Since we’re talking desire, I’m going to lay off both the feminism and the manpretty and talk about the different types of attraction I notice. (I’d love comments on this!) I’m writing this with male pronouns since that’s my usual frame of reference, but I’m pretty sure these swing all ways.
There is, of course, the knock-you-senseless physical attraction. That feeling that, damn, that is a lovely man and I want to touch him. It could be a body shape, a walk, eyes, a smile, whatever, but it’s that kind of desire that hits you squarely in the guts and moves down…yeah. And it’s purely physical. And of course, most of the celebrity pictures we’ve been posting fall into that category.
But so many of that type, as soon as you talk to them, don’t measure up.
Then there’s the one I dealt with recently–the ones that I uninterestedly think, “well, he’s kinda cute,” and then move on. But after talking to them for a little while I get drawn in, by a wicked sense of humor, a joint love for some or other crazy thing, and suddenly that “kinda cute” has grown into really wanting to know what their skin tastes like. Crush central, in other words. Where the crush is born of an actual spark between you, and it’s much harder to shake.
There’s the type that grows the longer you know someone, the kind that really comes out of love, not just lust. Those people you may know for years and then realize that you’ve been falling for them all along. This is so rare, but I think it can be the best kind. Except when it blows up in your face, but I ain’t tellin’ that story.
I tend to get these weird aesthetic crushes–my girlcrushes can fall into this category–where I think someone is beautiful and want to be around them and look at them but don’t really have any sexual desire involved at all.
Sometimes I don’t know where someone fits, when they’re in between crush and just appreciation and it seems the only thing missing then is chemistry, when I don’t really know what I want from it, sometimes I want to touch them and sometimes I recoil from it, unsure. Now that I think about those, none of them have turned out terribly well for me. Maybe I should stick with type 1, 2, or 3.
Though of course the type 1’s change, as soon as you actually get to know them, into 2’s or into that other kind, those people who are sexy but personally repugnant.
And of course you have the friends that you love to flirt with but don’t really want to date, or the friends that you’d love to date if the world were a different place and one or the other of you were single, or the friend you really, really wish you were attracted to but you just aren’t and it sucks because they’d be wonderful.
Just discovered you and this female desire week from the Feministe link. Love it. I work as a director of live theatre and I occasionally get obsessive actor crushes, where I’m staring at the actor all day (which is my job) but also feeling the air is charged by that. I’m married, so I’ve never learned if it follows into the bedroom. But it does personalize this question of the ethics of male objectification. Another female director I work with is known by us to have a shirtless man in just about every production. I say good for her. We see objectified women in the 80(ish) percent of plays that are directed by men. Why not entertain the ladies for a change?
Anyway, nice to meet you. Keep these lovely thoughts pouring.