Day 8 of 66 Days of No Sex

Mood: Optimistic

First week down without incident! Of the immediate changes, I stopped taking birth control a few weeks ago and tossed a guy’s toothbrush from behind my bathroom mirror. My room is messy as usual and I have little motivation to tidy up since I’m not expecting company.

I started my period last Friday, which would usually bum me out for “wasting” two free nights, but it was a needed weekend to catch up on laundry and reestablish a routine after the holiday break.

I didn’t have any strong urges this week. Returning from a two-week vacation, I was pretty busy with work, which helps stave off the boredom lust. There are a few categories of non-horny lust: for-old-time’s-sake lust, de-stress lust, you’re-already-here-might-as-well lust.

For example, I had a late flight into Boston last week, leaving less than 12 hours between collecting my suitcase and starting my workday. As I rolled around in bed trying to pass out, my hand instinctively inched toward my waistband from the sheer stress of dealing with tomorrow. I was dead tired, not the least bit in the mood, and eventually fell asleep on my hand after a half-assed attempt of phalange foreplay. That’s de-stress lust.

But this week was less about hormones, and more about how I interact with guys casually. I was especially cautious this week about Rule #2 (no propositioning for sex) by steering clear of any gateway flirting.

My closest call was when I was eating chocolate pretzels and drafted the following Snapchat:

The intended recipient was someone I’ve hooked up with before. I was picking out emojis and asked myself: Do I actually think this is funny/share-worthy or am I trying to provoke a come-on, to which I will shoot down in the name of new year new me? After deciding the latter, I deleted the Snap. It was a thinly-veiled attempt to feel better about myself. Though it didn’t violate any rules, it felt skeezy to send like I was lying to myself in some way.

My sense of humor in general has very sexual undertones, as anyone close to me can testify. I tried to think back to when I wasn’t this way. I don’t recall being perverted as a kid, but I can remember being this way before my teen years. I think the turning point was when the girls around me started growing into young ladies.

Flashback to a 10-year-old Connie, sallow and bony, with a butterfly clip parting my hair to the side. I was in 5^th grade, and some of the girls in my class started wearing training bras. One by one, my friends were inducted into an exclusive club, memberships verified by boys snapping the elastic bands on their backs. I thought it was a matter of time before it was my turn.

But puberty for me was like waiting for a lost package in the mail and watching everyone else receive deliveries from Amazon Prime. I was the shortest person in my class and the only Asian among mostly white people. Let me break down why this is an important detail:

When a white girl is in her teens, she looks 25.

When an Asian girl is in her teens, she looks like a slightly younger Asian boy.

Graced by neither curvy genetics or a heavier build, I was doomed to a flat chest and non-existent fanny. Entering 7^th grade, I still wore an undershirt and ducked into bathroom stalls to change my top. I had asked my mom once before if I could start wearing a bra, to which she glanced over her newspaper and replied: “Why? You don’t have any boobs.” It wasn’t until later that year when she found me crying, and gave me set of my sister’s hand-me-downs.

Even after I joined the big girls club, I still fixated on my physical shortcomings. While my classmates stressed over pop quizzes, I was suffering from major PTSD, Prepubescent Titties Stress Disorder. When asked what I wanted to be in 10 years, I would say an interior designer or a lawyer, when secretly all I wanted to be was a B cup.

And my foreignness in the context of my 4,000-person hometown in rural Kansas was only magnified in mainstream media. Country songs didn’t sing about girls with black hair and small eyes. Hollywood’s leading ladies exemplified the Western standards of beauty—blonde hair, skinny noses, and long lashes. I knew few celebrities beyond Lucy Liu who embraced an alternative version of attractiveness.

Throughout high school, I genuinely believed, in terms of physical desirability, Asians were inherently inferior to white people.

I was a straight-A student, constantly praised for my work ethic and academic diligence. But I didn’t need teachers and classmates telling me I was smart—I knew that. I needed someone to tell me I was pretty.

My fear was that if I wasn’t a classic example of American beauty, if I didn’t have the attributes that made women sexy, guys would never see me in more than a platonic way.

So I figured if I had a mature mind and spoke in adult ways, that people would have no choice but to treat me like a woman instead of a girl. Thus, Penis Jokes Chan was born.

Along with my new sexualized identity, I developed a pretty uppity attitude in high school, using my brainpower as grounds to feel better than others. If I couldn’t blend in physically, then I would stand out intellectually. My way of masking my low self-esteem was to bludgeon people with overconfidence and my sensationalized individuality. Yes, that meant I listened to tons of Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy.

I think some of my residual insecurity influences how I behave now, especially in our current social media landscape. I take selfies to feel validated, I Snapchat boys to fish for compliments.

A good friend actually called me out on using a cleavage picture with this 66 Days challenge. I told him I wanted a provocative image to be associated with this kind of project, but maybe on a level I’m unwilling to admit or acknowledge, I was paying homage to my 10-year-old self who never overcame the fear of being undesirable.

If I grew up with bigger boobs, perhaps I’d have a tamer sense of humor and would overcompensate for other aspects of my life, but those are daddy issues for another day.

Next week here!