by Staci Haines
Educating yourself and your supporters with sex-positive sex information can make all the difference.
Selecting a Therapist or Counselor
You are the boss of your own healing. You say how it goes. Although therapists are a help along the way, you get to decide what is best for you. You also get to ask for what you want and need from your support people. Your needs are likely to change as you change, so update yourself and your therapist as you proceed.
Interviewing a Therapist
Here are some questions to ask a therapist you are considering as support for sexual healing:
• How many hours of training in human sexuality have you had?
• What do you consider the most important factors in sexual healing?
• Are you experienced in working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse? How have clients benefited from working with you?
• What do you see as the positive aspects of sex and sexual healing?
• What forms of sexuality do you consider dysfunctional?
• Do you hold religious beliefs regarding sex?
• Can you support my sexual healing in nonjudgmental way?
• What are your boundaries with clients?
• Are you willing to educate yourself further regarding sex and a sex-positive approach to healing for survivors?
• Do you have experience working with lesbian and bisexual women?
• Do you have experience working with transgendered clients?
• How do you feel about S/M, role-playing, porn, and rape fantasies?
• How do you feel about sex work?
• How do you feel about nonmonogamy and casual sex?
• Add your own questions.
A good therapist for this type of healing work is one who has the capacity to be with you in the midst of the exciting and the ugly, someone who has done enough work on herself or himself to be able to travel in unknown territories with you. Experience in working with survivors is essential. Get a good sense of the therapist’s attitudes about sex. Are her or his attitudes regarding sex strictly conventional, or can he or she support you in discovering your own sexuality? Watch out for narrow attitudes regarding homosexuality, S/M, pornography, and stereotypes about women’s sexual expression. Is your therapist familiar with the latest safer-sex guidelines? And is she willing to learn the things she may not know?
Most important, what kind of feel do you get from this person? Do your instincts say “Yeah!” or “Well…maybe…” or even “No”? Listen to these instincts.
While this may be obvious, I feel it is important to state that it is not appropriate for a therapist to have sex with his or her client. If you are invited into sexual contact with your therapist, end this therapeutic relationship and report the therapist to the police and the state licensing board.
Somatics: Including Your Body in Healing
My work is in somatics, an educational and transformational approach that assumes that the body, mind, and emotions are one interconnected biological system. You are not separate from your body; rather, your self is revealed in and through your body all the time. Soma is the Greek word for the living body, or thought, spirit, and body as one.
Many possibilities come from looking at the body this way. Instead of seeing the body as a carcass that we carry around, the body becomes an alive and intelligent presence. The body is not something to get away from but a source of wholeness to be returned to and embodied fully. In working with and through the body, trauma can be processed and completed, and pleasure, balance, and present time can be restored. In somatics the body becomes an inherent and essential part of the change and healing process.
In Western cultures we have inherited a worldview that sees our minds, emotions, and bodies as separate entities. This comes out of Western Cartesian philosophical views and Christian traditions that have considered thinking or mental functioning paramount. “Mind over matter,” as the saying goes. Some religious beliefs even see the body as essentially sinful, something to be either ignored or controlled. These perspectives have begun to shift in the last fifty years in the West, with more exposure to indigenous and Eastern perspectives. Feminist theory and literature has critiqued this mind/body split and has encouraged a return to the knowledge and life of the body. Starting with Willhelm Reich, Western philosophers and practitioners have also begun to reintegrate the body and mind.
Somatics recognizes an intelligence and life in the body that affects your thinking and your actions. If you change your body, or the “holding” or trauma in your body, then your thinking, your experience of the world, and often your identity will also shift.
Why a Somatic Approach to Healing Sexually After Childhood Sexual Abuse?
Childhood sexual abuse literally touches your body. To leave your body out of the healing process can leave out what is potentially your surest path to well-being. Many survivors of childhood sexual abuse are dissociated or “checked out” from their bodies. Your body was a dangerous place as a child. Leaving your body then, or dissociating, was an intelligent move. The memories or experiences of the trauma are often still present or “held” in your body today. Many survivors stay out of their bodies and senses long after the danger has passed to avoid revisiting those stored experiences.
Yet, your body is also you. It is the place in which you live and are alive. You connect and are in relationship with others from your body. You act in the world from your body. Your body is where the healing from trauma and abuse happens. Your body is also where you experience sensual and sexual pleasure. To experience all of these pleasures, however, you must be in your body, or “embodied.”
Attending to the process of re-embodying is essential to sexual healing. I know it sounds strange, but building your tolerance for being in your body and experiencing physical pleasure is a central component of this healing. This is an intentional practice, especially in the beginning. After childhood sexual abuse, pleasure may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable to you.
I was surprised the first time I could stay present and embodied while my lover went down on me. It was like “Oh, this feels good. That’s why people do this.”
Carolyn
Knowing your boundaries and having the ability to consent is also an embodied experience. If you are dissociated during sex, it is very difficult to know if you want to stop or go further or what sexual activities you want to consent to or invite.
Traditional psychoanalysis tends to focus on the mental processes, assuming the body will come along for the ride. This type of therapy has its place and can be useful for many, yet it can fall short of truly transforming the deep impact of sexual trauma. Most people have the experience of thinking one thing and doing another, even when they do not mean to. “Getting it” mentally does not necessarily translate into new ways of being or different actions. There can be an incoherence between your thinking and your body, because understanding something is different from embodying it.
I know what I want sexually. I’ve read the books and have lots of ideas, but still when I get there my body freezes. It’s like I can’t keep track of what year it is and that I’m not a kid at home in my bed anymore.
Naomi
What I see in my work with survivors is that when they embody, when they return to life in their body and their sensations, a type of self-generated healing begins to happen. It is as if the body has not only a physical immune system but also an emotional and spiritual immune system or intelligence that orients towards health and balance. When you are dissociated from or ignore the body, this immune system does not function well. When the body is included, when the focus is on embodiment, the signs, signals, and functioning of this balancing system come into full swing. I have come to see the body, mind, and emotions as self-healing organisms when given the right conditions. Embodiment is one of these conditions.
I encourage including a body-based or somatic component to one’s healing. I have found it one of the most efficient ways to
process the abuse and release triggers. As you transform on the somatic level, the trauma is literally shifted and released, and you are able to live in present time, instead of being trapped in history, rage or depression. Somatics can help align your thinking, experience, and actions, bringing a sense of internal congruence.
There are a variety of somatic schools and modalities, including Rancho Strozzi Institute, Lomi School, Rosen Method Bodywork, Rubenfeld Synergy, Hakomi, Somatic Experiencing, Continuum, and the Tamalpa Institute. Further information can be found in the Resources at the end of this book. Other options for embodiment practices include dancing, martial arts, and body-focused meditation. Any practice that brings you regularly into your body and the sensations, feelings, and life of your body is useful.
Safer Sex
No chapter on safety in a sexual healing book would be complete without a discussion of safer sex. Safer sex is the practice of using barriers or limiting sexual activities to prevent the passage of bodily fluids from one person to another. Safer-sex techniques are used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including herpes, genital warts, HIV, chlamydia, and many others. The use of condoms is also effective in preventing pregnancy.
Use a Barrier
Most safer-sex barriers, such as condoms, latex gloves, dental dams, and female condoms, are made of latex, although there are others made from polyurethane and nitrile for folks who are allergic to latex. Lambskin condoms do not prevent HIV transmission, since the virus is small enough to pass through the membrane, and are not recommended for safer sex. For many, plastic food wrap is the barrier of choice for cunnilingus and analingus, as it is cheap, readily available, and easier to use than dental dams.
Don’t Forget the Lubricant
Use a water-based lubricant with latex and other barriers—it will make the whole experience a lot more enjoyable. Water-based lubricant helps tremendously with the glide factor and increases sensitivity. Put some lubricant in the tip of the condom for the wearer and on the outside for more glide. Use lubricant on the receiver’s side of the dental dam or plastic wrap during oral sex, and on the outside of the latex glove for a smoother touch.
Lubricants containing oil can weaken latex. Thus Crisco, Vaseline, and other oil-based lubricants are not recommended for use with condoms or any other latex product. Since I encourage the use of latex in preventing STDs, I recommend using only water-based lubricants.
Assess Your Risk
A lot of people speak of “risk factors” when discussing safer sex. To assess risk, you need to consider your own risk factors, those of your partners, and of the particular sexual acts you engage in. You can then choose what risks you feel are worth taking.
To assess your own risk, consider:
• the number of partners with whom you have had unprotected sex
• the number of partners they may have had sex with
• the risk level of your sexual activities
• your intravenous drug history
• your partners’ intravenous drug history
• and if you currently have any STDs.
ILLUSTRATION 1. Safer-Sex Gear
The more partners with whom you have had unprotected sex, the greater your risk level. If you have used intravenous drugs, this also increases your risk. Of course, if you enjoy high risk sexual practices (for instance, unprotected anal intercourse), you should consider yourself at higher risk.
If you have any STDs or immune-deficiency disorders, you are at higher risk and may want err on the side of caution in your sexual practices to keep yourself well. Even if you are HIV-positive, you need to practice safer sex. First, having one strand of the HIV virus does not make you resistant to others. Second, exposure to other STDs can damage an already-compromised immune system.
When assessing your risk factors, remember that there is no guarantee that your partner is monogamous. Given the lack of permission to speak openly about having multiple sexual partners, many people will lie about it. Some people regularly have sex outside of a primary relationship without ever telling anyone. Your health is in your hands. While I am not asking you to be skeptical, I am encouraging you to be aware that you may not know all of your partner’s sex history or current sexual practices. Have a conversation with your partner about safer sex and his or her sex and drug-use history. The best bet is to ask your partner to get tested for HIV and other STDs before you have sex together. Remember that HIV will probably not show up on tests for several months after exposure. A good practice is to get tested for HIV once every six months.
Play Safe
Some sexual practices are riskier than others. Semen and blood carry the highest concentration of the HIV virus, which can enter your bloodstream via small lacerations in the mouth, anus or vaginal tissues, or abrasions on the skin. Don’t forget that HIV can be present in pre-cum and menstrual blood.
Other STDs, like herpes, can be transmitted through contact with open sores. However, just because you don’t see an open sore on your partner’s genitals does not mean you are free from risk. Some STDs, like HPV, are often symptom-free. And herpes can be transmitted just prior to an outbreak. (HPV, the virus that causes genital warts, has also been linked to cervical cancer.)
High risk sexual activities include unprotected cunnilingus during menstruation (going down on a women during her period), unprotected anal intercourse and rimming (mouth-to-anus sex), and unprotected vagina/penis intercourse.
Vaginal fluids carry a lower concentration of HIV. So medium-risk behaviors include unprotected cunnilingus when a woman is not bleeding, unprotected fellatio (giving head), and finger-fucking or fisting without a glove.
Low-risk behaviors include French kissing (wet kissing), hand jobs, protected penetration, and protected oral sex.
Sexual behaviors that are risk-free include tribadism (dry humping), fantasy, masturbation (only touching yourself), voyeurism and exhibitionism (watching or being watched). Phone sex and computer sex are also sexual activities free of the risk of STDs.
Use condoms on dildos, vibrators, and sex toys. Do not share your toys without changing the condom or cleaning them with an anti-bacterial cleanser. Remember that any toy you’ve used for anal play requires a fresh condom before you use it for vaginal play.
Check Yourself Out
Get a regular pelvic exam to care for your reproductive and sexual health. I know this is challenging for many survivors, but it is a must do, and a challenge worth taking on. Take a supportive friend with you. Advocate for yourself until you find a gynecologist who will listen to your needs. Your long-term health, including the prevention or early detection of cancer, depends upon you taking care of yourself in this way.
You can begin by getting tested for HIV and other STDs. You can find free, confidential testing in most cities though hospitals and STD clinics. Check your yellow pages and local newspapers. Ask your gynecologist to test you for STDs like herpes and chlamydia.
Make It Sexy
Many people are uncomfortable with using barriers at first. The best way to get comfortable with barriers is to go out and buy a bunch. Bring them home and play with them. Open the packages of condoms, female condoms, gloves, or dental dams and check them out. How do they feel, smell, taste? Become familiar with them—you’ll lose your inhibitions. Practicing at home is often easier than practicing on your date! You can also eroticize latex and other safer-sex barriers. Soon the sound of your partner snapping on a latex glove will evoke memories of a very good time! Try including safer sex in your fantasies. How many ways can you find to make latex sexy?
Getting Started
Welcome to your continuing journey! The Sex Guide Exercises at the end of each chapter are designed to help you personalize and make use of the information in each chapter. They will help walk you through your process of sexual healing. I encourage you to share your process and discoveries with at least one other person. You can share your responses to the exercises or do them together.
I
think survivors who have done their healing have some of the best sex lives
around. We have to look at, and deal with, heal, and redefine sex for ourselves.
We do all this healing work that most people really need to do, survivors or
not.
Stephanie
Sex Guide Exercises
Reflect on the following questions. Write about them in your journal and have a conversation about them with a support person.
1. Why heal sexually? What do you want to gain from it? How will your life be different and more satisfying? How will you know when you’ve gotten what you want?