Sexiness Shame

So it’s time to revisit how uncomfortable I am with sexuality. Life seems to be pushing me that way at the moment, and while it is SO uncomfortable, I know it is a good thing.

I’ve been trying to figure out why exactly it bothers me so much. Nothing obvious really resonates with me. I don’t like being looked at in a sexual way. I don’t like others portraying themselves in a sexual way. I don’t like people thinking of each other in a sexual way. It all is just really uncomfortable and sometimes very emotionally upsetting.

Take a look at the celebrities I like. I like celebrities that are not sluts, and that have a humbleness and/or insecurity about them. The ones that don’t try to portray this whole vixen crap. Jennifer Lawrence, Kristen Stewart. They are real. Well, my definition of “real”, I guess. They just go about their business – they’re not competing in some appearance contest, and yet they are naturally gorgeous anyway. They’re not trying. They’re not putting on a persona to sell themselves. Maybe I’m projecting onto them, but that’s what I like. That’s what I feel I am, or at least was, or at least want to be. Yet I seem to be so consumed by my discomfort, so I’m really not “going about my business”, in fact I’ve downright declared war on the immoral sex appeal shamelessly demonstrated by people such as Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox. I’ve downright HATED people like them all these years.

I’m starting to come around, though. Not only have I now separated actor from character, and separated a person’s actions from the deep inner need they are trying to fill, but I’ve seen them, at least Angelina, in a different light. I saw an interview with Angelina as a teenage girl. She seems so unsuspecting. She seems like she is just exploring life, trying to be accepted, just like everyone else. Somehow in my mind I turned her into this super-villain, the figurehead of everything sexually immoral. But that poor girl, now a woman, has been objectified her whole life, and here I am essentially doing the same thing. She is ACTING. Now I notice her slouching and her normalness amongst her “strong” and “sexy” characteristics in movies. I can kinda see through the airbrushed makeup to the human being that is just doing her job the best she can. She isn’t constantly trying to manipulate the world into being hypnotized by her, as I once assumed she was. I’ve come to realize that I don’t actually hate her.

In dance class, we are working on our stage performance. We’ve been asked to have an aura about ourselves as if we were “the sexiest woman in the world”. As we know, that is essentially the worst thing you could ever ask of me. I don’t even WANT to be seen that way. I want to avoid that at all costs. It makes me completely uncomfortable. A powerful, strong woman who doesn’t need a man? Hell yeah! I’ll portray that any day. I love it. But portray straight-up sexy? To FEEL sexy? To put myself in that mental space? No no no no no. We were asked to find women we thought were sexy, and to try to imitate how they walk and carry themselves and everything at our next class. I’m at such a loss. They are thinking people like Beyoncé, but that is not natural for me. Obviously, if I hated Angelina so much, she might be the obvious choice for who I think is sexy. But then the anger and discomfort rises up again. Anyone else I like is just naturally “sexy” in an unassuming way, or in a powerful “I don’t need a man” way, and those just don’t really work for this exercise we are doing. So I’m stuck. I seem to have a very small amount of time to work through a cornucopia of lifetime issues, it seems. But it’s good. It’s a little push from the universe that I need to start addressing this a little more firmly. We’ll see what I can come up with for this exercise.

I recently came to grasp the concept that beauty comes from within. So does sexy. Sexy is a state of mind. I shouldn’t feel like I don’t deserve to be in that mental space. You know what’s weird though? I know I used to be extremely attractive, and I felt the same way then. In fact, I think the weight I’ve gained is at least partially protecting me from having to feel like I’m being looked at in that way. So the whole “not feeling deserving” thing fits but doesn’t fit at the same time. I didn’t feel any differently about it then. So it’s not just about my weight and stuff from right now. It’s something more. Obviously my explanation has always been that it is wrong to objectify women. But this is way more personal than that. I just wish I could figure out why I feel this way. Nothing traumatic happened to me that would explain it. I was fat and made fun of in elementary school, but that itself isn’t it. It doesn’t fit the shame and fear I feel. Maybe it was being told I shouldn’t wear certain things because of my weight. Maybe it was me being sheltered from public displays of affection. Maybe it was me being isolated, telling myself I was ugly, and seeing pretty people around me having fantastic lives, while I felt like I didn’t deserve anything, including love. I just wish I could figure out what it was so I can start working through it. But maybe I’ll never know. Maybe it was all of it, and there isn’t a jackpot explanation that I can work through. Maybe I have to forget trying to figure it out, and just use affirmations to convince myself I am “sexy”, even when I’m not at the moment. I have to convince myself it isn’t awkward and unnatural and disgusting and evil. No wonder I hate other people acting sexy if I have such hatred and shame for putting myself in that mindset. I just wish I knew what to work on. But I guess I just have to take it day by day. There is no big “plan”. Just work on the confidence and work on removing those negative feelings about it. This might be a good candidate for EFT/Tapping. We’ll see.