On Post-traumatic Hypersexuality:

on post-traumatic hypersexuality:

(warning: this post is going to mention sex, sexual abuse, PTSD, ableism, and personal details about myself. keep that in mind!) 

i’m making this post because i’ve seen a lot of horrendous misrepresentations of hypersexuality, and misuses of the term. i’ve had people tell me they “can’t be hypersexual” because they’re ace, because sexual activity causes them stress, or literally because they’re “not gross”. all of these doubts are understandable for hypersexual people to have, but they’re representative of a massive issue the PTSD community has–our definition and portrayal of hypersexuality.

honestly, it’s more the people who don’t have PTSD who are talking about hypersexuality in a bad way. some people refer to it as the “opposite of asexuality”, a high libido, being crude, physically needing to have sex, or even being a sexual predator. that’s not anywhere close to true. in this post, i aim to explain hypersexuality in a more inclusive and accurate way, with personal examples for emphasis.

post-traumatic hypersexuality (hypersexuality following trauma and/or as a symptom of PTSD) can be defined as a perceived obligation to be sexually active, the use of sexual activity as a form of self-harm or self-destructive behavior, or the practice of basing one’s own self-worth on one’s sexual activity, availability, or appeal. it has absolutely no inherent connection to libido or sexual attraction, nor does it force a person to have sex. 

being hypersexual does NOT mean that you are “doomed” to have unwanted sex. you can, and should, abstain from any sexual activity (even masturbation and pornography) that harms or triggers you. on the other end, if anyone tells you that you have to have sex with them because they’re hypersexual and they “need it”, that’s manipulative behavior, and you have no obligation to do anything with them. hypersexuality doesn’t force anything upon anyone, and no matter how hypersexual you are, you still have agency and control over your own body and sexual activity. 

furthermore, hypersexuality and sex repulsion (being disgusted, scared, or otherwise negatively affected by sex) are not mutually exclusive. i myself am hypersexual and sex repulsed. most of the time, i can’t think about sex (or have it) for very long without having a flashback, sexual stimulation causes phantom pain, and i find the idea of sex to be gross and almost dehumanizing. my hypersexuality causes me to feel very ashamed of this, and to have a perceived obligation to be sexually active, which can cause such severe feelings of worthlessness that i completely break down. i spent much of my childhood and early adolescence forcing myself to have sex with people i hated because i didn’t know how to handle that feeling of uselessness. a lot of people experience both, and they do not dampen each other down; if anything, they fuel each other. 

hypersexuality can make you feel horrible. it can make you feel like you’re disgusting, or “sex-crazed”, or even like you brought on your abuse yourself because you enjoy it. it can make you think that you want or need to be abused, that you don’t have any value outside of sex, that you’re an object or a piece of furniture with the sole use of being sexually available. absolutely none of this is your fault, and there are many ways to treat hypersexuality. you will not feel like this forever.

some great ways to help with hypersexuality are:

abstaining from sex or sexual activities as a way of reclaiming your autonomy and proving to yourself that you have control over what happens to your body (or because the activities are hurting you)

setting firm sexual boundaries, refusing to entertain certain kinks or sex acts that you find “tolerably” gross, triggering, or dehumanizing

analyzing your sexual preferences and figuring out their roots and whether you really enjoy them (for example, “do i really have this kink, or did i just convince myself i have to do it because of __”)

reaffirming your real sources of worth and value to yourself

dressing in ways that emphasize the good parts of you that aren’t sexual, and doing activities that do the same (for example, when i was struggling worst with hypersexuality and literally thought of myself as an object, i dyed my hair blue and started dressing sort of like a child’s image of a fairy. i couldn’t look at myself and think “slut” because i literally looked like i was from a children’s book.)

working out the root of your hypersexuality and figuring out what specific things make you insecure, then countering them (for example, “my abuser made me feel like i had to have sex to be worth anything by doing/saying __, but i know that they were abusive and a liar, so nothing they made me think is true. i know that they were wrong because [value you have, something in your life that proved it untrue, blanket statement like ‘no human being is worth only that’.”)

giving purposes to yourself (for example, “my purpose is to help people and take care of my loved ones,” “my purpose is to [a goal you have, like a career goal]”, “my purpose is to work on/take care of [specific animal, plant, or project]”, etc. these can be religious or spiritual!)

de-sexualizing your body (i did this by drawing on myself with markers and then looking in the mirror at the patterns i drew! anything you can do to make yourself look or feel like something beautiful or at least non-sexual.)

forgiving yourself for your trauma, placing the blame for it on your abuser(s) rather than yourself. if you weren’t abused, or if you aren’t ready to blame your abusers, you can say that it was nobody’s fault. just know that it wasn’t yours. hypersexuality is very frequently a method of blaming yourself for your trauma, and forgiving yourself of your survivor’s guilt is a very good way to start healing.

thank you so much for reading all the way through! if anyone has something to add about post-traumatic hypersexuality, please add it. i hope this was inclusive!!

I thought it would delight you to know that ants do have a sort of funeral mound for their dead

yes there is a name for this! necrophoresis is a process with social insects where the bodies are taken to a specific location on the outside of ( or within ) the nest - ants tend to keep them all in the same place, and the way an ant is signaled to be "dead" by its other members is through the release of a chemical called oliec acid

theres even been a few experiments where live ants were coated in the same chemical and other ants treated the live ants....exactly as though they were dead and tried dragging them into the pile

boys will be boys.

Honestly, healing from chronic / childhood trauma isn’t pretty, it isn’t romantic, most of the time it isn’t some beautiful story of a perfectly innocent victim rising to become strong

A lot of healing from chronic / childhood trauma is realizing there is a lot of dirt, grime, hurt, pain, and problematic behaviors and beliefs that living in such an environment has instilled inside of you.

It is realizing a lot of things you thought were normal were not, and a lot of the things you’ve done that you thought were given truths and normal things about the world were false, not needed, and hurtful to others and yourself around you.

A lot of people want a healing story that is inspiring and beautiful - with a clear abuser and a clear victim - someone who was clearly 100% perfect, innocent and never did anything wrong in life and someone who was clearly 100% evil, intentional, corrupt, and malicious. The hero / villian story of trauma, abuse, and recovery is so much easier to digest both for others and the person, but the reality is - living through hell instills and causes people to learn things that aren’t 100% perfect and innocent.

No trauma survivor or victim deserves what happened to them, nor did they ask for it in any form, but it isn’t abnormal for one to unknowingly after growing up and living in an environment that was dangerous, harmful, and painful to learn things that aren’t the best in the general world.

Trying to heal, mistakes will be made, a lot of unlearning and relearning will happen. People - especially children and teenagers who grew up in these environments - will likely reenact what happened to them or use defensive mechanisms that aren’t the best that they got from assuming the world is like their home.

Many will do things that aren’t “okay” or are “problematic” because that is all they know. This isn’t to say it is okay or excusable. This isn’t to say you should forgive anyone who did this to you.

This is to those who did bad things in the past that they punish themselves for, hate themselves for, the bad things they did due to being young and in a stage of survival.

The past does not define you and you were young and living by what you were taught growing up. You are not a horrible person because of how you learned to live. Who you are is found in the present and the future and in what you do now and what you do later.

You can and deserve to forgive yourself and your younger selves for what had happened when you knew little more.

You aren’t horrible or terrible. 

Being young is hard

Being a teen is hard

Having trauma is hard

Having chronic trauma is hard.

Being young and growing up in an environment conducive to chronic trauma is even harder.

You deserve and are allowed to forgive yourself and move forward and heal.

You deserve to heal just like anyone else.

Ghibli films look the way it feels to exist in this world, like not how the world actually looks, but how it feels- and in all the good ways

the warm buttered toast of early mornings, the sheated heavy rain of grey days, the huge welling tears of grief and the electric anger that raises your whole head of hair

like, it’s not real, but it’s really Real, you feel me?

Me: Can I get you anything else?

Customer: Yeah, a smile would be nice

Me: