A Personal Desire For Beauty

As a 24 year old man raised in Western culture, I have repeatedly, and from a fairly young age, encountered the bias against appreciation of the male body and the bias against the female capacity for aesthetic and sexual attraction to the male body.  I remember being at least somewhat aware of this for much of my life even as I saw within myself a deep desire to possess physical beauty as a male.  Only six years ago did I become a rationalist and let that transform my commitment to Christianity and my understanding of myself.  Near the beginning of this philosophical evolution, I quickly severed myself from all toleration or acceptance of gender stereotypes and could finally explore my actual personality and desires free of interference from assumptions, distortions of Christian theology, and cultural pressures.

Now, I have the privilege of having a dating relationship with a genuine rationalistic Christian who also, naturally, is a consistent egalitarian.  That my girlfriend is openly sexually attracted to the bodies of multiple other men she has seen or interacted with in person means that she is attracted to the male body because it is explicitly appealing to her, not because she has the random, unpredictable, demisexual kind of attraction to men that so many people falsely stereotype men as having.  Instead of bothering me, this is actually empowering as an example of how gender stereotypes about the minds and bodies of both men and women are logically false.  It frees both of us to bask in our own individualities and affirm our deep intellectual and personal connection.

This, in turn, fulfills a desire I have had from a much younger age onward: despite being a male, as if gender has anything to do with personality and desires, I have wanted to be admired platonically and otherwise for my physical appearance by various women.  Life before my egalitarianism in a family, secular culture, and church culture drenched in the fallacies of complementarianism did not dull this impulse in me, as has likely been the case with many other men conditioned into silence and incomplete self-awareness.  It was only after my self-driven dive into rationalism and my recognition of true Christianity that I had the pleasure of understanding how these desires of mine were not abnormal or Biblically flawed.

I write this not just as a form of grateful self-expression, but as a way to encourage fellow people, men and women, to embrace their individuality without regard for the constructs of irrationalistic societies.  It is my hope that other men and women will find philosophical freedom from the shackles of lies and assumptions as I have.  As a rationalist, a Christian, and an introspective individual, I have tasted true clarity when it comes to the deceptions of gender role ideologies.  My girlfriend is just one of the women who has shared details about their general attractions to the male body in many specific cases, and I am just one of multiple men who has hoped to be perceived as physically beautiful.  The truth can set one free in numerous ways indeed.