why is there so much advise on, and interest in, making sex interesting or fun? i think it is perhaps because it isn't... there isn't similar advice/interest for the far more appealing activities of kissing and holding... i have a nervous feeling that i will come to loath anyone i have sex with because it seems such a slimy escapist activity. of course this is like the guinness test... i haven't tried it, but i know i don't like it; then again i haven't tried copryphagy or base-jumping sans parachute, but am pretty certain they aren't likely to appeal to me.

evolution has shackled us with an overbearing fascination with sex, but also with a large degree of caution toward sex - likely due to disease problems. evolution has attempted to make us find sexual activity compulsory through a cocktail of obnoxious narcotics, commonly called hormones. in my experience these hormones serve only to annoy and are a complete embarrassment.

i suppose my annoyance with hormones is no doubt because i only notice when they get it wrong, the rest of the time they run my life very efficiently... i am, for example, very grateful not to be wandering around the size of a newborn baby. i am happy with my ability to change aspects of my metabolism in reaction to poisons or temperature change. i like having drive to do things well. in fact i can think of only one complaint with my hormones, and that is their bizarre 'wish' for sex.

i know what i need to make me happy, and despite consistent protestation by hormones, it is not sex. the only times i've felt real happiness, and more importantly felt safe, was when holding/being held byⁱ and kissing one of the few girls that i've so far felt comfortable with... it's not that i never thought of sex - hormones seems incapable of allowing that - but that i knew i actually just wanted to stay holding this girl for a very long time. i felt safe, and the immense relief that goes with that.

perhaps if i weren't so afraid all the time i wouldn't feel that way... i have many reasons for my avoidance of sex, and make no mistake: that is exactly what i do. so far, i've only given reasons based in the belief that there is something better. there are, however, many aspects of my understanding of sex that i find more than unappealing...

the image of a sweaty seething mass of flesh, despite adamant hormonal glee, continues to elicit only horrified cringing in me... but then everybody knows i'm off my chomp. however as far as i can tell this abhorrence isn't maladaptationⁱⁱ: it's sex i don't want, not children... and it is perfectly possible to have the second without the firstⁱⁱⁱ.

the whole idea of finding a closer, more intimate, understanding of someone through escape into a hormonal narcosis strikes me as fanciful, ludicrous and downright silly. escape is not something i want; i don't like a lot of things about life, but i've never seen the point of any escape short of suicide - maybe i am too efficient :-/ if i wanted to escape, i'm sure i'd have been dead long ago.

many people seem to think i crave chemical escapism - but then again most people seem to think i'm gay^iv - perhaps because i think all narcotics should be legalised... however i have no wish to try any of them... i did get myself addicted to alcohol (see below), at least by my standards. this annoyed me, so i don't drink. for similar reasons i will probably stop eating chocolate and drinking tea and coffee (i am writing this 'high' on caffeine after a long week of too many late nights nibbling on lindt). i escape into music, at least sometimes... i also use music to help me understand this madness into which evolution has placed me - people often try to explain their madness through art forms.

having someone to hold is the only escape that i crave, and i think it hardly counts as escape - the point for me is to enmesh myself further into the world through a greater understanding of someone. it is also hardly escapism to seek out the one thing i fear most.

it is only with those few girls i've felt that closeness, and to a lesser degree some other more briefly met girls, that i've felt safe. yet why don't i normally feel safe? the answer is an insane irony: i'm deeply afraid of people and in particular of touching or being touched by people^v. i expend considerable energies evading peoples' touch... and all the while reducing any chance i might have of coming into contact^vi with someone who will take the fear away. this has been, until recently, largely subconscious.

<aside>: the reason i overindulged in alcohol was that alcohol seemed to reduce the fear, although not with consistency or to any great degree. i hoped to learn how to mimic the mental processes that led to this reduction when sober, and improve on those processes. it didn't work, and in the process i came to enjoy alcohol more than i think is healthy.</aside>

so when i meet a possibly interesting girl, i am not only apprehensive of their future desire for sex - it seems fairly inevitable given the backdrop of constant hormonal chanting - but i'm also afraid that they'll come anywhere near me, or me near them. it amazes me i ever managed to hold even one girl.

when thinking about these things, i often try to compare this fear to my phobias of heights and of snakes; the comparison is disingenuous... those fears are lesser by orders of magnitude. i can to a large degree control those fears, especially the vertigo... i deliberately bait the fears in the hope of breaking them... i am perfectly able and willing to talk about them. none of the above applies to my fear of touch... this is the first time i will have told anyone more than a bare shadow of my fears. i've had this article in my mind since 1998 at the latest, but have been too freaked out to even write it down.

yet, this fear is probably the single biggest/best explanation for a plethora of my behaviour patterns, and this list is far from exhaustive:-

1. i don't hug people unless i really have to... this includes family, and includes irc which doesn't even involve physical touching!
2. i flinch at being brushed past while walking around - i seem to leave much more room for people to get past than others do, or expect.
3. i avoid sitting on sofas or beds, because someone could sit next to me. similarly i sit in corners, often with legs drawn in: can be uncomfortable for someone with long legs.
4. i find it excessively difficult to make eye contact.
5. i often avoid parties, and generally don't seem to socialize nearly as much as my peers do, or i want to do... this is particularly obvious in my never knowing any gossip, and also in my naivety^vii.
6. i walk very quickly and actually prefer to blade. people rarely try to catch me; listening to music on headphones also helps >:-).
7. i cross the road when i see groups of people my age, although this could just be common sense... males my age (16-25) are by far the most likely age/sex group to get into fights, and i have no wish to be in a fight.
8. i rarely leave my room, and when i do it is rarely not with a particular thing to do... i will get very jittery if i unexpectedly have to talk to someone while on these 'missions'.
9. i have many times stopped training in the various martial arts i've tried (starting with judo at prep school), while being consistently and deeply interested in them... hopefully i will keep going this time: now that i know the problem, it is easier to counter it. to some degree my discomfort is obviously apparent as every time i do sparring, i get told not to be so nervous, or to relax.
10. i dance in a manner that seems to be designed to stop anyone getting close to me, although i'm not sure it is so designed because i just did it... my dancing consists of rapid pseudorandom - sequences, built from a 'language' of basic steps, to a rhythm in the music - lower body movements, with the arms kept fairly static. the last is probably to avoid hitting people - i've almost trained myself out of it.
11. i don't show affection, even to those who blatantly want and deserve it - this includes family.
12. some of my clothes seem to make people want to touch them... this makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.
13. i am often very quick to notice people moving strangely around me; no doubt a precaution against people reaching me.
14. i trained myself to stop being ticklish, and i'm very ticklish, not because being tickled annoyed me or was unpleasant, but because it meant people touched me... similarly i don't involve myself in fights, even family play fights - in which all of my other siblings participate... when i am forced into a fight or fight-like situation i have a tendency to strike out much akin to a cornered lion with cub... hence i now have a second reason to avoid 'play fights': i don't want to hurt someone.
15. i've never been happy to be involved in team sports... i run (a well known solitary activity [stop sniggering at the back]: e.g. "the loneliness of the long distance runner".), i play racquet sports (where there is a net between you and anyone else - i've avoided squash, mainy due to high risk of crashing into other people; i remember deciding this when i was introduced to squash at the tender age of ~9, which suggests this fear is not a recent thing), i play cricket (a team sport where you never get anywhere near other players), when i rowed it was in a single skull, when i was forced to play rugby i always ran round players, even when told repeatedly to run through them.
16. i don't like cities... places that have appealed to me are desolate part of norway and deserts... not many people there. this is in fact the largest reason i have for wanting to emigrate from the uk as soon as i can get away with it; despite overwhelming political reasons.
17. i never initiate handshakes; i'm much happier with the eastern habit of bowing - far more civilized ;-).
18. i think my reluctance to use the word 'love', even to family and others whom i obviously do love, is because of its connotations of physical affection.
19. i have a tendency to mumble and talk very quietly - i'm so used to doing it that it seems normal volume to me, and when i try to speak up, my mind hears shouting.
20. i convince myself that to introduce myself to a person would be to intrude into their space, because i know i don't cope well with people pushing themselves on me... yet i am always cheered up when someone friendly intrudes to talk to me, even if i'm a usually too flustered to react coherently.

i should point out that i love talking with people, i am constantly wanting more information about anything and everything... i could not live without people around - for a while i tried to be a hermit, and become even more stressed... and it doesn't work to only talk to people remotely (e.g. phone, email , irc, icq,...). this last doesn't make much sense to me, although i'd guess that it is something at a hormonal level.

i think part of why i need to talk to people is that i want to feel that there is mutual understanding between me and someone else. it has never happened, but sometimes i've felt close. i know i rarely have a very accurate idea of how people are thinking, their thought is just too alien. i am told many feel similarly towards me. this is not something that makes me feel secure: people who are even minorly different from what someone considers 'normal' are likely to be on the receiving end of a concerted aggression.

it is worth noting that much of the above could lead to the conclusion that i was some sort of puritan: temperance, and an almost manichean attitude to sex... there is however a large and important difference: i have no wish to force my perversions on the rest of the world.

and there you have it: a look inside my mind, which for a long time i was unwilling to take, and then was unwilling to discuss, is finally available for all to mock :-). i hope this helps all those who have so far failed to understand the way i think, and perhaps it will encourage more to look closely at just what their mind is doing while they are busily trying to thrive.

2611 words.

© 13/7/2001 the auroran sunset. all rights reserved.
last modified: thursday 31st august 2006 11:25:10. (gmt -0400)

footnotes

1. there must be words that better express the reciprocal nature of these things... you don't kiss someone, they don't kiss you... it is only worth the energy if both give themselves wholly to the activity. c.f. 'stranger in a strange land' by heinlein.
2. one of the few good definitions of madness i've come across regards only that which doesn't work as madness. of course, you have to first decide what you want... in evolutionary terms, madness is that which doesn't seem likely to help your dna propagate, although the whole idea that our own dna is so wonderful that it must be copied all over the place seems faintly preposterous.
3. whether this is a good idea is another matter: what happens when all our wonderful gadgets run out of power or are otherwise unavailable? but then again, i wouldn't be unhappy for humans to become extinct - they aren't a very nice or lovable bunch.
4. people seem incapable of allowing me to meander around my home town, or anywhere else for that matter, without vocalising their opinion that i prefer males to females with a range of colourful synonyms. i get the impression that they expect me to find this insulting or hurtful. i fail to see why they'd think i'd be interesting in their opinion, how they come by such a patently false opinion, or why they'd think i'd find such an opinion insulting. some of my feelings toward such people are expressed brilliantly in my favourite 'fuck you' song: 'glad to be gay' - the tom robinson band.
5. it's hard to tell which because they are always co-synchronous.
6. pun intended.
7. when i was seventeen i was for a time very good friends with a particular girl. sometime into our friendship she asked me if i minded just being friends. i thought this a little strange, as we were 'just' friends, so i said i didn't mind. from then on she avoided me... this considerably confused and perturbed me for a significant period. it was only sometime over a year later, when my sister was telling me lines used to end going out with someone, that i realised firstly that i'd been 'dumped' and secondly that i'd been going out in the first place! (c.f. texas - insane).