Cataliza,

I’m sorry for the confusion and suffering you’re going though. Sometimes when we have uncomfortable experiences, we’re left with some baggage. Until we process it, we can have cloudy thoughts, emotions and perceptions. What you’re going through is completely normal, and I admire your courage to look at it as directly as you are. Don’t despair, there is always a path toward joy. A few things came to heart as I read your words.

The first is that sex means different things to different people. In your instance, it seems that sex means a physical and emotional union. That’s great, and the kind that leads to great fulfillment! However, because of your past experience, there is a split. Your body and mind were in very different places, and perhaps lost trust for one another. The body felt pleasure, the mind felt pain. So, after you digested the experience, perhaps you have some residual anger and mistrust for yourself. It was a bit of a tangled mess, with pleasure, pain, boundaries, manipulation, hopes… all mashed together and whirring by faster than you could open to with heart.

The key is perhaps to disentangle yourself from what others might say, as in “what is normal”. For instance, society may or may not look at your experience as abuse, but that is also irrelevant. It felt icky, and that is enough. You feel ashamed. That is enough. You don’t need justification that what you feel is OK, you already feel it. We all make dumb decisions that lead us into painfulness, so deciding if you were or were not a victim won’t change that you’re lovable, normal, beautiful, capable of healing and reopening.

This same principle is applicable to your current relationship to sex. It doesn’t matter if “normally” two people would be in a sexual place after such and such a time. Your readiness is unique to you, and is the mental, emotional and physical desire for union. If something is amiss, its OK to wait and work it out. Much like the body responds to sexual energy with yearning, swelling, lubricating… so do our emotions. The heart opens, expands, blooms, and reaches out to our partner for union. If that is there, it is OK to surrender into it and let the moment ripen. If not, its OK to wait. There is no timetable or “normal” way, it is always deeply personal.

As you continue to look inside for the answers, the fear of getting into another situation like you had will naturally erode. You know how icky it felt to let someone in when your heart was crying out “no”, so you won’t idle by without resisting again. Why would you?

That being said, its also possible that you’re picking up on your new boyfriend’s sexual yearning and afraid of it. Afraid it might bring the icky, or afraid it means you have to do something with it… satisfy it for him. You don’t. If you want to share that with him, to reopen yourself and allow him in, to let him express his yearning and attraction and passion… its OK to do so when you’re ready. It can be very beautiful. But that is between you and your heart, mind and body. Society, him, me, “normal”, your mom… none have the information needed to make such a decision, so what to do is completely up to you. Your right, your responsibility, your garden. Namaste.

With warmth,
Matt