Appreciating the opposite gender's looks?

If your question might be a spam question, then I won't feel too bad about offering a spam-speculative answer...but I recognize I could be entirely wrong, and I'll wait with baited eyeballs to see how people respond to this guess.

But I would hazard that it may not be too different from sculpture, paintings, or other works of art. You can appreciate their beauty, the artistry in presentation, etc., but not want to actually have sex with these things, right? Like even remotely.

I guess I see no particular inherent difference between a work of art and the form of a human being. It's just that where you (or I) might look at a painting of a beautiful man and think, "damn...well done! If he was real...", you might look at a painting of a beautiful woman and just think, "damn...well done!".

 

I agree with Biannika. It's like admiring a painting. We can think kittens are cute, but it doesn't mean we're zoophiles.

 

It's like looking at a cake. You like the colour, the shape, the texture looks perfect, it can smell amazing but somehow it doesn't make your mouth water. :icon_wink

 

The painting analogy is hard for me to wrap my head around, but I like Paris' cake analogy. Trying to imagine it, it'd be like... say boys are coconut flavored cake, and girls are chocolate cake. I don't like coconut, so I could definitely appreciate the beauty of a well-crafted coconut cake, but I'd take chocolate over that any day :lol:.

 

This was the best explanation I've ever read! :eusa_clap

 

This is hilarious to me...I totally can't wrap my head around the cake example. I just can't envision looking at a really good-looking, well-made cake and not wanting it.

On the other hand, people having trouble *understanding* the art example also throws me. I like how it looks, but I don't want to have sex with it. How can you not relate to that? [Please note: I don't question that you don't relate to it...I'm fully aware that I'm dead wrong here...I just can't understand it, and would like to...if that's possible.]

I mean the whole thing is hard for me to wrap my head around, since I *am* sexually attracted to well-formed males and well-formed females...much like I *am* gastronomically attracted to all well-formed cakes. So I really need a solid example of something objectively beautiful that I am not sexually attracted to in order to make sense of things. My limitation, and I'm sorry about it.

 

I don't know if this test is accurate, but it's pretty concrete. When I look at a good looking man I can appreciate his good looks. I might even get a groinal response. I just can't think about having sex with him and actually finish. Even if I am getting weird sensations in my groin. When I think about having sex with women I usually do finish, even if she isn't exactly my type.

 

I think the cake works for me because as a food it's the sort of thing I could say "that looks good, but I don't want any" to :lol:. I totally understand admiring art and finding it beautiful, but the feeling I get looking at art is not the same as the feeling I get looking at a pretty guy. I think equating sex to food (both things one can "crave") just clicked for me?

 

Well, regarding checking out women, you probably have some attraction to them if your noticing them feels natural. I look at guys sometimes, but I feel like I've tried to force myself to be attracted to them my whole life. Just recognizing someone is good looking doesn't mean you're attracted to them, and I didn't realize that until I allowed myself to feel attraction to women. Now, I see a pretty girl, and it hits me like a ton of bricks. "THIS is what everyone is always talking about."

As for your attraction to older men, I'm afraid I don't have any solid advice there. Are you seeing a therapist? It'd likely be a good idea for you to address your father issues in therapy. Have you ever been attracted to men of your own age group? And are you emotionally attracted to older men, too, or is it just a physical/sexual attraction?

 

The way I see it is I can find a guy attractive but only from waist up, I don't want to see whats between their legs, I'm not interested in that. However, when it comes to girls I love them from head to toe. Give me the whole package!

 

I'm not a gay guy but I think it's like saying I'm allegric to vanilla ice cream and I don't want to have vanilla ice cream because I prefer chocolate. However, vanilla does look good from here-- even though I can't try it.

Basically vanilla is women lol. Gay guys aren't attraced to women and they prefer other guys but that doesn't mean that they don't admire the beauty from afar. Heck! Everyone does!

 

I find women to be extremely sexy, but that doesn't make me want to have sex with one. I don't know how to explain it any other way.

 

This is exactly how I feel about boys. I can see if they are handsome (face) or if they are muscular - this makes boys attractive, but then there is the lower body and I don't want that...

 

Ok...my difficulty is probably being caused more by my attitude toward cake, then. It doesn't work for me *precisely* because I *cannot* say "that looks good, but I don't want any".

As a friend once put it:

Cake without life...is still cake.
But life without cake...is no life.

 

Annika's pseudo-definition is:

• You really like them.
• You think about them *a lot*.
• You fantasize about being closer to them (not necessarily sexually).
• They have no idea, and you're glad and/or frustrated that this is the case.