Venus Lost – Good luck! It will be extremely rewarding. All the power to you.

I keep thinking of Caroline Myss’ statement about people going into therapy or support groups and just “riding up and down the river [the path away from the trauma] in the boat [the support group]” even long after the other shore is in sight and reachable. Her point being that you have to eventually get out of that boat and finish crossing that river that you’ve been working your way across to be healed and whole.

That’s a good lesson for lots of things in life, I think. And it was a good reminder for me, in particular, at this time.

Thanks Elsa. And very best of luck to Venus Lost.

Dear Venus Lost,

I really connected to what you wrote both professionally (I worked with people who had been sexually abused) and personally (I was raped).

I think it’s great that you have a therapist around who can support you and that you are seeing someone to talk about your experiences. While those things may not be easy, they are useful.

You ask what’s blocking you and it makes me think back to how I dealt with my situation and although everyone’s journey through things like this is different I am going to put it out there in case you resonate with what I write.

I blocked out the memory of the rape after it happened, until it began surfacing in flashbacks and in dreams several years on after I had been in therapy for unrelated matters and I guess I was ready to remember again. I went through a lot of predictable angst – feeling dirty and tainted (even though logically I knew that I wasn’t, and that it wasn’t my fault I still felt dirty inside) and I went through periods of not wanting to touch another human being, and I went on benders of self-destruct and sometimes I would want to have sex (and I’d have fierce, angry sex that was full of passion and my dominance but devoid of my heart) as a way of trying to get some of my power back. Actually that last one worked. For a long time sex was too tricky to let my emotions and my body unite, so instead I left the emotions aside and let my body be a body and satisfy its desires and that felt safe (I was in control) and sweet (I was getting my life back piece by piece, which is a terrific revenge).

I made a journey into myself, and out again onto the other side and when I emerged I realised I knew a lot about what love wasn’t and I was ready to learn about what love was again. Handily the Universe provided me with wonderful lovers to take up that learning. Nowadays I’m pretty happily married – my husband knows about what’s happened- and he understands that sometimes things he might do or say might trigger me and when that happens we just deal with that.

I’m quite a visual person, so I was struggling with how to deal with the image of myself as a person full of tainted energy and it helped to visualise all the beautiful love that people around me were infusing me with. I’d see that coming in to my body, blooming inside me like a garden of flowers until I was ready to let go of the bad things and just feel recharged and good.

I felt that because I learned how to take myself and love and loving apart, I also learned how to put them back together again.

We all deal with things in different ways of course – perhaps my trauma-deconstructionist approach is related to my Virgo Ascendant, and perhaps as Elsa says getting really royally ticked off can help kickstart your sex drive.

I think what I learned was that I was too narrow in my defintion of sex (the classic penis-in-vagina stuff) and it helped when I concentrated not on the sex but the intimacy. This meant being touched often, held often, cuddled often and for long periods of time. Being told I was pretty, feeling feminine, growing out my hair again. Allowing my body to indulge in sensual pleasures – long baths, tasty food, walks through the rainwashed grass with no shoes on. Holding hands, kisses on my neck – all sorts of small things that felt good and had no expectation of sex attached. I think that’s often a good way of getting something big as a sex life back particularly if it comes with associations of trauma.

I think sex and sexiness and intimacy can also be so light, so fun and it does good to remember that. Play, laugh with one another. Joke. Mockfight. Tease. Flirt. Play games. And of course, alternatively, cry as much and for as long as you need to.

I think when the relationship you are in is a safe place, then healing becomes much easier. You can reverse roles and push your boundaries – play with ideas of power and dominance in ways that feel safe. My husband and I all the time reverse the roles of the “dominant”/”passive” partner in the bedroom and both feel fun and healing because I trust him and I know that he would never ever do anything to me against my will. Same way you’ve been with your partner for a long time, and he’s been with you trhough this – it suggests to me that there’s a lot of love and trust there which you can use as a starting point in expanding your intimacy in baby steps or giant steps, whatever feels the most natural and good.

On my angry days after I’d given up self-destruction I smashed cheap glassware. I punched pillows. I screamed. I painted in angry colours. I ran up and down stairs until I was exhausted. Anger itself can be healing too because it helps you remember you feel alive. HOlding on to anger is a different issue but sometimes it’s a useful kickstart.

I think sometimes the block-with-sex-after-a-sexual-trauma is that it gets built up full of fears and expectations and it becomes this BIG THING, the elephant in the bedroom. And then everyone is full of anxiety and of course, you get blocked (although obviously blocks have other reasons too). So I think a good strategy to get around that is to chip away at it little by little or have a ritual (e.g. having a candlelit bath together, and caressing each other – while avoiding obvious erogenous zones). Or just sit together, holding hands. Lie together nakedm, your limbs tangled, looking into each other’s eyes and breathing in unison. There are ALL sorts of ways to connect, until you feel sexual. Because internal pressure strangles the erotic, just as the surest way to not have an orgasm is to obsess about having one.

Your sex life hasn’t died. It’s just gone on extended holiday. And you are being given an opportunity you and your lover to rediscover each other, and be rediscovered. To learn from beginning about loving, and touching, and ways in which that feels good. You are being given the opportunity to re-create yourself in the image of whoever you want to be. And really sometimes when you go back to the very basics of intimacy and sensuality you re-emerge with a sex life that is more fabulous than the one you started with. Sexuality is a rich, rich thing and even if you aren’t striding around in black leather or keeping up the neighbours every night, that still doesn’t diminish the role that kisses, and caresses, and long embraces can have. It doesn’t prevent someone sponging warm water down your back, or kissing your wrist, or stroking the lobe of your ear.

If you feel ready to start full-on shagging, then great! If not, that’s OK! Just do whatever feels right for you. Also perhaps check out Sex For One by Betty Dodson – rich self-pleasuring can make it easier to give and receive pleasure with another. Everyone has a different pace- so go at your own speed, whatever that happens to be and just be aware of various feelings that may surface and leave a bit of mental space for them to spill into.

Best of luck in your life and your relationship. If you want to contact me privately to chat about summat then Elsa has my email.