by Staci Haines
By avoiding sex, you may also think you can avoid destructive beliefs about yourself that you learned from the abuse. If you were taught that you are only good for sex, avoiding sex could seem to prove that this is not true. If you were taught that the abuse was all your fault, avoiding your sexuality could seem to help you avoid the deep shame and guilt that comes with that.
My guilt about the sexual abuse runs so deep. If I have a good time sexually, I feel like I am betraying someone—or it proves that I wanted the abuse all along. It is easier not to have sex.
Rona
You may be afraid that if you express your sexual energy it will be too big or overwhelming and harm you or someone else. You may associate sex and being turned on with perpetration. You may associate your own sexual expression with being abusive.
There is a certain amount of intensity in my sexuality. I get afraid that the intensity will verge on rage. I have never hurt someone else sexually, but I try to keep myself under lock and key. Am I trustworthy, or will I be just like them [the perpetrators]?
Stephanie
You may be sexual but not fully expressing the sexual energy that is yours. This too becomes a type of sexual aversion, a denial of your sexuality.
I used to let my relationships define my sexuality. If my lover wasn’t into penetration, then it didn’t happen much. If my lover recoiled at the thought of vibrators and dildos, then my sex toys stayed hidden in the bureau drawer.
Max
Finally, you may be sexual only with people you are not intimate with, finding it difficult to sustain a sexual relationship with someone you are very close to. You may feel that having sex with a confidant, lover, or partner is too dangerous.
I love my lover. We have been together seven years. I just can’t sustain a sexual relationship with him. We have sex, and I feel horrible, afraid, and like I need to run away.
Debbie
I got to a point in my relationship where I didn’t want to have sex at all anymore.
The closer I got to my partner, the more she felt like family, and the more repulsed
I became by sex. I took a break from sex, and then extended the break, but it
wasn’t helping. I wasn’t getting closer to wanting sex or feeling better. I was just
continuing to avoid dealing with combining intimacy and sex. The little girl in me
just wanted to finally be loved for herself instead of for sex.
Melanie
What Are You Missing? The Costs of Aversion
While avoiding sex and your sexuality can seem like a good strategy for survival, the costs can be high. Staying away from erotic feelings, masturbation, and sex separates you from a powerful part of yourself. You lose a part of yourself that could feed vitality and energy into every aspect of your life. By avoiding sex, you lose a very deep means of connecting with yourself and others, not to mention the delight, joy, and fun that sex can bring you.
Perhaps more important, in avoiding sex, you communicate to yourself that you can’t handle it, that the sexual abuse is bigger than you, and that sex is too much or too overwhelming for you. Sexual aversion keeps sex locked into the “Danger! Don’t go there!” closet. While the sexual abuse was overwhelming and destructive and did control you at the time, your own sexuality and sexual expression are gifts that can help you heal now.
I want to collapse around sex. I feel small and it feels big.
Maria
Avoiding sex can feel like the best way to stay safe on a very visceral level. Sex was what was used to abuse you, so avoiding the weapon seems like a great strategy. But by avoiding your sexuality you can also trick yourself into thinking that you can avoid dealing with your history of sexual abuse. If you do not engage sexually, you may successfully avoid the triggers, flashbacks, and memories that sex can evoke. But you will have less and less room for you. The sexual abuse will continue to run the show.
Your own sexual energy is not too big for you now. You can learn how to embrace the sensations, the excitement, and, eventually, the delight of your sexuality. You can also build a capacity to be able to process the triggers that may emerge as you open to your own sexuality. Yes, this is difficult. But if you are not making your own choices about your sexuality, who is controlling it for you?
Your sexuality did not cause anyone to harm you. The abuse was the responsibility of those who harmed you. Your sexuality, no matter what they told you, is not at fault for your having been sexually abused as a child.
Sexual Compulsion: Sex As the Only Way
We are taught that sex is bad, and that if you are a woman and want a lot of sex—or even any sex at all—something must be wrong with you. I have heard many a survivor say that she was “acting out” when in fact she was expressing her self-defined sexuality. We have so few models for sexually empowered women that our sexual expression can be easily misinterpreted as sexual compulsion. As I talk about sexual compulsion, I am not referring to your fullest sexual expression. This is welcomed and encouraged. You may find that you are interested in sex more often than the culture deems “appropriate” for women. Again, sexual healing is about creating a sexuality based upon your own needs and desires, a sexuality of your choosing.
Some survivors go through a period in their sexual recovery during which sex may feel compulsive. This may be a phase of sexual healing or discovery that can be left alone and weathered. One woman describes her experience:
During one part of my healing, I was masturbating all the time. I was using fantasies of the abuse while I masturbated. I am so glad that my therapist just hung with me through it. She didn’t judge me or tell me to get over it. Her sense was that I would ride it through, and I did. I learned a lot about my sexuality, sex toys, and phone sex. My sexual partner and I had a lot of phone sex that was really hot. I used the abuse fantasies until they weren’t interesting anymore. Somehow all of that was a part of opening up my sexuality.
Aurora
Sexual compulsion, on the other hand, is a real lack of choice. It is the inability to say “no”—or to even know how to make a conscious decision regarding sexual choices. You may be so checked out of your body that you only realize after the fact that you did not want the sex you just had. To truly consent, you need to be embodied and know how to say “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.”
I had sex a lot. In the moment it seemed fine, but afterward, I would feel cheap, used, and dirty. I am just figuring out that I feel like this when I don’t recognize my own wants and boundaries.
Maggie
For some survivors who struggle with sexual compulsion, sex becomes one of the only means by which they feel worthy or able to interact with another person. If you struggle with this, you may be having sex to fill needs that are not necessarily sexual, such as needs for physical contact, intimacy, and self-worth. You may be having sex because you are hungry or because you need to be held. You may not realize that these needs can be met in other ways or that you are worthy of having your needs met at all.
I do not know that I am loved unless someone is having sex with me. Of course, once we are having sex, I think that is all they want me for. It’s a catch-22.
Hannah
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse can use sex as a way of avoiding feelings and staying dissociated. In this way, sex is used as a distraction or filler in an attempt to cope.
Sex became like alcohol for me. I couldn’t cope with my life and with the abuse, so I’d go have sex instead. This made me feel better for a time, like a high, and then things would get worse. Sex was my enemy and my fix. It helped me get away from the pain, but acted out the pain at the same time.
Cindy
Incest and childhood sexual abuse destroy appropriate boundaries. Your physical, sexual, and emotional boundaries were shattered by abuse. To remain intact, some survivors attempt to live within their own destruction.
After awhile I figured it just didn’t matter. My uncle and my dad were having sex with me, so that w
as what you do, right? I had sex with whoever.
Stephanie
It got to a point in the abuse where I couldn’t deal anymore. I thought, “So if
this is what it’s all about, fuck it! I’ll play your game first.” That is when I
started being sexually aggressive with just about everyone in my life. I was
known as the girl to go to in high school if you wanted to know anything about
sex. Of course, I was also known as a slut. I derived this strange sense of power
from it all. My self-worth became completely entwined with people desiring me.
Essentially, I felt like I wasn’t good for anything but sex.
Lourdes
You may be trying to work through the trauma by replaying it. This doesn’t heal the abuse, rather it keeps you stuck, doing the same thing over and over, and not finding a way out.
What Are You Missing? The Costs of Compulsion
Perhaps the biggest cost of sexual compulsion is your own sexuality. While you may look like a sexually expressive woman, sexual compulsion is not an expression of your own sexuality. While you may convince yourself that you want the sex you are having, you are not really making choices based upon your own needs and boundaries. Sexual compulsion runs you—you don’t run it. An old survival mechanism is still at play.
I thought I was just really sexually active. I notice though that mostly I am
spaced out when I am sexual. I don’t think sex is bad, yet I am not really there.
Who is having sex when I am having sex? I’m not sure.
Carolyn
Another cost of sexual compulsion can be your self-esteem. When you have sex that you don’t really want, you undermine yourself. You trust yourself less because you are not acting on your own behalf. This is exactly the behavior you learned as a child. You are not bad for doing it, but it does not serve you any longer.
In some ways the incest just goes on and on. Yes, I “consent” now with my words, but I am saying “yes” to things I do not want. I just want to be close, and I end up feeling so alone.
Cindy
Your physical health can be another cost of sexual compulsion. If you are unable to say “no” to unwanted sex, you may also be unable to say “no” to unprotected sex. Having unprotected sex can put you at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, including chlamydia, vaginal warts, herpes, and HIV. Whether you prefer numerous partners or serial monogamy, it is essential to practice safer sex using condoms, dental dams, the female condom, latex gloves, or nonlatex substitutes.
Finally, through sexual compulsion you continue to have sex that it checked-out, keeping you out of your body and emotions. This keeps you out of your sexual healing, too.
Healing Self-Denial
Recovering from Sexual Aversion
When you focus on your recovery from sexual aversion, you propel your healing forward. As you do this, go slowly. If sex has been something you have avoided, you may be unfamiliar with your sexual desires and how to act and interact sexually.
Start by exploring the ways avoiding sex has served you. How has getting away from your sexuality protected or helped you? One workshop participant noted, “Staying away from sex helps me stay away from a huge sense of failure and loss. When I get sexual, I feel awful.”
Next, explore what being sexual or turned on means to you. What do you associate with sex? Make a list entitled “Sex is…” or “Sex equals…” Your responses do not need to be logical or even make sense. Just look at what is tied up with sex for you. One survivor wrote, “Sex is hate, fear, and betrayal to me…No wonder I don’t want to have it.” Once you have made the list, try to determine which of these associations are inherent to sexual abuse and which of them are inherent to consensual sexual expression.
Consider what would be the worst possible outcome if you moved toward sex and your sexuality. What are you most afraid of? Then consider what would be the best possible outcome if you began to explore your sexuality.
Now, educate yourself. If you have been avoiding sex, you may be in need of information about your own sexuality and safer-sex practices. Seeking out this information in the form of books, magazines, audiotapes, and videos can give you models upon which to build a sexuality that works for you. See the Resources section of this book for suggestions.
Sexual avoidance is really another form of dissociating or staying out of your body. Recovering from sexual avoidance means learning to tolerate the physical sensations and emotions that emerge when you are sexual. As you stay with the feelings and sensations, they will change, releasing the old trauma and letting you have your sexuality today. The pelvic rock and genital healing exercises in chapter 2 and the embodiment exercises in chapter 3 can help you learn to stay with and come to enjoy the feelings of sex and your sexuality.
You’ll also find that masturbation is a wonderful tool for re-engaging with your sexual expression. Masturbation is not just about getting off. Through masturbation you can learn how to touch and love your body, discover your interests and desires, and learn about your own sensations and sexual energy. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the subject of self-loving.
When you open to your sexuality, you may experience a surge of energy that is unfamiliar to you. Your new sexual feelings may be unsettling. This is normal. In fact, it’s progress! When you open to your own sexual desires and energy at a deeper level, you reorganize yourself.
Suddenly I felt sexual all the time. It was like I thought about sex, read about it, and felt it in my body twenty hours a day. I got nervous, worried I might become a nympho. This settled down after about a month. I had somehow opened up a door that had been long shut, and all the pressure needed to be released.
Sheila
Recovering from Sexual Compulsion
What can you gain by healing your sexual compulsion? You gain your own sexuality on your own terms for possibly the first time in your life. This means that you get to choose whether you want to be sexual, with whom, when, where, and exactly what kind of sex you’d like to have. You can be fully in your body and be sexual. Healing compulsion also means you get to choose to not be sexual and still know you are loved and worthy. You get to take care of yourself based on your own needs and desires, instead of the needs and desires of another.
Just as with sexual avoidance, sexual compulsion has in some way benefited you. Do you know how sexual compulsion has served you? What does this compulsion do for you? What painful emotions does the compulsion help you avoid? What does it help you not face or feel? One survivor shared, “Having a lot of sex makes me feel powerful and keeps me from feeling the powerlessness I felt about what my granddad did.”
What needs are you trying to fill when you have sex? Which of these needs are sexual and which are not? Are there particular abuse experiences that set you up to act compulsively?
What are you most afraid of in healing your sexual compulsion? What are you most looking forward to?
Now, educate yourself. If you have been acting compulsively with sex, you may not know when to be sexual and when not to, when sex takes care of you and when it doesn’t. Talk to your friends, especially other survivors. What do they look for in sex? When do they say “no”? When do they say “yes”? You can also read about other folks’ sexual expression and experiences. Read real-life stories instead of porn, as they will be more realistic. You’ll find a bibliography in the Resources section of this book.
Embodiment, Needs, and Boundaries
As with sexual avoidance, sexual compulsion is a way to remain out of your body. You may feel terrified or ashamed when you say “no” to sex or set a sexual boundary. Through recovery, you will learn how to feel the terror instead of distracting yourself from it. As you stay with the feelings and sensations, they will change, releasing the old trauma and letting you choose sex on terms that take care of you.
Chapter 3 on dissociation describes exercises to help you do this. Through recovery you will learn to be embodied when
you are sexual and to have nonsexual needs met directly in nonsexual ways. “No” can become as easy to say as “yes.” Chapter 7 is devoted to embodied consent. It features exercises on boundaries and the “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” of sex, which are useful in healing sexual compulsion.
While you are healing from sexual compulsion, you may want to consider taking some time off from sex altogether. You may choose to stop being sexual with others or to quit masturbating. A break from sex could be a week, a month, or a year. Choose a length of time that is realistic for you. In this time out from sex, see what comes up for you. What feelings or memories emerge? Who are you beyond sex?
Healing sexual compulsion gives you an opportunity to take care of yourself. As you stop using sex as a means to hold the hurt of the sexual abuse at bay, you also get the opportunity to truly heal and regain your life and your own sexuality.
Sexual Addiction Model
Some survivors find the addiction model of Twelve-Step programs useful in addressing sexual compulsion, while others have found it disempowering. Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) is a Twelve-Step program that deals specifically with sexual aversion and compulsion from an addiction model.
