Every person engages in sex for different reasons. The religious communities see sex as a means of procreation, which focuses mainly on multiplying the population and quite often disregards the pleasure that sex brings. And in some way, encouraging both sexes to wait for marriage until they’re given the blessings to do the act.
There are also others who see sex in a more liberated way and consider themselves sex positive. They are the people who feel they have the freedom to engage in sex even without marriage and with anyone they want to have it with. Because each one of us has our own choices and preferences, we do sex for different reasons.
Sex is good, fun, and pleasurable. It’s even said to boost confidence and provide health benefits for the body. But while others engage in sex for the right reasons, there are those who don’t. The following ways can tell you whether you engage in sex for the wrong reasons or not.
1. To avenge your cheating partner
Revenge sex can be a coping mechanism but one that does you no good at all. Whether you do it to move on or hurt your partner, it’s still not a good reason to have sex.
Your body is precious to you. When you use it for the wrong reason, like for hurting others, you’re also hurting yourself in the process. Sex is an intimate act that must be done out of your desire for pleasure. But the more you use it wrongly, the more you hurt yourself and even your sexual partner who’s innocent of your real motive. You’re not only using yourself for your own intentions but using others as well.
Having sex with others can’t help you move on, rather it can only make you feel more terrible than before. Random sex can’t be an ideal answer to a broken heart.
2. To please your partner’s sexual and emotional desires
There are people, especially the insecure ones who use sex for their own advantage. They use it as a tool to hook their partners to themselves and keep them at their side. If you’re this partner, you may engage in sex to avoid conflict and disappointing your partner. This partner pleasing mentality is only one-sided, one that won’t work for both of you in the long run.
3. To boost your ego
Great sex does your body wonders, like calming your mind or making you feel awesome after doing the deed. But it has not the power to lick your pain away after your ego has been trampled upon by a nagging boss or an inconsiderate workmate. It can only be your means of escape for the day but not for long.
4. To make a bargain
Some problems can’t be resolved by sex alone. Sex can’t settle things down nor can it provide your needs all the time. It can take away your focus from the problem but only for the moment. After having an agreement in between the sheets, the same issues will stare at you in the face. Sex couldn’t be a good bargaining tool.
5. To make yourself feel good
Oftentimes, when insecurity takes hold of you, you seek validation from outside of you. Sex can be a good source because it makes you feel good afterward. But in times when your partner is not in the mood, you also have to consider. Ask if it makes your partner feel good too. If you seek only for the fulfillment of your own pleasure without due consideration to your partner’s, then something is wrong there.
6. To please your sexually addicted self
Because of the pleasure sex can give you, it can become addictive. You might constantly seek it with as many partners as you’d like. But, here’s the thing, your value as a person doesn’t depend on how many partners you have slept with. Having sex for the sole pleasure of it might not work for everybody.
7. To initiate intimacy
There is a thin line between intimacy and sex. You might engage in sex but when there’s no connection between the two of you, then there’s no intimacy. Intimacy can only take place when both you and your partner understand each other even when there’s no sexual act involved.
8. To feel entitled
Just because your partner agrees to have sex with you, doesn’t mean you’re already entitled to possess them. Having sex with you doesn’t mean they owe you their pleasure. Be clear when planning to have sex with someone. Tell them if it’s one with no strings attached or one that falls to the category of relationship sex. Making people assume something is the worst thing you can do. You might end up unhappy or feeling chained.
9. To manipulate others
Using sex for your own advantage is the worst thing you can do to a person and the relationship. Manipulative sex can be abusive. Your partner may yield to your wishes in the beginning. But because you’re doing it for the wrong intention, the time will come when they feel they could no longer breath in the relationship and will eventually leave you.
10. To avoid life issues
If you think sex can fill the void within you or take you away from the shadows of the past, you’re completely wrong. Sexual activity doesn’t hold the solution to all your life problems. It can give you momentary relief but can’t ease the pain away. The longer you run away from your problems, the harder they can get.
You own your body and have every right to use it the way you want to. But as long as you’re doing things for the right reasons, like having sex for the right motives, you won’t have any regrets at all. Your motivation matters a whole lot in terms of your sexual life.
Sex experts even said that we do sex more for connection than for procreation. And it’s all that matters most in your sexual life. It’s then much better to have no sex at all than do it for the wrong reasons.