Genital preferences, dissociative identity disorder and body dysphoria, transphobia, phallophobia & tokophobia

Penises repulse me. I’m just gonna be honest, come out and say it. Vaginas have their gross qualities as well, but … I’m just not into dick, to put it bluntly. Penetration does nothing for me, and I’m just…I don’t want it anywhere near my body, ever.

Nothing turns my clitoris into a clitor-isn’t more than peens.

Factor dissociative identity disorder (DID) into the equation — and it always plays some kind of part in my romantic life — and you have some people who don’t mind it so much, but I’m a lesbian and I also have straight male alters. In the headspace, everyone has the body they see themselves having. When they front, they experience body dysphoria because the body is a cis woman; it has boobs and vageen. If they were front long-term, they would be considered trans by themselves and their peers, because they do not associate with the body’s assigned gender and sex.

As a system, we are non-binary. Individually, the lot of us have our gender identities — female, male, a few non-binary.

I understand where the presumption of transphobia originates, but I do not believe having gender preferences is anything that must be used against someone. People all of the time will decide not to mate with someone based on shallow deal-breakers or certain qualities of a person. I refuse to date someone who doesn’t drive, which could be perceived as ableist, but it’s important to me that my future life partner knows how to drive because

1. Not every alter knows how to drive;
2. I have severe driving anxiety and get lost driving unknown places; and
3. I can’t drive at night.

I hate driving. My person will be someone for whom driving is a capital No Big Deal. I’m also not interested in being a caretaker, because I barely manage to take care of myself. I’d rather be single. Again, on the surface this could be regarded as ableism, but then it’s also a bit ableist — and toxic — to insist I let go and be okay with having to drive a partner around all the time. If we were going wherever and a DID little fronted unexpectedly, I would need them to take over driving for me. That hasn’t happened in a long while, but unexpected shit can happen when you have DID.

A woman I trauma-bonded with (ugh) said to me that sometimes she was just like a big baby I would need to take care of. That kind of thing turns me off. I have to take care of everyone in my system. I’m not interested in a partner I’ve gotta babysit. DID littles is a complex topic, but it’s a bit like babysitting yourself. I’m not interested in dating someone I’d always have to pick up, drive around, etc. because it’s not what I’m capable of. I’m a DID system, not a singlet, and that’s a system-wide deal-breaker.

I’m a disabled person choosing not to date a disabled person whose disabilities include my own and then some — and that’s usually understandable.

So then…why is it not understandable that I don’t want to have sex with anyone who has a penis? It would be amazing if I were pansexual, because perhaps it’d mean that I wouldn’t care. But penises get people pregnant, and I’m tokophobic. And then you have that white drizzle that looks like milk and…no. And why the fuck must it get hard at the worst times? Nooooo. I like vageens. It’s part of what made lesbianism so attractive. I could be a pillow princess, sure — but I’m not certain that I am, and I don’t want to put a dick in my mouth. Or on my hands. I literally don’t want one anywhere near my body.

And if I were pan, it wouldn’t matter who had a vagina. I went through this whole thing of well, couldn’t I date trans men, too?? They have vaginas! but saying shit like, “I have a boyfriend,” or, “My boyfriend…” doesn’t sound real at all.

I would not rule out dating pre-op trans women, but I would not entirely be interested in mutual sex with them based on genitals alone.

Because I’m not interested or attracted to penises.

The idea of touching or looking at one one is vomitrocious. They’re like tails on the front of your body, between your legs — but not the kind that I want to pet or brush or comb.

If we’re talking PHOBIAS, better terms would be phallophobia and genophobia.

First and foremost, the idea of penises repulses me just as much as pregnancy. I associate the two together. WE AS A DID SYSTEM associate the two together. Tokophobia is a system-wide phobia, because it would upgrade the level of body dysphoria we experience.

The idea of engaging in sex with anyone who has a penis gives me the feeling of my vagina clamping up.

I spent two decades determined to be single all my life due to phallophobia.

Genophobia reasoning is more complex, originating from youth, upbringing, conservative values, purity culture — a whole fucking list of things. But also tokophobia.

It’s too complex of a personal issue, experience and reason to explain in full to most people — and it’s no one’s fucking business.

Shit that determines some people’s sexual attraction:

• younger/older (excluding minors, yo)
• boobs
• butts
• feet, hands, elbows, etc.
• faces
• eye color
• hair color
• body type
• teeth
• glasses
• wrinkles/stretch marks
• pregnancy
• various kinks
• fingernails
• language fluency
• multilingualism
• race/ethnicity
• modesty/lack of
• clothes
• car
• financial status/class

Heterosexuality is comprised of a LOT of penis-in-vagina sex between cisgendered couples.

Someone in the system has dated a trans person, but he ultimately could not have sex with her because…

• his own body dysphoria re: vageen
• he is definitely not interested in having sex where a real penis is involved
• attempting to just resulted in jealousy — why is he in a fucking DID system instead of his own penis-having body??

One of my male alters dated a trans woman and loved her, but there was so much pushback about him being an alter in a dissociative identity disorder system and instead being trans himself (only him, ignoring the existence of a system). He’d loved her, but the jealousy over her parts made him insecure…and then the lack of understanding re: DID worsened it. Because, when he is fronting, he is trans — but he is not a primary host.

I struggled for years because I was raised to believe that I had to be male since I was attracted to girls. I connected with a lot of people in the trans community who encouraged transitioning, and even spoke with therapists who failed to understand — but ultimately, it was internalized homophobia and the lack of a DID diagnosis that was going on with me.

All of this to say…it brings up old wounds. I’m constantly dissociative, even when grounded. We don’t feel like we fit into the AFAB or trans communities, and the DID community has its own politics. There is still our family, societal politics, our own needs, phallophobia, and the genuine desire to keep our romance life simple.

The only alter interested in dating, marriage, etc. is myself. I identify with the gender commonly associated with the body’s biological sex, but I also identify as NB when others are bleeding through. We definitely will never choose pregnancy because of primary tokophobia and dissociation, but we do want to adopt if our partner wishes not to carry a child — and we want that option open, available to us.

It’s one thing to bond with people who understand what it’s like to not identify with the body’s sex organs — sometimes it’s even trauma bonding — as friends. It’s much more difficult, frustrating, and dissociating to bond with a romantic partner in that position.

We should be able to have difficult conversations with each other without the fear of being labeled as something, and targeted and attacked for it.

Do I wish I was not repulsed by dicks? Yes. It would open my dating preferences so much more! But I am.

Maybe I wouldn’t even be a lesbian, or maybe I still would. Maybe this is just who I am. I’m attracted to women regardless of trans status, but I want to be able to have sex with my partner and want the genitalia to be the same* — not a peen — and that did play a part in coming to terms with my sexuality.

It reminds me of rape culture*, which is often promoted in many online transgender communities as the result of someone rejecting a trans person. Not every trans person reacts to the rejection this way, but it so frequently happens and the social media posts in regard to it are atrocious.

*Every article I can find tackling this complex issue is primarily problematic, labeling trans women as men based on their genitals — I disagree with that. I went through what I thought was a phase before dissociative identity disorder came into play and I learned I had alternate identities created by a traumatized brain. It wasn’t a phase, and I wasn’t trans…I was (am) a DID system with male alters.

Reddit is ripe with similar experiences, however, from phallophobia to general am I transphobic? questions.

Transphobia, in the discussions regarding the complexities, frequently boils down to two things specifically:

• Because of genitals/just lacking attraction to specific person = not transphobic
• Because they’re trans = transphobia

Sometimes, users explain deeper, referencing typically obvious dating preferences (body type, height, etc.) as not being perceived as “heightphobic” or fatphobic — a great example for me is that I’m just not attracted to really skinny people, and that’s just a fucking preference. A dating choice would be choosing not to go for anyone who’s obsessed with fitness and nutrition, because it’s a major trigger for my eating disorder recovery.

The general consensus is that people should keep their preferences to themselves, but then that encourages silence and a lot of toxic shit — which leads to people like myself believing they must remain silent forever, resulting in perpetual singledom. If we insist on people keeping their personal opinions to themselves to avoid uncomfortable discussions, we might as well stop having opinions altogether. Obviously, this is impossible.

The idea of engaging in sex where a penis is involved — which, if I were to have sex with a partner, I would want to touch her — gives me rape vibes. The entire makeup of peens is alien to me. Heterosexual sex is unnatural to me. This is not to say that a woman with a peen plus myself having sex would equate to heterosexual sex, so don’t misunderstand. In 2021, two partners engaging in seemingly heteronormative sex may not be heteronormative at all, but my point is that it doesn’t matter.

It’s still a fucking penis.

It’s still not a vagina.

That distinction matters to me, for a multitude of fucking reasons, and none of them regard the gender identity of the person.

Yet, still, I identify as a lesbian; when gender identity is involved, I’m attracted solely to women. Because of internalized homophobia, I will oftentimes wonder if I could be with men, but there comes the whole “boyfriend” word sounding wrong and unnatural, the “girlfriend” word sounding natural, and the common genitalia of men I think I could probably date if I tried hard enough being peens.

And if we’re gonna go deeper into this, forget about it seeming so alien: penises just remind me of really hard turds, and I can’t unimagine it.

I do not want to have sex with a penis.

I’m not attracted to men.

The gender identity of the penis owner is irrelevant.

I may not always be interested in touching my partner’s genitals as a “bottom” or low-key “switch”, but when I am, it’s not going to be a fucking poop branch.

That’s on phallophobia for you.

Irrational? All phobias are irrational and disabling fears — that’s literally why they are called phobias.

You can’t always control your sexual attraction, either. I’m sexually attracted to women with vaginas the same indescribable way I am sexually attracted to women who dominate on the road and drive like they’re in the Fast & Furious franchise.

Genitals plays a part in sexual intimacy, whether we want or like to acknowledge it. 🤷‍♀️

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I just want to share bits of myself and acknowledge the nuance of certain topics.

This post was written because I often receive a lot of negative remarks from non-trans people who support trans people but, ironically, receive nothing but empathy from trans people. 🤔 I have mostly only been called transphobic/a bigot from cis gender people who are attracted to all genders and bodies, without preference, who reject DID as not requiring institutionalization and believe that no one should be gay or lesbian because it’s exclusive of other genders and bodies.

It feels less like activism for allies and more like policing people’s sexual attraction and love life preferences because they don’t match one’s own, or they feel so entitled to whomever they want that they cannot accept the rejection and chalk it up to petty politics.

A trans person wrote an article addressing the nuances of transphobia and difficult conversations around it, articulating well what I haven’t the ability to.

There is always a way to approach complex issues with kindness and compassion, even though it seems like no one is doing so. This is the vibe I maintain on my blog, so bear in mind if you choose to partake in this discussion.

Be darling & keep it lively.~