Recovery: It's More A Verb Than A Noun (Part 3)

For this 3rd installment of my articles on the outcomes of recovery, I am going to focus on the sexual issues that arise for survivors of sexual child abuse. As usual, given that this blog is related to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, I will focus on the ways in which sexual trauma has deleterious aftereffects on male survivors, with the understanding that such outcomes can affect female survivors in similar ways.

Defining, for ourselves, what our 'original' sexual orientation or identity was

This is a difficult journey, indeed. When a survivor is sexually abused, especially when it occurs in childhood, the abuse is truly 'age inappropriate' (abuse is abuse, but what I'm referring to is that for the child the nature of the sexual child abuse is so thoroughly outside the realm of anything they can conceptualize as 'normal' or 'understandable', given that sexuality of any kind at that age is completely bizarre to them). As a result, a 'message' about what their future sexual 'nature' is or should be becomes imprinted at a time in life when all the child really knows is that the abuse is painful and unwanted. 'Knowing' what one 'should become' later in life [sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual desire], based on the 'natural' constitution of the child, is completely messed up by the profoundly age inappropriate sexual nature of the child abuse. 

This is even difficult to discuss, and hence I have to approach all of this very delicately.

As the child grows into adolescence, and the hormones of puberty 'kick in' (and adult sexuality begins to 'make some degree of sense'), the sexual confusion evoked by the earlier sexual child abuse comes to fruition. For victims of sexual child abuse, having any clear idea of what one's original sexual nature 'is' or 'was' becomes frightfully difficult to access. In most human societies, the 'sexual messages' are strongly tilted toward heterosexuality; which is fine, if the young person has a comfortable ease with an attraction toward members of the other sex. But what if their 'sense of themselves' is manifested by an attraction for members of their own sex? While I feel that a sexual desire rooted in heterosexuality or homosexuality (or any wide variety of other mixtures on the sexual spectrum) is quite appropriate -- given the mutual 'consenting' comfort with the behavior by both partners in a sexual interaction -- my point about the problem for survivors of sexual child abuse is that they have no earthly idea if their sexual orientation or identity is rooted in personal desire or the aftereffects of the sexual trauma that they experienced in their childhood [and even, possibly, are containing to experience]. There is no way to 'know' or objectively distinguish between what 'the original nature is' and what is the 'manufactured nature, resulting from the sexual child abuse'. 

I stress this issue of 'original nature' because, as a survivor of sexual child abuse, I have always wondered what choices I would have made in life -- about my own sexual identity or my sexual orientation -- if I had not be sexually abused from infancy forward. What choices would I have made, based upon my own 'natural emotional constitution', if my perception of the world around me had not been so effectively obliterated by the painful sexual trauma? I'm well aware that it is sort of an exercise in futility: it's like knowing the outcome of the null proposition (if it hadn't been what it was, what would have been the outcome). And yet it is important to me because it effects my healing journey of recovery.

Let me quote, here, from Mike Lew's book Victims No Longer: Men Recovering from Incest and Other Sexual Child Abuse, p. 41, to make my point clearer.

Since men "are not supposed to be victims," abuse (and particularly sexual abuse) becomes a process of demasculinization (or emasculation). If men aren't to be victims (the equation reads), then victims aren't men. The victimized male wonders and worries about what the abuse has turned him into. Believing that he is no longer an adequate man, he may see himself as a child, a woman, gay, or less than human -- an irreparably damaged freak. Some survivors resort to broad parodies of "acceptably masculine" behavior in order to counteract this self-perception.

There are two issues raised in Mike's quote: knowing 'what' a victim's sexual orientation or identity was before the sexual abuse, and being at all comfortable with 'being a victim' in a society that has major problems with allowing males to be seen as victims. The further issue Mr. Lew brings up, later in his book (and it has been a significant theme of both my articles and my nonprofit) is that, by not allowing men to see themselves as having been victimized as children, by perpetrators who had 'power over' them, they have a difficult time admitting that victimization -- either to themselves or to others, including their intimate partners -- and therefore often don't seek mental health resources to deal with the very painful emotional outcomes of the abuse. [Whether such resources are actually available, given that most incest groups and mental health therapists focus their resources almost exclusively on female survivors, is questionable. But that is separate issue, and one that I have dealt with extensively on the MMWI website.]

My point is that many survivors [and I personally] were really messed up by the sexual child abuse. I did not have a consistent idea, as an adolescent, about what 'sexual identity' I had or wanted to have (to the extent that I had conscious choice) or what sexual orientation felt 'natural or desirable'. And that confusion has continued to plague me throughout my life. It's still a major struggle. For now, and for the past decade or so, my orientation has been heterosexual, and I have been able to manifest a mutual long-term loving intimacy with a female with whom I feel a strong emotional and sexual attachment. But while that heterosexual orientation was generally the case in the past, it hasn't always been so. Given the confusing sexual messages I was given by the sexual child abuse and the peculiar unresolved traumas of my perpetrators,  I've both been attracted to and rejecting of females, and I have sought other avenues of intimate fulfillment at various points in my life journey. (In many ways, even though I wanted to manifest a loving relationship with heterosexual women, I had conflicted feelings about that desire. I felt a fair amount of anger toward females, primarily based upon what I perceived to be their often unilateral financial, sexual and emotional expectations of me, as a male, which I found painfully discounting of 'who I was'.)

And as for any kind of consistent sexual identity, well, that has been problematic itself. I 'know' that I am male [since the age of 16, I have been a 6'8" man, with a deep and resonating voice], but whether I have felt comfortable with that fact has been, and continues, in some ways, to be problematic. I think for now that's all I want to say about that, given the delicacy of this issue (as I noted at the start of this installment) and the need to remain 'safe'. Let me simply say, at this juncture, that the emotionally confusing nature of this issue was one of the major motivations for becoming involved with the men's wellness movement and focusing my life's work on men's emotional wellness.

For many male survivors (for many survivors of either sex) having a consistent 'sense of one's sexual nature' is truly a problematic issue. Being sexually victimized as such an early age simply destroys that personal sense of 'comfort' with one's personal sexual identity. And when the sexual abuse occurs in infancy, before the brain even has a chance to actually 'remember' anything (more on this later) -- when one has only, at best, 'body memories' of the trauma -- having any grounded idea what one's 'original sexual identity' was, or is presently, is thrown into a place of profound confusion.

Which brings me back to the original point of this article: that recovery is a process, not a destination. One rarely reaches a point of 'being recovered', for more than a very short period, before it's necessary to 'continue the healing journey', uncovering deeper and often more traumatic aspects of one's abuse.

Taking responsibility for our own sexuality

Again, a very difficult issue (the rationale for this installment is a willingness to finally face some of those really difficult 'sexual' issues on the road to recovery from sexual child abuse). How can one take responsibility for their own sexuality if an individual has no rational basis upon which to support a sense of what personal responsibility looks like? The very nature of sexual child abuse is that responsibly for the child's 'sexuality' was in the hands of a perpetrator who cared little for the child's safety or care. That they are or were perpetrating behavior which is completely traumatizing for the child (or infant) is not something that a pedophile is concerned about: this is a behavior which is based far more on power and control than upon caring in the least about the feelings of the victim.

And the result for the victim, as they grow up chronologically (I'm being careful not to say 'matures', simply because maturation is such a major confusing issue for a trauma survivor), is that 'having control over our sexuality' is, itself, deeply problematic. How can one exercise effective conscious control over one's sexuality if the message they have received from the trauma is that they have no control over how others treat them sexually?

And yet, it is entirely necessary to reach that point, however one does it (hopefully, with good mental health intervention, often over many years of therapy). It is necessary both because one needs to have a consistent idea of what kind of behavior is healthy and non-abusive, and because it is the only way to truly recover from the sexual trauma. To know that you personally are 'in control' (to the extent that anyone is in control of anything in their lives), rather than their partner or another perpetrator, is the point one needs to 'reach' if there is to be any kind of healthy long-term sexual outcome.

In this regard, I want to make a point about 'sexual objectification'. We live in a society where, in reaction to a discomfort with true intimacy, people of both sexes are apt to 'sexually objectify' potential partners. The 'classic' pattern is that men objectify women sexually and women objectify men financially. Men who are fearful of healthy intimacy (of deeply connecting on an emotional level with another human being) look at women as 'body parts', as an 'object that can be manipulated in order to fulfill one's short-term sexual desires'. Women who are fearful of healthy intimacy look at men as paychecks, as 'an object that can be manipulated in order to fulfill one's desired economic lifestyle or as the primary financial supporters of children and family'. My own experience has shown me that there is a secondary level of objectivity: that if a man doesn't believe he can objectify a woman sexually, he will objectify her financially (abuse the relationship to obtain economic support), and that if a woman doesn't believe she can objectify a man financially, she will objectify him sexually (abuse the relationship to obtain non-reciprocal sexual satisfaction).

I sometimes hear other males say, in mock 'humor', in response to the often stated female complaint about being sexually objectified, "Boy, I'd love it if a woman would treat me as a sexual object!" And I say in response (either directly to them, or 'in my head') "No, you really would not want to be treated as a sexual object; what you want is for women to be more sexually responsive to your overtures, not to abuse you sexually." I say this from experience. In my early sexual life, when I was deep in the aftereffects of the sexual child abuse I had experienced (and had not recovered from the abuse, on any rational level, largely because I was not, at the time, aware that I had been the victim of incest as a child), I often was either treated as a sexual object by females, or unconsciously 'presented' myself for such abusive objectification, because 'that's the message I had received from the trauma' [that my only value was as a sexual object]. And, further, since I had few economic resources, the women who I met saw no point in pursuing me as a financial object. They wanted company and they wanted sexual satisfaction, but only at the level that they felt comfortable with [which often, as noted before, was basically "I want what I want, and will offer not much of anything in return"].

One night (among many) in particular made this situation clear. I went to a party in my mid-20's, and met a woman whom I found attractive. As is the nature of 'hitting on' and 'sexually socializing', we mutually seduced each other and ended up driving back to her house, in her car, and having sex. The following morning, she needed to go to work. I requested that she give me a ride back to the party location, on her way to work, so I could pick up my car. Her response, delivered quite pertly, was "No, I won't. Have someone else drive you there. I need to get to work and you need to leave my house. Now!" In other words, in the most clear of intentions, "I got what I wanted sexually and you need to leave. We may have used each other last night, but there is no intended reciprocity, from me, this morning. I got what I wanted and now get out of my house!" As I left her house, finding myself a bit geographically and emotionally lost and looking for a phone booth to call someone I knew to help me, I thought "Oh! This is what it means to be a sexual object. Now I get what women have been talking about for years. She got what she wanted, with very little reciprocal investment in return, at my expense. That's abuse!!"

Now, don't get me wrong. It was a 'one-night stand'. Neither of us was in doubt about the dynamic surrounding the sexual encounter. But my experience, in talking to female friends, was that they felt if a man had sex with them and the following morning basically threw them out of their house, in a most undignified manner, they felt (I believe quite justifiably) like they had been treated as a sexual object by a man who only wanted a 'piece of ass', without any degree of even minimal polite care. Knowing that, whenever I had had a superficial sexual interaction with a woman, I always had the courtesy to offer her a ride home, to display a basic degree of human care. That this woman clearly behaved like the men my female friends saw as abusive made me realize how uncomfortable that 'objectification' was. Hence, having first been expected to provide the majority of the sexual pleasure, to my partner, the night before, and then having that partner unceremoniously kick me out of her house, without the 'socially expected decency' to drive me back to get my vehicle, was not simply discourteous, but downright abusive. Which is why I felt like I had been treated like 'a piece of ass' (or a 'roving penis') -- as, in fact, a sexual object -- by this woman. Context is important in defining any human interaction!

This sense that I as being treated as a sexual object was further evidenced over the years of my life when various female 'partners' would say they wanted to talk about 'the deep pain in my life' and made it clear that my willingness to listen, with care, would signify loving investment. Having heard that clearly, I intently listened to their often painful emotional stories. But when I felt it was 'my turn', to talk about my own pain (which, objectively, was damned profound, almost like laying molten lava on someone else) their reaction, quite often, was "I need to go somewhere else, do something else, etc.", or in other words I don't want to hear about your pain because your primary utility in my life is as a sexual performer and an ear for my pain. Beyond that, knowing you and caring about you is not something I want to engage in. That was clear and definite. It only changed as I slowly and gradually healed emotionally and sexually. The world began to look and feel different as I recovered from the sexual child abuse, and as I learned to 'present myself' to others as other than a sexual object or a person who was open to be victimized. In other words (and this is the difficult transition of recovery) I learned to be less of a victim and therefore others were less likely to victimize me.

When I began participating in the New Mexico men's movement in the mid-1980's, I finally 'began to know' that I had 'sexual choice', that I had the 'right' to say 'no' to the sexual overtures of females and that I had a 'right' to decide with whom I had sexual relations. And that I had a 'right' -- and responsibility -- to 'own' my personal sexuality. And further, and most importantly for the continuation of my sexual healing journey, that I had 'human value' in other areas of my life beyond as a 'unilateral sexual satisfier'. It finally dawned on me that I had might have human value other than as a sexual object who was expected to fulfill other people's desires, with minimal expectation or hope for mutual pleasure. Wow! That arose in my consciousness both as a profound revelation and as a needed transition for deeper emotional healing.

To 'seal the knowledge' in my own head (and to assist other males who had experienced similar trauma) in 1993 I gave a presentation at the New Mexico Men's Wellness Conference (held each year, since 1984, at Ghost Ranch, near Abiqui, New Mexico) on "The Sexual Abuse of Men By Women". When I first began my talk, there was significant questioning in the eyes of the audience; but as I dove deeper into my topic, distinct lights of understanding arose, to chants of acknowledgement. Afterward, in private, several men approached, noting that the pattern I was describing had occurred in their lives, but that since men aren't supposed to be victims, they hadn't come to grips with the behavior and how they were abused by it. My willingness to confront this subject, and my openness about how it is not simply something that happens only to females, as a result of abusive male behavior, was enlightening to them and allowed them to more deeply explore their own healing journey.

The real 'leap' that I finally made in my sexual healing came about in the mid-1990s, when I finally had the courage of my emotional convictions to decide, firmly and consciously, that I would not have sexual relations with women unless and until they evidenced a clear willingness to invest emotionally in the relationship. That constituted a major 'ownership' of my own sexuality. It also resulted in a significant drop in the number of females who were willing to date me (or that I was willing to date). For all the vaunted desire of females to engage in emotionally invested relationships, my painful -- but necessary -- experience was that, in demanding emotional investment initially, the 'pool' of potential partners plummeted.

When I had been available as a sexual victim who could be used, women were quite willing to use me for the satisfaction of their sexual needs while only rarely feeling a minimal responsibility to fulfill my stated desires in return. And as a sexual abuse victim/survivor, I was 'trained' to accept that, no matter how painful I felt it to be [at the least, it was 'familiar' to me]. But when I made it clear that I would not engage in that kind of sexual activity -- or any sexual play -- unless they were willing to evidence a willingness to invest emotionally, I hit a wall of rejection. But, as I say, this was necessary, because it was 'what it took' to heal from a lifetime of being used sexually by other people. Eventually, as noted above, about twelve years later I finally found a female who was willing to make that kind of emotional investment. I surely felt rather hopeless until it was finally manifested in my mid-50s!

And now, though, with that positive, loving, and intimate emotional foundation beneath me, I can 'pass forward' the healing lessons I have learned from a lifetime of sexual abuse and emotional rejection. There is a light at the end of the tunnel! There are no guarantees in this life, and there is, hence, no guarantee that working diligently on our healing journeys that we will find a partner who cares about us  and is willing to work through the emotionally and sexually 'tough spots' with us. But, as a survivor of sexual child abuse, I can say, definitively, that it is possible. I have now had that experience in my life. It was grueling and painful and exhausting 'getting here', but I thankfully lived long enough to see and feel it within this lifetime. For that I'm very appreciative. And while there are still many healing journeys to engage in within my life -- recovery being an ongoing process, one that never really ends until our death -- I've enough 'success' under my belt, within my emotional toolkit, to know that the journey is well worth the effort.

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That's enough for this installment of my 'recovery' article. I'll talk about other outcomes of the sexual trauma of males in the next part of this continuing series.