Childhood Sexual Abuse:

Sexual Recovery Is Possible

Myth: child sex abuse ruins women for life. Truth:
survivors CAN enjoy great sex
For women, its 15 percent, about one in six, for men around two percent, one in 50. These
are the estimated proportions of people who have survived childhood sexual trauma
everything from being fondled once by the boy next door to years of nightly rape by a
father. Many people believe that childhood sexual abuse is so emotionally devastating that
victims never recover and can never enjoy sex. In fact, healing is quite possible, and so is
a deeply fulfilling sex life.

Of course, recovery isnt easy. It typically takes years and requires professional therapy.
Survivors typically become obsessed by their recovery process, which can drive their
friends, lovers, and families crazy. Thats the bad news. The good news is that survivors
eventually emerge from the dark tunnel of recovery into the light of healing, and often
report that the process transforms their sex lives from awful to deeply nurturing and
erotically fulfilling.

Here is the first of three posts on this subject:

Healing Is Possible

Women experience the vast majority of sexual abuse, so this discussion focuses on them.
But male survivors have very similar experiences and recovery processes.

Laura Davis, of Santa Cruz, California, is the co-author of The Courage to Heal: A Guide
for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Her books reflect her struggle to recover from
her grandfathers abuseand the joy she discovered in recovery: When I had my
first memories of the incest, I went from being a very sexual person to being totally
erotically shut down. I had flashbacks every time I was touched, couldnt bear to be
touched, and changed my mind constantly: Yes, I want sex. No, I dont. After six months,
this proved too much for Davis lover, and they broke up.

After her recovery, Davis built another relationship, and she has become a much different
person sexually. She says she enjoys being touched (most of the time), and considers
sex a place for us to connect, heal, express love, and have fun.

Staci Haines, of San Francisco, is another survivor. After years devoted to her own
recovery, she now enjoys a pleasurable, fulfilling sex life, and has become a
psychotherapist specializing in helping abuse survivors rediscover the pleasures of sex.
She is the author of Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma:
Healing is possible, she explains, emotional healing and sexual healing. I tell survivors:
You survived. Youre more powerful than what happened to you. Victimization is a terrible
thing. Surviving it is very hard. But now that youre an adult, you have the capacity to
recover, to build the lifeand the sex lifeyou choose.

How Abuse Affects Survivors

For survivors, trust is a key issue. Someone who should have been nurturing and
trustworthy was the opposite. Sex is based on trust. Survivors have a hard time with trust,
which is why they have difficulty with sex.

Another important issue is survivors loss of control during the abuse. Their desires and
personal integrity were ignored. They had no control over what happened to them. As a
result, recovering survivors often need to assert total control over every aspect of their
relationships and sexuality. This, too, makes sex difficult. Satisfying sex involves a
combination of control and letting go, feeling simultaneously safe and able to surrender to
erotic enjoyment and orgasm. Survivors need for control often interferes with this, and
makes sexespecially orgasma challenge.

A third issue is dissociation, a natural defense mechanism for those who experience
severe trauma. Survivors minds block out what happened to their bodies. Dissociation is
not unique to child sexual abuse. Survivors of any traumawar, a car wreck, etc.do
whatever it takes to escape the pain. To avoid their memories, many survivors withdraw
physically and emotionally. When children dissociate before theyve matured to the point
where they develop other coping skills, dissociation may become the only way they can
respond to the abuse. They grow up to be numb, dissociated adults. Davis once asked a
survivor how she felt about her body. Her reply: What body?

Dissociation often includes an inability to experience physical pleasure. As one survivor

explains: I was afraid to feel pleasure. My body could contain lots of pain, but not
pleasure. Another confesses: Physical pleasure didnt feel good to me. I wanted to throw
up every time I had an orgasm. All I could think about was my uncle.

Some survivors feel repulsed by sex. Others become hypersexual and sexually reckless,
for example, drunken hook-ups without contraception. And some swing back and forth,
one moment craving physical closeness, but the next, freezing or fleeing. These reactions
are all aspects of dissociation.

During sex, many survivors experience flashbacks, vivid memories of the abuse that make
sex difficult, sometimes impossible. Flashbacks can happen any time, but typically occur
during lovemaking, even if the sex is tender, loving, and completely consensual. I
frequently had flashbacks during sex. I remember one time my lover was standing in the
doorway about to join me in bed. I knew he was the man I loved, a gentle, wonderful man.
But all I could see was my father standing there. I knew my father had been dead a dozen
years. But I saw my father.

Another survivor: My memories of abuse and my passion are stored in the same place. If I
dont make love, I dont experience passionbut I dont relive the abuse either. Whenever
I open myself up to passion, my horrible memories come flooding back.

Cincinnati researchers surveyed 832 women survivors of child sex abuse, aged 14 to 59.
Compared with non-traumatized women, abuse survivors were more likely to have
poor self-esteem, negative body image, eating disorders, relationship difficulties, drug
and alcohol problems, and problematic sex liveseither withdrawal from sex or sexual
recklessness.

As a result, its not surprising that many people, both survivors and the public, believe that
child sexual abuse ruins women for life. In some cases, thats true, with survivors
becoming mentally ill or committing suicide. But in most cases, with time, therapy, and
emotional support, survivors of childhood sexual abuse CAN recover, heal, and enjoy sex.

Next time: The Long Road to Healing

And then: How Men Can Help Sexually Abused Women Heal

References:

Davis, L. The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (20th
Anniversary edition). William Morrow, NY, 2008.

Haines, S. Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma. Cleis Press,
San Francisco, 2007.