Thanks, dear Pickle, for your kind words of encouragement, but it seems "safer" to develop self-sufficiency sans sexual gratification.
As I look back on my history, I think I equated sex with love, unfortunately, though these relationships were rather long-term. I'm talking years, in which I devoted myself, not one-night-stands by any stretch of the imagination.
I had a stalker who broke into my house and tried to shoot me with a gun, a sick man on dialysis who used me as a nursemaid while contacting old girlfriends till he could get a kidney transplant, a con artist who arranged marriage only to reveal at the sale of my house that he was being investigated by the IRS and also wages being garnisheed by the State of Indiana for back child support (disappearing when I refused to sell my house to buy something in both our names), and a Psych Ph.D. who seduced me sexually.
It's all been too much. I feel stupid regarding my judgment, discernment, and now just recluse myself in safety, also punishing myself by not feeling sexual at all. Perhaps this is as it should be for me now!
Sorry for the long recounting of history here/
Patty