Fantastic
So last night, everyone in my house is sick, I'm looking up TVtropes on Wiki and having fun with it, when I find THIS:
"My Girl Is A Slut";
One thing that makes life "interesting" for us humans is that human nature contains a fundamental tension when it comes to sex:
We desire to be polygamous, having access to multiple attractive sexual partners.
We desire that our sexual partners, especially our long-term partners, be monogamous and not have any sexual partners other than ourselves.
This applies to both sexes. Both men and women fall in love, are tempted to cheat on their partners, and feel jealousy when they suspect their partners are cheating on them. If you know that someone has had sex with many different people, this makes them attractive for a one-night-stand, because it suggests that it will be easy to get them into bed and that they will probably be good in it, but it makes them poor prospects for a long-term relationship; they didn't "settle down" with anyone else, so they probably won't settle down with you. Conversely, someone who has carefully guarded their "innocence" is more likely to remain faithful once in a relationship, but they aren't going to settle for anything less than True Love, either. Again, this, too, applies to both sexes. Both men and women tend to categorize potential mates along these lines, according to what is often referred to as the "virgin/whore dichotomy." In other words, in spite of its other benefits, sleeping around will tend to make it harder to find a steady, long-term relationship.
Except in porn.
Writers of pornographic stories generally want to have characters that have sex, and a lot of it, with many different people. Sexual jealousy, and the desire not to provoke it in others, provides a reason for characters not to have sex, so it tends to be one of those things that gets swept under the rug. In pornographic stories, it's often the case that a man falls in love with a woman as a long-term partner specifically because she is promiscuous, and even encourages her to sleep with other men after they are married. These stories take the My Girl Is Not A Slut trope, turn it upside down, throw it out the window, stomp on it, set it on fire, and then bury it at the bottom of the ocean. Their girl IS a slut, and they love her for it.
Oddly enough, even this can sometimes be Truth In Television. According to Rule Thirty Six, you can find people who will make a fetish of anything - even watching their lover have sex with someone else. Swingers are people in committed relationships who have their partner's permission to have sex outside of the relationship. Additionally, the human penis is (arguably) designed to remove other men's sperm from the vagina during intercourse; getting turned on by a partner's infidelity, or the potential for infidelity, makes this more likely to happen."
...And all I could think was, "Wow. I really couldn't have put it better myself."
Then somehow my friend/ roommate Jil and I got in a conversation where we both talked very openly about our sexual pasts --and our rapes. I talked in a plain, clear way about my feelings about it now as well as then, about how I want to protect my kids, when I have them, from sexual abuse and the confusion and promiscuity that results from it.
And I was okay. She had very similar, almost identical experiences to me, so I never felt that we were having a "my pain is bigger than your pain" competition. We were comfortable, not whiney or emo.
Right after that, I realized 2 important things: 1) I never told anybody the whole story, especially without getting weepy and unable to communicate further. And 2) I really, truly am at a point in my life where I am dealing with my issues, not just avoiding them or aknowladging them and then accepting that I was too fucked-up to try to change.
I spent so much time trying too hard to chase down intimacy anywhere I might have found it, trying to wrestle it to the ground, pin down the indipendant and strong sexual creature inside of me. But I realize that I now I am capable of real intimacy. I can listen as well as I can hear, not just try to compare scars. I don't need the crazy. And I don't want that anymore. I want a life that is mine in deed and worth, not only on paper.
I can do this. I can be a happy, well-adjusted, adult. For all the right reasons this time. All it took was 10 years and a conversation with myself at 18. Then I took my cold medicine and fell asleep watching the commentary on "Chasing Amy."
"My Girl Is A Slut";
One thing that makes life "interesting" for us humans is that human nature contains a fundamental tension when it comes to sex:
We desire to be polygamous, having access to multiple attractive sexual partners.
We desire that our sexual partners, especially our long-term partners, be monogamous and not have any sexual partners other than ourselves.
This applies to both sexes. Both men and women fall in love, are tempted to cheat on their partners, and feel jealousy when they suspect their partners are cheating on them. If you know that someone has had sex with many different people, this makes them attractive for a one-night-stand, because it suggests that it will be easy to get them into bed and that they will probably be good in it, but it makes them poor prospects for a long-term relationship; they didn't "settle down" with anyone else, so they probably won't settle down with you. Conversely, someone who has carefully guarded their "innocence" is more likely to remain faithful once in a relationship, but they aren't going to settle for anything less than True Love, either. Again, this, too, applies to both sexes. Both men and women tend to categorize potential mates along these lines, according to what is often referred to as the "virgin/whore dichotomy." In other words, in spite of its other benefits, sleeping around will tend to make it harder to find a steady, long-term relationship.
Except in porn.
Writers of pornographic stories generally want to have characters that have sex, and a lot of it, with many different people. Sexual jealousy, and the desire not to provoke it in others, provides a reason for characters not to have sex, so it tends to be one of those things that gets swept under the rug. In pornographic stories, it's often the case that a man falls in love with a woman as a long-term partner specifically because she is promiscuous, and even encourages her to sleep with other men after they are married. These stories take the My Girl Is Not A Slut trope, turn it upside down, throw it out the window, stomp on it, set it on fire, and then bury it at the bottom of the ocean. Their girl IS a slut, and they love her for it.
Oddly enough, even this can sometimes be Truth In Television. According to Rule Thirty Six, you can find people who will make a fetish of anything - even watching their lover have sex with someone else. Swingers are people in committed relationships who have their partner's permission to have sex outside of the relationship. Additionally, the human penis is (arguably) designed to remove other men's sperm from the vagina during intercourse; getting turned on by a partner's infidelity, or the potential for infidelity, makes this more likely to happen."
...And all I could think was, "Wow. I really couldn't have put it better myself."
Then somehow my friend/ roommate Jil and I got in a conversation where we both talked very openly about our sexual pasts --and our rapes. I talked in a plain, clear way about my feelings about it now as well as then, about how I want to protect my kids, when I have them, from sexual abuse and the confusion and promiscuity that results from it.
And I was okay. She had very similar, almost identical experiences to me, so I never felt that we were having a "my pain is bigger than your pain" competition. We were comfortable, not whiney or emo.
Right after that, I realized 2 important things: 1) I never told anybody the whole story, especially without getting weepy and unable to communicate further. And 2) I really, truly am at a point in my life where I am dealing with my issues, not just avoiding them or aknowladging them and then accepting that I was too fucked-up to try to change.
I spent so much time trying too hard to chase down intimacy anywhere I might have found it, trying to wrestle it to the ground, pin down the indipendant and strong sexual creature inside of me. But I realize that I now I am capable of real intimacy. I can listen as well as I can hear, not just try to compare scars. I don't need the crazy. And I don't want that anymore. I want a life that is mine in deed and worth, not only on paper.
I can do this. I can be a happy, well-adjusted, adult. For all the right reasons this time. All it took was 10 years and a conversation with myself at 18. Then I took my cold medicine and fell asleep watching the commentary on "Chasing Amy."