Truth and Transparency: My Sexual Past
Truth and Transparency: My Sexual Past
Transcript
The following is a transcription of Truth and Transparency: My Sexual Past, which is part of my practice of coming into full truth and transparency.
For the full series and depth to this practice visit: My Commitment to Truth and Transparency.
Hello Dear Friends,
Today, as part of my coming into full truth and transparency and deepening into integrity, I’m going to be sharing with you about my sexual past. My sexual past is the area in which I hold the greatest level of pain, of suffering, of mourning, of remorse, of anguish, for quite some time. In 2017, that was the beginning of when I really felt a strong calling to share this truth and to heal and to be a part of the healing of the community as well. That was when I was about 31 years old; I’m 38 years now, which means about seven years have passed of a long yearning to share.
Now, there’s a lot to celebrate in my past sexual relationships, in my sexual life. There’s a lot to be joyful about, a lot of connection, a lot of harmony, a lot of mutuality and consensuality, a lot of healing and growth. And with that, there are also many actions that I have taken in my past, primarily during my college years: late teens into mid-20s, where there were so many needs of mine that were not met in the ways that I interacted and so many needs of others that were not met through my interactions. Another way of saying needs is values — life values — that were not met; desires for life that were not met by myself, for myself, and for the women that I was in relationships with, in sexual connection.
There’s a lot of tenderness in this because this is me sharing experiences that involve another person, involve a woman. So, today, I’m requesting one thing of you, for those of you who are watching, and that is your patience. I’m not going to be moving fast through this here. I’m working through and I’m being as tender as I can for those who have been in my life, and I also would love to request your compassion and your empathy. I’m going to share my depth, and I’m requesting for you to be here in a place of depth as well. Before I continue on, the other thing that I would like to request is that if you haven’t yet, please watch the Introduction to this truth and transparency series. I have a lot of meaning behind what I’m doing, a lot of purpose, and I would love for you to watch that introduction which shares why — why am I going to this place of attempting to enter into a place of full truth and transparency? What’s the reason behind it? What am I seeking? Again, I’m going to share my depth here, and I know there are some people who think, “Why are you padding it so much?” “Why are you putting all of this extra behind it?” “Just share the truth.” For those people who are thinking that, maybe you don’t understand that my objective is not to come clean; my objective is healing — healing for myself, healing for the people I’m in relationships with, and healing for humanity here on Earth. So, I’m taking a very holistic approach here.
What I really mourn over, what I feel this pain over, are the relationships, the interactions that I had with women that were not fully consensual or not consensual. And I’m going to talk about what consensual is and consensuality. And then the times when I just acted … I interacted in a way that did not meet their needs for people that I cared about. Although back then, I was lost from being able to really deeply care. I wasn’t connected to that. So when I think about the sexual relationships that I had in the past that were not consensual, I mourn over a couple of things: I mourn over the feelings that these women have experienced, or may have experienced, and the basic values of theirs, the needs of theirs that were not met.
I work with a practice called nonviolent communication, which has been around for decades and is a really powerful way of connecting to our feelings and needs. There are what are called “Needs and Feelings” lists, and I work with these as well. I have grown up in a society where I didn’t learn how to acknowledge my feelings and even know my feelings, and that’s the case with a lot of the women that I’ve been involved with and many of my peers. We haven’t learned how to even know our feelings, let alone express them. So, I work with this list to really tap into what others are needing and feeling. Some of them are very obvious in my relationships where there hasn’t been consensuality. Some of the needs I know that I mourn over that weren’t met were the need for security, the need for safety; both emotional safety and physical safety, the need for connection, a loving meaningful connection, the need for fairness, the need for mutuality, the need for autonomy, for power in their own world, the need to be understood and to understand, the need for care, for intimacy, for harmony in their lives, and the need for appreciation and consideration.
When I feel the deepest pain, it’s when I think about what they were feeling at the time or what they’re feeling later if they recall the time that we spent together and the moment that we were together — our sexual connection. I mourn knowing that they were feeling different feelings. I know for some it was feelings of discomfort, a feeling of heavy-heartedness, of guardedness, disappointment, or disheartenment. For some, maybe a numbness. Definitely, I know some people have experienced being very upset, and that’s created a disconnection where there was a desire for connection, instead feeling disconnection. I know, and I imagine as well, that some of the women have experienced resentment, grief, or pain. I know that some probably have been angry — absolutely angry — as well as worried, concerned, hurt, and potentially ashamed. Their own self-love and their own self-care, where they didn’t meet those needs through my interactions … our interaction. And this is where I feel such a deep level of mourning, knowing that they were feeling that at the time and then where I feel even the really deepest pain is thinking about that pain potentially lasting. I know I’ve mentioned my pain quite a bit already, and I just want to say that by me sharing my emotions, this is not me trying to downplay anybody else’s emotions. Part of what I’m trying to do here is to heal, and in order to do that, a big part of that is understanding our own emotions, understanding our own needs and values we did not follow through on, so that we can learn how to do things differently in the future.
So, I want to share a little bit more about how I’m feeling as well. In most areas of my life, I don’t have really, really strong pain, and I don’t really have much trauma, but in this area, I would say that I have trauma, and I’ve been holding a lot of this in for quite some time. I think the number one feeling that comes to mind for me is anguish, like a deep anguish — a very heavy heart, a lot of anxiety in the chest, stress in the stomach and intestines, sadness — definitely experiences of depression, just disheartened, you know, just that it goes along with a heavy heart. Just disheartened and deflated. And this is primarily what I’m experiencing when I’m thinking about how they are feeling and I’m thinking about how it might have impacted them. That’s where a lot of these feelings come alive in me.
Another feeling that I’ve really had over the last few years is overwhelm. The overwhelm comes from how to best move forward, how do I heal, how do I provide healing to the best of my ability, and how do I approach this situation? And it’s been an overwhelm. Throughout the “Me Too” movement, that was a time when I was sort of mortified by this, and you know, if someone from my past had come out and said this about me. The how afraid or how much stress I felt over the idea of, in this society, of being canceled. So, a lot of fear and anxiety is definitely something that I’ve experienced regarding how society would perceive me. And I would say that, you know, even some shame and embarrassment.
In the practice of nonviolent communication or compassionate communication, the belief is that all of our feelings come out of needs — either met needs or unmet needs. So, I want to share those needs, and those needs that I have are … a lot of them are the exact same needs that the women had. Even though I did not act in a way that their needs were met, a lot of my needs were the same; I just didn’t have the skills, the willpower, the know-how, the self-control — these things — in order to know how to meet my needs in a way that was mutual and that was consensual.
So, the needs of mine that were very much not met are the well-being of others, the well-being of everybody that I’m involved with, the need for mutuality and equality, the need for fairness, the need for respect and self-respect, the need for love and nurturing, the need for communication, the need for compassion, the need for understanding between one another, the need for self-responsibility, and also a need for belonging and love. These are needs of mine that were not met, and that’s where some of these feelings arise from. And one of the most challenging aspects is, because this is not just my inner truth, this is about people that I’m involved with—how do you do this in the most sensitive way, in the most tender way, in a way that is the most, you know, meets the needs for mutuality and consensuality? Because, at the heart of this, were the ways in which I interacted that were not consensual, and then for me to share this if in a way that would not be consensual would be potentially continuing the issue at hand of not respecting others’ needs for privacy, autonomy, power in their own world, security, and safety.
Over the years, I’ve talked to people, I read online, and I saw people who had different thought patterns and different beliefs. Some would have the belief that, “Don’t talk about it under any circumstances,” while others say it’s the talking about it where you’re going to have the most healing, and healing is what we need as a society. I know for me that this whole “I’ll share a little bit about the past,” but this whole … a lot of the issues in the first place came from me as a young person not learning about consensuality and not having nuanced conversations around any of this.
So, I believe that these open conversations where we actually share the details and go into the nuance and provide examples like this can be really important learning lessons for … particularly for young boys, for teens, for young men that are … potentially will end up in the same situations that I did and have experienced a similar life trajectory as me. I know that I would have had different interactions had I had more experience with a society that was openly discussing this in a vulnerable, authentic way.
So, I am just doing the absolute best that I can, and if anybody that I’ve interacted with watches this and feels their needs … has these feelings of pain, I’m here for healing. I would love to heal. I would love to heal together, if that would be something that you would like. In this dominator society, something that people often forget is that the oppressor is also oppressed, along with the person that was oppressed. In a dominator society, basically everybody suffers. Under the systems of racism, sexism, all the “isms,” and all the exploitation, it’s actually the exploiters that suffer as well. And I can tell you firsthand as the person who was the perpetrator of non-consensual sexual relationships, the amount of suffering that I’ve experienced has been very, very high. So, I can just say that from a personal example. But as you study deeper into our societal structures, you see that everybody’s suffering, and one of the most important things to do is openly and honestly share in order to be able to come into a more holistic place as a society of having these conversations that are going to create deep healing. One thing that I’ve heard over the years that’s really stuck out was from Fred Rogers, or Mr. Rogers. He said, “Anything that is mentionable is manageable.” So basically, another way of saying that is if we can talk about it, we can manage it.
I want to say that although I do feel this deep level of anguish, what I don’t feel, that a lot of people would imagine, is a lot of guilt and shame. Now, some people would actually be potentially angry to hear me say that I don’t feel guilt or shame. But to do that would be to not see the full human that I am and see the struggles of life. The reason that I don’t feel guilt or shame is because that wouldn’t be productive. If guilt or shame were the most productive way to move forward, that’s the path that I would go down. But guilt and shame do not lead us into healing. It’s, in my opinion, self-forgiveness that leads us into healing. So I’m also not in the mindset of punishment, and we’ll talk about that a little bit at the end, but punishment I don’t think in our society is what works. I think by now we’ve seen that prison is not the answer, that it’s not solving our problems, that it’s not moving us into a path of equity and justice, of mutuality, etc. So, I don’t think that solves it. I’m very solution-oriented.
Before I share about my actions that I want to be truthful and transparent about, I want to share a little bit about my childhood as far as sexuality goes. And why start there? Why bring that up? The reason is, it’s the time that formed me. I was a young, impressionable person, and my first interactions with sex … my first, you know, hearings of the word and seeing things on TV or magazines in mainstream society and etc., well, I was susceptible to my surroundings. So, I want to share a few things that kind of just give a bit of a window into where sexuality started for me. As a young kid, I was, from the earliest time that I can remember, very sexually active in some way or another. I know from probably first grade or so, age seven or something like that, I was very interested in girls, and I was sexually aroused at a young age.
This is a little vulnerable to share, but this is, you know, just a goofy little kid thing; omigosh, I haven’t said this out loud. As a little kid, I would rub my penis, and what I would do is I would lay on the floor and just rub my penis on the floor. I remember my siblings kind of yelling, “He’s rubbing his penis again!” So, I did it a lot. In fact, we have just a couple of home videos, and one of the home videos, there I am laying on the floor rubbing my penis. Like all the other kids are running around, and there I am, laying on the floor, rubbing my penis. So, I was very, very sexually active — or, I don’t know what word you want to call it — when I was young. My first seeing a girl’s vagina was … I don’t know how old I was … maybe first grade … and I was with an older boy, and he convinced this girl to go under the big trampoline and take off her pants and show us her vagina. The way we convinced her was that I took off my glasses and we kind of said, like, we couldn’t see well. I’m sharing that because, from the very beginning, there was this dishonesty, this lying in childhood as a way to see what we wanted to see. I also, at a young age, would play doctor with some of my fellow girl peers. So again, that was more of this like, sort of sneaking and lying, and I don’t know exactly where that came from, but that was from a very young age.
From a young age, I remember being very confused about sex — just very confused as a young boy in elementary school. And that confusion continued on through middle school and high school, and probably that confusion continued on into university and into my twenties, I would say. In middle school, I would say, that’s when I started watching porn, and that was another sneaking thing. It was like we had to hide from my mom that we had porn. I know all three of my brothers and I all had porn and were watching it in the early stages of the internet, back when it was like Windows 95. So, let’s say I was maybe nine. That’s too young. I was probably 12 years old or something like that when I started to watch porn. And it was very much a sneaking thing. Then masturbation started in middle school. Masturbation was something that we hid; like all of my peers, it was like for years, no one would admit they masturbated and that there was something wrong with it. So there was just this—I don’t know if it was shame or guilt — but there was so much hiding around it, so much confusion, so much dishonesty, and so “not integrity,” and it started off at that sort of foundation.
I’m sure that I was getting some of my ways of interacting with girls at the time, and women later, through watching porn. Which I’m certain that was not a healing and nurturing environment; one of creating mutual and consensual loving, you know, compassionate relationships, where you have open conversation. And that’s not what I learned through porn. My mom didn’t have … I don’t think she had the real skills to talk about sex to us much, but we did check out this movie on a VHS tape from the library that kind of taught what sex was and how babies were made. So that … and that’s all I remember. I don’t really remember my mom talking to me about sex. My dad … I don’t remember him talking to me or teaching me anything about sex. He talked about sex, him having sex, I remember. But, I don’t remember him really teaching me anything about sex.
In school, I think it was in fifth grade we had a group thing where we learned something about sex, and that was a very short thing. I don’t remember what they taught us. So, there was very little teaching, and the teaching that was there was not one from humans — adults that were open, in touch with their feelings, and able to really go into any level of nuance with this. Now, to my mom’s credit, I think she was very open. One example of that I can remember is, she was watching QVC, which was a home shopping channel that we watched a lot, and one of the show hosts actually said the word “masturbation.” I heard it, and I might have been in sixth grade, I’m not sure, and I asked my mom, “What’s masturbation?” and she said, “It’s when you feel yourself for sex.” Those were her words, to my recollection. Very straightforward, very honest in that. So, I’m grateful to my mom for that. That and to QVC for being the place where I learned what masturbation was.
Now, in my, I would say, middle school and into high school years, most of my understanding of sex came from whatever was in the mainstream. That would have been movies, magazines, other kids talking about it. That’s really where it was coming from. I remember watching movies like “American Pie,” and that being sort of my playbook for how to interact with women. Then I remember songs like “Mambo Number Five,” where he’s just listing off the women, and I think I took that as, like, listing off the women that he was romantically or sexually involved with. So, there was very much a … my youth was very much that a man’s worth is based on the women that he’s sleeping with, or the girls that he’s sleeping with when I was in high school. The more attractive a woman that a man sleeps with, the more meaningful that man is, the more respect that man gets, the higher a place in society that man gets. So that played a very large role.
Then the other aspect of that time is, I would say, I grew up in a way that women were just so oversexualized. Another area where I give my mom credit—she didn’t play into any of that whatsoever. She’s not an oversexualizer. She’s very wholesome in that way, and so I’m very grateful for that. But, you know, I wasn’t really so much listening to my mom; I was listening to mainstream society. I wanted to be cool, I wanted to fit in, I wanted to be loved and acknowledged and accepted, etc. I grew up in a society where women were so oversexualized that that was first and foremost how you viewed women. Much of it was as a sexual object, as something to look at. You put up these posters of mostly naked women. So, it was so often, like, first you don’t think of their many other facets of life; their passions, their skills, their loves, their dreams, their hopes, but rather breasts, butts, vaginas, legs, arms, eyes — just physical aspects.
So, that played a very deep role in what I became. I will say that in high school, starting even in middle school, I was just … I had a quest for sex. I had my first girlfriend, I think, in ninth grade. I might have had, like, a girlfriend for days or something like that in middle school. I think I did, but, like, as far as an actual girlfriend, it was in ninth grade. I don’t remember all the details, but I have a place in my heart of mourning for the first time that I was in bed. I remember, and you know, I’m trying to … I want to use language that doesn’t play into this dominator society, but I don’t know another word for this but fingering—using my fingers sexually. I remember just not knowing what I was doing, and I think it turned out to be painful for my girlfriend at the time. I just remember afterwards being totally frozen for how to talk. We might not even have talked afterwards. It was just like completely inept of how to converse about this.
I remember feeling this — it was a time when I wanted to feel excitement, and I did some, because I had made some progress in this whole idea of wanting sex so bad, but I also remember feeling just, like, sadness around it because of the disconnection that we had instead of a connection. In high school, I had a girlfriend for less than a year, and I remember I always wanted to have sex, and she didn’t. She wasn’t — she was not at that place in life yet. I was one year older, and I really, really wanted to have sex. We had a sweet relationship that meant a lot. I would say, I think that the reason we ended up breaking up was that I wanted to have sex and she didn’t want to have sex. That was around senior year of high school, and I remember just a lot of tension around that, a lot of struggle around that, because it was one of the most important things to me — was to have sex. That’s what I was spending so much of my young years trying to do.
Now, the next thing that I’m going to share is my first really painful experience around sex, one that I have held on to now … I was 19, so this is 18 years with pain inside of me. That was the summer after high school. I was at a party just before university started, I believe. There was a girl there … and one thing that I want to say is, I’m using the word “girl,” and I’m using the word “woman,” and it’s a tricky one because it’s like … when I was in high school, I was a boy, I would say, and my peers were girls. College — I look back and I see how young these college kids look, and I’m like, I’m sure I looked like that, too. They looked to me like boys and girls, not men and women. So, I was maybe 19 — 18 years old — and there was a girl at the party, and I felt connected to her. I don’t know if she felt connected to me, but we were having a connection. I was very attracted to her and had been for some time. We were all drinking alcohol, and we slept in the basement, maybe a handful of us. I wanted to — I was pursuing her, and she and another girl went to bed on the futon, and I hopped on there with them, trying to, you know, continue, and I didn’t know … I don’t remember all the details; I don’t know if I had some — I thought that she might be into me as well. I know I thought that. So, I ended up falling asleep. We all ended up falling asleep. I kind of just, sort of, passed out with drunkenness. Then I woke up sometime later — probably not much later — and I wanted to come on to her. The way that I knew how to do that in the moment was to physically touch her, to come on to her, to show her that I wanted to engage and to turn her on. As a man, it was like — or a boy — it was like, that’s what you do: you turn them on to make them want to be with you. So, I was kissing her neck, to my recollection, and then I was feeling her with my fingers. I remember putting my hands down her pants, and I was trying to engage, to turn her on, and to be sexually connected. You know, she wasn’t responsive, so after a little while, I just kind of stopped and went to bed. I don’t remember exactly what I was thinking at the time or knowing—or like, I think I couldn’t tell; was she awake or not? I don’t remember that part. But the part that I know when I felt the deep pain was some months later when I was in college, and I was back home for a party, and the other girl said to me — she just blurted it out—and she said, “You touched [name] in her sleep.” I remember just being, like, just, oh — just instant deep pain, because I realized at that moment that she thought I was trying to touch her in her sleep, which was one … I never would have done that. Absolutely zero way I would have done that. But I was completely lost for how to communicate — just so timid and, I don’t know, ashamed maybe — and just so unable to address it that I just … I never was able to. I felt so much pain for a long time with her thinking that I was trying to touch her against her will in her sleep, when I was trying to just turn her on and be connected with her in that way. That was an area where I felt a lot of pain. That was very deeply vulnerable to share. I had a moment in this of, like, I don’t know about sharing this. But yeah, for many years as I shared, the pain that I’ve felt thinking about how they feel and their needs for safety and security and her needs for mutuality and power in her world and, yeah, physical and emotional safety, and just the pain that I felt for a long time and still feel today.
Another around that time — this was actually just a little bit before that. I was maybe a junior or senior in high school. I was actually touched in my sleep. I was on a band trip, and there were four of us boys sharing a bedroom and two per bed. They were queen-size beds, maybe, and I woke up to the boy that I was sharing the bed with, and he was a friend—I would say more of a loose friend, but a friend—and I woke up, and he was … I would say, diddling my butt, which, it’s hard for me not to laugh as me being the recipient of it. I say diddling because he was just like using his fingers to basically diddle my butt and he was masturbating. I woke up, and I thought, “What do I do?” Two of my best friends are in the bed next to me. I don’t want them to know that I’ve been diddled or touched. Because we had this whole concern in high school of being gay; if, like — and this — so then it would be like I would be gay by association. So, it was the last thing I would want for my reputation to talk about it. No way! I never would talk about it. I definitely didn’t want anybody to know. So I didn’t know what to do. So I laid there for a few minutes as he was doing this — or not a few minutes — a few seconds. All I knew to do is just go, “Aah!” to scare him, and he got up and he went to the bathroom and continued masturbating then got back in bed. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he was asleep, maybe he doesn’t even know this. Like I have my experiences, and I’ll share another where I don’t like where I know what they think about me is not correct. So who knows what was going on for him? Fortunately, I have not held any trauma in that at all. It’s just not — and it wasn’t something that ever affected me to my knowledge. But I just … I’m sharing it because it ties in with my experiences. Going into university, I’m not sure if I ever heard the word consensual, or the discussion of consensuality. I want to share a little bit. I want to share one story that gives sort of a backdrop of the environment that I was in, in 2005 at University of Wisconsin La Crosse.
It was the first few weeks, maybe even the first week of university, and a bunch of us boys were in one of the dorm rooms, up on the fourth floor of Trowbridge Hall. One of the boys there was … there was a group of women down below, outside, and they were actually doing something: they were raising awareness about consensual sexual relationships. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it had to do with that. The boy yelled out the window — and some of you might feel pain hearing this, so I’m just bracing you a little bit. The boy yelled out the window, “I rape women for a living!” The instant response of me and the other boys in the room was one of, like, this isn’t good, but there was also — and we hid because they looked up. There was this, like — some laughing. I never would have said that, but there was this air of not taking it very seriously. It’s just a joke, not a big deal. I wouldn’t have said it; however, it’s a joke and we’re boys, you know, doing our thing, and because it’s a joke, it’s fine. I remember he got reprimanded; it was considered somewhat serious, but nothing major — no suspension, or expulsion, or anything like that. Just giving a little bit of … some of the background, like, just a bit of the setting that I was in. A lot of desire for sex by many of my peers. Now, I want to be clear: I take full responsibility for all my actions. But, I think it’s very important to share the scene that I was in and the resources that I had available to me. And again though, say, like, some of the boys looking back on my hall; they were totally respectful and they would never have done anything that wasn’t consensual. Well, I can’t say that for sure, but there were a lot of boys that I could have been learning from, but I was learning more from the patriarchal society, the objectification society, and that was where I chose to learn from. So, about one week into college, I had sex for the first time. And it was, you know, it was a very big deal for me. It met my needs for connection, for self-worth, for growth, for respect and so many things. That first partner was … it was very meaningful. We had a really beautiful connection. Now, something kind of dramatic happened at that time, and that was after we had sex five times, the condom broke. The reason that I’m sharing this story is because it’s a window into my mental abilities at the time. When that happened, I completely disconnected from her. She got Plan B, and she wanted connection from me and nurturing from me, and instead, I gave her just ice cold. It was because I just did not have the emotional capacity to deal with it, and all I knew how to do was just shut down, shut off, and I had no communication. I had … I just did not have the communication abilities to talk about it, to be there. I didn’t have empathy. I was not an empathetic person at that time. I grew up in a household that didn’t have a lot of empathy, and I didn’t really know how to be empathetic. I just wanted to share that because it gives a window into my emotional ability. You know, there were a lot of times I wanted to talk, but I just had no idea how to talk about it. I had no role models, no experience and I did not have the skill. So, my response was just silence — just frozen. I’d be like frozen.
In my first semester at university, I was just so happy to be there and making a lot of friends, making a lot of connections with women, and really finding that self-respect and that connection and that growth and that expansion that I had been seeking. I had sex with seven women or girls in my first semester of university, so I was very sexually active, and I would say most of them were meaningful connections. A lot of the sex that I had was actually sober. You know, some of the sex I had was just blackout sex. We would get blacked out a lot at university. It was at University of Wisconsin La Crosse. It was actually a norm to blackout Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, where you just don’t remember and then the next day we’d spend time together piecing together the night before and that was like a very cool thing — to totally black out.
There was a lot of blacking out, and there was definitely some really drunk, just totally dysfunctional sex where both me and the girl would be super drunk. Then there was also a lot of meaningful, very consensual, connective sex as well. One thing that I want to share that is just so the opposite of anything I would potentially even contemplate today, and this just goes to show where my mind was: me and one of my new friends actually created this point system. We had a whiteboard that gave us points based on our sexual activity — the number of women that we had sex with and their attractiveness. That whole point system shows where self-worth was so tied up into all of this.
There were a couple of incidents that first freshman year that I’ve continued to feel some real pain over and that I want to share right now. One is something that — this one is … this one has its own element of being hard to share because the girl did not know about this. So, it’s very vulnerable to share this. So, what happened was that the other boys on my dorm room floor—they would do this thing where when someone was, you know, in a romantic connection, they would break into the room. They would — it was easy to break into the dorm rooms; somehow, I don’t remember how. But they would just break in while the other person was having sex, which gives you an example of the environment of respect around sex and romance. So, one thing that I did that really didn’t meet my need for integrity is, one girl who I was sexually involved with — when I knew that she was going to be coming over, I set it up so that the people on my floor could look into my room to see us having sex by turning the door peephole around, so you could look in instead. You know, that just … is one of those things that just—just an action that was so out of alignment with my integrity and just did not meet their needs for privacy and emotional and physical security and mutuality and consensuality. That was something that I mourned for years.
Now, another thing that happened freshman year: I mentioned that sometimes we would get really drunk. When we were really drunk, sex was definitely on the mind of a lot of the boys and a lot of the girls as well. There was one time freshman year where I was at a party with someone — a girl that I had known. We had talked before, and we went home together, and we had sex that night. As far as consensuality, there were no words shared really. It was just we were kissing, holding hands on the way home, and then we got home, got into her bed, and then, you know, just got naked and had sex. I remember one of her friends the next day, or within the next week or so, expressed how unhappy they were with me for having sex with her that night. I remember being, you know, hit by that because I had thought, you know, this was two people choosing to have sex, and she was really unhappy because I think maybe she felt like I had taken advantage of her friend. I don’t know if I grasped it at the time, but now I totally grasp it, because it’s like, when you’re really drunk, how do you know that the person is really consenting? One of the ideas of consent is you can’t really give consent when you’re mentally not in your mind. That was something that I experienced pain over when I had no ill intentions, although there was this element that I’ll say is sometimes when it came to sex, there was a sneakiness around it. It was this kind of concept that you would say what needed to be said and push things a little further than was desired. I know there are people who have done things that are so much more disrespectful than I, like, I never convinced someone to drink more so that they would lower their inhibitions to be with me. I don’t recall ever lying, for example. Years later, I was on a camping trip and someone said to me that sort of the mentality for them in college was, “No means try harder.” When I heard that, I felt such deep pain because it sounds so sleazy. No means try harder. But, I felt like that was my teaching. It was like, if they say “no,” it means you need to turn them on more. It was really painful to hear that. For me, in college, I definitely did that. The time that sticks out to me was junior year. This was one of the most — absolutely just afterwards — I just felt such pain and, I don’t know, maybe disgust with myself. I’m not sure exactly what I was feeling, but pain and misery and suffering and sadness and disappointment, disheartenment. That was … I went down to Florida for a college break, and I met someone, and we were having a little party at their house. It was like four of us, five of us maybe, just drinking, and her and I got, you know, sexually connected and we were in the living room kind of hot and heavy. She very poignantly said, “We’re not having sex.” She set her boundaries very clearly. She obviously wanted to be with me, you know, sexually involved, but not having actual sex. She was so clear and when I heard that, I didn’t want that to be true. I wanted to have sex. So I at the moment probably, to some degree, ignored it. My thought was, “Well, continue and maybe she will want to have sex,” because I still wanted to have sex. So she very clearly set her boundary. It was apparent, she said, “We’re not having sex.” After some minutes, we were still involved with our hands and our mouths, and I had the idea in my mind that she did want to have sex now, that she was turned on enough where her mind would change. So, I put my penis inside of her, and we started having sex for a couple of minutes, and then as we were—changing position, she kind of like said, “Wait. I said we’re not having sex!” There she was — she was in the moment, and she had so clearly said it, and that was such a violation of her words. I look at it as sleazy, as getting what I want, as not being respectful. Just her needs for physical safety, emotional safety — so in that moment, it was like we just kind of stopped. She said, “What? How did this happen?” I just kind of said, “I don’t know,” and shut down and felt this embarrassment, shame, and pain. I don’t remember much if we talked about it afterward. We kept in touch a little bit for some time, I know, but there was a lot of pain around that. You know, that would be a very clear example of non-consensual sex, and I’ll talk about a definition I learned later on.
Now a year prior, one thing that I want to mention is sophomore year. I met this girl, and we had been involved. Something that I look back at and I really don’t feel good about but was consensual was, one time we got together — I was very drunk and I pushed her onto her bed. It was a playful push, and she wanted it. Like, that was her — she was into that. I wasn’t, and as soon as I pushed her, I was like, “That did not feel good for me.” That didn’t meet my needs for integrity at all. Even though it was something that she was into, I was not into it. Now that night was one that I recalled with pain for some time. Then part of that is because that sex ended in a sort of unideal way as far as just … we didn’t have the connection. I went home, and there was someone in my bed. It was someone that I had been partying with earlier, who we had a connection, and it was maybe midnight or something. I was super drunk and we ended up having sex just after I had been having sex with the other person. I don’t remember if she was really drunk or not, but in my mind, we were two human beings and it was totally consensual, but there weren’t words around it. I remember feeling just this lack of connection and understanding, and I didn’t know for sure if she even remembered. There were no words around it — she was probably gone when I woke up maybe. I remember being concerned and scared, not knowing if she knew for sure that we had sex. We got blacked out a lot back then, and I was coming in and out, so that was painful. There are a couple more occurrences that I would like to share.
Senior year of university, I was at a party in Madison, a couple of hours away from La Crosse. There was someone who I had some connection with, but I wasn’t really into them. I didn’t want to be with them or anything like that. I was at a party at their house, doing stupid drunk stuff. I remember me and a couple of people—there was someone who passed out, so we took all the furniture and put it on top of them so that they would wake up under a pile of furniture. We arranged it so that they would be safe, but it was kind of like trashing the house, but all in the element of comedy and such. Then I left and went to try to go out to the street to another party to find some sex, I think, and didn’t find any. I ended up going back to that place as sort of like a last resort. Me and her — she was in bed, and I came back, and we had sex. That was another one where, like, the next day, I wasn’t sure if she knew that we had sex or not because I’m pretty sure I learned that she was blacked out. I don’t know if she knew, and we never talked about it. It was like, in my mind, it’s like that’s … it’s like rape in a sense. Some people don’t … rape is something that, of course, there’s many … it’s a spectrum, and there are things that can be very minor that can very much qualify as rape. Then there’s violent rape and there’s rape where there was consensuality and it was no longer consensual. There’s rape that ends up being raped because of communication or misunderstanding. If someone called this — if she didn’t know we had sex, then I could understand someone calling that rape. That, of course, wasn’t my intentions, but that’s what stuck with me for a long time — that idea of, “Man, have I raped someone?” Never intending for that to be the case, but there was this element of clear non-consensuality — of me putting my needs first and, you know, pushing further. That was one of those things that just stuck with me for a long time and been very haunting, this idea of, “Have I raped somebody?” Again, I know I never would have had any intention to, but intentions are not just what matter; actions matter as well. So, that’s an area that I’ve just guarded for so many years, and it’s very vulnerable to say, but I’m just sharing it, and it’s painful to share.
I’m going to take a few deep breaths, and I invite you to join me. Now, the next experience that I’m going to share is the most painful one of all for me, and I really don’t know how they feel about it, if it’s something that has held with them with trauma at all, if they remember. It’s an area where I’ve held the most pain. This was my last year of university. There was someone that I had connected with a few times over the … I don’t know, maybe year or a couple, maybe just a year, and I was visiting La Crosse, and we connected at a bar, which is not a place I generally like to be, but I was at a bar, and we were connecting. We left there connecting, holding hands, and went back to their place and were in bed and were kissing and such. Then, the next thing that I remember — it was very sweet. I remember that. Then the next thing that I remember — I was very happy to be with them. I really liked this person. It was very meaningful to me. The next thing I remember, I wake up, and her hand is on my chest. I’m on top of her, she’s laying on her back, and I’m trying to have sex with her. She said, “No, stop.” Something along those lines. In that moment, I just came to. I was totally blacked out, and what had happened was I had… we had passed out. I had passed out. Then I had woken up and just started to try to have sex. Fortunately, I had a mostly limp penis, so it was not really functioning. But it was just like, “Whoa! What is going on here?” I rolled over, didn’t say anything, and just passed back out. The next morning, I woke up, and she was gone. She had left already, and I was there alone. It was painful because I’m sure it was painful for her, and I wanted her to know that I wasn’t attempting to have sex with her in her sleep. Although that is what I woke up and realized was happening, I think. I tried to communicate with her. I sent her a message on Facebook, and she never responded. There was just never any communication around it. Years later, I read that message, and I could see why she didn’t respond. I sent a message trying to open up the conversation, but it was very casual and not acknowledging the situation — not straightforward. I was just using my limited communication skills in this way, being in such a moment of shame and embarrassment. I tried to start a conversation, and I wanted to start—just chat and then lead into it, but she never responded. So, I never knew what she thought. It was just something that I held such a level of pain over. I was, I believe, 23 at the time. Another reason it was so painful is that at that time, I thought I was done making mistakes like that. I was really regretful that I put myself into a situation where I ended up doing something like that. There was a lot of pain in that way, too, because I really thought I was beyond doing something like that.
So, that shares my college experience. It’s very clear to say that during my university time, there were sexual interactions that were not consensual. In summary, some of it was sneakiness on my part, trying to get what I wanted, even if I knew it was not what the other person wanted. Did I lie to get sex? No, I don’t think so, but I was definitely not always honest or transparent. I said what needed to be said sometimes. Some of this was just my inability to communicate — not being able to put words into things — not being able to have conversations; my own confusion and uncertainty, and also their confusion and uncertainty, too. We were lost together — the boys and the girls of that time in La Crosse.
Something else I want to acknowledge is that for a lot of the women … some women might not be able to relate to this because maybe they grew up very empowered, but a lot of women didn’t know about consensuality either and how to set boundaries and speak clearly. So, it was confusing for all of us. I think most of the girls I connected with never knew how to say their inner truth, and I don’t think the boys did either, but probably especially the girls were often taught that they’re supposed to … in this patriarchal society, that men come first. So, there was a lot of confusion for everyone. The other part that’s really tricky about this is, this is nuanced, because there are girls who have been taught that you say “no” three times or two times before saying “yes,” so it’s just a standard thing, where it’s actually “no” doesn’t mean “no.” “No” actually means I want you to continue, and I’m going to say “yes” but in our society if you say “yes” right away you might be considered a slut or easy. The reality of the situation is that there is … it’s … I really feel for people that are a part of this because the whole thing is set up where boys and young men and girls and young women are not … are taught not to be connected to their emotions, not to say what they truly need, and not express their true selves. Yes, generally very few of us had the skills to talk about it. So, there was not much understanding of each other’s feelings and needs, but especially from the men, especially the boys. We were not taught about feelings and needs. But I still, again, want to say I take full responsibility for my actions. I am the only one who took those actions, and I take full responsibility for them.
I want to have one note of transparency and just say that in university, I probably had sex with about 30 or so partners and sexual relationships with more, but actual intercourse with 30 or so partners. I want to say that I don’t believe that it’s inherently wrong to have many sexual partners in your life. Absolutely not. There is so much beauty in sex. I absolutely don’t think it’s inherently wrong and I’ll talk a little bit more about that later. But, it’s just something I want to be transparent about. Just get it off my chest and put it out there. It’s like you know me, that’s it. You know me. Nothing to hide, nothing to guard. It’s not something I would do today, but that was me.
I also just want to come back and say that I’ve just shared a lot of these painful experiences, and within them, there were a lot of beautiful experiences — experiences where we mutually met our needs for connection, and nurturing, and care, and touch, and exploration and sexual exploration; there was consensual sex, there was sober sex, and there was sweetness as well. I just want to celebrate the positives, remember to celebrate the moments of success, as well as acknowledge the areas where I didn’t live up to my integrity.
Now, I want to talk about my time after university a little bit. After college, which I was about 23 years old, my relationships definitely had a lot more healing, a lot more nurturing, a lot more consensuality, a lot more sweetness to them; a lot more communication and understanding, and yet, there were times where I still really didn’t meet my needs. I know I didn’t meet others’ needs. So, when I was about 28, there was someone who I had met. I think we had known each other a little bit. One night, we had sex. I, afterwards, just didn’t respond to their messages and felt really bad about this. But it was a moment of having sex with someone that I — it was a moment of more like just needing and knowing that I didn’t want to be with them and be in communication with them, but just needing some … I was needing like some self-worth and some connection. We had sex, and then I didn’t contact them afterward. That, at the age of about 28, was a point of low integrity for me — not at least being able to have upfront communication so they know what’s going on. For me, there wasn’t truth, it wasn’t … there was just … people would call it ghosting.
So now, I would say I was about 31 years old. I don’t remember exactly where I was, but I saw a sign up—a poster that was hung up about — or a flyer about consensuality. It said something along the lines of, “Anything other than an enthusiastic ‘yes’ is not consensual.” When I read that, my heart just dropped into my stomach. I felt such pain, like “whoo,” anything other than an enthusiastic “yes” is not consensual? In that case, I think maybe the majority of my sex was not consensual, according to that definition. That was really painful, and that was probably around the time when all of this started to be much more painful: when I really started to realize my sexual past and how potentially harmful it was and how much I was a part of non-consensuality. So, that was a really painful time. I was probably about 31 years old. I don’t remember when the “Me Too” movement was — if that was around 2017 — but that was a very painful time for me, too, of reckoning with my past and deciding what to do.
I think it was around 2017, around the age of 31, when I started to unbury this stuff. I think I had felt the pain, but I held this stuff in completely up to that point, not really mentioning a word to hardly anyone. I’m sure that with some of my closest friends, we talked about some of these things. I know I talked about it with some of my closest friends. But I was just mortified for anyone to know about some of this and just so concerned about being canceled. There’s such a cancel culture where there’s no listening to the other person, and I get it. I totally get it because men have generally been the perpetrator and have been the ones who have acted in inequality and inequity to such an extreme. But, I was just so scared to be honest and to come forth because of just being fully canceled when I still had messages that I wanted to share and also just my own personal mental safety. So, around that time is when I started to have conversations with both men and women — with people close to me and people who I had just met. It was often very hard to share and to express, especially with women. There were women who, when they heard what I had done, felt some real pain, and that was painful for both of us. At the same time, most of the people had similar stories. So, it was a relief to hear it wasn’t just me who had these situations that were just, like a lot of them, just due to an inability to communicate.
Now, at the age of 32, I remember there was someone that I met. We were together for a weekend, and we were having sex, and she said to me, “Are you having sex with me because you want to have sex with me, or are you having sex with me because you just want to have sex with someone?” She was so right in questioning that; she totally read me. The reality is that I was lonely, and I wanted connection. I was needing something — some sort of validation, I would say, of me being something. I wanted connection, and I was lonely, and she was right. I really didn’t feel the connection with her, and I wanted connection. I also just wanted sex, and that was a pretty dark moment because I lied. I was dishonest, and then for her to bring it up — to know that she felt it — was really painful. I realized that did not meet my needs for integrity.
Now, when I was about 34, this is more recent. I met someone on a trip, and we ended up connecting — kissing, French kissing, making out — and it went on for like four hours. I remember just wanting it to go further and continuing to kiss and make out and caress, hoping it would go further. We were up until like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and I just remember afterwards feeling like — we didn’t have clear communication. Our clothes were fully on, but I felt so much pain the next days because it turned out she was not fully comfortable. I think she was continuing because of me, and she wasn’t able to vocalize. I had thought we were in such a consensual situation, when I think maybe she might have felt some pressure. I just remember feeling a lot of pain about that. Even in my most recent years, I’ve had sex when I knew it wasn’t in the most alignment, but I wanted sex. So, I’m 38 now, and up until my mid-30s, I would be having sex when I knew it wasn’t in my highest integrity. I was doing it out of a sense of, maybe, loneliness or definitely incompleteness — not wholeness and completeness within — and seeking outside validation and connection.
A moment that I feel a lot of pain about, because this is so recent — was about … it was 2022, so I was 36. I was so beyond making decisions that are just not in alignment. I was connecting with this woman, and we were having a really great connection. We wanted to have sex, and she asked if I had a condom, and I said, “No,” and she didn’t have one either. She said that she has herpes, and I asked about it. It wasn’t active herpes, but I chose to have sex anyway, with no condom, knowing that afterwards — I mean, in the moment, it was between her and I. It was a very sweet connection and very consensual and loving. But afterwards, I was just in so much pain the next days and concern about how — getting herpes, and then what do I do about others not wanting to potentially give someone else herpes? Knowing that herpes is something that doesn’t go away, necessarily. I did the research and was comforted to know that it’s not like a transmission rate all the time. It’s not like — the transmission rates are pretty low on most of these STDs, which was surprising when I researched this. But it was just a moment where I did not live up to my integrity. Where I did not make a choice that was for the best of my future, the best of my future relationships, definitely not for the best of my ability to be transparent and honest and open. That was very painful. Fortunately, I did not contract herpes, so it didn’t end up being an issue. But that was a lot of pain at the age that I was, around 36.
Now, I want to share an experience later in 2022, and I like to celebrate because it’s just a reminder that we’re all complex human beings. Later that year, I had one of the most absolute beautiful connections that I had ever had, where the woman actually pursued me. I realized how incredibly healing it was for me to just be there; for her to come on to me and for her to lead the whole way. There was no question whatsoever of non-consensuality, of me pushing anything too far, and it was so deeply, deeply healing and nourishing to be in that relationship where I was the one being guided along.
So, that was just one of the sweetest, sweetest experiences of my life. I just wanted to share that. For full transparency, I want to share that in my life I’ve had about 50 sexual partners where we’ve had sexual intercourse and more partners without sex. I just want to say that I’m sharing that for full transparency. I don’t feel guilt or shame around that. I don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong with having many sexual partners. I absolutely don’t. The reason why is because I believe in the nourishing, healing power of sexual connections; of the physical touch in that way. I believe that it is an incredible way for human beings to be human beings. It’s totally natural to have sex; it’s also totally free. The power is in our hands as individuals to connect without the need for any corporations. A lot of times, corporations have made multi-trillion dollar businesses off of it, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and in a lot of my romantic relationships, it hasn’t been that way. It’s been about human beings connecting. So, I just want to really make that clear: I have no guilt or shame around having many sexual partners, and it’s not what I would choose to do today. However, I support people in exploring sexually and very much encourage them to, if they are going to explore sexually, to really deepen into the communication skills that are needed to make sure it’s nourishing, healing relationships. I really recommend the practice of nonviolent communication or compassionate communication as tools to make sure that all of our connections are nourishing and healing. One little thing that I want to celebrate, in the act of talking about full transparency, and this being an opportunity for you to get to know me as a leader and as a person who’s dedicated my life to being of service, is that I’ve never been unfaithful to a partner; I’ve never cheated. It’s always been a deep virtue of mine to be faithful to my — well, I was going to use the word “girlfriend,” but I don’t really use that term. “My partners.” So, I’m celebrating that through all of this, where there was the lack of integrity. I always had … whenever I was in a committed romantic relationship, I was dedicated to it. I was there. I was, to the best of my ability, a loving and caring partner, and I just want to celebrate that.
So, I’m coming close to a close now. I have a few more things that I’d like to talk about, and I want to thank you again for being here. I hope that your being here is nourishing for you. I know that this has been, for some people watching, I’m sure painful — especially for some women watching, probably especially for women who have respect for me. For some of you, this may have been very painful. Also, I know for many men or people who are non-binary, this could be very painful to hear. This may be painful because it’s reminding you of some of your past sexual interactions that just really have not been in alignment and that you felt this mourning around. So, I’m grateful for you being here with me still. I know this has been a long video. I want to mention again why it took me this long to finally come out. One reason is growth; it takes time. I’ve been putting in the work, and I wasn’t emotionally skilled enough. Already I wanted to for years, and I’m finally at the place. And then, with complete honesty, I’ve been limited on my time. I’m trying to do a lot and this has been weighing on me for so long, but I’ve just struggled to be able to do everything that I want to do to be in the highest integrity. Basically, we’ve been sucked so far from integrity that to come back into full integrity is like a full-time job in our society for a lot of us. Now, I want to talk a little bit now about restorative justice. There are a lot of people who would say, “Well, you got to pay for this. You know, you need to make up for this.” “You need to be punished,” some would say. I get that — like, if you know, in the case of rape or non-consensuality … there are repercussions. I get it. We want justice for the women or anyone who has had their self-violated, who’s been violated. We want their safety, we want their security, we want their healing. We want them to be happy, healthy human beings who have their basic needs met. I am not of the belief that punishment is going to be what moves us forward. If I thought me sitting in jail for a couple of years would be the most productive thing, I would absolutely go do that, but it wouldn’t. Now, we’re all in our different scenarios, and for me, I am very much an advocate of restorative justice. For me personally, I’m committed to humanity. I’m taking a very holistic approach in my dedication to humanity, and basically my life objective is to be a part of the healing of others and to be here of service and dedicate so much of my life to this.
My service is in helping to create … helping people to feel whole and complete within. The reason why is because nobody who is whole and complete within is going to take advantage of others. Nobody who is whole and complete within is going to be non-consensual. They’re going to have the skills; they’re going to have the self-confidence to have the conversation. If everybody was operating this way, that would stop all non-consensual sex. That would stop rape. So, my work is not directly in preventing sexual abuse or rape or not directly in consensuality, but my whole objective is helping people to heal — to become whole and complete. If we do that, that’s a broad holistic approach to making sure that women aren’t violated and are treated with absolute dignity and respect. The definition of restorative justice is an approach to justice that aims to repair the harm done to victims. In doing so, practitioners work to ensure that offenders take responsibility for their actions—to understand the harm they have caused and to give an opportunity to redeem themselves and to discourage them from causing further harm. That is definitely what I’m into: restorative justice.
Starting in 2017, I had the idea of — as an act of restorative justice — I would commit to a certain number of community service hours of speaking at universities or high schools to young boys and or young men and maybe girls, too. I think my power would be in being able to share this — what I’ve experienced with young men in university — and just have them see these examples and understand and teach how to more compassionately connect, how to understand their own inner feelings, and how to be in relationships that are ones of mutuality, consensuality, and integrity. That’s something that I’m very open to doing. I would very much be happy to do that. Whatever I’m doing, I’m going to be dedicating my time to humanity. The concern would be that maybe I wouldn’t be that effective at that and maybe it would actually make me less effective at being of service overall to humanity. But, I think one of the more powerful ways to do restorative justice is for the public to decide — for others to decide. So, I would love to hear what you think. Do you have thoughts on what I can do to contribute to the world that we want? To help nourish the healing for the relationships that I’ve had? I would absolutely be very, very grateful to hear your thoughts. Now, you’ll notice that I haven’t said the word “sorry.” I haven’t made an apology here. Some people might take that as sort of a red flag because they’ve learned that what you have to say is “sorry.” You have to make an apology. What I’ve done here is I have practiced the mourning process as I’ve learned from Compassionate Communication or Non-Violent Communication, the book that I mentioned here.
I have followed the mourning process and that includes observing the actions that I took, understanding the needs that weren’t met of the women, empathizing with the feelings that they may have had or that they had, sharing how I feel, what needs of mine were not met by my actions, what needs of mine I was trying to meet, and what I’ll do differently in the future. My belief is that this mourning process is what’s going to create much more healing than an apology. The mourning process is what’s going to lead us forward into the healing that I’m seeking and that so many of us are seeking. So, my dear friends, I am sure that I didn’t do all of this perfectly and I want to acknowledge again that me sharing some of this may not have been consensual for the people who shared this story with me. I’m very — I feel very tender around that, and I still don’t know the absolute best thing to do, but I want you to know that, of course, my intentions are here and I am wide open for feedback. I’m listening, and for anybody that I’ve been with romantically or sexually that would like healing, I will respond immediately and meet you on your terms to work towards restoration, closure, healing, or anything else that you would like. I am absolutely here for you.
The last thing I would like to share is that two years ago, I decided to do one year of practicing nonsexuality — to take a break from romantic relationships and sexual relationships so I could accomplish numerous things: one of them being developing that wholeness and completeness within so that anytime I brought myself to a relationship, it would be from a sense of wholeness and completeness. If I had relationships in the future, it was also to give me a long break from sex so I could work on my oversexualization of women and to really, really start to see them as the full human beings that they are — not the oversexualization that has been so deeply programmed into my mind — as well as overcoming the sexist biases that I’ve had ingrained into me, which are absolutely there and have been there. Taking a break from romance and sex has been an opportunity for me to put more of my time and energy into this practice. I only have so much time and energy, and working to heal my relationship with women, I feel that taking this break — this time away from it — so I could nurture my relationships more deeply with women in a nonsexual way has been my focus. I’ve also taken this as an opportunity to deepen my connection with myself, going inside, and also to deepen myself as a leader. I think that we need leaders who are really there and who are not going to use their positions to take advantage of or exploit women. This break from sexuality has played a large role in that. Then also, just deepening my love for everything, my love for the Earth and my connectedness. So, if you’d like to explore that further with me, you can read ‘A Year Without Sex or Romance,’ that’s at robingreenfield.org/sex, and you can read ‘Reflections on a Year Without Sex’ at robingreenfield.org/nonsexuality. My commitment to one year of practicing nonsexuality turned into two years as of right around today, actually. Earlier this spring, I committed to four years. From the age of 36 to 40, I’m practicing complete nonsexuality, and through that, I have developed a lot more. It’s really been a period of substantial growth. I will not be entering into any sexual relationships in the future until I am fully in a place where I can make sure that integrity, mutuality, respect, and consent — their needs are just as important as mine, 100% equally as important as mine.
But there’s a very good chance that I will not enter into any more romantic or sexual relationships. My future is not certain in that regard, but there’s a very good chance that I won’t. If you want to explore that with me, I very much welcome you to with the articles that I shared.
I love you all very much. I’m so grateful to be here with you. Thank you for loving me just the way that I am. I love you just the way that you are. I like you just the way that you are, and I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you for healing with me, for growing with me, for connecting with me, and I love you all very much.
Articles referred to:
A Year Without Sex or Romance
Reflections on a Year Without Sex
My Experience with Nonviolent Communication (NVC) / Compassionate Communication
The above is a transcription of Truth and Transparency: My Sexual Past, which is part of my practice of coming into full truth and transparency.
For the full series and depth to this practice visit: My Commitment to Truth and Transparency.
