We hear about the dangers of pornography, and rightfully so. But can pornography ever be helpful in the process of healing from trauma and sexual identity? In this podcast, Sarah bravely shares her story as a faithful LDS who experienced sexual assault and how pornography helped her reclaim her identity and heal from the abuse.
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Full Transcript:
0:00:00.0 Speaker 1: Welcome to Improving Intimacy, a podcast to help single and married Latter-Day Saints strengthen their family connections and marriages. Daniel A. Burgess is the host of Improving Intimacy. Daniel's a marriage and family therapist, father, husband, and author. Here's Daniel on this episode of improving intimacy.
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0:00:24.6 Daniel A. Burgess: Welcome to another episode of improving intimacy. On today's episode, we have Sarah who has offered to go into a very vulnerable and maybe even scary past with sexual assault and what you did to... Is it fair to say, heal or recover? Thrive in spite of that tragedy. So welcome, Sarah, I'm glad to have you here. This is a topic I haven't discussed yet, so one, I wanna be sensitive to your background and history, and I'll let you guide the conversation, but you've expressed the importance of sharing this for other people, so I'm excited to hear what you have to say. So Sarah, tell us a little bit about yourself. Why are you here today, and what is it exactly you wanna share?
0:01:11.7 Sarah: Well, thank you first of all for having me on. I am very passionate about this because I remember growing up thinking that this was... I was surely the only person who this was happening to, and then as we'll discuss later, some issues that came up in marriage that just increased that feeling of isolation and shame and loneliness, and I vowed at the time to... If I ever have an opportunity to talk about it, to talk about it so that someone out there is not feeling the same way I did. So that's why I'm so passionate about this, and I think we can just start with that kind of history of what it was like to grow up and date and then move into a marriage and have some of those same issues with little education.
0:01:53.5 DB: Yes, it's an important topic that we don't discuss a lot now, I appreciate your bravery in doing this, so let's... We don't need to go in, you're welcome to go into as much details you absolutely want, but for context, are you comfortable with sharing maybe the age this happened? So that we have a little understanding of the history of what's going on there and any details that you're comfortable with sharing.
0:02:18.0 Sarah: Sure, so I grew up just in a normal LDS family, a very strong LDS family, all my siblings remained active, so I had great role models, looking up to them, I was active in a Young Women's, everything was just in line for the perfect fairytale story. And I never really dated much in high school, and I just remember thinking, "Oh, I just want a boyfriend so badly," and I watched all my friends date and I just thought, "Oh, that sounds so wonderful. That's something that I'd really like." And then I had my first boyfriend, and we went out on a few dates, and I was 17 at the time. And I remember thinking, being so excited for the first kiss, and then the first kiss happened and when within maybe five to 10 seconds, my shirt was off and he was un-fastening my bra clasp and I thought...
0:03:12.7 DB: So you mean he took it off...
0:03:14.1 Sarah: Yeah, yeah, he... It was like first kiss, peck, and then I thought I was gonna have this time to like, "Oh, kinda float away and enjoy this moment of happy ever after", and I was like, "Whoa, what is going on?" And I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know what these things I was feeling, what they were, and I was just very overwhelmed with the situation and I didn't stop anything, 'cause I think I was just struck with terror and just being overwhelmed and thinking, "Well, no one's talked about what this is, I don't know what is going on." And I don't actually even remember how that ended, but I remember leaving, sitting in the car feeling like I can't go home. My parents are gonna know that I broke the Law of Chastity, I wouldn't have to talk to the bishop who's my best friend's dad...
0:04:06.0 DB: You felt responsible for it.
0:04:09.7 Sarah: 100%. It was my fault, 100%. And just that was the beginning of... And I was 17 years old, that was the beginning of not talking to my parents about these experiences, thinking that I was the only one, but also thinking that that's what every girl was experiencing.
0:04:26.9 DB: You had no idea?
0:04:27.6 Sarah: Yeah. I was the only one, yeah, I was the only one responsible but every other girl surely had to be having these experiences, but it wasn't their fault. So that was just kind of the beginning of a long trail, and I didn't necessarily at that time know that that was sexual assault. I just kind of thought, "That's dating, here we go." [chuckle]
0:04:49.3 DB: How scary.
0:04:50.9 Sarah: So scary. And he was preparing to go on a mission, and so I was like, "Oh well, he's this great guy who's gonna go and serve the Lord and do all these things, and surely it's my fault." And I'd been raised with this mentality that modesty is my responsibility and how I dress will directly impact what boys do to me and how boys think.
0:05:12.6 DB: And that's what you're thinking was your fault?
0:05:16.6 Sarah: Totally.
0:05:17.1 DB: Was because... Do you feel like you were dressed immodestly that evening?
0:05:19.6 Sarah: No, actually, I had come from playing a volleyball game, so I had been wearing athletic gear and in my mind, I'm like sweaty and gross. [chuckle] No one wants to do that, right? And also, I should note that I developed rather quickly as a child, I was... I started puberty at 10 years old, so at 10 years old, I was fully grown as a woman, and I think I internalized a lot of shame about that, of having this really grown-up body and this little girl's brain and not really understanding how to handle both of those mindsets. So when that happened, it was like, "Oh, well, that's because I have this grown woman's body, [chuckle] and he can't control himself."
0:06:03.9 DB: And therefore, it was your fault.
0:06:05.3 Sarah: Oh, totally. Totally. So that was the first experience. Then I graduated high school, he went on a mission, and I just kept having experience after experience with these boys who were raised in the same faith that I was raised in, who had just no concept of boundaries. I just started to think that if I was going to be kissed, I was gonna be touched, and there was nothing really that I could do to stop it, it was just normal. I came to expect that of good return missionaries, good boys who were leaving on missions, that was just what dating was for me. I didn't think anything different.
0:06:49.7 DB: I think that's the most tragic thing I'm hearing... Well, one, the most tragic thing is that you were abused, I guess the close second is that you weren't even aware that you were abused and taken advantage of, and at what point did you look back and say That was wrong. That wasn't my fault?
0:07:09.4 Sarah: Not until I was married.
0:07:11.3 DB: Oh, wow.
0:07:14.3 Sarah: Yeah. And because I had nothing to compare it to. I didn't know anything about sex, I didn't know anything about consent, I didn't know... And at this point, I didn't even know that girls could masturbate. [chuckle] I literally thought that it was just a boy thing.
0:07:27.2 DB: Oh, you mean physiologically.
0:07:29.4 Sarah: Yes. I didn't think it was possible. I knew absolutely nothing about sex and about body, so this was happening, and I was just thinking, "Oh, this is just normal." So I didn't equate it with abuse, I wasn't having traumatic reactions to it, but I did start to kind of spiral a little bit where I just kind of thought, "Well, if guys are gonna do this to me, then I'm just gonna kiss and have fun with whoever I want and do whatever I want and.
0:07:54.2 DB: Interesting.
0:07:56.0 Sarah: Not worry about the consequences."
0:07:58.1 DB: Tell me a little bit more about that line of thinking, what led you to that as opposed to not dating at all, maybe, or some other... I don't wanna put words in your mouth. What gave you that conclusion, you're just gonna have fun, you're gonna kiss and regardless of the consequences, what led you there?
0:08:19.4 Sarah: I think part of it was I was seeing my dear friends get married, from what I understand, and maybe they had been through similar things and just hadn't talked to me about it, but they were getting married and I wasn't. And so I kind of thought, "Oh, well, I'm just like the girl who's gonna get passed around.
0:08:38.7 DB: Oh my goodness.
0:08:38.7 Sarah: So, I'm gonna have fun in the meantime."
0:08:41.3 DB: So you were taken on a narrative that you were broken or undesired, or would that be fair to say, or what were your feelings or thoughts?
0:08:49.9 Sarah: I wasn't feeling broken, but I was feeling very much... They're just interested in my body, they're not interested in a long-term commitment, they're not interested in marriage, I'm not like these other girls, they're the marriageable type, they're just in it for my body, and at the same time, I was kind of having this body awakening where I was finally feeling my brain match up with my body in maturity, I was feeling like, "Oh, I'm coming into this woman's body, I'm feeling myself become less impulsive, I'm feeling myself develop as mentally as a woman, I'm leaving that childhood teenage years behind, I'm feeling empowered in my body. And at the same time, I'm only being wanted for my body." So I was like, "I'm just gonna use my body however I want."
0:09:42.7 DB: I'm curious, we talked about this a little before we started the podcast, and we shared some thoughts and ideas here, but for the listeners, you're in your mid-20s, just for context, so we're talking about a younger generation, and I realize... I have a good 20 years on you, and dating has always been a struggle, and so I don't know if there's a way to say it's worse now or better or the same, however, in the context that it seems like we as a church have been doing more, whether it be through fire sides or church manuals, really emphasizing how men are supposed to treat women with respect, I think they've done more with that in the last 20 years, yet, you're not alone. This is a story I hear all the time, you're just one of the first, who've been willing to come and talk about it. Tell me what are your thoughts, what's your opinion of why the young men are thinking this way, why do they think this is, okay, or do they think it's Okay?
0:10:49.2 Sarah: Well, and we know that sexual assault and rape has been around for as long as people have been on the earth, that's just... It's just the downfall of man... Well, and woman, both can be abusers or perpetrators, but I think in the context of this, there was this generation of 60s and 70s where it was free love and the world was going so radically in one direction that the church narrative pulled so radically in the other direction. I remember talking to my mom like years later, after I had actually been more assaulted and saying, "Why didn't you tell me, why didn't you tell me what to expect or tell me anything about my body, or just tell me what sex is? And she said, "Your father and I felt like if we talked about it, we were giving you permission to do it." And that to me, was just that mindset of that generation, the policies that were coming out from the church in that generation was all fear-based, shame-based and at the same time, there's more material available, so our children at this time are educating themselves with porn, which is a terrible sex educator, and they're not learning, they're not reconciling what they're seeing, what feeling and what the person in the porn is doing.
0:12:09.5 Sarah: And so if the person in porn who's on the receiving end is showing fear and showing discomfort and these young boys are watching it enjoying it, how are they to not know that it's gonna be different in person with a partner? Now how are they not... They're not gonna know, "Oh, this is a boundary that I'm crossing. This person is scared, their body is showing scared, their face is showing fear, their voice is showing fear, they may not have said, no," but... We've set them up for failure, we've set them up in this position of not knowing they're crossing boundaries, not knowing what consent is, because we've been so afraid to talk about it.
0:12:54.6 DB: I think you articulated it perfectly, this is a constant problem I'm seeing. I usually see two extremes where young men refuse to date or they don't know how to engage in dating at all, and so they don't even... It's not even a physical thing, they don't even know how to involve themselves, and again, this has always been the case, but I've been seeing this kind of this extremism getting bigger and bigger.
0:13:23.1 Sarah: The divide.
0:13:24.4 DB: And then we have the others who, while they understand that porn is bad, and it seems like in the church we've done, we've talked more about porn, we have more anti-porn programs and organizations out there than we've ever had yet this is becoming a bigger and bigger issue. And I think what I was hearing you say was, "Yes, we're told... " And I wanna clarify for the audience too, 'cause it could sound like we're saying, "Oh gosh, the church screwed up in all of its teachings there... " Do you consider yourself an active member now?
0:13:55.0 Sarah: Yeah.
0:13:55.1 DB: And this is...
0:14:00.1 Sarah: Yep, active member, temple holding member, half callings... I was the Young Women's president just barely.
0:14:03.7 DB: Forgive me, I didn't wanna make that as though that was the most important thing here, I just wanna give context that this isn't just criticism, this is crucial for a healthy, engaging dating behavior. Absolutely, and so what we see here is young men who're told what not to do, and you said it before the interview, it's because they're not taught what to do. We could talk all day and night about what not to do, but when you're placed in a situation, all you have to go off of is what you've seen and heard, and that's the don'ts and the bad role models of porn.
0:14:43.4 Sarah: Exactly. And at the same time as a girl, the rhetoric that I was receiving was not what not to do, dress your body in this way so that the boys can control their thoughts, you act this way so that you're not tempting to the boys. There was all this don't, don't, don't. And it very much was my responsibility how the boys and the men in my life treated me, and I have a fantastic father, and I have fantastic brothers who never once crossed any sort of sexual boundary, never even came close to it with anyone that I'm aware of, not with myself and not anyone else, but it was... I remember walking up to the stand to give a Young Women talk thinking, "Oh my gosh, are the men in the ward like looking at my butt?"
0:15:28.3 DB: Oh my goodness.
0:15:29.1 Sarah: As I walk up there, "Is my skirt too tight? Are my hips too wide? Am I... [chuckle] Are they cheating on their wives by lusting after me?"
0:15:37.6 DB: Because... Oh my goodness.
0:15:38.1 Sarah: And I was like 16.
0:15:41.8 DB: First of all, the thought that comes to me is, "No youth, should ever be concerned with that thinking about that," and you're saying those fears and concerns were present because of the modesty lessons that you've received.
0:15:53.0 Sarah: Totally.
0:15:55.7 DB: And thinking that you need to do everything you can to help protect these men, young and old from being tempted.
0:16:03.8 Sarah: Totally.
0:16:06.0 DB: That's heavy.
0:16:07.4 Sarah: Super heavy.
0:16:07.9 DB: This is heavy, and I'm gonna diverge just a little bit here, because I think it's important to speak to... People are probably listening here and saying, "Oh gosh, Well, if young men understand that porn is bad, then why are they behaving... " Okay, I hear that they weren't taught how to behave correctly, a little insight that I've discovered in working with young men is this kind of same thing again, they have been tempted, they cannot resist their urges... Sorry, this is the scripts that they're told once they experience desire, they're on a dangerous path. One support group, and I don't mean to be critical, but the concern is one support group actually says it's Satan's Chemical, and this is an LDS support group, so imagine... So the reason why I'm bringing this up is you as a 16-year-old, you were concerned about married men sinning by looking at you.
0:17:10.4 Sarah: Yes.
0:17:10.4 DB: And now, with young men, what I've seen is something similar, different, but similar in that they start to have this experience where they're getting aroused, they have an erection, they immediately think, they're doomed. I had one 14-year-old tell me, I thought... I thought he... I'm not trying to be loose with my words or silly at all, this is the impression and his countenance when he came in, I thought he killed somebody. This kid was scared and he looked at me and he started to say things like, young man saying things like, "I'm on the path to becoming a rapist, I'm on a path to become a serial killer." He was saying these things, and then he said something that just... That alone was scary and heavy, but where I'm going with this is, he said, "I've also destroyed my... " What was the word he used? He said something to the effect of, "I've disappointed my future wife and let my future kids down."
0:18:18.6 Sarah: That's so sad.
0:18:19.9 DB: Just like you... Well, again, different, but like you're carrying this huge weight, so these young men, what I'm seeing is they feel like they're at this impossible journey.
0:18:32.0 DB: And so, they just give up and they say, "I'm just doing it, I'm already gone." And this poor kid, he was scared out of his mind. So people are probably listening say, "Still why would... " Well, because they're not taught what is good, so all they're going off of is their fear and they're giving in because they recognize, they can't even resist it, it seems impossible. That relate to your experience or what are your thoughts?
0:19:01.9 Sarah: Totally. Well, it's... Looking back now, and even at the time, I thought, "These were good guys." In every other regard, they were good guys. And then, I think it just was... There was no boundary, there was no consent. It's hard because we've damaged both, both genders in this talk, we've told the girls that it's their responsibility and they're... Sorry for the strong language, but they're damned for having the female bodies, and we've told the boys they're damned for having physiological responses that they can't control. [chuckle] And this is the extreme that I think we deal with is... I was 21 years old and my minor was sex education, and I remember sitting at the University of Utah, going and my professor saying female masturbation and going, "That's not possible." I was 21, and I had no clue that that was something that girls did, because I had only ever heard masturbation in reference to boys in the church, and that was the extent of my sex education, that was a mind-blowing thing of like, "Holy cow." We have hurt each other so badly just by not knowing, A How our bodies work. B, our bodies are working normally, and C, let's now communicate with each other. None of that was in my vocabulary.
0:20:30.0 Sarah: So to kind of continue with my story...
0:20:31.2 DB: Please.
0:20:31.5 Sarah: I kinda went through this rough patch where I was like, "I'm just gonna kiss anyone who has two legs and walks into the room." And at the same time, I'm still... I'm the secretary in the Relief Society presidency in my singles ward, and I feel like I'm living these two separate lives. There's the version of me who is dating and there's a version of me who's going to church and I can't reconcile them. And then the age I turned in my mission papers and I said, "I'm gonna go on a mission, that's gonna be what's kinda turned my life around, I'm gonna go on a mission." So I got myself straightened out, I went on a mission, I had a great time, I came back, and then I started dating again. And this guy who I was dating, I thought, "This is gonna be different." He took a couple of weeks to kiss me, we went out for a couple of times, and my mission for me was very empowering because I learned how to speak up and out for myself, I think it's really hard to go on a mission and not kinda gain that confidence, a little bit in yourself. So I came back with that confidence of, I'm gonna...
0:21:47.6 Sarah: Now I know how to say no. And then I started dating this guy, and it's like, "Oh, it's different." He's being such a gentleman. And this could be, this could be the long-term thing, and then things started to change again.
0:22:01.3 DB: My goodness.
0:22:03.7 Sarah: So we had to hung out one night and his parents had left out of town, and he was like, "Why don't you come out, you come over, and we'll just, hang out and it'll be a really good evening, and... " I ended up spending the night. And nothing like nothing happened during the night, we just fell asleep in the bed, we cuddled all night long, there was no sexual pressure, and then it was in the middle of the night, something changed, and then suddenly it was like he was begging me to do all of these things, and I just said, "What is wrong with you? What has happened?" And...
0:22:44.2 DB: You called him out.
0:22:45.2 Sarah: I called him out, and he... And then I just said to him, "When was the last time you looked at porn?" And he disclosed to me that he... And he said he'd had a porn addiction since he was 14. And at this stage in my life, I was like, "Oh, well, that's okay. I know a lot of guys deal with that, so this isn't gonna end our relationship, but I want you to work through it and I want you to talk to the bishop, and I don't expect perfection, but I do want respect." So I'm thinking, I'm so grown up, I'm having this really grown-up conversation. This guy is telling... I won't go too far into what I think about that now, but for the context of the story at this time, I was thinking, "I'm so great that I can work through this with him, and he's so great that he's being honest with me." So I think we're on a great path and we keep dating, and then he just starts walking across that boundary again, and I just keep thinking, "Oh my gosh, I've gotta fix him, I've got to be sexier, so he's not looking at porn. I've got to... " And I was trying so hard not to do the things that he was wanting me to do, and at the same time he was telling me, "If you don't do these things, I'm gonna look at porn."
0:24:02.9 DB: Oh my goodness.
0:24:04.8 Sarah: So again, I'm like, "Holy crap, how am I back at this spot where I'm again responsible for this guy's sexuality?" At the same time he's telling me he loves me and he wants to get married, there was just something about the relationship that was making me stick my heels. And if, "We're not gonna be exclusive, we're gonna date other people, 'cause you can't figure this out, and until you can figure this out, I'm not jumping in with you." And I think honestly, that was probably, is the spirit trying to keep me safe, and I didn't recognize it at the time, but... This was the relationship where it turned violent pretty quick.
0:24:42.4 DB: Physically violent?
0:24:43.3 Sarah: Sexually violent. So there was just a lot of fear involved in it, there was a lot of manipulation, there was me saying, No. Me begging to stop, and there was just, No, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do." But it had never turned into full penetration, and then he at some point in the relationship, he brings up marriage again, "If we get married, I'll be able to stop looking at this porn because we'll be able to do everything that we want. It won't be... "
0:25:14.2 DB: Such a lack of education there.
[laughter]
0:25:17.1 Sarah: Huge lack of education.
0:25:17.9 DB: Or bad education.
0:25:21.6 Sarah: Yeah.
0:25:21.7 DB: Oh my goodness, and...
0:25:21.8 Sarah: And I'm believing it, because I don't have any education either, so... And my minor now is in sex education and I'm like, "Sure...
0:25:30.2 DB: Yeah, I was going to bring that up.
0:25:30.3 Sarah: Great. This will fix it." 'Cause that's what we've been taught in the church is like, you get married and then it's, "No, it's no, no, no, to go, go go, and all your sexual problems are gone."
0:25:38.4 DB: Yeah, it's one of the biggest myths. I don't think it's fair to say a lie, because I think the leadership and the people who are saying this truly believe it, I don't think they're being deceptive, but it just goes to the core of this whole podcast episode is the lack of education. The lack of good education, not just in the negative, but in informative strategies, and I don't even know where that idea came from, that if you get married, the porn habit goes away. That couldn't be further from the truth.
0:26:11.0 Sarah: Right?
0:26:12.1 DB: If it does, it's coincidental. That's mere coincidence. We could talk about that a little bit more, but this is sad, this is the thing that is most upsetting to me when working with people who have a lack of sexual education, 'cause all they know is porn is bad, but they have no idea of what it looks like to have a healthy relationship. So you're dealing with this. Are you able to say... Can you say, how you got out of it, or what did you do?
0:26:46.4 Sarah: Yeah. So there were... So while we were dating, I kept thinking, there's this other guy who I know, we're really good friends. If he would just come to me and just say, "Hey, would you marry me? I would do it in a heartbeat." I just felt so strongly about this friend, and at the same time this other guy is treating me so poorly, and I'm thinking it's all my fault, and I'm feeling so guilty and I'm going to my Bishop and I'm telling my Bishop, "These things are happening. How do I fix them?" And he's giving me more tools than anyone ever had, he's giving me books about pornography, he's giving me... Which were I think, [chuckle] very skewed towards the church's narrative. I don't think they were necessarily a scientifically-based, they were much more along the basis of, "It's an addiction. It's the same thing as doing cocaine", which is absolutely not true.
0:27:44.9 DB: I wanna get into that. And of course, I don't wanna diverge you... I do wanna come back to that. So he was helpful. Was that... At what point... Okay, so what you're saying is that guidance was helpful in ending this current relationship?
0:28:00.5 Sarah: It was helpful in knowing that it wasn't just my fault.
0:28:03.0 DB: Okay.
0:28:03.3 Sarah: And that I could be empowered in the relationship, and he was the first person who kind of said to me like, "If this isn't the future you want, then you don't have to be in it."
0:28:14.2 DB: Good for him.
0:28:15.1 Sarah: Right? And so, but there was still... And that's the hard part about Bishops is that, I think if it had been someone with clinical understanding, they would have said, "This is an abusive relationship," and instead it was like, "If you just don't want porn to be a part of your relationship, just date someone else." And I was like, "Well, that would be nice, but open your eyes, that's not possible."
0:28:40.3 DB: Exactly.
0:28:40.8 Sarah: So at this point, I'm taking my garments off, 'cause I just feel so unworthy and...
0:28:48.7 DB: You weren't instructed to, you just chose to.
0:28:51.1 Sarah: No. And I'm just myself choosing not to take the sacrament, 'cause I just feel so unworthy. And then this guy who I've thought so much about calls me out of the blue and he's like, "Hey, let's go to lunch." And we go to lunch one day and I just thought, "Okay, I'm ending it. I'm ending it because there's something about this guy, I'm gonna end it." So I did, I ended this relationship, then I didn't hear from this guy again. [chuckle]
0:29:20.6 DB: The guy you were interested?
0:29:21.7 Sarah: Yeah. The guy that I was interested, who kinda gave me hope again for men, and I was like, "Well, that's probably better, 'cause I'm in the spot where I probably need to do some healing and working on myself and... " So I don't date anyone for a while, and I work on myself, and then I'm getting lonely, getting really lonely, and I run into this guy who I had been... This guy who I'd been in the relationship with, and I run into him on campus and he's like, "Hey, do you wanna come over?"
0:30:00.3 DB: Even though you've cut it off?
0:30:00.5 Sarah: Yeah, I've cut off. It's been months and I was so lonely that I was like...
0:30:03.9 DB: 'Cause, there's no boundaries.
0:30:05.0 Sarah: Yeah, there's no boundaries and I'm just lonely. So I'm like, "Yeah, of course," it's like, we're good friends and I still cared about him even though, 'cause I didn't know that it was an abusive relationship.
0:30:14.5 DB: Right. And I'm making an assumption here. You just said that you were really lonely, and do you feel like that played into you saying yes also, or...
0:30:26.4 Sarah: Yeah, totally. I just was... I was lonely, all my friends had been married, I'm just back from my mission. [chuckle] It's a hard transition back. We've been dating for seven or eight months when we ended it, so now it's probably like nine or 10 months after, and so we just start talking again, we just started being friends. And then, the other guy who I was interested in at the other time, he calls me up, and he's like, "Do you wanna go on a date?"
0:30:57.9 DB: His timing is interesting.
0:31:00.8 Sarah: At the same time. Yes. So at the same time, these guys are like back in my life at the exact same time, and... So long story short, I ended up saying... This is gonna be so confusing probably to the listeners, but I ended up saying to this guy who I had been dating, "Hey, this other guy asked me out." And, 'cause we were just friends and something... I saw something in his eyes switch. He was like, "Oh, well, yeah, you always talked about him and how much you liked him and how much you respected him, and he's kind of the obstacle that was in our path of us moving forward." I was like, "Not really."
0:31:37.6 DB: Rather he's... The hope in saving you?
0:31:38.9 Sarah: Yeah, I was like, No, it was probably the narrative, but I had, was that I was responsible for your sexuality, for your porn use, and I couldn't fix that anymore, so he ended up asking me to join him for the middle of the day for lunch, and I went over...
0:31:58.3 DB: Which one?
0:31:58.3 Sarah: The guy who I had dated.
0:32:00.7 DB: Okay.
0:32:00.9 Sarah: So I went over to his house during lunch, we left campus together, he drove me there and we were... I remember thinking, "Okay, are we ever gonna eat lunch?" 'Cause we just sat in his room for a while, and then he raped me. And I just remember laying there and it just started off as just normal kissing, and I was like, "Hey, this is weird, but where is this going?" And then it was right back to 17-year-old me who suddenly was being touched and this time I was saying, "No, please stop. No, I don't want this." And it happened anyway. And so that happens, and I looked at him afterwards and he got up and he said, "Let's go back to school." And I looked at him and I hugged him. I hugged him, and I said, "I didn't want that to happen." And I hugged him, 'cause I was so scared that I wasn't gonna be, like I wasn't gonna survive or something, like... My brain just went in to do whatever you need to do to get out of there.
0:33:09.1 DB: Trauma mode.
0:33:09.9 Sarah: Oh, totally. So we got back at school and then I called my... I texted my friend and I texted her and I said, "I just had sex. What do I do now?" And this friend had had sex before marriage as well when she was dating.
0:33:26.6 DB: Not, I was raped, and how do I report him, but what do you do?
0:33:30.1 Sarah: No. No. 100 percent, in my mind it was, "I had had sex." So I call her and she's like, "Oh, it's okay, you'll be okay, it's hard, but you can... You might not be able to take the sacrament for a couple of months, but you can get back and call your Bishop and... " So at this point, I am about to go into work, I'm sick to my stomach, I am shaking and I think, "I just had sex for the first time." So I call my Bishop, I go to the Bishop's office or I go to his house, 'cause it was a Friday night and I'm just devastated, and I walk in and he's like, "What can I do for you?" And I slide my temple garment across the table to him, and I'm like, "I'm no longer worthy of this." And he was like, "Okay, well, tell me what happened?" And so I start saying, start describing to him what happened, and.
0:34:24.6 DB: Is this is the same Bishop that provided you good resources? .
0:34:27.2 Sarah: Yes. Thank goodness.
0:34:27.8 DB: Yes.
0:34:28.4 Sarah: Same Bishop, and he stops me and he says, "No, you didn't have sex. You were raped." And it just suddenly was like, "That's what that was."
0:34:39.2 DB: He called it out.
0:34:39.4 Sarah: He called it out.
0:34:41.1 DB: Excellent.
0:34:41.6 Sarah: Yes, and he said, "I have, I've known you for a while. I've been working with you for a while, from what you've described, your relationship with this guy, you've tried really, really hard, and he has not respected that, and he took full advantage of you and he raped you." And I just sat there stunned. I finally had a word for what was happening, and thank goodness, this Bishop was so in tune and he said, "You know, I don't know how to help you." He said, "I can help you with spiritual healing if you need it, but I don't know how to help you and I'm gonna pay for you to find help." 'Cause at this point, I also didn't have insurance and I was too afraid to tell my parents, so I'm like, [chuckle] "Ah, what do I do?" And I didn't go to the hospital to get any forensic exams done, 'cause I didn't know I had been raped, and suddenly here's this ecclesiastical leader pointing me in the direction of help, and it was life-saving, so he paid for me to see a therapist and I was in therapy within a week, and that made all the difference in my life. And I had a male therapist where... He said, "I'm gonna send you to a male therapist" and I said, "What have you been smoking Bishop? I'm not gonna go sit across from a man and tell him what happened." And he said, "I think that you need a man to listen to you." And so I had to sit...
0:36:02.1 DB: This Bishop wasn't a counsel, he had no training.
0:36:05.1 Sarah: No. No training.
0:36:07.6 DB: This is interesting. Sorry, I think this is actually an important concept that a lot of...
0:36:12.6 Sarah: Totally.
0:36:12.7 DB: People don't realize. When I was working, in my training, I was serving the community in a community center, and that was the first time that I found women who had been raped were asking for male therapists, and that was before I really understood something called Gestalt therapy, if you're familiar.
0:36:30.3 Sarah: Yes. Yeah.
0:36:32.4 DB: And this is their opportunity... There's many reasons to do this, and there are some... I wanna be clear, there are some reasons not to do it either also, and so what this allows, and I'm curious to hear your experiences is, I like how the Bishop said, is it gives a man an opportunity, you get to have a man listen to you and validate you. It also provides the victim an opportunity in a gestalt model for those who aren't familiar, there's this concept of empty chair or imagining that the therapist is your aggressor and you lash out at them in a therapeutic way or whatever, you confront them that way, and so it can be very therapeutic if you're ready for that. It's always hard to tell. But what was your experience? So he suggested this, it looked like you're a little surprised.
0:37:25.1 Sarah: Totally.
0:37:26.4 DB: But you followed through and you found a male therapist?
0:37:28.0 Sarah: Yeah, he actually gave me a referral, he said I... He had had a friend who was a therapist or was very aware of clinical concepts or whatever that... She suggested I see a man. So he gave me the number, I called and made the appointment myself. And I walked in not really knowing what to expect. I had never been to therapy before, and I walked in and I sat down and just kind of started talking about my life and my past and everything that was going on in this relationship and being stuck on the concept of like, "I had lost my virginity." One thing that he said in that first day was, "No. No, you don't lose your virginity, that's a social construct, you don't lose your virginity. No one takes that from you." And that was the beginning of realizing, "Okay, I've got some very unhealthy and harmful narratives in my mind, and I need to change them."
0:38:26.9 DB: So, you're presenting this is as very accepting and like, "Oh, yeah." What's it like that for you at the moment? Did you push back at all? Did you... What was your awakening, healing process like, was it difficult to receive that information or was it healing?
0:38:43.5 Sarah: The difference was, is that he was clinically trained, and so he... As opposed to saying it to a bishop or a parent, he had this clinical training to... I could see the surprise on his face when I was telling him these things that I thought were normal. And so, much like, right now, I'm telling you things and you have these surprise looks on your face and it's so validating.
0:39:04.9 DB: Oh good. [laughter]
0:39:06.9 Sarah: Right? It is 100% validating to think, "These things that I thought were normal, that every girl experienced, are horrifying to this man, and he would never treat a girl this way or a female this way." And I can see it on his face. And he's a member of the church, and this isn't right.
0:39:24.4 DB: The therapist?
0:39:25.3 Sarah: Yeah, this therapist. So that was probably what made me actually accept it, was that, "Here's this guy who believes the same thing I do, who is horrified and shocked and in tears at some point with what I'm telling him and how I've assumed and accepted as a normal behavior."
0:39:47.6 DB: You can't... I don't know, I can't speak for every therapist, but I've heard stories and no two stories are the same. Everybody's experience is unique, but it's heart wrenching each time. I hope, one, I hope I never get used to hearing it. If I do, I need to check myself.
[laughter]
0:40:11.7 DB: It's heart-breaking, and again, to repeat what you're saying, this at the beginning... This is why it's so important for you to speak out and I appreciate that. So, continue from there. What was your journey like? How long were you in therapy? What was your discoveries along that path?
0:40:28.7 Sarah: Well, I think the most important discovery that we made in therapy together was I had this pattern of dating guys who I thought I could fix. 'Cause that was also a narrative that I had taken on is like, "As a disciple of Christ and as a woman of Christ, I have to fix people and I'm gonna make them better." And he said, "You date these people who you think you need to fix, and this is... So, this is like you're going along in your car, and I want you to think of your rape as like you've hit a brick wall. And that brick wall is stopping you from what could be." And I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, if I had married that guy, this would have been my life, and I would not have known." And it always shocks people when I say this, but I will say it, I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful for that experience because I walked out of therapy going, "Not again. No one will ever treat me that way again, and I'm not gonna date a guy who's gonna treat me like that." And long story short, I ended up marrying that other guy.
0:41:33.8 DB: The one that was...
[chuckle]
0:41:34.1 Sarah: Yeah. The one who I always wanted to date while I was dating this other guy. We got our act together and we ended up getting married. So, that was... And he was the exact opposite. He was the guy... And ironically, I thought before this experience, I was never good enough for him, either. He's this amazing, incredible guy, and I was like, "I'm not good enough." And I walked out of therapy going, "Oh, I am so good enough for him, and he would be so lucky to have me."
[laughter]
0:42:06.6 DB: What a wonderful discovery. And you brought up something that we kind of glossed over it. I can't tell you how many women end up marrying a situation like that where, because they don't have this discovery, and I'm not... This is tragic. And it's years later that they discover this was horrible. So I appreciate, and I realize it's probably difficult for a lot of people to hear it. We're clearly not saying the abuse was okay.
0:42:36.4 Sarah: No, not at all.
0:42:39.3 DB: But that, as a result, you were awakened, it was an opportunity to get help and to discover more. I'm sure it wasn't as simple as having that discovery and everything's better.
0:42:53.6 Sarah: No, not at all.
0:42:53.7 DB: What was that journey like from there on out? So, you're dating your husband, and...
0:42:58.3 Sarah: So, we're dating, and I'm thinking, "Okay, that's the end of our... The end of my sexual problems." [chuckle] And again, great guy, we start dating, he takes like a month to kiss me and then it's just like little pecks here and there for months, and I'm finally like, "Hey... "
0:43:14.0 DB: Is he aware of this recent experience yet?
0:43:18.1 Sarah: So at this point, no, at this point...
0:43:21.0 DB: So, he's acting all on his accord, he's not... He's not like over...
0:43:23.2 Sarah: Yes. He's not being over-aware or over-sensitive or over-thinking anything.
0:43:28.6 DB: I think that's important for the listeners to know.
0:43:29.0 Sarah: Totally. Yeah.
0:43:30.2 DB: So this is... You found a guy who's true to his behavior here. This is...
0:43:35.5 Sarah: Yeah. He is living his behavior, he is showing me his behavior. And I'm starting to get worried of like, "Okay, why is this not unfolding? Why are we not progressing at all?" And...
0:43:46.8 DB: Isn't that interesting? You're expecting this will happen.
0:43:51.3 Sarah: Yes. I'm expecting that this will happen, 'cause I wanted to, know... I wanted to be able to say no, I like, I was gonna set those boundaries and like we're gonna talk about them, there's gonna be none of this business going on. And he kisses me one night and I pull away from him and I go, "Why won't you kiss me for longer?" And he goes, "I don't wanna have an erection." And I was like, "What? [chuckle] What are you saying?" And he said, "If I have an erection, I'm being disrespectful to you."
0:44:19.0 DB: Wow.
0:44:19.5 Sarah: And he said, My... He had a Bishop when he was 16, tell him the erections were breaking law of chastity, and I was like, "Hey, buddy, if we're kissing and you don't have that response, there's something wrong. There's a bigger issue." [laughter] I was just was so shocked.
0:44:38.7 DB: You had such insight... You had that insight at that time?
0:44:41.7 Sarah: Yeah.
0:44:41.9 DB: Is that something you learned... Forgive me, I'm coming from maybe a place of ignorance here in making some assumptions. After your traumatic experiences, it would seem like, my naive response here, "Oh, good, you're not. You would... " Some people might feed that behavior and say, "Oh good, now I know I'm safe." What allowed you to say, "Oh, this is actually unhealthy?"
0:45:08.6 Sarah: So, my therapist and I worked a lot through that. 'Cause my therapist was very concerned that I started dating this guy, 'cause he said, "You know, I don't want that...
0:45:16.8 DB: Your now husband.
0:45:17.7 Sarah: Yes, my now husband. "I don't want you to feel like that you're getting into this relationship where he's saving you and you're working through some really traumatic things, and we don't want to get that tied up in your relationship."
0:45:29.1 DB: Good.
0:45:29.5 Sarah: So we worked very closely to... And I was very transparent with my therapist with this, now relation... My husband. And so I was talking to him about these concerns and he said, "Well, why don't you just ask him?" I was, at this point, and we had talked about how it's, an erection is a normal response to any sort of stimulus and not to fear it. So I didn't. I wasn't fearing it. And he said, "Any guy who's gonna respect your boundaries is gonna be able to say, 'My pants will calm down,' and I won't touch you." [chuckle] And I... Yeah, I just... I knew this guy was gonna be that way, there was just something about him that he... From the very beginning, he respected me. So, I have this discussion with him and I'm like, "Why are you not kissing me longer, and he's like, I don't wanna disrespect you, is disrespect for you." And I'm like, "Well, I would like to make out. [laughter] So, I'd like to kiss you a little bit longer." And we've been dating for months and let's see if this is going somewhere, and... So, long story short is, he had a lot of that narrative in his mind that he was so afraid of disrespecting women and girls that he had shut down everything.
0:46:40.8 DB: Like I was saying at the beginning.
0:46:41.8 Sarah: Totally. He is the opposite.
0:46:42.7 DB: That extreme. Yeah. I wanna point out, and I hope you don't feel like I'm putting you on a pedestal here, but it sounds like, and I realized, we're reflecting back on the past, the maturity that you gained to have that conversation is amazing.
0:47:00.8 Sarah: Thank you.
0:47:00.9 DB: It's... I don't want that to come out in a way that if others have been through a traumatic experience, can't do that, as any way shameful.
0:47:10.0 Sarah: Not at all.
0:47:10.1 DB: But I wanna emphasize how significant that is, that you didn't just run away or stay or not say anything at all. There's this culture of, "Don't talk about it at all." But you used it as an opportunity to connect with him. Which is a huge part of what I believe is healing, creating connection.
0:47:31.9 Sarah: Totally.
0:47:32.9 DB: Have an awareness of each other as opposed to assuming and labeling and ignoring or just not discussing. That is... I'm trying not to be extreme in my language, but that is truly impressive.
0:47:47.8 Sarah: Thank you.
0:47:48.7 DB: And I think it's important for the listeners to understand both how difficult that is and the fact that you were able to do it, was beautiful.
0:47:56.7 Sarah: Thank you. Well, and I do... It was so helpful to be falling in love, at the same point in therapy, weekly, [chuckle] and at the same point, having these really open discussions with the suitor. So, we'll fast forward to a couple of weeks and he's doing something playfully, like I think he picked me up and twirled me around and I had a traumatic response and I shoved him. And he stepped back and looked at me and was like, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you're fine. I just don't like... "
0:48:35.6 DB: You're still taking the responsibility.
0:48:36.9 Sarah: Yeah. I was like, "I just don't like being picked up." And later that night, I thought, "Okay, I've got to tell him what's going on. I don't want him to think that this is his fault, and, well, this needs to be... "
0:48:47.9 DB: Oh, that's right. 'Cause you hadn't shared with him yet. So this was your opportunity.
0:48:49.0 Sarah: Yeah. So, at this point he has no idea what's going on. And so I sat him down on the couch and I said, "Listen, this is what's happened, and I understand if you wanna walk away." And he was like, "Why would I walk [chuckle] away?" And he just sat and cried.
0:49:04.7 DB: What a different experience?
0:49:05.9 Sarah: So different. He sat and cried with me, he held me while I cried, and he... I don't know how he did this, but he managed his traumatic response in front of me. So, he cried, he... And I told him, "This is a lot for you to handle, I understand that, if you need to tell someone, if you need to tell your parents, if you need to tell a bishop, if you need to tell a friend, please tell someone so you're not holding this by yourself. I have my people who are holding it with me, please get your people." And he... That's when he had his traumatic response of like, "I'm gonna kill this guy, I'm gonna find him... " That's when he had his response to my trauma, but that I was... I didn't have to carry it. And I think that's why we are married. [chuckle] He was able to separate that. [laughter]
0:49:51.1 DB: Yes. And I'm gonna point that out. How crucial that is, again, not to put you on a pedestal, but your ability to create differentiation in the relationship early on and not feel like, while you're communicating and being open and creating connection, you also emphasized, "I'm carrying my load, I've got my people, and if this is concerning, the most effective way to deal is get your own people. Let's not blend our trauma together. Let's support each other, but let's not be each other's therapist."
0:50:22.7 Sarah: Oh yeah.
0:50:23.0 DB: There's a fine line there, of course, but... Very impressive.
0:50:28.5 Sarah: And his mom has been a therapist, and so I said, "Please talk to your mom about this." And I was trying to not be ashamed, and so I didn't want this to be a secret. So I didn't want... You know, [chuckle] to be like, "Oh, my girlfriend's gone through something, but I can't tell my parents about it." It was like, "If I'm a part of your family, this is a part of my life, like this, we're not gonna put it in the closet, it's just gonna be out there. It's what it is." And so our relationship progressed. He went to therapy by himself. He came to therapy with me a few times, and we fell in love, and we got married and I was like, "Okay, here we go, here comes sex. Real sex."
0:51:05.5 DB: Oh-oh.
0:51:06.1 Sarah: Good sex.
0:51:07.1 DB: So, it is good, everything's great, happy ever after, right?
0:51:11.4 Sarah: We would like to think, right? So, back to my Bishop, great insightful Bishop, where we are... We're getting ready to get married and he pulls us in his office and he says, "You guys, this is gonna be hard for Sarah. It's gonna be really hard for Sarah to go from these traumatic experiences to, Let's do it all in one night." And he says, "I'd like you to explore each other's bodies." And he said, Your only... He gave us limits and he said, "Your only limits are oral and penetrative sex."
0:51:45.5 DB: Your Bishop counselled you this?
[chuckle]
0:51:46.6 Sarah: My Bishop.
0:51:47.3 DB: I want his name and number.
[laughter]
0:51:49.3 Sarah: Alright.
0:51:50.4 DB: This is phenomenal. When you heard him say that, what was your response?
0:51:56.0 Sarah: Well, I was like, jaw dropped. Because my husband's bishop, at that time, he was like, "You can't touch each other at all. Satan's gonna be trying to destroy you as a family, and if you... "
0:52:08.4 DB: Oh, yeah. I hear that all the time.
0:52:09.7 Sarah: Yeah. [chuckle] "If you touch each other at all, you're gonna have sex, the passion is just so alive, no touching yourselves"
0:52:14.9 DB: You no longer have agency.
0:52:16.3 Sarah: Right. Like, we're children again. And then we had my bishop who was like, "Please get to know each other before you have sex." And we talked about it as a couple, and we decided, "Okay, what is appropriate for us? What do we feel like we can handle? What's our plan in case we start to feel overwhelmed? What happens if I have a traumatic response? And what are our boundaries?" And we talked about those things that people don't talk about in their marriage for years. And it just set us up on what I thought was the perfect happy ever after.
0:52:51.2 Sarah: So, we get married in the temple. We have a great sex life for a couple of months and then I can't get there. I can't climax. And I remember, [chuckle] it was Valentine's night, I had bought, on a meager student income, I had bought this red piece of lingerie and I was so excited. And I was anticipating it so much and looking forward to connecting so much, and then I was feeling the feeling, feeling the build-up and then, boom, exhaustion, can't get there. My husband gets up and puts his garments back on and I just remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm so broken. I am so broken." And that was my spiral back down hill, that night. That's when everything changed from it being something that my husband and I participate in together where my pleasure matters as much as his pleasure, and we need to be clear that my bit does. My husband has never once pressured me, he's always been 100% understanding. We both just didn't have the tools. So, this is the spiral of...
0:54:06.0 DB: You not only didn't have the tools, 'cause that's my concern in general, is no one's taught how to have intimate relationships, sex and orgasm. Who teaches that? But you're up against also trauma.
0:54:20.1 Sarah: Yeah.
0:54:21.3 DB: And so you've got a few fronts here that you're battling, and this is happening at this moment. So, where do you go from there?
0:54:29.3 Sarah: So months progress and I'm just becoming increasingly more depressed and I'm feeling increasingly more isolated. I started seeing a different therapist, I had moved, so I had a different therapist. It was a sex therapist. And the sex therapist kept telling me it's this trauma that's in the way of you being able to connect with your husband, and I was sitting there saying, "It's not the trauma. I've worked through so much of the trauma. Of course, I have bad nights where something triggers me and I can identify the trigger and work through it, but it's not the trauma that's preventing me from this." So I tried a different sex therapists, and I tried an OB-GYN. And I tried a different OB-GYN. And the problem was, is I would feel the build-up and I would... We'd be in the moment and we'd be feeling really, really good, and then I would just hit this wall of exhaustion. And it felt like I was being knocked off my feet. And it was time and time and time again, and I just started feeling like, "I'm only here to be like this vessel for other men's pleasure. And it's not... My husband's not making me feel this way, this is how God designed my body to be a vessel for other men's pleasure, not my own, for other men's pleasure."
0:55:45.1 Sarah: And that was the beginning of just months, years of severe depression and anxiety, and it got so bad that I had suicidal ideation. Because my husband and I have always been able to be so transparent from the beginning, I was able to disclose to him, that I was having these ideations and he said, "Okay, you've gotta get help, like this is obviously not working." It terrified him enough that I could see on his face of like just the idea of that was so scary, I don't think I could ever go through with it, which kind of brought me back to reality. But... So, nothing's changing, I'm just super depressed. I'm seeing doctors who are saying, "We're just gonna prescribe you these anti-depressants, it will kill your libido. Here's some anti-anxiety, work on your trauma." So I start EMDR. And so, for those of the listeners, it's a great form of trauma therapy where you process it without really describing it, so you're not re-victimizing yourself, you're processing more of what your body is holding on to. So, I go through it and I'm like, That's not the trauma. It's not... There's something that's stopping me, physio... My physical body is stopping me.
0:57:01.0 Sarah: There's something in the way. I can feel it. So again, I'm just hopeless. No one's believing me. Every single person is telling me it's your trauma, which was at this point, more traumatic than my trauma.
0:57:13.5 DB: Interesting, yes. I was actually gonna point that out and... Well, I won't jump ahead here. I wanna reflect back on that but... So what was it? What did you end up discovering?
0:57:27.2 Sarah: So I... So we move out of state, and I'm talking to this woman in my new ward and something... She was a doula. So for those who aren't aware of what a doula is, they're basically a birthing partner. So they... She professionally goes in and helps women deliver their babies as their advocate, and I had... She had mentioned to me that what got her interested in it was she had had a traumatic response giving birth because she had been molested as a child, and that resurfaced for her during her birth. And I was like, "Holy crap. That might happen to me." And so I disclosed to her my history of sexual assault, and then I disclosed to her my problem of not being able to climax. And she didn't bat an eye. She said, "Oh, go visit a pelvic floor physical therapist." And she gave me a name. So I made this appointment and I go in, and at this point, I have kind of like this PTSD from visiting providers. 'Cause none of them believe me. Everyone is telling me... It ranges from, "It's your trauma," to, "Let go of how you view yourself. Your body image part... " And I'm like, "I've never once said that I don't like the way I look in sex."
[laughter]
0:58:36.5 Sarah: Everyone's pointing out these emotional things or these things that we've put on women that I'm like, "It's none of those. I'm not telling you like... Listen to me, please." So I walk in, and I sit down, and she started crying, this physical therapist, and she said, "You are the hardest client to get in my doors because everyone gives up on you."
0:59:01.7 DB: Mm-hmm. Yes. Gives up on you in the sense of they think it's something else?
0:59:09.4 Sarah: Yes.
0:59:09.6 DB: Yes.
0:59:09.9 Sarah: They think it's something else. And she said, "It is so common." She said the clients who have it the most are religious clients, which I think is ironic.
0:59:17.2 DB: That's well-studied, actually.
0:59:18.1 Sarah: Very religious people and athletes. And I was both. So she... I remember her saying, "You'll have an orgasm within a month." And I was going like, "Yeah, right."
0:59:27.8 DB: So let me pause you there before we get on to the healing, hopefully, is...
[laughter]
0:59:32.4 DB: That's what I was wanting to speak to, is in no way is this a criticism. I am so thankful for the research and the skills that trauma therapists and trauma training in general has brought to clinicians. However, what I'm seeing is an imbalance in assessment. A lot of clinicians are jumping to trauma, which isn't wrong, and trauma is still playing a part of your life.
1:00:04.3 Sarah: Totally.
1:00:07.5 DB: However, there's... Your body is made up of a bunch of more things than just trauma and just the things that you were bringing up. Everything needs to be explored, and I think that's a critical part of assessment. And I'm in a tricky spot as a male therapist who often will engage in thorough assessment. Like yes, fully recognize there's trauma. Is there potentially anything else biologically going on, emotionally going on that's disconnected from that? And that's often perceived as minimizing trauma, and it's a tricky place to be in because... Absolutely, there's trauma there, but I'm seeing a lot of what's happening, what happened to you, where your actual health concern wasn't related to the trauma, at least not the majority of it. And finally, somebody found out. You found the right person, rather, and they guided you. So do you mind sharing what the procedure was? I think I know where you're going with this.
1:01:04.1 Sarah: Yeah. So it was just pelvic floor physical therapy. So it was all internal work. So basically she inserted her fingers into my vagina and was able to release the tension. And what she said that was so profound was she said... And at this point, I have my MSW, and I'm like, "I'm a therapist. I'm gonna be a therapist. This is my passion." So I'm talking to her about all these terms, and she's like, "Yeah, don't you guys like read that book, The Body Keeps the Score, and don't you guys understand that you hold trauma in your body?" And I was like, "Yes. Actually, I do know that." And she's like, "Well, where do you think you hold it?" And I said, "Well, I don't know. Like my whole body?" She said, "In your pelvic floor." Mind blown, right? So what she did is in her assessment, she found that... And she likened it to bicep curls. She said, "Your vaginal walls have to go up and down like you would do a bicep for you to orgasm." And she said, "Yours are so tight that they can't loosen. They can't physically make that sensation happen. They can't have that... They won't.
1:02:15.0 Sarah: So we did some exercises and I had to relearn how to do certain things. I had to essentially learn how to orgasm, and that was the beginning of happiness. That was the beginning of the fairy tale, for me, it was. [chuckle] Learning, becoming one with my body, and when I say one with my body, for anyone who has a period, who has a uterus, who has a pelvic floor, that includes you man, understand what's going on with your pelvic floor. That is where you're holding your stress, where you're holding your trauma. And since then, I have been able to identify when I suck in, and I know I do it. When I am triggered or when I'm stressed, or if I'm uncomfortable or if I'm feeling vulnerable, I can suck in my muscles, and I feel it. It's like this, "Please don't look at me," and I'm sucking in. It's totally this trauma-fear response, and I can now push myself back out and to relax, and I have control of what's going on with me. And that's the first time that's ever happened. I was able to orgasm. We have a great sex life now. We've had... Since had a baby and that didn't break me. I thought that was gonna ruin me again. I wasn't afraid to have a child, and it helped bringing a child in. I used the same things that I learned in therapy, and I survived.
1:03:46.8 DB: What a story. Not a story. What a life.
1:03:51.8 Sarah: Yeah.
[laughter]
1:03:52.7 DB: My goodness, that journey. So was it... What the doctor did, did that get you to successful orgasm? Was there other things that you did to help yourself along?
1:04:03.3 Sarah: Yeah, so basically, what she would do is she would use her fingers on muscles and release them so much like you would lengthen a muscle or much like going to the gym, right? You learn how to turn your muscles on and off when you're lifting weights, and she helped me learn how to do that, then I had to learn how to breathe again. 'Cause I was breathing incorrectly, like who even knows that you can breathe incorrectly. But I was breathing in, sucking in, doing... Any time I worked out, sucking in, holding that pelvic floor in tight. I learned to masturbate. That was a big one, right, learning my body.
1:04:42.2 DB: What is the purpose of that? Just to... Was it to help heal? Or what was the purpose of masturbating?
1:04:47.9 Sarah: The purpose of that was to, A, figure out how my body worked, right? How... What feels good? Now that I know my body can react to pleasure, what feels good? We started over, basically. So... And that came from... And this is the part that blows my mind is how we expect our young people or any people to walk into a marriage not knowing their body. So I learned my body with that. I've helped my husband learn my body, so his confidence grew, my confidence grew, our intimacy was connected. For the first time, it felt like it was a partnered experience.
1:05:23.8 DB: This is important for a lot of Latter-day saints to understand. And I'm not gonna sit here and say that masturbation should be a part of everyone's life. However, when we as... Especially Latter-day saints who are clinicians make a blanket statement, which I've seen recently in social media and some pretty well-respected therapists who are LDS, say that any therapist who encourages masturbation is not in line with their faith, right? It's... Yeah, thanks for the eye roll.
[laughter]
1:06:07.1 DB: It's... The potential damage of that message is destructive to say the least. I've seen so many women who have been abused, who have had similar life experiences, and they carry that on with them because that message was communicated to them, and they feel understanding their body is breaking some eternal covenant.
1:06:40.7 Sarah: Oh. Totally.
1:06:42.8 DB: It's the only thing we see... In the medical industry that seems to be the exception within our faith, is you go to a doctor and get some drugs to help you or you do... And I hate to use that analogy because I don't even think they're the same in a sense of risks or anything like that. But masturbation is a form of learning your body.
1:07:04.4 Sarah: Right.
1:07:04.9 DB: Especially when you've been abused, where somebody has had control over your sexual narrative, not just story-wise, not from church history or your church upbringing, but somebody has abused you, you need a way to reclaim your sexual identity or to even claim it. And you never did. And masturbation... Well, a lot of people... I get to push back in, say, "Well, that's what you do in marriage. You're not... You don't understand."
[laughter]
1:07:34.8 DB: It's still involving somebody, yes. Yes, you can. Even though you trust your partner, there's a reality to being able to own your own body, and when you do that, you could bring your whole self to the table. But if you do it as a part, especially in something as intimate and vulnerable as this... I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but it's really, really difficult to have your... Own my sexual identity.
1:08:02.6 Sarah: Yes, totally.
1:08:03.8 DB: You will always carry some form of a identity from your partner in that, and that's not owning your own sexual identity.
1:08:13.1 Sarah: No, not at all.
1:08:13.2 DB: And as... I guess another side note, a lot of men misunderstanding... Women don't know this either is... Or probably just as much, men don't understand their body either. Just because they ejaculate doesn't mean they had an orgasm. And when I tell men that they're like, "What? What are you talking about?" You need to learn how to have an orgasm. It doesn't always come naturally, and I think men really mistake that also. Not to divert from your... I think that was an important concept that you brought up, that I think men also fail to understand.
1:08:46.3 Sarah: Yeah.
1:08:46.3 DB: It's important for us to learn our bodies just as much.
1:08:49.5 Sarah: Well, and this is kind of the one thing that will probably influence my parenting the most, [chuckle] when it comes to sexual health, is I didn't know what bad felt like because I didn't know what good felt like.
1:09:04.2 DB: Exactly.
1:09:05.0 Sarah: Right? So all of these horrible things are happening to me, and I'm like, "Ugh, this is what good is? Well, good sucks." And I would talk to women, and they would say like, "Oh, you'll just know when you'll know." And it's like... I'm like, "Please give me some concrete understanding of how my body works." When I could have discovered that at an appropriate age as a teenager and learned myself, how to know my body, when my body needs help, when I need help, when something's wrong and not working correctly, I could have learned that and taken all of that lesson into marriage. And instead what happened was I did... I had years of sexual assault. I had years of feeling so isolated and feeling so alone and forgotten by a Heavenly Father, because at the same time, I'm like, "Where the heck is Heavenly Mother if I can't... Who is gonna tell me how my female body works?" And so I have this huge faith transition and this huge faith crisis, and it's like, "I could have learned this lesson. All of this could have been avoided if someone could have given me the tools and the vocabulary to know." And that's why I'm super passionate about 'cause...
1:10:32.0 DB: I love it. I love it.
[laughter]
1:10:32.1 Sarah: 'Cause it doesn't need to be this way.
1:10:33.0 DB: I'm so happy that things are healing for you, and not just healing, it sounds like you're really thriving, and you're using this as an opportunity to share your passion, your education. I do wanna revisit it if you have time.
1:10:49.7 Sarah: Sure.
1:10:50.2 DB: What is your view on... So you made a comment at the beginning about the pornography and how your views have changed. I'd be curious to explore that. So how do you view... So... I don't wanna move on too quickly or confuse topics, but let me quickly summarize. Because of the lack of education and the modesty teachings, you took on this responsibility that you are responsible for men, period, regardless of age. What a burden. What a scary thing. And as you started to heal, you discovered that you get to have a body, you get to have your own sexual desires, you get to heal, and I thought it was interesting that you also experienced a faith crisis, which I do see. And this is so unnecessary in the sense that if we just teach good sex ed or answer the questions and not be afraid of... Because we're answering questions, that's why I set up my group as, ask all the questions you want.
1:11:52.9 Sarah: Yeah.
1:11:53.3 DB: I don't care how crazy you feel like they are or taboo, we have to discuss these things. It doesn't necessarily give you permission to do it. I don't know why we think about it that way. But I've seen others where in their 40s or 50s, they realize, "Oh, my goodness, if I can't believe my church leaders on this," then they experience, "We don't have to have that experience."
1:12:17.1 Sarah: We don't have to.
1:12:17.1 DB: I mean, this isn't like church history, or Blacks and the priesthood, or... Sorry, I don't wanna equate those, but the point is, is we have that understanding now, we have good medical research and science. And a leeway now or a segue into what do you understand now about porn, and how it did or didn't contribute or affect the narrative that you were taught?
1:12:43.2 Sarah: So now my opinion is I don't necessarily want the church to talk about sex, period. Like I just want them to say, "Have sex."
1:12:51.8 DB: Porn, sex, anything.
1:12:53.0 Sarah: Yes, because there's just... It doesn't... They don't belong in the bedroom. And why I say that is because it's so personal and what works for one person is not gonna work for another person. And first of all, until they can come with me with the clinical understanding that professionals have of hundreds of hours of education, the narrative is not gonna change. And with that... So... And part of this came through my own clinical education was understanding that porn is not currently a classifiable addiction. And understanding what makes an addiction an addiction and what makes pornography not an addiction helped me understand my behavior is my behavior and their behavior is their behavior.
1:13:48.0 DB: I couldn't have said it better. That's exactly right.
1:13:51.2 Sarah: And my sexuality is my sexuality and my husband's sexuality is his. At the beginning of our marriage, we felt so responsible for each other. And through this process of learning, "Okay, I have my own body that has its own needs, and I'm a higher desiring partner, you have your body that has needs, and you're the lower desiring partner, how do we make this marriage work? Came through accepting, "Okay, we've got to find tools to add to our tool belt for when we have differences in expectation, when we have differences in needs," and part of that's come through accepting not all porn is bad. And people always...
1:14:32.1 DB: So let's...
1:14:34.0 Sarah: Porn is such a hot topic. It's such a buzzword right now.
1:14:35.8 DB: Just for the sake of the listener, 'cause I know already they're...
1:14:39.0 Sarah: People are freaking out.
1:14:39.4 DB: Freaking out right now. And you clarify... Just based on what little we've talked about, I'm gonna clarify then you correct me or you add to is one of the biggest problems is... I've talked with thousands of people now, and I'm yet to hear the same definition of porn from two people.
1:15:02.0 Sarah: Totally.
1:15:04.2 DB: I have... I'm saying this not out of criticism. Everybody has the choice to do what they feel is best, but this is where it gets problematic when I'm working with a couple who wants a divorce over finding out that one had watched an R-rated movie because it had some...
1:15:19.7 Sarah: Right.
[laughter]
1:15:19.7 DB: And for those who...
1:15:22.6 Sarah: It's serious, I think.
1:15:22.7 DB: Treat that very serious... I'm not minimizing you, but this is the core of the problem. And so when I hear you say that not all porn is bad... That's what I think I'm hearing from you. Is that what you're saying?
1:15:34.0 Sarah: Yes and... Okay, so let's take it back even to that abusive relationship where I said that he was... He disclosed that he was watching porn. At the time he was like, "Oh I'm a porn addict. I've been a porn addict since I was 14." He was looking at porn twice a week. And it was straight porn. Man, woman, missionary porn. And now to think that he was carrying around that burden of thinking he was a porn addict, I'm like, "No wonder you didn't listen to me say 'No'. You had already lost."
1:16:06.8 DB: He was carrying that weight.
1:16:06.9 Sarah: You had already felt like you were out of control of your behavior. You had already said you were an addict, which... You don't have responsibility for your behavior. In that sense, I just feel compassion for him. And I feel compassion for anyone who's carrying around that.
1:16:20.9 DB: So many people are probably thinking right now, "You are justifying and you are sympathizing with your abuser." And I'm not hearing that at all. What I'm hearing from you is a solution. If we want to solve this abuse problem, this is not minimizing his porn use. It's... Or porn in any degree. It's what works. Think about any person. I can't imagine... Like that 14-year-old that I was talking about at the beginning, or what you... I can't imagine what you experienced thinking you were responsible for all men's desires and how you carry that and how that makes you now respond. Again, I'm not excusing people's bad behavior, but if we want a solution, we gotta actually talk about the problem and how to fix it. And that's, "Stop putting fear people."
1:17:17.6 Sarah: Into everything. Into sex. Leave it out. And I'm... To clarify, I'm not pro-porn either. There's horrific things that happen in that industry, but what I'm seeing is, "Can it have a spot in individual relationships?" And this is a vulnerable thing for me thing for me to say, but when I was learning my own body I was watching porn. Because A, it was a safe place for me to engage in sexual activity in what felt like partnered sex, which was allowing me to feel like I could let my husband in and to learn a little bit from it. I was learning... "Okay, okay. They're turning things up. I'm gonna try turning things up." And it helped. And...
1:18:06.0 DB: The mechanics.
1:18:07.8 Sarah: Yes.
1:18:08.2 DB: It... Well... No, no. It goes beyond mechanics. It goes into just every aspect of sex. Where do you learn that from? You don't learn that from a... You learn maybe basic mechanics from a textbook or from maybe a good sex therapist book or something like that. But a lot of people learn through visual learning.
1:18:28.2 Sarah: Right, and that's how... I'm a visual learner. And this is the difference between me watching porn and a 14-year-old watching porn. I'm a grownup. I know that it's staged. I know that there's stop and go, that there's clips, that there's enhancement drugs. I know that it's entertainment and not reality. A 14-year-old doesn't necessarily know that. I've had experience of going, "Oh yeah, it's awkward. And you queef and you laugh. And there's all these embarrassing things that happen and you still love each other. And you go back and try again." That doesn't happen when we're young and impulsive and adolescent and we're trying to figure things out. It's adult entertainment for a reason. So my views on porn have changed a little bit. Again, I'm not pro-porn. But what I am pro is allowing...
1:19:18.6 DB: Education.
1:19:20.2 Sarah: My partner to have his own sexuality.
1:19:21.2 DB: Oh. Sorry. Yes, yes, yes.
1:19:22.9 Sarah: And education, and that comes with... A good experience of this was right after we had our baby, I was three weeks postpartum going, "What is wrong with me. I need to have an orgasm, and I'm not supposed to need this right now, I'm not supposed to want this." Right? I just had a baby, I'm supposed to be so anti-sex and so anti-touch. What's wrong with me? Again, why am I craving this?" And Googling like, "Is it okay to masturbate right after you've had a baby." In the internet, of course, because who am I gonna ask? I just still feel like I don't know who to ask. Should probably asked the sex therapist but... And being like, "No, I'm normal. This is normal." But then at the same time, not necessarily wanting to engage in partnered sex and allowing my husband to have his needs and not feeling responsible for it. It doesn't mean he doesn't love me. It doesn't mean I don't turn him on anymore. It just means, "Listen, Babe, I'm not in the mood. I can't get there. I want you to still have your needs taken care of. Maybe we can do something together, watch something together, you feel you. I sit here and nurse this child. And you do you Babe." [laughter] That is what I'm talking about. Let's allow people to figure it out for themselves instead of putting fear and shame, and, "If you look at porn, you don't love your partner." Let's leave that out of the equation. That's not a part of it at all.
1:20:56.2 DB: We can... My goodness, you are saying things that I've been trying to communicate for a long time, and this concept of... We don't have control over our partners' bodies or their desires, nor should we.
1:21:13.4 Sarah: Never.
1:21:15.3 DB: It would be wrong. Absolutely wrong, and I know people are gonna say, "Well, is not the same." "You can only eat dinner when I'm eating dinner. We could only work out when we're working out together." In any other situation, we would see that as abuse or controlling or manipulative. But when we... And again, for... My wife and I love to work out together, and I actually hate working out when I'm not working out with her. That's a little different. 'Cause it's something we really love to do together. But if I go work out, she's not gonna say, "Why are you doing that?"
1:21:51.0 Sarah: Yeah, "You're cheating on me."
[laughter]
1:21:51.9 DB: "You're cheating on me." I know a lot of people are gonna, "No, they're not the same." Well, they kind of are in the sense of, you're still an individual. And you still have desires, needs, and I love this... The example you gave, you just gave birth. And... Or he may have his desires and you are not ready to be there yet.
1:22:13.6 Sarah: Yeah, I couldn't show up without resent. And I don't want resent in my marriage. I don't want that in my sex. I don't want it in my behavior, and if he can have his own sexuality and I can have mine, there's no place for resentment. There's no need. So it's... What it has done is that I have stopped crying myself to sleep when I feel like my needs haven't been taken care of or I can't fulfill his. He has stopped feeling like he's not the macho man who isn't providing for me and blah, blah, blah, that silly narrative. He's in school right now, as well as working. So he... A lot of times I'm like, "Babe, let's get it going." And he's like, "I haven't stopped thinking in 16 hours."
1:22:56.0 DB: Exactly.
1:22:57.5 Sarah: Am I supposed to just be like, "Ugh. Fine, you never take care of me." Absolutely not. I take care of myself. It's not his responsibility. And at the same time, when he wants to show up for me, he might need a little help. And maybe he's gonna... He might look at something or he might listen to something, or he might watch something to help him get it started and then come and join me.
1:23:22.3 DB: So you just answered my next question is, there's gonna be a lot of people who say, "Well, then if he can do that, if you can do that, then why do you need each other?" And that is the prime... I don't know if it's the prime, but that is one of the biggest indicators of how poorly educated we are on sex and desire, and every single person, and I'm very careful with saying absolutes, but every single person I've talked to and worked with, who has that view, that differentiation, which is becoming a hot word now, "Is not appropriate or not." My rule of success is if it draws you closer to your wife, your husband, your spouse, and to the Lord, something's working. And so when I hear you say this, that's the education we need. Is not the shame, not the guilt, not the jealousy, like, "What are you doing? You're cheating on me." No. "You're doing what you need. So you could be with me."
1:24:23.7 Sarah: Right.
1:24:24.9 DB: And so I hate to have said all that just to say or ask, so have you noticed this improve your relationship?
1:24:32.2 Sarah: Oh, 100%. And what it's done is, it's taken away that expectation of... I don't know if I'm saying this right, but there's the expectation of unmet needs. And what I mean by that is like, if I shave my legs and we don't have sex, I'm pissed. I'm like, "Why did I shave my legs? [laughter] I took care of myself for what?" It's just taken away all of that. The transactions. Yes, it's not like, "I put forth this, I did the dishes. Now it's your respon... " There is none of that.
1:25:04.6 DB: You do it because you love and desire your partner.
1:25:07.6 Sarah: Yes. Yes. And again, it's not like we watch porn all the time. And it's not like it's even frequent. But what it does allow... And for those people who may be wondering "What is the boundary with that then?" And this is the boundary, if it... We have to disclose to each other, if it's gotten in the way of us having partnered sex.
1:25:28.5 DB: I love it. That's the rule of the relationship.
1:25:31.7 Sarah: Right. So if he has watched it and masturbated and I come in and I'm like, "Hey, Baby. Let's get things going." He has to let me know why. And you know this... That hasn't happened yet. He himself is not necessarily interested in porn use himself, but he's allowed me to have that if I need it. And I've allowed him to if he wants to explore it. And I don't even need to know what it is, right? 'Cause there's part of his sexuality, I don't own it, I don't need to know every aspect of it. Just the same way, I'm pretty sure there's things I don't want him to know about it. Like, "There's probably some fantasies I have that I don't necessarily want you to know about." And that's okay.
1:26:11.1 DB: Yes.
1:26:14.1 Sarah: So that's... That is what I think this conversation can look like, instead of so much fear and shame. It's, "Let's figure out how to make it work if we need it, if we want it. If we don't, great. Leave it out." Just like anything else.
1:26:27.9 DB: What a journey. This is... I'm sure the listeners are having a range of experiences and emotions.
[chuckle]
1:26:34.5 Sarah: I know they're probably like... Whiplash.
1:26:36.7 DB: We're going from the trauma to the healing... Not just the healing, like I've said, but the thriving and the tools that you're using, for the most part, at least within our culture, completely unconventional.
1:26:48.9 Sarah: Yeah.
1:26:49.5 DB: But these are not the stories we're hearing, but they're successful. I know, I'm gonna... I feel like I have to say it over and over again like you did. I'm not pro-porn, I'm pro-healing, and there's resources. And if we wanna provide Latter Day Saints with... I was just having this conversation with somebody a week or two ago about, "Do you feel like we as a church... " Well, not as... The church providing it, but Latter Day Saints should have a sex ed, nude course. He says, "Well... "
[laughter]
1:27:23.5 Sarah: That would be great.
1:27:26.2 DB: It's just, I don't think we have to do it all. But I do think there are effective and meaningful resources out there. But it's a valid question. If we're gonna improve our marital intimacy, and I'm not just talking sex, but everything about it. We have got to provide better 'how to'. And when we go through it, it's one of my biggest... Pet peeves with the manuals is, we always say... This whole theme has been today is what not to do, but then when we talk about what to do, love. Love you partner. What does that mean? I'm not mocking that, but I've been married to my absolutely amazing partner for over a decade now, and we're still learning what love means. And it's not at all... We had the seeds of it at the beginning.
1:28:16.6 Sarah: It's different. It's totally different.
1:28:19.4 DB: And it's things were not taught. We're not taught. And I agree with you, I don't think the church should be teaching us this stuff. But I think we could do an absolutely better job at teaching basic communication, basic consent, basic boundaries. And what does love really look like.
1:28:34.6 Sarah: And not shaming our normal physiological needs and behavior, right?
1:28:40.3 DB: Bingo.
1:28:41.2 Sarah: And not... I had this kind of mentality of, "Sex is for reproduction." And then like, "You might enjoy it a little bit."
1:28:48.6 DB: Yeah.
1:28:49.9 Sarah: Right? But it wasn't like, "Sex is supposed to be fulfilling. And I... Until I couldn't connect with my partner completely sexually, I didn't understand how much of me was missing in sex." And here's the bottom line. I want to say this with compassion for anyone who may feel different and for any survivors out there. But being abused didn't make me wanna kill myself. Not being able to be present with my partner in a loving, consensual, religiously sound bound marriage made me want to. And that is the difference.
1:29:24.1 DB: I'm glad you brought that up. That's hard to hear. I think a lot of people are gonna struggle with that. I don't wanna dilute what you just said. I think we've had a great discussion here, and I would love to have you back. And I think just to wrap up what you just said is, I think we prescribe the wrong... The issues we're having to the wrong problems. And I think it's important for us to be aware of that. I thank you for your journey. It's a vulnerable one. You're brave. And I appreciate you being completely open about it.
1:30:00.9 Sarah: Thank you.
1:30:01.0 DB: I felt like you have been and I think this will benefit a lot of people out there.
1:30:06.0 Sarah: Well, I hope so, because again, as I said, this was... My promise to myself is... And it's funny, 'cause it's not like this is an experience where I get up on the Sunday and I'm like, "I'd like to bring my testimony about all of this," it feels like it's a socially unacceptable trial, and so when I have the opportunity to share it with people who I know are seeking it. Oh, I'm present, I'm all in. 'cause no one needs to go through that alone. No one needs to go through a period. But if heaven forbid, people are going through it, I'm here with you.
1:30:43.4 DB: Thank you, Sarah.
1:30:44.5 Sarah: Thank you.
