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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rachel Thorn (talk | contribs) at 06:08, 26 December 2022 (→‎Background: According to Mira's sister, CJ Bellwether, Mira never went by "Miranda." CJ says she was born on March 31, 1982.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article is about the 'zine. For the general topic of sex with trans women, see Transgender sexuality.
Fucking Trans Women #0
AuthorMira Bellwether
IllustratorBellwether
Cover artistBellwether
LanguageEnglish
PublisherSelf-published
Publication date
October 2010 (digital)
August 2013 (print)
Publication placeUnited States
Media type'zine
Pages80
ISBN9781492128939 (print edition)
TextFucking Trans Women #0 at the Internet Archive
Websitehttp://fuckingtranswomen.org/[1]

Fucking Trans Women, sometimes abbreviated FTW, is a 'zine created by Mira Bellwether, to date consisting of a single 80-page issue "#0", published in October 2010 and republished in 2013 as Fucking Trans Women: A Zine About the Sex Lives of Trans Women. Bellwether wrote all of the articles in the issue, which explores a variety of sexual activities involving trans women, primarily ones who are pre-op or non-op with respect to bottom surgery. It was innovative in its focus on trans women's own perspectives and its inclusion of instructions for many of the sex acts depicted. Emphasizing sex acts possible with flaccid penises or not involving penises at all, it coined the term "muffing" to refer to stimulation of the inguinal canal, and popularized that act. Since its publication it has received both popular-culture and scholarly attention, being described in Sexuality & Culture as "a comprehensive guide to trans women's sexuality"[2] and in Playboy as "widely considered to be the first and most in-depth guide to having sex with pre- and non-op trans femme bodies."[3]

Background

Mira Darling Bellwether (born March 31, 1982), a self-described "trans dyke" then living in the U.S. state of Iowa,[4] created the 'zine over the course of "a year or so".[5] She intended to publish a 'zine featuring submissions from others, but found the material insufficient, and so chose to make the 'zine a solo effort and number it "#0" to leave room for a "#1" featuring others' contributions.[6] In an interview with Kennedy Nadler of Autostraddle in 2013, she wrote that she "wanted to speak to aspects of our sexuality that are almost never given any attention in media whatsoever: those of us who enjoy sex with other women, trans and otherwise, and some of the difficulties (as well as unique pleasures) of trans women having sex with cis women."[1]

Fucking Trans Women #0 was published online in October 2010, billed as an "80-Page Giant".[7][8] Bellwether republished it in print through CreateSpace in August 2013, without the "#0" and with the subtitle A Zine About the Sex Lives of Trans Women.[9][10]

Design

The 'zine's cover depicts a woman in a leotard (with prominent crotch bulge) and open jacket holding a whip. At her feet, indistinct figures run around in a ring.[7]

Rachel Stevens and Megan Purdy of WomenWriteAboutComics characterized the design as "intentionally messy".[11] The 'zine is black and white, with articles overlaid on grayscale images of nude or erotically-posed women.[11] For many of the acts Bellwether depicted, no scientific diagrams existed, and so she illustrated them herself,[1] an innovative approach for the time.[12]

Content

"Muffing" redirects here. For a definition of the term "muffing", see the Wiktionary entry muffing. For other uses, see Muff (disambiguation).

Rather than set a cohesive narrative, Bellwether focuses on trans women's physical experiences,[13] a novel approach.[12] Bellwether highlights both how trans women's bodies differ from cis men's[14][1] and how they are similar to cis women's bodies, such as the structures of the penis and clitoris respectively.[1] Bellwether has a penis and therefore focuses on the perspective of pre-op and non-op trans women (those who have not had bottom surgery).[14][15] She emphasizes sex acts possible with flaccid ('soft') penises, which she argues "are almost completely ignored" or "treated as defective" in sexual literature,[1][16] associating feminizing hormone therapy–induced erectile dysfunction with pleasure rather than with a lack of sexual satisfaction.[17] She criticizes the focus of "almost all sexual discourse on penises" being "on erect penises, hard penises, penetrating penises".[18] Bellwether told Nadler that "one of the ideas in FTW that I'm the most proud of is that the penis can be an organ for receiving pleasure in any state.[1] She also explains how trans women with penises can use strap-on dildos, which may be more pleasurable and allows trans women to decide the meaning of their body parts.[19]

I want to drop into your arms and be held as tight as you can hold me because I'm beautiful and special. I don't want to wonder whether you're scared to touch me, I want to know that you aren't.

"Touch", p. 48[20]

Another major focus is the innervation of trans women's bodies. Bellwether describes the "thick web" of nerves spanning trans women's genital areas and shows ways to use them to bring pleasure[21] and suggests stimulating the perineum.[22] She writes of the importance of trans women's lovers being enthusiastic about touching their bodies.[20] She coins the term muffing to refer to the act of invaginating the scrotum and penetrating the inguinal canals with the testes, fingers, or both[23][8][24]—an act that Fucking Trans Women #0 is credited with popularizing.[23] This masturbation technique stimulates the ilioinguinal and genitofemoral nerves.[25][26] Many trans women are familiar with inserting the testes into the inguinal canals in the context of tucking, which is how Bellwether discovered the practice.[27]

Bellwether emphasizes trans women's need to learn how their own bodies work, describing a "sexy mad science (white lab coats and leather gloves optional)" of working from data toward conclusions and addressing her readers as her "fellow genital cartographers".[28][29] She rejects attempts to impute a deeper meaning to trans people's genitals, writing, "what I have between my legs is not a metaphor or an analogy but something new and wonderful."[30] In the context of muffing, she refers to her inguinal canals as cunts,[26] which Lucie Fielding in Trans Sex notes in the context of a broader phenomenon of trans people renaming their body parts.[31] Bellwether refers to "the sensitive, fleshy tube of flesh with all the nerves and blood vessels in it" as the penis for the sake of comprehension, without claiming that it is an objectively correct term.[15][11]

Bellwether does not claim to speak for all trans women, but rather portrays a diversity of experiences[32] and seeks reader submissions to fill in missing pieces.[33] She acknowledges that the acts described in the 'zine may not be consistent with the experiences and desires of all trans women, telling Nadler, "It isn't everybody's story, but it's my story."[1] Fucking Trans Women #0 ends with a submission call for a next issue including anal sex, sex among trans partners, and BDSM.[34] As of August 2013, Bellwether still had plans to publish at least one more issue;[1] as of December 2022, no further issues are listed at the 'zine's official website.[35]

Reception and impact

Fucking Trans Women has been highlighted by Greta R. Bauer and Rebecca Hammond in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality as a resource for trans sexual health[36] and was described by Shoshanna Rosenberg et al. in Sexuality & Culture as "a comprehensive guide to trans women's sexuality".[2] Muffing in particular has drawn attention in popular-culture sources including Playboy,[3] Broadly,[8] Autostraddle,[37] and The Daily Dot,[38] and was promoted by scholar Lucie Fielding in Jessica Stoya's sex advice column with Slate.[39] Tobi Hill-Meyer in Autostraddle writes that "Having some familiarity with the area from tucking has led some trans women and trans fems to explore this area, and for trans women and trans fems who experience genital dysphoria, being penetrated in the front can be really meaningful."[37] Katelyn Burns in Playboy, also emphasizing muffing as less prone to inducing dysphoria, said that Fucking Trans Women is "widely considered to be the first and most in-depth guide to having sex with pre- and non-op trans femme bodies."[3]

Fielding's Trans Sex describes a 'mystification' process of seeing past the "habitual reality" of one's body, and identifies as "foundational" to this Bellwether's statement in Fucking Trans Women that "The form of someone's body doesn't necessarily determine what that body means, how it works, or what it can do";[40] she cites this phrase further to refute the proposition that all post-op trans women will wish to engage in vaginal penetration.[23] Ana Valens in The Daily Dot praises in particular Fucking Trans Women's criticism of phallocentrism;[41] writing sex guides there and in Allure, she cites Bellwether in discussing the innervation of trans women's genital areas as distinct from focusing solely on the penis.[41][42] In The Mary Sue in 2022, Valens referred to Fucking Trans Women as "the gold standard in transfeminine sex and masturbation" and wrote that, 12 years after it was first published, it remained "one of the best resources for transfeminine people who have penises".[43]

Rachel Stevens of WomenWriteAboutComics praised Bellwether's message to trans women that they don't have to emulate transgender pornography; her colleague Morgan Purdy agreed and pointed to her "[t]otal rejection of codifying a single trans women’s sexuality".[11] Broadly's Diana Tourjée describes Fucking Trans Women as "groundbreaking" and "iconic".[8] Using Bellwether's preferred term for her inguinal canals, she writes that the 'zine "helped a generation of pre or non-op trans girls reclaim their 'cunts' and find new sexual practices that supported their gendered bodies."[8] Autostraddle's Nadler said it was the 'zine that had most influenced her life and wrote,[1]

The zine's focus on the bodies of pre- and non-op trans women, and how these bodies move in bed, was revelatory. Reading FTW provided perhaps my first glimpse into an understanding of trans women's bodies, like mine, not as incomplete projects or disturbing visions, but as always already carrying the capacity to be beautiful, the potential to be sexual and sexy.

Nadler also notes the duality of the 'zine's title, which can be read either in the sense of 'how to fuck trans women' or 'trans women who fuck'.[1]

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Nadler 2013.
  2. ^ a b Rosenberg, Tilley & Morgan 2019, p. 965.
  3. ^ a b c Burns 2017.
  4. ^ Bellwether 2010, inside back cover.
  5. ^ Bellwether 2010, p. i.
  6. ^ Bellwether 2010, pp. i, 70.
  7. ^ a b Bellwether 2010, front cover.
  8. ^ a b c d e Tourjée 2017.
  9. ^ Bellwether 2013a.
  10. ^ Bellwether 2013b.
  11. ^ a b c d Stevens & Purdy 2015.
  12. ^ a b Pfeffer 2014, p. 597.
  13. ^ Kelly 2018, p. 124. "Bellwether centers bodily experience above language or narrative, insisting that it is 'Best to begin from the beautiful explosive moments of pleasure and discovery, and to let the rest come after.'" Quoting Bellwether 2010, p. 3.
  14. ^ a b Tourjée 2017, quoting Bellwether 2010, p. 2. "[J]ust because what's in my crotch looks like a penis doesn't necessarily mean that it works like a penis."
  15. ^ a b Bellwether 2010, p. 14.
  16. ^ Bellwether 2010, "Soft Science/Soft Bodies", pp. 26–32.
  17. ^ Rosenberg, Tilley & Morgan 2019, pp. 964–965.
  18. ^ Fielding 2021, p. 77, quoting Bellwether 2010, p. 7.
  19. ^ Stevens & Purdy 2015, quoting Bellwether 2010, "Strap-ons and Toys", p. 38. "Dildos let me fuck someone with a cock, without using a part of my own body as a cock."
  20. ^ a b Stevens & Purdy 2015, citing Bellwether 2010, "Touch", pp. 46–48
  21. ^ Valens 2019b, quoting Bellwether 2010, p. 11.
  22. ^ Valens 2022, citing Bellwether 2010, p. 10.
  23. ^ a b c Fielding 2021, p. 93.
  24. ^ Bellwether 2010, "An Illustrated Guide to Muffing and the Inguinal Canals", pp. 15–25.
  25. ^ Tourjée 2017. "Dr. Curtis Crane, a urologist who specializes in gender confirmation surgeries, ... affirms that it is totally logical to finger your trans cunts. 'Anatomically, the ilioinguinal and genitofemoral nerves—which both give sensation to the genital area—are right there in that canal, so that would feel good,' he says".
  26. ^ a b Fielding 2021, p. 94.
  27. ^ Burns 2017. "Bellwether herself discovered muffing almost by accident when she realized that tucking could be pleasurable for her, and she would later incorporate that pleasure into her sex life. 'I realized that hey, this feels good. It was a sex act that didn't have a name, so I called it muffing.'"
  28. ^ Fielding 2021, p. 79.
  29. ^ Bellwether 2010, pp. 2–3.
  30. ^ Fielding 2021, p. 103, quoting Bellwether 2010, p. 3.
  31. ^ Fielding 2021, pp. 91–92, quoting Hill-Meyer & Scarborough 2014, pp. 355–356. "Many of us may create our own names for our body parts. For example, some of us born with a vagina may prefer to call it a 'front hole' because this term is less gendered. ... Others may use terms such as cock, clitoris, or vagina to refer to parts of our bodies that we use or think about in these ways."
  32. ^ Kelly 2018, p. 124. "[Bellwether] does not create a singular narrative of transfeminine sexual and erotic pleasure, instead opting for multiplicity, purposeful gaps, and rough edges."
  33. ^ Kelly 2018, p. 124, citing Bellwether 2010, p. 3.
  34. ^ Bellwether 2010, p. 73.
  35. ^ Bellwether (FTW website).
  36. ^ Bauer & Hammond 2015, p. 8.
  37. ^ a b Hill-Meyer 2022.
  38. ^ Valens 2019a.
  39. ^ Stoya 2022.
  40. ^ Fielding 2021, pp. 80, 85, quoting Bellwether 2010, p. 2.
  41. ^ a b Valens 2019b.
  42. ^ Valens 2019c.
  43. ^ Valens 2022.

Sources

Book and journal sources

Popular-culture sources

By Bellwether

  • Bellwether, Mira. "Home". Fucking Trans Women (Official website). Retrieved December 14, 2022 – via Tumblr.
  • Bellwether, Mira (author and illustrator) (October 2010). Fucking Trans Women #0 ('zine). Self-published. Retrieved December 14, 2022 – via Internet Archive.
    • Published in print as: Bellwether, Mira (2013a). Fucking Trans Women: A Zine About the Sex Lives of Trans Women. ISBN 9781492128939.
  • Bellwether, Mira (August 24, 2013b). "FTW #0 in Print!". Fucking Trans Women. Retrieved December 16, 2022 – via Tumblr.
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