How to deal with guilt of enjoying abuse?
I was only a small kid when it happened and at the time the best I could conceptualize the assault was as some 'bad' play. Like playing video games or watching movies your parents told you not too. You feel 'bad' but you also enjoy it and want to play the banned video game.
My assault felt like that. I liked it and dissociated to protect myself from the terror of what happened. Throughout puberty and sexual exploration I always felt heterosexual. I only found girls attractive and only had crushes on girls. Yet during 'self play' my mind would wander, i'd have phallic centered thoughts, and sometimes when I was in vulnerable states with boys I'd get a strange familiar feeling. I did not like it, but at the same time did.
Now I'm in my twenties and am, fairly, certain I'm not homosexual. But I still have the phallic fetishes and still feel enormous guilt/shame. I feel broken, as though I am vile and weak for having enjoyed the terrible thing that happened to me. For having associated it to pleasure. I have nothing against homosexuals. I've even thought to starting calling myself bisexual but it feels wrong, I don't like men. It's just that my development was corrupted. And I feel guilty about my sexuality and I never tell my partners for how could they understand? What girl wants a man that wants her sexually but is thinking phallic thoughts when they are intimate. . .
I want to love myself, but can't stop judging myself.
I feel disgusting
@Atlantivaliades ***Trigger Warning*** Hi,I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about Sorry if I get this wrong. I had a male friend (I am a women). He told me that whe he was a child a man touched him in his private parts and he had a physical reaction to it. He felt unsure if he was gay for many years because of this,but eventually came to the conclusion that he was straight. I did not look down on him in any way when he told me this.
@Atlantivaliades
Hi there, thanks so much for sharing this, it could not have been easy to let your thoughts wander down that road and actually put them out on a page. Pleasure and shame are so intricately woven in sexual abuse. The fact is that sex is supposed to be pleasurable, it's how we are guaranteed to keep having kids because if it was a chore, we wouldn't have lasted long as a species. Early associations of sexual pleasure can be very strong for the rest of your life. This does not make you disgusting, it means you are reacting normally to an abnormal situation. Our genes give a blueprint for how things are supposed to go, they weren't developed with abuse in mind. As for your worries in your sexuality, the world is becoming more open to what was previously thought to be taboo sexual behaviour. You can be sexually bi, but romantically straight. You can use toys with a female partner to simulate phallic stuff. You're allowed to be into what you're into, and as long as it's not hurting anyone, why not? Reclaim your sexuality and let yourself be happy. The abuse happened - it's there, and it affected you. But it doesn't have to control you forever. Forgive yourself for feeling pleasure during acts that are supposed to be pleasurable - it is not your fault.