December 12th 2010
private blog post to Stefan
I can’t sleep. I’ve emailed you, and I feel stupid and guilty about it.
I’m thinking about sex.
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again.
I find you immensely physically attractive. I always feel a bit wierd saying that. Maybe I should do it more often? Let you know how attractive you are?
I mean… facially you are gorgeous. Your phsycique is impeccable, perfectly complimented by your sense of style, and really, my ideal in every way. It is really and truly rare that I meet someone I am uncontrollably physically attracted to. The only other time I was physically desiring of a man I was with was at age 16. Most of the time, I grow to be attracted to someone based on personality, and they become generally attractive to me. But you…. you are physically beautiful to me. You are alluring.
I… I don’t like saying it though. It seems, to me, like quite an insult. It’s not what I so appreciate about you. Not at all. It’s not what makes our intimacy something important or enjoyable. It’s nothing to do with why I am so drawn to you, and it seems like gushing over your looks is negating what I find truly exceptional about you. Your aesthetic loveliness is wonderful, but…. that’s objectifying, and I don’t see you as an object. So, wierd as it is, I feel like it’s insulting to let you know that I find you emmensely physically attractive. Because that’s not what truly attracts me to you at all. Sure, you are nice to look at… but what actually makes me want to TOUCH you is… the person you are.
Our sexual encounters were the most meaningful and touching of anything I’ve ever experienced, and it’s nothing to do with your exceptional looks.
hmmmm….
I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this. I wonder…
I mean, do you see sex as inrinsically gutteral and base? Because that ‘s an outlook I can understand. Did you perhaps feel that I was using you for sex? Maybe you feel I HAVE been objectifying you. God, i’m really sorry if that’s the case. I never ever felt that way about you, and if i lead you to beleive that, I’ve been quite an asshole.
I … in highschool, I used to look around at all the students, and I’d… I’d conceptualize their souls. I’d look around and see everyone and imagine that floating above thier heads was their … well, “soul” makes it sound too christian…. I’d see thier ethereal selves. the self of pure thought and emotion. I’d imagine I could see this true self floating, transparent, above them. and every true thought, every pure emotion, it would tug on some invisible string and the flesh would react. It was a grotesque meat marionette. This fleshy display that lacked all finesse or sublty. I’d look around and be so disgusted at every tiny emotion being tainted by meat. Each smile.
I’d think of kissing. Of tounges. And be repulsed.
I’d wonder why every sexual area of the body was invovled with the basest of functions. Eating and expelling waste.
I have always had a very clinical outlook on sex. And perhaps that’s why I rarely attached meaning to it.
And yet, I’ve always been a romantic in my head about things. I guess it seems I’m contradicting myself. But i’m not.
I’ve always striven for the sex I’ve had to possess some meaning behind it. But I think that’s because it’s always been my nature to see it as … just bodies doing what bodies do. And because of my sexual abuse… because of reading my mother’s entire freaky erotica collection by the time I was 12…. I guess it skewed my perspective and I’ve been trying to figure it all out. Her books weren’t romantic erotic novels. I mean, she had an Anais Nin book, sure, but most the books were raunchy and wierd.
There was one that invovled some victorian young man who seduced older women by playing the virgin, and also taught his two younger sisters the ways of sex, all of whom ended up having sexual encounters with each other. There was some collection of short stories, the first one involving a brother, a sister, and a german shepard. I mean, my mom got me the Anne Rice “Sleeping Beauty” erotic trilogy for my 16th birthday. The prince found Beauty, fucked her awake, and brought her home to his kingdom as a slave. In this kingdom, all the surrounding royal families sent thier princes and princesses as tribute to spend years being trained. All the slaves were always naked, always on hands and knees, and everything was about S&M. Whpping, bondage, subserviance, and a lot of serious wierdness. She ended up absorbing it into her collection after I’d read it.
I was reading all of this before I’d ever even kissed anyone. But was hearing my mom and <stepfather> have sex constantly. They didn’t wait until I was asleep or anything. I’d be trying to do my homework, and hear fucking. My mom…. my mom really messed me up. I never had any physcial privacy. I didn’t understand the concept. She’d bring me the phone when i was in the shower. Conversations would continue while wandering into the bathroom with the door open and relieving oneself. I didn’t think that couples or friends of the same sex ever closed the door when they used the toilet. To do so seemed strangely formal. She would comment with envy on my bowel regularity. It really only just this moment occurred to me that most women haven’t casually witnessed thier mother change a tampon in front of them. (i’m sorry – that probably grossed you out terribly.)
But it.. It’s difficult for me to… I’ve had to learn proper behavior. Train myself as to what is inappropriate. i still get it wrong.
My mom… I remember her suddenly sitting on the kitchen tile floor, spreading her legs, and investigating her privates, complaining of some sort of yeast problem.
She’d pet the cats testicles often, giggling, saying that it made them purr. I can remember driving home late at night from going out to dinner, or to the city, back when we lived in Parsippany (so I was in the 4th grade or younger), and we’d always be listening to the Doctor Ruth show on the radio.
My mother bought me Victorias Secret pajamas when I was 15. A box of assorted Victoria Secret underwear for me for Valentine’s Day when I was 16. Both she and <stepfather> signed the card. I was sleeping naked most of the time by age 14 or 15. Walking to the bathroom naked as long as <stepfather> wasn’t home. The notion of being modest about nudity… wasn’t something I understood. My mom was actually very angry with me when I refused to help her take nude photographs of herself, because somehow, that still made me feel uncomfortable. But honestly, I probably said no out of teenage belligerence moreso than any morality.
When I was 16, with my first boyfriend, a fellow who’d waited months to kiss my nervous self…. well, we’d only kissed. He’d never even taken off his shirt. I was very skittish with sexual activity. Afraid. But there was a complete disconnect between THAT, between trembling at someone fumbling with a bra strap, and my own casual nudity. I remember hanging out with him, making out a bit, and then… I was getting changed or dressed for something, and while I was stark naked I realised I had to ask my mom something, and I ran out of my room to ask her. The only reason I even know this was wierd was the look of total horror on his face when I came back in the room.
“you’re NAKED!”
“it’s ok, my mom doesn’t care if I’m naked.”
“yeah, but I’m here.”
it took me a minute to understand what he meant by that.
“oh. Well…. i doubt it’s something that even occured to her. I mean, it didn’t occur to ME!”
and it hadn’t.
She had to tell me when I was 18 that she didn’t want me walking around the house in my underwear in front of <stepfather>. It had never occurred to me. It had never been an issue before. <Stepfather> would go to the bathroom at night wearing only his speedos. I didn’t see him as something sexual. So I didn’t see a difference. I thought it was all just… natural bodies. I thought most people were like that. Or at least, I thought it wsa in the same spirit that people went to nudist camps. It’s not about sex, just about being comfortable naked. THAT part I think is healthy in itself. But my environment was…. weirder.
(There is, of course, the things I’d mentioned to you…. um. From earlier in life.)
But all the nudity, It’s never been an issue of confidence. During this same time in my life, I’d actually sit crying in my closet because everything I’d wear was horrible and I looked awful in everything and hated myself. It just didn’t occur to me that naked…. meant anything. Bodies were never sacred. Never mine to give. I was just…. not connected to my body. I always felt very much like a large brain, carrying this body behind. It was…. just there.
So with sex…. I guess I’ve always been disconnected.
And that explains the…. seeming contradiction.
It helps if the sex means something. And that doesn’t have to be sweeping romance. It could be just… appreciation. Some form of bonding. Mutual enjoyment of one another.
Because sex just for sex… I… I can only think of the flesh. Or the technicalities. I mean, I can do that, and treat it like an experiment, like drugs. “what reaction do I get if I add this to this?” But that gets old quick. There’s no connection. I’m so disconnected to my body in that way that… The emptiness grows. So I…. I cling to any meaning I can.
But.
Meaning became less and less easy to convince myself of. And.. I mean… I guess as one ages, people become less and less special. Less impressive. Every human has that much MORE to them with every year that passes, that much more information and input to aggregate and match….. and I become less easily impressed, more suspect, more aware. More realising at how common most things are. How un-special. It became tiresome to find that such a banal act turned people into doting puppies. As thought it meant anything.
The less I drank and did drugs…. the less it appealed to me.
Maybe since my body has hurt since I was a kid, the the hurt has slowly been mounting since, maybe that only furthered my separation of flesh and mind.
And also, with age… novelty wears off too. The interesting giddiness of trying something totally new… well, there’s less uncharted territory, and… the notion of trying new things just isn’t that interesting. I mean… eh. The last guy I “dated” was into the whole bondage S/M scene. Eh. It was my last ditch effort, I guess. I was intrigued. It guess I thought maybe that was what I was missing. Maybe THAT was my “thing”. Nope. It was just… It was that much more staged, that many more steps, that much gear… and therefore that much more…. disconnected. It was LESS overwhelming. So I broke up with him after three months.
And my sexual drive completely disappated. Every so often I’d be interested. Maybe fool around with someone I already knew. But that ended up being…. a handful of times over about five years. And I’d wonder why I bothered.
But… like I wrote previously on here….
From the very beginning…..
You.
You were different.
You’ve no idea how very important and monumental my experiences with you have been to me.
You…. swept me up. I’ve actually felt…. like…. well, I’ve actually felt.
I actually lose myself. I’ve lost myself just kissing you. Breathless and so emotionally overwhelmed that I feel I might cry. It’s like… the metaphor of what sex is supposed to represent has only now come alive in my being with you. And like I always thought it was supposed to be…. but more. like that highschool imagining of mine… It feels like…. those flimsy flaoting beings of true self, it feels like they are winding, entwining, merging. It feels like I am not just stimulating the marionette of meat, but directly communicating.
I…. I even kind of almost open my eyes with you. That’s never been important to me, mind you. Seeing the act, to me, makes it almost more physical, less connected. But because I trust you, and are at that place with you…. wanting to connect and share… I sometimes look. Just a quick glimpse at your eyes before we both look away. And. I touch your face. When I kiss you. I never…. I never touched anyone’s face before.
(why am I getting choked up at that?)
And it’s not just the sexual interaction. Even just… touching. Just…. *and my eyes close*….. god. Just curling together. That actually feeling physically COMFORTABLE lounging. Feeling right. Not awkward and obligated to be embracing. That moment of settling into bed as a movie starts. That first firm snuggle of readying for sleep. That feeling of safe perfection.
Do you… do you understand then, why I’d still ask if I could kiss you? How …. important it was to me? How… I can’t really always understand how I’m supposed to react/interact? Why… why when I moved, it was so crushing to me that we’d no longer share those moments? Why I’ve been so upset at not being invited over your house? That it’s never been about prying your life open and leting myself in? Why it crushed me to find you were with others? Why you’d be with someone else when you could have been sharing THAT with me? Why I keep trying to understand? Why I tried to see…. if you could want to be with others, if I could too? Tried to figure out what I was missing? Why it’s so difficult for me to be platonic? non exclusive?
I’ve truly not been trying to drag you through some sort of trial. Or hurt you. Or anything. I’m sorry. i’m really really sorry.
It’s been just so….
It’s probably my most vulnerable place, you see. A place I didn’t even know I had before you touched it. And that’s why… i’ve been trying to understnad what it means to you. is it usually like this to you? and if it was all just me… just in my head…. and if you weren’t feeling…. if…. um…. was I all alone?
I just really have been trying to understand. Not punish you. Just…. understand.
Because it’s been so important to me.
And…. that it’s not… it’s not about sex. Not…. not… not really. Not about people getting naked and genitalia and getting off and orgasms. That’s…. that’s all gross and pointless and too too biogical. That’s an unfortunate itch that needs to be scratched sometimes due to being human.
That’s… not what I saw us sharing.
And when it all went away, I thought… maybe it WAS just that. And I started to think that maybe I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t… performing well. Maybe you didn’t like my parts. Maybe there was something wrong with the phsycial of me. Maybe you didn’t feel anything.
Even… even the silly giddy times. The ones that weren’t overwrought with passionate grasping. Even the leaping under blankets and having silly fun. Even then. It was…. It was expressive of something shared. Not something base and stimulating. It was… right.
If you could crawl inside my head, you’d understand the ridiculousness of you feeling compared or threatened to anyone ever. You’d understand how thin and insubstantial the interactions I’ve had have been, in comparison to you.
I’m probably …. I’m probably being scary.
heavy and over-much.
too much. too much.
i miss you.