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I can't imagine experiencing it


anisotrophic

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Her particular brand of flirting etc. relied a lot on archness, camp, being a bit over dramatic, and the like, as a way of concealing that there wasn't much going on underneath, emotionally. I'm far more aware of the signs of the lack of anything deeper these days, and less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt.

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Oh yeah I can't imagine why anyone is or would be attracted to me, but I'm a legitimate mess, my life is a disaster and I'm a nightmare of a person who somehow manages to come across as partly sane online, I suppose because I'm reasonably articulate and not completely stupid. But yeah I don't see anything that's worth anything, I truthfully just see a hideous piece of shit with nothing to offer. Which is unfortunately pretty close to the honest-to-god objective truth, so. I understand that other people feel differently, but it doesn't make sense to me. 

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"Cool girls" come in many different shapes and forms...

 

5 minutes ago, CBC said:

who somehow manages to come across as partly sane online, I suppose because I'm reasonably articulate and not completely stupid.

hahaha

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I'm not in the mood to be snarky or petty, I'm really not. Hope you're having a decent afternoon or evening or whatever time it is where you are, mreid. Cheers.

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There are some objective (even measurable) standards of physical attractiveness (such as facial symmetry), which tend to be pretty universal. There are also cultural ones, such as a "nice tan" in some cultures; while less tanning might be the standard in other cultures. Some of the standards can be traced to things like whether it indicates health, wealth, or other basic factors. Beyond that there are also personal standards that can vary from one individual to another, for various reasons. For example, hair color preferences, which may be cultural to some extent, but may also be personal. Maybe the person knew other people with that hair color and got along well with them or found them attractive in other ways, such as personality, so they associate that hair color with other qualities they like.

 

That said, no matter how objective you try to make it, judgments of attractiveness are practically never entirely objective. And when it comes to judging ourselves I would venture to say most people are even less objective. If I have never known people to express any attraction to me the logical conclusion seems to be I am not attractive. Once that becomes part of my self-assessment it's hard to shake, even if someone eventually does say it's not true or that they find me attractive. And if someone who "should" be attracted to me (because of the nature of our relationship) gives the appearance of not being attracted to me then I am probably going to believe I am not attractive.

 

Objectively I am not ugly, but I can't say I am attractive in any way. I can see where this could go hand in hand (although cause and effect are probably complicated) with an inability to tell if people find me attractive, without them actually being explicit about it, and even then I could very well have doubts because of how rarely that occurs.

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3 hours ago, mreid said:

I already explained that many times before.... the only thing that changes cross-culturally is how it manifests itself, but biologically sexual attraction doesn't change for the reason that its aim is reproduction.

I'm sorry if I missed your description. Can you link to a post?

 

Evolution should have programmed men to like wide-hipped women with enough extra body fat to survive lean times without endangering their child's health. Modern women who are typically considered attractive aren't especially well suited to bearing many healthy children. 

 

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A lot of interesting stuff going on. And I hope this thread isn't derailed into another morass around @mreid's own theories of sexual attraction -- feel free to fork that or something? ;)


I have some thoughts on if/how a (self perception of) being sexually attractive relates to self esteem.
 

On 10/20/2018 at 5:47 AM, Philip027 said:

the stuff about having to play a leadership role, still kinda feels like it's dripping with a sort of defeated contempt.  May not have been how you intended it, but that's how it reads off to me.

I think it's true that I reacted badly to the suggestion that my self esteem is low. And self esteem does include things like taking responsibility & personal integrity. 😬

I think I react badly to the general idea of associating "(self-perception of) sexual attractiveness" with "(self-perception of) self worth".

My reaction is mostly informed by my experience as a het female to date, and I expect I'll continue to be seen as such until some sufficient testosterone threshold has been crossed. I'd break my reaction down into three parts. (I) (Self-perception of) sexual attractiveness shouldn't define my (self-perception of) self worth. (II) (Self-perception of) self worth won't make me sexually attractive. (III) I think the "self esteem" as a panacea for issues in life is almost certainly flawed and may be so in a manner that reflects assumptions of privilege.

I. (Self-perception of) sexual attractiveness shouldn't define my (self-perception of) self worth.  When phrased this way, I think most people would agree. And yet this is something women get hammered into them, with social constructions of passivity in courtship, exhortations to beauty, sexualized clothing, media narratives that sexualize women. (It runs really deep. Even the concept of "modest" clothing is problematic - it's modesty about sexuality.) I see plenty of frustration with it, especially in AVEN, and I think it's totally fair.

I reject my sexual attractiveness as playing any role in my value as a person, and this is one of many reasons I can't stand being forced to be "female". I hope the world can move in that direction. In the meantime, I'll move myself.

 

II. (Self-perception of) self worth won't make me sexually attractive. This is a dose of reality here. I think there's a number of others that have confirmed this experience in this thread. Broadly speaking, the phenomenon of het women "dumbing down" to attract men (romantically or sexually) is a well known pattern. Beyond "landing dates", many women express frustration with male partners failing to value a female partner's time/success/careers.

I think, as a broad and horrible rule, women tend to be taught "a male partner who I think has a far more successful career than my own ... means I've landed someone amazing". But men instead seem to react with, "a female partner who I think has a far more successful career than my own ... makes me feel like crap". In other words, the advice for het women becomes... "Good to feel like a worthy person! But rein it in. Make him feel successful too. Don't let him feel overshadowed by you." 😕

I don't think this was explicitly stated anywhere here, but I do feel there is a broad sense of a feedback loop: "self esteem will make you attractive, and you'll attract someone, and feel good about yourself". But I think this narrative works a lot better for men, het men in particular.

For het women, I don't think self esteem makes them attractive to men. But I think it helps with something different -- to emancipate them, empower them, and give them fuel for independence.

III. I think the "self esteem" as a panacea for issues in life is almost certainly flawed and may be so in a manner that reflects assumptions of privilege. I've read Nathaniel Branden's thinking here, I picked this up many years ago. I'm no fan of his former paramour's cult of objectivism. But it doesn't mean Branden solved everything, peddling "self esteem" as a panacea for life's troubles -- to quote him via Wikipedia, "... cannot think of a single psychological problem – from anxiety and depression, to fear of intimacy or of success, to spouse battery or child molestation – that is not traced back to the problem of low self-esteem". Really?

Perhaps Branden's definition of self esteem and manner of "tracing" was so broad that anything can fit within it. But this perceived ability of self esteem to improve one's lot in life has a lot to do, I think, with how "fair" life is going to be for you. If you're white and male, like Branden himself, then perhaps self esteem truly is very likely the last piece of a puzzle you need: set it in place, and life starts to work out a lot better for you.

But if you're not male, or not white, if you're from a demographic that isn't getting a pile of invisible privilege -- if it feels like you work twice as hard to get half as far -- then I'm skeptical that "self esteem" is such a cure-all. And even if someone is born with a pile of privilege, life can still deal some other nasty cards you have to live with, from tragic accidents to rare disease.

I think self esteem is necessary, but it's not sufficient. I think it's possible to suffer and/or be "messed up" and/or experience emotional distress, and it's not about self esteem. It may be that the world is not a fair place, and to navigate it we may need more than self esteem alone. A couple other options I see are: committing to some level of stoicism/acceptance (stop desiring things we cannot have, as this causes us pain), and/or collective empowerment in identity and communities (fighting against an unfair world).

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Having healthy self-esteem makes life’s challenges more bearable on an individual basis (person with healthy self-esteem is more resilient than same person without it) but it certainly isn’t a cure-all. 

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59 minutes ago, Darthleon2 said:

And good lord, this thread is depressing. 

Yeah. Seconding that.

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2 hours ago, Darthleon2 said:

good lord, this thread is depressing

Hah. I just saw my therapist for the first time in a long while.

 

"Well, does being unable to imagine someone attracted to you affect you negatively? Is it causing harm, or is it helpful?"

 

Soooo neutral!

 

It's the latter. It's helpful. I feel a lot less sad imagining something I can't practically have, and I have so much, my partner gives me sex and lots of love. And genuinely makes me feel happy about achieving, not fearful of overshadowing him -- waaay more valuable than having something that sexually desires me imho.

 

Sorry it bums people out! Someone could offer me some charity sex to cheer me up but I already have plenty of that. 🙄

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I envy your adaptability and resilience. 

 

Do you think having desire-free sex plus non-sexual physical affection - rather than no sex and no touching - makes the difference between a 'mixed' relationship working or not working? 

 

I think those of us who stuck with a relationship after it became clear our partner had no use for sex were probably bringing to it an existing willingness to compromise our own needs - or maybe a confusion about what our needs even were. Probably if we were clear that we needed a sexual relationship and (rightly) had no qualms about getting those needs met in an ethical way, we'd have ended the relationship way sooner.

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On 10/20/2018 at 2:30 AM, anisotropic said:

I can't seem to imagine anyone being attracted to me

For me it's more along the lines of I don't realize when they are. Maybe because I don't feel that sort of attraction,  I don't expect it from anyone else towards me. And it usually upsets me when I'm told or find out later,  because it almost feels like a betrayal of what I assumed was a platonic friendship.  So it's definitely not always self-esteem issues. It even still feels strange to hear that from my husband, even though I should  know it.

It's great for the ego to know that you still look good,  but it sucks for social contact,  it's just irritating.  

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2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

Do you think having desire-free sex plus non-sexual physical affection - rather than no sex and no touching - makes the difference between a 'mixed' relationship working or not working? 

It can probably more broadly be lumped under “overall compatibility.”  The more compatible two people are overall, I’d think, the more likely a mixed relationship will succeed.

 

That’s going to mean different things to different people.  Some people want regular (nonsexual) touch, others don’t care or actively dislike it.  Some enjoy being complimented and affirmed, others find it off-putting.  Some enjoy sharing common interests and want to spend lots of time engaging in them together, others find that much togetherness stifling.  Some like celebrating life events and assign considerable significance to them, others consider them “just another day” or hate having a fuss made... just to name a few.

 

If you’re “on the same wavelength” with many of these types of things you’re probably more likely to find a workable compromise (whatever that happens to mean) when it comes to sexual differences as well.

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2 hours ago, Telecaster68 said:

Do you think having desire-free sex plus non-sexual physical affection - rather than no sex and no touching - makes the difference between a 'mixed' relationship working or not working? 

Yes, and more probably. I think it would be so much harder if there wasn't physical affection. :( I don't know that I could endured that. I wouldn't have considered myself a resilient person, I've had years of therapy, decades of an on-and-off background of suicidal ideation, losing many many weekends to depressive episodes.

 

I'm glad to hear you're getting out and playing the field. A bit envious of that. :)

 

(I don't think it's practically possible for us to attempt poly any time soon, which is where I'd expect dating might land me. Too much work, too complicated. It's nice that he thinks about it.)

 

My therapist also observed that we're communicating pretty deeply with each other about our experiences. We fell for each other via text chat (back in the time of IRC and such), only escalating to phone calls, then finally a trip to meet each other in real life. (He was literally on the other side of an ocean.)

 

I think "never imagining anyone could be attracted to me" has helped. It's not a dysfunction for me, I'd be in pain if I thought that way. I think this is a place where drawing on some stoicism/acceptance is the approach that helps...

 

But I'm still working through adapting. I'm going to resume some sessions to try to work through the shame I sometimes feel, which might relate to how I think others might perceive or judge me. I do drop it into conversations sometimes (usually with LGBTQIA+ folks), maybe because hiding it makes me feel more shame. I'm aware it's awkward and move the conversation along. But it's really normal in a long term relationship to engage in some charity sex... although typically the partner doesn't know it, and it's not always true. I think about that fact, when I tell myself "it's not a wrong thing".

 

And these days I remind myself I'm physically sacrificing my body in another way. Ah, an interesting incident: I started kissing his neck to make myself aroused. I was in a little pain from the pregnancy. He observed that it tickled and was a little annoyed, then his voice softened and he observed it was probably making my pain go away. It was. I wasn't intending to take it anywhere, but just being aroused helped erase the pain. (It would not have that effect for him.) I wasn't even conscious of doing it, it's interesting he noticed it. That he can have a lot of empathy for my experience surely matters a lot too.

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36 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

That’s going to mean different things to different people.  Some people want regular (nonsexual) touch, others don’t care or actively dislike it.  Some enjoy being complimented and affirmed, others find it off-putting.  Some enjoy sharing common interests and want to spend lots of time engaging in them together, others find that much togetherness stifling.  Some like celebrating life events and assign considerable significance to them, others consider them “just another day” or hate having a fuss made... just to name a few.

To me, one person who wants physical affection and is okay with even desire-free sex, and the other wanting no physical affection and not having sex is a bigger incompatability than any of those.

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34 minutes ago, anisotropic said:

I think it would be so much harder if there wasn't physical affection.

I think I could've borne it if there had been at least some physical affection, or as you say, empathy. I had neither from my wife, and together with my propensity to assume I had no needs (thanks, shitty childhood), it led me into getting pretty depressed. 

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21 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

To me, one person who wants physical affection and is okay with even desire-free sex, and the other wanting no physical affection and not having sex is a bigger incompatability than any of those.

Well, that was my point... the farther two people are apart on the more “individually small” things of that nature, the more likely it seems to me that a mixed relationship would fail.  It’s likely true of sexual/sexual relationships as well, but there you at least have “we’re still having good, wanted sex” to reassure yourself past the other differences.

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18 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

I think I could've borne it if there had been at least some physical affection, or as you say, empathy. I had neither from my wife, and together with my propensity to assume I had no needs (thanks, shitty childhood), it led me into getting pretty depressed. 

You having minimal needs and her not being a needs-meeter would have been a good fit... except that in the end it wasn’t really true.

 

I wonder if that’s part of what changed... once you were able to admit to yourself that you had - and that it was okay to have - needs, the fact she couldn’t or wouldn’t meet them was much more problematic (and perhaps you were also no longer what she had been looking for).

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59 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

You having minimal needs and her not being a needs-meeter would have been a good fit... except that in the end it wasn’t really true.

 

I wonder if that’s part of what changed... once you were able to admit to yourself that you had - and that it was okay to have - needs, the fact she couldn’t or wouldn’t meet them was much more problematic (and perhaps you were also no longer what she had been looking for).

Something like that. It got to a point where I was so depressed I had to sort myself out, and in the course of that asked her to what extent she could help, and how I could help her. Turns out she had no unmet needs beyond the need for me to stop wanting anything from her, and had no particular ability or inclination to support mine because she had no understanding of why that might be a thing (I'm talking about stuff like not understanding why upset people might like a hug. This was apparently, in her 50s, new information to her....). She only ever made cursory efforts, then forgot about making any effort after a couple of weeks, and in the end stopped even trying to try.

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Makes sense... if it wasn’t something you knew - or could let yourself accept that - you needed earlier on, it probably didn’t occur to either of you that there was a major gap there.

 

You were together a long time, during which - assuming she didn’t have any affairs - she wouldn’t have had other experiences to make her question it either.

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13 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Makes sense... if it wasn’t something you knew - or could let yourself accept that - you needed earlier on, it probably didn’t occur to either of you that there was a major gap there.

  

You were together a long time, during which - assuming she didn’t have any affairs - she wouldn’t have had other experiences to make her question it either.

Especially as she was apparently into sex when we first got together, but purely as a kind of recreational partnered masturbation thing. Stopping having sex had no more emotional connotations to her than as not going to clubs any more.

 

She'd been married before, and had other relationships, but never really talked about them in any intimate way, and I didn't push it. In the end it just felt like she just wasn't experiencing any very intense emotions towards anyone else, ever. Everyone, including me, was about on the level of an old colleague verging on friend, and that's just not enough for me. It was covered up by the drama and camp for a long time, and I assumed there was something less histrionic underneath, but it turned out there wasn't. 

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7 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

She'd been married before, and had other relationships, but never really talked about them in any intimate way, and I didn't push it. In the end it just felt like she just wasn't experiencing any very intense emotions towards anyone else, ever.

Either that, or not expressing them in a way that worked for you.

 

E.g., I always thought my partner had minimal feelings towards most people and things because he rarely expresses them and when pressured always says “I don’t know.”  Apparently it’s actually the opposite: he has so many feelings, of such intensity, that he can’t sort them out or express them in the moment.

 

All you would every get from observing him is that he finds people annoying.

 

——

 

I’m not sure more discussion upfront would have helped you... these days it sounds less like a sexuality mismatch and more like a general difference in what you each wanted from others (that just came to a head due to lack of sex).

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8 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Either that, or not expressing them in a way that worked for you.

 

E.g., I always thought my partner had minimal feelings towards most people and things because he rarely expresses them and when pressured always says “I don’t know.”  Apparently it’s actually the opposite: he has so many feelings, of such intensity, that he can’t sort them out or express them in the moment.

 

All you would every get from observing him is that he finds people annoying.

 

——

 

I’m not sure more discussion upfront would have helped you... these days it sounds less like a sexuality mismatch and more like a general difference in what you each wanted from others (that just came to a head due to lack of sex).

How did you find out about the intensity thing? I've wondered if it was the same for my wife because it's not that she's callous in a psychopathic way. Emotions just seem to not be part of her experience, but I find it hard to wrap my head round the idea someone just has a very limited emotional dynamic range: it's like most people go from -10 to +10, and she goes from -2 to +2, and I'm not entirely sure some of that isn't just mimickry. It reminds me of the way some asexuals say sex just never crosses their mind. Emotional stuff just never crosses hers.

 

The whole 'intense emotions that can't be identified or expressed' is one of the defining characteristics of autism spectrum. (I'm aware I bang on about this a lot, but it's only because it comes up a lot on AVEN, and Proper Research (TM) bears me out on the correlation...).

 

You're right it was a general mismatch brought to a head by lack of sex though.

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2 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

How did you find out about the intensity thing?

The current joint therapist asked about it in a way that apparently made sense to him and he was able to give a long, detailed answer.  She also has the relative advantage of having spoken regularly with his therapist.

 

He 100% does not consider himself in any way on the autism spectrum.  I don’t know if it’s something he has discussed with his therapist or not.

 

Not that it matters at this point but it sounds like your ex may have been correct in not identifying as ace; she was evidently getting something out of sex at some point, and may again, but it was more the emotional connection that wasn’t working for you.

 

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My ex was having no truck with therapists, joint or individual. 

 

She enjoyed sex basically as a form of masturbation, when she did enjoy it. The idea that it was any kind of joint enterprise, and therefore her not being interested would have any more impact on me than her not wanting to go clubbing, or not wanting to do something that I was ambivalent about, was incomprehensible to her. To her, it was just a happy coincidence that I liked sex too, but it was always two people masturbating using each other, and that's certainly what it always felt like.

 

So basically, a sex positive asexual because she'd have been happy to never have sex with anyone else. Sex was only ever part of our relationship as some kind of individual activity we both happened to like, separately, rather than an integral part of coupledom, for her. And that was her attitude to most things - parallel lives, effectively - and while I could find other people to do most things with, sex and a coupley level of emotional intimacy, by definition, weren't amongst them, and it affected me as deeply as it would affect most people outside of AVEN's core user base.

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7 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

So basically, a sex positive asexual because she'd have been happy to never have sex with anyone else.

Maybe, or maybe it was something she did enjoy and desire from a partnered perspective (back in the day) but not experience in the same way you did/wanted to.

 

Re: therapists... many, many years ago now, a situation arose and one of my requirements for continuing the relationship was joint counseling.  Everyone either of us spoke with at the time recommended individual work for at least a little while first, so that’s what we did.  I had also done some individual work on my own before I knew him.

 

He eventually (second try, iirc) found a therapist he really liked, and has returned to on his own several times over the years to address issues in general.  I would guess he has seen him for seven or eight years (over the past 15) if you add it all together.

 

tl;dr I don’t think insisting now would have worked, but it did nearly 20 years ago and since then he discovered his own reasons for going.

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3 minutes ago, ryn2 said:

Maybe, or maybe it was something she did enjoy and desire from a partnered perspective (back in the day) but not experience in the same way you did/wanted to.

 

Possibly, but it certainly wasn't anything involving emotional intimacy tied to sex. According to her, sex and emotions are only connected by men.

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3 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Possibly, but it certainly wasn't anything involving emotional intimacy tied to sex. According to her, sex and emotions are only connected by men.

Jeez, there's a new one. Usually it's us gals who get accused of making sex too emotional.

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Just now, CBC said:

Jeez, there's a new one. Usually it's us gals who get accused of making sex too emotional.

She probably “saw it in all [her] relationships.”

 

Anyway, sorry, didn’t mean to drift off-topic...

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8 minutes ago, Telecaster68 said:

Possibly, but it certainly wasn't anything involving emotional intimacy tied to sex. According to her, sex and emotions are only connected by men.

yeah I'm with @CBC on what the "general wisdom" is on this. Which is to say, when you've mentioned this, it does really underscores the "what the ...?!?" 😕

I'm glad you're out of it. It sounds awful.

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