Long After Assault

Molestation and rape were a common theme in my childhood. This is the curse of growing up a pretty black girl, I thought. I knew that my cousins, my mother, and other women I grew up around had been touched inappropriately too, so I didn't really dwell on it too much when it happened to me. Movies taught me that it happens to all women not just the pretty black girls left alone with the wrong male "family" member or "friend," so I thought, this is just what happens to women. Then I learned that it happens to men too, and I just thought, this is what happens period. We just pick ourselves up and move on. I saw a post the other day that said something to the effect, "hyper sexuality after sexual abuse isn't talked about enough. I've seen many women who were abused sexually disconnect with their bodies, and end up just being over sexual...sometimes it's hurt looking for temporary healing," and I identified with this statement so much. I even remember having a conversation with a male friend when I was older to this exact effect. As a survivor of molestation and rape in my younger years, there has always been a disconnect when it came to sex for me, but I don't feel like I became hyper sexual. I feel like I just stopped caring about sex one way or the other.

I don't associate sex with love as some people do. Sex is meant for pleasure and for procreation. It has nothing to do with love. Because of this, I believe, I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of "making love." That slow deliberate all consuming love feels foreign to me. I enjoy the rough, but not too rough because I don't like pain, but passionate, raw, show me who's boss, angry, damn near violent type of sex. I believe that all stems from that being my first sexual experiences. I didn't have that virginal, care about me, felt like I was in love so I was giving my partner a special gift, first experience. That was stolen from me. I felt like a used toy. I often still do.

I never know when that time of discomfort will show up. Sometimes it's right in the middle of enjoyable sex, and then I'm no longer enjoying myself. It's not my partner's fault. They can't fix my past. They can't heal what is broken inside of me. I don't know if anybody ever could. I've been to therapy, I've attempted the work, but at this point, it just is what it is.

Because of this disconnect that the poster spoke of, I do feel like if someone only wants sex, then we can just have sex and get it over with. If someone wants a relationship, then we can work on that. If someone just wants to be friends, then we will just be friends. I just go with whatever is.

People don't really talk about the after effects of sexual assault. I mean they talk about it, but they don't talk about what really happens. Maybe it's too painful to think about. Maybe it's too shameful. Maybe it's because we all handle it differently. Some people turn to drugs and alcohol. Some people can only have the slow, meticulous, timid, love making. Some people turn into sexual abusers themselves. Some people are like me. It's a form of PTSD that we live with every time we even think about sex. It's why I don't like to talk about sex. Either we're having it or we're not, what is there to talk about?

Sex was always a complicated subject for me anyway. With my strict religious upbringing, if it hadn't been for the assaults, I don't know if I would have ever been able to enjoy it anyway. It's like, when I was little everybody shielded me from sex and they told me that it was wrong and bad. Masturbation and oral sex was the worse thing you could do because it would make you a slut. Never was it, when you find someone you love, you are going to want to celebrate that love with sex. I learned that from TV and movies. It was always sex was meant for marriage, and only men and prostitutes enjoy it. Beware the messages that you send to your children about sex because it does stick with them when they are older. Also, I believe that because I had those messages, it made it impossible for me to tell anybody when it happened to me. I didn't want to be viewed in that light. I didn't want to be shamed or pitied. I even took all the blame when I got pregnant and had an abortion all by myself because I didn't want to talk about how I got into that position in the first place. I don't blame my parents. They did what they believed was right, but I did not continue that with my own children.

After these messages, I was expected to be sexual with my husband, and I may not have ever gotten there had I not been molested and then raped because those earlier messages had stuck with me. Maybe that's why there was a disconnect when it happened to me because I found that you did not have to be married to enjoy sex and I was terrified, shamed, and my body betrayed me because eventually, I did enjoy what was happening to me. I didn't want it, but it felt good. I wasn't a slut, but I became one after those experiences, or at least what my upbringing convinced me a slut was. Even now, I find it difficult to perform certain acts with my husband because I was taught that this is what sluts and prostitutes do, and I don't identify as either.

So after having those complicated messages, and then being molested and raped repeatedly in my youth, everything was confusing. It's all tangled up. So there's no hope for me healing completely. I simply move on and live with it, but I am comforted in knowing that I am not the only one.