Sex after sexual violence challenges the body. How survivors can heal.
Alia E. Dastagir- Sexual violence can impact a person's entire sexual health.
- Sexual trauma can erode trust, confuse consent and blur boundaries.
- When survivors feel safe, they can do the work to heal, especially with a supportive partner.
During sexual violence, the body does many things to survive. It may fight, flee, freeze or dissociate. All of these are automatic reactions that serve a purpose when a person is being violated. The problem is that even after the violence has ended, those responses can get trapped inside, showing up in the body in frustrating ways, including in a survivor's sex life.
Experts in sexual violence, which affects millions of people each year in the U.S. alone, say sexual trauma can impact a person's entire sexual health, defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as "a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality." It can make it difficult for a survivor to be intimate with others or with themselves.
"Many (survivors) don't have a sense of what feels pleasurable to them or where their boundaries are, even what they want to consent to and not consent to," said Staci Haines, author of "Healing Sex" and "The Politics of Trauma." "A lot of them have a hard time being present."
Analysis:Have we been thinking about 'sex drive' all wrong?
Experts say there is a spectrum of responses to sexual violence, with low sexual interest on one end and hypersexuality on the other. Responses are influenced by many factors, including the period of development during which the violence occurred, the duration of that violence, and whether the person achieved a sense of safety in its aftermath.
Experts say sexual trauma can happen through a single violent event such as a rape, and it can also build over time – when a child is shamed for their erection during puberty, when a girl is chastised for sexual curiosity, when schools teach about sex in negative ways, when young people are exposed to sexually violent media before they know what sex is at all.
"A sexual violent culture is what we all live and breathe. It impacts everybody to different degrees, depending on the types of violence that you have suffered. And depending on who you are, how much support you have in your life, how marginalized you are, it can show up in very different ways," said Aredvi Azad, a sex and relationship coach and co-executive director of The HEAL Project, which works to help heal survivors of child sexual abuse and sexual violence. "Healing work becomes about building connection skills, setting boundaries, examining how trust is built, working on vulnerability, working on intuition."
Sexual trauma damages trust, confuses consent, blurs boundaries
The only person who can fully understand how sexual violence has impacted their sexual life is the survivor themselves, Azad said. Observing someone who is reticent about sex or someone who is eager about it says virtually nothing about their trauma.
"It's about how you feel when you engage in different sexual activities. Do you feel connected to your body, to your feelings? Or are you numbing yourself? Is sex a point of disconnection, is it a point of leaving your body and dissociation?" Azad said.
For survivors who experienced sex as the site of violence, sexual connection can be difficult, in part because the nervous system responses that engaged healthily to protect a person during violence can show up again even in situations where a survivor wants to engage in a sexual act. A survivor may consciously want to have sex, but their body compulsively disassociates or they have a strong impulse to flee.
"It gets really confusing because it's like, 'What's happening. I want to do this. I want to be masturbating' or, 'I want to be having some sexual exchange with this person,' but then all this history shows up because sex is a site of the violence," Haines said.
Since survivors are denied their right to consent, this concept can also get confusing, Haines said. A survivor may think they want to consent to a sexual act but question themselves afterward. They may shut down sexually because that decision-making becomes overwhelming.
Sexual violence also damages trust, which is essential for healthy sex, and since most people are sexually abused by someone they know, it can also confuse intimacy.
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse are particularly vulnerable to long-term harm to their sexual health. Abused children are denied a natural sexual evolution. Many are sexualized before they even know what sex is. Experts say when a person is victimized at a young age, switches can get turned on prematurely, which can lead to compulsive sexual behaviors.
'The most intense violation of my life':A beloved camp, a lost boy and the lifelong impact of child sexual trauma
'When you start adding oppression ... we're into triple and quadruple harms'
Experts say survivors with multiple marginalized identities can experience compounding traumas that complicate healing. For example, a queer person who is a survivor may find people questioning whether their sexual orientation is the result of abuse. This can exacerbate shame, blame and strengthen the cultural mandate for silence.
"When you start adding oppression, whether it's patriarchy or white supremacy or homophobia, then we're into triple and quadruple harms. ... All of a sudden you're not just dealing with child sexual abuse, you're dealing with child sexual abuse and racism. You're dealing with sexual abuse and homophobia. It's impacting our safety, our sense of belonging, and our sense of worth, our dignity."
Sexism diminishes female pleasure:What women need to know
Survivors need safety in order to heal, Azad said.
"You need to be able to reach a place of physical safety, emotional safety, spiritual safety," Azad said. "When you're struggling to be recognized and seen and valued, it's very difficult to get to that place of, 'OK, I feel safe to begin this work of healing."
Healing sexual health after a sexual trauma
Azad said part of healing requires the survivor to accept that the trauma is part of their life story. Healing requires love, acceptance and compassion.
Haines said it can be cathartic for a survivor to talk and heal with other survivors, whether it's a therapist-led support group or a peer support group. It's affirming to speak with other people who have been impacted by violence in similar ways. Survivors need to see themselves reflected.
Haines says positive sex education is also crucial for healing sexual health. Most people are taught that monogamous, heterosexual sex, what some may call "vanilla sex," is what's normal and healthy, but that's not what everyone likes or prefers. With sex-positive education, someone can ask themselves, "What are my needs?" or "What feels pleasurable to me?" It allows a survivor to rebuild agency and to embrace curiosity about their bodies and desires.
Analysis:The conversation around sex is changing with 'vanilla shaming'
Let's talk about (queer) sex:The importance of LGBTQ-inclusive sex education in schools
Survivors also need to relearn the skills sexual violence took away or never allowed them to develop in the first place, such as consent and boundary-setting. Those skills take practice.
Haines, who also teaches courses in trauma and somatics, a field of bodywork that emphasizes the mind-body connection, said survivors can also benefit from processing their sexual trauma through their psychobiology.
"Sex is so physical, and our physicality has to process through the trauma so it can open back up to pleasure and trust," she said.
Somatic work can include specific movements, body awareness exercises and breathing techniques.
How a sexual partner can support a survivor
Sexual partners can support a survivor by listening, validating, being responsive to what the survivor needs and giving them space to explore. Sometimes that exploration will go well and sometimes it won't. A survivor may feel triggered, but a supportive partner can help them through a difficult moment.
"Some of those skills that got taken away because of sexual abuse can actually be practiced with a partner... and if something comes up during the middle of being sexual, a partner can just really pause, stop a sexual interaction and shift it to more of a healing interaction," Haines said.
Survivors who are struggling with sex or intimacy and who aren't ready to explore sexual pleasure, alone or with a partner, can practice pleasure in other ways, Haines said. They can take a walk and focus on the breeze, relish the feeling of sun on their skin, let their body relax into a song they love. Pleasure grows the capacity for pleasure, Haines said.
Azad said survivors should never consider the work of healing complete.
"Healing is not a place you arrive at where you are back to a version of yourself before trauma happened. That is a story that we're sold sometimes, but life doesn't work that way," Azad said. "The work of healing means growing with the trauma, integrating the trauma, not forgetting what happened, but shifting our relationship with what happened. Instead of resisting the experiences, we have that as part of what makes us, us."
You may also be interested in: