Pansexual Richard & Transsexual Alex

Alex(andra) as I’ve known him/her more than I have in person.

Years ago I first knew Alex as Sendy. It was through Yahoo. My image of Sendy was of a tender, vulnerable femme boy. Too distant, too young; while I thought it might be nice to hold him in my lap and whisper sweet silly things in his ear that wasn’t plausible.

After Yahoo zapped his Fem Boys From Venus club, and both of our IDs, we communicated sporadically over the years. Sendy retained a fond place in my memory.

Not long before Charles and I separated Sendy and I started exchanging emails. It was in those conversations when I really came to think of Sendy by his given name, Alex.

Our emails curved into talks of how each might fit into the others’ lives. Emails became online chats. Come mid-December of last year Alex walked off the airplane and came physically into my life.

This weblog became silent. Maybe one day I’ll recount the stresses of a new lover and an old one and the great complications of having both in your life. Alex coped wonderfully well with Charles’ intrusions. Not that he liked them one bit.

Alex would rather be Alexandra: a girl rather than a boy. Had Alex been born Alexandra I’d still prefer the name Alex. Hereafter Alex I will refer to as she.

Living here Alex began to sometimes dress as the girl she is.

It was quite a treat to come home from work and not know if she’d be wearing jeans, a skirt, or the flaring pants women but not men wear nowadays. It was a mad erotic fantasy that required no bodily contact, just anticipation and surprise.

Most days I could count on an exposed bellybutton available to be kissed.

There was the strenuous ordeal of Alex shaving her body: removing the body hair that repelled her.

I came to know with Alex, as I hadn’t with the genetic female that I’d lived with before, the pleasures of hairless legs. There were nights when it seemed as if I could never caress them enough.

I loved Alex the girl in all the possible permutations of that spooky verb.

Odd conflicts persist in my mind.

I’ve written of the - to me - beautiful image of a boy with breasts. Alex doesn’t have those yet. But should she it won’t be as a boy.

And these pages are filled with hymns to the wonder of the feminine guy. But that is not Alex nowadays.

The images of femme boy Sendy must be removed. To be honest, pure lust must move aside for her as she defines herself now. Not as I may have thought of her as a him.

As often as I’ve written of transgendered males I’ve tended to avoid transsexuals. Most of the entries on Edifying Spectacle about TS folk are notes of how often they are abused.

Most strongly drawn to androgyny I’ve really never felt that a transsexual is androgynous.

Rather than confounding or flouting gender I’ve always seen a transsexual’s strongest need to be conforming to a gender. Instead of gender being an amusing construct it is a very serious, demanding life, striving to reverse biology. Nothing playful about that.

So I must exile my imagined Sendy to give my whole attention to Alex as she wishes, needs to be.

I call myself pansexual as a statement that I can love anyone regardless of his or her genetic or performed gender.

If life partners were available via a shopping cart I’d pick - or at least I once wrote a friend - a redheaded,5’8” Japanese transvestite. Half jest, half truth.

Emotionally, my pansexuality isn’t a struggle to live up to. The image of Alex in a cute skirt evokes an almost feral growl of desire and pleasure.

I kind of wish I could also have femme boy Sendy as well. But I can’t. Given that the preceding paragraph is true it hardly matters.

Intellectually, I’m not sure where I am. No place bad. But given needs for historical context (if only personal) and terminological exactitude I’m still in the process of redefining myself. I’m much given to intellectualizing my self perceptions (everybody needs a hobby).

An inherent quality of pansexual adaptability is that you are always defining yourself with reference the other.

So I reach for the right image of myself (and I don’t’ really fret about it because I know I’ll always be a caring man) and to help me become who she needs me to be.

I also happily anticipate rubbing my cheek along her thigh and exploring her bellybutton with my tongue.

Trust me, I’m not complaining.