About 1/3 of all women and 10 % of all men have been sexually abused. It means that many silent perpetrators are carrying a personal story of abuse as well. You have, therefore, a great chance of meeting either a victim or a perpetrator of sexual abuse.
We know that facing our story of sexual abuse or being a perpetrator is very vulnerable. Therefore, most people that have experienced sexual abused are silent about their abuse stories to their partner. It takes deep trust to open up to it, and instead of healing, re-traumatisation can happen, intended or unintended.
Most men (and women) don’t know how to handle and heal sexual trauma if it shows up in their partner. They can easily re-traumatise their partner and sometimes unintended a perpetrator because of lack of embodiment, emotional intelligence and skills.
“First of all, we need to have an open discussion about sexual abuse and how to prevent it,” says Riihannon Wilde. “We need to learn to give everyone a basic education of sexual trauma and how to embody new trauma-informed sexuality. It means that men and women get in touch with their emotional body, practice slow consensual sex and learn to set healthy boundaries in lovemaking”, she continues
Paal says that it is challenging to heal sexual trauma because of the transference and counter-transference that can happen when a sexual trauma come up to heal. He says it needs to be handled with a lot of care, deep understanding and empathic response. It is essential to search for professional help, and it is also crucial that there is awareness of this in an intimate relationship. Riihannon and Paal will share their experience on how we can heal sexual trauma’s and how to develop a safe and healing sex life.