— Here’s How That Affects My Sex Life.

“I’ve never understood the idea in society that people should be ashamed of differences like this.”

By Mark Hay

About 1.7 percent of all people are born with intersex characteristics, an umbrella term for sex traits—such as external genitalia, internal reproductive organs, and chromosomal configurations—that don’t line up with society’s artificially tidy binary concepts of male or female bodies. Some of these characteristics are visible at birth: for example, genitals that are notably different from the norms or hard to classify as definitively male or female. Some only make their presence known during puberty, like when people don’t develop in the ways they might’ve expected. Some are so internal and subtle that they’re only identified during an autopsy. In any case, it’s usually impossible to tell if someone has intersex traits just by looking at them in everyday life. Still, living with intersex characteristics can have major impacts on people’s lives—including their sex lives.

To be clear, an intersex characteristic isn’t a medical condition or disability. It’s just one of many natural variations in the way diverse human bodies look and operate. Some factors that lead to intersex variations, like atypical hormone production, can at times also cause serious medical issues that require treatment, but most differences themselves are purely neutral. Yet society’s obsession with categorizing people into one of two binary genders at birth—and with erasing or ignoring anything that complicates the clean (over)simplicity of that binary—means many people with intersex traits grow up with the notion that there is supposedly something wrong with them, but they shouldn’t talk about it. Often, they’re also pressured or forced into “normalizing” themselves to match typical male or female anatomy: Across the world, kids with visible intersex traits are regularly subjected to objectively unnecessary and often harmful surgeries to reshape or remove their genitals, expressly to make them look “normal” and supposedly help them fit into society.

A fair number of people with intersex characteristics don’t feel these traits have much effect, if any, on their sex lives. But several intersex differences can lead to unique experiences of sex and pleasure. And many “normalization” surgeries drastically reduce or eliminate people’s genital sensations, and/or lead to chronic pain and dysfunction in erogenous zones. Thanks to the extreme culture of shame and silence around these traits and experiences, it’s difficult for people with intersex traits—or who are grappling with the effects of unnecessary surgeries—to learn about their bodies, much less articulate and advocate for their sexual wants and needs. Popular misconceptions and stigmas, as well as the risk of someone reacting poorly to diverse genitals or a body that doesn’t work in the ways they’d expect it to, also make it hard for some people with intersex traits to feel comfortable exploring intimacy, or to feel sexy and sexual.

In recent decades, several intersex organizations have formed to push back on pathologization and stigmatization and to help people with intersex characteristics find community and support. But most of their public advocacy and education to date has (understandably) focused on ending unnecessary and harmful surgeries—so there’s still not a ton of public information out there on the issues people with intersex characteristics can face when navigating sex, and how to manage them.

To help bring more visibility to these issues and experiences, VICE reached out to Addy Berry, an intersex woman, and her wife Leea to talk about the ways they’ve approached sex and intimacy. Every intersex experience is unique, so Addy and Leea’s story is hardly universal. But Addy also studies the sexual experiences of people with intersex traits as a PhD candidate and an activist, and shared some of the wider insights she’s gleaned through her research, advocacy, and education work over the years.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Addy: When I was born, my urethra opened on the underside of my phallus, close to the testes. I underwent surgery as a child to reroute it. In medical papers published as late as 2022, doctors have attempted to justify that type of surgery by saying it’s important for boys to be able to pee with their friends—which is a wild justification for a surgery that they perform when no one goes back to see what the long-term effects were on other people. [Editor’s Note: This is one of the most common surgeries performed on infants and toddlers with intersex characteristics.] It’s actually pretty difficult for me to pee anywhere now because there’s a mass of scar tissue within my urethra due to that surgery. So moving my urethra hasn’t done me a whole lot of good.

Doctors insist they can do things like reduce the size of a clitoris—in the past they’d fully remove it—and it’ll all be fine, when there’s no way for them to know that will be the case. Young people I’ve talked to who’ve undergone those surgeries report a lot of pain and also a lot of psychological issues related to the procedures and their long-term effects.

I was also put on hormones pre-puberty, under false pretenses. I didn’t act in accordance with the gender I was assigned—ever—and I got punished for that. Transgender and intersex are not the same thing, but a lot of us were assigned a gender despite uncertainties, and the surgeries done to make us fit that gender then don’t really suit us.

Growing up, my father said things to me like, “You weren’t born with a proper penis,” which is how I knew what my scars were from. And my mother referred to me as an abomination. The effects of all that stigma and shame come up in almost all of the interviews I do—it all has a big effect on your sexuality. I felt the effect on my sense of sexuality pretty early on in life.

Without much sensation in my genitals, likely thanks to that surgery, sex for me was never genital-centric. I could perform penetrative sex, but it doesn’t really do me any good. I was drawn to BDSM, and particularly female domination, from an early age. I’m essentially a masochist. Not everyone in the BDSM community links their involvement back to trauma, but for me I think it’s tied to my history of treatment as an autistic and intersex child who tended to be gender non-conforming and who was raised by a superstitious, sadistic Catholic woman with a lot of issues.

Due to what I was put through in my childhood, I developed into a physically masculine person, and I’d get involved with girls who liked me because of what I looked like—but who’d get angry at me for being feminine even though I was always open about who I am and I didn’t really act masculine. One partner told me that having sex with me was “like having sex with a girl,” and I was like, “Well…” They get angry at you for being the thing you said you were rather than the thing they wanted you to be. There was a lot of incompatibility in my intimate life. And then I found Leea, and there’s been so much compatibility between us that I almost wonder how she’s real. How did we find each other? We should have bought all of the lottery tickets that day. [Laughs.]

Leea: I like to read personal ads because it’s interesting to me to see what people put in them to find a mate. It’s like a love CV or something. I saw this really cute, well-written, dirty Craigslist ad one day, talking about BDSM stuff and with a cute picture, and I said “Oh that’s cool” and moved on. A few days later, I saw the same ad, but all the dirty bits were gone, and I thought that was cute too. I’d never felt inclined to write back to an ad before, but I replied, “Hey, I thought your dirty ad was cuter.” We started texting and then met for a coffee date and really hit it off. 

My dad has a cousin who has intersex characteristics. I’m not sure what they are exactly, but as far as I understood it she’d undergone surgery to make her more female, but because of those surgeries she couldn’t have a child, so they adopted. She told my mother about it because they were good friends, and most of my family knew a bit about it, but nobody talked about it or asked questions. It was kind of a family secret. So I knew intersex characteristics existed before I met Addy, but that was about it. Fairly quickly, it became obvious she was trans but not out. 

Addy: Because of my kiddos.

Leea: But it took a while to realize, “Oh, Addy’s intersex.”

Addy: Yeah, we talked about the surgeries I went through early on and all of that, but I hadn’t attached intersex language to that yet, for myself even.

Leea: Addy had to do a lot of figuring things out because she always knew she’d had these surgeries but she’d never been told specifically what had happened.

Addy: I’d known other words, and I found intersex later. The modern intersex movement has only existed as long as we’ve been able to find and reach each other online.

“The modern intersex movement has only existed as long as we’ve been able to find and reach each other online.” —Addy

Leea: Still, from early on I understood a lot about Addy—and none of it was an issue for me. We’ve just constantly had discussions about where we are. And Addy likes to talk a lot anyway. 

Addy: [Laughs.] It came up early on that you weren’t interested in penetrative sex as well.

Leea: I’d dated a lot of people, and by then I was clear on the sex I wanted to have. I was over men. I don’t give a shit about sex the way a man typically wants to have it. That’s part of why Addy was the one for me. I found someone with whom sex wasn’t centered on the male gaze. 

Addy: In the beginning, we also established that I’m not just a submissive but a masochist, and a pretty feminine person. While Leea is pretty feminine physically, she has more traditionally masculine aspects and aptitudes to her. Outside of this relationship, I’m brave, and I take care of tough things. But in this relationship, I find great comfort in being submissive to Leea.

Leea: It’s hard to remember specific conversations from that far back, but we still constantly discuss things, and the BDSM play we have today has evolved from the play we had 5, 10 years ago as we realize we like some things more or less than we did in the past and adjust.

Addy: For example, through exploration, we’ve found that medical play can be pretty cathartic for me—probably because of my history.

I’ve also experienced pretty severe depression for most of my life, and it’s very hard to get mental health help as an intersex person because not many people are qualified to help with the specific type of trauma you’ve been through. I’ve never found a therapist who’s capable of adequately addressing my trauma. But we’ve found that, when I’m in a depressive state, a caning can bring me right out of it. For example, a person I used to work with once asked me—right in front of Leea—“So if I pulled down your pants right now, what would I be looking at?” After that, I was not in a good place. But BDSM lifted up my dopamine or serotonin or something. Whatever it is, I don’t know. If we could get an MRI machine in here, that’d be interesting.

Leea: It’s really exciting as we explore more and more together. We’ve decided to dedicate this year to taking care of us, putting boundaries on who can come over to our place and when, so we can do things like exploring more BDSM play together. We want to go to more dungeons, too.

Ultimately, Addy being intersex doesn’t define anything in our relationship. It’s a part of who she is, and a part of what makes her the person I love. And because she works on intersex issues, it is something we’re always talking about. It plays a role in our life. But it isn’t who she is.

Addy: A lot of the people I’ve talked to who’ve really struggled are straight intersex people who live in a world where sex is all about a penis going into a vagina. A lot of intersex people have small penises, so living in a world full of comments insulting people for having small penises, where they learn that’s inherently bad and shameful, really sucks. For me and a lot of other intersex people who are queer, we’ve been forced to develop a wider vocabulary around sex.

Leea: The fact that we’re a queer couple has also, I think, given us more space to have conversations about things like the different kinds of sex we want to have. I feel really bad for a lot of straight couples because there isn’t a lot of space for conversations around what is good sex, how each partner is feeling, and what works and doesn’t work for them.

Addy: We have had to adapt our sex around the effects of the surgeries, and the effects of the stigma and shame I went through. But personally, I’ve never understood the idea in society that people should be ashamed of differences like this. I didn’t choose to be intersex or to be trans. So why should I be ashamed of those things? Or of being a submissive to, really, a goddess? Or for having done sex work? I don’t harm anyone. I work to make the world a better place.

I think my parents should be ashamed of how they treated me. The medical establishment should be ashamed. Society at large should be ashamed. I don’t see why I should carry shame.

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