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

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

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

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

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.

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

Heh, forgot the footnotes.

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

@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".

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

@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

Juniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲

@alice hmm, I'm always curious about people's pan footnotes. A lot about pansexuality resonates with me, except for the empirical fact that I am almost (but not absolutely) never attracted to men.

🌱 Alyssa 🏳️‍🌈

@eruonna @alice For a long time I thought I was theoretically pan. Then I did some science. I am now emperically pan.

Alkaid Proof

@alice More indifferent than anything.

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

@eruonna so, when I say "other folx gender wasn't really a factor in who I found attractive¹", the ¹ stands for "it's more complicated than that", specifically:

- body hair is a huge turnoff for me, and (most) men tend to let that stuff grow wild
- "boy-smell²" is another big turnoff for me, and surprise, it's significantly more common on boys
- in general, men need to put in a similar amount of work³ as women for me to find them attractive

So it shakes out that I end up being hot for way more women and other femme-presenting folx than I do men or masc-presenting folx, just by merit of two of my biggest turn-offs happening to be *way* more common in men (gay men offset this math somewhat, but they tend to be gay, so ‍️).

² that musky gym sock smell. I know some folx love it—hell, they make like a hundred 12-in-1 body products to make men specifically smell *more* like that, so someone must think it smells good. Give me vanillas, strawberries, brass, lock lubricant, etc *any⁴* day.

³ most don't.

Au Ti Va Volade :v_enby:

@alice Like any important scientific article

Juniper 🏳️‍⚧️🌲

@alice I really get that amount of work thing, especially looking at man / woman couples¹ where you can see them side by side, and it is clear that she is putting in work and he really isn't.

¹ new weirdest slash pairing

⁴ I saw that

Aprettyture! [0172]

@alice given ive gone through my camera roll and gone "oh i don't remember meeting this pretty woman" before realizing it's. that's me, yeah,. you can guess my vote

- carrie