One of the things that inevitably comes up in dating is the topic of sex. Sometimes it comes quickly in the form of lewd flirting (sometimes leading to casual sexting). Sometimes it’s a more nuanced, philosophical discussion that may eventually lead to more intimate talk of pasts, of number of partners and STD testing. Maybe eventually to turn-ons and turn-offs.
But, inevitably, it comes.
There’s the unspoken rule of 3-5 dates. Depending on the attraction and the connection, that seems to be the idealized amount of time to wait before getting naked. Sometimes the first or second date seems right, if the conversation has been, as well. Every so often, it’s not about the talk at all—just the carnal need.
But sex is an accepted part of the equation. We are inherently physical, social beings. We need touch from others. We crave intimate connection—even for just a few moments, and not matter how emotionally avoidant we are.
“Why does everything have to be framed around sex?” a recent dating interest asked. “Why can’t people just be friends and then try to meet in those terms?”
He sounds wise, but he eventually asked me for a casual sexual relationship in lieu of emotional attachment. (I named him Ollivander, because he makes magic wands but turned out to be a douche.) His own fearful-avoidant tendencies keep him from maintaining emotional connection, and he has sublimated his desires into other work.
But that’s the thing about dating: we are all looking with the possibility of sex. Even those who wait for marriage have the hope that it comes eventually. That’s kind of the point.
For me, it’s so much more complicated. I have no conscious memory of not being sexualized. The molestation began at about the time long-term memories began to form. It is often tied up with what should be benign remembrances of lazy afternoons and family gatherings. But there are long stretches of years of average childhood that are permanently tainted by those events.
Just before I was ready to choose to be a sexually-active teen, I was raped by a date. I’ve discussed that aftermath at length, both here and privately. There’s no question that it altered my perceptions of myself and of sex in general. My next relationship was physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive. I stayed in it, because I didn’t know better. Love meant hurt, and there was no deeper wound to be found. Other, later relationships often involved withholding and degradation as punishment for my imperfections, especially emotional ones. I often spent months at a time in my long-term committed relationships being ignored and untouched, told it was because I was too needy or too loud or too demanding or too flawed in so many ways.
Over the last 5+ years of dating, I have met all kinds of men. Some were remarkable and fantastic, only to turn out to be incapable of maintaining the connection with me that they so adamantly claimed to want and need. Some were sweet but not right in any way but sexually. Some were just assholes.
But I have always been looking for the one who could maintain both physical and spiritual connection.
That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I hear from securely-attached, happily-married friends that it’s not. Sure, shit gets in the way, and there are ebbs and flows. Life happens. But a healthy couple is able to maintain their intimate relationship, no matter what seems to intervene.
Recently, I met a man. We hit it off immediately. It was intense and passionate, spiritual and deeply intimate. It was romantic and idyllic and powerful.
But after a whirlwind, it started to unravel. The first red flags began to wave when I realized he was drunk and driving. He’d made a viable excuse and rescheduled plans with me. Except he was elsewhere, inebriated, and I was yet again faced with a man who was using substance to instill distance between his feelings and mine.
“No,” I said. “This is not okay.”
I cut it off, hurt and angry. And then I found out he had a girlfriend of four months.
It all made sense. It was sickening and difficult. I never would’ve engaged him had I known—and he was well aware of that. I was not a consideration to anything but his twisted needs.
It was shocking, of course. It was fucked up, and the more I learned, the more fucked up it became. It was calculated and methodically manipulative.
But how the hell did I do this again? Hadn’t I had enough therapy to know better, to see better, to be better?
“But you saw it quicker and more clearly,” Queen Frostine comforted. “That’s good.”
Maybe. But how the hell did I get here again?
“You want to connect, in this way and this way and this way,” my therapist said. “Your system, some protector, is analyzing everyone, seeing what boxes they check. When all the boxes are checked, she’s done her due diligence. She steps out of the way.”
Of what? I thought. What other part is she protecting?
In the Internal Family Systems model, there are subparts of the personality that act is protectors. Managers manage, and firefighters come in to take care of shit. They’re doing the best they can to protect exiles, the emotional compilations that manifest in response to trauma.
That manager was protecting an exile: my sexuality.
Since my divorce, I have been in fucked up relationship after fucked up relationship. Bounder and Rango and Rex and Katniss and the list goes on. Most don’t have names at all. There are simply too many of them to readily remember at this point.
Every time, I was looking for intimacy. I was looking for redemption for past hurt. I have written extensively about what I want in a partner and a relationship, so my entire system is very, very aware of what I want and need.
Part of that redemption is, ultimately, for the sex. Yes, my body—hell, my entire being—has been a sexual object. But it is really the objectification of my vulnerability and my innocence that is the real crime. The simplistic compartmentalization of me into very basic terms reduced me to an almost inhuman state in their psyches. Sometimes in my own. In many ways, I internalized the same valuations of me and acted accordingly. If someone who said they cared about me saw me this way, that must be the truth of who I am.
I am overly analytical. I constantly observe and break down every detail of everything. I have a degree in multiperspectival, interdisciplinary interpretation. I spend inordinate amounts of time seeing how seemingly unrelated things are intertwined, peeling apart the meaning created by that relationship. People are especially a target of that analysis.The only time that stops is when I'm having great sex.
Once that protector sees the potential object of my affection as being what I want and need, she allows access to my sexuality. That exiled, traumatized aspect so desperately wants to be redeemed, to be loved in healthy ways, that she will preen until she’s a twisted, beautiful, origami delight.
They seemed safe, but they weren’t safe, and I had no way to know, because my protector was nowhere to be found.
For years, I operated from the place of fuck or be fucked. If I could control it, I had the power, and no one could hurt that part of me again.
But what I’m realizing is that even now, four decades after it started, I am still powerless. I am rarely Self-led or centered in regard to sex. I am perpetually trying to find validation, even when there isn’t love. I don’t inherently believe love is necessary for great or even good sex. I do believe sex is better when it is the manifestation and expression of commitment and trust and respect.
I just don’t know how often I’ve actually experienced that.
It’s foundationally unsettling to realize I am so deeply damaged. Yes, it’s impossible to get to mid-life without some kind of hurt and damage. I’m often proud of my scars, knowing what I’ve survived.
But I also realize that I may never be okay. I may never be healthy or normal. It is impossible for me not to see myself and my life through a libidinous lens. It is hard-wired into me, quite literally. And sex is a vital part of life and love.
How am I ever supposed to repair this hurt, heal these wounds, when I am perpetually tearing myself open from the inside? How will I ever be able to do such work outside of a relationship, when the bounds of sexual intimacy necessarily include another person?
This is the reality of sexual abuse. It lasts far, far longer than the act itself. With and without therapy, it changes the abused, alters how they see and respond to every single thing from that point forward.
I debated whether or not to post this. It’s a difficult read. It was difficult to write. But I started Muchness and Light both to give myself a voice and to let someone else, anyone else who needed it, know that they were not alone.
You, reading this, who needs to hear these words: you are not alone. I feel your pain. It’s a terrible shared connection, but it is real. Someone else gets it; I get it. You are strong and you are beautiful and you are loved.
We will find a way together.
