The Survivor's Guide to Sex

by Staci Haines

  I had no idea that I could say “no” to sex. I thought that once I started kissing

  someone, that was it; I had to do whatever they wanted or else I’d be a tease.

  I had a lot of sex I didn’t want to have.

  Marty

  I used to worry that changing my mind during a sexual experience would be too hard on my girlfriend. I started to practice saying what I wanted and didn’t want as we went. She actually really liked it! Sometimes it slowed things down, but mostly it let us explore so much more. Our sex is a lot more interesting and hot now, and I feel known.

  Kate

  Having full say about your own body does not mean disregarding others’ feelings. It means that you have full say over you, while others have the same say over their bodies and sexuality. Some survivors are so unaccustomed to having control over their own sexuality that they confuse choice with selfishness. “What about what the other person wants?” they ask. The other person’s wants are just as valid and valuable as yours—just not more so. Find sexual experiences that will delight both of you, or don’t be sexual together at all.

  Sexual Abuse and Unwanted Sex

  Nearly all the survivors I have worked with report having had sex when they didn’t want to. It’s almost as if this were taken for granted; unwanted sex becomes such a given for survivors that many hardly notice it anymore.

  Childhood sexual abuse teaches you to disregard your own internal sense of boundaries and to run your life by somebody else’s rules. When you were abused, you did not get the opportunity to act on your internal sense of consent. You were not invited to state your boundaries, and if you managed to express your feelings, you were not heard or respected.

  Sexual abuse can also have the effect of turning consent upside down and inside out. “No” meant “yes,” and “yes” meant “no.” Saying “no” had no effect or may have brought on worse abuse. You may have been manipulated into asking for sexual contact. Sexual contact may have been your only source of comfort or connection.

  “No” was clearly not an acceptable response to my father. The last time I tried to say “no” I was nine. I said “no” and my body froze, wouldn’t cooperate. He became so outraged that he beat me, kicking me in the back, breaking my rib. “No” was no longer a possibility for me after this.

  Laura

  When I was seven, I asked my grandpa to play our “game” that he had taught me. It was a touching game. Before then he would tickle my back and I his, but this time he began touching my legs and my chest. He molested me. I always thought it was my fault.

  Marianne

  It is vital that you reintegrate the experience of choice and consent into your sex life. Regarding your body and soul, you are now the one who decides. You now have the first, middle, and last word on what you choose sexually.

  I often hear people make exceptions to this. “You mean I can say ‘no’ to sex with my husband of eighteen years?” Yes, you can say “no” anytime you do not want to have sex. While you did not have a choice about unwanted sexual contact as a child, you now get to have full choice about the kind of sex you want to have, when you want to have it, where, and with whom.

  Another survivor in a workshop realized, “These last years, as I have been coming into my sexuality, my partner has been judgmental about what I like sexually. He says something is wrong with me because my sexuality makes him uncomfortable. I am just fine. My desires are just fine. He doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to, but I also don’t have to limit myself based on his opinions.”

  People hold many unspoken rules about sex and consent: “You can’t say ‘no’ too many times in a row before you have to say ‘yes.’” “You can’t initiate sex too often because people will think you’re a nympho.” “You have to finish what you started.” Take a moment to reevaluate the rules you learned about consent both from the abuse and the culture at large. When are you not “allowed” to say “no”? When are you not “allowed” to say “yes” or initiate sex?

  You never again have to have unwanted sex. You never again have to have sex based solely on another person’s needs and desires—no matter how convincing your partner may be, no matter how much you may love your partner, not even if your partner threatens to leave you. From this moment on, you are the sole owner of your body and your sexuality.

  Even if …

  Even if…you have been married for twenty years, you can decline to have sex, whenever and as often as you like.

  Even if…you had sex with someone before, you can choose whether you want to have sex with him or her again.

  Even if…you have initiated sex twice already today, you can initiate sex again.

  Even if…you are turned on and have all your clothes off, you can choose to stop sexual activity.

  Even if…your partner does not want to try the things that you want, you can negotiate ways to express your sexuality on your own terms.

  Even if…your partner threatens to leave you, it is your choice not to be sexual.

  Even if…others think what you desire is strange, you can choose whatever sexual expression fits you.

  Even if…(add your own).

  Embodied Consent

  The information that you receive from your body in the form of sensations, feelings, and intuition is key to the process of making choices. Survivors learn to override their feelings and acquiesce to others’ wishes. I want to invite you back into your body now. From inside your own body, you can decide what you want sexually based on your own needs, desires, and values. I call this embodied consent.

  Consent was a good idea to me. It sounded right, but I didn’t for the life of me know what that meant in the actual situation.

  Pam

  The first step in embodied consent is noticing your own body sensations and signals. What are you feeling in your chest, your pelvis, your stomach? When you are doing something that you want to do, when your insides are saying “yes,” how do you know this? For example, one survivor I worked with said her stomach relaxes and she gets a warm sensation there when she knows it is okay for her to go ahead. Another survivor reported that she felt an openness and warmth in her pelvis and a connection to her voice and throat when she felt a “yes.” Check this out for yourself. How do you know when your body says “yes”?

  Conversely, what signals and sensations appear in your body when you do not want to engage in a certain sexual experience? How do you know when it is not feeling right anymore? Another survivor reported: “I start to feel panicky in my chest and want to pull away physically. I usually try to talk myself into sexual contact, telling myself, ‘what’s the big deal? Nothing bad is happening.’ Then if I don’t listen to my body, I usually check out and have sex without being there.” When you do not want to be sexual in some way, you may notice your breathing getting short, your stomach getting tight, or your body wanting to pull away. Pay attention. This is you communicating to you. What sensations in your body communicate a “no” to you?

  And what about maybe? Sometimes there are a number of seemingly contradictory feelings happening in your body at once. You may feel sexually turned on in your hips and vulva, and feel pulled away in your chest. You may feel a warmth in your solar plexus, indicating the go-ahead, and be afraid or tight in your throat. What do you do then?

  Actually, experiencing contradictory feelings is familiar territory for most survivors. Consent then becomes a matter of distinguishing what sensations are what. One workshop participant noted, “I feel the consent to be sexual in my belly, it is a settled, sure sensation, and I can feel anxious in my chest at the same time. I am anxious when I am getting close to someone. I can count on this happening. It does not mean I do not want to be sexual. It just means I am feeling scared while I am being sexual.” Another survivor shared, “I usually stop having sex when my stomach gets tight. I see now, though, that my stomach being tight is me feeling stressed about being turned on. It was so awful to get turned on during the sexual molest
ation that my body still tries not to do it. If I just relax and acknowledge my stomach and the fear there, I can go right on being sexual. My stomach being tight does not mean I do not want to have sex.”

  Sometimes we make choices about sex in our heads, because it seems like a good idea, seems to make sense, when we may be feeling something entirely different in our bodies.

  I have sex when it seems right, like all the pieces are in place… I never even thought to check in with my body to see if I wanted to have sex.

  Barb

  I didn’t know I had a body, so I made almost all my decisions out of my head.

  I ignored my body just like I did when I was getting abused. It seemed like a

  morass of emotions and feelings that I didn’t want anything to do with.

  Rose

  You can end up feeling used, angry, or self-loathing after such a decision.

  Consent does not always feel comfortable, easy, and joyous. Sometimes a consensual sexual experience can bring up sadness, anger, or feelings of abandonment. It is important to learn the difference between experiencing feelings and wanting to stop what you are doing. You can do this by paying attention to your body and learning its language.

  Informed Consent

  To practice consent, you need outside information, too—all of the information necessary to make a decision. You may need to know that your partner is willing to practice safer sex or that he or she is available for the type of relationship you desire. You may need to know that your partner will stay with you through the messier moments of your healing process. What are your criteria for having sex?

  I have finally learned to ask guys I am interested in if they practice safer sex before I have sex with them. What a concept!

  Jackie

  Here are some questions to ask your partner:

  • Are you willing to practice safer sex? Have you been tested for sexually transmitted diseases? When? What were the results?

  • I am interested in being nonmonogamous (or monogamous). Where do you stand on that?

  • I am looking for a long-term relationship (or a summer fling). What are you looking for?

  • What do you like sexually? I like oral sex (or lots of cuddling or anal penetration). Is this something you are interested in?

  While these questions may seem rather forward, you can save yourself and others heartaches and headaches by learning to communicate about sex. You can have this conversation before you are sexual with a partner, early on in a sexual relationship, or after years in a marriage or long-term relationship.

  The idea of actually talking about sex was a shocker. You mean, say all of this out loud? Luckily, I trusted the friend who kept encouraging this. I explored what I might want to say and realized that certain things were important to me about sex and that they were worth saying.

  Evelyn

  Knowing What You Want

  Of course, you have to know what you want before you can tell someone else. Your desires are not an unchanging menu of sex acts. Rather, knowing what you want means knowing what feels pleasurable or hot to you, what you are interested in exploring, and what is scary yet intriguing to you.

  As you articulate your desires, you can count on making mistakes. You will end up saying “no” to something you wish you had tried, and you will most likely say “yes” to something that you later discover you did not want.

  When I first let myself start having sex, I didn’t know where my boundaries were. When I messed up and had sex I didn’t want to have, I felt awful—like now I was betraying myself. I kept trying, though, and was easier on myself after a while. How was I supposed to be good at having boundaries when I was never allowed to have one? I had to learn.i

  Naomi

  Be your own strongest advocate and be gentle with yourself. Respect your own sense of consent and boundaries as you would want the person you love most to be respected. Give yourself room to explore and make mistakes.

  Communicating Consent

  My new mantra about sex is this: If you want it, say so; if you don’t want it, say so. It is up to me now to take care of me.

  Rebecca

  You may find it frightening to talk about sex—especially with the person you want to have sex with. Yet good sexual communication is the single most important tool you can acquire to improve and empower your sex life. Communication is how you consent

  Take a moment now and practice saying aloud, “I would like to have sex with you.” Change the words if you want to, but imagine you are inviting someone to have sex with you. Now try, “I might be interested in having sex with you; I’ll get back to you.” And now, “I do not want to have sex with you.” Change “have sex” to another sexual activity and repeat the three statements: “I would like to kiss you.” “I might be interested in touching you.” “I do not want to have intercourse with you.”

  Now say these in front of a mirror. There you are, a person learning to talk about sex! Talking about sex will become comfortable over time. At Good Vibrations, I lost count of the number of times people thanked me for being able to speak about sex as a normal and natural part of life. People were relieved to hear me say “vulva,” “clitoris,” “penis,” “anus,” and “balls” without laughing or having my voice crack. This normalization of sex and sexual terms came with practice. Believe me, I wanted to giggle a lot during my training!

  Once I learned that I deserve to be sexual when I want to and not when I don’t,

  then I had to learn how to say it. That was weird, and harder than I’d thought.

  I would get all embarrassed and shy, and not want to speak. I had to do it any-way

  because I was not going to go ahead when I didn’t want to anymore; I was

  tired of not asking for what I wanted.

  Jo

  Surprisingly, saying what I wanted sexually made me more nervous than saying “no.” I thought, “Who am I to actually ask for the sex I want?” I did not feel deserving of it. I felt like a slut sometimes, and I felt shame that I was being so forward. This was all muck from the abuse that I had to work through.

  Sheila

  “Yes,” “No,” and “Maybe” Vignettes

  The following are stories about consent that I have collected over time in my work with survivors and sexual healing. I include them here as examples of embodied consent and communication:

  The “Yes”

  I was becoming more comfortable with my sexuality and had been learning to masturbate. I had the idea that I’d like to invite my husband to watch me masturbate. So, I asked him. He was surprised and delighted. I watched him watching me, and I felt connected to him. It was much more exciting than I’d expected. I asked him to kiss me but not touch me while I continued to masturbate. I came that way, kissing him. It was a little scary and so good for me.

  The “Maybe”

  My girlfriend moved to another state to attend college and I stayed home because of work. We could only afford to see each other periodically, and things got pretty lonely. She suggested that we try phone sex, that we both get vibrators or dildos and masturbate with each other while talking sexy over the phone. I was so uncomfortable when she asked. Instead of saying “no,” though, I said, “Maybe, give me a few days to think about it.” I thought about what made me so uncomfortable. I was scared that I might sound silly, or that I might not be very good at it. Those weren’t good enough reasons for me to not do it, and I thought I could see it as a new challenge. I was awkward at first, but it was so fun over time. I learned so much about both of us sexually, and I became a lot more confident about sex and talking about sex by talking on the phone.

  The “No”

  A long-term co-worker asked me to dinner and propositioned me. He actually put quite a lot of pressure on me to have sex. I clearly stated that I wasn’t interested. It took three times before he got it.

  I was playing around with my lover. We’d only been lovers for a few months and I hadn’t talked about the incest much.
He began to put his mouth on my breast in a way that really reminded me of the abuse. I didn’t know what to do at first; then I took a deep breath and told him that I really liked him touching me, but I didn’t enjoy him sucking on my breast like that. I told him I liked it better when he nibbled. It had taken me a lot of sexual healing to get to the place where I could do that. I was so proud of myself, and he did fine with it.

  Negotiate Before You Play

  In the S/M community, there is a practice of negotiating before any S/M or sexual play. The idea is to talk about your interests, your boundaries, your desires, and safer sex before getting into the action. This practice can be empowering for people of any sexual persuasion. Talking about sex before you do it gives you the opportunity to create a sexual experience that includes your needs, desires, and boundaries.