Do you ever get turned on by your own body/presentation?

Casey Peel

@roknrol As a card-carrying, decades-long practicing homo I can 100% confirm that there are many many gay men who are very into "dad bods". Indeed, I'd assert that the venn diagram of "dad bods" and "gay bears" has significant overlap.

@alice

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@gairdeachas unrelated to anyone's interest in dad bods, we should get together for drinks again

I don't get to hang out with nearly enough card-carrying homos

@roknrol

Casey Peel

@DodoTheDev
Yaaaaaaassss, love hearing this! Learning to like (much less love) your body is hard AF and I'm stoked that you've found someone who made you believe it!

@alice

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@alice I'm very hairy, dad bod shaped and have shoulders wider than any and all bus seats, not exactly no, I'm not exactly what people picture when "Enby" is brought up, I've no idea what people imagine but it usually isn't how I look

Casey Peel

@alice I'd love that! I'm still in Older Bear Mecca (ie Palm Springs) until mid March and we should get drinks when I'm back!

Sharp Cheddar Goblin

@alice Nope. Not very attractive cishet man here, nothing about my body turns me on and I've got decades of experience indicating no one else really thinks so either.

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@ProphetsCross yeah, (at least on Fedi) "enby" seems to be mostly synonymous with "femme-presenting nonbinary" or "femby" in most folx minds.

I'm of the opinion that when someone tells you they're nonbinary or an enby, then you know exactly one thing about them—that they're not cishet.

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@gairdeachas totally!

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@SharpCheddarGoblin 🫂

trainguyrom

@alice I've frankly put a lot of effort into self-improvement over the last 10 years, and I can absolutely appreciate the results both physical and mental, and I can appreciate how both might turn on a partner. I guess you could say it's the feeling that I can be sexy, that I can be a good partner, a good parent and a good family member, where that previous version of myself 10 years ago would struggle to be described as any of the above

Melissa Atwell

@alice Is there a way to change your vote? Because I meant to click “No” instead of “Yes” but cannot find an undo

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I voted "I'm nonbinary; yes". Up until a couple years ago I would've answered no.

I've always been bi/pansexual, so other folx gender wasn't really a factor in who I found attractive¹, but I'd been convinced that most people only liked me for my body, so I had a complicated relationship with it—a combination of living at the gym to make my body more attractive to people² and then hiding it under a big hoodie.

But since I've been in healthy relationships and started unlearning toxic things regarding my self-image and presentation, I've started finding my own body attractive for the first time.

The Little Wars

@alice its the third place for a reason. I am, once again, concerned about cishet men

deer witch

@alice ok so this is really well timed because I’m having ~gender things~ .

And um I realized for a while , esp in my 20s, I was presenting myself like who my ideal partner in bed would be, in part because that was way easier & highly socially rewarded.

So then, esp when I was still “straight,” sleeping or scening w/ men I wasn’t attracted to, i could get into it by focusing on aspects of me, because I looked like my definition of hottie. But only aspects, bc dysphoria!

deer witch

@alice btw huge congrats on the work of slowly making body more welcome of a home. I know it’s not easy.

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Heh, forgot the footnotes.

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@MelissaAtwell what's voted on Fedi stays on Fedi, unfortunately.

Natalie

@alice Ngl kinda read them as "it's more complicated but not gonna elaborate right now".

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@natkr that's the gist, yeah

Luke ✍️👖🦄

Circa 2014, prior to my transition, I practiced looking at myself in the mirror everyday after my shower, trying make myself to like my body. I despised it. It eventually worked. I stared long enough to start seeing past my own delusions about what it looked like, to see that I was hot!

That prep really made it easy for me once I recognized that I am trans. And I realize now, that I never despised my body, I was just didn't fit well in into my meatsuit with that configuration.
@alice