The Survivor's Guide to Sex Read online

  Early on in recovery, I worked with someone who practiced body-oriented therapy. I am so grateful to her. She helped me work the trauma out of my body and opened my emotional life to me again.

  The abuse seemed to pour out of my body. The more I reconnected with my body, the clearer I became about what trauma was stored where. My thighs retained rage. Moving my thighs and kicking my legs allowed me to begin expressing my anger. My chest held much of the deep grief. Where my body had been pinned or frozen during the abuse, I now began to move. How many times had I wanted to push someone off of me and couldn’t? I learned how to let my arms and body do that. The relief was incredible. The process was painful. I was coming back to me. I started to identify my body not only as a shell that housed my “self” but as a source of wisdom and inspiration. My body actually knew things about the healing process that I didn’t. In the thawing out, I got to live inside myself again.

  Since then, I’ve learned that the somatic processes I went through are consistent with processes of survivors of all forms of trauma. War veterans, Holocaust survivors, and even victims of severe auto accidents experience similar processes of dissociation and freezing or holding in the body. The somatic release of these holdings allows us to process and complete trauma.

  Through the healing, my sexuality emerged from a new place in me. It became less and less about how sex was supposed to look and more about my own experience of sex and desire. I had been quite sexually active during my two years of running from the healing process, but I could not really be present while having sex. I was going ninety miles an hour in my own head. I didn’t know how to say what I wanted and didn’t really know I had permission to do so. As I healed, this changed. My own sexual interests and preferences emerged from beneath the incest. I began to date women—and I have been sexual with women since then. The more the trauma poured out of me, the more I filled me in.

  As may be the case for you, sex triggered me. I would be having a fine time and suddenly find myself feeling afraid, used, and abused. As I got turned on, images of the abuse appeared; it became impossible to separate then from now. My sexual response had become intermingled with abuse and betrayal. So when I experienced one, the other followed. Untangling these became my project. I would make lists to differentiate them: “What is sex?” “What is abuse?”

  I slowly learned to keep myself present, allowing myself to practice sexual turn-ons that were connected to my body and my pleasure. I felt a lot of shame and guilt. Am I allowed pleasure? If I like sex now, does it mean I wanted the abuse? Can I be the one who says what kind of touch and sex I want? I continued to release the trauma from my body. What was caught in me that I wanted to express? How could I live deeply inside of me? As I healed, it dawned on me that sexual energy was a positive and powerful force in my own recovery.

  Good Vibrations

  From 1991 to 1995, I worked at Good Vibrations, the “clean well-lighted place for sex toys.” Joanie Blank founded Good Vibrations in 1977 to provide a place for women to purchase sex toys and have access to positive and accurate information about sex and their own sexuality. Her small one-room retail space with a staff of three has grown into two retail stores, a Web site and mail-order operation, and a workforce that can barely fit into the staff photo in the front of the catalog. Moreover, Good Vibrations has become a leader in the field of sex education.

  This was a great experience for me as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, albeit challenging and triggering at times. Through my experience and training at Good Vibrations, I learned more about sex than I even knew I wanted to know. Where incest had taught me the most destructive uses of sex, here I sat amid a plethora of sex-positive information. Sex became normalized for me. All of this sex-positivity balanced the scales. Now I knew both the worst and the best of sex.

  As a manager at Good Vibrations, however, I found myself caught repeatedly between two worlds: the world of survivors, hurt and at times paranoid about sex, and the world of sex-positive educators, many of whom did not want to hear about the negative uses of sex or the effects of sexual abuse.

  Many in the survivors’ community were afraid of sex and thought the best they could hope for would be something slightly better than just tolerating it. Survivors who liked sex and who spoke openly about it were met with mistrust and even, at times, disdain. It was assumed that they were “acting out” their sexual abuse. Pleasure was suspect. To me, it seemed to boil down to no trust in sex. Understandable, but not the recovery I hoped for.

  Among sex educators, there was little talk of sexual violence or the sexual contradictions experienced by women who have been sexually violated. In a culture where sex is simultaneously vilified and used to sell you everything you can think of, confusion and negativity about sex is rampant. The call to sex-positivity and women’s sexual self-definition was welcome. Still, I found myself educating the educators about the effects of childhood sexual abuse on adult sexuality. One colleague went so far as to suggest that incest itself wasn’t the problem, that it was the cultural taboo surrounding incest that was harmful. No, no, no!

  Educating the Educators

  So I became a bridge, talking about sex with survivors and professionals who worked with them, and talking about childhood sexual abuse with sex-positive sex educators. To me, sexual empowerment seemed a normal outgrowth of healing childhood sexual abuse, and working to end the sexual abuse of children an obvious banner for the sex-positive community to fly.

  I found myself longing for a place where I could talk about all of it: sex, sexual abuse, rape and its effects on sex, and the glory and healing powers of consensual adult sexuality and embodiment. I wanted to have conversations that went further than the ABCs of childhood sexual abuse (“Yes, it really does happen, and yes, it really does hurt the child, and yes, most often the abuser is someone close to the child”) or the ABCs of sex education (“Yes, sex really is a natural part of being human, and yes, there are words for ‘down there,’ and yes, you are allowed to ask for what you want sexually”). The opportunity came when On Our Backs magazine asked me to write a series of articles in 1995. Felice Newman, co-publisher of Cleis Press, read my first article and called me. Thus, the beginning of this book.

  The Survivor’s Guide to Sex is written for women survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Male survivors of abuse will find the tools and resources useful for their recovery as well. Survivors and non-survivors alike will find the embodiment approach to sexual recovery a refreshing antidote to the sex-negativity of our culture.

  A Path Through the Wreckage

  Miraculously, most survivors want to find a path through the wreckage of sexual trauma to sexual enjoyment. And why not? Sex is a fundamental human drive, one that brings pleasure, delight, ease, connection, and embodiment into our lives. I see sexual healing as the cornerstone of empowerment for the hundreds and thousands of us who have been sexually molested as children. For most survivors to allow pleasure, much less embodied sexual pleasure, into their lives is a feat. Once you begin to reclaim and re-embody sexually, you can enter the place of trauma and relinquish its control over you. You can bring peace and vitality back into your life.

  At a recent International Conference on Somatics, Emilie Conrad, the founder of Continuum, a somatic approach, said, “The more you are in your own experience, sensations, your own body, the less some external or authoritarian system can control you.”

  Behind this book is a vision of ending the sexual abuse of children and building a world that it welcoming, safe, and respectful of their humanity. Embodiment and the power of reclaiming your own sexuality are both a part of this societal healing. People who are embodied—not dissociated nor anesthetized—are much less likely to abuse children or stand by while others abuse them.

  As a somatics practitioner, I have watched survivors return to the sensations and intelligence of their bodies as a place of healing. This book is filled with information, suggestions, and exercises to help you reoccupy your body.
Waking up somatically will make you more aware of yourself and your surroundings. You will become a more powerful contributor to your family, your community, and the world.

  I see sexual healing as the cornerstone of empowerment for the hundreds and thousands of us who have been sexually molested as children. For most survivors to allow pleasure, much less embodied sexual pleasure, into their lives is a feat. Once you begin to reclaim and re-embody sexually, you can take back the very ground of attack. You are returning to the center of a war zone and declaring the territory yours. You get to own your life.

  I see our capacity to recover as extraordinary. I have met so many survivors—close friends, somatics clients, the women who are quoted in this book—who have been resilient through extreme abuse. The more stories I hear, the more I am stunned by the extent of the sexual abuse of children and the more I am awed be the regenerative power of our spirits and humanity.

  If you are a survivor of childhood sexual abuse ready to begin this journey, congratulations! I hope that this book brings you healing along with pleasure, hope, and laughter. I wish you a satisfying, embodied sex life, a life that is your own lovely creation. You are more powerful than what happened to you.

  San Francisco

  May 1999

  chapter one

  Safety, Somatics, and Sexual Healing

  The Choice to Heal

  Is your sexuality a healthy and integrated part of you? Can you talk easily about sex, your sexual desires, and your sexual healing and needs? Are you able to know and communicate your sexual boundaries?

  These are admittedly leading questions. Many survivors do not have a good reference point for their own sexual well-being and pleasure. And why should you? Childhood sexual abuse is not what you might call positive input about sex or your own sexuality. To begin this process of sexual recovery it is vital to know why you want to embark on this journey. What do you want to gain from healing sexually? How do you want your sex life to be different?

  It took me a long time to decide to heal sexually. I kept thinking, “Why go through all of that? Sex, I can take it or leave it.” But something kept tugging at me, like a part of me wanted to be whole again.

  Hannah

  Motivations for Healing

  So why heal sexually, anyway? What do you want in your sex life that you do not have now? What would it be like to not find triggers around every corner? To fully experience sexual pleasure and expression? Ask yourself these questions.

  What motivated me initially is that I couldn’t say “no.” I was having sex with people I did not want to have sex with, looking for attention and acknowledgment through sex. At first I just wanted and needed to stop doing this; then, slowly it began to dawn on me that I could actually have sex based on what I wanted and needed. That I could have sex that I liked.

  Kathy

  Some motivations for healing will sustain you through the process better than others. Deciding to heal because you think you are “bad” or “dirty” or believe something is “wrong” with you won’t necessarily serve your cause. Most folks eventually tune out negative motivations —or rebel against them. Developing a positive motivation is more sustaining and will give you a vision to work toward. If you are unable to think of positive motivations, ask a friend or support person to help you brainstorm at least three positive reasons to heal sexually. Many survivors want to heal to save their relationship or please their partner. Perhaps your partner wants to have sex but you don’t. While sex is an important part of any intimate partnership, you need to develop motivations that are just for you. Pressure from a partner can make it difficult to tell whether you are really making a choice. Encouragement is wonderful, but you still have to want to do this work. You will not speed up the healing process by having sex that is forced, dissociated, or checked out.

  Positive Motivations for Sexual Healing

  • I want to gain a freedom in my body. I want to be able to move, make noise, and express myself fully.

  • I want to heal the shame that runs my sex life so that I feel relaxed and excited during sex.

  • I want to enjoy touching myself.

  • I want my body back, all the way.

  • I want pleasure and being present in my sex life to be the norm, instead of fear and checking out.

  • I want to have sex in the ways I am interested in. I want to be more courageous sexually.

  • I want to be able to respect and communicate my sexual boundaries.

  • I want to learn that I am loved for me and not for sex alone.

  • I want to be make my own sexual choices.

  • I want to have sex and intimacy at the same time.

  I didn’t want him to leave me. He had been so good through this whole mess, I just wanted to please him. The sex wasn’t even good when I just did it for him, but at least I was giving him sex, I thought. I couldn’t “heal” just to make him stay, though. It was only when I tuned into how my life could be different, how I might feel more positively about myself, that I made any progress in sex.

  Sheila

  Last, you do not need to have a sexual partner to be actively sexual. Nor does sexual healing have to wait for a lover. The concepts and exercises outlined in this book apply to you whether you are partnered or single. Many people do much of their sexual healing work on their own and then move into a relationship with new tools and knowledge.

  The decision to heal sexually is a choice to reclaim an aspect of yourself that has been wounded and used. It is a choice to make whole again a very powerful and vital aspect of your being. This process can be extremely uncomfortable, yet it can give you amazing freedom, pleasure, and satisfaction. It can give you you back.

  Safety and Sexual Healing

  Safety is an odd concept for most survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I’m usually met with raised eyebrows when I ask survivors about feeling safe and being sexual. Incest and childhood sexual abuse are frightening experiences that undermine the development of your sense of safety in yourself, your body, your relationships, your sexuality, and the world.

  When it comes to sex, I am terrified. People talk about safety, and I can’t relate to that. Feeling safe and having sex seem to live in two separate worlds.

  Carla

  Safety is complicated for survivors. During the abuse your safety was out of your hands. If you could have done anything to make it stop, you would have. Really. The intelligent mistake you, like most survivors, probably made as a kid was thinking that you had some control over your safety. You didn’t. Children are manipulated, coerced, threatened, and forced into sexual abuse, sometimes under the guise of love.

  I thought if I could just be good enough, smart enough, nice enough, perfect enough that I could keep me and my brother safe. It never worked. I never succeeded. I am not really sure what else to do to be safe.

  Rona

  What’s tricky is that now you need to develop a sense of safety to move into your sexual healing. Without a sense of safety, you cannot engage your sexuality. You especially can’t take on new challenges and growth if you don’t feel safe. How do you know when you are safe?

  What Is Safety?

  Most people think of safety as a “feeling” of being safe. While this is one way to judge safety, it is not always reliable. You can be in a very safe situation and feel unsafe because you are dealing with an aspect of your abuse. Or, because you are a trauma survivor, you may be in an unsafe situation and feel just fine. While feeling safe is important, it does not necessarily give you reliable ground upon which to determine if you are safe, or safe enough to proceed.

  WHAT TELLS YOU THAT YOU ARE SAFE?

  When checking in on your safety in a given situation, consider the following:

  • How do you feel in your body? Do you feel safe, scared, unsettled?

  • Is your physical environment safe and free of violence and abuse? (No one is hitting, kicking, punching, or pushing you. No one is calling you names or threatening you
or anyone you care about.)

  • Does your partner, lover, or friend consider your needs, wants, and desires as important and relevant as his or her own?

  • Can your partner, lover, or friend really meet your needs? Does he or she have the know-how, the tools, and the good intention?

  • Do you have the power in this situation to act upon your own behalf? To take care of yourself fully?

  • Are you making your own choices? Not being pressured, pushed, or manipulated?

  Asking yourself these questions gives you a way to assess whether or not you are safe—even when you do not necessarily feel safe.