i have in fact experienced decades of subtle pressure from all angles, including internal ones, to neurotically respond and actively sexually perform for my partners. it took me until 26 to notice and a big part of why is that nobody told me this was a problem men could have
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i continue to believe that "attachment is the real gender" in many ways; excessively people-pleasing wrt your partners (or in general) is imo an anxious attachment issue, and people of all genders can run into it
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anxious attaching men in particular i think are reluctant to talk about their experiences because their problems seem embarrassing and shameful compared to what's in the discourse; because the discourse mostly represents anxious women they seem like "feminine" problems
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what frustrates me about this issue in particular is all the messaging i heard growing up was about men being incredibly selfish sexually
all i *ever* wanted to do sexually was please my partners
i just didn't know how and i didn't get many opportunities to practice
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and i don't think i ever allowed myself to be sad about that either but i am actually very sad about that mismatch. i don't feel like culture acknowledges that men like me exist and i hate it actually. i've never felt represented in a whole bunch of ways and this is a huge one
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there was a woman on twitter who tweeted something like "i used to be afraid of men but now i've come to realize that men literally love women so much they're willing to die for us" and i was like YES thank you someone finally gets it, *that* feels like it's actually about *me*
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i found the tweet!
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When you stop freaking out about how much men are supposedly trying to oppress you, you open your eyes to an entire world of men literally willing to die to make you happy.
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just remembered that an ex once told me she felt like i was being selfish in bed when literally the only thing i was trying to do when we messed around was get her off and i was like ???????????????????????????????????
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with love: both of these things can be true
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Just sharing an experience that feels parallel to me, but might not be- just in case it helps, but ignore if it doesnt- i used to be much needier about trying to be some kind of hero saving people, and people were right to call that selfish
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A funny thing: I think it’s accurate to say that, in terms of benefit to others, my casual-laidback-playful existence now is more “heroic” than the attempted, play-acted heroism of my late teens, which was defined by insecurity. and probably burdensome for others to deal with
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yeah i didn't get into this here but it's sort of implicit in the anxious attachment connection - there was a neediness and selfishness around how i wanted to please my partners, it was in order to win their approval or whatever
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mostly trying to explain how it felt to me at the time. i felt betrayed. it felt like i was doing exactly the thing i was supposed to do wrt women and it wasn't working. nobody explained the issue to me or *acknowledged that i was trying to do the thing i was supposed to*
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yea that fucking sucks. ❤️ we’ve all been psyoped and are recovering from the downstream consequences. i have no doubt that you meant well and were trying your best based on what you knew
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that's honestly all i wanted to hear at the time probably! 🙏
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there's a casual scene in Irreversible about this that the context makes extremely fucked up and crude but at the same time kinda genius
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