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Gender Influences on Dating Dynamics

During the last few years, my sexual attraction to different genders changed a lot. I always knew that I am at least bisexual, but it took some time for me to get the chance to have female encounters and exploring that side of myself. It really stunned me how much it shifted my view on sexuality as a whole (one part of that about body worship, see the earlier post). Here are two things I noticed: 1) Heteronormative scripts run deeper than you might think. I always considered myself a very reflected, open-minded person and thought that the expectation I have of my partner shouldn't be tied to their gender. After all, having a relationship with someone depends on mutual agreements, right? Once I started dating women, I noticed how differently I sometimes behaved and how my expectations of female romantic partners wasn't the same as for past male partners. Concretely, I oftentimes felt that I wanted to be "protected" by my male partner, make myself small and let him handle my problems. This wish is entirely reasonable, but I also noticed how I didn't consider how much room he might want to receive to make himself small and be held. Once I started dating a woman, I didn't have the pressing need to be held by her - quite the opposite: I wanted to be the big spoon, holding them, giving them as much space as they need. 2) Preconceptions of gender changed which of my relationship needs surfaced. The cliché is usually: men are strong and should protect me, and women are more delicate and I should hold them). Different genders seemed to elicit different behaviours and wishes on my side. For the past 5 months, I date a male person more actively and overall feel more attracted to male bodies compared to the last 2 years. I felt some fear around this - at some point, I was (and maybe still am) anxious about the prospect of loosing my queerness somewhat. So far, this turned out not to be the case, and instead I started the interesting process of integrating my dating behaviour across genders. For me, the question came up: In what way am I making myself small when dating this guy, because I expect him to hold me and am less used to holding space for him? In what way do I want to hold him, and what keeps me from noticing this wish? And on the other side of the spectrum: In what way am I shying away from being held by a woman, because I have the belief that she does not have the capacity to hold me? What do I need to do to build the trust for being held?

For me, my dating needs seem to not only be intrinsic or a given set of preferences, but also influenced by gender preconceptions and my trust in what needs can be met in a given connection. This is something I want to actively explore more - maybe there are more hidden narratives to uncover.

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How I learned to worship bodies

What do I mean with body worship? I mean a focus on the body, without feeling the need to escalate any sexual tension, and instead using it almost as an object of meditation while touching or simply observing it.

Before my queer dating era began, I had experiences where men seemed to enjoy my body in a way that felt really intense; simply by being with it, touching it. Sure, I also liked touching their body - but it almost always felt more transactional or targeted at an outcome (e.g. "I'll now touch his penis in the hope that they'll touch my vulva").

When I started dating women, I oftentimes felt a certain shyness around touching their bodies. It needed quite a bit of time until I allowed myself to drop into the pleasure that touching them gave me. Suddenly, it wasn't about making them touch me as well - instead, I encountered the pleasure of giving touch and bathed in their body's beauty. The nice thing? Now that I start dating men more often (after a break of almost 2 years), I can lean into this side of enjoying to touch male bodies as well! I feel like I unlocked this skill that I previously didn't know existed.

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Queer Dating for Women*

I want to share my journey from a bi woman who mostly dated men to someone who now feels comfortable approaching and dating any gender.

To start with the classic trope: I doubted my queerness a lot, even after having gone on multiple dates with women, dating a woman for two months, and having had too many female crushes to count. I kept thinking I might not be “queer enough”; otherwise, approaching women* wouldn’t feel so hard, right?

Turns out: it’s entirely valid to feel like a teenager again when you start dating a part of the gender spectrum you’re less familiar with. The dynamics can be very different!

Through dating women, I discovered my more proactive, escalating side when it comes to flirting. When dating men, I was rarely the one to start the flirt, move physically closer so our legs touched, or escalate in any obvious way. The men usually initiated, and I leaned back and enjoyed.

Dating women*, I learned how fun it can be to flirt without awkwardness—to ask for what I want, whether that’s a playful goodnight kiss or a sexy makeout session. Now, regardless of someone’s gender, I feel much more outgoing and secure when flirting with someone I find attractive.

What helped me get to this point? Let me share my wisdom with you ;) (As always, YMMV. Your dating experience might be very different from mine.)

Step one: Understand what makes it hard. My hypothesis is that we’re used to men being more “on the nose” when they flirt with us. So: a) We’re rarely used to being in the approaching role, and b) When a woman approaches us, we often second-guess everything ("Is she flirting with me or just being friendly?") because we’re calibrated to respond to more obvious cues.

Failure Mode 1: Creating friendship instead of flirty vibes On one of my first dates with a woman, we both inadvertently created a “friendship” vibe, completely devoid of flirtiness. I think neither of us knew how to create the flirty dynamic, since we were both used to it being initiated by a man, with us simply contributing to it. Now that it was two women crushing on each other, the vibe just didn’t happen, and we got lost in deep, platonic conversation instead of ending up in each other’s arms for making out.

From this failure, I uncovered a narrative that held me back: Any form of escalation from my side is creepy and will make the other person uncomfortable. Obviously, this isn’t true. But I still very much believed it. It took lived experience and lots of explicit check-ins (“Do you want to hold my hand?” / “Can I touch your leg?”) before I found safety in physical escalation.

Verbal flirting is part of it, too. On a date, you’re allowed to:

Make compliments

Look someone in the eyes

Voice your appreciation of their attractiveness

Ask to hold their hand, touch their leg, or put an arm around them

You’re very likely not making someone uncomfortable by stating your interest. That brings us to Failure Mode 2: Being so careful not to overstep that flirting doesn’t happen at all.

At first, doing any of the things above gave me a strong sense of “ew” inside. I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, and expressing sexual interest felt too dangerous. But then I realized: expressing desire in a respectful, authentic way that makes others feel safe is a skill that can be learned.

Flirting is simply a move toward more closeness, whether physical or verbal. The skill lies in picking up on the other person’s reactions and adapting. And whenever you feel insecure, putting your feelings on the table can be very connecting. Saying “I notice that I’d love to kiss you - how would you feel about that?” can be way hotter than expected.

One final note before we end: Many women have something called “responsive desire.” If both of you lean that way, sexy vibes often don’t arise spontaneously, and that’s okay. It just means it can help to intentionally create that energy together.

And now: go ahead, my dear baby queers. You got this!

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A tool to shape connections intentionally

Why do we usually not consider spending Christmas with our best friend’s family? Why do we only make jokes about marrying our best friend and starting a family with them, and only if we feel like we failed at playing the dating game? Where does the idea come from that a happy romantic relationship should necessarily entail living together?

You might be surprised by some of the above suggestions, and confused by others. Maybe some of them do represent what you want: Like living together with your romantic partner. Maybe some of them represent the complete opposite: You might not be excited about marrying your best friend for various reasons. What all of the above questions have in common: They attempt to question assumptions about how we relate to people close to us. In my experience, once you let certain assumptions drop, more authentic connections can develop. Why should we hesitate in taking creative ownership of something so personal and central in our lives? None of the things I mentioned above are bad either way - people should always feel empowered to build their relationships in a way that matches their needs, no matter how conventional or unconventional it looks from the outside. It is valid not wanting to agree to the usual “relationship package” when you get romantically involved with someone. At the same time, it is totally valid to want to share parts of your life with a friend that might not usually be shared in a friendship setting. On my journey of building nourishing relationships, I found this tool: The Relationship Smorgasbord. For me, it helped me understand my needs in romantic relationships, but also supported me in deepening friendships in various ways that I previously didn’t think about. Because of it, one of my best friends occasionally joins family gatherings - I didn’t know before how much I would enjoy sharing this part of my life with him. I hope you find this tool as insightful as I do!

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Meditating playfully

A couple of years ago, I tried meditation for the first time. It was all about sitting straight, not letting your thoughts wander, and discipline. I never established a meditation habit, because it made my dissociation worse and I felt tired of having another habit on my plate that I have to do each day. So I abandoned it. In the years after that, I always became slightly passive-aggressive whenever somebody shared their positive meditation experiences. I felt bad for not having enough willpower to just DO it. I got told that it is easy, just sitting there and paying attention to the breath.

But for me, it was so. Hard.

I started practising again because I learned that meditation and mindfulness come in many shapes and sizes. A friend pointed me to a meditation teacher who speaks "my" language: Tara Brach. I was surprised to notice how different her approach is from the other things I encountered so far, e.g. teachings from Sam Harris. Tara's specific type of warmth, care, embracement of playfulness and self-love was exactly the thing I did not know I craved.

After noticing where my initial aversion to meditation came from, I started engaging with her way of mindfulness. A new way of seeing the world opened up for me. Here are some things I learned along the way.

Meditating can be hard. Mindfulness practice is not always easy. Acknowledging this allowed me to continue my mindfulness practice even on days when I felt like drowning in the mental chatter my mind produced or when tiredness made it difficult to focus on my breath. There is no such thing as a "bad" session. Trying to meditate is already meditating. Be gentle to the puppy. My brain is oftentimes in a state where it constantly runs away, following the new thoughts it produces. It can resemble a puppy that is impossible to calm down. This is normal. My brain produces thoughts just like my lungs fill automatically with air after breathing out. Instead of beating the puppy up for not paying attention, I learned to calmly guide it back to the meditation cushion and bodily sensations I experience. In the end, returning to the breath is what most of the meditation is about. Thoughts are not your enemy. Whenever a thought came up, I felt an aversive feeling to the fact that I again got lost in thought. My strategy instead now is to actively celebrate the moment when I find my way back to the body. I will get lost in thought sooner or later, anyways. Might as well fill the moment with joy when I reconnect with my body, sometimes with the words I silently whisper to myself, "Nice to have you back!". Visualizing emotions helps. To get a better sense of checking in with myself, I sometimes visualize which colour or texture my moment-to-moment experience has and where it is located in my body. Does it feel like dark-green waves in my legs? Is it something tingly on my head? Or maybe there is the feeling of roots connecting me to the floor beneath me. Noticing these pictures and focusing on them can help me to become even more connected to the present moment. Mindfulness can have many different flavours. Sometimes, I find it very difficult to sit down and meditate. Instead, I do other things like singing, dancing, going for a walk, admiring the intricacies of a leaf while holding it against the sun, or listening to music while paying all of my attention to the song. Mindfulness can take many different forms. I do not have to force myself to sit on a meditation cushion to experience mindful moments. Bottom line: I believe mindfulness in some form could be useful for many people. It can be a way to develop more kindness, self-love, and awareness of the uniqueness of each moment. If you have tried out meditation and decided it is not for you, I encourage you to look further and see whether a different vibe from another teacher suits you more. To close, here is a quote from Munindra, a Bengali teacher. He was asked for the reason why he practices meditation. His response was: “So I will see the tiny purple flowers by the side of the road as I walk to town each day.” I wish you too can notice and appreciate the tiny purple flowers in your life.

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6 Things I learned about Sex

This post is inspired by the book "Tomorrow sex will be good again" by Katherine Angel.

Many of us might know this moment: Things become heated, there is a certain sexual tension in the air, and we might crave to touch and to be touched. Then, we often follow certain steps to fulfil our desires. We go from heavily making out to touching other parts of the body; we might slowly move a hand further down to explore. The inevitable next steps arise: Getting undressed, followed by heavy petting and finishing up with some form of penetrative sex—a clear and linear storyline. This was my understanding of how to have sex. And according to friends I talked to (several genders), this is how they often see it as well. We fall into this script because it is something we know. Sex can be frightening, so having an agreed-upon structure gives us a sense of safety. However, this is not how it has to be. Sex can be playful, responsive, and nonlinear. I want to encourage you to explore more. I invite you to break out of that script. It can be incredibly awkward. I invite you to embrace the awkwardness and do it anyways. Here are some things I learned that helped me to have non-linear, authentic and mindful sex.

It's okay to say "I don't know".

These days, enthusiastic consent is the thing that everybody loves. It is seen as the solution for all problems that can come up when having sex. I agree that it is very helpful to have your "yes" and "no" at hand to communicate your preferences. But for me, I am oftentimes genuinely unsure whether I (will) like something. I felt the pressure to give a clear answer since I want to be a confident, emancipated, sex-positive woman who can express what she likes. I accepted that I oftentimes don't know what I want. Now I try to say more often:

"I am not sure whether I will like it. Can you try it out and I'll let you know what it feels like?"

"This doesn't feel so good. I am not sure whether it will feel any better, but could you try doing it this way?"

"I am confused/overstimulated and need a break."

It also helps me sometimes to go to the bathroom. That allows me to leave the situation, breathe for a moment and get clear what I need which can be easier without the presence of another person.

2. It's a great idea to ask for adjustments.

I oftentimes feel shy asking for this. I can ask for one thing like "I would love to be touched here in this way." but most of the time, the person does not get it right the first time they try. Adjustments and clarifications are needed so that it actually feels good. For me, it can feel demanding and ungrateful to ask for further modifications. In case you feel the same: I am giving you permission to be "demanding". The other person might even appreciate your feedback!

3. Enthusiastic consent is (unfortunately) not an insurance against bad sex.

I have had interactions where I had given my enthusiastic consent - and still, in some cases, it left me feeling confused, sad, angry, unsatisfied or awkward. Having sex means risking that I might not enjoy it. Then, even voicing that I don't like it and proposing other things I enjoy doing might not make it better. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it just does not work. It can have many reasons: Maybe I am not getting into it, maybe my sexual partner is not feeling it, maybe one of us is stressed out, is not in touch with themselves or cannot be present. Then, even with enthusiastic consent, sex can be bad. Acknowledging that helps me to release the pressure and let go of expectations.

4. Desire can come and go.

I had lots of interactions where the sexual touch I received suddenly didn't feel very sexual anymore - instead, it gave me just a pleasant and relaxing sensation. I needed to learn that this is nothing I have to feel bad about or that I have to change. Knowing that my desire can come and go, I am less attached to the idea of having to feel super sexual at every point in time during sex. One moment, I might crave penetration, the next moment I start feeling tired. The other way around as well: I might go from 0 to 100 because of unexpected touch that I really like. If we get better at accepting that our needs are changing all the time, we might also be bolder at expressing them. I remember feeling frightened to say something like "I want to have sex" because I thought I have to be 100% sure that this desire won't change. Now, I embrace the possibility that I might change my mind.

5. Embrace playfulness.

Having an attitude of playfulness helps me to navigate expectations. Maybe there are things I want to try out, or I'll change my mind about what I want, or I don't feel sexual at all today - all of this opens up new possibilities for connection and growth. The mess of reality can be easier to accept when you are playful. Everything is an experiment, let's be curious about each other and find some joy along the way!

6. Reaffirm your "No" if necessary.

One time I told the person I had sex with to go slow. He tried his best but got carried away a bit. I could have just accepted that. Instead, I said once again, "Hey, this doesn't work for me. I need you to take it slow," and we talked a bit about what is going on for us. I am often very averse to expressing my needs, especially when they seem to collide with other people's needs. However, once I do find the courage to speak up, it feels very liberating. And - surprise - it gets easier every time I do it! The brain is a muscle, and you can train those neural pathways in ways that help you have the sex you like. _____________

Now, this is what I learned. I acknowledge that sex can be very different for everyone, and I celebrate the diversity of experiences. Remember: Be kind to yourself, and give yourself all the time you need. You decide what feels right.