#queerian

What does sex look like for you, and what brings you the most pleasure or gratification from it?

It starts with a sensory warmup. My partner touches me gently and slowly in a way that wakes my body up to pleasure. I do not get aroused without either being touched this way or thinking about some extremely specific niche freak kink shit. I tend to be nonverbal during sex, unless I need to break "scene" and communicate something specific purposefully, but sometimes it's hard for me to find my words again. Even without speaking I am very expressive. My partner can tell from my reactions when an escalation would be enjoyable. They use their hands and toys. They are very good with their hands, and we have a LOT of toys and other paraphernalia. I had never had an orgasm, at all, in my life, til we did things this way. It is an intense physical pleasure extended to far longer than I can manage by myself during solo activities, sometimes for hours. It allows me to stop my over-analytical thinking brain for a while and sink into sensation and feeling and being in my body, which most of the time I feel disconnected from (thanks alexithymia!) or troubled by. I do think of it as a somewhat meditative state. This kind of sex is also extremely collaborative and intimate. There is a huge amount of trust and being "in tune" with each other.

Is your stone identity related to sensory issues, neurodivergence, or trauma?

All three! I was never coerced into sex by individual partners, but "sex positive" culture (if you were with me you'd see the face I make while doing the scare quotes) has been coercive enough to traumatize me into believing that I am a bad person if I don't "give as good as I get" and that I'm a terrible person if I don't want to reciprocate stimulation in sex. I've been working on this one for years. It still has its claws in me.

Sensory issues make certain sex activities unpleasant or not enjoyable for me, and I appreciate now being able to choose to not do them. For example open mouth kissing. I like kissing skin in some body places, I like having some of my body parts kissed, but I do not like sharing saliva or breath. I've always been very picky about what goes in my mouth for sensory reasons, and that's not just a sex thing. On the other hand, other kinds of sensory stimulation in sex can be extremely pleasurable for me. I also tend to keep my eyes closed the entire time (I avoid eye contact at the best of times but in sex it's uhhhhhh even more Too Intense) and this lets me sink into other sensory experiences more intensely.

The neurodivergence bit I think is pretty clear from everything else I've said in this piece of writing.

How did you figure out you were stone?

I once turned to aceness as a way of trying to validate myself at the same time as problematizing my own lack of "appropriate" desire. "It is it wrong of me to not want to touch someone's genitals, whatever they may be, to not want to get them off, to not even let them get themselves off using my body, and it's wrong of me to not desire them carnally, to not be obsessed with and fulfilled by them romantically. Thus, I must be ace and aro, because that means it's okay to not want all that sometimes or all the time."

I've come to call myself a "stone bottom" in a deliberate effort of self-acceptance and self-validation. I was long aware of the idea of a stone top, a touch-me-not, someone who derives pleasure and gratification from getting her/their partners off but does not want to be fucked or gotten off. I don't recall seeing anyone else identify as a stone bottom, but as a mirror image of a stone top it makes perfect sense to me: someone who derives pleasure and gratification from being gotten off, from being touched or fucked, but does not want to get their partners off. I think I've only ever seen that called "selfish" unless it was in a power exchange scenario and part of dominance and submission.

Are you a gay man who identifies as stone, or a stone bottom, or some other identity that's less often talked about?

I'm non-binary/agender and generally perceived by society as a woman. I have a vagina. I've only ever had sex with people who have penises. I feel like it's pretty unusual for me to be a person with a vagina having sex with a person who has a penis and the penis is not involved at all in the sex. With previous partners, it's not just that it was expected that at some point they would be sticking it in me, it's that I never got to opt out of someone else using me, even gently, lovingly, and with attention to my pleasure. See aforementioned cultural trauma, lol. Reciprocation simply was not something I could abstain from without being a Grade A Asshole. Back then, I didn't even "actively want to not reciprocate". I wanted to be "good, giving, and game", like Dan Savage wrote you should be in his column that I read in my hunger to know more about sex and be having it a "correct, right" way. I wasn't yearning to be a stone bottom. I didn't know that was even an option. I didn't know it was possible to be a pillow princess and to have a partner that enjoyed this kind of sex, for it not to be a chore or imposition on them, and for this kind of sex to be a mutual sharing of intimacy.

Plenty of people buck the stereotypical straight cis sex scenario of "man (penis haver) does a little "foreplay" for the woman (vagina haver) to get her ready for the main event (penis in vagina), which they do til he ejaculates, and if she's lucky he'll eat her out or rub her clit and she might also get an orgasm." There's a thriving counter-culture where "reciprocal sexual gratification" is emphasized, all sorts of books and guides and tips and porn showing how important it is that "she comes first" or whatever, but most of it still centres around the point that "reciprocity is essential to not being an asshole". If he's an asshole for not appropriately tending to her pleasure, surely she would be, too, for ignoring his. And I really, really strongly internalized the belief that if I am not reciprocating, I am an unforgivable asshole. There's something, too, about the lack of "balance" that has long made me feel morally incorrect. (Points again at the neurodivergence.)

Is it a struggle to get partners to respect it?