learning how to fuck

and still searching for love in the modern dating age

I am starting this essay with a HUGE warning. I will be incredibly sexually explicit in this and am baring my fucking soul here. I want to honestly write about my experiences on dating apps and if that makes you uncomfortable, please skip this very personal essay! if you know me in real life, please do not look at me different!!!!

(trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault about mid way through)

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it’s my first week of being back on “the apps” as they call it. i’ve been completely riddled with so much fear and insecurity my entire life and have realistically never been complimented in a way that would ever make me confident. my first (and only) long term relationship started mid- junior year of high school and would destroy my confidence for years after and the last date i went on i remember the person talking about someone else a lot of the time we were together. i remember calling my best friend andy right after the second date we had and how terrible i had felt, how i felt like a placeholder for someone else. a common thing in my dating life is that i’ve always forced myself to settle. when i started writing this, i realized i’ve actually never been fully attracted or even that interested in the people i’ve seen. i always told myself that i was fat and ugly and that i should be happy the person was interested in me in the first place even if i couldn’t see myself with them. in the last few days, i’ve told myself no more of that.

in the last week, i’ve joined bumble, hinge and feeld and at the point that i’m writing this, i’ve deleted bumble. admittedly, i decided to pay thirty bucks for feeld’s premium options because within my first day of being on the app, i had 132 likes. i guess to some that might be an ego boost but after going through all these likes i was met with: A LOT of couples, 50 year olds, men with usernames like boytoystephen, mr puttitdown or certified munch.

with now being able to see who likes me first on feeld, i don’t feel so embarrassed sending hearts to people i think are out of my league but if i’m being honest with you… in order to feel more comfortable with the idea of having casual sex and nothing too serious, i am treating feeld specifically like a research project almost. over the course of dating, i’ve decided to keep a journal of conversations i have and hopefully when i start responding more frequently to people, the dates too. (that i will occacsionally share on here as well) on feeld i had to change my bio from saying “inexperienced compared to most on here” to “curious and trying to learn more about myself” after a friend pointing out that saying the word inexperienced would probably attract people who would try to take advantage of me. since taking it out of my bio, my likes have decreased drastically.

i currently have 43 people that i’ve matched with and i believe less than 15 have actually started up a conversation with me, most of them are men, and the oldest is 53 years old. i know what you’re thinking!!! but my own personal age limit on my end is 33! the older men that have liked me don’t say anything and a part of me decided to like them back to see what exactly they would do, like i said research project! as for seeing them in person, honestly i don’t know if i would.

the worst first message i’ve gotten so far is from someone named rose who simply says “hi! i’m also sober and very needy :p you seem really cool :)”. there is also hunter who is 37 and simply sends “hey lil blue. i’d love to make out and be nice” in three separate texts. ben tells me i’m really beautiful, z tells me they like my fugazi sweater and that they play covers of them frequently, carl tells me he respects me for trying to get back out there and assuming if we vibe irl that he’d be down to gently help me learn more about what i like. i haven’t responded to most of these because in all honesty i am simply overwhelmed but i’ve made it clear in my bio that im neurodivergent and frankly a workaholic so sorry it might take me a while to respond, which is true!

(this is where i will begin to be explicit as i detail one of my experiences on feeld so please skip if you’re uncomfortable with hearing about me being sexually explicit and openly talking about my kinks and desires and also detailing an assault i went through as a teen.)

one of my first matches is someone simply named ‘Y’ on feeld. he’s 33, a cis man, straight, has a partner and is open to various types of connections but is just looking for one person. i’m extremely surprised to find that he’s liked me back on feeld very soon after i did. i swipe on him because he’s 7 years sober, seems to be into film and his first message to me is “Hi I’m ______ ! How long have you been sober?” I say 3 years this January and it takes him a day to respond back with an apology about how glitchy this app is and how he didn’t see that I had messaged him back. i say it’s okay because it really is and our conversation starts to flow. he asks me if i grew up in the bay and if i go to amoeba often (but spells it Amobeoba), my dream place to visit where we discover we’re both big lord of the rings fans, and asks me why i switched from film production to media studies. it’s nice.

it’s only 4pm, maybe 4 hours after our conversation started that the tone truly shifts. the first minor shift is when he asks me if i mind our age difference and i wrestle telling him that i didn’t pay attention to that at first and the fact that him being 7 years older than me might be the most appealing thing about him to me. i tell him i don’t mind and ask him if he does and then tell him if he does then i’m okay if we stop talking. i get his response at work and have to take a deep breath when i see it in my notifications: “if i’m being honest myself, i like that i’m a little older in this case! not sure why but, yeah…”

when i get off of work at 5pm, i decide to open up to him about chris. i tell him about my boyfriend who i’d waste almost 2 years on and remember how he would break up with me, show up to my house in middle of the night, drunk, and telling me he couldn’t live without me. i don’t tell him any of this but in my bio i do say that i’m not looking for hookups or one night stands quite yet and explain to him that this ex had presented to himself as “dominant” when in reality he was aggressive and abusive to me. he says he’s sorry and thanks me for being upfront as it helps him get a better understanding of me. i tell this all to a guy i’ve been talking to for half a day that the reason i haven’t dated or had sex in almost 10 years is because of a 20 year old boy i dated when i was 17. i think about the ex who never took me on dates but said he would and he’d just park his car somewhere to fuck me or make-out. the ex who would choke me wrong and almost make me pass out. the ex who made me cry after begging him to stop after shoving himself inside me and then finding blood in the bathroom after when he’d already taken my virginity weeks prior. i think of the bruises i still have pictures of deep in my goggle drive and i think about how scared i still am to say that he raped me. i think about how much he stole from me and i think about the fact that he’s married now. i say this all so easily to a random guy when it took me years to admit to myself what had happened and what i had lied about for years and cried over in therapy. within so little time, i’m letting this random guy tell me he wants to fuck my soft, pretty face in the back of his truck. i let him call me a slut over text and that’s exactly how i feel after consenting that he could sext me and be vulgar. he asks me to call him daddy, how wet i am and if he can send a picture of his dick to me. he wants to cum and in order for him to he asks me to ask him to fuck my pretty little face and make it messy with his load. he tells me he comes so hard and that oh im so sexy and hot and well now he’s tired. i tell him goodnight and it’s radio silent until 8pm the next day. i text him first. i tell him that i hope he’s having a good day and he says thanks! and says he actually wanted to check in to see how i felt after last night. do i tell him the truth? do i tell him about the confidence boost it gave me seeing a photo of him hard and dripping? do i tell him i’ve spent my entire day thinking that he thinks i really am a slut and easy because i told him i’d let him teach me how to take him in my mouth so i can get him off? do i tell him i’m embarrassed because i’ve been checking my phone every couple of minutes hoping for a text? i settle on admitting that i had fun last night and that i am embarrassed about it also.

before i let him degrade me, we talked about seeing a movie together on sunday, maybe even monday, depending on if he’s working or not. it’s saturday night as i finally type this all out and he hasn’t messaged me back since 9pm on friday. i thought i was gonna be the one to back out but now i think it’s him and i’m starting to realize i’m not as hurt as i thought i’d be. i know what i’m getting into when i do things like this and i want it even if i refuse to admit it to myself. the reality is the sexting did more for him than it did for me. to be honest, even though i let him project his fantasies onto me i know the power i hold over guys like him. i know to them they think i won’t have boundaries and that they think i’m oh so fucking easy and willing to do whatever they want but that’s not true.

the truth is i’m more depraved than i remember being but i’m not stupid either. yeah i want to fuck and learn what actually gets me off instead of reading about it in all the smutty fan fics i’ve been consuming since i was 13. it’s my first week of being back on dating apps and i’m swiping on almost every man i find attractive and who says he’s dominant and wants a personal connection before fucking. i’ve spent so much of my adulthood being afraid of people touching me and depraving myself of the things i want and within a week i’m letting a man i barely know tell me how he’d fuck me in the back of his truck while in the same sentence is saying he won’t expect anything when we first meet. a part of me is hoping if i let him talk to me like this he’ll like me and be the one to fuck me so dumb i finally forget about how stressed i always am. yes i’m so deeply embarrassed that i let him talk to me like that but truth is, i’m just as depraved as he is and that maybe i do want him to use me. i’m embarrassed that i let him do it all so soon but i’m more ashamed and embarrassed that i’ve been waiting for him to message me back. i’m pretending that he didn’t already get what he wanted, that he hasn’t left me on read, ignoring that his profile says active today and hoping that he still will ask me on that date. at the end of the day, i know not to take it personally and deep down i thank him for the small bit of attention he’s given me.

i called him honey and he called me a slut and i know this is just the beginning. this is only the first week and now i know to sext AFTER the first date, even if it is fun. it’s my first week being back on dating apps and i’m telling myself it’s okay to be slutty and that it’s finally time for me to have casual sex and that it’s time i get comfortable in my body.

i tell myself maybe i’m no better than this guy and maybe that’s okay. i can’t keep lying to myself about it and i can’t keep acting like im some kind of stuck up prude. i want to be desired and depraved and a pervert and be with someone who’ll actually fuck me without hurting me (unless i ask for it this time).