Are you being sexualized, or just being flirted with? – girly style

“Does this guy really like me, or does he just want to fuck me?”

This is a question I have thought about countless times in my life. It has been the source of much pain and anxiety. It is dissected in detail in many diary entries. But I’m starting to think the question itself is based on a false premise—that sex and romantic attraction are mutually exclusive.

Oddly enough, our culture—especially the heterosexual side—often describes these feelings as binary, where one feeling can’t really exist in the presence of the other. When I was growing up, many of the messages I received about boys and sex (from the media and people in my own life) suggested that if a man pursues you for sex, he doesn’t respect you as a person – and that if you “give” him the sex he seeks, he will respect you even less and will never deign to date you. Conventional wisdom insists that if I want a man to commit to me, I should deny him sex for as long as possible (thus denying I By the way, the same goes for sex! )——If a man Was Being willing to endure a sexless interlude of indeterminate length means he really likes me.

But just writing it makes me feel sick! What a terrible, depressing view of the world! I don’t expect relationships to work this way – and I think in most cases it doesn’t. Of course, there are superficial scoundrels (of all genders) who view sex as a prize to be pursued rather than a pleasure to be shared—and there are also people who can and do separate sex from love (or even from liking), as in some friendships with benefits and other casual arrangements. But for the most part, humans don’t experience desire in a vacuum—I think most Many of us would say that our sexual attraction is determined by the non-physical characteristics we feel attracted to, whether those characteristics include intelligence, humor, charm, worldliness, dominance, submissiveness, or something else.

I can totally understand why we sometimes forget this, though, especially since it feels so gross to have your body and sexuality being objectified. In my early twenties, when we had just started texting, I was absolutely disgusted when someone tried to jump into sexting—not just because I felt it showed poor social skills, but because it made me feel like a cardboard cutout of a woman onto which people could project their fantasies (and semen). They might as well have typed “porn babes in bikinis” or “lesbian sexy AI” into a Google search instead of sending me letters about their genitals. of course Their desire for me feels objectified – they don’t know me well enough to see me as anything other than an object.

But we must be aware of when past trauma can mistakenly influence our perception of current situations. Even though I’m now in my thirties, I still sometimes get stuck in black and white thinking when someone expresses their sexual desires to me early on. Alarm bells rang in my mind: They just think you’re sexy! They don’t care about your brain, your heart, your art! Once they fuck you, they’re gone forever, leaving you feeling worthless and alone!

When this happens, I try to take a deep breath and evaluate what I actually know. Often, I realize that other people’s desires—like my own—are motivated and shaped by the particularities of their target objects. My desire for an adorable golden retriever soft boy is different from my desire for a sarcastic dive bar punk. My fascination with the bodacious dominatrix with the big eyebrows is fundamentally different than my fascination with the funny flannel-wearing barista with hairy forearms. Each attraction has its own uniqueness, is beautiful and bright, and the sexual orientation of desire does not prevent it from also having a romantic element. In fact, my sexual fascination tended to blow away. Only the stuff that’s more emotionally substantive stays in my spanking bank. Sex is more compelling when it’s more than superficial – and I don’t just mean that as a penetration joke!

So, the next time you find yourself reflexively wondering if someone real Like you or just like that they can have sex with you, ask yourself: Do they seem curious, interested, and eager to get to know you? Do their praises, if any, extend beyond the physical realm? Do they value qualities in you and do you value qualities in yourself? Or their desires seem to stem from who they are think Who are you, who do they think you are, or who do they want you to be?

These things are sometimes hard to discern, but I think they’re worth reflecting on…if only because having sex with someone who can see into your soul is one of the hottest experiences imaginable.

This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.

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