I grew up in a conservative Christian household with parents who did a pretty decent job loving each other. They loved me and raised me with church and faith, all of which is still important to me personally. When it comes to sex though, I've had a very complicated time understanding the relationship between love and physical intimacy.

In the beginning, I thought love and sex were mutually exclusive. My genitals were evil. My heart, however, was seeking connection... and it landed hard on my high-school crush. Man let me tell you, she had to deal with some shit. We never went "all the way" but we sure did get creative. That part was fun. The really shitty part was every time we'd get physical, I'd feel shame. I realize now that I simply wanted to express my genuine feelings of connection in a physical way -- but my entire upbringing had taught me that having sex was tantamount to spitting in God's face. So I dealt with a lot of shame in order to have the connections that I craved. She wasn't a Christian like me and it was a little fucked up of me to expect her to understand what I was dealing with. She internalized my problems and blamed herself for our eventual breakup.

After that first heartbreak, I concluded that if I was going to have sex it'd have to be somewhat casual. Huge mistake! It turns out love and physical intimacy are inseparable to me. Kudos to all y'all that can have sex just for the fun of it. I lost my virginity in college to this amazing nihilist girl I met at a party. We dated for six months and we totally fell for each other. I was attracted to her brokenness because I had some brokenness inside me. She had some anger issues and self-worth issues, I had my faith and shame issues. For a while, we used each other to fill those little voids in our souls, but eventually we both got really hurt, and we broke it off.

After that second breakup, I won't lie, I spun out of control a little bit. I tried casual sex through Craigslist more than once. At a certain point I just wanted to feed my shame. Hell, I straight up fetishized my shame. Although at times it was entertaining and briefly satisfying, these little sexcursions left me with a deep emptiness and depression inside. I started to believe the shameful thoughts that told me I'm a filthy person, a fake, a fraud, a two-faced weirdo who doesn't deserve to be happy. Eventually I came to an important conclusion: physical intimacy without love is vanity.

Wether you believe the Bible or not, the story goes that the Israelites were God's chosen people. God promised to free the Israelites from slavery and show them the way to a promised land. The Israelites eventually made it to that land, but not before wandering around the desert for 40 years acting like total idiots. Sinning. Worshipping false gods. Blaming God for their problems. It's easy to read the story and think, wow, what a bunch of fools. But I am that fool. I have wandered. At some point in our lives, many of us abandon who we truly are for a period of time, which is why this story is so beautiful to me.

The final and most difficult lesson I've learned is that, for me personally, love and physical intimacy without mutual faith is not a long term option for me. I used to be ashamed to think I deserve all three in a relationship. So I'm looking for a Redditor who understands my weird triangle of Jesus, love, and sex. If there's anyone who can relate -- I want to hear from you. If anyone actually reads this entire rant and I don't get downvoted into oblivion, that would be a miracle all by itself.

DISCLOSURE: To all the agnostics, atheists, and people of various faiths and beliefs and walks of life just looking for their love connection, their kink partner, their whatever -- hey there. I don't have it all figured out (obviously) and I don't claim to know any certain truths in life. Faith and love and sex are a complicated bag - be wary of anyone who claims they don't have doubts about how all three should fit together. I do my best to hold my beliefs and assumptions softly, to empathize as much as I can, and to avoid all forms of hate. What works for me might be different than what works for you, and I think that's dandy. Thanks.