Frustration

First of all, I am fully aware that my opinions regarding this subject have not fully matured and that I am still in the process of learning a lot.  I know that a year or so from now, I may look back at this entry and cringe at my ignorance.  I am not saying I'm right.  But in the interest of being authentic, I need to share my current struggle.

Right now, I'm blasting a feminist soundtrack and Joth is having a post-argument nap.  Ughhhhhhhh I really just want  to get along with him.  Like, all the time.  Shit, I love him more than I ever thought I would love any man ever.  Am I frustrated?  Yeah, in a lot of ways.  

First of all, I'm still manic and still hypersexual but...well, things are a little different in this relationship.  I love that we are equal.  I love that he doesn't lord over me as if he were some superior, that he doesn't call all of the shots, make all the decisions.  But when it comes to sex, I don't really know how to initiate.  Like, I have no clue.  This is how it used to go: if you're interested in having sex, kiss him, then all you have to do is not interrupt the flow of activities that go from there and lead to the bedroom.  If you're not interested in sex, stop him.  I'm so used to simply needing to give the indication that I'm interested without having to explicitly say that I'm horny.

Although I'm a feminist, for me, as a woman, I have serious issues with admitting that I like sex.  This is pervasive and it affects a LOT.  To the point where I have been more comfortable gravitating towards dominant men, because if it was his choice, it couldn't be my fault.  If he took it, no one could call me a slut.  If it wasn't my idea, I couldn't be the dirty one.  Playing the role of a complicit submissive, obedient and willing, worked for me because I didn't have to accept any of the responsibility for what happened.  He can't call me a slut if he took it.  This is a pretty honest entry, by the way.  Mania is my blunt truth time, and it's coming out raw.  Sorry not sorry.

Anyway, this also contributes to my fucked up rape fantasies.  Maybe that's too much information, but I think it's relevant.  In order to accept what would inevitably happen in a relationship of  the type that I was seeking, I had to pretend I liked it.  I had to MAKE myself like it.  I had to convince myself it was what I wanted, that it turned me on to be taken, violated, invaded.  It's the only way to have guilt-free sex.  You have to give up your power, your voice, your ability to consent.  You have to go into these relationships with  the understanding that you will never have to initiate, but with the caveat that you will never be able to refuse.  I knew what I was doing and I accepted the risks.  There, I said it.  I deserved everything that happened to me because you can't have it both ways.  Either no means no, or it doesn't.  If it doesn't SOMETIMES, you can't expect someone to know when you're actually serious.

As parents, we all make mistakes.  I am making mistakes now, as we speak, and my kids will be fucked up for the rest of their lives because of them.  Our issues all come from our parents, and we all have them.  I developed a very early interest in sex and I was shamed for it.  I was called a whore by my own mother and made to feel like I was dirty.  There is something very, very wrong with this culture.  Like Joth said yesterday, it's messed up when you can see guns and bombs and bloody massacres on TV but you need a permission slip to see the human body in its natural form.  THINK about that.  It's obscene to see a complete person.  A body.  We all have one.  We were all born naked.  But it's inappropriate, and we're offended by displays of love, but unaffected by acts of murder and violence.  WHY.  WHYYYYYYYY.

So anyway, meandering back to the topic -- which, by the way, not even the ACTUAL topic, not yet -- I carry with me a lot of shame surrounding sex.  I want to have sex.  I want to have sex every day.  Especially right now, when I'm manic?  I get cranky if I don't orgasm.  I had to take care of things three times yesterday, which I don't mind, but it isn't the same.  I haven't had the courage to ask, or to initiate anything, for probably multiple reasons.  If I initiate, and I'm turned down, well now we're in an awkward position.  Now you know I want something.  Now it's like, you have some kind of power over me.  Some advantage.  It's humiliating.  It feels like rejection, no matter how it's framed.  I avoid it at all costs.  But, I don't have nearly as much sex as I suspect I could if I could only get over that.

So I'm frustrated.  This, and this alone, is the root of the tension between Joth and I over the last few days.  It started when I asked him a couple days ago if he wanted to take a shower with me and he said no.  I had ulterior motives.  I was trying to start a path that would lead to sex.  It was over before it began.  I got angry.  I took a shower by myself and gave myself an orgasm, which relieved SOME of the frustration but I was still upset.  I couldn't really talk about it.  That night, we were drinking and making out and everything seemed perfect and the mood was ON and he went to smoke a cigarette and came back to bed and started this sentence about how I'm perfect for him and he's attracted to me but I'm, "TOO attractive" which is "intimidating" and I absolutely went ballistic because I felt that what was coming next was him telling me he wasn't going to have sex with me because he was intimidated and he felt too nervous or some bullshit  like that and I couldn't even bear to wait for it to come out of his mouth, I didn't even want to HEAR him reject me, which he says he wasn't even about to do.  He chose to sleep on the couch.  I chose to masturbate, again.  Which I had also done while he was at the store getting beer.

I'm not going to pressure him or disrespect him or violate him or whatever.  But shit.  I don't know if it's actual physical want for orgasm which is torturing me, or some emotional thing tied to rejection which is burning me up.  I know he isn't rejecting me.  He tells me every day that he loves me and he's attracted to me, he compliments me and flirts with me.  I don't initiate sex, so I know I can't blame him for the fact that I'm not getting it.  I'm used to if he wants it, he'll take it.  Which isn't healthy and I don't want that in this relationship, but I have to adjust to a new game plan and I feel lost and confused. 

So, that leads to today.  Still manic, still hypersexual, still frustrated.  Things were fragile between us due to the argument we had yesterday, but we were trying to patch it up and heal.  It was still sore, and things were not okay, but we were on the path back to loving and understanding.  We were cuddling on the couch and kissing, and I couldn't stop admiring his gorgeousness.  I know that things are good between us again when I can't stop marveling at his perfection.  His bone structure, his profile, his eyes, his laugh, his voice, everything takes on this amplified magic awesomeness which is truly almost too much for me sometimes.  I'm not exaggerating or lying.  Honestly and sincerely, sometimes when I look at him it's almost too MUCH, I feel crazy inside like I want to break something.  That probably makes me sound weird.  It's probably related to "cute aggression", and that's a real thing, so I maintain that I am not that weird.  Okay, I am, but not because of that.

But then we started arguing about rape.  I'm sensitive when it comes to this topic.  As I mentioned earlier in this entry, the situations I found myself in were brought to me by myself.  I know I have a responsibility there.  But that doesn't lessen the terror when you say no and MEAN no, and you realize there's nothing you can do.  

The horror of trying to escape and discovering you can't move.  It was fun when you thought you were playing, but now that you can't make it stop, it's this claustrophobic feeling of being trapped and stuck and helpless and immobilized and at the mercy of someone that you suddenly realize has no real regard for you as a person and will stop at...what?  Wondering, where WILL it stop.  When tears are streaming down your face and you're BEGGING, but it still doesn't end.  When you think that maybe he doesn't realize you're serious, and you tell him that he's hurting you, hoping that he doesn't ACTUALLY want you to hurt...but he hurts you more.  The serious question you can't believe you're posing to yourself when he puts his hands on your throat, asking yourself for the first time if he might actually ever kill you.  Considering that maybe you were wrong about him.  Still thinking he's just playing, but realizing that you legitimately can't breathe, the panic that starts when you realize that there's no guarantee that he will stop.  That women in the exact position that you are in right now can, and DO die.  Every day.  And they all thought the best of their attacker, just like you do.  They all thought he would never do it, until he did.  Is he doing it?  Is this the day I'm going to die?  

I can't tell you how many times I wondered if I was going to die.  How many times I was trapped, beneath this person twice my size and at least five times my strength, and had no choice whatsoever in  the matter.  Fight back?  Are you serious?  That's like punching a motherfucking BEAR.  It will piss him off, and he'll  tear you to shreds.  Do you really think I'm that stupid?  But then, if you DON'T attempt to fight him off, well you must have really wanted it then.  If you really wanted him to stop, why didn't you fight back?  It's a lose/lose.  And I'm not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me, because I didn't leave, and I knew what I had gotten myself into, and I sent mixed messages and I WANTED to be taken.  At that point, I didn't get to decide anymore when, or under what conditions.  The reason I bring this up is because rape is fucking SCARY.  

If I, as a woman, am walking alone and men start catcalling me, automatically I get scared.  It is intimidating.  Men act like you're supposed to be flattered by unsolicited harassment but the reality is that you know any one of them, if they decided to cross the line, if they decided to violate you not just verbally but physically, you're fucked.  Guys laugh this off and say that they would like it if women sexually harassed them all day.  I don't know these men.  I don't know their strength.  I know mine, and I remember vividly that it isn't enough to prevent someone from taking something if they really wanted.  It wasn't enough to protect me in the past and I have no reason to believe it's enough to protect me now.  So no, as a man, you don't get to pretend it's okay to give a woman that kind of fear just because if it were YOU, you'd take it as a compliment.  This is so far beyond apples and oranges that it's apples and mantequilla.  Not even the same language.

And finally, leading back to the original point.  We had been discussing an article in Cosmo which suggested in the sex tips section that a woman insert a finger into her partner's anus while performing fellatio.  He compared doing so to rape.  Now, the funny thing is, we both agree that it's a wrong thing to do, and it's a violation.  And that you should NEVER just enter someone from the rear in any way without asking first.  But if you are already engaged in a consensual sexual act, and the person you are consensually engaging in said act with attempts to penetrate you, as wrong as it is...I'm sorry...but I CAN not and WILL not put that on the same shelf as RAPE.  No, no I won't.  That trivializes and diminishes the horror of RAPE.  I don't fucking care what anyone says.  And like I said in the beginning, maybe I'm wrong and I'll eventually see the error of my ways, but where it stands now I'm absolutely insulted and slapped in the face if any man were to dare act like they can relate to my experience because their fucking girlfriend tried to finger their asshole during a consensual blowjob.  I'm not saying it's okay.  But it's NOT. FUCKING. RAPE.