Dear Prudence,
I (they/he) have been dating my partner (she/they) for almost a year. The whole time I’ve known her, she has been stretching her ears with gauges, though always very slowly because she is extremely cautious about damaging them. I love her so much. The stretching though is starting to make me nervous. I get uneasy around things like this, even sometimes getting freaked out by scars on my own body or things like seeing a belly button out in public when I am not expecting it, even though my thinking brain knows that it’s totally safe and natural. I don’t know what it is about skin that seems to freak me out specifically. I do have an anxiety disorder that I have pretty well managed most of the time, but this has been on my mind a lot because I want to be able to get over myself about this.
I would never tell anyone what to do with their body, and besides that, I love how happy my girlfriend is with her self-expression. How do I work on managing this seemingly random fear, hopefully in a way that won’t dampen her excitement or make it seem like I have a problem with her? The easiest way would be to not talk to her about it at all, but at the same time, not talking through it like I would with most other things going on in our lives feels too close to lying.
—Stretching a Little Thin