantifier of our attractions, not a requirement for admittance to our bedrooms. We decided we'd probably be in straight relationships if we hadn;t come to the SF Bay Area. But in the SF Bay Area, when not with FTMs, we tend to get involved with other dykes, femme and butch, not bio-men. We are distrustful of the het privilege temporarily conferred on the streets to a femme dyke with an FTM partner, because we know it can backfire violently in a heartbeat. We seek friendships in and act in solidarity with the FTM transgender community. But in the privacy of our own company we examine our own motives.

On the problem with the FTM fetish:

There is an FTM fetish that is the attraction to (or shallow obsession with) the ideal of the formerly-female having a physical male shape and attitude. That fetishism can be alienating and unsupportive to the realities of FTMs (who don’t attain or retain the ideal body/ attitude 24-7), and frightening to butches (who see femmes with FTM fetishes and have body issues triggered by it).

On femmes who leave their butch lovers for not being butch enough, or for having aromatherapy candles instead of beer bottles on their coffee table:

Femmes with the FTM fetish aren’t usually prepared to stick around for the hard real issues of having a woman-shaped history (or current woman-shaped life) with a male-shaped body. They can be drawn to the joys of girlsex in private with the benefit of straight privilege on the streets, and then flee when all
the complicated mixtures and imperfections within the glamour come to the surface. These femmes mostly haven’t yet had intimate, nonsexual, supportive, friendship-based relationships with people who have transitioned FTM. But they probably will, and then the fetish will turn into understanding and a more
finely-honed taste in partnership material (i.e. not just based on appearance, or interior decorating choices).

On FTM sexuality surprises:

Confession: I once was involved with an older FTM who had a heinously old-school lesbian separatist music collection. It was almost enough to end the fling when he put some boring 70’s sisterhood-is-powerful folk on the tape deck. Not to impress me. These were his people. He was singing along. And let me tell you, those 70’s sexphobic lesbian separatist types can unearth some pretty weird sexual pleasure paths when they start dropping T (testosterone). You femmie FTM-fetishizers better put on your seatbelts before you get on that wagon. Hello, strangulation fantasies! And another thing: T can give (very) high blood pressure, which makes sex impossible. It’s like watching a dog chase its tail: they take the
T, get horny, and then feel like a balloon about to pop and are too nauseated to stand up, let alone mouth-kiss. All these issues and more can be yours along with your FTM fetish! In my opinion it’s worth it if you can love the person beyond their physical appearance and health negotiations.

On hot FTM-on-FTM action / FTMs rejecting femmes because “Girls are too complicated”:

It’s true, someone experiencing a testosterone high isn’t really good at verbal processing. Sometimes girls (or girl-like-creatures) are too complicated for people buzzing around on a testosterone cloud, feeling like fucking or fighting all the time. This state of affairs can look like a good time to some butches, like being FTM-identified gives you a license to act like a 14-year-old boy, a most prized license to people who often spent their 14th year terrified someone would beat them up for acting like a boy. Like their 14-year-old boy counterparts, having a “girls not allowed space” is powerful good fun. For some it’s even a long-term preference-- the faggy-boy FTM identity we’re seeing so often now. Sexual pleasure paths are a personal matter: I can’t say I want to waste my time trying to turn out someone who prefers boys (or boy-energy). I try to filter my jealousy over certain hot FTMs who only like other boys into a healthy admiration for their stigmatized and hence brave choices. Anyway, lust is ultimately an urge that is only concerned with itself, so jealous arguing over someone else's body as though it were property to be negotiated is a selfish act independent of the urge to make an individual (you or anyone else) truly happy.