Sunday, July 26th
Healthy sexuality adds to self-esteem. Compulsive sexuality can feel shameful.
Many of us acted out our sexual compulsions to escape powerful negative feelings. We used sex as a coping mechanism to find validation and connection, though this feeling usually did not last. We often felt increasingly empty and incomplete after having sex and looked for riskier activities to recapture the high we first associated with our sexual behaviors. In seeking that high, we might have objectified and manipulated others or allowed ourselves to be the object of someone else’s fantasy.
“Sex did not mean love to me. It meant power. I could not let go of the source of my sense of power — controlling things and people.”
In early recovery, we might regard healthy sexuality as a hazy concept — perhaps something ideal, but something we cannot possibly achieve. Yet, we hear others at meetings share stories of breaking out of their compulsive cycle. When we accept the possibility of change, we can become open to a spiritual awakening. We lose our fear of intimacy and can define healthy sexuality for ourselves.
We are not here to repress our God-given sexuality but to learn how to express it in ways that affirm our humanity, self-love, and compassion.
Healthy sexuality is mutual and intimate. Compulsive sexuality uses conquest or power.