Girl on the Net

We’re none of us good at this – none of us are experts. Sex and relationships and love and body-confidence: we’re all stumbling wildly around, hoping that at some point we’ll hit on something wise. Or if not wise then at least a bit better, more useful. Something that’ll help us work out how to make the world feel awesome about us, or at least make us feel awesome about ourselves.

I’ve struggled before with trying to explain how I feel about my body. While I want to wave a flag and shout ‘yay me!’ into the faces of people who sneer, but deep down I want to kick myself and whisper ‘do it better’ to the reflection in the mirror.

This week’s guest blog, by Anandamide, is beautiful and excellent – it touches on not just the feeling of insecurity but the feeling of inadequacy at feeling so insecure. He nails it in a way I think I’ve failed to, and made me throb with sadness.

Someone else’s story: fucking but not touching

I swear I can’t figure myself out; and I swear maybe I never will.

Spending hours a day, days a week tearing it in the gym; trying to win the impossible race to impossible perfection so that I can rip my top off in a dark, dry-ice club and feel like I’m at least treading water. So the neurotic scrabblings inside my head can be eased, daft of course because you shouldn’t feed the trolls.

And last night in Fire, the last night of Fire for a fair few weeks, I was flavour of the evening. Ended up rolling high on drugs and hormones grinding against a 20 year old for 30 minutes, lost and soaring and blind. And of course he was hot, because I only get with guys if they’re hot, unless I’m in a dark room or so high I can barely see. This time I could see, and I see where it’s going. So I make my excuses, and go. Leaving him on his own looking mournfully at me. Put my top back on, take it off and put it back on the right way ’round, then walk. Past the taxi rank, past the Hoist; past the Griffin, going home.

‘You will call me, yeah?’

And I nod, and I’d like to, because he’s a sweet guy, and he’s only 20, and he’s only been here 6 months. It must be lonely. So we’ve been texting, and I had said maybe I’ll be free this evening, but I’ve spent all day on a comedown in pyjamas and don’t see any reason to change that now it’s dark, and windy, and Hallowe’en.

I think he just wants company, and a shag. And I’m sure I want a shag. I must want a shag. He’s hot, and I’ve wanked twice today, and I’m idly watching porn. But you know sex is kinda scary, sex with someone who knows your name and knows your face, who could judge you, and analyse you, and decide maybe no.

I’ve been running from that for a long time. It can’t go on. I feel lingering stirrings of jealousy when I see everyone else lining up quick shags or fuckbuddies, but I recoil at the opportunity myself.

So still I spend hours a day, days a week tearing away in the gym; pouring protein down my neck and exhausting myself trying to win an impossible race; so I can rip my top off in a dark drug hazed club and feel that I’m in with a chance of being wanted; so I can be desired, but never held.

I swear I can’t figure myself out.

And I swear maybe no one ever does.

I’m going to see him, I’m going to neck a Viagra before just to make sure I get hard – and you know the stupid thing is I don’t even know that he wants a shag? I wonder, sometimes, how many guys out there are fucking just so they can be held when it’s over; how many lonely people there are out there taking a shag with a stranger as the price for feeling a heartbeat next to their own, breath on their shoulder, warmth in their arms. I wonder sometimes if any of us know why we’re running in this race, or if we have the faintest idea what we’re running towards.

But I’ll see him, and I’ll neck a Viagra before just to make sure, and we’ll shag and it’ll probably be fun, what with him being hot and cute and lonely. And maybe even for a few moments I’ll forget the scrabbling neuroticism inside my mind, worrying about him thinking about me, about me thinking about him. And maybe we can just cum, and it’ll be a brief bliss, and then I can just hold him, and he can feel my heartbeat, and we can feel like we’re not alone, like just this is enough.

And staggering though darkrooms and saunas, that’s the part of sex I always lose out on. Forgetful fucks and guys whose faces I never see, all wild and sharp and fierce. Fucking without touching, all the time longing to be touched. Those heartbeats afterwards; strong, deep, slow.