Therapy(Un)Filter: Why I don't do casual nudity

[sorcyress]

I had an epiphany the other day. A slightly terrifying one.

See, there's this Tumblr called Project Unbreakable, which showcases photographs of sexual abuse survivors holding up quotes from their abusers. And I absolutely want to join, and so I took a gander back at my chatlogs because I remember textual things so much better than vocal, and I wanted to make sure I got the quote I wanted exactly right.

It was from a few weeks after we broke up. They said:

well. That's fine, don't have sex.
I suggest that you don't get naked with anyone who is attracted to you either, 'cos they'll expect it to keep going one step further until you do have sex

It elaborated from what they said right when we broke up, that I wasn't ever going to have a partner because I was scared of sex¹. It's hardly the most toxic quote from my quick trawl through the chatlogs², but it's one that's sat with me ever since. Sometimes I pull it out and laugh at it --"Look, they was such a jerkwad they said this to me!"-- but more often, I just don't bring it up at all.

And I sure as hell don't think about whether or not I internalized it.

Which brings us to another snippet from my past, a more recent one. A few months ago, I wrote about the fact that I do not like being casually naked, and examined why that might be.

Perhaps you see where I'm going with this.

Not long after I wrote that clothing post, I had a breaking-down freakout, sobbing in a hotel bathroom during a con. I was just post-shower, I was stressed and exhausted, and all my clothing was out in the room. So were the people I was staying with. And I just could not go out and get my clothing, because I was naked, and I knew they find me attractive, and I couldn't guarantee for myself that they wouldn't do some sort of flirty "rrow!" comment at me.

Which ordinarily would have been completely okay, because these are people who have seen me underdressed a dozen times before, and I know the comment would have been playful and platonic, if it even came at all (which is unlikely, really), but...but I couldn't have dealt with it. I literally could not get my brain to let me be seen naked by people who find me attractive. The idea was distressing in the extreme.

And maybe all of that was just the problem I was having all con, where I felt more that people liked me for being pretty than useful, and making lewd comments at my body (or even just admiring it!) would've just played into that (no one ever makes lewd comments about my mind.)

But maybe the problem is that somewhere in the back of my brain is the connection that, if someone finds me attractive, and that someone sees me naked, then that someone will expect sex from me. And so maybe they'll take it from me.

Because that's what happened with my abuser. I was encouraged to be naked at their place, but it could never just be nakedness. There was always feeling and groping and objectification and really, I left that relationship feeling like I hadn't been anything more than a glorified Real Doll to them.

So there we go. One of the reasons I don't like being naked around people is that I was told, in no uncertain terms, by someone I consider to have raped me, that if I am naked around people who are attracted to me, then they will expect to have sex with me.

I'm well aware, in my rational sense-brain that that's complete and utter bullshit. I know this to be true because I have seen people I was attracted to naked, and not expected anything from them. I know this to be true because there are people who I know are attracted to me who have seen me naked, and they've never expected anything.

My rational sense-brain is not the bit of me that's in charge of me feeling uncomfortable.

The whole point of finding my internalized bullshit is so I can fix it. No, I don't want you to help.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Always their words, and it only occurs to me now, later, how much I despise it. I wasn't scared of sex. I've been masturbating since I first gained motor control over my hands, I've been kinky since before I knew there were words for what I thought. Sex is a huge part of my life, and even when I was most against it, was still something I thought about, a lot, and fought for, a lot. It doesn't scare me.

I just didn't want it. To use a (slightly absurd) example, that's like saying I'm "scared of chocolate sauce" because I prefer not to have it on my ice cream. I found sex a complex and fascinating subject that I didn't want to have any practical experience in, at the time. That's not the same as fear.

2: In which I didn't even _touch_ the "bad" ones, like the one where they blackmailed me. This was about six logs total, from the first month or so of us being broken up.

POSTSCRIPT: So, someone pointed out that I made my first post about being an abuse survivor a couple months after I broke up with one of my boyfriends, and they were freaking out about hearing me hanging out casually with that (now-ex)boyfriend. NO! GODS NO!

I do not hang out with my abuser, ever, and the relationship ended long before I ever posted about it. If you do not want to hang out with someone I dated/was involved with because you think they are the one who hurt me, PLEASE ask me first so I can confirm. With this one exception, I am quite friendly with my exes, and really don't want the good ones to get mistaken for the douchey one. Thanks.

Comments

[tirerim]

<hug>

Making lewd comments about a mind is difficult, I think, but I promise to work on this problem. ;-)

One thing I've noticed about myself, at least, is that nudity in large-ish groups is much less sexual than nudity with just two people. When one is part of a group of twenty or thirty naked people frolicking in a thunderstorm (which happened to me last week), it's pretty clear that there are no additional expectations attached.

[sorcyress]

Nudity with fewer people is more terrifying, yes, but nudity in groups doesn't stop being scary for me, in the back of my mind. Especially if there's any sort of focus on me, like at strip dreidl (where there is focus on everyone in turn, as they strip) or if I'm having to deal with other difficult social things.

I think part of the problem is that it's hard for me to find a group(large) that consists entirely of people who I know are indifferent to me and people who I know are attracted to me and are safe. Because of the boldness to my flirting style, there are a lot of people out there who have given me some degree of impression that they are some degree of interested, and if nothing else, given the *time* it takes to trust someone, the likelihood that a naked party contains at least one person who is untrusted and attracted is reasonably high.

Sometimes I can get my brain around it anyways, and sometimes the space feels safe enough, or I have sufficient protection in other ways, but in general, I trust people a lot less than I used to not to take advantage of my body, and I don't want to expose any vulnerability.

~Sor

[harena]

Response 1: i so could do that Project Unbreakable thing and hold up a sign that reads "No one will ever put up with you as much as i did" courtesy Icky Ex #1 (which is something he said to me post break-up (and possibly still during the stupid 1 year separation before you can divorce thing NC makes you go through) and i actually saw as a total Mirroring Thing on his part: Nobody would have put up with him as much as I did. (and they didn't because he was single till he died))

Except, that comment was made about our relationship In General and not specific to sex. i never quite considered him as a sex abuser as much since all that ever happened was that i never really was interested in any of the things we did together *mumblemumble*

Response 2: And ohgods is that "can't be naked unless it leads to sex" thing was SUCH A THING with Icky Ex#2. Hell, he couldn't even snuggle with clothes on without it leading to sex. Couldn't get a massage without it leading to sex. Couldn't take a shower without it leading to sex. I swear he is a sex addict not just 'cause of that but also because the second i booted him out of the house, he was off at bars picking any woman who would have sex with him. Madness.

Anyway, this was supposed have been an empathy comment but possibly failed in that department. What i am trying to say is, "i know, that thing there you are talking about".

And thank the gods that W is helping me with the a lot of that. Very early on with her, i knew i could sleep naked, snuggle, etc with her and i could be Safe.

Don't understand the whole "worrying about people what find me attractive thing" because there isn't anyone who does, really, soyar </negvox>

[kyri-v.livejournal.com]

[the post is very thought provoking; I wrote more than intended and hope I am not derailing.]


Nudity and sexualized situations are a strange intersection. I turn watching a movie on the couch with Playpartner into Playdate by stripping nude.

OTOH, showering with someone, 90% of the time, saves time and water.

If nudity is always sexualized* . . . yeah.
And if all indoor time is nude and hence because of that, sexualized... yuck. (Been there. Demeaning after a time, and nigh dissociative.)


Ah, the "never have a partner" prediction from the jilted lover. Amazing how much it hurts even when one knows it's just a wild jab to injure.


Re sex, I try to run the translator in my brain, but every time you say 'sex' I think you are referring to bits-in-bits.

The concept of being enthusiastically into everything except bits-in-bits is very resonant to me - that was the defining line, for me, of "virgin,**" and I did not want to cross it.


*Which is of course most of society, to the point that 'get-naked' is often used as synonymn for necking and petting.

**yes, that would define lesbians as eternal virgins, which was part of why I decided to, in my mind, have sex with an admittedly poor choice of First.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

You're not derailing at all. I like hearing people's stories.

I agree that the problem arises when nudity always equals sex. That's a terrible situation to be in, right down there with touching always equaling sex.

sex = two or more people trying for one or more orgasms. They were largely using it in the PIV sense, I made them very angry that I wasn't interested, but they still decided at some point throughout our explorations that I was no longer a virgin, and they told me this. Considering that was when I still fairly strongly identified as asexual, that was shattering.

(For reference, *I* stopped considering myself a virgin long before I ever had PIV sex, but a fair amount of time after I split with my abuser and was in a new and more healthy relationship.)

I wasn't enthusiastically into everything except. I was lukewarm on a lot of it, and didn't want to make them unhappy or angry, which meant I tended to shut up and let them use me. I was not good at communicating, but still, if you don't care (or realize) that your partner is crying while you get yourself off against them*, you have done something dreadfully wrong.

~Sor

*Outside the situation where this sort of thing has been pre-negotiated and there are safewords etc etc.

[mneme]

FWIW, your mind is -incredibly- sexy (and I totally don't expect to have sex with it, even if I see it naked).

Nudity is complicated. I ended up going from more normal/sexualized attitudes towards nudity to my current, much more casual "find out what the most clothed comfortable point is and target that, don't find nudity, sans context, particularly sexual" approach in a fairly short period -- mostly by getting myself to go to the "classic" (nude) swimming area at Pennsic and going to a bunch of Baitcons (which also has nude bathing/hanging out at a nearby creek, or did the last time I went). But then, I've never been sexually abused (and certainly not in the ugly emotional abuse fashion you describe above).

Re:

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Baitcon doesn't really have nudity anymore - gazillion kids running around, real showers, and I've yet to ever find the water body at the new site...

Re:

[mneme]

A shame, in a fashion, but institutions change.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

FWIW, your mind is -incredibly- sexy

This made me tear up. In the good way. <3

(and I totally don't expect to have sex with it, even if I see it naked).

What do you call this livejournal?

Writing is easy. All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein. True, the deepest level of exposure gets put into a private journal rather than public, but there's a lot of myself that I have spilled into these pages. I'm much less interested in covering up my mind, I want people to see it naked. Because it's strong enough to break you if you try to take advantage of its vulnerabilities.

(That is the advantage of personifying ones insecurities, SHE is very insistent that my mind is her toy alone to damage, and should anyone else try, she will end them.)

~Sor

[mneme]

This made me tear up. In the good way. <3

Good! *hugs*

Yeah, pretty much. Particularly when you get introspective and start bleeding all over the screen, this is -very- much seeing your mind naked.

Thank you for doing it.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

My first real boyfriend, in college, did the 'keep trying for the next level' thing. Over time, and in very small increments, it went from figuring out kissing to clothed bosom touching, unclothed bosom, along, across probably a good year, to him going down on me.

I broke with him when I changed schools, and one small part of changing schools was the, yes, fear, that if I stayed with him we would have sex.

Oddly, I'm pretty sure he never saw me naked. I saw him naked but once.

Gah, decades later I'm working on the expectations thing, and trying to learn that expectations are not obligations.

Thank you for writing.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

expectations/predictions and expectations/obligations are one of the worst overloadings of terminology in the English language

[archangelwells.livejournal.com]

~offers hug~

I read this. I'm here if you want to talk or support or anything.

[ms-hecubus.livejournal.com]

Have you ever considered posing for nude photos? I know it seems like a weird question considering what you just posted, but it can be an amazingly empowering thing to do. Some women do it as a type of therapy to get over body issues, and I know from experience how wonderful it can make you feel to look at beautiful art and realize it is your body.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I'd love to do life-modeling, for an art class sometime, but I think being photographed (especially in some sort of one-on-one situation) would rub up against my issues in a really bad way. Maybe if I find out I know someone who does really good art nudes, but until then, probably not.

I really should look into that life modeling thing again though.

~Sor

[ms-hecubus.livejournal.com]

I bet life modeling would serve the same sort of need that I was talking about. Photography came to my mind first because I've posed for nudes, taken nudes and remember watching a documentary where a woman hired a professional to take nudes of her as a way to learn to love her body. The photographer who took the portraits specializes in that kind of work.

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

Wishing you strength in your journey.