The Sexual Healing Journey Quotes

“She was interviewing one of my favorite television actors, Don Johnson of Miami Vice. As he reclined on a couch in his lovely home, Don told Barbara about the joys and difficulties in his life. He talked of past struggles with drug and alcohol abuse and work addiction. Then he spoke of his relationships with women—how exciting and attractive he found them. I could see his energy rise and his breath quicken as he spoke. An air of intoxication seemed to fill the room. Don said his problem was he liked women too much and found it hard to be with one special partner over a long period. He would develop a deep friendship and intimacy, but then his eyes would wander. I thought to myself, this man has been sexually abused! His problems sounded identical to those of adult survivors I counsel in my practice. But then I reconsidered: Maybe I’ve been working too hard. Perhaps I’m imagining a sexual abuse history that isn’t really there. Then it happened. Barbara leaned forward and, with a smile, asked, “Don, is it true that you had your first sexual relationship when you were quite young, about twelve years old, with your seventeen-year-old baby-sitter?” My jaw dropped. Don grinned back at Barbara. He cocked his head to the side; a twinkle came into his blue eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “and I still get excited just thinking about her today.” Barbara showed no alarm. The next day I wrote Barbara Walters a letter, hoping to enlighten her about the sexual abuse of boys. Had Don been a twelve-year-old girl and the baby-sitter a seventeen-year-old boy, we wouldn’t hesitate to call what had happened rape. It would make no difference how cooperative or seemingly “willing” the victim had been. The sexual contact was exploitive and premature, and would have been whether the twelve-year-old was a boy or a girl. This past experience and perhaps others like it may very well be at the root of the troubles Don Johnson has had with long-term intimacy. Don wasn’t “lucky to get a piece of it early,” as some people might think. He was sexually abused and hadn’t yet realized it.   Acknowledging past sexual abuse is an important step in sexual healing. It helps us make a connection between our present sexual issues and their original source. Some survivors have little difficulty with this step: They already see themselves as survivors and their sexual issues as having stemmed directly from sexual abuse. A woman who is raped sees an obvious connection if she suddenly goes from having a pleasurable sex life to being terrified of sex. For many survivors, however, acknowledging sexual abuse is a difficult step. We may recall events, but through lack of understanding about sexual abuse may never have labeled those experiences as sexual abuse. We may have dismissed experiences we had as insignificant. We may have little or no memory of past abuse. And we may have difficulty fully acknowledging to ourselves and to others that we were victims. It took me years to realize and admit that I had been raped on a date, even though I knew what had happened and how I felt about it. I needed to understand this was in fact rape and that I had been a victim. I needed to remember more and to stop blaming myself before I was able to acknowledge my experience as sexual abuse.”
― Wendy Maltz, The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

“Failure is doing nothing about a problem that bothers us. If our efforts don’t go as we hoped, we still learn and can take a new approach next time.”
― Wendy Maltz, The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

“Sexual healing and general recovery need to work together in the same way that music and lyrics work together to make a song: They alternate and blend together at different times. They are complementary, not isolated, experiences.”
― Wendy Maltz, The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

“Pornography can be harmful to sexual healing in many ways. It conveys the idea of unlimited sexual access to women, children, and men. Pornography exploits the people who act in it as well as the public who buys it. It uses sexual stimulation to make money, reinforcing the commodity view of sex. Pornography evokes strong emotions, such as fear and shame, and encourages sexual arousal to abusive ideas and images. Pornography often depicts sex from the perspective of someone who has unsafe, impulsive, compulsive, and extreme sexual interests. It frequently perpetuates destructive and false impressions about sex. People are reduced to objects that are used for stimulation and that can be controlled by other people. Staged scenes in porn can make sexual violence and humiliation appear pleasurable, increasing our tolerance of coercion in sexual relationships. The sex in porn is typically devoid of genuine affection, respect, responsibility, and connection. And without these pillars of healthy sex, it tends to reinforce a type of sex that can never fully satisfy.”
― Wendy Maltz, The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

“Sexual healing involves a great deal of unlearning. Along the way, we learn a new way to think, feel, and behave sexually. We need to create goals that respect the time it might take us to integrate smaller changes.”
― Wendy Maltz, The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse

“In sexual healing, we can replace “hard-core” sex with “heart-core” sex.”
― Wendy Maltz, The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse