The damage extends to the sexual abuse survivor's sense of their own sexuality. Many survivors also have trouble pursuing adult relationships and enjoying sex as an adult. The abuse can color a person's sexuality, preventing the survivor from pursuing a healthy sex life with a loving partner.
Sexual Abuse and Sexual Behaviors
In general, childhood sexual abuse survivors tend to either pursue sex recklessly as adults or to forgo sex completely, says Stephen L. Braveman, MA, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Monterey, Calif., and the western regional representative of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists. "They typically wind up with splitting behavior, where things become very black and white," he says. "Either they are very sexually active, or they shut down sexually."
After the Shock of Sexual Abuse
Some of the sexual after-effects of abuse include:
- Limited ability to feel sexual pleasure or have sex at all.
- Sexual promiscuity as a way of taking control of their feelings of abuse. Some studies have found that female survivors of sexual abuse are more likely to report having many partners over the prior year.
- An increased likelihood of engaging in prostitution, unsafe sex, and risky sexual behaviors.
- A tendency to "disassociate" from the body during sex, going through the motions but without any feeling. "They check out of their body and just wait until it's over," Braveman says.
- Withdrawal from all social and sexual interactions, leading to isolated and lonely lives.
Hidden trauma from childhood sexual abuse also can cause survivors to sabotage relationships, Braveman says. The adult survivor might meet someone and be very playful and sexually active, but then shut down sexually as the relationship proceeds and deepens.
"For most people, when they were abused it wasn't by somebody who jumped out of the bushes, but by somebody they had a trusting, loving relationship [with]," he says. "A sense of trust got merged with a sense of betrayal when it comes to their sexuality. The closer they get to someone, here comes that trust issue. So they pull back emotionally and sexually. It's much easier to end the relationship than deal with the abuse."
Men and women survivors often take different paths when they've become too intimate. "Men tend to shut down their sexual relationship with their partner, and then take their sexuality somewhere else," Braveman says. "Women shut down their sexuality altogether, or they remain sexually active but shut down emotionally."
Therapy for Sexual Abuse
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse do not have to allow the trauma to continue interfering with their lives. If you are a sexual abuse survivor, the first step is to talk with someone about it, either a trusted friend or a counselor. If sex abuse is threatening to destroy your relationship, you should tell your partner about it. Therapy can help you understand the patterns in your life created by the abuse, including the ways it has been affecting your sexuality. Figuring these things out can set you on the path to good sexual health.
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