the importance of being desired

do all the men i know respect married women or am i ugly?

one of my sisters is online dating, and it’s obviously hell, and men are monsters, and i do not envy her at all except for the part where, every day, she receives confirmation that she is desired by a stranger (several).

i didn’t realize this was absent from my life until she kept sending screenshots to the gc of guys she matched with. I’d look through their messages about her beautiful eyes, cute smile, and the occasional bold comment on another part of her body and i was like, huh. this doesn’t happen to me. men* do not comment on my appearance. i have no idea what men think of how i look. i am simply not told.

*im using ‘men’ here for simplicity’s sake but rest assured i am referring to all guys, girls, and nonbinary pearls who identify as attracted to women. men are just my primary sexual preference (i think, it’s a journey <3) and also the most elusive to me.

i’ve been in a relationship for fourteen years (married for two). i am really lucky to have a partner who I love very much, who makes me feel desired and attractive. for most of my relationship i didn’t think about whether i was attractive to other people at all. maybe it was seeing someone else be told they are attractive, or maybe it was turning the corner into my thirties and starting to view myself as less attractive because of that. whatever the reason. now i’m thinking about it.

at a bar in LA, where no man approached me

i have imagined the scenario. a rotating cast of side characters in my life, DMing late at night to reveal their obsession with me. the details of the fantasy are fuzzy (formulating specifics of their attraction would mean i’d have to identify positive traits about myself, which like, no) but the thing i know for sure is the feeling it gives me: warmth, confidence, and power. in that moment, feeling that feeling, it’s almost as if the fantasy is true. i am suddenly desirable, in some ambient way that i don’t understand but am certain of. it’s juiciest when it translates to my creative work — yes, this whoever-human is of course allured by my casual beauty and general vibe, but also, amazingly, they think i’m like such a good writer. it gets me to my computer tbh! it gets me writing! if fantasy-guy believes i can write, then maybe i actually can!

i’m going to glide right past the implication that i need the validation of even imaginary men in order to do my creative work and instead think about why i even want this: to feel desired by someone, anyone, i won’t ever actually get with. i am guessing it’s not abnormal (literally please, or else this is an even more embarrassing entry than i realized) but i am really curious about why. what would it give me? the thing I come back to is that feeling of warmth and confidence and power. it’s sort of awful to admit to wanting power, or very vulnerable at least. but i guess i do want it, sometimes.

growing up catholic (and/or in a very sex-negative household), i learned that desirability was dangerous. if a woman was too attractive — wore clothes that showed too much of her body, really — men would not be able to control themselves and bad things would happen. i am still, decades into my life, working on challenging that narrative. when i analyze the desire to be desired in this context, i can see it as a personal longing for the release of shame. a reality in which i know i am desired, and i feel it, and i own it, is a reality in which i am liberated. i do not feel in danger. I feel the opposite: sexual freedom.

that’s when i begin to understand the fantasy. it is kind of about being desired but it’s not actually about anyone else, and it’s not even really about vanity or external validation. it’s about reclamation of my existence as a sexual being; understanding this as a human truth that is okay and safe and normal and fun.

i have 60,000 words of a novel i stopped writing. i have 26,000 words of a new one. the new one is about sex and fear and fantasy and marriage and self-obsession. i’m scared of it and i’m in love with it. i have a lot more to discover about myself and sometimes it’s frightening, to not know what i will find. the novel knows more than i do and i really want her to teach me. i have a dream of coming out of the other side of it transformed, some new side of myself revealed.

it’s a new fantasy, one that just involves me. but i’m not sure i’m so self-sufficient yet. i might still be having too much fun with the other fantasy. i have been trying to be less black-and-white with my thinking. maybe i don’t have to choose one or the other. like, maybe i can have both. maybe i can have it all.