Joy and madness

I feel so much better today. The past week has been hellish, as my psychological wheels were spinning so fast that I couldn't keep up with them. But I knew I'd come around if I just waited it out.

I've been thinking about what sex really means to me. From childhood, I remember my mother giving lip service to the idea that sex was an expression of love, but that's not the way I see it after all that has happened to me. Sex is a means of control. Men use it to feel powerful, and women- at least women like me- often use it to "pay our way". In the beginning, I had sex because I wasn't given a choice in the matter, and because my abuser got high from stealing all my power.

But as I grew up, I had sex in exchange for money, sex in exchange for drugs, and nowadays it's usually sex in exchange for security. It's not that I don't enjoy it- I definitely do, even when I'm fully aware that I am whoring myself- but the physical pleasure could just as easily happen when I am alone, and the psychological pleasure comes from getting exactly what I wanted out of the deal.

But where is the love? Has love ever truly come into play for me when choosing a sexual partner? I'm a bit cynical- I think love is a choice, and even when you "fall" uncontrollably for someone, it's because that's what you have consciously or unconsciously decided to do. And relationships end because one partner has decided to stop choosing to love.

I ramble. I don't know. I feel like I am on the edge of some huge breakthrough that will change my life forever.