sexual abuse

I'm an abuse survivor, and I'm worried about sexual addiction.

Anonymous asks:
Lately I've noticed my sex drive has kicked up a lot. For a few years I was sexually abused, and ever since then (and even before that) my mind has been very sexual. I masturbate a lot, watch a lot of porn, constantly have sexual thoughts (in general and about some people), and it's really scary....

Trauma is a Complicated Thing

Trauma is messy. It is messy and ugly and it doesn’t make sense a lot of the time. It has been brought up a lot recently, because of the Jian Ghomeshi trial, that there is no such thing as a perfect survivor. This is because rape is a complicated thing, and so is trauma.

I'm thirteen, and my friend was raped by her father. What should I do?

L_123
asks:
I'm 13 years old and my friend didn't go into detail, but she said she got raped by her dad(or her stepfather). she didn't tell her mom "because she'd get mad" and didn't think it would matter since her parents are getting a divorce and she'll move away with her mom soon. she doesn't want me to tell anyone and refuses to tell anyone....

Dear Abby

This is a guest post from alphafemme, part of the blog carnival to help raise awareness and support for Scarleteen.

My mother reads Dear Abby religiously. She’s done it for as long as I can remember, always picking out the “Lifestyle” section of our local daily paper and turning to page B2.

Why "Gray Rape" Doesn't Exist

This morning, I picked up my mother's copy of “Brigitte”, a German woman's magazine geared at women between 30 and 50. I often borrow the magazine from her, because it tends to have pretty interesting articles. More recently, I've declared myself an out-and-out fan after Brigitte became the first magazine to stop using professional models for their photo spreads.

However, what caught my eye today was one of the titles on the cover: “The sex I didn't want – Confessions from a Gray Area”. In my mind, I immediately flashed to the infamous Cosmopolitan article by Laura Sessions Stepp ( A New Kind of Date Rape ). With a funny feeling in my stomach, I flipped to the article.

Abuse and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

Four years ago, Joseph Rocha was a committed and ambitious 18-year-old Navy recruit sure of two things: his love for his country and the corresponding desire to serve it in the Armed Forces, as well as his sexual orientation as a gay man. Unfortunately, the latter was very much in conflict with the former.

Healing and dealing with triggers and fears as a male sexual abuse survivor

DAN
asks:
I'm a 18 year-old male. I was raped twice in my life (6 and 10 years old) and I took it pretty well. My life was quite normal until now, and had no problems with girls. I never had a girlfriend, never been the type who commit, but I'd had a lot of sex with a lot of girls. Two weeks ago I had contact with the man who attacked me when I was 10....

Why we don't always know

One of the more interesting (and by interesting, I mean ridiculously ignorant) responses I have seen in a few places discussing the I Was Raped project and my input was my statement on the news that the first time I was assaulted -- at the age of 11 -- I did not know what had happened to me and was without any language to even express it.

This is being met with some measure of disbelief by a few folks, or the assumption I was on drugs or had been drugged or that I was simply stupid.