I Love Women— But I Don’t Know Who I am With Them.

A confessional reflection on queer desire, internalized shame, racialized dynamics in queer relationships, and the search for softness, worship, and mutual presence in intimacy with women.

I love women. I always have.
Their skin, their scent, the way they speak with their eyes before they even touch you.
There’s something so holy about being in their presence. So much so, that sometimes I forget I’m one too.

But when I’m actually with a woman—like with her, skin to skin, eye to eye—I lose my footing.
Not because I don’t want her. Not because I don’t know how to be sensual.
But because I suddenly feel like I’m playing a part I didn’t audition for.

And the worst part is, I don’t even realize I’ve slipped into it until it’s too late.
Until I’m watching myself become the protector, the caretaker, the one who knows what to do.
Even when I don’t.

⸻

When I’m with women, something in me clenches.
I get in my head.
I want to make sure she’s okay. That she’s enjoying herself. That she doesn’t feel used, or worse—violated.
I don’t want her to feel how I’ve felt after so many meaningless encounters with men: emptied out and invisible.

So I take on that responsibility, even if it’s not mine to hold.
I overcorrect.
I check in too much.
I shape-shift.
And then suddenly I’m not in the moment anymore. I’m performing safety.
I’m trying not to be him.

⸻

I’ve felt this most in interracial queer dynamics— From experience, and seeing how they’re portrayed in media and the entertainment industry.
If it’s an interracial lesbian relationship and one person is Black, that person is almost always portrayed as the masculine one.
Even if both are femme.
Even if no one’s performing dominance.

It creates this constant juxtaposition:
White femme fragility vs. Black female masculinity.

I rarely see a soft Black femme being held  in interracial lesbian relationships.
I rarely see us being pampered.
Babied.
Protected.
Allowed to grow inside our softness.

Even when I show up that way—soft, slow, vulnerable—
I get read as strong.
And then the labor gets assigned.
The emotional weight. The caretaking.
The holding-it-together.

And it wears on me.

⸻

And seeing all this—knowing it—still doesn’t bring me peace.
Because I don’t know if I’m projecting these roles onto myself,
or if they’re really being handed to me in real time.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve just internalized all of this so deeply
that I walk into intimacy already assuming the worst.
Already bracing.
Already taking responsibility for how I’ll be perceived.

My experiences with women often leave me feeling…
not just confused, but sightly disgusted, if not shamed of myself.

And it’s hard to say out loud.
Because on one hand, I love being with women.
Mentally. Emotionally. Energetically.
But on the other hand—I rarely feel physically engaged.
The stimulation feels uncertain. 
I leave the moment asking myself “Did she feel honored?” 
and also, “How I feel?”.

And so the spiral starts:
Was I too intense? Was I too needy? Was I too creepy?

I don’t want to make anyone feel unsafe.
But I don’t want to keep abandoning myself either.

⸻

When I’m with men, it’s different.

It’s easier. Structured.  
There’s a script—whether I’m the one submitting or taking control, it’s all familiar.  
I rarely question my femininity in those moments.

There’s something about the dynamic that feels legible, even when it’s transactional.  
I know my role. I know theirs.  
Even when I’m performing, I feel anchored in something.

But with women?  
The rules disappear. And suddenly I’m not sure who I am.  
Not because I don’t want her—but because I want to protect her from everything I’ve ever felt with men who didn’t see me, invest in me, or hold me with care.  
So I overcorrect.  
And the intimacy unravels before it even begins.

——

But maybe the root of it started even earlier.

I grew up in Washington State.
That’s where I first started hooking up with women—mostly white, mostly straight, they were the only ones who came onto me. I was painfully shy and the idea of ever approaching a women was a cause for serious anxiety.
At the time, I’d had been with very few queer woman. I wanted to be in queer spaces so badly. I craved belonging.

But when it came to the lesbian circles, I was completely excluded.
Not because I wasn’t queer enough.
But because I was Black and femme—
And back then, being Black and femme meant you didn’t fit.

You were expected to be a stud or masc—that was the default in the lesbian circles I saw in my early 20s, living in Washington State. There was only one way to take up space, and I didn’t fit it.
Because of that, I was edged out. Quietly. Repeatedly.

So I found myself on the margins again.
Too queer for the straight world.
Too femme for the lesbian one.

Eventually, I found myself drifting toward gay male circles instead—spaces that, surprisingly, felt more expansive. More fluid. More playful. There was more room for softness. More room for flair.

And it was there, in those rooms full of glitter and shade and unabashed queerness, that I finally started to blossom. I could experiment. I could breathe. I could actually be seen without needing to perform masculinity to be included.

And when I moved to LA, the pattern shifted—but it didn’t disappear.
Here, I still hooked up with women—some fluid, some straight.
But I was always the only Black one in the room.
The women were usually white. Sometimes Asian.
Still rarely queer in the way I was.
Still navigating me like I was something unfamiliar.

So even when I was touching women, I wasn’t always with them.
There was still a disconnect. A kind of quiet racialized isolation that followed me from state to state.

⸻

When I first started hooking up with women, I never let them touch me.
It wasn’t dominance.
It was shame.

Shame for having a vagina.
Shame for being a woman.
Shame for being soft.
I didn’t know how to be vulnerable without substances.

So I drank. I got high. I blacked out.
Over and over again.
And most of the time, I wasn’t even there.
My body was, but I wasn’t.

Last year, I wrote about my first sober experience with a woman.
It was quiet. Intimate. Uneasy.
But it was the first time I felt myself trying to stay.

No alcohol. No distractions.
Just me, her, and a sea of sensation I could actually feel.

Because being with a woman is an act of worship.
And I couldn’t worship anyone—let alone myself—if I wasn’t even present.

It wasn’t perfect. I was still nervous. Still monitoring.
But I was there.

And I realized: I’ve never really been with a woman before—not like this.
Not while being fully with myself, too.

⸻

And I want to be clear—this doesn’t just come up in interracial dynamics.
It extends far beyond race. I’ve felt this clenching, this performance of care,
this discomfort in nearly every experience I’ve had with women. The only time I didn’t
was in France, at that sex party in Cannes—when I was finally present. Finally seen.
But most of the time, it’s there. The tension. The internal monitoring. The fear of being too much.
Too eager. Too intense. Too wrong.

It’s just that in interracial contexts, I notice it more. I see the scripts more clearly.
The cultural expectations. The roles we’re handed without our consent.

So I’m learning. Still. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe part of softening is realizing
that I don’t have to fix it all at once—I just have to notice. To name it. And to stay present with it long enough to unlearn it.