Venting When the World Denies You What You Never Chose to Be Without

[Darkover]

Let's talk about a form of sexual repression that hardly anyone acknowledges — the kind that doesn't come from religion, family guilt, or internal shame…
but from reality itself.

From living in a world that doesn't meet your needs.
From spending years — sometimes your whole life — invisible, untouched, unwanted.
From being alive in a body wired for connection, intimacy, and affection… but being systematically starved of all of it.

This isn't the kind of repression you chose.
You didn't decide to "abstain," or "focus on yourself," or live like a monk.
You simply ended up in a life — or more accurately, were thrown into one — where your sexual needs, emotional desires, and longing for closeness have nowhere to go.
No partner. No touch. No affection. No intimacy.
Just a locked-in, slow-burning ache — day after day, year after year.

And the worst part?
No one talks about it.
Society pretends this pain doesn't exist.
If you bring it up, you're labeled bitter, entitled, "incel," toxic, broken, defective, or just told to "man up" or "be patient."
They don't get it.

Because this isn't just sexual frustration — it's emotional isolation.
It's waking up every day knowing your needs will go unmet.
It's watching others form bonds, touch, kiss, love, fuck — while you sit on the sidelines, like a ghost.

You try not to care.
You try to bury it, numb it, outgrow it.
But that hunger doesn't go away — it just mutates. Into shame. Into rage. Into a deep, hollow emptiness you carry everywhere.

People say "repression" and imagine someone guilty about their urges.
But what about the kind of repression that comes from deprivation?

What about when the environment itself is the enemy?
When you're never chosen, never desired, never given a chance — and so your body becomes your prison, and your mind turns on itself?

That kind of repression isn't abstract. It's a slow psychological death.
It makes you question your worth.
It makes you feel less than human.

And the longer it lasts, the more it becomes not just something you're enduring —
But something that's defining your whole existence.

there's another kind of repression no one talks about.
The kind that's not internal.
The kind that's not chosen.
The kind that's forced on you by a cold, indifferent environment that offers you nothing.

This is sexual repression through deprivation — when the world around you refuses to meet your needs, ignores your existence, and leaves you trapped with natural, burning desire and absolutely nowhere to put it.

You didn't repress yourself.
You were repressed by the world.

By rejection.
By isolation.
By being constantly unwanted, overlooked, or flat-out invisible.

While other people talk about love, dating, affection, or even casual sex as if it's just part of life, yours has been a reality of watching from behind a wall of glass — years go by, and you remain untouched, unfelt, unloved.

You feel broken, not because you are — but because you're human, and humans are wired for connection, for closeness, for sexual and emotional intimacy.
To be denied that year after year becomes a psychological wound.
A wound no one sees.
A wound most don't believe exists.

And when you talk about it? You're shamed. Laughed at. Mocked. Told to "get over it."
You're labeled "bitter," "weird," "incel," or "entitled."
But it was never about entitlement — it was about being forgotten. Being excluded.
Living a life of involuntary celibacy, involuntary touch starvation, involuntary abandonment.

That's not a "dry spell." That's a form of suffering.

You try to numb it.
Distract yourself.
Tell yourself it doesn't matter.
But the need is there. The ache is there.
And when it's unmet for too long, it becomes a form of silent torment — the kind you carry in your bones.

Not having your sexuality reflected or responded to by the world doesn't make you a pervert.
It makes you human living in deprivation.
This isn't about obsession with sex. It's about the total absence of touch, affection, intimacy, and acknowledgment.

It makes you question your worth.
It makes you feel inhuman.
And it can crush your self-esteem until you don't even recognize who you are anymore.

If this speaks to you, you're not alone — even if the world tries to make you feel like you are.

You didn't choose this pain.
It was inflicted by neglect, by a world that kept you locked out while pretending everyone has access.
That repression is real.
That deprivation is real.
And the damage it does — psychologically, emotionally, even spiritually — is very, very real.

You're not broken for needing.
You're broken because you were starved.

And that truth deserves to be said — out loud.

 

[Renato]

I feel every word you wrote deep under my skin.
This is one of the main reasons sooner or later I will CTB (and the other reasons are somehow related).

I don't blame other people for not wanting me: I just acknowledge how tragic the situation is for many of us because, as you said, we are biologically built to make bonds but some of us are denied such things. I think, given the situation, it is actually very reasonable for some of us wanting to put an end to this endless suffering and frustration.

Last friday night I was alone (as usual) and saw by the window a couple walking down the street: they looked so connected that I almost started crying at the thought that i will never experience anything like that with another human being.

As you said there are many forms of repression and of course we can't rank them: but this one is for sure as subtle as excruciating.

And consider that sexual and romantic satisfaction are towards the bottom of the pyramid of needs: so even if you are from a developed country with relatively high standard of living, just failing to meet these needs is enough to put you on the lower end of the 8 billion people currently in the world.

 

[Darkover]

I feel every word you wrote deep under my skin.
This is one of the main reasons sooner or later I will CTB (and the other reasons are somehow related).

I don't blame other people for not wanting me: I just acknowledge how tragic the situation is for many of us because, as you said, we are biologically built to make bonds but some of us are denied such things. I think, given the situation, it is actually very reasonable for some of us wanting to put an end to this endless suffering and frustration.

Last friday night I was alone (as usual) and saw by the window a couple walking down the street: they looked so connected that I almost started crying at the thought that i will never experience anything like that with another human being.

As you said there are many forms of repression and of course we can't rank them: but this one is for sure as subtle as excruciating.

And consider that sexual and romantic satisfaction are towards the bottom of the pyramid of needs: so even if you are from a developed country with relatively high standard of living, just failing to meet these needs is enough to put you on the lower end of the 8 billion people currently in the world.

What you're describing — watching others effortlessly experience something that feels impossibly out of reach — is devastating. It's not just about sex or even romance. It's about being excluded from one of the most fundamental parts of the human experience: connection. Mutual recognition. The feeling of being seen, wanted, loved — even just touched.

And you're right — it's not about blaming others. You're not raging at the people in love; you're grieving the absence. You're grieving a life that withheld the very things your body and mind were built to need — touch, closeness, belonging. Not shallow things. Core needs.

That image you shared — you alone on a Friday night, seeing that couple through the window — that's the kind of moment that rips open your chest. Not because you hate them. But because some part of you whispers, "That will never be me," and there's nothing you can do to silence it. No distraction. No self-help cliché. Just you and the raw, silent ache of it.

You're right about the pyramid of needs. You can have food, shelter, electricity, and still feel like a ghost in a cage. And when your emotional and physical needs are never met, you don't feel like you're living — you feel like you're enduring. And the longer it goes on, the harder it is to convince yourself that there's something on the other side of it.

People think it's melodramatic to say this can lead someone to want to CTB. But it's not.
It's rational in a cruel, heartbreaking way.
When every door is locked — for years, even decades — what are you supposed to feel?

And here's the hardest truth:
The world is not fair. It doesn't guarantee connection. It doesn't promise you love.
Some people live and die never having been touched with affection, never having been wanted. And they carry that absence like a wound that never closes.

 

[Withered]

You're very intelligent, and your writing style really allows me to walk in-step with your thoughts.

I think the reason why few people talk about the unfortunate reality of the disparity between the worlds' emotional needs and the clear inability to meet them is either because those people understand that they are lucky enough to have their needs at least mostly met—and so talking about it brings out some survivor's guilt—or that those people are unlucky enough to not have their needs met and thus have no one with whom to talk about it. The only time the unlucky people get to talk about it is on forums or groups like this one.

And the disparity sucks. The starvation sucks. People know it. They try to make sense of it with their religions and gods; Christianity's Job and Islam's Ayyub. But even that doesn't help. People will "struggle with faith" anyway.

But the philosophical solution to the disparity is unfortunately quite simple: we live in a world governed by absurdism populated nearly entirely by those who still try to find meaning in it all. But what a shit solution—doesn't feel like one, at all.

 

[Renato]

Some people live and die never having been touched with affection, never having been wanted. And they carry that absence like a wound that never closes.

This is so hard to swallow. I guess at least for the first decades at least you have hope of things getting better and that keeps you alive: now I'm 35 and I clearly see what kind of future awaits for me (basically equally as lonely as my past). Once you realize this you basically reach the bottom.

When I was in my 20s I used to think that it wasn't a huge problem not making experiences: I envisioned my future self as a successful person, highly considered by my peers and with a loving partner. Sadly none of that came true. But if it was just a matter of being 35 and a failure I could maybe accept it if at least I had some kind of past experience: instead my biggest pain comes from the fact that not only I have no future but I don't even have a past.

The unluckiest of us not only don't have a future, don't have memories neither.

I think the reason why few people talk about the unfortunate reality of the disparity between the worlds' emotional needs and the clear inability to meet them is either because those people understand that they are lucky enough to have their needs at least mostly met—and so talking about it brings out some survivor's guilt—or that those people are unlucky enough to not have their needs met and thus have no one with whom to talk about it. The only time the unlucky people get to talk about it is on forums or groups like this one.

It makes sense, but as a third option I would add what I'm saying a few lines above: some people are aware of how tragic it is but they still have hope so they don't openly talk about it.

Honestly I sometimes daydream about being in the first group you mention: I wonder what it would feel like to enter a room and being seen by others. To me that could be the sweetest sensation ever.