Enough

“I’m, uh, Robert, or Rob, I guess, and uh, I suppose my pronouns are, uh, he/him,” I stammered to the group. Everybody clicked at me. At the time, I wasn’t sure what that was all about, something about some people not liking clapping or whatever. It was my first time ever coming to one of these queer meetups. I had recently come to the conclusion that I was bisexual, at the grand old age of 27. This recent revelation had the potential to explain a few things in my life. While I had never had trouble making friends, neither had I ever fully felt like I had really belonged in any group. I had joined rugby teams and made jock friends. I was good academically and had nerd friends. Likewise, I got on with both guys and girls. But I always felt on the outside. Being queer, well, that could explain everything. I’d just been holding back part of myself. So, I had come here to be my whole self and make some queer friends.

After the name and pronoun circle, everybody broke out into smaller conversations. I tried my best to make some connections. The problem was, though, I didn’t understand half the things anyone said. Someone mentioned a singer Chappell Roan whom I was unfamiliar with, I made a note to listen to them when I got home. Others kept talking about someone named Blahaj. Clearly some sort of queer celebrity. People were talking about programmer socks and polycules and all these concepts I had no fucking clue of. As I sat there, amongst all those people, with their purple hair and their tattoos and what I thought was an insane number of piercings, I couldn’t help but think: was I really queer enough? I felt like Alice in Wonderland, like I was in a whole new world where nothing made sense. A completely different culture. Well, what had I expected? I’d been straight my whole life, did I really think I could dive straight into being gay? I needed to start with the basics. I needed to fuck a dude.

Three weeks later.

I paced nervously around my apartment as I waited for my anonymous hookup to arrive. It had been a difficult decision: was it worse to invite a stranger from the internet over to my place or go over to theirs? I decided it was less likely to be murdered in my own apartment, as the complex had cameras all over it, and it was unlikely that they could get away with it if they murdered me here.

I’d been out of the game for a bit, so thought I should do the right thing and get a clean bill of sex health. It was weird going to my doctor to get tested for STIs and them suggesting I start taking PrEP. As if the idea that the virus that decimated queer people was now something that could affect me. Like mentally, in some way I still saw myself as one of the straights, how could this gay virus kill me? 

In order to not look like a complete idiot and seduce a queer, I had done my research. I now knew who Chappell Roan was. Surprisingly, it has turned out that Blahaj was just a shark toy, still didn’t quite understand that one. My PrEPerations completed, I downloaded Grindr. Before I could even check my notes on queer culture to prepare for small talk, I was inundated with pictures of shirtless men and dicks. It appeared this was going to be simpler than I thought. I selected an appealing looking shirtless man and that is how I ended up pacing back and forth waiting in my apartment.

Soon there was a knock at the door and I opened it to find a man resembling the pictures I had seen through my phone's screen. I attempted some small talk, but the man wanted to get straight down to business and proceeded to start making out with me. He didn’t even touch the charcuterie board I had prepared for us. I’ll spare you the full details of what happened, but needless to say, I soon found myself bent over the bed with him going at me from behind. It wasn’t really what I was expecting from my first queer experience. I really thought it would be a bit more meaningful than this. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Am I really queer enough? I thought as the man’s dick once again drove itself into my colon. I mean, yes, here I was, fucking a dude, but it didn’t feel very queer. Maybe gay sex on its own wasn’t queer enough. Maybe I needed to go further in exploring my sexuality.

Two months later.

I wandered around the kink party, not sure of what I should try. One room had someone in a dog mask locked inside a cage being taunted by their master. Not sure that it was up my alley, I continued on. Next I found someone dressed as some sort of feline engaged in some sort of rope play and was tieing some man up in knots. Again, I wasn’t taken. But maybe I should just try it? How would I know without experiencing it? This whole coming out as queer thing had really sent me down a sexual rabbit hole. I had been considering myself as bisexual, but was that not queer enough? Should I be pansexual? Was that more correct? Or should I be sapiosexual? Or omnisexual? And how sexual was I really? Apparently asexuality is a spectrum, and I don’t always feel like sex, so am demisexual or something too? There are just so many sexuals I could be. So many categories I could find my community in. Maybe if I just choose the right one, I’ll feel queer enough. So I was here in this den of sexuality to push my sexuality to its limits to figure it out.

“Want to give it a try?” The furry asked me, snapping me out of my train of though, apparently finished their previous playmate.

“Who me?”

“Yeah!”

I’d come this far, “Sure, okay.”

And so we got underway. The cat girl gave me a talk about consent and roughly how things would go. So I found myself on my knees in my underwear having my limbs bound in rope. 

“How’s that?” They said once they were done, my arms and legs now completely bound together.

“Kinda itchy, I guess”

“I meant in terms of tightness.”

“Oh, fine?” I said, unsure of when I was meant to know it was tight enough.

“If that’s not doing it for you, we could try adding some spanking? If that’s something you would be comfortable with, of course.”

“Uhh, sure, I guess?” I tried to shrug my shoulders, forgetting that was impossible in my current configuration.

The furry took their open palm and slapped my butt a few times. I just sat there, feeling guilty that I wasn’t feeling very excited by any of this. Was I a failure as a queer? I thought as the furry spanked me as I was immobilised by all the rope.

“You don’t really seem into this?” they said after giving up.

“Yeah, that obvious, is it?” I said, “Sorry. I’m just trying some things. Sort of trying to figure myself out.”

“You don’t have to apologise!” They said in a friendly tone, “Kink isn’t for everyone. My partner doesn’t like it,” They started undoing the knot keeping me the ropes bound around me.

“Oh that sucks. Is that why you come here?”

“No. I have another partner who is quite into it. This is just for funsies.”

“Sorry, I’m confused. You have multiple partners?”

“Yeah. One of my partners in really into it, but the other is asexual, so obviously isn’t really into this scene.”

“Oh, do they, like, know about each other?”

“Oh yes, of course,” they laughed, “I practise polyamory, or ethical non-monogamy, which means having multiple partners who are all consenting to the arrangement. Once you give up heterosexuality, you soon realise how many other things in society are bullshit. Capitalism, class structure, monogamy,” they explained as they pulled the last reams of rope off my arms.

“Huh. Interesting,” I rubbed my wrists now that I was free of the rope, “Well, thanks for trying I guess.”

“No worries. I hope you find something you enjoy!” They said before they were approached by someone who had been eagerly awaiting their turn.

As I walked back into the general fray of the kink party, I found myself deep in thought. The cat girl had given me a lot to think about. Had I been boxing myself in with too much conventional thought? Was I so deep in heteronormativity I didn’t even realise all the ways I was limiting myself? Maybe I was being constrained by my belief in outdated systems like monogamy? Maybe to truly embrace queerness, I’d have to try polyamory. That or communism. Or both.

Six months later.

As I lay in their bed, one of my lovers stroked my hair. It was still sharp from getting it cut a few days earlier. I’d given up on growing it long, not feeling it was alternative enough, even with the pink coloured streaks I’d put through it, and now had an undercut on one side. 

“What do you think of it,” I asked them.

“I like it, very chic,” they joked.

“Pfft,” interjected one of my other lovers from the other side of my bed, “It’s far too stereotypical.”

“I think it suits them,” said a third lover, lying naked, lazily over the bottom of the bed, “It goes with the tattoo.”

“And a septum piercing?” Said yet another lover, piping up from the bathtub in the ensuite just off the bedroom where they had passed out, “I mean, come on! You are fitting the queer stereotype a little too hard, honey.” And with that, the group in the bed started laughing at me.

“Screw all of you,” I said, sliding out of bed.

“Aww, sweetie, we’re sorry,” said one of the lovers.

I said nothing as I quickly threw some underwear on and stormed out of the bedroom, thinking that I should have found a polycule with fewer jerks in it. I walked down the hallway in a huff and entered the living room. There were a few more members of the polycule here. Two were on the couch engaged in a marathon make out session. Another was sitting at the dining table, eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast and scrolling the news on their phone. They were Sapphire, an enby member of the polycule who I hadn’t really spent much time with, so I sat down with them.

“Morning,” they said.

“Morning, how was last night for you?”

“Wasn’t really feeling it. So just stayed up reading. How about you?”

“It was great! I’ve never had so many orgasms.” I stated, fairly flatly and unenthusiastically.

“I’ve never heard orgasms described with so little joy in one's heart.”

I sighed, “I mean, it was good sex, physically. Just maybe I’m missing something spiritually, you know?”

They took another mouthful of their cereal and nodded in a deep and meaningful way.

“Also, I don’t know if it’s just me, but our polycule has a lot of jerks in it.”

They swallowed their mouthful, “Bitch, please don’t be bringing that drama to my breakfast.”

“Sorry. It’s just, I guess I’ve been on a journey of queer awakening, and I really thought an evening of pure sexual debauchery like last night would be the end of that journey. But it just felt kind of hollow, like I’m not queer enough. I thought joining a polycule of twelve queers would help me figure myself out, but I feel more lost than ever here.”

My enby companion took another spoonful of their cereal and chewed it while they thought about what I said. After swallowing, they pointed their spoon at me, “What I think your problem is, is you’ve been viewing queering purely through a sexual lens. But it’s more to queerness than that. Queerness is not just about sex and putting some pink dye in your hair, it’s throwing off all the ideas that heteronormative society has thrown at us.”

“I know that,” I said defensively, rubbing my hair.

“Yes, but have you really thought about it? Have you ever even thought about your gender identity?”

“Uhh, no? What do you mean.” I said, now unsure of myself.

“Have you ever, say, imagine what it might be like to be a woman?”

“Oh sure, a few times. But that’s normal, everyone does that.”

“Not cis people.”

“Oh,” I said, a little bit shocked.

“Maybe you’re not at the end of your queer journey. Yes, you’ve explored your sexual side, perhaps now you’ve got to explore your gender.”

We sat in silence for a time after that. They made some excellent points. Maybe I had been too focused on sex and relationships and hadn’t been focused on myself enough. Maybe I would fit in more with a gender diverse crowd like Sapphire.

“You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks,” I said eventually.

“My pleasure,” they said, resuming their breakfast, “Nothin’ like cracking eggs.”

18 months later.

I took a sip of my cocktail. It was a bit too sweet for my tastes, but now that I was identifying as non-binary and transfeminine, I thought I should expand my drinking tastes beyond pale ale to fit in a bit better. Also, the pink of the cocktail matched the dress I was wearing nicely.  I had been invited to Rapunzel’s, a local trans girl, birthday drinks and was in the middle of a group of trans girls talking to a recently hatched egg. They were still boymoding, but were here to eagerly soak up whatever advice they could from seasoned genderqueerers such as ourselves.

“Oh, I’m still just questioning,” the newcomer said, “I’m not sure if I’m fully trans yet. Maybe I’m just non-binary or something.”

This caused laughter from a few of the regular girls.

“Sorry,” one apologised, “It’s just, it’s the pipeline. Start off as a guy, then you’re an enby, then eventually you’re a full binary trans woman.”

“Uh, I’m still an enby,” I interjected.

“Oh, I guess that’s possible,” they said, waving me off dismissively, “But we all said that once. I went he/him to he/they to they/them to they/she to she/her.”

“Actually,” I butted in, once again, “I’m still they/them. Actually, I’m thinking of trying fae/faer.”

The group giggled at me, “Sorry,” one said, “But we all went through a neo pronoun phase.”

“Remember when I was using elf/elfself pronouns? I thought I was so cool,” said another, before laughing.

“I guess there are exceptions to the rule,” she said, glancing at me before turning back to the newcomer, “but you’ll probably end up a trans girl like the rest of us.”

The group starting giving transition tips to the newcomer, and I silently departed before I got even more upset at them. How dare they question my enbyness! Just because I take estrogen and like the odd dress doesn’t mean I’m destined for binary womanhood like the rest of them. Treating me like I’m some sort of idiot who doesn’t know their way around a pronoun. I could take it when bigots made fun of me. Used the wrong pronouns on purpose, that sort of thing. But when I got this shit from queer people, people who should know better, it really cut deep.

I had previously tried hanging out with a more non-binary sort of crowd, but I felt with that group that I was seen to be too feminine. Too binary. Not fucking with gender enough. Doesn’t matter what part of the gender diverse crowd I’m around, I feel like I’m out on the edge of it. I thought finally after figuring out my sexuality and gender identity I’d be accepted, but I still don’t feel queer enough to fit in anywhere. Well, I’m still just a baby trans. I’ve got a lot of transition left. I’m sure if I commit to it, it will get better.

2 years later.

I let my mind float away as that morning's dose of Tapentadol kicked in. There hadn’t been much pain since the surgery, but if someone hands you a script for some opioids and a medical certificate, you may as well enjoy yourself. I was lying in bed, notionally recovering from the orchidectomy I underwent several days earlier. It was a bit boring, not being able to move much lest I pull my stitches, I was mostly housebound. 

I was on my phone scrolling through the local queer community Facebook group. While I’d been wasting away here in recovery, I’d missed a queer burlesque show at the local queer bar. It was a regular show that I’d never made it to. I was not really a fan of burlesque, which made me feel like a bit of a failure of a queer. I sighed and started thinking of ways I could make myself queerer, googling for upcoming events in the area.

Then, I stopped and had a moment of clarity. I had just had my testicles surgically removed, quite possibly one of the most queer acts one could imagine, and here I was, once again questioning whether I was queer enough. Would I ever be able to feel queer enough? What would it take to silence that nagging voice in the back of my mind? Surely, I was close to having this figured out.

10,000 years later.

I sat in my throne in the middle of the enormous royal chamber, built from the rarest metals and gemstones found across the galaxies and forged together in the most powerful fusion furnaces found in the most distant parts of the empire. The throne room was massive, large enough to fit tens of thousands, as it often did for pride celebrations, raves, and the odd mega orgy. I was draped in the finest royal robes, crafted by the gayest fashion designers the universe had ever seen, changed every hour to make sure I was up-to-date with the latest trends. “Assistant!” I bellowed in the great hall. Slowly, my assistant trotted their way across the empty expanse to my throne. Each footstep echoing loudly in the empty chamber.

“Yes, God Empress Roberta, Lord of the Galaxy, Commander of the Blahaj Battalions, Destroyer of Patriarchies, Queerer of the Stars. How may I serve you today?”

“I’m beginning to feel that perhaps I’m not queer enough.”

“Again, your most exulted one?”

“Yeah, the feelings been growing on me recently.”

“I really thought we had settled this when you had launched your jihad on the galaxy and your armies of queerness swept across the stars and ushered in your seven millennia reign as God empress over the grand holy galactic empire of ultimate queeritute.”

I had chosen empress as my title after my conquest, as I thought that was the queerest title I could have. Queen perhaps was queerer but didn’t sound quite grand enough to rule a galaxy with. I sighed, “Yeah, that felt pretty queer at the time. But, I dunno, this last millennia or two I’ve been feeling less and less queer. Like, maybe part of being queer is rebelling against authority, and you can’t really do that when you’ve become the God empress of the galaxy.”

“Yes, your holiness, I thought that’s what all the projects we commissioned were for.”

“But none of them have ever worked though, have they? We hired entire planets worth of philosophers to study how to be queer enough. They all either went mad or fought each other for centuries over what the queerest pronoun was. We built that giant supercomputer in a Dyson sphere to calculate how to be queer enough, and it just got stuck in infinite loops for centuries. Didn’t matter how much we reformatted it, happened every time. Except for that one time, it started calling itself MechaHitler and called for the extermination of all queers.”

“At least it didn’t say 42.”

I groaned, “Yes, we’ve all made that joke. It wasn’t funny five-hundred years ago, and it isn’t funny now.”

“But, your grace, what about your polycule? It’s reached over five trillion people at this point. Each one of a different gender. Surely that must make you feel queer enough?”

“Honestly, the polycule’s gotten a bit unwieldy. There’s so much drama. A few factions have developed and started a civil war with each other. Entire star systems have been wiped out. Billions have died. The polycule might be a crime against humanity at this point, which doesn’t feel very queer.”

“But, my immortal leader of pride, what about the hundreds of different bodies you have inhabited over the last few thousand years, all specially genetically engineered for you? You’ve been every conceivable gender, and even some inconceivable ones. You’ve been creatures that the ancient furries of Earth could only dream of. Not only that, but you even spent two hundred years as a house cat that one time. Surely that must have met any sane person's threshold for queerness?”

“Well, yes, that was all very interesting, and fun at times. But shitting into a litter box for two hundred years didn’t really turn out to be what I needed in the end. I think it’s time for a change.”

“Empress,” my assistant said, taking on a more serious tone, “have you considered that maybe the reason the supercomputers, centuries of philosophers, hundreds of different forms and trillions of lovers have failed to give you an answer on how to be queer enough, is that it’s a false proposition in the first place? Maybe everyone is queer enough, so long as they identify as queer? Maybe you’ve been queer enough this whole time?”

“Don’t give me that ‘Maybe queerness was the friends we made along the way’ bullshit. I’ve not spent thousands of years on this for that to be the answer. No, I’ve made up my mind. Dissolve the empire. I’m going off to join an anarchist space lesbian commune.” I told my assistant as I ran off through the gigantic hall, shedding my royal robes, heading off to hijack the imperial shuttle craft.