Sexualized

Sex is a coping skill.


Just like alcohol, just like talking to a friend, just like smoking, just like driving too fast and singing too loud. It can be a positive coping skill, or a negative one, depending on how you use it/who you use it with.

Going home with a stranger at a bar because you're in a bad space= negative
Throwing down with your long term partner after a bad day at work = positive

Women learn at a young age (from the media and from observing and modeling behavior) that sex can be both a weapon and a tool. Sexual abuse survivors learn that sex is harmful, but are not able to distinguish between positive sexual relationships and negative ones, until they get help, because sex feels the same, emotionally anyway, with everyone. But we're drawn to it, because we are trying to control what happened to us by re-creating it. But usually what happens is we are simply retraumatized becauseour motives are not healthy. If it is childhood sexual abuse, our sexuality was hijacked prior to full development, thus leaving it slightly mutated and in need of reshaping. We are eternally sexualized until we are able to un fuck the circuits, to put it bluntly.

I am healthy enough at this point to say (and have said before) that I used to use sex as a negative coping skill, because I didn't have any "long term partners" in the way that the word "partner" is usually used. I had men/boys I tried to count on and couldn't because they were too selfish/I expected too much/I was just too symptomatic to connect.

And when I used it as a coping skill, I thought it was ok, because I felt NOTHING. Or a sick sense of accomplishment because a) I still had it (why did I think I wouldn't at 19-23 years old?) or b) I "got one over" on somebody. The somebody being the guy. I used to think I played them. And sometimes I did, but the majority of the time, I got played because they didn't give a hot shit about me.

I realized recently, when working with a client who is a survivor of repeated sexual abuse/rape, that this is an uncomfortable truth for survivors: Sex for us can unmake our peace if not enacted carefully. She (the client) looked at me blankly when I asked her "What do you think a healthy sexual relationship looks like?" She honestly couldn't tell me. All she could say was "Weird."

Oh those days. I used to know that feeling. It feels STRANGE to be with someone who has your best interests at heart when you're so used to those that do not. I have in the past, broken up with men who were very good to me because it was simply too unfamiliar of a feeling to allow me to foster any kind of closeness. I was "bad," "dirty," "wrong," and I didn't know anything else. So having traversed the majority of the way out of that dark place, this client gave me a hard look at my past. And it opened my eyes all the way.

Ladies. Our brains are hardwired to our vaginas. Don't tell me we've come past that.. We haven't. Evolutionarily speaking, we "can" have sex with whomever we want (as long as we're safe) largely without physical consequences. But due to the overwhelming double standard that still exists, and is inexplicably hammered into the consciousness of every male and female in this world, we aren't allowed to feel good about it emotionally. We've got the homegirls that high five us in the restroom when we talk about our exploits, but beyond that...what?

Speaking as a former one night stand kinda girl, they were not fulfilling. They did not do anything for me other than make me feel somewhat attractive, and that delusion itself is a testament to how low I was at the time. Many a guy has told me "attractive" in the moment is a mixture of "willing" and "naked."

I have backslid in the past as well. I have had moments where it seems like the thing to do because I just feel like shit and it might make me feel better right? And as cavalier as I may be the next day, I'm not. I'm ashamed, and hurt, and vulnerable.

Whether or not that has anything to do with my past sexual trauma, I can't tell you. I know women who have similar experiences and do not have sexual trauma in their past. But I can tell you that the feeling I get after one of said incidents is similar to the feeling I feel when I have a flashback to the abuse. Shame, disgust, anger.

I have learned that healthy for me = sex only with people who respect me enough to a) not try to bag me when I'm drunk, b) are ok discussing the incident with me and finding out how I feel about it, and c) people who can look me in the eye afterwards and treat me like a fucking human being, instead of "nothing to them."

To put it simply. I have realized that I am the healthy one when I feel like crap because I was used. I can no longer delude myself into thinking that I can screw around unscathed. I don't doubt that there are women out there who can, but sex is an intensely intimate activity. It introduces you to parts of a person that you cannot see in day to day life. It is impossible to unsee that, and for it to be unseen by your partner. They will know you in that way, afterwards, for as long as they choose to remember it. Sex is supposed to create connections. When it does not, it creates dysfunction and awkwardness, and for sexual trauma survivors, that feels like abuse. Again.

I believe that unattached sex for me is not appropriate, and I as a woman, realize that deluding myself into believing that I am not degraded by allowing people to know me in that intensely intimate way without respecting me, is destructive for me. And for quite a few women, although some still live in the delusion. They are not having sex for the enjoyment. They are having sex to be reminded they are worth something. I know that feeling, but repeated use of the act for that purpose risks reminding them that they are worth only that: a fuck.

I urge women, survivors, and not, to reevaluate their sex lives and find out if they are ultimately healthy for them. If they are, bravo. If they are not, do something about it. Don't let something that can make you whole tear you apart. We are more than our bodies.