Sexual trauma

Sex: always something that sells, eh?

Why is that? Why is it that our sexuality becomes such and issue? And why the interest in other' sexuality, sexual deeds, crimes, misdemeanours and ways? Why is there such a charge about sex? So much shame, embarrassment, fear and so on?

My own sexual journey has been a difficult one. I can't say that I've been normal, whatever normal is, as I've explored the whole sexual thing. My parents had a big, big issue around sex. It was never discussed when I was a kid. We never got the "birds and the bees" talk. My earliest memories of sex were playing with a little girl across the road when I was about three or four. We'd lie in the grass and I'd show her mine and she'd show me hers. One time, I was standing facing some little girl (I think I must have been a bit of a Casanova at that age, because there were a few) when I remember pulling my shirt up and touching naked bellies with her. It was the most wonderful feeling, I remember clearly to this day. I remember the thrill running through my body as I made intimate contact with this person, for the first time in my life.

And then my mother rapped on the kitchen window: "Don't do that!!!" Of course, the shame went deep into me immediately, and the whole pleasure of sexual intimacy was gone, there and then.

In my family, there was very little touching. No real contact. Few hugs, little real joy. Very little love. There was something positive, I know, in that there was some kind of moralilty instilled in us. But there was a great deal of fear. Why, I don't know. I had a terrible feeling of being on my own as a kid. There was never anyone to talk to, to confide in, to open up to, to feel I could talk frankly to about anything. There was only fear and hysteria, punishment and shame. So much shame.

I can't be sure how old I was, but maybe I was 8 or 9, maybe ten, I had a sexual "show" with my younger cousins. I remember pushing the sofa up against the door of the living room, and my cousins wanting to see my penis, and getting all excited about it. I was probably entering puberty, and all my hormones were everywhere, and these kids were interested. I remember all the feelings coming up in me - sexual feelings, and arousal - and shame as well. Over the course of maybe a couple of months, I remember wanting to let these kinds of rendezvous happen again with my cousins. It was exciting. Naughty. Rude. But there was all the shame I had to deal with, too.

It all seemed to pass by, and I forgot about these few incidents with my cousins, until the time my parents broke up.

Although I'd forgotten about them, I hadn't forgotten the shame that was attached. I felt deeply ashamed by what I felt I'd "done" with my younger cousins. Of course, we were just kids exploring sex, but I was the oldest, and I felt responsible and the bad one, somehow. And I carried this shame for years, as i felt I couldn't talk to anyone about it.

But it wasn't until the night my father left that I thought I heard the worst thing taht I could have heard: that my aunt had told my mother about the whole thing. I pictured my cousins telling their mother, and her telling my mother, and my mother sitting on the knowledge for years. It was like there was an unwritten blackmail and shame from my mother to me over the whole thing. I felt so ashamed, lying there in my bed with the pillow over my head as I heard my parents screaming at each other, and bringing up what I thought was perhaps my own shame as the reason for their breakup.

Yet afterwards I couldn't even confirm it, as I still daren't bring the subject up, for fear that I'd heard wrong. So I sat with compounded shame over the whole thing.

I kept the shame of those events in childhood for years. I just couldn't bear to shame them, as I was so ashamed of what I felt I'd done. I'd try to work out the dates to see how old I was at the time, to see if I could justify my actions as those of a child rather than someone older. Was it OK if I was 10? What if I was 11? Was I just nine? All these questions I'd ask myself, and beat myself up with.

Of course, this shame did me no good at all in relationships. How could I have a relationship with someone when I felt so much shame about stuff I'd been hiding for so long? I'd have messy sexual affairs with girls, sometimes experimenting with boys (it seemed so natural, although I knew my preference was the mysterious girls) but I knew - certainly I can see in hidsight - that I just was too ashamed to be myself with people to have a proper sexual relationship, let alone any intimate, open relationship with another human being.

Until Sally.

Shortly after leaving drama school, I met Sally at a party that a friend had held. I rememver the address to this day. It was 144 Swakeley's Rd, Ickenham, and the friend was a girl called Siobhan.

Sally was with a boyfriend called Samir at the time. An Iraqi, he'd raped her some time before, it later transpired, and she'd had a subsequent boyfriend who beat him up. Sally carried some baggage, but I didn't know that then. All I saw was a girl who I wanted to get to know, or so I thought.

So I did the inevitable dating thing, and went out with Sally Baker. Usual dating, usual sexual lack of any real fireworks.

But about this time, I was thinking that I was fed up with being who I was. I was sick and tired of games and defences and ebarrassment and all of it. So I decided to open myself up to her, be vulnerable, and find out what it was like to be who I was with another human being.

And one of the things that came up was the shame about the cousins thing.

I was surprised at what a relief it was to be able to talk about it.

Journalling about this subject earlier, I had a little epiphany about something else, too.

The relationship with Sally was my first that I'd ever really enjoyed with another human being. It was like I'd finally emerged from myself, and become who I was. My confidence was indescribable. No shame at all. I felt absolutely brilliant. In love, over the moon with love for this woman, whom I was allowing myself to be myself with.

But it didn't last. I think there was just so much there, it was like sitting on a nuclear bomb. She was the sole source of my truth and light and honesty. I still didn't admit my shame to anyone else.

So when we finally broke up, I was, of course, devestated. And I think I know why.
I never told anyone else about those times when I was a kid. Even to this day, I've felt shame and embarrassment about it. To this day! So that, in part, is why I'm talking about it now: just to shed light on some shame and release it. I'm not ashamed any more of what I did when I was a child.

And I've recognised, too, how all the business of Frances' rape affected me the way it did. I was so tied to her sexual shame, too. In so many ways. She was someone I could be close to, but not as close to as I'd been with Sally, because I wasn't going to let her see me fully. Frances could be someone I could love in a different way.

I recall ending the relationship with Sally and deciding I'd never fall in love again, it least not in that same way. I'd never expose my shame again.

But what the hell...I choose to do it now, because I'm tired of holding on to it.

Fact is, I'm not ashamed of that incident any more. But I've realised I must have been to some degree, otherwise why couldn't I talk about it?

So this is the confirmation of the release of the shame.

Because the degree of shame can pretty much be measured by how easily we can talk about things, right?

I wonder how on Earth people who've done things to really feel ashamed of must cope. I can only think they must end up really hating society, and wanting to destroy it for not accepting them with their faults. I eman, it stands to reason, doesn't it?

The crazy thing is that shame does nobody any good, really. If it causes the shamed person to malfunction even further, then what's the point?

I just wish that we could all be forgiven for whatever we've done, realise that we're all imperfect human beings, and then just start all over again. As it is, how much sexual trauma, psychological trauma, emotional trauma just gets handed down, generation after generation?

Heigh ho!

But when I think how much of my life I've wasted feeling ashamed, it makes me feel...

I can't put it into words.

No wonder I've been depressed!

And how many other people have similar issues, I wonder?