LGBTQIAlphabetSoup

i'm having a really intense physical reaction to something I just read, and I'm not entirely sure why. my heart started racing and i got that lovely twisty nervous feeling in my abdomen, and after a couple minutes' reflection I'm thinking it's that I might be about to discover something about myself that I might not like.

The blog is http://starfishwithwings.wordpress.com/ by a guy I know named Tristan (are we friends? I'd like to be friends. He's possibly too cool to be my friend, and I think I'm bad at making friends because I'm horribly shy at inconvenient times and my brain shuts down when I should be thinking of appropriate and inspiring conversation topics, but that's not relevant at present.) The section of the post titled Psuedofriends in Psyberspace that piqued my interest slash semifreakout was about the probability that sex with a man as a man is different than sex with a man as a woman. He used the words "power dynamics" and it hit a nerve.

First, because oh! lightbulb moment! I'm not alone in thinking this! yay!

Second, because I tried explaining this once to a friend (late at night while I was drinking, which probably didn't help) and she was totally confused. I was mostly thinking aloud about how my relationships with women are different than my relationships with trans men and how that would be different than being with a nontrans guy. This explanation really didn't go well for me, partially because I'm bad at talking but largely because I couldn't get across why exactly being with a trans guy made me not 100% homosexual.

Being with a man = not gold star lesbian. But that's not exactly a clear explanation--it's because of the difference in power dynamics, as well as a lot of other factors emotionally.

What upset me is that...I thought I was cool with that. This wasn't my first relationship of this variety, and I'm not clueless about what it means when you agree to this sort of tie with a person of a particular gender. But...I was bad at it. The power differential freaked me the hell out and I didn't like it. I'm just not sure where I went wrong--the person, the expectations, the situation? The place I was in at the time? My feelings about (the lack of) control in my own life? Something else?

So I thought I was bi with a couple of "types," or maybe pansexual; I didn't have a label and I wasn't too concerned with finding one. Now I'm not so sure. Is it always like this? Do I even want to find out? For sure, I'm not especially in a place to test the waters again.

On the other hand, I sort of actually do think I'm...not just into girls. And part of me desperately wants to see that that's okay. That it won't be self-destructive.