Sex is never just sex. Every week, we follow a thread of desire into stories about connection, vulnerability, and the twisting logic of intimacy. Today’s diary is from a woman who discovered herself in a situationship by learning about her body, but walked away carrying something more valuable than love.
It happened in 2020, at our university quarters to be precise. I don’t think anyone after him has handled my sexual rigor before. Not even close. I am a pain-pleasure addict, I know that about myself now, but back then, I was only just beginning to understand what that meant. What I knew was this: with him, the line between pain and pleasure blurred in a way that I could not explain.
We would have sex for up to 3 hours. Even the quickies had a kind of intensity to them. I enjoyed sex with him until I was sore down there, literally. I would heal in three days and return. The same cycle, over and over. The way we synced didn’t require words, just strength, heat, and more pleasure.
Through him, I also discovered I like voyeurism (when I am being watched). He had this habit of opening the kitchen window when we have sex in the kitchen for no reason. I liked it. Sounds crazy but it was kinky and no one lived opposite and people seldom passed. We had sex in a dark lane before and were interrupted by headlights. I felt so alive.
Outside of sex, there wasn’t much. I got involved in running his business for a while (he let me) but what held us together wasn’t conversation or companionship. It was something closer to trauma bonding, and he said this once. He was avoidant in the way some men are, incapable of saying he was hurt, so he’d either send a long message or disappear entirely. He also lied about his age. I found out he was a decade older than he told me he was.
The power dynamic between us changed and I didn’t feel safe. When I feel safe, I relax completely, but from then on, I couldn’t relax. I liked him very much but it affected our sex. I was always on my toes, walking on eggshells without fully understanding why. My body had registered what my mind hadn’t caught up to yet. I would get dry during sex and I didn’t realise early enough that it was a him problem. That my body was telling me something I wasn’t ready to hear: I don’t trust this man completely.
He was looking for someone he could mold, gaslight, and test. There was a period I turned down helping him because there was no way I could transport myself to help him and even though he could come and pick me up, he didn’t. He wanted me to show my loyalty by how much I would do to get to him, it was his test. I am proud I failed, if you say you love someone you wouldn’t want to subject them to suffering to prove it. He was also insecure, there were times he would travel and return and subject me to an “examination” to show if I had been with another man. He was deeply insecure, and insecure people find ways to make you prove things.
The clearest sign came when he started planning a future I had never agreed to. I was 22. I knew I had not achieved anything and wanted to travel places. I didn’t see him in my future and he knew nothing about me and my likes. I saw him as an enemy because it was going to favor him and never me. He wasn’t subtle about his plan to get me pregnant so that marriage would follow, so I left.
There were moments, in the years after, where a quieter, more tired version of me wondered: what if I had stayed? Maybe life would have been easier in some ways. But I recognised that thought for what it was, an exhaustion. I was still young and I had not yet lived or discovered myself. I had no business entering a marriage, and even less business bringing a child into what the two of us were.
What the experience gave me was knowledge. I learned I am a masochist. That when I bond deeply, I show up in ways that aren’t orthodox, and I don’t need to be ashamed of that. With him I explored without apology. I also learned about trauma bonding and limerence. About how easily I attach through intellect and through sex, the importance of asking for help even when you’re too proud to, and listening to the body before the situation gets too deep to leave cleanly.
I have been celibate for two years now, peeling back the layers to see what was actually there underneath the desire and the attachment and the noise. I miss the sex, if I’m honest. I miss that version of myself that was open, feral, and curious. I’ve kept that part of me locked away for a while now. But I’m grateful for the woman I’ve become in the silence.
I’m not rushing. I have an expensive lifestyle and a taste for beautiful things, and I intend to build that alone, on my own terms. But somewhere ahead of me, when the time is right, I want to explore again, with a man who is wild, grounded, and responsible all at once.
