When I was severely, suicidally depressed a couple of years ago the medication completely put me off sex. Sometimes I wanted to want sex, but I couldn’t feel arousal, stimulation or any sort of intimate desire at all. My fiancé, who in many ways had been incredibly supportive throughout my illness did not support this for long. It was all “let’s just try” “I don’t mind if you don’t orgasm” or “but it’s a big part of our relationship” and other such whiney shite.

A few times I gave him and let him have his sex, but unsurprisingly it was a dreadful experience for me. Letting this man who was supposed to be ‘the love of my life’ and who had ‘been so supportive so would it really hurt so much just to give him this, since I haven’t been much fun recently’ masturbate into my myopic body triggered all sorts of depressive responses. I later realised in therapy the root cause of my depression was sex abuse at the hands of grown men (the worst being one of my teachers) as a teenager, so letting my fiancé have one-sided sex with my body was the worst possible thing I could have done for recovery. It made me so fucking miserable, and even more worthless, but it was keeping him happy and rElAtIoNsHiPs ArE cOmPrOmIsE.

Anyway, one day through the depressed fog I refused to have sex. I chanced across a teeny particle of self-respect and put my foot down. And his response was to huff and stomp his way up to our bedroom with his laptop, put on some porn film and wank his way back to sanity. As though releasing his semen was an inalienable human right. At the time I was relieved - all “for the love of god, why doesn’t he just do that all the time” but now my (mostly) recovered self is absolutely outraged at the disrespect I was tolerating in my own home:

A) Tolerating him thinking he had a right to shagging my body when I wasn’t interested. B) That he was willing to whittle away at my not being interested, implying that I owed him sex because our relationship was now boring. C) That he could even enjoy sex that his partner, the supposed love of his life, wasn’t interested in. D) That his response to not getting his way was to revert to porn. E) That a porn film was used as punishment/leverage - “you’re not giving me what I want so now I have a right to get it from looking at other women, if you’ve got a problem with that you’ll have to give me sex”. F) That he thought marrying me and still being a porn user were in any way compatible. That I ALSO thought his marrying me and still being a porn user were in any way compatible.

Anyway, over the last 18 months I’ve dumped his ass, sold our house by myself (he literally refused to help) quit my shit, misogynistic, supposedly high status job and started retraining in something I actually like AND finally reported pedo teacher to the police after 12 years. Self respect is a beautiful thing