Episode 2: Martijn

Martijn shares his perspective as a gay trans man and how this relates to his pleasure, including the differences in his sexual experiences before and after transitioning. 

This podcast is created by The Pleasure Society and sexologist Iris van Domselaar. Here's where else you can find us online. 

The Pleasure Society: Website / Instagram

Iris van Domselaar: Website

Music by Jord van Domselaar @jordvandomselaar

All episodes recorded at So PR in Amsterdam 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Pleasure Narratives, a podcast by me, Iris van Omselaar, and the Pleasure Society. We're recording this from an amazing podcast studio here in Amsterdam. So thank you, So PR, for letting us use your space to create this together. Um, in this podcast, we will talk about various themes surrounding sexual well-being, sexual pleasure, and intimacy. And we would talk about the sexual script a lot as well. And when we are talking about the sexual script, we are referring to a set of cultural expectations that basically tell us how to have sex and what is normal sex and what is desirable and what isn't. And these behaviors are seen as normal, but these norms do shape our desires as well, and the things we think we like, and often without us realising it. By talking about this, we build the awareness we need to question those norms and create space for sexuality and pleasure on our own terms. We hope you will find recognition, inspiration, and information while listening to the intimate conversations I will be having with our guests. And since people will be sharing their utmost personal experiences and we will be talking about sensitive subjects, we would like to ask you to listen with an open mind and respect for our guests and their stories. Thank you. Hi Martijn.

Speaker 2 1:49

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 1:50

Thank you for being here all the way from Rotterdam. How was the journey?

Speaker 2 1:53

Oh, I had a nice journey. I always go by public traffic, and it today it worked well.

Speaker 1 1:58

Okay, that's good because it's not a given here in the Netherlands. Um, and before we spoke, uh before the recording, we spoke a little bit, of course, about who you are, who I am, and what we are going to do today. But maybe for the listeners, it's quite nice if you can give a little introduction about who you are.

Speaker 2 2:18

Of course. Well, I am Martijn. Um I am I identify as uh male, as gay, and I have a trans history, but I don't consider being trans as an identity.

Speaker 1 2:33

Right. Um, and can you tell me a little bit about what the sexual script means to you? Which ones are you feeling influenced by, or how do you view the sexual script in itself?

Speaker 2 2:47

Well, first at first, I think a sexual script uh means for me both um the way I like to have sex, but it also has to do with the way I view myself and the way other people view me. For instance, in my sexual script, it's very important that sexual partners view me as male. Um and because I am one of the trans individuals that hasn't had a sex um a genital surgery, um I sometimes encounter people, in my case gay men, who do view me as male, but not completely anymore the soon as they know that I didn't have had genital surgery.

Speaker 1 3:46

Yeah, that must be a bit complicated.

Speaker 2 3:48

And in most cases, well, I think in all cases, it in fact doesn't have anything to do with me, but more with their perception of masculinity and femininity. But still it's something I don't like. I mean, for me, it's really no problem, um, if in that initial talk in which I always say that I didn't have had genital surgery, because I do know that there are gay men who are not into that, if someone then indeed says that he isn't attracted to that, I mean that's really no problem for me.

Speaker 1 4:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:28

But if someone's perception of me shifts because of that, like that someone says, for instance, that for him that means that I am not really a man, or for him that means that I am someone more in between, or I've also had some times that men said that they explicitly were attracted to me because, in their perception, I am a kind of um hermaphrodite or something like that, then um, well, that's that's a no-go for me because that's not how I feel myself.

Speaker 1 5:10

Because you identify as male.

Speaker 2 5:13

Yeah. So I think in my sexual script, it's also important that people see me in the way I identify myself.

Speaker 1 5:20

Yeah, of course. Yeah, I can imagine that must have been hard at times. So now you clearly state this up front: I identify as male.

Speaker 2 5:30

Yeah. Well, I think in most cases it is clear that I identify as male because I'm quite good at passing. Um, but if someone's perception of me changes only because I tell that I don't had uh a sexual of - a genital surgery, then well, then that's the reason uh for me not to go on with any further sexual negotiations with that person.

Speaker 1 6:00

I can imagine. And um do you feel that people you encounter or you yourself are then in itself influenced by a script of what masculinity has to be like, of what femininity uh is like in these encounters?

Speaker 2 6:17

I'm not really sure because um, well, my hesitation has to do with the fact that in general, here in our country, um there isn't, not really a strong narrative about um people who identi - either identify as trans or have a trans history being viewed as um not really who they are. I mean if you go to for instance the UK or to the US, there is in fact um the main narrative that if if someone is possible um and people then discover that this person has a trans history, then people react by saying um you have deceited me. They see it as a kind of -

Speaker 1 7:18

Misleading someone.

Speaker 2 7:21

Yeah. You are misleading me because um the way you are born is the ultimate signifier for your identity, and it might be the case that you have tried to change that, but that is not real. So so that is in fact the narrative over there, and here you don't see that narrative quite strongly. I mean, there must be people who believe that as well, but it's not the general narrative. I mean, here um, if people uh know afterwards that uh after seeing me, I mean um that I have a trans history, then people say, um, in most cases, something like um, well, uh, you turned out quite uh um convincing as a male. As in Dutch, people say "je bent goed gelukt." Some people dislike that, but I think I'm I'm - it doesn't bother me very much because I think it's very much a sign that people do consider the possible - the possibility to transition as something that - as something real.

Speaker 1 8:30

Yeah, and that your gender identity is different from your biological birth, um, sex.

Speaker 2 8:39

Yeah. So therefore, I'm not really sure if men that I encounter who say that they don't totally view me as male now they know that I didn't had genital surgery, if they are very much influenced by narratives about trans-ness. It it can also be that in their head it's just something that's very difficult to combine. Yeah, maybe they do view um genitals much more as a kind of ultimate signifier of masculinity of- or femininity than they - than they were aware of.

Speaker 1 9:20

Probably still so bound by this concept of "you are born this way, so this is this is the way you are." Aside from being having a gender identity which can be different than your birth sex.

Speaker 2 9:31

Yeah, yeah. I can imagine that is quite difficult to navigate because sometimes it's hardly I mean, in my experience, it's it's hardly ever the case that if people then say that they don't view me totally as male or whatever the way they they tell me, that I - I don't have the experience that in their explanation is a kind of um anti-trans hostility or something like that.

Speaker 1 10:04

No, it's just that they can't wrap their head around it, around the transition and around their being more than the binary, probably.

Speaker 2 10:13

Yeah, at least yeah, that that's how I experience it in this kind of encounters.

Speaker 1 10:19

Makes sense. And circling back to pleasure and your transition, would you say that the pleasure you've experienced or the pleasure that you explored is different or um evolved as well with your relation to your own body?

Speaker 2 10:37

Yes, I think so. Um I did have already a lot of sexual experiences before my transitioning. Um that's also not something that every trans person does. There are a lot of trans persons who are so - who have so many inner conflicts and also so much um embarrassment about the body they have, the body they are born with, because they don't feel that it belongs to them. Um that they don't want to have any sexual either experiences, experiences or other things with both with themselves and with other people, uh, before their transition. Yeah. But I didn't had that much problems with it, although for me the big difference is that before my transitioning, um, I was much more focused on sexual acts as such, because it was difficult for me when I was uh with someone else, if he or she um really found my body desirable. Yeah. Because that then I felt uncomfortable because um if someone really liked my body or parts of my body, it was for me much more difficult um to see that body apart from me and my identity, and that was something that that I didn't like, so therefore I focused much more on sexual acts than really on all the aspects of my body.

Speaker 1 12:38

And I guess there's something beautiful in that as well because having a certain body um assigned to a specific gender creates also a certain type of expectations from that gender. So this maybe also created a space where you started exploring like pleasure and sexual acts away from the expectations that your body may have had. Or how would you say not totally well experienced?

Speaker 2 13:07

I think for me, there was a big difference at that time in having um sexual relationships with straight men, because that also meant that we were seen as a heterosexual couple, yeah, or uh with gay men or with women, because with gay men or with women there were much less expectations around the relationship as such, yeah. Um while with straight men, I still had all those unspoken scripts not only uh raised by um people who viewed us together, for instance, but also in our interaction and also um for yeah in some in some uh aspects also things that we had uh internal internalized ourselves, of course.

Speaker 1 14:15

Of course, yeah.

Speaker 2 14:16

I was always very annoyed in heterosexual relationships if we were uh outside, like for instance having coffee somewhere, that we were so automatically seen as a heterosexual couple, which is of course quite understandable, but for me it it never felt right, yeah. Um and that was then often something that my partners didn't understand uh understand at that moment because for there it was of course quite logical that that people viewed us in that way.

Speaker 1 14:56

So you maybe just um confirming something you were uncomfortable with, yes, yeah, yes, yes, yes. I can imagine. And um how would you say the exploration of what's pleasurable to you? How did that um then evolve with your transition as well?

Speaker 2 15:17

Like how was it well for me? Um I think my transition gave me a lot more freedom to explore both myself and my sexuality uh in the way I wanted to.

Speaker 15:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:37

Um not only because I had because of my transitioning um a completely different relationship to my body, um, but also in switching to gay sex, I mean the sex I had before with with gay males felt for me as gay sex, but for them in most cases it didn't. Um but when I now I was male, um, or from the moment that I was male myself, um our interaction was also viewed as uh something gay. Yeah, and that meant for me, especially in that time, at that time, and we are talking now about the late 90s, um, something that felt much more free because there were not only less ideas about it, but also less images.

Speaker 1 16:42

Yeah, so we were completely free to model it in a way that we wanted it, away from the expectations of how it should how it should be like, how it should look like, yeah, yeah, or how you should behave, maybe.

Speaker 2 16:57

I mean, there are there are also also downsides of that. I mean, I can remember that during my transition that uh I had so many of uh so uh I no, I missed uh images of um Asian males because I am Asian myself, so I had very much uh I had really to uh I really had to use my own imagination to find out how I would look like, and I do remember that uh I went to uh a gay sex shop to see if there was uh a kind of magazine about uh uh Asian males to to find some examples, like role models. Well, no, I mean just physical examples of uh how I could look like due to my change, yeah. Um and now I mean you are overflooded with uh with images, so now that is really unthinkable that you won't have an image of something, yeah.

Speaker 1 18:07

The search for an image of some someone you were um you could look up to in a way, you can just Google something, yeah.

Speaker 2 18:15

Exactly, exactly. But the upside of that is of course that without images you are much more free to create your own image of something, yeah, and to explore a bit more about what feels good for you, probably.

Speaker 1 18:30

Exactly. And did you would you say that exploring that, I mean, part of your identity as well, um made you explore that part of your sexuality and your pleasure as well, apart from the way uh your looks changed, more conforming to the way you already felt inside?

Speaker 2 18:52

Well, yes and no. It's I with yes and no, I mean um it gave me more possibilities for pleasure, but it wasn't something uh that automatically happened for several reasons. The the the most important reason is um, and nobody told me that at that time, uh, the way you experience sexual pleasure is to some extent also uh related to your estrogens or testosterone. For instance, um the in having in using testosterone over time um I lost the capacity uh to have several orgasms after each other, and it went very gradually, so I didn't notice it until someday I had this orgasm, and then I was really completely dead, like you always hear from men.

Speaker 1 19:57

Just one big climax and then and then it's done.

Speaker 2 20:00

Yeah, and nobody had told me that that would change, so it completely overwhelmed me, and I didn't like it. No, because I was um for me, um, not needing um this genital surgery also meant that I really liked uh the way uh I felt during arousal because yeah, I have a vagina, and when it happens, I mean you can't change it anymore. I mean the only way to change it is to to stop with uh testosterone, and that was of course also not an option. Um so I really had to get used to the way my the sexual feelings and the sexual pleasure I was used to now changed due to the influence of uh testosterone. The other thing is, of course, that I also liked before uh my transition that uh when having an orgasm that I could uh feel this uh contractions in my uterus, yeah, and that also stopped due to the testosterone.

Speaker 1 21:20

It's your pelvic floor muscles, yeah, which you really feel contracting if you have the uterus and the vulgar, which is quite different for uh males.

Speaker 2 21:30

Yeah, yeah, and that was also already something I wasn't really happy with, and then on top of that, I can imagine this this change and no one told you so. I went very indignant uh to my uh um to the to the doctor that that monitored uh my whole uh hormone use, and I said, Why didn't you ever tell me this? Yeah, and he a bit helplessly. Said, well, yes, but we never get complaints about it by people.

Speaker 1 22:05

So really, so they didn't even actually know that.

Speaker 2 22:09

Yes, I think so. I mean, you must imagine that this was my transition was in the early 90s, which was in a time that it was much less known. The whole idea that you could transition was much less known than it is today. And because um I think it was it's they started with um this um treatment for uh female to male people, I think somewhere in the mid-80s. So it it it it must have been only well six or seven years that that they did this treatment. So it was quite new, but that also meant that because you asked about sexual pleasure and so on, that when I transitioned, that I was to some extent still or again the only one, because I also didn't had any other role models of um trans guys who were also uh gay similar to your story, yeah.

Speaker 1 23:20

And if you would what would you say to other people experiencing the same thing, not feeling hurt or being so misunderstood, and also feeling conflicted about what sexual pleasure means to them? Like, how would you if you could say one thing to them about exploring their bodies and I think the most important thing is um staying true to yourself.

Speaker 2 23:45

On the one hand, that means for me, don't do any surgeries that you really don't want to do. And try to found to find out what what is really you. Yeah. And also from a perspective that it is really it that it feels that the choices that you make belong to you. For instance, I mean I uh it it wasn't that uh when my body changed that that immediately felt familiar to me. Because a body change everything that changes about your body and your voice, and so on the one hand it it felt more me, especially in the interaction with other people. But the thing is that it doesn't mean automatically that you really embody this new body if you never have embodied your body before. Yeah, I mean it's not that you wake up one morning and that you think, well, now I'm now I am completely in your in my body. I mean it doesn't work that way. Yeah, yeah, and it it's it's it's really hard work because you also don't have much idea of how it feels to really embody yourself. I mean, of course, I I I was in to some extent lucky that because of the fact that I had always the feeling that my vulva felt as something really belonging to me, yeah, that there was at least one part of myself of which I had more or less that feeling that this body part belongs to me, yeah. And I tried gradually to from there on to build that experience in the other parts of my body as well. The acceptance as well, yeah, but also the feeling that that it's really mine, and for me, if if you talk about sexual pleasure, this embodiment is quite important, yes, because otherwise you are experiencing sex only from your head. Yeah, okay. There are still a lot of trans people who do so, but I try to be really in my body as much as possible. Okay, and I think it's also important to get the right information. Yes, that's I mean, um, for me, a site like uh the Vulva Gallery is important because it offers so many different depictions of vulvas, yes, and that is something that we have lost in our society. I mean, I'm raised in the 70s, and there you saw much more body types, not only because of uh nude beaches or because of uh um pictures in magazines, but also in general. I mean, when you saw pictures of people, they weren't photoshopped or so, so they were quite different from each other. So I am raised with uh knowing a lot of bobby body types, um, and that makes it easier for me to uh become uh very um comfortable in my own body because I well I I never find uh something about my body or what my body is doing uh strange or so.

Speaker 1 27:28

No, because you know there's a lot of diversity, yes, and everybody works differently, yeah.

Speaker 2 27:33

And I think that also adds to sexual pleasure, like for instance, you hear sometimes or have the in uh when uh uh you look at the Vulva gallery, uh the people there who are depicted there are also um telling about uh how they experience their body. And it's not only that they say, Well, I didn't know that uh uh vulva's could look so differently, but also they say things like um uh I bec I become always uh very uh wet when I'm aroused, and I never I always thought that that was uh very strange, but because my girlfriends never talk about that, yeah, and now I uh see hear stories of other people who tell that they have the same.

Speaker 1 28:18

It is so important to hear different uh experiences. Yes. And I of course we are we are living in a world where we have social media and the internet, and this is of course something good because we can gain a lot of information, but we also see this beauty standard which is pushed upon us about how a Vulva should look like, yeah, um, or how a body should look like, and I think that's so beautiful that you said this. Know that there's limitless diversity in pleasure, in in uh in bodies, and it doesn't really matter who you are of or how you identify, but celebrate that diversity, yeah.

Speaker 2 28:59

Because I really think that pleasure starts with being comfortable in your own body, yeah, accepting yourself, yeah.

Speaker 1 29:05

Because I mean, being comfortable in your own body is I think one of the biggest things of being comfortable with someone else as well.

Speaker 2 29:13

Yeah, and of course, it also has to do with what you want to do with someone else. I mean, uh, there are a lot of things that I like, but that doesn't mean that with every partner I have I want to do certain things.

Speaker 1 29:27

No, so thank you so much for your story because it sheds light on something I think other people will maybe take something away from. I hope even if it's courage or inspiration to explore their own pleasure. Uh well, let me then add one thing.

Speaker 2 29:43

I think it's also important if we are talking about what makes things pleasurable. Um, in a lot of cases, don't take things personally.

Speaker 1 29:52

Um, how was the conversation for you?

Speaker 2 29:55

Um, it always surprises me if I start talking about my own experiences. Yeah, what will come up this time? And now it was much more about transitioning as such than I had in mind beforehand. But well, apparently that was important in the story today.

Speaker 1 30:17

Yeah. Well, I hope we created a space where you felt safe enough to share. Yes, yes, I think. Thank you so much for doing that. Um, I loved having you here. Good to finally meet you in person.

Speaker 2 30:31

It was very nice talking to you.

Speaker 1 30:33

Oh, good to hear. Um, and thank you for listening and tuning in to the pleasure narratives.