The L-Word — 11/18/10

What’s the sexiest thing you can wear? Confidence.

Your gender doesn’t matter, your sexual preferences don’t matter, even your looks don’t matter — if you want to be sexy, feel sexy, have somebody else think you’re sexy, you’ve got to have some modicum of confidence. And sometimes that’s really, really hard, particularly when exactly the situation that calls for confidence is exactly the one that so often causes the most insecurity.

“Does she like me?” “Does she think I’m smart?” “Is he going to call?” “Why hasn’t he called?” “Do I look weird naked?” “Am I screwing this up?”

Every needling question chips away at whatever confidence you have, and in my experience, if you don’t keep those questions in check, they only get louder as the stakes get higher. The more involved you get, either physically or emotionally, the greater the power you and your partner possess (whether you want it or not) to shatter each other’s self-confidence.

Well, that’s just great, right? You need confidence to attract a partner, but once you get one (or if you continually have trouble getting one), you’re gambling that confidence you worked so hard to build up. Wouldn’t it be safer not to try in the first place? Sure. But that would be so incredibly boring and lonely, and truly if you don’t risk anything, you won’t gain anything. I suppose the wise advice here would be to say, “Well, you shouldn’t be hanging your confidence on other people’s acceptance or rejection of you, anyway. Believe in yourself, no matter what!” Building up self-sustained self-esteem is everybody’s life-long work, I think, but it’s a solution that’s easier to attain in theory than in practice. We can’t actually grow a completely rejection-proof sense of self, anyhow — we are human beings with vulnerabilities and more emotions than either we want or are willing to admit we have. Even the most self-assured among us can be seriously shaken by rejection, or even just the fear of it.

That’s good news, though. We are all human beings, and you know what humans love? Other humans. And humans, particularly young adults, are notorious for being proud to the point of arrogance and self-doubting to the point of crippling insecurity, sometimes both in the same day and certainly both, intermittently, in the same person. We are attracted to confidence, but we also want substance, something to sink our teeth into. The most important confidence to have is just the confidence to be a real, multidimensional person. Everyone has that thing (and for some people there are many things) that they know they are really, really good at, and at the same time everyone can think of a situation where they felt utterly incompetent.  You get attention and pique interest when you show a little pride, a little excellence, but you sustain a connection by showing a little vulnerability, too.

In the bedroom specifically, the game is no different. Confidence is still really sexy — looking someone in the eye as you touch her or him intimately, or telling someone exactly how you want it will turn up the heat real quick. That doesn’t mean it’s not okay to be humbled by the privilege of being close to someone, or that you can’t let your partner know that you’re nervous. If you’re absolutely terrified, that’s a different story — you need to speak up, and you need to slow things way down. But a little insecurity, or even a lot of insecurity, can find a place between the sheets — ironically it just takes the confidence to honestly express your doubts. Seriously, make no mistake — it takes a lot of chutzpah to say, “I’ve never done this before,” or, “Even though you clearly find me attractive, I am still embarrassed to take my clothes off.” If you can muster the courage to be that honest, be proud, and if someone is that honest with you, see it for the feat of serious guts it is.