All posts tagged physical

Slut!

I just spent the better part of an hour trying to find a definition of slut that I could stand behind.  According to the authors of the book The Ethical Slut, a slut is “a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you.”  I am going to write the rest of this post using this as the working definition of the term.  If you don’t agree with the definition then you probably aren’t going to want to finish reading this post.

Let me start off by saying I hate the term slut.  There is such a gross double standard about male/ female sexual conduct.  Men are permitted to enjoy and indulge in their basic urges while women are shamed and labeled for that same behavior.  Regardless of how you define the term I would most likely be categorized as a slut.  I like sex.  I have sex.  Doing so is completely natural and healthy.  I have also had what most would consider a lot of partners.  Given my age and the fact that I have been single the bulk of the time I have been sexually active I do believe my number of partners is reasonable.

I want a relationship so I date.  When I am dating I have sex.  If I stop seeing that person then I start dating someone else.  We eventually have sex and the cycle keeps going.  Anyone who is in my position is in a cycle that increases your number of partners.  That doesn’t make me promiscuous that means I am looking for something I haven’t found yet.  And like I have said a million times, I am not buying a car without test driving it.

Do I have sex when I am not dating someone?  Yes because I like sex.  Sometimes I am just not in a place where trying to be in a relationship is a good idea.  That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be touched or that my need for intimacy/connection is diminished.  It simply means I am not in a place where I can deal with more than something short term.  So if my feelings are hurt and I am not ready to really put myself out there with someone again it doesn’t mean I don’t still want to feel needed and desired.  It doesn’t mean I don’t want to connect with someone and sex helps me meet those needs.

I like sex and I really don’t think that enjoying sex is a bad thing.  I don’t think admitting any of this makes me immoral or says anything poor about my character.  I think it means I am human and I have the same urges as everyone else.  I just act on them.  I meet my needs. So why is being a slut a bad thing?  The difference between “good” girls and sluts is that the latter tends to be more open about who they are and what they want.

I have said this over and over again.  How many partners you’ve had shouldn’t matter. If you respect people and treat them the way you want to be treated that’s what is important.  I am a slut and I don’t feel bad about it.

20 Comments
by trjensen on May 2, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Dating, Me, Sex
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Posted by trjensen on May 2, 2012

http://narcissistsblog.com/2012/05/02/slut/

Emotional Abuse

It is really difficult to undo years of emotional abuse.  Physical abuse is easier to deal with; at least it was for me.  As a kid I learned to provoke my father to the point that he would stop talking and just hit me.  The antagonistic trait was something that I would carry with me through most of my life.  I could deal with being hit.  I couldn’t deal with the words.  I spent the bulk of youth preventing people from telling me who I was.

I graduated from high school with a fractured cheek bone and black eye.  I have no pictures from my high school graduation because my face was a mess.  Not much of that really mattered to me.  The words… that was a different story.  Those words still haunt me.  Every time I stumble my father’s voice speaks up as clearly as if he were standing next to me.  I have learned not to acknowledge his words.

My father taught me how to hate myself.  He taught me how to feel about who I was.  Emotional abuse isn’t about someone hating you.  It is about them projecting their own self-loathing.  It is perpetuating a cycle of self-hate.  It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that my father hadn’t really caused me pain by what he said.  He taught me how to hurt myself.  That is what emotional abuse really does.  It imbeds itself in your mind.  It is a means of altering how you feel about and see yourself.

I didn’t love me because I was told from a young age that no one could love me.  As an adult I began to talk more about my childhood.  I realized that I could change how I perceived myself.  I worked on my physical and emotional well-being.  I gave myself what I had been lacking for nearly three decades.  I did for myself what I had done for others.  I learned to love and take care of me.

Most of what I was told as child, the things that were beaten into me will always be there.  Sometimes I still hear the echoes of self-doubt but they are fleeting.  I know now that those words have no weight unless I allow it.  I don’t regret my past.  What happened to me as a child taught me how to treat people and myself.  Everything that happened shaped who I am and I am proud of that.  I learned to be strong.  I learned how to give and accept love.  I learned that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is just let go.

My father died in 2007 and I held his hand as he took his last breaths.  I forgave him although he never apologized to me.  He was my father and I was grateful to him.  Regardless of why he did what he did, I wouldn’t be the person I was if it weren’t for him.  I am proud of that person.  He helped shape me.  He had something to teach me.  In his attempts to break me down he really only showed me how strong I was.  Like everything else, it is only more painful if you can’t let go.  I learned to let go.

10 Comments
by trjensen on April 29, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Life, Me
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Posted by trjensen on April 29, 2012

http://narcissistsblog.com/2012/04/29/emotional-abuse/

Things I Could Do Without – Dry Spells

Coming from a woman who abstained from sex for thirteen years the idea of a dry spell may seem ridiculous.  I am going through a dry spell.  I haven’t had sex in a little over two weeks and now that seems too long.  Before Thanksgiving, I was seeing someone and having sex at least ten times a week.  Before that I can’t remember a time since June that I went more than a week without sex.

I spent the bulk of my life either being deprived of or depriving myself of physical affection.  When I made the decision to start dating again I realized how much I craved it.  It was simple; I just wanted to be touched.  Also due to the lack of physical contact I had a strong emotional reaction to physical affection (holding hands, touching, kissing, not just sex.)  I struggled in my first few encounters with men because I seemed to be getting prematurely attached.  I was still having sex at least once a week.

After a while when I had dated more men I was able to better control my emotions and moved on to the next phase of my search for a relationship.  I met a man I wanted to spend more time with and luckily for me he was as horny as I was and I continued to have sex on a regular basis.

Now that we have stopped seeing each other and I am beginning to have what my blogger friend calls “that itch.”  I am really not ready to jump back in to dating.  I am just not ready.  I haven’t quite moved on but I am starting to get horny.  I am finding it harder to ignore the itch and the idea of not having had sex for a little more than fourteen days is start to work its way to the forefront of mind.

I love sex and crave physical affection but emotionally I am not ready to deal with all of the moving on stuff.   I am a silly horny girl and I need to try at least for now, keep my hormones in check.  I don’t want to wind up in a situation where I am just calling someone for sex.  I want more than that but in the meantime I may go a little crazy.  Dry spells suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9 Comments
by trjensen on December 5, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Dating, Relationship, Sex, Things I Can Do Without
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Posted by trjensen on December 5, 2011

http://narcissistsblog.com/2011/12/05/things-i-could-do-without-dry-spells/

Sex vs. Connection

I think I need to go back to the list for a little while.  I have been doing a lot of exploration of my boundaries lately partially because I need to explore how far I can comfortably push myself and still be contented with my actions.  I am also accumulating many experiences so rapidly I hardly have time to examine them all and spending time reflecting on each one has proven exhausting. 

I have had a strange two weeks.  I have been exploring my sexuality, which is something I spent the bulk of my twenties and early thirties ignoring.  I have also been trying to make myself feel guilty for seeking out those experiences as my last post reflected but I really don’t feel bad or undervalued.  I am still growing and learning although my actions of late may seem counterproductive given my ultimate desire to have a companion. 

I do not feel badly about myself for the choices I have made lately as I do not believe they are a reflection of poor moral character and have not been emotionally damaging to me in the slightest.  If anything I feel like I am building up an emotional resistance and learning to delay emotional responses until they are appropriate.  If my last pseudo relationship taught me anything it is that I do not want anything or anyone to hurt me so deeply again.

Casual dating may seem to be juxtaposed but I see a means to an end.  I am not seeking a relationship at the moment because I still feel that I am ultimately a slave to my emotions and I am trying to rein them in.  To me it is more about the experience and I am learning to separate what is really important to me in a relationship.  I am learning what I want both physically and emotionally.

By taking emotion out of recent experiences I am better equipped to determine what is important to me in regard personal needs.  I need reliability and honesty.  I need people to be upfront and I need to be able to give others those things if I want them in return.  Right now I am focused on openness in a physical sense.  While I have made great strides to grow personally and to truly love who I am (and I DO,) I need to learn to be open and communicate better in vulnerable situations with others.   Right now, that is what I am doing.

I am not allowing myself to be used.  I am merely exploring what I am and am not capable of. I have no desire to become a man eater (that made me laugh just writing it) or to become emotionally vulnerable to men I know aren’t going to be open to relationship with me given the circumstances of our interactions.  I am just focusing on understanding that in myself and learning to control how I feel about that area of a relationship. 

I am still growing.  I still have my eye on the prize.  I just need to work on not taking things so personal and better determine what is expected of me.  I misinterpret a lot because I feel such a strong emotional tie between sex and a sense of intimacy.  I am learning that I can control the intimacy part and I need to be able to do that.  No more confusion, I want to be able to share something with someone because I choose to not because I can’t seem to separate the two.  

2 Comments
by trjensen on August 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Dating, Me, Relationship, Sex
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by trjensen on August 11, 2011

http://narcissistsblog.com/2011/08/11/sex-vs-connection/

Defining My Terms

I was speaking to a friend of mine to day and I had brought up that I was entertaining the idea of reviewing another one the Playboy/Harris Sex Survey findings that I want to think about out loud.  The question up for pondering was “Could you forgive a partner who cheated?” 31% of the folks surveyed said they could and the majority of those people were male.  This doesn’t really surprise me because it has long been theorized that “sex is just sex” to men.

I brought this up to my friend and said that I understood why men would be more willing to overlook infidelity for this reason.  The thing is for men sex is just sex.  For most of the women I know sex is about something much deeper.  It is an emotional venture and in my opinion makes the betrayal more significant.  It seems that based on the female assumptions around how their male counterparts view sex shouldn’t women be more willing to forgive sexual indiscretions and men feel more slighted? 

She then pointed out that it had been a very long time since I had been in a relationship and that even then it, by my own admission, had not been anything remotely healthy.  I agreed with her.  She said that without being in a relationship and defining those terms, because every relationship is different, I couldn’t really assess what was acceptable to other people.  It is merely my perspective.  She also noted that I could take advantage of this by setting my own ground rules from the get go and that when I am at a place with someone where we have decided we want a relationship we could define the terms.

This is my first attempt at defining my terms.

Partners are two people who do not physically engage other people because of respect and genuine emotional connection.  I don’t give a shit about you watching porn or flirting.  I don’t get jealous about that shit.  But I also don’t want you to flirt with another woman in front of me.  I think that is disrespectful

Socializing:  I am a firm believer in spending time with friends and maintaining some form of an independent social life.  I do know that especially when I begin having genuine feelings for a man I do like to spend more time with him but I also think it is good to have some time that is spent outside your relationship.  Everyone needs time with their friends.

Cheating is when someone is a relationship engages in a physical act with someone other than their partner and lies about it.  If you’re telling me after an indiscretion or I heard about it from someone else, you are being dishonest and that is cheating.  I firmly believe that humans are not monogamous by nature.  I know plenty of good people who have had sex outside their relationship.  Do not be dishonest.  If it happened, tell me.  I am likely to be far more understanding.  Lying and prolonging the inevitable implies that it was more than just a sexual encounter.  I hate liars with a passion.  If there is no trust in relationship then what is the point?  Are the odds fairly high that I would still end this relationship if you slept with someone else?  Yes but I would be less likely to hate you and slander you to my friends.  Out of respect I should be afforded the opportunity to make that decision when it has happened and not ten months later because your drunk friend let it slip at the bar.

A Relationship is the point in which two people have decided that there should exclusivity in their relationship.  You are not dating or sleeping with other people.  You have established trust and feel a certain sense of security in your time together.  You feel comfortable and can be honest. 

Well that is the short list and I will refine it but it is a good start.  Your comments and questions are welcome.

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by trjensen on June 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Me, Relationship, Sex
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by trjensen on June 2, 2011

http://narcissistsblog.com/2011/06/02/defining-my-terms/

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