How weird am I?

Question

When I was 8 and a half, I read my older sister's "Seventeen" magazine (the July issue, I think). There was an article in it written by a guy who went to visit a female friend who was in bed with the flu, and he ended up in bed with her.

For some reason, it had quite an effect on me, and ever since I have found illness and people who naturally look unwell (pale, thin, dark circles under eyes etc) extremely erotic.

1. How unusual is this?
2. What would be the psychological reason behind it? Why would this be such a turn-on for me?
3. What purpose does it serve from an evolutionary perspective? I mean, doesn't survival of the fittest suggest I should be attracted to the fittest, healthiest specimen I can find to protect me and pass on prime genetic material to my offspring?

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

I appreciate your honesty about this situation and I can help you.

1. It's quite unusual, but like most things in psychology not as unusual as you might think.

2. The psychological reason behind it could be a myriad of factors, but I believe the most potent answer is that you were coming out of your latent phase of psychosexual development at the time you read this. It impressed your young mind so much that it stuck as an image of proper sexual use. You began to equate sex with illness.

3. Evolutionarily, it serves no purpose. Evolutionary psychology develops very small, very minute differences in our neural structures. Evolution is extremely limited in beings so frail -- and yet beautifully complex -- as humans.

Answer 2

Not strange at all.

Paleness is common only in people with red, or white hair. On anyone else, it is considered exotic due to its general rarity.

This is very common when it comes to peoples tastes. Your tastes for pale, is the exact same as someones tastes for tan. The fact is, this is a area mostly overlooked and remaining subliminal.

I think your connection to reading the Seventeen magazine is cooncidence and has no connection.

Evolution has nothing to do with modern culture anymore. We are now more influenced by mnedia, and what we see day in and out. If media shown large people every day f or years, we eventually would accept that as normal. General tastes now overpower evolution, for example what evolution consider a healthy mother, is generally not in mainstream cultures tastes.

So to sum things up, your NOT weird.

Answer 3

it is strange, but ive been sexually aroused when having the flu, or being sick with anything because its the only sensation that will make you forget about how lousy you feel. someone like you would have been greatly appreciated. maybe your afraid of a long commitment or you want to be physically in control. maybe its one of those unexplainable sexuall kinks that everyone has and wont admit to. youd have to give out a lot more history about yourself before you could have a psychological evaluation.goth does come to mind tho.

Answer 4

i dont think that it is weird at all because if you think about it people are more vulnerable and innocent when they are sick. i think that you have a nurturing quality and feel more desirable when you are able to fulfill this urge. another theory is that you are a control freak and feel you are more superior when you can dominate someone. lol

Answer 5

It's just a fetish, plain and simple. Enjoy it and go on with the rest of your life.

Answer 6

it is kinda weird...
but its just because you kinda "grew up" thinking about sicl people+bed=sex. ya know?
but from an evolutionary perspective, most people like the strong, guys with six-packs. :)

Answer 7

This isn't really the place to ask for that kind of answer, but - like other people on here - I'm going to make my best amateur guess.
First, a couple of little stories/examples that I'm going to make my guesses from.

When I was little I went to see the movie, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" with Debbie Reynolds. What I thought I saw was a character who was strong and feisty and able to come back from all kinds of loss time and time again; and a character who wore beautiful clothes. I so admired this character that I decided that's what I wanted to be like. Whether I admired the character because it was in my nature to be like that, or whether I decided to be like that and develop the characteristics I saw in the character, I'm not quite sure.

As an adult, I decided to watch that movie again because it was the one and only movie that ever had such impact on me. I watched it, and to my horror and through my adult eyes I saw a character who came from a rough beginning, married someone who made money, and once HE had made the money she enjoyed the lifestyle she wanted (which was tacky in a neighborhood of refined people). Yes - she was tough and strong when the Titanic sank, so that was the same.

The thing is what I saw through my eyes as a child and what I saw through my grown-up eyes were two different things. I missed a whole lot as a child and saw only the good stuff - not the stuff that was kind of behind it.

Next point: I was fifteen and young looking. There were two pretty and very polished and grown-up-looking twins on my street. I admired their grown-up look and hoped if I ever got more gmature looking I could be like they were. One day one of them offered me a ride to school in the car she had just gotten. She was a couple of years older than I. On that nice Winter morning, and feeling very grown-up to be riding to school in a kid's car, I was very impressed. She had a package of cigarettes out and was smoking. She was just so "impressive" in my eyes - polished, pretty, grown-up. I got it in my head that I would be like that, and as soon as I began to drive my own car I also began to smoke and have that (to me back then) "attractive" package of cigarettes in the little compartment in the car.

Final example before I make my guess: When little girls are sexually abused they often grow up with an inappropriate idea of what sex should be and what their role should be and whether they should have some self-respect or say "no" to some things, etc.

So here are my guesses based on the above stories/examples:
As a little girl you found that story really "impressive" as I did with the girl who was smoking and driving and who had the chic little short hair-cut. You may have done what I did with the movie, by being impressed by what appeared obvious to you but, because you were a little kind, missing the stuff that was "off" or wrong or a story behind the story. There's no accounting for what impresses a child. A grown-up sees things different and more completely.

So, you were impressed. You may have thought, "I want to be in a story like that someday. How romantic" (or some other such ting because you were 8 and maybe hadn't seen much romantic/sex stuff before). Somewhere in your head maybe you were so impressed and so taken by the whole thing that your mind may have associated all the imagined romance you found in the story with relationships. You may have had some "emotional excitement" (I don't mean necessarily sexual. I mean emotional) that is often hard to come by in day-to-day life, especially in a child's life. You liked the "emotional excitement" that you may have felt in your own heart and/or anything else the story got going in you. Maybe your eight-year-old mind just linked the whole circumstances with excitement and relationships, and somehow "printed" on your mind the idea that such a situation was how things could be very romantic (or however else you found them at eight).

Maybe in the same way that exposure to sexual situations can change a little girl's way of viewing her own sexuality and her relationships with men, this little "blast" (and maybe the only one of its kind) could have had particular impact on your ideas about relationships/sex - and if you didn't have much exposure to more between then and now; maybe you didn't have enough normal experiences or exposure to normal experiences that were "impressive" to have them push that old idea you had out of your mind. Also, when you're older experiences or exposure to them don't have the impact that they do when you're a child; so even if you've seen more or experienced more since then they may not have had the impact on you. Maybe, too, (and I don't know this, I'm just wondering if its true) once your brain has developed past childhood it may not be as vulnerable to impact or blueprinting as it used to be. In other words, witnesses or knowing about a different "story" about relationships/sex may not have done any good if they occurred once you were past the "impressionable" age.

I would think you may not be as attracted to the person who looks sick as you are the idea of being able to have your own such story, which you may have in your mind (even subconsciously) will be as powerful and impressive as what you read and reacted to at eight.

Just my guesses. I have no idea how good or accurate they may be.

With regard to how unusual it is? I have no idea. A person would have to have worked in that field or studied up to know such percentages.

Evolutionary purpose? None. Your attraction to this kind of person or such a scenario is anomalous, and I would suspect it goes against any evolutionary hard-wiring that normally makes someone attracted to things which tend to show good health and youth. With every intent to be candid but respectful and understanding, by evolutionary principles your attraction to this scenario or such people does not offer much promise in terms of offering you and your children the futures that "standard" romantic attractions would offer you.

Maybe, too, you were impressed by the moves of the guy who moved in on a sick person. Maybe the guy is the thing that impressed you and made you think, "I want to be like that." If he wrote the story he probably made it sound good in some way to you. You may have been impressed by his skill or finesse or control. Maybe something like one or all of those things or something else just impressed your little eight-year-old brain to the point where you did what I did with the smoking.

Take my guesses with the proverbial grain of salt, as I'm sure you will. I may not know what I'm talking about. Anyway, those are my guesses.

Answer 8

ur just plain weird

Answer 9

crazy

Answer 10

become a nurse............then become a normal person