I’m really shocked that some of my neighboring therapists believe that sadistic and masochistic behavior is up to the consent of a person who would have a sound mind.  We are in the business of healing childhood memories where the dis-connection to intimacy, safety, communication and identity began, so why would we think the movie, “50 shades of grey” is a depiction of reality when an underage male was “taught” the opposite of those things?  A preying female who had erogenous desires that highlighted selfish intrigue, was perpetuated by Hollywood to be an escapade of every male’s dream world.  Maladaptive behavior coaxed that young mans arousal, yet somehow that script set record charts for being one of the most profitable films to hit the silver screen.  No doubt this cougar was led into her world of erotica and passed on the lineage of seduction because someone taught her how to do it, but I’m supposed to accept that teens are consenting to sexual stimuli because they like being submissive?  Most men don’t access the full spectrum of their frontal lobe until age 25 and few can withstand stimulation without maintaining fantasies afterward, which precludes abusive connection that feeds its lure when one is naive.  I’m supposed to believe that defines normal sexual activity? Please, that’s equivalent to convincing me squid have feelings.

I don’t believe any of the crap that’s highlighted as breaking news in today’s day and age because half the garbage pouring into living rooms on a nightly basis is for mind control.  So when my colleague wanted to justify the use of whips and chains for sexual pleasure but argue that research was unveiling that squid had feelings, I had a huge ethical problem.  “How the hell can you compare these two F%!*$&# points?”, was the nicest way I knew how to ask.  We were literally eating out on the deck of her home in Vermont and she wanted to defend vegetarian diets while supporting sexual deviancy as a decision one comes too of his or her own accord.  I put down my fork, because of course I was the only one eating meat, and I probed further of her rationale.  She basically schooled me on the “respectful” approach S&M had between two people because of the rules signed off in a contact.  Again, I asked, “how the F%#! is tying someone up, flogging, strangling them, leaving marks and bruises while holding them in constraint, a matter of intimacy, love or safety?  We are in the business of helping humans with their feelings, not dismissing boundaries or condoning violence against their own species.”

Could she not see that abuse begets abuse and that these behaviors originated with one lording over another until the other complied?  My voice was escalating as I quipped, “What about the sex trade industry, I suppose a 9 year old will learn to just walk away when she’s old enough after being tied up by her master?”  I can only imagine the natural progression of one who is controlled, coerced or rejected into sadistic and masochistic behavior.  A few withdrawals of affection from one in order to gain a greater response from another, is conditioning, and that deviance is always passed down.  Would we not call it rape without that “binding agreement” giving an older male permission for sexual fulfillment with a minor? The truth is that people who don’t experience abuse in their formative years, don’t gravitate toward sexual control in their latter ones.  Normal childhoods where boundaries are upheld for safety and love, don’t produce sexually maladaptive adults.  The lure has to be introduced while young, and preferably impressionable.

Don’t even get me started on the parallels of sexual abuse in childhood coupled with fear of punishment.  Violence is relative because some victims can experience a simple look of disgust from authority and it be just as severe as a blow toward the stomach, because the gut reaction is trouble.  The production of adrenaline and cortisol alone is problematic for one constantly hypervigilant, but if you further confuse a system with sexual stimulus, the very soul can rupture from the confusion of serotonin’s addition.  Dare I say that the perfect recipe for destruction is to create a society that fears intimacy and replaces it with sexual aggression to prove loyalty.

My colleague, very assertively, talked over her partner who was interjecting his belief that most people will follow in the direction given, a quip in my favor no doubt, but one that drew clear division.  And that was where the rubber met the road, I had to excuse myself from the picnic table or parts of me where going to compare my fellow workers credentials to the blatant lies America professes at the five o’clock news hour.  I’m not an activist of any kind but I do have a brain cell and could not fathom how a person employed to set healthy boundaries for victims of incest and abuse, could defend some seafood with more gumption than human lives.

I shared with her my own life long struggle with identity as being a complex trauma and incest survivor and that my faith was the only rescue I had from mentally dying.  My body has faced degenerative nerve function, PTSD, nightmares and immune deficiencies which have attacked my thyroid, my nervous system,  my cognition and rendered adrenal failure, caused an eating disorder, insomnia and suicide attempts, all because I was taught to be a child used for sexual submission by a weak-minded adult.

I was human with real pain and tried to to medicate through bad behavior that was normal to me.  I slept around because the slight chance of someone holding me after sex was worth the act of it.  I was a hypochondriac because I wanted healthy touch and authority to tell me that I was worth nurturing.  I was an escort and prostitute because I followed the lead of a man whose sexual prowess usurped his ability to connect emotionally.  In my quest to submit to all of the fantasies as proof of loyalty, I grew tired of the demands. Once I realized anger was a byproduct of mans unspoken shame, I got tired of participating in their game that guaranteed I always lost.  I couldn’t continue the childhood trauma that was still silencing my adult voice.

That’s what trauma does.  Trauma during childhood development should be the clue that counselors discern as being the introduction to all promiscuous tendencies and lifestyles.  Unfortunately, our case load as mental health practitioners is growing by grave proportions.  It is how we gently lead those who have been whipped and chained by traumatic programming, that we break off their contract with suffering. Simply stated, someone who has never lived it, doesn’t manifest it.

I returned to the table quietly and mentioned the obvious caveat to our dinner conversation was that I approached my counseling from a Christian perspective which places love in the center of sexual intimacy, something I was never told until I became one.  The best I can do as a Christian Counselor, is help my clients get back their innocence that was stolen from them and not engage in the same coping mechansims that I did.  I recovered through hope in a Savior who told me that if I was the only seductress on the planet, He still would have died for ME!  He was well aware of my escapades and pointed me in the direction of scripture where I learned of a woman at the well who lived out my story.  No doubt she was looking for a trustworthy man who could lead her into truth, just like I was.

Unable to finish my food and with tears in my eyes, I put down my napkin and pushed in my chair.  I apologized for my heated delivery and walked out the front door.  I started arguing my feelings of sadness before heaven, listing the betrayals of so many people who have succumbed to mind control or denied its existence.  I cried as I drove and talked with Daddy God about the depraved mindsets of so many who want to justify the darkness which blankets desire for connection.   It seemed even those in therapeutic circles have ignored that children often don’t have a choice under manipulative authority.  Pausing under the reflective red beams of the traffic light I smiled as my own passion illuminated the healing role I have now, in the lives of children who grew up like me.  I’m finally following my heart after all those years of being misguided by it.  I pulled into the parking lot of a greasy spoon that was advertising fresh squid and I laughed out loud.  With a sigh of relief I ordered the calamari, satisfied knowing my life is an example of how emotional freedom feels.