Netw to this: motivations

HeidiNew2This

New member
I posted yesterday as well, about anxiety with starting an open relationship. Today I have even more questions. I am the one who asked for this, because my guilt from kissing guys, and girls. So now I question my motivation for doing this. I have a history of sexual abuse. I have had major guilt and actually hate about my sexuality my whole life, but when I have it, something wakes up and I feel little control over myself. I think this relationship might actually help me to embrace my sexuality as well as help me to explore and maybe control it better. I love the feeling of finding out what someone new kisses like, and if it's good maybe eventually more.

A fear though, is developing a greater hate for it, and in turn myself. I was permiscuous for one year when I wad 19, and went into deep depression. That was before years of couseling, but my sexuality has always been tied to a bitter hatered of myself, mixed with an unexplainable desperate need.

I used to be incredibly against an open marriaget, because it would mean I would lose him eventually. He had an "almost" indiscretion and worked harder than I've ever seen anyone to make it right with us for over a year. I know now he's here to stay, and even more so I am all in. My husband loves loves loves my sexuality and can never get enough. When I even think about the opportunity to just make out with another guy I have a flood of sexual awakening accompanied with disgust with myself... so I just need to understand if this is right.

Your stories and advice would be so helpful. I'm scared and excited and would love to know what your motivations are as well.

Thanks for listening yall!
 
Hi, Heidi!

You are a brave person.
Remember that a brave person isn't one who has no fear: it's one who overcomes their fear.
You have survived sexual abuse and are brave enough to share this information with others.
Although you are scared, although your exploration of polyamory cause you (mixed with positive sensations) self-disgust, you go on with this exploration.

Your husband is proud of you.
I take off my hat to you (and send you a well-deserved hug).
 
I'm a sexual abuse survivor as well. So I can empathize, and I'm sorry you experienced that.

I also was told things as a child and teen that pretty much taught me that sex was horrible and nasty and dirty, and if I wanted it or even thought about it, *I* was horrible and nasty and dirty, and that was why bad things were done to me. At age 22 I married a man who didn't even like sex, had it only because "it's what men do", and told me I wasn't allowed to like it but had to pretend I did so he could feel like a real man.

So yeah... I had a severely fucked-up view of sex by the time I left him, at age 36.

I overcame that for a year or so, but then when Hubby and I got together, he was judgmental about some things I said interested me sexually. What he claims (now) that he *meant* was "I don't want to do that," but what he *said* was stuff like "Only people who don't have beds do that." Instead of putting the focus on his personal opinion, he judged the act itself, and by extension, to my perception, judged me for being interested in the act. Over the next few years, I lost all the ground I'd gained between leaving my ex-husband and meeting Hubby.

Hubby suggested opening the marriage after we'd been together nearly 5 years, married for 3, because I finally got pissed off and said "You're forcing me to define *my* sexuality by *yours*, and that isn't right. Either compromise with me on some of the things I want to explore, or give me another option."

His other option was "I'm okay if you explore with other guys"... which sent me into another downward spiral, because I heard it as "You're so disgusting and fucked-up that I'm just going to let other men have you." We worked through that, slowly. Through opening the marriage and communicating, we did actually reach a point where he was willing to compromise about some things, and our sex life improved.

But for the first six months, every time I had sex with someone other than Hubby, I would feel powerful and positive for a day or two and then have a complete, utter, self-hate meltdown. After six months, I stopped *having* sex with anyone other than Hubby; I had a boyfriend at the time, Guy, but he was long-distance.

It isn't easy. When you've been taught that you aren't supposed to enjoy sex, or have had it used against you as a weapon of abuse, liking it and enjoying it, and seeking it out, can cause some serious reality-warping in your brain.

Here's the thing. Read this carefully; it's what I wish people had told me twenty years or so ago.

Sex is meant to be enjoyed. It is meant to be positive. It is meant to be fun.

There is nothing wrong with sex in and of itself. And there damn sure isn't anything wrong with someone wanting it, seeking it out, and having it with whomever they want to have it with as long as everyone's legally consenting.

You are allowed to enjoy yourself sexually. You are doing nothing wrong, and as you say, there might be power for you in this, because you are making your own choices and taking control of your sexuality, and that is a GOOD thing.

I hope you're getting, or at least have gotten, help in dealing with the fall-out from the abuse you experienced, and with your negative feelings around sex. If you haven't, I strongly urge you to try counseling. Believe me, a good counselor will not judge you for anything you do or want to do. When I told the counselor I was seeing at the time that Hubby and I had opened our marriage, she actually praised me for finding a constructive way to deal with the sexual issues between Hubby and me.
 
I was promiscuous for one year when I was 19, and went into deep depression. That was before years of counseling, but my sexuality has always been tied to a bitter hatred of myself, mixed with an unexplainable desperate need.
By "I was promiscuous for one year", I understand you to mean that you were having sex indiscriminately, without caring with whom.

The word "promiscuous" comes from the Latin promiscuus "mixed, indiscriminate, in common, without distinction". I can well imagine that fucking around with lots of people whom you don't care for emotionally could lead to depression.

Polyamory is a completely different concept. The part "amor" (polyAMORy) means "love". Polyamory implies a decision not to restrict your LOVE to just one person... and not to demand that somebody else LOVE only you.

Many religions teach us that we should love others. Some even go so far as suggesting that we should love everybody. The trouble is that their modern "believers" have the strange idea that physical (sexual) love MUST be excluded from this general rule: You must (sexually) love only ONE person.

You shouldn't feel ashamed (or disgusted) that you're putting the teachings of great religious leaders into practice: opening your heart to others. Not being stingy with your love.
Don’t give me any stingy love.
Give Love with all your heart.
’Cause if you try to cage my Love,
The bars will burst apart.
- from my friend Jimmy's poem, "Boundless Love (A Polyamory Song)"
Click on that and scroll down to near the bottom of the page to read the whole poem.
 
I can well imagine that fucking around with lots of people whom you don't care for emotionally could lead to depression.
I want to qualify that. While I was typing that out, KC43 posted her excellent comment.

Sex without emotional involvement is not for me. I don't mean to criticise others who enjoy sex for its own sake, without emotional involvement. Sex SHOULD be fun and exciting, however it comes.

But sex can be used as a weapon - as you and KC43 very well know. And I suspect that - after being a victim of sexual abuse - promiscuous sexual activity without emotional involvement could have made you feel that you were being used, if not necessarily abused all over again. And therefore, the depression.

Whatever your past experience, positive AND negative, what's important is that you respect and love yourself. You certainly deserve that.
 
I would just suggest to take it slow. There is a lot of great information on here and *most* people are very kind and helpful. Take time to really weigh things out and proceed with confidence!
 
Yes, I have received years of counseling. I actually am in my last 12 credits of my psychology degree.

This is really open for me and something most wont understand, and its not only hard to explain but to admit because of so much fear of judgment...

As far as the guilt being mixed with sex, we beat it to death in counseling. My husband and I have been very experimental, and the more I enjoy it the more I feel guilty. It's just part of it for me. And the sad thing about it is, the more guilty or sadness even, I feel, the more I enjoy it. And if I don't have the guilt, it's really not enjoyable for me like it should be. I know it doesn't make much sense, to me either, it's just how it is for me.

This to me is another attempt to "fix" that, as well as knowing that he is 100% on board as well as me being supportive of him. I am not sure if this will help or hinder, but I know I need to lean on him, and my experiences in psychology to get me through.

The alternative is to turn off, which I have done, and just not let the sexuality in. I am capable of this, but it's a sad life for both me and my husband.
 
Hi HeidiNew2This,

This question is off the wall and I don't want to hurt or offend, but is it possible you might have a guilt fetish? There would be nothing wrong with it if you do, in fact maybe realizing it would make sex more enjoyable for you? If I am out of line with this whole line of reasoning please pardon me and pay me no further mind, it was just a thought I had of something that might help.

My motivations for poly are pretty simple. I happen to be in love with a married woman, and the only way to act on that without ruining her marriage is to have a polyamorous V.

I guess that's all I have for the moment.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
No problem. No, the feeling of someone new is definitely more of response I get as far as everything feeling fulfilled. I tried to explore if i needed to feel guilty, and whether it's that my husband can't do that to me or it just didn't work for me, I'm not sure. I think sexuality just has the guilt attached to it, and they've coexisted for so long it's just one has become part of the other. Thank you though!
 
No prob ... maybe I can think of other ideas that can help. Or do you think guilt and sex will always come as a pair for you? Is acceptance the best answer?
 
Many sexual abusers make the victims of their abuse ashamed to the point that the victim feels guilty.

Chrissie Hynde (of the band "Pretenders") has written an autobiography in which she blames herself for being raped by a motorcycle gang when she was very young. She opines that many other victims are "asking for it".

I was living in a communal house when one of my housemates (a "truckie") brought home a hitch-hiker to whom he'd given a lift. Several people from the house (including a "nice but naive" 18-year-old) went out for a drink. Later that night, the hitcher burst into the 18-year-old's room and tried to rape her, yelling that she was a "cock-teaser" who'd been "flirting with him" and "asking for it" all evening, and that she owed it to him to give him what she'd been "promising" him.

I picked up a piece of lumber and was willing to give him what he was asking for, but other housemates got to him first and pulled him off her and into another room.

She was devastated. "What did I do to make him think that?"
You were just nice and friendly, smiled at him with those pretty eyes of yours, and laughed at his jokes. It was NOT your fault that he was an arsehole who mistook friendliness from a young member of the opposite sex for a come-on.

All this to say that abuse victims too often feel responsible for their own abuse, feel guilty. And many associate guilt with sex, sex with guilt.

I have no easy answers, HeidiNew2This. You write that the guiltier you feel, the more exciting the sex. But I would guess that the more exciting the sex, the more you blame yourself for enjoying it.

Have you seen the film "Good Will Hunting"? There's a scene in that where the psychiatrist keeps repeating - VERY gently - to a former victim of [non-sexual but very violent] abuse: "It's not your fault."
Will [the abuse victim]: "I know that."
Psychiatrist: "It's not your fault."
W [with nervous grin]: "I know."
P: "Hey, Will... It's not your fault."
(It goes on, Will getting more nervous, then angry at the psychiatrist, and finally breaking down and sobbing.)

I wish you healing.
 
Extenuating circumstances.
Several people from the house (including a "nice but naive" 18-year-old) [...]

I picked up a piece of lumber and was willing to give him what he was asking for
I don't want you thinking that I'm a violent person. At the time, I was a "nice but naive" 19-year-old myself. This guy was bigger and [probably] stronger than me and charged up with lust. It was the middle of the night, after everybody had gone to bed, and I thought that I might have to deal with him on my own. Better he get knocked on the head than I get punched in the face* AND she get raped anyway, I thought. (Still do.) By the time I was halfway down the stairs to her floor, several people were already in her room. The rest of us realised that the less people involved (as long as there were enough to prevent the rape and stay up with him all night, so that he made no second attempt), the better.

* One of those who intervened DID get punched in the face. (He was a social worker and our resident self-admiring, "suave and sophisticated lady's man". He tried talking to our hitch-hiking hero "man-to-man": "Yes, yes, she WAS flirting with you. But she's changed her mind and wants to sleep now..." Not a few in the house were quite pleased that he'd been punched.)
 
Last edited:
Back
Top