Finding sexual relevance as a castrato and when will science be able to grow me a real clitoris?

The tyranny of the patriarchy extends to what they teach us about the clitoris.

A new friend showed me a picture of the clitoris.  Look familiar?  Look totally different from what you might have thought one looks like?  Somehow there is a powerful metaphor in the idea that a woman’s most powerful sex organ is almost completely hidden.  Even more than an iceberg.  Men: word to the wise, take care of the hidden woman if you wish to capture her heart.

Well, as you might imagine, this pre-op trans person is spending a fair amount of time researching my upcoming operation.  It is an important milestone and one the little boy that I once was would have been so hopeful about.  As a child I used to go to the public library in my neighbourhood and check a particular medical textbook that included very detailed information on sex change operations.  I was unparented.  Working mother.  Siblings much older than me.  Lot’s of time on my own.  A very active fantasy life.  I would have been between the ages of 6 and 8 when I first found the book.  I was fascinated by the possibility, and it lit a flame inside of me that kept me alive all these years.  To know that someday, one day, I would make this change.  I vowed then that I would not die in a man’s body.

But social pressure, life, a mother’s cruel words, all kept me playing a part that was designed for how others wanted to see me, not how I was.  I was a beautiful man.  Sure.  And a good man.  But I’m not a man.  I never was.  And that is the ultimate irony.  As I become more and more female, I am finding that I finally have space for the parts of me that are or were male.

I still hate men.  The only thing that has changed is that I am much more comfortable saying so.  Including to my male friends.  I am blessed by their indulgence.  I do love them.  But I’d like to see them rise above themselves too.

The patriarchy sets the rules in sex change

Most of the world follows what are known as the WPATH guidelines.  These are globally recognised standards of care in transgender health.  For many of us in the trans community, however, it is just another form of institutional gate keeping.

In order for me to have a sex change operation in whatever form (there are many different kinds), most doctors require that I have taken all steps outlined by WPATH:

• Living fully out in my chosen gender for at least a year prior to surgery
• On a full complement of hormones suited to my chosen gender for at least a year prior to surgery, and with the confirmation of an endocrinologist
• Under the care, and with letters of support from two mental health professionals who confirm a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, with at least one of them being a psychiatrist

On one level, I can understand how most people might think those are reasonable demands, designed to protect me from myself.  I admit, that I am grateful to Planned Parenthood and their application of “informed consent”.  So, while I comply with WPATH [even though I could just go to Thailand], I choose to go to Planned Parenthood for gender support services.  It feels great to receive treatment from an organisation that I have supported financially and with my time over the years.

[A complete aside is that one area of my life which is really taking off is the charitable side.  I am gradually coming closer to becoming involved with charitable work on a much more substantive scale, taking my real-world professional experience as an executive and doing the same in charity.  We only have one life, one society, and we can all give].

The patriarchy manifests itself in the world of sex change surgery.  It manifests itself in the paucity of research into the female sex organs, into female pleasure.  It manifests itself in the thought that most sex change doctors are plastic surgeons, concerned mainly with the outside appearance.  Thankfully, genito-urinary doctors are getting in on the act.  But I wish for a clitoris as it would be had I been born with one.  I am willing to be a guinea pig for experimental surgery in this regard.

I know that I have had my last “male” orgasm.  I used to love to cum, even if I didn’t do so all that often.  My last time, perhaps rather appropriately, was at the hands of a dominatrix as I lay in sling, suspended and tied, being electrocuted as she reached inside of me and coaxed it out of me even though my dxxk, was already dead.  But the thought that my clitoris is going to be just a little sliver of the head of my penis when a real woman, a natal woman, has this vast underneath.

My therapist who I love so much asked, “what do they do with all the rest of it?  All the erectile tissue, the skin?”  The skin of both penis and scrotum, if not doing penile inversion (the most common form of operation), can be used to create the folds of the labia.  The erectile tissue, however, is discarded.  A natal vagina, however, becomes engorged.  Why can mine not be lined with this tissue?  What about stem cells?  Why can I not use the umbilical stem cells from my children’s birth that have been kept for a rainy day?

I know that the science behind this is rudimentary, and that one day, it will be possible to achieve extraordinary things when offering the possibility to change sex.  But I am here now.

I am already castrated.  If I were to go off hormones and hormone blockers, erections would likely return.  But my fertility is now dead.  My biological use is now finished and only relevant to my own genes insofar as I can assist the future reproductive success of my own progeny.  And I know that most women want to feel the power of a man thrusting between their legs.  Perhaps without all the crap, but they still love men anyway.

The amount of “success” I am having with women in my life shows that there is clearly a niche for submissive, androgynous, effeminate, ex-men with breasts.  What I don’t know yet is whether the absence of a penis will make a difference, or for that matter, the useless little appendage that passes for one that I still have, though its days be numbered.

Trans Fear

Men may have occasional performance anxiety.  I can’t help but feel that I must learn to please a woman.  To really please a woman.  My favourite therapist is guiding me towards yoni massage, tantra, and other modalities.  And I am comfortable with that.

I am not a man.  I can’t fxxk.  But I can love and touch and support and listen and cuddle and serve and laugh and cook.  Do the women who come onto me know this?  Think about any of this?

I was at a party the other day, and there was entertainment which consisted of a fairly edgy demonstration of various BDSM practices.  It was a bit Eyes Wide Shut.  It was a pretty sexy evening.

First, a beautiful woman who was quite a bit younger than me leaned over and breathed, “you smell so good, what perfume are you wearing.”  This turned into a night of companionship.  Her husband was at a nearby hotel with their 6-month-old baby while she was out reconnecting with her sexuality.  It was a treat to be a part of it.  Just how safe I am to talk to in such an environment feels good.

I was with date, and my date I am sure is going to become a great friend.  Sometimes you just know.  There was another woman, a Slavic-looking woman.  I will say that she was my version of what attractive is.

Her boyfriend pulled up a chair and started to talk to me and my date.  At one point, he said to my date of me, “wow, he sure is one cool dude.”  And I’m thinking, ‘do you like my dress?  Can you see my breasts?’  For the first time in my life I corrected his pronouns, “they are one cool it,” I said.  I don’t think he even registered.

He went on to tell us both that we would be marrying her this year.  I don’t know why, but I asked, “have you proposed?”

“No, not yet, but I will soon.”

“Does she know?  Have you talked about it?”

“No, but she’ll say yes.  We’ve been dating for a while.”

I concluded that he’s in for a world of hurt.  He had the air of the teddy bear type.  Naïve, puppy.  These are positive qualities, but oblivious is a recipe for pain.  I suggested that he might want to talk to her.  Sometime later I shared with his “girlfriend” and the married woman that I hated men.  They both laughed.  We established that the married woman worked for a friend of mine, and that she wanted to see me again.  In the context of a kink party, I will assume that this means nothing.

A while later I was standing on the edge of the crowd watching a particularly gorgeous dominatrix put a young, leashed slave through some pretty intense paces.  The dominatrix was staring at me.  The girlfriend was standing next to me, her breasts pressed against my arm.

“She’s so beautiful, even I would think submitting to her,” she said.

“I’m a slave.  Submission comes easy.”  The dominatrix was looking right through me.  The girlfriend registered what I said.

“You’re a slave.  That’s interesting.”  I looked at her.  “How long are you here for?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Soon.”

“I’d like you to come to a party with me,” she said.

“I’ve never been to a party like you mean before.”

“Really?” she said.

“No.”

“You will like it.”

Later, we danced.  The next morning I woke to find a message from her in my DMs asking for my future dates.  I have given them to her, and I have also offered to come to her when suits.

Arousal

After 4-5 months of no arousal, I find I am becoming aroused again.  Submission is instantly pleasurable.  But my arousal is different.  Although I can feel a stirring in my whotsit, I still don’t get hard—it cannot do that without chemical support (I only know this from the words of trans sisters who like to keep their whotsits intact).  What I feel is a more general glow that radiates as much from my gut as from my perineal region.  It definitely feels like arousal, but it is very different.

Does oestrogen change my wiring just as it changes my brain? I suspect it must.  Though the process shall be measured in years.

I hope that I find a great surgeon.  In Thailand, all of the experienced, famous, sex change doctors are men.  Some of them seem to know what a beautiful “pussy” should look like and don’t hesitate to tell you in their marketing just what a beautiful “pussy” the male doctor will make for me.  I’m not sure I can handle the arrogance.  In Europe, almost nobody has the level of expertise found in Thailand or the US, in particular in the type of surgery I will be doing, the Davydov procedure, or what is known as peritoneal pull-through.

This type of surgery is performed by a pelvic-urinary specialist, not a cosmetic surgeon.  It is more dangerous and more involved and takes about 6 hours.  Most sex change surgeons are men.  I don’t want a man creating my vagina.  My first choice doctor can’t even talk to me until 2025.  I am waitlisted in hopes that she has a cancellation.  My second choice doctor is almost certainly going to be the one.  She is a pioneer and will do a great job.  She has the paperwork, I am in the system, and am lining up the logistics of life to be able to undertake such a fundamental operation with the appropriate support network in place.

A Kind of Sorrow/Pain

The clitoris has twice the nerve endings as the most sensitive part of the tip of the penis. It is a small part of the tip of the penis that is preserved when surgeons create a clitoris during a sex change operation. So, a small portion of half of what nerve endings are there for women. And that is just the part we see. The rest of clitoral anatomy is ignored. And all that “excess” penile erectile material? Tossed away.

What hope does this trans woman have for sexual pleasure on anything approaching the scale of a natal woman?

But what I don’t want is to end up with a severely damaged ability to experience pleasure.  My trans sisters tell me that pleasure will come, that it is great, and real, though more elusive.  Looking at the 3-d picture of a clitoris, however, makes me think we are kidding ourselves if the way we conduct these operations is anything more than an exercise in window dressing.

The bittersweet reality of a castrato and trans woman

I am a handmaiden.  I have castrated myself because I cannot accept being male in a patriarchal society.  My apology for my existence as male is so complete that I am teetering on the edge of erasing its existence.  My desire for my own feminity has no room for men in it, for I don’t like men, I don’t want to have sex with men, I wish to shut myself off from the world of men, or to fight it, to rail against it…no.  What I want is to be a sister.  I cannot claim the female label.  I will never give myself female pronouns.  I will never assume or call myself a woman.  That is a gift that cannot be taken, only bestowed.  And I will never take it for granted or become lazy about it.

In other words, my only hope is to turn to God. To become a sister in the truest sense. A nun. Only my church shall not be Christian. Instead, it will be kinky, Buddhist, laced with somatic therapy and herbalism, and a safe place for my trans sisters and brothers to live and breathe and for society’s marginals–the racially squelched, the sex worker, any woman who wishes to join, all non-binary people. Yes, I will get off on tearing down the patriarchy. I already do? And you know what, I do get off on having chemically castrated myself, do get off on putting on a dress every day, because I know that it is a rebellious act.

I am a trans woman.  I am non-binary.  I will surgically erase my masculinity.  I am safe.  I am here.  I am vulnerable.  That’s how you know my name.