Warning: This is not centrally a sex/relationships post, but does contain a section talking about sex.

Sometimes, people’s models of what they want, like or value do not match what they actually want, like or value. We can tell when this happens (as opposed to e.g. someone’s values just changing, which also happens) because sometimes we realize, in hindsight, that we previously really wanted/liked/valued things which disagreed with our models of our own wants/likes/values.

This has happened to me.

Architecture

I used to think that I liked modern architecture. The bare minimalist look, functionality without ornament, that sort of thing. 

Then I read Scott Alexander’s post Whither Tartaria (and the follow-up). I considered many of the examples in that post. And man… I sure did like the more ornamented looks better than the modernist look. The example which really sealed the deal was Disney World: I love the architecture at Disney World, both the parks and the resorts, it’s so cool, I have loved it ever since I was a kid.

Turns out, all this time, I liked ornamentation after all. In hindsight, I liked it even when I thought I didn’t.

So how did my model of my preferences end up so wrong? At least in this case, I’m pretty confident that it’s a matter of identity: I tend to identify most strongly with character archetypes which associate with modern architecture. Think Bond villains and r/evilbuildings.

This case was particularly interesting for me because I’d already hypothesized this pattern in other people, especially for food preferences. Many people just don’t really pay attention to the object-level sensations of eating food and how much they enjoy different foods. So (I claim) their stated food preferences are often driven by other factors, especially identity - they think they like “healthy” food, or fancy/expensive/high-status food, or the like, because that matches with their personal identity. But if you prompt them to pay attention to how much they enjoy the physical sensations of eating the food in-the-moment, setting aside shame or pride or other social associations, they prefer something quite different.

With architecture, I observed that very pattern in myself. And I took a very different approach to decorating my new apartment than I would have five years ago:

Hotness vs Fuckability

One of the go-to exercises at slutcon was “tell this attractive young woman what you’d like to do to or with her”.

I had no trouble coming up with quite steamy stories of things I’d like to do. The first time I tried this exercise, I told a young woman roughly:

First I want to dance with you - micro fusion, a close dance focused on connection. It will start with synchronizing our breathing, then lots of small core motions. After a song or two, I'll run a finger up and your spine in time with the music. You'll start to feel my breath on your neck, then eventually my lips on your neck. At some point I'll dip you low, then kiss all the way up your stomach and solar plexus and neck as you come back up. Then I'll start to pull your hair back and bite your neck and shoulder. Not long after that, I'll pin you to the wall and kiss you, still moving our cores in time with the music. [... and then it got less SFW than this post is aiming for.]

… the thing was, I wasn’t entirely convinced that I wanted to do those things with her in particular. She was hot, I was attracted to her, but… something about the vibe was making me feel “meh” when I thought through an actual scenario. Despite being attracted, I didn’t really want to fuck that girl.

Over the course of the next day, again and again, I’d look at a hot woman. I’d be attracted to her. And upon introspection, I’d find… I did not want to fuck her. My gut-level reaction was usually "meh" or "ugh", despite being attracted. The vibe just felt off somehow.

Fortunately there were a handful of notable exceptions. Cases where, yup, I definitely wanted to fuck that woman.

So, I mentally compared different cases, trying to probe what the heck my gut was telling me. It eventually clicked: with most of the women, even though they were hot, on a gut level I did not expect sex with them to be very good.

In the most common cases, my vibe-read was that the woman would be turned on by being dominated, but also had some hangups or anxieties about giving up control like that; my sense was that not all of her parts would be fully on board. So I'd have to either wade through or around half a dozen neuroses, or just play it safe and have pretty meh sex. And man, I did not want to deal with that shit.

In other cases, a nontrivial minority, I got a vibe that a woman mostly wanted gentle, tender sex in general. And the mood for that does occasionally strike me, especially when I'm tired and want something relaxing, but usually I want something more intense.

The cases where I definitely wanted to fuck a woman were cases where my gut said that she wanted to be dominated, wanted to give up control, and was fully internally aligned with that want. No hangups, no parts of her which would panic and grab for control just as things heated up. Usually women on the older side, with the vibe of an experienced submissive who knows what she wants and is eager to give herself over to a dom who knows how to use her.

That was how I learned that physical hotness is very different from fuckability, in my head. (And then I followed my newfound understanding, and indeed had some really fantastic sex.)