The new taboo is love.
Sex is fine. I can tell Alan or Benny I'd like to have a particular kind of sex and they might say yes or no, but it's a discussion we can have. Short of the unethical or the disgusting, nothing about sex frightens them.
The slightest suggestion of love does. I'd be crazy, some kind of weird boundary-impaired stalkergirl to even think about falling in love with one of the men I fuck. For all the time we spend together, as close as we get, for me to say "I love you" to Alan would, I think, horrify him as much as if a random stranger said it. In this sort of relationship, love is so inappropriate you can't even joke about it.
Makes me kind of sad. Not because I'm in love--gosh, you think I'm some kind of freak?--I'm really not. But I want the option. I want the ability to talk about it, think about it. I don't want us to fear it.
I want "I love you" to be a sweet thing to say to a lover. Not an atom bomb.
Would it offend you if I were to say that it sounds like you're exchanging one set of weird inhibitions for another?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't offend me, you're probably right.
ReplyDeleteI've defeated the paradigm of "women trade sex for affection" only to enter the world of "sex or affection, pick one."
:(
This post nearly made me cry. I know this feeling so incredibly well. I have a friend with whom I have an incredible sexual relationship, but telling her that I loved her would make things awkward. I love her, but cannot say it.
ReplyDelete