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.
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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