this is what i look like today:

i got contacts and also cut and dyed my hair (dark brown w/delicate red tint)

Soon the gossip girls are going to start teaching me how to use makeup, on my own request. (And I'm going to teach them how to knit.) While it's true that I used to occasionally dye my hair in the past, contacts and makeup have never been interesting or desirable to me before.

The desire to do these things was my own, I don't feel like I was caving to the pressure of Korean standards of beauty. You could look at it that way, I guess, and say I've simply become more vain (according to a mainstream standard of beauty) and am conforming to what people tell me I should look like. Part of that might be true. It's certainly true that I don't relish being stared at like I always am on the streets, and trying to look "normal" (i.e. less unusual and therefore less someone worthy of attention) is a way of reacting to this unwanted staring. It's also true that I enjoy being found attractive (when people express their attraction in a non-invasive way).

But there's something else, guys. I haven't felt like a sexual person for a long time now, though I'm not sure I've mentioned that to any of you (outside @twcwar). I really, really don't like that. I'm not asexual. I don't want to feel asexual. The problem is, I think one of the main ways (if not nearly the only way) I used to express myself as a sexual person was showing skin. Lots of skin. Legs, shoulders, belly, back, cleavage. Especially cleavage. If you don't know that I enjoy wearing provocative clothing, then you clearly haven't been paying attention.

I don't think this is a bad thing or a bad way to express myself, and if you do, I don't care. But despite that, I've stopped, completely. I don't show skin, except maybe some leg in the summer, which is acceptable in Korea but still draws attention to me because my legs are longer than most. I never show shoulders, belly, back or cleavage. Never. If I do, it means getting invasively ogled by every man who I pass on the street. It doesn't make me feel sexual; it makes me feel violated.

I think much of this - wanting to cut/dye my hair, wanting contacts, wanting to wear makeup (along with a heightened desire for "pretty" clothes and shoes) - is me trying to find a way to appear sexual without feeling violated.

Almost definitely, having a queer-minded sexual partner with whom I could express my sexuality without feeling like I had to change myself would be a healthier and less money-dependent solution. But once more, if you don't know that I have difficulty opening myself up and trusting other people enough to initiate sexual relationships, you don't know me very well.

I'm accepting these new desires, and trying them out to see if I like them. I don't think that's a bad thing.