"Everyone 'knows better'," Leia said. "Or at least thinks they do. I certainly knew better than to fall in love with a Corellian smuggler. I never had any interest in a relationship when I was younger; much to the consternation of my aunts, who thought my main goal in life from approximately my sixteenth birthday onward should have been finding myself a suitably princely husband. But there were so many other things in my life; I had Alderaan, I had my political career, I had my humanitarian work, and then there was the burgeoning Alliance... who had time to even think about a relationship? And even after I'd met your father, we were in the middle of a war and almost constantly on the run; probably the worst possible time to fall in love with someone."
"But love is a little like the Force, in that the exact moment you think you have it all figured out is when it blindsides you with something totally new that you weren't prepared for in the slightest," she said. "That's part of what makes falling in love so wonderful. And an equal part of what makes it so terrifying. No matter how well prepared you think you are, when you actually end up there, it's still uncharted space."
And 'normal' when it came to sex and sexuality was very much relative. Leia had known people who would hop into bed with anyone who expressed the slightest interest in the idea, people who were entirely asexual, and everywhere in between. And when one added romantic tastes to the mix the spectrum only got broader. Honestly, it was no wonder Ben was having difficulty navigating the whole thing.
"You know, I think a class like that would have done our family a world of good," she said. "Meditation is helpful for some things; I practice it myself. But it's not the answer to everything. Unfortunately the Jedi slogan- back when they were numerous enough to have one- could have been 'Meditate your problems away,'; it was their solution to pretty much everything, for better or worse, with our family history being an extreme example of what can happen with 'worse'."
"As for what you can do, though..." She thought for a moment. "There was actually a similar incident between me and your father early on. I'll spare you the details, but he surprised me with how understanding he was. And how angry he was with those who'd hurt me." It had been the first time she told him about how she'd been forced to watch Alderaan die. And the way he held her while she'd cried and afterwards was when she'd first realized that she loved him, even if she'd been too afraid to say the words until they both stood in the carbon freezing chamber.
"If it happens again, be honest with them," she said. "You don't have to go into details if you're not comfortable with doing so, but let them know that being touched in a particular way brought back bad memories. In the end, you might never enjoy being touched in certain specific ways, and that's alright; it's not a weakness or something to be ashamed of, just something that your partners will need to know about you."
"But there are ways you can work on getting over issues like that, at least to the point that they don't make you lock up any more," she says. "Often times part of what triggers memories like that is if something happens suddenly or unexpectedly. You can try to gradually incorporate that kind of touch when you're being intimate, but instead have them take it slowly and deliberately and use that to help you become accustomed to associating it with something pleasant instead of the bad memory. Just don't try to push through if it's not working as much or as fast as you hoped; you won't be doing yourself or them any favors by trying to rush things."
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"But love is a little like the Force, in that the exact moment you think you have it all figured out is when it blindsides you with something totally new that you weren't prepared for in the slightest," she said. "That's part of what makes falling in love so wonderful. And an equal part of what makes it so terrifying. No matter how well prepared you think you are, when you actually end up there, it's still uncharted space."
And 'normal' when it came to sex and sexuality was very much relative. Leia had known people who would hop into bed with anyone who expressed the slightest interest in the idea, people who were entirely asexual, and everywhere in between. And when one added romantic tastes to the mix the spectrum only got broader. Honestly, it was no wonder Ben was having difficulty navigating the whole thing.
"You know, I think a class like that would have done our family a world of good," she said. "Meditation is helpful for some things; I practice it myself. But it's not the answer to everything. Unfortunately the Jedi slogan- back when they were numerous enough to have one- could have been 'Meditate your problems away,'; it was their solution to pretty much everything, for better or worse, with our family history being an extreme example of what can happen with 'worse'."
"As for what you can do, though..." She thought for a moment. "There was actually a similar incident between me and your father early on. I'll spare you the details, but he surprised me with how understanding he was. And how angry he was with those who'd hurt me." It had been the first time she told him about how she'd been forced to watch Alderaan die. And the way he held her while she'd cried and afterwards was when she'd first realized that she loved him, even if she'd been too afraid to say the words until they both stood in the carbon freezing chamber.
"If it happens again, be honest with them," she said. "You don't have to go into details if you're not comfortable with doing so, but let them know that being touched in a particular way brought back bad memories. In the end, you might never enjoy being touched in certain specific ways, and that's alright; it's not a weakness or something to be ashamed of, just something that your partners will need to know about you."
"But there are ways you can work on getting over issues like that, at least to the point that they don't make you lock up any more," she says. "Often times part of what triggers memories like that is if something happens suddenly or unexpectedly. You can try to gradually incorporate that kind of touch when you're being intimate, but instead have them take it slowly and deliberately and use that to help you become accustomed to associating it with something pleasant instead of the bad memory. Just don't try to push through if it's not working as much or as fast as you hoped; you won't be doing yourself or them any favors by trying to rush things."