We Deserve Pleasure, Unapologetically

Pleasure comes first—even with a hookup you met less than two hours ago.

I freaked out the first time I said “no.”

The word felt so foreign leaving my lips. I had said a word that I always communicated with my body and emotions, but never verbally. It was the word least likely in my vocabulary but the most robbed word taken the most from me by others.

Yet, there I was underneath someone I had matched with less than two hours ago on Tinder saying, “No, actually could we go back to that position?”

It was an innocent request that implied nothing huge, just a moment where I wanted to go back to foreplay because my body wasn’t quite there yet. A simple “yeah” echoed in the air and in my mind as my hookup continued without disrupting the flow. Needless to say, I was in shambles.

Did I just say ‘no’ to something?

When we think about how trauma affects our daily lives, I think we often envision the effects we can tangibly see rather than the ones we can’t see. My trauma history was riddled with consent violations and assaults on my body and mind, yet I was so good at pretending that they didn’t exist the moment I hit the bed. A part of me thought I was an expert at separating my trauma from my pleasure—but really, I was just used to being in survival mode.

It’s hard to conceptualize it at first, but we all have trauma histories. Whether it’s related to intimacy, commitment, or body image, we all have something that unravels when we engage in sex. This is perfectly normal though and it’s nothing to be ashamed about—everyone is working through something and that trauma lives in the body without us realizing it.

But a lot of us don’t acknowledge its existence, let alone communicate it.

So when we connect a bridge between pleasure and trauma, it feels like an endless battle of making peace with both extremes. I began internalizing the idea that because of my trauma history, having sex with me would be like walking around eggshells.

And in an effort to seem “normal,” I went with the flow. A flow that instilled the idea that pleasure is earned and my responsibility to constantly upkeep.

It took me years to realize that ignoring my pleasure was a trauma response. I was punishing and blaming myself for not being able to be the gatekeeper, the protector, the advocate of my body. My survival mode kicked into high gear because I still saw my body as a map of violations and shame, not the love and power it truly is.

Divorcing our identities from our trauma histories is extremely difficult but necessary on the path of healing. So how do we, survivors, prioritize our pleasure post trauma?

For me, the first step was to acknowledge that the trauma will live in my body and appear even when I engage in consensual acts. It’s a heavy realization but it also opened a new premise I hadn’t yet considered: post-sexual trauma is still trauma.

Experiences such as the inability to become aroused, avoiding physical contact, or not initiating sexual acts are all normal occurrences and common among survivors. According to a study by the McGill Journal of Medicine, 59 percent of female assault survivors reported to have one sexual problem, compared to the 17 percent of women who hadn’t been assaulted.

Essentially, trauma dysregulates our bodies and invites unwanted negative emotions and thoughts, flashbacks, and anxiety so when we want to feel pleasure in any capacity—it feels impossible because we’re transitioning out of survival mode. So as such, transitioning out of thet phase requires a lot of nurture and care to our needs.

And those needs deserve pleasure.

When we think about pleasure, I think we often envision a passive-active dynamic between two partners in which the passive role is always reserved for women where we become the gatekeepers of consent. That, along with coping through sexual trauma, is exhausting and unfair. Just because your trauma is difficult to maneuver around in the bedroom doesn’t mean your right to pleasure means any less.

The moment I said “no” to something was my moment of reclaiming my right to pleasure. My journey with reclaiming that right started from the inside-out where I went months without hooking up with someone, ritualized my masturbations by surrounding myself with music and candles, and going to therapy with the mindset that healing isn’t linear, but it is possible.

I can’t say that my trauma with sex and intimacy has completely ceased but I can say that pleasure after trauma is can be healing. Because when we recognize that pleasure is a right and not a gift someone grants you, we begin to reclaim what was taken from us.

Pleasure can hold so many meanings, but for me, I like to think of it as my opportunity to say no so I can make room for meaningful yes’s—unapologetically.