It accelerated for me when I started estrogen, but E improved my life so significantly I obviously would choose that every time.
For me it was more about feeling my penis was out of place, but having a vagina felt too theoretical and I didn't allow myself a direct desire (maybe that was repression).
but I lost interest in getting bottom surgery after realising it’s not a decision between penis and vagina, but a decision between penis and an open wound you have to dilate every single day for the rest of your life so it doesn’t grow shut…
Good news, this is actually not true!
A neovagina is not a perpetually open wound, and it's also not true that you have to dilate every single day for the rest of your life. While it is healing, the skin graft and stitches do have to heal and they can fuse together if you don't open the canal back up with dilation, but that's just temporary during the initial recovery.
I just had a penile inversion vaginoplasty and the surgeon and their team told me that it's my canal and I can do whatever I want, there is no obligation to dilate at all past the initial recovery, but if I wanted to maintain maximum width and depth I could dilate several times a week after the first year. They said it's not uncommon for people to not dilate at all, and for penetrative sex to replace the dilation. Sometimes width can be regained later, the vagina will not seal up completely and is flexible.
Here are the specific dilation instructions I was given:
Here's a helpful video covering the basics of a vaginoplasty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDOtejnYWAU
The idea that the neovagina is a perpetually open wound that will seal up without daily dilation is misinformation shared by anti-trans activists, usually by TERFs. Instead the vagina is pretty much like a normal vagina in function an appearance, most people cannot tell the difference between a neovagina and a natal vagina. Gender-affirming vaginoplasties have some of the lowest regret rates of any surgery and are not only very safe, but have very positive clinical outcomes in increasing quality of life.
that's so weird, being misgendered like that - I wonder if you're right that they were trying to be polite if they thought you were a trans woman? Either way, I'm sorry 🫂
There are a few clarifications I would like to make:
Having an erection does not require the person to have sex, and is not the same as being horny or desiring sex.
Having a penis does not guarantee you have erections (let alone involuntary erections, which is what you seem to be talking about). People with penises who are testosterone dominant do have involuntary erections, but even so, see my first point for why that's not relevant.
Your claim was about being horny being a bigger problem for people with penises, which is a fair assumption but has more to do with testosterone than the penis (like you've pointed out, trans men can be very horny without a "penis" - though it should be noted here that male and female genitalia are more similar than dissimilar and have the same structures of a phallus and glans, just in different configurations).
so it’s already suggesting that it’s not a myth.
The myth is the belief that men are horny while women are not, the reality is that it varies significantly by person. with significant overlap between the sexes. There is a difference on average, but it's not as large or total as people commonly believe.
And finally, as you have pointed out the social context will skew the data significantly with fewer women being comfortable with sex than men, fewer women having learned to masturbate than men, and fewer women willing to discuss or disclose their sexual feelings or behavior than men. These differences in how sex is treated socially means whatever biological differences there are is muddled, especially when what was measured was self-reporting on frequency of masturbation. It's possible that men and women are far more similar than dissimilar than even the current evidence we have points to.
if you are familiar with object vs subject in grammar you already know the rule, who is used when it's the subject, whom when the object:
Who is that?
That's who ate my ice cream.
Whom did you give ice cream to?
The ice cream went to the one whom I saw first.
This rule is the same as knowing when to use she or he vs when to use her or him, it's no different.
However, most people don't use whom correctly and it can just be avoided entirely, most people will just use who as the object anyway and it will sound more natural to them:
Who did you give ice cream to?
The ice cream went to the one who I saw first.
Using whom in these cases can make you sound formal or fancy, and draws attention.
that's a common belief, but it varies a lot by individual, with many women having higher sex drives than men
we already have thornless blackberry varieties...
oh I guess I do sound dramatic 😅
I don't mean to give the wrong impression, overall the recovery is going well. Each challenge is replaced with another, and the recovery is happening in the middle of a move, which is also insanely stressful - but I feel pretty lucky overall!
fr fr
is it ok to ask what the bad things were your friend said? also, congrats on meeting a trans elder, hope that's a helpful relationship!
and zero-depth / vulvoplasties are even safer, cheaper, etc. - and you can get a full depth later if that really becomes necessary (though I personally recommend just getting full-depth vaginoplasty upfront if you think penetration is important to you, my point is just that a zero-depth doesn't rule out a full-depth later).