I feel dirty

[Anonymous]

Ever since I was 17 I've had sex with 7 people. I am 20 now and only one case involved me having sex underage but that was with my long term bf.

So I've had sex with two boyfriends, three married bisexual men, and two were random guys I met over the net.

I've hooked up with one of the married guys and the first random guy more than once. Well me and my bf's obviously hooked up more than once... but I always tell myself 'relationship over random sex' yet I feel like I have had random sex too much.

I feel dirty after having sex with these guys specially cause most of them are married guys who have kids.

The random fuck buddy I have always calls me and leaves messages but I dont want to have sex with him anymore. I think he wants to have something more but I am not interested he's not my type nor is he around my age.

I feel so dirty.

I just cant face myself and the fact that I had sex with these guys. I feel that its all that I will have in my life and never a relationship but I want a relationship

I want the sex to mean something. I want to meet someone that I can love and not just have meaningless sex with.

Sometimes I worry about disease and I sometimes wonder if I have something. I do plan on getting tested, cause some of the sex was unprotected....

[Anonymous]

First things first... get yourself tested, you owe it to yourself and your bf. Then stop having random sex!

I have nothing against random sex if that is what you are looking for but apparently in your case you are not. You are the only one who can stop this. First ask yourself Why! Why are you looking for random sex? What does it do for you that sex with your bf is lacking? If you can answer these questions honestly you will have taken the first step to stopping.

Having random sex in the past does not mean that you can't have loving and meaningful relationships but for most people, you just can't have both so decide what you really want and go for it. Yes you might have to give up the excitement of random sex (or for whatever reason you do it) but the joys of a loving relationship will surely make up for this.

One last thing NEVER, NEVER, NEVER have unprotected sex, you are worth more than that!

One more last last thing :eusa_doh: . Stop feeling guilty, we all of us make bad calls at differnet times in our lives, the thing is to learn by them, try not to repeat them and move on. Feeling guilty won't change what you have said/done, the ONLY thing you can do is learn from it and avoid the same mistakes in the future. Cut yourself some slack (*hug*)

[JSG]

I could have written (almost) the exact same thing.
But I don't feel dirty tho.

[Anonymous]

You can't change what has happened in the past. We all make mistakes! First thing you need to do is get yourself tested. PLEASE!!! Then move your life forward by thinking about what kind of relationship you DO want. Random casual sex is as fun as it lasts but it won't keep you warm at night.

[Anonymous]

You don't need to feel guilty or dirty about what you've done - after all it 'takes two to tango'! You weren't doing this alone. You don't necessarily need to feel proud of it, but you don't need to feel guilty. What's done is done - it's in the past. Let it go.

Get tested. It will be possibly the most embarassing thing you've ever needed to talk to your doctor about, but do it! It won't kill you - but what you're potentially carrying around might - or at least cause serious health problems in the future. The first conversation about it is the worst - but you're not the first person that has needed to be tested for STDs. Do it!

If you want sex to mean something (and you should want that) then set some boundries for yourself. Commit to NOT having sex with a guy for X number of months after you've met him. I don't know what the right length of time is... For me it was 4 months with my bf - but we both had specific reasons for waiting that long. But we both agree that waiting made other aspects of our relationship better, and it forced us to build a foundation on other things before we introduced sex into our relationship. It really works. If you can't stand a guy after 3 dates, but the sex is good, you'll be tempted to keep seeing him. But if you haven't had sex, and you can't stand him, you'll move on!

Does that make sense? That's what I would recommend - and it's based on experience. I've done the random thing too - and you're never going to find what you're looking for that way. Trust me.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes I worry about disease and I sometimes wonder if I have something. I do plan on getting tested, cause some of the sex was unprotected....When I initially read your post and saw the part about you having not used protection sometimes, my first fleeting thought was, "How can people be so stupid?"

But then I remembered that a lot of times, and I think pretty obviously in your case, it's not a case of stupidity or ignorance, it's a case of low self-esteem, which is something quite different.

Lots of people out there who know all about the risks associated with unprotected sex still end up taking huge risks sexually, so for one you're not alone. But just given how you describe how you're feeling about your sexual history in general, it sounds like your self-esteem played a big part in all your sexual decisions and still does in your current feelings about your sexual past.

I think most people make choices about sexual activity that they regret, whether it's what they did or who they did it with or both. What I think would probably be more useful for you than feeling guilty about your choices (which ultimately is pointless because you can't change them) is to do some soul-searching about WHY you made the choices you made, and when I say "soul-searching" I mean try to go beyond blatant self-accusation like "because I'm stupid/weak/immoral/blah blah blah." What were you feeling when you chose to have sex that you now regret? How did it make you feel at the time? Were you feeling lonely, depressed, excited, horny, jealous, pressured, nervous, afraid?

Maybe the feeling that you want a relationship but you'll never have one is something that predates your current sexual history; that is, maybe you secretly have always felt like you won't get or don't deserve a relationship... I think that's a pretty common way to feel, especially growing up gay.

I guess more than anything what I'm saying is that maybe the sexual choices you regret aren't the cause of your problem(s) but rather just symptoms of another problem or problems that don't really have anything to do with sex.

I grew up thinking that I was never going to be attractive to anyone else and so I'm sure that played into having as much sex as I did when I realised this was not the case. But I don't regret having had a lot of sex with a pretty wide variety of people. I regret sometimes leading people on, and sometimes cheating on my boyfriend at the time, etc.... none of that was about sex, per se; it was about how I felt about myself.

So I could totally see how someone who maybe didn't feel that great about themselves would have sex with people who expressed interest in them, even if those people were realatively unsuitable by dint of being married with children. Beating yourself up over it won't really help you avoid it in the future because you won't really be addressing WHY you did that in the first place.

To wrap it all up, basically if you don't love and forgive yourself, no one else is going to do it for you. Or even if they do, it's not going to register properly. 17 is pretty young, and even 20 is, so I wouldn't write yourself off just yet. :) Chalk it up to "learning experiences" and try to sort out the emotions and reasoning behind it and you'll probably find it a lot easier to make choices you are way more comfortable with.