A Gift in Disguise Ch. 07

When you met Stephanie for the first time, your interpersonal communication had not yet gone far enough and been refined enough for your brain to conclusively determine her -- his -- true gender. Your male brain's preliminary assessment was that Stephanie really was a woman until his signals began to alert your brain differently. And Tom, we think the intercommunication between your brain and Stephanie's probably preceded your feeling her -- his -- erection. Your feeling his hardness likely confirmed what your brain had already processed, and it began to adapt to the reality of his maleness. That subconscious adaptation is most likely why you were not angry at Stephanie or repulsed when you found out she is a man. It's probably your brain's adaptability in processing conflicting gender signals that made it easy for you to remain friends with Stephanie. You ultimately recognized that and easily adapted to Stephanie in both her actual biological and personally preferred gender identifications.

Part of your 'gift' may be your brain's ability to automatically adapt to gender differences while overcoming cultural differences. You may tolerate and adapt to gay or bisexual men's traits, characteristics, and even sexual signals more quickly and easily. It doesn't mean you want to engage in gay or bisexual conduct with them; only that you are not culturally conditioned to be repulsed by it to the point of outward rejection. It's entirely possible that your interpersonal communication with them sends that signal in a very accepting and comforting way, so you and they can interact comfortably but nonsexually. No sexual pressure equals better communication and more comfortable interaction.

And as for your arousal by the photos of transexual men wearing women's swimsuits -- again, you were looking at two-dimensional images of people with whom you'd never had any personal contact. In the images, they looked like attractive women. Based on that very limited information, your brain was inclined to conclude 'woman' rather than 'man'. I predict you would have exactly the same reaction if we were to show you images of women wearing very tight, form-fitting swimsuits that emphasized the prominence of their mounds."

Her answers made sense, but they also caused me to directly ask a nagging question I had tap-danced around before.

"But Jamie, I'm still not clear how you and I really enjoy having sex with each other?"

Once again, Jamie's quick and logical answer suggested she had been expecting me to ask it for quite some time.

"That goes back to Lorraine's explanation of the effect our culture has on our perception of sexual pleasure, Tom. We've both been conditioned throughout our lives to believe that heterosexual pleasure depends on a man being able to insert his penis into a woman's vagina. If something is missing or is physically impossible, we're expected to experience less enjoyment. Culturally, in fact, we may even be programmed to experience guilt instead. And any guilt feelings can quickly and effectively suppress pleasurable ones.

But the reality, Tom, is that sexual pleasure depends far less on being tied to cultural expectations to put Tab A into Slot B than on all of the other cues and sensations we feel to become aroused and then to orgasm. That's why many couples can achieve sexual satisfaction through mutual masturbation or oral sex -- even anal sex.

In our case, yours and mine, we have found that all of the touch and sound sexual cues in conjunction with mutual masturbation and frottage can be as satisfying as penetration. My orgasms with you are more intensely satisfying than ones I've ever had with other women and any other man. I believe that your 'gift' triggers all of the sexual stimulation I would feel if I had a clit and pussy. Your 'gift' may be establishing intercommunication with that part of my brain that has been dormant but would have more fully developed if I had a clit and pussy instead of a penis. It awakens and arouses the clit-vagina sensations dormant in that part of my brain and allows them to blend with the penile sensations I have actually and naturally felt since puberty.

That's something I've discussed with Kim, Lorraine, and Amanda. Because I was born with a penis rather than a clit and vagina, I wondered if my sexual sensations received from my penile stimulation more closely resembled what a man feels. Since it isn't as if there's been a lot of scientific studies to help answer that, they were curious, too. The first time I had sex with you, that question was answered -- well, sort of answered.

The sensations I recalled after my first orgasm with you, Tom, were distinctly different than what I had experienced during prior orgasms. When I discussed this in detail with Kim, Lorraine, and Amanda, they were astonished. What they all concluded was that when you and I have sex, my penile sensations -- or rather what my brain receives and then processes as penile sensations -- are almost identical to what they experience as women with clits and vaginas."

"I'm not sure I understand," I responded honestly.

"Simply put, Tom, when you and I have sex, it apparently feels exactly like your cock is inside me and what I feel is exactly what any other aroused woman feels from her vulva, clit, and G-spot being stimulated. Do you understand? When we're having sex, for the first time in my life, it feels to me like a man's cock, your's, is inside me! But when I'm masturbating or with another woman, it goes back to feeling what I've felt before. Oddly enough, both are quite pleasurable. I guess another way to put it, Tom, is that thanks to your 'gift,' I may be getting additive sensations from both male and female orgasms."

"So if I understand you correctly," I said, more thinking out loud than anything, "You're saying that when you and I are having sex, your brain tells you that you are feeling exactly the same things you would feel if you had a clit and vagina rather than a penis?"

"If we're right, Tom, yes, but in addition to the other sensations I've felt all my sexual life. But that's only when you're my sex partner. Consequently, with you I perceive sexual sensations exactly like any other woman, just as if I had been born with a vagina and clit. You, and only you, have been able to give me the sexual pleasure that my anatomical anomaly has denied to me -- until now. So what I said earlier about my cock receiving stimuli the same as yours is probably correct, but there's a big difference. When you and I are having sex, my brain's processing those stimuli treats them exactly as if they were being received by the clitoris and vagina I don't have.

Our assumption, Tom, supports what I said before: Your brain quickly differentiates between a man and a woman when it begins its assessment of potential sexual partners for you. That further supports our conclusion that you are a heterosexual man, albeit a hetero man with a remarkable facility for adaptability. But even more importantly, it seems to suggest that when you are having sex with a woman, your brain is quietly guiding you to identify and reinforce her womanliness, her sexuality as a woman. That multiplies her sexual pleasure as well."

"Really?" I was both pleased and still a bit incredulous that the sex Jamie and I shared could be as great as it was for both of us.

"That shouldn't come as a surprise to you, Tom. If you recall one of your first meetings with Lorraine, you talked about your first heterosexual experiences while you and another high school senior -- Linda -- mutually masturbated each other under a blanket in the car on dates. While you would have preferred to go all the way with her, she didn't want to. Lorraine believes your brain adapted quickly and easily to Linda's reasonable restriction, and that gave both of you not only the ability but also the freedom to fully and completely enjoy mutually masturbating to orgasm. With the pressures associated with teenage coitus removed, you and she both found that your mutual masturbation -- along with your other kissing and touching -- resulted in your both having very pleasurable orgasms which were just as satisfying as if you had actually fucked."

"So does any of this explain why I went to Lorraine in the first place -- because I wasn't able to get and keep a hard-on with certain women?"

"Maybe -- if our theory is proven correct. It may be that while you were physically attracted to a woman to the point of becoming sexually aroused, she was not similarly attracted to you. That's not particularly earthshaking, of course. Unfortunately, some women simply can't resist the ego satisfaction of being able to turn a man on even when they are not interested in consummating a sexual relationship. So they lead him on until the man reaches the point of wanting to have sex. Then they shut him down. Arguably, they derive some perverse sexual pleasure from denying it to him. The woman, not the man in that case, is the one with the problem.

In your case, Tom, it may be that the theorized interpersonal neural communication between you and the woman long precedes your reaching the point of full arousal. At the point your brain correctly concludes she's not interested, your brain simply diminishes your sexual drive to the point that you go limp. You were consciously disappointed, thinking there was something wrong with you, when in fact your brain was processing signals from her that your conscious mind had not yet received or had simply refused to accept.

In that respect your 'gift' may really be doing you a favor. It may be helping you to resist a force some men refuse to overcome -- making unwanted sexual advances on a woman. Instead, you and the woman find some mutually acceptable accommodation the may give you both at least some level of sexual satisfaction while comfortably avoiding an unpleasant confrontation. Your mutual masturbation with Linda would be an example. If you had tried to force her to let you fuck her, she would have resisted, and both of you would have been deprived of a great deal of masturbatory pleasure and satisfaction.

Of course, Linda went to college and got married, but I'd bet that she has very vivid and even arousing memories of the sex she did have with you. If she were ever to divorce or decide to have a sexual fling outside her marriage, I'm certain you would be the first person she would think of. It would not be at all surprising to learn that even while having sex with her husband, she is occasionally fantasizing about you."

Naturally, I didn't tell Jamie that was almost precisely the signal Linda had already been giving my mother's friend, Sharon Madison.

"You're sure you're an engineer and not a psychologist like Lorraine?" I asked jokingly and with a very visible smile.

Jamie returned my smile and answered, "Well, Tom, as you might imagine given my rather unique genital structure, not to mention my keen interest in developing user-friendly and comfortable hi-tech prosthetics, I've spoken with more than a few behavioral scientists during my lifetime. And contrary to the conclusions the pop psychologists on television might draw, the real psychologists seem to believe that I'm more 'normal'" --she emphasized with some air quotes-- "than most of their supposedly 'normal' patients. Of course, what they were really saying to me is just what I've said to you: We've both adjusted very well to what we are, even if we don't understand how and why we got that way. We both accept what we are. And that may be the least complicated answer to your question about how we can enjoy having sex with each other."

"Speaking of adjustments, when do you think Lorraine and Emily and then Marta and Kim will start testing their new phallus? And how do you think the tests will go?"

"Lorraine is coming to the lab tomorrow for her final fitting. Then she will take hers with her. I imagine it will take Lorraine some time to adjust the phallus's programming for maximum pleasure without any unexpected side effects.

But, I'm absolutely sure that Emily will be ready to go whenever Lorraine is," Jamie answered.

Her certainty about Emily's readiness caught me off guard.

"What makes you so sure about Emily," I asked.

Jamie gave me a fleeting "wake up and smell the coffee" look.

"Tom, didn't you notice how Emily jumped at the chance to volunteer to cause the prosthetic phallus to become erect when we showed it mounted on a base in the lab? When we were projecting the waveform outputs from it onto the screen? If we hadn't told her she could let go of it, she would have started hand-jobbing it right then and there." Jamie started laughing.

"You're kidding," I responded. I hadn't seen the intensity of Emily's reaction as Jamie had. When Jamie realized I was honestly surprised, she patiently explained.

"No, Tom, I'm very serious. In fact, I was so shocked by her uncharacteristic response, I talked privately with Emily after that. I really wanted to find out what had caused her to react the way she did.

What I learned is that the prosthetic phallus felt so natural to her, she was actually getting zoned in on it. By that I mean, if she had been in private, she might have brought herself to orgasm simply by stroking the demonstration phallus mounted on a base on the table. She said she could feel it responding to her."

"But that's impossible," I replied. "That model of the prosthetic didn't even have the electrified tip in it. Other than going from flaccid to erect and hard while she stroked it, it couldn't have been sending any kind of stimulating signal back to Emily -- and certainly not electrically through her hand."

"That was my first reaction, too, Tom, but now I'm really not so sure. I know we did not design it that way, but ..."

"But the phallus is just a lump of electrified plastic. It can't really have any personal qualities," I interrupted.

"Well, I know what you're getting at, Tom, but I'm going to have to somewhat disagree with you.

It's true that a person seeing it and handling it for the first time without knowing what and who was behind its design would not have any context for ascribing personal qualities and attributes to it -- other than its ability to become erect as it is being handled, of course. But, the demonstration phallus mounted on the base was modeled after a real penis, Tom. Yours. When I made the models, I made one modeled after mine and one modeled after yours. Yours was the one that I chose for the demonstration.

I think it's entirely possible that even though Emily has never actually had sex with you, her mind has. In fact, I'm sure of it. I certain she has masturbated herself to orgasm fantasizing having sex with you, though she didn't come right out and say so. Consequently, she has begun her own process of adaptation.

Before she wrapped her hand around the model in the lab's conference room, her rational, disciplined, conscious mind told her it was, as you so aptly put it, just a lump of electrified plastic. But when she actually engaged it, I believe that her subconscious sexual signals sent a different and much stronger message -- that it was really you she was stroking. That's why she was into it so quickly. She had not expected to become sexually aroused, so she was mentally unprepared to resist arousal. Her arousal took her completely by surprise. It was so sudden and powerful that it made her semi-oblivious to her setting and the people around her."

"But I've barely even talked with Emily, let alone dated her or anything even remotely sexual."

"True enough, Tom, but if our theory of the neural communicative nature of your 'gift' is accurate, you may have been sending sexual signals to her even before you met her in person. And judging from her responses, I'd say she has been receiving and processing them. Emily certainly has more than ample context to associate what was in her hand with the man sitting across the conference room table from her. You."

I thought back to when Jamie had first asked me to consider seeking legal counsel from Marta. It was becoming clearer to me now.

"You mean through all of the material and videos I have given you and Lorraine with permission to show them to Marta and Emily."

"Exactly, Tom! Think about the detailed information you revealed about your sexual stimulations and partner preferences in all that material. Obviously we've all watched the videos, including your masturbating.

You become very aroused by kissing -- much more aroused than many men. Remember that Marta is a skilled practitioner of shifuku, the historic adaptation of Asian women to bring other women to orgasm just by focused kissing and touching but without genital contact. She has practiced that as foreplay with Emily, so in Emily's mind she or Marta could bring you to orgasm merely by kissing you. Emily's ability to envision stroking you to orgasm and her own subsequent orgasm is intensified by her shifuku interaction with Marta.

And by the way, Marta has become extremely interested in your masturbatory sex with Linda in high school. With Marta's intense understanding and training in shifuku, she believes that your 'gift' may be a heretofore undocumented male manifestation of it.

As she explains it, shifuku is really an adaptive process that some Japanese women developed to achieve sexual satisfaction that their male partners were unable or unwilling to provide. Since the women would be shunned if they were caught touching each other in obviously sexual ways, they developed a way to focus all those forbidden sexual sensations into an act that could be performed fully clothed and with hardly any after-signs if they were interrupted. Shifuku was their adaptation.

Imagine being able to bring your partner to a full and satisfying orgasm by only fingertip and tongue-touching of the face and neck areas and by aggressive and deep tongue kissing and verbalizing. That requires both partners to be mentally focused and synchronized with each other to a degree that is difficult to explain. If you think about it, that sounds similar to your 'gift'.

Marta was even more convinced of the similarity between your 'gift' and shifuku after watching the video of Kim masturbating you while you were having the CT scan during orgasm. More accurately, it was Kim's own completely spontaneous orgasm in conjunction with yours that shocked Marta and suggested to her that your 'gift' may be a male version of the shifuku it took Asian women generations to develop. Kim never touched herself while she was stroking you, but the video clearly shows -- and she confirmed it -- that she experienced a strength-draining orgasm when you shot your load into the air. Marta watched that particular video several times, I might add, so her interest in watching you masturbate may not have been entirely 'professional.'

But let me continue.

Like many men, you are aroused by bisexual women. Because of your own 'gift,' your adaptability if it is that, you might actually be more aroused by bisexual women than other men are. In case you're wondering, that's not a bad thing at all. If anything, it would intensify your own pleasure because in addition to achieving a male orgasm while watching two bi women, your 'gift', your adaptability, might also allow you to vicariously experience a certain amount of the pleasure we feel as women.

You prefer women who are older than you. That may be a preference for our intellectual maturity as much as for our physical and emotional maturity. But of course that preference is not one-sided. Some older women prefer younger men. In some cases, we want you because of your sexual stamina and endurance. Some women are trying to cling to the illusion of eternal youth for themselves, and sexually seducing younger men helps them preserve their own youth. And in more mature women than you might think, some are fulfilling a sexual fantasy to have sex with a younger relative such as a nephew, cousin, or even son.