But face-blindess is a bitch.

“This was after that night, when I moved into the guest room with the little bathroom, when I moved my toiletries onto the shower floor, when I moved all the books I was reading, and my perfume bottles, my department-store boxes filled with eyeliner and lipstick. And I texted my spouse that we were separating and that I had moved into the guest room, and they called me and wanted to come back to the house and I said, ‘No, no, don’t, I don’t want you to,’ and then sat on the front porch smoking, waiting, as I had set the stage for another cinematic moment to happen. And my spouse did not come home.”

My acceptance of my own pain allows me to have the kind of sex that is rooted in the specificity of my body. I don’t love the idea that I’ll never fist, but I do love the idea that every act of sex I engage with is collaborative. Queerness reminds me that there is no standard way to fuck or live.

Can two switches have sex? I think so, and I think there is something beautifully different about having sex with someone with whom sexual options are truly abundant.

I was always thinking about them — what I’d bring, what I’d wear, what we’d do when we saw each other next. I wanted to dote and caress every moment of every day. I was willing to do damn near anything for them. I was consumed by what I can only term “I want to buy you a matte black Audi” energy.

There is a different level of intimacy and affirmation that I have found when having sex with other fat people. Thin people approach the fat body like a series of insecurities. They see the swell of a stomach or rolls of fat on the back and assume that you hate those parts of your body. When another fat person touches me, it is to be made whole.

The thing is: sometimes I like feeling disposable, like I’m just a bunch of holes that someone else is using for their pleasure. I know I’m fucking powerful, so sometimes I like to release control, let someone else do the work and have the power. That only works, though, when my boundaries are respected.

Because of the positive affirmation I received during sex, I began to believe it was all I was good for. When people wanted me, I assumed it was my job to provide joy for other people. I gave myself to a lot of people in that way. I had to remember that I had a right to pleasure as well.

It seems contradictory to say I learned how to view my body as my own by sharing it with strangers and friends, but it is a truth that I revel in. What I love and learn about these encounters are the parameters of my body, its strengths, and boundaries, what pleases it.

When I teach Rachel how to tie me up and fist me, when I ask her to tell me what to do, when I teach her exactly how I want to submit, I give her permission to go on a journey with me and dive into an expanding world of pleasure.

Even one-night-stands have a spirit to them, but I wasn’t willing to confront that until I stopped drinking. When I did, I was finally able to place my mind right within my body, to touch and be touched without fear. Having sober sex was a way for me to unravel the contempt I felt around my body and my sexuality.

For when wiping the slate completely clean isn’t really an option.

I didn’t know then that Devon would become one of those women in my life who’s there for good, who I could not text for months and then suddenly dive right back in with. One of those friends who would show up, who would stay.

“For me, as a Black Trans Woman, to find her body not only as something worthy and magnificent (as it is), but to find someone to share that magick with, may very well be one of the only moments she has to enjoy a trying and very taxing life — one that’s always trying to kill her.”

But now my body, which had spent so many years letting me down and making decisions without my consent, had gone and done something absolutely right — and done it better. It had done something other people’s bodies, “healthy” bodies, hadn’t been able to.

Once upon a time I married a man, had kids, and realized I was a lesbian. Here’s what happened and what I wish somebody had told me at the time.