Recovery and Sexuality after Rape

Hi, Alexander.

I’m so sorry for all you’ve been put through, but I am so glad that you’ve made it through all of that, and with the ability to be so self-aware, no less, and wound up with someone who sounds wonderful, and found your way here.

Ultimately, none of us are ever in full control of our bodies, and how people feel about that varies a whole lot. So much of what our bodies do, including a lot of our sexual response, is involuntary, and that can certainly be some of why sex⁠ (sex: Different things people choose to do to actively express or enact sexuality and sexual feelings; often this involves genitals, but not always. ) can be extra challenging for sexual and physical 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.) survivors. We’ve already struggled to feel real agency, autonomy⁠ (autonomy: The state or condition of being independent and/or having the right to independence.) and control when it comes to our bodies because of the experience and impacts of abuse, and now here go our bodies doing things without our permission or direction, or not doing things when we want them to. It can certainly be very activating and also make sex feel more daunting than potentially wonderful.

But what you are in control of can potentially — I think — make that lack of control feel liberatory instead of stressful in time. I’m one of those people that thinks that sex is ultimately healing for everyone when it’s wanted and when it’s as tailored to us as individuals as it can be, and that absolutely includes for those of us who are abuse survivors. I think the same is true when it comes to how different consensual sex can feel when the opposite of objectification is at play: when we are being seen and treated as whole people who are far more than our body parts or the sum of them, and when we come to the sex we’re having as whole people who very much want to be where we are and doing all the things that we’re doing.

When we didn’t have control over our bodies because of abuse, the problem was never our bodies. The problem was whoever abused us, and whatever conditions made it possible for them to engage in that abuse, like whatever made us unprotected enough to be abused by someone, whatever dynamics we already grew up with that made us vulnerable to abusers, and whatever or whoever enabled that abuse as it was ongoing.

But you do have control over:

• the 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.) (s) you choose to be with — or choose not to be with — sexually, and if, when and how you give, withhold, or retract consent⁠ (consent: To freely and actively agree to do a specific thing with someone else with all the information about what that thing is, and the right to change your mind.)
• the kind of relationship⁠ (relationship: An ongoing interaction or association with another person, place or thing.) and dynamic you have with your partners
• if you engage in sex at all
• if and when you do engage in sex, what kinds of sex you engage in, how you engage in those kinds of sex and for how long, like control over the environment you engage in any sex in, or when sex starts, stops and pauses
• what you call your body parts and how a partner talks about them
• what kind of care you give yourself and your partner gives you in hard moments
• the way you frame sex and sexuality, so that you aren’t setting yourself up to feel broken, dysfunctional, or without agency because you or your body are not meeting certain standards or expectations

That’s not only a whole lot to have control over, it’s all things that you likely didn’t have control over with abuse.

First, I think you might benefit from taking more time to have sex by yourself before you’re sexual with a partner. Even when a partner is a wonderful person you’re in a great relationship with, another person in the picture still tends to add pressure and can make the kind of stress you’re feeling feel a lot more stressful. Getting more practice on your own, where you can try on things like erections and pleasure and what you do if and when things stop feeling so good in any way when it’s only you that you have to think about, will give you some practice with what works and doesn’t work for you when you are activated and give you information that will help you decide what kind of sex and sexual relationship is even right for you just yet, and what you need in order for any kinds of sex you two do want to explore to be right for you.

In general, I’d suggest choosing or creating as emotionally safe an environment as you can for masturbation⁠ (masturbation: Ways that people seek out and/or experience sexual pleasure by themselves, without a sexual partner.) , like a place where you are assured privacy, where you already feel pretty safe, and some things that you know help keep you grounded to help you keep from dissociating. That might be things like meditation beforehand, some breathing techniques, having a grounding object nearby you can touch to remind yourself you’re safe and in the present, having music on, or a scent on yourself or in the room, that you associate with safety and peace. You’ll then not only have some things in your toolbox to help yourself with solo sex, you’ll have tools you can share with your partner when you feel like you’re ready to try exploring sex or other kinds of intimacy with them.

In the event that something like genital masturbation feels too scary for you to do on your own just yet — while sometimes a partner adds stress, other times just having someone else present helps — you might try starting with touch with less activating parts of your body instead. (You can do the same thing with your partner: start with touch, maybe things like cuddling or sitting with your bodies interlocked, or a massage that doesn’t involve your genitals⁠ (genitals: Body parts that are generally, culturally, scientifically or personally considered to be external sexual or reproductive organs.) .)

Since all of this can get pretty specific, if you’d like some more help brainstorming what kinds of things you can do for yourself in that setting if and when your tougher feelings and reactions come up, we — be that me or someone else on the team here — would be happy to help you do that in our direct services sometime.

I think it might also help to write down all of the things that scare you and make you feel insecure, and then think about what you, your partner, or both might be able to do with or around them, or when those feelings come up, and then have a discussion together about it and make some plans and agreements. You might even find that some things you put on that list feel less scary just by virtue of writing them down and looking at them in a different way than you have been. Sometimes things can feel a lot scarier in our heads then when we get them out⁠ (out: Short for ‘out of the closet’. When someone’s LGBTQ+ identity is known to other people.) of there.

For example, you can make an agreement with your partner that if and when you are or seem to be dissociating or flashing⁠ (flashing: A person, often (but not always) nonconsensually, showing their genitals to others in public. Cyberflashing is the digital version of this, like sending unwanted sexual images to someone on their phone.) back, that that means an automatic stop and pause until and unless you can come back to yourself and still want to be sexual once that’s passed. If there’s self-care, care from your partner, or care you both can engage in that you know works for you when you’re having a hard time with anything — likes things you learned from exploring solo sex — you can make sure that you’re set up for easy access to those things, whether that’s being held, taking some space for yourself, touching a grounding object or listening to a comforting song.

It sounds to me like you also could stand to just get a little extra reassurance form your current partner that all of the ways you feel with any of this are okay in general and okay with her, especially if you have had partners in the past who didn’t handle this or you with care. It’s okay for anyone to need extra reassurance from a partner, men very much included.

It might help to know that even people who have never been sexually or physically abused can still find themselves having a hard emotional time with similar things that challenge you. A lot of people without that history or trauma⁠ (trauma: A serious or critical physical and/or emotional injury or physically and/or emotionally painful experience.) , for instance, feel anxious about involuntary body responses or reactions, about whether they are or aren’t erect and for how long, and insecurity about their discomfort or fears around sex. It might also help you to know that a lot of people who have those feelings and experiences are men.

There’s so much cultural projection of men as hyperconfident sexual beings, but the truth is that — as is the case with so much of how our culture presents sex and sexuality — is more of a mask put on reality than a reflection of reality. In reality, men, like other people, have a wide range of experiences with and feelings about sex and sexuality, and, like so many people are, many of them feel fearful, insecure, and unsure about it all. Many never express any of this to themselves, let alone their partners, and so are stuck with all of these feelings they don’t really let themselves feel, don’t process, and often feel like they have to pretend they’re not having. I don’t have to tell you that some of them will also be abuse survivors, too, and that some of those men, so sadly, feel like they don’t even have a right to ask for whatever they need as survivors to have sex be something that feels right and safe for them.

It sounds like you’re both able to access the feelings you’re having and be honest with yourself about them AND that you have a caring and sensitive partner you also can be honest and open with about any or even all of this. That’s great, and I think that alone is going to go a long way for you. Some of what’s happening here, like feeling scared and insecure sometimes, is just probably going to take some time and practice to move beyond or minimize. That’s okay, and it’s also okay if you need to ask your partner to remind you that it’s okay, or to do certain things when you feel uncomfortable.

I do want to mention one more thing before I finish up here. You talk about having a part that doesn’t work all of the time, and I assume you’re talking about your penis⁠ (penis: One of the two external reproductive organs of people often assigned male at birth.) , so I want to offer you a different way of looking at that. As a longtime sex educator, I feel that the idea that getting or keeping erections tells us something about if a penis is “working” is an ableist and body-negative way to frame that part. Since most people who have a penis are also men, I think that framework also suggests that men’s bodies and sexualities are only functional when they can get or keep an erection⁠ (erection: When a body part, such as the penis or parts of the vulva, becomes filled with blood and enlarges and/or becomes more firm.) , so I think that says some pretty shitty things about men, things that also happen to be in alignment with rape⁠ (rape: When one person does a sexual act to, on, or inside another person who does not want to participate; who refuses to participate and/or who does not or is unable to fully and freely consent to take part in that activity.) culture. This kind of view certainly won’t leave anyone feeling like less of an object!

Just like a clitoris⁠ (clitoris: A sexual organ both external and internal on the vulva and inside the pelvis of those often assigned female at birth that is similar to the penis, but serves no other known purpose besides providing sexual pleasure.) , a penis is “working” when it’s flaccid and working when it’s erect. Both of these are normal, functional states, and not getting or keeping an erection is something that happens to everyone with these parts at least once in their lives, and usually a whole lot more often than that. There’s no right or wrong amount of time to have an erection for or right or wrong amount of time it takes to get an erection. All there is in that regard is a whole lot of diversity, diversity that tends to exist even just when we are talking about one person and that person’s penis. And part of that diversity, if we’re going to be humane about any of this, needs to include an acceptance of the fact that human beings and our bodies cannot reasonably be expected to act like machines, because we and our bodies are not machines.

If and when you don’t get or keep an erection, that doesn’t have to be a problem or any evidence of one. That’s just something, much like when someone who runs is feeling sluggish, or like when someone using their hand for something gets a cramp that stops them being able to keep doing that thing, where you’ll simply need to adjust to your body. In this case, that can mean shifting to sexual activities — which is almost all of them! — that don’t require an erection.

My hope is that you can see the reason for taking the kind of approach I am talking about, and then take an extra step of realizing that that approach is also one we and everyone else should be taking with our whole bodies and our whole sexualities. For example, if we have the idea that a person’s sexuality is only functional when no part of it is activating or uncomfortable, or when we always can and want to do what a partner wants of or with us without feeling insecure; if we think that we or others are broken or dysfunctional because we can’t do anything and everything sexually we want to, or everything and anything without needing certain reassurances, limits, boundaries or accommodations? Then what we’re saying or suggesting leaves out an awful lot of people, so many people, in fact, that we’d be suggesting that what’s normal is something that, over the course of a lifetime, probably hasn’t ever been the case for anyone.

So many of us — a minimum of 1 in every 4 people in a lifetimeexternal link, opens in a new tab, and far more than that for some groups— have experienced sexual abuse, assault or other things that have created trauma for us when it comes to our bodies, sexuality or sex. Almost everyone also currently does have or will, in the future, have bodies or body parts that can’t ever or don’t always look, act or respond in ways that match a lot of sexual ideals, ideals that frequently just aren’t realistic or very inclusive.

If we leave ourselves out of sexual frameworks, or base norms only on people who have no sexual trauma, we create or enable the idea that sex and sexuality are things only suitable for a very select group of highly privileged people, people without any disabilities, trauma, or difference. I hope it’s obvious to you that that’s something that’s actually bad for everyone.

I hope that you can give yourself the time, space and permission you need to find more comfort in yourself, a greater and more compassionate acceptance of your body and the things it will and won’t do, deeper communication⁠ (communication: Various ways we express ourselves to others, such as through speech, written words or symbols, sign language, body language, touch or art.) with your partner, and to develop an understanding that everyone who’s sexual has some of the feelings or issues you do, so it’s not like any of this is weird or only something survivors of sexual trauma experience. Feeling insecure, uncertain, vulnerable, confused, and even annoyed with your body are all common and normal experiences, as is talking with partners about them and coming up with ways to be sexual together that take those feelings or experiences into account. Everyone also has things they need to make sex feel good for them. Sure, not everyone will have the same needs that you do, or needs that come from a place of trauma, but everyone has needs and everyone who has actually-good, actually-healthy sexual experiences, relationships and lives will need to do things to get those needs met, just like everyone who has a bad time with sex often does because they have their own needs that they, their partners, or both aren’t considering or addressing.

Personally, I’m a survivor who feels like so much of what I have needed over the years when it comes to sex that works for me has been a gift, not a curse. I know I have asked for things, set limits or boundaries, or had conversations with partners that have not only been vital for me, and led to excellent sex I feel good about, but that they’ve done the same for partners, providing them opportunities and conversations that partners who weren’t survivors may not have. I hope that you can also see that any of the work you do here for yourself in order to be sexual with partners and feel good — including simply being honest with yourself about how you feel and speaking truth to power — also benefits them, too.