Orgasm as Approval
9 August 2008 06:07![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amulhttp://www.fluctu8.com/media/25805/21614/
Another piece by Shane Koyczan, ganked from Darth Ambivalence.
This whole "knowing me before kissing me" thing with Lithe is starting to drive me a little crazy. I'm just not used to opening up to someone at this kind of pace, in this kind of order. We're both so busy that finding time together is like pouring shots when I want to drink straight from the bottle, and I twist myself up because if she wants to go slow, if she wants to do it this way, then suddenly I have a different set of requirements too. Our dates only last a handful of hours, and I just don't know how to let my guard down in that time without the sort of tricks that she's grown bored of. I'm pretty sure I could have kissed her goodnight on Tuesday, but as much as I'm starting to crave that first kiss, it has to be the right kind of moment, not an end to an evening, not some kind of payment for pleasant conversation. (Something inside me scoffs the question, Romance? and I can only try to hide a sheepish grin.) I need to see approval in her eyes, need to see desire mirrored there.
Which is kind of hard, since I'm scared to look people in the eyes these days.
I'm not sure when that happened. I remember being 18 and seeking Priceless Pearl's eyes, those ever-darting targets which had learned the adept trick of only seeming to return a lover's gaze. I remember being 27 and the way Roo sought my eyes, and the space in between is the silence of a forest turned to charred ash. The space in between is The Burning Line, no longer the hot death of love, but the cold embers of willfully feigned amnesia. Somewhere, inside that wreckage of years, I lost the ability to look a girl in the eyes and hope to find something there.
I think about her lips constantly, and the urge to lie, to embellish, to treat my life as if it is not enough, grows hot within me. Yet, I cannot fool myself. I don't crave sweet caresses due to some inappropriately overwhelming emotion. It is only a need for security, for reassurance. I'm a good kisser. I'm a good lay. If I bedded her now, then I could tell myself that I knew why she kept coming back to learn more about who I am. If I could make her cum, or even just suggest the sort of proficiency with which I could apply myself to that task, then I could accept her damnable insistence at continuing to spend time with me.
In a certain respect, within a certain set of parameters, I have lost all sense of my own worth as a human being, and can only drag myself out into public by acquiescing to the opinions of those I call my friends. I do not feel capable of winning the respect of intelligent persons or the affection of children, but I know where that sense of abiding inadequacy comes from, and struggle to pay it no heed. Struggle to accept that my desire to do right by the world somehow makes up for all the times I have not lived up to my own standards.
Struggle to let the scarred flesh of my trust flex as easily as unblemished belief in magic once did.
I have to laugh at myself for all this turmoil. When I first moved to Chicago, if I met a girl who was even single, let alone interesting, I'd go a little crazy at the thought of getting to know her. By the time I met Lacuna Diving Bunny, I'd adopted a few simple tricks to avoid that insanity. No flirting with models (photography continues to be far too intimate for me to mix those desires). No opening up until they've had a few orgasms. Orgasms are safe. Orgasms are tacit approval. Orgasm-based relationships don't have to be about future orgasms. This insanity I feel now is just a variant of that fear.
It's not that I already care for her, it's that I already know that I could care about her. In itself, that idea is petrifying. Add to this my belief that I understand what she's going through right now, what her ability to trust and open up is like right now based on my own experiences over a decade ago, and the need to demonstrate some kind of wholly physical value to my company grows to infernal capacity.
The problem is, that isn't a good enough reason to actually kiss her. None of that has anything to do with good reasons to kiss her. The only good reason to kiss her is because I want to kiss her.
If I could overcome my self-doubt enough to express my interest in her, and overcome my fear to ask her out again months later and keep asking her out no matter how many times she says yes, no matter how much I enjoy the time we spend together, then I will be damned if I succumb to the temptation to take her trust out of a need for reassurance.
I will wait. I will wait until she knows me and desires me and I know her and desire her.
I will. Not. Fucking. Shortcut this.
Another piece by Shane Koyczan, ganked from Darth Ambivalence.
This whole "knowing me before kissing me" thing with Lithe is starting to drive me a little crazy. I'm just not used to opening up to someone at this kind of pace, in this kind of order. We're both so busy that finding time together is like pouring shots when I want to drink straight from the bottle, and I twist myself up because if she wants to go slow, if she wants to do it this way, then suddenly I have a different set of requirements too. Our dates only last a handful of hours, and I just don't know how to let my guard down in that time without the sort of tricks that she's grown bored of. I'm pretty sure I could have kissed her goodnight on Tuesday, but as much as I'm starting to crave that first kiss, it has to be the right kind of moment, not an end to an evening, not some kind of payment for pleasant conversation. (Something inside me scoffs the question, Romance? and I can only try to hide a sheepish grin.) I need to see approval in her eyes, need to see desire mirrored there.
Which is kind of hard, since I'm scared to look people in the eyes these days.
I'm not sure when that happened. I remember being 18 and seeking Priceless Pearl's eyes, those ever-darting targets which had learned the adept trick of only seeming to return a lover's gaze. I remember being 27 and the way Roo sought my eyes, and the space in between is the silence of a forest turned to charred ash. The space in between is The Burning Line, no longer the hot death of love, but the cold embers of willfully feigned amnesia. Somewhere, inside that wreckage of years, I lost the ability to look a girl in the eyes and hope to find something there.
I think about her lips constantly, and the urge to lie, to embellish, to treat my life as if it is not enough, grows hot within me. Yet, I cannot fool myself. I don't crave sweet caresses due to some inappropriately overwhelming emotion. It is only a need for security, for reassurance. I'm a good kisser. I'm a good lay. If I bedded her now, then I could tell myself that I knew why she kept coming back to learn more about who I am. If I could make her cum, or even just suggest the sort of proficiency with which I could apply myself to that task, then I could accept her damnable insistence at continuing to spend time with me.
In a certain respect, within a certain set of parameters, I have lost all sense of my own worth as a human being, and can only drag myself out into public by acquiescing to the opinions of those I call my friends. I do not feel capable of winning the respect of intelligent persons or the affection of children, but I know where that sense of abiding inadequacy comes from, and struggle to pay it no heed. Struggle to accept that my desire to do right by the world somehow makes up for all the times I have not lived up to my own standards.
Struggle to let the scarred flesh of my trust flex as easily as unblemished belief in magic once did.
I have to laugh at myself for all this turmoil. When I first moved to Chicago, if I met a girl who was even single, let alone interesting, I'd go a little crazy at the thought of getting to know her. By the time I met Lacuna Diving Bunny, I'd adopted a few simple tricks to avoid that insanity. No flirting with models (photography continues to be far too intimate for me to mix those desires). No opening up until they've had a few orgasms. Orgasms are safe. Orgasms are tacit approval. Orgasm-based relationships don't have to be about future orgasms. This insanity I feel now is just a variant of that fear.
It's not that I already care for her, it's that I already know that I could care about her. In itself, that idea is petrifying. Add to this my belief that I understand what she's going through right now, what her ability to trust and open up is like right now based on my own experiences over a decade ago, and the need to demonstrate some kind of wholly physical value to my company grows to infernal capacity.
The problem is, that isn't a good enough reason to actually kiss her. None of that has anything to do with good reasons to kiss her. The only good reason to kiss her is because I want to kiss her.
If I could overcome my self-doubt enough to express my interest in her, and overcome my fear to ask her out again months later and keep asking her out no matter how many times she says yes, no matter how much I enjoy the time we spend together, then I will be damned if I succumb to the temptation to take her trust out of a need for reassurance.
I will wait. I will wait until she knows me and desires me and I know her and desire her.
I will. Not. Fucking. Shortcut this.
