My second most popular blog entry on my blog is one entitled Orgasm during Rape or Other Form of Sexual Abuse. That blog entry has quite a few comments posted by child abuse survivors who experienced orgasms while they were being raped or sexually abused.
Last week, a reader posted the following question:
How are you all dealing with the conflicting emotions? Everything I see written here, practically, screams out that you all loved what was happening at the time, and mostly feel bad because society says it’s bad. I’m asking you all, because you are the only ones that really know, is it bad?
I think this is a legitimate question that needs to be answered.
The short answer is no, I did not “enjoy” the orgasms during sexual abuse. Most of mine happened when my mother was orally raping me. I experimented with similar sexual contact consensually with a boyfriend. While my body achieved an orgasm very quickly, it made my head feel like it was going to explode, and I felt a very strong desire to harm myself. That is not “enjoying” an orgasm.
When people who were never sexually abused experience orgasms, they feel good. They feel a release of tension and feel peaceful afterward. This is not the case with a person who has been sexually abused. After the orgasm happens, the sexual abuse survivor feels sick to her stomach. She feels deep shame and hatred toward her body.
When a child who is being sexually abused “wants” an orgasm, it is kind of like looking for the least painful form of abuse to experience in the moment. The child feels shame, terror, and self-loathing as the sexual abuse is happening. The orgasm is a temporary reprieve from those feelings, but then those feelings come crashing down immediately afterward in spades.
After the orgasm, the child is not lying in his bed feeling good about himself. All does not feel right with the world. The child feels deep shame – the shame from the abuse and then the shame from “enjoying” part of the abuse. It causes the child to question whether she really wanted the abuse after all. She knows that she didn’t, but her body reacted to it, so then maybe she did??
And then orgasms and shame get intertwined in the abused child’s head. The child grows into an adult who cannot have a fulfilling consensual sexual relationship because pleasure and pain are still intertwined. She hates her body for having orgasms, and then she hates her body if she doesn’t have them. Every sexual encounter becomes a challenge because it sets her up for more self-loathing.
And then the sexual abuse survivor finds that she is only able to achieve an orgasm if she reenacts the sexual abuse, either physically or in her head. Straight sex cannot achieve an orgasm, but degradation during sex can. Discovering that you cannot achieve an orgasm during sex unless you feel degraded only adds fuel to the fire.
There is nothing positive about a child experiencing an orgasm during rape or sexual abuse. It only further complicates the child’s life.
Related Topic:
Trauma Tuesday: Orgasms during Rape and Sexual Abuse
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Hi Faith,
I cant help thinking that whoever asked that question is a total moron. – Sorry im only being honest.
Of course there is the issue of how much we think is wrong because society says it is, but still the actual orgasm from the sexual activity is such a tiny part of the abuse for most survivors – like 0.01 percent or something like that. So even if the answer was – yeah we enjoyed it really because sex is natural – (which it isnt anyway) what about the rest of the 99.99 percent of the abuse???
Actually, i’m a victim of this kind of abuse and i was wondering why i felt the way i felt during it….this helped me a lot. Even after the investigation, i still wondered if maybe this was what i had wanted…
no you prat not a moron just somebody lookig for information
Let’s be respectful in our responses. I am taking the question at face value.
I can see where the question can be triggering, and it is always possible that an abuser with a guilty conscious will be reading this and hoping to find justification for his or her actions. However, this is a good opportunity for child abuse survivors to explain why an orgasm does not negate the pain of the sexual abuse.
I do agree that the orgasm is such a small part of the abuse and, quite frankly, not enjoyable.
Take care,
– Faith
Well I was abused as a child between 9-13… I can see where the orgasm comes in because it made me feel terrible… That is where the guilt comes in. I wish I would have spoke up… It would have saved me years of agony and degrading my body. It is terrible that there are adults that take advantage of children. It really disgust me…
Sorry Faith – That did trigger me.
I see what you are saying – i just cant help feeling that question wasnt asked with the best of motives. 😦
You might be correct, or you might not. Regardless, all of us speaking out that orgasms do NOT make sexual abuse okay will get the word out. We can’t afford to remain silent when people assert things that are damaging to children. It is our responsibility to speak out against it. You and I are doing just that. :0)
Take care,
– Faith
I was raped by my uncle at 5 then by my other uncle at 6 then my mother came for me after that my life was looking up then her husband had sex with me at 8 yrs after that I didn’t tell any one about 10yrs we came to england life started looking up then my other uncle my first abuser brother I woke up to find him sucking my breast just before my 13th bday and fingering my private why won’t this end! I cannot take it I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and postraumatic stress disorder. At 14 I started running away isolating myself then ended up ina a predicament where 2 men raped mi and the 3rd watched and laught. I hate myself for starting to enjoy being abused I cannot have sex and its normal I have to pretend its my first who raped mi first in order to enjoy sex or in male company am I sick I often feel suicidal because of this
Sorry you were so molested, I understand tho!
You poor thing… I was also abused as an adolescent… I feel for you. Plz plz speak up to someone and get help…
Dear reader, do you really want to know what our answer is or are you asking a hypothetical question and you already have your mind made up ? I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it is the former. Often I use sex the same way as I use cutting and burning – to hurt myself. It gives me the same f*up high. When my husband used to drink this worked quite well. I would do anything and let anything be done to me and it was just like cutting and burning. Now he doesn’t drink and will not participate that way. At first this spun me but then I had to step back and think. Why wont he do this? I came up with, because he loves me… wow, he loves me.
So now I hurt myself while I am masturbating. Sex is a punishment to me. Is this too explicit for you? In the scheme of things for me, its nothing…
“When people who were never sexually abused experience orgasms, they feel good. . . . This is not the case with a person who has been sexually abused. After the orgasm happens, the sexual abuse survivor feels sick . . . deep shame and hatred. . .”
Perhaps this should read: “people who experienced orgasms during sexual abuse” rather than blanketing all persons who have been abused? Because it isn’t the same for those of us who were abused long before we were old enough to have an orgasm, or whose abusers made no attempt to make the experience pleasurable.
And yet, I do know what you’re talking about. When one of my alters masturbates, she intends it as both retribution and justice, punishment and reward–Proving to our abusers that we’re still alive, seeking even a small amount of pleasure to compensate for all the years of pain, but with full awareness that not everyone in the body appreciates it, especially with the disturbing fantasies that accompany the act, and so it becomes a form of self-punishment or injury. After those orgasms, it’s like you describe: feelings of nausea, guilt, shame, hatred. But when we’re with our husband, it’s a completely different experience. It can be much harder to reach orgasm, but instead of shame, we feel peace and overwhelming love.
Perhaps this is because the motives involved are different? Maybe we’ve segregated the two so firmly in our mind that the bad associations of the self-abuse/injury are absent when the purpose is matrimonial intimacy. Or . . . maybe the feelings of guilt and shame have nothing to do with whether orgasm happened during abuse or not, but rather, how you perceive orgasm, and what sort of mental associations you’ve assigned it. Of course, anyone who did orgasm while being raped would associate it with those bad memories, and so might always react badly to pleasure.
I’m not sure if I’m making sense or not. Mostly I’m thinking out loud, trying to adapt the concept so it better applies to us.
All of what you wrote happens for me, too. 😦 In fact, my arms were shaking as I read it, and I found myself sitting on my hands to stop my arms from shaking. Didn’t work. It was a hard post to read, but it was comforting as well because it validated my own feelings.
We hold hands with you.
Secret Shadows
I have been feeling intense guilt and shame over this. knowing i had orgasims and worry about this. I was made to have orgasims and how does this make me.. what happened I know I had orgasims and what does this say about me. I dont know what to say .. but i think about it alot. I had horrible trauma, abuse, for my whole life… so I dont know… are the orgasims my fault. can you say anything at all to help me with this?
Zoe,
The human body reacts to things in a certain way. The way your body automatically responds to fear is very similar to how it responds to pleasure. That means you can become aroused when you’re afraid. You might be aware that you’re being raped or molested, but your body doesn’t make that distinction.
If you think about it, it’s much easier to orgasm while in a state of arousal–whether caused by fear or pleasure–so it’s simply your body reacting to what’s happening. Look at it this way–when you get angry, can you keep your blood pressure from rising? No, because it’s an automatic physical response to stress. Same with this. It’s something your body does that you have no control over.
I was sexually abused at a young age and had an orgasm. Looking back, I know that my body had a physical response but that that my psychology knew that what was happening was wrong/wanted to run/puke. After being abused, I have had consensual sexual experiences and still had orgasms, but it is a completely different experience (emotionally and physically) from that of the sexual abuse.
Midge- I’m glad that you wrote of the arousal response to fear. I find that when I’m under extreme stress, or when I am feeling frustration and shame, my body becomes aroused and it is so humiliating. I always thought that it was because of the stimulation I received while being molested and that my body/mind tied the two feelings together so much so that when I experience one I get the other. It made me feel angry at and betrayed by my body. As if the feelings I was having weren’t bad enough my stupid body had to go and bring up the incest again. Perhaps now I can think of it as just a biological reaction rather than a symptom and therefor I can feel like less of a victim.
i think that is a disrespectful question to b asked! but i suppose someone who hasn been raped or sexualy abused would like to know that.
just being honest.
i feel that anyone who has been raped doesnt feel the orgasim because of all the pain the rapist is putting the person through…
but if the person then grows up and haves sex with the person they love then the sex will be enjoyable.
I was molested by my mother and I still masturbate thinking of it and it feels good. I remind myself just fantasy nothing more.
judy my comment was in response to your comment about your mother.
As I was abused as a child I never reached orgasm……. quite the opposite……..pain. However there were the occassional times when I felt a brief “good” feeling. Either way, I CANNOT reach orgasm without having what I call “negative fantasies”. I hate it. I have only shared with a handful of people as I find that most won’t admit to this by product of child sexual abuse. In treatment, with counselors and inpatient, it was alluded at that this thinking made you the same as the molester. The internet has alllowed these things to come to light without labeling the abused. Thank you to everyone who shared.
I felt ashame that I could only achieve orgasm if I have bad thoughts or look at bad things. I thought I was alone until I started reading the different post. You can’t tell a therapist anything really deep bcuz then they might lable you. I know now that many people reached orgasim while being molested or raped bcuz thats what the molester wanted you to achieve, if they didn’t want it to be pleasurable it would not have. I think I would have rather felt pain now bcuz its too confusing in my realationship. I have to close my eyes and think of a bad time to reach my good time. That sucks! Thank you for sharing, my husband wonders why I close my eyes and like to make love in the dark and I really can’t share that with him
You don’t have to or you can just role play. Don’t be ashamed, it is part of life. Sometimes we need to accept that we could not control it and we were controlled for sexual purposes. Just enjoy your life.
[…] Tags: abusive fantasies, orgasms after sexual abuse, sexual fantasies In my blog entry entitled Do Sexually Abused Children Enjoy Orgasms from Rape or Sexual Abuse?, a reader posted the following comment: As I was abused as a child I never reached orgasm……. […]
i asked the same question after an ex girlfreind told me that her greatest sexual experiences came during “sex” with her father and uncle. she was 8-13 years old. i didn’t understand what she meant until a close freind said she had a similar experience as a child.
Hi Faith,
I have a question that has been on my mind for over 10 years now…what if a person has all of these symptoms that you and others describe (I’m referring to your other blog also), but has no memory of childhood sexual abuse?
I was recently in an abusive relationship and for the first time in my life felt uncontrollable arousal like never before (usually have trouble enjoying sex, although used to be incredibly promiscuous and used sex to hurt myself). With this man, as with many others, it was not healthy sexual attaction, because I was attracted to the feeling of being possessed and overpowered by him (although always hated myself afterward). On some occasions, he would coerce me into sex, to which I would have an intense orgasm and immediately feel disgusting and dirty like I had been violated.
I have essentially re-enacted rape scenarios through my choice of partners (i.e. men who would coerce me into sex- paradoxical, yes). My sexual fantasies are often about rape or being degraded by men, although I am not a masochist by any means. I spent years addicted to sex and drugs, not for pleasure but to destroy myself. I called it my urge to self-destruct. There was something incredibly seductive and sexual about it. I know it sounds so bizarre which is why I’ve never told anyone.
I had one counsellor years ago that suggested I might have “repressed” memories. My dad was verbally abusive and he was physically aggressive on occasion, but nothing sexual. I don’t even know if my ex could really be said to be “coercing” me when I apparently “enjoyed” it so much…so confused…thx for reading.
Hi, Colleen.
I see lots of red flags in your story. What you describe sounds “normal” for a sexual abuse survivor but not “normal” for someone who was not sexually abused.
The answers are all inside of you. If you were sexual abused as a child, then you have those memories locked away inside of yourself. If/when you choose to remember, you will.
Until I was in my mid-thirties, I had NO MEMORY WHATSOEVER of sexual abuse. In fact, I was convinced that I was a virgin until having sex with my husband. However, I was messed up in so many ways. It was a relief to finally understand why I was the way I was.
Take care,
– Faith
im 17 and was abused buy my brother from the age of 8 however his 2 years younger than me so i feel like its my fault. ive never spoke about it before. the thing is when he wanted intercorse he would pin me down and i would just pretend to be asleep and let him get on with it and i feel so ashamed when i think i enjoyed the orgasm but felt like ripping my skin off straight away after. i cant help but think its all my fault, im older i should have known what sex was before him and pushed him away harder. it all stopped when my mum found out and she also blamed me but not more than him as he had already had sex with my cousin, thats how it all came out. ive caught him with my mums best friends daughter and with my best friend.
am i descusting i dont understand myself. i cant have relationships i push them away when it started to get sexual but i masterbate regulalry and try to make it hurt? its sick.
i need answers but im stuck, i cant go telling people ive has sex with my younger brother and im now fucked up in the head and why do i feel this way. 😦
I sort of had the same thing happen to me, so I sympathize with you. Im 27 now, but I was 10 when my 8 year old brother became sexually aggressive with me. It ruined our relationship, and I feel bad because I’m not only the one who put an end to everything and stopped talking to him, but I let it go on for way too long. When I was 10 he forced himself on me, and that’s how I had my first orgasm. After that, I was hooked, not hooked on the sex, but the orgasm. Orgasm was the only thing I wanted, and I didn’t care about anything else. A lot of times when I was in my room, when he came in, I would either stand and hold onto his shoulders, or sit, and let him do his business, and close my eyes and just concentrate on the pleasure. After every orgasm I felt so much regret, anger, shame, but somehow I looked forward to the next time I could experience that pleasure. With Therapy, I recovered, but in the short term, I understand how much sometimes the physical need to have a powerful orgasm is there, and can mess with your mind.
Hi, Sarah.
You can talk about all of these things with a good therapist. You are not alone in this. A sibling, even a younger sibling, can be an abuser.
You can also talk about these issues at http://www.isurvive.org. It is a message board for child abuse survivors. They understand.
Take care,
– Faith
counselors and therapists have a tendancy not to understand and frequently they are reluctant too believe
I found this post and have debated replying many times. I am a 40 yr old woman who was sexually abused over many years of my childhood. I have been through intensive inpatient and outpatient therapy over the past 25 yr and yet have never had a professional understand the “negative” fantasies I MUST have to reach orgasm. I never reached orgasm during abuse however it did feel good on occassion. Most of the time it hurt horribly and I desperately wanted it to end. As others here have stated…….after reaching an orgasm I feel dirty, ashamed and intense self hatred. Being able to finally discuss these “negative” fantasies and the fact that I would do anything to be rid of them is a welcome relief. Instead of judging abuse victims for the coping skills they developed, professionals should be trying to understand how much this devestates yet encompasses our lives. It does NOT make us the same as the abuser or willing participants of the abuse. It’s the way our sexuality and physiological responses developed. And is virtually impossible to move past.
Thanks for being here.
Truly……..
Hi, Cathy.
I write a professional blog about adoption and focus twice a week on explaining the mind of the abused child to foster and adoptive parents. My readers will post things that mental health professionals have said that just baffle me, such as not getting the connection that healing the trauma will help heal the DID. DUH!!
Unfortunately, many mental health professionals do not have firsthand knowledge. They learn from books and professors, who learn by interviewing people like you and me. When those they interview are too ashamed or embarrassed to talk about these issues, the issues don’t make it into their books, so the mental health professionals don’t learn about them.
This is why I make a point of talking about all of these difficult topics, such as masturbation as a form of self-injury or the topic of this post. These are all NORMAL aftereffects of sexual abuse, but mental health professionals are not going to know this until we start talking about them.
Take care,
– Faith
Faith, I was molested by an uncle around the age of 10, drugged and raped by (what I recently found out) a serial child rapist and person who murdered his siblings and others (now serving 7 consecutive life sentences) at 18, and date raped by who I thought to be a good friend, while watched on by others I thought to be friends at 16 or 17, I’m honestly not sure. I’m now 42, still single and have only been in abusive or using relationships, one after the other. I haven’t had much respect for myself, I was pretty much taught not to. As far as sex after rape, I don’t really understand the masturbation as punishment, I do enjoy it, I guess. But sex wise, I find myself wanting my partners to be kind of rough. Nothing crazy, but it just disturbs me. I’m in therapy, but don’t quite have the courage to share this. Is it because of the rapes? I don’t know if I ever had orgasms, if I did, it would have been from my uncle, or the man in prison. I do know as a very young child I was very curious with my dolls in the bath tub, and I remember touching myself with my doll in ways that “felt good”. I was too young to know that, my uncle taught me that. When my “friend” raped me I was screaming for him to get off of me the whole time, so there was absolutely no enjoyment there. Do you think I’ll ever be able to be “normal”? I feel like I’ll never be able to have a good relationship because I loathe myself so much. I can’t fully trust anyone, that’s for sure. Thanks for being here and letting me share the full truth. Although I’m using an alternate email for privacy.
I want to let everyone know that you can have a normal life after years of abuse. The way to have a happy and healthy life, in my humble opinon, is a combination of Strong Desire to have a healthy and productive life and to be more than a statistic, and an ability to realize that you have to let go of the guilt and shame by realizing it is your tormentors greatest weapon against you, and you don’t deserve to be continually harmed now that you’re an adult with choices, and lastly, I think it helps to focus on others, as in helping other children and teens who have been molested.
People who have never been traumatized in these perverse ways can not understand the shame and degradation that makes it difficult to maintain healthy relationships of a personal nature. Like many others here, a horrible reminder of the psychological warfare waged against us was the perpetrators working to make us feel we were complicitaze or enjoyed their crime. Remind yourself that making you feel guilty serves the purpose of keeping you quiet, and continuing your vulnerability for subsequent abuse. Many of us also feel guilty about the ways in which our sexual fantasies and sexual libido are affected by our experiences, however we should remind ourselves that our fantasies are 1) internal, and 2) represent a normal response to our first and FORMATIVE experiences… Don’t beat yourself up anymore… The images in our heads are only figments… they are not real, and the fantasies do not harm anyone if they stay there. If you can forgive yourself for what your mind automatically brings us, then you wil begin to heal. Just like me, you deserve a love that is clean and honest…understanding this is a first step. I still have sexual fantasies that disturb me, but I now understand that there are experience connections that are made between the synapses in the brain that I have no control over.
I have a good relationship with a good man and I did have to fight feelings that he was boring at first. I urge you to think about the types of people you usually are attracted to, as we continue to be attracted to either damaged our abusive individuals. I hope my ability to overcome will inspire others a little. I was sexually abused by family members for years.
I am 15. I was rapped when I was 5. I now have sex to punish myself. I enjoy and also hate the feeling sex gives me. I, like you said, am punishing myself for still wanting sexual contact with others. Now keep in mind I am merely 15. I, as most would say, am still a child, but I am a child who hates myself. I used to cut, smoke, drink, really anything I could that would keep my mind off of what happened. My mother, who didn’t find out about my rape for 9 years, got mad at me for doing this to myself. I ended up having a chins petition filed and i was checked month for drug/alcohol abuse. I had to find a new way to punish myself.
Last night i snuck out of my house at 12:20 to go met a 18 year old man. I was gone till 5:45. Once I got in the car i didn’t want to be there anymore. I was scared and mad. When he started to touch me, I felt like crying. I just wanted get out and run, but i couldn’t. I felt like I had to punish myself for liking what he was doing. Don’t get me wrong I liked it, but that is why I was mad, because I liked it.
Yeah, every teenager likes sex, but not every teenager started to have sex at the age of nine. My life has been crazy.
I feel at a loss. I am stuck between what to do. I really hate what I’ve become…
Chassedie,
Do have a trusted adult that you can talk to? Maybe a teacher or a pastor? You don’t have to go through this alone. A therapist can help you work through these issues and spare you an adulthood filled with even further pain.
– Faith
Not really, I don’t trust any of my teachers anymore and I don’t go to church so… I have been through so many therapists, they either told my mom I was not a sane body anymore or I was put on so many drugs I was not even able to move without help. I don’t even trust my mom anymore when she found out about it she hit me and told me I was lying. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I hate myself, I just hate what I’ve become.
I was looking for “help” when I came across this site. Thank you for making me feel like I’m not a monster for the way I feel. I was molested by two people when I was a child. From age 4 to 6 by one and from 6 – 15 by my step father. Neither one of them tried to penetrate me or cause me pain…I was lucky. They were both intend on gving me please, or at least trying to. By age 6 I liked it and by age 11 I was having orgasims. I thought it was normal but I never told anyone as it was “our little secret”. What an evil thing to do to a child! I would get gifts etc and treated very special, I was “daddy’s little princess”. My whole family thought he was a wonderful man taking on a woman and kids and adopting them. I loved the attention and would often even go to him before he came to me in the middle of the night. When I was 15 I got a boyfriend and told him about my step father. He said I was being molested and it was wrong and he could go to jail. I felt so sick! I didn’t know what to do. I was too afraid to tell my mom or anyone. I felt so guilty and dirty and disgusting. I even tried to kill my self with my friends moms pills one night locked in my bathroom. I stopped going to him and when he came to me I told him “no”, he started to cry and told me he loved me. I felt even more sick because he was always nice to me…or so I thought. I ran away from home at age 16 and moved in with my boyfriend. Then I started to have “real” sex with penetration and I found I didn’t like it. I only wanted to be touched. I was shocked when I saw my first penis and he told me what he wanted to do with it. My boyfriend didn’t care if I liked sex or not, he would just do it and didn’t ask me what I wanted it. I found myself fantasizing about being abused to have an orgasim. Now I’m almost 40 years old, my husband of 10 years is 42, he is very attentive in bed but very agressive. He takes the lead and one night he asked me to call him “daddy”. So I did and I found I really liked it but I felt so sick afterwards. I hate my self, I feel so disgusting and vile inside because of what I feel. I have told my husband about what happened to me and I get the feeling he almost trying to duplicate my abuse when we make love, but I like it!! I need help! I want to cry! I thought I was alone with these feelings then I saw this website and I don’t feel so along anymore. Thank you so much.
Belle – I know you posted this over a year ago, but your words just make me shake. I know EXACTLY how you feel! I was so angered when I read the original post saying that this was a clear line. That abuse victims never felt pleasure. I have always thought that there was something horribly wrong with me for liking the sexual feeling while at the same time knowing it was wrong and hating my mom’s boyfriend for doing it to me. I was molested for over 2 years by the same man and it got to he point where I would start to think about going to HIM because I knew it would feel good and then I would get sick to my stomach because I knew I didn’t actually want him touching me. He also treated me very well and doted on my left and right. For this reason my mother didn’t believe me when I finally told. She said that I wouldn’t have acted so nicely towards him all the time if he was molesting me. But when he acted overly nice to me I didn’t want to give it away by recoiling so I played along. To this day I wish I had just told him to go to hell from the very beginning. He has never been help responsible for it and I fear all the time that other girls have suffered because I wasn’t able to bring him to justice. Reading your post made me feel like maybe I am not such a freak. I spent years of my life at a very young age trying to grapple with the confusion of physical pleasure vs emotional & physical abuse. Hopefully someday there will be a clear understanding of why some people feel this way!
Hi, Stephanie.
I am so glad that Belle’s words helped you. Please let me clarify my own experience — My first orgasms were from my mother performing oral sex on me as a toddler. My body did react with orgasms, so to that extent, they were physically “pleasurable.” However, I was emotionally confused and felt betrayed, which made them feel “not pleasurable.”
When I was talking about not feeling “pleasure” from orgasms, I wasn’t meaning that the body does not have the same sensations defined as “pleasurable” that other people’s bodies do (although I do think mine has some differences, but that’s off topic). What I meant was that those physical sensations come with pain, shame, self-hatred, etc., which — by my definition — makes the experience “not pleasurable.”
After my husband climaxes, he appears to be feel peaceful. That has never happened to me. Afterward is filled with guilt, shame, and deep emotional pain. So, to me, the entire experience is “not pleasurable” — kind of like the converse of Pavlov’s dog. If I got smacked in the head every time I ate chocolate cake, that experience would cause me to call eating chocolate cake an “unpleasant” experience even thought the cake might taste good right before I get smacked in the head.
Does that help?
– Faith
Faith – Thank you so much for taking the time to write back to me. After reading what you wrote I went back and re-read your original post and I want to apologize. I think my emotions got the better of me the first time I read it and I missed the whole second part where you were talking about the physical pleasure of the orgasm followed by the shame and confusion. I do understand what you are saying. Especially this part:
“When a child who is being sexually abused “wants” an orgasm, it is kind of like looking for the least painful form of abuse to experience in the moment. The child feels shame, terror, and self-loathing as the sexual abuse is happening. The orgasm is a temporary reprieve from those feelings, but then those feelings come crashing down immediately afterward in spades.”
That is exactly how I felt. In the first seconds before he would come in the room I would find myself actually wanting him to come in, I would steal and wear my mom’s sexy underwear to make me feel sexy so he would “pleasure” me. Then the second he walked in the room I would immediately feel shame and terror. I would want him as far away from me as possible. However, that was never an option so the abuse would continue and he would tell me that it was my fault because I obviously wanted it. This only made the emotional pain and confusion more pronounced.
I also think that my situation was made worse by the fact that my mother not only didn’t believe me, but she spent the entire investigation going out of her way to prove that I was just obsessed with him and jealous that he was with my mom. So then I had my own mother saying that I had a crush on him adding to the confusion of weather or not I wanted it.
WOW! I have NEVER told anyone any of this! I really appreciate you opening up this line of communication for women who feel so torn up and confused about what happened to them.
Hi, Stephanie.
I am so glad that you were able to get that out. I want this blog to be a safe place for people to face down their demons. I am so sorry for all that you have been through. It was not your fault.
– Faith
Stephanie & Faith,
When I first read this Blog I was searching for something else. But I’m glad I did. I’m 23. I had a situation almost identical to yours (Stephanie). My mother went so far as to testify against me in court once everything came out in the open. I’ve been lucky enough to have my brother by my side. He was unfortunate enough to have witnessed it a couple times. I just realized that i still refer to my experience as ‘it’. It’s still hard to talk about. I’m sure you understand. My mom is a great mother in every other aspect, but 10 years since we lost the court case, 2 additionally filed police report, me running away 5 times, and having been diagnosed with PTSD (along with others) relating to the abuse and my mom STILL doesn’t believe me. She is still married to him. She says the same it’s not “believable” that I was abused because we had a “bond”. No actually i “liked” him because he let me have all the candy I wanted, I never got spankings anymore, and pretty much let me do what I want. I, too, fantasized about him coming to my room, even wanted him to untill he actually did, then I was petrified. Ever since i found out about how what he did has seriously f*ed me up (I’m sure my mom told him) he’s suddenly been extra nice to me. I don’t think my mom has made this connection and I doubt she ever will. Why else would he not complain about my inability to pay rent (they own a small rental house company) where as a year ago he kept telling me the were going to evict me if I didn’t pay rent. In the months since I was diagnosed with my “issues” he has not only stopped about the rent, he pays the electric and water. He convinced my mom about 3 months ago that I needed a better car (they paid for the difference), and gave me $250 to pay to get my license back. (unpaid expires tags ticket). Anyways. This is gonna be a book. It’s just reassuring to know you’ve been through an almost identical situation. Sorry it’s so long.
🙂 Katy
P.s. His guilt is my gain. Is that wrong? I feel like he put me through enough hell, I should get something good out of the flashbacks. 7 years of my childhood, I deserve a break right?
Oh! And the kicker? My mother believes I made it all up. And I’ve “always had a vivid imagination and creativity”. Yes because a 9yr old girl can come up with my “experience” on a whim.
Welcome to my blog, Belle!
Unfortunately, all that you have experienced is common among sexual abuse survivors. Pleasure and pain become intertwined, and it is very hard to unravel it all.
Are you in therapy? If not, I strongly suggest that you find a qualified therapist with experience in working with sexual abuse survivors. A therapist can guide you through the process of healing from the abuse.
Take care,
– Faith
I was raped by my youth pastor when I was 11. He first had oral sex with me and I had an orgasim. When it happened I felt sick to my stomach, but it also felt good. I hated myself for that. He told me that I liked it so it wasn’t wrong. Why else would my body react that way. I didn’t want it to happen anymore…but I thought I liked it. For so many years I have been confused. I started cutting to let the pain out. I am married to an awesome person, but now I can’t even have an orgasim. Basically durning sex I just fake it so it can be over…I have never told my husband about my sexual abuse, because just here recently I really thought it was my fault, because I thought I liked it. When my abuser raped me anally I never had that sort of response, so I only considered that part rape. I never told my husband because I didn’t want him to know that he was getting this bag of used goods.-Maria
I’ve made a point of resisting going down the path of allowing myself to be turned on by abuse fantasies, because I think using those fantasies for that purpose reinforces their links to my sexuality and I don’t want that. I think of it as part of claiming my sexuality for myself.
Also, when I think of the reason those images have a charge for me, is because of the pain of the child who experienced it, and me having an orgasm by milking her pain is disrespectful to her/me and sexually exploiting that child-self. (this is true for me, I’m not meaning to disrespect those with other choices or perspectives)
So yes, it’s hard for me to have orgasms but I do have them. The brain is very changeable and ‘what is wired together, fires together’ neurologically, so by rigorously keeping consensual sex/pleasure and violence/coersion/degradation/pain separate, I’m separating my sexuality from the abuse bit by bit. I’m a big non-fan of S/m sexuality for those reasons.
I find that remembering that orgasms are at least partly a physiological response to stimulation is helpful, because basically, eventually persistence with a vibrator, most of the time will result in an orgasm, even while I’m experimenting with loving, safe and pleasurable fantasies rather than the ‘easier’ but self-harming negatively charged ones. Every act of separating my sexuality from the abuse is an act of self love. Having loving consensual open-hearted lovemaking and orgasms with my spouse, when it happens, is the reward.
Well I’ve come to the conclusion that Sexual abuse among girls will always happen, it will never end. So what is the point dwelling on something we can’t control? Millions of kids each year are being abducted and sold for sex. And I’m sure these girls are either killed or “enjoy” the sex (forced orgasms) they decide to stay and help out or change their identity so no one will know where they are. And if they are found they end up being a different kid. That little girl Madeleine missing from Portugal or something was spotted many times but no one stopped to say anything or take the little girl…why? because no one cares. A lot of women and Men are sexually abusing children more and more everyday and enjoy doing it the more they are told “No” the more they want to do it. Some countries allow sex among minors. I really believe the Country I’m in could care less we are killing people in Iraq and we’re going to worry about some little girl getting her clitoris rubbed to orgasm? Yeah right. Not saying I don’t care, I too was molested I just deal with the fact I was sexualized too young and it is part of me now. I fantasize about it and I get off and go to sleep. I don’t dwell on what I couldn’t control….I was controlled, I was a child and I did what I was told I orgasmed and gave them pleasure and in return I got every doll I wanted. Although as I get older the thought of doing the same things to a little girl crosses my mind I don’t have kids so maybe it is a blessing. But yet..every second another little girl is orgasming from her Daddy, mommy or other family..or teachers lawyers..etc…And I’m sure some of you have molested someone at one point in time. I think sex among children is common and not saying it is right but it happens. I think it is too much of a coincidence that it happens among families that don’t know it is wrong. Africa….they stimulate their sons and daughter’s genitals while breastfeeding….How would they know it’s wrong? Asia too…So maybe it’s US that puts the perception in our minds that is wrong. I remember a girl who molested her daughter (an old friend of my sisters) And I did nothing and said nothing because the way I see it that little girl will end up in a foster home where she will most likely be abused there too but worse. And I was put in a foster home several and each one a man molested me. to orgasm….so I don’t think anyone is safe anymore. If she were to go to counseling or put out of state with a family that was screened then maybe it would be good not in NYC they don’t give a crap plus the girl was Hispanic so I know they would of put her somewhere similar.
I also wanted to say something else when I was in a foster home I would have sex with other girls who were molested..is that normal?
I totally agree with you. I don’t judge it any more. I was abused when I was a boy on a daily basis both physically and sexually. Never told anyone, and never will.
My ex was the same and she now has a child whom I suspect is being abused by a circle of her friends because she used to fantasise about it all the time.
Society cannot handle this issue and the new wave feminists were responsible for all the misinformation that happens.
I would never do it to anyone although I have had fantasies about scenarios. I prefer to stay single. My friends ask me why I chose to be single but how do I explain that my mother used to masturbate me and make me do it to her but now denies it ever happened except when I see her on her own.
I admire your courage and because you say what a lot of people believe but will not admit.
Thank you to all the people on here for opening up and assuring me I am not alone. I hope you all find peace – and remember that this may not be found through any “normal” source. Just don’t perpetuate any kind of abuse because it is clear that it messes up lives and is the worst kind of theft. Take solace in each other and try to be happy in some way.
Hi, Kris.
Thank you for your comment. I hope you will reach a place where you are ready to talk about the abuse with someone else (and your comment here is a good start). There are good therapists who will be supportive and can help you heal.
– Faith
I’m 25 years old and was sexually abused between the ages of 6 and 16 by my stepfather, older siblings, neighbours, family friends and strangers. I’ve grown up feeling like there is something so very wrong with me, and like there is an invisible sign on my head that attracts the scum of the universe, like they can pick me from a mile away. I still feel like it was innatley my fault, like there was something I did to make it happen to me over and over again.
I hated what was happening,I was scared and in pain, I would leave my body and try and pretend it wasn’t happening or I was asleep. I feel like not only did my abusers betray me, but also my body. I hated every moment of the abuse and would fight sometimes harder against my body’s response then my abuser. One of my abusers would ‘stimualte’ me to ‘climax’ like he was doing me some kind of favour. I would fake it just so he would leave me alone and fall asleep. If I did ‘climax’ I would more often then not feel so sick to my stomach I wanted to throw up (even as I write this now, I feel sick).
I once heard that our bodies are like cars and even if the car is stolen it will still do what it is designed to do – drive, regardless of consent. Likewise our bodies will respond to stimualtion regardless of whether we want it to or not, that is what it is designed to do.
The sexual abuse I endured has left me like so many others: not trusting anyone (sometimes it’s the ones you least expect), having an aversion to anything sexual or any physical touch from a man. It stays with you, no matter how hard you scrub or how thin you get it’s still there in your thoughts, memories and dreams.
“It’s the scars you can’t see, that are the hardest to heal”.
Hi, Jane.
I am so sorry for all of your pain. I can relate to all that you said. I have learned to trust one baby step at a time. You can heal from this.
Hang in there.
– Faith
Thanks for your response faith. It’s so hard sometimes that you feel like you can’t and you’re always gonna feel like this. It’s so hard to bear sometimes you consider throwing in the towl. I guess I’m just having a down week.
Here is a review article on this topic:
Click to access Sexual%20arousal%20and%20orgasm%20in%20subjects%20who%20experience%20forced.pdf
I just wanted to say that I survived a very emotionally and sometimes physically abusive childhood. I have struggled with shame issues all my life. Now in my mid 30s and I am putting together little bits and pieces of things that point towards sexual abuse.
Also throughout my life I have always been most aroused when having incest fantasies involving parent-child abuse. I have always been too horrified to tell anyone – but wondered if that pointed towards sexual abuse or just a deep need to want to feel loved and validated by a parent? They alarm me. I don’t have kids and I am afraid to have any now. I have never told a living soul this.
Whats your opinion? (too embarrassed, ashamed, and afraid to ask my therapist.)
Thank you –
Hi, Phillygirl.
I would say that these fantasies are red flags for childhood sexual abuse. I don’t think that many (if any) people who were not sexually abused as children have the same fantasies. I would talk with your therapist about this.
I was ashamed of those types of dreams that I sometimes had while in therapy. I wrote about it here:
https://faithallen.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/abusive-dreams-after-child-abuse/
My therapist assured me that this was completely normal and was NOT an indicator of me wanting to be an abuser. Instead, this was about me trying to understand my own experiences.
Take care,
– Faith
To ALL readers, and Faith, our patient site leader: PLEASE UNDERSTAND ONE THING– Physiological response is just that…PHYSIOLOGICAL. How many of you know someone who is ticklish? Nearly everyone I know is ticklish, and those who are NOT are an exception….BUT when people are tickled, and they LAUGH HYSTERICALLY, it is not because they ENJOY BEING TICKLED. Most people with whom I have discussed this actually HATE being tickled. I personally despise the act myself, because it takes away my control of self, and it renders me weak. NONETHELESS, to an observer, if I am LAUGHING, then I must ENJOY BEING TICKLED??
Think about this in perspective and realize that all of us who are trying to rationalize why we have climaxed during molestation must be DIRTY or DISGUSTING because we recall these experiences of SUBMISSIVE weakness… yet we are simply trying to DESTRESS from the bond, and what our BODIES have conditioned our MINDS to do is SUBMIT. It is not OUR faults that this is what we know as our first stimulation. We are not wrong! What was wrong was that we were conditioned in this sick way, and the cycle unfortunately perpetuates. The abused often becomes the abuser, even if to onesself.
Ally, new friend and one who understands
REACH OUT TO US, and trust in your healing
Ally,
I think that’s a REALLY great analogy. And if I look at my experience from that perspective, I am infinitely less disgusted and ashamed. Thank you for that unique way of looking at this topic, I never would have thought of that! And although I am not a perpetrator to other people, children; I certainly am a physical & emotional abuser of myself. I am trying much better at self-care, self-respect, and self-LOVE. I have made leaps and strides in those areas, but I am still in a lot of pain & cause myself a lot of pain, perpetuating my abuse.
I have had a really rough mental health day, so on that note, I’m going to go try to have a good evening and give myself a break.
Wishing you peace and safety tonight,
Joy
I have a very significant point to make as a survivor and I have re-typed it out a million times over to try and say it, but have been compelled to back out of telling anyone. Not because I did wrong, I know I didn’t, but because it is such a ‘shamed’ subject.
All I can say is that, rape is definitely the worst kind of abuse. If you have not been raped, you may not think it, but it scars you for life. I spent 5 years of my life vigerously scrubbing away at my skin and banging my head against walls to forget what had happened. Literally.
Other than that, I offer my support to anyone who has been raped before, as I know how hard it is to go through. It effects every aspect of your life, all the way down to the food you chew.
I found this excerpt in an outdated report on early child development, and while I cringed at some of the perhaps incorrect and antiquated thinking contained therein, I thought that this bit may be of use to someone:
“A normal process of sexual eroticization would enable a child to learn, prepubertally, some of the attitudes and responses that will allow him or her to function appropriately as an adolescent and adult. Children who are sexually overeroticized for their age (there are some of these in U.S. society) are the product of an accelerated eroticization process. There is a danger that as a result they come to define themselves in sexual terms too early in life. As Freud (1938:592) stated it, “Seduction prematurely supplies the child with a sexual object at a time when the infantile sexual instinct does not yet evince any desire for it.” In the words of Yates (1982:483), “the highly cathected focus on sexual learning seems to detract from social learning and a more even distribution of the libido.”
Yates (1982, 1990) has found that for young sexually overeroticized children, the genitals may function as a central, organizing principle in their development as they seek, expect, and yearn for sexual experience. Their genitals become a well-differentiated part of the body and are highly valued,which contrasts markedly with the characteristically poor differentiation and undervaluing of the genitals among children generally in our society. Overeroticized children can be easily aroused through close contact with others-playmates, animals, adults. They may also have a problem in differentiating sexual from nonsexual touch. Sexual activity may come to be a permanent or exclusive mechanism by which they reduce tension. Preschool sexually overeroticized children are readily orgasmic and find sexual activity eminently pleasurable, so much so that it is difficult to find a comparable reward. Some form unusually intense, personalized relationships; others use sexuality as a way to make another child a friend, even briefly; some eroticize other children. Contrary to what Yates reported, Johnson (1991) stated that few such children, even those who participate in a full spectrum of sexual behavior with peers, report any real need or drive for sexual pleasure or orgasm.
Most of the sexually overeroticized children that come to attention, either through the courts or through therapy, are classified as sexually abused. They usually live in socially and psychologically disordered families…”
Be strong, be loved, and allow yourself freedom from instilled oppression. There is so much beauty in a person who is seeking self improvement, understanding, and healing, because UNLIKE our oppressors, we strive to be productive in a way that benefits life.
When you feel that you are slipping, grab on to the hope that you CAN break the mold that has been your shame and self loathing. In time, even the most stubborn compulsions will be revealed to you, and you can work through them, or accept them in a way that you could not previously. I now embrace my one remaining vice, my OCD, as a remnant of my past abuse. I still try to control certain outcomes, certain orders of things, but I UNDERSTAND why, and I accept that it is something that in time, will at least be tolerable enough that it does not control ME.
Reach out, especially through the next few weeks. Giving service and time and helping the TRULY unfortunate at this time of the year can help you see how valuable you are. As a fellow victim-turned-VICTOR, you mean everything to ME!
Ally
I have been with my boyfriend for almost two years now and I can’t orgasm with him no matter what we do yet I can orgasm when I masturbate and I can’t help wondering if this is connected to the fact that I was sexually abused when I was a child. I’m wondering what to do because it really irritates me that I can’t experience an orgasm during sex with him. Any advice?
Hi, Efura21.
I suggest reading “The Sexual Healing Journey.” If you will click on “Books on Sexual Abuse” under “Buy from Amazon” in the upper right corner of the screen, you will see that book as one of the top options. I hear it is very helpful for these types of situations.
– Faith
Hey Faith, good to see you survived the ordeal, only a few more holidays to go.
Now, i have a small question. I’m part of the BDSM community (in case you didn’t know, bondage domination sado masochism) and a big part of that is my fantasies of humiliating others as well as being humiliated myself. I can still achieve orgasm during straight sex and i still can enjoy regular orgasms without shame. But what i wanted to ask is, basically, if my sometimes “need” to be humiliated or shamed into orgasm or to humiliate someone else to orgasm could be an affect of my abuse. I spent a long time trying to cope and saying that my life style and my abuse where unrelated because i never hurt anyone and there are some lines i will not cross (I refuse to draw blood, the sight of blood in that manner makes me sick to my stomach and makes me want to hurl… i was lucky that my fiancee did not have her hymen despite being a virgin (She used tampons before any of you get wise ideas)) but back on the subject i guess what i’m saying…. i’m not sure what i’m saying, maybe i’m just rambling. But there are still a lot of people out there who don’t cross into the harm territory and really enjoy the power exchange that happens in that sorta thing.
Sincerely
Matthais
Hi, Matthias.
I cannot speak to your particular circumstances. I can only say that **some** people do use BDSM to continue the abuse that they suffered as a child. For those people, that form of sex is emotionally damaging.
– Faith
Okay, thanks, it’s just something that i struggled with at the time when i first got into the scene. A friend of mine even explained it as i was reliving the abuse in a way i could control as a sort of “Band-aid” to make me feel better. Honestly, it’s probably the truth even if i’d rather not admit it. >.< Thanks for taking the time as always. I'd say "Sorry for taking up your time" but i'm working on a compulsion of mine to say "Sorry" every 5 minutes for everything i do. So i'll just say a great big "Thank you" instead. 🙂
Matthias, it is courageous of you to make the connection between your lifestyle choice (of sexual behavior) and your abuse. You are doing well by recognizing this, but you are also on a somewhat (or better stated as potentially) consuming path of insatiability if your actions have intensified to the point that you practice BDSM. Your thoughts of categorizing what you do were correct in that you ARE trying to band-aid, or exercise the element of control …in order to be the one to “call the shots” on when you experience, cause, or overcome pain. You are consequently facilitating what you experience as “orgasmic”, because you are giving yourself the go-ahead to do so….on your own terms. THINK for a minute, though. You have a deeper threshhold that may or may not still include that pain. Try to find the understanding of what happened to you, recognizing that you did not CAUSE it, ASK for it, ENJOY it (in the sense that it was positively pleasurable).
The body will fool you into loving what is being done to it, although perverse at its worst in the form of abuse and molestation.
If you WANT to recover, seek out a group in your area that specializes in sexual addiction, OR abuse recovery (I am assuming you suffer both ???…forgive my assumption if in error). Find your meditative center, and love it! You seem very compassionate, very human, and very thoughtful.
Keep in touch, and embrace YOU without letting go!
Ally, for a New Year, and the NEWEST hope!
Hi Matthias,
I think, while the abuse might be connected to BDSM, it’s not as simple as that: BDSM is bad because it reenacts the abuse, vanilla sex is good because it is loving etc. People have been through different types of abuse, sometimes it was “tender”, they might feel triggered by vanilla sex. Other people might use “normal” vanilla sex to reenact, or even celibacy. Not everyone who is practising BDSM is a sex addict. It is not helpful to mix this discussion up with sexual morals that are against kinky or queer sex. Only you can know if there are aspects of BDSM or other sex that you have are harmful or obsessive or whatever, that mostly depends on what’s going on the *inside*, not so much on what we do (as long as it’s safe sane and consensual of course).
Check out the Sexual Healing for Survivors book by Staci Haines. She has a section about BDSM and discusses this in depth without getting judgmental. http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Sex-Mind-Body-Approach-Sexual/dp/1573442933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263634257&sr=1-1
I just wanted to comment on this. I guess my blog name says it all though.
This subject has and always will be what I struggle with the most. During every flashback, trigger, thought of the sexual abuse from my grandmother and uncle, I feel the disgusting arousal. That’s why I have to sexually self-injure. I have to punish my body for betraying me.
Yes, I’ve heard it a million times, “It’s a normal physiological reponse.”
Well, hearing it and feeling it are two different things.
My therapist says I have to “embrace it.” Yeah, right.
Matthais777,
I didn’t know there was a BDSM ‘society’ where u can meet up wit other people who like BDSM, but I watch a lot of it on pornos. I’m really into bdsm or having the need to be dominated/ humiliated and hurt to achieve orgasm… I know for a fact this is because of my abuse, and often do the same things that was inflicted on me when I was raped. Being held down, strangled, punched and bitten/ pinched during sex turns me on and gives me extremely intense orgasms (much bigger orgasms than vanilla sex). Therefore I don’t want to stop doing it because I enjoy being dominated and punished. I also think it helps me to cope with my abuse and I always feel blissfuly happy and revitalised for days after I’ve had rough sex/ bdsm or hurt myself while masturbating. I feel like I can concentrate for longer and study better (I’m in my final term @ university). I know this is bad and unhealthy, and it’s been escalating in pain and extremes, as my pain threshold grows stronger. I’m not addicted to sex, I can go for weeks without and be ok, it’s the way I have sex that’s the issue. I think I’m just going to live with it, because going without is like asking me to be celibate (because I won’t have decent orgasms). I also had bulimia, but now I ‘found’ BDSM, I have relapsed only twice and that was because of flashbacks. I know I need this release to feel ‘human’ and to feel alive, if I don’t then I slowly shut down and go numb inside. I’m glad someone else is a bit like me, and knowing there is a ‘group’ of us makes me feel less like a freak so thank you very much for sharing. I’m 21 and in a long term relationship, and my twenties so far have been so much better than my teens and I put a lot of this to ‘discovering’ BDSM. Using it as a coping mechanism and a way to live a reasonably normal life isn’t good I know, but I’ve never felt better. I’m just gonna have to work out a way to stop it getting more and more aggressive. If anyone knows how, I’d really appreciate it. Thank you!
I very much see what your saying deebab, I posted earlier this month about my experiences. Again, I come to this website alot and read other ppls experiences because I feel less like a freak. This BDSM thing, due to my abuse, I now realize I’m getting into. When I watch it and think about it, after the orgasm I feel like I can concentrate better in school and focus. This has messed me up so much that I now get on the internet and watch things done to other women, because I’m now finding out that what my step dad did was so similar. From 9 until I put and end to it few months ago, he basically brainwashed me into thinking he was a doctor, and I feel so dumb for believing it. He bought high heels, and tied my legs apart with a rope to the bed posts on one end, and my arms on the other. He used a vibrator on me, sometimes his fingers at the same time. I had to ask him permission to orgasm, or he would hit me. It was so f****d up! This went on for years, and to think that I enjoyed part of it deep down makes me so sick. Sometimes, when he said no, I had to hold off my orgasm, and that just made it worse, bc when I finally did have it it was super intense, and it looked so obvious that I was “enjoying” it. I feel betrayed, disgusted, humiliated, and embarrassed by my body.
I was sexually abused by my dad from the age of 2/3 until i was nearly 16 and it was pretty much one-sided(him doing stuff to me) and i enjoyed it. Even when i got my first boyfriend at 14 and realised it was wrong i still went back to him-if anything it seemed to turn me on more when i realised why it was wrong which made me feel like a sick freak.
Immediately after every orgasm i felt absolutely disgusted with myself and stayed away from him until next time i was drawn back to him because the orgasms were addictive.
I’ve had years of therapy which has helped me manage my day to day life and problems in relationships but one major issue is still lurking about. I can’t achieve orgasms by myself or with a partner without having negative fantasies. These are less extreme now than they were in the past but are negative all the same.
I can enjoy sex with a partner but to have an orgasm i HAVE to close my eyes and think about…whatever. I wish i could have one while actually ‘being’ with or at least looking at my partner.
One other thing i have trouble with is when i’m not feeling extremely aroused before/during/after sex with someone i have the uncontrollable urge to cover myself up because i feel completely exposed and embarassed – EXACTLY how i felt after having an orgasm during my abuse.
I wish i could find a way to solve these problems. I don’t want to conceive my first child while thinking of disturbing things and would give anything to feel comfortable when i’m naked in front of a partner.
This site has helped me enormously, my therapist told me arousal is a normal response to abuse but thought she was talking crap to make me feel better. It’s incredibly comforting to know others genuinely feel the same.
Your reactions to your experiences seem eerily similar to mine. I was also drawn back time and time again to my abuser because of the addictive quality of the orgasms. In spite of my guilt and embarrassment there were many times where I’d initiate the abuse instead of him. I would seek out orgasms with my abuser. If I had any difficulty in having one during the abuse, thinking about how “wrong” or “evil” or “taboo” it was during the sex always aroused me further to the point where reaching orgasm was easy. I feel guilt remembering this even now.
As for the “exposed” feeling after the orgasm (which I’m sure is a product of guilt), I was the same. I seemed to have no shame at all during the sex, but once the orgasms were over I wanted nothing to do with my abuser and immediately hid my body.
I remember I never wanted my stepfather to know how much I enjoyed the abuse and I wished I could somehow hide this from him. But the fact that I was being brought to orgasm was always VERY obvious, which caused me extreme embarrassment. He seemed to get great enjoyment out of this, however.
Finding satisfaction in adult sex following years of childhood abuse will always be a challenge, I think. My thoughts/fantasies are often drawn back to early experiences, but I tell myself that I refuse to feel any further guilt over this.
Did you ever tell him how you felt? Do you two socialize now?
Alice, it’s nice to hear i’m not the only one who felt like that.
I know no matter what happened during the abuse that it wasn’t my fault because he was the parent and adult, but that doesn’t make it easy to deal with the thoughts/feelings i had at the time that are still lurking about and make me feel bad.
Because i orgasmed quickly during the abuse(before and after i realised it was wrong), something i’ve always wondered is whether i’d have been able to have orgasms that easily with a partner now if the abuse hadn’t taken place.
I guess that’s something i’ll never know now but if non-abused people experience that amount of pleasure being with someone in a consensual sexual relationship then i think i finally understand why the world is obsessed with sex.
I’ve never told anyone this, and its hard for me to talk about, so I’ll type it in two parts. on separate days. I’m 17 now. My step dad took advantage of me form 9 till late 16, I loved him, and my orgasms were really intense, and I enjoyed it leading up to and during the orgasm, but afterword I cried and hated myself. He would tell me he was a doctor, and I would lay out for him, and when I got close to orgasm he made me/told me to ask for it, or he would hit me. I had to beg for the orgasm sometimes. It was so humiliating. stillgoing and Alice C.,, you make me feel so much more comfortable. I cant thank you enough for your bravery. I cant write anymore right now.
I’m a soon to be 15 year old teenage girl.
Well… I’ve never had abuse as bad as the above…
Age 6 I was touched in ways I shouldn’t have been by my 13 & 15 year old foreign uncles over a period of around a month, until I finished my “holiday”.
Age 12 I woke one night, able to keep my eyes closed, my breats were being groped by my cousin, 2 weeks younger then me. Later that day he dry humped me.
The thing is, I feel I must have something repressed? Let me explain.
The incident when I was 6, after I was initially touched seductively on my calves & thighs, I knew it was wrong, but in a way, I felt like I was having a “laugh” such as a flirting teenager would.
The 13 year old would “tag” me (in that game, UK=”it”, US=”tag”) by putting his hand inbetween my.. Urm, how can I say this without feeling as if I’m ridiculing myself? He put an open palm inbetween my lower cheeks and made a shaking motion from side to side. Once again, I thought it merely playful.
Yet I remember, on several occasions, in the night, imagining them taking me from my bed and molestering me, I fantasised. This was far before I had my first orgasm (from what I can remember). I also remember them taking a keen interest one time I had forgotton my towel when I went to shower, I had ensured I waited long enough for them to dissappear in their doorway before I made the embarrassing run though.
The younger one was also doing the alternate “tagging” to my 10 year old sister, who was far more aware then I at 6, and she told my mother, who told my uncle, who attempted to punch them, but then huddled together like pitiful children and their mother forced them to duck, so instead he damaged the wall. My uncle was then pulled away by numerous family members. How I love my uncle.
The next incident… well what can I say? My cousin, 2 weeks younger then I, we had been best freinds while we were younger, he was always so sweet. We gained other friends over time, but we remained relatively close, I never told him about my past experiences other than that my foreign uncles were “pervs”.
Becuase of his raising, he grew to mature faster then I in every way but sexually (obviously because I was sexualised early on). One night, while I was staying around my gran’s (his house), we were play fighting as usual, and somehow, I ended up with the duvet over my head and him pretend-killing me (in a way that was designed to be annoying, not sadistic), but I had developed large breasts for my age, and I was wearing the only jumper/sweater I owned, which fit, which was unfortunatly a turtle neck, I remember when my head was covered and my chest not, my cousin made (what at my current age would be classed as a joke, however then, I have a feeling he was more serious) a horny cat noise with the word “sexy”. If only I had logically concluded that it was inappropriate. He’s a religious boy (muslim) so I later assumed his sexuality was due to the repression on sexuality in strict islam. Same with my uncles. I wonder if I assumed wrong?
Another time, we were playing some random game, like kids, and he sat on my back in that kind of horse/cowboy thing, he started making sex noises. I thought it was a joke. I dropped him [I was still on all “fours”], he sounded truly dissapointed.
Later that night, I was supposed to be woken by my cousin early in the morning to begin my religious fasting. I woke to him feeling and groping my breasts, he lifted my top and rubbed my stomach. The light was on. My eyes were closed. He started fiddleing with my trousers/pants drawstrings, then my nan called something along the lines of “Is she awake?” he yelled something back and then woke be up, as he usually would, and we went downstairs, we ate, I sat completelly shocked and dazed, eating, fully aware of how strange I looked, I shrugged off the questions with “Nothing, I’m just tired”.
After we were sent back to bed, almost exactly 15 minutes later, while I was awake thinking of recent events, my cousin came through the door quietly. I was on my side. I pretended to sleep. I remember him lifting my top, I was facing away from him, I felt a wet kiss on my hip. How that disturbed me. he put his thump down the band of my trousers/pants, ready to pull them down when I turned on my stomach pretending to adjust my position sleepily as if I were not conscience. He quickely shied away and went back to his bed.
I waited around 10 minutes, got up, went to the toilet. Sat on the closed seat and thought. I went back to my room, as I entered I went to lock the door. But I stopped. I feel perverted saying this. But I wanted to be touched. I wanted something sexual.
I went back to bed and lay there, he came in exactly 15 minutes later (Almost as if he had dedicated the night to it, staying awake, and eye on the clock?) he lifted my top and went straight for my trousers/pants, I found I didn’t want to let him suddenly, I moved slightly, he shied away and went back to bed, he came in again, 15 minutes later once again/ He, this time, cam from the direction of the headboard, he went from my trousers/pants, and this time, I open my eyes as be passed my “closed” eyes, he saw me, quickely moved away and acted as if he was looking on the shelf out of my view. I said “What are you doing?” to which he replied.”Have you seen my headphones anywhere” “No”. He went back to bed, cam in later, same thing, this time with a pen ready when I opened my eyes he replied to my queston “What are you doing” with “Nothing” obviously suspiciously, acting as if he was trying to draw on my face but I was catching him out. Several times. I was annoyed at myself at the time, not being able to work up the nerve to let him do what he was trying to do. I even ensured my drawstring was easy to untie.
Later that day, due to my lack of sleep, I was tired, I was on “my” bed, playing on the playstation with him, he pushed me off the bed and sat on, I felt… sexual. I said “Oh F*** it, I’m lying here anyway” and half sat half lay infront of him, facing the TV. something happened. Somehow we got to the point where he was “Playing mummys & babies” (Even though we were too old for this game, we often played around like this for the hell of it. Not enough to do I guess), except that he was ontop of me, it was like a rhythm, with equal periods of time in between each move, he moved further lower and flower until his navel was at my .. area. He them pushed and ended up between my legs, the next beat round, I closed them and he was on top of me again, he then moved to the side, and we continued on the PS2, I found myself moving lower so my area was at the same level as his. This is so wrong. I feel ashamed. I wanted it. I am just as bad as him.
I told him to go because I wanted to sleep ( I really was so VERY tired), he said he wanted to finish the surrent mission, I said okay, and closed my eyes to sleep.
A while passed.
He put his leg over me, he hugged me. He began rubbing his groin against me, I pretended to sleep. He orgasmed several times before his mum called him, he got up, put on his trousers/pants and left.
Well I felt HORRIBLE. I washed, changed my clothes, and went to sleep for real.
The next day, I was on my computer on my aunt’s bed, he looked in the room, went away, came back, ran in, and sat on my back. With previous events in mind I deliberatly made him feel awkward. He went away and it never happened again, probably due to me not staying round my nan’s until after him & his mum moved out.
The thing is, I feel SOMETHING must have happened before the foreign uncle incident? I was far too aware of sex and its purpose, plus imagery, from such a young age.
I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but there’s a chance my father is a rapist, could something have happened? Did he do it to me? My older sister? My mother? My youngest aunt? Do I have repressed memories? All I can say is that from as long as I could remember, I always felt I was “F***ed up”, and I’ve always hated life. I’ve always wanted it to end. If I knew how back then, I would have done it, the only reason I don’t now is because each year, things get better.
Do you think something happened?
It just seems, I couldn’t have been like that natuirally?
Please help me shed some light on the situation?
Much appreciated
Jordon x
Hi, Jordon.
Yes, it is possible that you have repressed memories of additional abuse. Only you know your truths. I strongly suggest talking with a counselor or therapist about this.
– Faith
im 45. i never had an orgasm with a man and i have had sex wth atleast 200 different men. my body just cant take me there. i can remember masturbating as a very young girl. maybe 4-6 yrs old. i only have one memory of my father. i remember him standing naked in front of me once. i remember barely nothing else about my whole childhood or my father at all. he kiled himself when i was 7. we had a basement. it was like my dads area for tools and stuff. i have intense memories that afer he died when running up the basement stairs i would feel an intense plesure / fear feeling that would draw from my ankles to my vagina. it was the most intense sweet sexual pain. i am so confused because it didnt really dawn on me till this year that maybe i was abused. i just figured all my life i just couldnt come. that it was a physical problem, not an emotional problem. i was a slut all my life, drugs, drinking. and i am only attracted to the bad boy. otherwise i am bored. i love being treated like shit and dumped. does anyone think i was abused?? i just dont have any memory of being abused by my dad. i have had anxiety and hypomania pretty much since i was a teenager.
Hi Abby,
You are not crazy. This sounds very much like you were abused. I can’t say who is the culprit but I can tell you that most molesters were abused themselves. They repeat the abuse to take back their power. My uncle/rapist was raped when he was 4. It’s mortifying how many victims he had besides me. As you might expect, this kind of insanity leaves them conflicted and could account for a suicide. Perhaps he felt guilty — he knew it was wrong but felt compelled to do it and this was the only way he could stop.
Now, that is NO excuse. You never deserved to be abused or mistreated. But I hope it maybe gives you a little context to hold onto, something to explain that it really wasn’t your fault.
The adult behaviors you describe could have a couple of explanations, and they are not mutually exclusive.
Often, abuse survivors are so conditioned to abuse that in the absence of an offender, they seek out partners who abuse them. Or what the 12-steppers refer to as “low people” — people who are often in some sort of psychological distress that may manifest as abuse, but in any case they are sure not to outshine someone who feels crappy about themself. Or failing that, the survivor resorts to self-abuse — the promiscuity, drink and drugs you mentioned. Or prostitution, which is another way of taking control of your sexuality.
What’s done is done. You can’t feel guilty about your past. But you are here, so obviously you want something to be different. You can have that. Have you ever gone to a therapist? I’d recommend it. And make sure it’s someone with experience treating abuse survivors.
The most important thing for you to know tonight is, you are not alone any more. Everyone here understands at least some part of your story. You’ll share what you want and people will help.
Take care.
PW
You can just as easily have just a predisposition to being unhappy. It’s common amongst people who have never had any kind of abuse.
Additionally it’s not actually abuse if consensual such as by being aware and not rejecting it. The feeling of disgust is normal and is there to prevent you carrying on with your close relative.
Some of these sound like some normal experiences that I’ve read about people having in their very early teens.
But if it interferes with your normal life then definitely seek counselling and good luck.
I decided to revisit this site and I realised I never saw those replies, thankyou guys, bigger issues have been occuring to me and my family now-a-days which has shifted my focus from myself to the bigger picture, and I feel a lot more in control over everything, I just hope it’s not shortlived…
Kris, I do feel the predispositiong of unhappiness could be it, and although it may not be completely honest of me, but I’d rather believe that than anything else, thankyou for helping me understand myself,
I would say it sounds like it’d be good to look into it, and not rule anything out – it sounded like he felt what he was doing was wrong if he kept waiting for you to be asleep, and moved away and made excuses otherwise. imo a moment like that should be clearly willing from both sides, even monkeys are like that in the wild.
While it may be entirely possible to have a predisposition to being a negative or unhappy person, as an adult survivor of mental, physical and sexual abuse, I personally have experienced deep unhappiness and internal conflict as well as conflict of identity as a result of the abuse I experienced as a child. I don’t not believe that as creatures capable of much higher intellect, we should reduce human emotion to a simple physiological reaction. I think it is very difficult to understand behavior of this nature unless you have personally experienced it yourself. You cannot imagine the shame, fear, degree of disgust and violation a child feels when someone they loved and trusted with complete innocence does something of this nature.
I am also curious to know how a young child, who probably does not have the developmental ability to profoundly express themselves at such an age could possibly reject an forced action from someone that they feel they have a strong bond with? (Such as in familial sexual abuse) (I think it is also wrong to assume that the pressure/forced action is always physical and also to assume that just because a young person is aware of the ongoing action, and don’t reject it does not mean that they don’t feel scared out of their minds or not pressured into following such a course of action.) Maybe they are not related by blood and there is a different kind of tie between the two, such as a social tie the child feels they have a responsibility to uphold? I was abused by a pastor who used our social relationship to “control” my behavior toward him, to make me feel that I owed it to him to carry on with an innappropriate relationship, even though I didn’t want it and knew it was wrong. This person gave large sums of money to my family and supported us in times of need as well as being a sort of father figure and supposed friend to me. However, he also mentally and sexually abused me. He even admitted that he made sure I was 18 and legal before advancing on me. Although I am an adult and fully understand his actions now, I can tell you that then I did not understand them and did not have the personal empowerment to reject his innappropriate behavior. Even if these are so called “normal experiences” that does not mean that they are ok or even appropriate behavior for an adult, just the norm for alot of people.
I can also tell you that if these had been so called “normal experiences” I would not have been seeking therapy for the last 4 years of my life or almost ending up institutionalized. 🙂
While I think it is helpful to understand the science behind psychological behavior, I do not believe it is so easy as to reduce such complicated situations to a simple emotional reaction.
Hello Everyone,
I stumbled on this site due to a relationship I am in with a girlfriend that was abused at a very early age. I am trying to make her feel safe and reassure her that these things happen and that it isn’t her fault. Although we haven’t talked about this much until recently, it has affected our intimacy so I’m trying to allow her to work through her feelings and be supportive in any way that i can. She is a beautiful soul. This can be said of all of you that have been abused.
I see that Faith has mentioned therapy and I applaud her for offering this blog. I want to mention a few concepts to everyone here and with any luck, it won’t be too “heavy” on the technical side.
There is an excellent book available called Evolve Your Brain written by Joe Dispenza. This book is backed up by the latest research in brain science. In the book, he explains that every past memory is tied to emotion via “neural nets” that are formed in the brain. The stronger the “emotion” or external stimulus, the more “hardwired” the thought becomes in our brain. In primitive times, this served its purpose. For example, let’s say we were threatened by an orange tiger while walking through a jungle and climbed a tree to make our narrow escape. In the future, every time we saw the color orange, we would get flashbacks and would be ready to run as fast as possible. In today’s day and age, this primitive system can often times work against us. To explain, when we see or experience anything that even remotely reminds us of a previous shocking experience, we get all the emotions that we originally felt along with it. This is where our body sabotages us. We start thinking to ourselves, “if this is how I’m (feeling), it must be what I truly think.” This is absolutely not the case. This is the animal brain’s primitive system at work. This IS NOT really how we think or feel, it is a natural programmed response by the body. So the problem arises when we think that these emotional reactions (as a result of a strong initial experience and then a later trigger) are really who we are and what we think. It is as if the body hijacks us into associating our true feelings and intentions with the emotions that are coming about. So we have this extremely strange, unusual and traumatizing experience which involves an orgasm (under conditions that are out of our control). Our brain creates “neural networks” that link the orgasm to that particular experience. Then, when something reminds of this experience in the future (sex with someone we love), these neural nets become activated and we get the troubling thoughts that come with it. All of these memories are formed (along with) emotions. So what I’m trying to say (hopefully I’m not losing everyone) is that your thoughts surrounding orgasm are nothing more than the brains way of wiring itself through neural networks. This ISN’T how you truly think and feel about a situation. This is a natural part of how the brain works. I know this doesn’t remove the feeling associated with the orgasm (more on that in a minute) but I’m hoping it will help everyone understand that we are not the emotions and memories that are triggered from these neural nets in the brain. This is not us thinking here, it is an automatic program. The trouble comes about when we take ownership on this memories and start to think that it is “us” that is thinking these things. That “we” are responsible for the thoughts, which is absolutely 100% NOT TRUE. The body plays tricks on us and this is NOT what we truly feel……it is a primitive way in which the body stores memories. So here we have a double whammy, blaming ourselves for the initial experience and then also taking blame for the ensuing feelings and emotions when we experience something similar. If possible, it is important not to try to internalize these thoughts and mistake the body’s primitive system for what we really think and believe. This is where therapy becomes helpful. It allows us to “unwire” these neural nets so these “automatic” thoughts stop popping up and interfering with our intimate relationships with others (or enjoying intimacy on any level for that matter).
In terms of therapy, I am not a doctor so please don’t get the impression that I am offering medical advice to everyone. I am just a healer by nature and have spent many years trying to understand health (mind and body). That being said, any therapy is good therapy so I certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from pursuing a particular form of therapy that works best for them. The goal of therapy is to “unwire” these troubling thoughts so we can get on with our life and experience a sense of joy that each one of you deserves. For those people out there that are light on cash or perhaps want something to use in between therapy sessions, EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique workers wonders!! Basically, you use a set up phrase or affirmation (Even though I feel shame because of “x,” I totally and completely love myself) and tap on specific acupuncture points. It is really easy and handy when you get the hang of it and…..it really works! Before the technique was released to the public, it was tested on individuals with post traumatic stress disorder and produced remarkable results. You can go to the following website and download the “free” manual. Just read the manual and you will have all that you need. You may also find additional info online….I’ve included an additional link on the tapping points as well.
Free Manual – http://www.emofree.com/downloadeftmanual.asp
Quick Overview of Tapping Points – http://www.thrivingnow.com/for/Health/eft-tapping-points/
EFT is very helpful but I would recommend eventually working with a trained practitioner if you aren’t getting all of the results that you want. It can be very difficult to understand our own mind. That is what a therapist is for. I also like hypnosis as a form of therapy if there are good practitioners in your area.
I sincerely hope this information is helpful to everyone. Please remember, the conflicting thoughts surrounding orgasm and sexual memories aren’t you….they are nothing more than a function of the brain’s wiring. All of you are so much more than your brain, you are beautiful spirits ( :
Much Love and Light,
Tyler
Greetings,
I have also stumbled across this blog due to a relationship with a woman who was sexually abused at an early age. I want to thank Faith for this brutally honest blog because the monsters will always win if you face them in the dark. I post here with the deep need to express myself in the way you only can to strangers on the web who truly understand. Obviously I come from the perspective of the loved one who tries to love a person going through the aftermath and I will be as brutally honest as this blog deserves.
Quick background. When I met her she was pretty young (18) and claimed virginity but early on in the relationship she hinted at the abuse. Apparently there were several different instances with different men but the big one has finally been shared with me after 7 years of predictably topsy turvy relationship and many traumatic sexual experiences. She was raped by a farmhand at the ages of 5-6 repeatedly and claims to have enjoyed it, a concept I never could really grasp until I stumbled on this. Now of course everything makes alot of sense. She also claims to have gotten to the point of seeking the man out and making secret rendezvous with him and being a willing partner.
She has overcome alot on her own, being dedicated to Yoga, and she manged to stay clear of many of the pitfalls of self mutilation, promiscuity throughout the rest of her life and drug abuse(though she does have suicidal tendencies). But on the other end our sex is limited. There are thresholds that I am unable to cross without bringing the flashbacks. Certain positions and a special aversion to romantic conversation during sex are the most acute.
I do not consider myself a prude to the topic. I was fondled a few times(nothing major) and I was a very sexual child constantly looking for “doctor playmates” from the ages of 5-10. This has become a complication on my part as I will get to later.
I love this woman very much for many reasons. She is on her way to moving in with me and we are making marriage plans. Our sex is very pleasant when she can get in the mood for it, but a good 50% of our sex life is stopped half way or worse, she disconnects at a point where I am very aroused and I cannot stop despite the knowledge she has disconnected. I can feel the damage that our sex does to her many times even though I know the happiness it brings her to please me.
Call me a hippy to the death but I refuse to give up on the healing power of true spiritual, mental, and physical sex between two partners that love each other. So then comes the questions and the confusion. How can I get her to leave the shallow waters that our sex waddles in and into the deep ocean of truly intimate sex? It is obviously extremely difficult to confront her with these feelings. she is very proud and rightly so of how far she has come just to have the sex we currently have. She manages to deny sex when flashbacks occur but can only enjoy sex through some mental trick I can’t fully understand where she appears to meditate within herself as if I weren’t there. But my needs are beyond that I know this truly(or do I?). Therapy? tantra? I have no clue.
And then comes the anger. I can no longer see a 5 or 6 year old girl and not think about and feel the rage. When she turns her back in mid sex the animal in me says “Be a man and fuck her brains out and rape her like she was six years old and she will love you for it and have 20 orgasms!” Having been sexually stimulated at such an early age I have found a dark inner pedophile(which appreantly is more natural than any person not on this blog wants to admit) masturbating to the thougts of her experience.
These thoughts are way in the back burner but they are there. I do not fear them but then I think, “what if the pedophile wins?” What if I can never achieve her sexual stimulation like the abuser did? What if the abuser has forever taken the joy of a great long fuck and the illusion of perfect child like love to an area I can never touch?
There are two sides to this coin. The pure animal sexual response that has been blocked to me because after a certain amount of sex she gets to this point that seems to belong to the abuser and most importantly(I think) the dominance of the imagination. It is in the imagination that all pleasure and pain is transformed into our cognitive knowledge and who can compete with the imagination of a well manipulated 6 year old!
This pain and confusion has become mine as well as hers, though I fully recognize that mine is but a mere shadow of the original.
I am now faced with the very real possibility that if I truly love her and want to be with her I can never save her, never have her as mine the way that I could give myself fully to her. I can only understand her and love her. And if I do that, does the pedophile win? Do I have to accept that sex with minors is somehow superior to what I can offer her?
I have a daughter who I love very much. These are conclusions that I do not feel willing to accept in this lifetime. I’ll be one with Buddha some other lifetime thank you very much.
And so I fight on. Me vs Nihilism. And I wonder if I fight alone or if she is with me.
Thank you for sharing. Remember that fantasy is just fantasy as long as you have any sense of the real world being a distinctly different realm where actions have consequences. Of course you understand this because you speak very clearly to us about your thoughts.
However I feel that you need to speak more to your wife about these things. You are clearly not communicating about something that is important. Laying your cards on the table is all you can do – and I suspect (based on personal experience and that of other posters) that her mind trick is fantasising about something dark that she cannot communicate to you because of fear.
Remember that if you are two consenting adults, you can fantasise about anything you want. It’s normal and thinking of dark thoughts is no more likely to bring them to fruition than watching a horror movie is likely to provoke you into a psychopathic murderous rage.
You are an adult and are obviously intelligent enough to figure out what it takes. Just talk and talk and talk. Take your time and try getting a book from the library on how to communicate difficult issues with people. There are some ways that seem threatening and some that are less so. Understand that society encourages us to close up all the time and just express disgust. Yet those of us who can think clearly about such unsavoury topics have skills that others don’t.
Again – good luck to you both. Take care.
Stumbled onto site and it is helpful and informative. am a surivor of family sexual\physical\emotional\mental\spiritual assault. its taken years of recovery as several family members were involved. its been with help of therapist, doctors, shamans, clergy, healers, and even witches and fortune tellers and a few teachers, friends, barkeepers and strangers who knows maybe angels God does know it placed them there for me when time was right. here to i add a website to my list of things aiding my recovery. keep hope and faith its a long course in recovery. like the quilt blocks i have been learning to quilt. prayers out for all, sincerly prince of tides, a male quilter and survivor.
I want to thank Tyler for the post he made!! THANK YOU. Since you published your post, I’ve read and learned EFT and I’ve successfully tried it. I’m unwiring my confusing emotions and traumas that’s holding me back from happiness in life.
I recommend it, it’s definately worth trying!
[…] Do Sexually Abused Children Enjoy Orgasms from Rape or Sexual Abuse? November 2008 67 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com, 3 […]
Good day faith,
this sight has really opened up my eyes to things that i can never imagine since i have never been abused. My long-term girlfriend however,has been abused from the age of 3 by her older cousin and later on by her uncle. the cousin started fondling her at age three, then continued the abuse whenever he visited with oral sex and touching. he never tried to penetrate her at that time. He lived very far away so the visits were not often but he would sneak into her room whenever he slept over at their house. she was scared, confused, ashamed and dare not tell anyone about the abuse even though she knew what he was doing was wrong….as she became an adolescent, her dad’s best friend, who they all call uncle and was an elder in the family church, started touching her. he would turn up at he house when he knew no one else was there and force himself on her. he never penetrated her but would normally perform oral sex on her. he did try a couple of times to penetrate but he always got interrupted(thank god!!)
when she left school she got a job and it so happened it was near where her abusive cousin lived. she had to stay with her elderly grandmother ( also his grandmother ) in order to take this job ….he would turn up when the grandmother was sleeping or out and continue the abuse, but never penetrating
she eventually had her first serious boyfriend, after a few years she decided to marry this boyfriends and when they got engaged, she had her first consentual sexual experience. once the cousin realised this, on two occassions he went to herand raped her
even now my girlfriend cannot be alone around these two men because they still try to touch her and she freezes and connot fight back. now for me who is never been abused, especially for that number of years ( she is now 28!!) understand, why she cant fight them off, stand up to them etc. this is one of the reasons i am writing so i can try understand….I am the only person she has been so open with about her experience and i can listen, reassure her that it is not her fault but she refuses to get any help, tell her family or take any action. i constanly worry that if she is in a situation where either of them corner her she may be abused again (just for clarification-we live in seperate countries at the moment)
with regards to our sex life, she says she has never had an orgasm( although i think she has but only with her abusers) . we i perform oral sex on her she gets to a point where she almost climaxes but forces herself not to….she hinted one time that the feeling makes her feel guilty and remember the shame of what the uncle and cousin used to do to her. but when i ask her now she claims she just needs to let loose and denies it has anything to do with the abuse
she gets horny, although her sex drive is a little lower than mine, and she says she enjoys the sex but hasnt ever climaxed. she completely pleasures me, but there is always something missing because i sometimes feel like a failure . i wish that i could give her the pleasure that she gives me
please give me all and any helpful advice, firstly to help her deal with her abuse & support her and secondly our sex lives and her inability to climax
thanks in advance and keep up the good and neccesary work
Hi, Patient.
If your partner had posted this message, I would strongly advise her to enter into therapy. My suggestion for you is to read the book, “Allies in Healing” by Laura Davis:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060968834?ie=UTF8&tag=bloolotu-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0060968834
This book will help you understand what is going on in her head. Sadly, her feelings about sex are unlikely to change as long as she is unwilling to deal with her past.
The reason she doesn’t fight off her cousin is because she emotionally regresses when he attacks her. This happened to me with my mother/abuser. She started sexually abusing me when I was a toddler. She stopped for a long time but did it again when I was 17. Even though I had a 17-year-old body, I became a toddler again in my head, so it never even occurred to me to fight back.
Your partner needs to choose to heal for her reactions to change. Her actions and reactions are normal for a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. She can reclaim her life, but she has to choose to heal first, and nobody can choose this for her. In fairness to her, healing is very hard work and not for the faint of heart. She needs to be in a safe place and be ready to feel like complete crap for a while.
Your partner is blessed to have you in her life. :0)
– Faith
Hi Faith,
and thank you very much for your reply. I will try to get a copy of the book.
i need to know whether there are other alternatives other than therapy….something i can do…..she will never confront her or confide in her family because of shame , fear of blame and the fear that it will destroy her whole family . she is of the opinion that she can keep eerything inside and let everyone else be happy in their ignorance
Because she feels like this, and she has trusted me enough to confide in me, i think i am the one who has the responsibility to help her..need to know what to do
maybe the book you recommended will help
patient
Hi Faith!
Thank you so much for this blog!! It is awesome!! I wished I would have found it before. I get lost feeling like I have no one to talk to at times and even though I know that I am not alone in my healing journey I have been unsuccessful in finding a support group or an individual to share my child hood experiences with. My husband has heard it all and I am more than thankful for his listening and supporting me through every stage and phase of healing. I occasionally talk to my mother in law but the subject matter makes her nervous and she shuts me out quickly. I have read many people stories through the years but I have only met 1 person who has a similar story to mine and she will not talk about it with me. I desperately wanted to compare notes. I thought I found a sister so to speak but she shuts me out to. I somehow think I make her feel afraid?? Don’t really understand that as she actually has a counseling ministry. She sent me a e-mail saying that she cannot be a support system for me and most of the time she will not even respond to the e-mails that I send her even if they are just a hello how are you doing. I have felt desperate to connect with someone who has experienced hell. To float along and always be around people who say nothing ever happened to them makes me feel like a misfit. My church even shunned me because I was taking too long to heal. When I called seeking help they closed the door in my face and said that they could find no one to talk to me!! It was very hurtful at the time. I have moved on from that and continue to heal and make progress but I still feel so disconnected and was looking for a community or a group to plug into and I think I found that here.
Thanks so much for all the time you have put into this blog!! I have spent hours and hours reading your story over the last 2 days and I am so thankful that you wrote it. I was wondering how you conquered fear to be able to go so public with your story. That is one of my biggest problems right now. I tend to hide in a shell and not really show people who I am. I worry that they want like me if they know the truth of where I come from.
My other big issue is intimacy!! I’ve come along way from where I was but I am not where I want to be yet!! I have been on a healing journey for 10 years now. I had a breakdown in 2000 and my memories started surfacing in 2002. I realized I was DID in 2005. God has done a tremendous work on the inside of me. I continue to put my puzzle together as the pieces come to me.
I really hope that this is a place where I will be able to freely talk about my child hood at some point.
Thanks again Faith!! Hugs and Blessings to you for all you do to help others heal!!
Hi, Destiny.
Welcome to my blog!
I am able to be this open and honest because I write using a pen name. Only a handful of people in my offline life know my full story. I find that those who do know my story only love me more, not less. :0)
If you are looking for a community where you can open up about your story, I strongly recommend Isurvive (www.isurvive.org), which is a message board for child abuse survivors. That is where I shared each part of my story as it surfaced.
You are, of course, welcome here as well. :0) I am not pushing you off elsewhere as you have experienced before. Instead, I am letting you know about a supplemental resource that might be exactly what you are looking for. The format of this blog is that I write about a topic of interest to my readers, and then readers post comments. At Isurvive, you can start your own thread and share whatever you want to share. Feel free to frequent both places. :0)
If you want to check out Isurvive, the “Ritualized Abuse” forum is the one for discussing DID topics. :0)
– Faith
I have read the whole thread which is mostly about female survivors of sexual abuse, any resources for males?
I was raped and sexually abused from the age of 7 until the age of 11 by a family member and yes, I orgasmed .
thinskin
Hi, thinskin.
The best resource I know of for male survivors of sexual abuse is Isurvive, which is a message board for child abuse survivors: http://isurvive.org/ Isurvive has one forum dedicated to male survivors.
– Faith
I just wanted to thank all of you for sharing your story’s. I found this blog because I was asked a similar question by a friend. People often think that because I have a BA in psychology that I have all the answers. When in reality the people like you guys who are living with the trauma are the ones who have the best answers. Even better answers than the doctors at my university. I asked 2 professors about this subject and couldn’t give an answer, one of which was a clinical psychologist. My wife has been molested multiple times as a child and even raped as an adolescent. We have been together many years and now I understand why she keeps her eyes closed during sex. It also explains why she wont cuddle with me after sex. This is a huge eye opener for me. I do have a question. What are these negative fantasies you are having? Is it about what actually happened or is just random? This information is going to help me tremendously in my personal life and in my carer. I cant thank all of you enough for the information you have shared here. I wish all of you the best of luck. I will eventually earn my PhD in clinical psychology where I will do everything I can to help victims recover and lock up the monsters.
Hi, Sam.
My negative fantasies were always representative of a trauma that I really experienced. For example, when making love to my husband, my body would not respond. However, if I fantasized that people were watching, all of the sudden my body would become very responsive. I later recovered flashbacks of multiple gang rapes and of being raped while people watched and took picture.
I am grateful to hear that you will earning your PhD and are looking to help child abuse survivors with your degree.
– Faith
Hello,
My name is Erica. I was first molested when I was 9. My foster mothers nephew was 18 molested me and brainwashed me for months. When it was found out I was moved to another foster home. The foster home I was placed in, the foster father molested me for 6-9 months. I told my foster mother and she brought him in the bedroom and confronted him. When asked if he did it he confessed, she then asked him if he would stop, which of course never happened. I told her after the second time he did it. After living for months under these conditions without and hope of rescue I tried to commit suicide by sleeping pills (which he was giving me before each assault so I would be sedated). Obviously I survived my own attempt, but after realizing that they would not take me to the doctor even if I was trying to take my own life, I packed up and ran away.
When I told the police both of the foster parents lied, so not only was I molested by my foster father, but they also smeared my name, an innocent 13 year old and said that I was making it up.
This leads me to present day. I am now 24 years old. i am in a relationship with my boyfriend of four years. Since my foster father molested me, I cannot achieve orgasm unless I am replaying some sort of the attacks. My boyfriend, none of them for that matter have ever known my horrible secret I have been keeping in my head. Straight sex just isnt pleasurable. Two days ago my boyfriend asked me what I was thinking about while doing my thing. I started crying and asked him to please not press me for an answer. He couldnt understand at first why i couldnt share my “fantasy” as he put it.
I finally let it all out. I told him that I can’t help but think about the attacks. My first sexual experience was by force. Your body dosent know that. All it can tell is if it felt good or not. I logically understand these things. But then when I finally achieve orgasm, it isnt complete or satisfying because I feel filthy afterwards. Normal people would feel happy light calm, all i feel is shame, anger, rage. I hate myself because I feel broken. My partner never signed up for this hell, and yet he has been there ever step of the way. From the seizure like convulsing, to the night terrors, to the flashback, panic attacks, and cold fish behaviour that I exhibit. I cant help but think about it. Do I want it to happen again, of course not, but I still cant help the compulsive thoughts that I have when my body becomes arroused.
When I read this article I had to comment, because it is not on the regular that I can talk to people about the horrible thoughts I have. My physical torture at my abusers hands have stopped, but where he left off I picked up. I continue to torture myself with why’s and what if’s. Its been over ten years and often I hear people tell me to just get over it. I am also incapacitatingly afraid of the dark, go figure.
I want to be normal and healthy, but he took that from me and all I can do is try each day to love myself.
My boyfriend said it best and ill share it with oyu, because if you have survived a sexual assault you need to hear this.
Its not your fault, I know you will talk youself 20 different ways into making it youir fault, but its not.
The thoughts you think about, those arent your fault either. The only reason they feel dirty to you is because the physical reaction of your body is tied to a sexual attack.
If you have PTSD, talk to someone, it does not go away on its own, it only gets worse without treatment.
Thank you for posting, I don’t feel as alone, if anybody would like to email me you can reach me at silverflamerider@gmail.com
Reading everyone’s posts just now, and I am feeling a mix of amazement, shock, disbelief, relief and relating to them. I never understood, why I have behaved the way I have, all these years. I find it almost impossible to have an orgasm within a normal relationship. I had to degrade myself by sleeping around to have one, or fantasize bizarre acts, S & M, gang rape, gang bangs, even bestiality… and have tried to get into BDSM since 1995. I enjoyed the degrading the men did, orgasmed from being beaten and sexually used by my Dominates, then feel so empty and repulsed afterwards. To this day, when I masterbate, it’s to these negative fantasies. I never understood, why, till my repressed memories began to surface the past few days. Yes, I have, tried to re-enact the sexual abuses done to me, it’s where my comfort zone is, sexually speaking, however short-lived that comfort is. I always am ashamed for having enjoyed the degrading acts with strangers and BDSM Doms I have met with from 1995-2005. I have fought the urge to resume this behavior since then. I used to have orgasms with my husband, BEFORE we were married. Since our wedding, it’s damn near impossible to have an orgasm, without having one of my negative fantasies. Oh, bloody hell! After we made love a few hours ago, I had to masterbate to one of the sexual abuse memories! As usual, after reaching orgasm that way, I curl up into a fetal position and cry. I feel so empty afterward. I see I am not alone with this madness. But, how do I stop this? Will it stop?
Hi, Sandi.
Yes, every area of your life can improve with healing from the child abuse. I am not saying that every area of your life will ever be perfect, but you can heal and not be in this terrible place any longer.
– Faith
Is rape fantasy really exclusive to rape victims? My wife says she was never molested or raped and seems fairly normal, even laughing and playing after we make love but we practice rape fantasies. We’ve even dabbled in alternative lifestyles and we’re very open with each other about what kinds of thoughts turn us on. I mean, I’ve found that MOST women like things like having their hair pulled while making love. I’d say that things like slight humiliation, (name-calling) or using mild force somewhat simulating rape is a pretty normal from the majority of women I’ve ever been intimate with. Isn’t that just aggressiveness so long as the woman is a willing participant?
I bring this up ONLY because after reading most of this I think some of you may be overly harsh on your own desires. A few people seemed to have the idea that if you were not molested or assaulted you would have only “normal sex” Which seems to be something like staring into your partner’s eyes and thinking about how much you love them while having an orgasm.
I’ve done this with my wife but I’d say we make love in that way far less than we do with at least some of the negative elements involved.
What happened to some of you is truly horrible but you need to stop beating yourselves up. (Easy for me to say I know) There is at least some part of human nature that enjoys these “negative” aspects of sex even when you haven’t been abused. If you find someone you truly love and who cares for you I don’t see why you can’t acknowledge some of these negative aspects in a play like setting with your partner. I don’t see how getting aroused should be something your ashamed of. Love yourselves; you’re all awesome people with nothing to be ashamed of.
Jay, thanks so much for bringing this up! I have also observed how people who have not been abused enjoy some of these “negative” aspects of sexuality as well.
I do think we are being hard on ourselves as survivors…The truth is that sexuality is a complex, deeply personal thing to everyone, and there is no cookie-cutter way we should be. People who are NOT abused, who develop in a “normal” way, even question their sexuality, finding themselves turned on by things they “shouldn’t” be turned on by, and etc.
So yes! We should cut ourselves some slack. The shame we place on top of the shame makes it even worse.
I mean, staring into our lover’s eyes and having a deep, loving, no-shame-attached orgasm with them would be great, but if we’re not at that place right now (and my God, with all we’ve been through, how COULD we be at that place yet?), can’t we just try to be a little gentler with ourselves about what gives us orgasms? We were programmed to do it that way. In the same way that we’re sponges as children for everything else we’re learning, we learn how to react sexually. Such a complex, confusing, winding, mingling, pleasurable, painful road and everything else in between. In the same way that our beliefs become deeply-ingrained at such a young age, so it is with our sexuality. But, the good news is that we can change. It may take a long time and be unbearably difficult, but it is possible. In the MEAN TIME, I want to experience pleasure, even if it is mingled with the dysfunction I was taught as a child. Thank you Jay for bringing up human nature and making the statement that we should also not feel ashamed of our arousal. What was done to us wasn’t healthy, but we should treat ourselves and our reaction to the abuse with leniency and respect.
jay, I would refer you to anon’s comment from January 2010:
‘I think, while the abuse might be connected to BDSM, it’s not as simple as that: BDSM is bad because it reenacts the abuse, vanilla sex is good because it is loving etc. People have been through different types of abuse, sometimes it was “tender”, they might feel triggered by vanilla sex. Other people might use “normal” vanilla sex to reenact, or even celibacy.’
It’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t had their sexuality disrupted in this way, but imagine this. When someone gains physiological pleasure from abuse, it can kind of “split” their sexuality into parallel tracks. One is their true sexuality, which may not have developed yet depending on their age, and the other is a masking sexuality that exists firstly to try and please the abuser in order to stave off even greater harm, and later to contextualise the “pleasure” they felt and link it to the real world. Someone could be truly vanilla and superficially kinky, or indeed truly kinky and superficially vanilla, or both somewhere in between. Still on the image of parallel tracks, nothing on the false track will ever feel good, at least as far as I can tell, because it was born out of terror. The key is to get rid of it entirely and return to and/or nurture ones true sexuality, but that is difficult as a perpetrator often destroys the ability to communicate with that part of the psyche. Also someone who was abused at a very young age may need to be effectively asexual for a time in order to let their sexual identity form. This almost parasitic extra sexuality, superimposed on top of the first one is also observable in people with porn addictions, who have often not been abused by someone else. It’s characterised by shame and a lack of satisfaction. Sticking with the tracks, I feel it must be the most confusing for people whose sexual identity genuinely matches their abuse quite closely, because it must be very difficult to tell whether going ahead with sexual activity at any given time is the right thing to do.
Personally, I don’t like “loving” sex, just because with my perpetrators it was all about “love love love”, that was the way they dressed it up. TBC
I love a bit of kink, and it feels much safer because of the lack of negative connotations, but it would be nice for a partner to be able to make love to me sometimes, to gaze into my eyes, and I’d like to be able to give someone that, and enjoy it myself too. I can have a pretty full sex life without it, but more than anything I would like to have the choice. I should be able to have the choice.
I think it can be very difficult for someone whose sexuality has always been integrated, running on one track, to understand what is meant by the shame. It’s a bit like how people with eating disorders or dissociation might talk about their bodies as something separate to themselves because the connection has been broken. Sufferers of eating disorders are often met with “just eat more” or “just exercise more; simple” from people who feel that they are the same thing as their bodies and cannot imagine anything different. But anyway, after that possibly incoherent diatribe, thank you for your kind thoughts and expressions of support :).
Hi Jan, I really like the way you described different “tracks” of sexuality. I feel like I have several sexualities that aren’t joined together. The childhood sex abuse is one thing, and then I noticed in my early teens the “typical” horny thing, (which would have developed naturally anyway), and I was terribly confused and just labeled it something else. My darker sexuality from my childhood felt like the dominant, more deeply ingrained one and I called it the Monster or It. Then there’s like a third sexuality and so many different elements. I feel like a freak sometimes and curious about everything. Anyway. Good point that if your perpetrators were all about love, then loving sex won’t do it for you. It’s all about what triggers you.
Who knows what my “real” sexual identity is. Hard to say what is at the core of who I am.
Thanks, Jackie. I’d forgotten I’d written that! What you say is very interesting. I wonder if the sexuality can be described as multiple in the same way as the wider identity(ies), and if it can be integrated in the same way, or the parts can coexist happily in the same way, depending on what’s right for the individual. It’s made me think that my two tracks analogy may be a simplistic in some ways, because although any sexuality created by the abuse is, I feel, best got rid of completely, it doesn’t necessarily follow that what’s left afterwards will not be splintered too. I ask myself the questions “what of this belongs to me? What do I want to get rid of and what do I merely need to understand and accept?”.
It’s hard to know how to describe this stuff. Jay’s comment upset me slightly, I admit, because it made me wonder whether most people find it so difficult to understand what abuse survivors feel and why. There are a couple of things I’d like to add to my replies to his comment for the benefit of anyone else reading. The first is to make clear that what he describes *is* BDSM. BDSM does not have to involve people in a dungeon dressing up as Nazi officers, it covers just about everything. I would like it if the term “rape fantasy” fell out of use, because it is of course an oxymoron and seems to confuse people. Although some people make a distinction between the two terms, I feel that what is happening in a pretend rape is better described as “resistance play” or “fantasies about resistance play”.
Anyhow, secondly, I think it’s important to emphasise that the shame experienced by a lot of survivors is distinct from the shame (that they may feel additionally) of engaging in socially frowned-upon sexual behaviour. Plenty of survivors come from backgrounds where sex outside marriage, kinky sex, etc are perfectly acceptable. If a survivor says “it makes me feel ashamed”. it’s worth talking to them some more to find out how that feeling comes about. The fear of “what will people think of me?” may be present, but it’s usually on top of a sense of total exposure and violation that cannot really be put into words. Personally I think that that feeling may be due to a sense that by doing what they’ve done they have bought into the sexuality that the abuse created within them, that they have somehow given themselves over to it, maybe even admitted that the abuser was right or that the abuse was their fault.
It’s a struggle to put this into words, and I hope I haven’t done anyone a disservice. Trying to explain it is a very new thing for me, but I so want more of the general population to understand.
Wow and i though i was weird, it really open your eyes to hear the kind of trauma you have and the kind of pain a child suffers when he/she was abused, even if he enjoys it and thinks it’s normal because of his innocence, when confronted with the truth that will hurt him and haunt him for ever.
Hi, Crazy3d.
I don’t think that any child “enjoys” an orgasm or thinks it is “normal.” While my body climaxed during sexual abuse, it was not an experience that I “enjoyed” or ever “wanted.” It is kind of hard to explain to anyone who has only enjoyed orgasms through consensual sex. If anything, it feels like your body is betraying you by reacting with an orgasm, which prevents the experience from being “enjoyable.” :0(
– Faith
I remember a frighting experience when i was 8 or 9, an aunt got 2 friendly with me in her room and i felt more uncomfortable than ever before, i just ran away and felt like in a nightmare. So i think i pretty much know what a rape could have felt. The problem is reading the topic here people will talk or mention how they reached climax and their bodies felt good, that’s just ridiculous to me. Maybe other people sexualities were already developed in their young ages as i have read in other places where they talk how they masturbated at 5 or 6 years old, that’s weird to me being a normal person who masturbated at 12.
I was abused by different people for many years. I witnessed and experienced some pretty horrific things. After many years of depression, mis-dx bipolar, failures, and suicidal ideations I was finally (after several inpatient stays) diagnosed with DID. Initially, it was great to finally make some sense of things and I was very encouraged. I now, cannot even acknowledge that diagnosis. It makes me feel sick to even think about it. The same feelings that I felt during the abuse. I have been losing time more and more and have been switching and hearing voices from my other parts. They want a voice but I don’t really want to give them one. It’s like reliving all of those horrible memories over again. I don’t feel safe to do this. You are all so amazing for being so honest. I wish that I knew how to be that honest but unfortunately the closer I get to that, the more I shut down and my parts go into survival mode. I used to feel lucky that I have/had such a system to protect me but now I just resent it and I believe that I am paying the price for feeling that way.
Hi, DIDdenial.
My experience was that the more I tried to silence the other “voices” (parts), the more “crazy” I felt. When I would invite them out to share their stories, I could release so much pain and would feel more “sane.” As hard as it is to hear their stories (which is really your story), the path you are taking right now — fighting them — is a harder one.
– Faith
I totally agree. I am exhausted all of the time the last month or so. Just so afraid to let go because last time I did I ended up very suicidal and admitted inpatient. I don’t have the skills to “control” those parts. Not quite sure how to get those skills though if I can’t safely work with them. I am losing time and can feel myself fighting the “darker” parts. I have wonderful therapist, but I just can’t let myself feel. So unsure of what to do.
Hi, DIDdenial.
I will blog about this topic on Friday. :0)
– Faith
[…] my blog entry entitled Do Sexually Abused Children Enjoy Orgasms from Rape or Sexual Abuse?, a reader posted the following comment: Just so afraid to let go because last time I did I ended up […]
I’m searching for some support and opinions here that I can’t find in real life. I hope that’s ok. I don’t know in what topic to put this comment. I decided to post it here.
I have an insider that seems to have survived all that happened at the hands of our mother/abuser, by choosing this fate as her true destiny in life. She worships our mother and considers all that our mother did as a training she got by her time and time again to become harder/stronger/better in enduring and whitstanding pain and humiliation. She doesn’t call it abuse, she calls it ultimate love (because she believes that our mother saw her for who she really was and saw what she was really good in, i.e. sadistic sex and ‘servicing others’). She seeks similar situations in the world of BDSM, but often considers this role-play too tame, too predictable, too soft. When she talks/writes to our T about what happened to us, she talks almost lighthartedly, she answers questions about details, as if she talks about a completely random subject. She seeks someone to replace our mother, to find someone who can help her go even further in the pain and humiliation, because she only feels alive and useful in that position. It’s really really really hard to communicate and deal with her. We signed a contract together in which we tried to regulate her behaviour somewhat, so she would keep all of us safe and wouldn’t put us in any danger.
Aside all of this, I’m also once again battling against my own intense denial. How can she talk about abuse (which makes the little ones inside of me so terribly scared and sad and ashamed) like it’s something she longs for to happen? And my biggest fear still is that all that she and the other ones inside are telling my T (and bits and pieces of it also to me -I’m not yet fully aware of all that is told, I lose chunks of time very often) is some perverse fantasy and not at all an historical truth. The things they say lately seem to get more unbelievable and terrible even than before and I can’t believe it. Wouldn’t we (my insiders and I) suffer a great deal more than we do now if all of what they were saying really happened. This doubt is making crazy. I swing from denial to flashbacks, to minimizing, to ‘I can relate with what they are saying’, to ‘this is insane’, to ‘rubbish, I wouldn’t be sitting on the couch here right now, if this were true’…
Hi, Chloe.
I know this seems counterintuitive, but try inviting this part out, accepting her for who she is, and loving her. She is a part of you, and she played an important role in helping you survive. She is the one who endured the abuse, and she twisted her experience in her head to find a way to be OK with it, which was actually a brilliant survival strategy. She was going to be abused no matter how she felt about it. Buying into the abuse enabled her to feel like she had some power as well as helped her to feel loved by an unloving person.
This part sacrificed a lot. Love her. Embrace her. Invite her out and thank her for the role she played in helping you survive. Trying to “control” her will only increase the friction inside. See the blog entry I wrote today for me.
– Faith
Hi Faith,
thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I really needed to hear what you said. It made me cry – and that’s a good thing. With no one to express my fears and doubts and feelings to these past few weeks, it sometimes seems to me as if I don’t feel a thing anymore apart of desperate denial about what I’m told inside. Which makes me even doubt everythiing more. And then I start to lose all perspective. Being able to cry, even if it lasted less than a minute, broke through that cycle again.
The insider I talked about… I try to leave her the space to express herself and find a liberating alternative for the abuse she (i.e. we/I) suffered, but it’s hard.
I read the entry you mentioned and am following the comments closely. Hopefully one day I will be able to reach out to people in a more open way than I do now and offer the wonderful support I can see you and others bring to this place.
Thanks for being here and for writing in all honesty and with strength and clarity. To me this really is a place of hope for the future.
*** sexual abuse trigger warning ***
This site is the first of its kind I have found that finally hits the nail on the head. My disgust at my desire and my inability to have a normal relationship makes me hate myself.
I have felt like something was wrong with me since I was about 8. I now know I repressed memories I didn’t want to remember, and I told myself that they were just dreams.
What always bothered me was trying to rectify in my mind how I could be the good girl I so deperately tried to be (making straight A’s, being a dutiful daughter, being popular, going to church, being kind and sweet) and being a naughty girl who was overly sexual corrupting the men in my town. In my house (during the day) we were told that a girl’s virtue was her most prized possession. If she ‘gave it away’ and didn’t wait to get married to her husband, she was worthless and below contempt. Dad often told us how mother cried and bled on their wedding night with great pride.
By the time I was 12 my dad had added that these worthless girls were sluts and whores, and wanted to be fucked. I still don’t remember the first of what happened or how it started. I remember something about my daddy picking me up early from church camp in the summer and being furious with me and spanking me in the car with my pants down. But, I must have blocked it out.
My father was the patriarch of our home. He would tell us openly that men could smell these types of ‘girls’ a mile away, and that they were wet pussies men could take without asking because these ‘girls’ were trailer trash. My brother would get visible erections and my father would openly encouraged my brother to go fuck the shit out of one of these girls, but “never bring a whore home to meet your mother.”
By 15, my dreams would be of my dad punishing me for being one of these girls. My dreams were of him coming into my room at night and taking off his belt and telling me he had to punish me because he could smell my wet pussy, and he was disgusted that I was such a whore. I can’t remember if on these occasions I had actually done anything to make him mad or not. During the day he would usually call me a tramp and a slut and slap me.
His spankings (which everyone could hear and must have felt I deserved) would turn into him licking his fingers and slipping his fingers into me and then whipping me harder for being wet. Then he would tell me he had to get rid of my smell or every dog in town would be trying to fuck me.
He always seemed so angry with me. He would suck and lick my vagina, pinch and squeeze my nipples, and finger me. I never felt like I could do anything to stop him. I never said no, and knew this meant I was a slut. I believed what he told me. I always eventually would get wet when he licked me, and I would orgasm while hating myself, and I was so embarrassed at the shame I was bringing to the family. My orgasms always took him over the edge and he would get hard and say the devil was using me to tempt him. Then he would tell me if I hadn’t been such a horny slut that he wouldn’t have to fuck me and disgrace himself. You know what would happen next.
There was never anything tender in what would happen. He was always angry at me, and I always felt terrible that I was one of those bad girls who was forcing her dad to fuck her against his better judgement. I could tell he had no control over his urges once he had an erection, and I knew it was my fault for causing him to get hard. He would tell me that he knew I dressed to show off my big tits, and that I shook my tits and ass on purpose to try to get laid, and he was so disgusted with me. He would make me admit my sins, and then bang me harder for being so slutty.
He would treat me the way I thought a slut would be treated, and he would spank me and blame me for making him horny. He called me bad names I had never heard of, and I would apologize over and over again and cry.
Did anyone else have a verbally abusive person like this?
I went through high school feeling everyone could smell me and knew my secret. When I guy would feel me up inappropriately, instead of being upset, I would spread my legs. I felt they all had every right to fuck me since I enticed them. I had no idea how to say No. I fucked one of my high school teacher in the lab. I fucked the principal in his office, and my dad would find out and ‘punish me’.
My family was so disgusted by me. My father would openly talk about what a bitch in heat I was at the dinner table. He would openly talk about how he had tried to save me, but whores were whores and all they understood was meat and punishment. In contrast to me, my mother and younger sister were good. They tried to to talk to me about changing my ways and bringing honour back to my family. My brother would say I couldn’t keep my legs closed to save my life.
My family openly referred to me as a slut in front of guests and other family members. I knew men lusted after me, but didn’t know it was because of what they had heard from family or my brother at school. I thought my slutti-ness could be smelled by men on some primeval level, and I felt they lusted after me because I tempted them. I felt bad for them and offered a lot of them sexual release, whether they were appropriate for me or not. During a family event at my grandma’s, my uncle fucked me in front of the men in the swimming. Another uncle took a turn after him. He whispered in my ear that he was so glad to finally ride the family’s slutty little princess. He told my brother to get on next, but my brother made me suck his cock instead and I swollowed his cum instead. My uncles and grandfather watched with wet lips while they stroked their erect cocks. I accepted that I was a whore in that moment. My grandfather was lining up to fuck me when my dad came out and went bollistic. That night my fucked me and whipped me nearly senseless. I went into shock and stayed in bed that week.
I ran away sometime after that, and moved in with another promiscious girl from school. Like everything else, I don’t remember much. What makes me so angry at myself is that I could not have a normal relationship with a boy. I felt I owed every guy who smiled at me a ride, and I had no self-esteem. I did everything I could to degrade myself. I slept with half the football team in the locker room before the homecoming game. Then, I fucked the coach while they all cheered and encouraged him to fuck my brains out. My answer to every male encounter was to show my tits and lift my skirt.
And here is the part that makes me want to kill myself. For years, all through college, I would secretly (or not so secretly) call my dad to come over at night and fuck me. At this point he was the only man who could get me wet. I would tell him what a slut I was and how I needed daddy to punish me. I would beg him to fuck me and he would call me every name in the book. The worse he treated me, the better my orgasm was. I was addicted to sex with him, but afterwards, I was disgusted with myself and I would inflict pain on myself.
I have never been able to view normal boys as anything but boring and I can not get excited. I am trying again to have a normal relationship, which means I have to close my eyes and imagine my daddy is bending me over his knee. I can’t keep this up. I have learned that normal men do not want to call me their whore. I can’t get the sexual urge to have sex anymore without a lot of personal sick mind fore-play.
I fear I will never be normal. I want to be normal. I want to have a normal life and get married to a nice man and have him make love to me tenderly with love in his eyes. I want to enjoy that, and to take pleasure and happiness in normal sex. IS there any way to change?
And yes, I have seen many counselors. One had fabulous daddy sex with me during our appointments. Most of them become disgusted with me. I don’t think therapy will work for me…. Any books to read?
Hi, Nancy.
I am so sorry for all that you have been through.
I added a trigger warning to your comment. You did nothing “wrong.” This just warns anyone who is in a bad place that they might not want to read your comment today since it could be triggering.
If you choose therapy again, I strongly recommend a female therapist. As for books, “The Courage to Heal” by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis is a good one, as is the “Survivor to Thriver Manual.” I have links to both on the right side of the blog under “Book Resources.”
You can also find great support through Isurvive at http://www.isurvive.org. That is a free message board for child abuse survivors, and members are in varying stages of healing. Of course, you are welcome to post here as well. :0)
– Faith
Hi Nancy, I have been asking myself all throughout my life if I can just be happy with normal boys and normal sex. I think “normal” may happen a little at a time. You may just be asking for too much too soon.
I know how unbearable it is. My father was perverted too and punished me in many ways. He did spank me and then perform oral on me which gave me orgasms that were disgusting and pleasurable at the same time. He didn’t actually call me a slut or whore, but said sexually charged things I had a hard time with as a child, and he sure made me feel like a whore.
The way you talk about fucking everyone reminds me of my sex addiction, which is an addiction as legitimate as any other…I became a prostitute in college and experienced the similar “lack of No” as you have described. I felt compelled to oblige any man, and also felt that men had a special sense about me (and I had a “magnet”) for being a dysfunctional whore. I was especially convinced of this since in appearance I do not resemble a whore at all.
I’m wondering if you may be willing to try the next closest thing to normal? I have found that it seems to be working for me? One of my friends who cared about me a lot made me stop the prostitution cold turkey. This was verrry difficult, but it was also a relief because I hated it. The urge to abuse myself was still there. BUT. I was thinking about how can I be more normal, it occurred to me that other people may define normal sexuality as only having sex with people they are actually attracted to. I thought about this and it was a big deal to me. I don’t know how your inner sexual compass is, but I am able to notice that some people I am “normally” sexually attracted to, and some I am not. My URGE sexually is to fuck anyone- the more perverted and unpleasant the situation, the more I compulsively want to do it. However, I made the decision to try to only have sexual encounters with people I felt attracted to. I put ads for sex in Craigslist and weeded through them and after lots of screening, only had sex with certain ones. Now, I realize this is still dysfunctional and unhealthy, but it’s still better than where I was. That took me from being a used and abused, indiscriminate slut, to a sex addict who wanted to be choosy, then to (still a sex addict) wanting to have a kinky partner, to now I am still a pervert but have a relationship that’s pretty good. I still have a lot of work to do and am not actually normal/healthy yet. I am not willing to let go of my negative fantasies and I think about sex all the time. I feel sexually charged a lot of the time and have to masturbate to disturbing, twisted things to get some relief. My boyfriend is willing to role-play with me and fortunately (or unfortunately) will play out abusive scenarios. He is kind and sweet outside of that. So, it is better.
Anyway. Not sure if that will help you at all. I related to your post a lot and appreciated how graphic you were. Based on what you wrote, your father’s side of the family is truly abusive and dysfunctional and you absorbed the brunt of this. It is SO not your fault! Your brother and your uncles and your grandfather! You have been through a lot. I hope you can find some compassion for yourself and what you’ve been through. I do not think you’re disgusting.
~Jackie
Hi Nancy. Your experiences sound horrific. I’m so sorry for all that you’ve been put through. I’d just like to make another couple of suggestions for books. I’ve found that “The Survivor’s Guide To Sex” by Staci Haines is very good, and very female-orientated, which may help a little when your upbringing seems so misogynistic. Also, while I’m not suggesting that your fantasies are necessarily right for you, reading some of the more reputable material on BDSM might help you to decide. “The New Bottoming Book” by Dossie Easton et al is great. It can be a very healing read as it continually stresses your right to respect, whatever your preferences, and makes clear references to what is unethical and abusive behaviour. From what I remember, “The Loving Dominant” by John and Libby Warren is good too. You can check out the reviews on Amazon to get an idea.
I’ve found these books very helpful in exploring where the line should be drawn in my own fantasies between those that are abusive/self-destructive and those that are just kinky. You may find in the end that all your “non-vanilla” fantasies feel wrong to you, and that’s fine too. Just be good to yourself, you deserve it.
Thx for these book references, Jan.
I was on the lookout for good books on BDSM for my therapist and my sexual (BDSM- submissive) 16y old alter part to read and I didn’t found any that were worth it.
I will check these out.
You’re very welcome, Chloe. I got inspired to reread “The Loving Dominant”, and it was even more about ethics and compassion than I remembered. All of it is shot through with talk of developing ones empathy and looking after your partner. So I’d have no hesitation recommending it; it’s really good for anyone on the submissive side to get a real understanding of what being dominated in a caring way *should* look and feel like, and the author’s attitude to abusers is very principled and no-nonsense, which makes for a nice read.
I was sexually abused from ages 3-8. I felt pleasure from the assault but had a conscious that it was not right. This lead to a sexual addiction. As a young child I often fantasized about a later time in which I would have the ability to have sex whenever I wanted. It wasn’t the sexual act I was interested in-it was the orgasm. This lead to chronic masturbation. Now at 25 I see how this has completely disrupted my views on sex. Sex is not a sensual and loving affair to me-it’s a means to and end-to achieve an orgasm. What’s odd is that I feel the desire to have an orgasm when I’m angry or frustrated. This has put a strain on my relationships because some where along the way I equate how much someone is sexually attracted to me to how much they care about me. If my partner denies me sex (for normal people this is simply not being aroused) I feel that I have done something wrong or that they don’t care about me anymore. If i have sex and don’t climax-I am extremely sexually frustrated. In past relationships I have literally called someone else over after being denied sex. Doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, I lash out. It’s pretty sad that something that was meant to be so perfect and pleasurable can become such a horrific event due to the heinous actions of others. And what’s even sadder is that most abusers were abused themself. Another odd statistic is that most people who suffer from personality disorders were physically and sexually abused. Now as a 25 yr old woman with a bachelors of science in psychology, I understand how detrimental those actions have been to me. I am better able to cope and understand why I feel the way I do. Not all victims of abuse grow up to hate sex and abstain from sexual encounters. Many people grow up to be sex addicts and wind up prostituting themselves or leading very dangerous sexual lives. It’s a curse. The relief from an orgasm to someone myself is euphoric like opioids to an addict. Although the physical aspects of sex can be pleasurable, the impact that it leaves on your psyche is far from fantastic. The guilt and disgust you feel after you masturbate or lay with a random person can literally drive you insane. Yet you can’t control your urges when you feel the need to orgasm. It also takes me forever to orgasm which makes it worse. Not sure if this is from my premature introduction to an orgasm or if it’s due to other factors. Nonetheless, although sex from abuse can be pleasurable, it really f**ks with your mind. Especially when you’d rather have sex taken from you versus feeling guilty from wanting to give sex to someone else or having the desire to have sex at all.
** sexual abuse triggers **
When you say at a younger age you fantasized about having sex whenever you wanted, did your abuser know you were sexually frustrated? Did you ever go to him for sexual relief? I remember my abuser depriving me of masturbating, I would be watched and humiliated by having the blankets pulled away from me while I was masturbating and had pictures taken of me…I saw a few of them later on in life and you can tell I was humiliated. I also saw pictures where I was naked and I had that “horny” look on my face I would be without any sexual interaction for awhile and would orgasm quickly. I remember being told to slow down…sick things like that.
I get a wave of anger if a partner denies me sex or doesn’t want to do something that turns me on. I’d never abuse anyone (even if my conscience didn’t trouble me, I’m sexually submissive and incapable of manipulation, so it would be impossible anyway), but that’s the point where the relationship usually ends. It always confused me, because it doesn’t make me feel rejected or unloved, nor does it affect my self-esteem. I realised that the real problem is that I feel that by not giving me what I want they’re trying to control me and trap me into a relationship. It’s like my body was used for sex when I didn’t want it, then people won’t let me use my own body for sex when I do want it. I know it doesn’t make much sense intellectually, but that makes little difference to my feelings. I am currently single, unsurprisingly :D.
I think this conversation was initiated quite some time ago… so forgive me for chiming in late! But one thing that’s really important to mention is that the dual feelings of both being humilliated/shamed/afraid were paired for many of us with a feeling of arrousal and even orgasm. What this did to me was make me really really resistant to going back and remembering what happened so that I could heal. Every time I would do some kind of guided journey back, I’d end up feeling terror and also sexual arousal. The second was more than I could bear as an adult and kept me out of therapy for a long time.
There is still shame over that feeling of arousal. It really makes me so sad how deep these wounds go! I think for me today (40 years later), the key is to BE that tender, loving adult when I see hints of that shame pop up now and then. I need to be everything the abuser wasn’t – so that I can gently coach myself through remnant echoes of the abuse when they ocassionally surface in my life… but mostly the echoes just seem like wornout ghosts now – thank goodness!
I have a daughter that is overly close to her Dad. By that I mean she treats him like a lover. She is very jealous of him around other females. She seems to drag her self over his back when she passes. I am not talking about normal girls love daddy things. They recently went on a long vacation together. the pictures look like a couple. She is now in her 40s and this has been going on for years. When he and I divorced he did not see her for a long period of time. Now he is back in her life and to nothing else matter. She has a child and a husband. But, she is still overly affectionate with her dad. Could he have made her like he’s been so loving to her when she was small and not be running from him but clinging to him? This is not a normal relationship. I am worried about her. please help.
Hi, concerned mom.
I cannot answer your question other than to say that what you describe definitely does not sound healthy. :0(
– Faith
Concerned mom, this reminds me of something I was reading about recently called Genetic Sexual Attraction (GSA). It occurs when family members seperated in early childhood for whatever reason (often adoption), meet up in later life and find themselves inexplictly sexually attracted to each other. Was your ex absent during your daughters childhood? There is plenty of information on the web that explains it better than me.
I am so glad to read this. I was molested at age 10 by a cousin who was 12 years older than me. I never forgot the molestation happened but I did forget the details. I’ve started counseling recently and the details are coming back. I was most disturbed tonight to remember I had what I know now was an orgasm although at the time I did not have any idea what it was, it just felt good. And As I look back on it 30 years later I started thinking what the hell is wrong with me it felt good. How could that feel good?
I was raped twice later by different guys through my adolescence and teens, and began thinking that maybe if the molestation at 10 felt good, I was never raped at all. I must’ve wanted it. I must’ve been a whore from a very early age. I am so relieved that what I felt was not unusual at all. Thank you.
*** sexual abuse triggers ***
I am glad I came across this site and for the first time in 30 years I am realizing that the person I am has been influenced by a single incident of abuse during my childhood. I am 40, with a great job and have a wonderful son – however somethings not right. I do believe there are many more boys that get abused by men than we think and this happened to me at the age of 11. We had a hero of a football coach who also ran a video shop and often he would invite certain team members (boys of my age) to sleepovers. I had not had any sexual activity at that age so to me seeing two or three boys in his bed at night seemed ok. One evening he put on a DVD which we all watched – it was sexual in content and to be honest kinda freaked me out. At night he slept with one boy either side of him and a couple more (myself included) on the floor. In the early hours of the morning I felt him lean over and pull me onto the bed so I was laying next to him. I thought that was ok. I had just a football top on and underpants. I then felt him move closer to me and his hand went underneath my top and started to tickle and caress my stomach. I thought nothing of it. His hand then went lower. He knew exactly what he was doing – he moved his hand down the inside of my thigh and then up angain till his hand was inside my underpants. At this stage I froze. His hand moved gently to my penis and started to stroke me. I lay there not knowing what was happening – in my mind I was thinking was he doing this by accident. He was seductive and to my shame and confusion I fely myself responding with an erection. He then moved his head forward and placed it on my stomach and used his tongue in the same manner as his fingers slowly working down until I felt him take my penis in his mouth. I was an 11 year old boy with no sexual experience – I had no idea how to work out what I was feeling. In the morning I supose my life had changed – who I was changed. I was due to stop over for another night but called my dad to pick me up. I couldnt tell anyone and when I told one of my friends he touched me (without going into detail) the result was that I got the Micky taken. So I put it all into the back of my mind. Emotionally I was up and down. I went all through my teenage years carrying this – I was shy and pretty rubish with girls. Dont get me wrong I coped – I joined the Marines and found some kind of fulfillment but as time went on I realised that I only joined the marines just so someone would be proud of me – that I achieved something. This has been a pattern of my life – I have set up projects helping the poor and needy. Really good at achieving goals but inside I feel like I have never grown up that I am a 11 year old still. I have some pretty rubsih relationships and for the first time I am starting to open up and think maybe my past abuse has had an effect on me. You see us men just put it to the back of our minds and get on with it. I can also relate to other e-mails in that sometimes my own abuse is part of my sexual fantasies. He didnt hurt me – in fact he was gentle. Why did I feel pleasure and there is part of me that if I could go back would stay another night. I also fantasise what it would be like with another man and this leaves me with huge guilt. Maybe just writing about my feelings is a start but the comments from other survivers of abuse help. You see as I write that I feel guilty – because it happened only once I dont consider myself as a person that has been abused. Several years later I was watching a programme on peadophile football coaches and a picture of my team and the coach came on television and to my horror other team members spoke of their own severe abuse that had left many mentally scarred. The coach was sentenced to many years prison for abusing boys in America and Britain in truly horriffic circumstances.+
Thank you all so much for this. I thought I was the only one.
My husband has told me many stories about him having sexual encounters with a babysitter from the age of 4 forward, yet he insists that he never felt it odd or shameful, only pleasurable. He also relates stories of having sex with at least one of his mother’s friends, and belonging to a “group” in high school of what he refers to as “swingers.” (Basically whoever was available would be having sex with each other – heterosexual relations only, but in a very open environment) He also claims that as a teen, when he worked as a cook in a number of restaurants in NY, the waitresses and other male employees would frequently be “doing each other” either in the back room or the women would simply not be wearing underwear under their uniform dresses and they’d engage in quickies right in the kitchen. Fast forward several decades…We’ve been married for 5 years, and his behavior is becoming increasingly alarming to me, most likely because I have several grandchildren now that are around the age of 4-6 and I can’t imagine anyone doing to them what he had done to him. He is somewhat obsessed with sex, but feels it’s completely normal – although his stories of his experience and prowess with past partners seem overly dramatic to the point of absurdity (like his ex having 40-50 orgasms every time they had sex, or having back to back to back to back sex dates in a single evening prior to meeting me.) He cannot have a normal orgasm insofar as he has to be thinking of sex with strangers or me having having sex with other men. Needless to say, it’s becoming more and more of an issue for me, not only because of his fetishes, but because I have no desire to live up to his “standards.” He has agree to see a psychologist for other issues, but feels that his sexual history is a non-issue. Do I hope the subject comes up and is dealt with honestly? Do I even continue to accept his stories as truth? I care about him, but he’s really got me concerned. Anyone’s thoughts?
He has a sex addiction and a very high sex drive. You need to go and get tested for STD’s/ HIV. Because he isn’t going to slow down unless he gets help and so if you’re not feeding his addiction someone else will, meaning he has been with other women/children.
I agree with Lily; he very obviously has a problem. I knew someone like this once, and eventually it turned out that he hadn’t been able to face up to the fact that what happened was abuse because once he did the anger was overwhelming. I think your comment is very interesting in the light of the topic above, as it shows how an abuse victim can use the “pleasurable” physical sensations at the time to kid themselves that they don’t have any emotional baggage to deal with; they can also fetishise everything sexual in order to make themselves feel like they love it, when often deep down they actually hate sex – that’s a common feature of sex addiction. It might be worth looking at his attitudes towards male abuse victims; if he feels that men cannot be abused, or that a man who is raped has been fundamentally “unmanned” or humiliated, that could give a clue as to why he can’t face up to what’s happened. Sorry if any of that is tactless; I’m very low on energy today and feeling fuzzy-headed!
hi i have done some research since i last wrote in i am shocked by what i am hearing. maybe its about time this discussion was put on to a mainstream tv channel so that people can begin to realize just what dangerous men are preying on our children. at the moment this aspect of rapeand abuse just is not being discussed. what do you think. think it might help a lot of survivors realize that they are not alone and that there is help out there for them
Hi, Lee.
People need to know that women prey on children as well. Yes, we do need more mainstream people appreciating the gravity of child abuse. The Sandusky case is doing some of that.
– Faith
SADly this is true for me:(
Hi, this seems to explain me and what u feel to the tee! I always suspected I was raped as a child, I then had boyfriends that raped me
And now I’m in a long term relationship and I feel decusting when u have sex expect ally if I orgasm!! I feel dirty and I cry and I want to hide and this is why I don’t have sex!! I have had sex twice in the last year both times left me feeling horrible and it just wasnt worth it at all!! I also have a HUGE problem with my boobs. I am a very large busted woman and they make me feel gross!! My partner has NEVER touched them I won’t allow it, they make me feel so shameful and decusting!! Mt partner is wonderful!! It is not them at all!! It is all me and that makes me feel even worse!! I wish I knew what to do to fix it!! I always fear loosing them because I cannot ever show I care, I don’t even like
Kissing! 😦 I guess I’m just damaged. 😦
Hi, Monniemonster.
There is hope for you. A good therapist can help you work through your issues. You also might want to read “The Courage to Heal.” It will help you realize just how normal you are – you are a NORMAL child abuse survivor:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061284335?ie=UTF8&tag=bloolotu-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0061284335
– Faith
Thanks Faith, I will give it a read. Thank you 🙂
I find it amusing every person here thinks every person is the same. IO don’t advocate child abuse. but i also was not a ignorant child. I was kicked from kinder garden for having a girl under our nap blankets. I remember the dread and shame of bringing that suspension letter home. But i am not child molester or rapist but it happened to me. I enjoyed it i was 9 when it first happened and you can think all you like i honestly found it enjoyable. The young lady was 16 im still not sure of the motives behind what had happened but out of a turbulent child hood that was one of the positive aspects. Granted i had a similar issue with a adult female and still i took it as it was. They wanted pleasure and i enjoyed it.
And i don’t want ignorant pity after the fact, But i don’t want people thinking im some fetishist and endorse it. I am a happy Game Programmer Ii play games i have a wonderful fiance and i am no worse for the ware. I suppose the argument I’m a guy can be made but as a child you are just that male or female you are still innocent. I read books i wrote poems i listened to classical music i wasn’t a typical kid but my point is you never know one could enjoy it and by societies norms could feel guilt. Look at our past at how many woman and men married young and became kings poets. -Shrug- Maybe i am barking in the dark here but fair opinions being what they are i wanted to say my piece.
Because i wanted a answer for the question that has been in the back of my mind since i was kid, why did it happen? why did i enjoy it? Am i weird? Am i a bad person? but im not Bad im not mean. But i also don’t suffer the delusion that all kids are ignorant innocent angels.
I was a good kid soft spoken. I got picked on all the time i was 60 lbs with a wet tea shirt on and had a bit of a turbulent relationship with my at times physically abusive step mother (as in her beating the hell out of me while drunk) But i grew up big strong and protective from all the negativity i experienced. And i am a better person for it and still to this day i do not judge or hate the woman who taught me certain things.
So all of that being said i apologize if this upsets any one and i would appreciate non hateful comments back. But if you only want to insult you can save it.I
Hi, Gabe.
I don’t allow hateful comments on this blog, so you don’t have to worry about that. :0) I am glad you were able to grow into an adult who isn’t dealing with the issues that I, and many of my readers, have had to deal with.
I do want to address your sexual contact at age 9 with a 16-year-old girl — No matter what your reaction was to the sexual contact, you were sexually abused by this person. My son is 10 years old and 60 lbs. He does not have the capacity to initiate sexual contact with anyone. As a prepubescent boy, those feelings have not yet been awakened in him.
I am not arguing with you about your reaction. Your reaction to the sexual contact was your reaction, and it is normal for a body to react to sexual stimulation, even when it is premature. That being said, a 16-year-old girl and also the adult woman had no right to stimulate your body sexually. There is nothing masculine about a 60 lb little boy’s body to an adult woman — that was sexual abuse.
There is no reciprocity in sexual contact between a woman and a nine-year-old boy. He cannot choose the contact. He doesn’t even have the physically ability to reciprocate through intercourse. It is normal for a sexually abused child to choose to “enjoy” the pleasurable sensation, but it is NOT the same thing as choosing the sexual contact, and the women who did this to you ARE child abusers.
– Faith
Hey Gabe, I think you and I see things similarly. And to be honest I don’t want sympathy either, there is nothing to heal. Therapy to me is just a latter into understanding the emotions behind whatever happened to us growing up. That’s it. I still get those sick fantasies where I’m being molested and my partner is making me like it. And no I don’t feel gross after orgasm. It feels great and I look forward to the next one. I have better sex now than I ever did in any relationship. I like sex once every day or at least every other day. Once in awhile I’ll go like a week without any sexual need. I don’t sleep with random people, I keep it simple, with one man. I am in my 30’s so that is probably unusual nowadays most teens sleep with more than one person. If we want to look at abnormality let’s look at societies celebrity lifestyles. Look at how the music is like, Rihanna tell me she is not a victim of MKultra or child sex slaves. So some of us had it easy compared to the real world. My sexual abuse took place really young and ended when I was about 5. I never experienced sexual abuse after that.
Hi, Libran.
I removed your last sentence because some of my readers might have received it as disrespectful.
While you and Gabe are welcome to post, I am curious why either of you are interested on posting on a blog like this if you experienced no aftereffects from the abuse. Most readers come here because they are in pain and looking to heal.
– Faith
Well i read every ones accounts and it really hurts to see how hard it is for others to heal after it. But i feel like there is a light at the end of that tunnel i may just be jaded and numb to things of this nature. But there is always a way to heal its just people have to let themselves heal and stop holding onto it. My best friend Rox had a horrid childhood and i want to better understand how to help her heal that wound so her fiance and her can have a better relationship im working with both of them. she has issues being touched or has flash backs that can shake her badly and i wanted to see if any one else had a way to try and ease her mind. She is terrified she will be a bad mother and it worries me but she doesn’t have the courage to stand up and do what im doing and in all fairness to the people putting there secrets on here i wanted to be fair and share my secrets as well. Maybe in some way im relieved some one knows ^_^.
Hi, Gabe.
It sounds like you are a supportive friend. Rox is blessed to have you. :0)
In my opinion, the healing process is simple — learning how to love and accept yourself, including your past experiences, as you are. Simple does not mean easy.
The process is difficult for most child abuse survivors, but the difficulty varies from person to person as well as from season to season. I am in a difficult season of healing right now. Other seasons are not this challenging for me.
~ Faith
Understandable but at the same time it vexes me. Then again as you said things are different person to person. I don’t know why people let there past haunt them i had it bad. Very bad. Aside from what i mentioned i was beaten by my step mother like a redheaded step child daily. I had no friends nothing. I was worthless. But i will never let my past dictate my present who i am what i do how i feel. I feel like that is a silly simple notion our pasts are our pasts. I had my share of bad things happen. Even had someone i loved cut her wrists before i walked in and had to see the life drain from her. But i could never sit and say oh i got molested or other wise on xmas its hard for me to be happy. idk im just struggling to grasp it. Because i want to understand it. So i can help someone who needs someone. MY best friend considers me family and i would be letting her down i gave up. What happened that makes this time of year hard for you Faith? If i can ask if im out of line please forgive my forwardness.
Hi, Gabe.
When it comes to healing from child abuse, there isn’t room for judgment or comparison — we all judge ourselves harshly enough. As an example, yoga has been a wonderful healing tool for me, so I assumed that would be true for all child abuse survivors until some readers told me that yoga gave them flashbacks and caused them emotional damage. Each person acts and reacts differently to trauma and healing tools.
I have just been blogging about why this time of year is so hard for me. I didn’t go looking for “the past,” but I had to unload this emotional baggage to move forward. You can read the story at these three blog entries:
https://faithallen.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/my-story-forced-to-kill-my-sister/
https://faithallen.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/my-story-buried-alive-with-sisters-corpse/
https://faithallen.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/recovered-next-part-of-memory-connection-to-christmas/
If you have been able to endure such abuse without it affecting your day-to-day life, you are the exception, not the rule. This article does a wonderful job highlighting the numerous ways that childhood sexual abuse permeates every area of the adult survivor’s life:
Click to access ChecklistJuly2004.pdf
Reading that article was like looking in a mirror. (I related to all but three of the aftereffects.) Healing from child abuse has enabled me to let go of many of those issues to varying degrees. My past always controlled my present. It has only been through healing that I have been able to break some of my past’s control over my present.
– Faith
That is good to hear i will read those articles right away. Thank you for sharing.
Does anybody know of any help books that cover the topic of having orgasms during abuse, the after effects of this happening while being abused or how to deal with negative fantasies?
I can’t find any. I’m so annoyed that this major issue is still taboo and isn’t even included in self-help books about childhood sexual abuse!
Hi, Stillgoing.
I am unaware of any book resources. In fact, if you do a Google search of “having orgasms during abuse,” I wrote the first six articles that appear, so it doesn’t look like a lot of people are writing about this topic. :0(
– Faith
Hi,
Firstly Id like to say thank you for being willing openly talk about your experiences. The longer I live, the more people I meet who have been victims of sexual abuse. These are people I think of as my ‘family’ and deeply love and wish to be there for and help. The above question was worded in a way that I can see as a trigger, but for those of us on the outside having the answer actually gives information. For many of the people I know disucssing the abuse is so hard, that I would never be able to ask a question like that and feel that I was being supportive. Hearing the answer helps me to understand what feelings might be there though, and that helps me to be a better friend.
CDP
My question is for posters who remember their abuse. If you had a choice, would you choose never to have an orgasm at all — and I mean NEVER, solo or with a partner — or to have them even with the feelings of guilt/shame/pain?
I was sodomized. ONCE… (that I remember)…I feel shame in even saying I was “abused” but I cannot (have not) had a lasting meaningful relationship with a man since, and it’s been 27 years. I also have a hard time with the word no when I’m being pestered to give in to sexual demands. I masterbate and feel horrible afterwards…sad, weepy, shameful. I know my problem is minimal by comparison, but that one hellish day effed me up for life. 😦
Hi I wanted to say thank you for being able to put this to words I’ve been trying over the last few years to. I was raped by the man who I thought was my father, turns out he might not be, from the age of 13 to 18 and the one time I told someone no one listened and said I was lying. I’m 20 and live with my boyfriend who is a very good man and I’m greatful for him and he’s helped me heal a lot but. I’ve always felt so guilty because I did often ogasim. And I did go along with it a lot because it meant less pain. However it has confused me a lot. I sometimes have to think about what I’ve been been through in order to reach it. And afterward I tend to cry and feel sick. Is it all really my fault?
Hi, Shea.
No, it is not your fault. As you can see from the comments to this blog entry, numerous child abuse survivors struggle with the same issue.
– Faith
in response to the original question, i wasnt old enuf to orgasm when it strted. when i realized what was going on it all stopped, liek it was jsut a far away dream. i didnt realize again what sex was till i was 6 with a neighbor and learned orgasm from him, altho it’s like i still had the sexual tension from when i was even smaller because once i earned how to orgasm it was my new best friend. i never felt shame until much later in life when i realized what i learned i really did learn not dream and that even tho it felt great it was bad. so now if it feels good i get very confused. sexually i am wrecked becus of it. i am a sex addict with little to no sexual boundries in my mind. luckily my adult mind has a better handle on things that the kids still havent a clue about and bringing up a house full of kids with only 2 arms is more work then fun. how i wish i hadnt been messed with. i can only wonder who i may have been instead of the shell of who i never will be because of it. (sigh)
Shattered heroes, fractured dreams…
story of my life….
(yea, i was a boy… 41 years later, i still am too… yay 😦
Here’s a bit more for you all to munch on. After the dammage was done and my father arrested for making cp with my 2 yr younger sis and a bunch of other girls (he never made any with his boy tho, guess i was jsut practice) i was only 7 and was never told why my dad was arrested. never even given a clue. at the time i was being molested by my neighbor (9) but to me, it felt like a secret game and from there it became my escape. after age 9 i was into sex with anyone that would play. i found regular adult men to seduce and allowed some of them to seduce me. i kept my trap shut because at that time, finding a sex mate was like finding gold. i was 13 to 15 when i was sleeping over my best friends house next town over jsut so i could sleep with his old man’s perverted neighbor, old 60 year old. once he got into my head he had horny thoughts i was all over him. how i was allowed to sleep over for 2 years next door in his bed with a deep christian household is beyond me, but the day finally came when mr m came next door to get me for church and i was still in bed with “L” naked as a jay bird. i stalled and stalled till i saw the wheels begin to spin, then i wasnt allowed to sleep over anymore. i was never asked, or confronted about it, just not invited over anymore. “L” never came to my rescue so i had to find other partners. by the time i was 10, orgasm was at least a daily event. by 20, i was with maybe 40 guys and 4 girls, 1 4 year relationship that ended with my 11 week old infant forcibly removed from it’s mother against my last shred of will and from there i swore women off for life. i tuned 21 in a fag bar. 21 years later i have still only been with 4 womyn, (altho 2 of which are still semi-regular partners, even if they are sisters) and about 5-6000 men (12 years as a professional call boy) and have anvanced hiv. i still have as many orgasms a day as i can and still find sex to be more of a physical exercise then form of human bonding. i still like tookin at kids sexually and altho i loathe it, i understand it and have quit giving myself crap over it. it only takes a second to pluck a life and already to many have been plucked and ruined. For those of us that have gone through this and come out the other end feeling liek perps, remember… only your actions can make you a perp. until then, you are jsut a dammaged soul looking to feel better any way you can. make sure you use adults to feed your monsters and let the children be the children we never got the chance to become. that is how i pay it forward. that is how i deal. that is how i survive. someday, i will learn to live. until then as long as i can be safe i allow myself the right to exist, grow and learn to be better. this is how and where i learned to “enjoy” my orgasms. enjoy being only a relative term.
last reply- some of my *best* orgasms are when i am being beaten or am having extremely unsafe or bizarre sex. crying and getting off seems to be a favorite way of having sex for some of my alters. there can be many answers to this from even one person as it’s just so whacked the way sex works with the mind and body of abused people.
I’m sorry to hear of all you’ve been through. You are totally right about the complexity of this issue. The best sex for me is angry sex; I was raging inside 24 hours a day at the time I was going through puberty, so I think the two things have become more linked than would be preferable. At least I’m not attracted to people I hate anymore; that’s a step forward. I agree that as long as they don’t hurt anyone in the process, survivors should be kind to themselves over this. Don’t bother shaming yourself; it doesn’t make the feelings go away.
I know it’s been like 4 years after this was posted, but I feel like saying something
I’ve never been molested or abused, and as for the original question brought up in the post, I know that a lot of people might consider this question offensive and inappropiate, and I think that the guy who asked was just curious to know. And although I do understand why people are upset about it, i do understand why someone would ask this question
but of course, the guy could have use better wording
This blog and everyone’s comments are so helpful. I didn’t even know other people had orgasms when they were abused. I’m just recently facing my abuse, I was groomed and raped by so called “friends” from the ages of 12 – 15.
I felt because I was older than typical abuse victims talked about in the media, it couldn’t be child abuse/ sexual abuse. I also felt because I chose to hang out with this group, I therefore chose to have everything happen to me.
My abusers were a group of men aged between 18 – 30, but I was with other girls too. It started with drinking with them and doing pills and getting high, having fun at house parties ect. They paid for everything and later made me feel like I owed them.
After months of being with them, going out to restaurants, getting into clubs, getting gifts, I was told to have sex with them and after a few weeks (after I’d been ’round’ the whole group) they started getting me to have sex with other guys who came over. During the abuse I was always wasted and began to take drugs and drink because I knew what would be asked of me later on.
I told myself this was what I wanted and when I felt pain, guilt, fear or self hatred, I’d deny the feelings to myself and tell myself I enjoyed it. I had orgasms and felt aroused at times (when it first started) but after a few yrs I hated everything about it, I felt totally numb and closed off, I became bulimic and asked for rougher and rougher sex from guys because I was so numb and wanted to feel something.
By the end, I was a total wreck, a rebel at home with no relationship with my mum, and school was my only sanctuary so my grades were good (nobody at school noticed what was going on). I’d beg and cry to my main abuser who instigated all the guys to come round and have sex with me, to stop doing it and offered myself to him instead of a stranger, but he’d talk me out of it or threaten to hit me or threatened to tell everyone I was a whore.
When I was 15 I met my first boyfriend, threw my phone away and my family moved house (coincidently). Just like that it was over, I don’t to this day know why it finished so easily and why I just woke up one day and chose not to go round there anymore, to stay faithful to my boyfriend and disappear. I never saw any of my abusers again and now I’m 21, finishing a degree and with another boyfriend who I live with and have told this boyfriend everything about my past. It was him who told me this was abuse and that I was not just a slut who wanted it.
I now realise I was basically groomed, abused, and pimped out. I’m trying to deal with my mood swings, flash backs, eating disorder and to try and get a healthy relationship with sex.
I have to add that I haven’t relapsed (bulimia) for nearly 2yrs, or abused drugs or alcohol. However my sexual and emotional side of life is not stable. I feel sexually frustrated even though I’m in a steady relationship, I feel the need to have an orgasm every day by masturbating or having sex and only feel satisfied for a few hours afterwards. I’m recently feeling very anxious and terrified I might cheat on my boyfriend of 2yrs that’s helped me deal with my abuse and my past.
I’m so so afraid all the time of sabotaging my relationship, I love my boyfriend and want his children some day and really don’t want to cheat but the urges are driving me crazy!
He can’t give me the release I need (even if he did I’d need it again the next day). I’m into BDSM, when I was abused as a teenager, I was always told I was a slut who loved being fucked hard and strangled and spanked. Now it’s part of my sex life and I can’t reach orgasm with out being hurt. I do this by pulling my hair or digging my nails into my thighs during sex (I haven’t told my bf I need pain to orgasm, but we do bdsm sometimes).
I feel like if he found out I wanted pain during sex, he would think I was a freak or not like to hurt me every time we had sex (not his thing). He knows everything about my past, but has noticed a change in my mood and bruising and cuts on my body (over past 5months).
I hate that I can’t just be normal and enjoy my relationship. I love my bf, have a great life but this monster inside is getting closer to the surface and I’m afraid of relapsing or really hurting myself when I masturbate or cheating. I’m losing control and approaching an episode where I don’t know what will happen or what I’ll do.
What should I do? I feel like I’m gonna explode.
deebab
I would LOVE to have some feedback on this too, I have been married for 5 years and have a beautiful son whom I will never have sexual thoughts about. I was abused but can’t recall every encounter. I struggle to control my urge for violent sex which my husband will not have with me, again I have the same issue that I need it all over again the next day. How can I stop fighting these urges? I am getting exhusted but I NEVER want to cheat on my husband. This is the first site I have ever seen which goes into this issue, and I am extremly grateful to have found it! At last I know it is not just me!
Lorraine,
It is exhausting and frustrating having the constant need to have sexual violence in your life. I don’t want to cheat on my boyfriend, but I’m afraid that I will (having no control over my urges).
After getting to the point were I did emotionally explode (started crying hysterically), I spoke to my boyfriend about this and the feelings of desperation almost went away. Just by communicating with him rather than bottling it all up, made everything so much easier. I haven’t asked him to do BDSM or be more ‘rough’ during sex (and we haven’t had sex since we ‘talked’).
I’m still a bit scared that he has been totally turned off from me or has been ‘put off’ by what I told him, but he reassured me that he’s glad I told him and that he loves me. He also convinced me to get therapy (which I was already considering).
Now I’m no psychologist by a long stretch but it might help if you communicate with your husband about your urge for violence during sex. Now you know that at least one other woman is in the same boat as you, it might give you the confidence to talk to him (if you haven’t already). Or you’ll just hit a wall like I did who knows what will happen next.
Hey Deebab,
I have spoken openly about this with my hubby especially in the last 2 years. When we first got together I told him that there were somethings that happened to me when I was younger and that I willingly went back for more punishment. I know he understands and loves me very much but how do you stop wanting to punih yourself? I hate this constant fight and struggle.
I am over all of this. ARGH
anyway thankyou for listening to me
Lorraine
Lorraine,
I know it’s a battle between your different ‘selves’. I feel like my trauma broke me up into different people or pieces and that’s why there’s conflicting emotions or choices that makes me frustrated.
In this case, with my sex life, I’ve got a damaged violent me that wants punishment, a girly innocent me that wants affection and acceptance, and a cold goth me who feels nothing and trusts nobody.
Sometimes there’s even more variants which makes it even harder to feel any consistency for the one I love. I am having counselling/ cbt for this which starts properly end of Feb (just having phone calls at the moment).
I think this punishing side of us needs controlling if it gets in the way of our relationship and makes us feel depressed/ angry about it. But I don’t think we can eradicate it.
I think talking about it with a professional can help, but it’s also great that you’ve communicated with your other half.
Good day everyone
I thought I might add my input onto this topic.
Ive had a lot of experience with this, both personally and what trusting friends have revealed me.
It is indeed an incredibly taboo subject. The feeling of guilt thats entrenched into your mind by every part of society. The feeling that your a monster despite an impulsive sexual drive that you very little control over. The dark depraved fantasies that bring you to an intense orgasm at the possibility of it becoming real. The crippling loneliness.
When Ive had chats with various people that feel these things, giving them acceptance and understanding can be incredibly helpful. The idea shouldn’t be how to rid yourself of the feelings, because its unlikely they will ever go.
Its how to feel about them. How to cope with them.
What happens inside your head is your business. Nobody has the right to invade your mind and tell you how to think, its a place of true freedom and acceptance. I have found over the years that those who scream morality, the same people you hear inside your head every time your presented with a taboo dark fantasy, themselves either have utterly dark fantasies or they simply don’t understand. It can also be there way of attempting to a control a situation they know nothing about, a situation that’s impossible for them to
comprehend and impossible to control.
Either way, is it a logical idea to accept lessons on how you should feel from those who have very little idea on what or why your feeling it?
I encourage communication between those who truly understand, who feel it and who have been through it.
As a final note, I truly do understand what its like to go through these things, for better and for worse.
As cliche as it sounds, you can trust yourself to find your own balance on these feelings.
If anyone needs any advice or they simply want to talk then email me at – weallfeelitsometimes@gmx.com
Hope you all find happiness!
well I was sexually abused when i was 9 and that I can recall I never really had an orgasm, and now on days when I’m with a partner sometimes I have a really big problem to achieve climax, its not all the time and I can really tell why but it’s not only on the sexual side, I’m also very insecure with myself in general, I think it does really f#$% you up.
I was sexually abused. God, it’s still hard to say/believe even though I’ve had numerous therapist, which have helped greatly. I was abused by my father, borther, and sister and had a non supportive mom (who did not believe me when I came to her for help). Now I am in a great relationship and am trying to enjoy (for the first time) sweet, loving sex. Up until now all my later sexual encounters were one night stands, where I was dirty and worth nothing (just like my childhood; so I didnt feel a disconnect with my orgasms. Now I find myself outside of myself and can rarley orgasm without “negative fantasies”. At times I think about embracing them, because sex it such a non logical thing and I dont want to think it too much. But what I am asking here is if there are any tools or suggestions on enjoying being close to my fiance in a less turbulent way. When he orgasms he is so peaceful and I want to feel that way, that simplicity.
I was sexually abused as a child by a family member, some one I trusted intensively. As I grew up, sex was never something on my mind until I met and fell in love with my now partner. He is an amazing man, and an amazing lover but making love to him leaves me feeling empty, not violated.. Just empty, as though it was nothing, I can’t feel a thing emotionally. I can’t seem to orgasm either, we’ve tried everything and I can’t stop feeling like it’s because of my childhood experiences. I have desire to make love to him, but only to please him. I’ve found that when he is more dominate and forceful with me, I am more aroused but he is a gentle loving man and it isn’t in his nature to do this. What’s wrong with me?
Odaat.
I am glad to have come across this blog…my question is whether or not it is possible to have been abused as a very young child and not remember it…i ask this question because I can remember being 7-8 years old and masturbating while thinking about different rape, incest, or being bound by ropes type fantasies even though I do not know where i could have learned about this since i grew up in a very sheltered and conservative enviornment….the only thing i can think of is that i was possibly molested by someone at a young age…which could have been since i was asked by my mother when i was 13 if my uncle had ever touched me innapropriately..of course i said no since i have no recollection of anything….anyway, now i am 20 and still can only achieve an orgasm if i fantasize about being raped or abused..this is also the only way i can become aroused….any thoughts on this?
my heart goes to all of you that had been throuh this hell with this damned FREAKS.my hell was with my father & others freaks in my sick family.it started sence i was as early as I can remember.I would fight off to expirience having a climax with all my might because that meant that right after the climax I would get penetrated by my father.he tried for hours to make have a orgasm & when he could not he would get angry & go away but sadly most time I would eventually fucked up & if he could get 2 out of me that meant that after him,my uncles,grandfather,my brother or any other freak around could do what they wanted with me.of all it was my father the most evil & he have a smile that would sent chills down the spine.I will kill them I’m making my plans perfect because they still are raping children DAILY
I to was sexually active a lot when i was a kid… My father introduced me to sex when i was around 5… it never really bothered me… i kinda felt like it was the only time we really got together… then when i was 9 i had a crush on my cousins best friend, and since my cousin lived with us he was always over a lot. he was 17… i started making passes at him… from what my father showed me… he was reluctant at first but the he finally kissed me and i gave him a hand job… i new he felt bad but sex stuff was the only way i really knew how to show someone i liked him… my parents got divorced when i was 10 because they could never stop fighting… when i was 11 my cousins best friend moved in with us and since my dad was no longer around i wanted him to kinda take his place… again he was reluctant but i would sneak into his room at night and kinda keep nudging the subject tell he finally caved and let me get on top of him… we had a thing till i was about 13 but i could see the guilt in his eyes when we would all hang out and what not… i loved him… i still do… i would never change anything that we did… i know that this is kinda sick… a girl who’s had a thing with a guy that 8 1/2 yrs older than her since she was 9 and she doesn’t feel ashamed or anything… he was always gentle and he made sure that he always took care of and protected me… he never really invoked the sexual activities, that was mostly me… but he treated me like his gf and would give me kisses here and there all the time, when no one was looking, which was quite a lot… is it wrong for me to totally fine… i am with a guy my age and we are happy… no one knows of my dad or my cousins best friend… i love them both and wouldn’t want to see anything happen to them… plus i know how hard i tried to seduce my cousins best friend so i couldn’t really count that as his fault… does anyone have any advice, to help me see if there is something wrong with me?
Sarah
I don’t know if you can ever find out whether you were abused at a very young age. I know there is regressive therapy you could do, but it doesn’t guarantee you’d dig out anything, and do you really want to go delving into that part of your life? You could end up opening a pandoras box of trauma that might have drastic affects on your mental health.
I remembered what happened to me, and have shared my story, but I recently realised or accepted that it was abuse, which had the same affect on me as if I relived it again.
I suffered flash backs, panic attacks and nightmares for months after, as well as acute depression and despair. I couldn’t control any of these flash backs and it made me feel suicidal. I went to my doctors for the first time in my life to deal with my mental health, who gave me medication and referred me to a therapist.
I’m now doing cognitive behavioural therapy, which has helped so much fr me to come to terms with what has ‘really’ happened to me, and to deal with the reality that I was used and groomed and trafficked (not that I was partying with friends that might have got out of hand sometimes).
It feels like I’m basically retraining my brain or behaviour, but to be honest it hasn’t changed my sexual behaviour. I still fantasise like you, of being raped or abused, and I’m turned on by BDSM. I think it’s just something we have to live with, as long as it’s not ‘harming’ anybody (excuse the pun), and we should just try not to feel guilty for that.
I hope you’re alright, and I’d recommend that you seek some sort of help, it doesn’t have to be professional help, just someone sensible to listen to you.
Deebab x
Vendetta,
Catch them on camera, it’s the most damning evidence you can have.
Deebab x
actually i’ve also wondered this very thing before and i appreciate the explanation./the explanation was so detailed that i fully understand and feel saddened by the fact that a physical act as such is so painful emotionally and mentally.the qusetion is legitimate//i do find the answer very revealing and appreciate the fact that it’s answered without malice toward the person that was inquiring/ abuse is horrible and i absolutely believe that sexual abuse is no less painful than other types of abuse.
Hello first of all I want to hug everyone of you for having guts to post on this site. Believe me its taken me a lot of guts too
Ok I’m a 36 years old woman and I was molested when I was about 13 by my best friend who was 2 years younger than I was and by this I have always blamed myself cause I was older but I have a few mental illnesses and had a speech problem since birth which made me weak and scared. I was badly bullied in school n was molested by a classmate when I was like 6 who was the same age as me. Ok my so called besy friend was more outgoing than I was and I lookef up to her since I was scared of people making fun of my voice which they did. We had a sleepover and she told me to get in bed so I did and I was like a dog would do anything. She got in too n she jumped on top of me n kissed my face n prenteded to have sex with me which I was just so scared n confused I couldn’t move. So ok I thought she was just messing about so I tried to forget about it so a few weeks later she asked me to put my hand on her you know down there. I did but I didn’t want too n a few weeks before hanD I was ganged up on by her friends n was cornered till I ran away. I was so scared and with my voice problems I couldn’t say much. I’m going nuts with this issue and keep blaming myself for being such a weak dog.
Please comment on my post soon the waiting is making me sick to think its my fault
Hi, Lisa.
You didn’t do anything wrong. I am on Spring Break with my family and have limited computer time this week. I did remove your last name to protect your privacy. :0)
~ Faith
Thanks so much. I’m sorry if I sounded pushy but I was very sick with worry. I thought you were on a easter spring break and glad I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry for all the things you have been through and thanks for removing my surname I had a lot on my mind I didn’t even think of that x
Hi, Lisa.
You didn’t sound pushy. :0)
This is a personal blog, so I have no back up for approving new comments. When I travel, get sick, etc., I get behind. New readers have no way to know this, but the “old timers” are well aware. :0)
~ Faith
Faith,
Wow, I read a lot of these and kept saying “no wonder” in my head. I am 39 years old and have never dated anyone for longer than 2 months. When it came time to be intimate I would either freeze up or find a way to get him to “abuse” me in some way so that I could enjoy it. When men want to treat me good I feel an intense need to punish myself which would be cutting. I feel like I have two personalities, one who goes to work, eats healthy, jogs 3-4 times a week, the other is so self destructive, intense desire to drink do drugs cut myself, flirt with suicide be the “bad girl”. It is so hard to live this way. I know I was molested by a family member over a period of a couple years but theyre all pretty hazy. My memories are of being touched genitally but can not remember is there was penetration or not…sex is painful for me and I hate it. I masturbate daily but HAVE to fantasize about being a sex slave or something and even try to tie myself up to get that feeling of complete helplessness. I orgasm every single time, but genital orgasms only I dont think Ive ever orgasmed vaginally. Guys get frustrated with me and my relationships always end. I am actually seeking an abusive relationship becuase loving ones make me feel sick, the nicer, more loving a guy is to me the more I need to hurt myself. I tried therapy when it was free in college but it didnt do any good and now I cant afford it. I hate being 39 and feeling like a scared little 7 year old still. Thanks for creating this blog.
I was sexually abused from 11-16yrs old. And I am now a adult.it has taken me years just to say out loud that I was abused,I attempted suicide more times than I can remember,tried drugs to run away,but even though the hell I went through was over,I couldn’t escape it.
Everytime I closed my eyes,I could feel him.things would set me off.and I would be frozen in My hell.
Sex ,as u describe is the same for me,I get no pleasure from it unless it mimics what happens,and when it does I hate myself for wanting it.
Just as I hated my body for reacting to him touching me.
I thank you for this article
I was sexually abused by a cousin who babysat me between the ages of 3-5 years old. I started masturbating when I was 4 years old, doctors told my parents it was a side effect of intestinal worms that I had…..RIGHT. I started having flashbacks around age 18. I got married when I was 20, I hadn’t had intercourse since I was vaginally raped by him at age 5, which was the last abuse (occurred on the night before HIS wedding). After I got married sex was uncomfortable at first, then I started to enjoy it more until I finally climaxed. Then it went completely downhill again and it’s been painful ever since. I never really made that connection before reading this. Thank you for writing this and helping me open another door in understanding what has happened to me.
I’m really not happy that my mother was a rape victim and that now she’s hallucination asking me to kill her and also hating me for being “His” son its just painful…….
Hi, child of a rape Victim.
A few years ago, I found a website specifically for people who were conceived by rape. It had a private message board that I could not access since I do not qualify, but you might find some help over there. I found it through a Google search.
~ Faith
*** triggers ***
I definitely Identify with the bdsm stuff I read about earlier. I’m 25, and lived with my step dad. He was way too open with me sexually, and I am struggling to come to terms with what he did to me. He preformed what I now know as bdsm on me, It started at age 14 when he placed a bar between my legs, so he could make me orgasm continuously and for as long as he wanted, and I thought it was normal/liked it? I feel so dumb. He moved on to doing stuff like putting himself inside me, in front of a mirror, and held a small vibrator to me. He told me to keep my legs as wide as possible. I was 16 I didn’t know what was wrong at the time, I actually did it, and he told me to keep my eyes open and watch myself, I sometimes think that when we did it in front of the mirror, deep down I knew it was wrong. I have stronger orgasms when I think about that image during sex, but I had the best ones with my step dad and watching my expressions as I orgasmed with him. Its such a curse, my sex life is ruined because of this.
When I was six I was raped by a couple of guys in a public restroom. When they were done they tried to strangle me to death and a lot of the time i wish they would’ve succeeded. I kept it all a secret until i was about 14 or 15, and for a while my mum didn’t believe me. My older brother gets tired of me talking about it and tells me that I probably like the attention and sympathy i get from it now and how that makes me a whore. I know I’m a whore. Sometimes when i have those flashbacks i like the way it felt, and i masturbate regularly every night. Not because it feels good, because it doesn’t. It hurts so much. The orgasms sting and burn every time and i end up crying myself to sleep. But i guess because the pain i feel with it won’t leave the marks that razors and scissors and knives and matches do, i continue to do it. I hate summer because it’s so freaking hot and when I get overheated i go into a flashback and end up scratching my arms til they bleed. I’m a mess. a broken shit. I sometimes wish I was another person or genderless or something so that I could just oh i don’t know nevermind. The last time i posted this publicly everyone told me i was making it up for attention and that I should just kill myself. I don’t know, though.
I don’t know if this is the place to talk about this. I don’t know. I’m sorry if you want me to delete this comment then I’ll do it. I’m sorry.
Hi, Robert.
I am appalled that anyone would react to your story in that manner. Isurvive is a wonderful resource where you will find support: http://www.isurvive.org. There is even a forum specifically for men who were sexually abused, so you will know that you are not alone.
~ Faith
I don’t know if you’ve heard this term, Robert, but what people have done to you as a result of you talking about your trauma is called “secondary victimisation”. Basically it’s a form of abuse in itself, but is less obvious because it takes place at one step removed from the original events. People behaving that way towards you when you needed support is not your fault in the slightest, and it is a serious breach of trust. Bear in mind that it’s common for victims of rape to commit suicide during or shortly after the trial of their perpetrator, even if the rapist is convicted, because being told that they’re a liar traumatises them in itself. Secondary victimisation can kill. I hope you find a safe place to discuss your experiences and their effects. You deserve it.
I understand how you feel Robert, as I went threw it many times.
I feel so encouraged by everyone who is brave enough to speak out. My brother is 5 years older than me. He told me that I would get in big trouble if I told anyone anything. The thing that makes me so confused is how I let it go on for so long. I moved far away, but its so hard for me to try and forget what happened. And what makes everything more confusing is that this went on until I was 19, and him 24. Its been two years, and my sex life isn’t as good unless I think of what happened. How he used me, orally, for hours, telling me to do sexual things. I trusted him, he was my big brother and I didn’t think otherwise. At twelve he taught me what an orgasm was, and I feel so ashamed when I feel like I enjoyed what was happening when I had one. From that point on, 12 to 19, I let him do stuff to me, and deep down knowing it was wrong. He told me to stand sometimes, and sometime half stand half squat to full squat with, my feet pointed away from each other and my legs spread. He then performed oral on me, and I was always able to hold me balance if I held on to him, but the orgasms were so strong I remember a number of times when my legs just gave in. I also had to return the “favor” and perform oral on him. I can’t believe that I began going to HIM because I “enjoyed” and wanted that feeling of orgasm so much, as well as watching my brothers body and face when he was close to and having an orgasm. I don’t know how to stop thinking of all the times I was with my brother now that I have a boyfriend. The thing is, I can’t even have orgasms now unless I think of what my brother did to me during sex. Does anyone have suggestions to help?
What if you were to try an “orgasm fast” so to speak. That is, don’t have any sex for a period of time, like several weeks or a month. (Not easy but it may be worth trying). Then engage in normal sex with your boyfriend but without fantasizing about when you were with your brother. Its possible that your body may be more “willing” to have an orgasm with your boyfriend after not experiencing it for awhile. Repeating this might recondition your body/mind to enjoying sex in these new conditions, instead of the old ones. Just a thought….
********Trigger warning********
Dear Faith, Thanks for your blog. I am a 55 year old with DID. I just met my alter that carried all of the actual sexual abuse. I was actually very shocked, when she released her memories to me of how much sexual charge there was. I hated that it had aroused me. It was good to come here and see that this isn’t unusual. I haven’t read all the entries on this subject here, but another thing that concerns me is that I didn’t get pain memories – only discomfort and shock – from her, on intercourse with an adult male. I was sure that there would be pain from a 4 year old being penetrated by an adult male – who was actually very large. It was porn – we were being filmed, and he was well endowed. So now I am concerned that there may be another fragment or alter that carries the pain. Could someone tell me if it would be normal or possible for a 4 year old NOT to feel pain?
**Triggers**
Random thought, but it may be that another part of you is holding the pain because there was just too much of it. My memory of forced penetration is that it feels like dying it hurts so much; I felt like I was actually being stabbed with a kitchen knife, but through my private parts. It may be that your mind just couldn’t process that much pain. I know that that’s probably occurred to you already and it’s kind of DID 101 in a way, but sadly I think it’s more likely than that you didn’t really feel any pain at the time. That is just a thought on my part though, obviously, I don’t want to sound like I’m telling you how it was. Part of you may know. If the memory of pain is there it might come through bit by bit rather than in a rush.
It might help to look for unexplained pain coming in other parts of your body, or bursts of anger; I find that my memories of physical pain quite often get displaced. In fact if I think about it now I go straight to feeling burning rage and hatred. It’s an odd thing.
Well Jan, I think you hit the nail on the head there. I have been having unexplained outbursts of rage for a couple of weeks now. I knew it was connected to the new alter and her memories in some way, but I don’t think it’s her. I’ve wondered if it’s more of a fragment than it is an alter coming through. I have also had unexplained pain all over my body that is like the burst of rage, in that they both come on quickly and leave just a quickly. Thank you for replying to me. It gives me a new way to look at this.
I was boy between 7-9 and I was abused many times by older boys, I got no pleasure out of it and lots of fear and threats.
This is extremely real, an I’m extremely scared. It’s been slowly leading to this, but now when I masterbate I imagine my father raping me, it doesn’t feel good but I violate myself with a large dildo until I achieve orgasm. Last time I did this in my head I was just about to cry and begging him to stop and just as a tear started to roll down my eye I had an orgasm. I need some serious help. Or do I? Is this okay? I’m do confused. . . I know this thread is over 4 years old, but of someone can’t please email me with some type of information that might be able to help me I would appreciate it.
I’m a Doctor in Clinical psychology and I’ve dealt with this and see the trauma this has done to so many young women. If you need any questions anwsered, you can email me at: lauraswift646@yahoo.com
Faith, Please delete this comment if not appropriate. Thanks!
ALL – the above comment from Laura is very likely a troll &/or someone looking to cause harm to vulnerable people willing to e-mail someone who has posed on the internet as a Doctor – but has supplied absolutely no credentials to support this. There are all kinds of unscrupulous people on the internet posing as someone legitimate.
I’m suggesting to anyone who is looking for help to be highly suspicious of e-mails given so easily and publicly on the internet – particularly in a forum with this subject matter. Your e-mail (to anyone) contains much more personal information about you than you might realize; guard your personal information carefully.
Note: if a real physician &/or psychologist were to do something like this that would be grounds for revocation of their license.
Caveat emptor.
When i have sex i always feel like i am going to explode. I know i was molested as a kid but i don’t remember to what extent. I so badly want to enjoy sex like a normal person, but i dont. I do orgasm….i think but it does not feel nearly as good as my friends describe their experience. How do i enjoy sex? What am i suppose to do? I fear that i will never live a normal happy “american dream” life if i dont enjoy sex.
Wow.. Up until today I thought I was the only one who has experienced an orgasm during rape. I was starting to become extremely depressed because I put my abuser in prison a few weeks ago and I felt so guilty for tearing apart his family, like I was a home wrecker.. I suffer from sex addiction & compulsive masturbation now and I finally was able to see that the orgasm had a lot to do with it. I had never told anyone about it though due to the shame and guilt I felt for it until I got the courage to tell my boyfriend and he said it was normal and very common so i looked it up. Reading these comments and your article brought me to tears. I feel like I can finally start to heal after all these years. Thank you so much
I know, honestly, I think this has more to do with the orgasm than anything else, it’s like there’s an addictive quality to the orgasms. My stepmother abused me growing up, and even though I hated it, all I cared about was having an orgasm so I put up with it.
*triggers*
Now I know that my uncle knew exactly what he was doing. When I was 10 and 11, my mom let him babysit me during the day during the summer. He’d perform oral sex on me and make me have orgasms every single time. I knew it was bad but I hadnt felt that before. He’d lick and lick and lick and get me right up to the edge and then he’d stop and ask me if i wanted him to stop. so of course id say yes and i guess he used that to justify his abuse. it got so i’d be wet before he even pull down my panties because i knew what he was going to do. after reading this i know that it wasn’t my fault that i didnt tell him to stop molesting me.
I’ve never told anyone this in my life. I’m now a married woman in my fifties and was I used to do sex things with my brother who was 9 years older than me. I was about 7 when it started and think it went on till I was about 12. I used to enjoy what he did to me and I used to orgasm. It started one boring sunday afternoon and I was lying across his lap watching tv. For some reason we were looking at his hand and I dropped it onto my vagina, he immediately moved it and I thought this might feel nice if he kept his hand there. So I held his hand again pretending to look at it and again I dropped his hand on my vagina. This happened about 4 times until he left it there and didn’t move it away. We heard my dad walking towards the room we were in and he quickly moved it away, once my dad had gone he put it back- to my glee. He then started to gently rub and presto, I was addicted. After that, every time we were in a room alone he would call me over and lift my dress up and touch me, telling me to open my legs wider. He always rubbed me over my knickers and never put his fingers inside. This was ok with me because I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any further.
He used to get erect but he never asked me to touch it so I never did – all I was interested in was (selfishly) reaching my orgasm. There was one time (Iwas about 8 or 9) when he let me read one of his ‘men only’ books. This made me so randy and I spread my legs real wide. He may have quickly pulled my knicker leg to one side and had a peek but I can’t be sure because I was so carried away at that point. This bugs me to this day, not knowing if he did that or not.
So it went on like this really for about another 5 years. I never used to talk to him about what was happening, I just used to let him get on with it as if I didn’t care but all the time I was loving it. After I’d orgasmed I would get up and walk away without anything being said. It stopped when he moved out to get married.
I’m not saying this was right but I still find it very erotic and ofter masurbate thinking about it.
I don’t have any mental scarring as far as I’m aware and am a normally adjusted person.
I personally don’t think of it as being abused. What do you think? It’s so good to actually write this down because I’ve been mentally holding this for all these years and after reading the letters on this site, I don’t feel so alone anymore.
I think it is possible to not have any aftereffects from abuse, it’s just that because so many people, possibly the majority, do, and the effects can be so severe (basically, it can kill someone), it’s safest to treat it as very damaging by default. I was talking to someone recently about rape, and I said that there is no obligation to have been traumatised by being raped, but it has to be assumed that it’s a traumatic experience, and just because the victim wasn’t traumatised it doesn’t mean they weren’t raped (because rape is all about someone not bothering or deciding not to get consent, and that’s it).
I think to determine whether something was abuse it can be helpful to look at the power dynamics; who would have felt that they could say no, who would have felt pressurised, dependent on the various factors of the individual relationship. That can be incredibly hard to pick to pieces though, especially with family.
I just wanted to say
that I was sexually abused
by a family member for five years
and never experienced orgasm from that.
I never even experienced any sexual pleasure/arousal from it.
I just felt fear, anger, aversion, etc.
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For a long time
I thought that’s how it was/is for EVERYONE who’s sexually abused.
Later in life
when I read self-help books about sexual abuse,
if it mentioned feeling pleasure or having an orgasm during abuse
I was confused, it didn’t make any sense to me.
I had questions similar to the question that this blog post is a response to.
So reading this blog post and the comments
has been enlightening.
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I’m not sure what’s more common in sexual abuse — for the victim to experience sexual “pleasure” or to not experience any at all. But what’s certain is that in either case, it’s (for almost everyone) an emotionally painful experience that causes trauma and pain for years to come, in many cases for life.
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I think what makes it abuse is that a lot of us were so young that we couldn’t really consent to what was being done to us. I mean, even when you would spread your legs for your brother, your weren’t mature enough to really understand other than the fact that it felt good. I think sometimes abusers take advantage of how good it feels to relieve themselves of the guilt. I remember that when my uncle would stop licking me right before I was going to orgasm, I’d cry begging him not to stop. He’d also use it as a reward for me doing stuff for him… he never tried to penetrate me (thank god! he was way too huge) but he’d make me do oral sex on him or use my hand and if i did he’d do oral sex on me as a reward.
I am learning alot, but as I have said before as a boy being molested often, I never got any pleasure or any kind.
The orgasm is a powerful bodily act, combined with emotional needs. Perhaps the raped are over taken by the blood flow to the genitals, and adrenaline. So what if they orgasm? Fear? Adrenaline? Doesn’t matter. It is still an invasion of human respect and dignity, and a violation. It is sick
My Uncle Bob did the same thing to me when I was about 13. It felt good and made my body tingle all over. It wasn’t violent rape. This was my mothers siters husband…I felt safe and OK….like you did with your brother. This is all just physiological stuff. Not violent rape. It’s all just wrong
Kris-
I am seeing a lot of posts on her about how people “liked” the physical pleasure sometimes when being abused. I am a bit confused. When I was being touched (at age 10-12, by step brother aged 16) I often had this feeling, though I never reached orgasm I did enjoy the clitoral fondling. (it was never more then beast and vaginal touching) This was one of the reasons I didn’t say anything. Surely I’d encouraged the behaviour if I liked it, sometimes I would even go on walks with him because I knew what it would lead to. However it’s stated here that straight after the orgasm/enjoyment intense loathing and self hate were a result. I did not feel guilt/remorse until a few years when my boyfriend and I became sexually active. This is when I would start to get my flash back and this is when I started to realise how much this had effected my life. Previously I thought I had been ok with this behaviour and never saw myself as a victim. Sometimes I am still unsure.
I find now (age 21) that I need rough sex, restraints, sometimes chocking and to imagine being raped or harmed to reach orgasm. I don’t understand this since I was never raped. Is this a result? I have been lucky enough to find a man who I have been able to talk/cry through my problems with and he has helped me to live a mostly normal life. Though I have never been able to tell him the I enjoyed it sometimes. I don’t understand this and can’t put it behind me until I do. Also it’s humiliating since he wasn’t an adult, but only a few years older then me.
I wonder too if he would have perhaps grown out of it or if it’s likely it continued into his adult life. Although I’ve not seen him since I was 12 I am worried because I have heard he’s now married with children. I worry that things may have got worse with him as he got older. Though I hope that it went away as he became old enough that his curiosity stopped. I don’t hate him, as I don’t feel him intentions were to hurt me. But I fear I could be wrong and that he is doing more harmful things to his children and they just haven’t said anything. I couldn’t live with myself it turns out I could have prevented this and didn’t.
Thank you
Ive been molested 3 times jn my life by different people. My ex best friend(boy), his brother, and my sister who was 6years older than me. I had extreme drepression issues during middle/highschool about how my best friend would wake me up with felatio. His brother would do the same to me ubtil my mother found out and i was free. This happened way before middle achool, but i had forgotten it until 8th grade. The situation that bothers me the most is that of my sister. She called it playimg vampire i was very youmg aroumd 8-10 i first had sex with her when she duped me imto it i knew not muvh about sex but she told me to play vampire without pants on. It,doesnt bother me because i hated havimg orgasms. It bothers me because,i enjoyed it. And when i thimk back on it im almost grateful it happened. But at the same time i hate that i feel that way.
I have to point something wherein it was said that if she reenact the sexualy abuse then shel feel fine and thats what im afraid of my litle girl.She has a cousin whose very close to her amd he was sexualy abused by his cousin on his father side amd the story is not yet revealed to everyone im having hard time to avoid my LG from him as i dunno wht excuse i can give for them to believe me.
Faith:
I was 18 years old when I went to see a psychic. One of the things she said to me was ‘you were sexually abused/molested as a child by your father or an uncle. Maybe you should knock on a few doors and open up about it” I said “How come I don’t remember then?” I was dumbfounded. 13 years later I went to another one who said almost the same thing. She said “you were sexually abused/molested as a young child by an uncle or family friend” I said “who was it? was it my father?” she said “no” I didn’t believe in my heart it was. Looking back….I was a very outgoing child and never shy (according to my mother) until the age of about 5 or 6 years old. I remember being very sad in grade one and especially in grade two. I would pee my pants quite often so that I could go spend time with my grandparents. (both parents worked) I had no friends, and didn’t care to interact with anyone. I wouldn’t eat my lunch, I would hide it in the desk. I played alone at recess, and I can still remember how empty I felt inside. The psychic said I was 5 or 6 years old when it occured. I let myself get bullied by other kids, was made fun of, etc. I used to pretend that my hat rack in my bedroom my grandfather made me was a man, and I used to get on top of it and pretend to have sex with it. I also took toy food and tried to insert it into myself, and also pretended to have sex in the shower. At such a young age, and I was never taught about it to my knowledge. I remember taking my pants and underwear off and sitting in my sandbox, thinking nothing of it. My parents were livid at me, but thought it was funny at the same time. (They have pictures) I became very depressed…..I would spend a lot of my time in my room, I would hit myself, cut myself, and ended up with an eating disorder – bulimia. I lost my virginity 6 months into highschool, started using drugs, alchohol, skipping class to party and was with many different guys. I tried killing myself many times, and people didn’t want to be around me because of the way I acted. I almost got expelled from school, but begged them not too. I did drugs almost everyday, and I then got addicted to pain killers in my early twenties, relapsed twice. I hated my mother and father growing up. HATED them…my brother and I were never close but we always got along. I felt pleasure having sex, but it always came from rubbing a certain way. I used to cry during sex or after sex….I would be turned on by a man, but my goal was always to make them happy, and never really felt fulfilled. When I masturbate it’s great, and like others I need to think of something wrong to feel right….then when it’s over I feel so sick, disgusting, gross, like a looser, ashamed and sometimes I will cry and cry and cry. When I was young I remember I would be playing like a normal kid, but then get turned on impulsively. I would never let people other than my boyfriend hold or cuddle me. I am now 31 years old. I have severe anxiety, and off and on depression, no clue who I am. I am with a man I want to spend the rest of my life with. He is a great guy, who is very supportive of me getting the help and therapy I need. However, I still have no memory of the abuse. I am currently in hypnotherapy, and will soon be seeing a psychologist, and have been recommended to EMDR therapy. What is your opinion???
Faith:
I also forgot to mention I have had nightmares since probably 5 years old of tornadoes, always trying to find shelter and it’s extreme fear. I am extrememly emotional especially in relationships. My first boyfriend and I were together for 10 years, and he was very abusive. Physically, sexually, emotionally, mentally. He never punched me or anything, but he would shove me, hold me up by the collar, kick chairs over I was sitting on, pull me out of chairs by my legs, push me to the ground, grab my arms really tight so they would bruise. There is a lot of emotional/mental abuse. The second guy I dated for 5 years cheated, used, and lied to me all the time. He stopped taking care of himself and stopped paying the bills, leaving it up to me. All my so called friends ditched me when I was with my first abuser….
When I was severely addicted to pain killers I would ask him to borrow money, and he would say things like “sure if you get rid of this hard on” I remember how disgusting I felt….like that’s all I am good for. Someone I trusted and loved…..Please help!
Faith:
I would also get this sick, uncomfortable, gross, empty, disgusting feeling growing up. it would happen randomely at wierd times. I remember wondering why but I would try and think of something or someone who made me feel safe. I still get it to this day. It is so wierd, and I have tried explaining it to counsellors, but no one understands me…
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I don’t mean to be rude or insensitive but I have a question. I see here many stories of women that claim to have been sexually abused but also claim that they don’t remember the specific abuse. When they do “remember”, most only give vague accounts of the actual event. But they are “sure” that it happened. Over the course of my life, I have known some women that gave similiar personal accounts of past sexual experiences. Almost all of them were vague and evasive on details except a few specific experiences that they seemed eager to relate, for perposes of their own. One, in particular, would relate a few very detailed and traumatic experiences then, later, when I would ask something about it, went back to the old vague and evasive responses. My gut feeling was always that these women were just lying about their selective amnesia for their own reasons. It would be understandable, in a way, if they are. What I am wondering is it any other men feel the same way about women they have been involved with or if I am the only one that gets this impression. It just seems so incredibly improbable that so many women would have amnesia about these events but still “know” that they happened. Like people that claim to have been kidnapped by aliens but don’t specifically remember it happening. Does anyone else have the thought that just maybe a lot of these women either just imagine their past “unremembered” experiences or remember every detail of actual experiences and consciously “choose” to selectively remember them? Again, I am not trying to be insensitive, but this has always been my gut feeling when a woman I was involved in related something like this to me. Like I was being lied to but I wasn’t sure what the lie was. I just wonder if any other men had ever felt the same.
Hi, My name is Alex and I am a 15 year old girl. Lately thanks to a women’s issues group in my school and a topic that was brought up i’ve been a little more open about my sexual abuse as a child. I was living with my dad at the time and he lived in his friends basement while i shared a room with two of his children that were teenagers at the time and it started when I had to go tell them it was dinner time, I don’t remember how old i was, and im not sure I want to, But i walked in on them in the closet to see the sister giving her brother a blowjob. They took me in there and they said it was a game and that I had to put the brothers dick in my mouth for 10 seconds, They made me put it in my mouth but I spit it out and spit on the floor. After that they started making me strip in front of the brother and dance around before bed, I didn’t really get it and I didn’t like doing it. Eventually The sister made me eat her out one night, And then The parents would make me bathe with her to save on the water bill. I remember she could touch me and she would splash cold water on me to make me uncomfortable. Eventually my mother took custody of me and I got to live with her. I haven’t really spoken about any of the rest of this with other people in fear of people thinking im making it up. The one time my mother sent me to Pa to visit some family ( I was still a child so she drove me to there and i stayed for a week.) My cousin (Who has saved my life so i really dont know how to feel about him…) had spent the night one night and he had told me his friends were doing this really cool thing and he wanted me to try, I don’t remember a lot of it, but I remember that he touched me and played around with me before my aunt yelled about something. And another tie was when i was at my other cousins house and he humped me and tried to put his dick in me (Hes younger then me) And I remember that one time i was living with my dad a little girl and her brother came to spend the night and she told me to suck her brother off, That it tasted like ice cream and that if a girl was thirsty she’s supposed to drink from there. It was a fucking nightmare and i don’t understand why so much happened to me, Why couldn’t it happen to someone else? Why couldn’t it have not happened at all?
Alex, I am sorry to hear yuor story. I hope talking about it helps you manage it. It raises a question for me. As a child who was introduced to sex when I was 8 years old, looking back i am amazed how many men and older boys made advances to me. Is it that obvious to these people that you are sexually experienced? If so then why cant the “good guys” see it also and help protect you?
Hello all, I just wanted to say that while I’ve not suffered anything near as horrific as you all in terms of sexual abuse/exploitation/assault/molestation. I was sexually abused as a child by several people, always in the short term, and only ever in one-off instances (as far as I remember). My issue is, I love kids, before my repressed memories came back to me I used to coach them, I was firm but fair and a favourite by the entire club. I love playing with my young cousins and teaching them about the world, but I know that sexual abuse tends to be cyclical, and I don’t want to end up abusing these wonderful kids. It’s part of why I stopped coaching (because I was afraid I might end up being a sick bastard) and I’m just so so terrified of becoming that sort of twisted individual. It genuinely keeps me up at night and I cry that I might end up being like the people who did that to me. So I stay away from kids as much as possible and dread the idea of having children of my own. My girlfriend finds this hard to understand as she can’t see me that way but I’m paralysed by fear at the prospect of it.
My abuse stopped relatively early because I got very big very quickly, by the time I was 10 I was 5ft10 and extremely aggressive. I was violent and strong enough to no longer be abused, because I was lucky my body gave me the capacity to fight off any potential abuser especially as my parents wouldn’t let people be alone with me. A side-effect of that is that I’ve had a violent streak in me for years that can be..savage. In a way that disgusts me. I find it very hard to explain. It’s like I became a completely different person, it’s not me, it’s my Mr. Hyde. Recently I’ve embraced this part of me as being part of me and I’ve calmed down a lot. But I am just so scared that I might become pure evil.
SpaceCowby43 I get the same way as those women you’ve been with, it’s not necessarily that they’re lying but that it sickens them who did that. They may have crystal clear memories of the events or sequences of events, but aren’t ready to voice it. I knew for years what happened to me, but it wasn’t until my most recent girlfriend that I could tell her who it was that did things to me and what happened, and I still broke down into pieces. Before then I think I would have probably tried to kill myself if I’d said it out loud. Even now I still find it very difficult to actually say aloud. It’s a difficult situation for the survivor, because you want to open up to your partner but it’s hard to go through it properly.
Wow.. Reading this stuff has reay helped as I to crave rough sex and find it weird when my partner is gentle and affectionate. I thought it was me, but from the age of 13 until very recently ( I am now 35) I have craved sex from my rapist who is two years older than me. I only knew it was real rape when a counsellor made me think about if he did it to my then 13 year old daughter and somehow the revelation of rape kicked in. There have been times when I have wanted him to rape me but always cried or felt like a slut or dirty and I thought that was me liking it but I now see this is the psychological effects. Up until this week he is still trying to convince me to see him, even though I am in a commited relationship of 7 years. I have told my partner but he is finding this too much as I kept going back for more. I now have managed to tell my therapist and she is working hard to keep me from seeing him to keep me safe but it is hard. This person is my stepbrother and we shared some great times together apart from the abuse.
A few months ago he anally raped me and that left pain I could recognise, in a way it helped (but not completley) to stop me seeing him. I have confronted him many times but each time he convinces me that I wanted it.
I am trying to change and sites like this help me to understand just how hard it will be and given me Hope. Thanks.
Sexual abuse is terrible and nobody should do it. An orgasm does not make it okay. If you really want to have sex with kids that bad go order a hooker and dress her like a schoolgirl. Honestly, child molestation is horrific, embarassing, and traumatizing. Any child molesters out there want to argue their case in the comments? Because I really want to hear what you have to say about destroying the innocent purity of a child and throwing them to the hounds of sexuality.