Is my husband a pervert?

Anunnaki and James Bunce October 2019 — Mx. Anunnaki Ray Marquez and James Bunce at the PFLAG National Convention 2019

A conversation starter:

Was my husband at one time a person that could have been considered a “pervert” or a “chaser” for being curious and wanting to date me, and have sex with me, an intersex trans person? My answer is “yes”. And yet, here we are thirty years later in the same marriage. Yet, today I would never call him a pervert. He is simply a man loving an intersex man. He is now simply a father, who had biological babies with an intersex man: A seahorse dad, and a gestational father. Truly, I feel he is like any ordinary man. Even if the world, with their bias, would say otherwise.

If you were born intersex, or if you are transgender, and feeling unlovable in your physical form and not worthy of love please think about this. I ask because we truly need to give pause to the self-hate that leads to our knee jerk labeling of our potential lovers being “perverts” and “chasers” and other problematic labels.

I see that most of us born intersex or who are transgender, are taught or have the fears that we are not lovable. So we make the next assumption: Anyone who is attracted to us must be a defect in some way, or up to no good. Sad to say I believe it is because we have been convinced by this world we are the defective ones. Maybe instead, think of this as cultural dysphoria.

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt there are jerks out there, and we have to actively do everything we can to be safe. However, I do think this topic needs to be discussed. We all know that there are people actively seeking to date an intersex person, or a trans person and here many of us are always assuming they are up to no good. So much so we do not ever even contemplate going on a first date even. What if they are up to good? How do we sift the bad from the good?

My husband wanted to experience a relationship with a person born different and have sex with a person with genitals that are different than the norm. Yes, he was curious in a playful “perverted” way. This simple: We now have a thirty-year relationship.

He would now say he loves me for my spirit, my mind, and my body. Yes, I would say I am fortunate, but he would say he is the fortunate one! If I had thought of him as a pervert, or out of his mind for wanting me in the first place, it would not have happened. None of it. It took me a long time to love myself and to allow him to love me.

I hope if you are lonely, thinking you are unlovable that you give pause. Please do what you have to do to learn to love yourself. Only in this way, through self-love, can we find our sexual partners, lovers, and relationships of any kind. We should know we are worthy of that love.

Reflections of my husband: Poem: You are not broken to me….

My next thoughts on a problem I often face: Please do not only love my spirit and soul.

I am in physical form for the first time in my life. I never could even see myself in the mirror until the last four years of my existence on this planet. When you say you only love my spirit or soul, you are only loving half of me. I know you mean well, but you have erased why I physically stand out, and I might assume it is because my physical form makes you that uncomfortable.

When you say you only love my soul or spirit it appears to me that you do not care that my physical form has led to a lifetime of suffering and prejudice; that it makes you so uncomfortable that you are going to deny my genitals exist, different than yours, and as an intersex man. It hurts that you can only love my spirit and soul…that the rest, my physical being, deeply offends you so much you don’t dare even think about it.

Until we all have human rights, and the right to exist, please try to love all of me. No Body Is Shameful!

Poem: Your Open Mind