Queerness; like meeting your love at a musty home in Santa Cruz.

Written by: Tamar Simone Weir

I remember the first time exploring my queer sexuality with another woman, she looked at me at a party, drunk and wanting something from me. I on the other hand, sober but interested in seeing what could come. I gave her my number and we met on a weekday, in her apartment, undecorated and a bit stale. She invited me to a cheap glass of wine and to talk for a bit before we went to the bedroom. Her bedroom consisted of some art on the wall, a desk, and a twin bed. All I remember is that at some point she pulled out her speaker and told me that she had a playlist that she uses. So I thought she was trying to create the vibe, but she explained to me that she uses her speaker as a vibrator, since she couldn't afford one, and it does the job. As a pretty open minded and curious person, I was intrigued. So, she starts playing certain songs and the songs vibrate in a way that works.... As a new queer person, figuring out my style and techniques I was confused as fuck, imagining all the different items that could be used for pleasure, and even now 6 years later, exploring queerness, I still have not met anyone who uses their vibrator or their lovers for the purpose of vibrating on that clit, but now I know, it can be used, and does provide great results if needed.

Fast forward to COVID 3 years later, returning to my college town, feeling changed from this vast experience of sickness and global panic, I moved into a queer home, where all 7 of us shared in some way this identity. A supposed safe space. Within the first week I started having these feelings for my housemate, that lived directly downstairs from me. Them in the room attached to the stairs, and me in the room with all the windows. Our romance started very slowly, sitting by the fire, finding our hands touching somehow, not knowing how they got there, but that was the first embrace where a romantic flame was lit. If we fast forward a bit, our other housemates who were in a committed relationship, had intense feelings about our connection, stating some things that I now know are problematic, but at the time, felt catastrophic as they stated that I could not possibly have real feelings or know what i want since im a new queer girl. That I was too inexperienced to have real feelings for someone, and that I would ruin the house for everyone in my search and exploration of my deepest intimate desires ..... Well, turns out they were wrong.. because we continued feeling intensely for each-other and after 7 months, I invited her to move into my parents house, a few hours away, and travel together abroad. She ended up living there with my whole family, on our family farm for a year.... Every few months, we would go on a few month long journey farming in new places and traveling together. We created something beautiful together, and were together in a polyamorous relationship for 3 years, before she broke up with me over facetime, a week before I was to return to California and see her. Quite a sad ending, for a beautiful beginning.

As heart broken as I was, I knew this was the right place for us to be, I knew this was the right decision although I wouldn't have decided that myself. But amongst, moldy walls and california waves, through all the years together, I explored what my identity meant for me. This closeness allowed me to reach beyond what I knew love and romance to be, and enter paths that didn't always feel the most comfortable, but challenged me in all the best and most sezy ways.

I remember solo traveling one time and my friends 3rd cousin making a move on me. We were all watching movies in her dads bed and cuddling, because touch can also be innocent right? Well this was not. She was quite a bit younger than me, which made me organize her in my head as the 3rd cousin, showing me around, being nice. But when she turned around to kiss me, this lil argentine fling begun. Every night after that for the rest of the trip we had sex in her twin bed in the other room, her father soundly asleep. Her thong getting lost amongst the sheets, her dad hosting me and feeding us breakfast the next morning. Within that one week I met her grandparents, traveled via airplane with her family, went to a concert, and said goodbye dramatically at a bus station. She now is in college, thriving, with a partner, piercings, and probably still wearing a black thong....

So although my first queer relationship did not last as long as I thought, It also lasted longer than I thought, and provided so much beauty in the form of understanding, trust, and partnership and friendship, something that often times in hetero dynamics, is hard to find. So for all those curious souls, listen to that voice, sit by a fire and find those hands drift to warmth, and don't be scared of a little black thong if it finds your way to you.