How a disastrous Lenten experiment raised my bar from consent to desire.
Photo by Kamil Szumotalski on Unsplash
Fawning…
an internal posture
that “leans all the way over”
to center another person
at the expense of our own personhood
in an attempt to survive relational encounters of
disempowerment or maltreatment.
This is an article I’d rather not write. I hadn’t originally planned to talk about sexual fawning, but it has come up too many times in the past month for me to not give voice to what I see happening in my own story and in the stories of others.
My definition of sexual fawning is when I find a way to tolerate sexual energy, attention or contact that is unwanted.
For me, it used to look like having sex in my marriage because it felt expected, owed or needed rather than a desire to express affection, closeness or care. Last year, it meant ignoring the advances of a neighbor who, once he found out I was divorced, felt very free to share how long he had been thought about having sex with me. Last month, it meant failing to voice my offense when another dog owner (an older male) at the dog park asked if I watched dogs because he’s looking for more help. He didn’t bother to ask what my profession was first; he simply had a need and saw a female and thought I might be for hire. I know hundreds of women who have gotten through thousands of moments of being objectified by holding their breath and being as small and smiley as possible. I am one of them.
If you had asked me in my 30’s if I sexually fawned, I wouldn’t have even understood what you were talking about. It wasn’t until a disastrous experiment one Lenten season did the scales begin to fall from my eyes. There are some things we do in the name of spiritual growth with no idea the can of worms we are opening. This is one of them.