Intimacy

Several people all around the blogoverse have been posting some personal and deep stuff, so I think I'm gonna come out and link to a recent post at my spot about my personal feelings about vanilla sex, despite that this is actually relatively tough for me to admit (other mods, I'd appreciate you keeping an eagle eye out for trollage here, as I expect it.)

Here's the relevant snippets from the recent post of mine in question, linking to and referencing a video of Marilyn Manson having sex:

Just what the title says it is.

NWS for fucking (though not explicitly depicted), extremely annoying orgasmic moaning, knives, and lots of blood.

Not that I mind tenderness, I just... want to see hunger, especially from someone famous for being dark. These two look like innocent lovebirds until they start playing in blood (and even a little after that.)

....That's the thing about vanilla sex to me. It [edit: often] doesn't look like fun.

I don't know why this is. I have definitely had enough to know that, as much less fun than sex in some kind of BDSM context as it is, it's fun.

And I can tell they like it. Their faces clearly show that.

But vanilla sex often seems sad and silly looking to me. Like little puppies pawing at one another desperate for attention but not really getting it.

I guess that's the thing for me. Vanilla sex isn't intimate to me. It's like... it tries to be intimate and fails and makes me sad. So looking at it often makes me sad.

Hardcore pornography I have a much easier time with because it actually looks like sex. I still kinda wonder in the back of my head how that kind of sex can be as interesting as they act like it is for as long, and interesting with someone you don't really like (for the added intimacy) but they don't look quite so much like astronauts trying to fuck through space suits.

This it's just... in theory I can tell they are being very intimate but my brain doesn't read it that way and I'm going "Sweet Goddess, at least grab her or push her or scratch her or SOMETHING, that looks so SAD."

I've no idea why this is for me, but it's always been the case to a greater or lesser degree. As a young adolescent who wasn't sexually active, the idea of vanilla, cuddly, hair-stroking sex utterly terrified me, to be honest.

Because every time I tried to picture it in my head, I'd imagine people touching each other and not feeling a thing.

As soon as I injected pain, or roughness, or domination into it, it became fine. I could understand the people connecting, opening up to one another, because whatever was happening to the "bottom" (and mind you this wasn't extremely polar in my head, they could be flipping one another over or taking turns inflicting pain or even doing it to one another at the same time) involved being opened, being revealed, some deep part of the self being brought (perhaps even dragged, roughly) into the light in some way.

That I could work with. That I could see as intimate. "Egalitarian" vanilla... it just seemed like statues, trying to get reactions out of stone. It made me sad.

Fast forward to my first relationship, and we had a lot of vanilla sex and looked at a lot of vanilla porn. I discovered that it was nowhere near dead, and my mind opened a hell of a lot. (But I still tend to fantasize that there are BDSM elements to my vanilla sex... that the person eating me out is my slave performing body worship, for example, is a common one. Sometimes I can't quite get off until I do this.)

But I still have twinges of that feeling, and I definitely have it full force watching that video until they get to the blood. It's like they're just moving to move... even though I can tell by their expressions that I'm seeing very passionate sex, there.

But... the sheer similarity of what each is doing to the other just makes my brain go fzzt. Makeouts with no domination element leave me not just cold but wondering why anyone bothers. (And yes, this is true even in real situations. I get BORED as fuck with the french kiss for hours thing unless I'm ravishing my partner with my tongue. Again: clear power shit. (I get tons of people who don't know me and think this means I want them cramming their tongue down my throat -- even if they're bottoming to me. No, no, no! Eesh!))

Yeah okay, he's penetrating her, but... that's just anatomy. They really look like they're trying to mirror one another almost exactly.

*FZZT*

WTF, brain? Why you do zis?

Is that what anti-SM feminists mean when they say that you're spoiled for egalitarianism by patriarchy? Did The Pat erode my "normal" ability to feel and read the passion in sex with no top and no bottom?

Or is this just how I am?

I know that I sought out references to polarity and roles and pain and power dynamics from a very young age. (And as I mentioned in comments to another post, I still remember my reaction to discovering the tops and bottoms in the gay male community. I was cheering. People who made sense! And understood that which role who takes is preference, not gender or some other trait! Damn, were them folx smart! *grin*)

I find it hard to believe that I'm this way because I was socially saturated in it. I know kids learn how to be and how to behave from what's around them... but plenty of "vanilla is sexy" was around me, I can tell you that. Why wasn't I a normal patriarchybot who wanted the standard hetero vague dominance/submission thang?

Where'd I get this idea I was a top and all?

I don't know. But I'm honestly sometimes bothered by this. I wonder if it is some sort of numbness I shouldn't have. Even in the mental health profession, many people get that SM isn't a pathology, but still there's a big "well, if this is the ONLY way someone can have sex, that's not good juju, and we have to fix, er, help you" thing

and

yeah, I can sexually function having vanilla sex. Heck, it's a perfectly nice thing to do when you're bored or tired or don't have much energy. And if you're already really intimate/love your partner, that mitigates some of the Space Suit Factor.

but I feel disconnected, dissociated, especially trying to imagine that as my whole sexual life. How could I... honestly this is where my brain fizzles and asks "how could anyone"

but that's wrong

weirdly enough, I'm the deviant.

Eh.

I dunno what I'm even asking. I guess the standard questions about whether this means our society is numb and I caught it. Though I don't really think so.