Recovering from Childhood SA

[MountainMix]

As the title suggests, I’m currently working through processing and recovering from sexual violence I experienced growing up. But there’s multiple layers I feel I need to process.

One is that I consider my sexual debut to have happened relatively young, around 13. That’s when I first experimented with a boy’s penis. However, he never let me kiss him on the lips he said because “I wasn’t special enough”. That experience made me feel like I was only good for what I could sexually provide and not for special romantic things.

At 14, I was sexually assaulted by three different boys I considered friends in high school. Some of it happened in front of school teachers who did nothing to stop it. Additionally, I attended a big high school with thousands of kids, so going through the hallways, I was always at risk of having my body parts touched by boys I couldn’t even identify. I also rejected some boys and they called me a whore or threatened or harassed me.

At 15, I had my first long term boyfriend and explored a lot sexually, however we never had PIV. That was the only form of sex we never explored because my father would beat me, continuously ask me if I was having sex, and in my mind, to be safe from that abuse, I made sex = PIV so when I told him no I would feel like I wasn’t lying. But I know sex isn’t just PIV. It was everything I was already having. But that messed with my head tremendously. And as a queer person, it impacted me tremendously.

At 17, I was sexually abused by another partner for months. When I got back with my ex and told him everything that happened, he spread a rumor around the school that I was a whore and everyone, except one guy, stopped talking to me. Because that guy treated me so well, I felt an obligation to date him, so I did and right after high school, I had my first experience of PIV with him, but it was horrible. I cried because I thought PIV was supposed to be this mind blowing, incredible thing that would blow everything else out of the water. But when it actually happened, I felt nothing. All of a sudden, the thing my father beat me for, the thing my classmates told me was the epitome of sex, the thing society said was the greatest was actually the worst for me and I felt broken.

Instead of accepting that PIV just wasn’t for me, I sought out other PIV experiences so I could feel something and fit in. But it never worked. And I could never orgasm through it and preferred having other forms of sex.

However, when I was 19, I started dating a guy who invalidated all other forms of sex and put PIV as a pedestal. He would say nothing else was sex and didn’t count. We were having a lot of sex in the beginning of our relationship, but he never counted it because it wasn’t PIV. And he pressured me to have PIV because that was the only form of legitimate sex for him and everything else was foreplay. He called me an “tease” for not giving it to him, even though I didn’t really care for it. Eventually, when we did have it, he then centered all of our sex around that and I said goodbye to my own pleasure.

Later when I talked to him about my sexual experiences growing up, he invalidated all of it and told me it wasn’t “real sex”. Since the assaults that happened to me were also all non-PIV, I internalized that it didn’t matter either and that nothing that had happened to me as an adolescent was “real”. This partner would do this to make himself feel “above me” because I had more sexual partners than him. I had around 8 at the time and he only had 3. So to put himself above me, he used patriarchal norms against me. He was overall an emotionally abusive partner. And it impacted me to the point where I felt worthless.

To “make up” for all the invalid sex I was having, I went on a sex spree after we broke up. I had sex with around 60 partners in just six months. And when he found out about it, he lost it. I entered again into a relationship with him but by then I was already too resentful and it was extremely unhealthy.

After that, I just kept having more and more sex to make up for the way I felt inadequate. And because I exposed myself to a lot of sexual partners, I inadvertently also had more sexual violence happen to me.

I would say that now I have had at least 150, probably even more than 200 sexual partners by now in my lifetime. I don’t even remember half of them. And it doesn’t matter how many people I sleep with, it’s never enough.

Some of the things I’d ruminate about are things like:

“I wish I had PIV at 13 so all my experiences after it were legitimate”

Or

“I wish I had more partners in high school so no one could ever invalidate me”

But when I sit and think about what I really wanted, it was for me to have bodily autonomy. To have my no mean no. To have my body respected. To have privacy. To have been free. And no matter what I do now, I feel like I can never get that time back. And I feel like I can’t move on because all of my life it was men dictating what they do to my body and what it should mean for me.

But I still think about how PIV is the “ultimate form of sex” even though I genuinely don’t believe that and have had the best sex in my life with amazing women. But I can’t help but feel inferior. And I think that’s just one of the things the patriarchy does: make women and people assigned female at birth in general feel like their sexuality is never theirs no matter what.

I don’t know how to free myself from this. I want so badly to feel like a normal human being, but I can’t. I feel like my brain is too messed up. How do you move on from this? How do you feel okay with yourself knowing everything that’s happened? How do you live knowing the patriarchy is still very much real and your body is never safe in this system?

[amber]

I am so sorry you've been through so much. I want to start by repeating that your voice is worthy and you did nothing to deserve any of this. I am so glad that you felt comfortable sharing here and I hope we can be a safe space for you.

One thing I wanted to start with was highlighting your clear and positive view of sex. Lots of people are never able to see sex as open as you do and it is clear your view of sexuality is one aligned with sex educators. I hope you give yourself a real pat on the back for that because it is not easy but especially not easy with what you've experienced.

Now I'll be honest I dont have a personal anecdote or set of perfect answers to your questions. Those are hard things to work through. What I do want to share is a handful of articles from our site which I think will be worth exploring. They may not fit your experiences perfectly, but I think they'll be helpful.

If You Have Been Sexually Assaulted
Music With Lyrics: Finding Your Way Back to Yourself After Sexual Assault
Navigating sex and sexuality after a long history of abuse and assault
I survived sexual assault, then got stuck in a relationship I don't feel good about.