Non-Verbal Communication, Part Two: Distancing Mechanisms and External Validation

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Part One Can Be Found Here…

Pretty Privilege

In the gay Leather/Kink/Fetish community, just as in any other culture or subculture, there are the “👍 WINNERS! 👍” and the ….losers…

Are we all sick of that?  I sure am.  My experience is that 100% of gay kinky men are done with being judged on externals that we have no control over.

It’s a primate-ape fact of life that desirable features make us more fuckworthy.  They can also be a trap.  I want to talk about it from the other side.  Pretty Privilege DOES exist in our Tribe.  I have made use of it myself.

Back when I was young, virile and FINALLY getting a lot of approval from men, I attended a lot of five-star, crowded “elite” parties, both clothed and naked.  It felt GREAT to be “New Meat” and highly-desirable.

If the gloriously beautiful men around me were bitchy and insecure, then I guessed I would try that on for a while.  I got way too good at it.  I am ashamed of my behavior back then.  A lot of the virtuous acts that I have performed since those days are my atonement for how I fell into bad behaviors for a while.

After a while, though, I noticed something odd.  The vast majority of men in my life had no interest in who was inside the pretty exterior.  I realized that I was just a mobile dildo to that crowd.
In fact, I got picked-on if I stepped out of bounds in some way.  It was like trying to balance on a tightrope of other peoples’ expectations.  Fall off, and you would never get back on.  It was conditional approval.

The clincher for me occurred after a big fuck-party, when I showed up at Sunday brunch in a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops and shorts.  My brunch companions refused to eat with me, unless I changed back into full black leather.  That was the last time that I associated with them, and with that subculture.  I happily stepped into a much, much slower lane.

At age 25, I gave up using my privilege at others’ disadvantage.  I chose a different path of seeking real and useful wisdom.

Assertions And Declarations

I assert that I am more than what you can see.
There are depths to me that are worth knowing.
I am an amalgam of many flavors, good and bad.
I am not just a single, obvious musical note.  I am a symphony.
I assert the same about YOU.  There is majesty, worth, and a valuable contribution to the world inside all of us.  I take that attitude with me wherever I go, treating everyone as my favorite brother or sister.  I am rarely disappointed.

External Validation

Being given approval of any kind is delightful, so we work hard to get more of it.  We can spend thousands of hours every year, pumping up bigger and bigger muscles.  We can have our teeth straightened and whitened, along with hair-removal and spray-tanning, $3,000 leather outfits, and darkening that gray beard.

We may have experiences of all of those attributes and many more.  They can bring on flattering and pleasurable reactions, and allow us to “win” on some level.

No matter what, sooner or later, the crash arrives.  Age, sudden disasters, infirmity and gravity work against our following the same path forever.  That’s when we will be needing the emotional growth that we may have allowed to dwindle while we were otherwise occupied.

To this day, I still go to the gym several times a week, but I ALSO work on my social skills, and provide value to my circle of true friends.  My biggest struggle is with humility.  I’m still trying to figure that one out, and I am open to suggestions.

Distancing Mechanisms

The other side of that same coin has to do with keeping others at arm’s length.  Let’s start with WHY we would want to protect ourselves from others.

We are all born perfect, trusting and uninhibited.  We learn to be otherwise, when we receive wounds along the way:

• “NO, STUPID!  The OTHER way!”  “People think that I’m stupid?”
• “Don’t talk to me, ugly!  Take those big ears somewhere else!”  “What’s wrong with my ears?”
• I’ll give you something to cry about!”  “It’s bad for me to cry?”

These wounds cause us to make decisions that we hang on to, long after they have become obsolete.  We may use ever-growing musculature to keep others at a distance. Or five layers of leather. Or whatever else helps us to keep possibly stressful interactions at arms’ length.

Those same predicaments can also create new, pleasurable possibilities, but we have to be OPEN to that idea in the first place.

Cynicism protects our tender hearts, but it can also prevent us from noticing when the Real Breakthrough Opportunity shows up.

One decision that I still struggle with can be expressed as “I’m not going to let you reject me.  I reject you FIRST!”  That’s on a very deep, early level, but I am not being driven by it so much any more, now that I consciously recognize it.  Eventually.  I no longer feel that my foot is nailed to the floor, while I go around and around the same problem, doomed to repeat it.  Therapy helped.

I now laugh about my flaws as a personal foible.  At that point, I clean up my mess:  “Oh, there I go again.  Sorry.  I am glad that I caught myself.  My anger does not belong to you.  I’m not doing that any more.  Let’s start over.”

Attitude Queens with a Capital “A”

So when you see that gorgeous man who seems to have everydamnthing going for him, moving through the crowd with a fixed look on his face that says “Don’t bother me,” spare him some loving sympathy.  He is just as damaged as you are, despite external appearances.  He’s just expressing it in his own way.

He’s lonely too.  He is misunderstood.  He struggles with finding unconditional love and deep friendship, just like anyone.

If I see somebody who is broadcasting on that channel, I get right past his defenses, 99% of the time.  I do it by treating him as a good-hearted man, with value as a possible friend.  Like any human being, he is starved for honest respect and affection.

Our Brains React Differently With Objects of Desire

Recent MRI-scan tests have shown that our mental processes change radically when we meet a politician, a celebrity, or a porn actor.  We put them on a mental pedestal.  Star-Fuckers, World’s Biggest Fans and Celebrity Stalkers can be a real chore for someone who just wants to walk down the street unmolested.

Think of the porn actor who is making some extra money as a go-go dancer on an elevated box at a big dance-party.  He has drunks pawing at him like he was a piece of meat.  They are making his privates very public.  No matter how much he can rationalize this (”It’s all part part of the J-O-B”), he can also get pretty tired of it.  Feigning enthusiasm can be a tedious chore.

That’s why I always do one, specific behavior with every go-go dancer:  I bring him some ca$h to stuff into his shorts, but I only do it in the area between his hip and his dick.  I am not going for the gold.  I smile in an honest, happy way, look him in the eye, and tap my cheek with two fingers.  He smooches me on the cheek, and throws his arms around me with honest pleasure.  I take that chance to express some honest compliments about his dancing, and then we disengage affectionately.

I gave him a Warm Fuzzy - A moment of sweet, honest human interaction.  As a result, I am loved and respected by that man, forever afterward.  I looked for the good in him.

The Calendar-Signing Party

I attended an event that turned out to be well-stocked with extremely handsome, muscular men.  They were in town to promote a charity calendar, and I was politely interested in knowing more.
After about an hour, a man came up to me.  He was the husband of the calendar’s creator, and he was curious to know more about me.  He had watched me speak to every one of the calendar models, and had noticed that they all dropped their shields around me in seconds, and were at their ease.  They didn't feel the need to be “on” with me. They all hugged me, as their own idea.  I almost never ask for hugs.  I prefer to earn them.

I get a lot of hugs.

The Bottom Line

The point that I am belaboring is that we can rise above our easy and obvious biases.  We can choose to let go of physical external appearance as a point of reference.  Those are just what we can see.  If we open up our own hearts to the possibility that somebody is a good man, then he may pleasantly surprise us.

I am VERY rarely disappointed.