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Hi AA, perhaps we should change the subject and take this to a separate thread, so as not, as you say, to tread on Brenda's thread. But I think now we're getting back to Brenda's thread.
When you said loss of gender, I didn't understand your use of the term. And I guess that reading the book that I'm reading, I was primed to assume that you meant loss of sense of male-ness or female-ness. Which it doesn't sound like was what you meant. And which is really a completely separate issue.
And no, I had no subtle message to convey about gender identities. I was just rambling.
So back to what you're describing, which I would call more libido-related. Although libido is more generally specific to sex drive, I think that in the broader sense it encompasses the ability to enjoy sensual experience. Let me check with Webster. Nope - it defines it in terms of urges or drives, which isn't really what you're talking about. If I'm understanding you this time, you're talking more about being able to experience sensual pleasure, rather than the drive to want to do so? I do not know the word for that.
But I do know the experience that you're describing. I share the experience, although maybe in a milder form than you describe. I do still derive pleasure from touch, for example, but it takes much longer for touch to stop being, as you say, just touch. It requires some mental effort to make the shift that I'm not always able (or willing?) to extend. I nodded my head as I read your words - "uh-huh, been there, am there still, much of the time".
And how interesting that you mention the taste/smell. I think that at a level mostly below (above?) our awareness, smell is an important part of sensual and sexual experience. People lose sense of smell for reasons other than cancer treatment - I wonder if they have noticed similar issues?
'Running late for kayak class - talk to you tomorrow.
Love,
Debbie Laxague
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