Written by Mx Nillin

Mysterious.

Unknowable.

Queer sex has always felt so intangible to me. Even today, as comfortable and confident as I feel in my gender identity and sexual orientation, I find that fully enjoying sex as a queer and trans person remains just outside of my reach.

I’ve just never known how to see myself as a sexual being outside of strictly heteronormative and cisnormative perceptions.

In many ways, I think this links all the way back to my first sexual experiences with a friend, back when neither of us had any idea of what sex or sexuality actually was. Nonetheless, he was my first kiss, my first crush, my first feelings of “butterflies”, and so much more.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, heteronormativity played a heavy part in our relationship despite us both being the same gender. This was during a period where I still identified as a cisgender boy and here I was sexually experimenting with another cisgender boy, yet I was always designated “the girl” during our playtimes. It was a role explicitly established very early on, and one that I felt surprisingly comfortable in.

I remember our first time. We were sitting on his bed playing with our action figures when, for whatever reason, our brave hero started getting it on in a pretty hard-core imaginary sex scene with one of the girl dolls we took from his sister’s room. While I’m not sure of why, exactly, this happened, I can only assume that the doll sex was an integral part of whatever super important narrative we had established.

But I digress.

Naturally, conversation shifted to kissing, girls, and sex (well according to the 80s porn VHS tape that we had discovered a few days before). This excited look grows on his face and he tosses out the idea to practice making out together.

So, our action figures would have to save the world another day!

We put everything down. He eagerly hopped of the bed, walked right to his closet door, opened it up and crawled inside under all his hanging clothes. I was right on his heels, crawling in to sit in front of him. Once we were both inside the unexpectedly large closet, he pulled the door partially closed behind me and looked me right in the eyes.

“You be the girl, okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said, without a moment’s hesitation.

What followed was a clumsy, yet revolutionary, awakening for us both.

Yet, no matter how many times we kissed or played with each other after that day, no matter how much pleasure we discovered for the first time, not once did I fully understand that I was actually having sex with him. At least not according to the porn I had seen, or to what either of us had learned.

Nope. Sex only happened between boys and girls. Sex was when a penis went into a vagina. That was it. That was sex. We genuinely didn’t think that we were having sex, because we were both boys.

Nevertheless, before every time that we fooled around together there was this explicit conversation in which he said that I was the girl, and I agreed. I was the girl. I had to be, I guess, because what we were doing didn’t make sense otherwise. Deep down I think that we both thought what were we doing was wrong. Therefore, me playing the part of “the girl” was our way of validating our blossoming sexualities as heterosexual.

We were both boys, so we weren’t really “having sex”, yet, I had to be “the girl” in order for us to kiss and play with each other. In hindsight, it all seems so absurd and weirdly homophobic now, but at the time it felt perfectly logical.

I’d love to say that sex ed and health classes in school eventually sorted everything out for me, but they didn’t. The queer sex education just never came. I found myself feeling increasingly lost and scared.

So, I spent the vast majority of my formative years wrestling with deep shame and self-loathing. I didn’t know why I couldn’t ignore my urge to secretly wear my sister’s clothes whenever I could. I didn’t know why I felt so uneasy in my body, in myself, and was never comfortable hanging out with my guy friends doing “guy things”.

A lot has changed since my younger years but the one thing that has remained constant is how completely lost I feel when it comes to sex and navigating sexuality outside of cisnormative and heteronormative lenses.

I’m now 29-years-old, about to turn 30. A few years ago, I came out as transgender and I’ve been social transitioning ever since. More specifically, I understand myself as a mega-queer, monogamish, andro-babe. However, for the sake of ease to others who ask about my identity, I usually just say I’m non-binary.

While I am happy and comfortable in my gender identity and expression, my body and lack of education about queer sex remains a big road-block toward my enjoyment of sex. I have not yet been able to start HRT, so, once all of my clothes come off I am essentially forced to face this body that still feels masculine to me. The thick body hair, the flat chest, the broad shoulders, the face scruff, the lack of any curves; all of it just becomes so much apparent when I am naked.

At the best of times, I feel very disconnected from my physical self and find myself becoming a different person in the bedroom than who I am throughout the rest of the day. My confidence wanes, my personality fades, I’m quieter, more reserved, and I struggle to express my sexual needs and desires because I find myself overcome by feelings of anxiety and discomfort. I struggle to see myself as a sexual being when my physical form feels so at odds with how I identify.

All of which was worsened with education on gender, sex, and sexuality primarily presented through heavily, and often strictly, binary gendered lenses. How the hell is a non-“passing”, non-binary queer person possibly supposed to love themselves, or navigate sex on even the most basic of levels, when everything accessible out there erases, invalidates, and dismisses their existence and worth as desirable partners?

But all of that started to change a couple of months ago when I discovered CrashPad Series. Spoiler alert: it has been transformative.

Here is a site that not only features incredibly hot queer sex adult entertainment, but presents it all in a genuinely educational and stimulating way. In just the past couple of months that I’ve spent watching and reviewing content on CrashPad, I have learned more about safe sex, adult toys, bondage, kink play, and healthy communicating of sexual needs and desires, than ever before in my life.

I’ve still got a long way to go, but watching the episodes posted to CrashPad has helped me see just how much more diverse, explorative, and playful, that my sex life can be. Which has been wonderful for my partner and I as we develop a growing bucket list of exciting things to try together.

Seeing that there is no one set way to give or receive pleasure, and that I don’t have to wait until I am on HRT to feel sexy, has been liberating. Seeing all of these stunning performers of all body types, of a wide span of diverse gender identities, has finally started to help me connect with my own sexuality, needs, kinks, and more in, ways that I had long thought were impossible.

I feel renewed, empowered to love myself and to fully embrace my sexual desires as a non-binary person. In fact, I have felt so inspired through my time on CrashPadSeries that I have decided to go back to school to learn even more. Should everything go according to plan, this upcoming September I will begin my journey toward a post graduate certificate in Sexual Health.

I want to study all that I possibly can and to share that knowledge with other gender and sexually diverse people so that they know they’re not alone in these struggles.

Because it’s never too late.

It’s never too late to challenge your insecurities, anxieties, and fears surrounding sex.

It’s never too late to educate yourself and pass your newfound wisdom onto others.

It’s never too late to work toward further enriching your sex life.

It’s never too late to explore what brings you pleasure, makes you feel comfortable in your skin, or fulfilled in your relationships.

I am worth the effort; and so are you.

Mx Nillin is an award winning blogger, an accomplished writer, a skilled speaker, and an aspiring sex educator. As a non-binary individual and trans advocate, Nillin has provided a number of educational public presentations, as well as gender and sexual diversity training seminars, around their home community of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Their current pursuits revolve around learning and writing about queer sex and sexual wellness; as well as creating safe spaces for non-binary, genderqueer, and gender diverse individuals to participate in sex education and culture.

Be sure to check out their sex, sexuality, and advocacy blog at mxnillin.com. You can also follow them on Twitter: @MxNillinLore.

[Photo of Mx Nillin courtesy the author. CrashPad images in order: Rex Aralia & Vixen, Emma Claire & Bianca Stone, and Erin & Jules.]