Sexuality uncovered
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 7:02AM 
We're all born with a normal functioning body, unless disabled. Sexual drive is one of its normal functions. I was exposed to sex way too early, when I was 2 for the first time, and when I was 5 for a continuous string of rapes and sexual abuse for 8 years. The context of that early sexualization was secrecy, violence, enormous pain, and punishment. I didn't understand what sexual arousal of an adult meant, I didn't understand what my body was doing. When my body responded, I was punished with violence, and I punished myself for responding. I hated my body. I hated it getting aroused. I fought it all I could, but despite that my abuser sometimes succeeded in making me explode. I liked the feeling, and I wanted to kill myself for feeling it. I was split into two personalities - one was taken advantage of at night (as little woman), and another one was expected to behave like a non-emotional girl by day (as any other little girl). From years of that training, I suppressed any desire or any sexual feeling so deeply, I forgot how to feel it. Until recently, when I understood that what I was feeling was normal, and it was not my fault, it was my abuser's fault. Until I stopped beating myself up for feeling it. Over the course of the last several months, it came to me. First, it was the ability to feel, then feeling warmth, then feeling love and affection, and this week - feeling desire.
When I had the first jolt of sexual desire from my body, I wanted to kill it (you can read about it in the previous post). It was giving me more memories, and mixed with them - more sexual drive. I turned into a little girl again who was dazed from being exposed to naked women walking around the apartment by day, and men of the family, grandfather and father, raping her by night or on the holidays/weekends. I literally felt dizzy. I wonder what kind of cocktail of chemicals my body produced at the time, must have been deadly. I felt that jolt again, out of the blue, several days in the row, and my typical response was - suppress, don't feel, get rid of it, root it out. But it quickly disappeared as my knowledge helped me understand that it was simply sexual arousal and it was normal. For the first time since I was a teenager (since I blocked out all memories), after months of therapy and almost complete absence of any sex (sex happened usually once a month followed by bouts of depression and physical pain), for the first time I felt I wanted it. I didn't punish myself for feeling it, I didn't suppress it or ignored it or buried myself in work (getting myself so tired that I didn't feel anything at all). I allowed myself to feel it. It was wonderful. My husband was happy, I was happy.
The day after that night, I let myself feel it again. And the next day, and the next day. After a few days, my husband started looking at me strange, after having no sex at all for so long, he almost got worried for me for suddenly wanting it all the time. I started wondering whether or not what I was feeling was normal. Maybe I was acting out my abuse? I started judging myself and feeling wrong. It took an enormous effort to shake it off and realize, this is my true sexuality. This drive I have is normal. For some people it's once a week, for some it's every day. I looked at the history of my parents. My father needed to have it a couple times a day with my mom. My mother told me she was also interested, for a few months, until it got violent. Seems like from both sides it's what I inherited. This is new to me, and it's nearly impossible to not put any judgement upon myself, to not associate it with pain, violence, and punishment. But I'm recovering, and it's the result of my body healing.
Suddenly, I'm faced with a new problem. From years of being relatively cold and bland, I turned 180 degrees around and hit my husband with the force that he cowered away from yesterday. He doesn't know what to do with me, I don't know what to do with me. Is this a phase that will eventually cool down? My father married my mom when he was in his 30's, I am in my 30's - is this something I would have to deal with from now on? How do I do this? Yesterday, to let my husband sleep, I went online, puzzled, as to what would I do if he just wanted to sleep. I felt like a teenager who has no clue what to do with her body, who was told all her life that touching it is dirty and shameful and bad. That having sex is only ok if making babies. I ended up going to Babeland's website to look at some toys - I love this store. We women are so frustrated with inability to show our sexuality in our society. Just think about it - if a man is horny, well, he is man, he is even more a man for that. What can you do, this is men's nature. If a woman is horny, she is a bitch and a slut. Excuse me? How on earth did we get to this? If you look at studies of our sexuality, women are 9 times more sensual then men. Women have longer and multiple orgasms when men do a quickie and are off in 2 minutes. Nothing against you guys, but you are after quantity and we are after quality.
I thought, ok, let's imagine I will buy a toy - then what? My husband obviously had to entertain himself while I was "sexually" absent. OK, I thought, maybe I will need to do the same for a while - I need to check out some videos to see what arouses me, to accompany the imagination (of which I'm only glimpsing the beginnings, it's like I am stuck at the level of a teenager). I looked for free videos, found some, watched one, and instead of being aroused, I got disgusted. I watched another one, and I got mad. If you never went to a porn site, try looking at one (WARNING: If you are a survivor in early staged of healing, do not do that, it will be a major trigger). It's a mirror of our society's thwarted understanding of sex. Here is how it's portrayed: all women are low creatures, whores, being slapped in their face, hardly even talking, with men giving orders, grabbing their hair, pushing their heads, slapping their butts and breasts. If you're a man and are drooling while reading this, I would gladly cut out your tongue. You've come to the wrong site, so leave now. I'm not a man hater, but I hate the position men got women in. I'm generalizing, of course, and I know you will forgive me if you understand the sickness of this society, the sickness that leads to incest, to rape, to sexual abuse - the sickness that perverted our normal desires into dirty, shameful, frowned upon bodily function. Here is the consequence of society turning patriarchal, of men needing to confirm their paternity due to the fact that the land they owned had to be passed to their children, due to owning of the land in the first place, to farming instead of gathering, to... don't start me here, I'm reeling with anger.
If a woman were to feel sexual, where is she to turn? If you look around, there are not many places - and some women decide, that the safest is to turn to another woman - she would have no judgement, because she likely finds herself in the same place. So what happens? There are not many choices for women. 1 - suppress all sexual desire (which will come out in the wrong places anyway, like in anger and depression). 2 - have lovers in bursts of sexual need (then torture yourself with guilt for years on, not being able to talk to your husband about it, or talking to your husband about it and causing a divorce, or, depending on how understandable or loyal the husband is himself, maybe getting a glimpse of understanding). 3 - go crazy and allow yourself to feel it, divorcing your partner to feel freedom and then going rampant left and right (which will only result in the reputation of a whore). 4 - turn to another woman (which will screw up your reputation with your relatives, kids, extended family, friends, you name it - until they are all over it and are ok with letting you back into their lives). 5 - seek aid in the shape of toys and hot movies (but, as I found out, there are not many choices out there, plus the way the women are treated in the videos, and the way, I am assuming, they are treated as actresses, I don't want to support this industry by paying money for women's exploitation, worse, for exploitation of minors, as most girls have not reached adulthood in those movies). 6 - watch Japanese anime? Tried, grossed me out, sick, and is using images of adolescent girls, yet again. Seems like there is a giant hole here. No wonder most women are not happy and depressed, just think how much we have to bury and hold inside.
I recently spoke to a friend who is thinking of starting a website where women can talk about sex, without sex experts, to blow the steam and connect. I can see now from my research that nothing like this exists, and there is a need for that. I was able to put my feelings into words and writing this blog. Not many women can do that due to obvious reasons. I might even be crossing a line for some by doing this. I have made it my goal to recover from incest and publicly help others while doing it, part of which is restoring my sexuality back to normal (and helping others). Not everyone has made that their goal, and not everyone was abused as severely as I was, yet the stigma is the same across all cultures (not counting a few left that are supporting female sexuality, like Mosuo in China and a few indigenous peoples across the globe). I hope this blog post is one little step on the path to change.
Photo by Jaci Berkopec.
Reader Comments (4)
I'm new to your blog, but I just wanted to comment and say that I think it's wonderful that you're growing in this way. And I think your writings are very insightful and have made me think about myself and my views. So thank you very much for writing. :)
Sarah, I am so happy this got you thinking in a new way! That is my hope - that my writing will help. You are very welcome, let me know what you would like to see me write about.
For me it is about the emotional relationship as well as the physical one those that are only into the physical and refuse to acknowledge the the emotional are those that cause the abuse and reinforce it's behavior that is most likely why the whole internet video industry is still around from those that have to control others if you look at how our own abuse occurred and how those that have abused us keep us in place so that they can continue to abuse us or silence us from the the abuse that our abusers do to others around us the entire no communication issue on the subject has made the abusers a playground at the cost of the abused and have given liberation to abusers far to long.
Justin, yes, thank you for saying it - strong and powerful words.