I only now made the connection.
My father is a narcissist. He looks down on sexually desirable women as potential mates and sources of supply. He's essentially a misogynist.
I've always felt uncomfortable with acting and looking feminine and desirable. I have no problem with my womanhood and sexuality, just appearing feminine and attractive.
Duh.
I could hope to earn a modicum or a semblance of respectability and being taken seriously as a person and a human being only by being "one of the boys."
Camouflage.
Now to unlearning it.
Pronoia, I think N fathers don't want their daughters to be sexually attractive because it makes them uncomfortable. My experience with N dad was that there was something off with him. I remember he made a pervy comment about my sister's breasts and that just creeped me out. I hid my womanliness around him, still do. He's kind of a lech.
ReplyDeleteI found my N father was only too comfortable with it - that's how I interpreted his own somewhat pervy way of being able to view me as a sexual object at times; once when some boys made comments about my behind, and I complained to him, he sounded like he sided with them.
ReplyDeleteSo in my family there was being seen as a sexual woman - which entailed being degraded, objectified, and being seen as a mindless body to be dissected - or as "one of the boys" - and thus potentially someone with a mind who could use it.
uck. What about Narc mothers?
ReplyDeleteMy Narc MIL let (?) her boob "pop out" of her shirt, in view of my DH's best friend. This event happened quite some time ago, to my understanding. The friend still reminisces about that, and I'm sure the Narc MIL did it so that she could keep up her sexual prowess and be seen as "sexy" by her son's young friends.
Frick Nasty!
-Jonsi
Ugh, Jonsi. What kind of message does that send to the children, I wonder? Was your DH affected at all by this sort of behavior?
ReplyDeletePA, yes! Of course that makes sense! IF you're comfortable with the way you dress and present yourself, there's no reason to "unlearn it" though. If you want to, that's another matter. Your intellect doesn't go away when you dress in any way whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteNMs... mine had a string of boyfriends. I remember her having sex in front of me when I was five. I remember being at the neighbor's house and they were having sex, and I said "I'm bored, let's go home" and her replying they'd be finished soon. Then came the one that abused me.
Wow, that's horrible!
ReplyDeleteI want to unlearn the *compulsion*, so I could eventually find out what I really like and who I really am and how I'd really like to be seen.
I might retain this look, I just don't want it to be because of the hang-ups I have that I got from my father!