Deciding to Reclaim Our Sexuality
Sexual healing is very profound work. It takes great courage to work through problems caused by the abuse. Your body may feel like a battleground over which you fight ghosts who have great power, reclaiming territory which is your birthright.
—MIRIAM SMOLOVER, Therapist
I’m sitting poolside at a hotel in Portland, Oregon, resting and watching the sunset. Earlier in the day I made a presentation on sexual healing to a large group of survivors. A young woman attending the conference sits down next to me. She’s about twenty-five years old and is wearing a flowered dress. She tells me her name is Alice. She also tells me she was molested by her grandfather as a child. During my presentation that day, Alice says she became aware of just how significantly sexual abuse has affected her sexuality. For the first time she has begun making connections between the sexual problems she has now with her lover and what happened to her in the past with her grandfather.
I’ve been walking around feeling really upset and angry. I hate the idea that I’m still trapped in some way by my grandfather’s influence. It’s like I’m somehow still being abused. I feel like a marionette puppet dancing on a stage. The ghost of my grandfather is the puppeteer, hidden from sight, pulling my strings. It’s as if my sexuality is outside my control—not mine. I know I’ve got to find a way out of this bind, because unless I do, I’ll feel like I’m letting my grandpa rob me of my right to an enjoyable sex life.
Listening to Alice, I realize that she has reached an important turning point in her sexual healing journey. Now aware of the impact of the past, she is deciding to address the injustice she still feels. Alice is making a decision to reclaim her sexuality: to bring her sexuality under her own control, free of the influence of her offender. And she wants to accomplish this primarily for her own pleasure and satisfaction. She is turning the awareness of her sexual effects into a desire to get back her sexuality for herself.
After taking the Sexual Effects Inventory in the last chapter, you may be having feelings and thoughts similar to Alice’s. You may want to make changes in one or more of the six categories listed in the inventory—attitudes about sex, sexual self-concept, automatic reactions, sexual behavior, intimate relationships, or sexual functioning problems. Other survivors, who have also come to this point in the sexual healing journey, have offered the following statements to describe how they feel. Check any that apply to you now.
REASONS TO RECLAIM SEXUALITY
_____ I want to develop a more positive view of sex.
_____ I want to feel good about myself as a sexual person.
_____ I want to improve my automatic reactions to touch and sex.
_____ I want to engage in healthier sexual practices.
_____ I want to have a good intimate relationship.
_____ I want to address a specific sexual problem.
_____ I want to overcome the effects of the past.
If you do not identify with any statements now, that’s okay. Some survivors don’t develop a desire to make changes until they are farther along in the sexual healing journey. Each journey is unique.
Justine, a date rape survivor, decided to make changes once she realized how past abuse was interfering with her enjoyment of touch. On becoming aware of the connection with past abuse, Justine became enraged.
Living well will be my best revenge. I had no control over what happened to me in the past, but I do have control over what I decide to do about it now. I don’t want any aspect of life to be beyond my grasp. I want to experience the full beauty and expression of my sexuality.
Regardless of when we make it, the decision to reclaim our sexuality is life affirming. It reflects a natural urge to liberate ourselves from past constriction and to live life more fully. The decision to reclaim our sexuality is also serious, creating new demands on our time and energy. It requires effort to make important changes. We need to cushion this decision with self-respect and kindness, honoring our own pace and being honest about our present abilities.
Three activities can help you at this point in the sexual healing journey:
• Identify and tame your fears.
• Create realistic goals.
• Reclaim sexuality for yourself.
These activities can help you feel more comfortable with deciding to reclaim your sexuality and can help prepare you to make future changes in your sexual attitudes, behaviors, and experiences.
IDENTIFY AND TAME YOUR FEARS
Most of us are afraid to change our sexual habits. This fear is natural. Even if our current sex life is unsatisfying or unhealthy, we don’t know what changing it will do. New learning often generates fear because it is a departure from what we already know.
Some survivors worry that change will be too great. Others worry that they won’t change enough. We can become frozen by our fear of what’s to come, but we don’t have to be.
The following are some common fears survivors have expressed when they start to consider making changes and reclaiming their sexuality. Check any that apply to you, or add your own to the list.
FEARS ABOUT SEXUAL HEALING
_____ I’m afraid I will have to be more sexually active.
_____ I’m afraid I will have to give up pleasurable sexual behaviors.
_____ I’m afraid I will fail if I try.
_____ I’m afraid my social life will diminish.
_____ I’m afraid my present relationship will fall apart.
_____ I’m afraid of being sexually victimized again.
_____ I’m afraid further memories of abuse will surface.
_____ I’m afraid to recall how I felt in the abuse.
_____ I’m afraid of changes in my intimate partner.
_____ I’m afraid I’ll become self-centered.
_____ I’m afraid it will only make things worse rather than better.
_____ ______________________________
_____ ______________________________
These fears are natural in sexual healing, but we don’t have to let them stop us from moving forward. We can acknowledge, accept, and understand them.
Fears aren’t necessarily bad. They can reflect the hidden excitement we have about making changes. They can signal that we are about to have a breakthrough in understanding.
You can divide up your concerns and face them one at a time. Look at the issues you identified in the last checklist. Then take each one and think about what you could do specifically to prevent it or cope with it. Separate each strand of your feelings as if you were unbraiding a rope. As you mentally prepare yourself to cope with each concern, you can lessen the overall power of fear.
We can talk ourselves through what frightens us. Here are some ways survivors have talked through, and disarmed, their fears.
I’m afraid I will have to be more sexually active. Remember, we each have the right and power to control how sexually active we will be. We can learn specific skills for asserting our physical boundaries and saying no to sex.
I’m afraid I will fail if I try. Failure is doing nothing about a problem that bothers us. If our efforts don’t go as we hoped, we still learn and can take a new approach next time. Mistakes and setbacks happen in every endeavor.
I’m afraid my social life will diminish. We are in charge of our social lives. If we have been socializing with those who encourage self-destruction by engaging in hurtful sex, we can let them go and form new, healthy friendships, partnerships, and sexual bonds.
I’m afraid my present relationship will fall apart. This is possible. Some relationships end because people avoid problems, and some end because people face problems. If your relationship is healthy, and you and your partner work on sexual healing together, your ties are likely to become stronger and more satisfying.
I’m afraid further memories of abuse will surface. Further memories often do surface with sexual healing work. You can learn specific skills to handle them when they do.
When we aren’t afraid of our fears, we can use them to help us steer our sexual healing toward a satisfying outcome. Fears often help us to spotlight our deepest concerns. Seeing our fears illuminated, we can better focus on the healing changes we wish to make.
Vern, a forty-five-year-old survivor who compulsively masturbated, was afraid that changing his behavior would mean a serious loss of sexual pleasure. He learned to trust this fear—as a reminder not to overlook his interest in sexual pleasure while he developed a new, healthier pattern for sexual release.
The fears you identify are likely to resurface at different times throughout sexual healing. When they do, don’t be alarmed. Instead, take time out to look at them more closely and to find a way through them.
CREATE REALISTIC GOALS
Deciding to reclaim your sexuality can happen much more easily when you identify realistic goals for making changes. Unless you do this, you may feel overwhelmed by stringent goals or too-high expectations.
In developing your goals, keep in mind how seriously the sexual abuse may have harmed your sexuality. You may not ever be able to completely overcome the sexual effects of abuse. In one way or another, the effects may sometimes bother you. But you can learn to cope with the effects and to refuse to let them stop you from having a satisfying sex life. This too is successful sexual healing.
Avoid broad goals that carry high expectations, such as “I want a terrific sex life” or “I want to want sex a lot.” These will probably generate anxiety and make sexual healing difficult. Goals will serve you best when they are specific and nonthreatening. A survivor explained, “My long-term goal is to reach a point where the idea of sex is not a negative experience but a positive one.”
You can generate specific goals for sexual healing by considering how you would like to change. For example, if you would like to develop more positive sexual attitudes, which attitudes are currently causing you problems? If you would like to address a specific sexual problem, which do you want to work on first? Taking another look at the Sexual Effects Inventory in chapter 3 can help you identify what you want to change.
Once you have identified goals, you can develop realistic ideas about what it would mean to accomplish them. How could you tell that a goal had been reached? What would be different in your life?
Let’s walk through this part of the journey with a survivor who wants to overcome the negative ways she reacts to touch and sex. That’s a major goal, and it might seem insurmountable unless she breaks it into smaller pieces. She narrows the focus, asking herself, “Which reaction do I most want to change?” Her answer, “I want to stop having flashbacks disrupt my sexual experiences.” She then asks herself, “How would I know I had accomplished this?” Her answer, “I’d have fewer flashbacks or I’d be able to continue with sex even if I had a flashback.”
By becoming more precise she has come up with a measurable goal. A few months from now, after learning skills to address flashbacks, she notices that often she can continue with sex after having a flashback. She has not completely healed, but she has made significant progress. Her ability to respond differently now shows her that she has reached her original goal. Her life has changed in a real way.
Another survivor may decide he wants to feel good about himself as a sexual person. He first asks himself, “What specifically do I want to feel better about?” His answer, “I want to stop feeling ashamed about my sexual past.” He then asks, “What would show me that I am no longer feeling ashamed about my sexual past?” His answer, “I’d be able to tell others, without embarrassment or fear, that my older brother molested me.” If he can do this he will know he’s met this goal and is making progress.
Our goals give us something concrete to aim for in our healing, a specific destination for our journey. Sexual healing becomes more tangible and less of a mystery.
Denise, a twenty-two-year-old incest survivor, initially identified her goal for making changes in her sexuality as “wanting to have a good sexual relationship.” By becoming even more specific, she came up with concrete, measurable target goals that could help her focus her efforts more effectively as she healed. She defined her target goals this way:
I want to learn how to be comfortable with men as people. I want to develop a friendship with a man. I want to have a sexual relationship that develops gradually, over many months. I want to learn how to talk about my sexual likes and dislikes. I want to be able to talk through my feelings during sexual activities rather than shut them down.
To help you through this goal-setting process, first brainstorm general changes you want to make in your sexual healing. Then translate these general changes into smaller target goals. Remember to keep your goals specific and nonthreatening. You may wish to use the space below.
General goal 1
________________________________________________________
Target goals a. ___________________________
b. ___________________________
c. ___________________________
General goal 2
________________________________________________________
Target goals a. ___________________________
b. ___________________________
c. ___________________________
General goal 3
________________________________________________________
Target goals a. ___________________________
b. ___________________________
c. ___________________________
These goals can serve as guideposts in your recovery, helping you to move in a positive direction.
Be cautious of trying to reach your goals too quickly. A survivor said:
I’m in a hurry to heal. I know what happened. I’m frustrated that all my knowledge and reason, along with twenty-one years of a good marriage, can’t instantly blot out the abuse in childhood and make sex a natural, sensuous experience.
Feeling in a hurry to heal can lead you to make your goals rigid or to set unrealistic time limits for when goals have to be achieved. Don’t start with “By next summer I will no longer compulsively masturbate,” or “A year from now I want to be enjoying sexual relations with my partner several times a week.” These goals may do you more harm than good.
Sexual healing is a dynamic process, involving many aspects of your sexuality and your relationship. Realistically, it requires a flexible approach. Rigid goals and unrealistic time limits don’t allow you to shift your healing priorities over time. You may start by focusing on changing one area of your sexuality and then switch to another. It’s not uncommon for survivors to find themselves putting more time and energy than they had expected into practicing new skills, building trust, or resolving feelings from the abuse.
While it can be important to motivate yourself to move forward at a comfortably challenging pace, you don’t want to set yourself up to feel that you have failed. Trying to make changes too fast can lead to your feeling overwhelmed or frustrated. Instead, gently persist at a pace that fits you.
Sexual healing involves a great deal of unlearning. Along the way, we learn a new way to think, feel, and behave sexually. We need to create goals that respect the time it might take us to integrate smaller changes. After many months of healing work, a survivor said:
Sometimes it feels like things will never change, but when I keep working at it, one step at a time, small things do change. I never thought I’d enjoy hugging so much. Recovery’s been taking much longer than I wanted it to, but the changes I’ve already made have really been worth the effort.
RECLAIM SEXUALITY FOR YOURSELF
As you approach making changes in your sexual attitudes, behaviors, and experiences, keep in mind that the changes you’ll be making are for yourself. As we have discussed already, this journey is not for any other person. “I started sexual healing because I wanted to save my relationship,” a survivor said, “but nothing much happened until I started doing it for myself.”
If we try to make changes in our sexuality for someone else’s sake, we run the risk of recapitulating sexual abuse. In sexual abuse, a victim is forced or expected to behave in ways that satisfy the offender’s emotional and sexual desires. The survivor’s emotional and physical feelings are ignored. Victims get the message that their sexuality exists to benefit others. The sexual experiences we end up having may still remind us of sexual abuse, because we are engaging in them primarily for someone else.
Reclaiming sexuality for ourselves does not mean becoming sexually aggressive, insensitive, or abusive to a partner. If we are in a relationship, we can take ownership of our bodies, be in touch with our emotional feelings and sexual needs, control our role in sexual interactions, and still be sensitive to our partner. It’s a matter of reversing the priority from “partner first, me second” to “me first, partner second.” In sexual healing, the needs and feelings of both people are still respected, as we will discuss in more detail in chapter 9.
Though it may seem strange, the process of sexual healing itself can unconsciously become associated with past abuse. Survivors may force themselves to make changes when they aren’t ready. They may attempt changes because they think they should or according to someone else’s timetable. When they do this it’s easy to feel oppressed by the process of sexual healing. If forced, even sexual healing can start to feel abusive.
You can tell if you have fallen into this trap by listening to yourself talk about sexual healing. If you hear yourself using terms such as “I have to do my exercises” or “I should force myself to do this,” you are probably associating healing with the abuse experience. You can counteract this tendency by reminding yourself that you are pursuing sexual healing for yourself—you are reaching your goals, at your pace, for your benefit. The motivation to heal needs to come from within yourself. Only then will you be able to travel the ups and downs of the sexual healing journey.
Try asking yourself these questions: What can I discover? Shall I explore this? What can I learn, create, or invent? This low-pressure type of self-talk will help you to maintain a positive, healing attitude.
Frame your healing as an adventure you are taking yourself on. Learn and make changes for your own personal growth and enjoyment. “It’s exciting to me to be part of a creative process,” a survivor said. “Sometimes, when I know I’m making changes for myself, it feels like I’m being reborn.”
Remember that your sexuality is yours alone, and only you can reclaim it. As a survivor said, “I’m the one who is in this body. I’m the one with these sensitive body parts and nerve endings. So I’m the one who is entitled to experience the sensations and pleasures that happen when I’m sexual.”
As you progress on your journey, remind yourself to address your fears, to create realistic goals, and to make sure you are reclaiming your sexuality for yourself. These reminders will help you stick with your decision to become free of the sexual effects of sexual abuse.
Sexual healing may stir up painful realizations for you. At times you may feel saddened by the extent of damage sexual abuse has caused you. When this happens, express your sadness. Let go of your pain. Acknowledging our sadness can itself be cleansing and empowering as we journey on the way to reclaim ourselves and our bodies. I keep a card in my office with this message as a reminder, “The soul would have no rainbows had the eyes no tears.”*
Eventually, we can see that we have choices about our sexuality and intimate expression, choices that aren’t determined or shaped by abuse. Our sexuality can become an integral, healthy part of our lives. As Jill Kennedy, a therapist, explained,
Sexual healing has more to do with recovered feelings of sensuality than with the sexual act itself. To be able to feel aroused in the fullest sense of the word—without fear of betrayal, retribution, or abandonment—moves beyond culturally defined views of appropriate behavior to a deeper level of self-acceptance.†