My Reign of Terror as a Safety Mechanism

So cuddling.  Cuddling is this weird thing that is, in theory, something that I really enjoy.  Yup!  It's physically nice, it's emotionally nice, and I sure do love me some cuddles.

In practice, cuddling oscillates between being the nice thing that it is in theory, and being a terrifying pit of terror and doom and angst.  And spiders.  And terror.

There seem to be two main forces that drive cuddling toward the terror end.  One is the very real phenomenon of cuddling transitioning from a non-sexual activity into a sexual one.  Except that I'm never on board with experiencing that transition (except for ISSP), which means that suddenly this nice thing that involves physical closeness has turned into this terrifying thing.  Worse, there's some period during which I am still physically entangled.  This leads to very trapped feelings on my part, and having experienced this enough has made me very jumpy about anything that might even look like it could maybe possibly turn into any sort of sexual interest of any variety.

The second driving force is my phenomenally jacked up sensory processing.  Types of touch that feel nice for most people- light, fingertippy contact- make me want to crawl out of my skin.  Unfortunately, many people often use this type of touch without being conscious of it.  It means that, depending on somebody's cuddle style, I may spend a fair bit of time taking their hand and firmly pressing the whole thing against my skin, while giving a verbal reminder, "Surface area.  Pressure."  'Cause even with a pre-game explanation that I need adequate surface area and pressure when people touch me, it's the kind of thing that can be challenging to remember.

Somewhere along the way, I started building up walls to head off the things about cuddling which terrify me.  I think that many people have some sort of read on those walls, and note that they are carefully guarded walls.  Which in turn puts others on guard- they don't entirely know what's going on, but there is clearly heightened vigilance.  I've had a couple of people tell me that they're afraid to share much physical contact with me, which I take to mean that my vigilance is translating clearly.

And... good?  At some point, without my conscious awareness, I learned that people who are afraid of touching me are less likely to.. well.. touch me.  And if I'm not being touched, it means that I'm not going to have any panic moments of, "OMG, teh sex is lurking!" and I'm not going to have any panic moments of, "Oh fuck, I can't handle this contact and I've already reminded them a couple of times and I know they're trying but this is really uncomfortable and maybe they'll change what they're doing soon and holy shit I can't handle this sensation any more."

So there it is.  I maintain what is perhaps the most awkward reign of terror conceivable over people who I care for, because it functions as a safety mechanism.  Are there healthier ways to navigate this?  Obviously.  But maintaining a Cuddle Reign of Terror does have a certain appeal to it.

Still Not Interested

So a funny thing has happened lately.  I've had a pretty sharp uptick in my libido.  I've got some theories as to why that might be, but that's neither here nor there.  The point is, I'm all, "Yeah, sex sounds awesome, let's do that!  Fuck yes, sex!"  And, as usual for me, all this enthusiasm has been directed at an exceptionally short list of people.

I decided to do a little thought experiment with myself, since sex has been seeming like such a great idea.  Delicately, tentatively, I sent a few little probes into my mind to see if maybe I might be a little interested in some of the people who it would really, really make sense for me to want to have sex with.  People who are attractive to me in many of the non-sexy ways.  People who I like and trust.  Was there any libido that might get kicked in a different direction..?

Nope.  Nope, definitely not.  Still not interested.

But it did make me realize that some part of me still thinks I'm broken.  That maybe, if I get fucked in just the right way, or do just the right little dance in my own head, or stumble upon some fantastic magical cure, suddenly it will click, and I'll relate to sex like a normal person (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean).  I'll be fixed.

Nope.  Nope, definitely not.  Still not interested.

And that's okay.

Rivers of Snot

Over the past year, I have both cut out a considerable amount of my social involvement with my local kink community and acquired an in-state sex partner (we'll call him ISSP).  This has left me with less fodder for writing here, unless I were to turn my asexuality blog into a sex blog.  Which, for numerous reasons, I don't want to do.  An elaboration on that might be a post for another day, but not today.

Today I'm going to write about rivers of snot.

ISSP and I were talking the other day, and wandered onto the topic of crying.  Specifically, bawling like a three year old, rivers of snot-style crying.  He was using this as a description of unsexy crying.  I maintained that more context was required to determine whether it was sexy or unsexy crying.  He looked befuddled.

Don't get me wrong.  Uncontrollable sobbing, in and of itself, is not particularly sexy.  It's messy, it's graceless, it's profoundly awkward*.  No argument there.

So what's hot about it?  The rawness.  The vulnerability.   I really dig emotional intensity.  For me, I think that the emotions themselves end up being secondary to the intensity.  Delving into that sort of intensity in a reasonably controlled and safe setting is just fantastic.

To get that messy and graceless is to let some pretty substantial walls come down.  Forcing those walls to come down in an erotic context is absolutely hot- at least for me.

Even if it does involve rivers of snot.

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*Know what else tends to be messy, graceless, and profoundly awkward?  Fucking.  Seriously.

Urban Planning

"Dude, were the urban planners drunk when they laid this out?  Why is there a wall there?!"  It was an offhand comment that I made while snuggled up with a friend, but it fits pretty well.  We all have some rough idea of how to navigate cities, and what to expect.  Sure, there are some quirks that are particular to any given city.  And sometimes roads curve around in ways that you don't necessarily expect, or side roads unexpectedly dump you onto the freeway.  But on the whole, there are some basic patterns that most of us have come to count on.  Even the occasional detour is easy enough to navigate around.

The city of my psyche got laid out a little differently.  It can be a little trickier for folks that are new to the city of me to figure out how to navigate it.  If one has been so unfortunate as to not pick up the Lonely Planet guide before entering, they may be surprised to find that what they thought was a freeway on-ramp actually routes you to a park.  Surprise!  No sexy freeway for you!  But check out this cool swing set!

And while my own layout makes sense to me, I'm still struggling with where the walls are for others.  I often feel like entire parts of others' beings are walled off entirely, save for one toll bridge.  The cost? Sex.  Can't pay?  No visit to the romance district for you!

I'm not quite sure what to do with this metaphor from here.  It didn't particularly illuminate anything for me, though I think it may for others.  When food metaphors aren't adequate for explaining the way I work, it's at least another option to fall back on.

Appearances

Wow, blog!  That post from earlier today was a big pile of depressing!  So here's something less sad that I dug out of the drafts pile.  I wrote it a couple of months ago, and have no idea where I was going with it.  But here it is, probably in incomplete form, for your reading pleasure!

Working as a professional naked chick does weird things to your relationship with your body, and bodies in general.  At least it did to me.

I get that for many people, their bodies are deeply personal to them.  And why wouldn't they be?  They're the container we're in.  It's the space our minds and spirits inhabit.  We carry them with us everywhere we go.  And yeah, that's pretty personal.  So it follows that the appearance of that container, that space, would be similarly personal.

But when the thing that I was selling was that container, I inevitably changed my relationship with my body.  I've become much more utilitarian about my appearance.  Does it get the job done?  Is it bouncing light as it needs to, carrying me where I need to go, responding to sensory input in the ways I'd like it to?  Cool.  That's what it needs to do.

I'm also pretty honest- at least I think- about the limits of my body.  I don't view that as a personal failing.  There is no way that my body can be perfectly suited to everything.  It isn't.  Nobody's is.  It's suited to that which I need it to do.  And that is exactly what I want.  No more, no less.

Objectification

Disclaimer: This post kind of makes it sound like this is some huge, awful ongoing phenomenon in my life.  It really isn't.  But it has been something that I've encountered and wrestled with enough over time that I have undue anxiety and discomfort around it.  I'd prefer that I didn't.

When I say objectification, I don't mean the sexy kind of objectification.  I mean the non-negotiated, can't-turn-it-off-kind. 

One of the most profoundly objectifying experiences that I've felt has been others' sexual attraction to me when I wasn't feeling it- at all.  How to best explain it?  I know.  Time for an another food comparison!

I'm a vegan, and have been for a long damn time.  I like food, and I really like shitty diner food.  I'm just not a brown rice and veggies kinda girl, and many of my favorite dishes are veganized versions of "classic" American dishes.  But when I look at food made with animal products, it stops being food to me.  Sure, it might make me want a vegan version of whatever it is, but I'm not lusting after that particular dish.  Because it isn't food for me.  It just... isn't.

Something that I really struggle with is being looked at as a food source, as it were, by folks for whom I am simply not edible.  Sure, it can be confusing as somebody is determining whether or not I contain eggs or dairy products.  But once that's established... Why are you still looking at me like that?  Not edible!!

It makes me feel as though it's not me that's being desired.  It's as though I'm being read as a blank slate onto which other people can write their desires and fantasies.  Because that's what's being desired- things which are not a part of who I am.  Things that are being written onto me.  It's as though I'm not an autonomous being, not fully human.  Just an object.

I really feel as though there's something about desire as others experience it that I am just not grokking.  I'm pretty sure there's a blind spot there.  Seeing as it's a blind spot though, I can't actually look at it to figure out what's going on.  I'd like to better understand though, and would be hugely appreciative of insights or perspectives that others might be able to offer on this.

Awkwardness as a Social Strategy

I'm not new to the use of awkwardness as a social strategy.  I never really figured out how to do the small talk thing.  After many years of crushing social awkwardness, I finally figured out how to spin it in a way that was entertaining.  Yay, social success!

What is new for me is publicly identifying as asexual-ish.  In doing so, I also gave myself license to be the most spectacularly awkward person- ever, pretty much- when talking about sex.  Complete with flailing.  Complete with extended pauses and unconventional language.  And complete with air humping, for when flailing just isn't adequate. 

I don't viscerally get sex in the way that it's usually talked about.  I mean, I get the mechanics of it, but I don't hear about something and think, "Oh yeah, that sounds like something that I'd like to try!"  In the past, I've either done mental gymnastics to relate conversation back to sex in a way that I do understand, or more often, just nodded along.  Oh yeah.  I totally get it.  Uh huh.  Super hot.  Definitely.

No more!  I came to own my social awkwardness, and so I've come to own my sexual awkwardness, too.  So bring on the sexy conversation.  I know what to do now!