Told him I felt used and now he won’t have sex with me

[EmmaDale87]

Many months ago I was seeing a man casually, we got close and spoke about a relationship which didn’t happen but he continued to come over for booty calls. Eventually I had enough and asked him if he was using me for sex as I felt like a free prostitute to him. He assured me he wasn’t and began taking me on dates and I thankfully got to see a better side to him. Well 2 months on and he won’t have sex with me often because he knows I might worry he is using me for sex if we do it a lot. I am getting annoyed that we’re now in a relationship and passed all of that but he is making an issue out of sex.
I know I know, I felt used and now I want sex, where he used to want sex and now doesn’t, can this be fixed or have I blown it?

You can't shift the goalposts and expect the other person to immediately switch on your say-so. Well you can but you stand a high chance of them telling you they're not interested. Their choice!

Whatever you did or did not intend by it, you've said the words and made the accusation, you can't unsay it and he can't unhear it.

A couple can get over this sort of thing fairly quickly if their relationship has legs. If he treats his...grirlfriend? well, then he has nothing to worry about.

*girlfriend obvs.

This sounds like too much hard work, relationships are supposed to enhance your lives not cause distress. I would say time to move on and start again.

@Calamitydrayne nothing stupid about not agreeing with you that women having casual sex with a man is not valuing/respecting herself. I might even wonder if I'd failed as a parent to teach her to have so e respect for herself I hope you don't have children, they would never be able to trust you in fear of being judged steming from your nasty, narrow mind.

[quote Inth3know]**@Calamitydrayne* nothing stupid about not agreeing with you that women having casual sex with a man is not valuing/respecting herself. I might even wonder if I'd failed as a parent to teach her to have so e respect for herself* I hope you don't have children, they would never be able to trust you in fear of being judged steming from your nasty, narrow mind.[/quote]
Personally I think it's as fine for women to have casual sex with a man as it is for a man to have casual sex with a woman. I did it myself when I was younger. But I expected and wanted nothing more of those men, and wouldn't have carried on ANY form of relationship with those particular men, even a very casual "booty call" one because I am of the quite old-fashioned opinion that often after a while a woman is very likely to start to develop feelings for the man after a while, whereas the man mainly doesn't and can totally keep sex and feelings separate. On the whole. You can very easily get into situations where the man is happily carrying on the supposed casual sexual relationship with nothing else involved, because it suits him to keep it that way, happy in the knowledge that it is the same for the woman and suits her too, whereas the woman is starting to have much stronger emotional feelings for the man. Then it becomes a total power imbalance and causes so many issues. So that is the risk you take when you carry on a very casual purely sexual relationship on a regular ongoing basis (the booty call stuff). There's been so many threads on here about it. When I was single I didn't consider any man who would have sex with me so readily in a one off casual way to be boyfriend material. It's usually clear who's interested in you as a person and not just after a quick or regular shag. And I only wanted the men who wanted me as a person.

In my view this is where old-fashioned dating is actually very useful, where there's kind of an unsaid agreement that sex is totally off the cards while you figure out after a few dates whether you're getting on, whether you fancy each other, whether they hold the same values as you, just generally what sort of boyfriend material they are.

I think the lack of self-respect comes with pretending to yourself that you're only after a casual sexual relationship with no strings when really deep down you're kidding yourself that you're ok with that and really you were always secretly hoping for it to go somewhere. It's not fair on the other person when the goalposts are moved. It sounds to me like this is what happened with OP, otherwise there would have been a proper discussion after a short time along the lines of "actually, I'd quite like this to become more of a dating & possibly BF/GF thing - what do you think?" Rather than accusing them of treating you like a prostitute. That's just totally the wrong approach.

@EmmaDale87

To add I always made it clear the casual part was temporary as I wanted more and it wasn’t until I said I felt used that I started being treated better and taken on dates. When we became official I guess I assumed we would have an ordinary relationship and forget what happened beforehand. So you could be right that he’s confused, but surely in a relationship sex is important and natural therefore wouldn’t be considered a booty call situation. I do initiate it and make it clear I want us to have sex but he tends to brush me off or say he’s tired. When we do it feels rushed. He isn’t the type to punish me and he is great overall but it makes me feel worse than I did when I felt used.

For me this is the key update that you're mostly in the wrong.

You were happy to keep it casual and the word "temporary" is so open ended (tbf a relationship that you sound like you want would surely start off the opposite way? Dating then sex) . Then you asked for less sex and more dating and you've got it.

That said it's impossible for you to know his motives so if you have even 1% doubt that he's punishing you by acting differently then of course end it. Sounds a bit too over-thinky on both parts.

@EmmaDale87

I didn’t use those exact words to him, just here to explain my feelings at the time. When I spoke to him I said I felt that he wasn’t interested in me and that’s why he didn’t want a relationship, that he got the benefits of a relationship such a sex but without the commitment and it hurt me. He apologised and we went on a date that weekend. If he is playing games to get back at me he’s also losing sex in the process.

Why did you agree to the sex without the relationship when that wasn't what you wanted?