Ways to take full ownership of your own sexual choices – Even if those choices are kinky AF. The basic definition of integrity is when our behaviors coincide with our values, words, and beliefs. Sadly, today far too many people struggle with how to understand and express themselves with integrity regarding their sexuality.
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The modern world offers a limitless variety of instantaneous opportunities for the sexual gratification of even those kinks, fantasies, and desires we feel most afraid and ashamed of internally. What these impulsive choices reveal is that our professed morality and words don’t necessarily match our innate, hidden, and deep-seated desires.
This conflict between our sexual desires and behaviors versus our moral beliefs and identities creates tremendous pain and struggle for many people.
Though a tiny minority (less than 1%) of people experience consequences or problems due to sexual behaviors, between 7-13% of us worry about controlling our sexual behaviors.
People who identify as porn addicts don’t actually watch more porn than other people — they just feel worse about it. The same is true for those who identify as sex addicts — they don’t have more sex than many other people, especially swingers or some gay men — but, they feel much worse about the sex they are having.
Consistently, these inner struggles are traced back to the beliefs that people hold about sex, masturbation, and porn. These are the beliefs and values these people were taught, in school in abstinent-only education, at home, by parents scared to talk to their kids about sex, and at church, where any sex other than heterosexual monogamy has been condemned.
The same is true when it comes to casual sex. People who view casual sex in positive ways, typically feel better about themselves afterward, whereas people who believe casual sex is immoral and slutty feel bad about themselves if they have it. This is one reason 90% of casual sex encounters involve alcohol. People use alcohol to overcome the internal barriers that keep them from acting on their desires. Then they feel bad in the morning, left with only a guilt-laden hangover.
Here are just 6 of the multiple ways you can address this conflict within yourself and begin to experience greater sexual satisfaction with integrity.
1. Examine your values.
This is something we should all do many times throughout our lives. Do you hold the same political values as your parents? Younger people today view homosexuality as acceptable, despite the fact that most of us grew up being taught homophobic values. Many people grew up with racist beliefs and ideas which they now reject as independent-minded adults. The same process can be true when it comes to pornography and sexual behaviors such as kink and casual sex.
This doesn’t happen by accident. To examine your values, you need to consider your beliefs about casual sex, masturbation, sex toys, anal and oral sex, porn, infidelity and a great many other aspects of sexuality people don’t like to think about.
Consider Bill Clinton’s famous question, “What IS sex?” A recent study indicates that 11% of people believe anal stimulation by another person which doesn’t include orgasm isn’t actually sex. We must think about these things, especially in light of today’s technological opportunities.
Is it cheating if you have cyber-sex with someone? What if the other “person” is an artificial intelligence program?
Sexual scientists and researchers examine these attitudes using tests like the Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale or the Trueblood Sexual Attitude Questionnaire. As technology and society change, sexual practices develop and change faster than these tests can keep up with. The BDSM Test is one example of measurement tools that can help you figure out which kinks you’re interested in (although it doesn’t get into the moral conflicts you might have about these desires — you’ll have to feel that out for yourself).
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