Living with Sexual Anorexia

Thanks, but as I've posted above, the problem isn't any lack of sexual attraction on my part. I do experience sexual attraction, but I hate it and I wish it wasn't a part of my life.
And to feel sexual attraction for someone I care about emotionally just feels... wrong.
Ill. Repulsive. Bad. Flat-out immoral. Whatever you want to call it, it's just one of the worst thoughts that could enter my head and I would never act on that impulse in a million years because sex holds nothing good for me.

Thus, I want to either completely get rid of my sex drive, master it and never again act on it, or at the very least drastically reduce it. And now my therapist is talking about trying some antidepressant and OCD medication, which might help force my sex drive down a few notches (hopefully more). I'm just a little uneasy about taking medication for a condition I don't have strictly to gain the side-effect of a eviscerated libido. Also because of the other reasons stated in my previous post.

Any advice?

Do realize that both intended effects and side effects of medications cannot be predicted in advance. What it means to you is:

- it is possible that medications would not produce the libido eviscerating effects (three medications killed my libido fully: Topamax, Risperdal, and Geodon - but none of them are antidepressants or OCD meds; plus, that I had this reaction does not mean that you would)

- it is possible that even though medications would produce the libido eviscerating effect, they would also produce other side effects that would be intolerable

So... just to keep in mind that the medications route does not have a particulrly high likelihood of helping you.

Thanks. The more I consider this option, the less enthusiastic I am towards it. You're right, side-effects are far from guaranteed and I may end up with others that I'm not looking for!
Guess it's on to plan... what am I on now, K? M? I know I passed B a long time ago.

Plan Z......radical acceptrance (a DBT - Dialectical Behavioral Therapy term)....it is what it is......don't stress or worry about it & don't focus on it......find more important & interesting things to focus your thoughts on & get on with your life. It's only our society that has made sex such a huge part of everyone's life & having to define their sexuality.......people who don't like labels have sure taken to having labels on sexuality...IMO.

DBT's Radical Acceptance sounds FAR better as an approach than the medication route. It has no side effects.

Thank you for your advice.
Radical Acceptance. I've tried it, or at least as close as you can get. I've tried innumerable times to just shrug it off. To just say: "This is me. I don't have to like it, but maybe I'll just deal with it." It never works, not for long anyway. I am infallibly compelled to try and wholly abstain from my sexual impulses, if not outright destroy them.

It's so... difficult. To describe what I'm dealing with to someone who's normal. My own father simply and fundamentally cannot comprehended the way I feel, not that he tries very hard. While my mother understandably prefers not really talk about the subject. Not that I'm overly keen to spill he beans in my sexual in and out with my parents, mind you.
Acceptance is just so not an option for me because it's so soundly against who I am. I know that doesn't really make a ton of sense; biologically speaking, sex couldn't be more a part of who I am. There has never once been a time in my life when I could have been OK with this. Hell, I can remember the feelings that hit me like a freight train after my first wet dream. I can tell you that they were not pleasant.
Metaphors are awkward and mine are usually very disproportionate but the only way I know to describe what it's like is to compare accepting my sexuality to someone being asked to just accept the truly dark parts of themselves.
Like a bully being told that it's fine to hurt people, to make them cry; that bad **** happens and we just just accept these impulses as healthy parts of ourselves. There's that disproportion again, but that's really what it feel like to me.
I cannot at the same time not consciously fight my sexuality and feel like I'm being a good person.

Sex has made me feel a lot of things. It's made me want to hurt myself, it's made me sick. it's made me angry, and it's made me depressed.
Happiness? Contentment? Pleasure? Love? These are things that my sexuality has never made me feel in any capacity.

My old therapist might have been trying to move towards just what you suggest. She was trying for cognitive behavioral therapy with me. Having me try to analyse the ins and outs of why I viewed my own sexuality with such disdain. It didn't help all too much, though I suppose it was better than nothing.
I could listen to the logic behind why I shouldn't feel the way I do all day. It doesn't change how I feel about it. I can't just go on and accept this thing inside of me because every single time I act on it or start to think that it's alright for me to so, I feel like I've allowed myself to become a monster. And I just can't live with myself feeling like that.

I just don't know what to do anymore. My new therapist is a few twigs short of a full branch. The whole medication thing was the most sound of her many far-fetched solutions. She's just not trying to understand how this affects me on more than a superficial level. As such, I won't be seeing more after my next session.
Maybe I'll find a better therapist, maybe I won't. And I'm still in the exact same limbo I was years ago.

Sorry for the wall of text. I'm just having a rough time of it at the moment and this thread is about the only place I really have to vent and look for outside perspective.

Have you ever tried to just think of yourself as a mammal?

If you think of yourself as a mammal, then you would get:

1) sexual impulses are normal since mammals have them
2) the metaphoric thinking that makes you believe that you are a monster would go away since mammals do not think in terms of metaphors

For not likeing sex, you sure spend a lot of time thinking about how much you don't like it.

I left my stbxh 6 years ago & actually lived separated under the same roof for 13 years before that because I was trapped financially in the marriage. When I got out & after these 6 years, I can look back & really understand why having sex with him during the beginning 19 years was so disgusting.....because I have finally come to understand that there was NO LOVE from the beginning. For me, sex is ONLY an expression of love between 2 people otherwise, it's a disgusting act that much of the rest of society has chosen to think of as recreation rather than re-creation. I have my beliefs & they are NOT UP FOR DEBATE because they are HOW I BELIEF & THAT ISN"T GOING TO CHANGE (so don't even bother trying to go there with me).

Basically, your T was right...you need to know WHY you think the way you think....I know what my feelings are based on & I have a complete understanding of why I feel the way I feel about it.......

Sex hasn't been a part of my life for so many years, & I don't even bother thinking about it.....I have so many activities in my life that are fulfilling that TBH, I don't have time to bother thinking about it or allowing my disgusting feelings about it to even bother entering my mind......when I finally get divorced, & unless a mirical happens that I meet a guy who I would ever really feel like getting married to, sex will NEVER be a part of my life again & there isn't a part of me that cares about that or actually takes any time to really even think about it until your discussion came up here......so the amount of time & energy that you spend of focusing on your dislike for it just doesn't make sense in my own mind when it's something that is never even on my mind.....& it doesn't bother me that it isn't.

Just as since I have never met a person who I am truly in love with to prove to myself that my feeling of disgust would go away when/if I would ever meet this person but know what I believe to be true.......

You also have not met a person who you are truly in love with to prove that you would not actually have your feeling of disgust go away if/when that would ever happen....you also hold it only as how you believe it would be, but you haven't actually ever proved it by finding that person who you truly love. Maybe your feeling of disgust would be overridden by the LOVE for the person. Honestly we never do really KNOW unless that actual occasion should arise in our lives to prove one way or another.....otherwise it's just exists in how we believe it would be.

No argument there. Although, I would say that's not quite right. It would be more accurate to say that I hate myself for liking sex. I hope that makes sense.

I'm truly sorry to hear about your difficulties and I sincerely hope you are to move forward in a direction that makes you happy.
In a way, you've just hit the nail on the head. Expect, I'm almost the exact opposite. Whenever I think about sex, looking at sexual content, or act on my sexual impulses I am afterwards slammed with a sledgehammer of self-hatred and rage. Funny enough, how I feel can always be summarized more or less in the words you've got capitalized in the above quote.
I'm always floored by how un-loving I feel for allowing myself to think that sex is something to be accepted and embraced. I'm very much like you in that my beliefs are unshakable and not up for debate. I find no trace of love or affection in the realm of sexuality.

You're absolutely right and I thank you for it. I don't think the way forward is about taking drugs and medicine to cover up the problem but rather in better understanding not only why I think the way I do but why I feel the way I do.
I have a couple of theories myself and unfortunately my current T isn't quite the right person for me to be sharing these thoughts feelings with. So I'm officially looking for yet another new T. Opening up this awkward subject with yet another totally stranger isn't what I'd call appealing but I've got to believe
that the benefits of working through this will be worth the effort.

Again, you're right. But while it's true that I haven't met someone that special in my life, I just can't every imagine myself using anybody that way. Especially someone I might come to love. For me to love someone, to really truly love them, would mean that I would never ever want to use them in a sexual way. Because to me, that would be one of the most unloving things I could ever do to this person.
I believe that love, real love, does exist. But it's different to each person. And to me, sex and love are polar opposites. I cannot have one and also have the other.

What about being in love with a person who does not share your views on sex? Who wants to be loved sexually?

Do you see the difference between being loved sexually and being used in a sexual way?

When you say that you would not want to use your hypothetical lover in a sexual way, you are not even considering their perspective. From their perspective, possibly, you would not be USING THEM IN A SEXUAL WAY but LOVING THEM IN A SEXUAL WAY. Do they get to have a say? Or, do you determine everything just by thinking about your perspective?

Thinking more about it... the therapist is not qualified to offer the medication route - she does not have the credentials/license to practice medicine that would give rights to prescribe. So, she is basically conjecturing. And, I agree with you, is being superficial.

It would take a lot of fine-tuning to find a drug for you that would fit the bill without causing intolerable side effects. The thing is, modern psychiatry is still a shot in the dark. there is some research that is promising to predict response to medications based on some tests, possibly genetic, but this is all in an exploratory phase. In practical terms, it is still a shot in the dark, EVEN a propos of intended effects of medication. She is suggesting that you take medications hoping to "luck out" on "catching" a libido lessening side effect. And, in the process, not "catching" anything else objectionable.

And the chances of all of that happening exactly as she plans are... not zero, but close to zero.

Plus, medications would need to be tried and tested and possibly changed until you arrive at the station she envisions for you. So you would spend a lot of time in that process, hoping to get results but not getting them immediately.

To sum up, I think that the therapist dodges the issue because she is not competent enough to deal with your level of complexity.

Being not competent enough is not a crime, per se, if one acknowledges that one is not competent enough.

It seems that she tries to cover up her incompetence by coming up with the medication route solution. I think she did a disservice to you by creating the hope for the medication route - in reality, it seems that the medication route is a chimera, or, at least a last resort measure after psychological approaches have been all exhausted to no avail.

So if that chimera was the MOST sound of her far-fetched approaches, then after about those LESS sound proposals she came up?..

There are a lot of approaches that are neither CBT nor medications. Have you tried those? CBT+medications do not exhaust the list. Are you in UK? I think CBT is provided by the NHS.

Did these thoughts arise before you ever explored porn or have you /always/ felt this way?

If your only experience with sex is through porn then I can /totally/ understand your view point. Porn doesn't really portray a loving and consenting relationship between two adults. Porn isn't focused on the emotional connection between the two individuals. Im in a pretty much sexless relationship, but we do engage occasionally and its an awesome experience because its consenting.

When you binge on porn do you often spend time trying to find novelties? Do you end up looking at things that are past softcore stuff?

The idea scares me and I'm afraid I don't really have an answer. It's for this very reason that I have always either made an effort to avoid anyone who seemed interested in me or avoid anyone I was interested in myself. I cannot express affection in a sexual way, but at the same time I do understand and accept that most people would want sex in the light you're talking about.
I've avoided relationships my whole life because I don't want to be backed into a corner where I would have to choose between doing something I'd feel terrible about for the sake of a hypothetical partner or being a selfish jerk for sticking to my own morals.

She suggested everything from talking to celibate priests to seriously trying to convince me to become a crossfit competitor in the hope that I would become so absorbed in it that I wouldn't "have time" for sexual activity. Even though I made it clear several times that I'm not very religious and not very keen on becoming a hulk. It was very outlandish suggestion like these that made me feel like she wasn't good for what I was trying to do. Namely: not just solve the problem, but understand why it's a problem in the first place.

I have always felt this way.

The Porn come into play much later and while it certainly hasn't helped I don't think it's the root of why I am the way I am.

As to your second question, it is my shame to admit that when I do binge on porn it is almost always not one's typical "vanilla" fare. Nothing extreme, illegal, or anything I'd even call hardcore. In fact, that kind of stuff personally really isn't my bag. I just tend to gravitate towards things that are a bit... odd for most people.

that is pathetic; I am sorry you had to go through with that. But you already fired her...

This is in response to Confused...'s suggestion on a concurrent thread.

I think it is a terrific idea.

For myself - I cannot tolerate cuddling and holding hands because those things make me think that I am being a child. I can cuddle with kids... cats... but not men. Same for holding hands - actually, I dated a guy from Oklahoma who was nice in every respect. We did light kissing, initiated by me. It was nice, indeed. But then, leaving a restaurant, he took my hand, and we walked. He is very tall and I am 5'5'', so it was awkward in purely physical terms, plus, it felt very awkward to me. And then I invited him over for a meal with a plan to try to get sexual with him (he was my first "dating" partner - all previous men from the past appeared in the course of ordinary living as I had never formally "dated" - he was the first). I just could not bring myself to it. I excused myself citing the need to call my son over something urgent, lightly kissed him goodbye, and showed him the door. After that we had meals at public places only.

He is very sweet, able, open - a great guy. So I analyzed what prevented me from trying to be more intimate. Analyzed for a long time. Then I figured it out - it weirded me out BIG TIME to hold hands with him. I did hold hands with my 3rd grade love, sure, but I (and the boy - we shared a desk in the classroom) was in 3rd grade. Never between 3rd grade and age 42 did I hold hands with a guy - why would I? I am not a child anymore.

So I wrote to him about it. I acknowledged that I do see couples holding hands on the street, and, do read online that holding hands is either a milestone on the road towards building a new relationship, or, a part of ongoing relationships in America. So I acknowledged that fact, but said that for me - no way. No way because I am an adult woman. It felt ***amazing*** in 3rd grade, yes, but I am not in third grade anymore.

He responded that indeed he was unsure why I was not more into relating with him, and was concerned that he might have said something awkward (he is an Aspie so he gets concerned pretty easily fearing that he is either not picking up on social signals, or, not communicating correctly). He never imagined something like this would cause problems, but then again we are from different cultures.

So, thinking out loud about AppalachianAxis' predicament - if holding hands feels so childish and non-sexual to me, then, perhaps, it could also feel completely non-sexual to an asexual person. Until you try, you would not know. Until I got into that hand holding thing with this guy from Oklahoma, I had not known that I would be weirded out by hand holding so much. Until you experience certain things for yourself, by yourself, you might not be able to predict your reactions to them.

So I've quit my old Therapist, she wasn't money well spent, but I have been doing some thinking on this subject and I think I've got a few ideas on why I am the way I am and why I feel the way I do.
I think the reasons behind my feelings towards my own sexuality can be attributed to two parts:

I've posted before that I was never OK with my own sexuality and have been consciously fighting against it since I was first capable of sexual feeling. I'm speculating that I have probably always had some kind of orgasm disorder. Dormant until I hit puberty and present ever since. Whatever post-orgasm chemical release that takes place for most people that makes them feel all good and happy just doesn't happen for me. The biological impulse to act on my sex drive remains, in spite of how it makes me feel. Thus, I am addicted to compulsively doing something that makes me feel terrible.

Then there's the more psychological side to the issue. To put it shortly and bluntly: I don't want to grow up. No not in any Peter Pan kind of way, no obsession over "eternal youth" or anything like that. It's just that my idea of the ideal relationship, my concept of real meaningful love has been gleaned and molded by the same things that have had a major impact in how I shape who I am and how I live my life.
Namely, fictional adventure stories. I took a lot of inspiration from those growing up. I got into hiking and camping because I felt like going on adventures and living a life that mirrored that of my favorite fictional idols, almost all of whom are children or adolescents who undergo some sort of a coming-of-age adventure. When I graduated high school, I took a gap year to spend five months in the woods hiking the Appalachian Trail as my own personal kind of "quest."
It sounds sappy to write but I think part of me caves the kind of honest and simple kind of love one only sees in adventure stories and wholesome family films. "Disney Love" I suppose you could call it but sans all the singing, I'm a terrible singer. Maybe if I had that kind of innocent platonic loving relationship with someone for a good while, I might be able to "grow up" in that regard and see sex as an extension of affection. That's still a big maybe though as I can't ever seeing myself viewing sex in a positive light given how utterly horrible it makes me feel.

I'm not really too sure what to do with all of this. But I have a better grasp and understanding on the reasons behind why I feel this way than I ever have and I suppose that's something right?

I just want to say thanks again to anyone who takes the time to read and respond to my posts. With no Therapist to talk with, this is the one place I've got to process what's going through my head.

two things: look up anhedonic ejaculation. It is not what you describe, but it is in that direction. Anhedonic ejaculation means that a man has a libido, can get erections, can perform, but feels no joy from the orgasm. He ejaculates sperm fine, but there is no release for him. I know somebody who has it (in his case it is a side effect of effexor), and from what he describes it is quite sad. But it is not what you describe - you describe a negative feeling while he describes a neutral feeling (hence An-Hedonia). So your problem is much worse, but still look up that condition and see what people write about it - maybe you will relate to the chemical problems they describe. At least it is worth comparing notes with the guys who suffer from it.

and, go hiking, camping, sign up for Stone Age camps, go on extreme vacations if you can afford it (those where you traverse a desert riding a horse or help deliver medical care to children in third world countries) and bond with the people you will meet on such trips and just see where it takes you. Sex inside a tent might one day be your thing. Plus, experiencing risk together would likely raise the mutual attractiveness of people who share risky endeavors.

You probably know that better than I do, but the love stories we read in books never entail two people messaging each other, getting to know each other, talking about their issues, concerns, and expectations, and, ultimately, planning the details of their sexual encounters which they put on their online calendars one month in advance just as they schedule entertainment and doctor visits. No - they entail feuds between the two family clans, eloping, rescuing damsels in distress from monsters and dragons, and other such things. In other words, risk, danger, and obstacles. This is probably what you are looking for, deep down (based on your report on what shaped your worldview), so you should seek moderate amounts of risk in your life.

Thought I'd pop in and post a quick update.

Since I quit my old T I haven't really been very proactive in seeking out additional sources of "help."
I honestly don't really know what I expected therapy to do for me in the first place anyway so this is not a huge loss.

I've been trying hard to cut the pornography and masturbation I'm happy to say I've had a lot of success on that front.
I binge occasionally but the gaps between indulgence get wider and wider every time. I attribute this to the fact that I'm trying very hard to not beat myself up about it every time I make a slip-up. I figure the more attention I give this issue, the more sway it has over my day-to-day life. So I try my best to just shrug it off when it does happen and focus on all the reasons I should like myself instead of brooding on this one reason that makes me feel like crap.

Right now I'm pretty much just waiting for the ticking time bomb to go off. Waiting for the inevitable situation when I'll be forced to tell my close friends the real reason why I don't engage in relationships the same way they do. I'll hopefully be moving out of the house and into university here soon so it'll have to come up sooner or later.

Honestly I'm feeling kindda optimistic about this. I've got some very good friends and I don't expect this to change to much when this awkward little detail about me shows itself. I predict some shrugs and the general feeling of "huh, that's odd but whatever," then getting right back to the way we were.

At the risk of being a bit repetitive I would again like to thank everybody who takes the time to post advice or opinions on this thread of mine. I appreciate every one of them. Thanks!

Hey guys, I hate to double post, but I didn't think my rambling merited a whole new thread.

In a complete turnaround from my above post, turns out I'm not doing so well after all.

That old and all-too-familiar feeling of just downright loathing just recently came crashing down around me once again. I can't stand feeling this way and I have no idea what to do but clearly I can't just go on trying to pretend that I can just live with this, this "natural" urge, this sex drive, this thing that I despise so much.
I'm seriously considering looking into types of pills or other mediations that would get rid of it, or at least dull the damn thing.
The only other option is trying to go to therapy.... again. I just don't know if I can do that over and over. My first T was great, but really all my sessions with her didn't accomplish much more than making me feel a bit better after talking for an hour every other week. And my most recent T was a complete misfire, just awful.
Then there's the fact that I'm really just not sure what I expect to get out of therapy. A magic solution that would make everything all right would be ideal, but that's just not how life works.

I know medication is probably a terrible "solution" to this issue, I've said so before in this very thread. But sometimes I'm willing to try anything to make this go away.
I know Therapy is still likely the best solution, I just don't want it to go nowhere for a third time in a row.

I can't imagine what advice I could ask for beyond what people have already offered but this forums is the only place I have to vent.

1. I'm an Appalachian too.
And now on to business. I can understand how you feel. I have a very active sex drive but I don't like it. My antidepressants nixed it a good bit thankfully. But I know where mine comes from. I was raped, tortured and prostituted for my childhood. It took me a long time to stop hating myself for having urges. I just don't associate sex with positive things. Masturbating sent me into deep depressions. Being with someone just sucks for me. I want to feel beautiful and sexy and everything others get from sex but I don't think I will. It sucks. I'm a very social person but dating at my age is all about sex for the guys I've met. I'm in college too. I've gotten to the point where masturbating doesn't affect me as bad but being with someone is always a bad experience. I've tried to make it about their pleasure since mine can't be taken care of but it just doesn't work very well. You might try finding someone like me who is scarred in that area. Or look into the fact that you might have repressed a memory that is at the root of this. Good luck

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Something struck me when I read this over again.....is that you have it backwards.....& so does our society that keeps trying to brainwash everyone that it's backwards.

In reality.....sex is an expression of love.....love isn't found by having sex.

Realized this was why I wasn't ever sexually attracted to my H because even before we got married he had attitude problems that kept me from feeling love for him. I do not believe in that "love is blind" crap. Yes, there is that sexual attraction that happens that can pull us into the relationship where LOVE grows. But when we expect sex to bring to us a loving relationship, we will most always be sadly disappointed.

Sex is about expressing love between 2 people.....& when that is missing all it's about is fulfilling one's own pleasure & maybe on the side fulfulling the other person's also if one really cares that much.......I would rather have the completely meaningful expression of LOVE & can honestly do without sex until I ever (if ever) find myself is a relationship that is all about LOVE.

Wow. Didn't expect this thread to return from the grave.

First allow me to offer my deepest and more sincere condolences for your own troubles. I know it's not much but hey, there it is.

You describe the way I feel in almost every way save for the fact the my hatred of my own sexuality has always just kind of... been there. I can think of no underlying "cause" for it. It's just a part of my own unique psychology. I've always felt it was bad in the same way I've always felt it was bad to hurt people or take things that aren't yours. Sex has always represented the antithesis of everything I find to be wholesome and good.

Both therapists I have seen have also asked if I thought there was some repressed memory that was causing me to feel the way I do. However, I feel very certain that there is none. And even if there was, I can't imagine it would change the way I feel. I wouldn't like to let something like that so drastically alter my personal morals.
If fact I remember quite clearly being sexually "exploited" when I was young. I use the term in quotations because it's such a non-issue to me. A kid in my neighborhood hit puberty while I was till a few years away from it. I guess you could say he was "exploring" and had me there to further that along. He moved away after a while. I never even gave it much thought. He was a kid he didn't really understand what he was doing and neither did I. No animosity. No harm done.

Thanks for taking the time to reply and again I wish you all the best in finding your own resolution.

I absolutely agree that love isn't found by having sex. Although seeing sex as an expression of love is something I've just always felt reviled about. I should be able to let someone know I love them completely without resorting to this (to me) degrading and repulsive act.

I hope you find the relationship you're looking for.
Thanks for the reply!