When Sex Becomes Therapy
In all the conversations, very little is said about the healing aspects of sex.
People say lots of things about sex. It is by no means an unpopular subject, even to those that think sex is the work of the devil. For something that, at its most basic, is essential for the human species to keep moving forward, it has become something well too complicated; I blame most religions for much of the negativity surrounding sex… But in all the conversations, very little is said for the healing aspects of sex.
This is one such tale…
It was the second last term of my time at college. I’d not had a steady girlfriend for a while but had enough ‘dips in the ocean’ to keep me content. As it was, life was busy enough and honestly, there was more to be concerned about, with graduation coming up faster than any of us liked. So it was with some consternation that one day, passing what was affectionately called ‘the fishbowl’ — a glassed-in workshop area flanked by two walkways, that I saw ‘her’… ‘M’.
From this point this part of the tale descends into one of mind-numbing, gut-wrenching pain and heartache, so I’ll spare you the details. But sitting here and looking back at it now, what transpired from meeting ‘M’ changed the course of my life, and I do not say that lightly.
Fast forward almost three years and two continents. I’d come back home and not been near a woman in all that time. While there were offers, I was simply not interested as still I was a mess. As is always the way though, unexpectedly I met someone at work, ‘C’, a freelancer who’d just returned from overseas herself, and a breakup. We started hanging out and one night, after a very intimate birthday dinner, I dropped her home… and fucked it up. She clearly wanted a lot more than the peck on the cheek I gave her, but I was still floating in the abyss; at least by this point I‘d thrown the anchor overboard.
“Is that all”, are the words I remember from the car that night.
Things between us got strange from that point. While we still spent a lot of time together, a wall had gone up and, though it wavered now and again, C never again got close. Eventually, we just drifted, she was confused about her ex and as I got to know her more, her excessive drinking became an issue for me. So while meeting her had helped stop the downward spiral, it did nothing more and I was still afloat in the dark.
Enter, ‘R’.
Sometime after this, my share house threw a house party to welcome new housemates. We’d had another new housemate move in previously who, being kind, while inoffensive was a bit of a nut bag. Her sister though had come from interstate to stay a few weeks and was quite the opposite. I soon found myself quite liking her, we had a lot in common and was very easy to get along with. Come the night of the party, it was clear this was a two-way thing and before we knew it, we’d found a quiet spot and proceeded to climb down one another’s throats and grind ourselves silly. It was a week before we found the right time, I came home from work and we fucked like I’d never fucked before. Even if I discount the fact she gave the worst head I’d ever been given, it was the best sex I’d ever had — we just clicked and we were fucking for all the right reasons..
Let’s just not mention that she was ENGAGED! Well, unhappily engaged.
This continued on for several days, each time better than the last and each time we got that bit closer, talking was how we finished up. She was unhappy, her fiancee expressed no interest in her, which was making her miserable. I told her about ‘M’ and what that whole thing did to me and through the openness that came from sex, we started to heal.
When she left, I was whole again. Not because of the sex but because of the intimacy and openness created by it — I had been able to open up fully and expel my demons. R called a few weeks later, after another bad experience with her fiancee she had called it off; our experience together had shown her what she wanted from a relationship. I always wonder what would have happened if she had not lived a 5 hour flight away but as it was, we both got on with our lives, a relationship well off the cards from a purely logistical point of view.
We met one last time. She’d come to town to see her sister and when we were finally alone, we chatted. There was still something firing between us and the attraction, the pull, was obvious. But she was with her new boyfriend and I was with who was to go and become the ‘Ex’, so we, by silent agreement, behaved.
To both of us though, it was clear that the time we shared sexually was far more than sex. The sex we shared so enthusiastically was something we both needed to heal, to free ourselves from what had been going on in our lives up until that point. Neither of us had any doubts that the sex we had, created the emotional release we both had been looking for… the release we both needed, from very different situations, that allowed us to finally move forward.
*And if you’re wondering, ‘C’ ended up marrying her Ex and I’ve never really managed to ‘let go’ of M. She lives with me. Some might say that this is unhealthy but it’s far from that. In many ways, she has become my klaxon for when things in my personal life are not going quite right…. but that’s for another story…
I’m a guy, writing about….sex (I know, right?), and the travels of life.
