Touch is a loaded concept for me. I’ve spoken about it in the past, about what touch sometimes means for me.
I’m not actually sure but now that I know about the different parts in my brain… the ones I’m not always that excited to listen to… I think I can view this from a different perspective.
The littlest me feels uncomfortable around touch. Touch to her is loaded because of how she’s experienced it. From her mom… it’s soft and endearing… and kind, but occasionally hurtful. From her dad it was similar. Infrequently, it could be soft and warm, like the way he used to rub my neck or play w/ my ears when I was little when I would stand near him… it was nice. But it was undercut by violence – by how he used to beat my brothers, by how he eventually beat me. But I don’t think that is what did the most damage.
I think it was what happened between my cousin and I. When I was small, I loved my cousin like he was my brother, more than my own brother because he loved spending time with me too. And then one day he ruined it. He ruined it by suggesting that we do something taboo and I let him play that game with me. There is shame wrapped up in that, there is disgust, and weirdly, desire that grew from it; which only served to perpetuate that shame. Not desire for him, but desire for the same kind of touch. I was so young and I had no reason to explore or seek out those feelings, but they were suddenly there. These feelings were inserted into the fabric of my experience, but not in an organic or natural way, in a foreign way. No one explained how to deal with those feelings, so I can see why she might feel that sense of shame… in desiring more of something that wasn’t supposed to be appropriate. She tried to ignore the feelings and that worked to some degree, but she was forever changed by that experience. And what did that look like? Lots of self-gratification on and off throughout the years. Up until she was 14, when she met an older man on the internet who taught her how to masturbate “properly”; and who encouraged her sexual exploration. Writing this, I feel shame building up even now. The story of my young sexual origins feels perverse. My natural state was disrupted early on and it only cascaded from there.
I think the reason I don’t want anyone to touch me is because I fear sex. Sex with someone I trust even… feels dangerous. It feels terrifying. The brutality of sex … penetration….. seems invasive at a time when I feel vulnerable and… small. Maybe that’s it… maybe right now all my art and self-exploration and just general enjoyment of life is feeding the creative and free-spirted soul of my younger self. That is the part that I’ve been “in” lately. Artist Jess, is young Jess, not afraid to color all day and feeling her most self in that state. So to then insert sex, or touch – to her, into the picture is like a brutal violation, a distortion of her comforting reality. It perverts the self-image we’ve been developing, just like it did so many years ago. How can I untangle touch.. from sex? How can I prove to her.. that just because someone touches you doesn’t mean they expect sex?
Especially when, I don’t even think that’s true of my current partner? Maybe I just need to show her that touch doesn’t always mean sex. It can mean care and cuddling without expectation? But when it comes to men, other than my brothers (who never hugged me), I’ve literally never experienced that. I’ve never experienced safe touch from men.
I had a male pediatrician when I was young and I remember an appt. in which he inserted his fingers into me as part of a “routine” exam, and it was violating experience because this happened after the incident with my cousin. My mom was in the room and I couldn’t believe she was letting this happen. It was part one in a long history where I felt she didn’t protect me.
And beyond that, even my dad’s touch, while occasionally safe, did turn violent eventually and I’m not even sure there wasn’t something else going on there sexually. I don’t want to think about it cause it freaks me out, but there are some strange feelings there. Not to mention, one of my favorite uncles was deported on accusations of sexually abusing a neighbor’s child. I remember when I found that out when I was in my early 20’s I panicked a little, I froze. My dad didn’t think it was true….I said nothing.
But with all that, how do I go about convincing young Jess that she’s safe? That being around men as her self… is safe, when it feels nothing but terrifying??