It’s not an odd question at all, Anon - I think that for a lot of trans MLM and other people who were raised as or spent a long time being perceived as women transitioning to MLM spaces, it can be a really strange feeling because like… The attitudes to sex and pleasure are just so completely different.

In the West, the culture around sexual and dating life for women who have sex with men is obviously heavily influenced by patriarchal sexual objectification of women, and like…

I do want to write a bit more about this at some point, but straight hook-up and casual dating apps like Tinder and Hinge and so on came after Grindr, and while through the 00s and the 10s there’s been a sense of sexual liberation for women who have sex with men, like… Many men still think of women as prizes to be won or status symbols and extensions of their reputation; many people as a rule still think of women as sexually disposable and easily exchangeable, and more than that, they think that women are permanently marked or have their value reduced by the amount of sex or sexual partners they have.

While there has been more discussion and awareness of consent within broader society, ultimately we still live in a patriarchal rape culture that positions men as sexual aggressors and women as receivers of sexual aggression, and ultimately like–

There’s the obvious safety concerns to be taken into account, the understanding that women undertake a lot of risk of sexual violence in their pursuit of casual dating and hook-ups specifically because of the way that women are viewed and treated, and obviously with everything I’ve just said, none of it prioritises women’s pleasure or even takes it into account unless it’s the performance of pleasure for the sake of male viewers’ titillation and satisfaction.

How can you meaningfully communicate about consent and pleasure, as someone perceived as a cis woman, with a cisgender man who thinks of you as sub-human, or as a prize or achievement to be won? How can you talk about what feels good and what you want from sex when your pleasure is viewed and talked about not only as an afterthought, but as something that’s inherently less important than the pleasure of the men you have sex with?

How can you talk about sex and desire at all, when the culture you live in says in many ways, implicit and explicit, that you are not capable of such things, and shouldn’t be? When it claims that women are sexually desirable, but men are not sexually desirable at all, and are merely beasts to be withstood and endured? When sex itself is something you’re meant to be on the “receiving end” of, with your pleasure a side consideration if you’re very lucky, and not a mutual experience you share with another person?

Cis women who have sex with men have all that to consider, and as trans men (or other trans people), we’re also grappling with our dysphoria, our own feelings about our bodies and sex and desire, our relationships to other men, and particularly to the culture that’s in MLM spaces.

I have two guides below - one is about vulvar and vaginal stimulation which is intended for masturbation and self-exploration, but is also good to explore with partners. I think one of the most powerful things we can have in our arsenals is understanding of our own body and our own likes and desires, and hopefully this can be a good starting place for that!

The second is a basic guide to using Grindr as a trans man (it should be usable for nonbinary and other trans ppl), and it also discusses some of the specifics in MLM cruising culture in passing.

• Ringing The Devil’s Doorbell: A Light-Hearted, Practical Guide — Let’s talk sex! Vulvar and vaginal stimulation for fun, pleasure, and profit. On Medium.
• Looking For 🍑🍆💦: A Beginner’s Guide to Grindr for Trans Men — Approaching Grindr and M/M cruising culture as a trans man. On Patreon / / On Medium.

Feel free to mention any specific bad habits you’re having trouble with in follow-up asks, because I’m obviously not you and don’t know your personal experiences.

I will say that like… If you do feel you have old habits that are things like not communicating your needs and desires or going silent, faking orgasms, going still and letting someone else “do” sex with you, etc, like.

The use of the phrase “habit” here troubles me a bit, you know? I feel like “old habit” might mean “bad habit” and like…

Cisgender women who do these things are not acting in a vaccuum, and nor are any trans people who are or were perceived as cis women. Nor are you. These are things that people ultimately do out of shame, trauma, uncertainty, fear of communicating explicitly, and a lack of confidence that is firmly embedded in us by a dominant culture that ultimately hates us. Hates women, employs misogyny, but also hates any kind of gender variance, as well as sex that’s employed for reasons other than cis patriarchal sexual satisfaction and impregnation.

My point being that none of it is your fault. Not being confident with casual sex with men and/or with sex in general even though you’d like to embrace a slut era is not something to be ashamed of, it’s not on you - apart from any dysphoria you might be feeling, even if you haven’t experienced sexual violence or abuse, pretty much everyone has some ingrained traumas and fears given to us by the culture we live in, especially when we’ve been perceived as and treated as women.

So, how do we start with it?

Grindr is the obvious place to start for a lot of MLM - it’s easy, it’s convenient, it’s right there. You might have safety concerns, though, because of the relative anonymity of it, especially if you haven’t had sex or been in community with other MLM and queer men before, and you don’t feel as comfortable navigating and measuring social or suspicious ones, especially over text!

When I went back to using Grindr after like eight years being celibate for Trauma Reasons, I went for fucking dudes who were staying in hotels - they were tourists, a lot of them, so I wasn’t necessarily going to see them a bunch of times afterwards, but also, I preferred the safety of a hotel to seeing people at their homes.

Hotels are staffed, in public places, where you’re easily within reach of other people, and unlike in apartment blocks or houses in neighbourhoods, people aren’t going to ignore any loud noise and go “Oh it’s none of my business” - they’ll probably come out to see what the matter is. They also have private ensuite bathrooms, which is a nice convenience and not always guaranteed at someone’s home.

Honestly, though? That’s very much worse case scenario stuff.

One of the benefits of Grindr for me is that we normally talk in quite explicit terms before meeting up what we like, what we might want from the encounter - and when we meet up, it’s normally pretty easy to communicate what we want out loud, saying, “let’s do this” or “I like this” aloud as we touch and kiss each other.

The thing about MLM cruising culture and casual sex is that like…

For cis men and women, there is a vision of sex that’s going to be upheld - they kiss. They lie in bed together. He puts his penis in her vagina. He thrusts until he comes. Sex is complete, because the man has come.

A lot of people will even refer to penis-in-vagina sex as “real” sex, or have ideas that penetrative sex is the only “real” or “full” sex because of its resemblance to PIV sex. Even when we talk about “foreplay”, foreplay is considered almost a necessary evil to “ready” yourself for the real sex - the penetration.

Within MLM cruising culture, while penetration is absolutely the primary goal for a lot of people as a top or bottom, there are also sides (people who don’t top or bottom), and even within topping and bottoming, there’s plenty of other sex acts. Oral sex, nipple play, jacking each other off, massage, kink acts, etc.

I’ve had guys come over just to suck me off and then be like “thanks, I’m done” and go - and I’ve also BEEN that guy, because I love sucking dick, and sometimes it’s its own reward.

The encounter is not necessarily finished because the top has orgasmed, either - if you are having penetrative sex, a lot of tops will make sure the bottom has come at least once first (just in terms of muscle relaxation, this is actually a good tip for vaginismus and/or tight anal and vaginal muscles), or they’ll come and then start going down on you or fingering you because it’s your turn now.

It’s not all as simple as “taking turns” or anything, but the thing about MLM cruising culture is that like…

The whole basis of men meeting up to have sex with each other is that we love other men and we desire them. We desire to feel good with other men and to make other men feel good. It’s historically been based in anonymity because this desire for each other and the nature of this desire had to be kept clandestine for our safety, but because of its clandestine and simultaneously casual (as in, unattached) nature, it is in many ways extremely sexually liberated.

MLM often explore different kinks and explore different people’s desires and their bodies - it’s curious and explorative, and a lot of it is about exploring different sex acts, positions, and perspectives of sexuality and relationships, because we already exist in counter to the mainstream cultural shames around sex. Just by desiring men and seeing men as desirable (especially as men ourselves), we’re going against the domiannt perspective of the binary as like, women are beautiful, men are ugly.

While there are absolutely people who treat cruising as something transactional just for them to get their rocks off, it’s a fundamentally different culture and philosophy around desire and sexuality compared to what exists with casual sex and dating for heterosexual people.

I’m sorry this is so much based in your potential perspective and the cultural aspects rather than specific explicit tips on how to slut around, so I will give a few specific tips on that now! It’s just hard to know what angle you’re looking for, and I do think a lot of the hardest part is changing our perspectives and exploring what we actually desire and need from our sex life.

So, some practical tips on slutting around:

• testosterone is not a contraceptive! if you can’t use a hormonal contraceptive like the pill or the implant, there are non-hormonal IUDs that you can use at the same time as condoms. if you want to fuck without condoms and can’t use hormonal contraceptives, there’s also the cap or contraceptive diaphragm!
• you can buy condoms in bulk and it’s so much cheaper - even the big brands will have bulk-buy options by the few dozen, and it’s worth doing. always try and carry a few in your bag, have a few in your medicine cabinet. never go to a hook-up assuming they’ll have condoms - always ask in advance and bring a few along!
• regular size condoms will be fine in most scenarios, but your hook-up might need a larger size and/or have a latex allergy, so again, asking in advance is always a good idea
• emergency contraceptives are not contraindicated with your testosterone. emergency contraceptives are also not contraindicated with emergency PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis), which will prevent you from contracting HIV after exposure. it is important after unprotected vaginal sex that you take both of these into account.
• get tested regularly - if you do use Grindr, Grindr can actually regularly remind you to get your STI tests, especially your HIV! otherwise, every 3 to 6 months is a good shout depending on how much sex you’re having - even if you never bareback and are on multiple contraceptives, regular STI tests (and pregnancy tests) are a good idea just in case. in ireland (and in some places in the UK), they will even let you do your STI tests for free by post!
• use toys while you’re having sex if you like them! Use a vibrator, use a vibrating cock ring, play around with it, have some fun! try different condoms - flavoured, ribbed, etc - and try different positions, too. explore, enjoy!
• check out local queer and kink groups - there might be local BDSM meet-ups, kink events, raves etc, and it can be nice to be in touch with the local community, and you can pick up skills too, like by doing bondage workshops etc
• try and hang out with other MLM, especially other trans MLM! even when you know in your own head that you desire men and to be desired by them, just being in community with other men where that desire is normalised and celebrated does so much to fucking kill the cishetero patriarchal brainworms. it takes a lot of time for any of us to unlearn that shit, and it’s a process!

It was kind of a joke between me and a friend (“you wouldn’t judge someone for having gone rock climbing with a bunch of different people”) but honestly the more I thought about it the more I bought into it unironically because:

• It is a physical activity done with one or more partners
• You should only go rock climbing with people you trust not to let you fall
• You should not go rock climbing with someone who is drunk or currently incapable of rational decision-making
• Some people get super super super into rock climbing and do not shut up about all the places they have climbed and how many are left on their bucket list and these people are usually men between the ages of 20 and 35 and like it’s fine dude I’m glad you’re happy but I don’t know what most of those mountains even are
• While many consider it a fun activity, pressuring someone into climbing when they don’t want to (or ignoring their feelings and just dangling them off a cliff,) could cause both psychological and physical trauma
• There is no moral value to it whatsoever. Who you have gone rock climbing with (or whether you have rock climbed at all) has no bearing on who you are as a person. Imagine telling someone “it’s not that heights make you nauseous, it’s just that you haven’t found the right person to belay you!” or “you need to save your first time rock climbing for someone special.” That would be absurd.
• historically I have not asked myself “will this aggravate my hip flexer injury” before participating when perhaps I should have 😔

So like, if we’re talking about getting railed in a state honoring way, about hitting the good ‘ol factory reset button a few times, about the Lizard BDSM ™…

Julian likes his hands to be cuffed to the headboard and to be edged. Really lets Garak take his control issues and all the years of experience as a torturer on a walk. Makes sure all the headboards they own are steel reinforced, after that One Time. Garak thought it was hot but Julian was a little mortified and then just the practical consequences of cracking the slats in your bed in half. Garak is a man who knows about lubricants and nerve endings and vasoconstriction. Julian is a man who likes to beg and Garak likes to hear it, right before making him cum. He licks the beads of sweat off him while trying to bring him back down juuuuuust enough to keep going. Julian’s always left slack jawed and cum-dumb. Garak takes pride in his craft and he should.

Garak just has a deep innate need to be bent over something and have his hair pulled, Julian’s fist at the nape of his neck, forcing his back to arch. And like, who doesn’t? He’s definitely coy about it at first, doesn’t really know how to ask for it, but I know that boy has a propensity for submission, he’s just never felt Safe in subspace (ha) before. It’s always been self harm. Julian rewires those neurons and opens up a brave new world to him and makes him tell Julian what he needs and Julian makes him stop struggling and let him give it to him. No running. No getting out of it. Augmented strength pinning him down one way or another, using his mouth or his fingers or his dick to get the job done until they’re wet and messy.

Anyway.

Oh yeah for sure. So like, here’s my thing. Have you ever had the kind of orgasm that reverberates so hard in your nervous system, that just completely overwhelms all higher thought and cerebral function until all that’s left is what’s hard-coded in the hindbrain and all you can do is laugh?

Because I think Julian needs that a lot, to function optimally. He needs the hard reset. He needs the overstimulation that gives way to peace. He needs to have all his thoughts just be-borped right outta that brain. I think it’s in part due to the autism and in part due to the augmentations just how loud his brain gets and then can’t downshift. He needs something that will override the noise.

Enter, your friendly neighborhood torturer. Interrogation and torture are two different things with two different aims. One is about eliciting information, the other is about power and control. And Garak is someone who understands power and control. He would feel utterly remorseless hearing Julian whine and keen and fight the restraints as he takes him right to the precipice and just… lets it slowly receed. It would rewire the synapses in his brain to know that’s exactly what Julian wants, that he’s giving Julian pleasure, that he’s taking care of Julian.

There’s something I’ve spoken about before, usually in the context of professional wrestling, but when you are raised in the theater of domestic violence you understand the language of violence. You speak it fluently. And there’s nothing inherently wrong or bad about wanting to see the language of violence represented in a fictional context or in how you choose to work out your own body or to exert control over someone who consents to it. It’s not morally repugnant nor does it make you a bad person or degenerate person if your sex reflects a language of violence (power, control, sensory overwhelm, restraint, denial, humiliation, pain) in it so long as it’s safe, sane, and consensual. In any scene, the sub should hold all the power. Their consent predicates the existence of the play. It can be withdrawn at any time. It’s not shameful to explore those things during sex. Sex can be many things. It also doesn’t have to be one thing all the time to one person.

Which is how sometimes you end up getting tenderly edged to the point of tears and writhing as if you’re in agony, reduced to begging, completely helpless. Because you need to feel helpless and out of control and no longer in charge of you but safe. Because you have felt those things before and harm was done to you. Those things are happening to you now, and then you will orgasm and be held and petted and told you are loved. Told you are worthy of being kept warm and safe to fall asleep. Because you have been judged before, and found not worthy.