Issues with Sex and Love

At this point it is pretty obvious that I have some issues with my body. I think the fears that started as a child grew and formed complex protective apparatuses to keep me from dealing with them. Not only that, but I project that back out into the world in the form of judgment. All my rationalizations are correct – you should love someone for who they are inside, not what they look like; sex in the media is objectification of people, especially women – but that’s not the whole story for me. Those came after the fact. I cling to them. It’s all valid, but underneath the valid points are some nasty issues that have to be resolved.

So the first step is to be comfortable with my own body. I have to love all parts of me all the time. I have to see myself in all kinds of situations and love what I see. I have to be comfortable with it. I am human, and I have to realize that I do the same things that other people do - I just don’t see myself doing it. I’m not looking at myself. I don’t get to look at myself. I have eyes, and with those eyes, I’m looking at everyone else.

After absorbing the deep truths involved with that, the next step is to slowly incorporate outsiders. I figured I’d watch some movies without looking up their sexual content for once. I swear I thought someone had recommended The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to me in the past, but now I see that must have been a huge joke. The movie is filthy and graphic. But, a perfect opportunity for me to work on myself and see how I’m progressing, unfortunately.

The sexual content in the movie seemed to slowly escalate. I guess that works with what I’m trying to accomplish. The first encounter didn’t show anything, though it would universally be seen as disturbing. The next encounter showed a whole lot more, and was even more disturbing. I’m happy to say that these parts didn’t bug me too much. You know why? Because no one is going to get turned on by this stuff. Everyone is disturbed by it. Rape is not okay. So as far as my own issues are concerned, I felt safe watching it, because I didn’t have to defend to the imaginary people of the world inside my head that it was bad. The people of the world agree with me. I felt horrified by the rape, but I didn’t feel the extra feelings that stem from my own issues. Well I did a little, but nowhere near how I usually feel.

So then was the consensual sex scene. That’s what got me. First of all, SO FREAKING GRAPHIC. That is the most graphic thing I have ever seen in a movie. Ever. Granted I’ve always refused to watch movies with nudity and sexual content (THIS IS WHY!), so I have no idea if this is typical now. It really proves my point. It was horrible. It may as well have been porn. I swear it basically was. Granted, I’ve never seen porn, but I mean, I get the concept, and THAT is very nearly it. When the scene was over, I sat in my sinking emotions, which turned to tears, and I sobbed into my pillow. The chemicals of fear, disgust, discomfort, hatred and pain stung.

You know what though, it wasn’t as bad as it has been in the past. The feelings, that is. Maybe because I wasn’t in the minds of others, trying to figure out how they were feeling about the scene. I find things don’t hurt me as much when I’m single. When I have a boyfriend, I always flip out about whether or not they’ve seen it and what images they have forever floating around in their heads. But when I’m single, I have less to stress about. I don’t have a real-life example to analyze. And thank god, because I am nowhere near ready to throw that into the mix here. I need to get comfortable seeing this stuff BY MYSELF before I start worrying about how other people see it. I mean, I don’t WANT to be comfortable watching this stuff. I really don’t. I don’t think I SHOULD. I don’t think anyone should. However, I think my reasons have a lot to do with me and my issues instead of the moral and objectification issues. I can still think that way, but first I have to deal with my underlying issues with it. I can be against it but still not want to cry, curl up in a ball, shut the world out and hate everyone after seeing it. That probably isn’t healthy. Basically I have to become comfortable with it before I can allow myself to hate it again. I have to hate it for the right reasons, and not confuse my own insecurities and issues with the actual objections I’m saying I have with it. (Aka, I’m still right! I’m just also wrong…)

So I watched the scene again. And then one more time. Desensitization, anyone? Honestly, the shock did go away a little bit by the third time. But the bad feelings and the tears still came.

Oh right, and then there was another, louder, sex scene. Because it is so necessary and vital to the plot line. What the hell.

I thought about that episode of 2 Broke Girls that I saw recently. Two Amish boys spent time with the girls while on Rumspringa, and the girls tried to turn them on, which was really easy, because the poor boys had never been exposed to that stuff before. So they got turned on and then felt ashamed. I wasn’t turned on, but still, am I feeling shame? Am I ashamed of this stuff? Is that the problem?

Originally, I viewed sex as an expression of love. Well, those ideas got attacked by society, the media, and the people around me. Everyone just wanted sex for sex’s sake. Physical release. Physical gratification. That disgusted me. Everyone made sex dirty. They made me believe all sex was dirty.

The books I’m reading say that when sex is used as a means of communication, aka an expression of love, it is holy. And when it is used for the ego, it is unholy. My problem is that you shouldn’t be able to give two meanings to something so intimate. You can’t have sex with one person and have it mean nothing, and have sex with another person and have it mean everything. Either it means something to you or it doesn’t. You don’t get to put a different meaning on it each time. Just because you are having sex with someone you love doesn’t mean that sex means love to you. If you can have unholy sex, then sex is just physical to you, and you just happen to love the person you are doing it with. The sex itself is still UNHOLY.

As always, I get into other people’s heads. Because now I can’t see anyone in our modern-day society viewing sex in the right way; in the holy way. I kind of just don’t see any validity in love anymore.

There it is. That’s my problem. I no longer believe in love.

And these books don’t help at all.

So I grew up thinking people fall in love. People fall in love based on who a person is; based on soulmates and true love and destiny; compatibility and happiness; viewing life the same way; having the same opinions and same views on how people should live their lives; wanting the same things out of life. True love. Everyone is looking for it, and people usually find it and get married.

Then I saw everyone around me turn into a hedonistic sex addict. There’s divorce and cheating everywhere, not to mention an obsession with porn, strip clubs and loveless sex. Then I felt like love didn’t exist – it is just a mask to make lust look a little more respectable. Sometimes lust doesn’t even bother wearing the mask.

Now I’ve discovered that the concept of love that I’ve been so attached to is really just looking for a band-aid on all your fears and insecurities. Someone to make you feel good and worthy, since you can’t make yourself feel that way. You have to make yourself feel that way. You can’t lean that heavily on a relationship to provide that for you.

So basically, “true love” doesn’t exist. Sure, love exists. Love is within all of us. We want to love and accept everyone in the world. But romantic love – having one true love – the whole concept behind marriage and fairytales – that doesn’t exist. Like, at all. And if you find it, like The Untethered Soul says – you’ve failed. You’ve failed to conquer your fears. You found someone who will avoid those areas for you, and you will stay wounded and incomplete forever.

Well, there you have it. I’ve uncovered some very real problems here. I’m learning to accept and love everyone around me, but I’ve completely lost faith in romantic love. Let’s see what I can do with this knowledge now.