Two Three Four: Nerve

I remember a film from long ago, a film whose name and actors I can't recall at all. I might have been in my first year at university when I saw it--- it was as long ago as that. Last night I remembered one scene, and it's stayed with me.

There was a scene where one of the main characters was exposed to nerve gas. I can't recall why, whether it was a lab accident, a military training accident, or something deliberate. I can't recall, and in the end it doesn't matter. What I do remember is the character sprawled on a floor somewhere, his body spasming and twitching as the nerve gas took effect. A scary enough scene, disturbing and grim.  What came to me last night, though, was not a character dying in the story, but how his body jerking helplessly was far too like what you might look like in the throes of having sex or, maybe more to the point, in the midst of indulging in the Solitary Vice.

Sex is almost always about loss of control.  That's coded as good in a great many scenes: giving up control in order to find pleasure, to be able to receive pleasure.  Yet while the film scene did make me think of how I (or anyone) might look during sex, thinking that also made me ashamed and depressed.

I've seen a fair number of lovely young companions indulge in the Solitary Vice over the years. That's been something I've asked them to do for me. Some, yes, have offered to do that all on their own. I've had young companions tell me that they wanted to show me what pleasure looked like. Some I know enjoyed the performance itself, enjoyed the idea of performing.  And, yes---- I watched and thought they were beautiful. I admired the way they gave themselves up to pleasure. I envied them the ability to lose themselves in what they were doing, the ability to hold my eye and bring me into their own sensations.

Do I have to say that I've always and ever been hesitant to do the same thing for them, even when they've specifically asked?  The reason why is and always has been body dysphoria, I suppose--- or at least a distrust of my body. That film scene with the nerve gas victim haunts me right now--- the jerking limbs, the aimless kicking, the head helplessly shaking. I'd imagine myself looking like that, and I'd know at some very basic, foundational level that there was nothing attractive in the way I'd look, that whatever happened with my body, the young companion watching it would either laugh or be disgusted and contemptuous.

I am not at home in my body and never have been. I have good eyes. I have long, slender hands. These days (and years too late) I have good cheekbones. But there's nothing in the way I hold myself, nothing in the way I move, nothing in the way I look undressed that's sexually alluring. There's nothing about my body these days that doesn't represent decay and failure to me. I find it harder and harder to imagine taking any pleasure in my body or taking any pleasure from it. I find it impossible here this afternoon to imagine my body giving any pleasure.

I've always thought of sex as something crafted into story arcs,  and I can't imagine a story these days where my body doesn't look like that dying nerve gas victim. I'm certainly nothing to watch, and anything physical I might offer to do with or for a young companion would look like that spasming, helplessly twitching body in the film scene. That character dies a horrible and hopeless death. Anything I'd do with my body, anything I'd try to do with a lover, would be what was happening there in that long ago film.