The conventional wisdom declares that child sex abuse (CSA) is so horrendous, so traumatic, so psychologically devastating that survivors, overwhelmingly women, develop long-term post-traumatic stress disorder and deep fears of partner sex, often avoiding it for years, sometimes for the rest of their lives. If CSA survivors manage to return to sex, the conventional wisdom holds that they do it just for their partners, don’t enjoy it, and suffer sex problems—difficulty becoming aroused and working up to orgasms.
CSA is, indeed, deeply traumatic, and may involve long-term sexual impairment. But a recent study shows that as CSA survivors leave childhood and become young adult women, many are able to enjoy partner sex—if they explore who they are sexually by embracing self-sexing.
The Study
University of Nebraska researchers surveyed 77 young adult women CSA survivors, average age 20, asking, among other issues, if they intentionally avoided partner sex. Some of the women had real problems with sex. But contrary to the conventional wisdom, the researchers found that if the women self-sexed regularly, CSA did not result in long-term sexual avoidance or high risk of sex problems. With regular solo sex, the women generally stopped avoiding partner sex and were less likely to suffer sex problems.
Healing Is Possible
Of course, immediately after people experience any significant trauma, they are quite likely to avoid the activity that produced it. But in the equestrian realm, there’s an old saying: “Get back up on the horse that threw you.” After riders get thrown off horses, riding instructors urge them to confront their fears and ride again.
Compared with getting thrown from horses, CSA is more fraught and more psychologically complex, but this study suggests that the riding advice still holds. Sexual trauma survivors may not be able to escape memories of what happened to them. But they are not doomed to a life without lovemaking. They can recover—that is, experience enjoyable, problem-free partner sex—if they explore their sexuality at a pace that feels comfortable for them, and include regular solo sex in the process.
Staci Haines is the author of Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma. She is also a CSA survivor. After years of struggling with her own recovery, she now enjoys a pleasurable, fulfilling sex life and has become a psychotherapist specializing in helping abuse survivors rediscover erotic pleasure.
“Healing is possible,” she explains, “emotional and sexual healing. I tell survivors: You survived. You’re more powerful than what happened to you. Victimization is terrible. Surviving it is very hard. So is recovery. But now that you’re an adult, you have the capacity to recover and to build the life—and the sex life—you choose.”
How? Haines practices somatic therapy, which employs physical touch to reintroduce survivors to their bodies’ ability to experience pleasure. Those somatic explorations must feel safe. They begin with gentle, patient, self-massage all over, and eventually proceed to self-sexing.
Haines’ approach dovetails with the findings of the recent study. Compared with the women who did not engage in regular solo sex, those who did were significantly less likely to shun sex, and more likely to experience pleasurable partner lovemaking.
Unfortunately, self-sexing remains culturally stigmatized, and for many, a source of shame. The shame often stems from the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, which emphasizes the Bible’s first commandment to human beings: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). As a result, many religious Jews and Christians—Muslims, too—abhor solo sex, declaring that God approves only of heterosexual marital sex with the clear intention of procreation. While many people sometimes engage in sex to have children, many others view sex as a path to pleasure. Around the world, the most popular type of sex is the solo variety.
Self-sexing is not just pleasurable. It’s also therapeutic. It’s fundamental to the treatment of premature ejaculation in men, and women’s difficulties working up to orgasms. The study provides evidence that self-sexing is also therapeutic for CSA (and I bet for post-childhood sexual trauma as well).
Get Professional Help
In one way, the conventional wisdom is correct. CSA and other sexual traumas cause deep psychological damage. Recovery is possible, but it takes time—and usually professional help. Survivors might begin by reading Haine’s book and then working with a trauma-informed psychotherapist, ideally one whose approach incorporates somatic therapy and regular self-massage that includes solo sex.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
