A few years ago, as transgender issues leaped to the forefront of the cultural conversation, some famous and otherwise outspoken trans people were quick to steer the focus away from “the surgery.”

Many will remember the moment back in January 2014 when actress Laverne Cox schooled Katie Couric, after Couric ask an invasive question about her body. “The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people,” Cox told Couric. “The reality of trans people’s lives is that so often we are targets of violence. We experience discrimination disproportionately to the rest of the community. Our unemployment rate is twice the national average [ . . . ] The homicide rate is highest among trans women. If we focus on transition, we don’t actually get to talk about those things.”

For the most part, people have respected that request. But according to my friend Nomi Ruiz, this has inadvertently created a taboo in the trans community: Nobody talks about sex. Nomi is a transgender singer and host of the podcast Allegedly NYC. “Right now there’s a lot of sensitivity around trans issues,” Nomi told me recently. “At times this makes it easier to communicate, but it also makes people afraid of offending someone, and prevents people from getting deeper into a conversation.” Nomi is concerned, in particular, about the lack of conversation around sex for women who have had sex reassignment surgery (SRS), and the real-life implications the operation can have on their sexual experience. “A lot of girls won’t even talk about it among themselves,” she said. “But I’d like to be someone who can open up this conversation.”

Now, I’m a cis person, and therefore have no personal insight to share on this seemingly off-limits subject. But I do know well that, when dealing with sexuality or any other sensitive topic, it is generally useful to hear the stories of people with experiences similar to your own, because it helps you to better understand your own experience and your own body. It helps you to not feel so fucking alone, basically. And I think Nomi’s concern poses a delicate question: Is it time for a nuanced discussion about sex and pleasure for trans women? Has the cultural conversation around trans culture progressed enough?

Over Chardonnay in Bushwick, Brooklyn, I sat down with Nomi to talk about sex. “I think a lot of people, when they think of trans females, they think ‘a girl with a penis,’” she said. “And if you’re post-op, they think you just had your penis cut off. There’s still this shock factor to having a sex change. People think, ‘Eww, that’s so horrible’ or ‘That’s so crazy.’”

According to Nomi, these misconceptions are common even within her own, progressive social scene. “Sometimes, if I’m dating a guy but I don’t want to sleep with him right away, he’s like, ‘Oh, because it doesn’t work.’ Or people think you can’t orgasm. They don’t realize the reality. But if they knew how beautiful and how natural the vagina really is, and how it’s so in tune with your mind and your body, I think people would start seeing it as sexy rather than as a science experiment. I mean, even I didn’t know the possibilities.”

Nomi said that as she was preparing for SRS, she wished there were more women talking about their experiences of sex after surgery, because she felt sort of in the dark. “There was this myth that you could never have another orgasm, that there’s no sensitivity, and that you could never enjoy sex again,” Nomi said. “So there was always that fear and that risk. But eventually I got to the point where I was like, ‘I don’t care. I’d rather not enjoy sex than live this way.’”

Nomi had SRS five years ago, in her mid-20s. “The conversation with my doctor beforehand was hilarious, because it’s sort of customized,” Nomi said. “She asked me: What are you looking to achieve? Like, are you a lesbian, are you interested in being penetrated? Is it more important to focus on the nerve endings in your clit, or do you want a lot of depth? Or do you want both? I was like, ‘I want it all. Go for gold.’”

Like any major surgery, there is a lengthy recovery period. “I was in bed for a month, and after that, there’s a dilation process,” Nomi said. “They give you four dilators, with a ruler on them. You’re basically fucking yourself: You slowly increase the size, so that you keep the depth and width you’ve achieved.” This process takes six months. “And then you have to dilate once a week for the rest of your life, unless you’re having sex,” Nomi continued. “So now when I’m not having sex, it’s kinda sad, because you’re really reminded of it. You’re like, ‘Oh, God, I have to dilate now because I’m not getting laid. Fuck.’”

(It’s important to note here that Nomi’s experience is not every trans woman’s experience. The process of altering one’s birth sex is complex, happens over a long period of time, and does not always involve surgery. SRS is only one small part of transition, and not all transgender people choose to, or can afford to, undergo surgery. Though it’s sort of strange to think of SRS as a privilege, there are many transgender people who want SRS but do not have access to it. For this and other reasons, sex change and post-op are outdated terms, and are used in this article only in direct quotations.)

At first, Nomi said, she was hesitant to jump into being sexually active: “I didn’t want to give my vagina to every guy, because I was like, ‘Duh, it’s brand-new!’” When she did start having sex, it felt kind of weird for a while. “I was really self-conscious, because I was blaming all of the awkward sex on my neo-vagina,” Nomi said. “I was like, Maybe it’s not working. It’s not like other girls’ vaginas. It’s not right. I’m not getting pleasure.” The first time she got head, it basically felt like nothing, so she called up her BFF, a cis girl, in a panic. “I was like, ‘Girl, is it normal to just feel like you’re rubbing on a carpet when a guy is eating you out?!’ She was like, ‘Oh, girl, yeah, sometimes it’s a fucking nightmare.’”

Nomi was faced with a harsh reality: A lot of guys just aren’t that great with their tongue. “I realized he just wasn’t good at it,” Nomi said. “But then, when I met a guy who was good at it, I was like, ‘Oh, duh, okay, it really depends. It’s not like jerking off a penis.’ When I had better lovers, things changed. It took meeting the right guy, slowly fingering me, seeing how I reacted. You need someone to help you enjoy your body, not someone who just wants to fuck you.”

As she continued to explore her body, sex became better than she ever imagined. “When I was turned on, I would get really wet, and I was shocked, because I’d never heard a [trans] girl say that her vagina got wet,” she said. “I didn’t realize that it would be this beautiful, natural part of me. I was like, ‘Holy shit, this is beyond what I thought my sex life could be.’” She paused for dramatic effect. “But I still love anal sex. The best sex is if we do both. But I learned that you can’t go back and forth, because I got a UTI from that. I was like, ‘Fuck, this is what having a vagina is like?!’ My friend was cracking up, like, ‘Girl, you wanted a pussy.’ I was like, ‘This is too real.’”

Other changes Nomi noticed were more mental than physical. “Before [SRS], sex was almost violent,” she said. “It was like shooting a gun, like I’ve got to get rid of this. But now I really have to be present and be into the person in order for my body to react. Like, my vagina will basically reject a penis if I’m not into the sex. But if I am into it, it gets really open and moist. I feel sex is more attached to my brain now. And I can keep having more sex after I orgasm, whereas before, after I came, I was like, ‘I’m done, thanks.’”

In other words, Nomi’s experience became an almost clichéd account of sex as a woman—i.e., often, reaching orgasm can feel like an epic psychological journey that requires laser focus. You have to be in the right headspace, with the right atmosphere. You know, candles or whatever. And Nomi isn’t the only trans woman I’ve heard say this. On YouTube, there’s a small community of transgender women who talk about sex (among other issues), and many of them echo this sentiment. In one particularly funny video, posted by vlogger Danica Lee, she talks about how having an orgasm post-SRS is just more work—she can be sooo close, but then she’ll remember a bill she has to pay, and she’ll have to start over from scratch. Been there.

One of the most popular trans vloggers is A Girl for All Seasons, also known as Charlie, a British race-car driver with a dry sense of humor. In one of her most-watched videos, viewed more than 50,000 times, Charlie compares sex before and after SRS. “When you have sex as a guy, you pretty much know you’re going to climax, and that’s cool,” Charlie says in the video. “But as a woman, I find it quite difficult to reach that point. It’s like, sure, intimacy and being with somebody and having that experience is nice. But it’s very strange to suddenly make love to somebody and not climax, thinking, is this all sex is ever going to be now? It’s nice, but it’s kind of a bit shit.”

After binge-watching Charlie’s channel, I called her up to ask about this. She laughed. “Cis girls will probably be like, ‘Yeah, welcome to having sex with a guy as a woman,’” she said. But of course, this is not the only challenge that transgender women face when it comes to sex. “It’s strange, because after SRS, you’re having to relearn your entire body: how it works, what you’re going to enjoy, and what things are going to hurt. When you’ve had sex so many times in your life, and suddenly you’re doing it and you’re a complete novice, it’s a crazy experience. You know how it all works, but everything’s different.” (Another trans woman, @sugarpunk_xoxo on Twitter, described this to me: “During sex, it felt like my brain was remapping my body.”)

For a while, Charlie was worried she was never going to enjoy sex again. “I never felt that at ease,” she said. “I don’t think any of the guys I slept with actually gave me an orgasm, which sucks.” But like Nomi, eventually she met the right sexual partner, and after enough personal experimentation, she was able to relax and feel pleasure. “I definitely enjoy sex now,” she said, adding that climaxing is every bit as good and intense as it ever was. “You just have to figure it out as you go along, and feel your way through things.”

Talking openly with Nomi and Charlie, I realized that, even in the trans community, there is a binary of “normal” and “abnormal” that needs to be broken. To this point, Nomi referenced a recent Instagram post by musician Dev Hynes that accompanied the release of his new album, Freetown Sound. The post featured a note, handwritten by Hynes, that read: “My album is for everyone told they’re not black enough, too black, too queer, not queer the right way.”

“When you’re post-op, some people will say, ‘You’re just trying to be a woman. You’re not trans enough,’” Nomi said. “But that doesn’t take away my experiences, or the way people look at me or talk about me. It doesn’t make me any different than you. Trans is beautiful and, within that, post-op is also beautiful. To this day, every time I am intimate with someone, I’m exploring more and learning new things about my body.”

Karley Sciortino writes the blog Slutever.

Hair: Takashi Yusa

Makeup: Mariko Hirano

Sciortino in a Hilfiger Collection bow polka dot shirt, $330, for information: tommy.com