By Suzannah Weiss
There’s been a lot of awareness-raising done lately around women’s sexual empowerment, but not as much has been done for men. And based on my experience coaching men on their sex lives and teaching courses around pleasure and consent, efforts to sexually liberate men are very much needed.
Men come to me with questions about how to initiate sex and ask for consent, how to be sexually free and expressive without being perceived as threatening, and how to recover from their own sexual trauma. Based on their stories and concerns, it’s clear that our sex education system and wider culture fail men as much as women.
Men are taught from a young age that it’s their job to make sex happen, that they’ll miss out on opportunities if they aren’t aggressive enough, and that how many people they’ve slept with determines their worth. And yet they’re also taught that if they’re openly interested in sex, this makes them dirty, gross, or creepy.
I’ve seen these toxic messages hurt men’s self-esteem and their ability to form relationships. But I’ve also seen men learn how to safely embody their true sexual selves—and, in the process, see the light and good that were in their sexuality from the get-go.
To help men unlearn the damaging narratives they learn around their sexuality and replace them with healthier ideas, here are some things I like to teach men about consent—although they really apply to all of us:
1. Your consent matters, too.
Sex education, when it covers consent at all, often focuses on teaching men how to respect women’s boundaries and teaching women how to state and protect their own boundaries. There’s a major problem with this—and it’s not just the way it victim-blames women.
When men are only taught how to ask for consent from someone else, this misses the fact that their consent matters, too.
If you’re a man who’s been sexually assaulted—or experienced something that you’re not sure was completely consensual—this does not make you less of a man. On the contrary, it means you’ve had an experience that’s common among men. A 2005 study1
by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that one in six men had faced sexual abuse by the age of 18. In another survey, around one in 10 men said they’d experienced unwanted sexual contact during college. I’d venture to say that even more did but didn’t recognize it as such.
So, let’s be clear: The same things that are told to women also apply to men. You are never asking for sexual assault. You deserve to be taken seriously. If you say yes and then change your mind, you have the right to ask your partner to stop. Your partner needs to be honest with you about safer sex so that you can make an informed decision. It’s not OK for a partner to guilt you into sex.
And if you are assaulted, help is available. If you need someone to talk to, you can call the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network hotline or chat online with a counselor through the One in Six help line. These people are trained to take men’s (and everyone’s) reports seriously.
2. Consent can be felt in your body.
So often, men (and people of all genders, really) feel like they have to intellectualize consent. What I mean by this is they feel like they have to give a reason why they don’t want to do something. Or to justify why they do want something.
Reasoning your way through consent can sound something like this:
- “Of course I want sex; I’m a guy. Guys always want sex.”
- “I might not get another opportunity if I don’t say ‘yes’ now.”
- “I can’t think of a reason not to, so I guess I should.”
Someone may actually be feeling iffy about an encounter but enter into it anyway because, in their minds, the idea makes logical sense.
To figure out whether you truly consent—rather than just feeling like you should consent—I recommend tuning into your body and emotions. How are you feeling? Are you feeling excited by the prospect of engaging sexually with this person? Are you feeling uncomfortable? Scared? Confused? You might feel many things at once, and it’s a great idea to talk about these feelings with your partner.
If you’re not feeling completely comfortable with the encounter, it’s better to say no or suggest a different activity, then perhaps revisit the possibility again down the line. If there’s a connection with this person, there will probably still be one next week!
And remember, you don’t have to justify your boundaries to your partner or yourself. The feeling of a “no” in your body is enough to say no.
3. Asking for consent can be sexy.
All right, so now for the fun part.
Men often ask me how to ask for consent without ruining the mood or interrupting the flow. And there are plenty of ways to do that.
First, I recommend talking about your sexual desires and preferences before you reach the bedroom. This will make things go much more smoothly once things turn sexual. “How do you like to be kissed?” is a great question to ask a partner before things get physical, or right as they do. This gives them the opportunity to let you know what they enjoy, and you can gauge their interest based on how comfortable they are with the question.
A simple “can I kiss you?” by the way, isn’t at all unsexy. You can also initiate a kiss but rather than touching your lips to theirs, go halfway and see if they meet you.
Any straightforward question will work, really:
- “Do you want my hand on your leg?” (“Do you want my ___ in/on your ____” is generally a good formula.)
- “I’d like to stroke your hair; would you enjoy that?”
If the other person’s into it, describing what you’d like to do will be arousing for them, not awkward. And if they’re not aroused by it, you have your answer—and that was probably their answer before you asked.
When you start getting sexual with someone, another approach you can use is to make a game of asking for consent: “Do you want me to ___? Oh yeah? Beg for it.” “I’ll only do it if you ask nicely. So if you really want it, tell me ‘yes please.'” (Check out mbg’s full dirty talk guide.)
While you’re hooking up, a simple “You good?” or “Anything I can do to make it better?” will help ensure your partner’s consent is ongoing.
Don’t worry too much about how smooth your lines are. If someone’s into you and wants to sleep with you, they’re unlikely to turn you down just because you care about their consent.
4. Consent is not enough.
Even though I teach about consent, I believe we should have a higher standard for our sexual encounters.
Oxford Languages’ definition of consent is “permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.” Kind of weak, no? It doesn’t exactly sound like the state of someone who’s burning with passion and longing.
How about desire: “a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen”? That, to me, is what we should expect from our sexual encounters.
In other words, make sure you’re doing what you desire, not what you’re just OK with. And make sure your partner is clearly desiring the same.
In healthy sexual encounters, both people actively want to engage in whatever’s taking place. When one person is desiring it and the other’s simply agreeing to it, there’s an imbalance.
Everyone deserves sexual partners who are concerned not just with getting what they want themselves but listening to their partner’s desires, wishes, likes, and dislikes.
That goes for any partner you’ll ever have, and it goes for you.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
How BDSM helped me deal with sexual trauma
BDSM is far from the tool of self-destruction that it’s often depicted as in the media.
When we’re asked what looking after our mental health looks like, most of us recite the same answer by rote. Talking therapy, medication for those who need it, and then that nebulous concept of “self care,” which nowadays means anything from journaling to eating well to buying expensive candles. But the reality is that no one’s mental health journey is going to look the same. Each person’s brain, trauma, and way of navigating the world is different and, as a result, individuals have long adopted more personalised ways of staying on top of their mental health, whether it’s exercise for stress or ice cold baths for anxiety. But for some, mental healing can come from a more unexpected place: the latex and leather of BDSM.
While I never thought it would work out this way, this has even been the case for me. Following a sexual assault in 2018 which happened on a busy street, one I still often pass, I found myself withdrawing from sex – feeling hugely disconnected from my body and partners, swallowing down the feeling of not wanting to be touched, counting down the time until any sexual encounter would stop in my head and sometimes crying uncontrollably afterwards. Even now, there are still times when I find intimacy so tough that I dissociate. For anyone who’s not sure what “dissociation” means in this context, let me explain. Basically, when I’m supposed to be “enjoying the moment” something bizarre occurs in my brain – it feels like I’ve extricated myself from my body and am floating, passively watching everything happening from the foot of the bed.
At the time, I never really wanted to talk about my experience in a formal way, but it would often come out as a jagged, hot-teared confession after one too many drinks. Probably, therapy would have been the answer (isn’t it always?) but I started looking for alternative solutions. Inspired by teenage years spent on Tumblr and a summer spent living and working in Berlin, where sex clubs were everywhere, I thought BDSM might be worth a shot. It was a whole culture celebrating around sex, one where all shame was left at the door and pleasure reigned supreme – what if it could help me work through some of baggage, I wondered. And as you’ve probably worked out by the title of this article, it was.
It was the fact that BDSM often involves a lot of up-front negotiations where you talk through and agree upon specific scenes or acts.
But the bit that helped me? Well, it wasn’t even the sex. Instead, it was the fact that BDSM often involves a lot of up-front negotiations where you talk through and agree upon specific scenes or acts. In practice, this means that a) you spend a lot of time talking and b) you kind of know how everything is going to pan out before you even get started. This proved to be a major relief to me after the shock and trauma of what had happened to me previously. It was also a way to begin to slowly trust someone, knowing that we basically had a verbal contract in place, instead of having to dive-in to intimacy. According to my partners at the time, I could never “let go” during sex so it was a huge relief that BDSM presented a judgement-free space of calm and control – even if, as a sub, I was supposedly the one giving up control.
Stripping away BDSM misconceptions
Admittedly, it’s a stereotype that if you’ve suffered from trauma you might gravitate towards BDSM – particularly when you look at depictions of kink in pop culture. Whether it’s the sexual assault that dominatrix Tiffany experiences in Netflix’s Bonding or the childhood abuse that Christian Grey mentions in Fifty Shades of Grey, TV and film writers are more than a little complicit in spreading the preconception, via clunky dialogue, that you’ve got to have suffered trauma to be into kink. But does this have any rooting in real life? Well, away from our screens, research has found a link between child abuse and developing an interest in sadism or masochism later in life. It’s important to remember though that the research here is scant and the link is far from definitive. However, if it does exist, we need to interrogate the ways that we talk and think about this correlation. Rather than viewing a tendency towards BDSM as a “perversion” of “normal” sexuality, what if we saw BDSM rituals as a form of harm reduction, a coping mechanism, or even a type of therapy?
“While participating in BDSM, I was able to look deep within, learn about exactly what I enjoy and what I want, and communicate these things openly and frankly to my partners.”
And while BDSM might be particularly associated with people who have been through a specific type of trauma, it can be helpful to people of many varied experiences. This is the case of Prish, a 25-year-old non-binary person who gravitated towards kink after a childhood where their boundaries and needs weren’t listened to or respected. Having struggled with codependent relationships as a result, it was through BDSM that they were able to connect with their desires and learn how to communicate them. “While participating in BDSM, I was able to look deep within, learn about exactly what I enjoy and what I want, and communicate these things openly and frankly to my partners,” they explain. “When these needs were listened to and respected, and when my pleasure was centred by the people who were domming me, this was incredibly healing.” Ultimately, being able to express what they wanted sexually has had a much wider positive impact. “I felt more empowered than I’d ever felt in my whole life; like I finally had some control over getting what made me happy — and I was able to expand this into other aspects of my life.”
Here, we can see that BDSM is far from the tool of self-destruction that it’s often depicted as in the media. Instead, it can be a way of working through intimate struggles, both sexual and emotional, with people you trust. While for some, it can be a life-long practice, for others it can be something to dip in and out of or to only turn to in a time of need. And different scenes can have different emotional impacts. This is the case for 24-year-old Hannah who, reeling from a serious breakup, staged a life-changing kink encounter. After being involved in BDSM for several years, she began speaking to someone she knew from the scene – and they were able to act out a long-held fantasy of hers. “One thing he’d done and I’d always wanted to try was sexual hunting: think predator/prey play but IRL. We met up for a drink beforehand to discuss boundaries and then the date rolled around for us to do the deed,” Hannah explains.
On the day of the planned encounter, Hannah and her play partner met up in a forest and she was given a “head start” as part of the scenario. This, as she explains, was where an emotional transformation began. “I felt such an exhilarating rush from being chased, like I was running away from my problems,” she says. “It was like I was stepping out of my skin and my sadness.” As per their agreement, Hannah was then “caught” and they both had sex – leading her to an emotional breakthrough. “He asked me what my ex would think if he knew I was doing this and in that moment, I knew I didn’t care anymore. It was so cleansing and cathartic and it gave me the space and sexual confidence to move on with my life — I’ll always be grateful for it.”
Both Prish and Hananh’s experiences focus on the emotional aspect of BDSM, its use as a tool that allowed them to reframe negative experiences and mindsets and reclaim power. While this is their personal experience, there’s even a fledgling line of research that backs it up, looking at how individuals are using kink as a form of trauma recovery. And it’s not too much of a stretch to see how BDSM sometimes mimics techniques seen in talking therapy – Gestalt therapy may even include “role playing” sessions, after all. But while we know that BDSM might be helpful to some people, is there a way to seek it as part of a recognised mental health treatment plan?
How BDSM can be therapeutic
Well, we’re a long way off from seeing BDSM listed as a fully-funded alternative therapy on the NHS website. However, some work has actually already started among mental health professionals willing to explore kink and the role it plays in people’s lives and emotional states. There are more and more kink-positive and BDSM-informed therapists out there and, excitingly, there’s even a growing number of BDSM therapists who combine traditional talking therapy with BDSM sessions. Among these is the conscious kink facilitator and qualified counsellor Divine Theratrix, who offers potential clients the option of integrative talking therapy, somatic healing sessions and animal play classes in order to allow individuals to “get out of their head and into their body in playful and tactile ways.”
The beauty of BDSM is that it’s always been about connecting our physical and emotional selves.
Also going by the name Lara, Divine Theratrix was first inspired to use BDSM as a tool in her work after thinking about how the mind impacts the body. “In addition to being trained as a traditional integrative therapist, I embarked on further studies into the relatively new field of somatic psychology and became convinced that touch could be a missing piece for some people on a journey of trauma healing,” she explains. Somatic psychology focuses on how the body impacts the mind, and has been explored practically through somatic therapies which focus on the body. These techniques focus on regulation of your nervous system (which can become stuck in fight or flight responses) and on creating bodily awareness, and are particularly useful for people with trauma or PTSD.
Obviously, there are plenty of different physical aspects to BDSM and you might not have thought before about how these might impact your brain, but they do. Take one of the most commonly known parts of BDSM: impact play, where your skin is hit with a hand, paddle or whip. While it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, scientists have shown that it has a positive impact on kinksters’ mental health – individuals may have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol after a kink session.
But if we step aside from all this technical stuff, the beauty of BDSM is that it’s always been about connecting our physical and emotional selves. Whether it’s the feel of latex on the skin or the psychological thrill of power play, kink connects us to our bodies, our instincts and allows us to fully embody our emotions. As Lara puts it: “When the mind and body work together, the learning tends to be more impactful.”
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
‘Can we slow down?’
— What it’s like having sex again after sexual trauma
BY Nina Miyashita
It took me four years to realise that what I’d been through was sexual trauma. It was just under a year into my current relationship when I had the revelation.
I knew that my sexual past prior to our relationship was littered with deeply unpleasant experiences, but it took me a long time to be able to accept the whole truth, and its darkest parts – to recognise all the consent that wasn’t given, all the fear I’d chosen to forget, and all the pain I’d bottled up.
Up until that point, my partner and I had a very active and relatively uncomplicated sex life (well, I felt uncomplicated). But it turns out that trauma always has a way of catching up to you. The first sign that my relationship with sex was fractured was when my partner and I took a break from physical intimacy.
Life was busier than usual, so sex was momentarily off the table with our time and energy stretched so thin. The first night we tried to be intimate again after a couple of weeks of abstinence, I couldn’t stop laughing in discomfort.
Understandably, my partner was confused and a little crushed, but I didn’t have the words to explain what I was feeling. All I could manage was, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know why”.
Over the next few months, my response to sex eventually devolved into dissociation – I was there and not there at the same time, floating outside of my body, completely detached. After that came a strong physical aversion. In bed, blurry visions of my past started swimming around in my head. I was trying not to cry out when he went to touch me. Instead, I would just roll away from him and sob.
Starting to panic that we weren’t having ‘enough’ sex, I eventually tried to soldier past all that was holding me back mentally. But this time my body put up the fight, and everything my partner tried was physically excruciating. My body was clearly trying to tell me something, and finally, I surrendered and listened. Once I started listening, I couldn’t help but hear it in every bodily movement, across every inch of my skin: ‘You’re not okay, and we need help’.
Asking the experts
Selina Nguyen, a relationship therapist and sexologist at Good Vibes Clinic, affirms that these are all ways in which sexual trauma can arise for victims/survivors. “These all come under the umbrella of being in fight, flight or freeze mode, and being over your emotional threshold,” Selina says.
“Your rational brain shuts down and goes into survival mode. With all of this, there can also be a narrative in our minds about being broken, damaged or selfish even, and while absolutely none of them are true, the shame around it can make it all very overwhelming.”
Georgia Grace, a certified sex coach with specific training in sexual somatics, explains it further. “Often what will happen to someone with trauma is the nervous system thinking and feeling like the threat is still present,” she says. “They might say ‘I know my current partner is safe, I know that this is something that I want to engage with and experience, but there is something in my body that is telling me that this is unsafe.’”
Seeking help
When looking at what first steps we can take to heal the body and mind when it comes to sex, both Selina and Georgia are quick to recommend therapy. A therapist can guide you, at your own pace, to understand your triggers and relearn intimacy. If you can’t access therapy, free support groups and helplines are a great place to start.
Both professionals also stress the importance of physical practices such as meditation, dance, running or yoga, or self-regulation techniques such as holding comfort items or altering your body’s temperature, which can get you reconnected with your body and stabilise your nervous system. Working on somatic techniques, such as reading non-verbal cues or creating a sense of safety by just starting with lying naked with no touch, and doing this with your current partner/s can also be helpful, they note.
Ella, 22, also knows what the body’s responses to sexual trauma can be like. After leaving a sexually abusive relationship, she had to find a way back to not just sex, but relationships too. “When something like this is done by the person who is never supposed to hurt you, it is hard to imagine ever trusting someone in their position again,” she tells me.
“I have a new partner who is aware of the assault and is extremely conscious of it in our sexual relationship. However, there are still frequent periods where I will be unable to have sex without having a panic attack or becoming dissociative, and this can last for weeks on end. I spent a lot of time feeling guilty and weak, tearing myself down constantly for not being able to move on with my life.
“It felt as though the trauma had rearranged and rewritten my DNA. The advice I would give to anyone in that position is to completely let go of the pressure you have put on yourself to function at a normal level. You can’t. Listen to your body and what it needs. I made it my mission to give myself as much love and care as possible, and to only do things that made me feel joyful and at peace.”
Finding your own path
Learning to listen to your own body might just be the key to healing because there’s definitely no right or wrong way to go about it. In some instances, trauma survivors even seek sex more than ever as a way to amend their sexual attitudes. “There is never a one-size-fits-all for anything in the mental health or sexology space,” Selina says.
“Whether it happened twenty years ago or last month, there’s also no time limit or magic point where it just stops affecting you. We know the basics and the common approaches that have been shown to work – therapy, self-regulation techniques, leaning on your support system, communication – but everyone’s experience and sexuality are so incredibly individual and varied.
“It’s really well known that we need to work with the body with trauma,” Georgia explains. “But it’s also just as useful to acknowledge that safety and pleasure and intimacy and connection and joy are also experienced in the body. If you’re ready to start being intimate with your own body, or other people, know that there are many accessible and practical things you can do to feel safe in your body and good in your relationship/s.”
Coming to terms with what happened to me was horrifying, to say the least, but knowing I can experience pleasure I’ve never realised I’m able to have in my sex life gives me a renewed sense of hope. Being with a partner who is considerate, gentle and willing to take on his own set of responsibilities when it comes to my healing, and being armed with the courage and wisdom of other women around me, I’ve slowly begun to reclaim what was taken from me. I say it over and over again until I’m out of breath: ‘My body is my own’.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault you can call national sexual assault counselling service 1800RESPECT, or head to its website for support and advice.
What Exactly Defines ‘Active Consent’ in Sexual Activity?
Warning: This article contains discussions of sexual assault.
Healthy relationships start with feeling respected and safe which is why it is so important to understand how to go about seeking ‘active’ consent if you are about to engage in any kind of sexual activity. It is never okay for someone to do something to you without an enthusiastic and explicit ‘yes’.
If your decision-making powers are taken away and you are sexually assaulted it is important to know who to turn to and what to do next. Equally important is knowing that there is help out there to support survivors and their loved ones through these difficult times.
At ReachOut (where I work as CEO), we define sexual assault as any kind of sexual activity where you are forced, coerced or tricked into doing when you didn’t want to. It can be carried out by a romantic partner, by someone you know or by a total stranger and includes unwanted sexual behaviours such as forced, unwanted sex, sexual acts or touching, child sexual abuse or indecent assault.
It is a form of trauma that can show up in different ways including shock and denial, fear, silence, anxiety, depression or low self-esteem. If you think you may have been sexually assaulted, you might feel scared, overwhelmed and unsure where or who to turn to. There’s also a chance you might blame yourself for not recognising sooner that what happened to you was sexual assault. The most important thing to remember
is that if you have been sexually assaulted it is never your fault.
There are lots of support services available to support you through these difficult times, as well as a number of immediate steps you can take to help you feel physically and psychologically safe.
If you’ve been sexually assaulted recently, the first step you may want to take in order to feel safe is to call 000 to ask for the police or for an ambulance if you are injured. It can also be a good idea to talk to a trusted friend, family member or colleague or think about calling a confidential 24-hour helpline such as 1800 RESPECT.
Most towns have a free sexual assault clinic or service with trained professionals, like doctors, nurses or counsellors, who can help you with what to do next. They can guide you through your options and answer any questions about things like emergency contraception, rape kits, and sexual health checks, as well as provide emotional support. If there isn’t a sexual assault clinic available to you, you can also go speak to your GP or visit the hospital, and ask for somebody with experience in sexual assault.
If you feel like you might want to take action against your perpetrator it’s a great idea to talk to one of the options above about it and get support when you are ready. Most importantly, there is no ‘right’ way to respond to sexual assault and every survivor’s recovery from sexual assault will look different because there is no set timeline for coming to terms with sexual assault and no set schedule for healing.
This is why it’s so important that, even if you seek help or guidance from other people, you choose what happens next.
2021 Australian of the Year and sexual assault survivor Grace Tame believes that having support around you is so important, as is practicing forms of ‘self-care’ so that you can make sure you’re on a healthy path towards recovery.
“You need to make sure that you have support around you and that you have enough time to take care of yourself properly, and get back in touch with simple meaningful values, family time, downtime, nature, eating well, exercising and sleeping. You really want to get back to your true self,” Tame said.
Additionally, when engaging in sexual activities and seeking consent, it’s so important that you feel respected and safe. ‘Active consent’ means that you and your partner/s give each other an explicit ‘yes’ to the sexual activity you are about to be involved in.
Regardless of what you’re wearing, drinking or if you are flirting with another person, it’s never okay for someone to do something to you without your resounding consent. If the sexual activity is done without your consent, it is considered sexual assault or rape.
These guidelines can help with seeking ‘active’ consent if you are about to engage in any kind of sexual activity:
● Sexual consent must be explicit. There’s only one way to know if someone has given their explicit consent: if they clearly let you know they agree.
● You can always change your mind. You or your sexual partner can decide at any time that you don’t want to keep going. If this happens, both people should stop or it can be deemed sexual assault or rape.
● It’s good to check in with each other. Take notice of your sexual partner’s body language and if they seem tense or uncomfortable, pause and ask them how they’re feeling or tell them how you might be feeling too.
● It’s fine to slow things down or stop. There’s really no reason or rush to have sex or do
anything sexual if you’re not feeling it. It’s important that your partner always respects your feelings.
● Drink and drugs affect consent. If you’re intoxicated, your capacity to make decisions can be affected and your decision might be influenced by drugs and alcohol. This means that if you’re sexual in any way with someone who’s drunk or high and doesn’t know what’s going on and therefore can’t give informed consent, it’s equivalent to sexually assaulting or raping them.
Feeling respected and safe across all aspects of your life is so important to your mental health and wellbeing.
You might like to connect with other people who have gone through similar experiences to you in ReachOut’s Online Community. It is a safe space for young people that is anonymous and available 24/7. You can also check out ReachOut.com for more information and resources.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Advice I Wish I Did Not Have to Offer
An anonymous professor shares guidance on what to do for yourself if your child or another person close to you is sexually assaulted.
March 2020 was an awful month. In most places, it was the beginning of lockdowns in response to COVID-19. For me, it was also when my 17-year-old daughter told me she had been raped. As a gender, women’s and sexuality studies (GWSS) professor with years of experiences supporting my survivor students, I knew enough to tread lightly. But she was my precious baby girl, not my student. So when she told me, my heart shattered into a million pieces and landed in the pit of my stomach.
I woke up every day, from then on, with the rape the first thing I thought of. I knew enough to be able to envision a scenario, even though she shared very few details. She didn’t show any significant signs of PTSD for a long time. She went to college during COVID, so everything was already sideways. The PTSD kicked in, however, soon after she left. Fast-forward several months, and after many sob-filled phone calls, she eventually agreed to let me find a therapist for her when she came home. I found a trauma-informed woman who was taking patients, and I spent a rushed summer next to my daughter on bathroom floors as the trauma wreaked havoc on her precious body. We tried everything from art to yoga to meds to diet. We celebrated if we went 24 hours without either of us crying. We laughed when we could, often at our own fragility.
Rape used to be something that hurt and enraged me in the abstract. Given that I am a GWSS professor who has taught about sexual assault, violence and rape—and cared for survivors for decades—I had much intellectual insight with which to watch her pain. Eventually I realized that as she got better, which she absolutely did, I got worse. I needed a trauma therapist because I was broken. I wasn’t “on the verge”; I was on the floor in a puddle of my daughter’s PTSD and my pain, experiencing secondary trauma.
I am proud of what I did for my daughter. I believe my efforts helped to get her into a place where, two years in, she is generally thriving and her PTSD is mostly managed, although the bouts of deep sorrow and anxiety continue to punctuate her (and thus my) life. But I’m not writing to offer advice about my daughter. Instead, I write this essay as a GWSS professor to other professors, especially those who find yourselves in contact with students who frequently disclose their own sexual assaults, or who have had the horrific experience of a child or another person close to you personally being sexually assaulted or raped. I want to share some suggestions on what to do for yourself.
- Know it wasn’t your fault. Sadly, rape culture is so pervasive that even GWSS professors who teach about it will often blame ourselves for our loved one’s rape. If you are a feminist like me, you started talking to your daughter quite young about slut shaming and all of the double standards for boys and girls in school. Your daughter has heard your rants. If you are like me, then, you may have thought she was raped because she respected your opinions so much that she was sexually liberated and that led her to the rapist. It took me talking to a therapist to be able to articulate she was raped by a boy/man who abused his power and disregarded her wishes, not because of my parenting.
- Look into paid time off through sick leave. I didn’t know that I could be granted a sick leave. My doctor submitted a form that verified I could not work due to clinical depression and anxiety brought on by daughter’s sexual assault. This made me eligible for paid leave for the semester. I only learned of that option because a staffer had seen me crumbling and told me to look into it. No doubt, different campuses and people’s individual job statuses will allow for different accommodations. For the sake of anonymity, I cannot disclose more, but some options are federally guaranteed, some are provided through union membership and perhaps others your HR office can share with you.
- Reach out for support. Find the right friends and colleagues to tell, with your daughter’s permission. Sadly, it’s possible they will be able to relate to your experience more than you expect.
- Get a good, trauma-informed therapist. It took me at least three months to find a therapist who had the credentials and expertise I was looking for and who was taking new patients. Cognitive processing therapy is an amazing approach. You can get a sense of it from this podcast. Look for therapists who use it.
- Establish boundaries with your students. One of the things that terrified me the most about going back to in-person classes was the unending flow of disclosures of sexual assault that GWSS professors get, compounded by basic emotional labor that women and/or minoritized faculty already do. I am working with my campus’s victim advocate on language that lets students know I hear them but I can’t be their entire support system.
- Talk to your sons. Our high school and college boys need to be the ones to stop each other from assaulting their peers. I have spoken often with my son about consent and sexual assault and other key issues. It’s not enough, as I have written elsewhere, to say or know that “my son would never do that.” You need to talk to your son about preventing other boys from “doing that.” Don’t let him slut shame the girls or stay silent when he inevitably hears people slut shaming. Talk until he’s annoyed and rolls his eyes at you. And if you have Netflix, have him watch Sex Education.
- Self-care. I wish I had a better word, because I really am over “self-care,” as the concept has been so commodified and feels so elite. But in addition to the big-picture stuff I have already suggested, carve out time every day to do something that you find mentally and emotionally nourishing. As professors, we’ve learned early how to cherish our regular writing time. Well, as Janet Alexander and Beth Kelch remind us, we must do the same with self-care. Block out 30 minutes (at least) on your calendar every day and use it for just for you.
Navigating my daughter’s rape is the hardest thing I have ever done from all perspectives—as a mother, wife, professor, daughter and person who needs to take care of herself. For those of you in similar situations, I hope this piece gives you a glimmer of stability and hope.
How to get consent for sex
(and no, it doesn’t have to spoil the mood)
New South Wales and Victoria are set to introduce a suite of reforms to sexual offences legislation which set a new standard for sexual consent. Both states will implement an affirmative model of consent.
Affirmative consent is based on the idea that someone who is consenting to sex will actively express this through their words and actions – it’s the presence of an “enthusiastic yes”, rather than the absence of a “no”.
So what’s changing, and what does that mean for how we negotiate sex?
By law, you will need to actively seek consent
The Victorian and NSW reforms place a higher onus on the accused.
Current legislation stipulates that while any steps taken by the accused to ascertain consent should be taken into account in determining whether their belief in consent was “reasonable”, they are not required to have actively sought consent. This means an accused person could argue they had “belief” in consent, without actually taking any action to confirm this belief.
Under the new model, if an accused did not take steps to ascertain consent, their belief in consent is considered to be unreasonable. Silence or a lack of resistance cannot indicate consent.
If an accused wanted to mount a defence that they held a “reasonable belief” in the other person’s consent, they would have to demonstrate what steps or actions they took to make sure the other person was consenting.
It is hoped this will lead to an emphasis on the actions of the accused, rather than scrutinising the complainant’s behaviour. These are important improvements in the way the legal system responds to sexual assault.
No, it doesn’t mean signing a consent form
Affirmative consent means all partners should consciously and voluntarily agree to participate in sexual activity.
Responsibility for consent should be mutual, meaning all parties involved need to ensure they have obtained consent.
Affirmative consent can also be withdrawn at any time – it’s an ongoing process, not a one off “yes” at the start of an encounter.
Some people suggest affirmative consent makes sex “awkward” or “formulaic”. We’re often asked if this means we need to have our partners sign a consent form at the beginning of an encounter.
Others say having to constantly “check in” with a partner can spoil the mood or remove the spontaneity of sex.
As New Zealand comedy Flight of the Conchords reminded us, ‘a kiss is not a contract’.
Not only does an affirmative model help to ensure your partner is actively consenting to sex, it can also help enhance pleasure and fun.
So how do you actually get consent?
Here are some ways you might approach consent under an affirmative model:
Ask your partner how they like to be touched, or what they would like to do. Questions like “how does that feel” or “would you like it if I did XXX” can help ascertain consent but also ensure sex is pleasurable!
Some companies have produced cards to help facilitate this conversation with a partner. Kink communities, such as BDSM groups, often have well-established protocols for talking about consent, and there’s arguably much we could learn from them.
Pay attention to all of the cues and forms of communication a partner is using. This includes what they say, but also their body language, gestures, noises, and emotional expression.
If a partner is passive, silent, crying, or looking upset, these are all red flags that they are not consenting. If there’s any doubt about whether your partner/s are into what’s happening, stop and check in with them again.
If you’re still unsure, it’s best to end the encounter.
Is the other person intoxicated or drug affected? If so, they might not legally be able to consent to sex. While some people do use alcohol or other drugs to enhance sexual pleasure (for example, in Chemsex), this is something that needs to be carefully negotiated.
Again, if in any doubt, it’s always best to stop.
Consider the context, and the nature of the relationship between yourself and your partner/s. For example, are you in a position of power over the other person/people? This could be on account of your age, gender, employment status and so on.
If the answer is “yes”, exercise caution. Is it possible the other person could feel pressured or unable to say no to you?
While research suggests non-verbal communication is the most common way people communicate consent, people can misinterpret non-verbal cues. So it’s best not to rely on reading non-verbal cues alone.
Try using verbal consent as well (or the use of sign language or written communication for people who are non-verbal). This doesn’t have to be awkward, or contractual, and consent can be communicated through dirty talk.
Asking a partner what they like also allows you to learn about their body and what feels good, rather than just guessing what they might find pleasurable.
Beyond affirmative consent
While affirmative consent certainly provides a better framework for sexual communication than just waiting for someone to say “no” (or simply assuming the other person consents), it also has limitations.
People may still affirmatively consent to sex they do not want for various reasons. Consenting to sex may be the safer option in an abusive relationship, for example. People also often engage in sex due to peer pressure or because they feel it is their duty as a partner.
Our sexual scripts and dominant gender norms can also make it difficult to enact affirmative consent in practice.
Young women, for example, are often socialised to be polite, compliant, and pleasing to others. Sexual double standards presenting women as “sluts” or “whores” for actively engaging in and enjoying sex persist. As a result, it can be difficult for some women to openly express their sexual wants and desires.
Affirmative consent is less able to take into account the broader structural and social factors that make saying “yes” or “no” difficult, or that mean we sometimes “consent” to unwanted sex.
While affirmative consent is vital, you might also want to think about how you can ensure your partners feel comfortable and safe to express their needs, desires, and what feels good.
You also want to make sure they feel comfortable to say “no” at any time without any ramifications.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Stealthing: What is it and why is it sexual assault?
BY COBY RENKIN
We’re all taught about sexual assault growing up and we all hear about it in the news when it unfortunately occurs. We hear about online and workplace harassment, inappropriate name-calling and touching, and we hear about rape.
But what many of us don’t hear about is the act of stealthing. Stealthing is a form of sexual assault punishable by the law in some parts of Australia, but many Australians have never even heard of it.
So what is stealthing? Senior lecturer in criminology and justice Dr Brianna Chesser describes stealthing as the “non-consensual condom removal during sex. In this case, the removal of a condom would require ‘fresh consent’, as it has legally changed the conditions of the sexual act”.
According to Dr Chesser, stealthing affects more members of our community than we might think. “A 2018 study by Monash University and the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre surveyed 2,000 people and found one in three women, and almost one in five men who have sex with men, had experienced stealthing.” Only one per cent of the victims who responded to this survey reported the incident to the police.
As Dr Chesser explains, stealthing is a sexual offence and could be punishable by law. “Committing a sexual offence in any jurisdiction in Australia is a very serious crime and could lead to a term of imprisonment.”
But unfortunately, not every state or territory in Australia reflects this. Laws in the ACT recently changed to outlaw stealthing; the amended Crimes Act now makes it illegal to remove a condom during sex or to not use one at all, if a previous agreement was made to use one.
While this is good news, they were the first jurisdiction in Australia to do so, meaning that there are no laws expressly criminalising the act in the rest of Australia. However, this doesn’t mean a person cannot be convicted for stealthing – a conviction is dependent on existing consent laws and can fall under the offences of rape or sexual assault.
A paper by Alexandra Brodsky in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law describes stealthing as “rape-adjacent” and states it should be understood as a violation of consent.
Like any violation of consent, stealthing presents a risk to the health of victims. “Stealthing poses a multitude of risks to both physical and psychological health, including the transmission of sexually transmitted infections and HIV, as well as unplanned pregnancies, depression, anxiety, and in some cases post-traumatic stress disorder,” Dr Chesser tells me.
In the study by Monash University, eight per cent of women and five per cent of men who have sex with men reported that they believed they had acquired an STI following the incident. One per cent of women and two per cent of men who have sex with men believed they had acquired HIV as a consequence of being stealthed.
Brodsky’s paper describes being a victim of stealthing as “a disempowering, demeaning violation of a sexual agreement”. Like any other form of sexual assault, stealthing can result in devastating consequences for a victim’s mental health. Fear following the trauma of sexual assault can evolve into anxiety, depression, PTSD and suicidal ideation.
Despite all the negativity here, important conversations about stealthing are growing and awareness is spreading. Incidents are being taken seriously, it’s being talked about in the news and it has even featured in pop culture.
In Michaela Coel’s acclaimed TV series I May Destroy You, the protagonist Arabella finds out a man she slept with secretly took off his condom during sex, and names and shames him. Here’s hoping with more awareness and harsher laws, stealthing becomes a thing of the past.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
How do we talk to teens about sex in a world of porn?
Teenage boys’ easy access to violent sexual images is creating a crisis for them – and for women, argues the anti-porn campaigner
By Julie Bindel
Violence against women is never far from the news, but currently it is high on the agenda – and porn features again and again as a factor. From the murder of Sarah Everard to the paltry sentence handed down to Sam Pybus, the latest man to use the so-called “rough sex defence”, it seems the world is riven with misogyny.
Sarah’s killer Wayne Couzens was attracted to “brutal sexual pornography”, the court heard during his trial. Pybus – who was sentenced to four years and eight months last month for manslaughter after strangling a vulnerable woman during sex – was also known to use violent porn. Tackling porn culture is clearly a key part of tackling sexual violence towards women. I have campaigned to end the sex trade for decades, and am well aware of its role in the sexual exploitation of women.
Last weekend, the very first virtual international conference about how to teach sex education from a feminist perspective and a porn-critical lens took place. Taking On Porn: Developing Resilience and Resistance through Sex Education was organised by Culture Reframed, a US-based NGO founded by the academic and anti-porn activist Gail Dines. Part of it focused on how to help parents to have conversations with their children about what Dines calls the “public health crisis of the digital age”.
Inspired partly by demand from the UK educational world, the conference is responding to concerns from many parents about “pro-porn” programmes running in some schools since relationship and sex education became mandatory in September 2020.
Dines points to one teacher guide that puts forward the argument, “Porn is entertainment, like a film, not a ‘how to’ guide. However, that doesn’t mean people can’t learn things from porn they might not learn in other places. Just as movies can sometimes contain valuable insights, so can porn.”
In this guide, porn consumption is likened to having a sweet tooth: “Porn is a bit like a chocolate cake, it’s nice to enjoy it every now and then but if you have it for lunch every day it’s no longer a treat and becomes the norm, then you’re just in a cycle of eating chocolate cake because you’re too busy eating it to make anything else.”
But, as Dines points out, today’s online content is nothing like the now defunct Playboy magazine. In short, it has become more sadistic and extreme. One influential study found that about 90% of the most commonly viewed heterosexual porn scenes contained aggression and violence towards women and girls.
Online pornography has become the primary form of sex education for young people, and the average age for kids to start accessing it is 11. Porn sites get more visits each month than Amazon, Twitter and Netflix combined.
“Many sex ed teachers feel ill equipped to tackle the issue of porn use among their students,” says Dines, the author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. For Dines, because porn has become the leading form of sex education globally, the conference is an essential part of bringing sex education up to date. She believes that pornography acts as a kind of cultural script, which exploits women and at the same time limits their free sexual expression and pleasure. Parents have been telling Culture Reframed about how concerned they feel about their children’s viewing of porn, with one saying: “My daughter was bullied into sending a sext by her boyfriend, who then sent it to his friends. Culture Reframed’s online resources not only gave us the ability to help her, but also gave us insights into the ways our hypersexualised culture victimises girls.”
Tom Farr, a UK-based campaigner against male violence, with a particular focus on the harms caused by pornography, and spoke at the conference. His talk looked at the links between porn use and likelihood of committing acts of sexual violence, as well as health issues such as depression, PTSD, and even erectile dysfunction.
“Porn has become the de facto form of sex education for many young men and boys,” says Farr. “They have unfettered access to the most degrading, violent and abusive content imaginable at the click of a button. What are the individual and societal implications of a generation of young people groomed by exposure to hardcore porn?”
Another speaker was critical race theorist and feminist Dr Carolyn West, an expert in violence against African American women and girls, who condemned the racist sexualisation of women of colour in porn.
The UK academic Dr Fiona Vera-Gray, whose work on women’s experience of mainstream online pornography has been included in the development of the Department for Education’s relationships and sex education curriculum, discussed women and porn use. Women do use porn, but often to explore what might be expected of them sexually.
Lilith and Savannah, hosts and producers of the Female Dating Strategy podcast looked at how to build healthy relationships.
I spoke to Adam*, 17, who is writing an essay on his former porn consumption. Adam, who refers to himself as “porn-free”, says he felt pressured into porn use by friends. “It became a habit I couldn’t break,” he says, “and I started looking at girls and imagining them doing the stuff I saw in the videos. I stopped seeing them as human beings.”
Sarah*, 18, says she is looking to set up a “Girls against porn” group for 16-year-olds and over because she is “disgusted at porn-sick boys sending unwanted dick pics” to her younger sister and her school friends.
Like other feminist campaigners against the sex trade, Dines has been accused of being an anti-sex moralist who wishes to censor sexual expression, but, she says, nothing could be further from the truth. “Any progressive, humanitarian approach should focus on dismantling the porn industry,” says Dines, “and not the continuation of its insidious commercialisation of abuse and misery.”
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Ending Misogynoir and Domestic Violence
By Sikivu Hutchinson
Over Our Dead Bodies
Audre Lorde once wrote that “there is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single issue lives”. Lorde was a literary badass who never held her tongue or shied away from calling out how white supremacy and Black sexism led to “scarred, broken, battered and dead daughters and sisters” whose trauma never makes headlines. When I desperately needed Lorde’s voice in my teens and twenties, I became one of those battered sisters, surviving intimate partner violence in a world where “good” Black women did not buck Black patriarchy, the Black church or any other symbol of Black gender orthodoxy. Then, as now, these institutions demanded that survivors remain silent about domestic violence and sexual abuse.
This 21st century culture of silence is especially pronounced when it comes to Black women’s experiences with gun violence in the context of intimate partner violence and sexual violence.
This 21st century culture of silence is especially pronounced when it comes to Black women’s experiences with gun violence in the context of intimate partner violence and sexual violence. As the U.S. marks the grim milestone of 240 plus mass shootings this year, every day, Black men, Black women, and Black communities continue to shoulder the disproportionate weight of normalized death and violence. In April in Chicago, 7 year-old Jaslyn Thomas was gunned down at a local McDonalds, becoming the third child to die from gun violence there this year.
According to Everytown Policy and Research, African Americans “experience nearly 10 times the gun homicides, 15 times the gun assaults, and three times the fatal police shootings of white Americans”. Nonetheless, gun violence in African American communities is marginalized as well as pathologized. It is viewed as a symptom of the racist stereotype that Black folks in the “inner city” are more prone to criminal violence. And it is downplayed in mainstream narratives about the prevalence of gun violence.
Commenting in Essence Magazine, former Ohio Congressional candidate Desiree Tims wrote, “As devastating as it is to acknowledge, America’s gun violence problem particularly haunts Black women; our sons, brothers and fathers are 10 times more likely to die from gun violence than their White counterparts. Equally as troubling, Black women die from gun-related domestic partner abuse at disproportionately higher rates than any other group” and Black women are more likely to die from gun violence than are white men. These two key facts continue to drive a wedge in racial justice activism.
Time and again, Black women across sexuality and gender identity (for example, Black trans women have the highest homicide rates among trans women in the nation) are mowed down in disproportionate numbers, yet the stigma around Black feminist anti-violence prevention education and engagement remains. Despite the fact that domestic and sexual violence affect the bodies of women of color every day, “quietly”, under the radar, domestic violence generally only pricks public consciousness when there is a high profile tragedy against white women or a mass shooting rampage committed by a stalker-abuser.
As the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) noted recently, “Such violence has long been a public health issue and central concern for all women, and Black women in particular. Yet it has been largely overlooked by the public, state, and judicial systems.”
In March, the AAPF released a series of memes on the impact of “private violence” on Black women and girls. Black women are 2.5 times more likely to die by homicide. Be they trans or cis, the majority are killed by an intimate partner or relative. Black women are also more likely to experience sexual harassment at work. Normalized violence, coupled with systemic disparities in wages and health care access, have devastating implications for young Black girls into adulthood.
In schools where youth have little to no sexual harassment prevention education, victim-blaming and shaming of Black girls are legion. When there is no attention to the culturally specific ways Black girls are hypersexualized and “adultified” — both by the dominant white culture and African American culture — Black girls are targeted as unrapeable aggressors who provoke violence by flouting respectability. And when there continues to be denial about the gravity of sexual assault, rape, and domestic violence in Black communities, all Black children and Black people suffer.
For example, in California, where homelessness among African Americans has skyrocketed, one in three Black women have experienced intimate partner and domestic violence. Domestic violence is one of the leading catalysts for homelessness among women. Yet, as the Little Hoover Commission recently noted, “California does not have a substantial prevention or early intervention program.”
In April, the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence asked the state legislature for over $15 million from the Department of Public Health to coordinate statewide sexual and domestic violence prevention efforts. Part of that funding would go to prevention education, as well as food, transportation, and childcare for survivors. A core piece would provide assistance to young men and boys who are experiencing domestic abuse-related trauma.
The Partnership’s campaign for greater state funding is especially critical given the grave impact Covid shutdowns, layoffs, and school closures have had on women and girls of color globally. According to a 2021 California Study on Violence Experiences Across the Lifespan (Cal-Vex), reports of physical violence against women, including threats with a weapon, increased from 4% in 2020 to 7% in 2021. Globally, there was a 25% increase in violence against women, while a majority of shelters and DV (domestic violence) providers were forced to curtail or cancel services due to
Covid. Only 22% of all individuals experiencing abuse reported seeking mental or medical intervention. And 8 in 10 Californians support alternatives to incarceration for domestic abusers, and, not surprisingly, fewer Black and Latinx folks believe police are effective in violence intervention (former Assemblymember and current State Senator Sydney Kamlager has sponsored a bill that would institutionalize community-based alternatives to emergency response).
In the midst of escalating racialized state violence and terrorism, the focus on ending rape culture and domestic violence must not dim. Creating culturally responsive K-12 domestic and sexual violence prevention education that examines how legacies of white supremacy, misogynoir, colonization, segregation, heterosexism, and economic inequality shape sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and intimate partner violence is critical.
Ensuring that this curriculum is mandatory for all youth across gender and sexual orientation beginning in late elementary or middle school is essential. Ensuring that boys and young men are trained to be allies in identifying, questioning, and ultimately disrupting sexual harassment and sexual violence is fundamental. Ensuring that queer lived experiences and that of disabled youth of color are valued, lifted up, and made visible, is also essential. Although California passed a sweeping CA Healthy Youth Act in 2016 mandating comprehensive HIV/AIDS and sexual violence prevention instruction for middle through high school grades, most students only receive piecemeal instruction if any.
On June 16th, youth and adult allies from the #Standing4BlackGirls task force and coalition will address these issues at the 2021 annual Future of Feminism conference which is dedicated to spearheading community-based solutions to end sexual violence and rape culture against Black girls and girls of color. At the beginning of the year, the task force spearheaded a wellness initiative fund to provide free culturally competent therapy services for Black cis/straight and queer female-identified survivors in partnership with the BIPOC queer-affirming Open Paths Counseling Center in Los Angeles.
Making this resource accessible to more young women, as well as developing a California state bill that provides mandatory anti-racist and queer-affirming domestic and sexual violence prevention education, are priorities of the task force. Investing in prevention and Black girls’ self-determination will ensure that the deadly reality of “one in three” broken, battered and dead sisters comes to an end.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
How sex surrogates are helping injured Israeli soldiers
In many countries surrogate sex therapy – in which a person is hired to act as a patient’s sexual partner – is controversial, and not widely practised. In Israel, however, it is available at government expense for soldiers who have been badly injured and need sexual rehabilitation.
By Yolande Knell and Phil Marzouk
The Tel Aviv consultation room of Israeli sex therapist Ronit Aloni looks much as you would expect. There is a small comfy couch for her clients and biological diagrams of male and female genitalia, which she uses for explanation.
But what happens in the neighbouring room, which has a sofabed and candles, is more surprising.
This is where paid surrogate partners help teach some of Aloni’s clients how to have intimate relationships and ultimately, how to have sex.
“It doesn’t look like a hotel – it looks more like a house, like an apartment,” says Aloni. There’s a bed, a CD player, an adjoining shower – and erotic artwork adorns the walls.
“Sex therapy is, in many ways, couple therapy and if somebody doesn’t have a partner then you cannot complete the process,” she goes on. “The surrogate – she or he – they’re there to model the partner role in a couple.”
Although critics liken this to prostitution, in Israel it has become accepted to the extent that the state covers the cost for soldiers with injuries that affect their ability to have sex.
“People need to feel they can pleasure somebody else and that they can get pleasure from somebody else,” says Aloni, who has a doctorate in sexual rehabilitation.
“People are coming for therapy. They’re not coming for pleasure. There is nothing similar to prostitution,” she adds firmly.
“Also, 85% of the sessions are [about] intimacy, touching, giving and receiving, communicating – it’s about learning to be a person and how you relate to other people. By the time you have a sexual relationship, that’s the end of the process.”
Mr A, as he wants to be known, was one of the first soldiers who got Israel’s Ministry of Defence to pay for sex surrogate therapy after a life-changing accident nearly 30 years ago, when he was an army reservist.
A fall from a height left him paralysed from the waist down and unable to have sex in the ways that he had previously.
“When I was injured I made a list ‘To Do,'” he says. “I have to [be able to] do a shower by myself, I have to eat, dress by myself, to drive by myself and have sex independently.”
Mr A was already married with children, but his wife did not feel comfortable talking about sex to doctors and therapists, so she encouraged him to seek help from Aloni.
He explains how Aloni gave directions and feedback to him and his surrogate partner before and after each session.
Mr A argues it was right for the state to pay for his weekly sessions, just as it did other parts of his rehabilitation. Today the cost of a three-month treatment programme is $5,400.
“It wasn’t the goal of my life to go to a surrogate, OK, I was injured and I want[ed] to rehabilitate in every aspect of my life,” he says, sitting in his wheelchair, in a tracksuit, on his way to play table tennis.
“I didn’t fall in love with my surrogate. I was married. It was just to study the technique of how to get to the goal. I took it as a very logical thing that I have to do.”
He blames Western hang-ups about sex for any misconceptions.
“Sex is part of life, it’s the satisfaction of life,” he says. “It’s not that I’m being Casanova, this is not the issue.”
A steady stream of people of different ages and backgrounds visits Aloni discreetly at her clinic.
Many are struggling to have a romantic relationship because of intimacy issues or anxiety, or have suffered sexual abuse. Others have physical and mental health conditions.
Aloni has focused particularly on disabled clients since the start of her career. Several of her close relatives had disabilities including her father, a pilot, who suffered a brain injury after a plane crash.
“All my life I was next to people having to deal with and overcome different disabilities,” she says. “All these people were very well rehabilitated and so I had this very optimistic approach.”
Aloni became close to a surrogate who worked with disabled people while studying in New York.
When she came back to Israel in the late 1980s, she gained the approval of leading rabbis for the use of sexual surrogates and started providing therapy at a rehabilitation centre on a religious kibbutz – a rural community.
The rabbis had one rule – no married men or married women could be surrogates – and Aloni has followed it ever since.
Over time, she has won backing from the Israeli authorities. Out of about 1,000 people who have had surrogate sex therapy at her clinic, dozens have been injured army veterans – many with brain trauma or spinal cord injuries, whose treatment has been funded by the state.
Aloni believes that Israel’s family-oriented culture and its attitude towards its armed forces has worked in her favour. At 18, most Israelis are called up for military service and they can continue as reserve soldiers into middle age.
“We are in a war situation all the time since the country was established,” she says.
“Everybody in Israel knows people who were injured, or died and everybody has a positive approach to compensating these people. We feel obliged to them.”
A tall man of about 40 is sitting in his garden in central Israel with a blanket across his lap. He is a former reserve soldier whose life was shattered in the 2006 Lebanon War.
David – as we will call him – was left unable to talk or move.
He can only communicate with the help of his occupational therapist – if she supports his arm and holds a pen in his hand, he can write on a whiteboard.
“I was just an ordinary person. I’d just got back from a trip to the Far East. I was studying in university and worked as a barman. I used to love sports and being with friends,” David says.
When his military unit came under attack, he suffered serious leg and head injuries and went on to spend three years in hospital.
During that time, he says he lost the will to live.
Things only began to turn around after his occupational therapists suggested surrogate sex therapy.
“When I started the surrogate therapy, I felt like a loser, like nothing. In therapy. I started feeling like a man, young and handsome,” David says.
“It was the first time that I felt that since my injury. It gave me strength and it gave me hope.”
This was an intimate relationship that David started, knowing that it would have to end. So was there a risk that he would be emotionally hurt?
“Initially, it was difficult for me because I wanted the surrogate all to myself,” he says. “But I realised that even if we’re not partners, we’re still good friends. And it’s worth it. It’s worth everything. It just helps you rebuild yourself all over again.”
While the usual rules are that surrogates and clients cannot be in contact outside of the therapy, David and his surrogate – a woman who uses the alias Seraphina – were given special permission by Dr Aloni’s clinic to stay in touch when their sessions ended.
Since the treatment, those close to David say they have seen a transformation in him. He has been focusing on plans for the future.
While having a sex life remains very difficult, before Covid-19 struck he had begun socialising more, going out with the help of his carers.
Seraphina has worked as a surrogate with Ronit Aloni for over a decade. She is slim with bobbed hair and is warm and articulate.
Recently she published a book about her experiences. Titled More than a Sex Surrogate, the publishers describe it as “a unique memoir about intimacy, secrets and the way we love”.
Like all of the surrogate partners at the Tel Aviv clinic, Seraphina has another job. Hers is in the arts. She says she took on her role for altruistic reasons.
“All those people that suffer under the [surface] and have all those hidden secrets that they walk around with, I really wanted to help because I knew I had the ability,” she explains.
“I had no problem with the idea of using sexuality or my body or touch in the therapy process. And the subject was fascinating to me, sexuality was fascinating to me.”
Seraphina describes herself as “like a tour guide”, saying she takes clients on a journey in which she knows the way.
You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman
She has worked with about 40 clients, including another soldier, but says that the severity of David’s injuries posed a unique challenge. She learned how to help him to write so that they could chat privately.
“David is the most extreme case ever known. It was like walking in a desert – you had no idea of the direction [in which] to go,” she says.
“I had to be very, very creative because he doesn’t move at all. I moved his body as I imagined he would have moved if he could. He felt his body but he could not move it.
“He always said: ‘She knows exactly what I want, even if I don’t say anything.’ So, it was really flattering.”
While being a surrogate, Seraphina has had boyfriends who, she says, accept what she does. But she knows other women and men who have stopped acting as surrogates for the sake of their personal partners or to get married.
She explains that saying goodbye to clients after they have been intimate is necessary but can be difficult.
“I say, it’s like going to a vacation. We have an opportunity to have a wonderful relationship for a certain short time and do we take it or give it up?
“And it’s the happiest break-up anybody can have. It’s for good reasons. I can cry sometimes, but at the same time, I’m so happy.
“When I hear that anybody is in a relationship or had a baby or got married, it’s unimaginable how happy and thrilled and thankful I am for what I do.”
Late in the evening, Ronit Aloni is still working, giving an online lecture to a group of sexologists from Europe and as far afield as South America.
She recounts cases and quotes studies suggesting surrogacy is more effective than classic psychological therapy at treating sexual problems.
“This is most interesting, those therapists who did already work with surrogates all of them said that they will do it again,” she tells them.
With modern surgery helping more severely wounded soldiers to survive she believes surrogate treatment could be used more widely.
“You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman,” she says.
“You cannot ignore this part in our life. It’s very important, powerful. It’s the centre of our personality. And you cannot just talk about it. Sexuality is something dynamic, is something that has to be between us and other people.”
In Aloni’s view, modern society has developed unhealthy attitudes towards sex.
“We know how to joke about sexuality. We know how to humiliate people, we know to be very conservative or too extreme about sexuality,” she says.
“It’s never really balanced. It’s never weaved into our life in the way it’s supposed to be, and sexuality – it’s life. This is how we bring life. It’s nature!”
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
Know your sexual rights
By Dr. Mary Goebel-Komala
In her book “The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse,” sex therapist Wendy Maltz lists the following sexual rights:
• The right to develop healthy attitudes about sex
• The right to sexual privacy
• The right to protection from bodily invasion and harm
• The right to say no to sexual behavior
• The right to control touch and sexual contact
• The right to stop sexual arousal that feels inappropriate or uncomfortable
• The right to develop our sexuality according to our sexual preferences and orientation
• The right to enjoy healthy sexual pleasure and satisfaction
This list was written with victims of child sexual abuse in mind, but we all could benefit from using it to prompt questions about our own sexual health. Here are some questions to get you
started:
What were the most important influences that shaped my sexual attitudes? Do the attitudes I have lead to sexual behavior that is healthy for me? Do my sexual behaviors put me at risk for adverse consequences? Was I comfortable with the amount of privacy I had growing up? Am I able to get enough privacy now? If not, how can I arrange to have more privacy? Was there someone in my past who invaded or harmed my body? If so, how did others in my life respond when I told them? Am I ready to address this with a counselor now? Do I feel I have the right to say no to touch or sexual contact? If I don’t feel I have the right to say no, why not? What internal attitudes or outside pressures make me feel that I don’t have the right to say no? Have I ever experienced uncomfortable or inappropriate sexual arousal? Did I feel safe stopping the uncomfortable or inappropriate encounter? Do I understand that sexual arousal is a biological process that can happen during any sexual encounter, even an abusive one? Do I blame myself for becoming aroused? Did becoming aroused make me believe I wanted the sexual contact, even though I didn’t? Do I believe I have the right to enjoy healthy sexual pleasure and satisfaction? Do my past experiences or current attitudes hamper my ability to enjoy this aspect of my human experience? How does anxiety affect my ability to enjoy my sexuality?
Examining your personal history of sexual rights violations will help you understand how those experiences influence your current sexual health.
Not as simple as ‘no means no’
— what young people need to know about consent
A recent petition circulated by Sydney school girl Chanel Contos called for schools to provide better education on consent, and to do so much earlier.
In the petition, which since Thursday has been signed by more than 5,000 people, Contos writes that her school
… provided me with life changing education on consent for the first time in year 10. However, it happened too late and came with the tough realisation that amongst my friends, almost half of us had already been raped or sexually assaulted by boys from neighbouring schools.
So, what core information do young people need to know about consent? And is the Australian curriculum set up to teach it?
What’s in the curriculum?
This is not the first time young people have criticised their school programs. Year 12 student Tamsin Griffiths recently called for an overhaul to school sex education after speaking to secondary students throughout Victoria. She advocated for a program that better reflects contemporary issues.
Australia’s health and physical education curriculum does instruct schools to teach students about establishing and maintaining respectful relationships. The resources provided state all students from year 3 to year 10 should learn about matters including:
- standing up for themselves
- establishing and managing changing relationships (offline and online)
- strategies for dealing with relationships when there is an imbalance of power (including seeking help or leaving the relationship)
- managing the physical, social and emotional changes that occur during puberty
- practices that support reproductive and sexual health (contraception, negotiating consent, and prevention of sexually transmitted infections and blood-borne viruses)
- celebrating and respecting difference and diversity in individuals and communities.
Despite national guidance, there is wide variability in how schools interpret the curriculum, what topics they choose to address and how much detail they provide. This is further compounded by a lack of teacher training.
A study of students in South Australia and Victoria, along with repeated nationwide surveys of secondary students, have shown young people do consider school to be a trustworthy source of sex education. But most don’t believe the lessons have prepared them adequately for relationships and intimacy.
They want lessons that take into account diverse genders and sexualities, focus less on biology, and provide more detail about relationships, pleasure and consent.
The national curriculum also stops mandating these lessons after year 10 and many year 11 and 12 timetables are focused on university entrance exams or vocational learning opportunities. This means senior students have limited opportunity to receive formal sex education at a time when they really need it.
So, what should young people know about consent?
The term “consent” is often associated with sex, but it’s much broader than that. It relates to permission and how to show respect for ourselves and for other people. Consent should therefore be addressed in an age-appropriate way across all years of schooling.
The most important point about consent is that everyone should be comfortable with what they’re engaging in. If you are uncomfortable at any point, you have the right to stop. On the other side, if you see someone you are interacting with being uncomfortable, you need to check in with them to ensure they are enthusiastic about the activity, whatever it may be.
In the early years, students should be taught how to affirm and respect personal boundaries, using non-sexual examples like whether to share their toys or give hugs. It is also important they learn about public and private body parts and the importance of using correct terminology.
In later years, lessons should consider more intimate or sexual scenarios. This also includes consent and how it applies to the digital space.
Older students need to learn sexual activity is something to be done with someone, not to someone. Consent is a critical part of this process and it must be freely given, informed and mutual.
Consent isn’t about doing whatever we want until we hear the word “no”. Ideally we want all our sexual encounters to involve an enthusiastic “yes”.
But if your partner struggles to say the word “yes” enthusiastically, it is important to pay attention to body language and non-verbal cues. You should feel confident your partner is enjoying the activity as much as you are, and if you are ever unsure, stop and ask them.
Often this means checking in regularly with your partner.
Young people also need to know just because you have agreed to do something in the past, this does not mean you have to agree to do it again. You also have the right to change you mind at any time — even partway through an activity.
It’s not as simple as ‘no means no’
The most recent Australian survey of secondary school students highlighted that more than one-quarter (28.4%) of sexually active students reported an unwanted sexual experience. Their most common reasons for this unwanted sex was due to pressure from a partner, being intoxicated or feeling frightened.
We should be careful not to oversimplify the issue of consent. Sexual negotiation can be a difficult or awkward process for anyone — regardless of their age — to navigate.
Some academics have called for moving beyond binary notions of “yes means yes” and “no means no” to consider the grey area in the middle.
While criminal acts such as rape are perhaps easily understood by young people, teaching materials need to consider a broad spectrum of scenarios to highlight examples of violence or coercion. For example, someone having an expectation of sex because you’ve flirted, and making you feel guilty for leading them on.
When it comes to sexual activity, we should be clear that:
- although the law defines “sex” as an activity that involves penetration, other sexual activities may be considered indecent assault
- a degree of equality needs to exist between sexual partners and it is coercive to use a position of power or methods such as manipulation, trickery or bribery to obtain sex
- a person who is incapacitated due to drugs or alcohol is not able to give consent
- wearing certain clothes, flirting or kissing is not necessarily an invitation for other things.
We should also challenge gender stereotypes about who should initiate intimacy and who may wish to take things fast or slow. Healthy relationships involve a ongoing and collaborative conversation between both sexual partners about what they want.
Consent is sexy
A partner who actively asks for permission and respects your boundaries is showing they respect you and care about your feelings. It also leads to an infinitely more pleasurable sexual experience when both partners are really enjoying what they are doing.
It is important that lessons for older students focus on the positive aspects of romantic and sexual relationships.
They should encourage young people to consider what sorts of relationships they want for themselves and provide them with the skills, such as communication and empathy, to help ensure positive experiences.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
What Does Sexual Coercion Look Like?
by Crystal Raypole
Sexual trauma can happen in many ways, and it doesn’t always involve physical force. Sexual coercion, for example, happens when someone pressures or manipulates you into having sexual contact when you don’t want to.
Sexual coercion can be confusing and deeply distressing. You know what happened wasn’t right, but you might not fully understand how or why. You might even believe they couldn’t have assaulted you since you said “yes” in the end.
Here’s one important thing to know, though: True consent is given voluntarily.
If you only consent because you want the other person to stop pressuring or threatening you, you didn’t really consent.
Coercion describes any attempt to control your behavior with threats or manipulation.
Sexual coercion, then, happens when someone won’t accept “no” and continues to try to convince you to change your mind about engaging in sexual activity.
In this article, we’re using “sex” as shorthand to describe any and all forms of sexual contact or activity. There is no one definition of sex, and what’s considered to be sex varies from person to person.
For example, this might include:
- kissing, licking, or sucking
- touching, rubbing, or grinding
- fingering or stroking
- cunnilingus or fellatio
- vaginal or anal penetration
Once you turn down sex, the story should stop there. But this doesn’t always happen.
Sometimes, coercion is pretty blatant. For example: “If you don’t have sex with me, I’ll tell everyone we’ve been having an affair.”
Other times, it might take a more subtle form. For example: “Here, why don’t you have a glass of wine and get out of those work clothes, and we’ll just see what happens.”
Common coercion tactics include:
- guilt-tripping
- making threats
- emotional blackmail
- giving you drugs or alcohol with a goal of lowering your inhibitions
Coercion typically remains in the realm of verbal and emotional pressure. That said, it isn’t uncommonTrusted Source to give in to coercion if you’re afraid the manipulation and pressure will escalate to physical aggression and violence.
Sexual coercion often happens in romantic relationships, but it can also happen in other contexts — between acquaintances, co-workers, friends or family, at school, at a party, or anywhere else.
If you don’t really want to have sex but agree because you feel obligated or don’t want the other person to get mad, you aren’t consenting voluntarily.
Coercion happens when someone wants you to consent when you’ve already said no or otherwise expressed disinterest. They might use threats, persuasion, and other tactics to get the outcome they want.
When alcohol is involved
Most people can still consent after moderate drinking, but you can’t consent if drugs or alcohol have impaired your ability to make decisions.
Say you’re on a date. You’ve had a couple of drinks, and the alcohol has given you a pleasant buzz, but you don’t feel drunk. What you do feel is great chemistry with your date. From the way they’re looking at you, they feel the same thing.
“Want to head back to my place?” They ask.
“Definitely,” you reply.
As long as neither of you are incapacitated, you can still consent.
When someone keeps offering you drinks with the goal of getting you to agree to sex when drunk, that’s coercion.
In a relationship
Being in a relationship does not mean you give ongoing consent.
Everyone has the right to decide when they do and don’t want to have sex. Once you say no, your partner should respect that. Any threats, wheedles, guilt trips, or other persuasion intended to wear you down counts as coercion.
With that in mind, you might wonder if it’s coercion when a partner tells you how sexy you look in that outfit or gives you a sensual massage to try and get you in the mood.
Typically, the difference comes down to a few key factors:
- their intent
- whether you’ve already said no
- how they respond to your refusal
Let’s say you tell them, “I’m not feeling it tonight.”
They reply, “That’s OK. I’m happy just massaging you, unless you want me to stop.”
This gives you the choice to continue the current level of intimacy with no pressure for more.
If, a little later on, you decide you actually do feel like sex, this isn’t coercion — as long as the decision really does come from you.
It would, however, be coercive if they insist they want to help you relax, but then ask repeatedly, “Are you sure you aren’t feeling a little sexier after all this massaging?”
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
How to Know If You’re In a Toxic Relationship
The signs you’re in a toxic relationship can be difficult to identify — here’s how.
By Maria del Russo
Any relationship, be it romantic or otherwise, can be complicated. Whether it’s the relationship you have with your pushy mother-in-law, a childhood friend, or a spouse, interpersonal connections can be as challenging as they are rewarding. But a toxic relationship — one that is emotionally, and in extreme cases, physically damaging — is not complicated: it’s abusive. And learning the signs of a toxic relationship can help ensure that your relationships are healthy, sustainable, and mutually beneficial.
“A toxic relationship includes many factors,” Dr. Pavini Moray, a sex educator and founder of Wellcelium, a sex and intimacy school, tells Woman’s Day. “The main gauge, though, is how you feel the majority of the time.” If, for the most part, you feel supported, loved, and generally happy, an occasional spat or heated disagreement doesn’t mean you’re necessarily in a toxic relationship. “Toxic relationships detract from the quality of your life, rather than add to it,” Moray says. And while that could mean different things to different people and depending on their unique relationship, there are certain red flags everyone should look out for.
If you identify with any of the below, it could point to some toxicity in your relationship. But Moray says that all is not lost should you find yourself in this situation. “There is no cookie-cutter answer,” Moray explains. “Some couples can get support, can really get into the work of relational repair, and pull through.” So don’t let the below list scare you. See it more as step one in your healing — whether it’s with your partner, a friend, a parent, or on your own.
An absence of mutual care and support.
While it’s unrealistic to expect to feel happy every second of your relationship, the contentment, support, and shared joy should be more prevalent than not. “You may experience a dullness or a lack of pleasurable sensation when in a toxic relationship,” Moray says. “You may also feel afraid or unworthy, especially if your partner speaks in a derogatory, critical, or consistently blaming manner.” One of the reasons why people enter relationships is to meet their need for belonging, safety, and connection, and that need should be met on a consistent basis. “A relationship that is without the positive benefits of a quality connection like care and joy alongside negative impact means the costs of the relationship are outweighing the benefits,” Moray says. “Your needs are not being met.”
An ongoing lack of effective communication.
Learning how to effectively communicate with the people in your life can be challenging, to be sure. And every once in a while, you’ll have a day where every little thing your partner, parent, or friend says sends you into a rage. But if you’re finding you can’t talk to your loved ones without arguing, it might point to a deeper issue. “If you or your partner is feeling rageful or belittled much of the time, something is wrong,” Moray says. “While conflict is a natural part of relationships, the way you do conflict matters a lot.” The key is to be able to work through difficult subjects without lashing out at one another. If that seems to be lacking, your relationship may not be thriving.
There’s relationship imbalance.
In a healthy relationship, there is a balance of support. Sometimes you have to support your partner, and other times they need to support you. If that balance is out of whack, though, Moray says something more seriously could be up. “Both of you need to feel your needs are important to the relationship, and that you are on the same team,” Moray explains. “If you find you are consistently giving in to your partner’s desires, eventually the imbalance will result in resentment from the partner who is over-giving.” Balance in a relationship doesn’t just apply to big, potentially life-changing decisions, like where you’ll live or whether you’ll have children. It applies to smaller, daily decisions too, like if your partner always chooses the restaurant or whose family you visit for the holidays.
There’s a lack of mutual consent.
While the other signs that have been previously discussed can be chalked up to lack of respect, Moray classifies how consent is or isn’t happening in your connection as a form of abuse. If you’re doing things you really don’t want to do, or are coerced to go beyond your own boundaries — whether they are financial, physical, sexual, or emotional — it’s a sure-fire sign of toxicity. “Healthy relationships are based on a foundation of consent,” Moray says. “Everyone in the relationship agrees to be in the relationship. If you ever feel like you cannot leave the relationship, for any reason, it’s a good idea to consider whether this relationship is in your best interest.”
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
How Using Safe Words Helped Me Reclaim My Sexuality After Trauma
Determining safe words with your partner can create a healthy, loving space.
By By Ashley Oken
There are sexual experiences that can strip you of believing you have bodily autonomy, feeling safe in your own body, especially during sexual encounters. These leave you feeling powerless over your own sexuality.
It could be through sexual violence, such as rape and molestation, aggressive sexual coercion from a partner and unwanted touching, workplace harassment, or anything in between or beyond.
Individuals who survive these singular or multiple experiences can carry trauma that follows them through their sexual life.
As someone who has survived multiple years of sexual abuse and multiple experiences with rape, I found myself grappling with how to get past the mental scars and trauma. I tried many things, including meditation, and music, but they failed to work for me.
The first time I used a safe word with a partner that wasn’t “stop,” which can be triggering, it was liberating, freeing, and I was eager to do so again.
Here’s how safe words — a designated word you say when sexual play with a partner becomes too intense, painful, or creeps past your boundaries — helped me and can help you, too.
1. Safe words empower you to communicate directly without going into detail.
Like many survivors, I struggled to assert myself and my needs.
However, using words such as “red,” “yellow,” and “green” to indicate my comfort level was positive. I could communicate without over-explaining, which can be a barrier to speaking up.
Other words that aren’t related to the traffic light analogy such as, “grandma,” “lettuce,” fire,” and “T-Rex” can be used, too.
2. Once you use the safe word, all sex has to stop. It can’t resume until both partners discuss why one party used the word.
The most important component when using safe words is having a supportive partner who listens to you. They must understand that anything can have the potential to push you out of your comfort zone.
Checking in with one another throughout sex is key to ensuring that everything is consensual. It also helps to make sure that everyone is on the same page and truly comfortable.
With safe words, a survivor is able to control their sexual interactions, and having a supportive partner can be restorative.
3. Using the safe word without judgement helps a survivor see that their trauma isn’t a weakness.
The minute you feel anxious, triggered, or uncomfortable with an act or a position, you should use whatever safe word you both agreed upon. Do not worry about what your partner will be thinking.
Moreover, know that it is more than okay to assert your boundaries. The use of the word can give you time to reflect on exactly what you want them to do or not do. Then, you can discuss your boundaries more thoroughly.
Your trauma isn’t a weakness. Instead, it’s something that can open the door to much more exploration that keeps consent and triggers in mind.
4. Safe words can give survivors a sense of control back to them, a key component for healing.
When I was raped by an ex-boyfriend, saying “stop,” “get off of me,” and “you’re hurting me” didn’t stop him from inflicting violence on me. Instead, he continued to get more aggressive, and, ultimately, took away my feeling of control within sexual encounters.
Although the experience took my faith in the word “stop” away from me, I learned how to regain control by using other safe words such as, “pumpernickel.” For the first time, I felt in control over every part of an encounter.
5. Safe words remind you that your body is yours.
During the years of molestation I went through during childhood, my body never felt as if it belonged to me, but to my abuser. It also felt as if the things that were happening to me were happening outside of me, almost like they were happening to someone else.
Afterward, I struggled to feel as though my body was actually mine and not working against me somehow. Safe word usage helped me see that I can indeed have a say over what happens to me and that someone listens to me in full.
Survivors’ bodies are always theirs, and they are allowed to assert that at any point and for any reason.
Safe words have helped me come a long way since I began this journey to reclaim my sexuality after trauma.
Like with so many survivors, my road to healing is ongoing and I’m still learning about how to set boundaries with partners properly. But safe words have shown me that healing is possible and that sexuality doesn’t have to be lost.
You can have power over your body and you are not broken, but strong.
Complete Article ↪HERE↩!
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