Do You Use Your Sexuality To Get What You Want?
The most tedious of questions, non?
During the course of a working week conversations come, and promptly go. In exchanges with colleagues we find ourselves discussing anything from our favourite biscuits to whispered tales of accidental mild hangovers on a Wednesday morning. There are, however, some conversational residues, that even after you have rinsed yourself clean of the heaviness of the working week, stubbornly remain. You may try to eradicate them, but they maintain a presence in your unconscious thought like a stain that you cannot get out.
I had one such conversation a few weeks ago.
A man, twenty odd years my senior and who had let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that he liked the look of me, asked me privately “Do you use your sexuality to get what you want?”. (In case you’re wondering, yes he was/is of sound mind).
Here is a quick list of questions I should have asked back, that explain why this question peed me right off:
What do you mean by ‘what I want’? because it’s hard to fathom how ‘my sexuality’ would achieve world peace, or the end to bombing of civilians. So what assumptions have you made about what I want from this world?
Sexuality, you say? I hold the sex appeal of an orthopaedic shoe. I’m not saying my reflection shatters mirrors, or that I am necessarily unappealing, but sex appeal? I trip over my own feet when standing stationary. If you asked me what my favourite things are I would probably rank ‘clever use of alliteration’ over ‘lingerie shopping’, or some other quintessentially alluring activity. I often find myself using the phrase “okey dokey” or “Rodger that”. If you find any of that appealing, matey, that is your opinion of me independently held. Don’t assume that anyone else, including me, thinks it too.
DO you think that I approach life as some sort of quest? That I hold a daily one woman strategy meeting on how to progress my cunning plan with towards world dominance, or my (as yet unidentified) aim? Because I don’t.
In real life I didn’t issue any of these reactive whiplash answers, or indicate my annoyance. I offered “do you think that I do?” which made him scuttle away like a field mouse. I wasn’t even being confrontational, I genuinely wanted to know.
My bout of indignation passed, as did my urge to shrink my personality lest I be misunderstood by colleagues. I gave it some thought and realised that the image this man had created of me or the questions that my existence caused him to pose, were entirely on him. The fact that I am a little sensitive about it is entirely on me, and no surprise given that I’m rather hooked on betterment and y’know, merit based achievement. Anyway I’m clear that it is possible that he could find me attractive (or something in that postcode) and equally that I don’t strive to exploit that. Some women like to look good to feel good, and not to be cast as the femme fatale in the life of some passing acquaintance. If he doesn’t know that both those things can be true - do grow up. Sir.
However the thought that has lingered is that he, or anyone, would hold a woman responsible for societal willingness to grant a sexy or attractive woman extra privilege. That willingness is not a situation she creates - it’s how, rightly or wrongly- the world works. If I had the good sense to own any sexiness I possess, and the further good sense to have identified exactly what I want, harnessing one to get the other is just more good sense. This isn’t news - Dolly Parton acknowledged it years ago. But it is still confronting to realise it needs said.
“I’m not offended by all the dumb blond jokes because I know that I’m not dumb… I also know that I’m not blonde”.
-Dolly Parton
So here is my ranty reminder to myself and to anyone else that needs it: A woman’s sex appeal is only social currency if a someone else puts value on it, or wants some of it. And if she realises that how she looks gives her a foot up in the game of life, and uses this quality to her advantage - so what? Surely that is resourceful and bloody smart. I know women who unapologetically deploy this tactic, sometimes quite outrageously. They’d argue that it means they are not objectified by mens attraction to them, but empowered. Their ability to use their appearance to their favour is a function of how ready someone is to fall for it. If a man likes what he sees in a woman and treats her differently to us orthopaedic shoes of this world, it is not on her any more that it is on him.
The best answer to the question, if only I had been quick enough, is probably “No. Are you the kind of man that grants favours to women, in the hope that they will think that they owe you something in return?”…but then, I don’t really care to know his answer. I’d rather shun that senseless senior, play perfect Parton pop, and focus on flourishing, forthrightly…obviously.
Back next week.
Until then
Big love
Una
x