Essays from The Shadows
Volume Two
oral sex. sucking cock. blow job. blowie. going down. giving head. fellatio. sloppy toppy. nosh. hummer. gob job. lip service. gobble. suck off. swallow a sword. oral gratification.
that act.
i was taught to do it. we all were, probably. it is abuse 101.
it is one of those things i have been working on for ages to separate out in my head.
i was taught to do it. then trauma shaped my desire. that’s not really a thing… but it’s close to what it felt like.
i truly believe it is not something i would ever have done of my own volition.
prior to being abused i had never so much as glanced at a boy in a sexual way. one of those unfortunate truths i know about myself
i was taught to do things. i did not want to do those things. but you can’t unring a bell.
once you know a sexual act… you discover for yourself they feel good… then you experience some that feel even better… then you don’t forget them… then you want more… then you admit you like it… then it becomes part of your sexual desire… and you do it willingly.
then we get to now.
do i like it because he taught me… or because i like it?
does it matter?
the need doesn’t go away?
the liking remains?
time to decide.
however it came about… is it something i like to do?
yes. a lot.
ok then.
and then…
if i was ever brave enough to say it out loud, to a jury of my peers… would i still be understood and loved?
because that might help me close that chapter. and just accept it as is.
however it started. whatever it was. it is now this.
and this is how it is for all of us.
endless loops of mismatched feelings and desires. that have no place in our lexicon of feelings… but they were placed there as if they belong. as part of our sexual identity and make up.
before we can get anywhere near what we are, we need to clear away all the stuff that was placed in us.
let’s take the example we started with. oral sex.
whatever you think about it personally, it has been ariound as long as humans have had something worth sucking.
every race, every combination of gender. every level of society. rarely refused. as the adage goes… no such thing as a bad one.
if it is that normalised, why are we haunted by the fact that we were taught to do it… or distressed at the memory of it… or that the act itself feels as if it has demeaned us.
because it isn’t what we did. it is how we did it…
or rather how we were shown. taught. cajoled. urged. forced. made to suck cock.
call it what you like.
we are stuck with it… a sexual preference.
then there is the other stuff.
the stuff nobody wants to admit or talk about.
the stuff that hurt.
the kind of things that you don’t even want to discuss with a therapist.
it seems wrong to say it out loud.
bad words are needed and the kind of explanations that make people flinch.
there are things that were done that leave you wanting to do things that, at best, would be called a kink but have the potential to become a fetish.
there are things you never could have imagined. let alone asked for.
lest we forget, most of us experienced these things before we had even covered some of the basics.
plunged into a world of ropes and blindfolds and toys and lubrication.
torture, pain, punishment.
creating a fog of misunderstanding… and a twisted mix of love and regret.
most of them done to us. and used on us before we even knew the names for them.
sexual acts that would never have occurred to us… for quite some time… if we had been left to discover all these things in the natural course of our lives.
and here we are… trying to decide if these are things we need to include in our portfolio of chosen desires… or just the echo of some twisted paedophile who liked using our bodies in a particular way.
everyday reality for the average survivor is carrying the traces of another human’s sexual preferences.
deciding if we want to talk about it.
deciding if we think it is worth examining.
is that a twisted, dark fetish in the back of my mind… or just something I am stuck with ignoring for the rest of my life.
we don’t have answers. we only have questions. we don’t expect answers.