A narcissist uses sex for many things. It’s less about connection and more transactional, often about their performance, control, and survival. Using sex, the narcissist objectifies their partner, seeing them not as another human being with wants, needs, thoughts, and feelings, but as an object to meet their needs.
In constant pursuit of narcissistic supply to fuel their false persona and separation from self, the narcissist gains copious amounts of that supply from joining bodies and energy systems with their partner—another reason for the exhaustion we felt when we were with them. The narcissist may also attempt to gain validation and admiration from their partner through sex; things they crave much more than connection.
Sometimes narcissists use sex, or lack of it, as a reward or punishment to maintain control over us and the relationship. Sex strengthens the trauma bond between victim and abuser, and at its darkest, sex is used to push the narcissist’s partner into traumatizing experiences they would not have chosen otherwise.
Conditions for Coercion
How did we lose our autonomy around sex? Let’s go back to the first stage of the narcissistic abuse cycle, idealization or love bombing. Like a predator in the wild, the narcissist carefully studied us, their potential target, to determine whether we were worth the time and energy needed to ensnare us. Once they made that determination, the narcissist adopted a false persona, making exhaustive efforts to appear as our dream come true, while promising to meet our unmet needs. They encouraged our openness and vulnerability until we trusted them implicitly.
Once we got to that point, parts of us became unwilling to risk the potential abandonment of ‘the most wonderful person we’d ever known’—a loss that could mimic and re-trigger the painful, buried childhood wounds that we endured. When we were no longer willing to speak up, the narcissist knew their supply was secure, and the pressure began. For some survivors, this is when the narcissistic partner introduced new ideas about sex.
A Survivor’s Story
One survivor, a victim of childhood sexual abuse and trauma, courageously shared her story with me, allowing me to share it with you. Her narcissistic partner began pressuring her to attend sex parties and try swinging. Each time he brought it up and pressured her to help him plan it, her body would go into a trauma response. She would shut down, unable to speak, and her body would shake. That didn’t stop him from continuing to pressure her and using manipulation tactics to get her to comply—guilt-tripping her, telling her she was acting like a child, or that he was tired of everything being about her and her trauma. This is a graphic example of objectification. Her wants, needs, and self-care were not a consideration for him.
Caught between two unhealed childhood traumas—sexual abuse and abandonment—a part of her was terrified to do what was being asked of her, and just as afraid to voice her needs and risk abandonment. She also felt responsible for his emotions, another pattern that began in childhood.
After more of her partner’s pressure, she reluctantly agreed to attend a sex party. She did so out of obligation. Compliance, not consent. She described feeling incredibly unsafe and backed into a corner shortly after arriving, her early wounds triggered and raw. She insisted on leaving. Once home, she drew her line in the sand, telling him she would no longer entertain his ideas about sex parties and swinging, and that he could leave if that was a problem for him.
What she experienced was not consensual, healthy exploration between informed adults, which some couples do together and enjoy. It was coercion; her narcissistic partner used guilt, manipulation, fear, and the threat of abandonment to get her to comply, pressuring her into sexual activities she didn’t want and would likely have felt horrible about afterward. What should have felt like connection with a healthy partner instead became entangled with fear, obligation, and guilt.
Many survivors have engaged in sexual activities they didn’t want to be part of. As the relationship progressed, we tried to set boundaries while also attempting to meet our narcissistic partner’s needs, and small compromises soon became larger ones. Discomfort eventually felt normal, and we learned to suppress our intuition in our attempts to avoid abandonment and our own pain. The line between consent and compliance became blurry, or indistinguishable.
Healing Our Sexual Selves After Abuse
After narcissistic abuse, many of us believed our difficulties with intimacy were our personal failings. In truth, our nervous system learned that closeness was linked to manipulation, risk, pressure, or unpredictability. No wonder we didn’t want to be intimate! Healthy sexuality requires emotional safety, something the narcissist had no interest in offering us.
After a destructive relationship, our healing depends on us creating a life in which we feel safe to exist as who we truly are. As we learn and implement boundaries, we create physical, mental, and emotional safety.
From that space, we can take healing actions, like:
- exploring consent
- going to therapy
- saying no
- journaling
- listening to our body
- exploring our own desires
- allowing ourselves to change our mind
- discovering what intimacy means to us
Inner Exploration
The following are questions about sex, to explore the idea of consent versus compliance:
Did you feel free to say no?
Did you choose it because it interested you?
Did sex feel like it was about connection or control?
Did your partner withdraw affection when you set a boundary?
Did you feel emotionally safe before, during, and after sexual intimacy?
What messages did you receive about your worth?
Were you afraid of losing your partner if you said no?
Would you have desired that or made the same choice outside the relationship?
Were you feeling manipulated and pressured to prioritize your partner’s needs over your own?
