Before I came to any of the Universal Medicine courses, I slept around and had sex quite regularly, without much consideration for myself. I felt that having sex was just a normal, socially acceptable thing to do. Settling for sex was a way of getting some kind of attention, even if it wasn’t more than “wham bam thank you man”! What I was searching for was love and a loving relationship – but what I settled for was sex.
And it wasn’t even good sex I settled for. All it was is this: “Here I am, let’s get it over and done with because at least I have your attention for a little bit because I know – sooner or later – you will be gone and I will be on my own again”.
Because of my past experiences with being sexually abused and never really dealing with that issue, I never really felt safe and supported by a partner, even if some were doing their best at the time to support me.
More often than not, I would not want to have sex, but I went through with it regardless because it was better than feeling alone or being rejected and because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
I would do so much to not be rejected. I would give up me, and lay myself down so that I would be ‘loved’.
What is crazy is that none of that felt right to me. I knew it didn’t feel right at the time but I did it anyway. I didn’t ever get the ‘love’ I was searching for.
- I didn’t know there was a difference between having Sex and Making Love.
- I didn’t know that I would feel better within myself if I chose to love and care for myself first.
- I didn’t realise that giving my body over to someone else to use for sex was hurting me deeply.
- I was not aware that there was another way.
What I have learned from Universal Medicine, presentations by Serge Benhayon and from other Esoteric practitioners, is that there is no need to search for love or attention from outside and that I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly.
I have been building this love for myself over the last 3 years and at first it was quite strange and foreign. This fact reveals how unloving I really was with myself. I was not aware of how sacred and precious I am.
Now that I love me, there is no way I would just hand my body over to be used for sex; there is no way I would now settle for sex when searching for love. From the role models that I have now, I can see what a true ‘gentleman’ looks and behaves like, and I can see what a loving relationship can be like and all I can say is it is far from what I have ever experienced. It brings me so much joy in seeing that there is indeed another way – a truly loving way. I have not yet experienced this other way, but I am aware that it exists and that is awesome.
My choices to cherish me, and to not settle for sex, have been inspired by the Esoteric Women’s Group and presentations from Natalie Benhayon and Serge Benhayon of Universal Medicine.
By Rosie Bason, Mullumbimby, Australia
466 Comments
Rosie I really appreciate your honesty and thank you for writing this blog as there are many girls that grow into womanhood and have sex when really they are craving to be met as they have not been brought up in a loving way to cherish themselves and their bodies. We accept a society that is absolutely loveless and it was not until Serge Benhayon and Universal medicine came along that the world was shown a different way to be, that the most important job in the world is to love and respect ourselves so deeply there is no way we would want to accept anything but true love, not this artificial love that we accepted in place of true love that is cold and heartless.
Only someone who knows the difference between having sex and making love could teach the lesson, which is why it’s not taught, most of us are having sex, even those of us who think that we’re making love because you can’t make love until you’ve started to be in a loving relationship with yourself and most of us aren’t, again, even though we may think that we are.
Sex can often be a very mechanical process, initiated by bodily impulses, whereas making love is impulsed by our connection with a person, sure it’s physical too but it’s driving force is the depth of our connection to another not stimulation of the physical body. And if making love does not reach a climactic conclusion then it doesn’t matter whereas when we’re having sex it becomes all about the grande finale.
“I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly. ” Certainly takes the pressure of expecting and needing the other to preform in a certain way.
“there is no need to search for love or attention from outside and that I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly. ” A beautiful realisation of the love that we already are that is waiting for us to open up to.
“My choices to cherish me”, oh I love the word ‘cherish’ I really do but it’s not a word that gets used very often because it’s not something that most of us do and that’s a crying shame.
The honesty with which you share your journey from making abusive choices to committing to making it about loving yourself and not settling for anything less in relationships is a much needed message for all young people today who are under increasing pressure from the relentlessness of social media etc to be portraying a picture of a perfect life with no attention paid to the cost of doing this.
I hear you Rosie it hadn’t crossed my mind either until I attending Universal Medicine’s presentations that it starts with loving me first, all of me and then from here I know what standards of appreciation and respect that I will accept as being what I am worth. Stark difference from when I was drunk and seeked comfort from a man and at times not even drunk.
How many times do we set out searching for one thing but settle for something much, much less? This really reminds me that our standards in life are everything.
How can we expect something from another that we aren’t giving to ourselves? I have put expectations and needs in the way of developing a truly relationship. With being responsible for my own care and by taking care of my precious body I bring something completely different to a relationship that can be the foundation for making love.
I thought having sex and making love were the same, just different ways of describing a physical get together in bed with intercourse. How much have I learned since then and what I love most is how we can make love any moment of the day by being loving and sharing that with another or others. Just like I experienced this morning with a group of 20 students from The Way of The Livingness singing and expressing from our bodies and letting love in and out: making love in optima forma.
What you learnt is invaluable, life changing, having a big impact on you and how you feel, ‘I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly.
I have been building this love for myself over the last 3 years and at first it was quite strange and foreign. This fact reveals how unloving I really was with myself. I was not aware of how sacred and precious I am.’
Rosie thank you for sharing so honesty about your experiences with sex, its something that needs to be discussed openly and in the matter of fact way as you have because it’s a huge part of adult life. The problem is we mostly don’t know how to care for and love ourselves in sexual relationships, or that there is a difference between sex and making love. You’ve provided so many important markers for men and women to understand by sharing your experiences, the most important being that we can love ourselves and not seek love elsewhere in unhealthy ways. I was also deeply touched by this line “I was not aware of how sacred and precious I am.” That is so true for so many of us and across all parts of life. Thank you Rosie.
Melinda reading the comment
“I was not aware of how sacred and precious I am.”
It’s obvious that we are not shown or taught this at all, we live in a very abusive society that does not easily recognize such words and such words are it seems actively discouraged especially in women. It’s as though there is a consciousness driving us to not be aware and to be abusive so that we do not get to feel the sacredness and preciousness that is there waiting to be discovered in all of us. And until we wake up to this consciousness not much is going to change any time soon.
The Livingness is so much about us moving in a way that supports the way we Love and making Love does come from our way we live first and foremost as True Love is self perpetuating and as such is forever deepening. So there are no reactions or out moments where we are less Love as being love-less means we did not have The Livingness of Love in our body in the first place and we have simply reinterpreted the word Love to fit our ideals.
The Livingness is so much about us moving in a way that supports the way we Love and making Love does come from our the way we live first and foremost.
Having sex leads us down the dark tunnel of desire and obsession and leads to emptiness in relationships where we seek more or elsewhere. We know that this does not feel right, but we keep going in the effort that things will change.
What a different marker/point you have come to in your life than you have described previously. I am inspired to become more honest on where I have been/are with my relationship with myself and others and how my need for searching for love and settling for sex has been in the past, and where I can now deepen the love within myself to actually be more love and receive it equally so.
Very beautiful Rosie to feel your return to honouring the deeply sacred relationship that is of the greatest love, one we all have access to, our relationship with our essence within. As you have shared, when we develop this relationship we live in far greater honor of our body and being, and this also is what we offer to all we are in a relationship with.
The greatest love affair that any of us can have is with ourselves and there is no end to how deeply we can go.
Thank you Rosie, for you are supporting us feeling that there is a greater way – love.
When I have not been connecting too, walking and loving who I am, I can feel that I look outside myself for recognition and to be filled by another. When I go to relationships in this way there is a neediness and this lessens the quality of connection with another.
Yes, neediness is a killer. We just have to fill our own cup and then share it with all others instead of needing them to fill it for us.
Yes, any form of neediness, recognition, approval etcetera from outside ourselves always feels horrible for both parties, which brings it back to us truly loving and cherishing ourselves.
We think that if we change position, find a new nightdress or toy to play with that our sex life will go through the roof. But the fact is, is we cap the whole thing by never connecting and tenderly cherishing who we are. What I have found is when we do this what flows next can’t help but be super sexy. Thank you Rosie for writing about a topic we all avoid.
I hear you Joseph, there is nothing more sexy than connection because with that, nothing else actually matters.
Beautiful Rosie- to the bottom reaching in its truth.. Finding its way through touching the heart of mankind. Thank you for your expression and lived wisdom here on earth.
Hi Danna, thank you. You know as a child, and even now at times, people react to the amount of truth and expose I bring so I appreciate your loving words. It inspires me to keep on sharing.
The tragic thing is that by giving up on ourselves and settling for sex we are setting ourselves up to be rejected because we have already rejected ourselves. This pattern is being repeated all over the world but it is great that we now have role models showing us that there is another way and that our search for love starts with deeply loving ourselves and developing a tender caring way that would never dream of not honouring the sacred women that we all are at heart.
When you put it like this Helen, it is sad to acknowledge and see how many of us have given up on ourselves and then I think of people who are in relationships or better said, they are in arrangements and they have not only given up on themselves but also on each other but stay together as its cheaper, convenient, they don’t want to be alone or for the children or whatever whatever.
When we start to love ourselves, everything has the possibility of changing, and in the choices that we make, we can evolve or not… It is our choice.
Yes and what I have found is that I actually wasn’t very good at letting love in and expressing love for quite some time as I was in a level of protection that I wasn’t even aware of. It has been great to slowly let the barriers of protection come down.
Today we experienced in workshop with Chris James how letting the love in, let’s all of us expand. So it is not only the expressing to another that is important but receiving is equally important.
Accepting that there is Love in our life is an amazing first step as most of us have lived in the unreal world of having sex based on an emptiness that as you have shared Rosie is at best fleeting. Love on the other hand has so much to offer and scratching the surface of love comes from being self-loving after we have learnt to be at-least gentle with-our-self. Making Love has so much to offer and most disconnect from the True depth of what Love brings to us. And this is only because we are so far away from reaching the depths that True-Love can bring. This is not say we do not search for Love in some way we all do but the lines get blurred until we understand our relationship with True-Love.
Making love can actually be confronting and allowing yourself to be open to more love is avoided I feel in many ways so no wonder you just accept the sex instead of opening yourself up to something so much more.
The endless race of looking for love outside of us is forever exhausting and leaves us in an unloving place, because love never comes with effort and dishonour of ourselves. What you did, Rosie, is very honest and wise, because you stopped that race to feel yourself and re-connect with the love within you. Having role models who show to us what is true self-love and true intimacy is a treasure for us to sustain that process.
Having true role models is a treasure and I often think of all the beautiful people in my life who have inspired me and supported me along the way. I have so much appreciation for their reflection and the ripple effect that they have started that now carries on.
If we are not aware what true love is we will search for sex. As with all things energetic there is no in between, it is either making love or having sex no matter how sensual, eccentric or orgasmic it is. The body is all not parts where the male genitals are used for pleasure instead of all the body to confirm making love. There is remarkable difference and I would rather have no sex than to make love.
Thank you Rosie. What you share is very honest, raw and powerful. This is what should be covered is sex education classes, in fact maybe they should be called love education classes. If we were taught to value ourselves and our bodies without being loaded with ideals and beliefs about sexuality we would have a very different relationship with sex and love making.
Yes, and as a parent, I just love that I have learnt this now… better late than never and I can now share another way with the next generation as we are all role models, so what exactly are we showing them if we settle for less.
School for thought Leonne, and with sexting being so prevalent maybe we could hold Lessons about Love and true gender equality from pre-school?
Interesting that you say pre-school Greg as I was asked the other day if I had had the birds and the bees talk with my daughter and does she understand how it all works etc etc and I was shocked as she is now 14 so yes I have had that talk with her and I realised that I didn’t have one talk, but many over the years from when she was very young. I am appreciating this now, because I never kept love, sex or love making or these topics back from her with the thoughts of she is too young, but rather talked about them as they are a normal part of life. Mind you, her first lessons come to think about it were about dogs and horses having sex and if they could reproduce or not. Great way to learn.
Yes making Love and having sex are ocean’s apart and thank God we can ‘sea’ the difference. And as you have shared nature will always supply what ever is needed.
I agree Leone. It’s only recently that I have looked back at some of the things I did whilst having sex and realised that I did them because I thought that they were part of having sex and not because I actually wanted to do them. It seems crazy now but at the time I never questioned it.
I never really slept around much, but when i did it, it certainly didn’t feel great, even when I was in a relationship the sex was totally disconnected from each other. Now knowing how much this is about just relief and the need to be wanted and accepted and letting go of this by building a true relationship with myself. I too know that I would never go back to sex. Making love is the only way now for me.
The need to be wanted and accepted is strong within us all, but it feels so good when we realise that we have to first bring that love to ourselves before we can expect it from anyone else, and in this, there is a great sense of freedom from not needing something from another.
I love the completeness that loving myself brings, it is vastly different to the gaping hole that not loving myself left.
I’ve seen a photo of a couple that I know with-in each of them they are incredibly tender houring people and together they are divine and exquisite. It confirms to me that hardening to make allowances for the other is not required and misses so much more than anything we can imagine we are missing by not being in ‘a relationship’.
Hardening our bodies and being hard on each other won’t get any of us anywhere.
Beautifully expressed, thank you Richard.
You could maybe apply this formula to almost any situation, how often do we set out for one thing and compromise along the way? And could the answer always be found in our relationship with ourselves and building a life that’s exquisitely loving so that we never compromise that?
I think that is the way to go Meg! Lets not compromise. Ever.
I can relate to this- in the past I would pretty much just have accepted anything. Now my experience is very different- if it is just the energy of sex I have no interest in it, my body often closes down and doesn’t want to go there. When it is about making love- there is a joy, playfulness and I am fully there enjoying each moment with my partner. They are two very different experiences.
Yes the body speaks very loud and clear and all we need to do is be aware of the signs and how it is communicating to us all of the time.
It’s more common to be disregarding of ourselves and because it’s so common most people see it as normal to be rough with themselves and live in some form of self neglect. Even if we tick the box of exercising regularly or eating well, both of these may still be done with complete disregard to the body. It’s great what you have shared Rosie as whether it is sex, parenting, work or some other area of life we can learn to bring love there and completely change our way of life.
You are right Melinda, and we need to realise that the being rough with ourselves is actually a form of self abuse. It is easy to identify abuse away or on the outside of us, but we often miss how abusive we can actually be to ourselves.
” there is no need to search for love or attention from outside and that I can be the One who loves me and cares for me tenderly. ” this is so wonderful and its so wonderful now for your daughter that she knows the truth of love from you , thank you for sharing Rosie.
It is so true that there is a difference between having sex and making love. And the journey to discovering this difference can be taken to as an exploration, knowing that there may be times when there may need to be a little more understanding and patience while what is new has time to be learnt.
It is truly sad how the glue between most couples these days is sex and this is apparently what keeps them together when for most of the week they may not see or be in deep contact or connection with one another. We all dearly know that it is natural to be intimate but we must first be deeply intimate with ourselves before we ever can with another.
It is interesting the lengths that we will go to to tick a box, and scary at the same time!!
When we say no to what dishonours us and yes to what nourishes and builds us we start to flourish from within and blossom into living our potential in our every day.
We also inspire our daughters and others to do the same.
A common story for many women. Super important to be talking about it and exposing it. Why it takes so long for us to discover that we are worth looking after, I’ll never understand, but it is all of us collectively, men and women, who have contributed to this mess we are all in where we use eachother and use ourselves to gain something we feel is missing within us. It’s not it.
Very good point Elodie, we are all in it together, we can’t blame one gender or the other, as we are all responsible.
This article is incredibly sweet and touching. It shows the power and the strength that lives inside every woman and man who chooses to say yes to self-love.
How many times in our lives do we set out for one thing and settle for something so much less? I love that you have uprooted this pattern and now care for yourself in a way that you would not let yourself be used or anything harm you – ultimately it’s the relationship we build with ourselves moment to moment that determines the level of harm we allow in our lives.
And as strange as it may seem to some, I used to get in and drive any old car, not ever considering how uncomfortable it is or how dangerous it could be. These days, I am much wiser in choosing what car I want to drive purely because I care more for myself than ever before.. I know have a 5 star safety rating because I am worth it!
Wow Rosie, such an uptake of self-worth is truly inspiring.
Thanks for sharing the audios Doug, they are great! There is always more for us to learn and its great to break old ways of thinking and be inspired knowing there is another way.
What really struck me yesterday when having a conversation about sex, was how in the first instance of having sex it never occurred to me to question what I had just experienced and if I even liked it. At the time I remember feeling very powerful because I had something this particular guy wanted, and all of a sudden I felt different. In those days I can definitely say I settled for less than love, and was looking in all the wrong places.
It is interesting how much we do in life, that we don’t question, or even feel if we like it or not…. doesn’t just have to be sex, can be almost anything in life.
This is such a global problem – how many of us world wide are searching for love and settling for much much less.
Yes, this is a global problem, and what came to me as I read your comment, is how many so called happy marriages are actually in the same boat but too afraid to admit it and afraid of what might happen if they voice it.
And settling for less love in and from ourselves is a great tragedy.
It sure is, and is the reason why there is so much hurting going on in our families, communities and beyond.
I’d always ‘dream’ there was another, but the dream always came with a picture that someone would bring to me what I craved. I never dreamt that the reality and truth is we bring it to ourselves by re-connecting to the loveliness and love we already are.
So honest Rosie and exquisite in what you have claimed for yourself. As a result of your choices you are now and inspiration to so many – that commitment to loving oneself deeply absolutely deeply is the best investment w can ever make.
True Katerina, there is no better way to invest than in yourself and your own true worth and value. Still practising this and at times I struggle but when I do, I reap the benefits in the most beautiful ways.
Thank you Rosie, self love is the only way, with out we get ourselves into all sorts of trouble – forget any kind of solution if we don’t have self love we have nothing.
The vital ingredient, first add self love, with a bit more and ensure that you keep the judgement, doubt, self loathing or criticism out.
“What I was searching for was love and a loving relationship – but what I settled for was sex.” I love this sentence as it applies to so many if not most of us. We have substituted sex with love and have unlearned to be truly intimate with each other, showing all of us in all our vulnerability and tenderness.
And we really miss out when we do this, when we are not truly intimate with each other as how healing is it, when we can show another our vulnerability and be held and supported in our imperfections.
Another down to earth blog. This is what most people mistake sex as being a form of love, it might satisfy on the surface but deep down it keeps them empty.
Sex education needs to change and openly discussed about the difference between love making and sex.
Yes sex education needs a whole new revamp but that’s a whole other blog because really if young people were more aware of the difference between sex and love and were not bombarded by porn then things would be quite different.
I love the title of this blog, it makes it so clear what we have made love to be, and you describe concisely how this then takes us through life. So thank you for sharing this Rosie and thank God for Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon for setting a different marker where we are reminded how very worth we are to be treated with love in every moment.
Yes thank God for Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon. If I hadn’t learnt from the teachings that he has presented, I would still be out there, sleeping around searching and feeling empty and unloved. Why… because that is all I knew and what is so socially accepted. Crazy when I think back to it now as it is as far away from love as is possible.
I was similar and always craved affection and attention so would accept anything from men as long as I was being touched. I am now in a relationship with a man who won’t make love if he has something going on or doesn’t feel like he is fully open with me at the time. There have been times when I have still gone looking for sex for the relief of the tension and for the touch but it is amazing to be with a man who says no to this.
Thanks for sharing MW, it is great that men can bring this level of care to us as women and set a new way. It would be great it men could write about it and share it, so that others can know that we as women actually love that. I love your honesty too, in wanting the relief or just touch me so I feel that everything is okay. I know what you mean.
Through the work of Universal Medicine I have met many men that I would say have shown me what it is to truly be a man, and what it is to have a man honour a woman.
It is great isn’t Heather and to watch how these men then inspire other men is wonderful.
Great blog. Love your honesty and i can really relate to what you have shared. Why do we settle for less and take or use sex instead of the love we all truly deserve? I guess from what I have learnt it comes down to our relationship with ourselves first, how much do we and are we willing to love ourselves first. I am also aware how more and more girls and women have sex even when they don’t want it to make the other person ‘feel better’ or because they do not want to ‘hurt’ the other persons feelings or because if they sleep with them they will stop being harassed! This is so insidious and something we definitely need to have more conversations and discussions about so we really get to feel and see just how unloving this is.
I am amazed at my honesty because for me, for the longest time I found it hard to talk about sex let alone write about it but then I have these moments of revelations and I think to myself, oh my, others must be doing this too and so I share it to help us all realise the stuff that we get stuck in and that no one is perfect.
Thank you Rosie for so honestly sharing an experience many of us have had in the past. I used sex thinking that this would get me love, but all it left me with was more emptiness and disappointment It wasn’t till Universal medicine that I came to know that the love I longed for was inside of me, as my love for me deepens so does my intimacy in relationships grow.
Thanks for writing this with such honesty Rosie. We have to ask ourselves why this is:
I didn’t know there was a difference between having Sex and Making Love.
I didn’t know that I would feel better within myself if I chose to love and care for myself first.
I didn’t realise that giving my body over to someone else to use for sex was hurting me deeply.
I was not aware that there was another way.
And you are certainly not the first person to feel this. But this massively shows a flaw in how we are bringing up each generation if they do not know this.
A great title that rings home to many and thank you for writing about a topic that can continue to be masked with the glamour that is attached to the ease of having just a sexual relationship when deep down our true potential to love is far greater than we offer another.
So many times I sought love but always accepted Sex, accepted being used and used others. It was horrible to look back on but at the time my escape, my drug and my way to cope in life. The changes I’ve made and the incredible depth of quality I feel in my body today is something I often don’t appreciate in full as it is a true blessing.
It is a true blessing to be where I am today too, so much healing done and often I forget to stop and appreciate. At times, it feels as my past was really a past life.
It is lovely to read this again and feel the openness and love with which you share and write, Rosie. The openness breaks down the barriers of a subject that for many can be uncomfortable, confrontational and difficult to discuss, I know it certainly has been for me in the past.
Thank you Jonathan, you are right in it not being a comfortable topic to discuss, and one that I would have never been able to talk about with friends, let alone publish on the world wide web but I had this sense that it is something that we all struggle with and something that needs to be shared openly. The more we do this, the easier it is for all of us to talk about openly and break down any barriers.