#(also ill have an animation up eventually-taking awhile :p)

[bleachedjam]

Rambling on sexuality. Apparently you can't do a cut on mobile? Sorry then. Pretend there is one here and scroll past this.

I've always tried to find a label that fit me. I had never felt liked I liked anyone in the traditional sense. Girls and boys were on an even playing field for me. No one set me a flutter. There was no lust at first sight. But the way my peers discussed it made me feel...odd. Displaced? Like I was missing a joke everyone else got. So I faked it.

In elementary school, 5th grade, all the other girls picked a celebrity boy they had a crush on. I remember being confused how they decided. So I picked Aaron Carter, I think because I liked his song, "I want Candy". I mimicked what they said about their crushes, "he's so hot!" Another girl also liked Aaron Carter, but as I was a bit of an outcast we never discussed it. (His picture was on her binder.)

In middle school I tried to take up drawing. I had a sketch book I filled with drawings of both men and women. I gave the women large breasts and revealing shirts. My mother looked through my sketch book, and one night I heard her telling her friend, "all the breasts are so large, what if shes a lesbian?". And I considered it. What if I was? I had no idea. I felt the same way about men and women still. My friends were branching out and dating and talking about crushes on boys in school. I picked a boy I was friends with and pretended to like him. I even faked a journal entry and left it out so a friend would see.

In Jr. High I briefly dated a boy who was friends with a boy my friend was dating. He was crass and kind of a jerk. Someone asked me why I was dating him, because he, "looked and dressed weird". I tried to figure out which features were desirable, but all the guys my friends liked were so varied.

High school hit me hard. Something was wrong with me I was sure. I decided to just date whoever liked me. Less choices on my part. In October we held a Octoberfest carnival thing. My anime club, yes I was in anime club, had a booth were we sold churros. I met a guy a year older than me who ended up liking me. So I "liked" him. We dated until February. He rarely showered and never brushed his teeth. I always felt gross when we hung out. In February a friend admitted to liking me. I broke up with the other guy for obvious reasons and accepted when the new one asked me out.

Things seemed fine at the start but this guy would go on to mentally and verbally abuse me for 5 more years and torment me for a year after that. I confided in him how I never liked anyone and never had crushes the same way others did. This was the first of many things he would use against me. He convinced me to have sex with him, because once I did I'd like him and be attracted to him. And when that didn't work, well I'd already done it, so I had to keep doing it. Then when I doubted things and didn't like being with him, he'd play on my various insecurities. "You'll never really like someone, it will always be fake. Might as well stay with me." "No one will like you if you can't feel the same way back, your lucky to have me." "I'm the only guy you can ever get." And beyond that to, "No one else would want a depressed sack of fat like you. I'm doing you a favor." "There's so much wrong with you, how can you ever expect to do better?" "Your so ugly and fat I can't believe I stoop to your level." And worse and worse yet. It was a slow descent over almost 2 years, but when he had me where he wanted me, he started to cheat on me. I couldn't leave, I wanted to die. The years with him were the worst of my life. And I trace it all back to not understanding how to tell if I wanted to be with someone.

We graduated and he moved into my house. The abuse only got worse. I developed fibromyalgia and other chronic illness, believed to be from "trauma". His abuse escalated after that. I couldn't escape him. And why would I want to? No one would ever take a broken piece of shit like me. He was doing me a favor.

He ended up leaving me. I never had the strength to leave him. He left me for, in his words, "a healthy girl with no problems". For the next year or so he'd get drunk and contact me. Eventually I stopped all communication. I ended up getting a tattoo he had forbade me from getting. It was freeing.

I tried the online dating scene for awhile. I desperately didn't want to be alone. But I couldn't connect with anyone. People would send me messages and I'd see pictures but I never met up with anyone. No one ever stood out. I didn't know what or how to pick someone.

My sister had a friend from Canada she played games with online. I played with them a few times and he invited his work friend to play to. I won't say we hit it off. My sister and her friend logged off and then me and the other guy were left alone. We talked, he seemed nice. After a few months the two of them got invited down to our house for a gaming convention in the area. The friend and I had grown close and he decided he liked me. I knew this time, I did not like him.

But as it goes, that didn't matter. He came down, stayed at our house and asked me out. I said no. He pushed and guilt tripped me until I said yes. He stayed a week. Everything was a guilt trip. He bought me something so I owed him. He came all this way, so I owed him. I said yes, so I owed him. When he went back home I broke up with him. He staged and gave me a play by play of a suicide attempt. His tactics relied on guilt. I wasn't used to that, so it was hard for me to let go. I didn't want to hurt anyone. Eventually I finally got away from him.

During that time my other sister asked if she could invite a guy she worked with to play league of legends with us, as he was very good and we wanted to win an event or achievement or something. He played with us and we did it.

Him and I talked. I told him about the guy from Canada. The suicide attempt. Most recently he had gotten the bill from the ambulance I sent to his house and said I needed to pay it since it was my fault. I refused and tried to quit talking to him. The new guy and I got close. He was someone I would call my best friend. When the Canada guy started more drama, he asked if we could hang out in real life, because up until then we had only talked online.

We did. I went to his house. We got teriyaki and played Mario cart. Something about this guy was different. He was a best friend but something else. Like our hearts were talking. We connected on a different level, something I had never felt with another person before. On the way home I made a stupid joke about not believing he never had a girlfriend. He asked if I wanted to be his. I said yes.

I gave him a hug goodbye. I kissed him on the cheek. He tried to kiss me on the cheek too but I moved and he missed and we had our first kiss. Everything was right in ways I never felt before.

Today we're set to be married, living together and have an amazing daughter. I couldn't imagine life with anyone else. I can confidently say, he is the first person I've actually liked. Romantically for sure. Sexually? I still don't know how that works.

I throughly enjoy sex with him. I desire the intimacy and connection and obviously it feels good. But honestly, what the hell is sexually attraction? Because I enjoy it does that mean I'm attracted? I don't know. I've never looked at anyone and gotten any...sexual feelings from looking at them.

I enjoy drawn porn and porn comics from an aesthetic point. The art is beautiful. The human body is wonderful. But it doesn't do anything for me. I like the art, the shapes, the aesthetic of porn. But it doesn't make me feel anything or make me want to do anything.

To masturbate or have sex I have to focus on the sensations alone, or how my partner feels. I've never found porn that works for me. I don't get horny from visuals at all. Half the time I forget he does. I'll be changing and he makes a move and I'll just be confused as to what got him in the mood. I feel a disconnect between it all.

There was a while where I called myself asexual. Seemed close. But the more I tried to fit in with the community the more I felt odd. Not outcast, because the asexual community is amazing, but more like I was fitting an oval peg into a circle hole. Close, but not quite.

When I consider it, men and women are almost equal to me. I think I may be more drawn to women at least visually. If I hadn't met my fiance I would have loved to date a woman. I enjoy the female form more from a aesthetic stand point.

So lately I've been wondering if maybe I was pansexual. A friend of mine is pan and she posted a quote about being attracted to the person, not the body. It felt more right and more like me than anything I had seen from the asexual community. But at the same time, my sample size of people I've liked it only at one. So I have no idea.

I also wonder, does it matter? I'm going to be with the person I am with forever now. I don't need to find anyone else, so it doesn't matter which gender preference I have or don't have.

I guess with Pride month I've been thinking about it a lot. There is a lot of talk of, "fly your flag high and have pride!" But what if you don't have a flag?

I feel queer. That's about as far as I've gotten. I don't know if I'll ever find something past that or not. Right now queer feels fine, just unsure. I guess I'm somewhere between sexuality is fluid and still figuring myself out. Who even knows what attraction is.

So happy Pride month everyone.

[rahirah]

via Barb's Place (again stolen from shadowkat) 1. How would you describe your current fashion style? Uh... no clue. I decided some time back that I had two clothing objectives: I wanted to feel comfortable, and I wanted to look decent. There are a lot of looks I like that just don't work on me. Instead of focusing on what I couldn't wear, I decided to concentrate on finding things I liked that I DID look good in, and building a style around that. So I went through my closet and got rid of a bunch of things that I'd bought because they looked good on the rack, and started replacing them with things that looked good on me. I take some inspiration from soft butch/tomboy-ish styles, but with a lot of modifications. What it boils down to is, in summer I wear jeans and assorted short-sleeved shirts or tank tops, and in the winter I wear jeans and long-sleeved shirts with a sweater or a jacket or sometimes a vest if I want to be fancy. Boots/sneakers/sandals as weather dictates, no high heels except for costuming. 2. What’s your favorite decade for fashion? 90s-present, if I bother to think about it? The 80s were fun in some respects, but I couldn't pull those looks off then, and they're vaguely appalling now. The 70s are right out. 3. Formal or casual? Casual. 4. Thrift store, boutique, or online? Thrift store, occasional online. 5. Do you like to accessorize? Earrings always, wedding ring and another similar ring inherited from my father's family always, occasionally a necklace or bracelet if I'm dressing up. I use a belt with pants that will slide off my hips if I don't wear one, and that's about it. 6. What piece of clothing do you spend your money on the most? What piece do I spend money on the most, or what piece do I spend the most money on? It's two different things. I buy pants and shirts most often, but the individual pieces I've spent the most on have probably been either shoes, or my Elaborate Handmade Steampunk Hat. 7. Do you wear hats? I should, because AZ is Skin Cancer Central, but I have a small head, and so I have a hard time finding cheap ones that fit, and if I wear one too long, I tend to get a headache. I have some knit caps that I wear in the winter to keep my head warm, one good leather cowboy hat (they kick you out of Arizona if you don't own at least one cowboy hat) and a sort of safari-dude-looking sun hat. And two incredibly awesome steampunk hats for costuming. 8. What is your opinion on wearing socks and sandals together? If it's cold enough to wear socks, I won't be wearing sandals. If you like 'em, though, go for it. 9. What colors do you like to wear? Blues, greys, reds/pinks/burgundies, red-toned browns, black, white, ivory as long as it's not too yellowy. Purples are meh. Avoid orange/yellow/green like the plague. 10. What fashions do you hate? I don't really have a fashion that I hate. That's expending entirely too much energy on fashion. If I don't like it, I just don't wear it. 11. What do you think of body piercing? Neutral. I don't like pain, and I doubt I'd ever have anything but my ears pierced. Besides, I have vague allergy/sinus issues a lot of the time, and having a nose piercing of any kind when you have to blow your nose a lot seems ill-advised. And anything else tenderer, imagining the pain makes my tits want to retract inside my body. (That said, I do want to get a cartilage piercing in one or both ears eventually.) 12. Do you like dyed hair? I don't like dying my hair to hide grey, and I refuse to do that. I don't mind dying it now and then for fun effects. 13. Can you wear heels? What is the highest heel you can wear? I can wear 1-2 inch boot heels with no problem. I don't like wearing anything much higher than that. I have a few 3-4 inch chunky heeled shoes, but I wear them very rarely, usually only for costuming purposes. Stillettoes, no way. 14.Do you have any experience with makeup? Tried messing with it a couple of times in my late teens/20s, decided it was pain in the ass, chucked it and never looked back. 15. Have you ever worn a uniform or traditional clothes? Choir robes. A Girl Scout uniform. That's about it. 16. What’s your favorite piece of clothing? The leather jackets I've got that it's too hot here to wear. :cries: 17. Have you ever had to wear something you didn’t like? Who hasn't? I think the thing that's stuck in my head most over the years was a pair of second-hand Oxfords that one of my aunts sent Mom in the yearly Big Box Of Hand-Me-Downs that we got from our older cousins. They were too big for me, nothing like anyone else at school wore, and heavy and clunky and uncomfortable. I hated them. Mom loooooved them, and couldn't understand why I didn't want to wear them. 18. How do you feel about wearing fur? I can't afford fur, but honestly, I love the look and feel of it. I'd never buy anything endangered, but I'd be fine with stuff like hair-on hides where the animal's being killed for food anyway. 19. Do you prefer simple or detailed outfits? Simple for everyday, but I don't mind detailed for special occasions. 20. How often do you wear jewelry? Earrings and two rings, almost always, anything else, rarely. 21. Do you have any souvenir clothing from trips or concerts? A couple of t-shirts. 22. Do you paint your nails? Very rarely. I'm not very good at it. That would improve with practice, but I don't like the feel of polish on my nails. It makes my fingers feel heavy. 23. What are your favorite pair of shoes (add a photo if possible)? A pair of vintage Doc Martens. 24. Do you carry a bag, backpack, purse, or something else? I have a leather messenger bag type thing, a backpack, and some smaller purses. Depends on how much I'll be carrying and how fancy the occasion is. 25. What does your hair look like right now? Very short, bleached on top. In fact, if I had to pick THE most important fashion thingy not to cut corners on, it would be get a good haircut. It is SO worth spending a little extra to go to someone who really knows what they're doing. And don't be afraid to lay down the law about what you want, either. 26. Have you worn something you or someone you know has made? Yes. My mother and grandmother made a lot of our play clothes when we were small. And I've made a lot of costumes over the years, and a few regular pieces of clothing. 27. Have you made any clothes/ jewelry? Yes. I was into beading for awhile and made a lot of necklaces and earrings. I still have a few of the necklaces. I've also made lots of costumes over the years, and a few regular pieces of clothing. 28. What are your thoughts on perfume/cologne? Neutral. I don't wear it myself, and I have a very poor sense of smell, so when people describe a wild profusion of scent notes they get from a perfume, all I can do is say, "Uh... sweet, I guess?" 29. What do you wear to go swimming? A swimsuit. 30. What would be your ideal outfit? Jeans, Doc Martens, long sleeved shirt with a vest, leather jacket, maybe a belt, earrings. I can only wear this for like three weeks in the middle of winter. :P comments