Do You Rely On Sex For Validation?
In my quest for removing all the bad habits I have in my life, sex is the one that always seems to slip through the cracks. I mean, it’s great, right? It’s why many of us do it, but what happens when our relationship to it goes awry?
In the gay community, sex is everywhere. In fact, the mere premise of some of the dating apps is centered on it — creating an almost competition of who can get what. Whilst sex is certainly worth celebrating and I have no issue with those of us who have felt restricted in being empowered by it, I have always been curious about the more sinister origins of this need for sex.
There’s a difference between wanting sex for pleasure and wanting it for validation and unfortunately for many of us, we fail to know the difference. Whilst one can lead to new and fun experiences, the other can become an unhealthy source of self-worth. As someone actively trying to work through their self-worth problems, this has been a target of my interest as of late.
Why can sex be such a powerful drug to us and why must we be aware of our relationship to it? Is there anything even wrong with having lots of sex?
The Allure Of Sex
Many of us see sex as an end-game, and that’s the problem. We see it as the apex of desire and a sign we’re valued. From there, it can quickly become a regular source of worth for ourselves. I have felt this desire for validation more times than I can count and being in a community that has it so readily available hasn’t helped.
Sex in itself is incredibly powerful without all the emotional problems we may be experiencing -more on this later-. It spikes our dopamine levels to highs that are incomparable to most other sources of pleasure and therefore, it can be addictive. Whether our relationship reaches a stage of dependence is a topic for another article -and maybe your therapist- but inevitably, sex feels good, and we want to do it even if we’re seeking results that run deeper than the sexual pleasure we may think we want.
Self-Worth and Validation
To understand the relationship between self-worth and sex we have to understand how low self-worth impacts the brain.
Our life is centered around us. How we think, how we feel, and how we subsequently act are all impacted by our view of self. Our self-worth, therefore, has an incredible hold over the way we perceive and react to our world.
Suffering from low-self worth brings with it the complications of a constant source of negativity in our minds. Whether something triggers you into feeling unworthy, or you’re in a constant state of self-doubt and deprecation, this view of self lowers our vibration in the world.
This is a problem as our brains have evolved to want to avoid discomfort by pushing us to seek out external sources of comfort in times of distress. Our reward system serves this very purpose; to remember the things that make us feel good so that we can feel compelled to do them again. It’s an emotional regulation strategy that works to pull us out of states that place us under stress and into places where we feel better again.
Welcome in, sex.
Sex and Validation
Sex is already compelling without the weight of emotional repair that our brains regulation systems are trying to rectify. Couple that with societal conditioning and our own beliefs around what sex means and you’ve got a recipe for a whole lot of trouble.
When we suffer with low self-worth, sex can become an object we use in order to feel better about ourselves rather than the experience of pleasure it truly should be. Not only this but we stop seeing others for who they truly are in place of the short-term hit they can provide to our self-esteem.
And that’s the keyword in all of this: Short-term. No external source of validation can hope to last as the core issue within ourselves is never resolved. If anything, our self-worth is lowered further as subconsciously through relying on sex, we’re telling ourselves that we can’t be our own source of worthiness.
As the sexual high fades, despite initial feelings of elation and validation, they’re soon replaced with the same old feeling of lacking. Counterproductively to our initial efforts, this lacking only serves to create a craving for more sex in the hopes that this time our wounds will heal. Though through this method, they never do.
The Only Way Forward
The only way to move past our need for sexual validation is to start cultivating our self-worth from within. I’d be lying if I said I had figured out the secret sauce for building self-worth -but I haven’t. However, there are a few things which I have found to be integral to maintaining my own self-worth. Here are a few;
- Investing in my passions
- Resisting the urge to rely on sex when feeling low (emotional regulation)
- Meditation
- Affirmations/work on self-compassion
- Reframing old beliefs around what sex means to me and my worth
- General self-care rituals
One of my favorite coaches, Amy Young, talks about her sacred 6 ritual whereby she consistently carries out 6 things, each day, that nurture her self-worth. Try this out yourself; create your own sacred 6 and see how you fare. Here’s a link to a great psychology today article on self-care which may be of use to you, also. It’s all in trial and error and seeing what works for you, and what doesn’t.
The end goal is sturdy self-worth that takes away our reliance on outside sources to make us feel good. In that, sex can become something we enjoy on top of a fulfilling and satisfying life rather than a tool we desperately crave to fill a hole -no pun intended-.
-Above The Middle
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