You know what ‘the ick’ is, right? A feeling you get for someone based off a silly/cringe/weird thing they did or said or are, which torpedoes your burgeoning attraction for them. Little moments of disgust which, once noticed, mean you can no longer fancy that person. It is often understood that ‘the ick’ is both irrational and unavoidable. About a month ago (sorry I’m slow) Stefano Hatfield published an opinion piece in the I Paper about how terrible ‘the ick’ is as a concept, so it feels like a good time to dust off my rant about why I hate this phrase so very much.
Broadly, Hatfield’s argument against ‘the ick’ is that it’s predominantly weaponised by women against men, and in a world where men have so many challenges on their mental health it’s immoral to hand them another one. I agree broadly with the point, but I don’t actually think ‘the ick’ is as gendered as Hatfield claims. Certainly in my life, I’ve heard/read it used by people across the gender spectrum. But that’s not wildly important, because my argument against ‘the ick’ works regardless of gender.
The phrase ‘the ick’ gives me the ick purely because it is just an excuse for shaming. Let me explain.
What gives people ‘the ick’?
People often admit to feeling ‘the ick’ over things which their crush cannot help, or which are demonstrably just silly or harmless. For example:
- they breathed too loudly
- they carried a shoulder bag
- they danced awkwardly
- etc.
Someone on BlueSky told me that they’ve heard ‘the ick’ used by some to discuss things that aren’t shamey, but outright red flags:
- they shouted at a waiter
- they won’t introduce you to their friends
- they drive badly when they’re angry
- etc.
I’m going to leave these aside for now – I think they’re misapplications of the phrase ‘the ick’ and we should call them what they are (red flags, warning signs, reasons to run a fucking mile).
But the first examples are ‘icks’ in the sense I’m talking about, and the sense that Hatfield was discussing in his piece.
What does it mean to get ‘the ick’?
The phrase itself implies a certain level of knowing humility on the part of the person who feels it. Admitting to getting ‘the ick’ usually means admitting that you shouldn’t write someone off as a dating prospect based purely on this one thing. At the same time, ultimately ‘the ick’ is presented as something over which you have no control – getting ‘the ick’ is something that happens to you, like the weather or bad luck – so you can’t really be judged for feeling and acting upon it. And that’s why it boils my piss.
Because let’s be real: when we talk about ‘the ick’ what we’re really discussing is shame. When you say ‘the way this person breathed gave me the ick’ you are saying ‘the way this person breathes disgusts me, it sits outside the norm of what I expect.’ You are not necessarily directly telling them that they should be ashamed of it – as I say, ‘the ick’ implies a level of knowing humility. But the fact that you raised it in the first place does carry heavy notes of ‘therefore you should stop doing this.’ Stop. Be ashamed. Be different. What you are doing is Not Normal.
Shame as a social tool
I talk a lot about shame on this blog, and wanting to banish it from the bedroom. In my dream world, people will never be shamed for things they did not have an active choice in: their sexuality, mental health conditions, body type, way of breathing or dancing or sitting or just plain existing in this world. But that doesn’t mean we should abandon shame altogether – if there’s one thing centuries of sex shaming has taught us it’s that shame is a powerful social tool. Enough shame, applied in the right way, can help to change behaviour.
One of the reasons I spent so much of my life shaving my armpits – despite the agony of ingrowing hairs rubbing against the tight elastic of my bra – is that I had been taught to be disgusted by my own pit hair. I spent the best part of 20 years diligently scraping all the hair from under my arms. Sometimes from between my legs. More than once I paid a stranger to pour hot wax on some of my most sensitive areas then yank the hair out by the root. You know why I did that? Shame! I had been shamed, or seen other women being shamed, for not removing their hair, so in order to avoid that same fate I pre-emptively got rid of as much of mine as possible, even though it caused me agony and dermal cysts. This is the bad type of shame, and even if it is dressed up in a cute phrase (people had definitely used the equivalent of ‘the ick’ on me, telling me ‘it’s just not really my preference, to be honest. I prefer it when you’re shaved’) your personal issue with body hair is still not an acceptable thing to dump into someone else’s lap.
Shame when applied correctly can produce good changes, though. When we are trying to change attitudes and behaviour, shame is a powerful weapon for good. If you stand up to your homophobic/sexist/racist colleague when they make a bigoted comment, telling them ‘that is not acceptable and I won’t laugh along with it’? That’s you using shame as a social tool. You’re saying ‘I don’t agree with this behaviour and I am willing to shame you if I see/hear you doing it.’
One of the golden rules when it comes to slinging insults at your enemies, I think, is to consider first whether that person made a moral choice to be this way. It’s important to focus your ire on their choices rather than their existence as a person: the things they’ve actually done wrong. So when we slag off the venal, dangerous, white-supremacist Donald Trump, we focus on those things – the choices – rather than things like his weight and general appearance. He doesn’t choose to look the way he does, and even if he did his physical appearance isn’t harming anyone else, but he chose to be a Nazi and we should shame him for that.
‘The ick’ says more about you than them
So far I haven’t seen or heard ‘the ick’ applied in any way that gives me useful information about the subject, only the speaker. Because how and when somebody applies shame can be a useful benchmark of their morals in general. ‘The ick’ tells me that the speaker felt a sense of disgust about something, they acknowledge it might not be an appropriate target of shame, but then they… dispense shame anyway.
In his article, Hatfield opines that ‘the ick’ is used more by women about men than vice versa, and honestly he might be right – I’ve not done any in-depth studies. Though I did take huge issue with his assertion that:
“Of course, men get the ick too. But these rarely carry the same viral weight, nor do they seem to hold the same power to humiliate and undermine confidence.”
LOL sure. OK. Men’s comments don’t hold the same power to humiliate. Tell that to every single version of me that’s existed since I was a teenager, living in the constant shadow of men’s vocally (and sometimes cruelly) expressed ‘preferences’ that I look or act a certain way lest – horror of horrors – they stop wanting to fuck me.
What’s more, if we’re talking gender and ‘the ick’ I’d say it’s more important to point out how often people’s ‘icks’ are things that seemingly reinforce gendered behaviour or expectations. How many of the ‘ick’s that women get about men are subtle (or not-so-subtle) attempts to punish them for displaying behaviours that aren’t traditionally masculine? A man carried a bag – eww! Gross! That’s what women do! And conversely, how often are the ‘ick’s that people have about women actually punishment for behaviour that’s considered manly – or ‘unladylike‘?
But fundamentally the concept of ‘the ick’ is bullshit regardless of gender. You’re allowed to go off someone for any reason, and say ‘no’ to them for any reason, but if you’re shouting about the reason and using the term ‘ick’ I think it’s pretty clear that you’re dispensing at least some shame, for something that is almost certainly morally neutral.
The same goes for terms like ‘preference’. Which I’m thinking about more these days as I dive back into dating. Of course you’re allowed to have a preference when it comes to who you fuck – if a guy has a preference for women who are shorter than me, I’d rather not show up in his matches thanks very much. And honestly, even if your preferences are fatphobic or transphobic or racist, I don’t get to tell you that you should have different ones. No one gets to dictate that, not even someone as consistently correct and brilliant and sexy as me. But the second you speak your ‘preferences’ aloud, they cease to become private and personal, they now have weight in the world and the power to assign shame. And I absolutely can and will judge you based on how you apply shame, because that is a moral choice. It is only by your moral choices that I can judge who you are.
Telling someone you’d ‘prefer’ them to shave their armpits is, to my mind, the same as saying someone’s armpit hair gave you ‘the ick.’ Telling a man you ‘prefer’ him not to wear a shoulder bag or dance in an exuberant manner is, likewise, similar to saying that his exuberant dancing or man-bag gave you ‘the ick.’ Telling us you ‘prefer’ your men tall or that short guys give you ‘the ick’ gives us very little info about the men in question, but it says something important and noteworthy about you.
‘The ick’ is just shame in new clothes. Take it off.
7 Comments
I’ve read this a few times now, and I agree with it. CONGRATULATIONS 😂 I’m desperate to not make this a gendered conversation, and I’m fearful of pushing the discussion somewhere else I didn’t intend.
I do find there are lots of insidious ways that people shame others, and personally, it’s easy to activate me in that way because I am working through a lot of deep, glued in shame.
Still, my own experience has been that the ‘ick’™️ is simply a justified “eww gross boys” type of behaviour, respective to the article you quote and your writing here. It’s a “you’re ugly and can’t sit with us” masquerading as subjective opinion and preference.
I’ve been on and off in the kink scene for a number of years, and see the legitimate “Your Kink Is Not My Kink and That’s Okay” used in the same way.
I’ve had to do a lot of work to not be ashamed of my kinks, yet constantly get “I HATE FEET UGH” under the banner of YKINMK. No, you think it’s weird and want to express it and discuss it publicly without feeling guilty while demanding complete acceptance of your own self. It’s one reason why I’ve stepped back from that scene now, despite wanting to be a part of it.
I think I disagree with some aspects of talking about preferences though, but maybe I can’t see another viewpoint. For instance, let’s say we were long terms partners (✨MANIFESTING✨). I preferred shaved pittys at one time, but now I don’t. However, your preference is absolutely to keep those underarms shorn.
If I were to express this, from my point of view I’m not trying to shame you or deliver you unto ickdom. I’d be letting you know what I like. You don’t necessarily have to do anything about it, and shouldn’t technically (btw, I also love the article you wrote on body autonomy).
Yes, we could split up over it (PLEASE GOD NO), although throwing away years of you putting your feet in my face while I have a tiddle (and sorting the water bill I suppose) over armpit hair seems dramatic on the surface.
There would likely be other issues to cause a breakup, but if not, where does that leave us? I would have to accept something I don’t have a preference for, and you don’t get to express your autonomy.
I suppose it’s hard to understand what you consider your balance between autonomy and compromise out of connection. Either way, that’s separate to the topic in this post, which I am doing a clap at a lot. Thank you for the post!
OK so there are a couple of things here and I want to separate them: the feet thing (and people ‘ick’ing it) and the body hair thing. Let’s go feet first (lol).
I personally love it when guys have a thing for my feet. I’m not a foot person per se, but there’s something very cool about having a body part sexualised that I hadn’t really considered sexy before. So I’m not gonna ‘ick’ that or say anything negative about it. However, I know that for a lot of people, feet are a real hard limit. So the question here really is about how it’s being presented, and what the actual reaction is. It’s not clear from your comment how this is coming up in discussions, but as with any kink, it’s important to raise it in a consensual context. If you’re raising it consensually (for instance, people chatting about what their kinks are) and receiving ‘icks’/ewws then that’s not OK and those people are being unkind – sounds like you’ve done the right thing by withdrawing from them. I do think it’s OK for people to express their own opinions and preferences, though, as long as they do so kindly. It is unfair to ‘ick’ someone’s consensual kinks, but it’s not compulsory for them to greet your kinks with a ‘yay’.
An equivalent for me, I think, would be ‘Daddy’. Personally I am not a fan of the word and I never want to use it in my own sex play, for various reasons that are personal to me. I find it quite upsetting, especially if someone expects me to use that word in relation to them when we’re fucking, it is a hard limit and I find it distressing. However, I am able to have lots of conversations with people who *do* enjoy that kink, in the context of sharing our own desires, because I’m able to say ‘not for me, but I love that you’ve found something that does it for you.’ Unfortunately there are quite a few men who have, in the past, tried to push their ‘Daddy’ kink onto me without my consent and those situations very much are an ‘eww/ick’ scenario: someone addressing me in a way that assumes they have my consent to be my ‘Daddy’, for instance. I feel the same when people try to role play sexy chat with me in comments, assuming that because I write publicly about sex I will be OK with joining in on their own personal fantasies about me. Again: eww. Ick. This isn’t specific to a kink, it’s specific to the action: they are behaving in ways that are non-consensual, and so I’m making a moral judgment about them (what they are doing is not OK!) off the back of alarm bells that are ringing (they do not treat me with consent).
So. When you’re raising your foot kink with people, my key question would be around whether you’re raising it in a way that is respectful and consensual (“While we’re discussing kinks, I have a real thing for feet.”) or whether they’re being thrown uninvited into conversations where people would have legitimate reasons for recoiling. If it’s the former, then of course it’s not OK for people to be shitty about them – they’re your kinks, and as long as they’re being done with consenting adults, it’s no one else’s place to throw scorn. However, from the way you word your comment (‘is simply a justified “eww gross boys” type of behaviour’) I think it’s possible that they’re seeing the way you raise it as non-consensual or pushy. Which is slightly heightened by my own discomfort at the way you’re framing the next part of your comment – as if you and *I* have a relationship, which I’d prefer you not to do for the reasons stated above.
Onto that second point, about body hair, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong idea here so I want to be absolutely clear: you’re framing the concept of body hair as if it is something on which two people could ‘compromise’ but I do not believe this is one of the areas on which people should ever be under any pressure whatsoever to ‘compromise’. Compromise is if one of you wants pizza and the other wants pasta so you go to an Italian restaurant rather than order Dominos. Compromise is not ‘I change a part of my body because you find it slightly more aesthetically pleasing.’ When it comes to bodily autonomy, there can and should be absolutely no compromise. Should you ‘compromise’ with a partner who makes you feel bad about your body shape? Should you seek to ‘compromise’ with somebody who shames you for the way you walk or dress? Would you seek to ‘compromise’ if your partner told you that they had a ‘preference’ for a different size/shape of dick? Could you ‘compromise’ with someone who wanted to have sex way more than you did, so you have to twist your own self into knots to try and ‘dispense’ the sex they have requested even though you don’t really want it? Absolutely not, in any of these scenarios.
“I suppose it’s hard to understand what you consider your balance between autonomy and compromise out of connection.”
I don’t think there is a balance. I think I should only date people who acknowledge the important truth that my body is my body, and I have to live in it every single day. I am constantly bombarded by societal messages that seek to tell me I should be smaller, fitter, prettier, younger, less hairy, etc, and it’s exhausting, and any good relationship should be a safe space away from that kind of pressure. My need to feel comfortable within my own body is a basic one that always trumps any partner’s ‘preference’ for me to be a certain way. https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/my-body-dont-like-it-dont-fuck-it/ I mean this very sincerely. It is never ever OK to state a ‘preference’ about my body unless I have asked you specifically and directly, in a way that means you’d be letting me down if you lie. There is certainly never a call for offering unprompted, unsolicited information about ‘preferences’ that I look a certain way. Compliments are welcome, critique is not. This goes both ways, of course: I would never ever seek to tell a partner that they should change the way they look, because to me what I want in someone I am dating is for them to feel *comfortable and safe and happy and sexy* in my company, and they’re not going to feel that way if I say these things.
So to this:
“If I were to express this, from my point of view I’m not trying to shame you or deliver you unto ickdom. I’d be letting you know what I like. You don’t necessarily have to do anything about it”
OK so then… why say it? I am a 41 year old woman who has battled societal expectations about my body for decades and I have made certain choices about what I will and won’t do to try and match up to them. I do sometimes wear make-up for instance (compromising certain things in order to look ‘pretty’ by whatever standard we have of pretty), and eschewed others (I don’t shave my armpits, and actually I now find armpit hair way sexier than none at all). I’ve made these choices. So if someone popped up in my life and said ‘I don’t like your armpit hair’ what’s gonna happen?
1. I am hurt, and I decide to shave my armpit hair because I want to please them.
2. I am hurt, and I decide not to shave my armpit hair because I don’t want their ‘preferences’ to overrule decisions I have made about my life.
In either scenario I am hurt. And why would someone I love hurt me knowingly? It’s not OK. A while ago in relationship counselling a counsellor taught my partner that before you say something along these lines, you should first check it against three criteria: true, necessary, kind. It must be at least *two* of these. Your example, telling someone you ‘prefer’ shaved armpits, might be true, but it is neither necessary nor kind. If you decide pit hair is a dealbreaker, you’re welcome to break up with someone and try to find another person who better fits what you want. But you don’t get to hurt them in the hope that they will become more like the sort of person you wish you could have.
So yes, these days I absolutely would break up with someone for expressing these kinds of ‘preferences’ about my body. You say it ‘seems dramatic on the surface’ but I disagree. We are not breaking up over armpit hair, but over a fundamental disagreement about whether it is OK for a partner to knowingly hurt me, because of the way that I look. That doesn’t seem dramatic to me, it feels very important.
Likewise, to bring this back round to the first point, if you were with someone who shamed you for your foot kink, I think that’s a fundamentally unacceptable thing to do. It’s perfectly OK for them to say ‘no’ if they don’t want to participate in it, or give you honest, kind feedback (I don’t find it sexy/I personally don’t like having my feet touched), but if they responded by trying to make you feel bad for having it in the first place, or banging on about thinking it was gross, horrible, or what have you… that is unkind and unfair and not the kind of behaviour anyone should engage in with someone they care about.
Okay, so thank you for your detail. I appreciate it, but it’s overwhelming to me to read, understand, and reply to everything in the way that is articulate and gets my point across 😅
“…Let’s go feet first (lol)…”
You cool bean you 😂
So the feet stuff. I like your attitude to it, and this is what I’d consider the right way to handle it. I also do the same with kinks that I have hard limits with, despite any fundamental aversion to whatever it is. Needles and age play are very popular, and although I have absolute reasons why they are hard limits for me, I still try and understand their viewpoint without judgement.
Your aversion to “Daddy” makes total sense, although I love being called it – but not in an age play way. I explain it as AC Slater calling Jessie “Mommy” in Saved By The Bell 😂😂 As you allude to, it’s about the consent and the dynamic surrounding it.
I mean, I don’t rock up to bus stops and go, “Who’s got dem dawgs for me? 👅👅” of course. The conversations I have had around anything kink or fetish related has been within consensual and appropriate settings. I also have some issues with the dynamic and makeup of my local scene, which I feel is dominated by toxicity in a lot of areas. That’s going to play a part in my perception too I’m sure.
A typical ‘flow’ is that we’ll talk about stuff we like – maybe at a munch or gathering or even if we’re talking in Fet PMs – I mention feet, and the immediate response is, “I hate feet. My feet are disgusting”. Like, okay 🤷🏻♂️ That is an implicit preference being stated I suppose, so there’s not a lot I can do with that other than say, “Well, okay. Good day to you 🎩” I do feel some shame about it, and I have worked out in therapy that it isn’t simply me feeling shame but the other person inducing it too (there’s probably a better way to put that).
However, I’ve also had conversations with people where they have told me point blank why liking feet is weird, that you walk on them all day, they look odd, etc. I’ve also had conversations that have gone, “Oh you like feet? That’s amazing! I’m doing some OF stuff with feet soon, so you might want to subscribe”. This happened at a party with someone who I know well, so it’s not simply an online thing either.
It’s disappointing and frustrating for me, because I don’t hear someone talking about needles or age play and go, “I hate needles” or “Nappies are weird” or whatever. If I did do that, I would be kink-shaming. Feet, completely fair game. I have opinions on why that is, but I’ve learned that I can’t be vulnerable about it without more judgement.
The crux is: it is grinding and wearing when the thing you like so much is either dismissed out of hand, shamed, or treated as a source of income. That’s a different conversation maybe. Rant over 😂
I also want to take this point to say that I’m sorry if you felt I was in some way acting as though we’re anything other than writer-commenter. I’m going to chalk that up to camaraderie or joviality falling flat. I can be mindful of that in the future.
Onto body hair, or more specifically autonomy and preferences – because it’s not really about a specific thing. You make an insightful point about, “Would I compromise X, Y, Z?”
The answer is: yes, I have done this almost constantly throughout relationships, friendships, kink settings, etc. I’ve had to. I’m learning not to, but it feels impossible.
My interpersonal life both platonic and romantic has been unfulfilling for 99 percent of my time. I don’t like it at all. I want to not compromise and do all the things I want to do within social and sexual settings. However, I’ve found so few of the opportunities that fit my needs forthcoming in my also 41 years.
Tack onto that (what I have come to realise is) a terrible childhood and all that comes with it, late diagnosis ADHD, intense people pleasing, etc. and the recipe is Rancid Pigeon a la Vom.
If I didn’t compromise massively, I would likely still be a virgin quite frankly. I mean, most of my reply is how much other women hate feet stuff, which I consider a tame fetish in comparison to some things people are into. So, that’s a fundamental I’ve had to compromise with all my life, and continue to do. It’s not like I can vet for it upfront without it being non-consensual or inappropriate. As such, someone comes along who seems cool and you are into, but don’t like this thing you are down for. What happens then? The logical answer is DON’T SETTLE KING, but also the answer is more nuanced.
I’ve had to accept that I need to adapt to a situation, settle, lower my standards in certain areas, forgo certain wants and desires and all of that stuff men are told to do if they want companionship or certain experiences. I don’t like it, but it’s what I am facing so I have to play those cards.
I have had a few conversations with women (both cis and trans) about this aspect, because I do feel there’s a difference in experience. When I ask the simple question of, “What do you do about the things you want to do and can’t?” I get a head tilt and a “Well, I just go out and find someone to do it with 🤷🏻♂️” Again, I can tell you my experiences of the kink scene and those of men within it and all of that stuff, but I’m wary of sharing my vulnerability on it because it doesn’t typically stay a nuanced and balanced conversation.
Anyway, I suppose “balance” was the wrong word to choose, so maybe I’m not being articulate enough to put my point across. I’m not sure I can articulate it, although I do totally agree with you that someone’s body is someone’s body and should be respected unequivocally. I personally see a middle ground between stating a preference and making someone feel bad.
You ask, “why say it?” Well because, we (not us, the hypothetical coupling) are together and while I respect their autonomy, I am also fucking into them as they are and I want to make that known. Stating my preferences as well as hearing the other side.
I would personally want to do this in a way that doesn’t upset or hurt the other person, so this might be through compliments or getting insight into what their thought process is. It definitely wouldn’t be, “I hate hair btw” that’s for certain. I’ve often personally had less grace held towards me for my choices, so we’re on the same page.
I’m coming from a narrow viewpoint here, I know, and I’m mindful that my own experiences are huge. As I’ve said, I’ve had to fit in or lose the positives from the relationships I’ve had. Of course, someone “popping up” to say this stuff can fuck right off, regardless of my own internalisation of it (usually bad 😂).
To once again end it on feet 😅, I split with my loooong term partner recently because they couldn’t respect my desires and wants in the right way. One thing they did was to tell people in public that “He hates feet”, which would cause the others to say that yeah it’s weird blah blah blah. That makes it sound more malicious than it was, but it did affect me.
Contrast that with someone who just broke up with me. They had the attitude we have, and it ended up that they loved the aspect of it and said they “couldn’t imagine not doing this with someone”. So, omg this has been lengthy 😅😅
Dude…
“I’ve had to accept that I need to adapt to a situation, settle, lower my standards in certain areas, forgo certain wants and desires and all of that stuff men are told to do if they want companionship or certain experiences. I don’t like it, but it’s what I am facing so I have to play those cards.”
If a human wants to be in a relationship with another human, then they have to accept the other’s personhood. If a mutual kink for feet (or whatever) is a dealbreaker, then don’t be in that relationship; you are not owed it from any given person.
And I really hope you haven’t sat across the kitchen table from a woman, thinking about how you have ‘settled’ and ‘lowered your standards’, because if you have, how soul-shatteringly disrespectful for her.
I get why you’ve responded in this way, and I suppose I didn’t do a good enough job at trying to show those “internet tips” that we all read so often.
It’s not about lowering, more reprioritising those standards. Like you can only choose from the people who are interested in you, if you want to find someone that is.
For an extreme example, what if someone’s standards were that the partner must have the world’s biggest collection of balloons and also have three arms? You want both, but both might (definitely) not be possible. So do you reprioritise those standards and say, “Well I don’t like the two arms thing but man I do love me some balloons”?
The alternative is to go lonely and get shamed for being picky – “Three arms? Your standards need to come down!” The third option is to have nothing and be completely happy with yourself, and the cool thing is that we get to choose solitude or companionship.
I’m not going to lie and say every relationship has been willing bliss on my part or theirs even. That’s my own story, and my own trauma, and theirs too. Two halves make a whole. I’ve been working on me.
Nobody is talking about entitlement, or being owed, or any of those tactics that shut down a conversation from turning vulnerable – as I alluded to in my main comment.
Use your real world brain rather than internet brain for a moment. Surely you can see that there is a situation where you are putting in the work on yourself to obtain the things you want and contemplate what happens when you don’t get them? There’s a spectrum between radical acceptance and complete narcissistic entitlement.
Of course, you do accept another’s personhood. That’s the point I am making. I chose to accept these people at maybe a personal hit to my own desires because I wanted to be with them. It still doesn’t the wanting any less palatable or acceptable, and that I have to make that point gives me pause that this is not a good faith discussion. I’ll give you the trust that it is.
“ Use your real world brain rather than internet brain for a moment.” This is way harsher and more ‘internet brain’ than anything in PR’s comment, so I’m not sure why you’re telling them off for tone.
“How soul-shatteringly disrespectful”
Yes. Absolutely this. I’m going to expand, for A Llama, and I hope that it’s OK for me to jump off your comment to do that, PR, because you hit the nail on the head succinctly, where I’m going to waffle a lot.
AL – when I posed those questions (“Should you ‘compromise’ with a partner who makes you feel bad about your body shape? Should you seek to ‘compromise’ with somebody who shames you for the way you walk or dress? Would you seek to ‘compromise’ if your partner told you that they had a ‘preference’ for a different size/shape of dick? Could you ‘compromise’ with someone who wanted to have sex way more than you did, so you have to twist your own self into knots to try and ‘dispense’ the sex they have requested even though you don’t really want it?”) I deliberately used ‘should’ and ‘could’ and probably should have used ‘should’ for all of the examples because they were meant to be rhetorical.
Would you do these things? Maybe. Should you? No. Your personhood matters, as does that of the person you’re with, and although compromise in a relationship is great (you can’t spend all the time doing X’s hobby, you need to also spend time doing Y’s thing AND having time spent doing your own things separately), you shouldn’t be compromising *who you are as a person*, and that includes your bodily autonomy.
For two reasons: 1. it’s wildly unhealthy for you to feel you have to change to fit a shape just so that you can have a relationship and 2. It leads to resentment and EXACTLY the thing you’re doing here, which is expecting someone else to change fundamental things about themselves because… ‘well, *I* did it so it’s not too much to ask of *you*.’
You say: “I’ve had to accept that I need to adapt to a situation, settle, lower my standards in certain areas, forgo certain wants and desires and all of that stuff men are told to do if they want companionship or certain experiences.” And RECORD SCRATCH because… WHO is telling men this?? Certainly not me. Who is telling men they need to lower their standards and change fundamental things about themselves? I would never ask a man to be *less* than what he is, or a different person. I *do* sometimes tell men to up their game: https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/up-your-game/ but that is not about *becoming a different person*, it’s about *treating me well*. I don’t expect men to change their standards about what they want me to look like, merely recognise that if I don’t look the way they want a girlfriend to look, they be honest with themselves about that and *move on*.
Implicit in so much of what you say is an unstated premise, so I’m going to state that premise here so we can talk about it. When you say you can/would change something about yourself, or that other people could/should change things, the unstated addition is … “if we want to be in this particular relationship.” And broadly, it seems like yours extends to “…if I want to be in any relationship at all.” And that’s the heart of why you’re maybe not quite getting exactly what I’m saying, I think.
I believe very strongly that people shouldn’t be getting into relationships unless they understand how to be happy *alone*. How to carve their own path through life and forge a happy existence, comfortable in the knowledge that they don’t *need* another person in order to feel complete. Now. There are certain needs we won’t get met if we’re not in relationships, sure – sex being one of them. But as Purple Rain says above, no one owes you that relationship and you don’t owe it to anyone else. Actively trying to massage that kind of relationship over a connection that doesn’t ‘fit’ it is damaging – to you and to the person you’re dating.
I wish – desperately wish – more men approached dating with an understanding of this. I am currently dating, and finding it intensely frustrating (and deeply demoralising) to keep encountering men who *definitely want a woman* but are so eager to get one that they’re completely unable to rationally assess the value of a relationship *with me*. I think I’m pretty awesome, and I want to find a man who thinks so too, but it’s very VERY hard to find that man when a bunch of other men keep getting in my way. By ‘other’ men I broadly mean guys who aren’t interested in me as a person, don’t ask me questions, don’t engage, aren’t willing to chat more than 2 messages before asking for drinks, aren’t willing to acknowledge our incompatibilities and have grown-up conversations about whether they’re not important or whether they’re dealbreakers, etc. I bet plenty of these men would be willing to ‘compromise’ on things they absolutely should not change about themselves, for understandable reasons (they’re sick of a dating world where they’re greeted with silence, for example). But that would be TERRIBLE IN THE LONG RUN. Really, genuinely terrible. And I respect those men enough to not try to crush myself to fit the shape of ‘generic woman’ just so that I can have a relationship – I respect them, and myself, enough to say ‘I need XYZ and I’m afraid you can’t provide that, so it’s better for us both if we look elsewhere.’ If I don’t ever find what I want elsewhere? I’ll be sad about that, but fine. I’d far rather be alone than with a man who is only pretending.
I don’t want to get into a relationship with someone who pretends they share my values/dreams/hobbies/kinks, only to find that later down the line they ‘express a preference’ for something different and then expect me to change. Do you see why this is a bad idea? Do you see why it’s something I believe I should run from like the plague?
Likewise you. I can’t tell you to be happy with XY or Z, and I am not going to instruct you to be happy single, or not having your kinks fulfilled. But I absolutely can tell you that after my own experience – casually dating, and in long-term relationships – I never want to be with someone who believes it’s worth changing fundamental things about themselves in order to make me happy. And vice versa – I don’t want someone who’s looking at me thinking ‘well, I find her music taste irritating and I hate all her friends and I wish she’d shave her armpits every once in a while but… hey… at least she’ll let me cum on her feet every now and then, she’ll do!’ Appalling. Gutting. Heartbreaking.
To your point about kinks and the way people have responded to them – they’re entitled to their opinions but I think if they’re saying things in a way that implies you should be ashamed of having those kinks, then they’re dicks. There’s not a lot more I can say about that, to be honest. I can’t make people *not be dicks* but I can validate your decision to walk away from anyone who is making you feel shame for something that is ultimately morally neutral.
You say “I do feel some shame about it, and I have worked out in therapy that it isn’t simply me feeling shame but the other person inducing it too (there’s probably a better way to put that).”
I’d say there are many different types of shame, and when it comes to kink there is a) self-shame (you feel ashamed of a thing, b) societal shame (society has taught you that this thing is bad or wrong) and then c) peer shame (people around you are directly shaming you for it. This post about ‘icks’ is mostly peer shame, though there’s usually always societal shame lurking beneath the surface of both a) and c).
You say: “I don’t hear someone talking about needles or age play and go, “I hate needles” or “Nappies are weird” or whatever.”
Good for you not doing this but HOLY SHIT. If you think people are shaming about feet, I urge you to chat to an ABDL player (nappies, basically) in your scene and ask them for some stories. But to be honest all of us could share stories about times we’ve been kinkshamed – the one I get most commonly is people shaming me for being a submissive woman and also a feminist (OMG I can’t BELIEVE you like it when men call you a SLUT, where are your MORALS, and how could you let him HIT YOU that’s ABUSE), but we’ve all got ’em. It’s not great, and it’s important to push back against it, but it happens. I’m not sure why you use “Oh you like feet? That’s amazing! I’m doing some OF stuff with feet soon, so you might want to subscribe” as an example of it being frustrating though – why is it shaming for someone to say ‘great kink, I also do sex work in this area’? Not sure I understand that.