should I just give up trying to enjoy this and trying to partake in bdsm. My boyfriend doesn’t want me to do it if I’m not comfortable but I feel like I’m letting him down. Should he be stricter with me to make me get over it?
It’s so good you asked this, well done. We can do deep and serious too and it’s much better to be bringing this stuff up and talking about it than suffering through it. I’ll answer this in the context of both sexual assault and abuse as they both tend to have some similar effects to what you’re describing.
Obvious trigger warnings people…
The UK Crime Survey just started to include a question about abuse this year and the results were that 11% of women had been sexually abused as kids. That’s a HELL of a lot of people – so good job asking as others will definitely have the same issue.
So bear in mind I’m not a qualified therapist however I’ve given a lot of advice to friends and subs who have been through abuse and sexual assault, so here are my thoughts.
Firstly, don’t give up!
For me part of this is saying to those who did this to you, ‘Fuck them, I’m not going to let them take anything more away from me. I loved sex and being kinky and I’m going to love it again’
The obvious first advice is if there are specific triggers your boyfriend is activating that he doesn’t know about then either explain that to him or change what you’re doing to avoid it. Okay, but beyond that it’s important to know a few other things
It’s okay to be uncomfortable!
You were assaulted, it was sexual. It’s not weird that sex now ties into some of that. Try to relax about being uncomfortable, sometimes worrying about your reaction is worse than the reaction itself. So just know it’s okay to feel this way, and acknowledging that is a key step in then moving on so you stop feeling that way.
Equip your boyfriend to deal with it
I don’t think him being stricter is the way to go, Instead it involves improving your communication.
Help him understand your triggers, talk about your abuse/assault openly but appropriately when it comes up. Personally when it was a sub of mine I wanted to know everything so I could navigate through what we were doing with more understanding rather than worry about hitting some unknown rock just below the surface. But be aware, especially with some things, there are facts you may want to avoid sharing in detail as they can become negative triggers for him. He can’t unthink stuff you tell him so just think through what you tell him and bounce it off someone else first if you have them for a second opinion.
Have a special safeword
So you should all know Red and Yellow for sexual play, red being stop and yellow indicating you’re near what you can stand. But with subs who have been through abuse I also sometimes include a ‘Purple’ safeword which lets them indicate that what we’re doing is causing some flashbacks or negative reactions but they don’t want to stop, they just wanted to let me know.
There’s this big worry that it’ll get worse where you get caught up in ‘should I stop now, it might be okay’ and that takes you out of the moment anyway. The Purple thing just lets you pass that off to him to be aware of and keep a special eye on you, and lets you feel much calmer about continuing, so that’s not adding more to the worry.
Okay, so the next bit might be controversial, and I’m going to just back this up by saying that I only did this extensively with one sub who had a world leading therapist looking after her, and who was actively overseeing her. But it was incredibly powerful when we explored these approaches.
Disempower your abuse memories
You asked if you should try harder to forget. Nope, totally wrong approach in my experience, in fact, you need to try less hard!
Have you ever tried to hold a beachball underwater? It’s exhausting. But let it up and you can push that thing around with a fingertip.
When you try and push your bad memories down inside you, they act like that beachball. You’re constantly having to fight to keep them down, it’s mentally exhausting. And you will fail, they’ll pop up in flashbacks and nightmares and potentially all over the place in stuff like self-harm and self destructive behaviour.
If you let them up then they lose almost all of their power. How do you do that? Talk about it, talk about it as matter as factly as you can. Don’t use childish words to hide what happened to you, just state it and move on. But don’t give it more power than it merits. I had a sub who used to flag up something was problematic by telling me, ‘Sorry James, that was getting a bit rapey’ and that casual way of expressing it completely took the stress out of it and we just moved on with no problems to something else.
Never be ashamed of being abused or assaulted, it was NOT YOUR FAULT. Nope, it wasn’t, I don’t care how many ways you may have figured it could have been. It was not. It happened, you survived. Now it’s time to learn to do more than survive and choose to thrive too.
Having said all that, you need to know it may have changed how you feel about bdsm and denial, and if it has then that’s shitty but simply reality. Try what I’ve suggested, see if it helps, I’m sure it will, but if it doesn’t, find out what you enjoy now and make the most of that. It’s only BDSM and denial, it’s not the end of the world. As long as you can make love passionately and intimately with him then it’s all going to be okay.
The ultimate taboo about abuse and assault?
But here’s an evil twist that for some is almost more than they can deal with. It may well not be true for the OP but while I’m discussing this it’s a hugely taboo subject that needs addressing.
Thinking or talking about your abuse might turn you on, or in a similar vein it’s possible for women to orgasm when being raped or assaulted.
If this is true for you listen to me, this is super important.
It’s okay to be aroused thinking back to your abuse. It’s okay to have experienced physical pleasure from being assaulted. It really is.
I know, it sounds so fucked up, but this is normal, particularly for those who were abused at younger ages or by someone they loved. And if you experience this you need to know, it’s okay. It does NOT make you a bad person, or mean that you wanted it. It does not mean you enjoyed it (but even if you did enjoy any of it it was still abuse and still not your fault and it’s still okay!).
It just means your brain got a bit messed up by it all and your body has learnt to respond that way, sometimes in an effort to protect itself, and sometimes for reasons we don’t fully understand.
In terms of arousal during assault here’s a great quote:
Aphrodite Matsakis writes about sexual arousal or orgasm in rape: “Before you chastise yourself for one more minute, remember that your sexual organs do not have a brain. They cannot distinguish between a mauling rapist and the gentle touch of a lover. They simply react to stimulation the way they were physically designed to respond. If you climaxed or had some other sexual response to the rape, this does not mean that you enjoyed it.“
STOP feeling guilty about it. and stop trying to forget it. If you try to push this away then it can completely eat you up. Find someone you can talk to about it (some therapists can’t handle this fact though, I warn you now). The experience is usually, if you accept and stop freaking out about it, then actually as I said earlier, it loses its power and becomes much less of an issue and you’ll think about and remember it much less.
Get professional advice – but make it good advice
There are a lot of shit therapists. Like really, really bad. Lots of people get into therapy because they are fucked up themselves, so don’t just think that someone with a fancy title is going to be any good. Make sure you like them and they know what they’re talking about. Trust your gut.
To sum up
You were assaulted, it totally and utterly sucks. But don’t let it take any more of your life. Be open about it, keep talking, disempower those memories and dare to take some risks with your boyfriend because you’re stronger than you even know. You’re lucky to have him and he’s lucky to have you.
If you’re looking for more (and much more expert) information on this then let me hugely recommend the Pandora Project. An amazing resource and community for abuse and assault survivors.
Step 2: Send your sub the link. Make sure there are super hot words up in there.
Step 3: Instruct them to touch themselves.
Step 4: If you are in the same place, watch and make sure they are doing it per your specifications.
Step 5: Tell them to get back to work/life responsibilities. Because that’s evil and good.
holy smokes, that website is the stuff of fantasies
I’m not going to say I’ve directed a sub there and told them to experiment until they found the most hypnotic spiral they could make, then used it on them, but…I’m not _not_ saying that, either.
I was going to talk about how nice freedom within predefined limits is.
Unless instructed otherwise, I’ve been on no touch with a kegel ball or balls in since the 20th of December. The only times I get to play, or really even just to touch myself, are when I’m following instructions. Yesterday, I was told to set a timer for 7 and then 15 minutes and to suck on my dildo for the first time and then touch however I wanted for the second. There was no goal for the second time, simply to enjoy the sensations. (Though of course, I wasn’t allowed to cum. I’m not allowed to cum without my trigger.)
This woman knows what it is to tease. Yes, she’s soaking and dripping and that’s a very good sign, but look how she touches. When she goes fast she doesn’t touch directly. When she touches directly its oh-so-very lightly. This video was shot after she was at it for quite a while and really, its a very lovely moment.
This is where I want you to live sweetie; this sweet longing and dripping that will become your existence. This will be your every day. This will be your time on break at work or in between classes. This will be what you do for me when you get home and before you leave in the morning. This arousal and need you generate for me will consume you. In return I’ll use it to build even more need and tension so that even as you cum, even as your body shakes and your mind explodes as I force the orgasms out of you that you denied yourself, I’ll use it all to wring even more wetness and tension out of that poor teased pussy. After all, satisfaction exists most fully when you’ve know truly what it is to NEED.
And the first time it happened was like 11months into being intimate with him. And even those were kinda lame. He was touching my clit so hard and even the orgasms weren’t that enjoyable. Problem is he thinks he’s fantastic in bed.
99% of the time we have sex goes like this: kissing, 1-2 minutes of foreplay, then penetration. It won’t go in at first since im nowhere near ready. Hurts. And then sex that really isnt doing much for me if not hurting. I have been dropping hints
It’s never about making me feel me feel good. We never try to get ne off. He says he loves to go down on a girl yet has only done it to me for a total 35 seconds in a year. He’s a really sweet guy and is really sensitive. I don’t know what to do
He knows what I’m into. Ive given him a step by step run down of how to give me an orgasm, because he says he wants too but it hasn’t changed anything. More than anything it hurts emotionally. The sexual frustration is nothing.
It makes me feel like an object, a walking fleshlight. I don’t want to hurt his feelings by being harsh but subtly hasn’t worked. I love him so much. I really don’t know what to say anymore. Tried to bring it upthe other day and it failed
I really want to enjoy sex. I want to try edging with him so bad. He’s the only person I have been with and we are pretty comnitted. Really sucks thinking i never had nor will ever have satisfying sex
This is what you’re going to say:
‘Baby, come and sit down, we need to talk. There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you for a while and I just don’t think you’re getting the message, and I don’t know what to do.
I love you, but this is killing me, and we need to do something about it
What is it?…
You’re really bad at sex.
No, I’m not kidding. Do I look like I’m kidding. I know, you think you’re good, but listen to me, you are not. I’ve tried being subtle, I’ve tried bringing it up before, but it’s reaching the point where I just have to be blunt about it so we can make things better.
See how this guy describes having sex? THAT is what I need, not always, not even most of the time, but at LEAST sometimes.
So here are some new rules.
I cum first. Yep, every fucking time (I’m kinda into this thing called orgasm denial but we’ll get to that once we’ve got it working right in the first place).
For now, sex hurts, because I’m not ready for it, so rule 2, I cum before you even get to fuck me, and if I’m still not feeling ready we can use some lube.
So besides making me very happy here’s some reasons why you want to do this. If I’m excited about sex, and enjoying it, I’m going to want to do it more, a lot more. Unlike you, the MORE I fuck the hornier I get.
And again, if I’m happy and horny there’s some really kinky shit I’m going to feel like exploring that we haven’t even got near yet because we’re still stuck on the first floor. Yes honey, that’ll probably include fucking my ass – god you guys are predictable, that’s cute.
So, what do you say? Shall we get good at sex together?’
Keep those tits well exposed in a very inviting way, or strangle herself.
A kind word of reality warning: This scene can be classified as a kind of endurance bondage. Her back and arms will eventually get tired, and then she need to get her neck chain slacked. In commercial shots there are spotters to step in as soon as a sign is shown. Remember this for your own play to have an happy ending.
the only thing i knew about sex at the age of nine was that
1) it was for mommies and daddies who were married;
2) it made me, my five year old sister, and my baby brother.
i learned everything i knew about sex from the internet while secretly browsing grownup sites on my 4th generation ipod touch i earned for doing so well at a piano recital. because of the nature of, you know, men and their internet porn, i learned that my sexual role as a woman was to be slapped and pissed on and tied up. i didn’t know what healthy sex was. i didn’t know it should be mutually consensual, or that it was okay to want sex with girls. i didn’t know that sex should be good for both people. i learned that sex would hurt, and that sex was about men and men only, and that i would be forced into sex whether i liked it or not, and that it was normal to have sex with big, burly, grown men as a teenager. i learned it was normal to cry during sex. i was scared of sex for so many years because of that, and the way i was exposed to sex at a young age led to the inappropriate and traumatic sexual encounters i had (occasionally with older people) later on in my teen years.
the day i got my first period, i was ten-and-a-half. i was swimming in the river with my best friend, and when i got out to go to the bathroom, i noticed brown blood on the inside of my mint-green tankini bottom. i knew what a period was, but i hid it from my mother in shame. she found out, eventually, of course. she told me, you have a woman’s body now, and if you have sex, you could have a baby. all i heard was, you have a woman’s body.
i started shaving my vulva when i was eleven, because i saw memes on memegenerator about how disgusting “hairy pussy” was. i wanted to be sexy. i was eleven years old, and all i wanted was to be sexy. it hurt, and it itched, and it made me uncomfortable, and i’d sometimes nick my labia with the razor, but i did it anyway, because i didn’t want to have a nasty, “hairy pussy.”
eleven was the age i first started getting pinched on the EL. i was an early bloomer: i had B-cup breasts already, and my menstrual cycle was regular enough that i could keep a calendar. i started wearing a full face of makeup to school and buying shorts that rode all the way up my skinny twelve-year-old thighs. i remember the day i stopped jumping off the swings the summer after fifth grade. skinned knees weren’t sexy. smooth, flawless legs were sexy, and i was a sexy girl. i was probably the sexiest little girl in the whole world. my parents hated it. they told me i was too young, but i knew the truth. my body was older, maybe 17 or 18, so my brain must be, too.
when i was twelve, i had a secret kik account that my parents didn’t know about. i used it to message strangers. i made all sorts of friends. i wasn’t stupid. i used a fake name. never showed my face. one of my friends asked me for a bra picture. i was a cool girl, right, i was sexy, so i sent him a picture of me in front of my bedroom mirror in my little white training bra with the blue butterflies.
sexy, he said.
that was all i wanted.
i’m not typing out all this bullshit because i think it’s something special. i’m typing it out because it’s not. i’m typing it out because i see the same thing happening to my little sister. i’m typing it out because i see the same thing happening to that little millie bobbie brown, sexiest actress at thirteen. i’m typing it out because i’m sixteen years old now, a girl in the eyes of the law and a woman in the eyes of men.
mothers, talk to your daughters. tell them to jump off the swingset and skin their knees. tell them to get dirt on their dresses. tell them that they’re a woman on their 18th birthday, not at ten-and-a-half on the first day of their menstrual cycle. the world is confused. the world is sick. if your daughters don’t hear about how to treat their bodies from you, they’ll hear it from the sick, sick world, and they’ll do the things i did.
Uie's Cage 