How I F*ck as an Intersex Person

NATALIE RIVERA: Hi, you’re listening to How I F*ck and I’m your host Natalie Rivera. Intersex. It’s the “I” in LGBTQIA and it’s still a relatively misunderstood term used to described people who were born with intersex traits. Yet you’ve probably heard the derogatory term “hermaphrodite” in trashy reality shows like Jerry Springer growing up or, if you’re like me, you probably read Middlesex, a book about an intersex person written by an author who is not intersex.

Intersex is an umbrella term that refers to people who are born with any variations of reproductive and sexual anatomy that are different from what is traditionally considered male or female. This can mean being born with both a vagina and internal testicles or being born with sex chromosomes that don’t match your sexual anatomy.

Sean Saifa Wall was born with androgen insensitivity syndrome. Saifa does not have a uterus or a vagina but instead has what can be described as a really micro penis or an enlarged clitoris and internal testes. Yet, regardless of Saifa’s sexual anatomy, doctors decided to assign Saifa as female at birth. Doctors actually spent years trying to convince him that he was actually a girl. Spoiler alert: It didn’t work. 

But before we get into the anatomy of f*cking as an intersex person, which is what Saifa wanted to name this episode, lets first get you introduced to Saifa, because trust me: You want to meet him. 

SEAN SAIFA WALL: I love talking about f*cking!!!

NR: I should just promote this episode by having just that soundbite: “Next week on ‘How I F*ck,’ I love talking about f*cking.”

SSW: Yeah, no!

NR: Saifa is like no other person I’ve ever met. He is so open about everything that I found myself blushing during our conversation. Honestly I spent the first half of our conversation being overly careful in the way I asked questions given the episode’s topic. Saifa is one of almost 2 % of the world’s population who is intersex, something that still to this day seems to confuse some people, especially doctors. Which is why instead of embracing Saifa’s sexual anatomy for what it is and giving him the option to decide his gender when he got older, Saifa’s doctors decided to assign him his sex themselves using some pretty questionable guidelines.

SSW: I think the practice back then, and I think it's the whole practice now is that everything kind of revolves around the penis. They use a phall-o-meter and depending on the size of the penis, the child would be assigned as a boy. If the penis is not big enough then the child to be assigned as a girl. 

NR: While everyone around him told Saifa he was a girl, Saifa knew deep down that he wasn’t. He was a boy.

SSW: I think for me growing up as a girl, I was always a tomboy. And I think up until I was seven years old, I thought I was a boy. I was like, “Oh, I'm a boy. You can't tell me anything.” And my mom would be like you're not a boy, you're a girl. And I think I did what I could to conform. And it wasn't easy. I didn't like wearing dresses.  I always wanted to wear pants or dungarees. 

NR: So does that mean you didn't know that you were intersex? 

SSW: Well, when I was younger, my mom told me I think when I was seven or eight, she was like you have testicular feminization syndrome? I was like what the hell is that? I didn't know what that meant, like, you know I was like, “huh”?

NR: While Saifa didn’t understand his intersex traits growing up, she did of course notice that his body wasn’t like everyone else’s. 

SSW: I didn't know that there were other possibilities. I didn't know that this was possible. And when I started developing early because you know, when the body makes excess testosterone it converts to estrogen. So I got breasts when I was like in the third grade and then by the time I was in the sixth or seventh grade, I was like, probably like 11, that's when I started to develop as male. And I was confused. You know, I liked what my body was doing but I didn't know why I was doing it. And I look back on pictures from that time I was like, “Oh, I look like a boy.” Straight up. A boy, you know. And I think because I look so man-ish as a young person, I think, guys, they would, you know, call me ugly and they didn't really understand why I look the way I look. I didn't even understand why I look the way I look right. 

NR: It became clearer to Saifa that he didn’t have the same sexual anatomy as the girls he went to school with when he started experimenting with girls as a child. Saifa grew up knowing he was attracted to girls, and frankly the girls loved him back.

SSW: Oh, I was getting it in. Ever since I was a kid, I was attracted to girls. And when I was five years old, I was like, you know, experimenting with other girls like kissing. I don't even think it was kissing back then not like I kiss now. But like, you know, exploring each other's bodies. I think that's one thing that has remained consistent is that I'm a ho through and through. I just be like, you know I am I am ready. I'm always ready. A lot of people say stay ready so you don't have to get ready. That was me even as a young person, so I would have these friendships with these girls and like half of those friendships, especially before the age of like 13, I will say half of those friendships involve some sexual component. With girls, I think they would touch me, but I think they were really like, especially when we're little girls, they're just like, “Oh, you have what I have,” and then they look and they're like, “Oh, you don't have what I have,” and I looked at their parts and I was like, “Wow, you have this, this kind of opening and you have these lips and you have this teeny tiny clit,” and I did not look like that at all and they would be like “Wow, you you have a little penis.”

NR: While Saifa enjoyed exploring his sexuality as a young boy, his mother was fending off doctors who wanted to use Saifa’s “little penis” in order to make it into a vagina. You see, from the day Saifa was born doctors have been trying to convince Saifa’s mother that he needed to have surgery. 

SSW: When I was born, they wanted to remove my testes and do genital surgery. And my mom was able, you know, she told them no. 

NR: This kind of surgery that the doctors suggested Saifa have has been described as “gender-normalizing” or “correctional” surgeries. These medical interventions are usually unnecessary, so much so that in 2017 Human Rights Watch release a report that claimed that medically unnecessary intersex surgeries could have “meaningful risk of harm and can be safely deferred. While there isn’t an exact number of how many intersex people have had these surgeries, doctors have been performing surgeries on intersex infants and children since at least the 50s.

NR: Are newborns having surgeries then? How young are some of these children having surgery when they're born with intersex traits?

SSW: Now, I'm not a physician, I'm not a doctor, or a urologist or a surgeon but these surgeries are happening when a child is very small. There was a case in 2006, where a child was, you know, given surgery and they were 16 months old. So these surgeries are happening young and I think there's no reason. There's no reason that a child, especially a child that's assigned female at birth, should have a vagina. Right, because I think we should really let just kids be kids, but it's unfortunate that these surgeries happen so young. And it's not just one surgery, it's multiple surgeries. And I think that's what makes this a really insidious problem.

NR: While Saifa’s mom stayed resilient for years, turning down doctor’s requests to have Saifa undergo surgery, Saifa did ultimately have surgery at the age of 13. So how were doctors able to convince Saifa’s mother after so many years? My bringing up a word that no parent wants to hear: Cancer.

SSW: They lied to her and told her that my testes that they refer to as gonads, were cancerous. And so when my mom heard “cancer,” she was like, “Oh, I want to do anything to make sure that my child doesn't develop cancer.” And I think a lot of these decisions around gender are arbitrary. I think they are definitely because of position bias, provider bias. And these decisions are strictly made based on people's notion of what males should look like and what females should look like. Again, very binary thinking. But unfortunately, a lot of intersex children are caught in the crosshairs of that.

NR: What ultimately happened was a castration which involved removing Saifa’s internal testes.

SSW: I had balls. I had balls, that they took my balls.

NR: Can you describe to me the surgery from what you remember? 

SSW: I was wheeled in. I remember they put that anesthesia mask over me and I was out and I guess they had given me too much anesthesia or I had a reaction during the surgery because I ended up having a seizure while I was under and like I had bit my lip. And I came out and I remember it was the worst pain, like, probably some of the worst pain that I've experienced in my life. It felt like they had scraped my insides so well. I was really nauseous from the anesthesia. My mom was like, you know, you have to throw up, you'll feel better. So I ended up throwing up. And then it was also important for me to urinate. And they told me, they told my mom that if I didn't urinate that they would put a catheter inside my urethra. And I didn't know what that meant, but because my mom had taken some nursing classes, when she was younger, she was like, they're gonna, if you don't pee, they are going to put a catheter up your urethra and that is some of the worst pain. You don't want that to happen. So we need to get up and pee right now. So I was like, okay, but I was in so much pain.

NR: Saifa and his mother went back to see their doctor, the one who had performed the surgery. It turned out the doctor didn’t want to stop with just a castration. 

SSW: I had met with the surgeon, the same surgeon who had removed my testes. I had met with him because they had wanted to do a vaginoplasty. And I remember we did a console. And I remember how he described the procedure. And he said, that they will shave down, shave, shave, shave, shave down the clitoris and create a cavity inside of you. And I remember sitting there feeling so sick when he said that. And I think my mom looked over at me and she was like, “How do you feel about that?” And I was like, I don't want to do this. And I think it was because of my mom asking me that question, just being in tune with me as a young person. That was the only thing that saved me from vaginoplasty. So after surgery, I got really depressed. Like I couldn't brush my teeth. I couldn't cut my hair. And I think looking back on it, I got really depressed because I had no sex hormones, right? Like, I had no sex hormones. And I also had really low self-esteem from being teased in middle school, right. So I think no sex hormones, being ruthlessly teased in middle school. It’s no wonder kids commit suicide.

NR: The surgery and the hormones they assigned him after to make him more feminine also started to affect Saifa’s libido and sense of comfort in his body which isn’t unheard of with intersex people who have these surgeries. In fact, there have been reports of intersex people who’ve experienced loss of sensation or pain during sex after having these “correctional” surgeries done.

SSW: My sex drive plummeted after I had surgery. I didn't feel like I was in my body. I was in a lot of pain after surgery. And my body was changing because, you know, estrogen, like I got more cellulite. Like I started to get hips and I was like, yeah, I think estrogen contributes to the sort of fat deposits in your body. And when they put me on estrogen and progesterone, it really changed my face and body.

NR: One night in college, Saifa decided to do his own research and really look into why his body was changing and why it always seemed different from everyone else’s. It was then that he really started to understand what his mother had described to him when he was child, all of those medical terms his mom said that he was too young to understand, let alone search online. 

SSW: It was just like literally one night typing “testicular feminization syndrome” into a Yahoo! search bar that I sort of found out that it was changed from testicular feminization to androgen insensitivity. And just reading the characteristics of AIS, I was like, oh, wow, like, shit. That's me. That's my body. And I felt really betrayed and really angry at what happened to me without my thorough informed consent.

NR: Did you ever look up your medical records?

SSW: Hell yeah. I got them when I was 25.

NR: What was that like?

SSW: I really wanted to know, like what happened to my body and I think when I got my medical records, I was devastated. Because I remember I saw that they wrote in the medical record that at first when I was born, they can tell you know, they checked that I had ambiguous genitalia, and then he scratched it out. And then they wrote that the child has gonads not testes and the child shall be raised as a girl and function as such. And I was like, Jesus f*cking christ like, I was robbed of my body. I was robbed of a whole experience based on their bias. 

NR: It was around that time that Saifa decided to reclaim his body and identity by going on testosterone and presenting as a man. 

NR: So you identify as trans then?

SSW: Yeah, I identify as intersex and also trans. There are some intersex people who identify as trans because of how they were assigned at birth. But, you know, most trans people are not intersex, right. For the most part, trans people you know, are assigned male or female at birth. They may not be subject to cosmetic surgeries that intersex children are often subjected to, but trans people they may be assigned at birth, but inside they feel differently. And they would do either surgeries or hormones. Some trans people elect not to do surgeries or hormones. But trans people definitely transition to align their gender presentation with how they feel inside.

NR: Seems like you were comfortable with your sexuality before the surgery. Were you comfortable after? 

SSW: Yes. When I started taking testosterone at 25, whoo, that libido came back. I think before you know I would be aroused, but you know, I wasn't aroused as I am on T, you know, and I had more sexual fantasies on testosterone, like the testosterone has had me out here whereas I feel like when I was taking estrogen and progesterone, like my libido wasn't… I was still getting aroused but I wasn't like aroused. 

NR: That same year that Saifa started testosterone was the same year that Saifa had his first orgasm. It was a moment Saifa would never forget, and one he work hard to emulate again and again.

SSW: I was having sex with this woman, I would never forget her. Like, she was the first person who I came with orally. And it blew my mind. I remember it was in my room. And I remember the time of day and everything. It was the morning and she gave me some head and from then on, I was like, “Oh, I want to feel this all the time.” So I really learned how to pleasure myself. And I think from then I felt really empowered, because I think in order for me to tell others how to please me, I had to know and I needed that knowledge myself.

NR: So what, how did you?

SSW: Yes, yeah, let's get it. Okay. So, you know, for those listening, so I call my parts “cletus”, right? Because it's like a clit but it's like a penis. “Cletus,” right, a good blend of both, right? So it's kind of shaped like a hook, like a seahorse, right? And it's like a shell. It's kind of hard to describe. So basically what I learned is that, you know, lube is my friend because I don't get wet. But I don't ejaculate either. So I don't ejaculate like men and women. But I don't get wet. You know, so I'm just like, “Wow, so lube is my friend.” So essentially, I was like, “Okay, I'm gonna get some lube, and I'm just gonna start feeling around it start rubbing on it,” right, but then I would get really hard and when I'm hard, it gets like two inches. Two inches long, right? And so, basically I kind of take this…this from this trans guy who I saw in this documentary once, and he was like, “You know, I might be hung like a gerbil, but you know, I'm packing some heat.” And so basically I would rub the foreskin against the underside and then my fingers kind of like hook in it, kind of. I create this slight little kind of, nice little… I don't know, with my hand, my right hand usually I create this nice little wet kind of squeeze for my cletus, and then I stroke it, and then I come and yes, pretty epic.

NR: Is there like a release or is it just...obviously there’s like a release of hormones and emotions, you know, but is there like any liquid release?

SSW: Nope. It's hilarious that you asked me that question because literally, when I've had casual sex with people, people like go “Wait, do you? Does something come out” and I'm like, nah. And they're like, “Whoa.”

NR: I guess that means for you to like please women that you really had to get pretty good with like oral…

SSW: Oh, yeah. Oh, I love eating pussy! I love eating pussy! Oh, oh, give me a wet pussy, especially a big clit. Oh, I'm in heaven!

NR: The people Saifa sleeps with also really need to enjoy oral if they want to please Saifa, which I hope they do because Saifa is clearly eager to please them.

SSW: I primarily date women and femmes and I've also hooked up with dudes too. And I need to say for the record that when I've hooked up with dudes I've nine times out of 10, I come with dudes and that lets me know that dudes like sucking cock. What has been consistent in my experiences with women and femmes is that I think it takes a special kind of woman who loves sucking cock. Like I feel like in order for me to get good head for cletus, like, women really have to love sucking cock and I think what I've experienced in my time of dating women, and you know, for good reason, I don't think a lot of women like sucking cock, you know? So you know, definitely women love to feel it inside of them. They're just “Oh yeah, I want to ride you,” you know, because of cletus’s size like it kind of fits in their pussy. But then when they're really big down there, really kind of wide. I mean, you know, cletus gets lost in the sauce, but you know, it feels good. But I think because of cletus’s size, you know, it can kind of hit their clit and hit their pussy like so it's just like, boom, boom, though. So, yeah.

NR: As you can tell, Saifa is pretty comfortable talking about how he has sex, and while he is happy to answer questions, there have been people Saifa has come across who feel the need to know everything about his sexuality and genitalia, something that can be a huge turn off.. 

SSW: There's people for sure, like in the age of online dating, like on Tinder, people feel really entitled to ask me questions about my body, you know, cuz I'm very upfront. I'm of trans experience. I'm intersex. And the questions that people come up with, I'm like, are you smoking? This would never be okay in any other setting. Why do you feel like it's okay to ask me very inappropriate questions about my body. And there hasn't been any conversation about being intimate, you know? Yeah, I feel like especially the women that I've had slept with, like the lesbian women, some of the queer women, they feel really entitled to ask very inappropriate questions about my body.

NR: What kind of questions?

SSW: Kind of like, “Well, what do you look like down there? Have you had any surgeries? What surgeries have you had? You want to have surgeries?” And again, if we were, like having a sexual relationship, like if I'm like, “Oh, we gonna be f*cking then we can have all the conversations.” Well, we're not f*cking I don't know…

NR: They want your medical history.

SSW: Right? Because for me as someone who is masculine of center, I'm not going to ask a femme woman like “Oh, what do your titties look like? What does your ass look like? I mean, that's really disrespectful. I wouldn't do that anyway. But for me, I'm just like, just because I'm different, that doesn't give anyone the right to ask intrusive questions, especially if we're not intimate.

NR: Saifa is now 41. While Saifa has had many, many, orgasms since starting his testosterone, and while he is now incredibly open about his intersex journey, having written articles and done TedX talks, Saifa refuses to forget the surgery he had and the lies and the deception behind it. Saifa has been heavily involved in intersex activism for some years now and is currently spearheading the Intersex Justice Project, which aims to end unnecessary medical interventions on intersex children. He cofounded the project with intersex activist and artist Pidgeon Pagonis.

NR: When did you start finding other people who are intersex? When did you start finding that community?

SSW: In 2004, maybe 2005, I met Jim Ambrose. And he was the first intersex person who I met and I think what made him special, like me, he was assigned female at birth, but then he transitioned to male. I think meeting him really saved my life in some ways, because it was so powerful to see a reflection of myself. I think when I connected with other intersex people, I just feel like it's so life giving and life affirming to meet other intersex people because I think, what keeps intersex people… I think what increases the shame and the stigma is the silence. You know, I think when we're silent about what happened to us and when we don't talk to other intersex people, I think it's really easy to believe that you're the only one or you're so rare or you'll never meet someone else who's intersex. And I think when I met someone else, and we just talked about it, shared stories, I think for me, it was just so affirming to know that what happened to me was wrong. And it happened to other people. And I think that's what really put a fire in my belly to really fight for change.

NR: If there was one thing that you wish people knew about these kinds of surgeries, what would that thing be?

SSW: What I want them to know is that people should be able to decide on surgeries that feel good for their body. Like we live in the U.S., people get surgeries all the time. Nose jobs, boob jobs, people get all the surgeries to enhance their beauty or to feel better in their bodies. And I think the issue is and the problem here is that intersex children and adolescences are subject to cosmetic surgeries or forced cosmetic surgeries without their consent. And I feel that everyone deserves consent over their bodies. Everyone deserves dignity. Everyone deserves bodily autonomy. And I think that's the crux of this issue.

NR: Absolutely. Well, Saifa those were all my questions. Where can people find you?

SSW: People can find me on Instagram as @saifaemerges. If you want to learn about the Intersex Justice Project, Intersex Justice Project is also on Instagram. My personal website is Sean Saifa. So that's Sam, Apple, igloo, Frank, alpha, dot com. So, seansaifa.com

NR: Nice. Well, thank you so much for your time.

SSW: Yeah, thank you. 

NR: And that was our episode. This episode was produced by me, Natalie Rivera. I’m also the host and creator. Ben Quiles is our audio engineer. Shyanne Lopez did copy and fact check. Music is by Miguel Gutierrez. Find his original music online under his artist name Magh. Chelsea Kwoka is our vocal coach. Our marketing team includes Gabriela Sanchez and Alissa Medina. Our sponsorship manager is Mouna Coulibaly. Make sure to check out our sponsor Fembot Magazine. We’re also on Instagram and Twitter as “howickpodcast,” that’s “How I F*ck,” without the “u” so “fck.” We also have a website, howifckpodcast.com, again without the “u” where you can find all of our latest episodes, show notes and our list of articles and stats we used in this episode. And if you like this podcast please subscribe to it, rate it, review it. Reviews are a big deal for podcasts. They help us gain more listeners which then helps us do more of what we do, so we’d really appreciate it if you took a couple minutes to rate us on Apple podcasts. Thanks again, and stay tuned for our next episode!