Gender Bender is a beautifully shot black-and-white movie directed by Erika Lust that explores and celebrates the diversity of gender identity and gender expression. Kali Sudhra and Dante Dionys are a couple that likes to exist outside of the binary in terms of gender, and sexuality. Together, they go on the adventure of playing with their identities by dressing as each other’s genders and getting in touch with the many facets of who they are. Culminating in a sensual pegging scene, Gender Bender proves that we can and should exceed the rigid limits of masculinity and femininity.

In Erika Lust’s XConfessions, anonymous members submit their wildest and most personal sexual fantasies. The following message inspired Gender Bender.

XConfession: My boyfriend and I are both bisexual, somewhat androgynous looking, and are discovering our gender identity more thoroughly as we grow up in a world where that’s suddenly more okay to do. I’m strongly feminist, but my boyfriend is still trying to understand what that means to me, and what he thinks about it. Because of this, our sex life is very PG-13 and traditional. But still beautiful and intimate in its own way.

Sometimes I imagine us as freer people who are more comfortable in our skin and more expressive about the many facets of who we are.
I imagine we go back home to our respective apartments, and we dress as each other’s genders. I imagine binding my breasts, removing my make-up, slicking back my pixie cut, sneaking away a strap on into my noticeably baggier pants, and leaving as dapper as can be.
Not too far away, my boyfriend is shaving his legs and face in the shower, coming out clean as a whistle, he is trying on my most delicately lacy bras, slipping into my favorite dress. He swipes mascara over his long blond eyelashes and blushes his cheeks. He slips a bobby pin into his shaggy hair to neaten it as he leaves the house.
We meet at a bar. I buy him a glass of my favorite wine and he gifts me with his favorite whiskey. We talk, we discover each other, we fall in love all over again with this new face on a familiar body.
We get friendlier. I’m slipping my fingertips under his skirt as he whispers something coy in my ear. We pay each other’s bills and leave the bar.
Cut to us laughing uncontrollably as we burst through the door of my apartment. I can’t help myself, I’m pressing him to the wall and sucking hard on his neck as he moans with delight. Letting him feel my silicone arousal against his smooth thighs. I remove my dress from him in hurry, run my hands over his porcelain stomach and under the wires and lace of the bra. I gently toss him to the bed in the middle of my tiny studio apartment, his skin glows golden now in the dimmer light. He lands all fours. He’s begging me to enter him.