Seeking validation through Sex

Written by Desiree Michel

Photo credit Von Mitchell

The air smelled vaguely of cigarettes and he was holding my hand. On top of the bar, among our glasses of Old Fashion—his empty, mine completely full because I hated it—and he was saying, “Desiree, you’re fascinating.” At some point, he pulled me to him, wrapped my throat—delicately, hotly—with his large hand and he brought his mouth to mine. Later that night, we fucked in his bed, in his room filled with books and a guitar with Frank Ocean playing because I’m a cliché. And then, a day later, the whole world went into lockdown. The guy in question and I are still talking—trying to impress each other with our obscure movie references and our music taste. We exchange book titles and thinly veiled flirt attempts. But—and I don’t even feel bad saying it—quarantine doesn’t make me miss the guy, it makes me miss the sex.

I consider myself somewhat of a master when it comes to loneliness. I love it, crave it even. I’ve gotten so good at it that I manage to simulate loneliness in a room filled with people. And not in the sad sense. I don’t need people for entertainment and I usually don’t need them to get myself off. I get myself hot, my hands, the softness of my thighs, of my sheets. My fantasies don’t usually need faces. It’s more of a general ambiance: an improvised threesome, a party that gets out of hand and transforms itself into a sex party, some large hand spanking me, fingers in my mouth. That sort of thing.

But, because of this international lockdown, my fantasies aren’t enough. I need hands on my body, a necklace dangling in my face, someone pulling my hair, a tongue in my mouth. And I’m not the only one. All over the internet, people are going crazy with this pent-up frustration. The whole world is horny. My best friend, a self-proclaimed feminist—the type that grew up on Tumblr and around the idea that our generation will change the world— has been flirting and exchanging half naked pictures with a beautiful, taken boy. That’s something she would have never considered before: hurting another woman for a thrill, for the heat that pools between your legs when someone unexpectedly turns you one. But she blames it on the quarantine; on the fact that sex is all she can think about, all she wants.

Why can’t we cope? Is sex so important to us, so good that it’s worth risking our own safety over, our own beliefs over? My friend thinks we want it so bad now because we’re not allowed to have it. A lot of people don’t live with or don’t have significant others. And those of us who are self-proclaimed sluts and like to sleep around to experience the vast and never-ending world of sex, don’t have the luxury of having it during lockdown without getting out of the house. It feels ridiculous to say, amid all the horrible things and losses happening around the world currently, but the fact that this pandemic took away my freedom of having sex whenever with whoever, hurts in a lot of ways. And that doesn’t mean I have an unhealthy relationship with sex, it just means that the warmth of someone between my thighs is a lovely feeling. This whole situation has brought so many questions to my mind. Why do I need someone else present to get off? Isn’t an orgasm an orgasm, at the end of the day, no matter where it comes from?

I asked this to two of my friends and they both agreed that, as much as we hate to admit it, we like orgasms as much as we like having the validation of others. Sex comes with a bunch of those: validations. High fives from your friends, jealous sighs from others, bragging about experience, someone wanting you enough to remove their clothes, shame and inhibitions in order to lie in bed (or stand against a wall) with you. These forms of validations are nice even if we like to pretend we’re above it all.

The feeling of just having had sex, having had an orgasm is remarkably liberating. The looks others give you when you tell them, the twist of ugly satisfaction you get from it when you’re the only one in your group ‘getting some’ feels strangely sweet. There’s none of that when you masturbate at home. And I’m a fan of it. I’ve been masturbating since before I knew what I was doing. It gave me a sense of empowerment. It created a curiosity and a love of sex in me. It made me appreciate my body, what my hands could do to myself. But, no external validation comes from masturbating. And, be as it may, we’re all sluts for validation.

One of my friends is celebrating her birthday in two weeks and she told me that if the quarantine isn’t lifted by then, she’ll break it and find a guy to have sex. I find this incredibly irresponsible and I lambasted her for it. I don’t think anyone should break quarantine in order to have sex. Many lives are depending on people staying indoors, and “flattening the curve.” However, I don’t think people should be chastised for missing physical touch so much that they’re considering it. After all, everyone deserves to have sex on their birthday.

You can find more of Desiree’s musings and anecdotes on life on their Instagram