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[Image description: Text ‘Authenticity Arena No. 17’ on a lilac background]

Listen now · 10:40

The audio recording (above) and transcript (below) represent 11 minutes of a 35-minute chat with ‘S’ who’s a 34-year-old, pansexual Anglo-Australian, non-binary femme, who, at the time of interview in November 2022 was in a relationship with a woman with whom they had with two young children, living in Perth, Australia

We chatted about the high percentage of neurodivergent people who identify outside of the gender binary, their first marriage, at the age of 19, which didn’t get off to a good start, and the radical ideas about sexuality portrayed in the Kinsey movie.

Almaz note: Please do listen to the audio extract, while simultaneously following the text transcription, as it makes for a richer experience.

Almaz – 06:21mins
You’ve not put anything for the question. ‘How old were you when you received sex and relationships, education, if any?’ Does that mean you didn’t have any sex and relationships education?

‘S’ – 06:21mins
Essentially, it’s hard. Like, it's hard for me to, kind of, judge, I got one very tiny portion of the education. So, my father was in the mines. And so we moved around quite a lot. And so the only sex education I got was, like, a 20-minute talk on what a period is.

Almaz – 06:59mins
Oh, okay, okay.

‘S’ – 07:00mins
And so, I just happened to miss every other like stage of the talk. Not that I think they would have been much more. Back then it really was heavily biology-based.

Almaz – 07:12mins
Yeah.

‘S’ – 07:12mins
But yeah, that was it.

Almaz – 07:15mins
And how old were you when that talk happened?

‘S’ – 07:23mins
I would have been Grade 9 or 10, so 13 or 14, I think.

Almaz – 07:30mins
Okay. And had you already started your period at that time?

‘S’ – 07:35mins
No, I was a very late.

Almaz – 07:37mins
Oh, okay.

‘S’ – 07:38mins
I was 16.

Almaz – 07:41mins
Okay, and did you feel that the class session that you had helped prepare you for when you went on to start your period?

‘S’ – 07:52mins
Not at all. I was lucky in that my mom is a Mormon and so quiet religious. But despite that was very open about talking about sex. So I’ve never known a time where I didn’t understand exactly what sex was, and how it worked. And so, for my first period, I was confident enough to, like, not even tell her, go into the cupboard, pull out a tampon and use it.

Almaz – 08:20mins
Okay, great,

‘S’ – 08:21mins
Which I think for a lot of people is quite shocking. [chuckles]

Almaz – 08:27mins
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the question, ‘How old were you when you had sex with someone else for the first time?’ You’ve put 18. Would you able to describe a bit about who that person was, whether it was a friend, or someone that you were dating? And how that situation came to be.

‘S’ – 08:50mins
So I did not date during High School. And I had, literally, just turned 18. And my workmates took me out. And one of their friends came along. Who was, like, 12 years older than me.

Almaz – 09:05mins
Yeah.

‘S’ – 09:06mins
But we got along really well. And we started dating. And about a month after we started dating we had sex for the first time. And they, essentially, went on to become my husband. [scoffs]

Almaz – 09:20mins
Oh! Okay! Interesting! Ah, okay… I’m not sure… I don’t think you’ve mentioned being married with a husband. Would you be able to explain why you came out of that marriage.

‘S’ – 09:40mins
So, because my because of how my mom was, I was raised in the, like very ‘1950s housewife’, kind of, era. So you got married, bought a house, tried to have kids. So we did that. Got married. So, I was married at like, 19. Bought a house and tried to have kids.

At the time, we did all the tests, and he had no sperm.

Almaz – 10:11mins
Okay.

‘S’ – 10:11mins
Later on, I also had massive fertility issues. So it was never gonna work. And I think throughout that process, like, they’re always…

Even the night before we got married, I remember telling him “Actually, I’m not sure we should be doing this.”

Almaz – 10:31mins
Mmm, mmm.

‘S’ – 10:31mins
And he said to me, “But I really love you.” And I could see that he did, I guess I did what I felt like I was supposed to do. And then when we were together, like, I honestly was making him so miserable. And, you know, I was miserable. And at the time, my mom was saying that if I was to separate that she would cut me off.

Almaz – 10:59mins
Mmm.

‘S’ – 10:59mins
Like, that would be the end of it. And then we ended up just getting to the point where we were so angry with each other, that we went for a weekend away, to discuss what we liked and didn’t like about the relationship. And how to resolve the issues. And it started out a conversation of him going, “I don't like …”, and then a whole list, like, a whole A4 page of things he didn’t like, ending with, “but that’s just your personality, and it’s not going to change.”

Almaz – 11:33mins
Mmm, mmm

‘S’ – 11:33mins
And so, like, I think that was kind of the wake-up call for both of us that this was not right. That this was not gonna [work]. And before that I hadn't questioned my sexuality or anything like that.

Almaz – 11:49mins
Yeah. And how old were you when you decided to end that marriage?

‘S’ – 11:55
So we were… I was about 22/23.

Almaz – 11:58mins
Oh, okay, okay.

‘S’ – 12:01mins
It was quite a few years. But I don’t think we officially divorced until I was, like, 26-ish.

Almaz – 12:09mins
Yeah, yeah. And then at what stage did you start noticing your desires in terms of having… your sexuality developing into liking people that were also femme.

‘S’ – 12:32mins
So there was kind of this big flood that happened in Brisbane. I had lost the house that I was staying in…

Almaz – 12:59mins
Oh dear!

‘S’ – 12:59mins
… my work went under. And so I had a friend, so I was in Brisbane, at that time, I had a friend who was in Perth, and they said, “I’m sure I can find a job for you, like, just come over here”. And they were, like, they were gay. They’d been out for quite a few years.

And every Wednesday, they would go to the drag nights. So I just got dragged along.

Almaz – 13:03mins
Yeah. Yeah.

‘S’ – 13:04mins
And there was a, a woman there, who was the complete and utter player.

Almaz – 13:41mins
[chuckles lightly]

‘S’ – 13:41mins
And I was, like, “Oh, like, I’m actually attracted to you. Like, I want to have sex with you.” And so I blatantly came out and told them that.

Almaz – 13:21mins
Yeah.

‘S’ – 13:21mins
But [me being a] ‘Baby dyke’ meant they were afraid I would catch feelings. And so nothing happened there. But it kind of made me realise that there was more for me than just males. And so I actually, like, I literally just swapped them. I was like, “Oh, so it’s not male then it must be females”.

Almaz – 13:47mins
Yeah. You mentioned the Kinsey movie that sparked your sexual desires. I quickly looked that up online. It’s a documentary. Well, it’s a the kind of dramatised…

‘S’ – 14:05mins
Somewhat.

Almaz – 14:05mins
Yeah, yeah. It’s really interesting to me that [this is what] sparked your desires, would you be able to tell me exactly what it was about the information in the film that sparked your desires?

‘S’ – 14:24mins
So looking back now, what I think I didn’t realise at the time of watching the movie was that what sparked it was the idea… because they talked a bit about the Kinsey scale, and they obviously showed Kinsey with a wife, who he did love and had sex with, but then was also sleeping with some of his research partners, etc.

Almaz – 14:44mins
Yeah.

‘S’ – 14:45mins
And I think that kind of sparked, like, an interested me to be, like, there is more but without really…  I don’t think I realised at the time, it was that part of it. Like, to me it was just… When he was talking about doing the massive surveys in the States, and that kind of made me look it up, and I loved the idea that someone was going out there and going, “All of the things that you think are normal are wrong”.

Almaz – 15:17mins
Yeah.

‘S’ – 15:20mins
And “All of the things you think are abnormal, are what is normal.”

Almaz – 15:21mins
Yeah. Yeah,

‘S’ – 15:21mins
I think that's what, like… That’s what excited me the most about that and, kind of, sparked my desire to want to study it. Yeah.

Almaz – 15:30mins
I was just wondering, between the ages of 16 when you saw that movie, and when you were 18 and you had sex for the first time, were you seeking flirtations and sexy experiences with others and yourself? Or were you not seeking any of that until you left High School?

‘S’ – 16:01mins
So I started masturbating at 16.

Almaz – 16:04mins
Yeah.

‘S’ – 16:04mins
But I didn’t… Like, I had zero interest, in other people, or actual sexual experiences with them. So there was never any flirting, there was never any trying to do it. It literally just never entered my brain as much as I was masturbating. And quite regularly, like, it just never occurred to me to invite someone else in.

Almaz – 16:32mins
Okay [chuckles lightly] And what changed that?

‘S’ – 16:37mins
I think it was just someone showing interest in me, like, they were then chasing me.

Almaz – 16:45mins
Mmm-hmm.

‘S’ – 16:46mins
And so again, there’s massive childhood issues there, like, love and affection. But yeah, I think it was someone showing interest in me. That kind of made me go, like, “Oh, okay, like, I'm desirable”.

[CONVERSATION CONTINUES FOR ANOTHER 25 MINUTES]

Here are links to previous mailouts in this series:

‘R’ shared how she was initially daunted by a new diagnosis which meant that her life-expectancy increased loads to 60 to 70 years, and also how she’s found it difficult navigating safety and comfort boundaries alongside sexual boundaries while being intimate with partners.

#48: Authenticity Arena – No. 16 Almaz Ohene · May 29 Read full story

‘P’ works in a similar sexuality education field to me, so our conversations touched on the complications that can sometimes arise in social situations when people know that our jobs are sex-based and are looking for answers to personal questions. ‘P’ also shared an incident from her early adolescence where she was accused of sexually predatory behaviour towards a fellow school pupil and the harm that the allegations caused.

#43: Authenticity Arena – No. 15 Almaz Ohene · Jan 17 Read full story

[Image description: White speech box with black border shadows. Black text ‘I’m running an anonymous online sexuality survey’. Dark orange text ‘bit.ly/ao_sexsurvey’. Black text ‘Anyone over 18 can fill it in, wherever you are in the world.’ Picture of coloured rectangles placed at angles with black border shadows. White text ‘Do you have guilt or shame around desire, sex or pleasure? Why/why not? Do you support compulsory sex and relationships education?’ on top rectangle]

The sexuality survey is still open, so please do fill in/share it as all of the responses are helping me make connections between the ways we’ve been socialised and our relationship to sexuality. I’m particularly looking to get more responses from people aged 50+ and also people who have been unable to access contraception.

Take survey

[Image description: promo banner for Almaz’s Developing Sexual Expression and understanding intimacy workshops]

I run a fun workshop series – Developing sexual expression and understanding intimacy – if you’d like to book me for an in-person event like a hen party or baby shower, or as a little interlude at a sex ed/sensuality event, do get in touch via email. Here’s a link to a previous mailout where I described the raucous fun we had at a hen party where I ran the Improving Intimacy workshop for a group of women:

#32: Hen party with a twist Almaz Ohene · July 5, 2023 Read full story

More workshops info here

[Image description: Text ‘POSTSCRIPT’]

The ‘POSTSCRIPT’ segment for paid subscribers will drop on Wednesday 7 August and will include the written answers that ‘S’ gave in response to my sexuality survey. To receive this extra mailout you’ll need to upgrade to a paid subscription, which is either billed monthly at £3.79, or annually at £34.99.

Upgrade to paid

[Image description: Text ‘PRODUCED BY’]

I’m Almaz Ohene, a Creative Copywriter, Freelance Journalist and Accidental Sexpert.

Recent mailouts:

#50: Guest Post – Considering My Crushes Almaz Ohene and Karla Marie Sweet · Jul 3 Read full story

#49: What The Notches Said – No. 03 Almaz Ohene · Jun 19 Read full story

This content is not behind a paywall, but since it takes time to create and upload each piece, do please consider becoming a paid subscriber of ‘She Dares to Say’ (especially if this project is something that you value, and you have the means to do so), which is either billed monthly at £3.79 or annually at £34.99.

If you would prefer to make a one-off donation, feel free to send a contribution via PayPal.

Support

You can also show your enjoyment without spending £££, by liking, commenting or restacking on Notes or by just generally sharing this post 😃