Redefining Sex: Sexual Abuse is Not Sex

Reclaiming sex, how can we do this? When sexually abused, we were used for sex, through sex, by our abuser(s). In our lives now, we must discern the difference. Sex that we choose, sex that is honoring, loving, healthy, and fun—that is our new definition of Sex. We have to redefine sex for us now. Abusers steal our blossoming. But it never goes away. It is eternal within us and therefore I believe we can access it when we heal.

Healthy sex is a respectful thing, if a lover is treating us with disrespect, only caring about their needs, or demeaning us through sexual acts we are not ok with, or only caring about their needs, pleasure, and wants, that is not “honoring” sex. (Now, I’m not saying sex is only for ecstatic Rumi reciting lovers. Please! I know what it’s like to be a single girl. Have fun, but be safe. Trust me, orgasms are much better when your partner honors and respects you. Sex encompasses so much more than just orgasms however.) It’s really about union. It’s about sharing your precious life energy, your essence with another. You must choose wisely. You are not here to service anyone. If we have abuse history, we may even think the sex we get is great, fabulous, wonderful, and we settle for it because we do not know any better. We were objectified. No one who is sexually abusing you is seeing you as a human being, but rather as an object. They do not want to see your fear, pain, and suffering. A guy we thought we loved and our sex life-good grief. The things we as women put up with, never speaking up when it hurts for instance, when he is doing it too hard, when we didn’t want to have sex but did because he would get angry and accuse us of cheating. Sound familiar at all? The ironic thing is that these sexually ridiculous boys are usually unskilled lovers. We go auto-pilot and regress into that abused child who truly can not say no to this boy as we could also not say no to Daddy, Uncle Billy, whoever.

Guess what: Sometimes, not saying no when Daddy is raping us is the smartest thing to do. We are primal, we are surviving. If we say no, he may kill us. We deserve a medal for this!

After laying under my own father, unable to protect myself, swallowing the shame, the terror back into myself, how could I know later that I had a right to myself? How many women lay there, waiting to be pleased all the while not knowing what true pleasure is? Yet they say nothing, they may not know it is there right to say anything, day after day, in a kind of slave mentality. Newsflash: SEX is for us too!