Sometimes, after an intense scene or something new and exciting that I haven't done before, I feel...icky. Emotionally wrung out, but also weird and nervous and like people somehow will magically know exactly what I've been doing and will judge me and won't respect me. I used to almost always feel like this after anal sex, I felt like this after I got Eiffel Towered that one time, and I'm feeling kind of like that right now.
Jack and I just had a fairly intense scene. He made me cry and grovel and beg and it was wonderful while it was going on, but now I feel kind of gross. It's like I'm slut-shaming myself inside my head--nice girls don't do this, if people knew it'd be all over, they'd be so disgusted. It's like the end of 9 1/2 Weeks, the horrible, shaming end sequence that I hate. I feel so exposed and all I want to do is hide. Even with lots of lovely aftercare, even with hugs and kisses and reassurances it happens.
Getting dressed again helped, but I'm still a little icky-feeling. I kind of just want to be alone. Jack went out and I'm making mac and cheese, because comfort food seems like a good idea. But I really, really want to know if anyone else ever feels like this. Hey, fellow bottoms, does this happen to you? If it does, how do you deal with it? I could use some advice.
Moved.
1 year ago
This whole comment might be totally unhelpful -- for which I apologize in advance -- because I...don't get that.
ReplyDeleteI've done some pretty gross stuff, stuff I didn't/don't want to do, stuff that doesn't exactly come standard even among perverts. I was, you know, deeply unhappy while it was going on, and later I was unhappy with myself for doing it, but I never really felt consumed by guilt or shame or oh-God-what-if-anyone-finds-out. Nowadays it's not really relevant, but I still don't feel so worried and icky about which acts I've done.
I'm seeing at least two reasons here --
#1, the super-obvious fact that you grew up learning to associate a lot of shame with doing sexual stuff. Me, not so much at all.
#2, I intentionally try not to do stuff that will leave me feeling bad. I realize that sounds like the world's most obvious thing, but I want to be happy over a term longer than just "it's hot while it's happening." If I'm not disgustingly glowing by cuddletime, I probably don't want to repeat whatever just happened. This is also why I don't have random NSA sex: it's might feel okay in the moment, but there's no way that's worth how shitty I'd feel the next day or the next week if it was a one-night thing. That's probably kind of fucked-up, but it works for me. I take the opposite tack from many of our friends, and err on the side of not doing something -- the person will almost certainly be around later if I change my mind. Right now I just want to do things that make me happy.
Maybe target that more? I mean, the whole point of this is to be happy, not to push the envelope or win prizes. If dumbass shallow semi-vanilla things make me happy, then I want to keep doing that. When I'm happy because I've done stuff on the lighter side, I'm not one bit less happy than the diaper-wearing furry who thinks goatse is a minor party trick.
I went to post "oops, duh, I'm 1.25 girls" and then I realized I had more to say. SURPRISE.
ReplyDeleteObviously I am capable of feeling guilty -- like, I would never "steal" a partner or lie to a friend about this stuff or anything like that. But I didn't talk about it because it seems like the act itself, for you, is what's triggering the guilt; that's the part I don't get.
However, the second thing is that when I scanned it again, one bit jumped out at me: "if people knew it'd be all over, they'd be so disgusted." This is exactly how I feel about some stuff -- not about what I've done, but about who I am. This is why I can never really be as mad at G, because I can never forget that he knows things that would totally destroy me if they were common knowledge. I feel like most people would never speak to me again, or at a bare minimum would completely lose any interest in me, if they knew about my body. My scars. How I come.
I don't really know how to relate my what-I-am shame to your what-I've-done shame, and I handle it pretty shittily so I probably shouldn't be giving advice on it either. But at least I can say I share the same feeling of having a terrible secret waiting to destroy you? Gosh, that's cheery.
*hug* You're gorgeous and delightful and I'm sorry that you feel shame about the stuff you feel shame about.
ReplyDeleteI feel like, in light of your comment, I should clarify as to why I want to figure out how to work through this instead of just not doing things that will make me feel like this. There are two reasons.
1. The Silly Reason - I object to shame. I don't believe in it, I hate that people feel guilty or ashamed of anything having to do with their body or sex, and I think (unless someone really wants that guilt because it's hot for them) that we should all be lovely shame-free perverts who hug everyone and feel all warm and fuzzy. And so, in my efforts to banish guilt and sexual shame from the world, I want to stop feeling it myself.
2. The Practical Reason - I never know what's going to set off this feeling. Seriously. I have no idea. It strikes without warning. It happens over stuff I've fantasized about for months and had no inkling of wrong-feeling about until after it happened. Or, in the case of what I wrote this entry about, actions that were not at all out of the ordinary for me, just put into a slightly different context. It happens so randomly and suddenly that it actually takes me a substantial period of time to figure out what's going on and why I feel so rotten. It's like a sexual minefield, I never know what's going to set it off.
Thank you so much for the input. I always love getting comments!
When I used to date A, I would also feel icky after sex. Like, that man just abused me and doesn't care about how I feel and was using me toward his own ends!!!!! And nobody that I know is going to care, they'll just think I'm weird for being in this situation in the first place.
ReplyDelete---let me elaborate---
When I felt that feeling, I was a minor dating a 19-year-old. I would do sex because I knew he liked it--then, afterward, I'd feel like going out and showing my face to the world to say "look, I'm not a disgusting minor who's doing things adults do; I'm still glorious me, whom all of you care about, and I'm making some weird decisions. That's all!" But, he would just want to sleep.
I sometimes think that if he'd cared about me more, he would have been able to tell (or perhaps asked about it) that I did not want to have sex so much, to have it define our relationship with each other. Without the sex, would anything be there?
Eventually, I came clean to the people who had put this shame into my mind. They were my parents; any freedom I had had was given to me by them. I knew that my mother did not want me to have sex. I told her that I was having it, *so that I would not be a lie any more.*
[She told me to stop.
I stopped.
The relationship ended.
Had he been using me for sex? Or, rather, did he just feel betrayed that I "told" on him to my parents? (we were very young, remember. I was a minor.)]
Anyway, when I came clean, the pain and shame stopped. The being-used-when-I-didn't-want-to-be stopped too.
Maybe you should listen to your shame. It may be a part of you that, once you can actually identify it, you can choose to comfort and reassure. But if you never stop and take a step back, you will never relax enough to let that part come forward without you railing at it for being a part of you that you are trying to disown.
I have, since then, been able to have sex with no shame and only pleasure.
Incidentally, if I hold told my mother: "I understand your concerns and I will not stop. But I just didn't want to have to lie to you anymore." <--then I would no longer have felt the shame either. Whether or not I stopped having sex had less to bear on the matter than whether or not I was lying to a significant part of my life/existence.
Maybe what you want in your head is different from what your body needs, and you should pay more attention to your body--a make-yourself-feel-like-a-princess time that just pays attention to you, and only you, so that your body feels free to tell you what it actually wants instead of feeling like a sex toy for your mind.
Thanks for your input, anonymous.
ReplyDelete