Sex and the Problem of Self-Esteem

by Eric Francis Coppolino, April 29, 2008

Though it may be difficult to see, we have a serious self-esteem problem in our society. We are, in short, either taught that we don’t exist, taught to hate ourselves, or some combination of the two. Most people you see walking around on the street don’t feel worthy of love. And this seems to be a matter of self-love, or the lack thereof.

If we are lacking self-esteem—a problem so pervasive as to be invisible—we are going to have a lot of problems in relationships. This can account for much of our stuff around jealousy. For example, if we need a relationship to know that we exist, then we will naturally feel that our existence is threatened if our partner so much as smiles at someone else.

If much of our trip in relationships is designed to cover up a lack of real self-awareness, we are adding several dense layers of complication to finding out who we really are. It would seem that the real solution to our relationship stuff, our jealousy, our loneliness, and many other factors, is to figure out who we are, enter a conscious relationship with that person, and then take that into our relationships with others.

In other words, we need to get to the place where the most honest relationship we have in the world is with ourselves, and then let that overflow into our encounters with the people around us—not forgetting in what order these things happen. Unfortunately, we are taught to have relationships with ourselves that are based specifically on denying and deceiving ourselves. This is a sad state of humanity, but one that could be easily addressed—if we were somehow relieved of the fear to look within.

And a lot of other kinds of fear. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, during his first season in office, he hired the Heritage Foundation to lobby Congress for something called abstinence-only sex “education.” This is a program, taught in public schools and elsewhere, that indoctrinates kids to remain abstinent until heterosexual marriage. Kids are taught that birth control does not work. Masturbation and homosexuality are not mentioned. It is direct-denial sex education. You pay to have this taught in public schools.