I've been lurking on these forums for longer than I care to recall, and went so far as to post for a while, but have since forgotten my username and have to now start again. This is by way of being a disclaimer saying I'm aware that my first post is starting a topic about "my problems" and I'm sorry for my presumption! I think it might be quite a general problem for androgynous types though so hopefully it may also be useful/interesting for other people. Also, I felt that this would be a good place to post this, as I wasn't sure where else I could do so where it wouldn't automatically receive a response of "gender norms are sacred! you are wrong to feel this!", and that kind of thing.
To the point! I'm female but very androgynous, both in appearance and self. I rejected a lot of aspects of "femininity" and female-socialisation growing up (and still do), partly out of natural disposition, partly due to dislike of having things imposed on me or presumed of me due to my sex.
Generally I sort of pootle along in a genderless haze, but trouble arises when I have sex with men. With heterosexuality, being "other" to a man, i.e. being put in the position of the "female" in relation to another's "male", feels very difficult for me, and sort of isolates me from my sense of myself as androgynous, and of not being essentially different from men. This is something that is difficult to maintain when you are face to face, as it were, with male sexual organs that you don't have (elements of jealousy there), with someone who is engaging with you in relation to your female sexual organs. I was speaking to a friend yesterday and he said that having sex is "when a man feels most masculine", which troubles me: that they are feeling masculine in relation to penetrating me (to put it bluntly), demanding to ejaculate within me, and so on.
I've been seeing a boy (young man, rather) for a month or so and on a personal level everything is good, but having to confront my discomfort with my gender, and these feelings of being forced to engage uniquely as female in opposition to his male, are beginning to wear me out to the point that I feel physically sick and wish I was dead (not to sound overdramatic, but, yes). I don't know how to bring this up with him. I feel that perhaps if he were willing to open himself up to "feminine" aspects within himself, and help me accept my feminine aspects that I suppress (from feeling them to be foisted upon me) that this might help, but I think trying to bring this subject up might send him running for the hills (especially as it's quite a heavy subject - given how bad it's making me feel - for only having been seeing each other for such a short space of time), or just generally be really difficult emotionally for us both to deal with.
This all isn't helped by the fact that I'm acutely sensitive to sexual politics and to feeling dominated by sexual behaviour that is informed by a culture that is, in my opinion, based on the prioritisation of men's needs, meaning that to feel forced into the feminine role feels not only contrary to my person, but oppressive of it too.
If anyone has any advice - on how to deal with these feelings, or see them in a different light, or raise them with this boy I'm seeing - or anything, I would be most grateful.
