'At the club, I was free and unburdened. It’s only when I got back to the 'real world' that I felt unsafe'
It was just after 3 a.m. and I was on my way out of the downtown Toronto sex club where I’d spent a very enjoyable evening. The front desk staff smiled and wished me goodnight as I walked by and I returned the sentiment, a goofy smile plastered on my face. It was the kind of smile you have when you’re leaving the salon after getting an incredible haircut, glowing and triumphant—and I had the night’s experience to thank for that feeling of accomplishment.
But I was also trying to understand what I wanted my sex life to be. Up until that point, I’d only had sex within romantic relationships. I was always aware of, and shaped by, what my partner found desirable in me. My partners’ egos needed me to orgasm every time, so I would crawl into the rolodex of scenarios in my imagination that turn me on, and I would use those fantasies to bring myself to orgasm.
“My pronouns are them and they. You will use these pronouns. I have body hair. I like it. I don’t want to hear any comments from you about it. You will use a condom or a glove for anything that goes inside me, anywhere, including my mouth. No one but you touches me while we’re having sex, and it is your job to enforce that. I don’t play with consensual non-consent: no always means no, stop always means stop, ease up always means ease up.
I wasn’t present enough in my body to come with John, but I enjoyed him asking me about every progressive touch, and I enjoyed that I could bleed on him without feeling like I should apologize for it. Afterwards John and I cuddled, and then he went home while I stayed at the club. But on the streetcar, with that man watching me, it became clear that we weren’t in that world anymore. At the sex club, there’s an understanding that no one owes anyone sex, and that the ability to give and revoke consent is not diminished by a person’s previous choices. That’s not the case in the “real world.” Instead, I had to slip back into those internal risk assessments that so many trans women, cis women, trans men and non-binary people unconsciously make.
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