I see gender as a galaxy of possibilities, and also a ridiculous social construct. The either-or binary has such powerful and punishing consequences. I feel myself as neither male or female; I am a genderqueer person. But in a journey last month I connected in a new way with the woman of me. I experienced a sense of “Gender Reassignment Without Surgery.”
When I was a young erotic explorer, I learned to access erotic energy by tuning into the “boy” of me – it is my familiar path to arousal and orgasm. Being in sacred, erotic, psychedelic space with my friend Paula Stromberg seems to evoke a new longing in me. I soften and open into an experience of erotic energy that is softer, and more internal. There are profound physical effects; my pelvis opens into wanting and welcoming penetration, after decades of being clamped shut with muscle contraction and vulvodynia.
Desire connects me with the little girl I was, six decades ago – curious, innocent, and so traumatized….
It is a new way of being, that is evoked in me – a way of being fused in warm, soft connection with other beings, and with the planet, through my open core. It is profoundly erotic, but there’s no trajectory pointing toward amplified arousal and orgasm. Ecstasy just is.
Maybe my longing is grounded in a discernment between male and female that predates gender stereotypes, rules and roles. Melting and opening, I connect with the Mitochondrial DNA, back to the Mitochondrial Eve who is our common ancestor. In a deep cellular sense, we are all connected through a matrilineal line that joins us with every form of life, throughout the biosphere. (The discernment between matrilineal and patrilineal lines is real, and people of all gonadal configurations embody it.)
There is a sense of a biophysical melting, softening into ecstatic interbeing. And I want more! I long for the companionship, help, patience and play that will coax me into softening and opening my core.