In Search of Lost Time: Manufactured identity

Columns Magazine Issue September 5, 2012

As a MTF transsexual, sex was always a strange act for me.

I always felt closer and more enduring emotion from cuddling, kissing, caressing. During sex, I would imagine being the woman that I am, which made things difficult.

Sex was a strange and foreign act that was not as satisfactory as the media would have me believe. It is quite the opposite now.

But then, when I think back, masturbation was far more satisfying. This was not the fault of any of my previous partners; it was me being upset about the state of my body and the role I had to play in coitus.

I aligned myself with the thoughts of asexuality. I had never really investigated my asexuality because I was socialized to have sex. Yet another identity that I held internal and only spoke of in hushed tones in the dark to whomever I was trusting at the time; sometimes it was just my kitties.

Was I discovering my asexuality, or was I simply manufacturing objects of my sexual self to adapt and provide comfort in the face of loneliness?

I was manufacturing it.

My previous self was definitely inclined to an asexual identity due to the nature of my cultural and socially constructed manhood, confining my womanhood to inner fantasy and ever-present daydreaming.

However, now that Daphne was a living reflection of my inner self and the chains of imposed social frameworks have been broken, fractured, and shattered, I no longer align with those feelings. At least not in the same way.