Do you find yourself sexualizing too often? Or, do you think you’re sexualizing too little? Are you conflicted about your sexuality? Well, if you have these sorts of questions, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we explore human sexualization and discuss a lot of those questions in great detail.

Let’s begin. 

Sexuality as an external reality

Basically, sexuality becomes an external reality if you get to express it outside your own head. Through sex with other people – all kinds of sex, not necessarily reproductive intercourse. People who get to express their sexuality, spend less time thinking about it in their heads, and, therefore, tend to have fewer aspects that they sexualize. If you’re a heterosexual man who has regular sex, for example, then you’re going to find the most obvious things sexual such as a woman’s breasts or a woman’s curves, and not so much her mannerisms or the way she talks and so forth. There will be some complexity to the attraction, but not much. 

Sexuality as an internal reality

This happens when you can’t express your sexuality and can only engage with it inside your own head. These days, there is easy access to porn. Indulgence in porn can cause a warped external reality, where you end up being attracted to only the most perfect specimens. Really, though, porn is an internal reality when you think about it, because the world of perfect specimens is not the reality that’s out there. Along with porn, there’s a great deal of thinking that would occur inside your own head. It would result in more aspects being sexualized than just the obvious. Things such as voice, mannerisms, the way someone handles objects, the way someone steps aside and so forth. Sexuality becomes more complex when it remains an internal reality for too long. 

Sexualizing our own attractive qualities

Gunther was a practical man. He didn’t pay much attention to his feelings. He was an economics scholar. One who had finished his doctorate degree in record time. His “don’t-get-too-flustered-by-feelings” approach got him through a lot of things in record time. Despite this attitude, Gunther was not only quite perceptive of others’ feelings, but also uncommonly gentle with them. He did, however, carry a degree of scorn for those who complained about feelings too often inside his own head, though he never expressed it. 

This personality of Gunther came about, by his own admission, thanks to his upbringing at the hands of a scholar and an angel, who were married for 40 years, through thick and thin, by the time Gunther had become an adult. The type of women that Gunther felt attracted to were modelled after his own ideals. These women were good at doing what needed to be done effectively and efficiently while being gentle with feelings in general. The women who complained too often about feelings never got harsh treatment from Gunther, but they never came close to his heart, either. Gunther also didn’t find it attractive when women were dismissive of feelings in their practicality rather than being gentle with them. 

Gunther is just one example of how people look for the qualities that they find attractive in themselves when they look for potential partners. 

Sexualizing gender ideals 

We all want there to be gender equality, but, at the same time, many of us end up sexualizing gender differences. For example, the man who is so emotionally mature that he treats his woman like a queen. The ideal is offensive because women can be emotionally mature too, but it is still quite prevalent. Similarly, there is the woman who never farts or burps and is the epitome of grace. Again, offensive, but it prevalent. 

Gender ideals are often a source of relationship troubles. They are a breeding ground for double standards, and it takes a truly practical person to acknowledge the reality of gender differences and move past them in a relationship. In progressive societies, this is a huge challenge. In conservative societies, it is less so, although it is becoming one, of late. 

Another big area in which the sexualization of gender ideals causes emotional conflict is among members of atypical sexualities i.e. the LGBTQ+ community. These ideals cause members of this community to struggle with self acceptance. This is especially true for those who are hiding, because for them sexuality is an internal reality, which means they have more time and space to dwell on it inside their own heads. They end up romanticizing heterosexual gender ideals to the nth degree, rather than express their own non-heterosexual identities in a real way. Sexualized gender ideals also cause larger society to struggle with accepting the LGBTQ+ community. 

Sexualizing vulnerabilities

This world will eat you up if you’re too generous and forgiving with them. It’s sad but true. Because of this, people hide their vulnerabilities. They keep them private. As such, when a partner reveals their vulnerabilities to you, mostly in the form of putting you before themselves, it’s an announcement that you’re special and this is sexually arousing in a way that words can do no justice to. 

Sexualizing adorable privileges

Partners enjoy privileges that friends, family and acquaintances don’t. Things such as:

(1) He/she will work harder for you. Like make you a time consuming gift or buy you a crazy expensive gift. 

(2) He/she will relax their compulsions for you. For example if they are clean freaks, then they will allow you to share their private and personal space even if you don’t meet their standards of cleanliness. 

(3) He/she will drop the ego and apologize, if it means they get to be with you. 

There are many other privileges that end up feeling adorable and ultimately sexual. 

Sexualizing unfulfilled needs and desires

Sigmund Freud, who was one of the leading psychologists in his time, first suggested that male children are subconsciously attracted to their mothers and female children are subconsciously attracted to their fathers. Of course, it did not include non-heterosexuals, as was typical of that time. Eventually, Freud’s theory was discredited. But it was not without its merit. Even today the saying persists “End of the day, they all want a daddy.” 

The truth of the matter seems to be that people sexualize unfulfilled needs and desires. If a person is a virgin, for example, then they will never forget the partner who first gave them sex, even though the partner might pale in comparison to current partners in terms of character and personality. Similarly, those who don’t get a lot of affection from their families end up sexualizing the partner who slobbers them with affection, no matter how many other vices this partner might have.  

Repressed sexuality and hypersexualism

Previously, we talked about sexuality being an internal reality. Repressed sexuality is basically an extreme form of that. It happens on many levels. Some of them are as follows:

(1) Biologically, you can’t satisfy a basic need as much as you should. 

(2) Personally, you don’t like yourself for thinking so much about sex, looks, romance etc. 

(3) Cognitively, you sexualize everything: odd things like a person’s poop, a person’s mess, the way a person opens their eyes as they wake up from sleep, the way they place their feet while they sit etc. Also, this excessive sexualization ends up interfering with other cognitive tasks such as listening or reading. 

Summary

In this article, we had an in-depth discussion on how people find things “sexy!” I took care to present the information in an easy to understand format, and I hope I got it right. Sound off in the comments if you have anything at all on this subject that you’d like to discuss further.