Looking back, I don’t think I ever really needed sex.

I needed to be received.
I needed someone to want me back.
I needed someone to meet me with softness and say—without saying—“you’re safe here.”

In past relationships, especially my last one, that never really happened.
Sex felt withheld. Desire felt rationed.
When it did happen, it was rarely initiated by her—and even if it was, it often felt like it wasn’t about connection. It was a game of control. Power. Silence. Disconnection.

And so I kept asking, kept reaching, kept trying to name my need—
but that only made me feel more ashamed. More like a burden. More like I was doing something wrong just by needing touch, slowness, intimacy.

Eventually, I stopped reaching altogether.
I stopped having sex in the relationship, because I didn’t feel safe.
And in that space, something broke. She drifted—or maybe she had already been drifting. And I found other ways to meet my needs, sometimes while we were still together. Ways I’m not proud of, but which, in that moment, felt like survival.

And now—today—I’ve had a moment of peace so deep, so full-bodied, that I finally understand what I’ve always been trying to reach.

It was never just about the act.

It was about:

  • The slowness
  • The emotional presence
  • The way someone sees you and stays
  • The sense that your body isn’t a tool, it’s a home

And in a strange, unexpected moment—yes, one that I paid for—I felt that.
I felt received. Not fixed. Not judged. Just met.

And now, for the first time in my life, I can see the real difference:

I don’t want sex to regulate anymore.
I want sex when I’m already regulated—when I’m already home in myself.

Because then it’s not a transaction.
It’s a gift. A connection. A joy.

And maybe the deeper healing is this:

That I no longer feel ashamed of what I’ve needed all along.

Not power. Not conquest. Not fantasy.

Just to be received.

By someone else.
By life.
By me.