The Safety of a Queer Space: Fetish Sex Bots

The bourbon Miguel slides across the bar is Elijah Craig Small Batch, amber-dark as old honey left in sunlight, surface tension holding perfect meniscus that catches overhead lights like tiny halo. I lift it, inhale oak and caramel and something burned-sweet underneath, let the first sip coat my tongue with familiar fire before swallowing. My throat accepts the heat like penance, like prayer, like the only goddamn truth I trust anymore.

Thanks, mijo, I manage, voice scraped raw from a day spent in Slack channels explaining to cisgender developers why their “preferred pronoun” jokes aren’t fucking funny.

Rough one, Mom? Miguel’s voice carries that particular blend of sultry jazz and maternal concern that makes him sound like he’s singing lullabies through cigarette smoke. His wedding ring glints as he wipes down the bar top, fifteen years with Della evident in how his hands move—practiced, certain, tending.

Aren’t they all?

Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” bleeds through the sound system, Roger Hodgson’s voice asking questions about childhood and conformity that hit different when you’ve spent decades performing the wrong gender. The crackling speakers make it sound like the song’s being transmitted from another dimension, which feels accurate for a Thursday night in the Sanctuary.

Miranda settles onto the stool beside me, her presence announced by jasmine perfume and the particular weight of someone who’s carried too much, too long, too alone. She’s wearing a burgundy sweater that complements her dark hair, makeup perfect in that way that takes forty-five minutes but looks effortless. The kind of effort trans women learn early—armor disguised as artistry.

Hey, love, she says, and even those two words carry poetry. Miranda speaks like she’s composing verses in real-time, every sentence a stanza. Miguel, darling, whatever whiskey makes you think of autumn—that melancholy, beautiful decay when everything golden turns to grief.

Miguel grins, pours her two fingers of Maker’s Mark, the red wax seal on the bottle catching light. This one tastes like October, he says. All cinnamon and regret.

Brandon slides into the seat on my other side, gin and tonic already sweating in his grip, notebook tucked under one arm like a security blanket. His eyes hold that particular exhaustion of someone who’s spent the day turning pain into publishable prose, transforming trauma into think-pieces that cisgender editors will praise as “brave” and “important” while paying thirty cents a word.

Christ, you two look like I feel, he announces, gesturing at Miranda and me. Like someone just explained capitalism using only interpretive dance and genital metaphors.

Oddly specific, I mutter, but the corner of my mouth twitches.

Della emerges from the kitchen carrying three plates of blackened catfish that smell like Louisiana and fury, sets them down with authority that suggests argument will be met with spatula violence. Y’all need to eat something before the philosophical bullshit starts, she declares. And before you protest, Wendy, I’ve already heard every excuse. Eat the fucking fish.

The catfish is perfect—charred exterior giving way to flaky interior, heat building gradually rather than assaulting. Della’s cooking always tastes like love expressed through controlled violence, tenderness disguised as aggression.

Miguel leans against the bar, arms crossed, wedding ring catching light. What happened?

So I was telling my coworkers today about this date I had early transition, I start, bourbon making me bold or stupid or both. Back when I was still trying the apps.

Keira’s voice cuts in from beside me. Oh god, is this the ‘fully functional’ story again?

You’ve heard this? Miranda asks, Maker’s Mark pausing halfway to her lips.

Twice, Keira says dryly. Once during a particularly memorable rant about why she deleted all her dating profiles. Thank the Gods she doesn’t date anymore.

So this guy seemed normal at first, I continue. Nice place, pays for drinks, asks about my work. Fourteen and a half minutes before he asks about my ‘surgery status.’ Another ten minutes, he’s asking what I look like ‘down there’ because he’s ‘just curious.’ By dessert, he’s literally negotiating sex like I’m a goddamn Amazon wishlist.

Like you’re a fucking appliance, Miranda breathes. A toaster oven with tits and a warranty.

He said: ‘I’ve always wanted to try a girl like you. Are you fully functional?’

Jesus Christ, Miranda whispers.

Keira’s laugh is dark. Tell her what you did, Wendy.

Climbed out the bathroom window in my good heels, Ubered home while he waited for dessert. Left him with the check and a text that said ‘You’re confusing a human being with a sex toy catalog.’

You did not, Miranda gasps.

Oh, she did, Keira confirms. Then came home and rage-wrote a three-thousand-word essay her editor rejected for being ‘too angry.’

How about men learning that trans women are people, not pornhub categories? I snap.

Della slams another plate down—quesadillas this time, cheese oozing obscenely. If any of you in this Bar date an asshole like that, you tell me where he lives. I’m sending him a casserole with laxatives and Ipecac.

The problem isn’t just him, I say, feeling the bourbon and fury mixing into something combustible. It’s the entire fucking ecosystem that produced him. The porn industry that taught him trans women exist as fantasy fulfillment. The dating apps that let chasers filter us like we’re a fetish category. The culture that reduces us to parts instead of people—tits and dicks and surgical status instead of, I don’t know, the fact that Miranda writes poetry that makes angels weep and raises two kids who think she hung the fucking moon.

Cheers to that nightmare, Brandon mutters, raising his gin. Try being a gay man who writes about queer issues publicly. Every third message is either ‘you’re not a real man’ or ‘I’ve always wanted to fuck a writer’ like my entire existence is foreplay for someone’s sexual bucket list.

Miguel refills my bourbon without asking, slides Brandon’s gin across the bar. I I mean shit, he says quietly. Della and I get it too. People who treat our marriage like sociological experiment they can study. Women who flirt with Della in front of me like I’m her gay best friend instead of her husband. Men who ask me about my body like they’re filling out a survey. My genitals aren’t anyone’s fucking business.

Bubba’s voice rumbles from his window seat, deep as Georgia clay and twice as heavy. Been dealin’ with that shit since the seventies. Back then, being Black and gay meant you were exotic to white men who wanted to fuck you but not take you home. Still happening. These young white boys on apps, they write ‘looking for BBC’ like I’m a television channel instead of a person. Like my dick’s the only part of me worth knowing.

Remy appears beside him, arm lapped over, cigarette dangling like punctuation mark, exhaling philosophy with smoke. Mon Dieu, it’s the same everywhere. When I lived in Louisiana, straight men wanted the gay experience without the gay relationship. Wanted to get their dick sucked in truck stop bathrooms, then go home to wives and pretend we didn’t exist. Now I come to da city, it’s same shit with better plumbing. These apps, they let people sort through us like we’re menu items. No fats, no fems, no Asians, no Blacks—like we’re ingredients they can exclude from their perfect recipe.

Leila looks up from her phone, eyes blazing with generational fury. And it’s getting worse. You know what TikTok taught straight people? That trans bodies are discourse. That our genitals are public debate. I see videos every day—‘would you date a trans person?’ Like we’re hypothetical instead of human. Like our bodies are thought experiments instead of where we fucking live.

Renee’s voice booms from the pool table where she’s racking balls with mechanical precision. Meanwhile, I can get any straight woman I want into bed. They see these muscles, they want to try it, want to experiment with the butch lesbian like I’m a carnival ride. But relationships? Fuck no. Can’t bring me home to their book clubs, can’t introduce me to their mothers. I’m the secret they fuck and forget. And they arent even doing the fucking. Goddamned Pillow Princesses, all of ‘em.

That’s what kills me, I bellow, and her voice carries that particular ache of someone who’s articulated this pain before but never stops feeling it. The secrecy. The shame they project onto us. I’ve known girls who dated men who begged them to stay stealth, who threatened to leave if anyone found out they were trans. Like their existence was scandal they had to manage instead of reality they could embrace.

The basement goes quiet except for The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” bleeding through speakers, Sting’s voice turning love song into surveillance anthem. The irony isn’t lost on anyone.

Brandon sets his notebook down, hands shaking slightly. I had an editor—gay man, mind you, someone who should fucking know better—ask me to write about my sexual history for a piece on queer dating. Wanted details. Wanted me to describe bodies, acts, positions. When I said no, he told me I wasn’t committed to authenticity. Like authenticity means performing my sexuality for straight people’s education and gay people’s entertainment.

It’s the transaction, I say, bourbon making my tongue loose and my philosophy sharper. We’re not people to them—we’re commodities in the marketplace of desire. They window-shop us, negotiate for the experience they want, then leave reviews like we’re Airbnbs they rented for the weekend. Five stars, great location, weird plumbing, wouldn’t visit again.

Della points her spatula like a weapon. And when we refuse to play along? When we say our bodies aren’t public property, our surgeries aren’t dinner conversation, our identities aren’t fetishes for their exploration? We’re the problem. We’re too sensitive, too political, too unwilling to educate them about our existence.

Ezra’s voice cuts through, younger and rawer. And it starts so early. I came out at nineteen, and suddenly everyone had questions. Not ‘how are you,’ not ‘what do you need’—but ‘have you had surgery?’ ‘What’s in your pants?’ ‘Can I see?’ Like my body was public domain the moment I stopped performing the gender they assigned me.

Sage looks up from their napkin art—tonight’s creation involves intertwined bodies fragmenting into question marks—and speaks with that rare clarity that makes everyone shut up. The dehumanization is structural. When porn teaches that trans women are always tops, always dominant, always hypersexual—that shapes legislation. That’s why conservatives scream about bathrooms, about sports, about protecting children from predators. Because they’ve been taught that our bodies are inherently sexual, inherently threatening, inherently less than human.

And the gay community isn’t innocent, Brandon adds bitterly. We have our own hierarchies, our own commodification. Masc4masc, straight-acting, no fems, no fatties, no Asians. We police each other, sort ourselves into desirable and disposable. We’ve learned capitalism’s lessons too well—market yourself, brand yourself, optimize yourself for maximum fuckability or resign yourself to invisibility.

Bubba’s laugh holds no humor. You think that’s new? Been like that forever. In the seventies, I was too Black for white gay bars, too gay for Black spaces. Now I’m too old for apps, too masculine for twinks, too much everything for people who want their gay men sanitized for mainstream consumption. Still getting messages about my dick size before anyone asks my name.

Remy lights another cigarette, smoke curling like question marks, and his eyes linger on Bubba’s profile—the weathered strength there, the Georgia clay permanence—before he looks away like he’s been caught stealing something precious. Ma mère, she used to say people see what they want to see, not what is. His accent thickens, the way it does when emotion crowds too close to articulation. These men, these women, these people who reduce us to parts—they see trans woman and think pornography. They see gay man and think sexual adventurism. They see Black man and think physical domination.

His cigarette pauses halfway to his lips, and for just a breath he watches Bubba with something raw and unguarded before the smoke rises between them like convenient obscurity. They see butch lesbian and think experimental phase. We’re all just fantasies they project onto instead of people they could know.

The last words carry weight that feels personal, like he’s talking about more than strangers on apps, like he’s talking about knowing someone completely versus being too afraid to try. Bubba doesn’t look at him, but something in his shoulders suggests he heard every unspoken word underneath the spoken ones.

The economic dimension makes it worse, I say, feeling bourbon and fury building toward something that needs articulation, and maybe also feeling the particular ache of watching two people orbit each other without collision. Trans people can’t get jobs, can’t get housing, face discrimination at every level. So some of us end up in sex work—not because we want to, but because it’s the only economy that’ll have us. And then that becomes proof of the stereotype. See? Trans women are sex workers. See? We’re inherently sexual, inherently available, inherently less deserving of respect.

Miranda nods, tears tracking mascara. And if we’re not sex workers, if we’re teachers or mothers or nurses or writers, then we’re hiding something. We’re deceiving people. We’re predators invading women’s spaces or corrupting children or whatever conspiracy they’ve constructed. There’s no version of trans existence they’ll accept as simply human.

Same with gay men, Brandon says. We’re either invisible—straight-acting enough to pass—or we’re performing queerness for consumption. There’s no middle ground where we just exist without it being statement or spectacle. And if we try to talk about it? If we say we’re tired of being fetishized? We’re told we should be grateful anyone wants us at all.

Keira’s voice cuts through, quiet but absolute. That’s the final violence. Making you grateful for objectification. Convincing you that being treated as less than human is better than being alone. That you should accept crumbs because demanding full humanity is asking too much.

The Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” starts playing, Amy Ray’s voice rough with righteousness, Emily Saliers harmonizing with hope that sounds like defiance. The basement lights catch on Miguel’s wedding ring, on Miranda’s perfect makeup, on Brandon’s notebook filled with pain transformed into publishable prose.

So what do we do? Ezra asks, and the question hangs in cigarette smoke and bourbon fumes.

We keep showing up, I say finally. We keep refusing to be commodities. We keep insisting we’re complete people, not fantasy fulfillment. We keep writing, keep talking, keep making them see us as human even when they profit from seeing us as parts.

And we build this, Miranda adds, gesturing around the basement. Spaces where we’re not transactions. Where Della feeds us without expectation, where Miguel pours drinks with love instead of negotiation, where we can exist without performing for anyone’s consumption or education or sexual curiosity.

Where we remember each other completely, Brandon says, scribbling furiously. Not the sanitized versions, not the marketable narratives—the messy, complicated, fully human versions that don’t fit neatly into anyone’s fantasy or fear.

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Della emerges with more quesadillas, sets them down with authority. And we feed each other. Literally and metaphorically. We nourish the parts of ourselves they tried to starve—dignity, autonomy, the belief that we deserve relationships built on respect instead of fetishization.

Renee calls from the pool table, We protect each other. When someone treats you like commodity, we remind you that you’re priceless. When someone demands you stay hidden, we insist you deserve to be seen completely.

Bubba’s voice rumbles with decades of survival. We outlast them. We’ve been outlasting them. They want us gone, want us silent, want us available only for their consumption—but we keep existing. Keep building. Keep refusing their reduction.

We tell the truth, Leila says, phone finally lowered. We document the harm. We name the patterns. We refuse to let them gaslight us into thinking objectification is love, that fetishization is desire, that dehumanization is the best we deserve.

Miguel refills glasses without asking, his movements sacramental. The bourbon pools amber, the gin catches light, the whiskey promises temporary reprieve from permanent ache.

Keira’s hand doesn’t touch mine but her presence anchors me anyway, solid proof that being seen completely doesn’t require transaction, doesn’t demand performance, doesn’t reduce person to parts.

Brandon’s notebook fills with words that will become essays cisgender editors praise as important while paying poverty wages, but the writing itself is resistance—transforming commodification into critique, fetishization into philosophical examination, objectification into observable pattern requiring systemic change.

Miranda’s mascara tracks tears but her posture straightens, spine remembering that being treated as object doesn’t make you object, that fetishization says everything about fetishizer and nothing about fetishized, that surviving dehumanization is itself act of radical humanity.

The music shifts to Heart’s “Barracuda,” Ann Wilson’s voice all teeth and fury, Nancy Wilson’s guitar work sharp enough to draw blood. The basement vibrates with sound too large for walls to contain, with stories too important for silence to swallow, with people too complex for reduction to tolerate.

Della returns with bacon mac and cheese, portions large enough to suggest she’s catering revolution, and maybe she is. Maybe every meal she serves is reminder that nourishment doesn’t require transaction, that care doesn’t demand commodification, that love can exist without reduction.

The bourbon in my glass catches overhead light like promise or warning or both. My sciatic nerve sends electric fire up my spine—titanium plates and forty-seven fractures still teaching me that survival leaves permanent geography. But I’m here. Miranda’s here. Brandon’s here. We’re all here, refusing to be reduced, insisting on wholeness even when wholeness doesn’t fit their fantasies.

You know what really fucks them up? I say, bourbon making me prophetic or apocalyptic or drunk. When we refuse to perform. When we show up as complicated, messy, fully human—not fantasy, not fetish, not commodity. When we insist that knowing us requires more than anatomical curiosity, that loving us requires seeing us completely, that wanting us means accepting all of us, not shopping through our parts like build-a-bear workshop for adults with genital fixations.

The bourbon burns down my throat like truth, like fury, like the only prayer I know anymore. Around me, chosen family drinks and laughs and survives another Thursday night in a basement bar where we’re whole people instead of parts, where we’re priceless instead of purchasable, where fetishization gets named and challenged instead of accepted as the best we deserve.

Queen’s “Somebody to Love” starts playing and my chest tightens remembering Gizmo’s voice hitting those notes, tiny human with enormous voice declaring she’d conquer the world. Before everything got complicated. Before my transition destroyed trust. Before the music became ghost-stab instead of shared joy.

But even that pain is whole pain, complete pain, human pain—not reduced, not commodified, not packaged for someone else’s consumption or education or sexual curiosity.

We’re all here, refusing reduction, insisting on wholeness, surviving through Thursday nights and bourbon and chosen family that sees us completely—every scar, every surgery, every secret, every story too complex for their fantasies to contain.

And that’s enough. Tonight, in this basement, being seen completely is enough.

“We are not objects of consumption, but subjects of our own lives.” — bell hooks

bell hooks understood that liberation requires refusing objectification, that being treated as commodity—whether through racism, sexism, fetishization, or any system reducing person to parts—is violence requiring resistance. For trans people, for gay men, for anyone existing outside dominant narratives of desire, this resistance becomes daily practice: insisting on wholeness when culture profits from reduction, demanding to be seen completely when fantasy is more comfortable than complexity. In the Sanctuary, that practice becomes collective—chosen family witnessing each other’s full humanity, nourishing dignity they tried to starve, building economy of care where worth isn’t transactional and love doesn’t require reduction. The revolution isn’t just refusing to be commodified; it’s creating spaces where commodification becomes impossible because everyone present insists on seeing each other completely, complexity and all.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​