I make the joke sometimes to people who don' know me very well that I was very popular in high school because I would let anyone do anything to me. The sad part about this statement is that it is true. I basically had no boundaries because if I didn't have any, then I didn't need to worry about them being broken. Also, at this point (and sometimes I still feel this way) I felt that the only worth I had was sexual. I call myself the Universe's sex toy sometimes because that is how I feel. I always wanted to please everyone, and even people who I knew very well both consciously and sub-consciously that I didn't want to have anything to do with I would try to please. I think that because I felt that only worth I had was as a sex toy, that if people didn't find me sexually attractive, or if no one was after me in that way, I felt like the only worth I had was gone. To this day I still flirt a lot and look for sexual approval, though I try not to. Part of me now tries to be invisible (I even have a wardrobe I refer to as my "I am a granny type so just ignore me" clothes).
I have an almost impossible time saying no to sex. No matter how much I don't want the contact or know it will hurt me or someone else, I still have difficulty saying no. Guys often see this as me being torn over my passion towards them and a higher ideal. The truth is that I know I don't want to do it, but I am somehow compelled.
Unfortunately for me sex has very little emotional attachment. I know this has to be because of the violence and unwanted sex that has been done to me in my life, but I feel upset that I miss the passionate all consuming power of love making. I hope that in the future this will not be so much a problem as I learn to trust myself and others.
Part of the reason that some people become very promiscuous after abuse is that by having no boundaries, then you are not hurt. It gives the abused a sense of power over themselves. If you have no boundaries, then there are no boundaries to be broken and therefore you are ok. In the long run this doesn't work because it only helps feed your feelings that you are worthless and that all (in my case) men really want is sex. It shrinks your vision of the world and constricts your abilities to be happy.
While I believe that promiscuity and morality are not related to the extent most people do, I also believe that there is an intimacy in sex that can only be reached by having sex with someone you are close to. This is very difficult for sexual abuse survivors because it takes a great deal of trust and comfort both with themselves and with the other person to achieve.
Learning to enjoy sex and not use it as a tool can be very difficult. For many abuse survivors, sex was a way of protecting yourself or getting what you want. Many times abusers will threaten you, like in my case, and if you perform they will not hurt you and other times, as in cases with friends of mine, abusers will give gifts to you when you do what they want. Because of this, we often learn to use sex as a tool or even a weapon. This furthers the damage because whether we know it consciously or not, we begin to view ourselves as almost prostitutes or worth nothing but sex.
One thing I realized was that I don't view my body as being my own. So "normal" people can say no because they view it as not giving this person something that is theirs (their bodies). I see it as I am taking from that other person something that is theirs. My body isn't mine, it belonged to everyone else, so if I say no, I am unfairly taking from that person something that is theirs and I feel I have no right to do that. It is a pain and I am hoping that I can train myself now that I have thought of this to stop seeing it that way. I need to realize that my body is mine and that it is up to me to give it to who I want to, they don't have a "right" to it and that I am allowed to say no because it isn't my job to make sure everyone is happy and also that I have worth other than Sex.
