The following content contains mentions of genitalia, vaginal, anal, oral and penetrative sex and masturbation as well as medical diagnosis and treatment, pain, depression and endometriosis.
Welcome back to our Anonymous Sex Diaries series where queer and trans people from around the world let us into a seven day snippet of their sex, love and dating lives.
Day 1
Before my partner and I engage in sex for the first time in a month, there is the question of whether we need a condom now that I’m on birth control for my endometriosis.
My first symptom was a sharp pain on my right side that I’d never felt before. It ranged from a 5 to an 8 out of 10 throughout the day. I initially thought it was period cramps, but when the pain persisted after my period was through, I went to my local hospital.
I had been in pain for a month and a half.
After two weeks of taking medication that made my tummy hurt and left a bad aftertaste in my mouth, all to decrease the size of the cyst and excess tissue that had been causing the pain, I start birth control for the first time today.
I am going to be on birth control for the next three months to see what happens with my uterus. It’s so weird, I had been avoiding birth control all this time to feel a sense of control in my body. Now I have to take it for a very long time.
He kept rubbing my right side tenderly as he held my neck and kissed the side of my head.
“Don’t be scared to touch me,” I whisper. That causes him to pull my hair and bite my ear. I gasp; soooo glad he heard me. His fingers trace my throat before his full hand grasps it and he fingers me with his other hand.
I’ve missed this.
Day 2
After watching an episode of Futurama on Hulu, we start kissing.
He gets a condom.
After a lot of kissing and humping, my partner pulls down my pants and kisses both sides of my pelvis, with special attention to the right side, before he enters me.
Vaginal penetrative sex is usually difficult for me due to vulvodynia. This is the best it has felt in a while. I think it’s because there’s less focus on the vaginal opening, more focus on my clitoris. Fuck Pete Davidson’s stand up that sees AFAB people feeling better about this kind of sex as a bad thing.
I cum, melting into my mattress.
He pats me on the shoulder, an indication for me to turn onto my tummy. We have anal sex, and I keep gripping my sheets. I feel a mix of pain and pleasure.
All this time we spent not touching each other because of a piercing pain out of my control.
But this was a pain I enjoyed. This was a pain I could maneuver in regards to how much I could take. I forgot what that felt like until now.
He cums, collapsing into my back. He says he loves me. I smile, telling him I love him too.
Day 3
A dull pain returns to my right side throughout the day.
…it makes me upset.
It’s not as severe as it had been throughout the month and a half of August and September, but I didn’t think any pain would come back that soon.
My partner holds me for a while this evening. He says we don’t have to do anything tonight I don’t want to do. I lean into his chest and consider whether or not I want to.
On one end, it doesn’t hurt to start developing a practice where we only have sex when I have no pain so we have zero worries during our time together.
On another end, I will be living with this pain for a really long time. I don’t have to like the pain that’s there, but I need to acknowledge it. I can’t run away from it. And it’s not fair for me to run away from it when I want nothing but to be intentionally close with my partner.
I kiss his chest, and then his neck. I rub his penis and his testicles. He whispers my name and kisses me.
Later on, he cums.
I don’t.
He asks if I want to keep going until I cum. I say that I’m too tired.
Day 4
Scrolling through Taylor Nolan’s, a sexologist, Instagram, I see an older post she made about how pillows under your body during sex help provide more comfort.
…what a fucking revelation!
It sucks a little that this is so, game changing, no, groundbreaking to me. I truly wish I thought of it sooner. I wish this was present in my sexual practice with my partner before I experienced chronic pain.
Not only do I put one pillow under my back and one pillow under my butt; I have one pillow on the right side of my body.
My partner turns me to the side and we both moan, in sync. I needed this.
Earlier in the day, he had to hear me shout about how tired I am with work, how tired I am of physical pain, and how tired of how much we have to balance in the midst of me experiencing physical pain. He needed this.
Everything is so hard right now. We both needed this.
Day 5
My partner asks if my heightened anger is because of the birth control.
I am reminded of why I had avoided it for so long.
I realize that I haven’t just been angry. I’ve been depressed.
I am so depressed that I don’t feel like getting out of my car to walk back into my apartment. It takes me two hours to force myself out of it.
I am so depressed that it takes me a while to get up and go pee. This doesn’t help the symptoms my bladder has been experiencing since the endometriosis emerged.
I am so depressed that I cry while having sex with my partner.
This is not my first time crying during this activity. But in the past, I’ve cried for different reasons.
I’ve cried because of Christian related guilt and shame when my partner and I first started having sex after dating for six months. He’d had sex before, but he is my first and the only person I have ever had sex with. We have been together for five years.
I’ve cried because of insecurity in my body. I’ve received a lot of messages about the right or wrong way to look/feel in my body as a Black trans person. My partner is one of the few people in my life who make me and my body feel safe. Engaging with him and his body has taught me a lot about me and my body.
Crying because of pure joy. Being held so well while feeling euphoric gratification is a blessing.
I hate crying because of how depressed I feel. I don’t want this.
Why does it have to be elevated during a moment I want to feel good?
Day 6
I hate this birth control.
I hate my body.
I’m too tired to engage in sex.
I’m trying to breathe.
Being alive is a scam.
I avoided birth control for so long so that I wouldn’t have to feel the way I’m feeling.
Now, I’m taking birth control because of the ovarian cysts that emerged after not taking anything that regulated my cycle better over the years.
I still got all of the feelings I was hoping to avoid.
Bodies are so fucking fragile, and I don’t like my body going through such a rough time while my partner and I are going through a rough time simultaneously outside of my body.
I’ll take the surgery at this point. I’ll take the two week recovery. We’re on day six, nowhere past the three month point.
…I do want to keep the cysts to a 0-2 pain. I don’t want the pain I felt a month ago again.
Emotional pain or physical pain? Which is worse at this point?
My brain is so foggy.
Day 7
After getting in touch with my gynecologist, I stop taking the birth control. She wants me to start a hormonal IUD in a couple of weeks.
I call one friend about it. They tell me no one tells you how painful IUDs are. I might want to consider an arm implant or a progesterone only pill.
Do I want the surgery at this point?
My partner is with his family, and won’t be back until tomorrow.
I text him these updates, he texts that it’s such a torn thing for him due to weighing which is heavier: the advantages or the disadvantages.
He also texts that it’s ironic the primary purpose of the drug is the one we least considered. It makes me laugh.
I send him my love, and he sends his back.
…I consider sending a follow up sext. One that would describe what I wanted us to do together when he came home.
…but I decide against it.
I only have one vibrator. A tiny blue Pulsator I got from Target over a year ago. Sometimes it’s great use for when my partner and I are together, or it’s great use for just me.
This was not the plan. A lot of what has happened wasn’t planned. But I’m glad this unplanned moment is happening.
This moment is just for me.
I rub my inner thigh on my right side, then I go up to my hip and my abdomen. I use my other hand to position the vibrator right on my clitoris.
I continue to use my vibrator, caress the right side of my body, and breathe.
