Dr. John A. King presents survey data showing 55% of sexual abuse survivors remain highly interested in sex, while 45% lose interest. A quarter of the highly interested group has BDSM fantasies they hide from partners. Survivors who healed did so through honest communication and forgiveness.
Hey, how you doing? Hey, let's talk about sex because it's like Friday morning and you never know. It's funny, isn't it? Like Friday turns up, weekend turns up, and the sort of expectation is the weekend's coming, so we need to get ready for sex and all that sort of stuff. It's like any other social norm, when you start to investigate it, it just doesn't hold true. And it's exactly the same for sex and those people who have experienced sexual trauma. There is, and I'm going to read you a couple of things from, from Deal With It. I did a survey of men and women who have experienced sexual trauma. It was about 50/50, the responses both from men and from women. And the stereotypical point of view that those that have experienced sexual trauma are not interested in sex. Just did not hold true. And some of the comments and some of the responses I get are asexual nearly. And it's a little bit like if you've been through sexual trauma, you're expected not to want to engage with things in a sexual manner. You've been so traumatized, sex no longer means something for you or shouldn't mean something for you because of this trauma. And it just wasn't the case. Let me just read you a little bit from Deal With It out of the survey findings. If I can bloody well find the survey findings. It's my own bloody book. Here we go. 95% of people said they had sexual desires that did not fall within societal norms. Many described struggling during sex with triggers and flashbacks of past abuse. They found these challenging to deal with But all who figured out a way beyond them did so through open and honest communications with the partners. So there seemed to fall out two very distinct groups. Group number one, about 45% of the people that responded, had no interest in sex as a result of abuse. They talked about physical intimacy was very difficult for them. To touch and intercourse was a challenge for them. They said they would like to, but they weren't at that stage in their recovery. But then there was a second group, and the remaining 55% said they were very interested in sex themselves, and in fact would see themselves in some ways as hypersexual according to a societal norm, which, you know, who defines normal anyway, you know? Now within that group, Group 2, 25% talked about having sexual fantasies and desires they felt they could rarely or never discuss with an intimate partner. Now in this second group that had, um, a range of sexual fantasies or desires that they weren't, they didn't feel they could play out with a partner because they didn't feel they had the communication to, or if they brought it up to a partner they found shunned or ridiculed because these fantasies or these desires are outside of societal norms as I mentioned. A lot of them talked about BDSM. Now that was surprising to me because we've got this view of BDSM as being, you know, really dominating, degrading, etc. But a lot of these people found it very therapeutic. Now, you know, I don't want to get into the psychobabble side of all that. It's not my forte or my qualification. But as a human being, it was very interesting and very touching. To have these people talk about their most intimate things and how they were living their entire life unable to express them to someone because they didn't have someone they could trust. I found it very moving that they trusted me with their conversation, and I found it very—I found it. I found it really sad that they didn't have someone that they could talk about those things with. The last question in the survey that I did was I gave people an opportunity to express something and to tell me something that they would like passed on to everybody, maybe who knew of them or did not, or just knew someone who was abused. And this was This is the response. When given an opportunity to pass on any personal advice to other survivors, the participant responses were very moving. Nearly all spoke of the need to pursue forgiveness. They said the ability to forgive those who hurt them was essential to them heading towards wholeness. Some, some still found this difficult, yet all of it knew it was important. In the last part of the survey, I asked respondents to add a comment. Any comment they would like to pass on to you. They said things like, "Please listen to us. Please be patient with us. We are struggling. We are trying. Don't judge us." And I think that's part of it. You can't, you you can't take sexuality out of a human being. And I think if you allow your sexuality to be a subset. of your recovery that you're not prepared to investigate and challenge yourself about, then you're not going to get whole. Now, I know some of you are going to, you know, hit the unfollow button all you like. Knock yourself out. I'm not going to change my point of view on this. Sex is a conversation. We are sexual beings. If you are not prepared to unlock that particular door or walk down that particular staircase into the dark room of your sexuality, it shouldn't be a dark room, but That's how many people view it, and have a conversation with yourself and others about it. Then listen to me: you won't get whole. You cannot have a broken piece that big in your your bowl of life. You cannot have a fracture that big and expect this bowl of life to be filled with blessing. It just won't happen unless you're prepared to deal with every aspect of your life with honesty and integrity. Then you just won't get whole. And my personal desire is to get whole for me, but my personal dream for you is that you would experience wholeness like you never have before.
