Sex means very different things to different people. To some, it holds the sanctity of a marriage, or of two people who express their love in different ways. But for many, it can also be an assertion of their freedom. The ‘my body, my choice’ is a great way to experience the empowerment of oneself. To know that you have it in you to control how you feel and use your body to elicit feelings in another person. This can be a feeling of control that people often use to remind themselves of who has the ball in their court.
In this article, we will discuss how meaningless sexual encounters can influence our life. Read on:
1. Loss disguised as freedom
While that feeling of control can feel liberating, it can also go haywire pretty quickly if not checked. You may feel the control, but it doesn’t take too long to figure out that perhaps that is the only thing that you have power over. This can only lead to a feeling of helplessness and worse, loss.
A loss of oneself as you descend a road of escape from whatever you are trying to leave behind. This can also lead to feeling a failure of the spirit of oneself that can extend to a loss of meaning. This lack of power can be depressing and provocative in the sense that it often leads to self-harm, even if it is just not physical and purely psychological.
Similarly, as much as sex is about being in control, it can often for many be a loss of control. To give yourself away, only if it is in the body. The feeling of escape is sometimes the only reason you need to convince yourself that you need this and that’s it. What leads on from there often has no bearing and consideration from your end.
2. The feeling of emptiness and regret
People who have been through either of those two have described it as somewhat as operating on autopilot. They have found the feeling to be an easy one, choosing to deny the subsequent consequences that it has on their body and particularly on their mind.
For many, it is a manifestation of something that they are not able to deal with in any other way. Margaret, who had sex until the death of her husband remained someone who was committed to a healthy presence of her sex life on her personal life. Once he passed away though, this changed. She was heartbroken and needed a respite among the chaos that she felt her life had become, knowing that she could never depend on anyone as she did on her husband.
To numb that pain and the anxiety of ‘how will I ever?’ she began to seek out people, both men and women to feel like that helped soothe her soul. What started out as a reprieve, ended up being self-destruction. At the end of it all, she felt reckless but all the more alone, knowing that she had done all those things and that she had been playing with fire. She felt mocked, like a child who couldn’t contain herself, had been called out by many. Worst of all, she kept on thinking what her husband would think of this new version of Margaret, who compromised herself for a few moments of pleasure.
It is not that sense of self that you lose. Often, it is that ability to look forward, to see beyond to something better. Optimism for many people is that guiding light that they need when times get rough. Anything that is driven from a place of escape, where the idea to fade away has a damaging effect on a person’s ability to anticipate.
And this is not limited to expecting good things, but the bad and the belief that the bad will go away, like the ebb and flow. Divulging in an unfocused haze of anything for that matter, sex, drugs can make you feel powerless and take away your ability to understand what may await you.
3. The pain of your loved ones
Despite being your self-identity being about you, you are also very much defined by the people who surround you and who make up your world. While you are trying to live your life through it, it often affects the people around you, making them question your instincts and worse, their place in your life.
It is painful for them to see you go down that rabbit hole of misery and the thought that echoes among most of them are if they aren’t enough to help you through. That you have to succumb to the comfort of flesh to feel alive or complete again, and this very condition is devastating for your loved ones.
At the end of the day, it is hurtful, to both yourself and the people that make your life. Not addressing the actual issue and choosing to go down this road instead is awkward and humiliating. The relief is temporary, followed by immense guilt that worsens knowing there is nothing else you can do about it.
If anyone who is in this path is strong enough to realize that what they are doing is not helmed by any direction and is reckless, seek help. Have a conversation, instead of letting this become a pattern that you choose to ignore conveniently. You may still have some semblance of control and power left in you to pull you out of this and make it a life where you can recognize. Recognize your spirit, that there is some power left and that you are strong enough to fight this.
