I’m not particularly filtering this one even though normally it would go on my therapy filter. It’s kind of weird and disconcerting to be more open about this but I think there are people who are only more loosely part of my network who might be interested in this and maybe it might spur some thoughts and/or discussions that are positive.

I self identify as a slut. Given the number of people I have engaged in sex with it would be lying if I said anything else. My definition of sex (for my list) is penetration of a bodily orifice with a genital. So oral/anal/vaginal penetration. I am fuzzy about toy usage but I generally consider it sex if it is a strap on, but not if someone is holding a vibrator against my crotch with no other activity going on. Kind of a fuzzy line but I want to have there be a difference between foreplay and sex so I kind of picked a somewhat arbitrary line. This is the part where I am going to be very blunt about my history… By my definition of sex I have slept with 74 people. For those who are more pedantic in their definition of sex I have had PiV/PiA with 50 men. I have some seriously mixed feelings about having had this many partners. 29 of those experiences have been one shot deals, which isn’t to say that they were one night stands and I don’t know them anymore. Many of the one shot deals are people that I was friends with for a long time before the one sexual encounter or who have gone on to be friends with and I still know them years and years later. Can I have relationships? Two nine month relationships, one that lasted for a year and a half, and one that lasted for four years seems to indicate that I am actually capable of relationships. Not to mention the nice people who have put up with my flakeyness in the two week-four month range.

What do these numbers mean though? How do the affect who I am? How/why should they affect how people see me? This is stuff I have been talking to my therapist about quite a bit because my feelings are extremely ambiguous. First of all: I am really glad that most of the people I was worried about don’t seem to indicate that they will judge me based on things I have done as opposed to who I am as a person. I appreciate that more than I can express. I am seriously worried about being judged as a bad person based on some arbitrary attribute. I have this bad habit of deciding I like someone and then forcing myself to try and fit whatever it is they want me to be like in order to please them. This doesn’t work because it means I am often not behaving as is my nature and that doesn’t help anyone really. What I need to do instead is just behave however it is I behave and people will either like me or not and then we are all at least being honest with one another. I am such a people pleaser that it is really hard to do that though. She has asked me if I could take any of it back, would I? Do I believe that taking any of it back would change who/what I am in a positive way? Well… actually… no. No I don’t.

Because I am such a virgo I have kind of graphed out the distribution of partners so I know how old I was when I slept with who and that allowed me to look at the matrix in a new and interesting way! There are serious clumps. I will go long periods in monogamy then sleep with a bunch of people then be monogamous again for a while. It also correlates to finding new social groups and fucking my way through them before I settle into my place in the group. I seem to prefer developing relationships (friendship type relationships) with people I have already gotten the sexual tension dealt with. I feel more comfortable if I know where I fit and having already ‘gone there’ keeps me from feeling on edge about it.

What is my attitude towards sex and how is it manifested in my patterns of sexual activity? This is the one that I turn over and over in my brain trying to get a grip on it. I have sex for many reasons, a few of them include: it is just flat out fun, it can be emotionally bonding, it can be a tool of personal/emotional growth, something I can do to help someone else feel happier/better about themself, and rarely as a way to just feel connected to another human being.

I am one of the (seems like few) people who literally can have sex just because it is fun–I sometimes feel like it is about as much commitment as going to an amusement park with someone. YAYYYYYYYY sex!!! This is something that is highly dependent on my emotional state though and I can only do this sometimes. If I am not in a place to properly appreciate sex that is supposed to fall into this category I just abstain–I’m not into backlash on my part or on anyone elses because I just wasn’t in the right headspace to handle what level of commitment the sex was supposed to entail. Have I ever had this kind of sex when I wasn’t actually in the right place for it? Yes. Several times when I was a teenager and it really sucked and I felt bad about myself for a long time. Eventually I was able to parse that the problem had nothing to do with the sex in and of itself, it was about my expectations and emotional state going in. I’m glad I had those experiences because I learned a great deal and I have grown as a person. Many people view those experiences as “bad” or something that I shouldn’t have done, but I think they were necessary steps.

Anyone who believes that I can’t have sex that is “special” or “bonding” because I can also engage in more casual sex can kiss my lily white ass. I am not limited by my past sexual choices any more than I am limited by my past sexual assaults. Am I “damaged” goods now? I don’t fucking think so. I am an intensely emotional person and I challenge anyone who wants to say that my love is worth less than someone who has only had two or three partners in their lifetime. I flat out believe that many of the people who are highly judgmental about the number are people who are jealous because they would like to receive so much attention and because they don’t they are going to hand out some sour grapes about the issue. I need to get better about firmly acknowledging to myself that their attitude isn’t about me it is about their own baggage and that should not be part of my own reality. It’s hard for me though. It is easier if I don’t particularly care about the person in question, but even then I am such a social creature that other people’s opinions matter to me. I’m working on getting over that. I also think that emotionally bonding sex does not need to be about only the people I am in “R” relationships with.

I will also admit–oh I am going to burn in hell for this one–I sometimes have sex as therapy! AHHHH I know, scary stuff. I do bdsm play as therapy too. So NEINER!!! HA! Yeah, I’m just a rebel. But I am a rebel with some amazing friends and partners who have been willing to help me deal with some heavy duty stuff and I am eternally grateful. That is a very very small proportion of the sex I have, but it exists.

The times when I am having sex because it helps someone else feel better is probably the hardest for other people to understand. I hear the word pity fuck used to describe this, but it isn’t accurate. I have also recently been asked about my being a sacred whore in this context and that sounds closer to the right way to describe it. I have chosen to have sex with people who don’t really set my radar off because it is something that will help them on a number of occasions. Once and once only I had sex with someone because he earnestly asked me to help him lose his virginity and he believed that I would be able to help him learn how sex should be so that he wouldn’t be awkward and fumbly with people for a long time to come. It was an odd request and it took him a while to talk me into it, but I did it and I’m glad I did. It helped me to crystallize what I believe is important about sex and now there is a guy out there who has learned a lot about how to pay attention to sexual signals very explicitly and I made sure to indoctrinate him with the attitude of, “You should always always always be grateful that someone chooses to sleep with you–they are giving you the gift of their body and NEVER take that lightly” and I believe he listened. It was cool. I have no way of tracking down to find out if he really internalized my message but I am hopeful. I have had sex with people who are going through serious trauma and who need to feel that connection with the basic life force. I have had sex with people who felt so bad about themself that they just needed something to overturn the wave of “I am just not interesting to anyone anywhere” and all of them went on to find someone to have a more steady relationship with and I have been thanked for helping them find the self confidence. I really don’t think I should feel bad about that! There are people whom I have elected to not have sex with because I believe that me doing so would not help them in the way I wanted to and instead would just open a new kettle of fish of issues. I haven’t ever had a bad reaction when I have consciously made the choice to have sex with someone for this reason. I feel quite proud of having done this actually.

The last bit is the part that will disturb some people and they will have the most judgment about. I kind of think about it as the fear of being alone. I have had nights in my life where I wanted to not feel alone in the big bad scary world and I have chosen to have sex with someone in order to avoid feeling so desperately lonely. I have never picked up a one night stand to do this, instead I find a friend who is ok with some gentle affectionate sex that won’t change our basic relationship. I don’t do this often–frankly I don’t have to–but there have been times when I have needed this kind of contact. This kind of contact is me affirming that I am still alive and desirable and worthy of attention and love even though I completely don’t feel like it.

For better or worse these are most of my reasons. The ones not listed here are mostly not valid anymore. Once upon a time I had sex because I was so desperate for attention that I was willing to barter my body to get the touch I needed. In that time and in that place it wasn’t the best decision I could make, but it was one that I needed to go through. I believe that every mistake we make helps us learn about who we are and what we need as much or more than correct decisions do. Many of the people in the first 20 partners I had were me stumbling to find my way towards open sexuality and I fucked up many times in that search. I confused what I wanted with what society told me I should want and that was the real problem. Not that everything has been perfectly smooth sailing since then… I’m a work in progress.

It is weird how I can completely and totally believe with all of my heart that who and what I am is not defined by me having sex casually anymore than I am defined by having been molested as a child or even having been date raped. Yet, I still feel guilt and shame because there are some arrogant assholes out there who tell me there is something less about me because I don’t follow their paradigms. I promise you that these people ascribe to beliefs that would make me recoil in horror from them and yet I get upset by their judgment. THAT is what I need to work on, not my self-perception.

Why did this come up? Because I haven’t been writing about what I’ve been doing because I was afraid of people judging me for my behavior. Obviously I need to get over that.

Oh! Something I entirely neglected to say is: now ya’ll know why I am such a nut about safer sex. I get std tests done every three months and I am religious about barriers. I don’t want to hurt anyone and I am well aware that I am the biggest risk vector that most of my partners have.