We've talked about this before, but I'll just note that I've always distrusted the idea of authenticity or the idea of an essential self. One of the things that makes me distrustful of the whole current idea of being trans is the idea that there is some kind of essential self, a "real" self that can come out of hiding or finally break free of social impositions. I'm old-school postmodern, and I believe in the idea of reinvention, the idea of transformation, the idea of becoming someone or something new. Needless to say, I'm always a fan of literary impostors and of people who've gone off to new cities and new worlds to reinvent themselves.
Right now I'm watching someone tangle himself up in that-- or watching two people tangle themselves up. I know both of them, though I know her better than I know him. They're not a couple, or not yet, though I think they'd both like to at least have an ongoing, off-and-on affair. They're both in their early thirties, educated, hip, articulate, successful. Members of the meritocratic class.
As best I can tell, here's what's happening. He is trying desperately to tell her that he's bisexual, or gender-fluid, or whatever. Watching from the outside, I'm not altogether sure that he actually is. He may well be, although she tells me that sometimes she thinks his hints are very much like some haute-bourgeois sorority girl announcing that she's "spicy straight", whatever that is.
She is very bisexual, and very open about it all. Let's take that part as a given. She's also very lovely and adventurous. She tells me that he's been trying to tell her that he's bi and femme at heart. He won't come out and say it, though. He hints and talks about things in the abstract and dances around actually admitting anything. What he wants, she tells me, is to have her ask the direct questions and ask for stories. He wants her to do the work. Her instinct, she says, is to tease and withdraw, to entice-- or force --him into saying the things he's trying to say, to make him admit to whatever past and preferences he has.
I know her better than I know him, and I'm not about to just ask him what he's doing. I'm not about to ask him about his past. That's not something that I can do as a cishet male. She tells me that she's not sure he's even bi at all. She wonders if he's creating a bi persona and past just to entice her into bed. Which makes her consider the option of seeing how far she could push him into being a femme bottom. She'd quite like that, I think.
She wants to encourage him to tell her stories, true or not, because they'd feed her fantasies just as much as they feed his. Last week she raised a gin & tonic at the bar and told me she'd like to take him to bed, but that it's much more fun just to see what she can get him to say or do. He might well like to go to bed with her as a femme bottom or dressed up as a girl. She'd be up for either. Or for sleeping with him as a cishet male. She's confused about what he wants. As much as she'd like listening to whatever fantasies he's creating-- or memories he wants to recount --she's unsure what role to play: confidante, domme, garçonne, girl-boy to his boy-girl. She's unsure whether she's dealing with someone coming out or someone who's developed a really intricate seduction plot or a complex kink? Whether or not autogynephilia exists for political purposes, she has no problem with the idea of it as a kink in men with whom she has Encounters.
The issue here is how she should handle this. She'd be okay with whatever persona he's creating or revealing. The only question is how to coax him into taking the last step, into actually saying what he wants and who he wants to be when the two of them do finally hook up.