It helps you shine the light on what's really goin on. When I was little, my Mum dressed me like a boy. I always wanted to be sexy but because of this I had really bad identity problems.
I always thought I was ugly.
That, coupled with trying to be a supah dupah good girl, made for a exhaustive navigation through reality.
I had friends steal my boyfriends all the time. They would say, "Sue, guys check you out all the time and you don't even notice" and I thought that was good because it meant that I wasn't vain.
Well it instead made me lose all the opportunities for a guy because they would go after them and get them.
I said this on WTF with Marc Maron and I'll say it again.
One of the most profound experiences that I ever had in therapy was when I was telling a story about a cute guy at the gym who was hanging all over me.
As I was tellin it, I mentioned that the girl behind the desk was all over him.
I made it sound like I didn't care because I thought I didn't.
Well all my therapist did was shift in her chair and say, "Well, someone's got to get the last piece of cake" and I felt a rage from the tip of my toes to the top of my head.
I was like "I WANT THE LAST PEICE OF CAKE!"
I had never tapped into my desire before, let alone my sexual desire but boy when I did!
Since then, I have learned how to have desire and to express it.
I can happily report that I finally feel really, really sexy.
That being said, I am realizing how many guys have thought that throughout my life it has to do with my looks, but so much more.
It's my generosity, my fun, my love, my sense of humor, my body, my brains, my strength, etc.
So here's where this all comes into play.
I was dating a guy, who to the naked eye, appeared to be a sexual human being.
But when I sent him sexy pics, he would ignore them.
It was OK because I thought maybe he's just not into that, but my second thought was, but every other guy I've ever sent a sexy pic to said "more" right away.
It's funny as I type this I wonder if those thoughts were reversed.
First, I probably thought, that's weird, then I justified it by defending him.
Then there was another time where we we totally acting out a sexy scene: he was shaving his beard while I watched. (That's all I'll say about that for the sake of privacy.)
Well we got into bed and.................................he fell asleep.
My first thought was, oh he must be tired, then my second thought was, I've never been in bed with a guy who could not keep his hands off me." And my third thought was, this is the beginning of this relationship so this can't be good.
Again, the thoughts were probably switched. My first thought was probably, what's wrong with this guy? Usually guys can't keep their hands off of me. Then the second thought was to justify it, under the guise of bein a supah dupah good girl.
I write this not to toot my own horn. I write this to show that if my self-esteem was lower I would have spent the rest of the relationship trying to prove that I was desirable, blaming myself for whatever his block was, and squelching my own desires to make him feel comfortable, which in turn would squelch us both.
Sex is life.
I did try to talk about it to no avail, cause that 's what right sized, regular, good girls do.
I wanted a sexual relationship, and he wasn't willing to talk about it, so I was able to make the decision to end the relationship.
"It's you, it's not me" is what I said when I ended it.