My first adolescence, when I was a teenager, was a horrific, excruciatingly painful time. With all the insecurities of the period and striving to be liked especially by the opposite sex, I experienced a lot of the emotional pain. I was neither part of the "in crowd" nor particularly attractive to the opposite sex. During all of high school I only had three dates and they were all effectively chaperoned because my older sister had to drive me. During college, things were little better, being the era of "free love,"only making the pain worse. My only girlfriend during my first period at the University of Florida was the frigid daughter of an alcoholic and I soon began drinking alcoholically myself. When I went through my first enlistment in the Navy, I frequented prostitutes and never had a real girlfriend for all of those four years.
Things did not improve when I returned to finish college. By this time I was attending Alcoholics Anonymous which really isn't that good a place to find someone with whom to build a healthy relationship. When I finally met someone who seemed genuinely attracted to me, it was a stripper in a bar where I had no business if I was truly trying to stay sober. There followed a marriage which was one long violent nightmare which nearly destroyed me. Therefore, the prospect of revisiting that period of my life is far from attractive. Nevertheless, I must complete the process of maturing emotionally that I failed to complete all of those years ago.
Having grown to understand that my taking monastic vows was, in part, a flight from the pain of a nightmarish marriage, some time ago I renounced those vows and opened to the possibility of sex in my life. However, I find I am just as inept as I ever was with regard to women. All the old insecurities are back with renewed force.
While I have reached a stage of greater acceptance of my body to the extent that I found myself in a Moksha demonstration comfortable when naked in front of strangers, I still feel unattractive to the opposite sex. The insecurity was acutely painful at Beltaine, Attending on successive weekends, Beltainia at All World Acres, Body Magick at All World Acres and Florida Pagan Gathering's Beltaine, I had a three week long celebration of Beltaine. This being a fertility festival, sexuality is highlighted. The only ladies for whom I held any sexual interest were quite drunk at the time and, on more than one occasion, only as a second or third choice. Such an experience does not do anything to build up one's already fragile self-confidence. In fact, at one point my depression was so deep that I might have done violence to myself or started back drinking alcohol, a slower suicide, but for the fact that a transexual told me that she found me attractive even if I weren't inclined myself to have sex under those circumstances.
It really is not surprising that I am particularly inept with all the preliminaries surrounding sex, especially with recognizing the opportunity when it presents itself, since almost all of my sexual experiences prior to meeting my ex-wife were with prostitutes. Furthermore, there was only one woman with whom I had sex after my marriage broke up. In other words, many high school kids have more sexual experience than I have, as far as relationships are concerned.
I am at a loss to find the solution to my predicament. I have no clue with regard to making myself more attractive to women. Not only am I ignorant of what would make me so, but I also I doubt there is anything within my power to change in this regard. Furthermore, I am just as celibate today as when I was bound by monastic vows.
