I keep getting stuck on “I was raped””I was raped””I was raped””I was raped”.  Ok.  So what?  What does that mean?  Why is that the sticking point?  What is rape?  Why do I get to make rape jokes and no one else does?  Because every time a different survivor starts making the (really good) case for why rape jokes are never ok… I get my hackles up.  Hmm.  That’s interesting.  There is a lot of competition between my family members.  There is one victim at a time.  No one else is allowed to have needs while that one person is being the victim.  I would be lying if I said I never had my turn.  My family acknowledged, sometimes, that something happened to me.  Sorta.  Really what they acted like is that it was a shame I was such a precocious whore, but they’ll try not to hold it against me.

My body.  This frail shell that houses a tremendous spirit was violated.  Things were put in me.  Fingers.  Penises.  Tongues.  I was not allowed to have the sacred space of my own person.  My body was made to hurt.  I was taught to hate my body and use my body.  I struggle with dealing with my body.  I don’t mean, “Man, I think I’m ugly.”  I mean, my back and neck hurt very badly right now.  I just finished a massage.  He did help, but I still hurt quite a bit.  I have bruises all over.  I don’t know how or when I got them.  I don’t shower regularly.  When I am in a young place I have to be careful what clothes I wear because if something is even slightly uncomfortable it will send me into a rage.  Because something has happened to cause me pain again.  Kind of weird from a masochist.  I have food issues.  When I am young like this I eat about as much as Shanna.  And society thinks that is great.  I’m not sure.  I need to figure out the doctor situation.  I am so very uncomfortable working with anyone in that kind of authority.  They scare the ever-loving-shit out of me.  And I feel like a complete nutcase saying that.  I used to scoff at people who admitted they felt that way about doctors.  I didn’t feel that way.  But I also have never been able to see a doctor in a consistent, healthy way.  Hell, even my beloved midwife isn’t so happy with me these days.  I soured the end of that relationship, with help.  It feels like my body is more of a deficit than an asset in life.  It’s too much work and only brings me pain.

But I was taught to suck dick while my father held a gun to my head.  I had tears running down my face and snot dripping and mixing in with the semen and saliva.  I was nine.  Is it any wonder I like violent sex?  Is it any wonder that I want my lovers to hurt me in ways I frankly hate to prove that they love me?  I’m not even sure I am a masochist exactly.  It hurts and it is horrible and I want it to stop.  But I want to date people who want to do that to me.  I want to find people who literally get off on watching me suck their cock while I sob and cry and snot mixes in with the semen and saliva.  That’s pretty broken.  [Disclaimer!  Not all people who are into bdsm had horrific childhoods!  Do not use my case as an example of how no one who does this can be healthy!]  *ahem*

Do you know what is really awesome about dating men who get off on treating me that way?  When they don’t do it… they are making a special effort for me.  They are showing me that even though they are absolutely monstrous they care about me more than they care about getting off.  It’s pretty odd.  Because, if you do it right, bdsm involves a lot of communication.  I was shown porn, raped, molested, given graphic historic romance novels to read full of really kinky shit.  I was allowed to read those books when I was eight.  I was absolutely being primed to be ruled by my sex life.

That’s why my sister is a whore and my mom is celibate.  Those were presented as my options.  Which would you choose?  I have a high sex drive.  Pre-kids my sex life was shaped primarily about dealing with the demons in my head even though I usually didn’t tell my partners that.  That’s where Noah comes in.  I don’t know how to describe my experience of Noah.  I’m not even sure if I should try.  If I do it badly he looks like shit.  We are intense people.  But he isn’t shit.  He is wonderful.  And he loves me so much.

My husband married a tremendous pervert.  Now I kind of want to take it all back.  But that’s not how it works.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t like being touched much.  Having someone touch me is scary.  I try to have sex even though it is hard.  We have to stop a lot.  We are definitely only having fluffy gentle bunny sex right now.  That’s not something I have much experience with.  Sometimes having gentle sex makes me cry.  Because I realize that is probably how most people learned about their bodies.  Other people mostly discovered sex as something kind of weird and awkward but fun.  I think.  I’m guessing.  I don’t know.  Mine was pain.  Because once I got past the point of being raped and I asked to have sex I was too young.  It hurt so much.  But that is what I was brought up to do.  So I did it.

Today is a hard day.  Today I have no defenses.  Today I feel sad and scared and like any minute now someone is going to turn around and hurt me.  Want to know how today has really gone?  I woke up at a normal time and did some writing.  Then everyone else woke up.  Noah decided that he just didn’t feel like cooking so we went to our local breakfast place.  Shanna was a bit moody and particular about things, but not that bad.  And when I made my boundaries clear she figured out how she could deal with her part of it.  (Yes, you can be sad about something.  No you may not scream in the van or in the restaurant because you are sad.  That hurts.)  We did ok with breakfast.  I was overly touchy and edgy but I didn’t blow up.  I didn’t let it escalate.  I said I couldn’t continue a chain of conversation instead of yelling or being nasty.  At home I had a massage and ate lunch.  There has been various talking to people in there.  But I had to tell Noah and Taylor that I was feeling young and I needed them to be careful with their tone of voice.  I had to say that.

Because I was raped.  I remember.  When I was very very young, must have been four or five, my father would pick me up and swing me through the air and I loved it and then he would lower me to his lap.  If I had pants on it was a little bit of rubbing and it felt good and I didn’t say anything.  If I had a dress on, which was basically all the time.  My mother describes me as refusing to wear pants.  She says, “Oh you were such a girl.  You wouldn’t wear pants at all.”  And when I wore a dress my father would support me on his leg with his hands on my hips.  I remember the feel of his knuckle shoving deep into my thigh as he tried to get the right angle.  It hurt and I would bite my lip.  If I cried out with the pain he would flick me in the head and tell me to stop whining.  Then he would go back to holding my hips.  Sometimes he would stay external and play with my clitoris.  I hope I don’t need to explain the basic human physiology of why that feels good.  That is where I learned about sex.  And I feel so very dirty.  Because I liked it.  Because I still like sex.

I think I like kinky sex because as long as someone is hurting me at the same time it’s ok for me to like it.  I have to have that trade or I don’t deserve it.

What is rape, anyway?  Is it just penis in vagina intercourse?  Do fingers count?  I say they do.  I say that when you are four and your father puts his finger inside your vagina and makes it hurt deep inside you and then punishes you for reacting to the pain you are raped.  And sometimes my body remembers.  Something I’m really glad about is since Calli was born sex doesn’t hurt as much any more.  I no longer get the tiny little tears all through my vagina during sex.  You see, when your father starts raping you that young you develop a lot of scar tissue.  A gynecologist who specialized in dysfunction once used a clear speculum and a flash light to show me the spider web of scar tissue all the way deep into my vagina.  That’s not normal.  Those little scars become little dotted lines that break over and over and over again.  But if you do deep enough massage you can break up scar tissue.  It’s possible that having kids healed that pain.

Before children I had physical discomfort with basically every sex act to a greater or lesser extent.  But I didn’t cry during sex.  I felt ok with myself because I dissociated away from that pain and I didn’t notice much.  It’s different now.  I’m trying so hard to not dissociate and sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it.  I’m tired of trying to force myself into a body that hurts this much.  But I have to because that is the only way to deal with this shit.  I thought that being a grown up was supposed to make this easier?