It behooves the mind that wishes to reach for the cookie to weigh whether or not acting on that wish is good for the health and long term goals of the organism as a whole, hopefully leading to the 'conscious control of actual behavior'.
Caveat: I'm not in the "open market", so I can afford to be high-minded about all this. And I can understand the drive to get some tangible proof of your sexual desirability considering the number STBX did on you. (I described his behavior to S.; his one word response: "Dickhead".) And I get that the quickest path to sexual validation (and manhandling) is "give the customer what they want".
Still, this whole "marketplace mentality" as applied to one's sexuality really skeeves me out. It's not like a detachable appendage; for your sexuality to mean anything, it should manifest as a seamless, unique facet of who you are, without undue reference to societal standards or typical male preference (even assuming there is such an animal.)
I get trying on different sexual personae. But fine tuning your sexuality in appearance and practice to up your "purchasing power" seems quite inauthentic, and ulimately counterproductive. What a constructed sexual self is worth in the open market is totally irrelevant if you're still at all interested in attracting a man who will love you for your pilgrim soul.
JMO. And really, I hope you have fun with Chortling Man.
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
Still, this whole "marketplace mentality" as applied to one's sexuality really skeeves me out. It's not like a detachable appendage; for your sexuality to mean anything, it should manifest as a seamless, unique facet of who you are, without undue reference to societal standards or typical male preference (even assuming there is such an animal.)
I get trying on different sexual personae. But fine tuning your sexuality in appearance and practice to up your "purchasing power" seems quite inauthentic, and ulimately counterproductive. What a constructed sexual self is worth in the open market is totally irrelevant if you're still at all interested in attracting a man who will love you for your pilgrim soul.
I largely agree with you. First I should make the point that any sexual personae that I vibe that in any way resembles a variation on naughty schoolgirl is definitely not inauthentic or assumed. I've been having fantasies in that realm since I actually was a 12 year old schoolgirl. I guess what I'm thinking is that "what I want" is my authentic sexual identity but "how I get it" maybe should be something I can work on or an area in which I can adjust/reflect "market" realities.
I definitely did have issues regarding my appearance coming out of my SSM for obvious reasons. I've pretty much resolved these by becoming more objective about objectification but also by realizing what I said about the market not being uniform or homogeneous. For instance, FSG thinks that I am a bit too thin but he doesn't like muscle on a woman and GP thought that I had "room in my skin" for about 20 more lbs of muscle. If I adjusted my body/appearance for every/any man I dated I'd be an insane bulimic exercise nut with 20 shades of lipstick in her purse. I have a solid idea of how I want to look these days and I measure myself by those standards alone. Therefore, I am still trying to lose the last few of this year's Xmas cookie lbs even though I'm dating a man who would like more booty in my bootylicious.
As far as my pilgrim soul goes, FSG said that he likes me because I'm smart and funny and hot. Under circumstances of short acquaintance, I'm willing to accept "smart and funny" as shorthand for "pilgrim soul" - lol .
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
Anyway, I had dinner with my XMIL last night. Interacting with her always revives my fused feelings a bit but I don't want to kill the relationship because we've been good friends and she's my kid's grandmother etc. She's pretty much on my "side" in the divorce even though she loves her son because she knows that he manifests as the same sort of dickhead as his father.
What I thought of was the utter lameness of the fact that at one point my marriage reached a point of fusion where I thought our only problem was lack of sex and my 2bx thought the only reason for the lack of sex was the fact that I could stand to lose some weight. Right around the time I joined this BB we had a discussion in which I was saying that I was going to make the effort to take off the lbs. and he said "If you do lose the weight, why would you want to stay with a chump like me?". Being a "nice" person, my reply was along the lines of "Because I love you and you're not a chump etc. etc." In retrospect, I can see so clearly that my reply should have been "Good thinking. You better work on being less of a chump while I work on the weight loss. In fact, you better go on the mega-dechumpifying program because I tend to believe that my task will be a bit simpler than yours." Of course, really I should have taken two steps back and asked myself some tougher questions about what the "real" problem in my relationship might be.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
