When Sexuality Derails

The shadow of devestating and forbidden sex, by jemini

Sex as Omnipresent. A short Introduction.

(Sometimes sexual tensions are less present among naturists without clothes, as the above family group, than among people with colourful wrapping around their private parts.)

What is it more to say about human sexuality  than has already been said or written? There are thousands of books available in libraries and in book stores on this topic. And there are certainly many more to be written. These few paragraphs cannot replace this vast knowledge. Nor can it pay honour to all the research in this field.

I write about a special painful corner of our sexual universe this time. That is to help understanding and explaining more of  why it exists. Mostly I want to pay attention to some crucial mechanisms that make it persist. The mechanisms that underlie those cases of sexual aggression, violence and pain that we hear about in the news everyday.

Sex is everywhere.

It’s possible but rather futile to deny that sex has an omnipresent position in our lives. Both Sex as gender, and sex as reproduction, as well as sexual activity between  people has a powerful effect on us. In many ways it seems to dominate our subconscious psychological universe.

Marketers have known this since the 1850’s. Today it is difficult to avoid sexually suggestive advertising, not to mention pornography. An example of that: I started this Site in May 2015(not as archive says 2014). Back then I used to get proposals in the comments to put naked women on the website to increase public interest!

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It is no exaggeration to rank sex close up to our basic need for water and food, care and contact, clothing and shelter.A pyramid of human needs derived form Abraham Maslow

Sex as prohibited

Even in human lives were sexual contact is absent, sexuality is present in some way. As restricted or prohibited for different reasons; – physical, religious or by incarceration, – sex is somewhat shining in its absence.

You may ask yourself why so many dogmatic and conservative Christians are preoccupied by sex. They seem to immerse themselves in other people’s sexual activities. This even more than they indulge in compassion for others. Advocating solidarity with the least privileged, helping the poor, the discriminated and people in need of protection, seem to rank lower on their agenda.

Didn’t Jesus  walk with the outcast? Didn’t he acknowledge  the prostitutes,- more for their status as fellow humans, than for their promiscuity?

“I am pure as a Saint. It is you that carry the devil’s sin.”

It’s a well known unconscious strategy in our psychological universe, to assume that others have the flaws in their personality and behaviour that we deny and despise in ourselves. That mechanism is called projection.

Psychoanalyst C.G.Jung held that all these tendencies that we don’t accept in ourselves, seek refuge in our so called Shadow. The harder we are being on ourselves, the more our Shadow will expand. Accordingly we will also be using more projection, along with enhanced distortion of the conception of others, in accordance with our shadow properties.

When the urge for sex goes undercover.

Then what happens when marriage is prohibited in the Catholic Church?  Is the denied desire for sexual contact only transformed into a stronger devotion for God and for good deeds? We know that the urge for sex in such environments, often goes undercover, until it comes to the surface in media as child abuse.

Why do we hear so many reports of Muslim extremist both in the middle east and in Africa, for example Nigeria, that kidnap, violate, and mass rape small girls? In Nigeria this year 300 are reported killed, many of them children.

Boko Haram imprisoned girls

Sex as genes and hormones

I have recently shown that there is no empirical evidence from later research in genetics, to assume that psychological traits, personality, and psychological disorders are determined by the Genes.

Regarding sex as gender, sex as reproduction and sex as sexual interest, however it is otherwise. Here we certainly are mostly influenced by our Genes . Genes that trigger maturation of our body, from childhood through puberty and maturity, all the way up to old age.

But as soon as we leave the basic ground for making us physically ready for sex, – psychology and social experiences takes over. Our sexual activities, meaning the forms of sex we seek and enjoy, are much more complex. Still sexual activities interact and are reinforced by hormonal Activity. These are particularly neuro-chemical substances that makes us feel strong pleasure.                Exibitionist trigging positive attention in his audience

Painting by artist Sylvia Sleigh

From sex as love and joyfulness, to sex as aggression and pain.

Anyone who has experienced the combination of sex and love in a relationship is fortunate. They will all know that this is an unbeatable physical and emotional joyful experience.

Throughout history and especially in our outspoken times, anger, pain and sex however, seem to be more and more interwoven in the texture of our sexuality. Sometimes this triadic combination however is even acted out in what we may call rather perverted sexual forms that seem to hurt one part in the relation more than to please.

 Sex without respect and reciprocity.

This kind of sex is not based on mutual consent, and underlying respect. It is mainly based on exploiting others through a position of power in the relation, and in afflicting fright and pain onto the victim.

This has very little to do with playing roles between supposedly equal grown ups, as in BDSM bondage sex. This is what I would call traumatic and traumatizing sexuality that does not relieve tension and excite mutual positive feelings in the relation. It only creates a bizarre desire and tension release, in the abuser, and fear, pain and disgust in the abused. Not to mention trauma!

Traumatizing sex

On weekly basis I meet victims of what Robert Stoller called “erotic forms of hatred”. These young people have experienced harsh exploitation from grown ups that they are supposed to have trust in. Not only have some of them been sexually seduced. Most of them have been violated and forced into very painful sexual activity.

When you meet an offender, – I no longer do, because when I out of 34 different types of patients have 5 victims of sexual violence, I concentrate my work on their pain and trauma, not the offenders. But when I met abusers, in my earlier work, truth to tell, I found them sadly depressed most of them, with much anxiety and intense psychological pain pent up in their muscular tissue, and body.

The psychological universe of the offender.

There are naturally different types of offenders. The child abusers I met were seldom consciously aware of their anxiety ridden behaviour. They were just somewhat restless, they told, and it seemed that their shameful acts with minors often had a tension relieving effect on their whole psycho-physical being. Just temporarily, – I must add. Since, soon after they restarted the hunting for children to rape.

Some very few of these men, felt bad about their acts. This is how life is, the common underscore was. –You know that, don’t you, they could say to me with a condescending glance.

Their psychological uneasiness and physical restlessness left little room for reflection and bad consciousness and remorse. If something like that surfaced their mind, they rapidly acted it out with alcohol, drugs or tranquilizers, even sexual fantasies about future abuse.

 Sex as a painkiller.

Sex is widely known by neuropsychologists to elicit neuro-chemicals that makes us feel aroused, exited, and well. Most of these chemicals are Dopamine, Oxytocin, Phenylethylamine and Endorphins, (endogenous morphine).

In sexual addicts, and risk-takers, very anxious people, gamblers and the notorious aggressive the dopamine levels are extremely high. In some drug addicts, low-achievers, and depressed the dopamine levels are extremely irregular and variable.

Dopamine makes the abuser feel very excited when he catches the victim. Phenetylamin that has the same effect as chocolate and cocoa, give him energy, positive mood, and sharpened attention. Contact with the victim’s skin may trigger secretion of oxytocin, the so called love hormone. In the battle to control the victim, however, dopamine and endorphin will take over and his psychological pain, both emotionally and physically, will be relieved! Back is some kind of ecstasy and delight, and a point of no return.

The abuser and the abused.

If the abuser has been a sexual victim himself in his life, he is now in control. The fright, helplessness and pain, is in the other, – the child. He the abuser can then empty all his despair, hate, despise, and lust, onto “the ungrateful little child whore and beast”! With a mixture of power and grandiose feelings, and hateful disgust for the poor child, he gets his heroine like sexual ecstasy that melts all good and bad feelings into an extremely tense euphoria.

When this is all over, the prolactin level rises in his brain, and now comes the withdrawal face. He is exhausted, and even small moments of disgust from what he has done, can occur together with nonspecific sadness.

Sexually acting out the trauma

For sure sex and sexual abuse can alleviate pain and irreconcilable emotions in the abuser, for some stolen moments. It can function as a temporary healing of wounds. But by acting out his trauma, by re-erecting the traumatic scene he once was trapped in, he continues the tragedy, by even passing it forward to the next generation. And is he really relived? Absolutely not! He has to re-enact this scene again and again until he is caught and incarcerated, and get psychotherapy.

Suggest help and friendship, not condemnation. Changing habit is necessary for the perpetrator, but difficult to manage alone.

Please, if you know someone, or feel you are in  danger of killing your psychological pain through sex with minors, stop and think twice.

This person or you yourself, carry a heavy burden of shame and guilt,  if you do not avert this act, such acts do inflict serious pain and tragedy on that young boy or girl for the rest of their lives. And you cast a persecutory black cloud over your dignity and life!

– The “very nice abuser.”

Remind yourself that even child abusers are different kinds of people. Some of them are even nice and charming people with all kinds of important jobs in the society. They are not violent and brutal, and believe in some way that even the child and minor may enjoy the sexual activities, at least after being introduced to the “rules of the game,” and used to it. They start the process with the child in an appearently very careful and gentle way.  But then after winning the childs trust, they gradually cross the crucial border of the childs sexual integrity, and exploit the child for their own sexual gratification. This is their gross betrayal of the child.

– There is a good chance to change this severe habit.

Most of these abusers, or even you if you unfortunately should belong to this group, will stop after being  caught or after receiving therapy. I hope you do even after just having read this article. However; An important start is  talking with someone neutral about it.  To all the others reading this, try being such a person to talk with.

And for you, if you abuse children, take a chance and talk too another person if you suspect that something is wrong with your sexual preferences. Be careful to pick a person that will not overreact and scare you from doing the right thing. Perhaps a priest or a person that will motivate you in the right direction and not immediately go to the police.  For your friends and soulmates if you have some I will say:  Do it in a friendly but serious manner. Only very few child abusers are beyond correction. Many are lonely and need friends or someone to talk to and confide in.

Don’t hate yourself even if you belong to this category of sexual attraction.

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