What is so wrong with being sexually active?

I want to ask this question in the most absurdly basic stupid-sounding way for a couple of reasons. My first version of this screen contained the blunt word of "wh---" instead of sexually active, but I thought the use of that word would offend, even though it's in Scripture too. Please feel free to modify this post if you want to, which of course.. you don't my request or permission to do, haha. I ask my question so plainly though, for two reasons.

One is that I really need things to get boiled down to the clearest most fundamental answer(s), and two is that I truly am just this stupid, I think. Please please forgive me for being so far out in left field, and for seeming to be coarse or shocking. There's a true desperation behind this computer screen that I wish I could convey, and it's silly to try and convey it to strangers, although on the other hand, I know there are true believers who are solid, and with skin-on, also behind other computer screens. So, I'll ask. I already expect a few answers, so I will say these first.

*Being sexually active is unsafe.
Thoughts: I use protection against STD's and against pregnancy.

*"...the only sin against your own body..."
Thoughts: I don't understand. How is it More harmful than other things? And overeating and being fat is also a sin against one's own body... so this doesn't make complete sense to me.

*I should wait and pray and hope God will bring me a partner.
Thoughts: I don't believe there's anyone out there for me. I'm not attractive, not wealthy, not young anymore (I'm a 54-yr-old woman, nvr married, no children. Men my age want younger women.) And also, I don't think granting this need or satisfying it is something that God sees as important, cares about.

*Being sexually active is harmful.
Thoughts: In what way or ways? Almost every single married Christian I've ever known has said s/he had sex prior to marriage, including with the partner finally married to. They say, Golly shdn't have done that. But it's obvious to me they're no worse the wear for it. Abstinence and celibacy are like badges of accomplishment and pride (rightfully, I don't say that sarcastically) that very very few can wear. Abraham, Moses, David and other great men had sexual misbehaviour in their lives and it was not the defining characteristic of who they were.

I had such high views of sex. Such hopes for it. I imagined it would be a deep and wonderful communion of two souls. I was an active church member for more than 25 years. I led the worship music one Sunday in four. I taught Bible studies to new believers, I was a Sunday School teacher, a missions coordinator, I sang at a local rescue mission, I led prayer meetings and was the chairman of a state-wide women's retreat for several years. I had a strong fellowship and people who loved me.

In 2006, right during and after a big missions trip to Africa, a complicated chain of events occurred (truly too long to say here), and the results were: (1) uncovering of a faithless doubting stubborn heart that had been that way all along, (2) an undiscerned side-effect to a prescription drug [see Mirapex, Requip] promoting hypersexuality and compulsive behaviour, (3) disfellowship from my beloved church, let everyone down and (4) fell in love w/someone on a one-night stand, stayed with him for 2 years until he told me goodbye, broke my foolish heart and I can't get over it. Angry at myself, angry at God. So lost and wandering and stupid now.

I learned the hard way what decades and decades of women and pastors could have told me: Sex does not mean love, can't buy love, doesn't guarantee it. And in fact, sex is just sex. I think I see sex accurately now. The way men do, as just a function. and so, my question remains: I'm not hurting anyone... what is so wrong about it. It's only what it is (albeit not the grand thing I thought/wanted it to be). It's actually a bit of a trick, if I might be so bold as to complain to its Designer. M&W want different things, incompatible things or at least disparate ones. Sex is like bait & switch or something. It's broken. I couldn't understand why so many of my girl friends were cavalier about it, and I cdn't understand why so many advertisments by married men were out there looking bcz their wives wldn't just meet their requests or needs. What the heck was wrong with everybody. I do have a theory. God made us so different from one another that it would force each side to "cross over" into the other person's way of thinking and in both crossing over, sacrificial love is in the middle. But that's for the lucky ones.

I literally could not understand or believe how Brent and I could have shared so much and it not mean love. I was just crushed by that inconsistency in the end. I would have bet a million trillion zillion dollars he loved me. I cry with anger and sorrow and grief as I type this, dammit. Where is the truth and where is the lie, it is all unfathomable.

A man called me a whore the other day. I just -- stupidly -- do not understand. And I was taught Once Saved Alway Saved, but now I fear -- in such spiritual numbness and silence and inability to recover my faith, find the "Lord" -- that Hell awaits.