[I started this post on Wednesday, April 17, just after the events herein. For various and sundry reasons, I haven't posted it till today, so it will sound disjointed.]
I don't know how to start this post. It's a difficult one for me to write for lots of reasons. Even so, I feel that I need to get it outside me, so I'm going to write it.
I fell in love this year. I made a friend, there was a mutual attraction, that attraction turned to infatuation, which turned to deep respect, which turned to love, which turned to falling in love. I fell hard. I wanted this man to be mine so much. Many of my waking hours were spent thinking of him, dreaming of the life we'd have together. We kissed, there was a connection, there was attraction, it all seemed like it was going to be okay.
Showing posts with label Sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sex. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Heavens above! sex without love...
One virtual silver dollar for whomever gets the title reference. Also, a caveat. This is a really bipolar post. I feel like I need to qualify it a little by saying that I still want to someday be attracted to and marry a woman, even though right now my desires bely that "someday."
Today I had another chat with my sister on the phone. We talked a lot about a lot of things, like the proper way to choose a ripe avocado, the crazy-ass mindscrew that is Lady Gaga (I still love 'er), and the personal hells that are my Spanish class and her up-and-coming move to another part of the country. We talked about her kids, my nieces and nephew, and what they were doing with their truncated summer before they move. We made some plans to caravan home together when she drives back to our home state from a place she'll be visiting that's pretty close to where I live now. (Writing a blog without personal details is wordy. Also, I wish I could tell you where our home state is, because it's just about the happiest place in the world.)
But, of course, it wouldn't be a conversation with my sister without a visit to Gaytown, USA, population: me (my real home state, haha). My sister is a rock when it comes to any struggle I face, whether it be school, girls, boys, roommates, just about anything, so of course I told her about how I unintentionally outed myself. I thought that she read my blog so I figured she already knew, but apparently I never gave her the link, so she had no idea it existed. I told her the whole story and we talked a little bit about it. And like a big sister, she was super supportive and very excited for my newly-deepened friendship.
And I told her about mine and Toby's kiss a few weeks ago. I hadn't told her before today, but not for any reason other than not really wanting to talk about it. But I felt like if she was going to read my blog, she should hear the bigger news from me first. And I told her about the picture message he sent later that weekend and some of the awful, incredibly offensive things he said to me later that night, and like a big sister, she was up in arms, haha. She was so mad, way angrier than I was in the moment. That solidarity is why I tell my sister these things.
Anyway, after story time we had a pretty frank discussion about sex, since that was the crux of my relationship with Toby according to him. She told me how she felt about sex, including the damage and the repair that it can be for a relationship. I've already discussed my feelings on the matter of sex without love, but we talked for a good long time about it anyway. I appreciated her advice, which was to never use sex as something that will get you where you want to be in a relationship. I'm paraphrasing, but she said that sex is not a vehicle or a means to an end; it should be a culmination, an "end" to a relationship. It should be the capstone that completes an already-developed relationship, whether that relationship is straight or gay.
The reason we talked about it is because she was asking what it was about such an obviously predatory individual like Toby that attracted me. I told her that when he's on, he's really on. He is a very attractive person from a physical standpoint, but he also has the potential to be very sensitive and real. The 25% of the time that he's charming and sweet and kind sometimes makes up for the 75% that he's a real jerk, at least in my enamored mind. Her warning to me (that I already understand, but appreciate hearing again anyway) was that giving someone sex will never get you that 75%. For a emotional person like me, sex should only be shared with a person who already makes you feel 100%, 100% of the time. I love that sentiment so much.
I'd imagine from my virgin mind that sex can be so romantic if it's done right. It can be awkward, dirty, kinky, rough, and whatever else, but I feel like if the right motivation is behind it, it's still ultimately an expression of romance rather than desire. And now I wait for that aforementioned "someday" to happen.
Today I had another chat with my sister on the phone. We talked a lot about a lot of things, like the proper way to choose a ripe avocado, the crazy-ass mindscrew that is Lady Gaga (I still love 'er), and the personal hells that are my Spanish class and her up-and-coming move to another part of the country. We talked about her kids, my nieces and nephew, and what they were doing with their truncated summer before they move. We made some plans to caravan home together when she drives back to our home state from a place she'll be visiting that's pretty close to where I live now. (Writing a blog without personal details is wordy. Also, I wish I could tell you where our home state is, because it's just about the happiest place in the world.)
But, of course, it wouldn't be a conversation with my sister without a visit to Gaytown, USA, population: me (my real home state, haha). My sister is a rock when it comes to any struggle I face, whether it be school, girls, boys, roommates, just about anything, so of course I told her about how I unintentionally outed myself. I thought that she read my blog so I figured she already knew, but apparently I never gave her the link, so she had no idea it existed. I told her the whole story and we talked a little bit about it. And like a big sister, she was super supportive and very excited for my newly-deepened friendship.
And I told her about mine and Toby's kiss a few weeks ago. I hadn't told her before today, but not for any reason other than not really wanting to talk about it. But I felt like if she was going to read my blog, she should hear the bigger news from me first. And I told her about the picture message he sent later that weekend and some of the awful, incredibly offensive things he said to me later that night, and like a big sister, she was up in arms, haha. She was so mad, way angrier than I was in the moment. That solidarity is why I tell my sister these things.
Anyway, after story time we had a pretty frank discussion about sex, since that was the crux of my relationship with Toby according to him. She told me how she felt about sex, including the damage and the repair that it can be for a relationship. I've already discussed my feelings on the matter of sex without love, but we talked for a good long time about it anyway. I appreciated her advice, which was to never use sex as something that will get you where you want to be in a relationship. I'm paraphrasing, but she said that sex is not a vehicle or a means to an end; it should be a culmination, an "end" to a relationship. It should be the capstone that completes an already-developed relationship, whether that relationship is straight or gay.
The reason we talked about it is because she was asking what it was about such an obviously predatory individual like Toby that attracted me. I told her that when he's on, he's really on. He is a very attractive person from a physical standpoint, but he also has the potential to be very sensitive and real. The 25% of the time that he's charming and sweet and kind sometimes makes up for the 75% that he's a real jerk, at least in my enamored mind. Her warning to me (that I already understand, but appreciate hearing again anyway) was that giving someone sex will never get you that 75%. For a emotional person like me, sex should only be shared with a person who already makes you feel 100%, 100% of the time. I love that sentiment so much.
I'd imagine from my virgin mind that sex can be so romantic if it's done right. It can be awkward, dirty, kinky, rough, and whatever else, but I feel like if the right motivation is behind it, it's still ultimately an expression of romance rather than desire. And now I wait for that aforementioned "someday" to happen.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Emotional vs. Sexual Attraction
Okay, so I've got this friend called Toby. I've talked about him before a little. He and I had a coming-out sesh together a few weeks ago and since then our friendship has been really weird. For a few weeks, we held hands and cuddled together (thinking about his warm hands on my neck still makes me melt a little bit) and I had/have a crush on him for a bit. My emotions tend to mirror my actions, so when I'm acting like someone who is emotionally attached, i.e., holding hands, cuddling, etc., I tend to get emotionally attached. He acknowledged to me after a few weeks of our cuddling that he felt like he was leading me on and that he was attracted to me and thought I was cute, but wasn't interested in a relationship of any kind.
Then our friendship got even weirder, after a fight we had the night before Spring Break resulted in me feeling incredibly ambushed and violated (not by him so much as his friends and not sexually) and him feeling like I was judging him unfairly and hypocritically. I see his point on that last part, but I'm not convinced he sees mine. We talked before I left for home for the week and he apologized, as did I, and we decided to take the week off to see if we should be friends or what. And then he went to Mexico and spent the week drunk on a beach, so I'm not convinced he did as much thinking as I did.
I kinda resent him for that a little bit. I really want to know exactly WHY he's sorry for that night, as he said he was several times before I left on Spring Break, but he spent the week hammered and probably doesn't remember we even had a fight.
Regardless, my relationship with him has led me to a few conclusions.
One, I'm not looking for sex. I don't want casual hookups or fooling around with men. I am a sexual being and I'm sure I would love having sex from a purely physical-pleasure standpoint, but sex without love wouldn't be worth the sacrifices I'd have to make on the family, school, and church front. At my core, I think (hope?) I'd be honest enough to withdraw from the BYU sisterhood of schools and accept disfellowship from the Church if I were sexually active with a man, and those consequences don't seem worth the pleasure that sex might bring.
Therefore, my relationship with Toby is going nowhere. I know I'm strong enough in my testimony to keep him off me even if he ever became that predatory. And while I know that holding hands and cuddling with men is a poor decision, I also know that with him, I can draw the line. For heaven's sake, we've never even kissed. His motivation is sexual and mine is emotional, and if he can't satisfy those emotional needs, he's not worth leaving the Church and foregoing some of the blessings that it brings.
The second conclusion is really more of a confusion. I know I'm not looking for sex, but in my weak moments of fantasy, I see Toby and myself with a life together. As I've said, I'm a little hung up on him right now and he gets to star in my dreams a little bit more than I like. I see him and me living together in a committed and loving relationship and it scares me for how much I want that. I'm giving up hope on his being a part of that life I want, but it gets me thinking about what if I find someone who has some of those same goals? Someone who isn't interested just in sex but in commitment and love? What then?
My therapist Max once told me that someday I would meet someone who reciprocated my attraction. She said that not as a reassurance, but as a warning. We had been talking about how even though same-gender attraction gets me down and used to charge my pornography consumption, it probably wouldn't ever lead to anything dicey because most of my crushes were straight males I knew and was friends with. I knew that even if I was exceptionally weak and wanted to break some of the rules, I'd still have the safety net of the object of my affection not being attracted to me.
That's when she warned me that my lifeline wasn't enough, because someday I'd meet someone who liked me as much as I liked them and that then the decision would be mine and mine alone. She said that I'd need to pick a side, because even though repentance is always an option, it's rarely an easy one, and I'd need to know fairly certainly what I'd be willing to give up to have either emotional fulfillment or faith in the truthfulness of the Church. She said that I'd have to be sure that the Church was either true or incomplete for either life decision to make sense.
That's where I have trouble. I'm nervous for what might happen when I meet that someone who has those same goals. I've said that sex isn't enough to get me to leave the Church, but what about emotional intimacy and attraction? Do I love the Church enough and have sufficient faith in its teachings to give up that higher relationship goal I have?
Thank goodness it's just a worry for now. I'm glad I don't have to make that decision right away and I should probably stop concerning myself with it since it hasn't actually happened yet. But, for the life of me, I have no idea how I'll react if it does.
How should I reconcile that desire for emotional satisfaction with my faith in God and His Gospel?
Then our friendship got even weirder, after a fight we had the night before Spring Break resulted in me feeling incredibly ambushed and violated (not by him so much as his friends and not sexually) and him feeling like I was judging him unfairly and hypocritically. I see his point on that last part, but I'm not convinced he sees mine. We talked before I left for home for the week and he apologized, as did I, and we decided to take the week off to see if we should be friends or what. And then he went to Mexico and spent the week drunk on a beach, so I'm not convinced he did as much thinking as I did.
I kinda resent him for that a little bit. I really want to know exactly WHY he's sorry for that night, as he said he was several times before I left on Spring Break, but he spent the week hammered and probably doesn't remember we even had a fight.
Regardless, my relationship with him has led me to a few conclusions.
One, I'm not looking for sex. I don't want casual hookups or fooling around with men. I am a sexual being and I'm sure I would love having sex from a purely physical-pleasure standpoint, but sex without love wouldn't be worth the sacrifices I'd have to make on the family, school, and church front. At my core, I think (hope?) I'd be honest enough to withdraw from the BYU sisterhood of schools and accept disfellowship from the Church if I were sexually active with a man, and those consequences don't seem worth the pleasure that sex might bring.
Therefore, my relationship with Toby is going nowhere. I know I'm strong enough in my testimony to keep him off me even if he ever became that predatory. And while I know that holding hands and cuddling with men is a poor decision, I also know that with him, I can draw the line. For heaven's sake, we've never even kissed. His motivation is sexual and mine is emotional, and if he can't satisfy those emotional needs, he's not worth leaving the Church and foregoing some of the blessings that it brings.
The second conclusion is really more of a confusion. I know I'm not looking for sex, but in my weak moments of fantasy, I see Toby and myself with a life together. As I've said, I'm a little hung up on him right now and he gets to star in my dreams a little bit more than I like. I see him and me living together in a committed and loving relationship and it scares me for how much I want that. I'm giving up hope on his being a part of that life I want, but it gets me thinking about what if I find someone who has some of those same goals? Someone who isn't interested just in sex but in commitment and love? What then?
My therapist Max once told me that someday I would meet someone who reciprocated my attraction. She said that not as a reassurance, but as a warning. We had been talking about how even though same-gender attraction gets me down and used to charge my pornography consumption, it probably wouldn't ever lead to anything dicey because most of my crushes were straight males I knew and was friends with. I knew that even if I was exceptionally weak and wanted to break some of the rules, I'd still have the safety net of the object of my affection not being attracted to me.
That's when she warned me that my lifeline wasn't enough, because someday I'd meet someone who liked me as much as I liked them and that then the decision would be mine and mine alone. She said that I'd need to pick a side, because even though repentance is always an option, it's rarely an easy one, and I'd need to know fairly certainly what I'd be willing to give up to have either emotional fulfillment or faith in the truthfulness of the Church. She said that I'd have to be sure that the Church was either true or incomplete for either life decision to make sense.
That's where I have trouble. I'm nervous for what might happen when I meet that someone who has those same goals. I've said that sex isn't enough to get me to leave the Church, but what about emotional intimacy and attraction? Do I love the Church enough and have sufficient faith in its teachings to give up that higher relationship goal I have?
Thank goodness it's just a worry for now. I'm glad I don't have to make that decision right away and I should probably stop concerning myself with it since it hasn't actually happened yet. But, for the life of me, I have no idea how I'll react if it does.
How should I reconcile that desire for emotional satisfaction with my faith in God and His Gospel?
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