No. Not alone. Not at all.

My mother was, fortunately for me, very specific about the differences. Biology versus emotion, and so on.

But culture? Movies showed sex and that meant love, right? But love without sex wasn't love, right? Wrong? I was one da*n freaked out teenager *before* rape occurred at 17. After? Not any better, for darn sure.

My mom taught me "No sex without love", (also, no sex unless you can envision sharing child custody with someone, and that certainly had an impact).... But the songs and movies and so on? I cried a lot, as a teen, trying to figure out if I was just a total freak or if the world was insane. By college? I had my version of things and stuck to it, but I saw some ugly stuff when those words "love" and "sex" became "synonyms".

Very easy to be confused and upset by it all.

Soft support, Arfie.

I doubt you are alone in that one. There does seem to be blurred lines between love and sex. ((HUGS))

I get confused myself. Now days the thing is friends with benefits. That completely threw me for a loop because I cannot just go have sex with some random person and I especially cannot have sex with a friend. I have to have some kind of strong feelings for the person.

I honestly believe it depends on the person. Some people can separate the two, I can't.

With the hyper-sexuality I experienced as a whiplash of my own sexual abuse, I might even be the one who coined the term, "Friends with benefits." I was pretty brutal on making sure my organic dildos kept their emotional distance.

To my mind, only one kind of love can have healthy sex attached. 35 years of marriage, and I don't know if I ever achieved sex as a loving expression. My husband's ability for non-sexual expressions of love is even more astounding than his ability to keep up with my hyper-sexuality was before the yaddahs of my blahs turned celibacy into the only sexual orientation available to me. Physical scars do not soften with age. Child prostitutes suffer allot of scarring.

Parental, sibling (5 sisters and 5 brothers) and community "love" were all sexual during my childhood. A real confusion contusion.

I have to admit, Hubby viewing me as an object of love rather than a sex object has been my salvation. And a big part of our success as a couple even before we were dating. Whatever sexual desire he may have felt, he kept it out of the equation until we were in a loving settled relationship. (Unmarried, freely admit that.)

Tough one, Arfie. Amazingly soft vibes to you. It's a fragile place to be, heart and mind and body.

I struggle with this too.

i have a tough time with this too. i get so mad when they use them interchangeably. call it what it is. my sperm doner kept me so isolated that when the hyper-sexuality kicked in i am lucky i didn't end up worse off than i did.

i still have a high sex drive. very much crave very sexual interactions. however i have been able to learn where the lines get drawn. things are still wonky though. hubby and i have long since understood my polyamorous heart as well as his needs my needs and where the line is at as far as "you need to have someone else fulfill that need." however we have rules and work to keep all parties safe. he took the pressure off of me long time ago. without the sexual pressure from him we have gotten much closer. it allowed me to learn the difference between the two- sex love.

what's messing me up now is gender stuff. i'm dealing right now with trying to understand my gender(s) and its confusing. not cause it's the fad either. started going through all this way long back before all the hype. its tearing me apart cause i'm wanting to look for another partner.

ok now that i've been all me me me....

i feel for you arfie. i try to use the word cherish. love and sex are so over used. i will only mate (full intercourse) with someone who i cherish. is there a word you would rather use that has a much deeper meaning for you? a word that can help you replace those triggers? that's why i use mate and cherish.

this may qualify as a different topic, unsure so I am filing it under this umbrella ;)

As a single woman and happy being so, confusion is as equally hard for me because I try to be nice, friendly and polite and too often it is taken as an 'in' or that there is more to my agenda than just being nice. I agree Leo yes. I think television, culture, movies? They all play a part in it. It is hard as an adult and I would not want to be a teen these days.

You are not alone. My husband and I both believe there is a distinct difference between "love" and "sex."

My husband loves the slow, passionate sex and this is not something I can provide. This type of sex is a perpetual trigger for me and there are very few times we've managed to be intimate in this way. I prefer - and find comfort in - slightly more aggressive forms of sex and I get that "loving" feel slower intimacy brings him.

We have an open relationship that is based on "love" and "sex." Because I am concerned I cannot provide him the slow sex he would like, he is free to have "sex" with other people provided there is no "love." As long as we are emotionally bound to each other, his body can go where it pleases (within reason). We have the power to veto each other's additional partners that way if either of us feel our emotional connection is weakening due to the third party, we can express this and immediately cut-off sexual relations with said third party.

I think as a person who has suffered sexual trauma this is a large and common distinction. As a child, it's even moreso; you realize that while people can take your body that doesn't mean they can take your spirit (although it happens), and once this divide is severed (body from spirit) I don't think it ever fully merges back. There may be some overlap like on a venn diagram, but there will always be distinctions between one and the other.

I think as long as you understand yourself and you ensure your relationships give you the balance between "love" and "sex" that you need, there is no reason to assume such a distinction is unhealthy. :)

I have a tendency...a socially frowned-upon one, I suppose...to treat sex as an advanced form of friendliness?

Monogamy would probably mean isolation to guarantee it...again. Not going there...again.
No.

I was inadvertently trained to exchange sex for attention, when I get really down and needy I will try to do that. I like sex. Sex is fun. I like cuddles. Admittedly, I'm having sex just to get held and touched?

...but at the same time it's hard not to get held and touched without sexual arousal occurring. Innocent touch? I didn't get that as a kid. I was held and cuddled after the abuse. After I'd paid for it, basically.

During our 3+ year separation (1989 to 1993), the romantically inclined male poet I married in 1980 finally began to understand that the Everly Brothers were not singing to homage my hyper-sexuality. The fantasy, perhaps, but not the reality.

The pro-guided therapy angle I was working during that phase was creating a clear line between MY strictly personal hyper-sexuality and loving expression. It was an attempt to create the lines which were absent during the years when my child biology, much less intellect, was not ready for the sex tutoring it received.

As the physical damage has caught up with the emotional damage, I have been ever more grateful that hubs has mastered the loving expressions which have made him, "My Beloved." At least on the good days.

Insert Pete Seeger quote when speaking of his wife, Toshi, of 70 years:
"Good loving takes time to learn."

went to twelve steps for years and the subject was Sex and love addiction,, children do not know the difference i think that is why many of us get it confused since we have been hurt at our very core so young,,,, i learned alot about how abused children confuse all of it,, any attention is sexual and love to a person who was used for sex,, even abuse is love , ,, alot of survivors dont know that so many women die of domestic violence getting hooked with men who are dangerous for that reason , i have experienced real genuine love for someone just once and i know now,, what real love is,, it is not firends with benefits , there is a good book called when society is an addict , alot of truths in there our society to me portrays many media examples of love addiction not real intimate healthy love