I want to like sex but I don't.

You’re right, this isn’t fair.

It isn’t fair for anyone to abuse⁠ (abuse: Purposeful harm or mistreatment of another person, which can be verbal, emotional, physical or sexual. An ongoing pattern or cycle of such mistreatment or harm can characterize an abusive relationship.) anyone else. It isn’t fair that that violence and those violations have a lasting impact on our whole lives, including our sexualities, and that we — not the people who chose to do us harm — have to be the ones to live with those consequences and do all the work of surviving and healing, no less. I’m so sorry that you had those experiences and that they have had these impacts on you and your sexuality.

I know saying all of that doesn’t fix anything, but from one survivor to another, I feel like we don’t hear enough that what was done to us just isn’t okay, and that it really sucks that even after doing the already-hard work of surviving, there is so much more work we have to do to heal and enjoy our lives, including our sex⁠ (sex: Different things people choose to do to actively express or enact sexuality and sexual feelings; often this involves genitals, but not always. )  lives.

I also want to say this: it is absolute bullshit that we have to do massive emotional cleanup from someone else’s cruel mess, but the work we do to heal can be a real gift. Having been alive for over a half century as a survivor, and having worked with other survivors and had many in my life, I often see big differences between we survivors who have done this work and non-survivors who haven’t. By all means, we not only could do the kind of growth work healing from sexual abuse or assault involves without having been abused and assaulted, we all should have been afforded that option. All the same, my personal and professional experience is that thanks to our own healing work, we are often people who wind up having sexual lives that are healthier and happier than those of many folks who haven’t done this kind of work. I know that when you’re in the weeds with it like you’ve been, it’s really hard to see that other side across the river, but trust me: it’s there and I believe that you can get there.

I think that if you don’t want to stop being sexual, advice not to be obviously isn’t right for you. No one should ever suggest that there is universal advice for survivors when it comes to healing, including sexually, because all of our healing journeys are so incredibly different. One of the things any kind of ongoing abuse will often do to us is to erode our confidence in our own instincts, so I think that when your gut says sex is good for you, trusting it not only is most likely the right thing since you know what’s best for you, but can also support you in building or rebuilding trust in your own instincts. You sound clear to me that you very much want to be sexual both on your own and with your partner⁠ (partner: In a sexual context, a person with whom someone is having some kind of sex. The term “partner” can be used for all kinds of relationships, not just serious ones. “Partner” can also mean the person someone is with in a romantic or familial partnership.) .

I have some ideas that might to help you with the things you’ve brought up here, namely feeling like you have to be sexual or stay being sexual even when it feels bad, feeling like you have no agency in your sexuality, and having a hard time with sex with your partner.

1) If possible, I think you could really benefit from working with a sex therapist — either alone, with your partner, or both — especially one who has worked with survivors. They could potentially help you with a few things, but I think a sex therapist would be particularly helpful in helping you to be sexual in ways you want to be, and to help you learn to feel okay stopping at any time you want or need to without feeling like that’s too emotionally dangerous for you or like it takes away your agency.Feeling like you don’t have a choice about when or how you’re sexual, or about stopping when it doesn’t feel good anymore, is obviously going to play a big part in feeling like you don’t have agency or control. I am also concerned that being sexual, or continuing to be sexual, when you don’t want to be might be keeping you from some of your healing because it probably reactivates your trauma. Learning to be okay feeling whatever you feel when you stop being sexual and getting to the other side of those feelings feels like a really important set of skills for you to develop.

If a sex therapist isn’t within your reach at the moment, or you don’t feel comfortable seeking that kind of help out⁠ (out: Short for ‘out of the closet’. When someone’s LGBTQ+ identity is known to other people.) yet, I can also see some ways to explore solutions to this on your own. I am curious about what happens if you stop when you want to stop and just let yourself feel all the feelings you do until you are on the other side of them. Is it actually dangerous for you — for instance, does emotionally breaking down put you at risk of things like self-harm or a clinical breakdown? — or does it just feel scary?

It is okay to emotionally break down. It won’t actually do us harm, all by itself, but obviously, you may need some things to feel safe going to that place. Maybe that’s the company and active support of your partner. Maybe it’s enough privacy not to feel like the outpouring of those feelings is unsafe. Maybe it’s about setting up an environment that feels secure for you, or learning some coping tools (like breathing techniquesexternal link, opens in a new tab or somatic movementexternal link, opens in a new tab, for example) so that you can just ride those feelings out.

2) How about trying some gradual movement from being sexual on your own — which it sounds like goes pretty well for you — to being sexual with your partner?

I know you two have been together for a long time, so this might seem like an odd suggestion, but you might consider starting from scratch together, and only doing things you DO actually feel okay doing with them or with them present, and gradually working up to other things.For example, if you seem to do okay with kissing⁠ (kissing: Pressing one’s lips against someone else’s lips or some other body part to express affection and/or to seek out or provide sexual pleasure. May also include the tongue.) , how about you start and stick with kissing until you feel comfortable and safe enough to move up to something that feels a little less safe or comfortable than that — whatever a next step is for you — and then keeping at that with baby steps from activity to activity, staying at whatever level you need to until you feel safe enough the next thing? It sounds like you have a partner who would be completely cool with that, so if you are, it seems to me that that would be a relatively easy place to start.

I’d add that taking any pressure, including that coming from yourself, to orgasm⁠ (orgasm: An event typically in response to physical or intellectual sexual stimulation, controlled by the involuntary nervous system. ) also seems likely to be helpful. I suspect that if you can set a focus on orgasm, or even an expectation of orgasm, aside, and just focus on pleasure, comfort and connection, not only might reaching orgasm with a partner become easier, you’ll also take some of the stress and strain you’ve been feeling out of the equation. Ultimately, while orgasm can feel great, it only lasts brief periods of time, and the pleasure of our sexual experiences as a whole offers us a lot more richness.

3) I hear you that being or feeling watched doesn’t work for you: have you tried only being heard? How might you feel about trying masturbation⁠ (masturbation: Ways that people seek out and/or experience sexual pleasure by themselves, without a sexual partner.) — be that on your own, or with both of you at the same time — on the phone to try and build a bridge of comfort that might get you to the other side, in time, to where you feel more comfortable with them in person? I also want to suggest that if trying in person again feels right at any point, that instead of a setup where your partner is watching you while you masturbate, or feels like a bystander in the room, that perhaps mutual masturbation⁠ (mutual masturbation: When sexual partners masturbate together. Sometimes people also use “mutual masturbation” to mean manual sex (fingering or handjobs) done at the same time.) is the way you might try to do that instead? If they are also masturbating with you, it might feel a lot less like being watched and a lot more like doing something together.

4) I don’t know what your sex life looks like in terms of what activities are part of it, but you might consider that how you’re conceptualizing what sex with a partner is might be more limited than is useful to you. In other words, if what you mean by sex is only about genitals⁠ (genitals: Body parts that are generally, culturally, scientifically or personally considered to be external sexual or reproductive organs.) , or only about what might result in orgasm, expanding what sex can be might help expand what you can do with someone that’s sexual, but that also feels safer than some other things. Like most sex educators, I consider sex to be anything and everything we can do to express our sexualities. If your view of sex isn’t particularly expansive, you may find that if you widen it, you will discover ways you can be sexual with a partner that don’t activate your trauma as much or at all. For instance, long makeout sessions, massage, sexting, breast⁠ (breast: Glandular tissue, fat, connective tissue and skin on the chest.) or chest exploration or temperature play are some examples of things you might try and see if those are more comfortable and less activating for you.

In wrapping up, I want to add that I understand you don’t feel like you have agency in your sexuality, but you do. 

You may not have complete control over it, but honestly, no one does. Orgasm, for instance, is involuntary, so whether or not we orgasm with a partner or due to their hands or some other body part (no one can actually “make” us orgasm, it can just happen with someone or not) is only within anyone’s control so much. Everyone’s life history will also tend to come into play when it comes to sex and sexuality. By all means, some people have simply had more charmed lives or have more privilege, so they have an easier time of it than some of the rest of us, but the truth is that whether it’s about what abuse has left behind, about body image⁠ (body image: Our sense, awareness and perception of our body in appearance and function as it relates to our sense of self.) issues thanks to our culture of impossible beauty standards, or about past sexual relationships, we all bring our past into our sexual present. There’s a lot of messaging out there about how sexual trauma survivors come to sex with baggage or preexisting issues, and I think it can be easy to miss that it so isn’t just us. I think that remembering that can help us let go some of the impact that stigmatizing survivors can have on us in our sexual lives and experiences.

I get — oh, do I — feeling like the person or people who abused you stole something from you. They did, of course, and probably far more than one thing, especially during the abuse and during the period⁠ (period: The fluid – or flow – which contains blood, from the shedding of the uterine lining usually at the end of each menstrual cycle. Sometimes periods may be less fluid and more globby; this is the state that is often mistaken for blood clotting.) of time you were being abused. But for myself, I have found that doing everything I can to keep as much of any power from them long-term and for myself is a very healing kind of f*ck you. People who engage in sexual assault⁠ (sexual assault: When someone is attacked, or attacks someone else, in a sexual way.) and abuse want us to believe that they own us and our sexuality evermore, but they don’t. Only we can ever own our sexual selves.

Lastly, I want to suggest a couple of books that I think might be helpful to you and your partner: Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror and Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma by Stacy Haines. We also have a series here at Scarleteen by a pelvic physical therapist — and that might be another kind of care to consider for yourself, too — about sexual trauma and recovery that might be of benefit to you, too.