I Fear I’m Sexually Incompatible With My Soulmate

We waited to have sex and maybe that wasn’t the best idea! But everything had been going so well and making out was usually pretty fun, after we got into each other’s kissing styles. They asked me for my ultimate sexual fantasy and I shared something involving extreme roughness and roleplay, theirs was having sex on a white pillowy bed in a room by the beach with the curtains billowing and everything smelling like sea air. Everything else is SO GOOD with them but I worry long term we just aren’t the best match sexually. What the fuck do we do?

Summer: TBH my autism brain says if you’re a sexual person, then a person you’re sexually incompatible with isn’t your soul mate. Given the situation, you’re gonna have to decide how important the very rough kinky roleplay sex is to you in a relationship. I’ve got a long list of kinks and I’m satisfied that most of them will never be fulfilled by a partner. But I have non-negotiable sexual activities that I need in my life and I’ll decline a long-term prospect if they can’t meet those ones.

So, yeah. Is rough sex and roleplay a non-negotiable part of your sex life, or a nice-to-have? Does your partner seem like someone who might open up to those ideas over time, or are they hard-locked into a softer sex life that has no place for rough stuff? Hey, keep us posted with your decision!

Nico: My first question while reading this is: have you had sex, yet? At first when I read this, I thought it would be a situation where one person liked sex and one person just did not like sex very much in general, but you both have sexual fantasies, so that’s a plus! My second question is: how did they react to your disclosure of your fantasies? Were they game to try, bashful, freaked out? To what extent do you require kink during sex, and is it every time, most of the time, on special occasions? If it’s closer to the “every time” end of the spectrum, then that definitely tips my opinion toward thinking you two might not work sexually. Another question to consider: is it possible for you two to try to make each others’ fantasies and desires happen for each other, or are they not so much into that? I think that if it’s the latter, a lot like Summer, I think that it means you probably aren’t soulmates after all, or you’re not 100% soulmates if that’s an easier way to think of it. But the only way you’re going to find your answer is through a combination of self-reflection and open communication with your partner.

Ashni: I think it’ll be tough, but not impossible, to make it work. Plenty of partners have different sexual desires and needs, and I’d hazard a guess that it’s actually quite rare to find someone who shares the same ultimate sexual fantasy as you do. But the lack of overlap at all between your sexual fantasies gives me a little pause. Would having gentle beachside sex fulfill you at all, or do you (to Nico’s point) need to have rougher sex closer to every time? If you’re both flexible on how close to your respective ideals your sexual lives need to be, then I think there’s room for this to work. I think it’s a great sign that you’re already discussing your ultimate sexual fantasies so openly. If you’re both open to trying something closer to what the other person wants, then I’d say give both styles a try. There’s no way to know you’re sexually incompatible until you give it a go, and really, a few attempts to be sure. If you’ve got enough compatibility with this person in general to consider them your soulmate, then I think you owe it to yourself to give it a few tries before throwing in the towel (unless, of course, you need rough sex every time and your partner is Not Down to do that, in which case, yes, I fear you may be incompatible after all).

Where to begin? Where’s the crux? I’m transmasculine, and I’m trying to figure out some gender lava.

A week ago, around the bonfire, I lashed out and lost my temper at my sweetiepie’s sweetiepie — a cis man — over something that it wasn’t really about. I know in my heart that what made me furious wasn’t him — it’s the anger I feel in this world that doesn’t see me the way I want to be seen. — which, I am coming to think, is maybe as a faggy puckish handsome sweetie man.

What complicates it is that I feel very dyke and very enby. I’ll tell you in confidence that I don’t even feel like I’m not a woman. Rather than the neither/nor enby, I’m more of a both/and enby. Dysphoria for me is shifty and hard to pinpoint. I feel gender affinity with many, many people. So it’s been a slow cook, and now, 4+ years into wearing a beard and glowing when people sir me, I really… I’m at this new point where I feel HUNGRY TO BE SEEN and FULL OF LAVA, as it turns out, full of some kind of KEEN DESIRE, and I don’t quite know what the thing is that will quench it. — or help me explore it.

I think I want to be a fag. But I have all these sexual hangups. I’m not big on certain sexual acts… I’m only recently exploring ass play, with trepidation but deep interest… I don’t like jizz, but is that because of past experiences in the long-gone straight-o-sphere? I’ve been with transfemme folks, trans women, but those connections have stopped short of something because maybe I’m afraid of being transmisogynistic or making someone feel bad about her body because I have so little experience with folks assigned male at birth — which like, what the fuck even framework, I’m so sick of that. And that sex was super sapphic anyway, super hot! but not really getting at the thing I’m trying to articulate. I seriously just have been fucking lovers mostly in the dyke-o-sphere, or being lovers with other enbys of approximately my own body type, and like, what happens now that I feel… ????? I feel like I want to explore my fagginess??? When I told my friend about this feeling, I wept, saying, “I really like men, but I feel like I’ve missed my window…”

I feel like there’s another dimension to this that I can’t even adequately loop in or sketch out, that has to do with how things, at least in our neck of the midwestern woods, are seemingly kinda segregated, still. The binary trans folks aren’t always at the same parties as the enbies, and the fags and the dykes have separate group chats. I get all these crushes on my gay-man coworkers, but I know they probably won’t show up at the party I’m going to. It’s not like before COVID when we all went to the same gay bar. Most of my friends now are sober. It’s just all atomized different crowds. What do we do about that?

For extra EXTRA context, I feel really actually full in my love life; almost, as they say in nonmonogoland, “saturated.” My schedule is full, and I have great and abundant love in my life. –but my heart is yearning for some faggy something. If I were in college, I’d be making a Grindr account and exploring options for starting T. But I’m in my thirties, and I don’t know about starting T under this administration, and I don’t know what to do about liking men, or maybe feeling like I want to be feeling like a man. It makes me cry. Any kind words for someone in my position?

Nico: There are actually multiple questions here, and not all of them are ones I can answer for you. Starting T under this administration? That decisionmaking, to me, lies within a matrix of looking at where you live, what your healthcare is like, how much you want to start T, and what you plan to do or how it might impact you mentally and physically were you to lose access. Then, there are is a sort of question about what to do with your Gender Lava (love this, by the way) and also a question about whether you should try dating or hooking up with (gay?) men.

Gender: I feel you on feeling like you are just yes-and-ing all of the genders, and I think that’s great. Not everyone is a binary trans person or an agender nonbinary person. Some of us are genderfluid or gender-nonconforming, some still identify with our assigned sex at birth and maybe other gender expressions as well. In this case, if you are being called toward faggotry, I don’t see why you can’t explore moving more toward gay-manhood, T or no T. That said, it does sound like you want to undergo some of the physical changes you would probably experience on T, especially because of how you want others to perceive you. This is a perfectly fine way to feel! And you don’t even have to feel this way forever. It might seem like wild advice to say to keep in mind that, though certainly some changes on T are permanent, you might be able to transition and then detransition somewhat or more if you feel differently in the future (provided there is access to that care). You can also consult with one or more doctors who offer gender-affirming care, and those consultations do not mean you have to go on T right now, but they do mean you can ask all the questions and get more info. Also, you’re in your 30s and that is as good a time as any to start gender-affirming care. It’s not good to fall into a trap of feeling like you missed out just because you didn’t do something in your 20’s, which is one decade of what will hopefully be 7-10 for you!

Sex/dating: You’re talking about wanting to feel more like a man and also taking T, so please do keep in mind that of course other trans gay men exist. Of course, the majority of gay men are going to be cis because the population of trans people is tiny compared to the population of cis people (which I know our personal social circles may lead us to forget from time to time), but what I have heard from the trans gay mascs/men I know is that cis gay dudes have gotten for the most part really on board with both welcoming trans dudes into their spaces and also having sex with them. And my friends in this space are indeed in their 30s and 40s, so I really think you have not missed your window, if you were worried about being able to explore. You also don’t have to have kinds of sex that you’re not comfortable having! That’s really important to emphasize. You bring up ass stuff and jizz and I’m just like — you literally don’t have to do butt stuff beyond your comfort level, ever, and also, condoms exist and are a good idea anyway! It’s certainly understandable that some of this may be that memories of sex with cis straight men from before you were out (if I’m reading correctly here) could be coming up in a negative way as you consider your options and what you want, and that is a very good thing to work on with a therapist and to talk out with friends, if you can. But, sometimes, desire can be really scary and we let ourselves get bogged down with anxieties and excuses because the only way to access that which we desire is to be decisive, to act, and to accept that we’re going to have to change ourselves in order to get what we want. That is also a loss. Like you said, if you take T, then your body will change and you will lose the old ways your body was. If you want to dedicate some time to trying to meet and date and hook up with gay men and to explore your own flamboyant gay self, then you will have to spend less time on other things or less time with some other people, which is a loss.

Only you can decide what to do, but, as one last thing after this atrociously long answer, just a reminder that not doing something is also a kind of decision, so whether you go for it or keep your status quo, you’re making choices for yourself that affect your future. It’s not easy, but you clearly put a lot of thought into things and I am wishing you luck in whatever you choose. Also, I think you and maybe some friends should throw a big party for your friend group that isn’t hanging out all together, just saying.