Thirst for Intimacy
Wanting sex to feel “intimacy” and a deeper connection that wasn’t there in the first place
Non Linear: A publication detailing in non chronological order my coming of age story revolving around love, sex, and self discovery.
TW for all the articles. Sexual Assault will come up one way or another
I know there’s many reasons why somebody could have an unhealthy relationship with sex. Could mine be due to SA1 trauma? Could it be “daddy issues”? Maybe it’s being a people pleaser? What turned me into a people pleaser? Strict parents?
All of these things can have connections, maybe thick lines or faded ones to bridge the gap. Maybe the lines are short, maybe the lines are long, but what I do know is that they’ve cost me a lot of pain that I didn’t even know I was feeling.
It has taken me almost a decade to realize why I wanted “sex”. On top of being hyper sexual from SA, I was looking for love.
I was in denial that I was a softer girl that liked the cook up before the intercourse itself. My hyper sexuality showed itself privately and publicly, and while I’d like to tell myself that it was a short era compared to my time in the romance scene, I’m sure it lasted 2 years — not consecutively. I’ve posted clothed thirst traps, some cleavage exposure, and some dancing videos (not really twerking because my butt has always been small), so I don’t think I was the worse publicly. I had an onlyfans for 2 months, and didn’t post a damn thing the second month, so it was really a month. I made a good $100 altogether and my videos weren’t too nasty or posted so openly. I did one video with a friend of mine that I’m glad I didn’t get involved with any deeper than I did.
Thinking back on it now, remembering some of the video, it makes me sick to my stomach that I even let that be put out. I’m actually getting chills. I don’t want my story to be used as a weapon towards women who actually enjoy the sex worker lifestyle, I just know now, and honestly knew then from how quick I stopped, that that was never me. I did one video with my ex some years before that and had posted it on one of the popular porn cites. I took that down after a month and some change also. I deleted both of those accounts as well.
I’m sure someone out there has a copy of it, but I was nowhere near popular enough for it to be going around current day. This was back in 2019-2020 if my memory serves me correct.
Also apart of my hyper sexuality was being overly honest about my sexual endeavors, trying to come off like I was the best freak on the planet. If it was implied by someone that was cute, I’d shrug it off and give a “maybe". I remember in high school, in the tenth grade, I had a lot of guy friends but I wasn’t doing anything with them. We’d play flirt amongst other noninvasive things, but that translated to “you’re fucking” in high school.
Even in adulthood I ran into this same issue when I received too many rides from a male coworker. Being pretty and friendly has its cons as a women.
So you have context, imagine me in high school, an introverted girl with lots of guy friends that sometimes dresses “provocative” for a teen. The most provocative at that time for teens were leggings, crop tops, and cleavage of course. I was simultaneously a jacket every day type of kid and the “thot”. It all depended on what I was feeling the night before or the morning of. I guess you can still consider these items provocative now, but it’s different when you’re a kid. Everything was enticing, and hormones are changing and flying around your body like a ping pong. I’m not a scientist, but I feel I described that well. I think some people underestimate how much transition we go through as teens.
It’s like, people don’t treat puberty lightly, but they also don’t treat it right. Parents see it as just this rebellious stage and that nothing else is going on but your child wanting to be grown and superior to you in your house. It’s always been more than that, but I digress.
I’ve always been really into writing and let it be known when anyone ever asked me about what I do. There were plenty of times where I was writing stories in class so people would ask me about them and I’d let it be known that I have a love for writing.
I remember this one day in US History class one of the boys that sat behind me asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and before I could even answer he said, “A stripper?”
I really did mind my business as a teen, and I remember responding, “no, a writer” and he acted like he couldn’t hear me so I repeated myself louder. Because of my attachment to male friends I was seen as a thot, even when I wasn’t doing a damn thing besides being overly flirtatious and showing off. I did do some sneaky things with a friend or two, but I wasn’t wilding out all over the school. I did things with the wrong people and fell victim to sob stories. I couldn’t even have intercourse all throughout high school, I got used for fellatio. I only messed around with one individual at a time, they all had their own era. I remember three consecutive ones throughout a whole school year and neither of them lasted more then a couple months. While I still had no business doing what I was doing, it was me trying to take back my power that I felt I lost at 13 years old.
—
So with that bit of context, sex had always been a performative thing for me. I’m still working through the kinks of it all, but like I said in the beginning:
He caught me in my freshmen year, at the very beginning of my puberty. He left me with a darkness that I had not been able to get rid of until just this year.
How sick is that? This is why it bothers me when people, men and women alike, treat those who go through rape like they’re supposed to just get over it. Some people become recluse, others turn to being the opposite just to gain back a piece of themselves. I don’t like when people judge the overly sexual girls that beg for attention, because although my hyper sexuality didn’t go that far, I understand where they’re at now. Even when I didn’t understand, I kept my mouth shut and didn’t dwell on it. While I looked inside myself a lot, I also didn’t have all the tools to help myself right away.
One thing I appreciated about my past self is that I may do something wild, but I’d always have enough hesitancy to not completely shoot myself in the foot with my wildness. I always find it interesting when I look back on the past with a different lens, a new perspective.
I was bold enough to not have anxiety during certain situations, but I think it was also due to me not truly feeling for my past partners. I “cared” and I “loved” them like I loved any other human, but the anxiety I got around actual lovers (I still think I’ve only had 2 true lovers, one of them being my current) is no match for that little bit of anxiety I got with my ex partners.
Sex was a temporary fix
Now that I gave you as much context as I was comfortable giving. Sex was a performance for me. When you apply the “people pleaser” I just wanted to be liked, I wanted to be chose. I’ve dabbled into shaming some girls around that time, but I only took it to a toxic level once, and that was the last time. I saw that this wasn’t myself, or who I wanted to be at least.
I wouldn’t go out of my way to dabble into women shaming, I just never spoke up loudly whenever presented with an opportunity. I mentioned that because choosing men also comes with shaming women for some, and I am not entirely innocent. I don’t believe that silence is violence, because I’m confident I would’ve spoke up to injustice if there was something serious going on, like any of my male friends sexually assaulting someone.
I was not receiving the connection that I was crying for. How could I have let my cries fall on deaf ears and those ears be my own?
We betray ourselves constantly. We can become our own enemies, and this is nothing new under the sun. But when you realize what you’ve done and what you’ve grown from, you become appalled at how you could have treated yourself so badly. There’s no more thoughts that last a few seconds before you push them back into the past. Your stomach gets tight, you get lightheaded, you get worried for a you that is no longer.
You feel like a parent to their child, wondering how someone with so much potential could do that to themselves.
My past partners weren’t doing much for me in basic intimacy or reassurance, so their sex, whether rough or predatory2, was how I got my intimacy and I clung to it real tight. I was never satisfied even when I was . . . Or when I thought I was. I was into the choking, and later got into slapping, during sex. It wasn’t up until recently that I realized I was using all of these kinks to cover up my need for love. I needed to feel something, anything that wasn’t what I was feeling just a moment before. Insecure, unhappy, confused. All of those emotions are gone when I’m aroused and letting myself be used.
I was so empty and I didn’t even know it. I had hurt myself that bad. All it takes is someone to show you the other side, then all is revealed to you. You could be 90% through your journey of self reflection and past critiquing, but the missing piece lied with someone else. My current — and hopefully forever — partner gave me the remaining 10%. Even if we separate, I now know everything I was yearning for, and everything that I wasn’t finding in everyone else.
My story, and countless others, is why I get so disturbed by the discourse regarding women’s pasts. Men have differing traumas related to sex, but I won’t be the one to have a big conversation about it. Just know that hyper sexuality can be developed through trauma with men as well and often times peer pressure/exposure. Lil Boosie set his child up with a stripper for his birthday to lose his virginity or whatever sick shit. The point is, boys are pushed to be sexual/sexualized but the conversation is almost mute.
We all have a part of ourselves we have to overcome, a part of our life journey that isn’t as pretty as the rest. A lot of our stories aren’t shallow. It’s not just heartbreak that turns us into hoes. Just like the connections I mentioned before, we are not a one size fits all type of species.
With one of my partners the sex was too devoid of intimacy. It was rough and clunky, even when he was trying to be more “intimate”. Some men think intimacy is just being slow, when there’s a whole array of things that go into making someone believe what you’re selling. There’s a natural energy transfer that gives you the choreography to the intimacy dance. Even during those pauses of figuring out what position to settle with, the movement is fluid, even when it’s not.
With one of my flings he exposed me to a different type of man. Flawed, very giving, but still very flawed. He knew how to ball out on a lady if he really fucked with your vibe, but he was also a child at times like many human beings are capable of being on occasion. His sex was very devoid of the intimacy I needed.
He gave me attention and was a good distraction despite my disappointment at times. I’ll never forget going over his house, doing the do (which was very lackluster due to . . . Drug reasons), being severely dissatisfied and waking up on the worst side of his bed.
I went to work so mad, mad enough that my best friend saw it all over my face. I learned there was nothing worse than bad dick on top of a lack of connection. So you can compare and contrast: even when my lover finishes quickly at times, which is rare, I’m still satisfied to some degree. I was even comfortable enough, when it was just a bit too quick, to tell him that I was not pleased with his performance.
He laughed, recuperated, then made up for it happily.
When I tell these stories, I think about how there are men out here that believe women like me don’t deserve love. That any man that decides to stay with us are simps because we had a life before our forever partners. Women like me need men like the one I have. Women who evolved like I did. Women who knew/know what was/is up, even when they were actively doing wrong.
I’ve done so much inner and outer work just for strangers, who lack range, to tell me that any man that gets with me is a dumbass, a sucker, a buster, and all the other derogatory names you can think of when it comes to men who understand how humans work.
Wrap it up!
I want to hold my past self so tightly and tell her that she’s going about everything the wrong way, but without all those detours I wouldn’t be here today talking to you all. I wouldn’t have a story tell, a message to spread, hope to give.
I was used so much sexually, and I let myself be used, even if I was a victim to trauma. I’m not mad at myself, there’s nothing productive that comes out of that. I just feel so strongly for Nikia of the past. She tried to be somebody different while being herself at the same time, and they clashed. She wanted to be the baddie, she wanted to have the look, the body, the everything to guarantee her success . . . But in the end she, me, just ended up coming back to herself.
I’ve found my love for rock music again in these recent months, although I never hated it. I pay attention to my patterns throughout certain eras/months in my life. I’m realizing all the things I’m re-finding are things from my past that I let fall to the side. Because I am on the way back to wholeness again, I have found the girl I was before and brought her to my womanhood.
I’m so glad she’s here, and she can rest. She doesn’t have to hurt anymore or hurt herself anymore, at least not like she used to.
We made it. We survived . . . We can let go now.
Thank you for reading/listening (when I put out audio). I teared up at the end of this. As this writing may heal others, it heals me all over again laying out the words for you all. I’m taking care of myself the best I can, and past me is grateful for it. I know she’s scared, like a stray cat, but she’s getting her weight up.
If you like my work enough you can send me a little tip or become a supporter on Ko-fi. I appreciate your time as always and I hope this essay was an aid to your healing or overall life journey.
Acronym for Sexual Assault
I use predatory to represent coercion which is the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. In this case it was a lot of begging, rubbing up on, and so on and so forth. Guilt trips at times as well.
Thank you for the article, Nikia. I really appreciated it, as it gave me a deeper understanding of how sexual assaults can lead to hypersexuality. I have a friend who I believe might be in a similar situation to yours, and I shared the link to your article with her in the hope that it might provide some insight or help. You just gained a new subscriber.