Over the past year or so, my gender has been on a wild ride. Coming out as nonbinary over the past year or so wasn’t so much that I decided womanhood didn’t fit me as much as it was I didn’t want to have to fit into anything anymore. And as my gender expression changes, I’ve found that who I’m attracted to changes, too.
If you’d asked me this time last year who my ideal partner was, I would’ve thought of a very specific type: a tall butch leather daddy at least three years older than me, and just a little bit mean on the outside but a total softy on the inside. I knew what I wanted because I knew how I’d fit into a relationship with that type of person — I’d be the smaller, femme, submissive partner. It was the role I’d always played in relationships, and I liked it. It was also the only way that I ever saw D/s relationships done. I didn’t know it could be any other way.
And then, what femme meant to me started to change. My contribution to Cecelia’s femme roundtable was one of the first times I sat down and gathered my thoughts about what femme meant to me, and while I still whole-heartedly align with it as an identity I’ve stopped trying to be someone else’s idea of it. A full face of makeup and Louboutins is not the only way.
As my relationship with femme started to change (and as I explored what being nonbinary meant to me), so did who I was attracted to. I played with this beautiful high-femme woman who tied me up and was super rough with me, and who called me a good boi the whole time. I was overwhelmed. Remembering it, I am overwhelmed. She fell outside of the type of person I’m typically attracted to, but in that moment, she was the most beautiful, perfect human I’d ever seen. For the first time, I thought to myself, “I could love a femme top more than I could love anyone ever in my entire life.” Endorphins will do that to you.
But even after I came down from the high of an amazing playtime, I realized that I’d limited my attraction to people who looked like tops that I’d previously been attracted to. Even though I was playing with gender in this weird way and throwing away my gender boundaries and roles left and right, I still had a very static idea about who could be a top, or at least who could be my top. And when I let go of those constraints, just like when I let go of the ways my gender identity was constraining me, I found joy and freedom.
Part of my queerness is its lack of boundaries. There is no right way to be queer or trans. And there is no right way for me to be a bottom or for someone else to be a top. Instead of guiding myself towards some ideal that someone else set out for me that worked, but wasn’t everything I wanted, I’m trying to guide myself towards what feels sexy and good. Sometimes, yeah, that’s my go-to type because mean butches in boots who push me around (consensually) will always make me weak in the knees. But it also means not censoring myself when I find myself attracted to a femme, or to someone who plays with gender in a variety of different ways. Things change all the time, and instead of freaking out about the changes I’m experiencing with myself and who I’m attracted to, I’m relishing in the freedom of it all.
