You can harm yourself in so many ways. Starving yourself, hanging out with toxic people, alcohol and other drugs, cutting yourself, exercising too much, and also self-harming with sex. This article is going to be my story about self-harming with sex and also about some thoughts, insights and theories about it. This text is going to be focusing on girls, because I believe it’s a totally different story for guys. But guys should definitely read this also.
I think it all started for me when I was a child, under the age of 12 years old. I can now see that the roots of this problem goes back that far. In school there was a play among the children about dating and being together. Girls and boys asked each other out and asked if they would like to date or be together. Of course it was not a grown-up kind of relationship and they did of course not have sex or make out. They were sweet towards each other and maybe they gave each other a small kiss or were holding hands sometimes. I believe it has to do with practicing for an adult romantic relationship from an early age. And parents seems to encourage this by asking children if they fancy someone is school and so on. I’m not here to judge if this is right or wrong, it’s just the way it was when I was growing up and I don’t know that much about it nowadays but I guess it’s still going on. Anyway, for some reason I was not participating in this game. No one asked me to be together with them and I did not ask anyone either. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to, I did want to but I was very shy, especially around boys. But something inside of me started to hurt a little bit, why did the boys not care about me in that way? Was there something wrong with me?
Some years later, when I was 14 years old I got my first real kiss. It was not in school, it was on a short language school abroad. I guess I was kind of a loner, a little bit geeky, too much grown up, too deep, sometimes overweight, shy and too complicated. I was nothing like easy going, and happy-go-lucky. I was also depressed and had existential issues. I was not very popular in school at this point, sometimes I was very alone and lonely. I didn’t really connect with anyone anymore, not even my family. I was all alone, and everything was just dark. Anyway, that kiss helped me a lot. It was confirming my value as a girl. Maybe I was pretty, maybe I was not a loser, and maybe I was not that overweight. Someone found me attractive enough to want to kiss me. This boosted my self-confidence a lot and I’m really happy that this happened because without that I might actually have committed suicide before the age of 18. Yes, it was that bad. It didn’t last and we did not have sex but that kiss was important.
When I was 17 years old I got kind of desperate to lose my virginity. I was meeting one guy from another city and we had sex a couple of times. I didn’t really care about him too much but I wanted to lose my virginity to boost my self-value. To feel less like a loser, to feel cool. It didn’t last but that was okay. In these days I was such a mess, everything was a mess and I had big troubles with another type of self-harming – I was starving myself and I was also getting really drunk sometimes.
My first real relationship lasted for six months and I was at the age 23. It’s very late. It was okay and it was the closest I’ve been to real romantic love that far, but it was stormy and I was a drama queen sometimes. But I’m happy that it happened. Between the ages of 18 to very recently I had a lot of random sex. One night stands mostly but also some short kind of relationships. Just hanging out for some time or dating or whatever you want to call it. I’m not going to tell you numbers but I had sex with a lot of guys in my life. Now I realize that it was a self-harming behavior. Why did I do it? It’s very complex and I don’t fully understand it all myself. But I’ll try.
My destructive sex behaviors had to do partly with attention, confirmation and my value as a human and a girl. It also had to do with easy thrills, it was exciting and I was bored a lot of times. It had to do with self-hatred, low self-confidence and low self-esteem. I noticed that especially when I was overweight I needed this attention and confirmation form guys more than when I was kind of skinny. Simply because when I was overweight I had a hard time to think that I was pretty and I felt like a B-girl, a second class girl. I thought my self-value was associated to my weight and my looks. Then at some point I realized that it’s actually not a confirmation of a girl’s value that a random guy wants to have sex with her. Because the most of the guys have sex with anyone, they don’t really care. Especially in clubs and bars, where I spent a lot of my time and my money. I used to get very drunk and then end up in bed with some guy. And it gave me nothing. Not even orgasms. They just used me. But I used them also, in a very sick and twisted way I made myself believe that it all meant that I had value as a girls if guys wanted to have sex with me. But what I really did was that I was embarrassing myself, I was harming myself in so many ways and everyone thought I was a slut. But no one asked why I did it. When I woke up the next mornings I had so much anxiety, both from the hangover and from the fact that I had another meaningless sex meeting. These anxiety attacks could last for one day or so and it was truly horrible, I just wanted to die and never go outside my apartment again.
The insight that the most of the guys have sex with just anyone was very important for me. It took a while to fully let that insight sink in. It’s not actually confirming anything with my value as a girl. What would more confirm my value as a girl would be if many guys wanted to have a relationship with me, but no one wanted that and of course I was wondering why. There’s probably many reasons but one big reason was of course that no one wants to have a relationship with a slut. But again, no one asked or cared why I was behaving like a slut. No one asked why I was harming myself with sex. No one cared. Not even myself. I believe that I fully understand that insight now, because for some reason I’m not really interested in random sex anymore. I don’t have that need anymore. It might also mean that I’m stronger now and that I learned to give myself the attention and confirmation that I need. I don’t need sex anymore to believe that I have a value as a girl, I try to keep in mind that I have a value as a human and as a girl no matter what I look like. If I chose to have sex I want it to be with someone that I know and care about. I think that random sex is something people could try if they want to, just to try it out but if you do it a lot I think it is quite sick. For guys also. Just because it’s socially accepted and “normal” it doesn’t mean that it’s healthy or sane.
Even if guys know that the girl is harming herself with sex the most of the guys seems to not care at all. They just care about one thing – to have sex. They don’t care about the human behind her. She’s just a tool to their own pleasure. Barley no one of my random sex partners tried to make me come. They just didn’t care. And if they tried it was because they would get an ego boost if they could make the girl come, nothing else. This I believe is the truth. It’s very sad. Correct me if I’m wrong. Even if some guys would say no to have sex with a girl that’s using sex as self-harming then she would just find another guy that’s willing. And trust me, for any girl, that’s not a problem to find someone who wants to have sex with her in clubs and bars. So what should guys do if they suspect that a girl is having a destructive sex behavior? What should friends to her do? Talk about it in a nice way. Try to make her think about why she is doing this. Explain that she is in fact harming herself. She might object and she might not understand. It will take some time for her to realize that you are right. Don’t talk about it all the time, but sometimes. We can’t just ignore what these girls are doing and let them continue to harm themselves like this. We need to take it seriously. It is a self-harming behavior and a quite serious one. If you saw that your friend didn’t eat properly, would you just ignore that? Would you not talk to her about it? Then I think you’re not a real friend. My opinion is that a real friend takes about things like this because they care. It might be easier to just ignore it but that’s not the correct way to do it. Don’t be afraid to talk about these things, but do it in a sensible way. Don’t judge and don’t tell them what to do, just talk about it. We all have to help, see and understand each other. Screw “mind your own business”.
I really hope that I reached a permanent change in my self-harming sex behavior, I believe this is the case, I never want to go back. Thanks to the one person that helped me to reach this insights and to change this behavior. You are a true friend. <3