How Do You Deal With Status, Standards and How Society Tells Us Who We’re Attracted To?
Reid: In the last video were talking about status and standards and how society can fuck with us around like who we’re attracted to and I’m curious about what Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com has to say about how you figured out how to untangle those things? I’m Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutsex.com you know Cathy is? The reasons why I’m wearing a tux? Cathy deserves a tux and my luggage got lost this morning. So back around the status thing which we’re talking about in the last video, how have you learned…?
Cathy: To walk that?
Reid: Because as a person of size and you were sharing about at parties and situations and also as, are you still identifying as introvert or ambivert?
Cathy: Okay ambivert.
Reid: Okay were going to do a video on that I think so you can google that out or Google it. Are you dying? Cathy’s dying! Quickly we have to get this video done. As somebody who is an ambivert who can get caught up around their head around self-talk like how have you taken what society tells us as pretty or what were supposed to be like, like how have you kind of un-duct tape the two together?
Cathy: And it’s an ongoing process and there’s days that are easier than others I think all humans but just to distinguish an introvert is someone who gets their needs met by being alone, extrovert gets their needs met by being out with other people and ambivert is someone who is in the middle.
Reid: And just so for clarity when you say “gets their needs met”.
Cathy: They get their tanks filled out like I love hanging out with other people there are times I just need to get alone and I say thank God they left kind of feeling.
Reid: So the way that makes sense to me is how I get re-charged often for me as an extrovert is I get recharged by being with people and I still need alone time too. Introvert, extrovert, ambivert can go both ways…
Cathy: We took the quiz on quiet of a quietly we both take the quiz and we are both kind of in the middle, metroverts or ambiverts depends on who wrote it. And a lot of people there are somewhere on the spectrum that can vary on what’s going on in your life. Shyness is an indication of insecurity generally, someone need feels they’re not valued being out there in relation and be out there. So I tend to have a metrovert or ambivert but I tend to be shy and my insecurity come up and mug me really badly especially when I don’t fit, my body doesn’t fit what I’m told over and over again is attractive and desirable. And part of the journey of going through this was learning to love myself where I am and hanging out with people as I could that were willing to appreciate me and share what they liked about me so I was raise in the specific things I got from what society said I was supposed to look for people that were physically attractive and intelligence didn’t matter a lot, experience didn’t matter a lot and kindness didn’t matter a lot. And I started paying attention…
Reid: And you can get that from your family specifically.
Cathy: Specifically and we all like…
Reid: Society reinforces some of that…
Cathy: And we take all different things from similar experiences so we can all have a different stories about this. Brothers and sisters can have silly different experiences or very different experiences but that’s what I internalized and it was all about the looks and if I was just skinny and super fit and very beautiful preferably much taller than I am then I would be okay. Which you know the tone I think it really hurts when you try to create that in your world. Wow I feel better already.
Reid: Sometimes the answers are so simple.
Cathy: But I started paying attention to rather what I was thinking about what I actually experiencing with people. And part of that required me to calm down the noise in my head maybe just meet with one person I felt safe and just notice what part of the conversation I enjoyed or the interactions I enjoyed and start getting into my body and to do that I would take a deep breath or feel my toes coz it hard to be present with your feet and your toes and not be somewhat in your body. And then I would notice is the sensations oh I’m hanging out with this person I feel really good. What about it that I feel good? And a lot of times I was finding that it was the intelligent conversation or someone you know really thoughtful or kind expression. And yes it was great if they were conventionally handsome or pretty but I found out that it didn’t actually matter so much. It was nice like frosting on a cake because I’ve been socialized to that but what really want me happy is where a lot of other things. And someone say I’ve been out with people that are very conventionally handsome or pretty and I’ve been like oh dear Lord when can I get out of this? So I just started paying attention to my own individual responses more. And I would ask people that were dating me or I was playing with like is there something you appreciate? And it was fun to have people like go wow I slept with you know skinny people and they’re kind of bonny and with you it’s kind of soft and squishy and I really just enjoy that sensation and not that they were putting down anyone else but just I’ve been taught that anything big was bad and it was so powerful to hear that have multiple people told me hey I just like how soft you are like your body feels great to be touching. And slowly eroding some of social stigma that I’ve got and it took a while coz it’s constantly reinforcement out there all the time. What do you think?
Reid: I was interested to hear Cathy opinions on these things. Leave comments, direct messages, hits subscribes, share the videos, you know the deal, get to work.
