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!!

Me: Can I get you anything else?

Customer: Yeah, a smile would be nice

Me:

Gai often gets overwhelmed by Kakashi’s beauty, and vents to the team