If It’s Not Broke Don’t Fix It
"Please, hold me, make me feel loved, give me your attention, because damn it, I've been mistreated before and now I'm in constant fear of being hurt again!"
When explaining how I felt to a friend, I told her, “It’s like I’m some kind of lioness who cannot be tamed, or rather, who is rarely brought to the temptation of taming herself”. Suddenly, it’s as if I do not have a choice in the matter. A new instinct has taken shape within me. My primal urges are kept at bay by the weight of my emotions, or so it seems.
Maybe it’s because I took a 90 day break from drinking alcohol, which certainly had a big impact on my perspective. I don’t feel as impulsive, especially when it comes to my personal life and sex.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and growing up. Promiscuity used to feel so much more natural to me. From around 19 – 22: I was insatiable; constantly searching for a tantalizing rendezvous or calling up a fuck buddy to handle my most visceral needs in bed. My attitude toward sex in general has not changed recently, nor has my general libido. I simply just don’t feel the need to “get some strange” or put myself into a situation that will likely end in a one night stand.
Maybe it’s because of him. You can have loyalty and respect without a title, because you can most certainly lack loyalty and respect with one. Technically speaking, I’m single as hell and pretty comfortable with it. Non-technically speaking, I’ve juggled my heart and mind while walking on a tight-rope the past year and a half while falling for someone I most certainly wasn’t expecting to walk into my life… or maybe I walked into his.
Though – for your sake – let’s just say we are both currently best off with our noncommittal attitudes toward relationships and are primarily focused on our own goals. It’s sensible to continue things the way that they are… If it’s not broke, don’t fix it…
I started seeing a therapist earlier this year as a healthy outlet to vent (therapists are great) and discuss everything from my professional life in the adult industry, my ongoing anxiety, my transition to a new state and life, and everything else that goes on in my cluttered head.
…At our second session, after I had crammed out most of my life history into the hour of our first session, I decided to tell her about him. It seemed important enough. I sat down on her couch, kind of nervously giggling because I was in a good mood just thinking about it. He had actually even dropped me off and I got a massage across the street before the appointment. My body & mind were in much need of TLC.
“I want to talk about the man I briefly mentioned last week at the very end, but… I guess I don’t know where to start.”
“Why don’t you start with his name?”
On that particular day, I was still a bit hungover and it became Day 1 of the “90 day break from booze will power adventure” I went on this summer. I sat awkwardly with my legs crossed, sipping at my latte and kicking my foot nervously away from and toward the couch I was slouched on. I looked down at the bruises covering my shins and knees and the finger prints on my thighs — all results of the passionate fuck fest that followed a Thursday night shit-show — and smiled. The night before my appointment, we were smoking a bowl as the night came to an end, and in the midst of an awkward conversation, jealousy and paranoia stirred inside of me… in that “this is that kind of girly-relationshitty-shit-that-I-hate-and-I’m-in-denial-every-time-it-happens” way. I lashed out aggressively and said some ARBITRARY crap I didn’t even really mean. I was disappointed in how I acted and I knew being intoxicated certainly wasn’t helping my predicament. I apologized instantly and collected myself. By collected myself, I mean I sat on the floor and put my face in my hands until I could breathe like a functioning human again. Sex doesn’t solve everything, but it certainly helped me deal with everything I was feeling in that moment. Nothing cures stress quite like a good set of orgasms. Other than meditation, it’s about the only other time my mind can go… blank.
My therapist told me my reaction was a lot like how a hurt or previously harmed/abused animal might act out of fear. Suddenly I was a stray cat. A shelter pet. “Please, hold me, make me feel loved, give me your attention, because damn it, I’ve been mistreated before and now I’m in constant fear of being hurt again!”
She says, “Imagine you could erase all of the bullshit away, like an Etch-a-Sketch. From the sound of it, it seems like what you are left with is an intense connection with someone you care a great deal about.” She was correct. I was creating problems that didn’t really exist.
I’ve never found myself in this place before, and perhaps that’s the obvious reason it feels strange and a little bit scary. To love someone so much that you find it even physically difficult to become intimate at any level with another person, even if you think that you want it, because hey, he’s there, and I’m horny enough to go through with it. Even if the guy is nice, cool, cute, and the sex isn’t awful, I’d still roll over and think “meh” because everything else just seems pale in comparison, and any causal sex just seems if not emotional cheating then just not worth it. I’d also rather masturbate than be disappointed and I don’t have to play the “getting to know you questions” game with my vibrator. I’ve simply lost interest or at least I think that I have and unless I really want to and feel comfortable with the person/scenario, I will not pass go and I will keep my pants on… Except of course, at work. I take my pants off on camera at work. 
