Teenage chasteland
Or: Let’s all have a chuckle at my needlessly intricate self-loathing!
When I first started masturbating with mens rea and intent to get off (rather than my earlier preteen system, which was basically “Wow, neat! This feels cool! I wonder if other people know about this!”) I ran into a slight problem when it came to fantasizing.
I hadn’t discovered the wonders of visual aids yet, so all I really had was my libido and my imagination. I would lie alone in bed in the silent, friendly dark, thinking about sex. I only had a rough idea of what sex was at this point, but I could feel the vague promise of it purring down between my legs. I wanted to pretend it was more than that, though. I wanted to think about what it would be like to share that lust and that dark with someone: another body, a counterpoint breath weaving through mine. But there was this difficulty, you see.
I couldn’t figure out an honest way to fantasize about sex. I could not realistically conceive of anyone actually wanting to have sex with me. No one had ever told me that boys only wanted one thing from me, but if they had I wouldn’t have believed it for a second. I was shy, undesired, awkward, unattractive, uninteresting: being invisible was the best I could hope for. Being admired was something that only happened to other girls. How was I going to pretend I had a willing partner? My suspension of disbelief just wasn’t that good. I’d start composing a story in my head about some attractive guy from school touching me and my brain would jump in, “Wait wait wait. Are you delusional? Every girl he goes out with is stylish and thin and decidedly unhideous. This fantasy is ridiculous!” And pop! I’d lose the budding narrative. I was usually too disgusted with myself to try again.
I wouldn’t even let myself imagine an anonymous guy. “Nope. Not buying it. No one would ever want to touch your boobies.” I had to admit I had a point.
But horniness really is the slutty cougar mom of invention. It wasn’t long before I came up with an ingenious way for “fantasy me” to get sex without overburdening my skepticism and turning all my masturbation sessions into self-harangues about how ugly and worthless I was. I didn’t imagine myself thinner, prettier, or with better social skills. I did way better…I turned to Sci Fi.
I’d pretend myself into a dystopian society where as some strange ritual, everyone in my high school had to have sex with one of our schoolmates as determined by blind lottery. It was kind of like a Battle Royale key party. Each girl went into a cramped little chamber that was furnished with a bed, and there we waited for our surprise sex partner to enter. No one knew what or whom they were getting into until the door opened. Of course, my guy always turned out, through the magical luck of daydreams, to be whichever one I fancied especially at the moment.
Once my crush opened the door and realized it was me his face would fall (my hypercritical brain demanded this). Mortified, I’d immediately apologize for not being someone attractive, but he’d reassure me that it was really okay; he knew it wasn’t my fault, and besides, he’d always thought I was kind of funny. Oh good. Funny. And that’s when the fun could start. Then and only then would my brain allow me to fantasize about having sex. It was like the cheat code for my self-loathing.
I was so sure that no one would ever voluntarily fuck me, which is weird because I later found out that several of the guys I locked in that fictional sex pod with me would’ve had all sorts of sex with me in real life if I’d given the least encouragement. I’m so glad I eventually stopped being a teenager.
I went two different routes than you that nonetheless indicated similar severe feelings of inadequacy, at the same time. 1) I was much more attractive in my fantasies. 2) Self-aware androids or humanoid fantasy women in sci-fi or fantasy environments. Both likewise ways around the fact that I couldn’t accept that an ordinary human woman would want sex, especially with me. Besides bad self-image, I was also cursed with the idea that real women have sex with men only as a way to get something nonsexual, against which I still struggle and for which I would like to hit pop culture in the face very hard.
I’d like to thank you for your help in that area, BTW. Blogs like yours and Holly’s help, and I bet I’m not the only one they help.
Once my crush opened the door and realized it was me his face would fall (my hypercritical brain demanded this). Mortified, I’d immediately apologize for not being someone attractive, but he’d reassure me that it was really okay; he knew it wasn’t my fault, and besides, he’d always thought I was kind of funny. Oh good. Funny.
Awww. Man, now I want to give you, like, a million hugs.
My hangup was that all my fantasy partners had (okay, still have) to be fictional. If I think about anyone who exists in real life, whether an acquaintance, an ex, or a celebrity, I go into a completely neurotic “but would they be okay with me thinking about them like this?” spiral. I feel like a jerk if I imagine someone without their consent.
So I very carefully construct my imaginary partners (who persist for years and have elaborate backstories) to absolutely not resemble anyone I know. Their names can’t even be similar. I can only relax if I’m 100% sure that the person I’m fantasizing doesn’t exist.
…Course, this gets much worse and even more relevant when it gets to rape fantasies. :/
@Mousie00 Whoever told you that women don’t want sex except as a tool to manipulate was doing both you and women a disservice, but I’m sure you know that. It really IS a very pervasive stereotype, and I don’t think it does anyone any good. Of course, there are women who use sex dispassionately and as a bargaining chip, but there are men like that too.
Also, low self-esteem is such a cockblock, isn’t it?
@Holly Pervocracy I’ve sometimes felt unethical about the fact that I think of real people when I’m wanking. Of course they didn’t and very well might not consent (one of the things that turns me on most is perceiving desire in someone else, so I don’t often think anymore about people who I don’t suspect might be into me, but that still doesn’t amount to consent) but I also feel that I get to do whatever I want in my mind as long as it doesn’t bleed into the real world, so I let myself run with it. With rape fantasies it would get more complex for sure, but I’d probably rationalize it anyway. Maybe I should put a “The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event” disclaimer up in my head before I start. That way I could just tell myself that any similarity to existing persons, real or imagined, is purely coincidental.
It turns me on vastly to think that someone (who doesn’t actively gross me out, at least) is thinking of me while masturbating. That gives me supersonic justification somehow. God, I’m such a dick.
@quizzical pussy
I can’t remember anyone ever telling me that women only want sex to get something nonsexual (like affection); it’s something I just kind of picked up from pop culture, reinforced by watching a few women who used it as a lure or bargaining chip. Now I’ve encountered lots of evidence from which I can conclude it isn’t true, but I haven’t fully internalized that yet; it’s the same as the difference between knowledge and faith in religion.