 Hi everybody and welcome back to our vlog from the Kamasutra to 2020 where we answer your questions, your concerns, even your worries around all things to do with sex and sexuality. So as always we have with us Dr. Anvita Madanbehel. Anvita is a psychosexual therapist and she brings the psychological and clinical perspective to the advice that the Kamasutra has to give. Welcome Anvita. Thank you Seema and welcome to our vlog this week. So Anvita today I'd like to talk about sexual abuse. Primarily child sexual abuse about which we've had a lot of questions coming in but I guess also to some level about sexual abuse in general because I'm sure that there is an overlap isn't there? Yeah so I must say that I think it's a really important topic to talk about because sexual abuse and especially child sexual abuse has a great impact, has a huge impact on somebody's sexual life and sexual identity and I think that gets very little consideration like everything focuses towards the emotions and emotional well-being and the child might get counseling to deal with the emotion or as an adult but very rarely do we stop to say what was that the impact of abuse on their sex life or their sexuality. Yeah it's funny you should say that because generally we will talk about the emotional trauma to a great deal but nobody ever kind of obviously goes into the idea of how this is going to impact their future future sex life and as we know I mean because of course that's the wrong thing to talk about it's taboo but as we know that that is a huge part of people's lives as they go on into the future and if that gets destroyed or that gets messed up in the mind that's going to impact them it's going to affect them for the rest of their lives and it's something that has come through in these questions that I've been getting. So I think let's start with that very first point actually that a lot of people say that they've had counseling for emotional trauma etc but when they actually go into their sexual relationships that there is there are trigger points you know in the middle of it something can suddenly remind them of what happened and they completely freeze and that it's actually destroying the relationship that they have with their partner which is otherwise a really great relationship great partner etc but this is becoming a real problem. Yeah and it can go a little bit more complex Seema because a lot of times especially if there is child sexual abuse that people have been unaware of or don't realize the first time that they might get aware that they've been abused might be when they're in a sexual act as an adult because there might be a flashback or there might be a trigger which happened you know there's never been a trigger point but there might be a touch or the way somebody holds them or something which reminds them of the abuse. So you're absolutely right that it could be as a child it could be child sexual abuse or adult sexual abuse what happens is and it's very in some ways it's common sense right that you introduce sex and suddenly it's full of flashbacks memories triggers and so how it becomes so tricky then to engage in a healthy sexual life if it's always reminding you about the abuse and a lot of times we've seen that people will present with a low libido or vaginismus which is an issue where you know the vagina doesn't open the penetration is not possible because they're afraid that the memories of the abuse will come in. Yeah it's actually you know as I started to read these emails you realize just how complex this whole reaction is towards the sexual side of their lives you know it's one thing like said you know you have the trauma the emotional trauma must be absolutely awful and that's something that you deal with but what happens next so I mean for instance I actually had somebody writing in and saying that they're literally to try and get over this fear the fear of sex because of what happened in the past they're actually trying to go to multiple sexual partners. So one of the things that we learned and you know and so this is complex I'll try making down one of the things that we learn is that abuse is an experience of being not in control you know the whole act of it in some ways is that you lose control because your consent doesn't matter and sometimes survivors will respond to it by saying we didn't have a control and now we'll make sure that we are the ones who are in the driving seats we are the ones who are controlling it so we'll be the one who will decide who and how and where we have sex with and a lot of times they might actually to feel you know to experience that feeling of being in control they might engage in at-risk sexual behavior so sexual behavior that can be risky and it when so I won't go into details because it can be such a complex topic but all I would say is that what happens a lot of times that it leaves them feeling guilty they blame themselves that you know they feel ashamed of how they are behaving sexually and a lot of times we land up you know blaming the victim or the survivor or they start blaming themselves rather than blaming the abuse and that's something that we unpack in therapy. You know I'm really pleased actually to hear you say that that it's obviously not something that is just happening to them that this is a very common reaction to sexual abuse because a lot of the people who write in they've obviously had nowhere else to go and talk to about this and when they write in and they tell me exactly how they're feeling or how they're reacting how they're dealing with future sexual relationships they feel such guilt inside them because they think that something is wrong with them and it always starts as this thing of saying is there something wrong with me am I abnormal should I be feeling guilty about this and you know it just breaks my heart to think that because we won't openly talk about a subject that we won't approach it that we leave people feeling so desperate within themselves when they feel certain obviously very natural things because I had one other young lady who wrote to me and I thought that this was a really interesting way because she wrote it in a very detailed manner the email said that she is a child sexual abuse victim and that she finds that she's actually quite she has a very healthy sexual appetite and that she does indulge in sex and she enjoys it but each time she enjoys it or she comes to orgasm she actually feels really guilty because she thinks my god I went through such an awful thing it's in my memory all the time and yet I'm feeling aroused now is there something wrong with me that I'm actually feeling aroused to such an awful thing to have happened to me yeah so and one of these you know this is a young woman who's written this I would actually say abuse is gender agnostic so a lot of men have a similar reaction and child sexual abuse is very complex because when it might have happened most children don't know what sex is or what sexuality is now there is some good touch back touch education but if we think about it even like five years ago ten years ago children young children don't know what it is and a lot of times it's introduced because one of the facts we know that most child sexual abuse happens with somebody known it's not by a stranger so a lot of times they might be grooming involved in other things and it's presented as a game it's presented as it's something between us it's something that we do for fun it's something that is a playful thing and children receive it like that because it's their favorite uncle or favorite aunt or something so they receive it like that and they have fun with it and it doesn't matter what age like if children rub their penis there is a pleasure feeling if girls young girls you know rub their vagina it's a pleasure feeling but there is no sexual meaning to it that's really important to understand the sexual meaning is only held by the adult as a child there's no sexual meaning so years go by and suddenly now these young people are adults and they engage with sex or sexual acts and they suddenly realize oh my god what happened was actually abuse that wasn't okay and then the guilt that they're actually feeling pleasure out of something and they felt pleasure as children out of that game can be destroying it can be really destroying and it takes you know it's a complex issue to even deal with in therapy and the other extension of that is that in adolescence or in things we might actually see young people have sexualized behavior so they'll come and say oh she had or he had a boyfriend at 10 or 12 or 13 or 14 and people then you know label them as being too sexualized or you know she had so many boyfriends or he had so many girlfriends but actually when we stop to think they are red flags they are red flags to how come such a young child is or a teenager is exposed to so much sexual behavior and they should be your first red flag if you are somebody working with children or authority figures they should actually you shouldn't get into a blame game at that time you should actually get into an expiration phase and see was there some abuse what's happening is there is it a cry for help actually rather than you know promiscuous or sexualized behavior and because that's an amazing remark actually for our soul to take back because I never thought of it along those lines but you're absolutely right because every now and then you do come across a young person who is so over sexualized and there's always this thing about oh maybe they're going through this maybe this is how they're made etc and that and you know I've always sort of excused it on the thing that some people just come to that point a little earlier but yes you're right maybe there are certain trigger points there's a certain stimulus that brings them to that trigger point yeah I think it's about you know that's what they've seen that's what's been normal for them that's how they might have saying it was your favorite uncle or aunt or your father or grandfather or thing they might see it as that's how you express love that's how you know you form relationships that's what they might have learned as children and especially if the abuse happened over a long period of time and they don't realize that you know it actually was abused and then when they do get to the point sometimes they're really angry with themselves and then they've they just you know it's kind of a rebellion thing saying you know fine if they want to say that I'm sexual then I'll show them what sexual is so it's a lot of anger it's a lot of sadness it's a lot of pain it's a it's very complex and of course this whole guilt thing about feeling pleasure is is something that we really have to say to people because this is this like you said it comes under the idea of victim shaming but the body reacts in a certain way no matter what there is a certain arousal that comes from a certain type of touch or a certain type of act there it automatically leads to that so if the body is feeling pleasure even if you think that it's the wrong thing to be doing we need people to start understanding that it's not because they're doing something wrong or they're bad and they shouldn't be feeling guilty about this but it is a normal bodily reaction it's a it's a physical reaction yeah so when people come to us a lot of times they would say it wasn't abused because I felt pleasure or how could it be abused because I had an erection or I experienced wetness in my vagina or they blame themselves by saying I must be this really bad person or awful person that I was being abused and I'm feeling abused you know I'm trying to resist this person and yet I was aroused you know so it there must be something wrong with me it must be me I am responsible for it I wanted it you know and they they can't even label it as abuse because this the physical body in some ways how I see it has betrayed them although emotionally mentally relationally it was non-consensual the physical body betrayed them and it's not that it betrayed them it's just a physical body there's so many things involuntary in our body that happen they're just automatic functions that happen and we have no control over it so somewhere the penis has been told if you get rubbed the blood needs to flow in and there has to be an erection the vagina has been told it has a lot of nerve endings and blood vessels and everything that if you you know the clitoris is rubbed or the vagina is rubbed then so that there is no hurt so that there's not vaginal dryness there should be lubrication there should be wetness and these organs automatically do that because in some ways they are protecting the body from it so they automatically do it that is just a physical act in the body the organs are doing what they have to do however you know the fact that the physical pleasure was connected with abuse it can it I can't even tell you how many years it takes to help people come to a point where they don't feel guilty about it and everything I said gets so complex about feeling guilty shame the guilt the shame feeling responsible blaming yourself all these emotions it takes so many years to say it's not you it's the abuse it's you know it's what happened to you and just because the body did activate act did not does not mean that it wasn't abuse because abuse is formed from consent power control misuse so if you didn't consent it is still abuse I think Anvita that if like you said it's such a complex issue and I think each individual is different when it comes to you know their relationship with this particular trauma and each individual is different when it comes to how they feel or how they react to their particular circumstances but if there's one thing I would like everybody who's written in or thought about or experienced it at some point if there's one thing I want you to take away from our video today is to say you are not unusual you are not in the wrong you have done nothing wrong you shouldn't be feeling guilty and you're not the only one to go through this there are so many people like you who are going through the same thing and it is something that is done to people no matter how your body reacted or whatever you think that you're doing now we want you to understand that there is nothing wrong with you that you shouldn't be feeling shame or guilt at what happened it wasn't your fault and that you're not alone in what you're going through but if there's one thing Anvita that you would like people to take away as a little exercise that they can do to help themselves what would you recommend so one of the things that I will say is that everything that happens up till now if you been an abuse victim is that your relationship with your sexuality is a negative one and we have to change that into it being positive you know it now we have to and you have to work towards making it a positive sexual relationship with your own identity in a relationship and so how can we do that like how do we actually manage that we have to understand that this whole thing that we spoke about sexual violence and our sexuality has double Vami taboo we don't talk about sexual sexuality and we don't talk about sexual violence so find someone friend somebody who's a friend family member partner counselor somebody and speak to them about what happened and where you know the trouble is coming into your sex life you know where is it actually being problematic because I think talking about it releases some of the trauma releases some of the pain and hurt I think that's really great advice and with us says find a friend find anybody that you want and actually talk about it because I know from personal experience that well we all know this from personal experience that if we actually talk about something once you articulate it somehow it decreases in size it's so much bigger when it's inside our head and it's not been said but the moment you say it out you might go through a great deal of discomfort initially talking about it then you might go through anger you might go through sadness and cry etc but talk about it talk it through get it out of your system and we certainly hope that all of you can find some way of healing from the trauma of child sexual abuse or sexual abuse generally and move on to wholesome healthy sexual relationships you know I just want to say that this is a really complex area every case is individual every person is different and how they're struggling or dealing with this can be very complex and confusing for them so please please please seek help we have just you know touched this area there was so much complexity and I wanted to keep it simple I wanted to keep it accessible but if you are someone who's struggling with this then I would really suggest you go and see professional help it'll be really helpful to you great advice Anvita so as always do like comment subscribe if you have questions the email is info.seema.anand at gmail.com and if you wish to contact Anvita about either clinical advice or clinical counseling please do connect with her directly on anvita madan behel.com in the meantime we'll see you here next week we'll see you next week