wispfox

There is a post bubbling away beneath the surface of my thoughts which may or may not manage to come out in this post, as a result of the combination of metahacker's post on cuddling and affection with friends-who-are-not-necessarily-lovers, and figmentj's post on dating when not seen as an audition.

It took me a very long time to understand that, for most people, and in the context of typical societal norms, cuddling was assumed to be sexual. Touch at all - beyond a handshake - was assumed to be an expression of sexual interest.

An additional difficulty with wrapping my head around this concept is that my line between finding someone interesting and wanting to seek them out and spend more time with them, and being sexually attracted to them is very thin. And, people who I find interesting enough to actively seek out are people I would like to cuddle, and there is probably at least some amount of sexual attraction there. It's not quite true that everyone that I'm close to and seek out and am cuddly with is also someone that I have some sexual attraction to, but it's very close.

But having that attraction does not mean that I - or they - have time, energy, sufficient levels of attraction, or even necessarily are aware of it. So, for me, cuddling is _not_ automatically a sexual thing - and has never been - and the idea of there always being a sexual aspect to touch and cuddling is a hard one for me to grasp. However, it does seem true that, at some level at least, whatever nebulous concepts sexual attraction contains is frequently involved in whose touch I seek out.

Also in whose touch I am not comfortable with. If there is any level of sexual content in cuddling for another person and I am not interested in going there, I will not be comfortable cuddling them. This does not even need to mean that they are aware of said context, so I am not entirely sure how I can tell, sometimes. If I can't tell, I will tend to err on the side of caution, so if I can't read a person, I will generally not touch them. Too much cultural baggage tied up in touch, especially cross-gender. This was a very, very hard-learned lesson.

The frsutrating part about this, though, is that I do still find myself hugging people, sometimes, because the social costs of not doing so are more than I can handle right now. This frustrates me when I do it, and is usually a good sign I'm not actually up to group social interactions.

So many things meant by 'attraction', even 'sexual attraction'. So much tangled up in that concept, and the related concepts of the process of sexual entanglement and dating.

Why does [edited to add: anyone believe that] it need[s] to be true that touch and cuddling are completely unrelated to attraction in order for them to be non-sexual? Attraction may often, and possibly usually, contain sexual desire, but that isn't the only thing in there. That isn't the only possible context for touch between adults! Including adults who _are_ sexually involved with each other.

Lots of emotional whiplash and complex conversations later, transition state did get resolved and not by me giving up. Now I just need to get my brain to adjust. :)

Also, click here if you like Whitesnake, folk music, tiny rooms, or xylophones from a locked post. Also, cookies. And silliness.

And Who's on first, shakespeare via chaiya

Noticed today (and recently) that I'm apparently having weird pronoun issues. I keep finding myself feeling a need to verify that gender-specific pronouns I use are accurate. I begin to think my life would be much easier if I didn't have to think about such things, since for the most part, I tend to not do so automatically.

Technically, I tend to have trouble with *most* things relating to physical presence. Which is likely why I have such a hard time describing people. People are not a visual presence, or a name, in my head. They are their expressed ideas, the emotions I pick up, and the general sense they give off. I'm sure there's more to people in my head than these, but those are what came to mind first.

Attaching a person to a name is not an automatic or default thing for me to do. Especially since I already have trouble with words.


I find this LiveJournal thing really funny, 'cause now I get a single place for my babbling, rather than babbling at various people and/or email lists. Not that I expect to *stop* babbling at people; it just makes it easier if I have a general babble instead of a specifically directed one.


StarHawk has an interesting Notice on her page today. She often does, actually. I've started snagging ones I find especially interesting to put onto my own (semi-up-to-date) home page.


I'm currently having a certain sense of amusement vaguely relating to the topic with which I started my babbling. I find it ironic that, throughout my life, I tend to be randomly physically attracted to far more women than men. But, I generally get along much better with men. It's almost as if my mind can't quite figure out how to deal with the fact that I tend to appreciate 'pretty', and 'pretty' is not generally a term one can use on men (at least not without offending). So, it just plain ignores the whole question, unless I consciously think about it. And, *if* I consciously think about it, I do tend to notice that those men to whom I am otherwise attracted are 'cute' and/or 'pretty'. But, then, 'cute' has a similar problem to 'pretty'. It feels weird to apply it to men...

As far as the getting along better with men issue, I think I'm just too damn picky about the women I get along with. On the plus side, I think I've recently found a woman that I very much and very easily get along with. The amount of shock caused by that realization was amazing. I have a couple others I get along with really well outside of family members, and the ones *inside* my family are probably not people I'd spend time with if I were not related to them. Very different world-views.


This piece of my babble is actually making me laugh, when combined with my initial 'pronouns confuse me' comments. Pronouns may confuse me, but I still make distinctions based on gender. Go figure. This would be why I don't tend to claim to make any sense outside of my own head. Of course, I don't tend to claim all that much about myself, so that's probably not news. ;)

Must be my habit of trying to find patterns in order to make life make a bit more sense that makes me notice things like the above. Ah well. Enough random babbles for the moment.