What My Sexless Relationship Taught Me

One of the best relationships I’ve ever been in involved no sex. Okay, that’s the half-truth. This is what really happened:

We didn’t like having sex with each other. So we stopped.

I had a lot of trauma surrounding the sexual abuse my body was subjected to in the past. And my unresolved sexual issues showed up in the bedroom. I didn’t enjoy being touched, my body felt numb whenever I was being penetrated, and I would just lie there until my man was done; there were times when I would moan loudly to put on an act that I was enjoying myself. But truthfully I hated sex; I only engaged in it because I felt obligated to do the very performance that made me relive every traumatic experience I had with every man before him. Believing that sex and the pleasure derived from it was solely for men as I got nothing out of it, I laid my naked body on that bed just for him.

When we finally discussed our terrible intimate relationship he admitted that sex with me felt like rape, as he could feel that I wasn’t present with him. And he was right. I would “leave” my body whenever he penetrated me. There were times when he would slide it in and immediately stop thrusting because I looked sad.

We never officially came to the conclusion to leave sex alone for good; but we were both completely dissatisfied. So we walked…