Search

Not A Member Yet?

Your Email is safe | Cancel Anytime Lost Password?

How To Feel Safe During Sex After Sexual Abuse and Sexual Trauma

 

Boundaries for healing your sexuality.

Many people think boundaries are a bad thing. I believe boundaries help people who have suffered from trauma. In sexuality, I like boundaries because I think about them as agreements and limits that you can play with. You know exactly where the edge is, and you won’t go over it. Then, everyone can relax.

I am a big believer in boundaries! First, one of the reasons that we feel trauma is because our boundaries are ruptured. Sexual trauma is, by definition, a boundary rupture at the skin. It’s a boundary rupture emotionally. It’s a boundary rupture in very delicate parts of ourselves. Any time we are inappropriately touched, it is a psychic rupture. It’s a trust rupture.

A woman walking down the street has a constant sense of boundary rupture by being gawked or leered. We are ashamed if our bodies are imperfect. Those are all boundary ruptures, and it’s challenging to have a sense of boundaries when the trauma happened in the family.

There’s a natural tendency not to say no to people that we love. This is why incest is so common. Men and women, people across the gender spectrum, are triggered or suffer from their families abusing them. It’s the most common kind of sexual trauma. It is incest. Just Inappropriate behaviour inside your family or even just a touch as we talked about in the first segment. That is also a boundary. If I don’t get touched from the outside and I can’t feel myself on the inside, that is also a rupture. Also, what happens when we know someone, whether it’s within the family or it’s a date or even a priest, we had to go along with authority or someone important to us.

The #MeToo movement brought out so many people who had these things done to them, and they agreed to it because that was the best choice at the time. They get blamed for not fighting back or trying to stop it. You can’t fight back in these situations. The power dynamic is too much in the other person.

So, with anybody who’ve had their boundaries violated, which is everybody, how do we find the most genuine authentic yes and no so that I can get to “Yes, I want that. Yes, I desire that.” The best way to do that is first to find the No. Why am I unavailable? Because it’s the No that often is the one that gets overridden when someone has had their boundary ruptured.

I have a lot of ways that I work with my clients and my classes. You and I will do this together. We want to start with something non-sexual. We want to start with an undeniable unarguable yes. That could be “I am a yes for saving all the children in the world. I am yes for puppies. I am a yes for the love of my husband. I am yes for my friendships.” This is back to the primary practice of sensations. See if you can think of something that you are an absolute yes about and it’s going to be in your body somewhere. It’s almost like you can feel a fist in there going, “Yeah!”

Something that you’re willing to fight for, you’re ready to stand for. See if you can do that. What is it that you are undeniable, yes? For me, I feel that right here. It’s right in my solar plexus, and my legs get firm, and I feel this strength in my back, and I feel ready to take on the world. There’s this kind of “Yeah, let me add it.”

What about you? How do you experience this? I would be a total yes to a hug from you, but my boundary would be that I wouldn’t want you to pull my hair. I noticed that when a lot of people hug me, they grab the back of my hair at the same time they’re hugging me. Then my head is caught, and I can’t enjoy the hug. It’s so weird how sloppy people hug. I mean, they need help. They need to embrace. That’s an example of I’m a total “Yes,” and I want to be held and hugged, but I’m a complete no to having my hair pulled while you do it and so that’s a boundary within a whole yes and desire. They often happen at the same time. Yes, to this and a no to that. It’s essential for people to recognize.

Do you feel that “yes,” somewhere? Go for the hug. We’ll take the other one out for a moment. One of the things that I think you’re noticing here is that Arielle is good at describing sensations she feels during moments of emotion. So, I’m going to do some descriptions of how I feel when I’m a yes. I feel melty in my shoulders when I think about getting a hug. I feel warm in my heart, and I feel a little flushed here. It comes from my chest, and it goes up my neck. I get a slight tingling in my ears, and the whole crown of my head gets filled with energy and tingles. I feel lighter on my feet and a little bouncy and anticipating getting the hug. I feel like I’m strong in the moment, but I’m excited to collapse into getting hugged and held nice. I feel like I’m here, but I’m on that edge of wanting to “Ahh!” My palms are a bit sweaty. In this spot is a little autonomic response.

How’s your “no?” My “no” feels like a tempest and twists into a tightrope. It also makes my jaw go out. My hair’s going to get pulled again for the thousandth time. I get irked in my jaw, and one eye gets a little squinty. My teeth feel hard and sharp, my nose goes up in disgust, feeling like it. My lip draws back, and I feel a bit nauseous like “It’s not going to be a good hug.” Again, that’s just my body’s response.

Often with this yes and no, again we might have different responses. I like to have the whole body involved. My yes is like a “Yes, bring it on and raise more puppies.” There are some dolphins in there. Then I have a no gesture to which is “No, no.” No to hair pulling. I’m the same as you. I’ll pull my hair, and I want to kill them. To make sure that no one gets hurt, I push them back. Those of you who are watching this, find your “yes.” How do you bring all of you into this yes and feel that? Because if you can identify your “yes,” you can go “Yeah, I’d love you to touch me. I love you to kiss me there. I would love you to ravish me right now.” But no hair pulling. It’s essential to get clear guidelines to your partner.

What I love about the exercise that we’ve just done is that it sneakily gets you to hear your boundaries and be able to voice your boundaries which is one of the most critical parts about healing any trauma. The second piece is to find pleasurable sensations. Notice things that aren’t pleasurable and how your body feels when things aren’t pleasurable. So that during lovemaking, or any intimate touch with yourself or with a partner, you will be able to tune into the signals that your body, the essential you, inherently knows what’s right for you.

When you listen to him or her, that child, that human, the person you were born to be, not the person that ended up having trauma happened to them over time, but that person that you came into this Earth being that wants love affection and attention and connection. That is how you find it. You begin to find your “yes,” and you begin to find your no, and you honour them both thoroughly.

One more that is important is if I have been touched inappropriately, I don’t always have a clear answer. I like to add “I’m not sure. Great I need more time. Give me a moment,” because I can’t expect to know in the heat of the moment if this is what I’m available. The hardest part for people who have had their boundaries violated is to give themselves the time. See I need more time to sit with “Am I available for that? Is that a yes?” I’ll look for that little signal. Or is that a No or is it an “I’m not sure.” It’s essential to have access to those three or four things.

If you have a partner and have been through trauma, you can say to your partner, “Sometimes I need to pause, and it has nothing to do with you. You’re always doing everything in a great way. Every once in a while, my body says I’m not sure about this, and that’s when I need to take a moment.” I will ask you not to contract or feel that you did anything wrong ever because I want to be able to tell you everything that’s going on with me so that we can live to the edges of the ethical boundaries and have as much pleasure as possible.

When we get close to something, and I’m not sure why we back off. That way, our level of communication will allow us to have more pleasure together. Alright! On the next episode of the Arielle and Susan show, we will talk about transitions. Like boundaries, this is conceptual, but we’re going to teach you how to apply transitions and what to do in transitions and why they’re so powerful. Watch the next segment, and we’ll see you on the other side.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *