I’m a Christian, and partially because of that, my boyfriend and I have decided to wait until marriage until having sex. this is an idea I grew up with, and committed to at an early age, but no one told me HOW HARD it would be. we all know guys have high sex drives. no one told me girls did too. anyway, for those of you who find yourselves in the same or a similar predicament, here’s some things that have worked for me:
1. There are three paths. One leads to holding hands (e.g. bumping elbows, brushing fingers), the second leads to kissing (touching faces together), and the third leads beyond that. Know which path you’re going to choose ahead of time, and don’t start down the path that you don’t want to go along. It’s a lot easier to stay outside the gate than it is to go back once you’ve started down the path.
2. Keep yourself accountable to either a person or your journal. That will help you gauge right/wrong (i.e. if something isn’t right you’ll likely be hesitant to write down or tell someone that you’re doing it, especially if you wrote/told them ahead of time you wouldn’t do it).
3. Going backwards ISN’T THAT HARD. I was always told that once you’ve done something, you can’t stop. that’s not true at all. it’s actually easier than holding back on something to begin with because having done it removes that “forbidden fruit” effect, and you realize, oh, not doing it actually isn’t that hard. (this may not go for some of the more emotionally intimate stuff). all this to say, if you’re doing something that you want to stop but feel like it’s too late because “you can’t go backwards”, it isn’t too late.
4. Don’t keep bringing up the thing you’re trying not to do with each other. make a plan then DON’T talk about how hard it is to stay at – you’ll likely convince each other of a LOT like that.
5. Find the sweet spot, where staying back is easier than going forward. There comes a point where the self control of staying a bit back is less effort than the self control required to ‘safely’ go forward – like staying closer to the edge of a river and fighting the urge to go out further is easier than fighting the current while you’re in it.
6. NEVER do something just because other person wants to. Your dis-want is more important than their want. Similarly, you must be willing to not do something that the other doesn’t want. Don’t use the fact that the other person wants to do something as an excuse to do something you really aren’t sure you’re comfortable with
7. Avoid media that gets thoughts going. Half the battle is in your thoughts. Don’t make it harder for yourself than it needs to be.
8. Accept that you won’t get it perfect and you’ll make mistakes. It’s a learning curve, and you’ll have to make course corrections. Mistakes aren’t un-fixable. The important thing is that you learn from them and don’t let them happen again.
9. If you’re a Christian, remember that God forgives. In the words of Jesus, go, and sin no more. If you’ve messed up, ask God for forgiveness and strength, then pick yourself back up and do better.
I really like that the aro and ace communities have come up with models of different kinds of attraction and relationships. It’s badly needed in a society that portrays only a tiny handful of incredibly narrow “correct” narratives of intimacy, and these models have clearly helped a lot of people. They fill a need just like how the models of gender made by nonbinary communities have helped people, and have the potential to help society as a whole beyond queer communities. But one thing I don’t see in many discussions about models of attraction is how attraction is super messy and doesn’t neatly fit these models sometimes, or at all for some people.
I would describe a lot of my experiences of attraction as more of a gradient, a spread, a big paint splatter. My attraction for one person is all part of the same splotch, but it might stretch across multiple categories, sometimes neatly, sometimes chaotically or nonsensically. Often the only clearly distinct attraction I feel is sexual, and it tends to be fairly weak, and the others are much stronger. Attraction is different for each person I am close to, and no two experiences have been identical for me. Sometimes trying to describe them using the model of sexual-sensual-romantic-platonic-aesthetic just doesn’t work, the splotch doesn’t follow those lines in any clear way. Some of my feelings of attraction don’t even fit into any of those categories at all. I’m not sure I would describe any of my attraction as platonic, and that’s often the clearest distinction in these models, so trying to think about my experiences in that framework leaves me feeling confused. I experience desires for intimacy, and the specific details of those desires tend to be different towards each individual and don’t follow the lines of these broad categories.
In fact, I don’t even base the boundaries in my relationships on attraction. For me, trust and rational judgment are the key factors. When I consider if I want to have sex with someone, I consider if I trust them enough to participate in consent with me on good faith, if I trust them enough to be emotionally and physically vulnerable with them, and if I think that act will be good for me, good for them, and good for our relationship. If I can answer yes to all these things, then that’s all I really need. Attraction is just icing on the cake beyond that, because I cherish intimacy shared in a spirit of love far more than I care about satisfying attraction-based desires. I use the same process for any kind of intimacy, and often my feelings regarding boundaries with one person are different for different kinds of intimacy, regardless of what kinds of attraction I feel. So, attraction is not the prime motivating factor for my decisions about intimate boundaries. Trust and nurture are.
So, I think that’s another thing these models leave out. Conversations about models of attraction often contain the assumption that we form intimate boundaries based on our experience of attraction, but that isn’t the case for everyone. People seek intimacy for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it’s just a general desire for a particular kind of intimacy and it doesn’t matter who satisfies it. Sometimes it’s a need to express affection in a particular way towards a particular person. Sometimes it’s for comfort while processing difficult emotions, or relieving stress, or just a distraction. Sometimes it’s to confront an aversion or to seek some kind of emotional catharsis. Often it’s a mix of a whole bunch of motivations. So not only is attraction messy, but intimacy itself and the motivations behind it are also messy and diverse.
So to bring this post back to a more practical note, the takeaway message I want to leave you with is the same message I have for trans people exploring gender identity labels. These models of attraction were developed by the community because they seem to work for a lot of people, but they’re just tools, not rules or guidelines or progress markers. If they work for you, great. If they don’t work for you, discard them. If they work for you temporarily, great, but don’t be afraid to throw them away when they stop working. Find different models, make your own models, or don’t use models at all.
Discovering our own queerness is more about unlearning the unhelpful or untrue or unkind things we have been taught than about learning some specific new knowledge. Queer self-discovery isn’t learning a different set of rules to replace the mainstream rules, it’s changing how we think about the role of rules and models and labels in our lives entirely, and recognizing our own agency and will that have been denied to us for so long for so many reasons. There’s a wildness to being queer that I think shouldn’t be tamed, and I hope it never is.
“Everybody knows that really intimate conversation is only possible between two or three. As soon as there are six or seven, collective language begins to dominate.”
Too many assumptions are made about people who are polyamorous. You can be having sex with one person and be poly. You can be having sex with NONE persons and be poly. You can go six years having sex with the same person and still consider yourself to be existing in an open relationship with that person. These things HAPPEN. A LOT. You can share love with multiple people in vastly different ways. Polyamorous doesn’t always (or even usually, in my expereince) mean “I fuck a bunch of people all the time.” Polyamorous doesn’t even have to mean a person ever has sex. The term “amorous” doesn’t specifically denote sexual activity at all. Sexuality and intimacy come in infinite and unimaginably diverse forms. All (consensual ones) are valid and worthy of respect and privacy if so desired by those involved. Unless someone chooses to share this particular variety of magic with you, IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. And why do people care anyway? How is it actually negatively affecting their own life enough to take the time out of their day to make broad assumptions and spread bullshit and shame people? Stop the assumptions. Stop the shame. Stop the hate.
A journey of fulfillment only attained by conscious thought to seek unconscious ecstasy.
The slow build of excitement…
Brought on by moments of imagined and real desires. The slow burn that starts with the engagement of your senses. Touch…
Taste…
Smell…
Sight…
Sound…
Every breath measured and catalogued. Every sound recorded & metered. The essence of personal fragrance that permeates the air. The decadent taste of passion… Your own or that of a lover. The energy that dances under your fingertips. The sight of slumberous desire… Proof of your endeavors.
The release… The explosion… The quaking…the trembling. The full immersion of mind and body, coalesced into one final earth shattering moment, that scatters your senses into infinite molecules of cosmic dust. Never to return.
What a beautiful thing it is to be completely, intimately, and solely desired. For your mind as much as your body. For your needs as well as your wants. For everything that makes you the unique person you are. For the fact that there is no one else quite like you in the world.
![Suggestions ]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/avatar_5e4ea168c7f5_30.png){kind=avatar}
