I just read “”What Sexual Narcissists Know About Sex That We Don’t” by Dona Mwiria. She described sexual narcissists perfectly. They provide the “best sex” because it’s one of their tools to reel you in. However, “best sex” is a debatable term.
I’m currently having the best sex of my life. As far as I can tell, and unfortunately I have plenty of experience with narcissists and sexual narcissists, he isn’t one.
Did the narcissists who reeled me in with focus, love bombing and sex also provide good or great sex? They did.
With the first one, it was the first sex I’d ever had. We were young, and while he had experience, we learned most of it together. I enjoyed sex with him but, due to lack of experience, I had to first learn how to orgasm clitorally and then teach him how to help me do it during intercourse.
The next one was definitely experienced and sexually focused, as the author describes narcissists to be. He also did the classic withholding, by not being available in the ways you expect a partner to be. He couldn’t. He was always juggling one or two other women in addition to me. He was spread thin.
When I had sex with him after a breakup, all the allure was gone for me, and the sex was not only not the “best sex,” It wasn’t even good.
The third one was both a sexual narcissist and a malignant narcissist. Please understand how persistent they can be before you judge me. They also target us when we are vulnerable. I was recently separated from the second one, and had gone through an intense personal and family trauma in addition to that.
I had turned him down seven or more years before, when he approached me after an Aikido class. He wasn’t the sensei, but was a helpful teacher. A quick study, he passed himself off as a black belt when he wasn’t. Much later I learned he’d faked his ranks and I’d had more training than he.
I turned him down. I’d left my husband, met someone, and gotten pregnant.
He was disappointed, but didn’t pressure me. Instead, in true narcissistic fashion he declared, “That’s okay. Our time will come.” I laughed, believing it wouldn’t happen.
Except it did. Seven years later, I went back to Aikido. My son was six, the earliest age you can train in Aikido. I discovered he had opened a dojo and was teaching. I signed us up for his dojo.
All narcissists are charismatic. He was that and a bag of chips. Tall, Black, intense, athletic, and versed in spiritual esoterica. He oozed confidence and preternatural sexuality. As I trained under him and sought his affirmation for prowess in our marital art, I was a prime target. A moving target, but a target nonetheless.
Martial arts, like the ministry or any endeavor where a charismatic leader exerts influence and authority, attracts narcissists. Aikido, though, is based on blending with the enemy, practicing restraint and compassion. It’s less susceptible to being distorted by the Sensei.
Still, Sensei DM managed. He took the natural respect trainees extend to the Sensei and demanded more. Especially from women.
There were only two single women in class. He first focused on me. He flattered me by having me assist him. Narcissists intuit our needs and natures. He saw my need to prove myself as a woman in a martial art. He saw I needed challenges to balance the vulnerability from a series of traumas.
He’d seen my frustration in the previous dojo because I hadn’t been tested for black belt after five years of training. When he announced I would be testing for black belt, he said it would be for the entire hour and a half of class. Usually tests last 20 minutes. This was typical of the psychological warfare he waged. He set every bar higher and dared me to vault it. I did.
Narcissists intuit our natures. He saw my need to prove myself as a woman in a martial art. He saw I needed challenges to balance the vulnerability from recent traumas.
The challenges soon left the dojo and extended into my real life. By then we were lovers, and just as she describes, he knew how to stir my libido and keep me on edge and craving. The combination of esoterica and erotica was intoxicating. At one point, I remember seeing white light obliterating everything during an orgasm.
He challenged my pride and my prowess, both sexually and in other arenas. Once he handcuffed me to the bed and left the room. In a painful act of hubris, I wriggled and wrenched my wrists free, then walked up behind him dangling the cuffs. “Did you lose something?” I asked.
He claimed to never have had an orgasm with oral sex. While I didn’t succeed in giving him one, I made him cry out and make me stop at the critical moment. Neither of us wanted to concede a “win” to the other.
I’m an independent, strong, feminist. Admittedly, there was some thrill in submitting to a dominant man as a way of voluntarily relinquishing power, especially sexually. He used that as part of the hook to keep me intrigued and involved.
The sexual, malignant narcissist feeds the victim a strong brew.
The ingredients and measures may be different for each target. For me, sexual enthrallment, the ability to concede power, the validation of meeting challenges, as well as the love bombing of telling me how beautiful and accomplished I am was an intoxicating mix.
When the denigration, rage, and blame came, I recognized that meant something was wrong with him. I had a strong enough ego to know he was wrong in his criticisms of me. It also meant going toe to toe with him because that was part of the challenge.
Or the reverse, working harder to please him. That odd reaction grew directly out of being his student in martial arts, and he knew how to elicit it.
. . .
While it gets easier to spot narcissists after an experience with one, he was my third. Was I a slow learner? Maybe, but the first ones didn’t have his level of psychologically manipulative skills. That”s what made him malignant as well.
Reading the “Power of Now” freed me from him. Eckhart Tolle states that we have three choices in each moment or situation.
Accept, Change, or Leave
By then I’d witnessed Sensei DM treat others callously, even cruelly. A few weeks before he had physically attacked me with the excuse of “seeing if I could defend myself.” While I did, he left lots of bruises and a split lip. At one point I feared for my life. The challenges were no longer tolerable, certainly not intriguing. No man had ever even THOUGHT about hitting me before .
I didn’t call the police. I’m a White woman, and I didn’t want to be responsible for putting a Black man in jail. Later I realized it would have been him who put himself in jail.
As I learned to be in the moment, which ironically is also part of Aikido, I also learned to connect with my inner self. What Eckhart Tolle calls the Observer. One night in class, I watched him in front of the room with the eyes of my inner Observer.
What I “saw” was darkness surrounding him. I felt no emotion or connection.
When class ended my son and I left and never came back.
He stalked me for awhile, until his brother told him to stop. Even then there were occasional phone calls where he claimed to be near by. I told him if I ever even heard his name whispered near me, I was calling the police. He finally stopped.
Twelve years later he tracked down my cell phone number through Facebook and called and left a message. I ignored it. He called again and I answered.
“It’s about time,” he intoned arrogantly in his deep, commanding voice. He wanted to send me photos showing me how he’d changed. As the photos came through, showing him next to a sports car, and in an expensive suit, I laughed.
“Those don’t show me any changes that matter,” I said and I hung up.
. . .
Ultimately, narcissists can’t provide you with the best sex you’ve ever had, because they don’t love you. Sex without love is good exercise and fun, but since narcissists don’t love you, you could be anybody. They just need your adulation. They will take it from anyone. You aren’t special.
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This post was previously published on New Choices.
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