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We might just have to agree to disagree on this point.
I just think you are minimizing the damage done by disordered people, or trying to frame it like "He's just not into you so you just have to get over it."
And I am not speaking from personal experience on this issue. As I said, I have not experienced the ole pump and dump actually, I think because I do take time to get to know my partners. Most of my sexual partners have been ongoing relationships, if we wanted it to be. Not that they were always healthy though but that's a different topic. I can imagine how it would feel though to feel tricked or used.
And I don't want to invalidate people's feelings about having that happen. Or gaslight them that it didn't actually happen or they just need to dust themselves off and move on.
I know it happens. I know people who talk, and talk about how they pump and dump and the sheer disrespectfulness of their language is gross. And they may not see their behavior as wrong because they hear their friends brag about doing the same. Not everyone is like "Well I thought I liked her/him but I guess I changed my mind. /sheug".
The point I am making is that its not a bad idea to be more cautious about who one sleeps with, if one doesn't want to be treated like a disposable sex object. I don't think its right to tell people to just deal with it by getting a thicker skin, or tell them they are imagining it.
Hm. Nah, it's more like, "I am NOT a disposable sex object, and no other person's behavior has the power to make me feel like one." I actually think that guys doing that "locker room talk" crap are posturing for one another. It's disgusting, but frankly if I found out a man talked that way about me behind my back, my reaction would be, "Damn I'm glad he removed himself from my life, he's nasty!" I can actually recall a man my ex was friends with before we were together, I met him once and he said something gross about women and I'd heard that he was known to be a player. Well, he died last year of Covid, living in a filthy apartment divorced and alone. So yeah, it sure got him places. What goes around, comes around, and any woman is better off withOUT that guy in her life ongoing, even if she was unscrupulous enough to bed him once.
I don't feel that I have ever been "pumped & dumped" either because I feel like if I'm not doing as you said and taking the time to know what a dude is about--then if I'm indulging in hopes and dreams and emotional investment, then I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. There are plenty of instances where I COULD see it that way, if I'd somehow believed I was going to get something lasting out of those hookups...but I didn't. I mean...casual sex is casual?
Now where I'll give you something here... Is when the stakes are higher. In particular if it's, say, a young person who gets pregnant, or catches something...if lasting damage is done, and the "user" gets away with it, with no real consequences. OK, that is wrong. But if we are talking mature autonomous adults who take responsibility for protecting themselves...and a basic case of unmet expectations, dashed hopes or disappointment? I mean, if one gets in bed with a guy who just wants sex, what made her think he wanted a relationship with her for sure? And if I'm hoping for a long term connection and I'm gonna get hurt if it doesn't happen then why in the hell would I be having casual sex? I mean...it really ain't everybody's cuppa tea. So I guess, yeah, IF YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE CASUAL SEX then indeed you might need a bit of emotional resilience, a thicker skin if you will. It might not be for those who invest easily and fall super hard and struggle to get back up. I mean, ask Euskalherria (hope I'm spelling that right)... he decided that casual sex was not for him. If someone just wants sex and not lasting love, he feels used, so he took control of his life and his choices, and hey...bravo! Shouldn't we all?
I think the disconnect, too, is a question of who has the power? Who controls the narrative? The way that I see things, I do, for myself. No one else is going to make a victim out of me while I'm still breathing and free to act. Even when in ye olde abusive first marriage, my thinking was, "I am playing a long game. I'm going to get out of here, and there will come a time that my life is awesome, because I'm going to make it that way. I won't have to live with him, but he'll have to live with himself. For the rest of his days." And so it is. The fling guy who flaked out on me, he's got a pattern of connecting with women who are in a kind of rebound phase after long relationships, of being very intense and leaving them very confused and unhappy. And he said he loved me and that I was "his" the first night we had sex, but I did not take him seriously. How on earth could that have been true in any way that mattered, that soon? And then he clarified that he just wanted no strings sex, so I guess I could have later settled on, "he was a sociopath who used me for sex!" Except I really did enjoy the conversation and the sex myself, I got something out of it, just as much as he did. What did he "take" from me? What did he owe me? He is still single (and complaining on FB about it!) and I'm now married and doing well. I had a lot to offer, my husband sure appreciates me, so I guess Mr. Guy missed out. /shrug
We have a CHOICE about how we see things. Let's say I believed fling guy when he said I was his and he loved me. I could see that guy as a user, but if I felt tricked and used, I'd be putting myself down at the same time as villainizing him. Why would I choose to see myself as a disposable sex object? Why would I put the power on his perspective that he's such a smooth player and I got played? Why would I want to see myself as a victim? Why would I accept that my personal value is somehow diminished by any of it? Especially when I voluntarily went into his home a number of times and had sex with him, and enjoyed it, and neither of us had explicitly verbally obligated ourselves to anything more? How did he use me, in any way that I did not use him? What gives me the right to say that he did me wrong, just because it ended before I really wanted it to? I could say that. Plenty of women would, and probably have, of him. I just don't see any point.
Are there users out there? Sure. But I suspect that there are a lot of times we cast ourselves and others in roles when we don't have clear evidence, or to support some kind of pre-set emotional narrative in our own minds. We try too hard to look for patterns, and judge people based on prior experiences as though each one colluded behind our backs to be part of a thing that "always happens to us" when connections don't go as we might want. I try not to judge people based on other people, as I don't believe it's fair to do, and I try to let go the need to seek explanations and reasons when I may never know what was really going on in someone else's mind.
I’ll just add that patterns do mean something. They don’t happen in a vacuum. If there’s a thing that “always happens to us”, then there is something we are doing to cause this to happen. I do not think it’s wise to just ignore consistent patterns.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with a lot of what you’re saying, I think there is a lot of benefit to taking the “zen” approach. But a lot of the pump and dumpers do have sinister motives, and feel that they have conquered.
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Special_Guest
Some of them do destroy libido. It is a very common side effect and complaint. I would just have to experiment and find the right one.
For me, I am 100% certain there is something wrong with me, as strongly evidenced by my consistent experience and consistent feedback/response from men over a period of decades - from teens to mid-40s. Not to mention the endless parade of narcissists I managed to attract. There is something I’m doing to repel men, but I haven’t figured it out yet. That is the other thing I am really hoping I can achieve over the next few years - find my person, and finally crack the code to figure out how to fix or get rid of whatever this unknown thing is, and be able to attract men like my friends and family members do. But like I said - I’m giving it another five years.
No code to crack. Your issue is your very low self-esteem. It bleeds through everything.
You attract narcissists because they can smell low self-esteem from a mile away. Fix that, and you'll be able to attract better men.
Hm. Nah, it's more like, "I am NOT a disposable sex object, and no other person's behavior has the power to make me feel like one." I actually think that guys doing that "locker room talk" crap are posturing for one another. It's disgusting, but frankly if I found out a man talked that way about me behind my back, my reaction would be, "Damn I'm glad he removed himself from my life, he's nasty!" I can actually recall a man my ex was friends with before we were together, I met him once and he said something gross about women and I'd heard that he was known to be a player. Well, he died last year of Covid, living in a filthy apartment divorced and alone. So yeah, it sure got him places. What goes around, comes around, and any woman is better off withOUT that guy in her life ongoing, even if she was unscrupulous enough to bed him once.
I don't feel that I have ever been "pumped & dumped" either because I feel like if I'm not doing as you said and taking the time to know what a dude is about--then if I'm indulging in hopes and dreams and emotional investment, then I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. There are plenty of instances where I COULD see it that way, if I'd somehow believed I was going to get something lasting out of those hookups...but I didn't. I mean...casual sex is casual?
Now where I'll give you something here... Is when the stakes are higher. In particular if it's, say, a young person who gets pregnant, or catches something...if lasting damage is done, and the "user" gets away with it, with no real consequences. OK, that is wrong. But if we are talking mature autonomous adults who take responsibility for protecting themselves...and a basic case of unmet expectations, dashed hopes or disappointment? I mean, if one gets in bed with a guy who just wants sex, what made her think he wanted a relationship with her for sure? And if I'm hoping for a long term connection and I'm gonna get hurt if it doesn't happen then why in the hell would I be having casual sex? I mean...it really ain't everybody's cuppa tea. So I guess, yeah, IF YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE CASUAL SEX then indeed you might need a bit of emotional resilience, a thicker skin if you will. It might not be for those who invest easily and fall super hard and struggle to get back up. I mean, ask Euskalherria (hope I'm spelling that right)... he decided that casual sex was not for him. If someone just wants sex and not lasting love, he feels used, so he took control of his life and his choices, and hey...bravo! Shouldn't we all?
I think the disconnect, too, is a question of who has the power? Who controls the narrative? The way that I see things, I do, for myself. No one else is going to make a victim out of me while I'm still breathing and free to act. Even when in ye olde abusive first marriage, my thinking was, "I am playing a long game. I'm going to get out of here, and there will come a time that my life is awesome, because I'm going to make it that way. I won't have to live with him, but he'll have to live with himself. For the rest of his days." And so it is. The fling guy who flaked out on me, he's got a pattern of connecting with women who are in a kind of rebound phase after long relationships, of being very intense and leaving them very confused and unhappy. And he said he loved me and that I was "his" the first night we had sex, but I did not take him seriously. How on earth could that have been true in any way that mattered, that soon? And then he clarified that he just wanted no strings sex, so I guess I could have later settled on, "he was a sociopath who used me for sex!" Except I really did enjoy the conversation and the sex myself, I got something out of it, just as much as he did. What did he "take" from me? What did he owe me? He is still single (and complaining on FB about it!) and I'm now married and doing well. I had a lot to offer, my husband sure appreciates me, so I guess Mr. Guy missed out. /shrug
We have a CHOICE about how we see things. Let's say I believed fling guy when he said I was his and he loved me. I could see that guy as a user, but if I felt tricked and used, I'd be putting myself down at the same time as villainizing him. Why would I choose to see myself as a disposable sex object? Why would I put the power on his perspective that he's such a smooth player and I got played? Why would I want to see myself as a victim? Why would I accept that my personal value is somehow diminished by any of it? Especially when I voluntarily went into his home a number of times and had sex with him, and enjoyed it, and neither of us had explicitly verbally obligated ourselves to anything more? How did he use me, in any way that I did not use him? What gives me the right to say that he did me wrong, just because it ended before I really wanted it to? I could say that. Plenty of women would, and probably have, of him. I just don't see any point.
I don't think we are going to agree because we tend to discuss these things with no resolution.
But the thing it seems you are glossing over, is that people LIE.
If someone lies to you, and you believe them (because only a psychopath would lie about such a thing and you don't have reason to believe this person is a psychopath), and then you go into a situation on good faith that the person is honest, and then you found out they LIED just to get something from you, that is a reason to feel tricked, manipulated, and deceived.
Its not because someone is allowing themselves to feel used or not being resilient enough. The fault is with the liar!
We can make these things less likely to happen by knowing these types are out there and how to avoid them. That's the solution I am condoning.
If someone has been deceived this way, they have every right to feel how they feel about it, and its part of the healing process to understand what happened and feel the anger, hurt, whatever.
I don't agree with what you seem to be saying which is to bury the bad emotions and just frame it as "Well I got got! Oh well, just get over it."
Healing can't occur unless people process their emotions. If healing doesn't occur people may fall into the same trap again because they are in the habit of suppressing their feelings and explaining away red flags, and taking the blame for other people's flawed behavior.
Well, after this past weekend... all I can say is that my 'stance' is even more 'solid'.
I simply cannot imagine doing what *we* did - physically & emotionally, being both physically and emotionally vulnerable, giving ourselves to each other completely - with someone I do not know well... and certainly not with a stranger. No way would I allow anyone get close to me in *that way* and see/feel my emotions that soon.
Took a while - we started talking late last summer... and the time spent getting to know each other on multiple levels was worth it, I would never consider doing things any differently.
I’ll just add that patterns do mean something. They don’t happen in a vacuum. If there’s a thing that “always happens to us”, then there is something we are doing to cause this to happen. I do not think it’s wise to just ignore consistent patterns.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with a lot of what you’re saying, I think there is a lot of benefit to taking the “zen” approach. But a lot of the pump and dumpers do have sinister motives, and feel that they have conquered.
Patterns that result in similar unhappy results could encourage us to examine what we're putting out there, what we're doing, what we are accepting and what we are pushing away, for sure.
But the important thing I believe there, is that growth is about the empowered side of this. Avoid these concepts and words:
- My fault
- Blame
- What I deserve <-- Such a persistent and insidious one!
(etc)
And instead embrace these:
- Where can I grow?
- What can I take responsibility for changing or doing differently?
- How can I empower myself?
Negative self talk will often lead people to sabotage (sometimes in very subtle ways) good things and accept or encourage bad things. I think this is part of why I'm fighting these concepts so hard, is that often when someone adheres to the "I was used" framing of a situation...it may seem on the surface that it's relieving yourself of "fault" but too often underneath there is a brain gremlin saying, "...you deserved to be used."
Taking responsibility for things, when I know I made choices that put me into situations and that I DID rightly bear some responsibility...though I may need to forgive myself for being young or foolish or naive at the time...holding onto the part that said, "yeah, but my choices got me there and my choices needed to get me out and into something better"... It actually lifts me up. It gives me the power to get something better for myself. I can't control other people, but I can control myself, and if I have done things in the past that led me away from happiness or that were self defeating, I owe it to myself to try and find them, learn from them, correct them if necessary. But without any kind of self-punishment about it. Remember...it's not about blame, or fault, or what I "deserve." I deserve to get as much happiness as I can for myself, I figure. So do you. So do all of us. It's only a question of how (within ethical bounds of course) to go about it. The first and possibly hardest step, is having some sort of any idea of what it actually is, that will bring us happiness... And I would say that if you find yourself in a "What do you want? I don't know..." then what you should work on is adding, "... I will know it when I see it. In the meantime, I will find joy in the journey." But that's just like...my opinion.
I don't think we are going to agree because we tend to discuss these things with no resolution.
But the thing it seems you are glossing over, is that people LIE.
If someone lies to you, and you believe them (because only a psychopath would lie about such a thing and you don't have reason to believe this person is a psychopath), and then you go into a situation on good faith that the person is honest, and then you found out they LIED just to get something from you, that is a reason to feel tricked, manipulated, and deceived.
Its not because someone is allowing themselves to feel used or not being resilient enough. The fault is with the liar!
We can make these things less likely to happen by knowing these types are out there and how to avoid them. That's the solution I am condoning.
If someone has been deceived this way, they have every right to feel how they feel about it, and its part of the healing process to understand what happened and feel the anger, hurt, whatever.
I don't agree with what you seem to be saying which is to bury the bad emotions and just frame it as "Well I got got! Oh well, just get over it."
Healing can't occur unless people process their emotions. If healing doesn't occur people may fall into the same trap again because they are in the habit of suppressing their feelings and explaining away red flags, and taking the blame for other people's flawed behavior.
I'm not glossing over it as much as you think. I know that people lie. But the only way that a liar can really harm you, is if you are invested in what they said being true.
But what is the situation that you're going into that we are talking about here, where you are being tricked and deceived and lied to? (EDIT: "You" rhetorical, not like...you, Moongirl.)
One where you think you have a boyfriend, when in fact you have a player who is trying to "score?" In that situation the used party is not trying to have casual sex, to the best of my understanding. They are trying to have a relationship. And they just have the misfortune to have gotten mixed up with a liar. Maybe he is a psychopath. Gosh, that's really bad if one encounters such a person. Which one do you suppose is going to hurt more, though? Getting pumped and dumped by a psycho, or having one attach to you and keep you close to be lied to and manipulated and abused for years? Like even as much as it would suck to be hoping that you're going to be loved, and to be left instead after being lied to...how high a level of investment should you have in someone in the early stages? Enough to be scarred and broken for like years about it? To a point you cannot ever realize you dodged a bullet, maybe for all you know an actual one (ask me how I know! I could print brochures about being with lying psychos, come on. Not a trip any of us wants to take, I promise.)
I mean, I thought this thread was about whether people enjoy sex outside of committed relationships? I'm honestly not sure where you stand...I'm not sure that YOU are sure where you stand. You often seem a bit suspended between traditional dating values and progressive notions of "sex positivity" and honestly kinda conflicted about it. Like, no one actually HAS to be into casual sex. Some of us are. I have been sometimes. I don't think it makes me cool or anything. I'm just wired a way. It's perfectly fine to say, "ya know what, casual sex is not my bag, baby! It doesn't make me feel fulfilled." Even without having some kind of need to say, "Does anyone actually enjoy that?" Because in a way, the question starts to get weird undertones of ...do you need validation for your position? Why? Do you need to know what all/most/the norm is for some kind of reason? To get a sense of what might be "expected?" No one should be expecting anything, you get to tell them what you want. If they don't like it they can kick rocks.
If anything, the perspective I am explaining to you is part and parcel of who I am and part of the psychological framework of someone, just one person, who happens to have enjoyed casual sex and has no regrets about it. As you know...the only one I do regret, was hardly casual. So of course my experiences, like anyone's tend to do, have shaped how I see things.
I mean, I thought this thread was about whether people enjoy sex outside of committed relationships? I'm honestly not sure where you stand...I'm not sure that YOU are sure where you stand. You often seem a bit suspended between traditional dating values and progressive notions of "sex positivity" and honestly kinda conflicted about it.
Because in a way, the question starts to get weird undertones of ...do you need validation for your position? Why? Do you need to know what all/most/the norm is for some kind of reason? To get a sense of what might be "expected?" No one should be expecting anything, you get to tell them what you want. If they don't like it they can kick rocks.
I relate to a lot of this. I do have conflicting feelings about it that I recently became aware of. Some due to messages received when young. Also, having limited relationship experiences, I do take my cues from discussions such as this on what is “normal” and “expected”. I remember making a post asking when is sex expected nowadays. It’s easy to say “it’s up to you and how you feel”, but you still need to know what the general standards are. Some men responded they won’t go past 3-4 dates without sex, because if there is no physical compatibility, there’s no point in continuing the dating process.
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