by Staci Haines
2. What is safety to you? What is the difference between safety and comfort? What are examples of experiences in which you were safe yet uncomfortable?
3. Practice building an internal sense of safety. What sensations and feelings in your body give you a sense of safety, settledness, or resourcefulness? Where do you feel that now?
4. What support do you have now to assist you in your sexual healing? a. Self-care: journal writing, positive self-talk, ability to feel your emotions, eating well and exercising, somatic practices, spiritual practice. b. Community support: peer support group, therapist, friends you can talk to about sex and recovery.
5. What do you need to support your sexual healing? What actions can you take to build this network of support? Think big. Go beyond the bare minimum requirements for survival. Imagine having all the support you possibly could use. What would that be?
6. Take a look at your own attitudes and biases regarding sex. Make a list of what you think is healthy and not healthy regarding consensual sex. Discuss your list with a friend. Be sure to include issues of sexual orientation, what you consider appropriate sexual expression for women, fantasy, monogamy and nonmonogamy, abstinence, anal sex, religious beliefs, bondage, sadomasochism (S/M), cross-dressing, etc. This is an opportunity to explore your own beliefs about sex and sexual expression.
Where do these ideas about sex come from? Where did you learn what you believe? Is there more for you to learn about anything on your list? Do you know anyone who practices any of the consensual activities that you listed as “not healthy”? This is an opportunity to explore and learn more about your own beliefs and values, those you want to keep and those you may want to change.
chapter two
Desire and Pleasure
Discovering Your Pleasure and Desire
Allowing yourself your own desire might not come naturally to you if you were sexually abused as a kid. Incest and childhood sexual abuse give you lots of practice in suffering, checking out, and enduring, and not a lot of experience of pleasure. You may have to learn to tolerate the feelings of pleasure and desire all over again.
Through sexual abuse, you learned to satisfy someone else’s desires without your own boundaries, needs, or wants even entering the picture. You did not get the chance to experience the evolution of your own sexual desires, in your own time, based on your own needs. How, then, can you be familiar with your own desires now?
I am afraid to desire. I just take what comes and deal with that. That is what
I do with sex, I realize, too. Whatever he wants…well, that’s okay. It is too
scary to think about what I want.
Cindy
For some survivors, having any sexual desire is the first challenge. Your experiences may have convinced you that you are not allowed to have sexual pleasure or be happy and excited about your sex life. You may be convinced that liking sex as an adult means you must have liked it as a kid, too. If you liked it then, it wasn’t really abuse, and this whole thing must be your fault, right?
I am just not turned on. I don’t feel sexual desire.
Carla
Just so you know, this isn’t true. Enjoying sexual pleasure does not make you bad and does not make the abuse your fault. Your sexual feelings are a testimony to your ability to hold onto yourself through extremely adverse conditions—and proof of your healing.
A Depressed Libido
Many survivors experience depression as a symptom of sexual abuse. Some seek out antidepressants and other medication to help along the way. Most antidepressants decrease your sex drive. Many survivors taking antidepressants report little interest in sex, and an increased libido when they go off of the medication.
Anti-depressants did affect my libido.
I wasn’t as interested. I used it as a
time, though, to learn about my
sexuality, not being so intent on
coming. I read sex information
books, I touched and massaged my
body, I became more sensual and
really more sexual with myself.
Kathy
If you are taking antidepressants or considering it, talk with your practitioner about their possible effect on your libido. You can try various types of anti-depressants to see which gives you the best results. For survivors who choose to stay on antidepressants long term, you can get a testosterone patch from your doctor, which tends to increase libido. Talk to your prescribing physician about your options and the side effects of both antidepressants and testosterone patches.
Components of your desire may scare you because they mimic the abuse you endured. You may find the dynamics of power and surrender to be a turn-on. Nothing is wrong with this. The difference between childhood sexual abuse and adult consensual sex is that in adult sex, both partners are matured sexually and have the ability to make choices for themselves. In consensual sex, you are not being coerced, manipulated, or misused. Both partners’ needs, boundaries, and desires are considered.
I was orally raped as a girl. I really
like oral sex today, but I feel guilty.
Don’t I just like this because I was
abused this way?…I was abused
almost every way you can have
sex…so I guess that doesn’t leave
me many options.
Dede
Those of us who have been sexually abused may mistake sexual energy for abuse itself. Part of your job in healing will be to learn to differentiate sex from abuse. Just like money, sexual energy can be used for beneficial or destructive ends.
Luckily, finding and exploring your own desire is a learnable process, one that many people embrace as a lifelong commitment to themselves. First, come into your body, your feelings and sensations to find desire from the inside out. Then, educate yourself. What are all the different options for expressing my sexuality? What do people do, anyway?
Desire Is in Your Body
Your true desires reside in your body as feelings and sensations. Your sensations let you know that you are excited by someone, something, or an idea. When you shut down to avoid feelings of pain and betrayal, you also miss feelings of excitement, desire, and pleasure. Coming back into your body, reoccupying yourself from the inside out, is the most essential step in discovering your sexual desires. You are your body. Your thoughts take place in your body, along with your sensations, feelings, emotions, and even your spiritual longings and inspiration. Practice paying attention to physical feelings and sensations.
Let’s say you are at work, sitting at your desk or standing behind the counter. Can you feel your legs? Your feet on the ground? What are the sensations you notice in your chest or stomach? Try this now. The next time you are feeling sexual pleasure or arousal, bring your attention into your body. Notice where in your body you feel sexual.
The Pelvic Rock
Lie on your back with your feet on the floor, knees bent. Place a mat or folded blanket underneath you so that you are comfortable. Let your body settle onto the floor and bring your attention into your body. Notice the sensations in your body. Drop your breath into your belly. Breathe deeply. Do this for at least three breaths before you start the rock.
Next, begin to slowly rock your pelvis forward and back. Bring your pubic bone toward your belly button, then rock it back toward the ground. Your lower back will press into the floor and then arch away from the floor. This looks like and might feel like a sexual motion. Slowly continue to rock your pelvis back and forth, focusing on staying in your body, feeling your sensations. Do this for at least three minutes.
You will probably have all kinds of responses to this. You might feel sexually aroused. Great! You might notice that you float out or start thinking about something else. Notice your thoughts, but don’t let them draw your attention away from your feelings and the sensations in your body. Your emotional response to this exercise will give you information about what in you needs to heal. You may cry or get angry. Let that come,
too.
Now match your breathing to the pelvic movement. Inhale as you arch your back and exhale as you bring your pelvis toward your belly button. You can try increasing the speed of the rocking. How does this change your response? Practice getting to a point where you feel slightly uncomfortable, and then stay with that feeling. This exercise will help you increase your tolerance for your own sexual energy and help you get in touch with your own desire. You will also free up your pelvis and genitals, allowing movement and sensation back into this part of you.
Genital Healing
Here is another exercise to help you come back into your body and your sexual desire. Again, lie comfortably on your back, with your knees up, feet on the floor. Settle onto the ground and into your body and sensations. Breathe into your belly, deepening your breath. Keep your attention on the feelings and sensations in your body.
Next, rub your hands together to bring some heat and energy into them. When you are ready, place one hand gently onto your genitals. Let the warmth of your hand radiate into your genitals and pelvis. You could imagine them thawing or relaxing, and more life returning to them. Imagine them healing. Keep breathing all the way down into your pelvis and genitals, and keep your attention in your body.
If you choose, you can place your other hand on your heart or over your lower abdomen just above your pubic bone.
Try this for five minutes per session.
Your Sexual Self-Education
Where did you learn about sex and desire? Who taught you about your body? What did your family, your abuser, your school or religious affiliations teach you about sex and about your sexuality in particular? Is this what you want to believe? Do you think the information you learned is correct? These questions provide a good beginning for your sexual self-education.
There are lots of ways now to increase your knowledge about sex and desire. For starters, the remainder of this book is filled with information about sex and various sexual styles. You can also learn about sex by talking to your friends. Ask them what they like, what they don’t like, and why. Ask them what is easy for them about sex and what is difficult, and how their sex lives have changed over time. Most people are relieved to have an opportunity to talk honestly about sex and desire.
You can also read other people’s accounts of sex. We are currently enjoying a boom in women’s erotica. Annual series, such as Herotica, edited by Marcy Sheiner, Best American Erotica, edited by Susie Bright, and Best Lesbian Erotica, edited by Tristan Taormino, are great starting points for your research. You’ll find stories featuring everything from suggestive sensuality to explicit S/M and bondage. Try reading about sex styles that attract you as well as those that differ from yours. You’ll find quite an array of erotica titles in the bibliography, which also lists some great sex manuals, such as The New Good Vibrations Guide to Sex by Cathy Winks and Anne Semans. Here you can find positive and accurate sex information that treats sex as a normal part of being human. If you do not have access to erotica or sex manuals in your area, check out the mail-order companies listed in the Resources.
Don’t overlook print magazines like On Our Backs, Diva, and Hues. If you prefer to surf your sex, The Women’s Guide to Sex on the Web will point you to women’s erotica sites.
Watching erotic videos is another way to learn about sex and desire. You can find heterosexual, gay, and lesbian pornography. You can even find videos that match a special interest or fetish. And you can watch videos made by women like Candida Royalle, Nina Hartley, and Annie Sprinkle. Some of these look like traditional pornography and some have a very different aesthetic. There are also lesbians making pornography about lesbians—quite a leap from the traditional woman-on-woman sex scenes in mainstream pornography.
What Do You Think?
People have strong opinions about pornography. Here’s mine: I do not find anything “wrong” with sex on film. Porn can be hot, interesting, and erotic. The complications come when we look at the context in which porn is made. We still live in a society in which women earn far less than men for the same work. Children who report sexual abuse are not believed, rape victims are put on trial, and sexually powerful women are suspect.
The pornography industry for the most part is run by and profits men. There are abuses perpetrated against women in the pornography industry, as in many others. Yet many talented women work in the sex industry by choice as directors, producers, and actresses. The key issues, for me, are consent and economic independence. My wish for women in the sex industry is that they profit from their work—personally and financially—and fully enjoy sexual self-determination.
What do you think?
Some people try to make a distinction between pornography and erotica, but no one seems to be able to come up with definitions we can all agree on. I use the terms interchangeably.
Visit your friendly woman-run sex store to shop for erotic books and videos. The resource section of this book lists stores in New York, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver, Madison, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, and other cities, along with “virtual shops” on the Web.
Virgins and Whores
Sexual desire and expression are amazingly diverse, varying vastly over time and from culture to culture. Ancient Chinese texts on sexuality noted twelve specific names for different depths of the vagina. Each was named for its unique sensation, and instructions were included on how to best touch that particular area. In the earliest of these texts, women were the teachers of sexual knowledge. In other tribal cultures, older women instructed young women in female ejaculation, orgasm, and different positions for sex in preparation for marriage and initiation into womanhood.
In the West, views on sex and desire have changed over time as well. In the early twentieth century, vibrators were sold to physicians as medical devices that were used on women to cure “hysteria.” Basically, women were going to the doctor for an orgasm. Vibrators later became novelty items, and now very few people tell the sales clerk just what they are going to use that new back massager for!
Most of us are familiar with the model of women’s sexuality that permits us to be either virgins or whores. As women, we are not supposed to like sex, much less be fully expressed sexually on our own terms. (Quite a radical thought, huh?) A sexually expressed woman is considered a whore. Yet while we are not supposed to relish our own pleasures, we are supposed to be compelling sexual creatures, satisfying our partners. We are constantly acknowledged or disregarded in relation to our sexual desirability. This is quite a contradictory and confusing message.
In fact, the word virgin in its root definition means “she who is not owned by another.” Being virginal in its authentic definition has nothing to do with having had sex or not. A virgin is a woman who is self-possessed. May we all develop virginal sex lives.
First I had to wade through what my perpetrators told me about sex. Then I had to sort through the church and my neighborhood, what they think. It came off like layers, and I saw more and more of me. The piece I am working with now is my own “off-limits” territory around sexuality. There are these places I want to explore but am afraid to let myself. It keeps coming back to me being like them [the perpetrators] if I really like sex.
Sheila
What’s even crazier is that the sexual norms we inherit bear little resemblance to what people actually do. I think it would be great if everyone told the truth—for one moment—about their actual sexual practices and relationships, affairs and arrangements, fantasies and desires. The diversity would amaze us all.
We are still taught that heterosexuality is the norm and that only a few people practice same-sex eroticism. Yet in 1990, The Kinsey Institute reported that 35 to 50 percent of men and about 55 percent of women had same-sex erotic experiences.
While we are slowly changing our expectations of lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriage as the norm, the fact is this has not been the practice of most people for centuries. Today, most people practice serial monogamy and nonmonogamy. We can look at
divorce rates and media coverage of extramarital affairs for evidence of this. Look at your own circle of friends and colleagues to get the picture. Some people practice consensual nonmonogamy, also called polyamory, an arrangement that is chosen by the primary partners in a sexual relationship. Sadly, most people still practice the nonconsensual kind.
The Complexity of Desire
Desire is not a tidy little package that stays consistent over time. Desire in fact is multifaceted and full of contradictions.
This can be particularly true for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I find that many survivors try to rid themselves of these contradictions in an attempt to make their desires simpler, more “normal.” I am not sure that anyone’s sexuality is “normal” in the sense of matching cultural agendas. Human sexuality is more complex than the stereotypes imply.
Healthy sexuality embraces contradiction. This means that two or more seemingly opposite emotions or desires can be held at the same time. You may feel intense desire and shame at the same time. Sex and desire for you may hold both guilt and ease. You may want to be loved tenderly, to touch softly and be held, while another part of you wants to bite, whip, or tie someone up.
It is weird with pornography…sometimes it really turns me on and other times