Sexuality Happens

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, especially as several things are happening in my life; I’m trying to figure out which friends from here are going to remain friends when I’m in CO (and so whether I should put my trust in them, or slowly start to pull away), I’m trying to figure out which of my older friends in CO are still friends, rather than acquaintances (so whether we still have that bond of trust we used to have), and then I’m also trying to play/have sex with more people, some of it with people I’ve never met before (ergo, how much do I trust them…to have sex with them in the first place, to let them hit me, to let them tie me up, to trust that they’ll listen to my limits and stop if I safeword, etc).

Basically, trust is a big issue in my life. This post is just my thoughts currently, nothing concrete. I’m probably continue to delve into in more in the future.

I used to trust implicitly; you had my trust until you fucked up, and lost it. Then you could try to rebuild it, but it was hard, and it might never happen.

That was a bad plan, both logistically, and emotionally. I had people hurting me all over. Things that were told in confidence were suddenly public, people that I had put my trust into pulled away completely, leaving me feeling hurt and alone. In Spring 2007, I had the drama go down with my roller derby league, with people I had loved and trusted cutting off all contact with me, spreading rumors about me, hacking into my internet accounts, etc…all because I stood up for my beliefs. I was shocked and hurt. And then in the summer, the person who had helped me through all that, and with whom I thought I had built a strong bond (and who helped me with many of the logistics of getting this blog really working)…she fucked me over. She left me on a street corner, on crutches, with a broken foot, tears streaming down my face, and later sent me an email telling me to never contact her again.

That was it. I stopped trusting people to begin with. I was so fucking done being hurt. They were going to have to earn it, damn it.

Right now, I don’t have many friends I trust. I have my two best friends from home (one from HS, one from college). I have two really good friends out here. As far as friends go, I think that’s it, as far as complete trust. There are others that I trust with tidbits of information, or regarding certain subjects, but with them, it’s compartmentalized. They only get to be trusted about certain things…otherwise, I have a wall, invisible, but fairly solid.

Sex is a different story, completely. My first experience was sex was being sexually assaulted — one can see how trust might be an issue after that. Thank god for my hook up with the prospective student that same semester…if it hadn’t been for him, I might never have been able to have sex without HUGE trust issues. I know that it’s odd, the person who taught me it was ok to trust about sex was one that I had known of all of 24 hours, but hey, do I ever do things normally?

Regardless, I’m still nervous about blow jobs. Even with people I trust completely. Hands in my hair; fine, but I get nervous. Hands on my head, and I just about freeze up. I *know* they’re not going to force me onto their cock, but just like my experience with friendship has made me hesitant to trust people, my experience with blow jobs has taught me that hands on my head might mean a lack of choice in the matter. As a classmate once said, “it’s my shit, and I own it,” but I still have to deal with it. I won’t give a blow job to anyone I don’t REALLY trust.

When you have sex with someone, there is always some sort of element of trust…other wise, you wouldn’t be getting it on. However, there are levels. Do I trust them enough to tell them what I *really* like, or just the “normal” things I think I want them to hear? Do I trust them enough to tell them my safeword, and give up having “no mean no?” Do I trust them enough to have sex in *my* bed (I’ve only done that with two people…ever…well, plus one in the hotel at Dinah), as compared to going to their place? Do I trust them enough to really let go, to really give in to what’s happening, to stop thinking and intellectualizing, to actually be in the moment? I don’t know if that last one has ever really happened.

So how do you decide how to trust?

I was thinking, over the last week, about my recent situation. In one night, I crossed lines I had never even thought about crossing. I tried more new things in one night than oh, in the past year. I learned things about myself, both sexually and personally. More literally, I let someone stick needles in my skin, and run his sharp knife over my body, including my vulva.

I’d met him less than a month ago. I’d only known him for two weeks. What the hell was I thinking?

I’ve debated about typing this, as I know he reads my blog. But really, it’s been something I’ve been thinking about a lot, and I need to write, and process, and I need feedback.

Why the fuck did I trust someone I had pretty much just met to do things to me that I’d never let ANYONE, including people I was in relationships with, do to me?

I was talking to my friend out this on the way to dinner one night. Her answer: “Lust. Animal attraction. Pure lust.” I agree that it may be part of it; I was in lust. I found K more attractive than I’ve thought anyone in a long time. Not just physically; his conversation made me more attracted to him than anything else. He has interesting things to say, and he makes me thing. Not just regurgitate what I’ve read, or have been told, or have said before, but actually thing and process. Regardless, lust is certainly part of the equation.

But it can’t be all of it. I refuse to believe that I’d be willing to open myself up, and possibly put myself at risk (emotionally and physically) just because of attraction.

So what was it? It’s not just the sex stuff. When I talk to K, I feel like a faucet has been turned on in my head. I say things I’ve never told anyone, things I haven’t even admitted to myself, and sometimes, I just talk too much.

Fuck, I’ve got tears welling up in my eyes as I write this…I try my hardest to shut down, and to not get emotional about most things, and here I am talking about trust, and I’m more emotional than when I was writing about being assaulted. Apparently, trust is a touchy subject for me…that’s telling.

Anyways, I can’t shut this faucet off. I’ve now actually known and been talking to him for a few weeks now, and I’ve got no filter. I mean, I never have a filter about saying things like “I think you’re hot” or “last night I came 5 times in 20 minutes.” I’m mean a filter about “I’ve known this person less than a month; he doesn’t need to hear about control issues stemming from having to plan my father’s funeral at 13″ or that I felt conflicted and used about something. Who the hell shares these things with someone they’ve known for a month, and not in a daily setting? Apparently, me. I feel like an idiot when I say some of these things, and I’m just waiting for him to say “what the fuck are you telling me this for, shut up!” It hasn’t happened yet, and I’m sure when it does, he’ll be much more polite than that, but this is ridiculous. Why am I even telling him things that are making me wait for the proverbial slap in the face? Where is my survival instinct? Where is my natural security of shutting things inside until I know they won’t be used to hurt me again?

Where does this come from?

He told me something, while we were driving home, something that *I* (if I were him) wouldn’t tell many people, particularly those I didn’t trust. Granted, we all have different deciding factors on when (if) we tell people things, but him telling that made him seem more real, and I guess trustworthy. But I don’t think that’s it either. I have lots of people who tell me intricate and personal details of their lives, from being survivors of assault, to cheating on their partner, to having an STI, to having a terminal illness, to being in the closet, etc, and I don’t feel this urge to suddenly trust them, and spill my guts. So I don’t think it’s just that.

I don’t know what it is. And it’s driving me crazy. Am I just setting myself up to be hurt again, by sharing myself with someone I’ve just met, and hardly know? I’m leaving in three weeks for a state 2000 miles away. Will he talk to me then? Or will he be like all except one friend from college, and drift away, either slowly or quickly, until I get a facebook wall post on my birthday, or when I’m in a car accident, or when someone important to me dies? And furthermore, why am I even thinking these things? Does it matter? Shouldn’t I just live in the moment?

I wonder if it’s because he makes me think. He makes me uncomfortable. He makes me reconsider the way I’ve always thought about things, to look at things from another angle, to stop hiding things from myself. I’ve only had one other person in my life that made me really examine things, both internally and externally…that was my father.

I was first introduced to “hypothetical questions” when I was 9, and my father asked me what I would do if someone had been bombing places, and sent out letters, and I recognized the writing as a member of my family — he asked me what I would do, and how I would react. I had to think about it for a while, and it ended up with us discussing difficult situations, and not always taking the “right” answer for granted. Sometimes, I resented our discussions; they challenged my ideas, sometimes making me change my mind on an issue I had felt strongly about. That frustrated me to no end, that sometimes things I had thought or felt might not be the only answer. But always, in the end, I appreciated it. It made me more understanding, more likely to look at an issue from multiple sides, more likely to think about what I was saying.

K is similar. He doesn’t remind me of my father; my dad wore Hawiian shirts, and was a far cry from a mohawk. However, his ability to make me question things, that is something that I haven’t really experienced in years. Almost a decade. Neither college or grad school has done much to really fuck with my head, and look at things differently. But my dad did, and K does too. Maybe that’s one more piece of the puzzle as to why I trust him.

Or maybe I’m just looking for meaning. I don’t believe in heaven/hell/anything like that. But I did meet K on the 9th anniversary of my father’s death. So maybe I’m trying to breathe meaning into it, as if my dad was sending me a message to stop being so complacent and to not take things for granted, but rather, to delve deeper, and look at things from all angles.

I don’t know. I feel stupid typing this whole post. What does it matter why I trust someone?

It matters because I’m scared that I’m allowing myself to open up to someone I’ve just met, and I’m worried about setting up myself to get hurt…from K, and in future situations because I just randomly start trusting someone. What happened to my barrier, my caution tape, my sphinx asking a riddle in return for my trust?

I’m debating whether or not to post this. It’s more emotionally charged, and more about my current situation (rather than trust overall) than I had planned on it being. My paranoia is setting in; maybe I shouldn’t post it, or just ask him not to read it. Because if he reads it, I think I might come off as even more of an emotional nut case that just has a flood of issues, history, questions, and more pouring out of my mouth (or off the keyboard, in this case). In any other situation, I’d privacy lock this post for myself, or post it in my livejournal, or something.

But remember that faucet? Yeah, I just can’t shut the bloody thing off. So up it goes, for better or for worse. I mean yeah, I’d love to play with him again before I leave, but that’s totally out of my control. But having someone read my inner thoughts about a situation that involves them, and then decide that I’m too much to deal with? That’s my concern.

Oh well, the die has been cast.

-Essin’ Em