In This Body: Sexless Identity
“The real question: if we didn’t have sex, would you still love me?”
Our monthly column “In This Body” is comprised of true stories about sex, gender, the body, and love, written by Fiona George, for NAILED.
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My adult identity was forged in sexuality. Coming out as a lesbian in high school was what set me apart, it was my thing. I put an image on myself of someone who you would assume is a lesbian. Shaved head, denim jacket cut into a vest—frayed arm holes, an eight gauge bull ring in my nose, heavy black boots. I used the sexuality as a shield—the way I made myself look tougher than I was, how it dispelled attention from the boys around me.
Before I was a lesbian, I came out as bi. After I came out as a lesbian, I came out as bi again. After that I settled on the word queer. Queer as in not straight, as in every gender is beautiful to me. I chose queer instead of pansexual because I like words that are simpler phonetically, less syllables, because the qu sound made it sound, I don’t know, but there’s something special in the sounds you don’t hear so often. I chose queer for it’s ambiguity.
Mostly, I chose queer because I like words that I can take back.
Somewhere in the middle of it all I found out I was sexy; the way my sexuality interacted with those around me. What I wanted to do was take back the word slut, even after I’d had barely one or two sexual partners.
There was a fire in my panties and I was ready to claim it as sluthood.
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Years later, in a non-monogamous relationship, I didn’t have sex with anyone besides my boyfriend without taking MDMA. It wasn’t a conscious choice, the times when I took molly were the times I felt comfortable in casual sex situations.
Even then, it was sex with people I had known for a long time, it was good friends, or one new person and one familiar partner. It’s not the casual hook-ups I expected of sluthood.
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It took years to begin to see my sexuality for what it was, and will take years to see it in a way that is complete—that doesn’t bend it’s definition to the story others tell about it, the story I’ve told myself.
It was years of masturbating more than once a day, complaining about not getting laid, and not getting laid even when I had the option.
It was years of settling in to with one sexual partner at a time and saying that I wanted more, believing that I did, but feeling uncomfortable at every chance for a casual hookup.
Years of dancing sexy and stripping when I was drunk, reveling in the performance of sexuality, and feeling like it was a lie because all I really wanted was to go home with someone I loved—or my own two fingers and a butt plug.
Years of believing that something was broken with me because the way I felt sex in my body when I was alone didn’t translate to how I felt sex with other bodies. Blaming fear or social programming. Trying to feel that heat in my pants for someone new I found beautiful, but only finding that fire when I was by myself, or in bed with someone I loved.
It was a year of trying to be the definition of slut I’d had in my head.
To connect myself to the picture of free, reclaimed, empowered sexuality I had in my head.
That is, it was a year of sleeping around. Usually when I was fucked up enough to ignore the feelings in my gut, almost all with guys because I felt better walking away from them. And each and every time, an attempt to get over what felt like a sexual block.
It was entering into non-monogamy but staying almost completely sexually monogamous.
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It used to make me feel like a failure as a slut—that I didn’t sleep around that much and when I did it sent me into an anxiety spiral. I sometimes felt like a failure at non-monogamy.
Over the first two years of the relationship, I still hadn’t slept with anyone but my partner without being on molly.
Almost a year in I met a woman who I got close with in a second. The first time we met we both got wasted and were already talking about sleeping together. Over a year, we grew to love each other—almost platonically—but still hadn’t even kissed.
It became a romantic friendship. The opposite of what I am supposed to want—romance without sex instead of sex without romance.
Maybe, non-monogamy just meant something different to me.
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When the relationship first started, it was all about sex. I had that new-partner sort of libido. Wet the second we were in the same room. I’d known him for almost five years but the attraction was almost new, came out of nowhere.
It was important to me to be an object of sexual desire for him, it was important to me that my sexuality was at the forefront. I made a story of how our relationship grew and became a success out of sex.
When we stopped having sex so often, I wasn’t horny for it, but I needed it out of fear. Oh-god-why-am-I-not-ragingly-horny, oh-fuck-what-if-he-doesn’t-want-me-anymore, shit-the-relationship-is-dying-already.
I was afraid that he would have another partner with a better body or a higher libido and the fact that we were in love wouldn’t matter.
It wasn’t till recently that I made an effort to stop initiating unless I wanted sex. To just fall asleep on his shoulder towards the end of a movie instead of staying up just to see if he wanted to have sex that night. To wait until I was horny, I wasn’t too tired, I didn’t need it out of fear.
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One night, in the dark before bed, we were moving towards sex. Arms and legs weaved together, heavy breaths into each others’ mouths between kisses. His hands in my panties, and mine moving into his boxers.
He stopped, pulled his mouth from mine—his lips an inch away in the dark. His hand that wasn’t in my panties pulled my hand out of his boxers.
I don’t really want to get off tonight, I just want to touch you.
I wanted to enjoy that, touch from someone I love, that I’d waited for till I truly wanted. But all of my horny moved up to a slow sick turn in my stomach, I tried to focus my mind on the sensations. On love, on sex. But I wanted to cry.
My hand reached down to his, my hand on his wrist. Love is all I could say. Both his arms wrapped around my back and my head leaned into his chest. Silence.
What’s wrong, love?
I had been ready to have sex, for the right reasons. But there was—is—still a ticking clock in my head that counts the days since we’ve last slept together, makes arbitrary calculations about what that means for the relationship—whether or not it is in trouble.
If you had a more fulfilling sex life outside of our relationship, would you still want to be with me?
The real question: if we didn’t have sex, would you still love me?
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There’s a woman who comes into the cafe where I work sometimes. She’s got short curly hair and tiny facial features like an elf, she likes a lot of whipped cream on her drink and always smiles and looks people in the eyes when she orders.
Every time I see her come in I get a little stomach fluttery, a little blush-facey. It’s a feeling I’ve felt a million times: the want to make a connection, get a number, make a date.
But when the thought pops into my head, all that flutter blush turns to gut twisting no. Because I’ve been through it enough times: I’ll end up in bed, or almost in bed with a person and feel un-turned-on and uncomfortable about it, never call them again. Or I’ll make it platonic by not wanting to have sex, they’ll question whether we were ever dating or just hanging out as friends.
The difference between being physically attracted to a person isn’t the same thing as being sexually attracted to them. The expectations of what it means to date.
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Sexuality has always defined who I am as an adult. I’m queer. I’ve got a fire in my panties. I love to make a performance of sexuality; stripping into sexy lingerie or getting spanked in front of a room full of people. And I love to have sex sometimes with the people who I love.
Can sexuality still be a central part of my identity, when sex isn’t a central part of my sexuality?
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My head to his chest, where I could hear his heart beat slow and even. The freshly shaved chest hair not-quite-smooth, not-quite-prickly. His breath in my hair.
Of course I’ll still be with you. I’m hopelessly in love with you.
I felt the warm of tears in the corners of my eyes, down my cheeks, stretched round into a smile. Relief.
The separation of love and sex; one did not have to be dependent on the other.
In my head, the clock that ticked between the times we’d had sex stopped.
I rolled over to curl my body into his, our feet and ankles wrapping around each other, his arms around my chest, held together over my heart.
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To read the previous installment of In This Body: "Keys in my Fist," go here.
Header image courtesy of Theo Gosselin. To view his photo essay, "Vagabonds," go here.