Consequences of Premature Sexuality

Consequences of Premature Sexuality
...I'm happily married, And this behavior i not in alignment with the life I want. Maybe I need to look closer at the trauma

It was an epiphany for me to recognize that ALL my sexual acting out behaviors that made intimacy with my wife impossible, were rooted directly in trauma I experienced as a boy. I didn't remember the trauma but I certainly was aware of the acting out and it ALWAYS ended with me feeling profound shame. I would say, yes, you may want to look more closely at the trauma and recognize that when you act out you're really perpetuating what the perpetrator did to you. If you want to release the trauma you will want to stop acting it out whether in personal encounters or through using pornorgraphy. That is really the only way you'll become free.
 
Thanks for this post. I have ordered the book.
 
...I spent six years in therapy while completing a graduate degree in psychology and NONE of this was part of my training. I'm grieving at the moment over all the pain I was unable to address simply because I didn't understand what it was all about.


Visitor - I very much identify with you on the above. I've had nearly 30 years therapy, cumulatively, with something like 10 therapists. To your point: NONE of the therapists that I worked with (admittedly, the more significant durations were with Jungian Analysts who tend to stay in the world of symbol and abstract) even approached this subject. Only after I understood that I was a victim of CSA starting about 7 months ago did the pieces finally begin to fit. I just couldn't understand why I wasn't feeling validated in the therapy formats in which I had participated. When I started reading Richard P. Gartner's book on Male Sexual Abuse, I realized that, at last, I felt validated to my core; that my feet were beginning to touch the ground... my true ground... my true soil. And Yes - I, too, am currently grieving the significant lost time in my therapeutic experience. Nonetheless, I have much gratitude for this site and a couple of others. And I feel that I am moving forward again which is what matters the most.Thank you for sharing about this topic, specifically this item.
 
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Thanks for this post. I have ordered the book.
Absolutely. This book has been very helpful for understanding and healing. I would say a good book in parallel with my therapy for sure. But definitely not a therapy replacement :)
 
His website snd the questionnaires are interesting, but some of the questions are hard to follow - strangely worded or written, I think it’s still worth doing though, takes maybe 30 minutes to do all 3 of the questionnaires.
 
About 30 years ago I was addicted to meth and sex was very important when I was using it. BUT I started acting out my abuse with other guys. I didn't even realize how powerful it was and how out of the blue it came and it has stuck with me even after I have gotten clean. I am now back in therapy and I have a good T that understands CSA, is Gay and in recovery, which kind of checks all my boxes. Reading about Active Victimhood and Repetition as a Victim rang true to me. I had never discussed this before with anybody before my T. I carried so much shame about what I did but there was so much relief when I did it. Now that I have opened up and started being honest and not hanging my head in shame when I discuss it, it has less power over me. In other words, it's difficult to arouse me with the fantasy/memory. I never forgot what happened. It didn't hurt, I never said a word to him, but I liked it and I wanted to do it again. I remember everything that happened from that day forward. I forgave my abuser a long time ago. The last time I saw him, I had nothing but pity for him because he was a practicing alcoholic and died of alcoholism. Thanks for sharing this excerpt, I think I will get this book now that new ideas have been opened to me and I don't have to be ashamed. Am I the only one that did this? I feel like am, that's why I had so much shame because I felt alone. Sorry for the long rant.
 
About 30 years ago I was addicted to meth and sex was very important when I was using it.
I've heard meth is also called "gay juice". No offense. I'm gay, but have never tried meth. My long ago history is with hypnotics and hallucinogens use and abuse.
 
I ordered this book even though it scares me a little bit. I hate having physical books around that relate to any kind of mental health issue because I’m afraid someone will find it in my house some day … the same way I used to hide any psych medications by dumping them into different bottles.

I know I’m self-perpetuating the stigma around mental health when I do that. I used to be terrified that “someone would find out”. Now I’m only nervous about that.

I hope it’s a little better translated from Dutch than some of the things on his website are.
 
So I dug out the book, "Traumasexuality," again this weekend. Chapter 3 in the book is titled: "Consequences of the Damage Caused by Premature Sexuality." I found it to be extremely insightful / helpful, and the author states it is the key chapter in the book. I will warn you - the content can be TRIGGERING, so please read below with that in mind. Some of the triggering is caused by the testimonials in the book, which I don't have below in my notes - so hopefully it won't trigger but will only be helpful. As an aside, I have actually held the attitude recently that I mostly welcome triggers since they make me feel and think more deeply than I would normally. They can help me uncover the frozen kid within me; because accessing those feelings can be difficult for me, and I know without accessing those feelings and the frozen parts of me, healing isn't possible. That said, I'm not encouraging anyone else to trigger themselves. I'm only expressing my own recent thoughts about triggers. You have to know yourself and what is okay and what is not.

What I like most in this book is:
  • The author is a CSA survivor, who counseled thousands of men who were CSA survivors
  • The book lists out the impacts of CSA on our lives - in the many varied forms they can take. You can definitely identify with what he talks about
  • The author presents things in a very non-judgemental (no condemnation) way because he presents matter-of-fact: "You were not aware this was happening. It just happened while you were growing up"
  • There is hope written all throughout the book. He helps bring understanding to why we think and do some of the things we do, with a belief (backed by his experiences with thousands of men) that it is possible to heal and recover by addressing those parts of us inside that are frozen and / or were not allowed to develop when we were young
The next chapter deals with, "Repairing the Damage." I look forward to reading it.

Below are the notes I took on Chapter 8. I hope you find them helpful.
------------------------------
Chapter 3: Consequences of the Damage Caused by Premature Sexuality
Introduction
  • Traumasexuality =
    • A temporary sexual identity with 3 important characteristics:
      • Internal conflict in sexual desires
      • Active victimhood
      • Chronic questions concerning sexual and / or sex identity (this possible temporary identity can last a lifetime)
Internal Conflict
  • Internal Conflict = the struggle that plays out between your own sexuality and the imprint of the sexuality of the perpetrator
    • You live with two sex drives: your own, and that of the other who has established himself / herself in you, but it feels like they both come from you
    • You can live in extremes:
      • Your own sexuality is dominant. However, even in this, you have a chronic feeling that, ‘there is something wrong with me,’ because you cannot give yourself completely to another in sexuality
      • The perpetrator’s sexuality is dominant. Your own development stops when the abuse starts
        • This is most common when the abuse occurs at an early age
        • You act out and repeat the abuse without knowing it
        • You have rigid sexual patterns and never manage to progress to a real relationship
      • There is a third possibility: the zero point – where you live halfway between the two extremes. This creates a vacuum of asexuality and sexual apathy
        • This is dangerous because it can create: apathy, powerlessness, depression, or worse
Active Victimhood
  • Active Victimhood = the urge to repeat the sexual trauma and the painful struggle that accompanies it
    • Without being aware, you have a long-term relationship with the perpetrator and the presence of a third person is always felt in your relationships
      • This sexuality derails your own sex drive / life
      • Partners do not understand the compulsive behaviors with addictive elements
      • This usually leads to sexuality that doesn’t have a satisfying end
      • This is very difficult to deal with and can lead to hopelessness, because there isn’t anyone to talk to who will listen or can understand
    • The perpetrator’s influence always comes into play and always wins (implied outside this statement is: unless / until you are able to address your past CSA)
  • Active victimhood = the drive to repeat the sexual trauma is an attempt to process the trauma and regain control over what you have lost
  • This pattern will repeat and repeat until you have dealt with your sexual abuse
  • You have lost your own sexual control, creativity, and inventiveness, and you hardly even notice you are repeating the abuse. But you ask yourself why you are doing the things you are doing
  • A pattern can always be reconstructed from active victimhood:
    • You have a reason to act out sexually – usually you feel alone
    • There is a subsequent sexual event
    • There is a conclusion, and you are not typically satisfied or happy with it
  • Repeating the abuse can occur in three variations (not all mutually exclusive). You do this without realizing what you are doing:
    • Repetition as a victim
    • Repetition as a perpetrator (note: this doesn't mean you become a perpetrator, unless you have fully embraced this idea)
    • Repetition as a witness
  • Repetition as a victim:
    • You repeat your abuse with yourself in the position of the victim
    • The focus is on the person who has caused your trauma
    • You seek the same type of perpetrator and perform the same sexual actions as your CSA
    • Repetition as a victim includes the idea of Projections:
      • Projections = attaching characteristics of the perpetrator to someone else and then attribute the same control to that person
      • You see people and believe they want sex with you
      • You also sexualize contact with someone, and sex and intimacy become one in the same in your approach. However, intimacy is usually missing
    • Several things that can also happen that helps drive repetition as a victim:
      • You saw the perpetrator as a father figure
      • The abuse became something deemed natural and pleasant
      • You became addicted to relationships because the rational side of your brain no longer worked, and you live in a perpetual state of being in love to keep your feelings occupied and absent of the painful side of the abuse
      • You desire to engage in impossible relationships. Example: a homosexual man seeking contact with heterosexual or married men
      • You long to be specially chosen
  • Repetition as perpetrator:
    • This variation of repeating the abuse involves introjections instead of projections
      • Introjections = you include the perpetrator’s characteristics / behaviors into your own and consider them your own. You don’t realize this occurs, it happens automatically
      • Introjections are facilitated by the fact that all boys need a masculine role model. And for many boys, they have no choice but to take the perpetrator as their masculine example
    • Three variations of pepetratorship:
      • False perpetratorship = you believe you were the perpetrator / initiator in your relationship with the perpetrator. You believe you hold sole responsibility – usually facilitated by believing there was reciprocity in your abuse (your perp gave you things, you agreed, etc.)
      • Completely embracing pepetratorship = you believe you are the same as the pepetrator, that sexual experiences (even with children) are natural, and you have no access to your conscience. You can no longer feel
      • Rejecting perpetratorship = you do not want to be like the perpetrator. This can lead you to never wanting to expose your masculine sex drive and you tend to emasculate yourself and want to remain a boy forever
        • You can reject / despise your own adult body
        • You can have such disgust that you avoid orgasm because of the identification with your perpetrator and instances of sexual abuse
        • This can drive men who become fathers to fear becoming a perpetrator to their own children, and this can prevent making healthy connections with their children
  • Repetition as a witness:
    • The deep craving for a witness – the desire to be seen and for someone to stop the abuse, can drive repetition as a witness
    • This can manifest itself through exposing yourself when it is not appropriate
    • You can take on the role of a voyeur when repeating as a witness. Looking at pornography and unknowingly looking for sexual scenes similar to your own abuse is one way this can occur
Identity Questions
  • Identity questions are rooted in the dualism of: your own sexuality vs. the pepetrator’s sexual imprint, and of masculine identity and sexual identity
  • Sexual identity can be:
    • Homo-hetero
    • Homosexual
    • Paedosexual
  • Homo-hetero
    • Usually there is the question: “Am I homosexual?”
      • This question relates to questions about masculinity / femininity
      • This question relates to passive / active behavior
      • In culture, usually: Homo = feminine = passive, and Hetero = masculine = active. This drives some of these questions
    • “… you have to realize that it is not the homosexual force or lust that presents itself but the repetition of a sexually attractive trauma that replays itself in a homosexual context.”
    • There are typically three (predictable) responses:
      • A group of men that longs for and enjoys homosexual contact
      • A group of men afraid of homosexual contact and avoid it
      • A group of men disgusted by homosexual behavior
  • Homosexual
    • Your own homosexuality as a boy is confused through an abuse experience with a man
    • You also might:
      • Be convinced you are homosexual and later it appears you are not at all
      • Find that others believe you are homosexual while you are certain you are not
  • Paedosexual
    • Some % of men find they desire sex with a boy and do not understand why they want this, and the idea is (usually) abhorrent to them
    • This is driven because the abuse drives the frozen and authentic kids into the background. They are waiting and waiting to come back into your life
      • In your search to find yourself again (the frozen and authentic parts) you can look outside yourself for the lost parts of yourself
        • These are projections towards children or young people who represent the lost parts of you
        • You will look for boys you see something of yourself in: you can see they are damaged, and you want to help them recover
        • Because what is inside you is not yet whole and still hurts, you attempt to heal outside yourself – in others
          • This can take on a legitimate life, such as helping kids through youth work, but could also take on a sexual aspect that is destructive
    • Paedophilia as a sexual orientation does not exist. Instead the feelings relate to the survivor themselves, in an attempt to externally heal themselves (which will never work)
      • Seeking out boys is seeking to find what you lost in ‘not feeling’ anything. You are trying to undo your own division (the division of the frozen and authentic parts from the rest of you) and heal the pain of the separation
    • Other characteristics that identify this:
      • Looking for boys of the same age as when their own abuse first took place
      • Looking for boys who looked like themselves at the age of their own abuse
      • Getting stuck on an age – typically the same age as the abuse
      • You can also look for adult men where you see the damaged child in them, and you attempt to help them recover the lost parts of themselves
    • These attempts to find and heal the lost parts of yourself, externally (whether in boys or men) is impossible
      • The only alternative is looking inside yourself instead of outside yourself
      • You must turn yourself inside out. Then you will see your own division and decry the perpetrator living in you, and you will bring back to life the lost frozen and authentic kids in yourself – who need your help
    • You can also seek girls the age you were when you were first abused
      • Searching images of young girls later in life is an attempt to return to the moment in which you still had control over your own sexual development
  • Other questions / thoughts about sexual identity
    • Sexual abuse prevents you from achieving a complete masculine identity
    • Anal sexual abuse can cause several things in addition to other abuse:
      • You have two bodily areas associated with the sexual abuse instead of one which can drive additional fears & behaviors
      • It can cause you to adopt a passive sexual role
      • You can question your own masculinity because of what happened, and your inability to stop it. You can suffer with questions surrounding femininity, and that can then elicit behaviors accordingly:
        • Dressing as a woman
        • Behaving as a woman
        • Seducing a man in the role of a woman
MO

Thank you for sharing. From speaking with enlightened medical professionals over the years I have learned the impact of experiences on the mind is little understood. Only today are they learning how devastating negative experiences, including CSA, has on the formation of the brain and how one reacts. It becomes more complicated because each individual may have a different brain chemistry reaction.

As I was unraveling and from speaking with enlightened medical professionals that the CSA and the environment I was living in was destructive to me and just as important it was unknowingly to those inflicting the pain. A child allowed to spit, stalk and lock a parent in a room, to taunt an adult over and over forcing a parent to leave, to say to the adult who is being targeted have a sense of humor or you deserve it teaches a child it is alright as long as an adult approves to perpetuate the behavior. However, adults will deny and blame the target for being at fault and not the perpetrators. It will cause the child to have long term issues with respect, relationhips, and creates a sense of entitlement and pattern of manipulation. Strangely, the adult who condones does not realize over time they are being manipulated and controlled by the child while allowing someone to destroy or negatively impact someone else. These behaviors creates a co depend world. It is the same with CSA, how many people knew or suspected abuse and turned away, how many deny someone's CSA and say it is an excuse for the person's behavior. At the same time those that deny are only pushing the survivor to live many of the behaviors you have described. Society for so long has protected the perpetrators. The survivor needs to be believed, loved and supported so they can heal and face their behaviors honestly and openly. However, too many people cannot admit their own damages in life so they turn against others.

I lived the CSA and a world of attacks for so long. I was not smart enough to realize how I was being pushed further into despair. Nearly killing me and robbing me of life.

Your post is very informative and I hope others outside CSA survivors read and begin to understand how abuse and manipulation shapes a childs mind. I hope those that read will see their support, belief and heart can serve as a catalyst for healing. Ignorance, and sadly it is rampant in the medical profession on the impact of CSA, manipulation, bullying etc have on the mind only allows survivors of these behaviors to suffer.

Thank you and I will have to get the book.

Kevin
 
... Thanks for sharing this excerpt, I think I will get this book now that new ideas have been opened to me and I don't have to be ashamed. Am I the only one that did this? I feel like am, that's why I had so much shame because I felt alone. Sorry for the long rant.
@davids1,

You are far from alone in the shame and loneliness you felt. And no apology needed for a long post. I really appreciate your feedback and questions.

One of the revelations for me from being on this website is this: the consequences of CSA are very consistent (not always exhibited the exact same way - but almost always exhibited), and none of us get to escape them. As I have dived deeper into therapy, I am discovering the healing that has already occurred in my life - in some areas - but also the many, many places where healing has not yet happened. And I didn't even know healing was needed in those places. A cynic might say that therapy is just creating issues where there were none - but that is absolutely untrue. There are thoughts and behaviors that live on in my after all these years and healing the root issues is the key to healing & hopefully change.

Shame and extreme loneliness are almost 100% common across the board for CSA survivors. I'm glad the post was helpful.
 
I ordered this book even though it scares me a little bit. I hate having physical books around that relate to any kind of mental health issue because I’m afraid someone will find it in my house some day … the same way I used to hide any psych medications by dumping them into different bottles.

I know I’m self-perpetuating the stigma around mental health when I do that. I used to be terrified that “someone would find out”. Now I’m only nervous about that.

I hope it’s a little better translated from Dutch than some of the things on his website are.
Yeah, I wouldn't leave this book laying around if we had guests over. I've wondered if my 13 year old has wondered about the book and the title - she doesn't know the back story :) Someday I'll share with her - but when she's quite a bit older I think

And the translation isn't the best in the book, but I think it's better than the website. I'm usually able to discern the meaning in the book even when the translation isn't the best.
 
MO

Thank you for sharing. From speaking with enlightened medical professionals over the years I have learned the impact of experiences on the mind is little understood. Only today are they learning how devastating negative experiences, including CSA, has on the formation of the brain and how one reacts. It becomes more complicated because each individual may have a different brain chemistry reaction.

As I was unraveling and from speaking with enlightened medical professionals that the CSA and the environment I was living in was destructive to me and just as important it was unknowingly to those inflicting the pain. A child allowed to spit, stalk and lock a parent in a room, to taunt an adult over and over forcing a parent to leave, to say to the adult who is being targeted have a sense of humor or you deserve it teaches a child it is alright as long as an adult approves to perpetuate the behavior. However, adults will deny and blame the target for being at fault and not the perpetrators. It will cause the child to have long term issues with respect, relationhips, and creates a sense of entitlement and pattern of manipulation. Strangely, the adult who condones does not realize over time they are being manipulated and controlled by the child while allowing someone to destroy or negatively impact someone else. These behaviors creates a co depend world. It is the same with CSA, how many people knew or suspected abuse and turned away, how many deny someone's CSA and say it is an excuse for the person's behavior. At the same time those that deny are only pushing the survivor to live many of the behaviors you have described. Society for so long has protected the perpetrators. The survivor needs to be believed, loved and supported so they can heal and face their behaviors honestly and openly. However, too many people cannot admit their own damages in life so they turn against others.

I lived the CSA and a world of attacks for so long. I was not smart enough to realize how I was being pushed further into despair. Nearly killing me and robbing me of life.

Your post is very informative and I hope others outside CSA survivors read and begin to understand how abuse and manipulation shapes a childs mind. I hope those that read will see their support, belief and heart can serve as a catalyst for healing. Ignorance, and sadly it is rampant in the medical profession on the impact of CSA, manipulation, bullying etc have on the mind only allows survivors of these behaviors to suffer.

Thank you and I will have to get the book.

Kevin
Glad this is helpful for you Kevin. I'm more thankful that a CSA survivor who has helped thousands of survivors heal wrote such a book. Because to your point, there isn't a lot of good material out there on male CSA consequences & healing. This book covers a lot. It has brought me much understanding. It is a frustration, I think, for most of us - that there aren't more knowledgeable therapists for CSA, and that the level of understanding generally is still so poor. But I'm happy that it is way better than what was known & understood in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s :)
 
Ugh, does the book explain how to heal from this or am I just doomed to continue in the same trauma sexual crap for the rest of my life?
 
Ugh, does the book explain how to heal from this or am I just doomed to continue in the same trauma sexual crap for the rest of my life?
 
Thanks MO, after seeing others write stuff, I know I'm not alone, it just feels that way because I have been alone for so long. Carrying the shame of enjoying what happened to me and wanting it to happen again created more shame. This was compounded by the new revelation as an adult that I wanted to create a fantasy, with or without another guy, to act out that abuse again, with me in the role as a boy. But my T had me take the shame given to me by my abuser wrap it in a nice present and give it back to him. I just have to burn it now. It also has in it, body shame, his penis was bigger than mine, go figure, so II felt ashamed of my body. It also included my guilt for what happened. It has basically ended the fantasy, I cannot use it anymore for sexual enjoyment. It doesn't give me the same sexual charge anymore. That's what I was looking for, but now I miss it. God I feel like a sick FUCK. I didn't want to write the above because now everyone will know how sick I really am. But I can't carry this shit anymore, otherwise I will die and I have come too far to do that, either physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Ugh! This is Toxic stuff. This is where my self hate comes into play and it hurts talking about it.
 
It’s ok. No one here is judgmental about any of this stuff. And trust me, we all have our sexual fantasies based in the abuse. I think the hardest part isn’t recognizing the origin stories of our dysfunctional behaviors and actions but that extreme sense of shame and toxic self-hatred. I know I spent so much time in psychotherapy talking about responsibility, guilt and shame for the abuse I lived through, and intellectually I can completely agree with therapist who said that I wasn’t responsible for any of it. Hell, I should be the poster boy for “innocent victim of CSA”, I was about 4, maybe even still 3, when it started. But that doesn’t, hasn’t ever, made me feel like I wasn’t to blame for it. I always blame myself for the fact that I was a weak scared little shit who didn’t fight back. I feel so strongly about that belief that when I get to that point in therapy where the therapist says “you were 4, how could you prevent it against a grown man?” that statement becomes a rallying cry for me, all of my defenses and every bit of anger in me rises and gets focused - on the therapist, for being so stupid they can’t see what a weak, worthless piece of shit I am because at 3 or 4 I couldn’t fight off my 6’2”, 200 lb father and stop him. I think I’ve seen 6 therapists over the years, I didn’t get explicit about sexual abuse with the first 5-ish (1-4, no way was I going there, 5 I alluded to but wouldn’t be specific, 6 I finally did because somehow I was marginally more able to discuss this with a man, 1-5 were all women).
But I discussed physical abuse with all of them, that I remember from ages 2-3, and exact same reaction.
 
David1 & DanielQ432 - what you both discussed above resonates truthfully and clearly within me. I've had many, many years of therapy but none of the therapists could go into the realm of CSA with me. Perhaps 1 or 2 might have sort of inadvertently lightly brushed it but the beatings, confiscation, & punishments that I suffered as a toddler and into my late adolescence were never discussed within a CSA framework. What was stated in your two threads directly above just fit me like a glove: the body shame; a plethora of guilt (for me); the struggle to break the symbiosis caused by feeling that I deserved what I got at some level; the loneliness & isolation all of these nearly 30 years since I first awoke to my abuse; the lasting shame; the feeling / belief that I should've been able to fight back but didn't (this belief directed towards both of my parents); the sexual fantasy(s) which developed that were unsuccessfully attempted with another out of that abuse; the since dissolution of those fantasies & abandonment of them (leaves me feeling somewhat empty and bereft). I honor both of you for your courage to say these things. It has pressed me to respond with some of my story. This is where I am today. I still have gratitude for what unpacking has been done in my life thus far. I thank you both for the sharing above.
 
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