I wrote this up in response to another post but it really should have its own post here on my blog. The topic? Sex scenes involving trans guys, how to write them, and how not to write them.
There’s been a lot of trans male headcanons popping up in fandoms lately. And that’s awesome! As a trans guy myself, I love seeing trans headcanons by both cis and trans people! And there’s been a lot of fics & art involving trans dudes having sex popping up lately. And that’s awesome too! Hell yeah we can get down and do the do! Unfortunately… many of these headcanons, art pieces, & fics don’t portray trans guys, their bodies, and their sex lives accurately. And that’s… not so awesome. There’s some pretty icky stereotypes and commonalities going around. So I’m here to shed a little light on trans men and how we get down.
First, I’d like to start by saying this content is of a mature nature, please exercise reader discretion before deciding to read it and follow your local laws & restrictions regarding such content.
Second, I’d like to note that my ask box is always open to questions if anybody wants to fact-check their trans fic with an actual trans dude. I’m more than willing to help educate.
Now, on to the lesson!
InterdictedKai’s Guide To Writing Trans Men Having Sex:
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Trans guys come in all sexual orientations.
If a trans man is having sex with a man, whether that man is cis or trans, that is gay sex. They’re both men. Having gay sex.
If a trans man is having sex with a woman, whether that woman is cis or trans, that is straight sex.
It’s a man and a woman. That’s straight sex.
Trans guys can most often
be found fucking: gay men, bi/pan men, straight women, & bi/pan
women. In other words: People who are attracted to men.
TERMINOLOGY: My number one issue with people who aren’t trans guys (eg: cis, nb, etc) writing about trans guys having sex is the words they use. Topping the chart: CALL IT A DICK, NOT A CLIT. Seriously.
Up top: The most standard term for talking
about a trans guy’s chest is ‘chest’. A lot of pre-op & no-op trans guys are
really not okay with having the lumps on their chest called ‘breasts’.
So if you’re writing about trans men getting some action on
their torso, you’re better off talking about his chest and nipples than his breasts
and nipples.
The pole:It’s a dick. It might be a small dick but almost universally every
trans guy I’ve met calls it a dick or cock and either dislikes or is actively squicked by it being called a clit. I’ve had so many
conversations with other trans guys where we salt about seeing cis
people writing trans guys in fic & calling it a clit. Sure, there are exceptions,
trans guys who use the word clit, but there’s also gay men who use the
f-slur to describe themselves. That’s a personal use. It’s not the standard. It’s not the
common term. It’s not okay if you’re someone who isn’t a trans dudewriting about a trans
dude having sex. It doesn’t matter if you’re cis, nb, or any other identity, call it a dick. It’s a dick. Call it a dick. It doesn’t
matter if they’re pre-T, on T, or if they’ve had some sort of genital
surgery. It’s a dick any which way. He is a man. He has a penis.
The hole: There is no standard term
for what a trans guy is probably gonna call the hole he’s got in front.
I know guys using: Cunt, vagina, pussy, front hole, front door, boy
hole, bonus hole, and so on. Personally, I like cunt, it’s gritty and abrasive and feels the most ‘masculine’ to me personally.
That said, whatever term you use, try to be respectful in using it and
understand that not all trans guys want sex to involve that body part.
TO REPEAT: DO NOT CALL A TRANS DUDE’S DICK A CLIT.
COMING OUT: Coming out as trans is usually scary. Coming out as trans can be dangerous.
Trans guys who pass, meaning they are perceived as men by people they meet, will at some point have to come out to romantic and/or sexual partner(s).
Usually these conversations will take place well before anything gets hot and heavy but sometimes things get a little carried out of hand and things need to pause so they can talk.
The last place most trans guys want to be when disclosing they’re trans
is in the bedroom with someone’s hand down their pants as an “oh, by
the way”. There have been many of cases of trans guys getting attacked in these situations if their partner freaks out over it. General rule? Don’t write your coming out scene as happening in the bedroom.
BODY BOUNDARIES: Trans people in general have a different relationship to their body from cis people by virtue of being trans. So since we’re focused on trans guys, let’s get into that.
Not all trans guys have sex the same way. Not all trans guys are okay
with using some or all of the body parts they have during sex. We each
have different body boundaries.
I know guys who won’t get
shirtless, guys who won’t take off their binder, and guys who strip shirtless without worry. I know guys who don’t want their chest touched
and guys who are really into receiving nipple play.
I know guys who love getting
blowjobs and guys who don’t want a mouth down there.
I know guys who
don’t want their cunt touched, guys who are okay with only fingers in there, and guys who are all about taking things
in the front door.
I know guys who don’t want any penetrative sex, guys who don’t care where you put it, guys who only want it in the front, guys who don’t want anything in their ass, and
guys who are fine as long as it’s only going in their ass.
I know guys who exclusively top, never bottom, and have gorgeous collections of
strap-ons to fuck their partner(s). Yes, that’s right, trans men can top!
These are just some examples and there’s no standard. Every trans man
will have different body boundaries that they need to discuss with their partner(s).
BODY CHANGES: The body changes a lot on testosterone. So let’s get into some of those changes.
CHEST: Chest fat does lessen on testosterone, but not usually by much. That said, they do become a lot more limp due to binding over the years. Binding makes
breast tissue basically wilt, break down, and go floppy. If a trans guy binds, his chest fat will become more limp over time. Easier to compress flatter, but also deteriorates skin quality for future surgery.
BODY HAIR:Holy hairy nipples, batman! Trans guys often get chest hair, just like cis guys. I’ve never once seen a fic talk
about a
trans guy’s chest hair. Trans guys also get happy trails, facial hair, thicker
hair on our legs and arms, etc, and generally develop average male body & facial hair patterns.
DICK: This is one of the most noticeable changes on T, and also the fastest. Most guys begin to notice their dick starting to grow within a few weeks of starting T. Most grow to around 1″-2″ when erect. There are many cases of guys getting as much as 3″ but these should be considered outliers and not average. It’s the trans dude equivalent of a cis dude with a 10″ dick: possible but uncommon. Wait, erect? Yep! It gets erect. You can definitely see when a trans guy has a boner if you’re looking at his dick! You can also notice that it has a foreskin just like an uncut penis! The labia may also become more coarse and similar in texture to a cis guy’s balls.
FLUIDS: Not all trans guys get dry downstairs on T. Some do. But I know a lot of guys who’ve gotten a lot more wet
since starting T. It happens a lot. It’s a 50/50 shot, really.
Bodies are weird. There are some sloppy, messy, slick trans guys and
some trans guys who have to use lube daily so they don’t chafe or even
use an estrogen cream down there.
SMELL: On Testosterone, the smell of a trans guy’s junk changes. You get Man Musk™
within the first 6 months. Anyone who’s been near a cis guy’s dick
knows what I mean by that: that really sharp, earthy dick smell.
TASTE: After
about 6-8 months on testosterone, a trans guy’s fluids down there stop tasting like going down on a cis girl and they start tasting a hell of a lot more like a cis dude’s precum. It’s a hormone thing. So giving a trans dude who’s been on T for a while a blowjob is gonna smell & taste a lot more like blowing a guy with a really leaky dick than going down on a girl. Cause that’s exactly what’s going on.
ORGASMS: Orgasms also change on testosterone. Guys who could previously get multiple orgasms pre-T often can’t once they start testosterone. But they do usually report them being stronger and more intense.
HAVING SEX: Trans men definitely don’t have sex like cis
women. Because they’re not
cis women. They’re men. They’re just men with a slightly different tool
set in their tool belt.
Like I said under Body Boundaries, we use our
bodies to have sex in many varied ways. Blowjobs, handjobs,
rimming, vaginal fingering, anal fingering, vaginal sex, anal sex, I
could go on for ages.
If a trans guy is
taking a cis dude’s dick in his cunt, it’s still gay sex, not straight sex, and
needs to be treated as such.
SAFER SEX & PREGNANCY:
Trans guys can get STDs like any other guy and should use condoms
accordingly. Trans guys having risky or unprotected sex with cis men may
be prescribed PrEP, an HIV-prevention medication designed to lower the risk of contracting HIV.
Speaking of STDs, people can get gonorrhoea & chlamydia in their ass or throat via anal & oral sex. This will not show on a standard pee test. There are special swabs for the ass and throat. Most doctors do not routinely perform these tests. They really should. But, back to the point.
Some people think trans men can’t
get pregnant. This is a myth. Some men think trans men can’t be on birth control. This is a myth. These myths are dangerous.
Trans men who are having sex with cis men can get pregnant unless they’ve had a hysterectomy. The risk of pregnancy is decreased but not eliminated by T.
Trans men on T cannot get estrogen-based birth control but they can be on progesterone-only birth control. Most large trans-affirming health clinics will recommend this
for trans men who have sex with cis men. Generally, this comes in two
forms: a daily pill known as the ‘minipill’ or a 12-week injection known
as the ‘depo shot’.
MEDICAL PROCEDURES: There are many routes trans guys can take in terms of medically transitioning.
For most trans people, the first step is hormone replacement therapy (HRT). For trans guys, this involves Testosterone therapy. Testosterone is usually administered via injection every 1, 2, or 12 weeks, depending on which kind, or via a daily cream/gel. 1 & 2 week shots are self-administered while 12-week shots are done by a professional. Trans guys who come out as kids or young teens may be prescribed hormone blockers to prevent or halt puberty
until they can start T when they’re 15-18 (age varies with local laws
& doctor’s discretion).
Another step for trans guys is usually top surgery. Guys with tiny chests (small B or less) can get periareolar (’peri’) or keyhole surgery. This leaves only a tiny scar around the nipple. Guys with larger chests usually get a double incision
(’DI’) surgery which involves larger scars along the bottom of the pecs
and nipple grafts or, less commonly, an Inverted-T or T-anchor surgery
which involves the same scars under the pecs but an additional vertical
scar from there to the nipple while eliminating the need for nipple
grafts.
Trans guys usually get a total hysterectomy, removing the uterus, ovaries, cervix, and all the bits in between. A trans guy who has his ovaries removed must be on some form of hormone therapy (eg: testosterone) or else risks bone loss & osteoporosis.
Some trans guys may opt for genital surgery. These procedures and the reasons why some trans guys might or might not want
one surgery or another is a whole complicated topic in itself. But if
you’re curious, look into metoidioplasty (’meta/meto’) or phalloplasty
(’phallo’). Tread carefully.
So, I’ll wrap this up with my most important point, again: If you are anything other than a trans guy (eg: if you are cis, nb, etc), DO NOT CALL A TRANS DUDE’S DICK A CLIT. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SMUTTY, CALL IT A DICK.
And, as I said, anyone can feel free to message me if they have questions about writing trans guys having sex.
Tl;dr: Just be respectful and know your subject matter.
it’s okay to have clumsy and awkward sex and it’s actually really common
the ability to laugh while you’re lying tangled and naked together bc you realize just how silly something is is really really intimate and trusting, and it’s the best feeling to be like that with someone and to be relaxed
it happens with long-term partners, it happens on hookups, and it’s rarely as bad as it’s always made out to be, except we usually think it’s bad we’re told that’s not how sex is supposed to go. but that’s not true.
it can still be passionate and intimate while being messy and clumsy, absolutely. you don’t need to “perform well.” sex isn’t a show: it’s about feeling good. sometimes it takes experimenting to figure out what feels good, and fumbles and awkward moments and laughter is all just part of it. sometimes that’s a huge part of the fun.
Saying there’s a sex panic on the grounds that women don’t like having their asses grabbed is the 2017 way of calling women frigid. In the 1950s, the woman who slapped a man’s face for an unwanted grope was mocked for not being sexually open, for being uptight. Now she’s accused of participating in a “sex panic.” But it’s all the same thing across the generations: When women stand up to say “keep your hands off of me” there’s a good chance they’ll be called prudes. Saying there’s a sex panic is a fancy way of saying that women’s bodies don’t completely belong to them the way their cars do. Someone can damage a woman’s car in a very small way, and insurance companies take it seriously and pay for the repair. She owns that car, and has every right to protect it. But if someone grabs her butt without her permission, she needs to lighten up. What is she, a frigid bitch?
I’m not even much of a fan of genderbends but goddamn am I even less of a fan of getting ordered around about what I should enjoy and how I should enjoy it and being lectured about how ‘problematic’ it is, when the real problem is that they’ve cast the thing in question in black and white and refuse to admit that there’s anything but their narrow framing.
Changing a character to the ‘opposite’ cis gender is a very different thing than making them trans or nonbinary. Insisting that people only change characters to trans is also really damn invalidating, because it implies that being trans is interchangable with being cis. Whoopsie doodle!
I think the real issue here is that a lot of people want to see more trans headcanons, but for some reason think that using sj words while being bossy and rude is the way to go about it. Dress it up in progressive language all you like; at the end of the day you’re still being bossy and rude to get what you want, regardless of anyone else’s valid feelings.
i get really irritated at kids who scream that genderbends are transphobic because they’re completely missing the context and history. they have no idea. it’s like to them, Cis People made up genderbends specifically to thumb their noses at trans people.
rule 63 was originally a guy thing, sexual objectification thing. it states ‘for every male character, there’s a female version of that character’, and not because the dudes who were into it cared about having more realistically rendered female heroes in their media. it was made popular on 4chan and porn boards and comics+gaming forums because you could reduce a manly male character into a sexy tits-and-ass pinup. there were related kinks of sissification, but mostly it was about getting to jerk it to a sexy female version of a previously unappealing, macho male character.
then women got hold of the rule and started going, okay. let’s look at the female version of this male character. let’s talk about being a woman in a man’s world. let’s talk about rorschach’s misogyny, tony stark’s womanizing, batman’s grimness, the fact there’s one girl ninja to every four or five guy ninjas, let’s talk about that in the hypothetical context of these male heroes being women instead. if there’s a girl version for every male character, what does that mean? what’s her story?
and it became this really amazing lens for female fans to interrogate stories through, to examine the effects of sexism and misogyny and masculinity, to introduce another woman into a story with very few, to identify with fully-rendered heroes of the fan’s own gender. and to interrogate the very nature of gender, which led into the development of genderbends where the character’s gender identity didn’t necessarily match their assigned sex, and from there an increasing interest in, and familiarity with, trans characters, trans people, and trans issues.
so like. people now reducing the issue to ‘cis people are gross and hate trans people’ is pretty ridiculous. it ignores basically twenty years of women questioning, confronting and then dismantling the de-facto heteronormative, exploitative male gaze in order to create the radically progressive fandom atmosphere as we know it today on tumblr.
I’d been trying to put into words my issue with the idea that genderbent versions of characters are somehow automatically, innately transphobic, and I think you pretty well nailed it.
Originally, it was called ‘genderswap’ or ‘genderswitch’, which was rightfully criticized for reinforcing a binary view of gender. Hence why it is now ‘genderbend‘. Things can bend in many directions.
Yeah basically.
Rule 63s can be transphobic and gender essentialist, no question, just as m/m slash can be misogynistic, but it’s not inherent to the genre.
The way I see it, rule 63 and trans/nb headcanons are two subsets of what I call “gender AUs”, and they’re not mutually exclusive. Girl!Sherlock Holmes is an example of one, trans!Holmes is the other, and trans woman Holmes is both. All those would be worthwhile explorations.
Yes! And all sorts have their place because all of them are exploring the experience of an under-represented group (or two) in a different way.
It bothers me to see how many people are saying stuff like “I thought Bill Nye was supposed to be the science guy, he’s buying into this SJW cuck libtard stuff! Science says there are only two genders!” in response to Bill Nye covering gender and sexuality on Bill Nye Saves the World.
…Like, did they even listen to what he said? Have they read any peer-reviewed literature about the subject? Is their understanding of “gender” limited to a middle school understanding of X and Y chromosomes? Bill Nye addressed chromosomes, hormones, genitalia and secondary sex characteristics when talking about how some of us don’t fit into the male/female sex dichotomy, and brought up psychology and neuroscience when talking about gender and its difference from sex, and also sexuality. The actual science of sex, gender and sexuality across the animal kingdom and across human behaviour is far more interesting than “lol nope science says there are only two genders.”
It honestly makes me angry when people say “lol I thought this was about science” whenever a scientist says something about topics like gender, sexuality, climate change or evolution that annoys someone. You can’t just pretend science is on your side when your understanding of science is based on a grade school textbook.
Also, why is it only gender people seem to have a problem with? Yeah, basic school textbooks will talk about XX and XY chromosomes and the male and female reproductive system, but they’ll also talk about how humans have five fingers on each hand and how the eye works when everyone knows some humans are born with six fingers on each hand or born blind. Textbooks will talk about how our body metabolises fats, but nobody would say “lol no sorry science says otherwise” at someone (like one of my secondary school classmates) who had a rare disorder who couldn’t metabolise fats. We accept that sweeping statements about human biology are generalisations. Sure, there are limits – no humans have wings or feathers, that would go against science – but we all accept some level of human diversity outside the basic-level textbooks – diversity that’s described well in the advanced medical textbooks. So why is it people only apply this logic to gender and not other differences in human biology?
I think part of it could be the backlash against postmodern nonsense which suggests everything is opinion and science is no more objective than art, which is a blatantly anti-science attitude. But the idea that sex, gender and sexuality aren’t totally binary isn’t just postmodern gender theory, it’s actual science with empirical evidence to back it up.
He has a bachelor’s degree in science, he is barely qualified, and none if the stuff he said is backed up so 🙂
Bill Nye has a bachelor’s degree, sure. He’s not a scientist. He’s spent a lifetime studying and explaining science, though. To say he’s “barely qualified” is a bit of an insult to him, don’t you think? In any case, it’s irrelevant. Bill Nye isn’t an expert on the neuroscience or psychology of gender, and that’s not his job. He’s a science communicator – his job is to explain the science as best as he can and get people interested so they can look further into it. (Note that nobody calls Bill Nye “barely qualified” when he talks about non-controversial subjects like planetary science or chemistry, even though he isn’t an expert in those fields either.) So let’s see what the actual experts say, shall we?
Neurological basis for transgender identity, showing that certain brain structures that tend to vary in males and females tend to be correlated with someone’s gender identity rather than their biological sex:
Gizewski, E. R.; Krause, E.; Schlamann, M.; Happich, F.; Ladd, M. E.; Forsting, M.; Senf, W. (2009). “Specific cerebral activation due to visual erotic stimuli in male-to-female transsexuals compared with male and female controls: An fMRI study”. Journal of Sexual Medicine. 6: 440–448
Savic, I.; Arver, S. (2011). “Sex dimorphism of the brain in male-to-female transsexuals”. Cerebral Cortex. 21: 2525–2533
Rametti, G.; Carrillo, B.; Gómez-Gil, E.; Junque, C.; Zubiarre-Elorza, L.; Segovia, S.; Gomez, Á; Guillamon, A. (2011). “White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study”. Journal of Psychiatric Research. 45: 199–204.
I’ve limited myself to scientific and medical sites here, but note also that the concept of gender (as opposed to sex) is deeply rooted in cultural ideas and even language as well as biological and psychological ones, so when it comes to gender, looking at culture and society is just as important as looking at science. And there we see that while every culture does link sex with gender and includes “male” and “female” gender categories, a great number of different cultures have had gender categories beyond that. That suggests that gender is linked to sex but by no means the same! You can find out more about that in the video I linked. (And no, I don’t think “attack helicopter” or “galaxy” is a real gender. But that doesn’t mean “non-binary,” “genderfluid” or “agender” isn’t, since those terms can be defined by their relation to being psychologically or culturally male or female. They’re “linked to sex, but not the same” as I described earlier.)
The vast majority of people fall close to one of two ends of the sex or gender spectrum, and there are good biological reasons for that. But it’s also an undisputed fact that various people do not fit exactly into the male or female sex category biologically and many more people don’t fit exactly into the male or female gender category psychologically. Just because these are a small minority of people doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Just because most of our physical or neurological traits cluster close to one end or another of the spectrum doesn’t mean the spectrum – and anyone in the middle of it – doesn’t exist.
Like I said earlier, any simple science textbook will tell you that humans have five fingers on each hand, but everyone knows that some humans are born with six fingers. When we say humans are one of two sexes and that sex matches a psychological phenomenon called gender, we understand that that applies to the majority of human individuals, the same way we understand that saying humans have five fingers on each hand or two kidneys does. Why is it that we can accept the existence of people whose number of fingers or kidneys or other details of their anatomy doesn’t match the average, yet people who don’t fit into the extreme ends of the sex or gender spectrum have their existence denied?
I thought I should update since the last image I posted was fresh after medical tattooing so everything was a lot brighter (medical tattoos lose 60% of colour after 4 weeks and the rest is retained over a number of years before a touch up is required).
I have an FAQ below but my inbox is open to questions.
FAQ:
Do you have sensation?
I have full penile sensation. Both tactile and erotic. I also have full sensation in my old equipment which is buried under the skin.
Can you get erect?
Not spontaneously. I use an erectile device which many cis men also use. While I can’t get erect without a device, it also means I have full control over my erections so I a: avoid spontaneous public embarrassment and b: can literally sustain an erection for a week or as long as needed in order to satisfy a partner. I use an AMS 700 erectile device. Google that and it’ll bring up videos of how it works.
Can you penetrate a partner?
Yes
Can you stand to pee?
Yes
Do you pass as cis?
I’ve gotten changed in many a public changing room without incident, regularly use urinals, and have never had any issues in my day to day life.
Can you orgasm?
It’s a myth that you lose the ability to orgasm. Microsurgery connects nerves from your graft site (e.g. Arm) up to the penis, and later nerves from the t dick to the penis. Even if your nerve hookups fail you still retain sensation in the t dick regardless of burial status. I can technically have 3 types of orgasm, from stimulation of the penis or buried cl***is, or both together. Each experience is different.
Did it hurt?
Not as much as I expected it would.
How much did it cost?
I am a British citizen and covered by the NHS which I pay for out of my taxes. I paid for my own medical tattooing. (2 sessions, £200 each)
How long were you off work?
13 weeks stage 1. 8 stage 2. 3 stage 3. Was back at work within 30 mins of medical tattooing.
Replying to replies: Yes I do feel the tattooing was worth it. The pigment really blends with the light so depending on how the room is lit it shows up differently and just looks like how natal genitalia is more flushed in colour wherever there is more of a blood supply. I am VERY white so without tattooing the lack of pigmentation is obvious.
The pain was surprisingly manageable. A little spicy at times but felt more like being scratched than stabbed. The pigment should last at least 2 years before requiring 1 top up session. I expect to only need a top up in 3 years because of how my skin reacts to pigment and how often I am out in the sun (never). The money I paid was affordable to me as a one off, and the maintainence costs of touch ups are equally as affordable to me personally.
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 