Shame or embarrassment?

So, what is it I actually feel with regard to a lot of my own sexual and emotional past? Is it shame, embarrassment, or simply a sense of propriety? I have been forced to ask myself this as I pondered the things I wrote in the last couple of entries.

On the one hand, I tend to be fairly open with my friends, and with you all, about much of what I like and what I sometimes do, while some things simply remain hidden away in me because I either feel embarrassed or perhaps because I feel that some things should just be private out of a sense of propriety. Others I hold on to out of a sense that I want them to be all mine and sharing them would somehow cheapen them.

Now, all of these seem perfectly normal, right? We all reveal somethings and hide others as a matter f course. We have public and private matters in our lives, but mine are a bit conflicting and often don’t make sense.

On the one hand, I am perfectly willing to tell you that I love to indulge in sex. Sex with a lover, or with a group, in totally random and anonymous forms as well as in loving unions between myself and someone I feel utterly attracted to. Yet if I do make love to someone I am really utterly and madly attracted to, meaning I could definitely fall in love, odds are you will get no details. I am perfectly willing to tell you how many cocks I played with one weekend, but if it was one with a man I was falling for, you would not know it.

I often ask myself why that is, and pondering such things with Aphrodite I have been forced to confront this.

I am perfectly willing to discuss romance as an outdated and often detrimental concept, yet yearn for a man to treat me that way. I long for it, yet I am not sure if I am capable of it myself. Not because I do not know what romantic behavior is, but because I feel almost like a phony when I try to put it on. Aphrodite might say if you don’t feel it, don’t fake it, but as a matter of propriety shouldn’t one want to put on these airs of romance for someone if there is genuine attraction there?

I am being forced to confront this conflict in myself.

Why do I feel a sense of embarrassment at emotion? Is it just the way we men are, or were, raised? Are we forced to hide too much emotion? And when we do show it, how much is too much? After all, I sometimes see some of these emo fashion victims crying about their favorite Idol being voted off and I want to slap them.

Yes, in confronting these things I hear the logical answer, if you don’t feel it don’t fake it, but don’t others require some expression in order to gauge your state of being and to understand you? After all, they can’t read minds anymore than I can.

Aphrodite is forcing me to face these things, to ask these questions of myself.