Sexeteria

You might not guess it from my sarcastic rants about pubes and my dark, broody blog colors, but deep down I'm a serious romantic. I want to be in love as much as the next girl, you see. I just want my love without any damn cliches. Whisper sweet nothings...just make 'em yours--not something you heard on TV. And sure, bring on the candy and flowers. But, y'know, make 'em Vosages's curry-powder-coconut milk-chocolate bars and black irises instead of a Whitman's sampler and a dozen red roses. (Okay, I might accept the Whitman's sampler--I have a soft spot from childhood for cheesy drugstore chocolates. But I draw the line at red roses. Cliched AND too stinky. Bleah.)

ANYWAY....

I feel much the same way about romantic films. I'm a sucker for them...but again, I want 'em without the standard cliches. I don't want clean and pretty and perfect through-and-through, where everything's just as you would expect, and you can almost say the lines before you've even heard them. I want to see love on screen like it is in real life--all weird and lovely and awkward and fierce and hot and shy and yearny and consumate-y and happy and angsty and smart and dumb and funny and tragic and lions and tigers and bears oh MY.

In short, I love love stories about misfits in love. Maladjusted souls that find each other and hang on for the ride for as long and as best as they can. What can I say? I relate.

And really, can't we all?

Thing is, they don't make a lot of good films like this. I've recently run dry of ideas--and I really need more. I need more love inspiration brought into my misfit life. So here, I'm going to give you my top five misfit love films. And then I'll ask you to help me supplement my library with your suggestions. And that way, we all get to rent and watch something cool over the holiday weekend.

Ready?

The comedian Steven Wright once had this joke that went something like, "While I was gone, somebody rearranged on the furniture in my bedroom. They put it in exactly the same place it was." That's a bit like how I've always felt about figuring out how my sexual assault has affected my response to relationships. Something didn't feel right there, but I couldn't exactly pin down what it was. That's been frustrating because you can't work on something until you know what's there to work on.

I've been had difficulty trying to figure this out because I haven't been able to find a response similar to mine detailed in any literature on the subject. Most of the discussion about intimacy issues due to sexual assault seems to revolve almost entirely around sexual relations. It's oft repeated that post-assault, it's fairly common for survivors to either become 1) very fearful of or disinterested in sex or 2) extremely promiscuous. But neither of those two things ever happened to me. For me, sex was never a problem. I enjoy sex very much, and while I'm not what I'd call inhibited in bed, I've also never had the urge to act out sexually in some extreme, unhealthy way.

So sex was not what felt off for me. And yet something has always felt off. Trying to navigate an intimate relationship often leaves me feeling very unsteady and unmoored. And the books and articles I've read don't talk too much about anything else beyond sexual intimacy that's ever given me a eureka, "That's it!" moment.

Yesterday, though, I think I finally experienced a breakthrough. I believe I was finally able to create a synapse that allows me to articulate the situation to myself in a way that will let me look at it and figure out how to accept and integrate this into my relationships in a conscious way, hopefully resulting in a more positive experience for both myself and my partners.

So, two things that I experience that I think are probably not "normal" for other women when it comes to relationships:

1) Whenever someone approaches me and attempts to get to know me or communicate even somewhat intimately with me (tries to be "personal"), I always immediately switch into a light "feelers out" mode to assess what their "agenda" is. That is, I assume that everyone who approaches me has an agenda, and I have to decide if it's harmful or not. This behavior is consistent across the board with every new interaction I have, but for everyday interactions, it's fast and low key. It's more in the background and not high pressure--I don't feel particularly panicked or unsafe. However, when it is a man (or woman, for that matter) approaching me with overt physical, romantic, or sexual interest, the warning bells go off much louder and this "feelers out" behavior kicks into overdrive. I don't define it as this feeling when I'm doing it, but looked at objectively, I see I do feel "nervous"--in as much as it's as if my nerves and sensors are highly, busily active, disallowing me any level of comfort. When this kicks in, I will do multiple subtle "tests" (or what I see as tests) to assess if the person is "real" and genuinely innocent in his interest, or if he is trying to "play" me. Every word, look, action, and reaction becomes highly magnified and viewed individually of each other.

I'd figured out this one before today, but it's connected to item number two below, which was the missing piece. The part that's interesting is that although I've always known on some level I do this (though perhaps not so consciously), what I didn't know until recently is that most women do NOT do this. I assumed this was natural behavior that everyone partook in--a basic instinctual behavior every animal uses to protect itself from predators. In fact, I thought anyone who didn't engage in such behavior was, well...stupid. And setting themselves up for harm.

2) This was my wake-up realization yesterday, that I'd never been able to see before. I'm sure for most women, as they get to know their lovers or significant others better, they become increasingly more secure in their regard for them. This is not the case for me. Once step #1 above is over, and I've supposedly established for myself who I feel is the genuine person and have begun to develop a relationship with that person, the fear that motivates #1 above doesn't lessen, as logically it should. That "I'm safe with my alpha dog/pack mate/what have you" instinct never kicks in. Instead, something weird happens: the more I grow to trust a man in an intimate relationship, the the more my insecurity in that relationship, my need to test, and my need for reassurance that I am safe with him and that he won't suddenly turn on me and hurt me persists and even grows larger and more frightening.

In short, my fear continues and/or increases as things get better. The more trustworthy the person becomes, or the more staid and predictable the relationship gets, the more afraid I become the person is secretly masking a lack of regard or boredom with me, and that he therefore is or will eventually secretly be doing activities that will devalue or hurt me.

And I think this must be directly related to my assault in large part. Given my first association with aggressive sexual interest was in a context where the person should NOT have been sexually interested in me at all ("responsible" doctor with secret agenda), it's clear why #1 is in effect. And similarly, given that my assaulter was in a highly trustworthy role and exploited that role to confuse me and get one over on me, it's no wonder that #2, is in effect--the more "reliable/responsible/trustworthy/normal" something appears, the more I need reassurance from that person that it's going to STAY that way and not turn into something ugly because I'm not paying enough attention and have allowed the appearance of safety to lull me into being hoodwinked.

This fear results in me feeling as if I need to be continually hypervigilant against the signs of danger, and I can never get relaxed and comfortable with a loving relationship. It leads me to interpret comfortable, long-term relationship behavior displayed by my partner as disregard and disinterest in me that will ultimately lead to devaluation and/or abuse. I can NOT "relax and just groove on it," as one boyfriend once begged me to do. I can NOT "take it for granted" that someone still loves me. I can not "take it for granted" that that person will continue to do so, even if he did so yesterday, or even the hour before. I seem as of yet to be almost entirely without that mechanism that allows one to start relaxing into the relationship, and riding a wave of feeling calm, positive, happy, and...well, safe. I never feel safe. I *need* to be reminded regularly of the things other, normal people can simply take for granted or I become, on some hidden level, terrified. Terrified the monster is going to come out just when I thought everything was okay, proving once again that I'm a fool prone to being used, my judgement is impaired, and I can't "pick" a trustworthy man. (Or perhaps that no men are trustworthy? Probably both.)

And that driving need for reassurance results in still other behaviors I don't even enjoy the feeling of, but compulsively do anyway, such as:

• Directing overwhelmingly high levels of loving affection and attention at the other person
• Becoming a slave to feeding my constant and never ending hunger to be re-reminded that I am in fact loved and treasured as special to him, leading me to act out either directly or passive-agressively in any number of ways (more "testing") to test to see if I am still safe, if he is still thinks I am valuable, or if instead he will turn on me and become something other than what he is purporting to be

Again in short: stifling and needy--which, ironically, are two major characteristics I found most oppressive and ever-present in my own upbringing, and that I find most odious in other people now. They say you hate most in others what you hate most in yourself, and I guess it's true.

Anyway, this was a revelation to me. It's interesting how you can live with yourself and your behaviors for your entire life and not be able to gain perspective on them until some small thing happens and then suddenly...bang, there it is.

I'm not sure how I will work with this knowledge now that I have it. But somehow I feel just being conscious of it will help me have better relationships.

I mean, I know how difficult my lack of consciousness on this has been for me. I *knew* I was behaving compulsively, and I didn't even LIKE it when I was doing it, but I couldn't contain it and I didn't know why. And with no perspective on it, I couldn't explain it to myself or my partners. I wasn't able to take a step back and see what was really in effect. And I can also see how difficult my unconscious behaviors must have been for my partners to deal with, too. It's not comfortable to feel over-loved in a way that insinuates expectation of equal return (even if I didn't consciously recognize I was doing that). And how insulting and infuriating it must feel when you know how much you love someone and she can never really process that. I'd imagine it would seem like I was always calling them a liar. And my desperate fear and need for reassurance might come across as either clingy or pushy, depending, rather than what it really is. And if I wasn't able to articulate for them what it really was, how would they, who don't have my issues, have any idea what's going on?

I'd like to become less insecure and more confident in others' regard of me. I don't want to be so needy of affection that I push others away. And I'd like my lovers to have the comfort and loving relationship with me they deserve--one that doesn't feel for them as if, through my own disbelief in their regard, *I* am making it impossible for them to be able to love me the way I'm asking to be loved (what a terrible trap I've been setting for them and for me!). And one that doesn't in any way make me or them feel I think they're a liar or a potential asshole under an assumed personality.

So I think on both sides me being conscious of this and being able to explain it will help. It will help me step back and examine why I'm behaving certain ways and what the core root of that is. And this will probably help me both contain it somewhat and help me stay centered rather than panicked. And that state of mind would help me explain what's going on to my partner, which would give him a key to what I need to feel safe. I think if my partner were conscious of where my fear lies, he'd have a much easier time understanding and providing the spontaneous reassurance that I need. This might allow us both to head it off at the pass before it goes into overdrive compulsion and becomes something negative for both of us. It would allow us to find a baseline where I get just enough so that I *would* start to become comfortable and safe, but not so much that it becomes a burden. And a shared consciousness of this would also help my partner step back and observe my behavior as something other than what he might have assumed it was motivated by. Rather than assume it's about him and some imagined shortcoming I'm accusing him of, he'll know it's about me, and what about me it is. So he'd be able to ask me good questions when my behavior appeared to be tending toward the compulsive in the above ways, and that would in turn give me the reality check I need to take a breather, stop merely reacting out of fear, and really think about what is going on and what I'm really feeling in that moment.

These are all just thoughts, yet to be tested. But I'm glad I've had the realization. I think it's important. It feels like a missing link I've now recovered. I think it will help.

Not too long from now, I'm going to a wedding of an old friend of mine.

This friend was married to another friend of mine for many years. Then, some significant things--significantly negative things-- happened in their marriage, and after a period of making a concerted effort to sort it out and repair the damage, they decided it was just too far gone to be fixable and they decided to get divorced. My friend walked away from the divorce significantly hurt by the experience.

Not six months after the divorce papers had been signed, my friend met and was well on his way to falling in love with another woman. Six months after that, he proposed to her, and they planned to be married only a few short months from then. The wedding is very soon. He is happy and looking forward to starting his new life with his new bride.

Now, I'm absolutely happy that he's happy--I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm glad he's found someone he feels love for and with, especially after a period of serious unhappiness.

But for some reason I'm having trouble deciding if the entire story, laid out as a map in front of me, says something very doubtful about the believability of both love and marriage as concepts, or if it says something very hopeful about both. Like the clipped lyrics in my title from that famous song about both, it can be read more than one way. But which is the right interpretation?

What do you think?

A few days ago, I dreamed about you. Something I haven't done in so long that I can't even remember the last time I did.

In the dream, we were in an English country house. There was a gathering of old friends there from back when we'd all lived in the same city. All of us were our current ages; it was some kind of casual reunion after many years, like they show in movies, where all the old friends come to stay for a week in some charming old place and everyone sits around and reminisces and laughs.

You were there with your wife. A woman whose name I've included on holiday greetings I've sent to you, and whom I've heard about from others, but whom I've never actually met or spoken to in person. In the dream, I'd been introduced to her, and in the midst of the crowd in the kitchen, I was trying, as I always do when meeting the partner of an ex-boyfriend, to bond with her and make her feel at home with and unthreatened by me. I was being casually friendly, showing an interest in her, to the point of even showing more interest in her than I was showing in catching up with you. To give her the feeling of security; allow her to know me and to relax, to show I respected her position and nothing weird was going to happen. Which, in the dream, was fully how I believed and wanted it to be.

But it was odd to see you after so many years, and after so much silence had passed between us. I knew through others you felt uncomfortable and ashamed of certain things you'd done in relation to me, though I'd let go of them a long time ago. I could feel you watching me, nervous, uncomfortable, trying to sound out my feelings for you now that you had to face me in person. I smiled at you occasionally for reassurance that I was fine and continued to chat with your wife while you silently stood by, nervously looking for small ways to make it appear like you were concentrating on the conversation. And yet I could also tell you very badly wanted to talk to me. I knew this because even now I still know you well enough to sense when something's off for you, and I could feel you sending me signals. The feeling in the air coming from you, though unfelt by the others, was...agitated. But while I was there with everyone else, I chose to pretend I couldn't feel this and everything was normal. I tried to decide whether or not that was how I would play it for the rest of the vacation, and figured I'd just see what happened and how I felt.

Then, suddenly, the dream shifted and I was in an upstairs room by myself, unpacking my things. You came in, pretending to be curious about what the room was like, and stayed as I unpacked, attempting small talk and looking nervous, anxious. I small talked back in a friendly, polite way. I remember feeling that perhaps I hadn't made enough positive contact with your wife yet for her to feel comfortable with you being alone with me in a room, and breaking through the chit-chat to be direct like we used to be once-upon-a-time, I told you this. I suggested maybe we wait to talk alone until she got more comfortable first.

When I suggested that maybe you should leave, you started to cry, and sat down on the floor as if you'd run out of the strength and energy to stand up and act fine for one minute longer. It shocked me. I'm not sure I've ever seen you cry in the whole time I've known you. Concerned, I came over and sat next to you on the floor. I touched your arm gently, and asked if you were okay. You told me, your voice breaking, that you were very, very unhappy. That you and your wife were having problems. That your life was not what you had hoped. That nothing was the way you'd imagined it would be back when we'd known each other, when we still had time to dream about being adults. That you'd become someone you didn't even recognize or understand. That you'd become the type of person who, back when you knew me, you used to speak of with disdain. As you went on, you hid your face on my shoulder to hide how miserable you looked, and how ashamed you were of what you were saying. I sensed you were afraid to look at me and see what I saw in you.

It was very sad. I understood; I knew how that felt. And it broke my heart that you of all people should have to feel it. I suppose I thought I'd carried it for both of us. I realized, sitting there, watching you cry, that I'd been wrong.

And suddenly I was overcome by an overwhelming feeling of tenderness for you--a deep, limitless, unchecked well of affectionate love that I hadn't remembered I was ever capable of feeling. I lifted up your head gently with my hands and you looked at me, hoping. Hoping to break through everything that had happened and bring back into the familiar understanding we'd always had. Hoping to be understood. Hoping for me to tell you it was okay, that there was still time, so that you could believe it was true. Your eyes were begging me. Do you still remember me? Can you still see me? Am I still there?

I kissed your cheek, near to the mouth, but carefully not on it, even though it drew me. I kissed you where your tears were, one cheek and then the other, lightly. And then I looked straight into your eyes and I said gently and firmly, I recognize you. I recognize you. And your eyes welled with tears. And I kept looking at you and caressing your face and I told you I'd promised you I would always love you, and you were still you, so I loved you now.

And you kept your hands on my arms like you were afraid if you let go that I wouldn't be real anymore. And you wouldn't take your eyes off my face, gazing at me like a child being nursed, and then you tried to softly kiss me on the mouth, and I let you for a brief moment, just so I could remember what your mouth felt like, how lovely and soft and matched to mine. And a part of me yearned to move towards even more, but the other part thought, this has to be water under the bridge. That things had changed so much since that time so long ago, and so many choices made, that simply loving each other in a way that touched places in us no others had been able to was no longer all there was, and so it no could longer mean the same things.

And we could both feel in how tentatively we touched each other that this was true, but it was also true was that it felt good to know it was still there.

And the dream faded out with us still holding each other, gazing at each other's faces. Faces that had some signs of age but whose eyes still, still, still knew each other so well. It faded out out with us still lightly touching each other's arms and shoulders, knowing we'd have to pull apart again soon, any moment now, but not quite ready to do it.

And then I woke up. And through the rest of the day I felt a profound sadness and longing. Because the dream had been more vivid than any dream I'd had in years. So vivid that I could remember the actual feel of your arm as I touched you, and the smell of you next to me, as if I were right there. I could taste your tears as I kissed them. I could hear your voice. Feel the warmth of your hands on my shoulders. I didn't even know I still had enough memory of you left to remember what those things felt like. But there they were, and I was experiencing them again as if I'd never left you.

And worse, I felt that feeling of tenderness for you, a level of unchecked emotion I'd forgotten how to feel. And I realized since you that I've never felt that for anyone else. How unbruised my heart was at that time, how open to loving you I was. How completely and utterly satisfied I was in who you were, and how utterly ready I felt to offer you my heart, the minute you'd have asked. How romantic I was over you.

And the ironic thing is that while I felt all that for you, and while in the dream I told you that I'd promised you I'd always love you, in real life, I never said any such thing to you. I'd never told you I was in love with you, let alone that I always would. I never said any of that to you--instead I said it to many other men after you. Men for whom my feelings were a pale reflection of what I actually did feel about you.

So, you know what I think, _______? I think it's time we just fucking said it. I think I was in love with you. And I think you were in love with me. And I think you never told me you were because you didn't want to be in love with someone who was so much like you, because you hated you. And I think I didn't tell you because I knew you didn't want to be in love with someone like me, who was so much like you, someone who you wished was different. "Better" than you. I let you have that feeling, even though it hurt. I didn't intrude or insist. Because I wished I was different, too. How could I blame you for feeling the same? In the end, I think it was easier for us both to believe we were inferior than to believe we had something transcendent. Than to believe we were both okay the way we were. That we were enough, individually and together.

I wanted just once to be able to say that to you out loud, without shame or fear. It's time.

And, from where I am now, I want to say I'm sorry we felt that way about ourselves. That we allowed ourselves to be cheated of so much for so long because of it.

And I hope, my dear, dear friend, despite having not talked to you for so long, and despite having heard some things that make me fear otherwise, I hope that you aren't as miserable as you were in my dream. I hope it's going okay. But if it's not, I want to tell you I understand, deeply and fully. And I want to tell you, even though we may never speak in real life again, that after all these years I'm actually learning how to be enough for myself. Learning how to believe it's actually true. And I'm learning to admit I that I was in love with you; and that with you, I did know what it felt like to love someone without conditions. I'm learning to recognize and admit that after you I was never able to really feel that love for anyone else so far. And I'm ready to release that into the world and not be ashamed that I did feel that way, despite my being too afraid to do so at the time we were together, and long, long after. I'm ready to realize that my heart isn't dead or incapable of love, that it did once feel real love for someone--I just let it get shut down in the lost hope of us for a while. But I'm ready to accept that if it was capable of feeling it once, it can feel it again. And I'm learning that none of this is anything to be ashamed of. I'm learning that there is no "inferior" or "better" other than the ones I choose to make up in my head.

I want you to know it's not too late for these things. That there's always time, there's always hope. That dreams have no expiration date.

That love is not a weakness.

I want you to know it's possible to not be ashamed or afraid to admit we love ourselves despite lack of perfection. Or that we loved and still love each other.

I want you to know that you were the great love of my life so far, and I thank you for that, and for giving as much as you were capable of at the time. And I want you to know I release you from anything else you were incapable of giving at that time.

I want to say goodbye, my dearest friend.

And I want to say that I believe what I said in the dream was true. As long as I am, I will always love you. And I will always recognize you. Always.

Here's how I want it to be.

I want time. Time to sit, taking in the vibrating air between us. Time to know the feel of every miniscule measure of my palm on your cheek, or on your arm, or against your own palm. And to feel every miniscule measure of yours on mine. Not moving, but still, to take it all in.

I want time to know the feel of all that. Time to not rush like teenagers. Time to know we have all the time in the world, because nobody is going anywhere. Time to know we're not going anywhere because there is nothing at risk, because here, here, here is where we are, here is what we want, here is where we're going to be and it's good, good, good.

I want tenderness beyond words--and still trying to say it with words even though it's beyond words.

And so it's time, time, time that you love
And it's time, time, time.

I want time. I want time to be held. Held not tightly, insistently (because yes, there will be that, too, much of that, but first, please this). Held gently, warmly. Held not as a means to progress to other things, but held simply because for you, holding this warm being full of light that is me close to you is as precious as anything; no more is needed, because there is time. Time for this before all the more that is there to have. (And there will be so much more. But first, please, this.)

I want time. Time to be held like this, held until inside there is no more shaking, no more questions, no more doubt. And I want time to hold you in exactly this way, too.

I want time to feel the warmth flowing between us. I want time for our souls to pause and see each other and greet each other with, hello, friend. And then smile the word love.

I no longer crave the spike and the crash of hard chemical candy love-lust. I want warm, homemade, slow-baked scones with Devonshire cream. I want time to lick the crumbs off each others' fingers; kiss it off each other's mouths. Time to boil water for tea, and steep it, and then sip it slowly, together on the couch.

And so it's time, time, time that you love
And it's time, time, time.

I don't want the rush of wildfire and then the scorched forest of cold ashes. I want a long, steady burn. Time, time, time to luxuriate in the glow. Time to build it high and steady and strong, time to thrill at every crackle, time to warm our skin now that we've come out from the cold.

I want time. Time to savor the sound of your voice in my ear, and your scent, and to think of how much it feels like home. To know I no longer need to be afraid that the door to that home will ever shut me out, or trap me inside. Time to get used to the fact that it will always be open, and that I am both always free and always welcome to come inside.

I want time to wander around the rooms and get my bearings. I want time to sit with you in the garden there; with all of you--the who you are beyond everything else--and come to know finally, finally, that it's safe to keep my door open as well.

And so it's time, time, time that you love
And it's time, time, time.

---
Photographs from the marvelous series Guests by Christopher Bucklow. All photos copyright of the artist. If any of you can afford to purchase art, please buy his work. It's beautiful.