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Chapter 34 Learning Objectives
Upon reading this chapter, the student should be able to:
- Give example(s) of the various circumstances and attitudes or feelings about sex that would constitute using someone, or being used, sexually, and being able to distinguish them from circumstances which only mistakenly appear to be a case of one person’s using the other.
Watch this video or scan the QR code to see how you can stop being used.
Since sex between two people is usually a matter of mutual and mutually voluntary interaction, I would like to comment on the notion of one of the two partner’s being “used” or taken advantage of sexually. (I am speaking here only about sex that does not result in pregnancy; I will discuss sex involving pregnancy or reasonably possible pregnancy at the end of this chapter.) It at first seemed curious to me that girls or women usually seemed to be the ones who felt used or who accused boys or men of “using” them; curious, since they were involved in the same activity at the same time —a somewhat reciprocal activity that seems not to make one person a “user” and one a “used” subject.
I think there are a number of circumstances and/or conditions that would be appropriately considered as ones in which one party is used by the other. But in these cases it will also be quite possible for the male to be the one who is “used” by the female, and not necessarily the one who is doing the “using”.
1) I think that whenever one person has sex (whether kissing, petting, intercourse, whatever), intending it to be a part of a larger or fuller relationship and/or as part of a mutually affectionate, emotional relationship, and the other person knows this, but has no similar intention or feeling, and does not inform the first person about the one-sidedness or cross-purposes of the relationship, and instead has sex just out of a physical desire, ego need, or conquest mentality, then the person with the broader expectation has been taken advantage of or used.
This does not pertain to honest attempts by both parties to have sex as part of a larger relationship but having it (or having some insights, comment, or occurrence during it) instead ruin the relationship; nor does it pertain to such honest attempts where the relationship simply deteriorates after the sex for whatever non-sexual cause or reason. A relationship that dissolves in such a way or at such a time may make it appear to one person that they were cared about only for sex, when, in fact, that was not the case.
This also does not apply to sexual relationships where both people are seeking only a good sexual time as they enter into it. Under such mutual feelings, one could hardly be considered as being used by the other person (any more than they are using that person).
Nor does it involve honest misunderstanding where one person has made it clear to the other person that sex was not part of some deeper involvement and honestly thought the other person understood that, though t