As my partner and I lay and cuddle after sex, I wonder how anyone could ever think of the way we touch each other as weird or gross or unnatural. We see and hold each other with such tenderness. Sometimes we are soft together, sometimes we are playful and rough; every time we keep checking in with each other. We are always learning more about how to make each other feel joy and comfort, how to make the other feel spoilt and celebrated. I sometimes can’t believe we live in a world where feeling that euphoria together is an act of resistance. To be queer is to be brave and defiant every time we fuck. Our love for each other is both easy and a protest.
In my partner’s arms, late at night or on a chill Sunday morning, is one of the places I feel most myself, and most powerful. Being non-binary, I’m almost always misgendered on the street no matter how I dress or present myself. But in their arms I can wear nothing, and still be seen as who I am.
Over the time we’ve been together, I’ve felt more able to try new things, and move away from some of the sexual gendered expectations I had of myself as a masc-of-centre person. When we have sex, I feel comfy asking to experiment with different things about my gender. It feels easy and non-pressured. Being able to experiment and open up in such a safe way has helped me be more comfortable and confident outside of sex too.
We had no blueprint growing up for what sex between a non-binary and genderqueer person might look like, so we make it up as we go along. We ask each other what feels good and we go with it. It makes me excited that each time we are intimate with each other, we are building on years of queer and trans people resisting and fighting in order to rewrite sex.
In some ways, this makes each time we come together even more powerful. We’ve both fought to love each other – and we’re both committed to keeping on fighting.
Kaan K is a journalist and poet, a performer of drag and spoken word, and former gender columnist for Gal-Dem
