Sex & Punishment, Anger & Shame

I've realised I'm ashamed of my anger.


If I feel angry towards someone, I try to hide it because I feel like I'm doing something wrong - betraying them somehow by being angry with them. Perhaps it has to do with love: perhaps I associate anger with not loving and not being angry with loving.


I was asked recently if I thought I had allowed myself to be angry enough with my ex-partner. I do not think I have. I think I learned when I was young that being angry was pretty pointless because it did not make any difference to anything. My situation did not change; no one stopped my stepfather from behaving so awfully; and, importantly, I did not feel any better. I did not feel my anger was ever really heard or acknowledged. So what was the point in expressing it?


I felt the same way with my partner. I felt angry all the time in the end. And if I expressed it directly, it made no difference to the situation nor to how I felt. Again, I did not feel my anger was ever really heard or acknowledged. And within that situation I felt very disempowered and defeated so the thought of repeatedly trying over and over to express myself felt both terribly difficult and pretty futile.


I am finding this all very hard to write about. Shame makes me want to hide so writing about it and putting it out there in the public domain is downright painful! I can feel the urge in me rising to apologise for myself somehow - for the lack of flow in my writing or for the subject matter or anything. And with that realisation, I feel the funny side of it and also a lot of compassion for myself.


I remind myself of the wonderful lesson that the only way to move through something is to feel it; the only way to conquer your fears or not live in shame is to do the thing you are afraid of or talk about the thing of which you are ashamed. In other words, to take action - to do the thing which your fear or shame are wanting to stop you from doing. So, I must keep talking about my shame. Expressing it. Having understanding of and compassion for it.


I wrote some ideas down a couple of weeks ago about sex and punishment within relationships. I was feeling really angry and allowed myself to express that anger on the page. I was going to use it as an entry on this blog. But something stopped me: fear and shame. What I wrote isn't even hugely rage-full. But, still, I was afraid that, if people saw this expression of anger from me that I was so ashamed of, that they would not love me anymore. They would be so appalled and disgusted at my feelings and thoughts that they would 'unfriend' me on Facebook or metaphorically spit on me in the street. That's a strong reaction to have. To feel like my anger is so destructive it could literally turn people against me and make loving people behave terribly towards me. I feel sad that that is how I feel. That I have turned my anger inwards for so long that I have learned how destructive it can be so dare not turn it outwards.


And I realise that when I feel angry, I also feel young - like a child, or at least a teenager. I think my ability to express my anger in a mature, healthy way got stuck at that point - probably at the point where I learned for definite how futile it was. I think perhaps the final blow came when my stepfather had done something appalling and in a temper I said to my mum that I hated him and she just said 'I know'. I was so shocked. She seemed so defeated and in that moment, I felt defeated too. I gave up. I thought that anger was supposed to be a signal that something needed to change and that it gave you the energy to do what it took to change it. But if nothing you ever do about the situation you most want to change makes the slightest bit of difference, then anger becomes pointless and a feeling of helplessness takes over.


I used to think that walking away was giving up. That it meant I had somehow lost and that it meant I was useless. Now I understand that walking away from a situation that is unhealthy and unhappy, is a powerful, positive action for change and possibly the most healing thing you can do. I can therefore turn the shame of a broken relationship into pride for having enough self-love to do what was best for me - and probably for my ex too.


I also realise that I am ashamed of sex. I have been taught through myriad experiences, that my sexual drive, the sexual violence I have suffered, the sexual violence which others I love have suffered, the fact my ex would not have sex with me and simply my sexuality in general is something to be ashamed of. Well I'm tired of feeling that way. I believe sexuality is something to be celebrated and held sacred. Not used, abused or denied.


I am therefore going to face both my greatest sources of shame in one fell swoop. So, here, unedited, is my angry expression about sex, as written and hidden from view until now. Please be gentle!

The Safe Female

I'm wondering about women and sex.

I think perhaps that men, particularly if they have been through trauma and, most especially if their mother was distant, uncaring, rejecting or punishing in some way, have a desire to create a 'safe female' in their life. (I'm sure that this also works the other way round too with men and women creating 'safe males' or safe males or females in in same-gender relationships. I will refer to a heterosexual couple where it is the female who is made safe simply because that is where my experience lies).

In turn, if a woman has been through trauma in her life, particularly if she has suffered abuse, violence or abandonment by her father, she will also wish to become a 'safe female' (because she will want to keep herself safe from violence or abandonment in future - in other words, she regards these acts as being her fault).

Therefore, the man and woman both conspire to make the woman safe. And I think this is most especially the case with regard to sex - likely because sex is an obvious sign of issues in a relationship and also because the emotions and behaviours which arise around sex are very potent.

What I mean by safe is controlled. The woman allows herself to be controlled by the man sexually which then naturally leads her to being controlled in most or every other aspect of the relationship as well - so she is made safe. This is also particularly true in the realm of emotional control as, often and traditionally, women are seen as 'more emotional' than men.

Sexual and emotional control of women has a history - both in my family and in society as a whole. For hundreds of years our culture has made woman safe sexually - either by making her virginal or dominating her with violence. Or usually both. The innate knowledge of the body women have because of their cycles and their subsequent 'baseness' means they are much more in tune with the carnality of life and, therefore, also with the emotions. Women have been taught to remove themselves as much as possible from this connection (often through men) and that by doing so they are cleaner and more palatable - to men - rather than being the powerful beings they are and, therefore, dangerous to men (either because they are wild uncontrollable temptresses or because they are so powerful they dominate men in other ways: the abuser fearing abuse keeping his victim small so that he can continue to feel tall). I mean, tampons - who on earth invented them? Penis shaped clumps of dry cotton stuffed up inside our juicy womanly bodies to stop the 'foul' flow of natural blood from leaving as it was meant to - looking, smelling, being as it is meant to. Urgh! All those terrible adverts of women in white trousers on roller skates because these torturous 'conveniences' can make us feel 'normal even when we have our periods'? Double Urgh! We are supposed to feel different at different times: that is the whole point! We are cyclic in nature*.

Aside from that slight tangent..... I have experienced both types of control by a man sexually: violence and withdrawal. Both are deeply punishing forms of behaviour and both are deeply damaging to the psyche as well as the body. Let us take the violence first. If a man treats a woman's sexuality as something to be conquered and uses rape, domination, fear and other such tactics to control her he is trying to create a safe female: he is making her sexless. This is because he fears women's sexual power so much that he feels emasculated and needs to regain control again. He does this by forcing her to have sex. By doing so, he is keeping her in a state of fear of sex and is therefore controlling her that way. He is also, in his own mind, enabling himself to see her as sexless - a pure, maiden with no sexual power or desire. This is because he does not allow sexual union to take place unless he is the initiator - whether she consents or not. She is therefore a safe female and not threatening to his highly insecure sense of self-power.

A man who withdraws from sexual union within a relationship; who denies it to his partner under any circumstances - particularly if he has felt vulnerable in the relationship for any reason or that she has had the 'upper hand' somehow, and/ or particularly if he is resentful of her for any reason - is doing the same thing as the man who uses violence. I think this is also most especially the case if a woman has a strong sexual drive which the man feels threatened by - because for such a long time, our society has taught us that women 'should' be the more hesitant sexually in a partnership: that the man should be the one in control. The withdrawal allows him to regain his sense of control, his sense of being 'the man in charge', especially if he remains seductive but vague promises of intimacy go nowhere. Because then he can retain the sense of being able to reel her in, to seduce her, but also to keep her as the safe, sexless female his insecurity needs her to be.

And of course the woman is culpable in this if for no other reason than she allows it to continue. I have the utmost sympathy for any woman (or man) who stays in an abusive situation (and both of the situations above are abusive), having been in that situation myself. I know how painful it is to hang on with that terrible hope that things will get better and be 'like they used to' or 'like I imagine they will be if only we can get past....'. All of this is totally imaginary. The only way to make it better for yourself is to get out, lick your wounds and mend your broken heart. And work out enough of what was going on so that the next time you fall in love with someone, you are rather more savvy from the beginning about the potential dynamics of relationships.

Love to you,


Lyra ♥










*Red Moon - Miranda Gray

London Riots: Acceptance of the horror of reality and the change it brings in our hearts

I've been feeling deeply affected by the riots in London. Most of my friends live there, I lived there for years, I was there on Monday when the worst night of trouble began....

I found myself becoming obsessed with the news and with looking at updates about what was going on, unable to sleep properly, shaking, crying.... in the grip of post-trauma symptoms which I thought I was healing from. I have had lots of 'shouldn'ts' in my head about how I shouldn't feel that way because I was (luckily) not physically caught up in what happened - I managed to get home ok, I checked in with many friends and found they were all ok. I thought I didn't have the right to feel so upset and so triggered by what was going on when there were other people who had experienced much worse than me and when I was unharmed.

It has got me thinking again about loving what is and against-ness. If I can find my way to accepting how I feel - however I am feeling and however 'unjustified' I think that may be - then simply in that act of acceptance, healing begins to take place. I feel calmer, more optimistic and more empowered. If instead I am in denial of my feelings or think I shouldn't be having them - in other words I am fighting against them - then, on top of the feelings of upset, shock and fear, I am also dealing with fighting myself and fighting reality.

If young people live in poverty and gang cultures, feel they have no prospects and are shown an example of violence rather than love at home and/or in their lives generally, where can they possibly learn acceptance of what is - and why would they want to? Instead, they are far more likely to be drawn into fighting against reality and fighting the authorities they see as perpetuating their reality. And so we eventually get an outpouring of against-ness in the form of these riots. It is deeply destructive because it is fighting against.

When people are fighting for something, destruction (it seems to me) tends to be of a 'collateral damage' nature or strategic. These rioters are not fighting for anything however. They are fighting against their own reality of being 'have nots' by stealing things and, at least temporarily, riding high on the feelings of being people who have, and also of being people who have reversed the roles and changed the haves into have-nots.

I could not understand why they would destroy or steal from small local businesses in this case rather than just large corporations but of course, if you really have nothing then anyone who has something, however little, has more than you - they are in the 'have' group.

And of course our society is set up to teach us to care more about possessions than people - which is why we still buy clothes which are made by child labourers, paper and furniture and toys which destroy the rainforests and electronic gadgets which release pollution into the atmosphere. It's why the miners who bring out the sulphur used to whiten our sugar have no breathing apparatus and why big oil companies like BP care far more about drilling in unsafe locations than they do about the consequences of their actions on people and the environment. Everyone is more concerned with being a have rather than a have-not - is it any wonder these rioters want that too?

My stepfather fought against the reality of what he was doing. He drunk himself into stupors so he wouldn't have to think about it and, I think, convinced himself that what he was doing was somehow equated with loving children. If he had allowed reality into his heart it would have made his existence unbearable.

If we all accepted the reality of what is, we would all collectively be so horrified that drilling for oil, murder, rape, destroying our environment, the extreme gaps between poor and wealthy in this country - perhaps even paeodophilia - would stop because our consciences would not allow it all to continue. As long as we continue to lie to ourselves and fight against reality however, these things are perpetuated.

And I'm not talking about shame or shaming people into behaving differently. Shame is a deeply destructive emotion and people will do almost anything to avoid feeling it - including perpetuating their destructive behaviour. I mean deep acceptance of what is; which then allows the grief, the terror, the anger and the sadness to be acknowledged and to be felt. Joy, gratitude and the desire to live from a more loving space, in my experience, always follow.

It is necessary to accept the horror of reality into our hearts in order to heal from it. That is why, having accepted that I feel deeply upset and slightly traumatised by the riots, I feel better, clearer and more empowered. That is the call into action for real change.

If we can only allow reality to touch our hearts and welcome the horror home with open arms, we can heal and move on. We will desire something better and feel empowered to achieve it.

Love to you,

Lyra ♥