I don\u2019t really know how to start this without forewarning for how messy it\u2019s going to be. This isn\u2019t a think-piece and It certainly isn\u2019t tidy. It\u2019s just me trying to put words to something that\u2019s been sitting in my chest for a long time. Since then, it\u2019s felt like every interaction with a guy follows the same script. It always gets there eventually. Sex, nudes, hints, jokes that aren\u2019t really jokes. Expectations that appear out of nowhere but somehow were always there. And every time, it leaves me with this sinking feeling, like I\u2019ve misled someone just by existing as a girl with a body. For a while, I genuinely thought something might be wrong with me. I even wondered if I was asexual to be honest. I didn\u2019t feel that immediate pull everyone else seemed to feel. I wasn\u2019t excited by the idea of sex in the abstract. But I was<\/em> desperate for romance. For closeness. For that kind of intimacy that feels almost unbearable because it\u2019s so deep and so exposing. Eventually it clicked: it\u2019s not that I don\u2019t want sex. It\u2019s that I don\u2019t want it without emotional safety. Without trust. Without feeling held. There\u2019s a song by Them and I called One Night<\/em> that absolutely ruins me. I really do believe in the soul. Not in a vague, ‘Pinterest’ way but in a real, aching way. I think there\u2019s something in us that isn\u2019t physical, something alive and sensitive and easily bruised. And I want someone to know that<\/em> part of me. My inner life, my emotional mess, my spirituality, my softness. I don\u2019t want to be consumed. I want to be recognised. We live in a culture that confuses access with intimacy. One that treats restraint like weakness and speed like liberation. And I don\u2019t think that\u2019s freedom at all. I think it\u2019s exhausting. I think it leaves people hollow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the idea of \u201csin\u201d has started to make a strange kind of sense to me. Not as shame. Not as fear. But as a warning: this thing is powerful – handle it carefully. Sex feels like something that can either connect you or fracture you depending on how it\u2019s used. And I don\u2019t want to pretend otherwise just because it\u2019s uncomfortable. I don\u2019t want to be wanted like that. Maybe you’ve been chasing this too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a saying about art: \u201cIf it isn\u2019t embarrassing, you\u2019re not putting enough of yourself in it.\u201d In all honesty, I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d post this because it\u2019s so raw, so unfiltered, and very much me. Metaphorically, I\u2019m letting you under my sheets here: exposing myself, showing what intimacy really looks like for me, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2816"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2821,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2816\/revisions\/2821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordswomenmyths.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I haven\u2019t had a great run with relationships. I loved my ex-boyfriend a lot. Probably too much. Or maybe not too much – maybe just without armour. I loved him in that stupid, soft, unguarded way where you assume the other person will treat your heart like something fragile because that\u2019s how you<\/em> would treat theirs. That might have been naive. Or maybe the naivety was believing that love is always met with care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What hurts isn\u2019t that they want sex. I suppose it’s that they want it instead of<\/em> knowing me. Or before knowing me. Or without any interest in knowing me at all. Like intimacy is something you bypass to get to the physical, rather than the thing that gives the physical any meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I don\u2019t feel emotionally connected to someone, I don\u2019t feel physically connected either. My body doesn\u2019t respond to strangers. It responds to being known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hate being looked at, without being seen. Undress me with your eyes until my soul\u2019s all that remains.\u201d<\/strong>
I think I\u2019ve been trying to say that sentence my entire life. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the feeling. I don\u2019t want to be undressed with hands. I want to be undressed with attention and with care. With someone actually bothering to look at who I am beneath the surface.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Lately, this has bled into how I think about religion. About God. About Christianity. I don\u2019t have this neatly packaged belief system. I\u2019m not here to tell you I\u2019ve figured God out. I really haven\u2019t. But I have<\/em> been thinking about Jesus, about the Bible, about the idea of holiness that it encompasses – and especially about waiting.
Waiting until marriage is something that gets laughed at now and almost treated like a joke. Like a repression kink or a relic of a less enlightened time. And maybe for some people it is. But when I think about it, it doesn\u2019t feel like punishment. It feels like protection or like saying: this matters too much to rush. This deserves commitment. This deserves reverence.<\/strong> Sex is reverent. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is also why I can\u2019t reconcile myself with porn. Again – I\u2019m not judging anyone. I know how normal it is. But for me, it ruins intimacy. It turns desire into consumption. It teaches people to look without seeing. To want bodies without caring who\u2019s inside them. And ethically, I can\u2019t ignore the people behind the screen – the exploitation, the coercion, the damage that\u2019s so easy to dismiss when it\u2019s hidden.
Porn feels like the opposite of what I want. The opposite of tenderness. The opposite of being known. It replaces \u201cmaking love\u201d with something colder, more violent, more empty. And I hate that it\u2019s been sold to us as harmless.
At the centre of all of this is something embarrassingly simple: I want to be seen. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s my deepest desire. To be fully known and still chosen. Not rushed. Not reduced. Not treated like a body first and a person second.
Every time a conversation turns sexual too quickly, it feels like a small grief. Like confirmation that this world is louder about bodies than it is about souls. Sometimes it makes me feel unbearably alone. Like I\u2019m the only one chasing this kind of intimacy. Like I\u2019m asking for something unrealistic.
But I know I\u2019m not alone. I know there are other people who feel this too – quietly, awkwardly, sometimes ashamed of how deeply they want depth. So I\u2019m writing this for them as much as for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n