Now obviously I had a problem here when categorizing this post - 'Relationships, Marriage' ? Or perhaps 'Sports, Recreation' ? But then I plumped for 'General Language', as this really is primarily a linguistic issue, although it will involve exploration of some other areas, shall we say.
I say that because I have a theory (and I'm sure I am not the only one to have stumbled upon this truth) that when speaking an adopted language, rather than one's mother tongue, one has the opportunity to re-invent oneself, and may find new resonances with this new language and one's personality/desires/world view/etc. ... which one has found hard to express in the mother tongue, which was inherited, rather than chosen. Language seems to me to be an expression of culture in the deepest, most intriguingly complex way. And so: I am a different person in Polish. And, interestingly, but perhaps rather worryingly, prolonged exposure (or prolonged periods of being a different person) have changed the way I am even in English ... I am more assertive, less patient, bolder, more self-aware, less of a ditherer ... and, whereas I think I would now feel rather self-conscious and affected having sex in English, I find it strangely, or otherwise, far more natural in Polish.
Am I alone in this?
(well, obviously not ; ) ... but in this slipping into another language and finding that less exposed, somehow, than sex in one's own language?
Ok. Answer that one.
I say that because I have a theory (and I'm sure I am not the only one to have stumbled upon this truth) that when speaking an adopted language, rather than one's mother tongue, one has the opportunity to re-invent oneself, and may find new resonances with this new language and one's personality/desires/world view/etc. ... which one has found hard to express in the mother tongue, which was inherited, rather than chosen. Language seems to me to be an expression of culture in the deepest, most intriguingly complex way. And so: I am a different person in Polish. And, interestingly, but perhaps rather worryingly, prolonged exposure (or prolonged periods of being a different person) have changed the way I am even in English ... I am more assertive, less patient, bolder, more self-aware, less of a ditherer ... and, whereas I think I would now feel rather self-conscious and affected having sex in English, I find it strangely, or otherwise, far more natural in Polish.
Am I alone in this?
(well, obviously not ; ) ... but in this slipping into another language and finding that less exposed, somehow, than sex in one's own language?
Ok. Answer that one.