Y’all I’ve been tap dancing around this post for months. I can’t believe of all the posts, this has been the most difficult to write! There are so many ways I can cover this topic, but I’ll start here: am I having sex, am I not? I’m a single woman in LA, so you’d think the answer would be yes, but it’s no. It’s not that I don’t want to, I’m a sexual person and I have no problem with it, but I am no longer promiscuous. It’s not that I’m abstaining, I haven’t become a born-again Christian, I was never a Christian to begin with. But I did find God, and I believe once you’ve discovered something you can’t go back. Ok here goes.
I was having sex for validation and acceptance. Of all the sex I’ve had, there are very few times that I was doing it for love and bonding (the real reasons for having sex). I wanted to someone to want me, love me, and want me to be a part of his life, so I thought if I gave my body, this would happen. I had no idea how to be open, vulnerable and know that people fall in love because of a mind and soul connection. For many many…many years I repeated this same mistake over and over, hoping for a different result. Hoping that this guy would see how great I am and he would stay. I felt that way about men – almost to the point of obsession until I found my true Higher Power. It took me a while but once I truly put my faith in God, I stopped making the man I met at a bar or a party, my higher power. I stopped hoping someone would rescue me. I stopped needing them to love me because I came to realize that God loves me and is the only one who can make me feel whole again.
I know this sounds preachy and Jesus-y and crazy but consider the alternative; not believing in God. I did that for 35 years. I did not believe in God. Instead I lived a painful life, believing that I can “think” my way out of this cycle that I’ve tried to end for two decades. I tried to do a “detox”, I tried to stop talking to guys when I went out, I tried to tell myself how terrible I’d feel the next day – none of it worked. I walked this earth feeling lonely, unlovable and alone. The only thing that has improved my confidence, self-worth and allowed me to pursue what makes me happy, is a Higher Power.
I’ll get super honest now and tell you how this all began. My father was the first man I ever loved, and when I was born, he became a sort of god to me, much like our parents do. This is natural, parents are supposed to feed us, clothe us, give us love and shelter. We innately worship them for keeping us alive. Furthermore, the father’s specific roles are to provide structure, discipline and a sense of self-worth. (There is more to that list but I’m going to try to keep it simple.)
So, what happens when that father doesn’t fulfill his role?
Instead of my dad teaching me right and wrong, instilling a sense of self-worth in me and letting me know there is a man who loves me no matter what, he hit my mother and us, he cheated on my mom, he had casual sex with women without a care for what they wanted and what their needs were, and worst of all, he put his girlfriend’s needs before mine.
In my formative years as a girl, I watched my father and how he treated women. From what I saw, the man who loves me is supposed to be violent with me, disrespectful of my mind and body, and he will ignore and eventually abandon me for someone else.
After my mom and dad divorced, their custody agreement was one year in California, one year in the Midwest; one year here, one year there. The first few weeks with my dad were usually fun, he was full of energy and laughter. But he always grew tired of us and quickly became the angry, unpredictable man we all feared. In order to stretch out those first few good weeks, I would do my best to not mess up, not get in the way, and not be seen, which is how I developed my perfectionism. I grew up thinking I had to be perfect for a man to love me, or at least want to have me around. Later in life, as an adult I slept with men, never checking in with my self and body to ask if I even really like that person or not. That man’s opinion of me mattered more than my opinion of myself.
I finally came to a low point where I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to be loved and accepted but I kept doing the same thing over and over in an effort to erase the messages my dad put in my head. It was always men I didn’t want to be with; a drug dealer, a felon, a rapper, an addict, a scared man who hadn’t worked through his shit, either. There were all male but none of them were MEN, none of them were for me. But I couldn’t see that, I just saw a chance to not hurt anymore, until I realized I was hurting myself because of a story that took place more than 30 years ago. For 35 years I had hung on to that story, trying to rewrite the outcome, until I hit rock bottom – one of the best places you can be. I found God, and a community of men and women who didn’t care about what I had done, they loved me regardless. For the first time in my life I stopped trying to heal that pain and I let God heal it for me.
I knew it was truly healing when a guy came over to hang out, but put the moves on me the entire night. The old me would have just shut my mind off and made my body do it. But this time something different happened. I checked in with my body, and my body and my mind connected. No part of me wanted to have sex with this man and so I told him, “I’m sorry but I don’t want to sleep with you.” It took so much courage to say that, to put myself first. What if he got mad? What if he did something to me? What if he told everyone? He did get mad, he did take it personally and he did say some really immature stuff. But you know what? I survived. I had prayed to God and God answered my prayers, I had the confidence and self-worth to listen to what I wanted and put it first. And when you’re able to put that into action, the confidence and self-worth grow exponentially.
Do I want to have sex? Yes. Do I want intimacy? Yes. But real intimacy. The kind you get over time, from a partner, in a relationship or a marriage.
Leave a Reply