My Body
Where do I even begin? I hate my body. I hate being a woman. I hate my breasts. I hate my vagina and uterus and ovaries. I wish I could rip my breasts off (violently, so the blood gets everywhere), fill up my uterus, and seal off my vagina. I want to stab myself. I want to bleed. I want to suffer. I don't deserve s___.
My body makes me bad. Little J9 is scared as hell of her body. I didn't realize until recently (8/02) how much I'm scared of my body. I'm terrified of it. And I didn't realize until recently how much my body is disconnected from my head. They don't really communicate at all. It's too much. I can't handle it. That's how I'm able to cut myself. That's why masturbation doesn't work. That's also why my memory doesn't work: I'm too scared to feel or remember feelings.
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I haven't been eating much. I eat about a meal a day. I've lost 25 lb (from almost 160 down to 135) and at least three inches off my waist in the last year and have gone from 24% body fat down to 20%. Just looking at the numbers, it seems good, but it's not. I'm wasting away. I get tired quickly and I shake after any physical effort. It's exhausting. I'm always tired, no matter how much sleep I get.
I like to think people are jealous. That's why I keep myself this way: attention. I know my sisters are jealous. They don't realize how unhealthy I am. They just see my figure.
Which brings up another thought: I hate having a "figure." It's such a girl/feminine thing. I hate it. I don't want to be a d___ woman.
D___it, I'm not a woman. I don't have breasts. I don't have a vagina. Where the hell did my penis go?
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A little history about Little J9. At about eight year old, whenever she saw a make-out scene in a movie, her parts would pulse down there. She didn't understand the sensations, but she liked them. She pretended sometimes to make out with her little brother's teddy bear. And at school a couple of her friends (boys) told her some dirty jokes. She didn't really understand them, but she liked the way they made her feel, even though she also felt bad for participating in something she wasn't supposed to.
During movies, Dad censored every kissing scene, either by holding something in front of the TV or telling us to shut our eyes. So kissing was a bad thing. Intimacy was a bad thing. Sex was a bad thing. I didn't know what sex was back then. To me it was a feeling. And if I felt pleasurable sensations during these sinful scenes, I must be bad; my body must be bad. I didn't understand the sensations but was afraid to ask about them. I didn't want to get in trouble for feeling that way. So I didn't tell anybody. I thought I was the only one. I was the only bad one because I felt and liked sex/passion. I even dreamed I burned at the Second Coming. I was the bad one: I was the one with my legs dangling in lava, not Dad. He was up walking around.
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Sometimes, when I especially hate myself, I want to stab my uterus and ovaries so it will be impossible to have children.
Then other times, like when I feel that sense of nurturing and mothering, I'm glad for my woman-parts, more specifically my breasts. Somehow they're part of the nurturing. I like holding Little J9 against my breasts. It feels like a mother thing to do. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but it feels good. I like it.
Maybe it's some kind of mothering instinct, although I'm not sure how much I buy into that. I'm told that gender is an inherent part of who I am and that men and women are naturally endowed with certain attributes. I don't know - I don't like being told who or what I am. I want to choose. And I don't like being put in some category. "Oh, she's a girl; that means she's like this." I hate that. I hate stereotypes. Maybe I'm just scared of them or scared of fitting the role. Sometimes - a lot of the time - I won't let myselff be myself because I don't want to be categorized. I don't want to be clumped together with everybody else, lost in the crowd. I don't want to be seen as just a girl (female).
D___ it, I'm not just a girl. I'm J9. I'm not just like everybody else. I'm a person, an individual; someone with her own thoughts, her own needs, her own feelings, her own opinions. I don't like being told how or what to be or think. That's what Dad did, f____er.
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I shaved my pubic hair out of curiosity one day back in May. I wanted to make myself more "sexy." I guess I thought that it would make arousal come easier and/or that somehow it would help me become more comfortable with my body and my femininity. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but that's the same reason I bought bikini-style underwear about the same time. Not that anyone would know, but I felt different wearing it. It was mostly fear. I don't think much about it now. I block it out, just like everything else.
Shaving was weird, though. I cut myself several times but I didn't care. Doing it made me a strange, bad person. More strange than bad, but certainly unacceptable. I was a freak.
I can't describe all the feelings that bombarded me as I dressed and went to my bedroom. I wondered what I had just done and if it was a bad thing. I wanted to masturbate (because I was a bad person) but everything stung. Part of me was glad for the pain, but part of me worried about it. I hated myself and I hated my body even more because when I looked down, my anatomy was undeniable. It was so obvious: I did not have a penis. I hated myself so much I wanted to cry. I actually think I did. I was so confused. I suddenly had little girl parts. I was so undeniably female. All female.
I curled up on my bed with my teddy bear and cried. I wanted somebody to hold me. It was so weird to feel the cloth of my underwear against my skin. It made me cry more. I probably fell asleep that way.
That was about the end of May but I still keep that area shaved. I don't know what else to say about it. I block it all out.
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Masturbation and Self-sex
I was going to give a brief history, but it wouldn't have been brief. Everything's too confusing. So I'll attempt to just give some background like I did on my cutting page.
It started my senior year of high school--the second half--along with my desire to get hurt. I couldn't touch myself--that was too unthinkable--so at first I just humped the bed. I don't have a penis, though, so it wasn't very stimulating.
I tried using various objects to stimulate my clitoris. I would lie on my stomach on my bed with the object between the bed and me (with my clothes on), then hump the bed. It was more frustrating than anything else. I was doing it to prove how worthless, bad, and unlovable I was.
Sometimes I would pretend to suck on a "penis." That was the worst (or made me feel the worst). Other times I would take my clothes off and lie in bed naked with the blanket over me. It was such a risqué thing to do. I was too scared to fall asleep naked. I would always put my clothes back on before I fell asleep. One time I went outside underneath our (the landlord's) trampoline, took all my clothes off, and just laid there for a while. It made me a such a bad, unlovable person. I hurt so badly inside; I just wanted to cry. Now that I think about it, I think I was doing all these things to try to justify all the pain and worthlessness I felt inside. I couldn't see a good reason for me to feel the way I did so I was trying to create reasons. Or maybe I was creating pain to avoid pain, like M says.
So what is masturbation now? Lots of things: creating pain to avoid pain, an attempt to understand my body, attempted relief, a way to seal off the world and block things out. Never has it brought me to orgasm, which is very frustrating. I'm too disconnected from myself. I simultaneously try to feel and block out all feeling. It is always more frustrating than anything else. Every time I do it I feel like s___. So why do I keep doing it? Because I keep thinking "Maybe it will work this time." It's the same d__ thing over and over.
I expect too much. I expect to climax every time I masturbate. It's not going to happen. My body doesn't respond at all half the time. But I just keep trying.
Sometimes I don't do it to try to reach orgasm. Sometimes I just feel myself and explore my anatomy. Everything's more sensitive without the hair in the way. The skin of the "labia majora," or outer lips (in Latin it would literally mean "big lips") is really soft (I did learn a few things from anatomy). I like to run my fingers over it and explore my inner anatomy: the inner lips (labia minora), vagina, clitoris. I'm becoming increasingly familiar with the shape of my own body. Everyone's a little different, I've read. In the past few months, especially after shaving my pubic hair, I've spent a lot of time with a small mirror, looking at my anatomy, trying to get used to it. It just makes me want to cry, though.
Most of my masturbation takes place on my bed. And it almost always starts with humping the bed, as if I had a penis. It's not stimulating, though, so I don't know why it always starts there. Perhaps because humping the bed seems the most mild, and is the easiest to justify. Sometimes I do it without thinking. Sometimes I do it in my sleep (I only know this because I woke up one time while I was doing it).
Sometimes I put things against my clitoris while I hump the bed (either in or out of my clothes--if I'm wearing clothes). Sometimes I touch myself while I do it, inside or outside my clothes. If I let myself hump the bed for any length of time, it will lead to "real" masturbation.
Humping the bed isn't really masturbation to me. I'm not sure what to call it. Technically, anything you do to stimulate your own genitals is considered masturbation, no matter what it is.
Now comes the worst part: the flashlight. It's the most degrading and humiliating. I use the end of a flashlight (the handle)
a lot of the time when I masturbate. Sometimes I rub my clitoris with
it. It's what I use when I hump the bed. Sometimes I put it inside
me just to feel it there. Most of the time I screw myself with it.It hurt the first several times I did it. Sometimes it still does. I didn't know about vaginal lubrication. I was really frustrated with masturbation and my body's lack of response. This was the next step. I was actually really surprised when I was able to fit it inside me. I didn't know the opening was that big. I didn't know it could stretch. I didn't know that it was supposed to on its own as part of the natural sexual response.
I actually didn't use the flashlight at first, I used other things, some I'm really embarrassed to admit. I looked for anything in my house that had the shape of a penis. I was pretty naive, though. I didn't really know what a penis looked like. I mean, I wasn't sure how big or small of an object to look for. I didn't know what would fit in my vagina; I didn't know how big or small the opening was, or how long my vagina was. So I started small--a tampon--then progressively got bigger. What all did I try? The most embarrassing are the food items: a hot dog and a carrot. I don't remember now if I wrapped them in Saran wrap or anything first. You can be sure, though, that I threw them directly away afterward. That's just sick, although I'm sure there are some people who would have eaten them.
What else? I took a curling iron apart and used the rod. Through the course of things, I ended up taking a few apart to use. I kept throwing them away because I didn't want to do it any more, then I'd just go find another one. Once I bought an ice cream scoop to use the handle, but it wasn't big enough or long enough. So I bought a curling iron and took it apart. I've also used a ball pump that I took apart. I think that's it, except for the flashlight. I've thrown them all away except the flashlight. And I'm not willing to throw my flashlight away because I still use it as a flashlight.
It's a Maglite--metal, red--just like the picture (from their web site). It takes three D batteries. When I use it to masturbate, I take the batteries out and the light part off so it doesn't weigh so much. But it's water resistant (go Maglite) so I just wash it and put it back together and no one knows.
When I told my doctor (Dr. B, a female) what I was doing, she was worried about my cervix because a lot of the time my masturbation is punishment. I stopped for about a month but my cervix turned out to be fine and I started doing it again, sporadically. I'm more aware of my cervix, though, and don't push so hard most of the time. Sometimes I just don't care.
There's one thing about masturbation and self-sex: I like both better when there's vaginal lubrication. It's a (relatively) new discovery, this lubrication thing. I didn't know it existed. I didn't know my body was supposed to create it. I didn't know it was part of the sexual response cycle.
But my body only responds to sexual stimulation half of the time. Sometimes my vagina only produces a little lubrication and sometimes it doesn't produce any at all. But when my body does what it's supposed to--oh d___! I have a hard time not masturbating when I know my body's going to do what it's supposed to, at least in that way. I like spreading the lubrication around, making the whole vulvar area wet. It feels better to touch myself when I'm wet with that slime.
Self-sex is so much better and less painful with it. I used to screw myself with or without it, sometimes not even bothering to somehow stimulate the production of vaginal lubrication because I didn't care. I hated myself and didn't care if it hurt. But when my body prepares itself the way it's supposed to, oh d___, the flashlight slides in so nicely! There's not a feeling like it in the world. Oh s___, just thinking about it--!
That reminds me. Once I was using the flashlight to masturbate and I fell asleep, the flashlight beside me on the bed. After I-don't-know-how-long, I started to wake up and realized I had put the flashlight inside me in my sleep and was moving it in and out slowly. Holy s___. Never done that before. I've masturbated in my sleep, but never this. I was dreaming. I dreamed I did things then woke up and realized I was doing them. It felt good; it was one of the best times of self-sex. It's elusive, though. I don't know why this time felt better than others.
Even then, though, I was nowhere near orgasm.
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Pornography
My first exposure to pornography was in the fall of '97. I was so dang frustrated with myself and my body and all the crap inside. Just like with masturbation, I was trying to make myself a bad person. It has been on and off since then--mostly off, until the past few weeks (8/02).
I like the pictures of sex, not naked men. I don't want to see his penis. It grosses me out. I want to see his penis inside a vagina.
I especially hate the pictures of a woman sucking on or licking a penis, or a woman letting a man ejaculate on her, or a woman swallowing a man's semen. I absolutely loathe those pictures because of the submissive roll the woman takes. D___ them. D___ them all. I hate the men for demanding it and the women for letting them.
I found free sex movie clips once. They were each only 12 seconds long, but d___! Nothing was more arousing than screwing myself while watching them.
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Sexuality
Sex. What is that part of me? It's probably the most confusing of all. Most of the time I feel fear, not arousal. I concentrate the fear to that region of my body (without thinking) and make myself think it's arousal. Recognizing this pattern is a new thing. When I realize it's fear, suddenly the battle with sex is over and I realize there's no real sensation down there at all. The fear isn't really down there; it's in my heart. And then I just want to cry.
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I don't know what to do with sexual arousal. I don't know where the balance is. I want it all or nothing. Most of the time I don't want it to be a part of me; it's too frustrating. And confusing. My body doesn't work. There are only four or five days a month that I can really be sexually aroused (not just in my head). It follows my menstrual cycle (interesting): two or so days just before or at the beginning of the cycle, and two or so days in the middle (the time of ovulation). That's it. Every other day, no matter how much I think about sex, masturbate, screw myself with the flashlight, or wade through pornography on the internet, my body won't respond. It does a little but it's mostly in my head. I want to be aroused so I try to make myself think I am. It doesn't work very well. Sex (and everything related to it) is too unspeakable. It's too shameful. I can't handle it. Even as I try to feel it, I'm pushing it away. It's a major battle.
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I don't know how to explain my arousal patterns. I don't know that there are any. That area of my body is more sensitive to touch than other parts, except maybe my nippples, so I like to touch myself there. That's about all that makes sense right now. I've never reached orgasm. I know as much as I've read about it, but have never felt it myself.
I do get aroused sometimes, but it's not consistent. There are many variables. I feel the arousal differently at different times and in different areas of my body. Most of the time it's in the pubic region: sometimes near my vagina and sometimes at about the area of my pubic bone. It makes me think of a case study I read once. I've read many, looking for people to relate to. But this one in particular was about a girl who wanted a sex change. She wanted a penis, and when she was aroused, she felt the arousal near her pubic bone where a guy would feel it, not near her vagina like girls are suppposed to. It makes me wonder. I wonder about myself and I wonder how plausible such a thing is.
Sometimes it's my breasts that feel the arousal. The nipples become erect and even accidentally brushing something against them sends weird sensations through my body. I hate when my nipples poke out when I'm with other people, though, even just my roommates. I just hate my nipples.
Very rarely will my whole body become aroused. If I feel it in my vagina, it's not in my breasts. Nothing correlates. My body never responds the same way twice. It's very frustrating.
I wish I could describe the way my body reacts to different stimuli. It all depends on what my head is doing.
I don't know how to describe what goes on in my head. It's the most confusing part about my body and sex. If my head weren't a problem I wouldn't worry about orgasm, it would just come. What's going on in my head?
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Sometimes if I rub my nipples, they become erect and more sensitive. I start to breathe faster and I can feel myself getting hot and wet in my vaginal area. It's as if it's asking for and wants stimulation. Oh s___, I want it.
But then no matter what I do (masturbation, self-sex, pornography, using my dolls), nothing happens after that. It's so incredibly frustrating. The skin is sensitive to touch but touching myself or doing anything else only temporarily prolongs the feeling. It never increases it. Sometimes touching myself actually does the opposite. Rather than prolonging the feelings, it makes them go away altogether.
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When I get really angry I think of sex but the arousal is mixed in with the pain and fear and I just want to cry. That's how it would be every time I were aroused if I didn't block it out.
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Orgasm
The elusive.
Orgasm. If by orgasm you mean the involuntary, rhythmic contractions of the pelvic muscles, it has never happened. Never. (I've told this to my counselor two or three times but she didn't remember. Seems like a pretty significant fact to forget. It's not the first time she's forgotten something that was important to me. I'm just looking for reasons to hate her.)
Even with all the masturbating, the sensations are pleasurable, yes, but they don't go anywhere. It's so frustrating. Orgasm is such an elusive goal.
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