Friday, July 27, 2012

Still Crying: Sexuality Tied To Violence

This post is from an anoymous reader.
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The thought of spanking simultaneously disgusts me and arouses me. Yes, I mean sexual arousal.

I had never seen porn, I had no idea that some people felt spanking could be used in erotic ways during sex. But as I started to cross into puberty, those thoughts were there.

When my parents spanked me I detested the sharp pain, the sting on my skin, the humiliation of being still while being attacked. I hated it. I wished with all my might that they would quit using spanking and try some other form of discipline. I stifled the rage that rose with every physical punishment.

But at night it was different. My dreams would be filled with violence, people hitting me, people tying me up and whipping me, and then I would wake up panting and aroused, and at the time I didn’t even know what sex or sexual arousal was.

I didn’t know why the idea of being hit was arousing, when I detested the fact that my parents hit me. But I learned how to play off that fantasy to get those feelings, I imagined being out somewhere and being attacked and raped. When I got married, to a wonderful gentle man, those unspoken unacknowledged fantasies in my head were the only thing that got me to orgasm.

I felt confused and worried, perplexed by the strong connection my sexual arousal had to the idea of violence when I was repulsed by the idea of my husband actually hitting me. It frustrated me that something that was used to hurt and humiliate me for so long, that I thought I would leave behind with leaving my parents home, now invaded my sex life unbidden.

I have since learned that children can often eroticize things that were painful to endure as a way of coping, and I believe that is what happened to me. And is it really that surprising that hitting a person in a sexually sensitive area of their body could have consequences? As time has gone on, and I have been honest about what happened to me, it has become easier to become experience sexual pleasure without the need for violent fantasies, but it hasn’t been easy. My earliest sexual memories will always be tied to a spanking spoon, and there isn’t anything I can do about it.

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5 comments:

  1. Wow ... for the longest time growing up, reading books or watching movies involving whippings or torture would me. There was a period when I researched everything I could get my hands on involving medieval torture. Every story that involved or referred to someone being whipped turned me on (I even dreamed about it sometimes). I am still simultaneously fascinated and appalled by torture ... but I never tied any of this to having been spanked as a child and into my late teens. Interesting food for thought.

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  2. I found myself reacting physically to movies or books with violence in them (funny how fundamentalist parents allow violence in their homes but censor out any hint of sexuality) I wonder how much of it is related to spanking.

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  3. Hi Sarah :)
    I am very sorry you went through that. It soun ds like you are wanting to feel ashamed all over again because it was what you were used to? I don't know. I had rageful narcassistic father and unbalanced mother with OCD, both of whom gave microinventories on the most trivial of nonsense and gave me no support or encouragement whatsoever. I was frequently hit or intimidated into believeing I might be. It was like being in a warzone without guns.
    I wasnt spanked per se but punched and assaulted with a belt all over my body. I developed fantasies about being spanked because in my fantasy world the terror of being hit or being told I was hopeless was no longer pounding in my stomach, and I was in control.
    I am sorry you had to go through that. I hope you find peace. I became a Buddhist. It has helped me a great deal in healing.
    Peace
    Pete

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  4. As a young adult, I was sexually assaulted, and developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the months that followed. Classic symptoms of PTSD include hypervigilance, an exaggerated startle reflex, social avoidance/withdrawal, insomnia, and flashbacks to the traumatic event. But I started to notice the strangest thing: more often than not, the involuntary flashbacks that I experienced were flashbacks to my childhood beatings, not to the more-recent sexual assault.

    The flashbacks only intensified when I began a healthy sexual relationship with my husband. The mere clink of him loosening his belt would send chills of terror down my spine, because in that moment, all I could remember was the sound of my father removing his belt to spank me.

    I'm finally recovering. The involuntary flashbacks have subsided and I feel that soon I will be strong enough to confront my father on the life-long damage he caused me in the name of God.

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  5. So what you are saying is that spanking is a covert form of incest? That could explain a thing or two...

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