Anxiety, social anxiety, sex-positivity, and sex
Hello there,
Recently I went to a talk by someone I admire because of their human rights work. I loved everything about this event, except for one thing. At the beginning they asked the audience the moan together, like let out a sexual sound together. The intention is for people to feel I'm empowered sexually.
However, I have started considering myself a demisexual, which means that you are not attracted to someone without a close personal or spiritual connection. I felt really alienated and silenced around this group enforced "sexual liberaton" culture. While I understand many women and feminine people have been shamed for enjoying sex, for being sluts, and I agree should feel sexually liberated if that's what they want, I don't agree with the assumption that everyone WANTS to be sexually liberated or WANTS to feel positive about sex in such a casual way. I have a ton of anxiety around this issue. Tonight when my friend mentioned this event at their birthday party, I got anxious and upset and had to spend time in the bathroom by myself feeling very angry and hurt. I left my friend's party early because I felt so upset even thinking about it.
I feel like I wanted to stand up in that room defiantly, and say "I am do not want to moan today and that is my choice."
A caveat is that this space was meant for people of color and LGBT people (groups I'm not a part of), so I didn't want to take up a lot of space and draw attention to myself in that particular space. However, I would like to work on feeling strong in my own beliefs of myself and speak up at least starting with close friends and listeners on this site, so that I can feel validated and potentially open up space for those who feel similarly to me.
*Note if you consider yourself sex-positive, have a different experience or preference, that is fine, but I ask that you please only respond to this post in ways that do not silence my voice, preferences, desires, needs, and experience.*
@skinicki
I can imagine that that would be a really uncomfortable situation. I would not like that at all, either! I think, though, that letting ourselves observe situations doesn't mean that we even have to agree or disagree with them, and that agreeing or disagreeing with certain activities or beliefs doesn't make us inherantly good or bad, either! Your ability to know yourself is a really empowering trait and I think that voicing your opinions at the right time and in the right arena would only serve to further empower yourself and others! I've never heard of demisexual but your brief description of what that means sounds so interesting, like a sort of love that has so much substance and dimension to it & its something i'd now like to know more about, now, too! Unique ideas are so cool and so important!
This is just my opinion coming in. I'm not a listener and I'm pretty young so I hope I'm not super off base, here! I just wanted to lend some support on the subject. I hope you're doing ok with your friends and your anxiety, today.
@emotionalPenny3496 Hey thanks for responding and being supportive, and thanks for validating demi and my sexuality. Um, I guess I do feel a little frustrated when you said "you don't have to agree or disagree", because it sounds like maybe I don't respect others' opinions? I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, just explaining how I felt. The things is I do respect others' opinions and believe people have different experiences and different feelings. However, my fear is that someone else's opinion will control me, or be used against me, coerce/violate me, etc. Clearly these fears of control were triggered by this person actually violating my consent and touching me when I said "NO" already. The person who violated me actually acted like they wanted to sexually liberate me, like help me "break out of my shell" as someone with social anxiety and a virgin. This was so violent and disrespectful that it made me really distrustful of a lot of people, and honestly anxious in any conversations about sex whatsoever. Someone could simply say "Let's talk about sex" and it already triggers me from merely the word and topic. I would go into that "Let's talk about sex convo" already feeling violated, already with a sense of distrust. Also I am interested in starting a romantic relationship, but I know I'm gonna get triggered and have a sense of distrust while I'm trying to create my romantic relationship. :( :(
