Rape and Shame

 79. RAPE AND SHAME

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite you join me on a short walk through my journey of healing from the trauma of sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end so that you can enjoy my gem of positivity.

I know the feeling of shame only too well. It started with the first violation of my three year old vagina by the traumatically cruel adult penis. That particular perpetrator taught me that sex was a shameful thing, because if I tell on him I would be punished.

To me, anxious shame feels like my stomach has gone into free fall. It’s that feeling you get when you’re in an elevator that has just started going down, and the world has shifted beneath your feet. You’re helpless and everything is your fault.

Every further rape as I have grown up into adulthood, has simply compounded that shame. The thought that I am so dirty that other people must be able to see my dirtiness too. It’s a pervasive a dirtiness that can’t “just” be scrubbed off. Believe me, I’ve tried; even with steel wool until my vagina bled.

The shame of what all those vile evil acts of sexual torture has seared a deep and lasting scar on my mind, body, and soul. It’s like I’m going to suffocate from the sheer weight of this shame. That my chest is being crushed and I just can’t catch my breath.

And now, I am in therapy. And I am being taught a new reality. Slowly I am learning that the shame was never mine to bear in the first place. That just because toxic people have tried to make me as despicable as themselves, doesn’t mean I have to take it on board and carry their sludge. 

The shame belongs with the perpetrators, and the perpetrators alone. Even those do-gooders in society, who said the rapes were mine by choice to own, and are even crass enough to say that I’d asked for it. Their opinions still don’t make the shame mine. That is my new narrative, and I’m holding on to the truth. And that is proof that I am healing.

Have you felt that dreadful, choking, suffocating shame? The shame that you put on yourself from the actions of a cruel, demeaning perpetrator? You are not alone. It is an inbuilt trauma reaction to something that you had no control over. But you don’t have to stay crushed under this burden. You have done nothing wrong. It was not your choice, no matter what society tries to guilt trip you into believing. And as you learn to put the shame fairly and squarely on who the shame actually belongs to, the perpetrators, you will find yourself where I am at right now. You will be stepping along healing, too.

This time the gem of positivity is an affirmation:

I will not allow anyone to guilt trip or shame me into believing I am less than who I am.

This is a truth that I am learning to believe. Perpetrators, and even society, would like me to think that the shame of the sexual traumas are mine to carry. But it’s not. Believing that the shame is mine makes me less than I know I am. I am strong. I am resilient. I am a survivor. And I will not let anyone else shame me into believing that I  am not. And these are your strengths too.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk in my journey of healing from sexual trauma. Don’t forget to leave a comment on one thing you are doing to defeat your feelings of shame. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby

Rape and My Vagina

 78. RAPE AND MY VAGINA 

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite to join me on a short walk in my journey of healing from the trauma of sexual abuse and sexual assault. Don’t forget to stay to the end so that you can enjoy my gem of positivity.

Back in post #25 I talked to you about my breasts. More particularly, how my thinking is changing from wanting to cut them off to accepting them as I heal. This time, I’m going to talk about that other sexual organ. That is, my vagina.

Just as with my breasts, I have hated my vagina for as long as I remember. I think of it as filthy, painful and weak. And those thoughts stem from being raped, from both my  childhood as a toy in a pedofile ring, and as an exploited adult.

During adulthood, my reviled perpetrators, were (and are) filthy. I don’t mean that they physically stunk, although many of them did. It was more their words and actions, that made them filthy.  Telling me that I’m “an animal in the sack” was never going to make me agree their evil treatment. Not when my animalistic tendency came from struggling to fight those graphically violent and cruel acts of depraved terror.

Pain, because there is nothing more excruciating than having an adult penis penetrate my three year old child vagina. As an adult, the pain didn’t get any less. Not when I was having to cope with thick piping being brutally thrust in me for the perpetrators enjoyment, while being pinned to the ground.

And weak? I can hardly feel strong when I’m having my vagina penetrated and violated. Traumatically, I often feel like if I had no vagina, I would never have been raped. In order to cope with my distress, I have from time to time even thought about cutting my vagina out of me. I have, in self harm, got as far as cutting my outer vaginal lips in the past.

Now as I heal, I’m also trying to reconcile myself to living with my vagina. And that means also changing the way I think about my “den of shame”. One of the first things I have done, is to name my vagina. The first name that came to my mind, actually means “strength, beauty, and peace”. I didn’t go looking for a name that meant these values.

I will admit right now, that this reconciliation between myself and my vagina, is still very much a work in progress. I haven’t just woken up one day and thought to myself, “I love my vagina and all it stands for”. There are still days where I have such intense hatred of a body part that has been so tormented and abused. Yet those days are becoming less. I’ve even managed to look at with fascination, appreciate, and draw my vagina. Which just goes to prove one thing. I can heal, vagina and all.

And now what about you? Are you stuck in the hate of your most precious self? You don’t have to stay that way. There are little things you can do to help yourself slowly learn to love your own vagina. Try giving it a name. Your vagina is your friend, and not another enemy. Just like the rest of you, your vagina deserves to be loved, respected, and even appreciated. And when you realise this one truth, you will find yourself on your own journey of healing.

And now for your gem of positivity. This time it is a simple, yet beautifully empowering affirmation:

I love and accept myself exactly as I am.

I am finding this myself. I can’t just cut off or remove intimate parts of my body, as much as I may want to at times. My vagina is part of me, for better or for worse. The key is how I view myself as a whole person. And part of that whole is my vagina, and I can accept myself for exactly who I am. I’m not just my vagina. But I can learn to accept my vagina as naturally part of me. Do you want that acceptance, too?

Thank you for joining me on this short walk in my journey to heal from sexual trauma. This time, I invite you to share what name you call your vagina. There’s no judgment here. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby.

Rape, Orgasms, and Sexual Pleasure

 77. RAPE, ORGASMS, AND SEXUAL PLEASURE 

Hello and welcome back to Raped 25 Years. At this time I invite you to join me on a short walk in my journey of healing from the trauma of sexual violence. Don’t forget to stay to the end for you to enjoy my gem of positivity.

It is fairly widely known what an orgasm is. And most people would naturally say that orgasm is enjoyment. Orgasms are supposed to be the ultimate goal in sexual pleasure. But what about sexual pleasure and orgasms in the context of rape?

Because of my childhood sexual abuse and further rapes as an adult, I hated the thought of sexual pleasure. I actually came to hate even the word orgasm. It always sounded so dirty. In fact, I didn’t link orgasm to pleasure at all. It was a foreign concept to me; orgasm meant pain and fear, not pleasure.

Every time I have been raped I have had involuntary orgasms. There was nothing pleasurable in having these reflex orgasms. I came to strongly link orgasm with then violation of my body. Why was my body screaming, “yes, yes, yes”, when my brain was saying “no” loud and clear?

I felt like my body was letting me down by making me believe that I had enjoyed the horror of the unwanted sexual attack. What’s worse, it made the perpetrators believe that I was not just okay with their traumatic and brutal penetration of my vagina, but actually a willing participant. I would have orgasm after orgasm. And there was nothing pleasant about them. This is because they were trauma driven.

But what about now? Is sexual pleasure possible after rape? Are orgasms still that same horrible heinous feeling?  Well, no. It has taken many years of therapy and retraining my body and brain. The reflex pain and dissociation became less. Touch has moved from numb, then neutral. Finally the touch has become pleasurable. The orgasms I have now, as a general rule, are not just good. They are fabulously great! 

My numbness started with around my legs. Just a complete loss of sensation. Therapy started by reducing my numbness to my labia. As the inner thighs became less traumatically reactive to touch, I began to regain the smallest of sensations around the outer lips. Then into the inner lips. And after all that, I began to get sensation in my clitoris.

I noticed the same transition happened with my breasts. I have now discovered the sweetness of having my nipples and areoles played with to a safe breast orgasm. The sheer delight of having my clitoral horns and clitoris stroked into a great clitoral orgasm. I never knew that an orgasm could give me such ecstasy. That it was even possible for my body and brain to shout that “yes” together, and truly mean it. 

And what makes these orgasms so much more enjoyable? Simply the fact that they are consensual.

I will tell you now, it has taken years of somatic therapy for me to get to this level of healing. It is a work in progress, and I still find vaginal orgasms far too painful to get any enjoyment out of them. However it does show, that even after the terror of deeply traumatic rape, there are sexually intimate enjoyments still to discover. And it does prove one thing. I am healing.

Rape doesn’t mean that you will be numbed from sexual pleasure in safe orgasms forever. And orgasming during the act of being raped does not mean that you were asking for it or that you enjoyed it. The orgasm is simply a natural body reaction to the stimulus. It is automatic, no thought involved. 

It’s the same thing about your vagina getting wet. They are naturally occurring mucus secretions. They are to protect against infection and damage done by the penetration. When you say no, it means no. No matter how your body is responding, you have said no and that is enough. 

No means exactly that, no.

When you are with a lover who truly cares for you, you have permission talk about your needs. It isn’t all about the fireworks in your groin, nor theirs. It’s about meeting your needs in what should be a mutually beneficial relationship. Mind, body, and soul. And when this is the case, it’s the greatest way of deriving sexual pleasure and satisfaction. It means that you are healing too.

The gem of positivity this time is a quote attributed to Dr Nazanin Moali:

“Our sexual self is not only about sex. It’s about pleasure”.

I’m finding this to be a key to my healing. It’s actually okay to want to have sexually derived pleasure. A history of rape doesn’t have to get in my way of enjoying great orgasms. And as I heal I will be able get more pleasure from sex. And you will find that you can, too.

Thank you for joining me on this short walk in my journey of healing. Please feel empowered to leave a comment about what gives you pleasure. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby

Sexual Intimacy After Rape

 76. SEXUAL INTIMACY AFTER RAPE 

Hello and welcome back to Rape 25 Years. At this time I invite you to join me on a short walk in my journey of healing from sexual trauma. Don’t forget to stay to the end so you can enjoy my gem of positivity.

In post #75, I spoke about recovery in general from the traumatic violation of rape. I talked about what I see as my recovery looking like. This time, I’m going to focus on sexual intimacy in recovery.

Confidence with another intimate partner after rape is one of my main goals. However it’s also extremely difficult to achieve post sexual violence. Sexual intimacy is explicitly that, intimate. It’s making yourself and your trauma wounds vulnerable to another person.

I have spent many years of dealing with the horrifically brutal sexual trauma. And I have come to realise that making myself vulnerable is the only way forward in my healing journey. But vulnerable on my terms, not anyone else’s.

If I’m going to let a man share my personal space, it has to be my choice. A man suddenly sitting next to me in a doctor’s waiting room, can trigger my inner trauma boundaries with fear of being raped. In the early days of my healing, this was my frequent reaction.

It means that if I’m going to hold hands with a man, it’ll be because I want to. I’m going to be the one to reach out and take his hand. Not because I’m told to. Not because he’s grabbed my hand despite my protestations. It is going to be my conscience decision.

Hugging can be social, yet also very intimate. My trauma leads to my automatic personal assessment that I will be raped. I am overcoming this by taking the lead. For safety, I am practicing telling a man how I want to be hugged and where I want his hands to be on my body.

Like-wise kissing. I want to be the one to lean into the embracement of the man of my choice. Not forced. Not struggling to get away. Not dissociated. It will be my choice whether I give a simple peck on the cheek, full lips, or even a French tongue.

To prevent trauma reactions, I must lead and the man must follow. I have made progress this way, by having long and slow foreplay. This includes controlled “safe area” touching with my clothes on. It allows time for my brain to cope with more sensitive areas such as breasts and inner thighs.

At this stage some areas are still not ready, such as my nipples and vagina, let alone my clitoris. It’s important to note that this is despite the fact that my vaginal secretions are already flowing, which is not an indication of consent.

Some trauma affected areas will always remain off limits. An example of this is my anal area where I was abused, and the back of my neck where I was grabbed and pinned down. Hence the reason I need to guide the partner in foreplay and the physical sex act.

The most difficult part of being intimate for me, is being naked with a man. It’s beyond scary. It literally makes me tremble with fear and worry. What if I get hurt again? Will he stop if I need more time? I prefer to be the one to take my clothes off, to prevent the triggering of my trauma defences. A man suddenly pawing at my clothes is an automatic reminder of being raped.

Before we get to the penetration of his penis into my vagina, again I need a long period of controlled naked foreplay. This is where I will start to guide his hands to the “safe” areas of my  intimate body.

To repeat, just because my vagina is clearly wet and dripping fluids and my brain is screaming “yes, yes, yes”, these responses are not an automatic invitation for oral or fingering. I need to make the conscious decision I am safe to enjoy, and want that form of intimacy. 

What about you? Are you struggling with sexual intimacy? Remember that it is your choice as to how intimate you wish to be. It’s your body, so take all the time you need at each stage. And when you can do this, you’ll know you’re on your own journey to heal.

 The gem of positivity is an affirmation:

I can be safe and sexual at the same time.

And this explains intimacy well. I don’t have to choose either safety or sexual to obtain intimacy. They come hand in hand. Intimacy is the the result of these. I am learning this, one step at a time. That’s how I know that I’m healing. And you can too.

Thank you for joining me on a short walk in my journey of healing. Don’t forget to leave a comment on what intimacy looks like to you. Remember, sharing is caring. And until next time, just breathe and believe.

With love and care, Ruby.