QI am a 26-year-old straight guy. My straightness and guyness are recent revelations, and it feels amazing to be able to confidently state this. Here is my trouble: I’ve had gender issues for the past five years. My now ex-girlfriend of three years said she couldn’t be with me anymore due to these issues. Our breakup was a result of my apathy in the bedroom, which was tied to my gender issues, and her fears of me transitioning into a woman. I can see now that my insecurities about myself caused me to be a selfish partner in many ways, but mainly in the bedroom. I now realize I was allowing my sexual kinks to get the best of me. I get very turned on by the idea of giving head to a guy, but in reality it is not something that I enjoy. I also find lingerie to be very arousing. I allowed myself to focus so heavily on those aspects of my sexuality that I became insecure in my masculinity inside and outside of the bedroom. I also ended up ignoring the majority of my sexual desires as a result of my insecurity in my gender identity. I have now stopped repressing my lust toward women in general, something I had been doing that negatively affected my ex.
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I am asking you, I suppose, for some advice. I am still in love with my ex. I am prepared now to be the boyfriend that she wanted me to be. But how do I prove to her that I am no longer the apathetic, distant, and repressed lover that she was with for three years? I find myself overwhelmed with regret. She saw me as someone who couldn’t do the things she needed, when in reality I was just paralyzed by my insecurities. —Found Myself Lost
We don’t have to be perfectly healthy or issue-free before entering into a relationship, of course. If that were the standard, no one would ever be in a relationship. However, we do have to be in relatively good working order, and you were not. Your girlfriend wasn’t looking for an issue-free guy; no such animal exists. But she wanted a guy who could have his issues and still make an effort to meet her needs. And your poor, neglected, taken-for-granted girlfriend stuck it out for three long years, hoping you might turn into that kind of guy-with-issues, before finally calling it quits.
Our next concern is who to invite into our bed. We would prefer it to be someone we wouldn’t have to see again, so friends are out. However, I am concerned about just finding a random person on Craigslist or Adult Friend Finder because, being in a lesbian relationship, we definitely have run across men who think we “just need the right penis.” Basically, I want a man who I know is friendly with the queer community and will respect our relationship and our boundaries. Where do we look for this? —Another Bi Woman
AI’m not one to toss that cruel “there’s someone out there for everyone” bullshit around. Fact is, some people do wind up alone. But kinks usually aren’t the reason. Whatever your kink might be, shy lil’ kinksters, there are kinksters out there who either share it or will spark to it.
