Sex After Incest

Like I said yesterday, I cannot cover this subject in one post. But it isn’t the whole blog, either. There’s a lot more than just sex to talk about. Isn’t that great?

I started my sexual explorations very young. A lot of children do, I know. Incest does put ideas in our heads that might not have been there quite so soon or in quite the same way. I have to say that usually I had a great time, and I am totally grateful for all of the sexual explorations that I’ve enjoyed in my life.

Yesterday I said that I responded differently than some people with incest in their history. Some reject sex and sexuality or try to stay within rigidly defined boundaries about it in an effort not to repeat their childhood patterns.

Not me. I went the other way. My rigidly defined boundary was to have no boundaries.

I tried everything. Well, nearly. I know there are lots of things I did not try, but compared to some people it’s going to look like a lot.

It may have had to do with the times. The 60’s and 70’s in the US were the “Sexual Revolution” years. Sex was coming out of the closet after the repression of the 40’s and 50’s, or so it’s been said. It’s just the pendulum swing of this dual world we live in. Notice how it’s trying to go back into the closet lately?

I don’t want this to become a chronology, but I keep wanting to just state some things along a timeline, so here goes:

I remember being sexual with others as early as 11 or 12, which is the time when I thought the incest with Daddy began. The summer I was 12, Andrew and I were making out for our entire lunch hour during Spanish summer school. We came from different schools, so I didn’t see him again until the summer when I was 13. By then, I had “lost my viginity” to a senior in high school who was engaged to someone else. There’s a pattern repeat: being the other woman, something I did do for several years, up until my second marriage.

At that time, I said that “Dynamo Hum” by Frank Zappa was my theme song. The chorus is:

“Dynamo Hum, Dynamo Hum.
Where’s this Dynamo comin’ from?
I done spent 3 hours and I ain’t got a come
From the Dynamo Dynamo Dynamo Hum.”

sings Zappa.

“I got a spot that gets me hot –
And you ain’t been to it.”

Is her response.

Back then, I had little trouble with orgasm from anything but intercourse. Oh, it took a little work and I had to really focus to let go, but I could get there with fingers, tongues and vibrators, but not intercourse. Many women still believe this is just how it is.

It’s not. And it can change. It did.

As far as I know (That’s the way I always talk about this because I remember new information at times), as far as I know, my father never penetrated me from the time I was 11 to 16 when I told my mother what was happening and stopped.

But a couple of years ago, I realized that he penetrated me as an infant. I was in a healing session with my friend, Jake, and suddenly had a “body memory.” It was as if it was happening again. I was in my early 40’s, so you can imagine how surprised I was to be thinking anything of the kind. I knew I did not remember everything. I didn’t remember the first time I went down on Daddy, so there had to be other things I can’t remember. But I never expected to find that anything had started so early.

I called my mother and asked her about it. The first thing she said was, “Well, that would explain why he suddenly stopped changing your diapers.”

My sense of it is that he did not want to be tempted. He had some sense that this was wrong and this was his way of trying to control himself. As far as I know, he never touched me again until I was about 11. As far as I know.

Interestingly, Daddy was always saying, “Now, if you ever think there’s anything wrong with this, tell me and I will stop.”

Looking back, I find that rather foolish. How is an 11 year old child going to know what is right and wrong? And isn’t it her father and mother who are supposed to be teaching her right and wrong? Hmm?

Well, whatever. That is what happened, as best I can remember it now.

When I was 16, my mother took a vacation for 2 weeks to visit a friend back in Tennessee. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was thinking of leaving my father after 16 years of marriage.

When she came home, I met her at the door and said, “I cannot live in this house another day with that man.” She asked what was wrong and we agreed to talk about it later that night after the other 3 children (all younger than myself) had gone to bed.

That night I told her that I had been going down on her husband since I was about 11.

The first words out of her mouth, bless her, were, “How can I support you?” I said, “Let me move out.”

I was 16. I was a straight A student (except for PE) I could finish high school by December. I would be 17 by the time I moved out in January. I moved into a home my mother and father owned. I got my then-boyfriend to move in with me. I didn’t want to be alone in a house my father owned and probably had a key to. I was scared.

Daddy never hit me that I recall, but he did become violent at times, mostly throwing food and raging verbally. He was very graphically violent in his threats. I remember he threatened to “cut us up in little pieces and hang us on the clothes line if we didn’t behave.” Scary enough without ever hitting us.

My writing time for today is up. 

You may wonder how I can still say I’m grateful?

Just keep reading. I am.

Remember when I referred to Victor Frankl in one of my first posts? It’s like that.

When nothing around me seems safe, I can find safety inside that is way beyond anything the world can offer.

I have. I’m not always in touch with it, but I know where to find it. And not just safety, either, but a sense of profound bliss and joy at being alive, no matter what circumstances around me seem to be. And thank God for those circumstances. Because through them, I found this . . . inner peace.

Keep reading.