what is your sexual superpower?
how we relate to other humans
One of my new friend chased sexual power. She told me, quite frankly, that she wanted to be a whore. She painted my nails a deep, dark red, her color of choice, and showed me how to flirt, how to charm, how to walk into a room with the kind of presence that bends attention.
It was a world I’d never fully understood, and I was both fascinated and afraid. Afraid in the same way I’d felt under the gaze of strangers in a bar or club, when their eyes lingered just a little too long.
Then this afternoon, I encountered another friend, the person who holds the most sexual magnetism I’ve ever seen in real life. Let’s call her the Queen of Sensation. She radiated a kind of power that made everything around her feel electric. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, partly because she was beautiful, but mostly because she was unapologetically herself. Sharp. Blunt. Intimidating. She didn’t soften her words or try to make herself likable. She said “no” a lot. Not with cruelty, but with a kind of self-possession that dared you to take her as she was, or walk away.
In that room, with the air thick from both power and tension, I felt a strange mix of fear and curiosity. She had mastered something I hadn’t even tried to understand. And then, somewhere between discussing power dynamics and playing Esther Perel’s card game about sex, I pulled a card:
“What is your sexual superpower?”
I froze. I didn’t know how to answer. I’ve been told I’m attractive, especially to Asian women at all ages, but I’ve always wondered if that’s just because I fit a beauty standard. I don’t usually relate to people sexually. Attraction, for me, rarely starts with desire. It starts with fascination.
As I fumbled for words, the Queen of Sensation looked at me and said, “You’re curious. You’re funny. You’re so open to learning.”
And just like that, the unspoken power tension dissolved. She was no longer this mythic creature holding court, I saw her as a human being. And I remembered: so am I.
That night, after four hours of talking, laughing, disagreeing, and reflecting, I walked away with something I didn’t expect: peace with who I am.
I realized I don’t have to relate to others through sexual desire. I don’t have to be darker, edgier, or more seductive to be desired. I can just be…me. The playful, curious version. The one who wants to know what makes people tick. The one who’s fascinated not by how hot someone looks, but by what lights them up inside.
People told me I couldn’t be childlike and desirable at the same time. That I needed to grow into something more conventionally sexy. But I’m beginning to think they were wrong.
Maybe my curiosity, my real, wide-eyed wonder about people, isn’t something I need to fix or outgrow. Maybe it’s the very thing that draws people to me. Romantically, too. My future partner will fall in love with me not in spite of this, but because of it.
Because more than anything, I just want to learn about… people.
And that, I’m starting to believe, sexually or not, curiosity might be its own kind of superpower.
Oh of course, I still want to be sexually desirable, but I realized my path will probably be very different from others.
queen of learning you are dear esther <3