The Big Reveal

This month’s topic has been a peculiarly torturing one for me, to be perfectly frank here. I’ve found myself at a loss, again and again, as to what I could/should/would/am able to share in such a public sphere with regards to my own sexual experiences. The notion of making myself so exposed, so open about the one thing I shroud ever so carefully in secrecy, unnerved me to the point of sickness. This perplexed me… why was I so scared to write this month? I decided tonight that instead of creating another short story, or writing a windy lecture steeped in academia (pretty unsexy, really), I would scrap all ideas and drafts and instead speak honestly and openly about that which has frightened me the most when attempting to write for this month’s theme, and has thus far kept me from doing so. (This post will read like a journal entry, so if you aren't interested, stop here). And, without further ado, here it is: I am scared of sex.

Before I get into that heavy and declarative thesis statement above, I’ll first mention my views regarding the purpose of sex in life. As many of you know (and by many I mean Edward?), I have a completely debilitating fear of death. My mortal phobia has crippled me in various ways since childhood, morphing from hysteria to anxiety to obsession. I’m quite sure everyone fears death as a concept at some points in their lives, but I’ve taken it to such great lengths in terms of compulsive thoughts—at one point the fear became so severe that I was unable to get out of bed or speak for two weeks and was sedated in order to quiet my addled mind. After making it through the very worst of my worries, I made it a point to find purpose in my life; purpose that was so fulfilling and life-affirming it could outweigh my fears of death and make life seem worthwhile. I vehemently sought this out, hoping to find an epic holy grail, a reason to believe in existence. What I found, through all of my own meandering queries, was initially underwhelming and seemed far too simple to be the great absolute for which I was searching. In essence, I found that, for me, finding meaningful relationships and personal connections had the best potential to free my soul from its constant state of turmoil. The next step in this seemingly simple plan for self-improvement meant actually finding relationships that felt meaningful to me. My life has been spent doing a half-assed job investing my time and energy into friendships and romantic endeavors that proved shallow, fleeting, exciting, and unimportant. I’ve chased down one flight of fancy after another, traveling to different countries, cities, schools, distracting myself from the fact that I’d been unable to maintain any semblance of a friendship or relationship for the past ten years, blaming my lack of closeness with others on my wild and deviant nature. This perpetual fire under my ass (that beckons for me to move, run, change) has burned out enough in the past year to allow room in my life for true connections with other human beings. It’s been illuminating for me to realize what adult peers can offer you on an emotional level. Really.

However, soon after realizing that establishing friendships and romantic relationships was the key to squashing out my fears of death, I came to see that there is something undeniable involved in this equation: sex. Sex is an unavoidable, ever-present, crucial component to having fulfilling adult relationships. Sex is the antidote to death, in many ways—it is a moment of respite, of connection so personal and deep and true that you can momentarily release all fears which burden you. Sex is such a tangible, pleasurable, exclusive act that two (or more) people can make and share and have and own and know, together, that it belongs to them and is in that way pure immortality. The discovery of this excited and comforted me in ways that I’d yet to experience—I finally felt that I had found the very holy grail for which I’d so desperately been seeking. (And the man in sky called down, “Ah ah, not so fast, Bethany Dawson.”) One little caveat (there’s always one, right?) to this beautiful and therapeutic knowledge I’d acquired: as it turns out, I am mortified of physical intimacy. That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy being sexual, or have a lack of sex drive. For those who know me well, I’m extremely open about my sexual dalliances (Bisexuality ftw!) and fantasies. Yet, this brazen behavior and bawdy bedroom speak is all a grand deflection mechanism. Here it is, kids: nothing frightens me more than the idea of true and intense intimacy. My sexual experiences with men, thus far, have been complicated to say the very least. Though I certainly won’t use this post as a reason to air out all of my dirty laundry, I will say this much: sex has not been a loving (or hell, even good) experience for me. I’ve used sexuality to obtain certain things (I can still assert that all sex is a form of prostitution, so don’t even get me started), but never to become truly vulnerable and connected to another human being. I’ve felt more connected to someone by holding their hand than I have during sex. My fears are wildly based in delusions, carry no real truth, but feel real as all hell to me. It’s not so much the act of sex itself that frightens me, but rather the complete and utter vulnerability involved in it. Having experienced various forms of abuse in my life, and spending my childhood/teenage years being overweight, I’ve developed a strange and psychotic sense of disgust and dysmorphia with my own flesh that makes being naked in front of someone (both literally and metaphorically) seem like an impossibility. It has nothing to do with physique, but rather it feels as though I’m giving to them the last part of myself that I have control over, that if I allow myself to become that vulnerable on such an intimate level, the rest of my walls will come crashing in around me. To me, sex equates to a loss of control, and I need control over my body more than oxygen. As time goes on, however, and various areas of my life develop more stability (and I’m able to have control over my circumstances), I become more willing to ease the reigns of resistance and give in to deeply intimate (and not just random) carnal pleasure (though my insecurities will surely not release their hold on me without a good fight).

The cat’s out of the bag now, I guess. Moving on, then. So, sex, it seems, is an antidote to death. Then what is the antidote for sex, when it becomes too heavily relied and dwelled upon? My own personal answer here would be romance. And please just wait--before anyone jumps on me for this, and aggressively lambastes me for placing emphasis on something as sappy as “romance,” hear me out. When I say romance is the antidote to sex, I don’t mean they’re mutually exclusive, first off. Secondly, when I talk about romance, I’m not talking about flowers and chocolate and date nights and compliments. That’s shmultz, and that’s not real. It’s an invention of attachment used to perpetuate ideals of status and materialism as tools of love. When I say romance, what I really mean is, connection: connection to someone in ways that does not involve any sort of physicality. Intellectual connection, emotional connection, spiritual connection, etc… listening to a song and thinking about your lover, reading a good book and knowing that your significant other “would just love this line!”, having an inside joke that seems nonsensical to anyone else, but makes you laugh until you cry. These little moments are just as important as the sexual acts themselves, or else, it’s just sex (which, as my personal track record will show, can be more depressing than celibacy).         

Wrapping things up here (congratulations, by the way, to anyone brave or stupid enough to have made it this far into the post), romance is the antidote to sex which is the antidote to death. Or, that’s how I feel at least. My fears of death will undoubtedly be lessened by engaging in meaningful sex, and my fears of sex will (god willing) be lessened by experiencing romance (connection). It’s been terrifyingly therapeutic for me to be forced to write about this, and I hope others feel more willing to share their own fears and insecurities regarding this month’s topic—as I said before, sex isn’t always a purely positive aspect of life… and the bad things about it need to be talked about here just as much as the good. I mean, this blog is for airing out our demons, right?..... Right?