Why is Desire the One Appetite We are Expected to Explain?

I had a crush on one of my closest friends. We had an emotionally intimate relationship. We told each other everything, even the things we wouldn’t tell romantic partners about. I could never get myself to admit it to myself, him or anyone. But it was eating me up, in a way that was familiar. When I finally told some of my closest friends about it, I felt the need to justify the why. “We share the same love languages” “We lean on each other” “We are basically platonic boyfriends” “He sees me in a way others don’t” “I am trying to heal something in myself through our dynamic”. Why? Why do we do that? “I am attracted to my friend.” Should be a complete sentence. Those friends I told? Told me that was all they needed to know. Why is desire the one appetite we are expected to explain?

I was out at a bar with some friends the other night and was craving a diet coke. I ordered one, I didn’t need to explain anything about that craving to the bartender, or my friends who were drinking. Yet, when our desire turns towards a human being, we need to shortlist reasons why. I tell myself that this attraction needs to be prepared to be put on trial, and my mind is the overworked public defender assigned to my case who reeks of Pall Mall’s, cheap cologne and apathy.

Ambition doesn’t have a prerequisite of explanation. Neither does hunger, grief or exhaustion. No one asks why you want the promotion, the better office, financial security. You are tired, enough said. You are sad and miss someone, enough said. But desire, specifically romantic and sexual desire, arrives with a demand to justify itself before the jury. Why? Is it the judgment of others? Is it that we are in a monogamous relationship and it is expected that these feelings are to be turned off like a light switch? Why does wanting someone feel like a confession to a crime that was never committed?

Someone in a monogamous relationship is experiencing desire for someone other than their partner, a situation a majority would call betrayal before anything has even happened (If anything ever was going to happen at all). But desire is perfectly natural. External circumstances of society tell us it isn’t. It’s a sin, it counts as cheating. Internally, we struggle with the fear of what it says about us. Am I looking at someone instead of my partner, or am I just acknowledging the experience I am having and then moving on? Does this mean I am not happy in my relationship? It’s not about the thought or feeling, it comes from the anticipation of what we might do with that information.

Living in the grey means sitting with the feeling, not resolving to immediate defense or explanation. We may have been programmed to follow up desire with “why do I want this?” but the kinder next question should be “why the fuck do I owe anyone that answer?”

You may find continued justification of why you need to answer that, you may have a moment of clarity and begin to live unapologetically in your mind, you’ll possibly float in between. When it came to that friend, I ran to the other side of the spectrum. But even today, I will still find myself justifying my reasoning as to why I am attracted to someone. There’s no need, but that public defender is still on retainer anyway.