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7:05pm March 24, 2012

Sexuality and stuff

I don’t often talk or think about my sexuality. But that last picture, more than most things I find on the lesbians tag (which is mostly NSFW and to me, unappealing), embodies the sort of things I imagine in a relationship. I’ve only had one, rather unclassifiable, relationship with a woman, while we were each figuring out our sexuality. But I am by far, as in at least 99%, attracted to women, or people with various unclassifiable genders that are close to or partially include female. I can’t explain that, it’s just how things turned out when, exploring my sexuality at age 19, I made a list of people I’m attracted to. That’s how I know the percentage so well. Women filled the entire page, and then there were two or three guys. I don’t, by the way, care what genitalia a woman has or what gender she was originally assigned. And it bothers me that some lesbians get so hostile about that.

On a visual level, what body parts attract me seem rather nonstereotypical, although I don’t always know what’s typical. I like to see women’s shoulders and the skin on their back a few inches below their necks. And the area inside the dip of their backs. Sometimes long arms, held a certain way. I’m more generally attracted to clothed people than naked or mostly-naked people, although I like unclothed shoulders and upper backs. There’s plenty of specific clothing styles that I find attractive. And there’s certain patterns of movement I find difficult to describe.

I am highly attracted to women who are quite distinctive-looking in appearance or movement, perhaps because I can recognize them better as a face-blind person. In practice, this includes many people conventionally considered ugly or unattractive by most people. I don’t do that for ideological reasons, that’s just how it is.

And I love images of lesbians snuggling with their clothes on. Where you can see the love between them but it’s not graphically sexual, and rarely involves kissing. There’s some explicitly sexual images I like, clothes on or off, but I can’t describe the quality that draws me to some and not others.

When I imagine someone I’d have a relationship with, there’s no physical summary because I could potentially fall for any woman depending on personality. Personalities could vary a lot too. At this point in my life I can’t imagine it being someone who truly enjoyed hurting people. I’d want to be able to meet her – whether naturally or through careful bridge-building – on as deep a level as possible.

Sex itself – if the person wanted no sex at all, I could possibly handle it, despite not being asexual myself. I honestly don’t know because I’ve never tried. But if it were a sexual relationship, my favorite kind of sex would be very unconventional. There are a lot of ways to reach a person on that level and I prefer finding those ways for each person rather than just grabbing for sex organs. Finding other ways to touch, physically and emotionally, creating sounds that vibrate through both people’s bodies, focusing so tightly on the same thing that you seem to merge, there are all kinds of possibilities. And I find those possibilities more interesting than genitalia alone ever could be. Genitalia are fine too, as long as she stays out of my vagina and anus at all costs. I just can’t imagine wanting genital sex (or kissing on the lips, for that matter) to be the only or even the main sexual act.

Maybe there’s a connection between that and the kind of erotic images I like. The kind I don’t like focuses mainly on genital sex with maybe breasts and kissing also. It feels two dimensional at best and squicky at worst. I can’t explain why sex has to be more than that for me, but it does. Things I like are less conventional-porn-image and preferably show love very visibly. There’s often some degree of creativity and individuality to how it happens. It’s just got to be… different from that. And so does any sex that I could stay interested in.

I also like, really like, casual snuggling and closeness. And the ability to do that, to participate in that kind of closeness and intimacy, when I have no energy for either conversation or sex. This sort of thing is what I like about the picture I just reblogged.

There are times, like with sex, that pain levels would make this impossible. But when it’s possible, this is something that can mean a lot to me. In many ways, more than sex does. It’s partly the possibility of communicating something amazingly important while literally doing nothing – no movement, no having to find words, no having to understand words. With my energy levels, which keep me in bed all day? Seriously important to a relationship. Although I imagine that in the absence of touch as a possibility, there could be other ways to communicate love without moving or talking.

Weirdly enough, the only two people I’ve ever felt comfortable making eye contact with were people I was in a relationship with. Suggesting my aversion turns off at those times, much like my touch aversion can be very person-specific. But I don’t require it.

My ideal relationship would involve varying degrees of closeness at different times, both physically and emotionally. It might even require separate beds. Not because we wouldn’t ever sleep in the same bed, but because there are times, particularly when I’m feeling the worst in terms of nausea, when I cannot tolerate even a cat in my immediate vicinity let alone a human. We’d ideally be able to do anything apart or together, depending on how we were feeling. But a lot of other things about how a relationship worked would so depend on the person that I can’t imagine trying to set them in stone before even meeting her.

And that’s… more of a description of my sexual and relationship preferences than I’ve ever written. Weird things happen when you confine yourself to writing only about things that aren’t horrible or tiring. Anyway, I don’t actually require a relationship to be happy. And given the circumstances of my life, I don’t expect one. But it would be a good thing, if it happened, providing it was not abusive or something.