The Fundamentals of Sex

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The myth is that survivors of child sexual abuse are often sexually impaired for life.

That's possible, but a recent study shows that it's possible to heal and experience enjoying partner sex.

The key is to reintroduce survivors to their bodies' ability to experience pleasure.

The conventional wisdom declares that child sex abuse (CSA) is so horrendous, so traumatic, so psychologically devastating that survivors, overwhelmingly women, develop long-term post-traumatic stress disorder and deep fears of partner sex, often avoiding it for years, sometimes for the rest of their lives. If CSA survivors manage to return to sex, the conventional wisdom holds that they do it just for their partners, don’t enjoy it, and suffer sex problems—difficulty becoming aroused and working up to orgasms.

CSA is, indeed, deeply traumatic, and may involve long-term sexual impairment. But a recent study shows that as CSA survivors leave childhood and become young adult women, many are able to enjoy partner sex—if they explore who they are sexually by embracing self-sexing.

University of Nebraska researchers surveyed 77 young adult women CSA survivors, average age 20, asking, among other issues, if they intentionally avoided partner sex. Some of the women had real problems with sex. But contrary to the conventional wisdom, the researchers found that if the women self-sexed regularly, CSA did........

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