Sex and Power In Relationships

I sometimes (surprisingly rare, actually) get criticized for the amount of sex in my books. One homophobic person wrote an Amazon review in which they hilariously said there was “disturbing homosexual erotica,” (my book is NOT sold on Amazon) as if my book was some Fifty Shades of Grey and not retellings of my relationship and coming of age experiences.

I find it most amusing when mothers act offended by my work, as if they haven’t clearly had a penis ejaculate inside them, if not also done any of the other, many varied human sex acts that for some reason they feel so ashamed as to pretend their babies appeared out of nowhere. But this is a problem when trying to help other people with their health problems, as very often homophobic individuals will mischaracterize or criticize the non-sexual parts of my work because they don’t like that I am gay and don’t want my book and work to be successful, then other people see or hear those unfounded criticisms and so avoid my book, though I fully understand if someone doesn’t want to read it for the sex content, and other criticisms, like that my writing isn’t very good, are totally justified.

The reason my book contains so much sex is because sex is an integral part of the human experience, but sex is very widely used as a way to control and abuse people, especially within romantic relationships. Most of us also have or will have problems surrounding sex, whether it’s erectile dysfunction, circumcision, sex shame, or relationship conflict about sex which can be very difficult to resolve without talking about sex. Self esteem surrounding sex is a widespread issue that causes so many problems, especially for men and women experiencing sexual health problems which they feel unable to find help due to their own sexual trauma and shame, and talking about my own sex life as well as the associated biology surrounding sex is imperative to address human sexuality and sexual health. But some people would rather live for decades with erectile dysfunction than hear about another person’s sex life.

For many of our experiences, sex is very frequently used as a control mechanism to make ourselves feel powerful and comfortable in our relationships and our environments, because it is a part of the human experience for nearly every single human being on this planet, and being a biological need and desire thus a quality which can be exploited for the gain of others. Indeed that is why people exploit the sexual content of my book in attempts to try to control their own environment, and the historical and contemporary persecution and oppression of the LGBTQI+ population is always centered around sex and the fears and insecurities of both oppressors and victims. On several occasions I have even had relatives during arguments about their homophobic and racist religious institutions and traditions suddenly volunteer the phrase, “I have never said anything bad about you being gay,” as if we both don’t know they are inferring it is and still exploiting my sexuality as ammunition for their own bigoted advantage.

But because everyone has sexuality, control and domination using sex happens to everyone and in many forms, and as such is one of the most widespread tools of manipulation in all of humanity. Sexual harassment toward others regardless of their gender or sexual orientation within and outside relationships is an unfortunately common experience for all of us, with sex being frequently used as a weapon to gain power over others, especially romantic partners, the action of which serves to cause trauma and harm to most people throughout our lifetimes. Sadly, children are often sexually abused in their childhoods and, as discussed in my books, part of the arsenal of tools used by child abusers is to convince children they are alone in their abuse, complicit, and damaged, which compounds the pain of their trauma and accompanies them into adulthood to complicate adult sexual relationships. I have worked with many women who were victims of sexual abuse as children, a very surprising amount by their own fathers, and the damage is extremely difficult (but not impossible) to resolve.

Even when we do not experience overt sexual abuse in childhood, sexual abuse can still be done without actual touching or physical violation, and while men are largely the perpetrators of overt physical sexual abuse women can also be abusers and harassers (I have been sexually assaulted twice by men and once by a woman). Excessive preoccupation with the sex behavior of children by paranoid and cruel adults (who are in all likelihood sexual assault victims themselves) can also cause sexual abuse trauma to children without any actual physical abuse, or behavior like spanking which is often used as a cover for sexual abuse. My own parents were so obsessed with our sexuality as children they frequently talked about and described sex and sex acts from the time we were very young, and they and their religion indoctrinated us to think of sex as something shameful and debasing, while spanking us frequently even for innocent mistakes, and as adults not a single one of my siblings nor most of my one-hundred plus cousins left their childhood unscarred by sex abuse.

Talking about masturbation or other sex acts almost daily with children is sexual abuse. It is often done under the guise of religious instruction, but is in reality a channel for similarly traumatized adults to explore their own sexual trauma, and in so doing subject children to inappropriate sexual obsession. Other sexual abuse like spanking rituals and physical domination by parents and adults, or even the absence of healthy physical intimacy from parents such as those who do not hug or kiss their own children, because they were abused also and don’t recognize the problems that emotional disconnection can cause, can also scar us deeply when it comes to sex, and the associated shame and pain we experienced as children, no matter the severity, in turn prejudices our perception of sex, our self-worth as a human being, our bodies, and the role of sex in adult relationships, very often impairing our ability to form healthy intimate relationships with other adults.

When I was a young man in a long-term relationship in which I was sufficiently sexually satisfied my partner ended up leaving me, and only at the end of it disclosed that he thought we did not have enough sex. I was genuinely surprised by this because throughout the entirety of our four-year relationship we had some kind of sexual contact nearly every single day, very often more than once a day. As I plunged into my work which resulted in the publication of Fuck Portion Control my research into sexual health helped me understand that he and many other human beings who suffer from errantly labeled “sex addiction” is actually not an addiction at all, but a biological compulsion which results from both environmental and nutritional stress which promotes mating impulses of human animals under the kind of duress which would evolutionarily usually lead to expiration of the animal. But it wasn’t this sexual compulsion either that was the problem. It was only after several years of being separated I realized they were extremely insecure about soliciting sex from their intimate partners. Having been raised by very, very abusive parents which included sexual abuse, he had not been empowered in his childhood to ask for what he needed and wanted, nor to care for his own needs, and this in turn led to much insecurity when seducing me. It was then easier for him to solicit sex from strangers than to risk rejection by someone he actually had feelings for. Being completely oblivious to his needs I could never actually fulfill them, because none of us are mind-readers, and so he spent the entirety of our relationship frustrated, both by his compulsive sex drive and inability to ask for what he needed (which was real intimacy).

Fear surrounding sexual encounters is very common, especially because it can be exploited by opportunistic partners who instinctual use vulnerability as a channel to control others, and rejection can hurt terribly, especially if we are trained by our upbringing to feel very seriously about rejection and have developed a strong ego. I frequently witness sexual frustrations in those I work with, where sex in relationships is a source of stress and conflict rather than the fun, exciting, and fulfilling interaction it can be, where we are very insecure about our needs and wants and lacking the tools required to care for our own needs and desires and thus unable to get what we want and need in a relationship (or life in general). Because women are often less advantaged in relationships because of complex patriarchal systems which run our lives (such as not having their own money and limited autonomy in relationships), one of the only tools women often have in a relationship is sex. Being thusly limited to get what we need for our wellbeing also due to insufficient self-care skills and the inability to set healthy boundaries, women often then only have sex as a tool to affect their relationships and environment, and I often witness mothers and wives using sex as a way to get what they need from their husbands and partners, whom being equally ignorant to healthy relationship skills then results in much acrimony and strife. Another frequent deficit in personal satisfaction is our ability simply to find satisfying emotional intimacy and vulnerability with others, both romantic and plutonic, and living in emotionally dissatisfying circumstances will eventually explode in emotionally combative encounters, often involving sex, in order to feel our experiences more intensely, which over time can and does end up destroying relationships and engendering resentment and hatred because of the pain we cause.

As a young man one of my only tools to control my life was sexual attraction, and being tall and good-looking this came easily and thusly empowered me have control over others. But in turn I only attracted to myself people who were susceptible to this kind of control, who were in turn equally traumatized, self-centered, and uninterested in me as a person which then led to much exploitation of my wellbeing and further erosion of my self-esteem and personal wellbeing. Women equally often find themselves in relationships with men who desired them physically but are unable to be emotionally available, because of similar experiences of abuse in their own childhoods. Being unempowered to care for our own needs both men and women then use sex as a control mechanism to elicit responses in our partners, but doing so only ever leads to the further destruction of our relationships as we cause immense amount of pain and damage. Because my partner could not take care of his own needs he then began to act out in our relationship, blaming me for his inability to care for himself and thus justifying his disloyalty and dishonesty. When I discovered his cheating I, being similarly ineffective in caring for my own needs, used sex as a way to shame him for his behavior and to control the relationship, thinking I was justified in my own behavior because he was the one who cheated. In reality he should have been single and slutty and I should have left him for someone who wanted the same things as I did. But because we were both unable to ask for what we wanted out of life were unable to do this, and so persisted for several years together in spite of these problems until it ultimately and finally fell apart.

Couples often go to relationship therapy to deal with such problems, but it usually doesn’t work and the odds of a couple’s relationship surviving once therapy is begun is shockingly small, not because therapy is bad, although therapists are usually ill equipped to accomplish the kind of therapy required, but because it often helps one or both partners in a relationship actually acknowledge what they already know to be true, that they are unsatisfied, and they become ever more conscious of the dissatisfaction but without being empowered to change it then have no choice but to leave, and simply bring the same problems into their next relationships, because of the absence of effective interpersonal and self-care tools which would otherwise inactivate our control and coping mechanisms which cause these issues and situations in the first place. If, as a young man, I had instead been empowered by a healthy sense of self-esteem and understood that sex was something fun, rewarding, and fulfilling for myself rather than a tool to control others I would never have even associated with the places and people which led me to become victims of my abusers. I would instead have found equally healthy and emotionally available adults and in turn sex would have been something empowering for myself and my relationships.

Problems with sex and intimacy cause many problems for people and our society at large. For instance many young men who identify with the incel movement (which means involuntary celibate) are misled about their own self-worth as individuals and our ability to be vulnerable and emotionally available as an adult, and conditioned by their childhood to believe the pain and heartache of rejection and the vulnerability of finding sexual partners is only unique to them, when in fact we all experience rejection and heartache. I am a six and a half foot tall, good-looking male and I can’t tell you the number of times I have been rejected in regard to sex. Very often people will even reject us when we pursue them simply to feel in control of their own lives the same way we want to be in control of ours. I have even done that myself, though rarely, when someone I found extremely attractive came onto me at a time when I felt especially vulnerable and despairing about my life, and so rejected them to feel a sense of control for my own sake, and they would have been fully ignorant to the reasons I declined their advances. Many men in my social circle as a young man who made advances at me whom I rejected also then called me a slut and spoke of me disparagingly because I would not return their interest. With most of those I already knew they were the kind of person who would behave that way, and as such I did not feel attracted to them in the first place, not because of what they looked like but because of the emotional walls they built themselves through such vile behavior. Such people likely learned in childhood by observing their own parents that sex could be used as a tool to control others, and being so limited in their toolset to navigate adulthood use the only strategies at their disposal, which more often leads to disappointment and self-defeating behavior because nobody wants to sleep with an asshole. Often too we can be so afraid of sex and intimacy that we can actually unconsciously sabotage our own chances just to avoid the fear and vulnerability such experiences require, but needing people and intimacy still feel driven to pursue it, and thus exist in an endless cycle of dissatisfaction from which we don’t know how to escape.

Trauma surrounding sex is the source of all frustrations, pain, and conflict surrounding sex and sexual relationships, and the only way to resolve those problems is by addressing the trauma and conditioning which underlies such experiences. The Perfect Child was written to directly address this trauma and help adults resolve our control and coping mechanisms which cause self-destructive behavior, to help us learn real confidence and self-care and empowerment skills needed to live a successful adult human life. The resolution of past experiences of pain and heartache can give you the ability to find real satisfaction in relationships, and even in being single. Most of the problems we have as adults are simply the result of unhealthy perceptions of life and reality, which in truth is a wonderful place with many great and lovely persons which inhabit this world. If you don’t know that, you, like me, probably had a hard childhood and many demoralizing experiences which corrupted your view of yourself and your worth. Persisting in those realities only leads to endless cycles of pain and heartache. To get out, you must teach yourself the skills required, and The Perfect Child is a guide for exactly how to do that.

Problems with sex and intimacy are also very often accompanied by actual addiction and alcoholic behaviors, because drugs and alcohol can very effectively help us cope with difficult emotions, depression, vulnerability, and other self-esteem and self-care issues, and resolving addiction problems is not entirely difficult to do. No Such Thing as Sex Addiction explains more of the biology behind sexual compulsion. My books are dense, and it can help to learn to Speed Read since they are never going to be easier to read. Conflict in relationships often leads to pain because we don’t know how to take responsibility for our actions, or if you just want more help feeling better about yourself, you can read It’s Okay To be Half a Person.