A different thread was talking about detaching emotions from the memory of a traumatic event.  This reminded me of a somewhat different instance of detachment that has been a recurring theme of my sexual experience.

I have never experienced sexual assault or abuse, but many of my sexual experiences have featured a detachment from any emotion.  In my early sexual experience, I would enter that blank, empty place that might be a type of dissociation, and it felt so terrible that I would press on with the sexual interaction in order to try to feel something, but would be totally indifferent to the possibility of any kind of danger.  So I made impulsive and risky (in terms of personal safety and STD danger) decisions, mainly with guys I didn't know very well, or in a few cases didn't know at all.  It was like these experiences were completely detached from any other reality that I experienced.  Everyone around me - then and TO THIS DAY - has always remarked about how innocent and even virginal I seem to be.  I cannot figure this out (and of course I don't want to put too much emphasis on what people think or assume), except to suspect that in some ways my sexuality is still detached from the rest of my personality.  Oh, and I still don't enjoy sex consistently.  There are a lot of factors involved, I'm sure, like my husband and I don't even have sex currently.  I haven't had sex at all in seven months.  Sometimes I consider identifying myself as an asexual.  But then I have this overwhelming sense of longing at times, which seems to overlap with sexual desire.

I have always tended to have more desire in my mind when I am alone, than when I am with someone in a sexual situation.  I wonder what this is about.  Is it because I have reservations about the situation, like times with past boyfriends where the relationship wasn't going so well?  Is it because sex to me is sort of ridiculous and unnecessary, seeing as I'm personally not interested in reproduction?

How much does it have to do with my childhood emotional abuse from my father, who did not molest me in any physical way but still had WAY inappropriate emotional boundaries (his jealousy seemed more typical of a controlling spouse/boyfriend than of an un-self-disciplined parent) and also just provided an awful model for future relationship partners, influencing my history of attraction to men with abusive levels of rage and jealousy?  I have been with men, including my husband, who do not have the abusive rage or jealousy, but it seems like these are the men that don't interest me as much sexually.  The only time I felt at all sexually fulfilled was when I was with my very first serious boyfriend (after the first several guys I had sex with impulsively).  The emptiness lifted during the second time we had sex (I had often experienced the emptiness when first behaving sexually with this guy before we actually had sex) and it became like the most potent drug.  I had never experienced anything so ecstatic and addictive.

The end of that relationship (eight years ago - it lasted a year and a half) was an epiphany and a rebirth for me, and I improved my life and my choice of relationships in a lot of ways at that time.  But I never consistently enjoyed sex so much again after that.  It has often been a disappointment and a source of frustration, despite my private sexual desire remaining strong - at least in my mind.  At this point, I am comfortable with taking a break from the whole mess, and I believe, as he states, that my husband is whole-heartedly comfortable with this too.  I feel like I have enough other parts of life to deal with at this time.

But, knowing myself at least somewhat, I still intend to examine this part of my life as I am examing so many other parts through writing, since it seems relevant and surely all parts of myself are connected to each other, even if this part seems cut off from everything else.

I feel like I'm not seeing the whole picture.  Does anyone have any experience with this type of fragmented sexuality, or any thoughts about it?  Thanks, y'all.  I really appreciate being able to talk about this.  I couldn't bring myself to say this much on the main forums.

P.S. Oh, and I still get crushes.  In some ways they feel sexual, and in other ways it seems to indicate the simple need for deep human emotional contact, which is what I try to emphasize, since I know the crush itself can "lie" to me about the perceived virtues of the person I'm crushing on or the less-than-idyllic nature of sex and relationships.