The Survivor's Guide to Sex Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  illustrations

  Introduction

  chapter one - Safety, Somatics, and Sexual Healing

  The Choice to Heal

  Safety and Sexual Healing

  What’s Down This Road, Anyway?

  Somebody to Lean On: Self-Care and Support

  Somatics: Including Your Body in Healing

  Safer Sex

  Getting Started

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter two - Desire and Pleasure

  Discovering Your Pleasure and Desire

  Desire Is in Your Body

  Your Sexual Self-Education

  The Complexity of Desire

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter three - Dissociation

  Checking Out

  Dissociation and You

  The Road Back: Healing Dissociation

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter four - Self-Denial

  Survival Is a Powerful Act

  Sexual Aversion: Who Needs Sex, Anyway?

  Sexual Compulsion: Sex As the Only Way

  Healing Self-Denial

  The End of Self-Denial

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter five - Sexual Response and Anatomy: Information Is Power

  Where Did You Learn That?

  So What Is That Thing? A Lesson in Sexual Anatomy

  Sexual Response Cycle

  Gynecological Issues

  Your Body

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter six - Masturbation and Self-Healing

  Self-Loving

  A Bad Rap

  Your Keystone to Healing

  But I Don’t Want to Masturbate

  Five Steps to Great Masturbation

  How to Touch Yourself

  A Masturbation Date

  Sex Toys, Fantasies, and Porn

  Compulsive Masturbation

  Mutual Masturbation

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter seven - Consent and Boundaries: The “Yes,” “No,” and “Maybe” of Sex

  What Is Consent?

  Sexual Abuse and Unwanted Sex

  Embodied Consent

  Informed Consent

  Knowing What You Want

  Communicating Consent

  “Yes,” “No,” and “Maybe” Vignettes

  Negotiate Before You Play

  Response from Others

  Healthy Risks

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter eight - Partner Sex

  The Good, the Bad, and…the Pleasurable?

  Choosing Sexual Partners

  Let’s Talk About Sex

  How to Meet Sexual Partners

  Flirting and Kissing

  Go Out There and Have Fun!

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter nine - Oral Sex

  Cunnilingus

  The How-to’s of Cunnilingus

  Fellatio

  The How-to’s of Fellatio

  Rimming

  The How-to’s of Rimming

  Safer Oral Sex

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter ten - Penetration

  Vaginal Penetration

  The How-to’s of Vaginal Penetration

  Anal Penetration

  The How-to’s of Anal Penetration

  Safer Penetration

  Penetration and Triggers

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter eleven - Embracing Triggers

  What Is a Trigger?

  Map to Recovery

  Embracing Triggers: This Way Out

  Trigger Plan and Tools

  Tell It Like It Is: Communication and Triggers

  Safewords

  Troubling Desire

  Healing Triggers Outside of Partner Sex

  Taking a Break from Sex

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter twelve - The Emotions of Healing: You Gotta Feel Your Way Out of This

  You Have to Feel It to Heal It

  The Five Stages of Emotions

  Emotional Centering

  Emotional Sourcing

  Emotional Healing

  Being Witnessed in Your Emotions

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter thirteen - S/M, Role-Playing, and Fantasy

  S/M 101: Consent, Power, Sensation

  Exploring the Edges

  S/M and Survivors

  S/M as “Acting Out” Abuse

  Vanilla Role-Playing

  Fantasy

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter fourteen - Sex Toys and Accoutrements

  Vibrators

  Dildos and Harnesses

  Anal Toys

  Lubricants

  S/M and Bondage Toys

  Toys, Safer Sex, and Cleaning

  Erotic Books and Videos

  Phone Sex

  Cyber Sex

  Your Play Toys

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter fifteen - Spiritual Sexuality

  Tantra

  Yoni Massage

  Sacred Masturbation and Ceremony

  Learning More

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter sixteen - Intimacy and Self-Forgiveness

  Combining Intimacy and Sex: Turning up the Heat

  Self-Forgiveness

  Self-Trust and Compassion

  Do I Deserve Pleasure?

  Self-Permission

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter seventeen - Partnering with Survivors of Sexual Abuse

  It’s Not Your Fault

  No Saviors, No Patients

  Take Care of Yourself

  Expand Your Sexual Repertoire

  You Get to Change, Too

  Survivors as Partners

  Sex Guide Exercises

  chapter eighteen - Your Powerful Sexual Self: Who Are You Becoming?

  chapter nineteen - Bibliography and Resources

  CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE

  RELATIONSHIPS - Books

  ADDICTION AND RECOVERY - Recovery Resources, Organizations, and Hotlines

  SOMATIC HEALING

  SEX-POSITIVE SEX INFORMATION

  Index

  About the Author

  Copyright © 1999 by Staci Haines.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  Published in the United States by Cleis Press Inc., P.O. Box 14684,

  San Francisco, California 94114.

  Printed in the United States.

  Cover design: Scott Idleman

  Cover photographs: Melanie Friend

  Text design: Karen Huff

  Cleis Press logo art: Juana Alicia © 1986

  First Edition.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Illustrations copyright © 1998, 1999 by Fish.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Haines, Staci.

  The survivor’s guide to sex : how to have an empowered sex life after child sexual abuse / Staci Haines.—1st ed. p. cm.

  ISBN 1-57344-079-5 (alk. paper)

  1. Adult child sexual abuse victims—United States—Psychology. 2. Adult child sexual abuse victims—United States—Sexual Behavior. 3. Sex counseling—United States. 4. Sex instruction—United States. 5. Somatics I. Title

  HV6570.2.H34 1999 362.76’4’0973—dc21 99-24107

  CIP
/>   Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the women who agreed to be interviewed for this book. Your stories are vital and courageous, and your creativity in re-inventing your lives is inspiring. Thank you also to the women and men I’ve the opportunity to work with in my somatic practice and workshops. I am honored to be a part of your lives.

  Thank you to Felice Newman, Frédérique Delacoste, and Don Weise of Cleis Press... Felice, thank you, especially for your commitment to this book. Your dedication made it possible. Thank you to Genanne Walsh for compiling the sexuality bibliography, to Lauren Whittemore for help with the Resource, and to Fish for your fabulous illustrations. I want to thank Aurora Levins Morales for supporting me as a writer and engaging in hours of conversation, on everything from politics to sex and beyond.

  To all the folks at Good Vibrations. Thank you for your work and our years together. And to my many friends in the sex positive community, especially to Carol Queen for our at times heated conversations, and Jackie Bruckman and Shar Rednour for who you are. I am grateful and delighted.

  My relationships with friends, chosen family, community, and teachers are reflected in this writing.

  Thanks to Serge Kahali King, NLP Austin, Loveworks, Lomi School, Suki Mathewes, Peggy Hammes, and Equity Institute, Jessica Murray, and Audre Lorde for your years of learning and dedication that you have so generously passed onto me.

  A special thanks to Edie Swan for encouraging my thinking and writing. And many great thanks to Richard Strozzi Heckler and Rancho Strozzi Institute for learning in the field of somatics, your willingness to risk creating a new discourse, and not being afraid of much of anything you find in people.

  Thanks to those of you who have walked this road close to me. Your love, courage, and willingness to hang in the unknown with me has made all of the difference. David Moerbe, Wendy Haines, Mary Kay Haines, Clare Huntington, and Ruby Gold. And to my gal, Denise Benson, thank you for all of your love, brazenness, and delight in the shadows.

  To my friends, whom I adore, thank you for embracing the delights and the horrors, my wildness and seriousness as one big package. Thank you for being the brilliant people that you are. Akaya Windwood, Maria Gonzales Barron, Beverly Wagstaff, Jen Cohen, Terri Hague, Mary Beth Krouse, Gillian Harkins, Babette Bourgeois, Val Robb, Kim Miller, Kacie Stetson, Penny Rosenwasser, Anita Montero, Donna Diamond, George Harrison, and Ric Owen.

  Thanks to my family, each of whom is attempting to courageously walk through the chaos, and do right by their lives and each other. Last, but certainly not least, thank you to Spirit, for everything.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the girls that we were.

  Welcome to the rest of your life, and the world you can create.

  May it be filled with pleasure and wisdom.

  illustrations

  1. Safer-Sex Gear, page 19

  2. Female Anatomy, page 67

  3. Male Anatomy, page 72

  4. Anal Anatomy, page 75

  5. Vibrators, page 201

  6. Dildos and Harnesses, page 204

  7. Anal Toys, page 206

  8. S/M Toys, page 209

  Introduction

  A Personal Journey

  The Survivor’s Guide to Sex confronts a double taboo: women’s sexuality and child abuse, both subjects our culture would rather have us whisper about behind closed doors or, better yet, deny entirely. Yet for survivors, sex was the very site of attack. Children can be abused verbally, emotionally, physically, and through many forms of neglect. Why, then, sexual abuse? Why were we wounded in our most intimate places? I believe that sexual assault is an attempt to disempower, own, or destroy another. Alice Miller calls childhood sexual abuse “soul murder.” Many survivors would agree with her. I often felt that my perpetrators were reaching for my soul, trying to take something from me that was long lost in themselves.

  Women’s sexuality is the other piece of the double taboo. What is so threatening about a sexually empowered woman? A sexually empowered woman is a woman who is embodied, whose sexual expression is a part of herself, and whose sex life is self-defined. A sexually empowered woman is able to make choices for herself; she is able to express consent and maintain boundaries that serve her. She can ask for what she wants. She becomes self-referential, meaning she trusts her own experience and intelligence over external messages. Incest is the ultimate training in not trusting one’s self. Becoming sexually empowered restores that self-trust.

  The wounds of children victimized by sexual abuse are so profoundly deep that most of us find ourselves turning away in denial or blaming the victims themselves. Yet one in three girls, and one in six boys, are victims of childhood sexual abuse. Few of us can face this cultural dis-ease. Whom might you see if you looked? Someone in your own family? Your favorite soccer coach, your child’s music teacher, or your next-door neighbor?

  I came to sex education and sexual healing through a very personal route. As is true for many women, my own healing began while I was having sex with a boyfriend. This was my moment of clarity, when I faced the fact that I had been sexually abused by my father and several “family friends” for much of my youth. I had no idea what was going on—I only knew that some internal boulder had rolled away from the mouth of the cave, and my history came pouring out.

  Thus my healing journey began. I spent two years running from recovery before I finally surrendered to my healing. Before I finally faced the abuse, I experienced insomnia, an inability to eat, and a thick brick wall of depression that separated me from the world. The years that followed were horrible and miraculous. I found healing, devastation, loss, confrontation, a family falling apart and weaving (partly) together again. If you are healing from childhood sexual assault, you know exactly what I am talking about. You have stories of your own.

  During the years of abuse, my survival depended upon a strong spiritual connection, a natural talent for dissociating, and being a high achiever. When I began studying the effects of trauma on children’s lives, I found that survivors usually fall into the under- or overachiever camps. We are the really good kids or the really bad kids. Discovering this was a relief for me. As is true for many survivors, no one ever asked me what was up, because I was doing so well.

  Actually, my second-grade teacher did ask me why I was going to the bathroom so frequently. I had chronic vaginal and yeast infections. I didn’t know what was causing the itching and pain, so I would go to the bathroom a lot to check. Eventually, she pulled me aside and asked what was going on. When I didn’t say anything, she asked me to go home and talk with my mom about what was happening. That was the wrong place to turn for help. Ashamed, I told my mom over dinner. She said it was just discharge and that all the women in our family had it (which speaks volumes about my family).

  By junior high I was a master at dissociation. I would sit in science class and stare at my own arm. It seemed utterly bizarre to me that this was my arm. How could it be my arm? What was my arm, anyway? Except for athletics—where it was safe to feel my physical self—I did not relate to being in my body.

  My tactic was to control my emotions and feelings, including sexual ones. In high school, I couldn’t comprehend the whole “blue balls” thing the boys complained about. I could turn my sexual interest on and off again, easy as that. I wondered why others couldn’t do that, too. As a kid, I didn’t masturbate, and neighborhood games of truth-or-dare brought on huge attacks of shame if they involved anything even remotely sexual.

  While I controlled my sexual feelings and desire, my sister’s survival tactics were the opposite. Instead of controlling sex, she was out exploring with all the neighborhood kids. She says she was considered very sophisticated about sex in our neighborhood.

  Once I began having consensual sex in high school, I organized my intimate life in the classic survivor split: My best friend was a guy with whom I shared my emotional life, my secrets, and my philosophical reflections. My boyfriend, with whom I explored sex,
was someone else. I could hardly speak a word to him. I actually did love him but was terrified to share myself with him. I could not endure emotional intimacy and sex at the same time. I froze.

  I was uninterested in other girls, who seemed weak and sissy-like to me. I hated pink. All my friends were boys. I didn’t want to be a man, but I certainly was not going to be a woman. I identified as androgynous. It wasn’t until I was exposed to feminism in college, and discovered powerful female role models, that I began calling myself a woman.

  Somatic Healing

  Much of my healing took place while I was a student at Oberlin College. It was a gift to find myself in the center of such a politicized and socially aware community. I knew that I was not alone in surviving abuse. When I couldn’t heal for myself, I healed to make a difference for the future. Brave women before me had survived sexual assault and had made my life easier by their choices. I wanted to be a part of that chain of hope for others. Having that larger social context in which to see my abuse was very empowering. I organized the first incest survivors’ group on campus and formed a student activist group to deal with the college’s inadequate response to rape on campus. I advocated for government financial support for incest survivors and won grants to fund survivors’ recovery resources.