Ugh, conundrum. TBH, Husband has a body type that, before him, I hadn't been attracted to - my previous boyfriends had all been whip-thin, wiry muscle, and he's built study like a good Hawaiian dude should be. But thanks (in part) to everyone being all positive about sizekink around these parts, I learned how to appreciate and now love the parts of his body that are amazing, like his big strong omg-arms. :D If you want it to salvageable, maybe find something about him that other people might find attractive and surround yourself with them and their positivity, and it might rub off on you!
Then again, I've also been physically unattracted to partners and had to cut it off because of that. Soooooo... different strategies...
Yeah, fandom has helped me appreciate some different body types and potentially attractive features that I didn't before. I'm trying to work with that. And he's been talking forever about starting to work out, which was postponed by some medical issues late last year, and now that I'm going to be out of town for a bit he's sounding more serious about getting back into that with the extra time. And shallow as it is, I would enjoy some buff arms.
First, I'm a little unclear about the source of the messages you list. I don't disagree with them, but neither do I think that any of them are limited to women.
Aside from that, I really think that it's all kind of a tippy scale with lots of balance points for me. If I have an amazing connection with someone and they're less attractive objectively, I'll probably be attracted anyway. I suppose this is kind of like Barney Stinson's pretty/crazy scale, only with a lot more variables.
I guess what I'm saying is, if they don't have enough else going on, physical attractiveness becomes more of a deal-breaker?
And to throw another completely unstructured, unorganized thought onto the pile, I think none of it matters if the person doesn't smell right. That sounds weird, but I've met very attractive people I just can't be attracted to IRL because they don't smell comfortable to me.
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear your situation, and I hope you find a resolution that works for you. <3
I get you on the smell thing. One of my exes (the one who's my housemate now) just smells RIGHT to me. Being attracted was never a problem.
I don't think any of the messages are limited to women, but I do think they tend to affect women more strongly. #1 comes from movements towards a more feminist sexuality, from the "sex-positive" feminist faction (as opposed to anti-porn, all-objectification-is-bad feminism). I'm thinking of projects like Filament Magazine, which I subscribe to. Mostly this is woman-driven, trying to explore what women like in visual porn rather than specifically empowering men to present themselves as sex objects.
There's another project I was thinking about when I wrote #3 but I can't find a link to it now.
I feel like where the messages get mixed is that a) it's not okay to judge someone based solely on their looks, but b) there's a lot more to attraction than just looks. It's possible that if this guy looked more like the type you're generally attracted to, but acted the way he does now, you still wouldn't be attracted to him.
As for what to do, I think that would depend on how much you're attracted to him in non-physical ways, and if physical attraction=sexual attraction in this case.
long-ass comment, sorry...the_ragnarok_dOctober 14 2011, 11:25:49 UTC
While encouraging men to feel attractive is awesome, I think it's more about doing this for, well, men you're actually attracted to.
I'm a bit puzzled by this post, because I'm not sure if you mean "attracted" as "liking to look at him/experience him in other sensory ways" or "want to sleep with him". I mean, presumably since he's your partner you want to sleep with him, but... ugh, I'm not expressing this very well.
It just reminds me of a time when I was fuck-buddies with this guy. I seriously loved him as a person, was seriously not attracted to him physically. And it wasn't really an appearance thing at all: like eternal_sojourn, scent is very important to me, as is texture of skin. Still perfectly shallow, but not very related to conventional good looks. And I felt horrible that I wasn't attracted to him. (I eventually felt worse because I just didn't want him to touch me anymore, because not attracted. Yeah
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Then again, I've also been physically unattracted to partners and had to cut it off because of that. Soooooo... different strategies...
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Aside from that, I really think that it's all kind of a tippy scale with lots of balance points for me. If I have an amazing connection with someone and they're less attractive objectively, I'll probably be attracted anyway. I suppose this is kind of like Barney Stinson's pretty/crazy scale, only with a lot more variables.
I guess what I'm saying is, if they don't have enough else going on, physical attractiveness becomes more of a deal-breaker?
And to throw another completely unstructured, unorganized thought onto the pile, I think none of it matters if the person doesn't smell right. That sounds weird, but I've met very attractive people I just can't be attracted to IRL because they don't smell comfortable to me.
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear your situation, and I hope you find a resolution that works for you. <3
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I don't think any of the messages are limited to women, but I do think they tend to affect women more strongly. #1 comes from movements towards a more feminist sexuality, from the "sex-positive" feminist faction (as opposed to anti-porn, all-objectification-is-bad feminism). I'm thinking of projects like Filament Magazine, which I subscribe to. Mostly this is woman-driven, trying to explore what women like in visual porn rather than specifically empowering men to present themselves as sex objects.
There's another project I was thinking about when I wrote #3 but I can't find a link to it now.
Reply
As for what to do, I think that would depend on how much you're attracted to him in non-physical ways, and if physical attraction=sexual attraction in this case.
Reply
I'm a bit puzzled by this post, because I'm not sure if you mean "attracted" as "liking to look at him/experience him in other sensory ways" or "want to sleep with him". I mean, presumably since he's your partner you want to sleep with him, but... ugh, I'm not expressing this very well.
It just reminds me of a time when I was fuck-buddies with this guy. I seriously loved him as a person, was seriously not attracted to him physically. And it wasn't really an appearance thing at all: like eternal_sojourn, scent is very important to me, as is texture of skin. Still perfectly shallow, but not very related to conventional good looks. And I felt horrible that I wasn't attracted to him. (I eventually felt worse because I just didn't want him to touch me anymore, because not attracted. Yeah ( ... )
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