Wednesday, July 29, 2009

I've run out of reasons...

My brain is starting to twinge and moan at me.

I've been reading entirely too much on social-sexual dynamics and seduction. It's telling me I'm overdosing, imbalancing myself, thinking entirely too much on the topic, weighing so many opinions and ideas and, wow, it's break-time.

It wouldn't normally be this bad, but work is slow, which leans itself to days and days of surfing the WWW.

Ugh, so done.

I'm trying to just write myself out of this paperbag I've found myself in.

The above sentence makes more sense if you have had a cat.

Last night, one of my friends asked me how I view my sexuality.

Now, those open ended questions are great, because they allow the person making the inquiry to see what the interviewee dubs important information to convey.

I was entirely unable to answer the question.

I looked at him and said, "Whuh??"

And then I turned to C and asked her to answer his question for me because I was in the realm of lost. She said I treat it as a tool. That I use it to access certain parts of myself.

I thought that was interesting.

I use it to access parts of me, I suppose, but more often than not, I use it to access information from other people. Because people are fascinating and I want to know it all, I want to know all the hang ups and concerns, all the fetishes and horror stories, all those embarassing moments that you've never told another person because you've never felt comfortable with it, but you tell me because that's what people do.

I don't think I see my sexuality as separate from myself. I'm very aware of myself as a sexual being, very aware of others. I don't see it as a compulsion, or something that controls my movements, as much as my own psychology does, and sometimes sex is just a way of getting my brain onto other topics.

I told him that I like how I am. I like that my experience, as odd and damaging as they were at the time, allow me to talk to so many people. So many people talk to me.

It was actually pretty awesome. I was explaining that to the man that asked me the question, how my comfortability and openness with my damage, with embarassments, with fetishes, kinks, and general history, basically makes people just dump their sexuality at my feet. That people tell me things they may never tell another person.

And he was nodding, and I thought to myself, "Wait, I can actually confirm this right now, I can illustrate this."

So I called C into the room and asked her to tell him about the night we first met, and she did, telling him that even though we had not really spoken before, she was able to share something with me that she felt incredibly ashamed and embarassed about in regards to her sexual activity, something that she never felt comfortable telling anyone, including boyfriends and lovers. And what a relief it was to be able to share it with someone who she knew would not judge, because of how I acted in regards to my own past stupidity.

That ability I have, it's something I would never want to give up.

And, you know, my own mother did the same thing. Yes, my mom. Shared embarassing sexual incident (that occured with a boyfriend she had before my father) with me and, after, told me that it was so great that she felt so comfortable in knowing I would not judge her at all.

This is so standard.

I love being able to help, I love that people feel so much better after talking to me. I love providing that space that so few provide for me, and not because I'm such a fantastically good person (hardly), but because it's needed, it's so very needed.

People are so damaged when it comes to sex, their own sexuality, the opposite sex. There's nearly always something unhealthy, something they themselves find damaging or uncomfortable.

And I've moved past that. It's lovely.

I've moved past it to the point that it's observable.

There are other things that I have to deal with, that's obviously true. My body image is spectacularly lacking, and I still have to fight anxiety, and not being in the moment with my constant analyzing, along with the standard self-doubt.

But when it's sex... I'm free. I'm strong. No doubts, just enjoyment. It's exploration and growth, experience. I have come so far, the girl I was was left behind me. Almost untouchable.

And to be able to share that...

I could never had done it, gotten to where I am now, without two particular men that taught me so much. One, when I was 18, and still using sex as a weapon against myself. The other, when I was 20, and he showed me how to open up again, how to trust and enjoy myself, how to heal.

Without those two, I'd probably still be lost.

So I give back in their names.

I give back because of the damage I've done to others. It's not exactly repenting, but it is fighting off the effects girls like I was have on men. Trying to undo the psychological bruising.

Yes, it's all just a bunch of tree-hugger crap. I know.

But it works.

And there's more to me than that.

And while I love doing it, love listening, love the stories... I've become rather, well, done with the physical helping. I don't want to sleep with men I need to help. I want to sleep with men I respect. And I don't respect men with sexual hang-ups.

I don't mind helping, but where does that get me? My "female value" is considered lower for adding another notch to my belt, no matter what the reason, no matter what the practice.

I was talking with someone earlier today who told me that if he met an 18 year old who had had ten partners, he would greatly reconsider sleeping with her because, essentially, he wants quality girls, and quality girls don't sleep around.

You know, I know many women that don't sleep around. And they certainly aren't "quality". I find quality to be more defined by character, not sexual behavior.

But then, what do I know? I'm biased. My experience with men and their views of women and sex has left me sitting here, pondering it all because so much of it is so very... uncontrolled? Illogical? Dissonant?

I don't know the word I'm looking for.

Double standard aside, let's say that guys want to get laid as much as possible. Preferrably with women. On top of that, attractive women.

So they hunt and they game and they try to achieve that pinnacle of manhood: boning some chick.

If they caught her young enough, she's probably going to be inexperienced and naive and, wow, they've bagged a trophy girl who doesn't know how to have sex or communicate her desires, but they'll train her, oh yes they will, because she's quality and now she's going to be their quality bed partner.

Eventually, she gets released into the wild. They break up, they split, for whatever reason.

Now someone's had her before. She's less special, less desired, because she "gave it up" for another man. She's not as high quality.

Yes, I'm more than well aware of evo-biology theories, and sexual psychology. I'm just saying we're better than that. If we all had the same traits and desires starting off, then those change with experience, with knowledge gained.

So this slightly tarnished woman gets taken up by another man, who, once again, charms the pants off her. (And, no, this is absolutely nowhere near my own personal story, I'm just going for generic.)

She's trained, she's experienced, but only with one guy. So it's mostly okay.

She ages. More experience occurs. More partners. She's no longer that young, bouncy thing anymore, but maybe a woman of the world. Maybe not. Maybe she's an airhead that will dress like a hot 20-something when she's 45. I have no idea.

But she's essentially worthless now. She's low quality.

And all these men that came along, through her life, that charmed her, maybe that genuinely cared for her for a period of time, have left nothing but footprints across her mind. Footprints and, of course, a track record. A history that degrades her in the eyes of potential suitors everywhere because she "wasn't smart enough" to "keep her pants on".

If she had been a good girl, she would have realized that her value solely lies in how sexually inexperienced she is.

It doesn't matter how smart she is.
Or how hot.
Or how noble, honest, charitable, kind, giving, or any other complimentary adjective you want to toss in there.

No, it comes down to how many penises she's had inside her.

Because personality counts for nothing when it comes to choosing a mate.

Or so I am continually led to believe.

If you don't like a girl's personality, but you want her, you manipulate her. You engineer her into learning how to please you and how not to treat you. Easy. You play games and read psychology books, you learn tricks, and you've got this girl doing whatever you want, whenever you want.

And when you move on, you move on.

So maybe this girl is 24 and has been with, what, ten guys? Fifteen, maybe, if we're pushing it? If she started on her 18th birthday, and we clock out at her 24th birthday, that gives her seven years. So let's say 14 partners. Two partners a year.

That hussy.

Oh, and then there's that theory that I keep hearing that the more sex partners a girl has, the more damage she's going to have.

...
...
...
...wait, you're saying the more men a girl is exposed to, the worse off she'll be?

Well, with this train of thought I've been going through, no wonder.

And then, when she steps off riding these guys like a proper cowgirl, she'll be berated and belittled (and bemoaned!) by the guys she runs across. She'll be treated as though she is lesser, as though she is not worth their time in any way but sexual, and even then, there will be worry of STDs being expressed.

I can't imagine why there would be psychological damage done. I mean, this whole set-up seems so healthy.

You know when I disqualify a man? When I hear him call a girl a slut or any other equivalent. I look at him and think, "Wow, you're a moron." And I move on.

Because nothing suits me so poorly as one person actively and aggressively judging another by their own morals.

And, yes, I know I'm doing it now. I'm looking at this from my own, "Don't sink other people's ships, you self-centered asshats," point of view. Not really productive, but I don't particularly care. I'm writing this for me. If people don't like it, they have the obvious option of stopping their reading activity or reading on and picking apart everything I've written in a flamboyant counter-point.

Neither is overly impactful to me.

But I'm tangenting in a wild way.

Let's return to this poor 24 year old girl, this hussy that has slept with 14 men in the last seven years.

Frankly, I'm appalled by her reckless behavior. She must have had bad parents or a come from a broken family. Maybe her uncle molested her. Can we please explain away the reasons why she could have possibly done what she did?

Let's find something to blame.

Actually, no, I'm not going to bother. You can find something to blame. I'm going to continue on with something else.

So she's left valueless. If she's lucky, she'll meet a nice young man (who has probably had more sexual experience than she has) that is willing to overlook her past indiscretions, but only as long as they never talk about it, and that she swears, if it ever comes up, he was the best she's ever had and she's so lucky he's in her life now.

She certainly found herself a winner.

He'll also wonder if she'll cheat on him. She's shown no control over her sex drive in the past, so he has to keep her away from her male friends, if she has any. He might even wonder if their potential children will exhibit her behaviors.

Yes, I've heard worse than that.

The paranoia of the average male runs deep.

But I'm not going to get into that.

So she's settled into this life with a man who suspects she might cheat on him, looks down on her past behavior, and worries about their offspring. He may never forgive her for what she did before she met him. Yes, I have met men like this.

It was tossed to me, this morning, that maybe some lesser male will settle for me, eventually. Someone not smart enough to know better, someone not strong enough to stay away from the lures of the flesh.

No, not just mine.

I blinked at it.

When I want a relationship, I have few problems getting one. Even when I don't want a relationship, I still have problems with men wanting one. Yes, even knowing my sexual history. The men who call me a slut behind my back never quite manage to scrounge up the balls to do it to my face or any of my friends, which is quite odd. Yet men online are more than happy to do so.

When I do get into my next relationship, it will, as always be with a man. Not just some male, but a man. An educated, experienced, attractive man. Because that's what I date. Anything less than that is either not interesting or only good for bedwarming.

I don't do "lesser" men.

And there are plenty of men out there that are quite happy with my history and what it brings to our relationship, and not just in a sexual way. I am a font of information and experience, someone people come to, who strangers come to for odd counsel and dumping of the soul.

I date men with values similiar to my own. Which means I will never date a man who makes me feel bad about my sexual experience. Because I like maturity. I like openness. I like acceptance and lack of judgement.

Sometimes, yes, I meet men that have heard about my wild ways, have heard about, from whatever social circle they hail from, how so many people have failed to gain my interest, and they want me, they want me as a notch on their belt. They want the bragging rights.

If I want them, I sleep with them.

It's flattering, really. And, yes, stop your gagging. To be someone's mountain to climb. To be something to be bragged about. Something to be achieved.

I think I'm just going to make it that much harder.

Technically, I'm screwed anyhow. No man will ever want me for a long-term relationship now. Or so I'm told.

Might as well have fun with it.

6 comments:

  1. this is an unusually bitter post for you. you are ranting, fairly, against a double standard - one, however, that no amount of ranting against will change. here's the core sentence:

    "personality counts for nothing when it comes to choosing a mate."

    not so. an aspect of personality - femininity - is a core aspect of attraction for a man, as are obviously youth and beauty. if a women falls within the "erotic field of view" determined by these parameters, character matters enormously and can be determinative for an LTR. if she does not, character, unfortunately, matters little. because, again unfortunately, attraction is NOT A CHOICE. you can rail against men being uninterested in various female types (overweight, cougar, "slutty" = experienced sexually, masculine, overbearing, etc.) as much as you are uninterested in wimpy, beta men. to no avail. and, attraction is a necessary but not sufficient condition for "choosing a mate". you know this - so, why the rant?

    i agree with you that the male "prejudice" against sexually experienced women is unfair and irrational, in this day and age. maybe it's as much due to insecurity (sexual inexperience on our part; fear of competition) than "paranoia". but the limbic primal fear of cuckolding, of raising another man's bastard child, may be at the root of it. and that's a deep and primal thing that cannot be assuaged, or really even understood by a woman. or really, even understood by a man. in the same way women rarely understand what motivates *them*. think of the etymology of the word "subconscious" - by definition, a powerful motivator of behavior and choices that WE ARE NOT AWARE OF AND CANNOT CONTROL. but, hopefully, that we can understand, at least in the abstract.

    you'll find someone. a lot more people subscribe to your view of sex and relationships than you probably think.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This post was actually a purge, not at all intended to be bitter.

    I've spent this entire week, because it has been slow at work, reading blogs on society and sexuality, reading PUA blogs, reading PUA field reports, reading sexual commentary, and talking to aspiring PUAs.

    It's almost like a poison, with some of these men.

    I'm much too prone to hearing a view and, temporarily, taking it into myself, attempting to view the world from that view, see how it applies.

    I had to regather myself. I started losing my core, started allowing the views of others to affect(effect, sir?) me because I had been consuming them in such high quantities.

    So I expelled the poison. Foreign bodies. I gathered what information and viewpoints I have read in the last few days, examined them, reminded myself of my own experience, and then wrote it out.

    And instantly felt better. Thought organization, centering of self.

    I agree with most everything you said. It was just a matter of dealing with what everyone else had said. I'm not looking for anyone right now, though. Too much to do, too much to work on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I didn't anticipate that my comment would cause such pain. I'm not very fun online; I just say what I think. I don't want to hurt you, but I'm not going to stop the tough love, in "flamboyant counterpoints".

    I have no doubt that you could get a relationship if you wanted one. Most people can get something. But you have an ideal in mind, and I suspect that your ideal might be less attracted to wanton promiscuity. You seem to buy into the idea that women are attracted to masculinity, so why are you so skeptical of the idea that men are attracted to femininity - one component of which is modesty and sexual mystery?

    Judging a person's behavior is not a sign that someone lacks openness or maturity. It is a sign that they judge, but judgment is an honest reaction to something. All behavior is not equally acceptable.

    I'm not saying it's over for you at all. Keep your nose up. I'm sure you'll find a great guy if you're patient and spend time in the right areas.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It didn't cause pain, though thank you for your concern. I just have this tendency to immerse myself in other mindsets (in order to do my best to see things from other points of view) and, of late, it's been the PUA community stuff. I'd say it shocks me to find the outlooks that I have, but it doesn't, not really.

    That "flamboyant counterpoint" thing was not directed at your comments, by the by. Your comments are not at all flamboyant.

    I do believe, quite strongly, that my ideal will either be apathetic about my "wanton" promiscuity or have engaged in it himself. With either of those two, it will return to him being confident in his own sexuality that he will not judge me for mine, which is what I truly desire.

    I know that if masculinity is attractive, so feminity should be as well. I just... don't know. So much of the desired feminine behaviors seem to defy logic and rationality, seem to veer away from self-awareness and personal growth, of taking care of oneself. I have the hardest time viewing that as desirable. What man wants a mate who can't fend for herself? What man wants to know that if he has children with a woman and he passes, she will be inept at supporting his family? What man wants to come home to a woman governed by hormones, gossip, and Hollywood ideals? I know that so many of the men in the PUA community hunt this type and idolize it, but it makes no sense to me, other than it's easier to manipulate, use, and dance around these women, never actually having to do much to improve themselves or their game, because it's just so... easy to be superior to something so inferior.

    I do completely disagree with the judgement bit you put forth. Yes, there is the judgement of others as suitable companions, as people we desire as friends, lovers, coworkers. But then there is the judgement of anothers actions as wrong or right (or whatever adjectives you wish to use) on a universal scale. I believe that by stating that all behavior is not equally acceptable, a person shows that they expect their standards of behavior to be applicable to everyone around them. That's incredibly self-centered and incredibly ethnocentric. You're an intelligent man. I'm sure you know that behavior that is accepted in one part of the world is considered a sin in another, that religions carry different value systems, that universal truths are few, far between, and highly debated.

    I'm almost afraid as to what you consider the "right areas" for me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The sexiest women I've met are highly-driven, independent, and feminine. They don't play hard to get, but they're neither sexually permissive nor sexually aggressive. They're not reading stereotypical stuff (intelligent men are attracted to intelligent women). They're very polite and friendly. They like to serve their man. Ditzy behavior and weakness are not required to be feminine. It just takes some balancing. You're probably just fine in most respects - the promiscuity is a turn-off for me, and would be a turn-off for all of my friends (as a friend quoted recently, "you can't make a hoe a housewife" -Dre), but that can apply to both men and women (note the paper I linked you to earlier). Some girls don't like "playboys". I've had girls judge me (negatively) as promiscuous, and most people would not consider me such.

    It sounds like you're sinking into complete relativism. Nietzsche's main argument is that men can choose their values, and I'm fairly happy with mine. I also think there is a universal sense of justice. Sex is outside of the justice realm (by itself it harms nobody), but it does have other effects. If there were no health effects and pregnancy risk, maybe I would think differently - but I'm also a bit of a romantic.

    I could suggest some areas, but I think you know the right areas for you better than I do. Because of your comment above, my suggestions might come off as crass.

    ReplyDelete
  6. See, what you've described is my social persona. However, in the PUA community, it seems that the definition of femininity is is to ditzy, weak, emotionally-charged, and illogical. This, I don't understand.

    Promiscuity... I understand it is a turn-off for most men, at least on a relationship level. I've been disqualified because of my history. But I like that. I do like that screener that shows me what type of man I am dealing with. One who values my history over who I am. One's experiences do not make a person, the reaction, how one handles themselves due to the experiences, does.

    You know, because of my colorful history, I'm able to spot for both my male and female friends. I'm able to watch them, advise them, help them, in sexual and relationship matters. I'm better able at dealing with aggressive males, at disarming them, at charming them and soothing them. I'm actually good in bed, aware of my partner and their needs. I'm able to work through body-image and psychological issues with them, am able to communicate my desires and turn-offs, and teach them how to please me and their future partners.

    It's also allowed me to grow, to better understand myself and what I want out of a relationship, what I want out of a lover, what I can and cannot handle in a partner. It's allowed me to meet and interact with amazing people and do things I would never have thought I would ever be able to do.

    So, yes, I have been with a lot of men. I've done many idiotic and unsafe things in the past, done a lot of damage to myself and to others. But that's over with. I took an agressive and damaged girl-child and turned her into something else, something healthy.

    If a man cannot accept who I have been, then he does not deserve who I am.

    And I would not judge a man poorly for his playboy behavior- past or present. I find it to be desirable. It shows competence and experience.

    I do have a problem with, as you said, sinking into complete relativism. But that's what I choose. My values are for my actions, not for judging the actions of others.

    And I am a romantic.

    I just don't find many I would choose to exercise that part of my nature with.

    ReplyDelete