When we feel lonely, we often turn to others to keep us company and help fulfill our need to be loved and wanted. These one night stands and brief hook ups lead to a nasty cycle of lack of self-worth, self-esteem and more feelings of depression, and dependence on others. At some point, you have to realize that no matter how many people you’re with, true happiness (and less loneliness) will be experienced when you’re truly in love with who you are as a person.

Many women grow up with this perceived pressure and interpretation that loneliness can be cured by sex and love with others. Thinking that you need to give someone your body to keep someone else’s attention and affection is a prime example of women getting trapped in a never ending cycle of self-hatred and loathing. You begin to use sex in three primary ways:

1. You use someone to make you responsible for your sense of safety and security, as well as happiness. Having sex allows us to feel comforted, like our vulnerabilities don’t exist. When you give yourself away in the moment, you hand over the responsibility of your happiness and emotional stability. We go through an intense emotional experience that makes our partner responsible for making us feel protected and secure. After sex, they don’t realize that they have a responsibility to you (because they shouldn’t). They don’t know there’s a pressure, and that you expect them to be dedicated and devoted to you. This entraps them without them even knowing that this idealization exists.

2. Using sex as a way to trap yourself.

Using someone as a way to trap yourself into creating our security is evidence of an underlying message that you need another person to create your position in the world and define your self-worth. When we trap ourselves into feeling worthwhile because we prioritze others more than ourselves, we lose healthy boundaries that must be established.

3. Giving away mental stability

Allowing ourselves to rely on another person for our happiness, self-worth, and self-love creates a mental break where we lose control of ourselves. Everything becomes about the other person, and making them happy before we make ourselves happy. We forget about resilience and become people pleasers, where we didn’t need to be. It becomes a toxic relationship to ourselves, and we don’t see it until it’s too late. At that point, we become afraid of being alone, and cling on to the feeling. 

In all three of these situations we have to make sex something fleeting and momentary, used for physical pleasure, instead of something that is emotional and falsely fulfilling. Loneliness and confusion are what come out of the inability to separate sex from emotional bonds. You start to think about why you’re always alone, who you have to be to keep someone in your life. You still feel anxious and lonely because you don’t feel like you’re good enough for yourself or for others. What you should want in a relationship is the same thing you should want single – to be happy, fulfilled, and healthy. Until you find happiness in yourself, you won’t find happiness in others. Work out, go to therapy, and find constructive ways to beat your loneliness other than hooking up with others.  

Sex should not be the thing that makes you feel loved, wanted and worthy. Sex should not make you feel less alone. Discover yourself and liberate yourself by becoming a self-sufficient woman who relies only on herself for fulfillment and peace. If the urge to have sex is strong, learn how to love yourself! Masturbate, watch porn, and find ways to fulfill yourself sexually without relying on another person for that pleasure.