@Asehpe

Why, oh why, would the sunshine of my life not like my butt? It is me afterall. It is something that I have little control over - I had that butt when we met! (or name that body part here)

It is the purposeless of the comment. Yes - it stings because it tell me that there are parts of me that apparently are so unattractive that they need to be made clear. The result of which is I feel less attractive to my lover. And if I walk about naked, I am aware my unattractive butt is in full view.

So I am less likely to feel as free. Or I develop a "fuck you" attitude but once there - the relationship soon disintegrates.

I avoid the type of guy who feels the need to pull the rug out from underneath a woman - the player - the man's man. They need to find themself a nice golddigger - deserve each other! It is the non-player "nice" guy that hurts. It is almost as if, I don't deserve the same respect as say, his sister, or his mother. There is something about the sexual relationship that some men react to by "evaluating" the body parts of their loved one, their sunshine.

And I just do not understand it. Nor do I understand what I should do with the information. All I know is that I am stuck with the knowledge that my lover looks at me and sees something he finds unattractive.

About the negging. Yeah, that happens. My first love did that but he was a very cruel person. A real player, a user. His critique and comparison to other women was intended to make me feel less confident and it did. But I was very young and inexperienced at the time. It was a lesson on "type" I never made the mistake again. And I did develop a sense of self that left me somewhat immune to that type of play. I recognise it and find it very funny when men do it now. It like a 6 year old performing magic tricks - you see the whole thing but have to pretend you don't! At the time, I doubt it was in a book or labelled "negging" but I've read the theory and yes it does work on the insecure, or the naive.

Just a personal aside on negging - before there was a book to teach men how and why to do it . . . I was in army basic training and one of the drills was a "negger". It was SO obvious what he was doing that when he did it to me, I burst into laughter (not something you do to a drill btw). But it worked VERY well on the 17-19 year old little things who not only were away from their family for the first time, but in a position of total lack of control. This drill would say all these awful things about them, and then later, one on one, hand out slim compliments that were desparately grasped by these poor young things. It worked on 3 of those girls that I knew of. What a rat fucker! It was hard to warn these girls because they reacted by saying I was "old" or "jealous" when in reality - I saw myself in them. They got screwed - literally as well. This was before all the big military sex scandles - but that stuff went on all the time. I was in my late 20's so was a much better judge of men like that.

It was a shame though, don't you think?

But that is negging and at least it has an explanation. The useless critiquing by a loved one - I just don't understand the need.

@AKA Smith

It is the assumption that men think that they have the right to do this thing -- that our bodies are somehow theirs to pass judgment on -- that can anger women. It is sort of like robbing us of a part of ourselves and our own perogatives.

YES! This is a very large part of it.

There is some sort of data collection that goes on with men. They like quantifying measurements. When you look at Playboy, they always state height, weight, age of the model. And also hip, waist, and bust measurement - to include cup size. (I dated a man with a lifetime subscription) I would also read letters to the editor and found some of the writers were arguing with the stated cup size of some of the girls - like it mattered?

She was posed for purusal therefore open to any and all evaluation, I guess. She was, afterall, just a thing, like a motor that was rated higher rpm than it really was? The letter to the editor writer was merely setting the data straight.

I don't mean to sound like I am pigeon-holing men - I really really wish I knew what men wanted. I do know men who seem to see women and appreciate them and who are nice. I just have known a lot of men who seem to need to tell me where I fail in their eyes. The change comes with the sexual relationship.

This is not localized to me - I've had a number of discussions with female friends trying to understand why their lover/boyfriend/husband do this.

It just seems a pointless thing to do and accomplishes nothing - except to degrade how a woman feels about herself when with her lover. Maybe not how she looks and feels about herself overall - but it does change how she feels when with her 'sunshine'!

slaps down a 20 and leaves the room