The Never Loved Blog
Can you sleep with someone too soon?
Sex is a sensitive and controversial topic, especially for those of us who have trauma. We may feel overcome with shame, guilt, and confusion, and to make matters worse, we have to deal with all the contradictory messages from society. “Casual sex is empowering and healthy!” “But don’t sleep with a guy too soon!” “Actually, all sex is a sin!” We start to question ourselves and wonder how the hell we’re supposed to navigate the world of sex and relationships. But I’m hoping this post will clear up some of that anxiety and allow us to develop an internal framework for approaching sex in a healthy and empowered way.
First, I want to acknowledge that I am by no means an expert on sex or relationships. I’m just a girl in my 20’s trying to figure things out. However, I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years, and I’d love to share that insight. I’ll break things down into three parts for ease of reading:
- How attachment styles and trauma influence our sex lives
- Societal messages
- Embodied decision-making
How attachment styles and trauma influence our sex lives
Have you ever become deeply attached to someone after physical intimacy? Couldn’t stop thinking about them, pining after them, etc., even if they were emotionally unavailable? Contrarily, have you ever regretted sleeping with someone? Have you dissociated, panicked, shut down, or lost feelings after sex? Or do you avoid sex entirely out of fear?
Almost everyone experiences sexual regret at some point in their life. But if you find yourself falling into the same unhealthy patterns, experiencing the same regrets time and time again, you may be allowing your attachment style/trauma to make decisions for you. We want to get to a place where we are able to make these choices from a place of power and self-recognition.
The first step is to get really damn good at self-awareness. You may already know your patterns and have excellent self-awareness, but for anyone who isn’t quite there yet, I’ll lay out some of the ways in which unhealed attachment wounds and trauma can affect the way we experience sex. However, there is always nuance so if you have a different experience, that’s okay! This is only meant to be a general guide based on research and my own observations:
Anxious attachment:
- Tendency to attach very quickly, especially after physical intimacy
- Wanting or needing sex often
- Seeking validation/reassurance through sex
- Rushing into sex
Avoidant attachment
- Preferring casual sex (sex without intimacy or emotion)
- Completely avoiding sex
- Deactivating or shutting down after sex or intimacy
- Non-monogamy or inability to commit
Disorganized attachment
- Often displays both anxious and avoidant characteristics
- More likely to experience sex addiction/hyperssexuality
- Lower sexual confidence
Trauma
- Engaging in harmful, dangerous, or demeaning sex/relationships
- Addiction OR complete avoidance
- Experiencing fear and shame
- Dissociating or feeling “out of body”
- Physical sexual dysfunction (vaginismus, erectile dysfunction, pain)
*I think it’s important to point out that any form of trauma can impact our sex lives. It isn’t always overt sexual trauma. Sometimes sexual trauma is more covert and difficult to recognize. For example, growing up in a religion that emphasizes purity, having a caregiver(s) who made you wear a bra at home or made excessive comments about your body, having your boundaries disregarded (emotional and physical), being forced into physical contact (hugs, kisses, cuddling, etc), being shamed or abused for your sexuality (lgbt), being exposed to inappropriate sexual content at a young age, such as porn or a parent talking about their sex life, and so on.
Societal messages
The next piece I’d like to address is the messaging we receive from society. On the one hand, we have the sexual “liberation” movement. This movement, which has become more prominent in the last decade, is laser-focused on promoting total freedom when it comes to sex (particularly for women). Hookups, casual sex, friends with benefits, one-night stands, porn, OnlyFans, stripping, etc., are openly encouraged and praised. These activities are marketed as empowering, freeing, feminist, and even a tool for overcoming sexual trauma. This movement has positioned itself as the antithesis to the shame-based purity culture that has traumatized millions of people, including myself. I can see the allure of a movement like this: I think most of us would love to engage in shame/consequence-free sex whenever we want. After all, it’s only human. However, that type of lifestyle simply isn’t possible or healthy for the vast majority of people. There are STI’s to worry about, pregnancy, safety, and of course, emotional consequences. Which is why the abstinence and purity culture movements are still ever present in our society. They propose an extreme solution to these valid concerns. They promise that if you are totally abstinent or wait until marriage, you won’t have to worry about diseases, unwanted pregnancies, or emotional trauma (and you won’t go to hell. Bonus!). But we know now that this approach rarely wins out over our biological urges and it creates a cycle of shame, trauma, and confusion regarding normal human desires.
Society loves to offer up black and white answers for gray questions. However, sex is one of the most nuanced aspects of the human experience and shouldn’t be treated like a disease nor given out like candy. At a certain point, we need to tune out the external messages and tune into our internal compass. So where do we start?
Embodied decision-making
I’m calling this concept embodied decision-making, partly because it makes me sound smart. But what I want to convey is the practice of making decisions based on who we are (mind, body, and soul) instead of what society or other people want us to be. Every single human being is totally and completely unique. We can share many similarities, but when it comes down to what makes us who we are, no one else in the universe has been or will ever be exactly like us. Therefore, if we want to start making decisions that actually serve us, we need to let go of the external messages and pay attention to internal signals. How do we do this? If there’s one thing I’ve learned since beginning my healing journey, it’s that our bodies are constantly giving us signals that can lead us in the right direction… but only if we listen.
How many times have you felt your stomach drop when a partner says or does something hurtful? Have you ever experienced unexplained physical symptoms in a relationship that turned out to be unhealthy or abusive? Breakouts, nausea, constant anxiety, sweating, lack of sexual desire, digestive issues, hair loss, disease flare ups, etc. How soon did the symptoms show up? Was it before you were consciously aware of your unhappiness in the relationship?
It’s almost unbelievable how intelligent our bodies are. We pick up on the subtlest of cues in our environments long before our conscious minds become aware of them. But unfortunately, past experiences can sever that connection between our bodies and minds, leading us to ignore those cues in the future. Many of us were taught by our caregivers that we cannot trust ourselves—that our emotions and internal experiences are not real or valid. There are many ways this can happen, including being dismissed or neglected as a child, having your needs ignored, being criticized for being your authentic self, being accused of lying/making things up, being gaslit (someone denying your reality), or experiencing abuse (physical, emotional, sexual). All of these experiences throw our nervous systems into disarray and can cause us to doubt our strongest instincts. A huge part of healing is getting reconnected with those instincts.
In order to do this, there are a couple important steps:
- Validating our emotions and experiences: it doesn’t serve us to deny what we’ve been through or to push away our feelings. Regardless of how painful it is to confront these emotions, we need to learn how to sit in the discomfort instead of always trying to run away. We have to start accepting all of our emotions (positive and “negative”) and giving ourselves the unconditional love + compassion that we didn’t receive as children.
- Reconnecting with our bodies: practicing deep breathing and identifying where emotions arise in our bodies (where do I feel anxiety? Sadness? Joy?), regularly engaging in movement such as walking, exercise, dance, yoga, etc., stimulating the vagus nerve (link to some exercises), socializing, engaging in hobbies, and so on.
- Learning to trust ourselves again: this means getting to a place where we feel confident in our ability to regulate our own emotions/be okay without relying on a partner, crutch, or addiction. We also have to get comfortable with setting boundaries and being disciplined. No more procrastination and staying up way past our bedtimes (I’m totally not calling myself out here).
- Honoring cues from our bodies: it starts with the little things like recognizing when we’re full, thirsty, tired, uncomfortable, sick, etc., and taking appropriate action. Eventually we’ll start to pick up on cues that can alert us to a potentially dangerous person or situation, or even someone who makes us feel safe and secure. Then we can more easily recognize when our bodies are communicating that we are or aren’t ready for physical intimacy with a new partner, for instance. These signals help us set boundaries and protect ourselves.
Another essential part of making healthy sexual decisions involves honoring our values and taking our trauma/attachment wounds into account.
It’s up to each of us to determine what our values are and if we want to live according to them. Here is a free test to help you out: https://personalvalu.es/personal-values-test. Similarly, we need to practice significant self-awareness when it comes to our trauma, how it manifests, and why it drives us to act in certain ways. The hard truth is that those of us with attachment wounds need to navigate relationships and sex a bit differently than those who grew up in healthy/secure environments. Each of us has our own set of struggles, but at our core we all probably have a wound regarding love and/or sex. My particular wound has led me to be physically intimate with people way too quickly (within days or weeks of meeting). My tendency was to seek sexual validation from partners in order to numb the shame, fear, and anxiety I felt inside. I used it as a bandaid—a replacement—for genuine emotional intimacy. I would also get hopelessly attached to unavailable people after we were physically intimate or I would freak out to the point of deactivating and losing feelings. This pattern kept repeating over and over again until recently I determined that I need to wait to have sex until I’ve taken the time to really get to know someone. Not to “make them wait for it” out of some weird powerplay, or to guarantee that their intentions are good (none of us can know what someone’s true intentions are, plus if someone leaves you just because you had sex “too soon,” they aren’t worth it). I made this decision solely because I want to honor my values and protect my heart and my body. I still harbor some fear and shame around sex so I need to be careful who I allow into the most vulnerable parts of my life.
Of course, everyone is different and this is just my own personal experience. Some people aren’t affected by casual sex and are perfectly happy without an emotionally intimate relationship. However, I see way too many people who fool themselves into thinking they’re okay with that lifestyle, when deep down they know they’re not. I see them making harmful sexual decisions over and over again. It may be a pattern of hookups when what they actually want is a loving, intimate relationship. Or rushing into sex with every new partner as a form of self-sabotage. Here’s some tough love: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If we’re falling into the same pattern or consistently making decisions that cause us pain, something needs to change.
You have all the power to turn things around and start working towards a life that fulfills you. So, I want to leave you with this question:
Do your choices reflect what you truly want?
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