Queer pleasure is 'a big middle-finger'

Also: 'Don’t think I’m touching a man anytime soon.’ Post-election, I asked where you're at when it comes to sex, desire, and your body. Here's what you said.

Photo: Gwendal Cottin

The day after the election, his face kept popping into my head. The face of that sad young man who announced into his webcam, “Your body, my choice, forever,” before cackling like a movie villain. I have been writing online as a woman and a feminist for the entirety of my adult life. I know a troll when I see one. I know one should not feed them. I know the sage advice: block and ignore. Still, his face.

That night, I got into bed with my person, who is a man. At his touch: that cackling face, again. I pushed the image away, determined to lose myself in the moment. It felt like an act of resistance, a coping strategy. You will not steal this from me. A few days later, though, my body started saying “no.” My mind: a yes. My mind: hating the no. Still: no. It felt like that hateful slogan—and the broader political mission that it represents—had settled into my being, against my will.

In the midst of my own see-sawing bodily response, and the heightened debate over the 4B movement, I decided to put out a call to all of you. I asked, in the broadest of terms, where folks were at right now when it came to sex, desire, and their bodies.

The responses came through an anonymous form, where people could choose which personal demographics to include. It was not even remotely a representative sample, which proved positive and expansive in some ways (e.g. a notable percentage of polyamorous and bisexual folks) and drastically limiting in others (e.g. the majority of respondents were white).

The answers tended to fall along two separate lines: an impulse toward “yes” or “no,” moving toward sex or away from it. It’s clear that sex right now can feel like an act of resistance and affirmation—here, that notably seems to be the case with respondents who are trans and/or non-monogamous. Sex can also feel undesirable and entirely out of reach in the midst of despair, anxiety, and fear. Clearly, too, announcing the wish to not have sex can be a form of protest.

A question I’m thinking about a lot right now: What does it mean to bring this energy of resistance—whether the impulse toward “yes” or “no”—beyond the private bedroom and into collective action?

Tangled up in these individual experiences of the body and desire is the reality of forced birth in this country, and the many ways that access to birth control and abortion could be further eroded. “I’m getting my fallopian tubes removed, because I definitely don’t want kids and don’t want to be forced to have one should I get pregnant,” a 35-year-old woman wrote. “I anticipate feeling quite relieved once they’re out, but I resent having to have surgery to protect such a basic right.” This is to say nothing of growing threats to the ability to choose to have kids and raise them in safe and well-resourced communities.

Below, a sampling of responses that show sex as everything from “a revelatory act of world building” to “unappealing” and “deadened.”

A 36-year-old immigrant genderqueer trans-masculine Jewish person, married and monogamous, but considering opening up their relationship:

As a trans person, I am feeling pretty connected to my body and having sex with myself and my wife. One thing testosterone does is make you chronically horny so I am not struggling too much with desire. I think the election reinforced for me that joy and pleasure are primary values of mine and I will continue to pursue those things. …

And, honestly, I wish Trump followers real pleasure and joy from a generative place too. I honestly have no desire to be resentful and I’m long past angry. I just don’t want my life to be like that. I think I finally understand non-violence as a spiritual concept.

A 30-year-old mixed-race, bisexual, single woman:

I just went through a tough breakup in August and haven’t been feeling sexual to begin with. I’ve been comfort eating, though! And I did buy an expensive vibrator for those rare nights my libido does flare.

Don’t think I’m touching a man anytime soon.

A 39-year-old woman, bisexual and married to a cis-het man:

My chronic pain is flaring up and I don’t feel like having sex. Submission and degradation kinks have always been a huge part of my sexuality and fantasies but I can’t access those vibes right now. It’s sad because I know it’s cathartic for me but I can’t go there with my husband right now.

A 62-year-old pansexual polyamorous woman:

I’m diving into my BDSM relationships with a vengeance. Not to expunge anger or fear but to immerse myself in intense sensation and personal connection. It feels more real right now to be in my body.

A 34-year-old white, straight, and single woman:

I’ve had a nervous anxiety I can’t shake since. I feel like I had no idea so many men hated us. I feel worthless. Sex feels like a privilege to give away now. I feel closed off. I feel scared.

A 39-year-old white, trans, non-binary, queer person, who is married, non-monogamous, and polyamorous:

I’m pretty numbed out emotionally, but sex is one of the best ways for me to ground myself in my body. Also, as a queer person in a t4t relationship, all the sex I have is resistance to all the oppressive systems that have and continue to marginalize us & instill shame in us.

Our queer sex is liberation, our pleasure a big middle-finger to the cultural forces & people who voted against our interests or want to see us extinguished.

A 43-year-old “straight-ish,” cis woman, recently divorced but currently dating a “straight-ish” man:

I'm with a new partner, having, truly, the best sex of my life… and while I do feel some sense of conflict about that because, as a group, I'm furious with men post-election… I also think there is something fucking radical about centering my body and my desires in this hellscape of a country that wants to control and erase both.

A woman married to a man who voted for Trump:

Although I wasn’t angry with him, per se, because I was so excited about the possibility of Kamala winning, it was hard for me for at least 3 days to feel at all like myself. I spent Wednesday and Thursday crying all the time (even at work, which is very unlike me), and I needed to take a little more space for myself and not really talk about the election with my husband for a few days. [A week later], I felt more back to normal… And yes, I felt like I wanted to have sex again.

A 28-year-old cisgender man, bisexual and in a limited-open marriage:

My wife and I were already having some tough conversations about having children due to climate change, but now that it’s more likely she could die if she becomes pregnant, because she has to carry the baby to term in the new Trump era, we are not sure about having children at all.

There’s a new unspoken sense of despair hovering about the house that I’m scared to address. I’m not sure what any of this means for the future of our marriage.

A 34-year-old white, bisexual woman, married for over a decade to a man, with two kids under 5:

In this phase of life, my sense of sexual desire was already pretty muted. Post-election, it's deadened. We live in a deep blue state, we are as safe as we can be, but with this reminder of how much my country hates women, sex is entirely unappealing. It feels like another burden I have to carry.

Sadly I don't feel like telling my husband this. So, despite trying to be a proud feminist… I've become a stereotype, having sex just to get it over and done with. I know it's not sustainable, yet I fear it will be like this for the rest of my life.

A 29-year-old cisgender woman, “not straight but not sure how exactly,” in a long-term hetero partnership, “but not sexually active, womp womp”:

I’m scared of 4+ more years of not feeling psychologically safe enough in this world to be able to have partnered sex. I came out of college pretty messed up about sex and I’ve been doing so much work… I feel like I’m making great headway to get to a place of feeling able to experience sexual pleasure in my body… and now it feels like the work of being present versus anxious just got harder. I’m trying not to spiral and imagine worst case scenarios, but oof.

A 38-year-old white, heterosexual, cisgender woman, who is married, polyamorous, and in an “intense sexual relationship dynamic” with a partner outside her marriage:

Sex with this partner is almost a revelatory act of world building. It's a place where I feel seen, where there is beauty and ecstasy, where I can cry as I orgasm and be held in that depth where joy and grief coexist.

I think sex is an act of resistance. … We need those spaces now more than ever if we are going to survive. A place where we can transmute the rage, the fear.

---