When we don’t know how to deal with ourselves and our feelings or with others and their feelings, we each seek refuge differently. Some people splurge their money online shopping in the name of “Treat Yo Self.” Others plan an epic night out or night in with their friends, laced with the substances we are supposed to denounce, legalize, decriminalize and consume with caution, if consumed at all. But some seek solace from using the bodies of others — literally.

Yours truly, formerly included. Sex was an experience I often utitlized as a means to boost my self confidence when it was at its lowest. I used to think that if someone wanted to hook up with me, then I must have some worth, but any and all of that worth would evaporate the moment the sex was finished. What should have been experiences of consensual pleasure devolved into regretful mistakes. 

Not only was I using sex as a tool to stroke and soothe my ego, but I was also using it as a way to avoid dealing with myself. Sex became an event and an escape. Having nothing and no one to do back then meant I had to be left alone with my thoughts of discontentedness, insecurity and anxiety. I was trying to fuck myself into obvilion. 

This is how sex can have a lasting impact on its participants long after the involved parties bid each other adieu and a job well done. A person who is sexually active acknowledging their intentions going into a sexual encounter is what can make all the difference.

Keely Rankin, a sex coach in San Francisco, works with her clients to help them find pleasure in their lives, which often means erotic pleasure. Rankin notes that there is no one reason why people choose to have sex.

Rankin said people have sex for a variety of reasons and sometimes feel pressured by their partner’s wants churning up validation and self-worth. “People have sex for all sorts of reasons. They feel pressured to have it because their partner wants it, validation and self worth can get really tied up in that,” Rankin said. “And there are some people who … can remove the emotional component of typical intimacy and just be in the sensation experience, But then that question really becomes: is that a theme in someone’s life?” 

Having such a theme in one’s sex life can be a red flag for deeper, internal issues. While they might be enjoying the sex in the moment, they could be using it to avoid addressing said issues.

“When humans experience difficult feelings and they aren’t taught as young people how to deal with those feelings … there can be systems that get set up within the psyche of the individual that everytime they feel something that’s uncomfortable, they move towards something else,” Rankin said. “Sometimes what can happen is someone starts to feel an ow inside” for the simplest of reasons. 

Rankin said that this is when someone begins seeking. “Seeking” is the act of searching for that one willing person at a local bar, in your phone contact list or on a dating app to hookup with. 

Rankin suggests this “seeking” impulse stems from the need to avoid emotional pain.

But avoiding emotional baggage may not be the best coping mechanism.

 “It’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t wanna feel the ow, so I’m gonna try to distract myself and move towards something that might make me feel better. … It’s kind of what the body does when the seeking behavior happens,” Rankin said. “It’s just trying to sooth itself and the pattern that’s been set is not working really. Like, it’s a bandaid, but it’s not fixing the problem.”

It’s this behavior that can eventually lead to sex addiction, Rankin said. In a person’s quest to find pleasure and relief from themselves, they might actually be compounding their unaddressed pains. 

This compulsive and addictive tendency has much to do with attachment theory. A theory that focuses on the importance of relationships that humans share and develop with one another, as well as how someone develops when there is a lack thereof. 

“[Attachment theory] all revolves around how people feel a sense of wholeness and a sense of ‘I’m okay in the world,’ and that in the clients that I’ve worked with who are struggling with sexual compulsion and it really comes down to this area of how they feel welcomed on this planet as an individual,” Rankin said. 

It’s in these sexual encounters where someone can finally feel like they are attached to something or to someone. To feel like they belong to someone else other than themselves.

If someone notices this type of sexual compulsiveness and wants help, it all starts with self reflection. 

Sex is something we might think we become completely knowledgble of and better at the more times we have it. Somewhat similar to getting better at packing for vacations after each trip, cooking to perfect a recipe until your inner chef is content or learning the fastest morning routine for when you wake up late. However, sex is complicated. And so, sex deserves constant assessing and reflection not only for its havers’ pleasure, but for their well being, too.  

“It’s not about shaming people and saying you should have sex under these contexts, but rather, is this what you want to be doing? And not that there’s a right or wrong reason to want to have sex … if there’s at any point a moment when that yes turns into a no, or a I’m not sure, it’s okay to slow down … and wait to figure out what you might need.”