Weird kind of pickiness

I think women are beautiful. In my eyes, most women of my acquaintance are absolute works of art and worth spending a lot of time just looking at. (Not that I do, because that would be creepy). Even the ones who aren't amazing works of art are still attractive to me. I think I'd make a very good mate for a woman who needed a lot of reassurance about her looks.

I feel very bad about the only exception, actually, because the her problems are serious medical ones; but I have a fairly sensitive nose and I struggle with the urea smell that tends to go with peritoneal dialysis. Perverse Cowgirl has written definitively on why you just have to admit a potential partner's looks, or in this case smell, does matter.

On the other hand, there's such a thing as too beautiful for me. While watching the video of Katherine Ellis's interview at Mynt that I linked the other day, I kept thinking "Quit with these clips of skinny girls dancing, I want to see Katherine!" When I search for porn I tend to go with a "mature" tag. Famous actresses do not stir me much. I can certainly see the beauty in a woman who is conventionally extraordinarily beautiful, but it doesn't make me want her as much as someone I see as more on my level; I feel an appreciation of her beauty more like the one I feel for a beautiful landscape or painting. One reason for that will be pretty obvious to people who've been following this blog; I feel myself inadequate to being with a woman who's too attractive. And that idea has worked itself way down deep.

This is deeper than some of my other weirdnesses. An example of a shallower one is that despite being a switch, because I put women on such a pedestal I have trouble with female submissive porn. I tend not to look for it; if I come across it there's an instant twinge of interest followed by an only slightly less instant feeling of guilt. But if I remind myself that there are women who like it, and I would be all happy if I were submitting to her, it's OK. So that's not too deep, I'll be able to get over that pretty easily as far (as getting over neuroses goes).

But I have a certain amount of trouble with porn because the women look too good, and something in my head goes "No way". Apparently a similar problem is quite common; some extremely conventionally attractive women complain that guys are afraid of them and only the really arrogant assholes ever approach them. I guess there's not so many men who commonly take the "too attractive" problem as far as applying it to porn. In porn I get over that by not thinking about it at all if the action is interesting enough, fantasizing about being more attractive myself, or fantasizing about a scenario where I am more attractive by environment or accomplishment (a fantasy or sci-fi theme helps here; mighty warrior Mousie and the grateful rescuee. Probably going to be a story sometime.)

This whole too-hot-for-me thing is something else I want to work on; because there are absolutely women who like my looks that I wouldn't ask out because I assume they wouldn't like my looks. There's a certain woman in my friend group that I think is the most conventionally attractive in that group, and hits lots of my personal hot buttons as well. She's going through a divorce too, and is like me presumably desperate and insecure. A few months ago I was playing a board game with her and others, on a floor in a crowded room. She climbed past me with what seemed like some unnecessary contact, which I admit was nice, then said "Don't worry I'm not touching you in a bad way." Then she put her hand on my calf and said "Unless you ask me to." (I just sort of pretended it didn't happen, to allow her to do the same thing; that seemed nicer than any other polite "no" I could think of. BTW I think we'd be incompatible in the long run in other ways.)

Since she's the very first person I think of when I think of "out of my league", I probably should just ditch the whole concept and not worry about who's in a higher league.

Body art

I don't want to lose the right woman because of a stupid issue of taste. It would be tragic and boneheaded, for example, to miss out on my kinky Christian match because she's blonde and I prefer brunettes. As far as I can, I want to train myself out of those before I'm back on the market. If I try to do it after meeting someone, there is the risk that the initial glow of romance will hide something that continues to bother me. On the other hand, some personal style choices can illustrate a genuine difference of perspective.

I recently read Charles de Lint's The Mystery of Grace, which features an extensively tattooed protagonist, which made me think of this. I have a real problem with tattoos, erotically; a woman with tattoos never looks naked to me. Tattoos, or even piercings, are basically clothing in my mind, clothing that the woman has decided never to take off.

I love working around clothing as a sometimes thing; a skirt with no panties or an open blouse with no bra, for example, can be super hot. But if a woman told me she'd vowed never to take them all the way off, I'd feel like I feel about tattoos. (Except for the "How do you bathe?" questions.)

The protagonist from the book I mentioned thinks of her tattoos as stories from her heart, written on her skin. One, for example, is a picture of her mother. So, it's great that you love your mother, and never want to forget her. That's beautiful. But wearing a picture of your mother every time you have sex? That's where it doesn't work for me. The same goes for any message. To take one of my own messages, it's essential to me to remember Christ in my big decisions about sex. But I don't want my partner looking at a cross tattooed on me, being reminded of His sacrifice, while we're fucking. There's a time and place for everything, and even our most treasured principles, memories, or associations don't need to be front and center ALL the time.

So, that's my problem with tattoos. I kind of hope someone can change my mind.

Availability as a draw

Svutlana says that sexual attraction comes from the perception of high attractiveness and low availability in each other. I do not believe that to be the case in general. Perhaps for some people; but I find low availability to be the most offputting of traits.

I've had a music video I wanted to post for a couple of days, and right now it's particularly apropos. I wanted to post it because I think it's about the sexiest thing I've ever seen. But if there's one thing it does not convey compared to other videos, at least in my opinion, that is "low availability".


"Harlem One Stop" by Bimbo Jones. That's singer-songwriter Katherine Ellis.

Compare with, say, Pink's "U + Ur Hand". The combination of the unavailable song message plus the obvious sexy intent of the video production should match the high attractiveness - low availability formula perfectly. But after watching each I would rather have coffee with Katherine Ellis than be the only man on an otherwise deserted island full of Pink clones. Nothing wrong with singing about wanting to be left alone, but singing about wanting to be left alone while suggestively stroking props with a come-hither look sucks.

What do you come up with if you try to imagine someone who finds the Pink video with the unavailable song message sexy? I come up with nothing good.

There's an interesting contradiction here between what I find attractive, and furthermore likable, and what I offer publicly. Because I think that a man's primary politeness trait is concealing desire and availability. I go way out of my way to either hide desire or strongly indicate unavailability because I assume that my desire is most likely offensive and creepy on its own; and that that offense may be neutralized by indicating my unavailability. Someone wanting to have sex with me makes me like them more even as a friend, as long as I don't get the impression that they are pining and I am torturing them by hanging out with them. Revealing I wanted to have sex with someone else is something I expect to have the opposite effect.



In other news, between Harlem One Stop, And I Try, Insatiable, When You Touch Me, and others, I'm totally in love with Katherine Ellis.

First draft of an erotic story: Her Birthday

Here's the first draft of a story I've had in mind for a long time, that tries to reflect how I feel about giving in sex. I started actually writing it after the What being a switch means to me post.

Vantem - You Never Said (Dash Berlin Remix)

Music post because I don't have anything especially interesting to say right now.

Stupid penis tricks

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What being a switch means to me

This has been edited to include things learned from the comments.

The reason I'm a switch is because of what submission/domination mean to me in the context of a Christian marriage; most of it applies in other LTR contexts. But who knows what it means to others?

The submissive is giving their dignity, their trust, a measure of control over their body; they are accepting some humiliation and pain. They are saying "I will accept pain, I will abase myself, because I want to give you pleasure." My form of submission also pretty much always includes an element where the submissive is getting sexually excited with much less that the dominant has to offer; foot play is the major example of this for me. The submissive is saying "You are so wonderful, so beautiful, that only this little bit of what you have is enough for me". The submissive is expressing compliments and love through self-sacrifice; and that it is happy self-sacrifice is one of the greatest compliments. When I am the submissive, I feel good about giving, and thus about pain; I feel proud of humiliation. I enjoy it a lot within a marriage, but I would not enjoy it with someone I didn't love the way I would something simple and non-submissive.

The dominant has a much more psychologically passive role in my little world, even if it's more physically and mentally active. The dominant is receiving the compliments and the love and the trust. The dominant must dominate to allow the submissive expression. If the dominant is too hesitant, too mild, the submissive's feelings are not fully expressed. If the dominant goes too far, the trust is betrayed.

Missing from my analysis is any idea of why the pain and humiliation of the submissive is a good thing to me as a dominant. Certainly in an ordinary context it's bad. I'm all about giving her backrubs or my coat if it's cold. Why do I want it in a sexy context? I don't know.

In a Christian marriage the participants give rights over their bodies to each other; both the husband to the wife and the wife to the husband is specified in the Bible, not just one way. D/S play is the way I like to see that expressed; it's the fun way.

I figure domination and submission must mean very different things for people who are not switches, and likely in lots of cases for other switches too. What do they mean to you?