IF I WERE A WORM
There is a tiktok that was going around (mostly 2023 ish). (Presumably) women asked their (presumably) male partners “would you still love me if I were a worm?” For reasons addressed in this tiktok, it was not pervasive in queer algorithmic circulation. I asked my current partner a similar, queerer, question that revealed a lot. I currently present (when I say present I mean more that “I will be read as”) as fairly femme, though I identify and feel annoyingly nonbinary with a complicated relationship to my own pronouns (I recently stumbled dramatically when I was asked my pronouns, “I dont care, I mean, they/them/she/her/he him, probably they/them leaning, I don’t know, I genuinely don’t care though. But I dont really like to be called “queen” or “girl” even in gay ways. More “bro” or “dude”…anywayyyy” - I’ve mostly landed on “all pronouns”). I will be read this way, generally not because of my clothes, definitely not because of my genitals (trans-ness and being read as trans has almost nothing to do with genitals no matter what conservatives say), but because of my soft face, boobs and butt. The physically-seen-or-represented body. I don’t mind having this body, I enjoy especially the latter aspects during sex. But wearing a dress or anything frilly feels like I’m in drag. I don’t like someone holding the door open for me automatically letting me through first. I am not good at picking up social cues and nuances. I like blunt honesty more than most. And I have been part of the grooms”men” crew more than once.
Anywho, the question I asked my cis-ish male partner; “Would you still want to be my partner and have sex with me if I surgically got a penis and started testosterone?” I was pretty scared to ask the question to be honest. I was asking it in the same way that many women asked the worm question - very earnestly. He newly identified as queer, but was in the process of learning what that means to him. He’s Black, from Atlanta, and this year was his first time wearing a crop top. He still struggles to wear the crop top when he goes back to Atlanta (frankly, enough guns have been held to his head, safety may be an issue). And, he’s never sucked dick.
To his credit, he immediately asked if this is something I was considering, with a level of seriousness I appreciated. And also with about the same level of fear that I had when I asked if he wanted kids (I do not, but would consider it with the right partner which he was becoming if it was important to them. But its not a choice I would make fully for myself without a partner). I heard that type of fear in his voice. “Is it something you are considering?” he asked. It wasn’t, and isn’t. But I like to have the option. I want to know that my body can change dramatically with a partner. He responded “I would definitely try and see with you. I would still want you in my life as my primary partner, and sexually we could consider an open relationship if it were an issue. But I would want to try with you. I’ve never been attracted to a dick before. But I am attracted to You so who knows, maybe I would be attracted to yours.”
I liked his answer, maybe because in some ways it reflected myself. I am pansexual, demisexual, sapiosexual. He leans heavily into the latter two. He and I argue the same way, each displaying a robotic-ness that has annoyed past partners. We’ve each been called “robot” by past partners. We hold the same openness, equally struggle not to lean heavily into intellectualism as an emotional distancing tool.
I think the question highlights something important though. The ability to change, maybe not core internal parts of ourselves, but external, the ways our body change as we age or become sick or lift weights. The way we might lose an arm in a car wreck. How much is it this external expectation of gender and sexual interaction visually codified, versus how something feels when we touch it or sense it? This feels like a bold claim, especially because its only my perception and in many ways my attraction to specific body is already distanced by my pansexuality (i’ve genuinely never understood how someone could be attracted to just one thing when…the variations within everything are so great, and genitals are such a small factor). But as someone who loves both penetration and penetrating, is it the particular shape of the body part, its location on another human that is attraction? or the sensation that i get, that they get, when we touch?
