Sex really is that one big issue that everyone gets in a giant uproar about.
People kill each other over it. People destroy lives for it. Some people die for it.
Most of my adult life, I have found myself to be pretty unhappy with it. I don't know what exactly it is about it. Maybe it's that it's an expected part of a romantic relationship, or maybe that particularly in the gay community, it's more and more acceptable to expect an otherwise judgmentally sound person to drop his or her pants on the first date or two.
Admittedly, I have made some unwise choices that I would like to think my peers are not stupid enough to have made. I don't talk about these choices. That's my decision. Normally, anyway.
I don't know. I'm in a situation right now where “cuddling” is being forced upon me in such a way that it's not intimate or friendly or special, but simply as the expected next step after seeing someone in person twice.
This person is a very good person, and I enjoy his company, but the pressure to do this one simple gateway action which will inevitably lead to more intense interaction, probably that same night, is irritating. I've told him this, and we apparently agree to disagree. It's such a big deal that I haven't heard from him for the last few days.
If you pressure me to cuddle or anything else that involves me letting you far enough into my bubble that I will be uncomfortable, it's like telling me over and over that I'll like a specific movie. Every time you tell me I'll like it or ask me why I still haven't seen it, I'm picturing myself shoving the DVD case up your ass. I'm not sure how the physics would work with cuddling, but believe me, the mentality is the same.
This isn't the first time I've felt a large amount of resistance to someone else insisting that things move much faster than I'd like. Up until a few years ago, I didn't realize it was okay to tell someone I didn't want to cuddle or make out or whatever. As you might imagine, I have regrets.
You will never catching me posting photo quotes that say things like “don't live in the past” and “no regrets” because I see that sort of thing as denial.
The past exists. You will not outrun it. The ideal outcome is that you learn something from it and you emerge a changed, better person.
I am actually considering the idea that I might not like sex at all, and to be perfectly honest, it pisses me off. It's not like sex is bad, it's just that I don't always want to have it. I don't think that I should have to put out as a normal function of a harmonious relationship.
Cuddling is not something I'm good at in the modern gay sense. I don't like pretending to be okay while someone tries to shove a hand down my pants (and I've NEVER seen cuddling between gay men not lead to this.) It's not intimate or special or anything like that, and it makes me feel like I've lost a part of my humanity when it's over, even if I like the person.
It's been years since I last subjected myself to that sort of thing, because I simply don't have to do that to myself.
I don't have to let someone touch me to feel close to them. He and I should be able to spend time reading in the same room, not talking, our minds mingling across the silence with a shared line and a joke now and then. We should be able to engage one another intellectually. This person might not be someone I'm sexually attracted to, but someone who makes me feel like I've met an equal and that I'm loved.
And let me define cuddling, for anyone who doesn't know. Ready for a revelation? No penises involved, guys.
Do a search for cuddling on Wikipedia. It redirects to “hugging,” and shows people embracing. Everything beyond that is what science refers to as “sexual activity,” and that requires my explicit permission before proceeding.
Perhaps I am bitter. I've been told that. Perhaps I'm wrong. I've been told that, too. I realize I sound like a moral buzz kill, but I assure you this is not a morality issue. This is an issue of what I'm comfortable with. I'm not saying your definition of anything has to be congruent to mine. I am simply not comfortable with what I view as an invasion of my personal space that I neither asked for nor gave permission for. You can call me a prude or tell me I'm going to be alone the rest of my life. I get that a lot. You know what? What's another 27 years going to hurt? I've gone this long not being in a relationship more than an average of a few weeks, and I'm comfortable with that. It's not a personality flaw. It's an inability to relate.
Yes, my past has a hand in my thought process, but just because I haven't made the wisest dating choices these last few years doesn't mean I'm damaged. I've dated some nice guys and I've dated some dicks.
I do find guys attractive. Obviously. And it's not that I don't feel sexual attraction. I just don't like people coming further into my bubble than I allow them. Expressing your disbelief or inability to understand why I don't let you in further makes my walls go higher.
I'm not looking for a boyfriend. Those things are fleeting and based at least on mutual attraction. That can't be forced. I'm looking for a comfortable existence, alone or otherwise, where I can write and be myself and either not be judged or laugh at my judges. If that happens to involve another person, that would be okay, as long as it's organic and based on respect and friendship.
And there, my friends, lies the fucking problem.
No one wants to be friends first.
And if you don't want to be my friend, I don't want to be your partner. I want to know the person I share a bed and a life with. What a novel idea.
Mind blowing, I know.
People kill each other over it. People destroy lives for it. Some people die for it.
Most of my adult life, I have found myself to be pretty unhappy with it. I don't know what exactly it is about it. Maybe it's that it's an expected part of a romantic relationship, or maybe that particularly in the gay community, it's more and more acceptable to expect an otherwise judgmentally sound person to drop his or her pants on the first date or two.
Admittedly, I have made some unwise choices that I would like to think my peers are not stupid enough to have made. I don't talk about these choices. That's my decision. Normally, anyway.
I don't know. I'm in a situation right now where “cuddling” is being forced upon me in such a way that it's not intimate or friendly or special, but simply as the expected next step after seeing someone in person twice.
This person is a very good person, and I enjoy his company, but the pressure to do this one simple gateway action which will inevitably lead to more intense interaction, probably that same night, is irritating. I've told him this, and we apparently agree to disagree. It's such a big deal that I haven't heard from him for the last few days.
If you pressure me to cuddle or anything else that involves me letting you far enough into my bubble that I will be uncomfortable, it's like telling me over and over that I'll like a specific movie. Every time you tell me I'll like it or ask me why I still haven't seen it, I'm picturing myself shoving the DVD case up your ass. I'm not sure how the physics would work with cuddling, but believe me, the mentality is the same.
This isn't the first time I've felt a large amount of resistance to someone else insisting that things move much faster than I'd like. Up until a few years ago, I didn't realize it was okay to tell someone I didn't want to cuddle or make out or whatever. As you might imagine, I have regrets.
You will never catching me posting photo quotes that say things like “don't live in the past” and “no regrets” because I see that sort of thing as denial.
The past exists. You will not outrun it. The ideal outcome is that you learn something from it and you emerge a changed, better person.
I am actually considering the idea that I might not like sex at all, and to be perfectly honest, it pisses me off. It's not like sex is bad, it's just that I don't always want to have it. I don't think that I should have to put out as a normal function of a harmonious relationship.
Cuddling is not something I'm good at in the modern gay sense. I don't like pretending to be okay while someone tries to shove a hand down my pants (and I've NEVER seen cuddling between gay men not lead to this.) It's not intimate or special or anything like that, and it makes me feel like I've lost a part of my humanity when it's over, even if I like the person.
It's been years since I last subjected myself to that sort of thing, because I simply don't have to do that to myself.
I don't have to let someone touch me to feel close to them. He and I should be able to spend time reading in the same room, not talking, our minds mingling across the silence with a shared line and a joke now and then. We should be able to engage one another intellectually. This person might not be someone I'm sexually attracted to, but someone who makes me feel like I've met an equal and that I'm loved.
And let me define cuddling, for anyone who doesn't know. Ready for a revelation? No penises involved, guys.
Do a search for cuddling on Wikipedia. It redirects to “hugging,” and shows people embracing. Everything beyond that is what science refers to as “sexual activity,” and that requires my explicit permission before proceeding.
Perhaps I am bitter. I've been told that. Perhaps I'm wrong. I've been told that, too. I realize I sound like a moral buzz kill, but I assure you this is not a morality issue. This is an issue of what I'm comfortable with. I'm not saying your definition of anything has to be congruent to mine. I am simply not comfortable with what I view as an invasion of my personal space that I neither asked for nor gave permission for. You can call me a prude or tell me I'm going to be alone the rest of my life. I get that a lot. You know what? What's another 27 years going to hurt? I've gone this long not being in a relationship more than an average of a few weeks, and I'm comfortable with that. It's not a personality flaw. It's an inability to relate.
Yes, my past has a hand in my thought process, but just because I haven't made the wisest dating choices these last few years doesn't mean I'm damaged. I've dated some nice guys and I've dated some dicks.
I do find guys attractive. Obviously. And it's not that I don't feel sexual attraction. I just don't like people coming further into my bubble than I allow them. Expressing your disbelief or inability to understand why I don't let you in further makes my walls go higher.
I'm not looking for a boyfriend. Those things are fleeting and based at least on mutual attraction. That can't be forced. I'm looking for a comfortable existence, alone or otherwise, where I can write and be myself and either not be judged or laugh at my judges. If that happens to involve another person, that would be okay, as long as it's organic and based on respect and friendship.
And there, my friends, lies the fucking problem.
No one wants to be friends first.
And if you don't want to be my friend, I don't want to be your partner. I want to know the person I share a bed and a life with. What a novel idea.
Mind blowing, I know.
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