CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses sexual violence.
I am the queen of spotting fuck boys. The problem is, after I’ve spotted one, I always manage to end up dating them… Oops!
You see, over time I’ve realised that my radar of attraction and radar for fuck boys have become entangled. Unbeknownst to me, if I found someone attractive, I’d automatically found a fuck boy.
Fuck boys come in many shapes and forms. Personally, my ‘type’ has been anyone of any height, any hair colour and usually a musician. But, first and foremost, they’re someone who is emotionally unavailable and simultaneously promises to give you the world.
If you find someone who goes around doing that to several people at a time, we have some key signs of a potential fuck boy. Add in some degrading comments, perhaps the refusal to wear a condom and maybe a couple of esoteric red flags, like claiming they have found themselves after one acid trip at an [insert band here] gig, and you might just have a certified fuck boy on your hands.
Let’s be ignorant — but together
There are certainly some fuck boy behaviours that I don’t excuse today.
To be completely honest though, there were many that I did because, on a significant and recurring level, the whole emotionally unavailable thing was working for me. It worked for them too — that’s what compatibility is, right?
The aloof nature of these relationships meant we never had to define our feelings. I could insert my own fairytale of love without meeting the cold hard reality of what was in front of me: that we were just stand-in cutouts for each other. Truthfully, we never really got deep enough, or honest enough, to truly know one another.
As I dated these people I found momentary reprieve from the deep-reaching pangs in my heart as I cycled through new heartaches instead. I discovered that I could hide in limbo by eliciting and discarding my feelings in one fell swoop as I played an extended, timid game of peek-a-boo with myself.
Instead of acknowledging my desire for intimacy, I acted like it wasn’t there.
I settled on the idea that me and my chosen fuck boy could happily be ignorant of our deepest wants. But at least we were ignorant together. That’s close enough… right?
In this mess, time and time again, I misunderstood the neurochemical whimsy of attraction for a narrative that meant something meaningful, deep and long-lasting. I created a story about intimacy in my mind but pushed my desire for connection away. Sound familiar?
I was basically the fuck boy inverse.
I went along with the Disney princess impression of love that I grew up on and never stood back to discern what these attractions actually meant to me. Instead, I leant in blindly, enamoured, swept off my feet and completely destabilised.
Rediscovering sexual liberation after sexual violence
All cards on the table, my history has no doubt moulded the ways in which I’ve navigated the dating world. I’m a survivor of complex sexual violence and this history has had a resounding impact on my blueprint for connection, and misshapen my ideas of what love and intimacy really are.
Although I am certainly not alone in this experience with reportedly 22 per cent of women and 6.1per cent of men experiencing sexual violence in Australia, there are a devastating number of victim-survivors in our communities, navigating connections, dating and relationships.
So, how do we traverse these spaces of connection alongside an epidemic of violence and what does sexual liberation even begin to look like when we are navigating the opposite? Do we continue to seek out the fuck boys? Or do we take the scary steps and look inward?
This has been my question over the last four years. To find the answers, I’ve been writing the documentary Unspeakable: Rediscovering Sexual Liberation After Sexual Violence.
In putting the pieces of this film together and speaking with many victim-survivors along the way, I have been inspired by their tenacity, will and wisdom to come back into connection. But, at the same time, I’ve felt the heartbreak at the depths of each of their experiences too. I’ve been moved by the way each individual has paved their own moments of liberation which has guided me to understand my own.
That path has been understanding what intimacy and connection mean to me.
Fuck boy proof?
These days, I’m still floating through the dating world. But now, when I meet a fuck boy-esque character or someone who is too emotionally unavailable to let me know that they are, in fact, emotionally unavailable, it’s less of a hard-line rule to snub that connection out entirely or to swing the other way and ‘fix them’.
Now, I ask what that connection means to me. What do I want to do with the knowledge that their capacity for connection is different to mine? I ask myself how emotionally available I am to pick up on the undercurrents that will inevitably play out when we enter into a connection unconsciously. Does that legwork serve me? Is there reciprocity? How close do I really want to get?
Despite my incredible fuck boy radar, I’m certainly not fuck boy proof. I don’t even think that it’s possible to be completely immune from their charms. But I am learning to lean into intimacy without losing my sense of self along the way. In fact, I’m learning to step forward and find more of myself in that process.
I am learning to rewrite the script that wrote my past, a path that has been both heartbreaking and heart-building in tandem.
Dakota Quin is an artist and advocate for the sexual liberation movement. They are currently working on Unspeakable, a documentary about confronting the epidemic of sexual violence in Australia and boldly re-examining the wider culture of sexuality.
Help is available.
- If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
- If you’d like to speak to someone about sexual violence, please call the 1800 Respect hotline on 1800 737 732 or chat online.
- Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
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