Staci Haines - Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma

I wish to thank Denise Benson for her partnership and love, and for sharing her life, children, and family with me. To Richard Strozzi-Heckler, for the generosity with which he shares his mastery and innovation in somatics. I continue to learn from him how to listen deeply to what is greater and take life-affirming action in the world. To Akaya Windwood and Maria Gonzales Baron for walking the roads of liberation together, laughing. To Jackie Strano and Shar Rednour, whose tireless efforts made the DVD Healing Sex possible. I appreciate your ongoing commitment to sexpositive education, images, and possibilities for people. And, lastly, to my sister, Wendy, thank you for being my family, always.

My gratitude also goes to my editor, publisher, and friend Felice Newman, without whom none of this would have happened.

This book is dedicated to the girls that we were. Welcome to the rest of your life, and the world you can create. May it be filled with pleasure and wisdom.

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The Choice to Heal

Safety and Sexual Healing

What's Down This Road, Anyway?

Somebody to Lean On: Self-Care and Support

Somatics: Including Your Body in Healing

Safer Sex

Getting Started

Sex Guide Exercises

chapter 2: 25

Discovering Your Pleasure and Desire

Desire Is in Your Body

Your Sexual Self-Education

The Complexity of Desire

Sex Guide Exercises

chapter 3: 37

Checking Out

Dissociation and You

The Road Back: Healing Dissociation

Sex Guide Exercises

chapter 51

Survival Is a Powerful Act

Sexual Aversion: Who Needs Sex, Anyway?

Sexual Compulsion: Sex as the Only Way

Healing Self-Denial

The End of Self-Denial

Sex Guide Exercises

Where Did You Learn That?

Sex Information and Sexual Abuse

So What Is That Thing? A Lesson in Sexual Anatomy

Sexual Response Cycle

Gynecological Issues

Your Body

Sex Guide Exercises

Self-Loving

A Bad Rap

Your Keystone to Healing

But I Don't Want to Masturbate

Five Steps to Great Masturbation

How to Touch Yourself

A Masturbation Date

Sex Toys, Fantasies, and Porn

Compulsive Masturbation

Mutual Masturbation

Sex Guide Exercises

What Is Consent?

Sexual Abuse and Unwanted Sex

Embodied Consent

Informed Consent

Knowing What You Want

Communicating Consent

"Yes," "No," and "Maybe" Vignettes

Negotiate Before You Play

Response from Others

Healthy Risks

Sex Guide Exercises

chapter 8: 117

The Good, the Bad, and...the Pleasurable?

Choosing Sexual Partners

Let's Talk About Sex

How to Meet Sexual Partners

Flirting and Kissing

Go Out There and Have Fun!

Sex Guide Exercises

Cunnilingus

The How-to's of Cunnilingus

Cunnilingus and Triggers

Fellatio

The How-to's of Fellatio

Fellatio and Triggers

Rimming

The How-to's of Rimming

Safer Oral Sex

Sex Guide Exercises

Vaginal Penetration

The How-to's of Vaginal Penetration

Anal Penetration

The How-to's of Anal Penetration

Safer Penetration

Penetration and Triggers

Sex Guide Exercises

chapter 151

What Is a Trigger?

Map to Recovery

Embracing Triggers: This Way Out

Trigger Plan and Tools

Tell It Like It Is: Communication and Triggers

Safewords

Troubling Desire

Healing Triggers Outside of Partner Sex

Taking a Break from Sex

Sex Guide Exercise

chapter 173

You Have to Feel It to Heal It

The Five Stages of Emotions

Emotional Centering

Emotional Sourcing

Emotional Healing

Being Witnessed in Your Emotions

Sex Guide Exercises

S/M 101: Consent, Power, and Sensation

Exploring the Edges

S/M and Survivors

S/M as "Acting Out" Abuse

Vanilla Role-Playing

Fantasy

Sex Guide Exercises

Vibrators

Dildos and Harnesses

Anal Toys

Lubricants

S/M and Bondage Toys

Toys, Safer Sex, and Cleaning

Erotic Books and DVDs

Phone Sex

Cyber Sex

Your Play Toys

Sex Guide Exercises

Tantra

Yoni Massage

Sacred Masturbation and Ceremony

Learning More

Sex Guide Exercises

chapter 10: 219

Combining Intimacy and Sex: Turning Up the Heat

Self-Forgiveness

Self-Trust and Compassion

Do I Deserve Pleasure?

Self-Permission

Sex Guide Exercises

It's Not Your Fault

No Saviors, No Patients

Take Care of Yourself

Expand Your Sexual Repertoire

You Get to Change, Too

Survivors as Partners

Sex Guide Exercises

Trauma

Somatic Healing

Sex-Positive Books and Resources

In 1999, when this book was first published as The Survivor's Guide to Sex: How to Have an Empowered Sex Life After Child Sexual Abuse, I haggled over the title with the publisher. I wanted the word somatics in the title; the publisher understandably said no one would know what that meant. The next round continued over the term trauma and whether people would understand that word in the context of child sexual abuse. Now, here we are eight years later, and trauma is a more commonplace concept. Well beyond the boundaries of psychology, the general public uses the term to describe anything from the impact of war on soldiers and civilians to the intimate traumas of domestic violence and sexual abuse. And while somatics doesn't roll off of everyone's tongues, mind/body integration is recognized as something relevant to healing and learning.

There has been a profound growth in the field of trauma in the last fifteen years along with a near revolution in our understanding of the connection between psychobiology and trauma and healing. The central role of the mind/body in surviving and healing from traumatic experiences is now widely acknowledged. Somatics is the field leading these innovations, with top neurobiologists helping ground this work in studies of the brain and body chemistry before and after traumatic events.

As we head into this publication, I want to comment briefly on some of the recent research and innovations in both somatics and trauma. This new material is not included in the main body of Healing Sex. First, I'd like to offer a bit of science about just what is going on in our automatic survival reactions during and after traumatic experiences. Then I'll touch on the current integration of somatics into the field of psychology and what we need to be careful about as this is happening. Somatics is just now being institutionalized, and how this is done during these next years will set the course for its future. And last, I want to point to powerful innovations in looking at trauma as both an individual and a social phenomenon. This is not just the result of the obvious recent traumas of Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Indonesia and Asia, or the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, but the more persistent and often unrecognized impacts of homophobia, sexism, racism, and other types of social oppression, often seen as the norm. These, too, impact us deeply.