Some time ago (yes, I suck at writing. And at time.) I mentioned cultural messages about relationships and was asked to expand on this.
First up, I think that people are massively influenced by their cultural and social background: what that is both when you're growing up, and what it is at any given point. And not just the people and environment that you choose to spend most of your time in (although yes, that's important too), but the overall culture in which you live. Even if you disapprove of that, even if you disagree with some or all of the messages embedded in that culture; you can't escape it altogether. It will inevitably colour your experiences, beliefs, attitudes...
In the case of relationships, what we're overwhelmingly fed, in Western society, is the monogamous True Love happy-ever-after model. I won't get into the myth of The One here, or the equation of good relationship with permanent relationship (and thus any relationship that ends is automatically a failure). I'll stick with the monogamy, as that's what Silvia asked about.
The fictional models that we're presented with, from childhood on up, are all monogamous. The social expectations that surround us are all about monogamy. As teenagers, when you're just learning about how to handle romantic/sexual relationships, the assumption is that if even you're not monogamous right off the bat1, you will be as soon as it's "serious".
One thing that this means is that, even if monogamy doesn't suit you and you don't really understand or want it (hi!), it's still what you do, at least initially. Because challenging cultural norms is hard, and it's harder if you don't have any other models to follow; if you're flying blind. There's a lot of social pressure to fit in, and humans are in general social animals who want to fit in, to be approved of.
It also means that even if you do decide to ignore that model, and create your own, it becomes harder work irrespective of whether your preferred model is in and of itself harder work. You don't have any mental maps for yourself.
Other people that you need to interact with lack those mental maps as well. So even if they mean well, and want to understand, they're struggling against a strong set of messages that say: happiness is about one single long-term romantic relationship. Breaking cultural norms is, as I said, hard. It's harder if it's not you that's doing the breaking. (And, of course, some of those people, the ones trying to understand, are personally invested in that model.) From their standpoint, happiness is that model of relationships. If you haven't got that, you can't be happy. So it's hard for them to watch someone they care about doing otherwise — because they want that person to be happy. Which they can't be, because...
(It's not like any of this is conscious, either, or it would be easier to challenge.)
I think that's what leads to frustrating conversations which go along the lines of:
Poly person: "Well, but surely as long as everyone's happy then it's OK."
Non-poly person: "Yes but..."
From their mental model, it just cannot be the case that everyone's happy, because that doesn't fit. They may very genuinely mean well, but still not be able to manage that mental leap. Or they can get to the stage of "I don't understand it myself but I accept that you are happy", which is rather better; my point is that that's harder than it might appear to be in principle.
I have some more to say about the pressure it puts onto the people using the other models, as well, but I'm having trouble articulating it, so I'll leave that for another post.
1. When I was a teenager, the default assumption was monogamy right from the get-go: going on "a date", as I recall, immediately created that structure. Until one of you dumped the other one three weeks later, of course. I gather that some cultures — the US? — have the concept of a later move to "going steady" as a relationship-progression, but that wasn't the case in my part of the UK 15-odd years ago.
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
pure fiction
I've been reading a certain amount of slash, lately. (I go through phases, usually triggered by a recommendation of an author who can actually write reasonably well, after which I plough happily through all their stuff, then the people they link to until the standard starts dropping again and I get bored.)
Which leads me to wonder, again, what it is about same-sex porn that makes it hotter than het porn? (I speak here only to written material; I don't really do visual porn.) It's not quality of writing (i.e. the argument that there are better writers doing gay than het porn), because I've read both gay & het from the same person, & both have been good, but the gay stuff is hotter. (Technically I guess the het stuff isn't slash? But whatever.)
It's not just me, because a) I have discussed this with C & he agrees, & b) well, the whole slash thing, so it can't just be me.
It's not that I like the boys better than the girls (although I'm definitely more of a 2 than a 3 on the Kinsey scale) and thus like having more of the boys in my porn. Lesbian porn, like male gay porn, is also better than the het stuff.
It has been suggested to me, bringing this up before, that it's about transgression, which I suppose is possible. Other parts of my sexuality err towards the transgressive, as well.
So: it's not just me, right?
Which leads me to wonder, again, what it is about same-sex porn that makes it hotter than het porn? (I speak here only to written material; I don't really do visual porn.) It's not quality of writing (i.e. the argument that there are better writers doing gay than het porn), because I've read both gay & het from the same person, & both have been good, but the gay stuff is hotter. (Technically I guess the het stuff isn't slash? But whatever.)
It's not just me, because a) I have discussed this with C & he agrees, & b) well, the whole slash thing, so it can't just be me.
It's not that I like the boys better than the girls (although I'm definitely more of a 2 than a 3 on the Kinsey scale) and thus like having more of the boys in my porn. Lesbian porn, like male gay porn, is also better than the het stuff.
It has been suggested to me, bringing this up before, that it's about transgression, which I suppose is possible. Other parts of my sexuality err towards the transgressive, as well.
So: it's not just me, right?
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Sexual perspective
An interesting post on sexual perspective from Greta Christina.
She's talking about sex, but I think this also applies to love/emotion. It reminds me of various experiences of being told that poly is "just wrong" or that I can't possibly care about more than one partner (with the implication, either implicit or on occasion explicit, that I don't really therefore love anyone I'm involved with).
I had a conversation about poly with a sympathetic family member recently, in which they said "I just don't understand it". They added "but I can see that it works for you", but nevertheless, hanging in the air was "but it's wrong". I don't think that my relative actually thinks that poly is wrong, but I do think that their feeling of "I couldn't do that" underlies the difficulty they have with it.
We get such strong messages about what relationships "should" look like, culturally – and those messages are overwhelmingly about monogamy. So, as with sex, people aren't exposed to experiences or preferences outside their own, or the culturally-dominant one; and so they don't learn to accept those other preferences. Making it hard to do so even when one really is trying, for a friend or a relative or just because one believes in broadness of mind.
Also, as ever in this sort of discussion, I am reminded of
She's talking about sex, but I think this also applies to love/emotion. It reminds me of various experiences of being told that poly is "just wrong" or that I can't possibly care about more than one partner (with the implication, either implicit or on occasion explicit, that I don't really therefore love anyone I'm involved with).
I had a conversation about poly with a sympathetic family member recently, in which they said "I just don't understand it". They added "but I can see that it works for you", but nevertheless, hanging in the air was "but it's wrong". I don't think that my relative actually thinks that poly is wrong, but I do think that their feeling of "I couldn't do that" underlies the difficulty they have with it.
We get such strong messages about what relationships "should" look like, culturally – and those messages are overwhelmingly about monogamy. So, as with sex, people aren't exposed to experiences or preferences outside their own, or the culturally-dominant one; and so they don't learn to accept those other preferences. Making it hard to do so even when one really is trying, for a friend or a relative or just because one believes in broadness of mind.
Also, as ever in this sort of discussion, I am reminded of
s.s.b.b. and the extension of YKIOK, YKIOKEMITIHSCM. Your Kink Is OK, Excuse Me, I Think I Hear Somebody Calling Me. heh.
Friday, 29 February 2008
A false dichotomy
For some time now I've been struggling with various things around friendly-casual sexual encounters. The idea of such encounters has been feeling awkward, or dangerous, or uncomfortable. The immediate resolution to this was the straightfowrad one of not getting involved in any such encounters. This is fine in the short term, but in theory at least I don't want to cut myself off from what can be very positive experiences.
My attempts to explain this, even to myself, never mind to others, did not meet with notable success. I finally got a handle on it after encountering some ideas from personal construct counselling.
One of the ideas in personal construct counselling is that individuals have sets of divisions in their heads. Not opposites in the light/dark sense, but ways in which they divide (construct) the world. And, importantly, that these are seen as dichotomies: as either/or.
It suddenly occurred to me that this might fit my issues with casual encounters. Specifically, that I might have acquired the construct that I could either be platonic-friends with someone, or friends-who-have-sex, but not both. Or not "either, dependent on mood and context" which would be my actual preference. That, therefore, if I had a date with someone, our interactions after that had to be of a sexual nature. Since (very sensibly) I didn't want to commit to that, I was backing off from the whole lot.
This is, of course, patent nonsense (the insides of one's head are not, sadly, always correct, or even logical). There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a sexual-type encounter with a friend one time, and a platonic encounter with them another time.
There's also something here about meeting other people's expectations rather than my own: that if I've had a sexual encounter with someone I somehow owe them something thereafter (which, implicitly, trumps my own needs and preferences). Which is also nonsense.
Having identified this, I now feel significantly more relaxed about the matter. It's also a way of describing my feelings that is explicable to the people with whom I might be having these potential sexual encounters, and that lets me establish what I want out of things.
Which is to say: sometimes one is in the mood, and sometimes one isn't. And friendship is at bottom much more important than the sex.
My attempts to explain this, even to myself, never mind to others, did not meet with notable success. I finally got a handle on it after encountering some ideas from personal construct counselling.
One of the ideas in personal construct counselling is that individuals have sets of divisions in their heads. Not opposites in the light/dark sense, but ways in which they divide (construct) the world. And, importantly, that these are seen as dichotomies: as either/or.
It suddenly occurred to me that this might fit my issues with casual encounters. Specifically, that I might have acquired the construct that I could either be platonic-friends with someone, or friends-who-have-sex, but not both. Or not "either, dependent on mood and context" which would be my actual preference. That, therefore, if I had a date with someone, our interactions after that had to be of a sexual nature. Since (very sensibly) I didn't want to commit to that, I was backing off from the whole lot.
This is, of course, patent nonsense (the insides of one's head are not, sadly, always correct, or even logical). There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a sexual-type encounter with a friend one time, and a platonic encounter with them another time.
There's also something here about meeting other people's expectations rather than my own: that if I've had a sexual encounter with someone I somehow owe them something thereafter (which, implicitly, trumps my own needs and preferences). Which is also nonsense.
Having identified this, I now feel significantly more relaxed about the matter. It's also a way of describing my feelings that is explicable to the people with whom I might be having these potential sexual encounters, and that lets me establish what I want out of things.
Which is to say: sometimes one is in the mood, and sometimes one isn't. And friendship is at bottom much more important than the sex.
Thursday, 14 February 2008
Pro-choice
Apparently it was Blog for Choice day a few weeks back (just picked this up from a post on Perversely Poly which I think was linked from a recent Carnival of Feminists but I can't find the link now, dammit.
Anyway, I am woefully out of date, obviously, but I'm just as pro-choice now as I was on the 22nd Jan, that is to say, very; entirely. So I'll put it up anyway.
The UK situation is, of course, rather different from the US situation. In theory there are I believe more limitations in the UK (the requiring two doctors thing, which I am firmly in favour of abolishing), but in practice it is way easier over here than what I understand the position to be in (parts of?) the US. And the right to an abortion isn't explicitly under attack in the same way that it is in the US.
But we do have the nonsense about lowering the time limit; and at present we have Anne Widdecombe and the anti-abortion road show. (I'm a member of Abortion Rights, as per that link, and would encourage any of my UK readers to join as well.)
My own view is that a woman should and must be able to make her own decision about her body; and that that trumps any rights that the foetus may have. This is incredibly important for a vast array of reasons; and it really is a feminism and equality issue.
But even if you disagree with that, the bottom line on abortion is: making abortions illegal leads to women dying. Women don't stop having abortions, they just have illegal abortions instead, and some of those illegal abortions (especially if you're poor or disadvantaged) are unsafe, and people die. Abortion rights are vitally important.
Friday, 25 January 2008
Self-inflicted, other-inflicted
I read an interesting post on stress and pain processing from Subversive Submissive earlier today, which rang a lot of bells.
I've certainly noticed that stress (and hormones) affect my pain threshold; stress also affects my mental state in that I can find it much harder to let go, to get into the scene. Which, of course, feeds back to the pain threshold issues.
What I was particularly interested by is the comparison with (what seems to be) self-inflicted pain at the end of the post. My experience of self-inflicted pain is that it's totally opposite to other-inflicted pain. SI, for me (and just to be clear, I am talking only about myself, not about what may be the case for anyone else), is about control and clarity. Bottoming in SM is about losing control, letting someone else take responsibility. So for me it makes perfect sense that the reaction to the different sorts of pain would be different.
When I feel sufficiently badly stressed or upset, I get both extremely protective of my boundaries, and confused within them; I start to feel very detached from my body. Letting someone else take control feels far too dangerous. SI is a way of reattaching, reconnecting - and for that to work I have to be right there, part of the reconnection. Bottoming, for me, creates detachment - in a different and much more positive way. So for me, the two things are a very long way apart; despite the superficial similarity of "pain".
Given how hard it is to explain either of these things independently, though, it's hardly surprising that pulling them apart can be harder still.
I've certainly noticed that stress (and hormones) affect my pain threshold; stress also affects my mental state in that I can find it much harder to let go, to get into the scene. Which, of course, feeds back to the pain threshold issues.
What I was particularly interested by is the comparison with (what seems to be) self-inflicted pain at the end of the post. My experience of self-inflicted pain is that it's totally opposite to other-inflicted pain. SI, for me (and just to be clear, I am talking only about myself, not about what may be the case for anyone else), is about control and clarity. Bottoming in SM is about losing control, letting someone else take responsibility. So for me it makes perfect sense that the reaction to the different sorts of pain would be different.
When I feel sufficiently badly stressed or upset, I get both extremely protective of my boundaries, and confused within them; I start to feel very detached from my body. Letting someone else take control feels far too dangerous. SI is a way of reattaching, reconnecting - and for that to work I have to be right there, part of the reconnection. Bottoming, for me, creates detachment - in a different and much more positive way. So for me, the two things are a very long way apart; despite the superficial similarity of "pain".
Given how hard it is to explain either of these things independently, though, it's hardly surprising that pulling them apart can be harder still.
Thursday, 10 January 2008
Don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
I've written about this before. But over the holiday (happy new year, btw), it was brought home to me that this really is personally important. I've noticed that the times that I'm most likely to get into the full-on I-don't-want-to-exist self-recriminating mental space involve:
a) being drunk;
b) low blood sugar;
c) doing "worrying" things that pertain to my sexuality.
a) and b) are really just factors that mean that I can't keep the feelings engendered by c) under control.
c) needs further elaboration. This isn't something I get from doing things with my partners. Even very kinky stuff. That's firmly in the "OK" mental box.
The problem is being sexual with other people. Even if the people concerned are fully involved and happy with the situation. Even if "sexual" is just a bit of a snog. It's all great fun while it's happening; and then I come away from the situation. And I get hit, in the manner of a very large ton of bricks, with all the messages about appropriate sexual behaviour that we're surrounded with and that I seem somehow to have internalised.
"You're a slut"
"You shouldn't do that"
"They'll hate you / won't respect you / whatever"
"People will talk behind your back"
Now, I have perfectly good, logical responses to all of this. "Slut" is a word used to control women - patriarchal nonsense. There is nothing wrong with consensual sexual activity of any sort. I'm not lying to anyone or cheating on anyone. Anyone who engages in sexual activity - even just kissing - with me and then thinks worse of me is a hypocrite whose opinion is unimportant. And I really don't care what other people think of me as long as I'm happy with myself and with what I'm doing.
But that's not what I feel. Not entirely.
It's not really true that I don't care about others' opinions. Should I? Probably not, as long as I'm happy with myself; but humans are social animals and it's hard to hold yourself completely and only to your own standards. People do apply their own values to others; and I'm aware that my values don't necessarily match those of some parts of my peer group.
(Other parts of my peer group do share my values; but even then I can find myself worrying, irrationally, about what I've done.)
There are, I think, two solutions here. Firstly, to keep cultivating the attitude that I should hold myself to my own standards, and sod those of other people. Secondly, to keep working on that conditioning about sex: as per the link above, the "nice girls don't" stuff. Nice girls certainly do, and that's absolutely OK.
Neither of these solutions are as straightforward as I would like them to be.
a) being drunk;
b) low blood sugar;
c) doing "worrying" things that pertain to my sexuality.
a) and b) are really just factors that mean that I can't keep the feelings engendered by c) under control.
c) needs further elaboration. This isn't something I get from doing things with my partners. Even very kinky stuff. That's firmly in the "OK" mental box.
The problem is being sexual with other people. Even if the people concerned are fully involved and happy with the situation. Even if "sexual" is just a bit of a snog. It's all great fun while it's happening; and then I come away from the situation. And I get hit, in the manner of a very large ton of bricks, with all the messages about appropriate sexual behaviour that we're surrounded with and that I seem somehow to have internalised.
"You're a slut"
"You shouldn't do that"
"They'll hate you / won't respect you / whatever"
"People will talk behind your back"
Now, I have perfectly good, logical responses to all of this. "Slut" is a word used to control women - patriarchal nonsense. There is nothing wrong with consensual sexual activity of any sort. I'm not lying to anyone or cheating on anyone. Anyone who engages in sexual activity - even just kissing - with me and then thinks worse of me is a hypocrite whose opinion is unimportant. And I really don't care what other people think of me as long as I'm happy with myself and with what I'm doing.
But that's not what I feel. Not entirely.
It's not really true that I don't care about others' opinions. Should I? Probably not, as long as I'm happy with myself; but humans are social animals and it's hard to hold yourself completely and only to your own standards. People do apply their own values to others; and I'm aware that my values don't necessarily match those of some parts of my peer group.
(Other parts of my peer group do share my values; but even then I can find myself worrying, irrationally, about what I've done.)
There are, I think, two solutions here. Firstly, to keep cultivating the attitude that I should hold myself to my own standards, and sod those of other people. Secondly, to keep working on that conditioning about sex: as per the link above, the "nice girls don't" stuff. Nice girls certainly do, and that's absolutely OK.
Neither of these solutions are as straightforward as I would like them to be.
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
try it: you might like it
Many years ago, a friend told me that they had an attitude to sex of Try Anything Once. More specifically: they held that if a partner was into, or interested in, Sexual Activity A, it was always worth giving it a go.
Worst case: you hate it, in which case you don't have to do it again. Middle case: you don't mind that much either way, your partner has a splendid time. Best case: it becomes your New Top Favourite Thing.
This is of course a very close cousin to Dan Savage's theory of GGG.
(I guess there's a get-out if Sexual Activity A really really squicks you. I like needles, but G has a real phobia of them. I'm not going to ask him to try that out - well, OK, I have asked, in case the phobia didn't cover being on the non-pointy end of the needle, but I respect his "no". Reviving fainted and/or vomiting partner rarely improves an evening, in my experience (YKIOK...).)
I have always been very much a subscriber to this philosophy, but more so since this is how I discovered my fondness for bloodplay. The experience went a bit like this:
"Well, I can't say the concept does that much for me, but OK, I'll give it a go"
...
"HELL YEAH!"
Anyone else have positive experiences? Or, indeed, negative ones.
Worst case: you hate it, in which case you don't have to do it again. Middle case: you don't mind that much either way, your partner has a splendid time. Best case: it becomes your New Top Favourite Thing.
This is of course a very close cousin to Dan Savage's theory of GGG.
(I guess there's a get-out if Sexual Activity A really really squicks you. I like needles, but G has a real phobia of them. I'm not going to ask him to try that out - well, OK, I have asked, in case the phobia didn't cover being on the non-pointy end of the needle, but I respect his "no". Reviving fainted and/or vomiting partner rarely improves an evening, in my experience (YKIOK...).)
I have always been very much a subscriber to this philosophy, but more so since this is how I discovered my fondness for bloodplay. The experience went a bit like this:
"Well, I can't say the concept does that much for me, but OK, I'll give it a go"
...
"HELL YEAH!"
Anyone else have positive experiences? Or, indeed, negative ones.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Boundaries and risks
I observed recently that I place my boundaries in different places when topping than I do when bottoming.
When bottoming, I have very strict spatial and temporal boundaries. I am either in scenespace, or I am not. If I'm not, then bad things will ensue, for all parties, if I am treated as though I still am. (A gentle run into and out of it is fine, & indeed encouraged, but there is a point where I'll quite obviously be back again - usually when I start talking, or being sarcastic - and at that point the dynamic is back to a slightly fuzzy-round-the-edges, blissed-out normal.)
When topping, I'm much happier to blur the edges. I'll be flirtatiously slightly toppy in a way that I don't get on with at all if the roles are reversed. Or, rather: my boundaries for being flirtatiously toppy are different from flirtatiously bottom-y. Actually, I don't really do flirtatiously bottom-y - I'll discuss things from that perspective, but unless I'm in the process of doing or getting into a scene, I'm very much in control of my own stuff.
(Flirtatious toppiness is of course only acceptable when all parties consent. If I were flirting with myself - an interesting notion - I'd back way the hell off as soon as I moved even slightly in that direction & noted the resistance.)
After due & careful consideration, I concluded that there are a couple of reasons why I'm like this. The first is that I am, fundamentally, both incredibly bossy and a control freak. Both traits that I occasionally attempt to subdue, but without notable success. Toppiness? Not that much of a stretch. Being submissive, on the other hand, is harder work; and feels rather more dangerous due to being outside my day-to-day comfort zone. (Which probably has a certain amount to do with why I get off on it.)
The second reason is that being a woman, and being submissive, can feel incredibly risky. I spend, and have spent, a significant amount of energy making sure that I get to be independent and to be taken seriously, in my personal life, professional life, and any other parts of life you care to think of. Submissiveness, to an extent, risks that, or can feel like it does. And so I don't want to blur those boundaries, because I want it to be damn clear that any loss of independence and choice that I may get off on, stops when I put my clothes back on. Tops who try it on outside of scenespace threaten that.
This is noticably worse with men; I'll cut a woman much more slack. (Not that I've played with as many women as I'd like to...). I think because that I find it easier to find an equal level with women. Also, the people who I've experienced trying (whether consciously or not) to restrict my independence have been exclusively male.
(This excludes my current partners. I am pretty clear that they know where the limits are, and that they respect me.)
In practice, this means to a fair extent that I don't do D/s with people who aren't my partners; although I will do physical bottoming. Which is a shame, because whilst I like the physical stuff, what really does it for me in a lot of ways is the headspace. I don't know what to do about this; maybe I should lighten the hell up and start trusting more people?
Pushing boundaries can be great — doing risky things is a lot of what I get off on with SM. As I touched on in my last post, sometimes staying inside your comfort zone is a negative thing.
When bottoming, I have very strict spatial and temporal boundaries. I am either in scenespace, or I am not. If I'm not, then bad things will ensue, for all parties, if I am treated as though I still am. (A gentle run into and out of it is fine, & indeed encouraged, but there is a point where I'll quite obviously be back again - usually when I start talking, or being sarcastic - and at that point the dynamic is back to a slightly fuzzy-round-the-edges, blissed-out normal.)
When topping, I'm much happier to blur the edges. I'll be flirtatiously slightly toppy in a way that I don't get on with at all if the roles are reversed. Or, rather: my boundaries for being flirtatiously toppy are different from flirtatiously bottom-y. Actually, I don't really do flirtatiously bottom-y - I'll discuss things from that perspective, but unless I'm in the process of doing or getting into a scene, I'm very much in control of my own stuff.
(Flirtatious toppiness is of course only acceptable when all parties consent. If I were flirting with myself - an interesting notion - I'd back way the hell off as soon as I moved even slightly in that direction & noted the resistance.)
After due & careful consideration, I concluded that there are a couple of reasons why I'm like this. The first is that I am, fundamentally, both incredibly bossy and a control freak. Both traits that I occasionally attempt to subdue, but without notable success. Toppiness? Not that much of a stretch. Being submissive, on the other hand, is harder work; and feels rather more dangerous due to being outside my day-to-day comfort zone. (Which probably has a certain amount to do with why I get off on it.)
The second reason is that being a woman, and being submissive, can feel incredibly risky. I spend, and have spent, a significant amount of energy making sure that I get to be independent and to be taken seriously, in my personal life, professional life, and any other parts of life you care to think of. Submissiveness, to an extent, risks that, or can feel like it does. And so I don't want to blur those boundaries, because I want it to be damn clear that any loss of independence and choice that I may get off on, stops when I put my clothes back on. Tops who try it on outside of scenespace threaten that.
This is noticably worse with men; I'll cut a woman much more slack. (Not that I've played with as many women as I'd like to...). I think because that I find it easier to find an equal level with women. Also, the people who I've experienced trying (whether consciously or not) to restrict my independence have been exclusively male.
(This excludes my current partners. I am pretty clear that they know where the limits are, and that they respect me.)
In practice, this means to a fair extent that I don't do D/s with people who aren't my partners; although I will do physical bottoming. Which is a shame, because whilst I like the physical stuff, what really does it for me in a lot of ways is the headspace. I don't know what to do about this; maybe I should lighten the hell up and start trusting more people?
Pushing boundaries can be great — doing risky things is a lot of what I get off on with SM. As I touched on in my last post, sometimes staying inside your comfort zone is a negative thing.
Friday, 9 November 2007
Nerves and expectations
I have not been online much of late. This is due to being back at college, and the concommitant lack of time, what with that and work and and and...
Anyway. A recentish post of MayMay's contained a sentence that got me thinking (albeit on a major tangent to the rest of his post). He mentioned the feeling both not wanting to do anything sexual, and wanting to be made to. That's an experience which I can both identify with, and find difficult.
I have history of one sexual experience that is perhaps best described as "semi-nonconsensual", and a bunch of sexual and emotional pressure going on for some time around that; and quite a lot of history of sexual experiences which I wasn't entirely up for but went ahead with on the grounds that it would probably be OK once I got going. (Some of which occasions also involved emotional pressure.)
And sometimes it was OK, and indeed sometimes it was great fun. And sometimes it wasn't. And the times when it wasn't, and the payoff from that (a long and tedious story), were more than enough to make me very, very wary of doing anything when I'm not 100% up for it right off the bat.
In one sense, that's OK. (In the broader sense, of course it's OK. It's my body and my sexuality and I can do what I please with it.) In another sense - well, it's not an uncommon experience to find that feeling a bit up for it is enough to be parlayed as things progress into feeling a lot up for it, and having a damn good time.
More importantly, for me is the combination of what is a type of nerves, or maybe stage fright; and the feeling of what's easier. It's easier just not to, a lot of the time. Much easier than starting, and risking it not working out and having to stop, which has a tendency to feel remarkably like failure.
But. Really, that's all-or-nothing thinking. What exactly is wrong with doing something enjoyable - even if that's just cuddling affectionately - and then stopping there? Who put in place the list of Things That Must Be Done for a physical encounter to "count"? I'm pretty sure I don't subscribe consciously to any such list, yet it crops up in my subconscious at intervals.
It's about expectations, about setting yourself up for a fall. Expectations are scary; expectations might not get met. But, again, so what? Why does it matter? We're all grownups, me and anyone I might be getting physical with; even if there are expectations, we're all able to deal with those expectations being incorrect. It doesn't make whatever has happened any less valuable or enjoyable.
And by letting the expectations, and then the nerves, take over, they roll things backwards, and even less happens than might have done in the first place. The expectations wash themselves out without anything ever being done; because that's easier.
Which brings me back to "don't want to but want to be made to". I don't want to be made to, still - for me there's still too much baggage round that. (Although I am thoroughly in favour of playing at being made to...). But I do want myself to make me, sometimes. To push a bit past what's "easy", and to be prepared firstly to deal with my expectations, and then to ignore them and the claims of failure or success that surround them.
Anyway. A recentish post of MayMay's contained a sentence that got me thinking (albeit on a major tangent to the rest of his post). He mentioned the feeling both not wanting to do anything sexual, and wanting to be made to. That's an experience which I can both identify with, and find difficult.
I have history of one sexual experience that is perhaps best described as "semi-nonconsensual", and a bunch of sexual and emotional pressure going on for some time around that; and quite a lot of history of sexual experiences which I wasn't entirely up for but went ahead with on the grounds that it would probably be OK once I got going. (Some of which occasions also involved emotional pressure.)
And sometimes it was OK, and indeed sometimes it was great fun. And sometimes it wasn't. And the times when it wasn't, and the payoff from that (a long and tedious story), were more than enough to make me very, very wary of doing anything when I'm not 100% up for it right off the bat.
In one sense, that's OK. (In the broader sense, of course it's OK. It's my body and my sexuality and I can do what I please with it.) In another sense - well, it's not an uncommon experience to find that feeling a bit up for it is enough to be parlayed as things progress into feeling a lot up for it, and having a damn good time.
More importantly, for me is the combination of what is a type of nerves, or maybe stage fright; and the feeling of what's easier. It's easier just not to, a lot of the time. Much easier than starting, and risking it not working out and having to stop, which has a tendency to feel remarkably like failure.
But. Really, that's all-or-nothing thinking. What exactly is wrong with doing something enjoyable - even if that's just cuddling affectionately - and then stopping there? Who put in place the list of Things That Must Be Done for a physical encounter to "count"? I'm pretty sure I don't subscribe consciously to any such list, yet it crops up in my subconscious at intervals.
It's about expectations, about setting yourself up for a fall. Expectations are scary; expectations might not get met. But, again, so what? Why does it matter? We're all grownups, me and anyone I might be getting physical with; even if there are expectations, we're all able to deal with those expectations being incorrect. It doesn't make whatever has happened any less valuable or enjoyable.
And by letting the expectations, and then the nerves, take over, they roll things backwards, and even less happens than might have done in the first place. The expectations wash themselves out without anything ever being done; because that's easier.
Which brings me back to "don't want to but want to be made to". I don't want to be made to, still - for me there's still too much baggage round that. (Although I am thoroughly in favour of playing at being made to...). But I do want myself to make me, sometimes. To push a bit past what's "easy", and to be prepared firstly to deal with my expectations, and then to ignore them and the claims of failure or success that surround them.
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