Dressing Up

I have been in the process of moving for about a month now. Ok, I'll be more honest- I moved the boxes in, but I just haven't really unpacked anything. This is especially true of my clothes. My everyday clothes are out. That means regular underwear, athletic socks, shorts, t-shirts, pjs. What has yet to be unpacked are... well, everything else- business casual clothes, going out clothes, sexy date clothes, lingerie, heels. Lately, I've had reasons to wear nicer clothes, so I had to dig in the box until I found something suitable, not bothering to unpack the rest.

Late this afternoon, as I was getting my second shower of the day, with the nicer clothes that I'd dug out of the clothes box laid out including matching bra and thong, taking down my hair to rewash it though it didn't really get dirty today, I started wondering why I was going through all this.

It would be much too simplistic to say that I was doing it to get laid. And it would also be a lie. Frankly, considering what I know about the person I'm going out with tonight, I could have just shown up in the dirt-covered t-shirt and sweats that I was wearing earlier and he still would have fucked my brains out. Granted, he might not have taken me out to a restaurant wearing that, but he still would have fucked me. Sex is pretty much guaranteed in this situation.

I have a friend who would argue that I was dressing for other women, that women in general dress to impress or make a statement to other women, as other women are always more critical than (straight) men. For a bisexual woman, this takes on sexual implications as well, but, generally, while I do not want to look "ick" to other women, I usually don't try to impress them.

In some ways, I dress for myself. Or, more accurately, my own self-esteem, self-confidence. When I wear something that I know I look good in, I feel like I own my man or woman, own the room, own the world. I know I look good so I don't have to wonder what the men or the women in the room think of how I look. I already know. And that feeling is why I dress up. That feeling is also what gets me laid. Or whatever it is that I have dressed up for. When someone else lets me know that they have noticed how I look in a positive way, that just pushes it up even more. If it comes from the person that I'm with, or the person that I want to be with, that just gives them extra points, because they were observant and smart enough to say something.

But I also made another connection along with this, or maybe because of this. (Assume a straight, committed couple here.) If the man will have sex with the woman almost anytime she brings it up, and will often pursue it when she has not, despite how horrible she might look at that moment (in her own opinion), she doesn't feel like there is anything special about looking one way or another. Not only are her outfits interchangable and irrelevant to her male partner, she might start to think that all women are interchangable and irrelevant to her male partner so she doesn't feel special at all. And, if she doesn't feel special at all, she might be more inclined to just let it all hang out, not to act or dress special, especially not for her male partner. This also brings up what seems to be the number one reason that women have affairs- to feel special and wanted by someone. Is it really that their male partner doesn't want them or think they are special? On some level, their male partners must want them, must find them more special than another woman, because they are still with them. He hasn't left her yet. And he probably sexually wants her as well. If she said the word, he'd be naked and ready asap. But she wants to be told and shown by someone different that she's not just interchangable with any and every other being with a vagina.

Ok, so I'm not really sure where this leaves us, me, but I do know that I'm hungry and there is a man waiting to take me out to dinner who I intend to have sex with afterwards. And I'll look damn good doing it all.