On Wanting Without Apology.

By: Megan Waddington

We’re taught that attraction feels obvious. So, when a relationship looks right but feels muted, the diagnosis becomes internal. Not the connection, but you. I thought I was simply someone who didn’t want very much.

I used to be in a long-term relationship that looked so right on paper exactly nothing to complain about, nothing wrong, yet maybe all along that was the problem. Smooth sailing, no frills, therefore no desire, no surprises and that’s when I assumed that I just had a low sex drive.  

In a quiet late-night googling kind of way, I would panic. Why was I not thinking about it? Was there something wrong with me? But in the end, there was nothing wrong with him or me; it just fizzled out. We’d eventually argue, and I’d say, “I’m just not thinking about it like you” It was a thing to tick off my list and not something I was drawn toward. 

When something that’s supposed to feel instinctive starts to feel choreographed, you assume you’re the one missing a step. So, I did what many women do. I internalised it. It never occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t devoid of desire. Maybe I was just in the wrong story. The relationship ended months before it officially did, but I kept rereading the same chapter, convinced it might rewrite itself.

Then, a couple of months into being alone, something clicked.

I met someone on a uni night out. We kissed, surrounded by cheap vodka and my friends cheering their newly single friend on. It wasn’t destiny or romance, it was charged. Embarrassingly literal chemistry.

Over a few weeks, I realised he had the kind of boyish charm that feels harmless until it isn’t: messy hair, stupid confidence, standing on a bench at 3 a.m,. waving like I was the only person in the crowd while my friend nudged me, “Is he saying your name?” It wasn’t polished or mature. It was exactly the chaos I hadn’t realised I’d been missing. Not because I wanted a boy, but because I wanted to feel something again after months of overthinking and rehearsed affection.

The unpredictability unravelled my previous self-diagnosis. He’d drive across town for me at 3 a.m., and we’d stay up until sunrise like sleep was optional. Desire didn’t feel theoretical anymore. It felt obvious.

Within a few months, I realised something simple: desire had never disappeared. It had just been locked. I’d spent a while believing I was sexually dormant, and suddenly I was wide awake, which felt exciting but almost indecent that I wanted this much. 

Why Did I Feel Like That? 

We’re subconsciously taught that men are driven and women are selective. That men pursue, and women permit. No one really prepares you for being the woman who wants frequently, unapologetically, without the decency to pretend otherwise. I wondered if I should slow down.

Even I started wondering whether wanting this much was something I even needed to explain, maybe the problem was never my desire, but how threatening it was to people who prefer women as easier to predict. 

Why is female desire still treated like a character flaw instead of a personality trait?

A woman who wants, openly and deliberately, to disrupt the script. And I think that’s what scared me most. Not the wanting itself, it was the audacity of owning it. For once in my lif,e being upfront with what I liked and desired. 

Men say they’re intrigued. And maybe they are. But there’s a flicker a brief recalculation, when you’re not playing coy. When you’re not waiting to be pursued but doing a little pursuing of your own. It unsettles something. After all, we’ve been sold the idea that male desire is instinct and female desire is response. One is natural, and the other is negotiable.

I think about those street interviews that float around online, “What’s a red flag in a girl?” “What’s too high of a body count?” As if women are rental cars and not people. As if experience depreciates us. The language alone tells mileage, ownership, and value. No one asks men how many chapters they’ve lived. Women are expected to remain first editions. To be sexy yet not overtly sexual. 

And here’s the irony: most men I’ve known genuinely don’t care about your sexual history in the way the internet suggests. But the cultural undercurrent is still there, subtle yet persistent. The idea that a woman can have desire, yes… but not too much of it. That she can enjoy sex but shouldn’t centre it. That appetite is acceptable, so long as it looks accidental.

It’s a strange realisation that the thing I once feared about myself wasn’t excess, but visibility. Not that I wanted, but that I wanted without apology.

And maybe that’s the real shift. Not in how much we desire but in how comfortable we are being seen desiring at all. 

I deeply treasure my female friendships. We joke that “TMI doesn’t exist between us,” but that openness is exactly what’s helped me embrace myself instead of downplaying parts of life that actually matter to our mental and physical health. We talk about anything dating, sex toys, and the messy realities of female sexuality that people usually avoid. Sitting together over drinks becomes our version of therapy, long, honest rants that leave me feeling lighter every time I’m questioning something.

We compare experiences the way men always have, observationally, occasionally shallow, mostly curious. What makes chemistry disappear? Why does it sometimes arrive instantly? Why did we all assume the problem was us? 

WWSJD? (What would Samantha Jones Do) 

Whenever I rewatch Sex and the City, I always end up admiring Samantha Jones. Not because she’s outrageous but because she’s uncomplicated. For her, sex isn’t a mystery to solve or a moral test to pass. It’s just a part of life she participates in honestly. Her character and her progressiveness towards relationships and sex bring a realness that can be translated into situations today. A radical honesty that is refreshingly  

She knows what she wants and moves toward it without apology, without pretending it happened by accident. Self-assured, decisive, sometimes ridiculous but never ashamed. Yes, she’s an exaggerated character turned up for television. Still, there’s something charming about the certainty she lives with. I don’t think most women want to be Samantha Jones.

But I do think many of us recognise the relief in her mindset, the permission to want something and not immediately soften it, justify it, or translate it into something more acceptable.

For a long time, I thought confidence came from being desired. Now I think sometimes it’s simply deciding your desire doesn’t need explaining.