What Turns You On?

A strange thing happened. There I was, minding my own business, and a casual phrase rocked my world, and solved a mystery that my sainted therapist, Dianne, and myself could not solve for many years.

This is what happened...someone of my acquaintance, someone that I was not attracted to in the slightest manner, quite casually directed a comment to me. (I apologize for the intentional vagueness in this portion of the tale, Jaimie...regardless, the specifics of the comment are not the integral part of the story) Instantly, I felt like Nicholas Cage receiving the slap from Cher in Moonstruck – I was snapped out of a lingering haze that I had been living in. I was instantly present, and very, very drawn to the speaker, who had now become the most attractive thing on the planet.

How to explain this seismic shift in my own feelings? How to explain this comic turn of turn of events – from someone not being on your radar screen to becoming the most arousing being in the universe?

What is erotic? The acrobatic play of the imagination. The sea of memories in which we bathe. The way we caress and worship things with our eyes. Our willingness to be stirred by the sight of the voluptuous. What is erotic is our passion for the liveliness of life, and an appreciation for the unexpected.

After many hours of reflection, it occurred to me that what turns me on in reality is none of the things I intellectually believe turn me on. None of the qualities I believe spark attraction for me really measure up to this one stunningly simple and unignorable fact...what turns me on is the unprompted recognition of my inner being by someone else. The knowledge that someone else sees me as I see myself, is an attraction so powerful that it has kept me in fetters for five years, wrapped up with the most inappropriate of alliances, which seemed indissolvable with no real explanation. And now I have been casually handed the key to understanding it it and hopefully freeing the Phantom of San Diego.

It was a very powerful day.