Is my relationship to sex/sexuality trauma related?

[Wormlord]

Howdy, posting for the first time! I wasn’t sure whether to put this in sex and sexuality or here, so sorry if it should’ve been on the other board. I felt it was important to write about both my trauma and what’s going on with me sexuality-wise.

So, I was sexually abused when I was 11-13. It feels wrong to call it abuse because it feels like I’m disrespecting people who went through worse things than me, but my therapist told me it counts as COCSA. Basically, some people older than me (they were both 15 when I was 11 so there was a bit of an age gap) exposed me to a lot of inappropriate things over the internet (including one of the people drawing porn of me and her having sex) and it really traumatized me. I realized it was abuse (or at least not normal) when I was around 14.

Ever since I was abused by those people I think about sex a lot. Like, a lot. Even when I was on puberty blockers. I’m on testosterone now, so when I realized that maybe it isn’t normal to think about sex as much as/the way I do I figured it could’ve been a change T brought, but I’ve experienced this since before I’ve been on T.

The weird thing is I don’t think about me having sex with people, usually. Actually, the thought of me having sex kind of freaks me out a lot. I think about other people/fictional characters having sex or masturbating. I’ve had a really strong urge to draw porn as well. But I really don’t want to have sex.

I also have been feeling really really uncomfortable talking about or joking about sex with anyone recently. I kind of feel predatory, I’m worried I’m being just as bad as my abusers. I’m mostly posting here because I just can’t bottle up how I’m feeling anymore.

I hope this wasn’t too ramble-y or weirdly written, but basically could all this stuff be tied to my trauma? I’ve heard of people being hypersexual after trauma (one of my friends actually experiences this iirc) but I’m not sure if that applies to me because I really don’t want to have sex. And I’m not sure if me being afraid of having sex is a trauma thing as well.

[Sam W]

Hi Wormlord,

I'm so sorry there were people in your life who chose to expose you to those things with the goal of making you uncomfortable. If it helps, I always like to frame it for people that using a label like abuse, especially when what happens does match the definition, doesn't take away the ability of people who faced more "severe" abuse to use it. The one doesn't minimize or negate the other.

I have to say, given your age and experiences, everything you're describing sounds pretty normal. While it's true that some survivors of sexual abuse or assault do have sex in a way that's compulsive or reactive, how often that happens (and the reasons behind it) are often misrepresented: https://www.scarleteen.com/blog/heather ... ivor_stere.

But what you're describing sounds like it's more in the realm of your fantasies while your actual desire for sex is pretty minimal (which, if you have trauma attached to sex, is an understandable reaction). Thinking about sex often is pretty common at your age and throughout puberty, which it sounds like you were just hitting when the incidents happened. Nothing about what you're describing to us sounds like someone thinking about sex "too much."

That being said, if those thoughts are causing you distress, have you brought them with your therapist? And have you also spoken to her about your fears that joking about sex, or wanting to draw sexual media (again, both totally common things) make you like the people who traumatized you?