The other day my wife asked me an interesting question. She wanted to know how my attraction for her has changed since she has transitioned. What an interesting thing to ponder. I think I may need to go back to the beginning and remind myself what it was that drew me to her in the first place. We dated in high school and beyond; on and off for years and we were madly in love. She was studying music, and I was studying dance, but every spare minute we had we spent together. The rest of the time we spent on the phone for hours, talking about our future together.

It was the 80’s, and she had long rock n roller hair. Running my fingers through it was one of my favorite pastimes. She was a genuinely sweet human being who always treated me like gold. It was something that was very hard to find at such a young age. Since I am a few years older than she is, I had already become sexually active before we got together. She was so innocent and inhibited. I was the total opposite. I think that her lack of experience made me eager to teach her everything that I knew. Looking back at it now, my “take charge” nature was probably very appealing to her, and I guess that subconsciously I was drawn to her gentleness.

We were teenagers and finding time to be intimate was always a challenge. We lived about forty minutes away from each other and neither one of us drove. As a result, my parents would allow her to sleep over on occasion and I often stayed with my grandparents who lived in the same town that she did. Thankfully they were all oblivious, which enabled us to fool around. I won the battle of the hickey our first year together. Because I was going to miss her, I made the biggest mark I had ever seen right on her face before our holiday break from school. I swear I did not mean to get her in trouble. Her father was so angry that she had to go to holiday dinner at her grandparents’ house looking like that. I enjoyed turning her on in the most inappropriate places.

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> "AT THAT MOMENT, IN THAT PLACE, I BECAME SMITTEN."

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Months after she started hormone replacement therapy, I remember the exact moment that I first noticed her hip bone protruding from her side. It was March of 2015. She was lying in bed in a beautiful pink nightgown. It was so alluring. I grabbed my phone and snapped a few pictures of her. At that moment, in that place, I became smitten. Before that day, I had no idea how I would react to the physical changes from estrogen. After that afternoon, I stopped worrying. I began to enjoy what was happening to her. Her hair was long again, her skin was softer than mine, and what little body hair she had was gone. She was all woman, and she was magnificent.

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My wife going through transition allowed me to truly explore my own sexuality. It was something that I had never done in my forty something years on earth. As a child I was told when you get older you will marry a man and have children. I never allowed my mind to veer off that track. I guess somewhere inside me I knew that I would be disowned if I did. It was a prophecy that came to fruition after I told my family that I would not leave my wife just because she was transgender. My instincts were spot on. If I could be brutally honest for a moment, I did have a slight crushes on women when I was younger, but never entertained them. I never thought that I could explore those feelings. My eternal love for her kept us together, and her transition woke something inside of me.