Advise

I hear that you are mortified with embarrassment and also feeling depressed and guilty. You say that it’s the “family context” that is driving you nuts. Meaning that you are embarrassed to face him in front of your family.

The fact that you feel ashamed in relationship to facing him in the presence of your family tells me that you feel you have, somehow, violated your family’s values or expectations.

You seem especially guilty that you spent the entire night with him and couldn’t stop yourself. The fact of having such strong urges and giving over to them seems wrong and shameful to you.

I wonder why?

The urge for sex is a basic survival instinct. And it’s a very powerful drive that is hard to ignore!

If you were starving for food, and hadn’t eaten in days, and you gave over to your basic survival needs, would you feel so guilty?

What’s different about sex?

Perhaps you were raised in a conservative family? Perhaps they taught you that sex outside marriage is a sin?

Part of growing up is deciding who you are and how your values differ from those of your parents.

Some people are quite comfortable having a booty call and see it as no different than satisfying the craving for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. So long as they’re safe and not taking risks with their or health…And so long as they are being responsible and not bringing a poor innocent and unwanted child into the world, no harm no foul.

To me, sex is never just sex. People may fool themselves into believing that there can be no expectations surrounding the act; these same people often end up surprised to find that they actually do crave something more than the simple physical, biological, animalistic release.

We are animals; it’s true. But we also have hearts and souls.

To me, the sexual act (when shared in the context of a loving relationship) is our spiritual training ground. When making love to someone we love, we are naturally guided to stretch our hearts, to be more selfless, to put the other’s pleasure above our own. The act itself is a metaphor for the way we are supposed to love. For this reason, I don’t like the idea of divorcing the body from the heart and soul.  

Perhaps you feel ashamed because you know that you acted on the most animalistic part of yourself and didn’t honor the sex act for all that is and can be.

I think you want to honor your wonderfully strong sex drive. But I sense that you are the kind of person who wants to share your sexuality in the context of a loving relationship.

Rather than beat yourself up, use this experience to grow.

Listen to your heart and find out who you are and what you want.

Do you want a relationship with this guy?

If not, what is the most self-loving and responsible way for you to handle your sexual urges until the right partner comes along?

Don't forget, there's more than one reason that God gave us a right hand (or a left hand, if you’re a leftie) and toys galore!!!

Give yourself a break, learn and grow!