She's Attractive But I'm Not Attracted- Unboxing the Conditioning of Desire

0:00 From day one, we are told who we should be, how to live, and what's acceptable. Before we even have a chance to discover ourselves, our society has already drawn those lines for us. But what happens when those lines are keeping us from knowing and embracing who we truly are? Welcome to Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox, a podcast about unpacking and unlearning everything that's kept you from living as your true self. Through honest conversations about your internal emotional landscape, sexuality, coming out later in life, relationships, and the journey to self-acceptance, we break free from the boxes we never chose.

0:51 Hello, and welcome to Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox. Today, I am here to talk about how we are conditioned as humans by society, by religion, by culture, by heteronormativity, to think about and experience attraction. For so many of us, what we have learned is that somebody finding us attractive, and most of the time that is a person of the opposite gender, somebody finding us attractive when we are younger, when we are in adolescence or in our teenage years or early 20s, is a sign that we are wanted.

1:46 desired, and also valuable and worthy. When we have that gaze on us, we kind of perk up and feel like, this person is interested in me. Like, wow. And it kind of sparks what I think we read in ourselves as our own attraction, our own desire. That is what seems is sparked by being the object of desire or the object of attention of a member of the opposite sex that is paying attention to us. And it's celebrated, right? It's like, ooh, he thinks you're really cute. Look, he's checking you out. Or, you know, ooh, he has a crush on you, you know, and everybody sort of gets very excited and celebratory about it.

2:36 And your friends are happy. And maybe your parents think it's cute and your grandparents think it's cute. And you start getting this feedback from everyone around you like, this is making me special and I'm getting attention for this. And that feels good. And so there might be some parts of you that actually really love that and even want more of it. And so we lean in, right? We lean into this person. We lean into the feeling. We lean into the reactions of society around us. And for so many of us, we are taught that there is a path.

3:09 There is one journey for us, right? If you're born a woman, you know, you're going to get married to a man, you're going to have children, you're going to be a mother, you're going to be a wife, you're going to be a caretaker. And so we get swept into this, I call it a conveyor belt, where, you know, we move through the stations, we have, we get married, we have children, we get all the stamps and privileges of having a family and belonging to the quote-unquote normal people that do normal things, right?

3:38 And you're rewarded by belonging and by being celebrated by the masses. That's the society that we live in. And so in terms of what attraction actually means for you, where your desire stems from, these are things that kind of get mixed up in what society has taught us about who we're supposed to be. We kind of read somebody else desire for us somehow as our own desire and I think it our desire to be special and to be wanted and to be approved of and to be celebrated which are all very human feelings right Like we as humans are creatures that want to belong.

4:26 We are not meant to be alone. We are not meant to exist in solitude. We need obviously caretakers in order to survive when we're born. And, you know, we need at least a few friends that you know that you're special to. We need to belong. We need to feel part of something that is part of our human nature. There's this perfect, you know, concoction that the heteropatriarchy, religion, society kind of indoctrinates us into, which is like, here's the way as a human that you are going to feel good. These are the things you need to do.

5:04 And so the path is laid out and we know what's expected of us. we know there isn't a lot of uncertainty. And then we get into these relationships. And of course, I work with women who are coming out later in life. So a lot of women get into these relationships and start to realize they don't really have a whole lot of attraction to their male partner. And they're not sure if they ever did have attraction. And they're not sure if they ever really did enjoy sexual intimacy. And they thought that they were doing the right thing.

5:34 And they thought that this was what it was about and they thought that they had some kind of desire. That's what got them there. But a lot of the times the desire is to belong and to be accepted and to do what's normal and to be part of what society has told you and the heteropatriarchy has told you is the right way to live. As you get older and come more and more into yourself, if you choose to do the work to actually get to understand yourself and get to know yourself, what I have found with myself and also with so many women that I know, whether it's as friends or that I've worked with, is that, you know, women don't necessarily see a attractive person on the street and want to jump on top of them and drag them into bed.

6:26 That does not mean that a woman cannot look at another person and appreciate their beauty and their aesthetic and whether it's their style or something quite stunning about somebody's physique or facial features. We can look at somebody and say, wow, that person has great style, has a great body, has great hair, is so physically fit. Like we can look at people and say that with no attraction whatsoever, no feeling of desire of wanting that person, right? Whereas that is not what we have learned.

7:08 We have learned that finding somebody attractive, and I'm going to flip it again, someone finding us attractive is conflated with sensual and sexual desire and attraction. It becomes confusing as you start to come more into yourself and as you start to come out and you start to unpack some of these constructs. It becomes confusing to figure out where is my attraction? What gives me a feeling of actually being attracted to someone in a way where you actually even want to be sensual with them? Recently, I did a post on this on social media, and I love when older lesbians come in and educate me because I'm a latent lifer, too.

7:56 I married a man. I grew up in very heteronormative culture. And so everything that I know has either come from having been a lived experience where I had to unpack and get curious and just like question myself, what is happening? Where is my desire? Where is my attraction? When does that show up? Or it's been through working with clients that are coming out later in life. I love when these lesbians who have been out forever and have lived through decades of being out come on and educate me And this woman popped on to social media to say in a very kind way you know sex and sensuality sexual interaction is not always primary for lesbians There are many different kinds of relationships that might also include sensual and sexual intimacy, but also don't have to.

8:50 and that the value of the relationships are not just based on this sensual and sexual piece, that the value can be placed in many different areas and many different types of connections. She was saying that she's lived through 40 plus years of seeing this play out. And I love that. I love that she came on and shared that with me. And some of you may know that there now is so much terminology around your type of sexuality, right? So you may be demisexual, which is how I've figured out that I identify.

9:31 Demisexual meaning that I don't walk down the street and see somebody and have any kind of sensual feelings toward them, no matter how attractive I might find them. But that I need to have some kind of a connection with this person. I need to feel emotionally safe and connected in some way until any of those feelings could even emerge. And that is called demisexual. And then there are all different kinds of sexualities and they all fall under the asexual spectrum, which when I first figured this out, I was kind of irritated by because I don't feel like I'm asexual.

10:09 I feel like I'm extremely sensual and sexual. When I am in a situation where I feel safe and emotionally connected to somebody and their energy and my energy are working well together, that sensuality flows for me. So to put me on the asexual spectrum made me question who came up with these categories and what norm are they using to determine like what kind of sexuality is like more normal or not. Because asexual to me means, you know, you don't experience your sexuality or your sensuality in the same way that somebody who is not asexual does.

10:53 That might be true, but I also wonder if the way that we've learned about attraction is kind of off and should be rethought. And if we should really scrap that whole system and change the system under which we're living, where attraction is based more on mutual connection, and whether that's intellectual connection or it's emotional connection, friendship, but that attraction comes from that as opposed to just this physical attributes piece where, you know, and it's mostly one-sided, right? Where, for example, like with the male gaze, the male gaze wants to see a woman that looks young and very tiny and very, I'm going to say like almost adolescent.

11:47 I think what's attractive about that to the male gaze is that that woman does not know herself very well yet. She has not come into her power yet. There is not much of a threat to any man, you know, when they are finding a woman attractive who is very young and hasn't come into herself yet. But as women mature, we are extremely powerful and we do know ourselves well. And maybe we won't really stand for some of the things that, you know, society has said we have to put up with when we're married to men.

12:25 And so there is this gaze that kind of focuses on this very young looking woman that, you know, basically is like powerless to a man. And that's what's attractive to a man. And I think that a lot of that is just conditioning. I honestly don't know that if our society had never created all of this heteropatriarchal conditioning I not sure that that would be what a man would find attractive So I think all of this just blows everything out of, you know, everything out of the norms. And like, let's just question all of this.

13:07 Like, what is your attraction about? Do you know? Do you only feel a sense of attraction if somebody else is attracted to you? Or when is it that your attraction kicks in? And when I'm talking about attraction, I'm talking about sensual attraction, a desire to be physically, sensually close to another person. And maybe that is not really there very much anymore because maybe you are postmenopausal or maybe you're perimenopausal, or maybe that's just not really how you relate to somebody. And maybe that's really like a little cherry on the top, but not that important.

13:49 And all of that is valid. And yet that is not the norm. That is not mainstream. You know, I thought of all of this because I was at a gathering last weekend and I was with some IFS clinicians, internal family system clinicians. We were having a gathering. Absolutely lovely. I adore hanging out with fellow therapists, very like-minded people. And somebody was talking to me about trying to possibly set me up with somebody. And I found myself struggling because I wanted to explain to this woman who was straight that, you know, she was saying maybe there'll be something romantic.

14:26 And I don't ever go into anything thinking that there's going to be something romantic. That doesn't even enter into my mind because it takes a lot of different things to line up for any of those feelings to show up for me. So it's definitely not how I enter into meeting somebody new. But at the same time, I felt like I couldn't really explain that to her. It would be difficult. So I just decided to say, I'd love to meet this person as a friend, you know, and I love growing my queer community. Absolutely, I'd love to meet this person.

15:00 But it really made me think about this idea that she had, which was maybe there will be a romantic spark. And in my brain, I was saying, I do love meeting new people, but there won't be a romantic spark because that doesn't happen for me. And then just thinking about how we've been conditioned to understand attraction and how it works from the earliest of times. So I am encouraging you today to unpack that. Unpack your attraction. What makes up your feelings of any kind of sensuality if you have them?

15:37 When do they show up? How do they show up? And do you approach yourself with a loving and compassionate energy around all of this? Is it okay if there isn't a lot of that sensual energy to go around? Can you accept yourself? Can you love yourself through all of that? That is my offer to you today. Can you unbox attraction for yourself? Step out of the norms, step out of the conditioning, step out of what we've been taught and told, and step into whatever it is that is true and real for you. Thank you for spending this time with me on Unbox Yourself with Samantha Fox.

16:23 If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review. It helps more folks find these conversations. If you're ready to unbox from something that's keeping you stuck, I would love to support you. You can find the application to the show at unboxyoursexuality.com. Let's stay connected. Find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Lesbian Curiosity Coach. Give me a follow and join the conversation. Remember, we only have this one time through.

16:54 Why not unbox yourself and let your true self shine in all its beautiful glory?

17:06 Thank you.