I Virtually Pegged A Guy, And It Was The Best Sex Of My Life

In late April 2020, Tinder Passport, the feature that allowed you to change your geographical location on the app, was free, a generosity inspired by COVID’s recent spread across the world. Prior to the shutdown, I was, like most people, dating in person. 

I had moved to Indiana a year and a half prior, after 22 years away, to be in closer proximity to my elderly mother. Indiana: where Tinder profiles more often than not included an obligatory image of a giant freshly caught fish, and “craft beer” was listed as the other hobby. 

A hypochondriac to the core, I wasn’t willing to risk contracting a disease scientists knew very little about to discuss craft beer, or fish, in person. Besides, I was like a camel when it came to sex ― I could withstand long droughts. 

In order to practice the French I was studying, I set Paris as one of my locations. One of my matches, Étienne, was 10 years younger than me at 33. His profile stated he was a “fetishist” and had a photo of a woman’s calves and feet, so I understood at least one of his kinks. (I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for anyone with a foot fetish.) 

His message said he loved my feet and my legs, and I replied “merci.” We chatted a little longer and I said we could text more on WhatsApp if he liked. If he sent me a photo, I would respond in kind. I gave him my cell number and he immediately texted me on WhatsApp. 

Étienne sent me a couple of photos, one shirtless, one with a shirt and no pants. He had short, dark brown hair and eyes, a slightly overgrown beard and hair …everywhere. He got straight to the point, telling me what he’d like me to do. 

He asked me to dominate him. I described my whip and demanded he get on all fours (“Mets-toi à quatre pattes!”). He made it clear that he wanted me to penetrate him with the base of my imaginary whip, and I made sure to convey to him in detail exactly how I would do it. 

The next time we sexted, Étienne asked me to wear my dildo. I had two, and a harness for them, but until now, they’d mostly remained in my dresser drawer. You see, I had mixed feelings about dicks. 

Potentially a result of having been molested as a child, I equated masculinity with predation; I never wanted to be a predator, so I eschewed my own masculinity. I’d sported ties on occasion, and my wardrobe ventured into androgynous territory at times, but my dildos lay mostly resting in my underwear drawer.

As a result, I’d never shared my whole self with a partner and I felt like I was hiding a huge part of myself in my regular life. Until Étienne requested I wear my dildo. In that moment, I shed years of shame. 

Over the next several days, Étienne contacted me around 11 a.m. Eastern, ready to play. I didn’t respond immediately because I felt I’d better stay focused on my goal at the time: learning InDesign from a $12 Udemy course I’d purchased to distract myself from the world falling apart. Besides, I didn’t want him to know he was all I could think about. 

When we did talk, we kept it simple. Our conversation centred solely around sex. There was no obligation. 

Prior to meeting Étienne, I had been reviewing the French I’d studied in college. I thought I might move to France, eventually, and I wanted to get out of the restaurant business, where I’d been a server for several years since my three-year stint in a graduate experimental film program. But I’ve never studied anything like I studied French during the period of my affair with Étienne.

I pored over my copy of Le Robert Micro, I used Duo Lingo, I practiced with a borrowed copy of the Rosetta Stone, and I even ventured onto a French dominatrix’s website to learn more slang. I had piles of note cards filled with the words I was learning from our encounters. An impartial observer might think I was preparing for a career as a sex worker in France.

Practical issues were the least of my concerns, though. I was blissed out on our connection. Good sex, it seemed, was a very powerful motivator for me. And our online trysts made me feel more alive than I had in years. 

It was a virtual connection that wasn’t likely ever to transform into anything more. And yet it was better than any in-person encounter I had experienced thus far because I allowed myself to explore my desires more fully than I ever had. 

I knew I was pansexual, and I’d felt I might be nonbinary for years, but because I was female-bodied and loved wearing stilettos and fishnet stockings, donning wigs and playing with makeup, I just called myself “queer” and left it at that. 

But inside, I had always felt like a boy/girl. As my affair with Étienne progressed, I realised I needed to allow this newly acknowledged part of my identity to be more fully present in my life. What exactly that would look like wasn’t clear yet.

Maybe it was the distance between us, the fact that we only spoke French, or the virtual nature of our interaction, but I felt freer to explore than I had ever before. 

Like me, Étienne was a switch, so we took turns taking charge. Sometimes Étienne wanted to be “la salope” (the slut) and I would demand that he wear “les bas résilles” (fishnet stockings) or my panties (“Tu dois porter cette culotte maintenant”), which I’d dangle in front of the camera. Sometimes I was “la salope,” and he would order me to do what he desired. Étienne’s command of the French language definitely gave him the advantage, but I kept up as best as I could, improvising with a quick Google search when necessary. 

On our second sext date, when Étienne revealed that he wanted me to penetrate him with my dildo, I was ecstatic. Though I’d broached the topic with prior cis male lovers, none of them had wanted to try it. Étienne was ready and willing. And so was I.

We were just messaging, no photos this time, but his words inflamed me more than any image could. I felt desire engulf me ― every nerve felt stimulated, as though my body was on fire. He described how he would worship my dildo. I expressed exactly how I would penetrate him, and he thanked me.

We continued to entice each other with words until he came. I found it challenging to text in French and pleasure myself, so I waited until the conversation had ended before I brought myself to the strongest orgasm I’d had in a very long time, while wearing my “gode-ceinture”and imagining defiling Étienne in all the ways we’d described. For the first time with a cis man, I felt safe ― not because Étienne was trustworthy (I didn’t know him), but because he’d made himself vulnerable to me.

Later that night, I sent Étienne a video of myself wearing my dildo, and I asked him to show me where he wanted me to put it. Étienne responded the next morning with a video in which he removed his shorts, turned around toward the camera, and displayed his gorgeous ass. 

Through topping Étienne, I released much of the fear and shame I’d been carrying around my own masculinity and sexuality. Even though I had already considered myself pansexual, I now had a deeper understanding of the breadth of my sexuality. I felt freer, as I’d reached heights with Étienne that I never had before. The ecstasy I’d felt with Étienne pushed me through the fear that had held me back for so long to the other side, where I felt free to explore my newly acknowledged gender identity.

Étienne and I continued our fun until he met someone and decided he wanted to explore that exclusively. I was dating other people the entire time, and I wasn’t concerned with Étienne’s life outside of our meetings. We were more than 4,000 miles apart, after all. Still, in my characteristic melodramatic fashion, I made myself a grieving mix and mourned for what I felt was an appropriate amount of time to honour what we’d shared. 

With Étienne, I embraced a side of myself that I had never fully expressed. Though our affair was over, I felt more whole than before. I let gratitude fill my heart, and I let him go. I wasn’t sure exactly what nonbinary would look like for me, but I was looking forward to exploring it further.