On being Difficult to Offend
I was recently asked if there was anything someone could say about trans issues that would offend me. I realized that there's not, and that's a problem.
read moreWhen Friends Become Best Friends
I ran into her with a group of friend. We didn’t talk, and all we said to each other was “Hello”, nothing more, nothing less. We only were around each other because we had the same group of friends. She, by far, was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.
read moreSexuality to Me
Non-heterosexuality is a touchy subject to discuss in many parts of the world; in the United States particularly, it’s feasible to get mixed reactions even while discussing it with friends or family. Personally, I’ve always had a mild attraction to women since I was a small child. When I was about three or four, I remember...
read moreBanishment
When I was six, my dear Christian grandparents welcomed a single mother of three young girls into our house. The mother was a daughter of one of their best friends and had suffered spousal abuse, therefore having to leave her house. Amongst her daughters was a girl a few months older than me.
read moreDear T.I.
So I curl up on the couch on Tuesday and open up the news searching for some juicy sex-related gossip. Google News, Reader, a couple sex sites and various tabloids are open in ten or twenty tabs in Chrome. It looks like a flurry of sex news chaos but lost among the mix are the maybes. This is my morning routine Tuesday through...
read moreThey Want Me to Kiss a Girl and Like It
As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always identified as female and straight. I was born a biological female, and I do consider myself a “girly girl” who likes clothes, make-up, and shoes. Sure, I am a little bit on the eccentric side: I dye my hair pink, my taste in music is different from most everyone else, and I wear...
read moreSometimes It Just Happens
I came out to my dad this weekend. I didn’t mean to. It just sort of happened. Let’s start at the beginning. My parents split up a few years ago. I still don’t know the whole story. I got bits and pieces from the family he had before it happened at the wedding, and I get the basic gist, but it’s obvious...
read moreThis Is Your Job
Most of the time, I am not a gay woman. More often, I am a woman in love and I think, overall, I have a pretty ordinary marriage. We fight over the dirty dishes, and who’s going to wash them. We run errands and hope to find a close parking spot at the grocery store. We celebrate birthdays and holidays, and try to figure out whose...
read moreSexuality, Race and Religion
Being anything but straight in the African American culture can be a very hard thing to deal with. My own personal story is just like many more. Although I wish the black community had a better view of homosexuality then it currently does. As a black women, I was raised to think being bisexual, gay, or a lesbian was not okay. It was...
read moreMy Big, Beautiful, Gay Marriage
Someone should have told us to elope. Someone should have told us to choose sandy beaches over bridal bouquets; hotel rooms instead of floor length gowns. Someone should have explained that no matter what you prepare for, you will never be truly ready for the ‘big day’. It doesn’t matter how many months you have...
read moreMonogamy Plus: Redefining What a Relationship Means
A few weeks ago, Mark Oppenheimer wrote a piece for the New York Times that discussed the Congressman Weiner scandal, and what it says about the state of “marriage” in contemporary society. Oppenheimer’s wife was asked by him which was worse, knowing her spouse had an affair, or him tweeting photos like Weiner’s...
read moreBisexual Blues
Imagine for a moment that you have a lifetime supply of your favorite ice cream. For the purposes of this this scenario, let’s say it’s vanilla. You could live the rest of your days happily enjoying vanilla ice cream. You cover it with different toppings occasionally to spice things up. But what if you also enjoyed chocolate ice...
read moreAccept Everyone No Matter Their Sexuality!
Am I proud to be bisexual? Heck yes I am. Have I been put down for it? Yeah, unfortunately. I wish the world would come around and accept everyone for who they are. We are ALL different! And that’s what makes all of us so great. Size, shape, race, sexuality; everything about us shouldn’t define us, and there shouldn’t any...
read moreSliding Down That Slippery Slope…Or Aisle…Or…
I’m sure there’s some more mature ways for me to address gay pride, but since I, like most men, have a 12-year-old boy just under the surface, and almost everything sexual for me ultimately inspires thoughts of lubrication (natural or otherwise, and regardless of gender combo), let’s talk about hot, wet...
read moreLife with My Two Moms
Yep. I have two moms. My mom and my step mom live happily not far from me. My daughter has two grandmothers and she could care less. It is our normal. Growing up, I had the typical family life. Mom, Dad, little sister, dog. We drove around in a station wagon and went to the cottage on weekends. When I turned 14, my parents...
read moreSo Many Labels, So Little Consensus
I had managed to get through 43 years of life with pretty clear sexual labels. Then middle age had to go and fuck it all up. Mind you, I’m not complaining, really. Middle age for my wife and me has brought a sexual reawakening the likes of which I never would have imagined, with us reaching a common ground that has allowed...
read moreYou Have a Kid AND a Boyfriend? That Means You Can’t Be Bisexual!
I’ve known I was bisexual since I was 12. I had started to find girls in my magazines pretty in different ways than other girls I knew did. I had my first “girl crush”. I didn’t think I was a lesbian, and I was nervous what everyone would think about it, so I kept quiet for years. I learned that you could like boys AND girls...
read moreWhat Gives You the Right?
Something has really been on my mind since yesterday. I went fishing with a friend of mine yesterday afternoon. Just two women having fun fishing and laying out, while getting away from the real world for a little while. We spent a few hours just escaping from the hassles of day to day life, being wives, mothers, maids and such. On...
read moreTeenagers and Bi-sexuality
As a mother of four children, three of them teens, I pride myself on being available for my them to talk to about whatever they need, whenever they want. Don’t get me wrong, there is a fine line between parenting and being a friend. I am definitely a parent, but I believe that you can be their friends, to an extent. I...
read moreQueer Doesn’t Mean Anti-Feminine: A Personal Side
During my sophomore year of college, I began to encounter many more queer people than I had ever met in my pre-university days. These people were totally open and comfortable about their sexualities and non-cis identities. I felt so empowered by these people that I—ohmigosh!—came out to them. I started cross dressing often,...
read moreTo Wong Foo, Thanks for nothing! Rayne Millaray
I am a member of the LGBT community. That B? That stands for me. I’m not overly active. I haven’t had a girlfriend since… Hmm… Do internet romances count? If not, my last girlfriend was at least ten years ago. I didn’t march on Washington (though I wanted to), or visit City Hall with another woman to...
read moreYOUR BEST KEPT SECRET WITH MADISON MONTAG
SLAM: Greetings Madison. Happy Holidays. Welcome to Edencafe.com. I understand you were under the weather for a bit so this means a great deal to us, taking the time out of your schedule. I’m also aware you’re familiar with Eden Fantasys. Do you consider yourself a fan and consumer of adult entertainment? MADISON MONTAG: I do...
read moreOn What’s In a Name
Sometimes people ask me what my birth name was. Or, if they’re really ignorant, they ask me what my “real” name is. Now, for years, I’ve just refused to answer because I simply didn’t want to. I didn’t like saying my former name. I didn’t like other people knowing it, and I certainly didn’t like hearing it. So...
read moreDissecting the Gender Sex Rainbow
I’ve spoken before about what being “pansexual” means to me – negating the concept that gender is binary – but I understand that this doesn’t really translate well to most people. For most, gender is either male or female. And if given the opportunity to consider anyone in between, these individuals are...
read moreTranstastic: On Visiting the Va-jay-jay Doctor
Like many trans men, the idea of going to a gynecologist flips me out. I can’t speak for everyone with body dysphoria, but for me, the prospect of having a doctor poke around down there doesn’t really sound like a lot of fun. I mean, for that matter, I don’t know many people period who think a visit to the gynecologist is...
read moreBisexuality
Bisexuality. Such a small word to fit in my entire perspective on my sexuality. Until I started into sex blogging, I never knew there was such a myriad of different words to describe sexuality: bisexuality, queer, pansexual, heteroflexible, and so many others. Bisexual seems like such a small word to describe something that is so...
read moreTranstastic: On Intimacy
After my last column, where I talked about how you shouldn’t ask trans people intimate questions as if it’s no big deal, I’ve been thinking a lot this week about this whole issue of intimacy and what questions are okay to ask. I’ve been thinking specifically about what I consider intimate information about me, in contrast to...
read moreMORE THAN MEETS THE EYE WITH BAILEY JAY
To coin a cliché used all too frequently in the realms of love and war, they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is only skin deep. True beauty is found from within. Even within our ultra modern society there is yet to be a phrase to depict beauty to come with extra packages. It is true that sexual preferences now...
read moreTranstastic: On Questions Not to Ask a Trans Person
To My Darling Readers, I’m sorry I’ve been so negligent. Between moving across the country (I now live on the lovely west coast, in a place full of sunshine and unicorns, gum drops and sugar plums) and breaking up with M and various other life changes, I’ve been a bit busy. But I’m back in the saddle now, and here to dish up...
read moreStraight Female Love
I know it sounds crazy to most people, but I believe it is possible to fall in love with someone of the same sex, but be straight before the relationship and be straight after. I find it possible, because I’ve experienced it before. Around the age of 15, I moved to a new neighborhood, and made new friends. Some were very...
read moreComing Out
Sally was the first girl I fell for. We’d been friends since fifth grade, but it wasn’t until seventh grade that I noticed her. She had wavy dyed red hair down to her lower back, Mexican gold skin and round lips that were usually chapped, and she talked a lot about boys and fantasy books and the five pet chickens –...
read moreTranstastic: On Coming Out as a Political Act
A friend, K, recently told me of her mixed emotions at missing an opportunity to come out as a lesbian. She explained how some kids she worked with had made gay jokes and, rather than let them know that she herself was queer identified, she simply told them that a good friend of hers was and so she didn’t like the jokes. K was...
read moreTranstastic: On Gender Policing by Friends
I had an interesting and somewhat disconcerting experience this past month. I spent the time backpacking with a friend whom I hadn’t hung out with in years but had known for a long time and been very close with in the past. This time, though, out of nowhere, he started using the word “gay” as an insult and generally taking...
read moreTrans Partner
I am the partner of a transgendered person. And even more confusing to people is that I am legally married to my partner who is a transwoman. Who knew a simple change of names and gender pronouns would make life so difficult. It makes things so confusing to others. The rules have changed for me. I watch my words at certain times,...
read moreTranstastic: On Why My Relationships Are Queer
I’ve talked before about how I tend to date queer women. In that column, I talked about how I was attracted to the sorts of interactions I had with queer women, interactions where I felt that my gender identity could be fluid and unconstrained by traditional gender roles. A friend challenged me, though, when she asked me recently...
read moreLiving Stealth – and Being Misconstrued as “Lying”
**The author of this post has requested to remain anonymous** I never tell people that I’m transgendered—honestly, I don’t. I do not tell someone unless they pick it up from my reviews, unless they are themselves trans- or unless they are with someone who is. Now, of all of those people, I do not feel that being...
read moreTranstastic:On My Untrained Anthropologist’s Eye
I have a few friends from college who studied anthropology and love to talk about the effect of an anthropologist on the population being studied. The idea is that the anthropologist often can’t study a culture without also affecting that culture with their very presence. The funny thing is that, though I’ve never taken an...
read moreTranstastic: On Gender Segregated Groups
There are many wrong things to say to a trans person. If this were an episode of Family Feud, “What’s your real name?” would come up with lots of votes, as would “Have you had The Surgery?” But recently, I was reminded of another statement, one that might not come to mind as quickly. I was reminded of the terror inspired...
read moreTranstastic: On Airline Security
I heard a pretty distressing news story this week. Apparently one TSA (the airport security people) employee just assaulted another one. Why? The second one had been teasing the first about the size of his penis after seeing it in a staff training demonstration of new security equipment. The story is here. I’ll let you sit...
read moreTranstastic: On Body Image and My Transition
I’m overweight. Though my friends sometimes, meaning well, try to tell me that I’m not, it’s not actually a debatable point—I’ve been fat all my life and it’s not likely to change any time soon. And guess what? These days, I’m relatively okay with it. Why? Because I’m trans. So, here’s installment 1045 of the list...
read moreTranstastic: On Transitioning Doctors
Of all the transitions that I needed to make when I moved from Hippie Liberal Arts College to The South, changing doctors is the one that I’ve delayed the longest. It’s hard to find a doctor you feel comfortable with. So, rather than try and find a trans friendly doctor down here, I spent the last eight or nine months in a long...
read moreTranstastic: On Why I Don’t Want a Penis
I think, occasionally, about whether I would like to have a penis. For some trans guys, this is an easy question—the answer is a resounding yes. Unfortunately, the state of the world is such that the current options are expensive and unsatisfying at best, leaving many guys without the desire to pursue this particular path...
read moreTranstastic: On Boy friends
I don’t make friends with cisgender (that’s non-transgender) men very often. It’s stressful to be playing a social game with rules that everyone else has been playing with for their entire lives, making friendships with cis-men slightly challenging. Even so, I do have a few cisgender guy friends, and I’ve realized recently...
read moreNaming
If you’ve ever gone to kindergarten, you know that some names are designated for girls, and some are for boys. If you meet a Mary, Louise, Tabitha, Lily, she is going to be wearing a dress, or have a high pitched voice, or prefer finger painting to football…she is going to be a she. And the opposite for boys. Some people though,...
read moreTranstastic: On Hormones and Emotions
One form of sexism that particularly drives me crazy is a tendency among men to discount women’s emotions as purely hormonal. I hate that when a woman becomes legitimately upset over something, it’s considered entirely acceptable to ask her whether she’s PMSing. The troubling implication is that the woman’s emotions aren’t...
read moreTranstastic: On Being Into Queer Women
I’ve been told that I’m sort of a lesbian and I tend not to be offended by that comment. Not because I identify as a woman (yeah, not so much) but because I came from the queer women’s community and I still feel very much at home in it when it comes to certain contexts. One such context is dating. Every woman that I’ve ever...
read moreTranstastic: On Talking about Gender with (Some) Straight People
I’ve noticed a somewhat bizarre phenomenon among a few of my straight friends. It seems to be a variation on the “only hooks up with people of the same gender while drunk” phenomenon that I saw during college. Unfortunately for me, what I’m observing now doesn’t involve me getting to make out with cute boys or my girl...
read moreLoving a Transgendered Parent: Mindreading and Misunderstanding
Someone on the outside can never really understand what a transition is like for a transgendered person. No matter how close you are to them, no matter how much you share, if you haven’t been there, you don’t know. In a way, even though I’m the child of a much beloved transitioning MTF parent, I’m an...
read moreTranstastic: On Being Young and Trans
I’m not well versed in any body of knowledge that could be termed “transgender history.” So you’ll have to take it with a grain of salt when I say that I came of age in a unique, historical turning point in the life of the trans community. I can’t put a date on when this magical turning point happened, nor can I extend...
read moreFears of a Secret Genderqueer
I’m nervous about packing. Since I don’t disclose myself though I do openly cross dress, I’m sure people have their assumptions. Considering that I work publicly in front of a group of people at least once a week, I feel almost like I’m on stage. I know what it’s like to be on stage after eight years of...
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