“Does this person actually like me, or do they just want to fuck me?”
This is a question I’ve pondered countless times in my life. It has been the source of much misery and angst. It has been dissected at length in many a journal entry. But I’m beginning to think that the question itself is based on a false premise – that sexual and romantic attraction are mutually exclusive.
It’s weird how often our culture – especially its more heterosexual side – depicts these feelings as a binary, where one cannot truly exist in the presence of the other. Growing up, much of the messaging I received about boys and sex (from media as well as from people in my own life) insinuated that if a guy pursued you for sex, he didn’t respect you as a person – and that if you “granted” him the sex he was seeking, he would respect you even less, and would never deign to date you. Conventional wisdom insisted that if I ever wanted a man to commit to me, I should deny him sex for as long as possible (thereby denying myself sex too, by the way!) – and that if a man was willing to endure a sexless interlude of indeterminate length, it meant he really liked me.
But I feel nauseous just writing that out! What an awful, depressing worldview! I don’t want human relationships to work that way – and I don’t think they actually do, in most cases. Sure, there are shallow cads (of all genders) who see sex as a prize to be pursued, rather than a pleasure to be shared – and there are also people who can and do separate sex from love (or even from liking), as in certain friendships-with-benefits and other casual arrangements. But for the most part, humans don’t experience lust in a vacuum – I think most of us would say our sexual attractions are informed by the non-physical traits we feel drawn to, whether those include intelligence, humor, charm, worldliness, dominance, submissiveness, or anything else.
I can definitely understand why we sometimes forget this, though, especially since being objectified for your body and sexuality can feel gross as hell. In my early twenties, I found it deeply off-putting when someone tried to leap into sexting when we’d barely just started messaging – not only because I felt this indicated poor social skills on their part, but also because it made me feel like a cardboard cutout of a woman, onto which one could project one’s fantasies (and jizz). They might as well have typed “porno babes in bikinis” or “lesbian sexy AI” into a Google search instead of sending me missives about their genitals. Of course their desire for me felt objectifying – they didn’t know me well enough to see me as anything other than an object.
But we have to be aware of when our past traumas are incorrectly coloring our view of our current situation. Although I’m in my thirties now, I still sometimes lapse into black-and-white thinking when someone expresses sexual desire for me early on. Alarm bells go off in my head: They just think you’re hot! They don’t care about your brain, your heart, your art! Once they fuck you, they’ll disappear forever, leaving you feeling worthless and alone!
When this happens, I try to take a deep breath and assess what I actually know. Usually, I come to the realization that the other person’s desire – much like my own – is fuelled and shaped by the specificities of who it’s aimed at. I long for the sweet golden-retriever softboy in a different way than I long for the sardonic dive-bar punk. My crush on the ballsy dominatrix with great eyebrows feels qualitatively different from my crush on the funny flannel-clad barista with fuzzy forearms. Every attraction is its own unique thing, beautiful and bright, and the sexual slant of a desire doesn’t preclude it from also having a romantic element. In fact, my solely-sexual crushes tend to blow away in the wind; it’s only the more emotionally substantive ones that stick around in my spank bank. Sex is so much more compelling when it’s not just skin-deep – and I don’t just mean that as a penetration joke!
So, the next time you find yourself reflexively wondering if someone really likes you or just likes the sex they could have with you, ask yourself: Do they seem curious about you, interested in you, eager to get to know you? Do their compliments (if they give any) reach beyond the realm of the physical? Do they value traits in you that you also value in yourself? Or does their desire seem to stem from who they think you are, who they see you as, or who they want you to be?
These things can be difficult to discern sometimes, but I think they’re worth reflecting on… if just because sex with someone who sees into your soul is one of the hottest experiences imaginable. 🥵
This post contains a sponsored link. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.
