I am starting a new thread on the above topic resulting from post Below on another thread: Based on your reply Chip, I think I know the answer, but would not mind some clarity and confirmation. The scenario: Two children, pre-teen, play around sexually. Starts off with small touching, leads to more significant physical activity over time, goes on for a period from pre teen to their teenage years. One of the kids is the primary driver of the activities, the other child submits reluctantly initially, but submits nonetheless. The relationship between the two began where one was always "leads" the other. The child that submits in the early periods is uncomfortable, expresses it at times, but still goes along and as time goes on learns to enjoy it. The activities are always mutual, with reciprocation. The submissive one, later in his teens, is the one to finally put a stop to it at the reluctance of the one whom initially lead. I do not think this is rape, but I can certainly see it being coercion. Based on your reply above, would this lead to trust issues? Again, probably an answer I already know.....
The line with childhood sex play is always a difficult one; kids are naturally curious and many kids engage in "show and tell" and occasional touching, and mutual masturbation and such isn't uncommon. *If* (and this is difficult to discern) the non-dominant child feels coerced or pressured, that is where the harm occurs. As to this particular situation, it's difficult to ascertain exactly, but it is likely that there was a significant major impact on the individual who was initially coerced (let's call him "B" and the dominant "A".) It's likely complicated because B may have had self-esteem issues in the first place. Otherwise, he would likely have been more resistant when A first made the suggestion and while he might have initially gone along, he would more likely have stopped after the first or second time. So the events that happened, to which he didn't want to participate, further impacted self-esteem. Then, further complicating factors, if orgasm happened, there's even more confusion because orgasm feels good, and creates a conflict between conscious and unconscious. It can also cause confusion about sexual identity later in life. It is likely that, given that B ultimately ended things, that there was a negative impact on B.
That all makes sense, especially if a deficient parental environment created the initial self esteem issues. While I can see how such a scenario creates (created) the foundation for significant challenges, including early confusion of sexual identity, forgiveness (and/or closure as the case may be), acceptance and maturity seems to go a long way in healing such emotional wounds. ---------- Post added 9th Oct 2015 at 10:15 PM ---------- This really seems to have been one of the material pieces of life's puzzle to untangle.
I find this an interesting discussion, one which does warrant an insight into what goes about as an aftermath of sexual abuse. Yes, bluntly the use of “coercion” is an act of sexual abuse. It can also be established that the acts which occurred during the “pre-teens to teenage years”, well at least those bellow the age of consent would fall into the category of Statutory Rape, albeit both were minors they are both guilty of “Sexual Contact/Activity with a Child”. The law assumes that as minors they are naïve and easily manipulated, hence both are incapable of consent, and therefor the sexual act is non-consensual. Perhaps this may seem a trivial issue but to some minors who do engage in premarital acts it does cause uneasiness and Anxiety, though not to all. Now let us proceed with the Aftermath… Sexual abuse damages a person’s sense of sexuality, it messes with their sense intimacy. The aftermath of which is difficulty in fostering and maintaining healthy adult relationships. There is a sense for need for more intimacy albeit short lived ones from a partner or the complete opposite you have the need to abstain from any form of intimacy. Some victims even go to the extent of aversion to touch especially by the same gender as the perpetrator. It goes hand in hand with your sadness/depression, often times also a result of Sexual Abuse. As a victim they try to get into grips with their emotions and feelings. And the way to do this is by controlling that one aspect of their life that they didn't have control with as a child during their abuse... their sexuality. So it manifests itself by imposing on themselves that they are in control now and they decide if and when someone touches them. Nobody can tell them otherwise. Having been violated repeatedly somehow conditions them that intimacy is not about love; it is about being used and to be treated as an object. Intimacy no longer holds value. Sexual Abuse can have many long term effects. One including Anxiety Disorders. To alleviate this anxiety they may go into self-medicating albeit harmful cycle of alcohol abuse, substance abuse and/or hypersexuality. These self-medicating acts alleviates the anxiety, but once stress comes into play again the only way to relieve it is through further engage in these self-medicating acts, it becomes a vicious cycle. Another glaring issue that may arise here is since it was a coercive act, or more precisely one was always the submissive party with the other one “leading” the other; in this scenario the submissive party may be left with a sense of Powerlessness. As an adult he tries to get into grips with this subconscious feelings, the aftermath of which may include increased instability in relationships, an increased risk of sexual problems and greater negativity towards partners. Sexual abuse survivors may not be able to allow closeness in intimate relationships. The partners chosen may reflect abuse dynamics, such as choosing a partner that can protect oneself, or a partner that one can take off. They may also manifest a Dismissing Attachment, and manifests as a lack of self-confidence, discomfort with intimacy, loneliness, and hostility. Having been abused somehow conditioned him that intimacy is not about love; it is about Power and who yields it. Intimacy no longer holds value. As a Survivor of Sexual Abuse, he has confuses Power with Love, and feels the need to exert “power” on his intimate partner because that is the way he was conditioned to believe how life works. Another aspect is that it may lead the submissive party to manifest Victim Mentality, he may believe that he is a victim of everything in his life--- though primarily the sexual abuse. Having this Victim Mentality, subconsciously reinforces his desire to have a victim of his own to prove his “worth”. If his partner proves to be submissive, he in turn feels better about himself. Every time his partner shows submissiveness, this is proof that his partner “loves” him as he equates submissiveness with love. And the more submissiveness the partner shows, the more value he feels about himself. Ultimately the aftermath of sexual abuse no matter how the OP makes light of it, maybe insinuating that the events which occurred has less weight than “rape”, is unpredictable. Those mentioned above are purely theoretical although these are shown to be manifested by victims of sexual abuse (no matter what type or how the sexual abuser perpetrated the act). ---------- Post added 11th Oct 2015 at 05:50 AM ---------- If you will indulge me to clarify my statement further, what I had meant by "unpredictable" is not every single thing mentioned above may necessarily manifest in a sexually abused person. As we say every person is unique and will react to different circumstances, situations or emotional and psychological triggers differently.
when I was a teen, I was taken into the boy toilets at school and had things done to me. At the beginning it was all exciting and fun , was probably around 13/14 at the time. Then I kind of just let it happen due to the fact I craved the attention , and only now just realizing this at 45 that I was abused , would you call it rape even if you liked it at some point in the time over the years??
First of all by virtue of your age wherein the events of the abuse happened then it is by definition Statutory Rape. The law assumes that as a minor you are naïve and easily manipulated, hence are incapable of consent, and therefor the sexual act is non-consensual. Now to address the second issue wherein an abused person just so happens to “like” the sexual act perpetrated by the abuser then can we still consider it rape or sexual abuse? Can we equate “like” to arousal, orgasm and satisfaction? Well to get to a deeper understanding we should first understand human sexuality, more precisely the Human Sexual Response Cycle. Rape or Sexual Abuse can and will simultaneously occur with the Human Sexual Response Cycle, that is even if the sexual act was coerced, non-consensual or whatever element of abuse there is present the human body has been prewired to respond in a physiological and psychological phases until resolution. Being sexually abused does not shut off the human body’s physiological and psychological response. It goes to follow that a person undergoing sexual acts, no matter if coerced will enter into the different phases of the Human Sexual Response Cycle--- Excitement (arousal), Plateau, Orgasm and Resolution. Rape victims often undergo self-blame, shame and guilt because they question why they were aroused during the act of rape. However, we must remember that Excitement or Arousal (the intrinsic motivation to have sex) is a natural response of the body. It does not need permission or intention, nor does it represent an expression of pleasure. These feelings of confusion are further compounded by the fact that during the Orgasm the feeling of climactic euphoria, the release of tension is felt. The Rape Victims, start to question whether did enjoy the act. As an example, this is one of the biggest sources of shame for (straight) men who were victims of homosexual rape. The fact that they were penetrated, and yet had gotten aroused. A 1985 research on rape also found that those who experienced repeated episodes of rape, found the experience pleasurable. It appears to have been an “adaptive response” that makes the repeated rape more survivable.
its feels so strange now , learning about all this after so long in my life, like you tend to block things out and its only thru therapy, that I've started to remember this stuff, which I probably why it wasn't in my other threads not to hi jack this one..but I was wondering about all this since its when we are kids that we learn (usually ) about sex and masturbation and all that stuff...
Are you simply reciting your thesis paper or are you actually trying to be helpful? Your writing like your trying to prove to yourself that you know what your talking about rather than trying to be empathetic to the posts and reflect practical thought specific to the comments. I can pay a therapist myself to cite theory if that's what I wanted, but we are on EC to get practical real world percpective from others, not regurgitation of a doctorates degree. ---------- Post added 15th Oct 2015 at 11:10 AM ---------- You say at the beginning it was exciting and fun, were you at all hesitant or anxious initially? We're the other guys much older and more of authority figures? Practically, based on my experience, I think there is a fine line which determines how to define what you experienced. As to my own situation, I do look back fondly on the escapades. I do believe I was coerced by someone whom, while my age, I held in high regard. Like you, I thought it was fun and exciting. I do take note of chips comments regarding my initial low self esteem, which prevented me from stopping it early. And, yes, I did have substantial sexual confusion in later years. But even so, I had never been truly comfortable around females (blame that one on my overly aggressive mother), and I always had attractions sexually and romantically to guys for as long as I can remember. To this day, I primarily attribute my sexual confusion more to the pressures to be straight, coinciding with my low self esteem, than to the events from when I was a child with my childhood playmate. Although I do recognised the incremental influence and role that certainly had. Said another way, I was always gay, I just did not want to admit it. ---------- Post added 15th Oct 2015 at 11:16 AM ---------- And just thinking about further, to be more transparent, for a very long time, I used to actually blame my playmate on my sexuality. I used to be so sure he was the reason why I was gay. But with much reflection, I have concluded he was simply a contributing factor to my confusion, nothing more.
There are numerous health care professionals on EC! Typically, I have great respect for their ability to both be objective and empathetic at the same time! And sometimes, I disagree with what they say, and they know I will be direct about it.
OK, I think it's important here to take a step back. Empathy seems to have taken a back seat to detailed factual information, which isn't really helpful to the point of the thread. There are a number of challenging pieces for a survivor of sexual abuse to process and work through. For male survivors, the issues are often even more complex, because men grow up programmed to believe they can't ever feel or experience weakness, and that they should be in control. One of the issues that childhood sexual abuse survivors have to deal with is the shame associated with the abuse. And the shame arises from a number of places: -- Often, the survivor feels like he's responsible. Like he could/should have done more to stop the situation from happening. In the situation like what is described above, it would be easy to have that perception, but it isn't that simple; children, even of the same age, often have really different developmental levels, and varying desires to make others happy (to feel accepted.) So children will often "go along" with something even if they aren't comfortable. If this happens over time, the child's mind, in order to rationalize and justify what's happening, will often convince himself that it's OK and he's enjoying it. He may even actively seek out or join in the participation of the sexual actvity. None of this in any way diminishes the fact that it is unwanted, inappropriate, harmful, and emotionally hurtful and damaging sexual abuse. Further complicating matters, because men (and even boys) are told from early in life that we are supposed to be strong, in control, and able to protect and defend... we end up feeling tremendous shame about what has happened; that somehow it's our fault, that if we'd only done _________________ (fought back more, resisted more, etc.) then it wouldn't have happened. Unfortunately, the reality is that this is rarely true. Even though in this case the abuser was around the same age, he was clearly more sophisticated in convincing and manipulating the survivor to participate in the activity. This creates an imbalance of power that causes a lot of emotional distress. The child survivor is often left feeling out of control, helpless, and at the same time, blaming himself for not doing more to prevent it. And then... if you add on the confusion of the physical response of the body to pleasure, in the form of orgasm and/or ejaculation... it's even more confusing, bewildering, and difficult. It is very common for teen boys in this situation to have a very mixed set of emotions; on the one hand, he may enjoy the physical sensation of orgasm and ejaculation, because, physiologically, that feels good to most people. Depending on the circumstances, often the child also feels a sense of belonging and love from the attention being paid to him, which further creates very complicated confusion; the child on the one hands feels like his choices with his body are not his own, and on the other hand, wants the attention, and sort of enjoys the physical sensations. So this is a very, very complicated and nuanced situation with an awful lot of mixed-up feelings, ranging from pleasure to humiliation to violation... and a lot of confusion results from that. The common thread in all of this is that the sitiuation is pretty much always abusive if there is any sense of imbalance of power, whether that is real or perceived. That's why examining the situation and what the survivor felt is so important. If the survivor felt completely comfortable, had no shame or embarrassment, didn't feel any loss of control, and felt like, at every step, he was an equal participant and had not been manipulated, cajoled, or coerced into participating... then it is less likely that there will be a sense of violation and therefore, less sense that serious issues will arise as a result in the longer term. But if there is any imbalance of power and control, any manipulation, coersion, convincing... even if that was at the beginning and later on, the survivor willingly participates... then it is highly likely that serious harm will happen. The important piece here is that the survivor needs to be honored for whatever he is experiencing. The circumstances should never be devalued or judged, and in working through the issue, it takes a lot of time, a lot of empathy and support from both the professionals and non-professionals (friends and family) supporting the survivor in order to heal from the aftereffects of the abuse. Now... all of the above said, there's no evidence, from what we currently know, that sexual abuse alters sexual orientation. It can create confusion, and it can essentially force a child to think about his or her sexual orientation earlier than s/he otherwise would, but there's no credible evidence that abuse alters orientation.
This pretty much sounds all spot on to the experience at hand. And after a lot of personal work and development, it feels good to have arrived at a point of being able to move forward. The amount of baggage was enormous - historical sexual confusion and low self esteem created enormous emotional impediments. Reaching peace with each part, a bit at a time - starting with accepting my sexuality, to the recognition of what truly happened as a child (both by way of sexual coercion and parental incompetence), and finally understanding the emotional toll it had, has been quite a journey. As a defensive mechanism, I have worked hard to build my professional confidence all my life. It's good that I can now finally match that with having built up my personal confidence as well, and be proud of whom I am regardless of what I experienced during my early childhood years.
The person who coerced can be equally as scarred with guilt later on in life, even more so then the person who submitted. On a very personal level, I was a very curious child and did such things with my friends when I was 4-9 roughly. I bottled up so much shame about it even though I recognized that doing those things in childhood was relatively normal. I knew of plenty of other kids growing up who also instigated. It can really hurt and I am not sure that I will ever really get over it entirely. Ironically, very recently I ended up working with one of the boys/girls (I wont reveal which gender) that I did such things with as a child. It was really awkward and I know that he/she remembered but I could also tell that he/she moved on and was totally okay with it. Anyways, remember that there are always two sides of the story. I do not condone being forced into acts but sometimes those experiences are part of childhood, more than many adults like to realize. This is slightly off topic but those experiences that I had in childhood are how I realized that I was bisexual. For these reasons, I am considerably certain of my sexuality and I am confident that I was born with my orientation. So that is one positive take-away.
When I was 3 or 4 years old the other child I was playing with stuck a toy syringe up my vagina. I was penetrated by the object, but didn't protest to it. I don't have sex, even though I sometimes want to have it. I used to have a hard time recognizing the fact that I was horny. Now I'm able to recognize the horniness but I'm not sure that I'd be able to communicate it to someone if I wanted to have sex with them.
A few months back, needing some sort of closure, I went and had a coffee with what was my then child playmate. I had not seen or spoken with him for quite some time. Had no idea if he heard that I came out. He is my age, still living with his parents, no stable job and still very much confused about his sexuality. After an hour talking, hearing about how lost he still is, offering to provide some guidance to him, but him having no real desire to do anything about it, I definitely found the closure I was looking for.
Agreed, I do not believe anyone is suggesting otherwise. And the discussion is not to diminish more extreme abusive events. What's being discussed is the emotional impact that occurs nonetheless. What is surprising, is how wide and varied the definition of abuse can be. There are extremes, such as an adult molester abusing a child, or a parent abusing a child, to what some might not even consider to be an issue, two kids playing together. It's when one person is able to exert influence over another where the other feels powerless to do anything about it when such advances are unwanted. This seems to be the critical issue at hand.
