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So I wouldn’t say that I am an expert in attraction - but my sample size of partners both sexual-romantic and sexual-non romantic is quite a bit larger than most peoples. According to google, most people have less than 10 partners in their lifetime. I had 10 sexual partners in my first 6 months of being sexually active. (I’m well over 100% above that figure) I have run the gambit of experience from breaking hearts, to having my heart broken, from good times, to bad times - Great sex, bad sex, and lots of stuff in between. I have had both short and long-term casual relationships, lots of one night stands, and a 1 almost 7 year marriage where we experimented with poly after a long period of monogamy. So I have worn many relationship (and therefore, attraction) hats so to speak. Old men, young men, feminine men, masculine men, tall men, short men, lots of folks of color, women, big, tiny, you name it cause - I don’t really have a type.

So when I was in my heyday - early 20s, single, and a little bit crazy I would fuck probably 4 or 5 different guys a week. Some regularly, some not. I have to give credit where credit is due and shout out to Sean, my fucking dude, who was the best long-term sexual partner of my life - and wingman extraordinaire. I don’t know how many times guys would come up to me like “uh, Sean said I should meet you.” To which I’d reply, “Oh, well you should tell him I said thank you.” (He always sent me the sexiest boys - like... 😩) That, coupled with joining the kink community when it was over run with sexy young hot things looking for the same thing I was looking for - and godt dayum.. I had a good fucking time.

So I don’t really give a fuck about intimacy the same way other people do- I’m okay with intimacy that lives it’s life like a Mr. Meseek. Here, tangible, real, and raw even if only for a moment, or an evening, or a day, or a week. People are bruised and broken creatures and sometimes you only get to peek behind the curtain for a moment. So naturally I ask a lot of questions. You would be surprised how willing a person is to open up when they know you probably won’t call tomorrow. No judgement, no pressure, nothing to be afraid of.

Now, to get to the real point - I felt it was important to give a tiny glimpse into a little bit of how I operated. So that when I say this next part, it’s apparent that this isn’t an opinion formed off of just a few experiences but literally hundreds.

In all of that time, the most common complaint from men was that they didn’t feel very sexy, and that woman rarely came on to them or complimented them. Rewind back to that period in my 20s, I should also probably tell you I rarely wore makeup, had my hair pulled into a ponytail 90% of the time - and wore a style of dress I dubbed pajama chic. So it’s not like I was a dick satellite in stilettos and fake lashes. A friend of mine, this gorgeous, funny, tall girl who literally should have had boys climbing over themselves for her asks me, “how do you do it girl? Like - I want dick like that!” And I couldn’t give her an answer then. I had no idea why. It just happened a lot for me.

But today I could give her a definite answer. “I’ve never heard a girl talk like that.” “You’re the first girl to ever hit on me.” “I’ve never been the one getting picked up in a bar.” “I’ve never been called beautiful, wow.” “You’re the first woman to message me on fetlife!” (Yeah y’all, I send the shit to dudes they send to us sometimes and 9 of 10 times the reaction is positive.) Over and over the same type of thing. Look, when I was a teenager I was gay, really fucking gay - so I spent the first 3 years of my life studying HOW TO GET WOMEN. Wouldn’t you know that shit works spectacularly fucking well on men

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When I was a child, my mother was incredibly overprotective, almost borderline Helicopter Parent style overprotective. A consequence of overprotection, at least in my experience, presented itself as a lack of fear.

Fear begins it’s life in the amygdala -the part of the brain responsible for fight or flight and the release of stress hormones. When we see a face, or a predator (think of a masked person jumping out at you with a knife from behind a corner) this part of our brain reacts. The amygdala is closely connected with the hippocampus - your brain's secretary and fact-checker (at least in this process). Your amygdala sends the new information to the hippocampus, it is fact-checked and a decision is sent back to your amygdala. Scary person jumping out at you at 2 am on a Friday in the parking lot of a bar? Hippocampus is like.. *looks over past experience and knowledge* yeah that crazy person is definitely a threat, proceed with extreme terror”. Scary person jumping out at you at 2 am at a haunted house? *looks over past experience and knowledge* “nope, we are good - this haunted house is just good at what they do. Isn’t this fun, though?”

This is why people have different fear responses to the same stimulus. (We also have different fear styles, but that’s another topic for the same system). For example, some people are terrified of spiders while others are not. I am one of those crazy people who are fascinated by spiders. I don’t like them crawling on me but I can calmly live with them. We actually had pet brown recluses in our first trailer. I’ve never been bitten by a spider - and my brain doesn’t think it’s unreasonable or impossible to live harmoniously with them. In fact, my brain has *proof* it isn’t impossible because in the 9 months I was roommates with them - nothing happened. So now I see a spider and I’m like “let’s name him Fred!” (they are always named Fred.) My mother, on the other hand, is absolutely horrified by spiders. She got a nasty bite on her ear when I was a pre-teen (while she was sleeping!) so there is no convincing her spiders are cool.

I don’t have (or at least didn’t have) many fear responses. I was very sheltered. So in my heyday of kink, most things were fresh experiences. I had no context and no previous knowledge, just frenzy. I had desire if anything else. I haven’t put any of my experiences down on paper... so you won’t quite understand (unless you were there) how serious my statement is - but, what the actual fuck was I thinking 9/10 times?

You might be able to pick up that a lot of those experiences were actually quite bad. In many instances, my safety was kept because luck was on my side that whatever person wasn’t actually a serial killer. So I have a really weird relationship with fear. I find it hard to believe when people are afraid of things because I had a mother who was afraid of everything. I’ve proven her wrong 1000 times in my life. I often find it hard to separate that other people are not overly afraid. I should be a resounding example to myself, but I am hardwired without that piece of programming. I’ve also engaged in lots of very dangerous activities and been perfectly fine. From where I sit an outcome is always a roll of the dice. &I’m not quite sure how much I like that anymore.

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An Annular Solar Eclipse over New Mexico via NASA https://ift.tt/2QfdA2N

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Finding Truths.

Recently something very strange happened to me. Maybe not strange by any epic story-telling criteria - but strange to me nonetheless. For the past few months, I have felt this pull to write and create stories. I changed my major to English, which is my best subject, and decided on teaching. In those studies I am learning a lot of aspects of English, most of which involve a lot of writing. It’s been a natural progression.

While studying this semester, I read a Leo Tolstoy short story (The Death of Ivan Ilyich) that honestly changed me. Then I read a Jorge Borges short, (or three - The Garden of Forking Paths, Emma Zuma, and The Library of Babel) and they changed me too. They say no idea is original. In fact it’s proven throughout history in many different subject areas that one thing is a copy and mutation of another and so on into eternity. I have lots of thoughts, many I never share because they never seem to come up in conversation. So there are lots of thoughts in my head that I’ve never spoken - and I read them in a story. As though the words were plucked from my brain and put on the page 100 years ago, specifically for me.

This semester, I also fell in love with ancient Sumerian writings - etched in stones thousands of years ago, saved by fires that were meant to destroy them but instead preserved them forever. I found the same truths in the oldest writing we have ever been found. Oddly they made me feel a deep sadness and I lamented for this lost part of humanity that stared back at me from the pages of my book. I wanted to change majors and learn their language, I wanted to touch the tablets - I wanted to translate their words. (But that’s a different story).

If a thought was thought at a different time and a different place, than your thought which lives in you now, have you somehow stumbled upon a truth of the world? Is this what they call the human condition? Are we stuck asking the same questions, and are we destined to find the same solutions? If we are lucky to find any at all?

The weirdest truth I found recently - was in regards to what I believe spiritually. Something I had surmised through observation of the world and the things in it. I recently found out that my beliefs were actually shared by many indigenous tribes in ancient times. Maybe I am crazy, or maybe...just maybe, I’m stumbling onto something? If they saw it, and I see it, are we watching some shared reality? I had always felt crazy for believing that God existed in the ways that I did. I am ancient thoughts put through a postmodern meat-grinder and packed in lamb guts. Gross, and delicious. A little lamb sausage. If that analogy seems a little weird, it’s because it is. It’s supposed to be. Because all of this is weird. It’s weird to question and seek God, in any way we do it. I think it’s even weirder to have your suspicions confirmed. I have this itching need to explore the ancient and modern worlds. Like there is some grain of truth that has been overlooked - or that maybe somehow if you could collect them all you could have the answers to questions that ease the suffering of the mind. That release us, from the prison of living bodies that can only see in RBG, if they’re lucky.

But... it’s a good question. One a writer could build a lifetime of stories from.

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