When I was younger, it was all over the news that a local woman had been tied to a tree, raped, and murdered. I asked my mother what rape was, and I don’t remember what her answer was – just that I wasn’t satisfied with it, and went and looked it up in the dictionary, like they had trained me to do with every other word I didn’t know the meaning of. It wasn’t in my children’s dictionary, but it was in the big red regular one. As were words like sodomy and masturbation. The definitions of which intrigued and excited me – they didn’t sound bad or scary at all, so what was the big deal?
I couldn’t have been even ten, and for a long time, I had known that rubbing parts of my body felt very, very good. Masturbating has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.
Then, when I was twelve, a girl I knew asked me if I fingered myself. What? No…why would I do that? Wait…guys? YOUR DAD??? She had explained that her dad taught her how to do it, and it was how men could tell if a girl was ready to have sex. I knew I wasn’t, so I didn’t pay her much mind. That year, I’d been molested, and it proved to be the match that set many other issues on fire.
After that, everything came from the internet. Freshman year of high school, I had lots of internet access. Netscape was awful, but it helped me find much more about sodomy than the dictionary ever did. And I learned that all my rape fantasies were okay, and not a sign of something wrong with me – even if my teenage self, with the complete lack of self-esteem, had rationalized them by thinking “Well, that’s the only way someone will ever want to have sex with ME.”
I never got the birds and the bees talk. All my knowledge came in the form of books, abuse, and zeros and ones through the tubes. I have no idea how I’ll educate my kids…but educate them, I will. I’ve always been good at doing well, with or without a plan.
I know that my mother taught me the proper names for my body parts. I don’t remember how or when, but I sure wasn’t shy about using those names (sometimes incorrectly). Case in point, one day I had to pee really badly. I marched up to my mother, surrounded by church ladies in our living room and announced that “my vulva hurts.” To this day, my mother still shoots me a look when I recount that particular story.
At five, I was molested by my male babysitter. I remember almost every detail. He performed oral sex on me while I was lying on the couch. I had gotten the “stranger danger” talk before, but he didn’t count–I knew him. He told me there was a bug inside of me and he would get it. I was scared of bugs.
I told my parents what happened that same day. I’m glad I was armed with the right language to explain what had happened. This incident has haunted me for my entire life. It made me scared of sex, but also curious, and this combination confused me. Since then, I have flashbacks every few years and remember something new. Like how he would stare at me through the window. Or something else he said.
But it turned out I forgot the most important thing of all, which my mother told me only a few months ago (I’m 30 now). At one point, while he was touching me, I said quite loudly that I had to go to the bathroom. I then ran away and locked myself in the bathroom until my father got home. That tiny part, that knowledge that I did SOMETHING, is immeasurable.
I wish that I had spoken to my mother sooner rather than suffer with guilt for this long. I wish I could talk to my father about it, because I’ve always felt that he saw me differently since then. I was no longer daddy’s little girl, and that caused more hurt than the actual incident itself. But I don’t feel close or comfortable enough with him to broach the topic.
I do want kids, but I’m scared of how I might react the first time I leave them with someone else. I hope I will have the ability to be rational and the foresight to teach them everything they need to know.
Reading the stories on this site has shown that there is no one way to do it, and I hope that I can find the way that suits me best.
–Submitted by The Functional Weirdo
Spending a week in Greenwich Village in New York City was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I was on Christopher Street, the literal birthplace of the gay rights movement. While some of you may wonder why this so deeply touched a married heterosexual mother of two, others of you understand the importance of this to me with no question.
Sexuality is one of the cornerstones of my life. Many people have commented to me that I am sexually inappropriate, as if they are the first person to tell me this. It is not something you need to tell me. I am fully aware that I tend to be obsessed with sex, and that I can make even the most innocuous statement into a horribly dirty joke.
I have poor boundaries about sex. I want to know about your sex life, not to judge or belittle, but to salivate and celebrate. Also, I am just plain nosy.
So to all of those people who think that I need to “grow up” and “shut up” here is my charge to you. Instead of telling me that I am sexually inappropriate, do as some of my other friends have done – tell me it makes you uncomfortable. Own your feelings. Think about what it is that I am saying that makes you nervous, and if you still don’t want to hear things from me, GROW UP and tell me. Do not pathologize my interest in sex, when to me your disinterest is just as odd.
Many people consider sexuality a private, intimate topic to be shared only within the bounds of marriage. Or, they consider sex a compartmentalized piece of their life, something that is great and all, but nothing to get so worked up about. I am not either of those people.
Without sharing too much of stories that are not mine, I grew up knowing the realities of sexual abuse. Although I was never the victim, I can’t remember a time in my life when I was not aware of the dark side of sexuality. Rape and sexual abuse are powerful, destructive forces, and can destroy even the strongest person. It can become not just an assault on the body, but an assault on the mind as well (I would say soul, but we all know I don’t believe in souls :)
I have always been the person that my friends came to to discuss sex with, including their sexual assaults. I have had more people disclose abuse to me than I can count, and once an interviewer even disclosed to me as I was interviewing for a job with her. She had never told anyone and was deeply ashamed.
In 1995, I began my career at a domestic violence/rape crisis center. For the past fourteen years, I have been exposed daily to the worst stories imaginable. Stories that I will not repeat, but can’t forget. Stories that have made me cry at the vulnerability of children, and seethe at the power of men in our society. I have seen women abused within an inch of their life choose to go back to their husband and abandon the child he also assaulted. I have seen boys who were abused as children grow up to become the very monster they feared. I have seen women who were sexually abused in childhood be aghast and surprised when the same abuser hurts their own children. I may not believe in god, but I have certainly seen the devil.
And how do you defeat the devil? With joy, love, and pleasure.
In my line of work, it is pretty easy to become jaded and bitter, and to blame sex, society, and/or men. I have chosen instead to fight from a position of love for humanity by seeking out the joy in sexuality. For every bit as destructive as sexual assault can be, sexual fulfillment can be healing. I will NOT allow the abusers, naysayers, and prudes of the world to deny that power to me or anyone else. In fact, I try at every opportunity to flirt with, celebrate, and encourage the multitude of good, decent, and loving men and women as a direct affront to the pain and suffering my clients and family members have suffered over the years.
I was raised to believe that my body belonged to me, that my sexuality was mine to own, and that sexuality was about pleasure, pure and simple. Sex was not a bargaining chip to get something from others, nor was it a chore that must be endured to receive love. My sexual power was not to be given to someone to else, but rather something to be shared. I was taught to never do anything sexually that I was uncomfortable with, and I never have. I was also taught that with sexuality comes personal responsibility, not only in terms of taking care of my physical and emotional health, but also my experiences. Orgasms were my right as a sexual partner, and a woman, and not a nice “extra” on occasion.
If people are allowed to be obsessed with science, movies, religion, sports, literature, Live Action Role Playing, midgets, ghosts, and lake monsters, why is it such a problem that I choose to focus on one of the most life affirming activities on the planet? There is nothing that screams “fuck you” to the pain and the hurt in the world than screaming “fuck me” to the person in your bed.
I have always loved the quote “The solution to bad art is not censorship, its better art.” Well for me, the solution to bad sex and the pain it brings is not abstinence, its better sex. And better sex will only come about when we admit, deal with, and respect the power that sexuality has in our lives.
Oh, and I am still really nosy.
–Submitted by Heidi Anderson from The Fat One in the Middle
In 1994, my parents divorced. I was nine.
It was winter, and we were in the middle of the biggest ice storm my town had ever seen. My mother packed my sister and I up, and we left to go stay with my Aunt and Uncle in the next town. I had always enjoyed visiting with my aunt and uncle. They lived in the country and let me roam around freely.
One afternoon my sister and I were home alone with my aunt. We both both followed her into the bathroom when she had to pee. My sister, four at the time, pointed at my aunt’s vagina when she sat down on the toilet. My aunt tickled my sister’s vagina and laughed.
I was standing by the sink. My Aunt leaned over and tickled my vagina. I remember it making me feel really uncomfortable that she had done that. When I finally returned home, I told my grandparents what my Aunt had done to my sister and me. They recorded my story.
My parents fought a lot about the situation, and one day I was told that my sister and I were not allowed to visit my Aunt and Uncle’s house anymore. We never discussed what happened again.
I had nightmares. My mother never believed my story. She said I had made it up. I didn’t make it up. It really happened, but thinking back on that day, 15 years later, I have to wonder if what I thought was wrong, if she was just playing. My grandmother had drilled into my head from a young age that if anybody ever touched me between the legs that was not her or my mom, that I should tell somebody.
It haunts me. Did I accuse my aunt of doing some horrible thing that was really an innocent action? I have not seen her since we left her house that February. I’ve often thought about going to see her. I’m afraid though; afraid to find out if I was wrong, afraid to find out that I was right, afraid of facing my past and letting in demons I had hoped would disappear.
–Submitted by C
I am the daughter of a sexual assault survivor. I have been aware of this fact since before I actually understood what sex – much less sexual assault – was.
When I was about six years old, my mother was going through therapy. She’d kept the secret of her assault from her family for nearly two decades, allowing her brother-in-law (her attacker) to walk free. She’d started having flashbacks and panic attacks. Maybe this was triggered by me – perhaps she was terrified of my starting school and being away from her protective and watchful care.
Whatever the trigger was, she realized she need to address her past. She told her mother about it, and her sister (who promptly divorced the bastard. The Catholic Church even gave her an annulment.).
And then she told me. She told me she’d been hurt by someone who should have never touched her. Then she explained sex, but only the genetic aspect – how chromosomes join together to make a child (I understood the differences between X’s and Y’s before I understood the differences between penises and vaginas). She described sex as “a close hug” between a man and a woman.
I avoided hugging my male relatives for years. When I did figure out the physical mechanics of sex, it was without her help. Books alluded vaguely to “entering” confused me, so I looked up “sex” in my parent’s ancient encyclopedia. I was intrigued, and at a tender age started dreaming up all sorts of fantasies and discovered the art of self-pleasure.
My parents’ perspective on sex confused me. I could tell that my mother was a sensual person – she was an artist, and painted and sculpted things which I now realize to have been deeply sexual. My father often came home with little paper bags with silky lingerie for her. There was definite passion there. At the same time, there was a high degree of morality. My mother had learned to accept sex, to differentiate it from rape, by viewing it as holy – something wonderful, but only when between a man and a wife.
When I got to high school, and later college, she started lecturing me. Any movie portraying sex would be followed by an awkward “don’t go having sex with someone just to see if you love them.” When I informed her I wanted to go on birth control in order to manage my monthly cycle, she lectured me for an hour about how “this isn’t a free pass to have sex. Because, really, if you sleep around now, you’ll mess things up later when you get married. Lots of people get divorced because of that.”
In spite of being a very liberal, very vocal feminist, my mother preaches puritanical views on sex. What my mother doesn’t – and perhaps can’t, because of what she’s been through – understand is that sex has no connection to morality for me. I was raised to be religious, but organized, close-minded politicized dogma never made sense to me. I dropped religion as soon as I left home.
I started dating then, too. I’d refrained from it while I was with my parents because I didn’t want to trigger my mother’s fears and flashbacks. She’d panicked enough at the prospect of my leaving for college, so I appeased her by taking self-defense classes and not talking about dates for two more years.
Although I’ve rejected the moral aspect of sex, my mother’s assault still follows me. I have trust issues. I emphasize respect and boundaries more than any person I know. I don’t consider sex to be shameful, but I automatically assume that that particular topic of conversation will make people completely uncomfortable. This oxymoron has lead my friends to call me both prudish and slutty.
I don’t fault my mother for failing to teach me that sex can be empowering. I don’t blame her – at least, not anymore – for teaching me to fear men. I understand that she was hurt more deeply than I can possibly understand, but I am incredibly thankful that I had the audacity to develop my own philosophies.
What I learned most from my mother is what she didn’t teach me. I learned that for sex to be beneficial, women need to understand that their value does not come from some supposed notion of purity, that their worth is not derived from having only one lover in their lives. I learned that my worth comes from my choices, from my belief in my unique being. I learned that no one can change who I am. I am not defined by my body, but by my person.
And while I’ve survived being a survivor’s daughter without inheriting the entirety of her trauma, many such others are not so lucky. My brother is an example – his relationship with sex was complicated even more than mine, because when he reached puberty, my mother didn’t just fear for him, she feared him. I’m sure this wasn’t conscious, but at that time, their relationship changed. There is a constant struggle for control between the two of them that has resulted in an utter lack of trust and understanding. Both are incredibly talented at saying the things that hurt the other most, whether they intend to or not, and I’m afraid that their relationship is beyond repair. This breaks my heart -all I can hope is that if my brother ever has children, he will manage to separate his baggage from what they need to know about life and love.
I hope I can do the same.
–Submitted by Hope
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