Flashes of power, flashes of panic. I have been thinking about early experiences, that is, before I really knew what it meant or was. Before I started to fuck others and before I started to fuck myself.
As a young girl I had boys my age and older making advances, trying to work out their own ideas of sex. Trying to play pretend, unsure of the feelings they were experiencing.
Being short of breathe, bound and in a dark small space, playful things, games that as kids we played. As a child there was something about this that made me panic, but it also got tied very closely to my idea of sex, or what sex would be.
I remember a boy in primary school. We’d moved from one state to another. It was my first week at a new school. I was in second grade, 7 yrs old. This boy, Evangello. He told me to look under the table, we sat opposite one another. I did and he had his pants down, he was playing with himself, showing it to me. One day, I was sitting on the edge of the stage in the class room, he came up to me, the class was empty, he rubbed himself against me, pushed against me and pretended to fuck me. Did he know what this was? He knew that it felt good. He knew that was what you did to make yourself feel good. But where did he learn it? I know how it made me feel, tingles, a deep feeling low in my stomach, hot heat that was so similar to what I experience now as orgasmic, this though had a dirty excitement attached to it, it felt shameful.
How do we develop these sexual feelings? How do we learn about what we want?
I could reel off a list of these encounters, advances from others. Physical feelings which accompanied these experiences.
I was 5, my older cousins made me pretend to have sex, pull down our pants and pretend to rub against one another. We were in the garden. The small break in the trees at the back of the daffodil patch. Do it they said. Do it or else. Again, we were in the house, they made us do it again, get naked and lay on top of her and have sex. Rub it on her. Again it happened, at their house, all of them there. I didn’t want to, he wanted it, he made them.
Hiding in the top of a cupboard, pretending to fuck pillows, rubbing ourselves against pillows, feeling heat between my legs, rubbing almost raw. We were 7yrs old.
You peeping through my window as I got dressed, me catching you and how we didn’t talk about it, we just ignored each other. We were 8yrs old.
You touching me under the covers, making me touch your vagina. I was 9 yrs old.
You pinning me to the bed, a mountain of bedsheets and pillows, you switched the light off, turned the music up load and locked the door. INXS was playing, it still fucks with me. You held me down, pushed my head into the pillows, pushed my head into the pillows and lay on top of me, you licked my face all over. I struggled, I was crying and you scared me. You violated me and made me feel unsafe. I was 10.
You made me strip, made me do it in front of my little brother. Told me I would get in trouble, that I had to or else. I cried and you made me put my mouth on your penis, made me suck it in front of my little brother. You touched me, made me rub against you. Then you made me stand up, naked in front of you, you with your pants down and you held me forcefully and you rubbed your nakedness against me and made me dance and rub back against you. I was afraid. The next day, walking home from school, you were in the park, you chased me and I was crying, you chased me and grabbed me, you said if I told you would hurt me. You made me more afraid. I was 11.
You chased me across a field, begging me to make out with you, to kiss you, to touch you, I said no and I ran, you ran after me, chased me, I felt fear, I fell to the ground and you fell onto me, held me and pushed against me, trying to kiss me. I struggled and I ran. I was 12.
These experiences are running through my mind often in the past few weeks. Restrictions. I am drawing similarities between experiences. My alerts are running high, I can feel my body going into states of shock. And confusion. My current partnership involves a lot of restraint, also rough play, forcefulness, but this is nothing but consensual and he is safe. My brain confuses me. Goes back to it’s learn’t reactions. I felt panic growing from simply thinking about being restrained and him walking away from me. Just the thought. He had expressed wants to do this, that he would really get off on it. I too, would also like to do this, but my body tells me I’m not safe when I am.
I’m not sure of how to go about talking with him about past sexual pain. Not wanting to draw comparisons. Not wanting to believe that they could be related. And certainly not wanting to feel like I want these things only because of my past experiences. But it’s on my mind. A lot.
He asked what I was thinking about the other night, after sex. I said I’d been thinking about how he had touched me the night before. I had been thinking about that all day. But in that moment, I was thinking about how? How do I be honest with him about this. OR why? And that I want to be able to be open about it, without any judgments, comparisons or overly sympathetic emotions.
That it happened, I am thinking about it and I want to be not thinking about it. I’m tired of feeling at fault.
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