When is sex more than sex?

When is sex more than sex? Hook-up culture is still so divided; if I talk about one-night stands at work, my younger colleagues applaud and encourage my escapades, but my older colleagues have traditional views and think I’m giving myself away too easily. So where is the line?

More importantly, how is my worth still measured by how easy it is to get me into bed?

Since coming out of a relationship, I think my views on sex have changed. But, I think my feelings towards sex are messy and complicated, constantly changing. Sometimes, I feel so empowered in myself without sex that a one-night stand and a boy not wanting me afterward don’t impact me at all. That’s when sex is just sex. I don’t think one-night stands are bad, in fact, I think they’re good. We’re all human, and sex is a release, a way of communicating with your body in a way that masturbation can’t always do.

Sometimes, I just want sex too. I don’t always crave being loved, and just because men can sleep with me and not want to be in a relationship it doesn’t make them wrong either. It’s just life.

I think it takes a particular mindset to have a one-night stand or meaningless sex. For me, personally, if I feel insecure and am looking for validation, a one-night stand is absolutely not the place to find it.

I’ve had sex with men I’ve loved, and sex with men I barely know. It doesn’t take someone with a high body count to tell you that sex whilst you’re in love, or even when you know the person well (in bed at least), is better than with a stranger.

The first two years after losing my virginity, sex made me feel powerful. The more people I slept with, the higher I regarded myself- if people want to fuck me, I must be beautiful. I remember saying once when I was 18 that I had slept with everyone I had ever fancied, even when I was a lot younger. I thought I was unstoppable. There was nothing and nobody I couldn’t have if I wanted them.

Until I wanted more. To me, sex was like drugs. I craved the high; but after a high, there’s a comedown, and the more people I slept with, the more I felt it. I didn’t feel powerful anymore. I felt worthless. Either I was discarded, left naked whilst they got dressed and conveniently had to leave, or had a reason why I needed to go, or even worse, they would stay and kiss my forehead, only to immediately ghost me afterward.

If I could have anyone I wanted, why didn’t they stay? Most of my friends either had boyfriends or had been in relationships, and I felt like I was running out of time. I didn’t want to enter my twenties having never been in a relationship (spoiler alert: that is completely fine and normal, twenty is still ridiculously young).

I have friends that feel this way too. Recently, I was speaking to one of my oldest friends, who felt similarly to me. Growing up together, we learned about sex and felt the same sense of power when we first started having one-night stands. Today, she told me that she felt she’d had an epiphany, she hasn’t had sex in three months because she doesn’t want to sleep with anyone she doesn’t like anymore- to give her body to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Since coming out of a relationship, I think my views on sex have changed.

But, I think my feelings towards sex are messy and complicated, constantly changing. Sometimes, I feel so empowered in myself without sex that a one-night stand and a boy not wanting me afterward don’t impact me at all. That’s when sex is just sex. I don’t think one-night stands are bad, in fact, I think they’re good. We’re all human, and sex is a release, a way of communicating with your body in a way that masturbation can’t always do.

Sometimes, I just want sex too. I don’t always crave being loved, and just because men can sleep with me and not want to be in a relationship it doesn’t make them wrong either. It’s just life.

Recently, I’ve been having sex with someone I like again. Except, I refused to admit or believe I liked him. I told myself, sex is just sex. It’s just sex. Until it isn’t. I found out he’d been seeing someone, and suddenly I was transported back in time, made smaller again, weaker. After spending so long in a relationship, having sex with somebody that loved me, I forgot he didn’t automatically love me just because I slept with him. I deluded myself, and let myself believe all the signs that I had probably imagined. I ignored all the obvious red flags because I really thought he could like me too.

It’s difficult because one half of me was enjoying being delusional, and it was good sex. It’s hard to stop doing something that’s good in the moment but damaging in the long run, even if it’s what’s best for us. The other half of me knew I needed to end it, to stop sleeping with him, because though it was good sex, I was left dreaming of something that would never happen. It’s so unhealthy and hard, and so important to leave environments that are only going to make you miserable.

When you’re having the best sex of your life, it’s hard to believe someone else out there will be as good, but they will. There is always someone else, and if there isn’t, that’s okay too.

It’s better to put yourself first and end it, even if it means giving up a shag.

If somebody only wants to sleep with you, making them wait won’t change their mind. They could take you on one date, or one hundred, but it doesn’t matter. If sex is all that they want, they’ll still leave as soon as they’ve done it. If you want to sleep with someone, it doesn’t matter about waiting. Your worth isn’t dependent on sex, or how quickly you sleep with someone. Sex is just sex until it isn’t. Life isn’t like a movie. I don’t have a magic vagina, I can’t make people fall in love through sex, and I’m tired of diminishing myself and making myself miserable by sleeping with someone in the hopes that one day they might want more.