When the Body Remembers What Should Never Have Happened
On shame, sexuality, and the slow journey back to intimacy
Some experiences do not remain only in memory. They settle in the body. They may appear in the way a person withdraws from a touch, in a face that turns away, in the need to wash repeatedly, in the fear of being seen, or in the feeling of leaving oneself when another person comes too close.
Child sexual abuse is such an experience. It belongs to the past, yet it may continue to make itself present long after the abuse has ended. The body may remember what words cannot express. It may react as though the danger were still near, even when the person is now in a safe and loving relationship.
This is not because the person who was abused lacks the will to move forward. Nor is it because they do not love their partner. It is because sexuality, which should have been a space of freedom, intimacy, pleasure, and mutuality, became connected at an early age with something entirely different: power, secrecy, confusion, fear, and shame.
This essay is based on conversations with women and men who were sexually abused as children. They spoke about how shame had followed them into adult life, not only as a thought, but as an experience carried in the body, in their emotions, in their self-image, and in their encounters with other people. Some of the most painful stories concerned sexuality.
They did not speak primarily about a lack of love. Several of them lived in good relationships with people they trusted. Yet intimacy could still be difficult. Something from the past entered the present. A touch could awaken old memories. A gaze could become too close. Nakedness could bring back the feeling of being dirty. Even love could become mixed with fear.
This is what makes shame so difficult to understand. It does not necessarily follow the rules of reason. A person may know that they did nothing wrong and still feel guilty. They may know that their body is worthy of love and still experience it as damaged. They may trust their partner and yet feel a powerful need to escape.
Shame does not simply say, “Something wrong happened to me.”
It says, “There is something wrong with me.”
When the body responded
One of the men in the study, whom I will call Knut, was sexually abused by an aunt when he was young. As an adult, he carried a particularly painful form of shame. He had not only experienced fear and confusion. Some aspects of what happened had also felt exciting or physically pleasurable.
This later became a heavy burden for him.
How could something that was wrong also have caused a bodily response? Did that mean he had wanted it? Did it mean that he himself had shared responsibility?
No. A child’s body may respond to touch without the child having chosen the situation, understood it, or consented to it. A bodily response is not a moral judgement. It says nothing about guilt or responsibility. Yet such reactions can become a source of profound shame.
A child does not understand the relationship of power. The child does not possess the adult’s language, perspective, or ability to place the experience in a wider context. The child may therefore begin to search for the fault within themselves. Later, the adult may look back and judge the child through the moral eyes of an adult.
In this way, responsibility may gradually be transferred from the abuser to the person who was abused.
Knut said that he had closed the door to his emotions. It had become a way of surviving. When a person does not dare to feel shame, they may try not to feel anything at all. But a door that is closed against pain often closes out joy, intimacy, and grief as well.
He described a life that simply passed by. He did not cry. He experienced few emotional highs or lows. It was only when he began to long for a close relationship with another person that he realised how difficult it was to let anyone in. Relationships could develop to a certain point, but then something inside him stopped. He could not allow another person to come too close, emotionally or sexually.
What had once been a form of protection had become a prison.
This is one of the great contradictions of trauma. What a person does in order to survive during one period of life may later make it difficult to live fully. The distance that once protected the child may prevent the adult from receiving love. The numbness that kept the pain away may also keep life at a distance.
Healing is therefore not only about remembering or understanding what happened. It is also about slowly coming alive again. It is about opening the door to emotions without being overwhelmed by them. It is about discovering that intimacy does not always mean danger, and that another person will not necessarily take, violate, or control.
But such a door cannot be forced open. It must be opened gently, from within.
The feeling of being dirty
Ellen lived in a safe relationship with a man she loved. She said that he had been patient with her and that this had improved their sexual relationship. Yet she still carried the feeling that her body was ugly and dirty.
The first times they had sex, she did not want him to look at her. She loved him, but at the same time she was certain that the relationship would end. Perhaps she was afraid that he would discover what she herself believed she could see: a body that was damaged or contaminated.
Shame creates a strange mirror. The person who looks into it does not necessarily see the body as it is, but as the violation has taught them to see it.
A child who has been sexually abused may begin to experience the body as the cause of what happened. Perhaps the body was wrong. Perhaps it was too visible. Perhaps it attracted something. Perhaps there was something about the child that made the abuse possible.
In this way, a terrible confusion arises: the person who was violated begins to carry the violation as a characteristic of themselves.
Ellen washed herself repeatedly. She tried to remove the feeling of dirtiness. Washing might offer temporary relief, but it could not wash away the shame, because the shame did not sit on the skin. It had become part of her relationship with her body.
Yet there was also something else in her story: a patient partner.
He did not pressure her. He did not demand that she leave the past behind. He did not interpret her difficulties as a sign that she did not love him. He remained close without forcing his way in.
Patience may appear modest. But in such a situation, patience is a powerful moral act. It says:
You have authority over your own body.
You may take all the time you need.
I will not demand access to places within you that do not yet feel safe.
I do not see your body through the eyes of the abuser.
I see you.
A safe partner cannot undo what has happened. Love alone does not heal every trauma. But love can create a new space around the experience. Where there was once power, there may now be mutuality. Where there was secrecy, language may begin to grow. Where the body was used by another person, the individual may gradually experience that the body belongs to them again.
In this way, sexuality can slowly be separated from the abuse.
Turning the face away
Dagny said that she avoided eye contact during sex. She turned her face away or hid her head. If she looked into her partner’s eyes, she became too present. She was truly there in what was happening, and this was precisely what she tried to avoid.
She thought about other things. She waited for it to be over.
From the outside, this might look like rejection or indifference. But it may instead be an old survival strategy. When a child cannot physically escape a violating situation, the child may try to leave it mentally. The body remains, but the mind moves elsewhere.
Later, this way of protecting oneself may return in adult life, even in situations that are objectively safe.
Dagny said something important: the sexual abuse of a child is not sex. It is rape and violation. This must be stated clearly, because language can otherwise conceal the unequal relationship of power. Sexuality requires freedom, mutuality, and the ability to say both yes and no. A child cannot enter into such a mutual relationship with an adult.
When a child is subjected to sexual acts, the child is not a sexual partner. The child is being abused.
Yet adult sexuality may later be shaped by something that was never truly sexuality. The body may have learned that sexual intimacy is something to endure, something to disappear from, or something that must be finished as quickly as possible.
Eye contact then becomes more than a gaze. It makes the encounter real. It confirms that two people are present to one another. But for someone who has learned that being visible is dangerous, being seen may feel unbearable.
Turning the face away may therefore be a way of protecting oneself from the old experience of powerlessness.
The difficulty is that the same protection may also prevent a new experience from taking place: the experience of being seen without being violated.
When the past enters the room
In intimate relationships, there are rarely only two people present. Both bring their histories, experiences, expectations, longings, and vulnerabilities. For a person who has been sexually abused, the past may enter the room with particular force.
The partner may do everything right, yet the body may still respond with fear. A loving touch may awaken the memory of another touch. A smell, a movement, a position, or a facial expression may trigger reactions that neither the person who was abused nor the partner immediately understands.
This can be difficult for both.
The person who was abused may feel ashamed of not being able to respond in the way they believe they should in a loving relationship. The partner may feel rejected, helpless, or afraid of doing something wrong. Both may become silent in an attempt to protect the other, and the silence itself may increase the distance between them.
It is therefore so important to develop a language for what is happening.
Not a language that demands that every detail of the abuse be disclosed. No one should be pressured to open memories before they are ready. But a language that makes it possible to say:
“I am frightened now.”
“This touch is difficult for me.”
“I need you to stop.”
“It is not because I do not love you.”
“I need to see your face.”
“I need not to be seen just now.”
“Could you simply hold me without it having to lead any further?”
These sentences may appear simple, but they can become the beginning of a new form of intimacy. They make the body less silent. They make it possible to distinguish between past and present, between the abuser and the partner, between coercion and freedom.
A no that is respected can be healing.
A yes that is allowed to grow without pressure can be healing.
A pause that is not met with irritation can be healing.
A partner who asks and listens can help sexuality become a place where the individual once again has a choice.
Shame cannot easily survive a kind gaze
Shame feeds on secrecy. It grows when a person remains alone with the belief that no one would understand and that anyone who truly knew the truth would turn away.
To speak about shame is therefore always a risk.
The person who speaks places something vulnerable in the hands of another. The response may have great importance. An expression of disbelief, disgust, or impatience may confirm the old fear. Calm and compassionate presence may open another possibility.
A good response does not require grand words. Sometimes the most important thing is simply to be believed. To hear that the responsibility belonged to the adult. To understand that bodily reactions do not mean consent. To experience that the other person can bear the story without leaving.
Shame cannot easily survive a kind gaze. Not because it disappears immediately, but because the kind gaze contradicts its message.
Shame says, “You are unclean.”
The gaze says, “You are a human being with inviolable dignity.”
Shame says, “What happened defines you.”
The gaze says, “What happened is part of your story, but it is not the whole of you.”
Shame says, “No one can remain close to you if they truly know you.”
The gaze says, “I know more of you now, and I am still here.”
In this way, recognition may slowly weaken the power of shame.
Support must also make room for sexuality
Professionals and support services have not always been good enough at asking about sexuality. It may be easier to speak about anxiety, depression, sleep problems, or painful memories than about nakedness, desire, touch, and intimate relationships.
But when sexual abuse has affected a person’s relationship with the body and with intimacy, sexuality cannot be excluded from therapy or support. It must be allowed to exist as a subject, without being turned into a demand.
This requires great sensitivity. The professional must not become another person who crosses the survivor’s boundaries. The survivor must decide the pace, the words, and how much is shared.
Some people need individual therapy. Others may benefit from conversations together with their partner. For some, the most important task may be learning to recognise the body’s reactions and to set boundaries. Others may need help understanding that desire and fear can exist at the same time without making them morally guilty.
There must also be room for those who do not want a sexual relationship, either for a period of time or for much longer. The aim can never be to force everyone into a single idea of what a good relationship should look like. The aim must be greater freedom: the freedom to feel, to say no, to say yes, to choose closeness, and to choose distance.
A good sexual relationship may look different for different people. For some, it involves intercourse. For others, it involves touch, closeness, safety, humour, warmth, or simply being able to lie beside another person without fear.
What matters is not meeting a norm. What matters is that the body is no longer subject to another person’s power.
The body is not guilty
A child is never responsible for an adult committing sexual abuse. Not if the child was curious. Not if the body responded. Not if the child remained silent. Not if the child returned. Not if the child understood only many years later what had happened.
Children try to survive within the relationships on which they depend. They adapt, protect themselves, remain silent, divide the experience into separate parts, and try to preserve some form of meaning in a world that has become unsafe.
The adult carries the responsibility.
This truth may be simple to express, but difficult to absorb. Shame may have become part of the person’s self-image. It may have been present for so long that it feels more truthful than any reassurance from outside.
The message must therefore be repeated, not mechanically, but patiently and truthfully:
Your body was not guilty.
Your emotions were not guilty.
Your confusion was not guilt.
Your silence was not consent.
The fact that you survived in the only way you could is not something for which you should feel ashamed.
A slow return
Healing is rarely a straight path. A person may experience long periods of safety and then suddenly be thrown back by a memory, a smell, or a touch. This does not mean that all previous work has been lost. It means that the body is still trying to protect itself.
The body cannot be ordered to forget. But it can be given new experiences.
Experiences of a no being heard.
Experiences of a pause being allowed.
Experiences of love that does not demand submission.
Experiences of being seen without being judged.
Experiences of touch that does not take, but asks.
Perhaps this is how a person slowly returns to their own body. Not as an object to be judged from the outside, but as their own living place in the world.
For the person who has experienced abuse, this may be a long and demanding movement. From seeing the body as dirty to beginning to understand that it is wounded. From experiencing the body as an enemy to recognising that it has always tried to protect. From turning the face away to perhaps, one day, daring to meet a kind gaze.
Not every wound disappears. Some experiences will always remain part of a person’s history. But it is possible to live a life that is larger than what was done to them.
It is possible to love and to be loved.
It is possible to experience intimacy without losing oneself.
It is possible to reclaim the right to one’s own body.
And perhaps this journey begins not with sexuality, but with dignity. With the knowledge that the person was never dirty. They were subjected to something degrading. That the body was never guilty. It was violated. That the shame never belonged to the child. It belonged to the person who abused their power.
When this slowly becomes possible to believe, the body may begin to breathe more freely.
Intimacy can then become something other than a repetition of the past.
It can become an encounter between two people who see one another, listen to one another, and allow freedom to live at the heart of love.
And perhaps this journey begins not with sexuality, but with dignity.
With the knowledge that the person was never dirty.
They were subjected to something degrading. That the body was never guilty.
It was violated. That the shame never belonged to the child.
It belonged to the person who abused their power.
No comments:
Post a Comment