"Dear Shadeen,"
"I've had some sexual abuse as a child and into adulthood."
"It, along with the loss of my first boyfriend at 15, has left me pushing away love and always categorizing guys as friends first."
"I don't know how to break this habit, especially with the guy that I like."
"But my main question is about initiating intimacy."
"I don't know how to do this as it doesn't feel comfortable and I shy away."
"It makes me feel like such a kid."
"How can I start to feel more comfortable with it?"
So first and foremost, I think for any of us who have experienced trauma and I say us because
most of us have encountered, unfortunately, some form of harm or trauma in our lives,
that it actually it really is important for us to honor the ways that our body starts to
really let us know when we're safe and comfortable.
And so if starting from friendship is the right place to go.
Right, then give yourself some compassion for that. Right.
That if you've been harmed or if you've had loss,
really being in an intimate relationship with someone before launching it into a romantic relationship
might just be the way that is best for you
to feel really safe and comfortable with opening up and being vulnerable with this person in other ways.
And when you think about initiation.
I would love for this person to ask themselves, you know,
how they would like a sexual experience to start
because initiation doesn't have to be something really obvious or aggressive.
You mentioned earlier a sleeve tug.
Right, as in "I'm I'm ready now".
Right. That it can be as small as that.
It could be a look or it could be something a little bit more explicit. Right like,
"Do you want to have sex now?"
"How about now?"
Right, Right. That it could it could really look like anything,
there isn't a wrong way to initiate.
It's about negotiating that with your partner.
But that really starts with,
"How would I like things to start?"
And maybe the way that you might like things to start is to have somebody else approach you.
And that's okay, too.
But knowing that and being able to communicate that with your partner or partners over time can really help you feel more confident
showing up for sexual experiences and knowing that
you really do get to create the experience that you want.
Great.
"Dear Shadeen, I'm a hetero woman,"
"but I've always been very attracted to gay men, both physically and on a platonic level."
"In fact, one of my high school boyfriends came out as gay later in college, and I thought that made him sexier."
"Why is that?"
I don't know.
So there could be any number of reasons why that is.
I'm curious, you know, she had mentioned attracted to gay men physically.
And so I'm wondering, like what a gay man like looks like?
Because gay men could look like any any number of things.
And so it it makes me wonder if it's less about what folks look like.
And there might be like a particular sort of personality or
Whether they present as more masculine or feminine.
Right. That that that it sounds like sort of gay men in her worlds maybe like look or act a certain way.
And so there's something about that that's appealing to her in particular.
But it also might just be like the dynamics, right,
that some of us are are really into the like forbidden
or into the chase or into things we can't really have into the pursuit. Right.
Or maybe into fluidity, into adventure,
into something that they haven't explored before.
Maybe it could be about behavior in specific. Right.
So maybe this person's really turned on by penetrative sex between men. Right.
There's any number of reasons why she might be into it.
Lots of men who are straight love watching lesbian porn there's no difference.
And it sounds like she she might be interested in having sex with them in particular or being romantic with them in particular.
And sexuality is so fluid that, you know,
if she's able to find a person who would like to welcome her into their sexual space or the romantic space.
Good for you.