"I have been silent for years. I was sexually abused in childhood and hate being touched. If someone is behind me I freak out because they have an automatic control over my body. I can't see them or fight back.
"Your article mentioned a woman who freaked out on public transport. This is something I can relate to. The wounds of sexual abuse open up frequently in public spaces. If someone touches me without intention the old wounds open. I can find myself depressed for days afterwards. Thank you for starting your project. I have wanted to speak about this for many years."
Anon: "I faked it for years, and with the recent pornification of sex I became totally repulsed (story shared via website's contact form)
"I came here after reading the article on the F Word. Some of the feedback from the women in the article resonated strongly with me, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I too have been disassociated from my body for a long time, and now do not have sex at all.
"Counselling in this area would have helped me enormously. Instead I was found wanting by partners. So I faked it for years, and with the recent pornification of sex I became totally repulsed."
(post has been edited to adjust grammar)
Patricia: "Talking about sex after rape breaches a very normalised Victorian belief that women are to be seen and not heard.
"My partners have immediately started to pathologise me because I have feelings of my own. I am automatically lumped into the 'other' box or 'dysfunctional' box. I think, as a survivor, I have been perceived as a threat by some of the men I've been with. That's because I am now empowered enough to say 'this is what I need', whether it's not to be touched in a certain way or something else. That can scare some men, who believe it's their right to touch their girlfriend how they like. So it's easy to say 'Oh she's got baggage, no other woman's been this difficult.
"Society assumes a woman wants penetrative sex at all. Many don't, I could happily go without it. But because the quickest way for a man to achieve orgasm is through penetrative penis-vagina sex, that is seen as the benchmark for normal. If you say no to that very narrow view of sex, you come under enormous pressure - even if you are saying no as part of your journey after rape. I feel that pressure is there because every day culture is rape culture.
"Society's view of sex is the male perspective, not the female perspective, and that needs to stop."
Leanne: "The word 'commodity' springs to mind [to describe sex].
"That's what I was during the rape. It wasn't about sex, it was about doing horrible things to me. I feel quite second-hand, like what they call left on the shelf. Like I've been used, and now all the battery's worn out? I can't be this other woman I once was because then I wasn't scared and frightened, I didn't know what I know now.
"Sleeping with all these people is me saying that I know I'm not fresh and new anymore, so I'm not going to act like I am. I'm embracing it. I do feel a bit used but I am using the men back. Doing this, is me proving something to myself. I know what I'm doing with my body now. I'm making the decisions now. Everyone feels a bit used after sex, but I enjoy it too because I am getting my power back."
Harmony: "Counsellors who have a deep knowledge of rape, don't know about sex.
"They were comfortable talking about emotional stuff, but for any of this stuff they seemed very out of their depth. My last counsellor recommended I see a sex therapist instead of her. I paid for one, but she knew nothing about rape. I was going through so much trauma, but she was used to seeing people going through a bit of a dry spell in their marriage."
Dawn: "Some women have been worse than men at understanding what we go through.
"A lot of men will accept that they don't understand, so they don't make any open judgement. But I have met a lot of women who think that because they have the same body parts, they understand the same trauma, and they do not. They simply do not.
"I was in a very bad car crash a few years ago, I was unlucky. But it kind of reminds me...say I was in hospital and I didn't feel like I could walk because I was probably injured and in shock...and someone comes over to me and says 'Hey, I'm a driver, I can walk why can't you? A car crash can't be that bad.' That's what some women have been like. Like 'Hey, what's wrong with you, I'm a woman too, I would get over it if it happened to me.
"But they don't know. They can't understand the trauma. They make me feel weird. Like they are normal women and I am not."
Barbara: "I cannot say the word sex in front of people who aren't rape survivors. I find they use the word in a very different way.
"If I say 'sex', people who haven't been through it have a different understanding of the word. They speak another language. I also find it difficult to hear people talking about rape in front of me. They are speaking another language. They don't know the meaning of that word. I get very angry, even if they haven't said anything wrong, I start choking up.
"Because they're speaking this other language I find it hard to communicate with boyfriends about sex, so we can't improve anything. It's all different. I can say what I'm saying and [survivors] understand me, without me having to do or say anything because [they've] been there with those emotions. We know what each other mean without having to say what we mean explicitly. But my boyfriends don't speak our language so they don't get it, and then I give up."
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