Taboo topic at MS--Eroticizing the abuse--Triggers

[MO-Survivor]

Hey @kwawk. A LOT of guys can certainly relate to what you are saying, and have similar struggles. I won't go into any of the "not rocket science" stuff or talk about everything you talked about. Instead, your current question sounds like, "Is there some way for me to maybe... maybe (if I really want to and decide to)... step into receiving sexual pleasure from someone?" It taked safety, healing, and choice to step into that - especially with our history. My wife and I have often discussed two different dynamics: 1) we go to bed and she feels like getting physical, without any real connective context throughout the day. I have said no in this situation, and it has honestly damaged our relationship. Rejection is hard to circle back and move past, regardless the cognitive understanding of why I would not want to engage. This scenario usually feels very unsafe to me - like she wants to use me. It's certainly a repititious response and not anything she's done to warrant that response. 2) we have been able to, made time to, made space to, connect throughout the day - emotionally. For me, this is a key to trust: spending time together, making sure I'm being heard & understood. Then... I am way more willing and want to step into physical intimacy. And that's what it is - at least for me: being seen and therefore building trust is a prerequisite. Even in #2, do I mentally always stay in the room? No. Usually, but not always. That said, I'm not sure it's just male survivors of CSA who have this going on So maybe don't beat yourself up too much on that one, but work towards staying present and celebrate when you can - even if only for a few minutes.

I don't know your current partner, but if he's the least bit aggressive in his desires and actions - that's something else that could trigger a, "Ummm... never mind. No thanks," response.

It's really tough, @kwawk. I am well aware that I've basically said and made sexual intimacy have to be on my terms. And it's not fair to my wife. Not fair at all. Hopefully I'll heal more and it won't always have to be like that. For now, she's pretty understanding of this aspect of things.

 

[Induna]

So is the distance and retreat into the abstract and/or the "controller of pleasure" role self-protection or self-castigation? , because we don't want to be/are afraid to be reached, or because we are afraid to "contaminate" or partners? Or was having an orgasm, or wanting one, when we were young "loosing" and "being beaten" -- something we refuse to experience again?

Is it all those things? Is it that we don't deserve pleasure? Is it that it is better to be "broken" and untouched than be connected and intimate?

 

[kwawk]

So is the distance and retreat into the abstract and/or the "controller of pleasure" role self-protection or self-castigation? , because we don't want to be/are afraid to be reached, or because we are afraid to "contaminate" or partners? Or was having an orgasm, or wanting one, when we were young "loosing" and "being beaten" -- something we refuse to experience again?

Is it all those things? Is it that we don't deserve pleasure? Is it that it is better to be "broken" and untouched than be connected and intimate?

@Induna - you are the asker of profound questions, striking me as unanswerable.

Of possible ways to look at the situation that you have offered, the one that kind of jumps out at me is "not wanting to be reached" . I don't feel like I'm afraid of it, it just seems like it's not worth effort to try to be more emotionally open or available. Like it's a given I'm only going to find a deep sexual connection with people who do not really exist in my current life. How's that for an oxymoron?

My relationship with my SO is long distance. We go weeks apart, and he wants romantic love and sex the once or twice a month we have a few days together. He is truly the loveliest most generous person in the world who cares about me, wants me to be happy, but also wants me to want him as much as he wants me. And I just don't see that happening. I'm always going to disappoint him because I am emotionally distant. We can enjoy each other's company, feel love for each other; and I can continue to pleasure him sexually (as I did with my wife and a few others over the years). But I want them to stop wanting (or trying to) sexually pleasure me directly. Let me do what I'm gonna do to get you off, which I'm happy to do because I'm grateful to have you (and I truly do enjoy making you come); but don't ask me to explain why I don't want you to touch me. There is a possibility I'll resume having sex with my ex-wife or another woman I'm friends with (as there are things I miss about being able to make a woman have orgasms; my SO isn't into women, so he doesn't grasp that I like performing cunnilingus as much as I like giving fellatio). But whether it's a man or a woman, I don't want them to put their mouth or hands on my dick.
My SO is a yoga teacher; I've made the analogy that expecting me to be sexually receptive to being pleasured is like expecting a person with only one arm and one leg to do yoga- it's kinda limited, and the missing limbs aren't going to grow back. .
.....Y'all can just call me Cheerful Charlie or Ollie the Optimist. ; t

 

[Induna]

@kwawk Hmmm, I don't have any answers to these things. The main thing I've learned is that often the reasons we tell ourselves are not the only reasons. Sometimes our stories about ourselves serve to conceal more than they reveal.

I thought I was unassailable because I was in control of myself. I could disassociate at will and not feel really, at least until I was completely alone. But I actually thought I was a monster, and would only admit that when I had to punish myself for breaking my rules. But then it hit me one day that I wasn't a monster at all. I was just a human being, and all of the sudden the distance seemed pointless and the self-control more like self-denial/torture. That doesn't mean I changed all my behaviors, but they felt different. I felt different. The energy kind of went out of all that self-containment, and it took a lot of energy -- much more than I had realized.

All people are complicated, and most of us on here are way more complicated. The more certain I was about myself, the more desperately I was clinging to my story. It was very disorienting when that fell away, but I can't really feel now as I used to, at least not for very long.

Of course your lovers want to make you come. They love you and want to feel that closeness. They want you to be fully there for them. I don't know how to come anymore with someone else. I am afraid because the more I let myself feel love the more I fear that after coming I will just shut down like I always have. And, of course, for a part of me orgasm was always tied to failure because I had "given in". When I didn't feel it was easy to come, but I really really don't want to go back to that.

 

[kwawk]

@kwawk Hmmm, I don't have any answers to these things. The main thing I've learned is that often the reasons we tell ourselves are not the only reasons. Sometimes our stories about ourselves serve to conceal more than they reveal.

I thought I was unassailable because I was in control of myself. I could disassociate at will and not feel really, at least until I was completely alone. But I actually thought I was a monster, and would only admit that when I had to punish myself for breaking my rules. But then it hit me one day that I wasn't a monster at all. I was just a human being, and all of the sudden the distance seemed pointless and the self-control more like self-denial/torture. That doesn't mean I changed all my behaviors, but they felt different. I felt different. The energy kind of went out of all that self-containment, and it took a lot of energy -- much more than I had realized.

All people are complicated, and most of us on here are way more complicated. The more certain I was about myself, the more desperately I was clinging to my story. It was very disorienting when that fell away, but I can't really feel now as I used to, at least not for very long.

Of course your lovers want to make you come. They love you and want to feel that closeness. They want you to be fully there for them. I don't know how to come anymore with someone else. I am afraid because the more I let myself feel love the more I fear that after coming I will just shut down like I always have. And, of course, for a part of me orgasm was always tied to failure because I had "given in". When I didn't feel it was easy to come, but I really really don't want to go back to that.

@Induna - I appreciate your sharing and describing your experience, which resonates with me.
For years, I had no sexual contact with anyone but myself and people in my head, imagined that as I got older and greyer, i'd lose libido and be okay without a sexual component to my life. But have had no decline in arousal and propensity to masturbate alone to fantasies distorted by my perceptions of 'sex' which developed in childhood. Had a series of dysfunctional but passionate hook-ups with my ex-wife (me pleasuring her orally and with coitus); it was weirdly reassuring that I could get erections with her, though I still couldn't orgasm. Over a period of 10+ years, had occasional sporadic sexual encounters with friends, also single middle-aged people, and for the first time in my adult life, had sexual encounters with men. With both women and men, I make them have orgasms with my mouth and fingers and dick, glad to get them off. It sounds ridiculous, but I felt a stupid-teenager positivity that several people who i'd been naked with 'really like my dick', even though I dissuade them from putting their mouth or hands on it. Notable that the women and men friends I had sex with, including my ex-wife, all had traumatic unsafe childhoods, to varying degrees, and are vaguely aware that I did as well.
- A few years ago, I became friends with a repressed gay man also in his 50's (who'd never had a sexual relationship), and I was the first person to make him orgasm sucking and fucking him. He is the first person I'd been intimate with who did NOT have a particularly traumatic childhood, had parents that love him and kept him safe, and he's a kind lovely person to a fault. He is 'in love' with me, and feels he's failing me because sex is me pleasuring him and not reciprocal. Sort of like, if he could love me enough to make up for love I didn't have as a kid and tie adult sex with adult love, he can help me 'heal'. But I'm somewhat resigned to current deal: i give him orgasms when we're together, and give myself orgasms when I'm alone. Maybe I'm just a cold-hearted stubborn shithead addicted to distorted sexual habits, but I want him to accept it; I encourage him to consider trying sex with other men to do things I don't want him to do to me. Despite the fact it is my idea, he gets upset and feels it would be disloyal to me. He wants to talk about it, and I just don't. And I know he'd be crushed if I broke up with him or wanted to just be platonic, even though I think it might be healthier for him.
Maybe I just don't want to be healthier myself, which I guess is kind of fucked up.

 

[Induna]

@kwawk You are very hard on yourself. I understand that. It is still my instinct to treat myself that way when I feel "broken" and as if the way I see the world and feel will never make sense to anyone else -- as if I am simply some kind of freak.

We all have to find a way to be at peace with ourselves, with what happened to us, and, most importantly, with what we did and became to survive. I know that I'm not ready give up -- that I have to try and be a part of a world I mostly hated -- I hated myself mostly. Not because I want to be normal (I don't give a fuck about normal) or because I want a life I never had or a love I refused to feel/accept, but because I have a story to tell that I think is compelling, and because I have hidden all my life and I have nothing to fear now at 61 years of age that isn't in my head. So, I am driven. I don't know if that is good or bad. I don't know that my motivations are always healthy. Maybe I'm just punishing myself all over again...

But there is a voice in me that calls out -- that wants and needs to connect and to create -- and it only gets stronger and more certain. So, I have to keep pushing. All the stories I built for myself over decades to give me comfort and justification in my hidden room have now lost their power even when I fall back on them out of habit and I am left with blank pages I have fill -- or not, I guess.

I never imagined that I could even try to be this way. If I fail, I fail.

That's life.

 

[DavidM-LT]

Maybe I just don't want to be healthier myself, which I guess is kind of fucked up.

I wouldn't quite go that far. If you can actually determine that you don't want to heal, that's actually enormous progress, odd as it sounds. Why? Because you can actually name the situation! That's huge.

Having a relationship with someone, if it's going to work for the long-haul, can't be about "fixing". Even if "fixing" is needed. Love does not require sex. And all too often, especially among survivors, the two separate things (love and sex) become synonymous. Relationships are more about complementarity, it's about moving along in life together. Relationships involving significant others necessarily involve intimacy. But again, intimacy is not at all synonymous with sex. Intimacy is about vulnerability and feeling safe with the other person.

And it's more probable that therein lies the real knot. There's loads of literature, which I'm incapable of citing, about erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation that relates directly to this.

Can you heal? yes. Absolutely! It's hard. But it's possible. It's even frightening as all hell, because it sends us into a realm that is uncharted territory, without any landmarks or evident safe spots. But it's completely possible. And despite the uncomfortable stage, it's totally worth it.

 

[kwawk]

I wouldn't quite go that far. If you can actually determine that you don't want to heal, that's actually enormous progress, odd as it sounds. Why? Because you can actually name the situation! That's huge.

Having a relationship with someone, if it's going to work for the long-haul, can't be about "fixing". Even if "fixing" is needed. Love does not require sex. And all too often, especially among survivors, the two separate things (love and sex) become synonymous. Relationships are more about complementarity, it's about moving along in life together. Relationships involving significant others necessarily involve intimacy. But again, intimacy is not at all synonymous with sex. Intimacy is about vulnerability and feeling safe with the other person.

And it's more probable that therein lies the real knot. There's loads of literature, which I'm incapable of citing, about erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation that relates directly to this.

Can you heal? yes. Absolutely! It's hard. But it's possible. It's even frightening as all hell, because it sends us into a realm that is uncharted territory, without any landmarks or evident safe spots. But it's completely possible. And despite the uncomfortable stage, it's totally worth it.

I appreciate your response, As always very thoughtful and articulate.
Just to clarify what I was saying, I never said that I don't want to "heal". When I refer to being "healthier", was a very narrow reference, specifically In the context of sex involving mutual orgasms. My SO Is the person with who I am the most intimate emotionally, And I share more with him than I have with anybody else in my entire life.
He is a wonderful, extremely loving gentle and thoughtful sensitive person, who always wants to do things to make me feel "happy", who wants to spend as much time with me as possible. It is hard for him to understand that I need some blocks of time alone with just me and my demons, before I can regroup and come back to be present for him. The thing that I always try to give him is respect and honesty. Sexual acts that I can perform on him keep him aroused, stimulated and lead to orgasm. If he tries to perform those acts on me, which would pleasure 99% plus of men, I reflexively dissociate and depersonalize. Maybe I'm being really close minded, But I don't think that all the love and healing in this world is going to change that.

 

[smc1972]

and feels he's failing me because sex is me pleasuring him and not reciprocal. Sort of like, if he could love me enough to make up for love I didn't have as a kid and tie adult sex with adult love, he can help me 'heal'. But I'm somewhat resigned to current deal: i give him orgasms when we're together, and give myself orgasms when I'm alone

I have been with my partner for 24 years and we very good sexually with each other up until about 8years ago which is when I started having issues I realize now were tied to my childhood. I have low T levels which was diagnosed at 40 like in the 100’s so that helped my libido when i went on meds which was great but then years later this stuff.

My partner was very much the same as what you were describing with your SO. I am able to bring him to an orgasm a but a lot probably 75% of the time i do not achieve an orgasam. This really bother him as he thought it was him. He knows i was sexually abused however i have never told him details. When i do have an orgasm it is always brought on by me going back to a kid in my mind at times to actual memories but mostly fantasy stuff as a kid. Even when we are having sex 90% of the time I am masturbating myself and he is ok with this as we have talked about it. I am on antidepressants so that does play a role in having an orgasm, not sure if you are on meds that could also make things more difficult. It took him time to i guess feel ok about things and not think it is him.

I have discussed this recently with my T and what she told me was that because my earliest sexual experiences and first orgasms were as a kid and continued in my childhood that is what my mind linked to. So as i have gotten older as I am dealing with depression having an orgasm is not as easy so to get there is to go back to what i experienced that was unfortunately the foundation of my sexual imprinting. She also made it clear i have nothing to be ashamed of. To stop giving myself guilt over such things. If i find pleasure in being a kid in a fantasy while having sex then enjoy it do not later feel shame or guilt. Easier said than done i know.

 

[SensoryOverload]

I used to seek out men twice my size to recreate the sexual abuse. I would take my brain back to being small, it was a vicious cycle. Sex became and still is a complex issue.

 

[Devwayne420]

Wow this Forum was tough for me toreador but at least I’m not the only one my Mom Sexually abused me and I can’t help but get hard as a rock after feeling sick hearing about other guys stories then thinking about my own experiences and fantasizing on them It makes me feel better but i still feel ashamed and awkward!

 

[Tele1]

Devwayne420 thanks for bringing this post back to light. I have to go back to read from the start. Something I always struggle with. my abuse happened when I was 12, puberty in full swing. My thoughts would always go to my abuser since he was the first person to give me my first O. Definitely starting my sexuality on a strange path

 

[Greybeard]

Wow this Forum was tough for me toreador but at least I’m not the only one my Mom Sexually abused me and I can’t help but get hard as a rock after feeling sick hearing about other guys stories then thinking about my own experiences and fantasizing on them It makes me feel better but i still feel ashamed and awkward!

Before I found this site, I was convinced that I alone was eroticizing my own abuse, even when I was having sex with others. I would imagine that it was being filmed, that I was back doing porn as a kid, and it would turn me on. I felt I was a really sick person, and that no one else was plagued by flashbacks or triggers that both traumatized and aroused at the same time. Seriously, the best thing about this site was discovering that, not only am I not alone, but there are others I can talk about this with and share and help each other find a balance. Getting past that shame, that seems to be the real challenge. I haven't got there yet, but I'm working on it. Best to you as well

 

[Devwayne420]

@Greybeard im so sorry bro! I really feel what your going through my StepMom ruined my life she started massaging my cock in the bathtub & talk really dirty to me! So I started beating my meat right after the first time she did that & shed always try & catch me beating it Hard cause idk why but she turned me on A LOT as as a lil boy & I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful her Vagina is when I saw it a couple times i can’t lie it was an amazing sight but I wouldn’t feel sick cause I’d be confused like ohhhh shit dude I’m jacking off to my step mom & on top of everything she’d beat my ass everyday with a metal or wooden HUGE kitchen spoon & she’d have me lay on my stomach one time she caught me &!talk about how I have a nice cock like my Dads & it’s so Hot how she had acrylic nails & she’d rub & grab my nut sack! I started jacking off SUPER YOUNg TOO (She sexualized me at a young age & made me hyper sexualized & used I got in so much trouble but she always spoke sexual to me as a lil boy & would try her best to spy on me beating my meat & catch me then I’d in trouble! So I can’t help when I think of her to get Rock Solid I feel really abnormal but I can’t help but wanna fuck the shit outta her & give her what she wants since my cock wasn’t fully grown as a young child between 6-8 yet but it is now!
I hated writing all this I feel sick guys but I have to get all this off my chest!!

 

[Devwayne420]

@Greybeard

 

[Devwayne420]

Damn I feel embarrassed for sharing just had to get it out!

 

[Greybeard]

Damn I feel embarrassed for sharing just had to get it out!

Yeah I totally get that. I messaged you, and told you you were really brave for being so open and honest.

 

[Tele1]

Don’t feel embarrassed !!! I had figured out the masterbation thing before my abuse but after that. all I thought about was a 35 year old man giving me a blow job in the school library or pulling over on a backroad in town or in his office For all of my teen years. He is the one I thought of. It shaped my sexuality weather I like it or not. It sucks and there’s no going back I’ve felt shame for it. Know im trying to except it for just who I’ve become

 

[Devwayne420]

I Understand Bruhbruh & I’m sorry to hear about your experiences your always more than welcomed to open up to me… & who ever that was is fucked & needs to to Jail!!

 

[ODAT]

This was an important topic for me, and I’m glad it reopened. When I read about the guilt and shame that people experience as a result of their abuse, or reenacting it at some point, what helped me tremendously was a book called “Secret Shame, a Survivor’s Guide to Understanding Male Sexual Abuse and Male Sexual Development” by Douglas Carpenter.
This book talks about the imprint that is caused as a result of early sexual abuse and activity, and the arousal template that is formed as a result of it. Here are a few lines from his book about the arousal template:
“ When we are introduced to sexual information or experience, the information is written on the pages of our minds. Our body responds to the sexual information, coupled with sexually pleasurable sensations and associated emotional reactions, causing the memory and recognition of the events to be even more strongly stamped into our brains.. The template leads to the development of preferences and functions as a roadmap for what we find to be erotic.”
In my case, I was apparently giving oral sex to my abuser over the last eight months of my nine months of abuse at age 8.
I only remembered the first three times Which was before the oral sex started. I had repressed the other memories for 55 years because of my fear of having his large d*ck pumping my little mouth. I was eight and small. My abuser was 14 and big in every way. Three years ago when I wrote my story for MS I realized this missing eight month gap that I could not account for. What I do remember is from my late 20s to early 40s, I found myself seeking out older, married men and giving them oral sex I didn’t understand why I was doing this. When I learned that I must’ve been doing it at eight, I still questioned how could I go from a boy who was fearful of doing this to someone who eventually was enjoying giving these men oral sex.
I then read the following sentences from Doug’s book and it gave me tremendous clarity. This is what he wrote:
” A heterosexual man may only desire sexual relations with females. However, due to the abuse experience, he may find himself aroused by other males, or the sexual thoughts of other males. Maybe he performed fellatio many times on a perpetrator. It is very possible that through the process of conditioning, his mind and body are sexually excited by the thoughts and behaviors of performing fellatio on other men. The man’s sexual desire is strongly bent in a certain direction, but his sexual arousal may be bent in many different directions. At times, this can be very confusing, and mentally and emotionally disturbing for some men. They cannot seem to figure out why they claim to be heterosexual, but desire experiences with other men. “
This was me! Doug’s book goes through the stories of about a dozen men. I think that all of us can relate to some part of it…
Again our imprinting and arousal templates play a BIG part on our sexual stories and what we come to find enjoyable.
This is a good reason not to beat ourselves up over it based on what happened to us when we were young…