Kara G’s Story: Taking my Power Back

Here I am at 2 in the morning struggling to find rest. Tears escaping my eyes and making their way down my cheeks. All the while I am thinking I bet he is sleeping soundly like a child. This irritates me to no end. I decide to get up and write this because I cant think of any other way to get this pain and feeling of violation out of my head and entire being.

I have been doing so well in my life lately that the fact this pain is coming up so many years later baffles me. I thought I had dealt with this many times and many times I tell myself not to think of it and the pain will go away. NOT TRUE!! So now I am done with dealing with it by not thinking of it. Now I am going to deal with it by acknowledging it and that it really did happen and that it was WRONG. I need to name it as it truly is…..Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual abuse, Sexual manipulation.

In my case it was sexual anal abuse that happened repeatedly by the same person. As I am writing this I have sweaty palms and my breathing is labored, I am afraid of him even though he is no where near me. I am afraid to tell what he did to me as I am afraid he will violate me and steal my power again. It wont be by sexual abuse but by him denying that he did anything or excusing it on abuse he suffered. Is it fair that I have to suffer because someone hurt him so as a result he feels its ok to hurt me. The thing is he doesn’t look at it as hurting me. All he knows is that he gets immense pleasure from an act that sucks me of my power and my pleasure.

Let me start back at the beginning of how all of this started in the first place. I grew up in an abusive home and found solace at a local church. I spent my teenage and early adult years choosing to abstain from sex until I was married. When I was 24 I met the person I thought was the man of my dreams. We fell madly in love and he was the first man I ever had sex with. Things started out great and we had a great sex life. About 2 months into our relationship he opened up to me that he had made his ex have anal sex with him all the time and that he was feeling immense guilt about it. I talked with him about it and fell hook line and sinker for his sob story. Within a few days of that he started pressuring me to have anal sex. Me being new to sex didn’t really know much about it so I agreed to it.

I am having more labored breathing and sweaty palms.

It was one of the most terrible and degrading moments of my life. The sad thing is that from that time on for the rest of our relationship I had to endure anal sex every-time we had sex. Some days that was the only way he would have sex with me. He even said to me one day when I begged him for vaginal sex only that he could not get pleasure from vaginal sex with me anymore. If I wanted to have sex with him that the only way it would be is anal.

Another tear is escaping my eye and I feel hot and flustered but I am going to keep writing this and tell my side and take back my power.

I felt helpless and didn’t know what to do. I was taught by seeing my mom cater to my step dad and be abused by him I thought that is what a women is supposed to do. Please her man at whatever cost and if she cant do that she is not doing a good enough job and needs to work harder to please him…no matter what the cost. So instead of doing what I should have done, saying NO and leaving an abusive relationship I did what he wanted. I gave him my power in those moments and he has had it ever since until this moment. I kept putting myself in physical, emotional and psychological pain to please my partner thinking that if I kept him pleased that he would stay with me. Was I ever wrong! He quit valuing me once he had my power. I felt worthless and ashamed.

Over the years we both had some relationships with others and I had moved on to have 2 wonderful children. However my relationships suffered and were affected by the abuse I had suffered from my first love. I have never been able to fully lose myself in a moment of sexual intimacy and bond with my partner. I never really understood why until recently. I just didn’t feel safe to do so, not because of my partners but because of worrying that I am going to be violated again. It was easier for me to have my guard up and not fully connect with that person in fear that I was going to get hurt and feel pain again.

About 9 years after our initial relationship my abuser and I started communicating again and started seeing each other romantically. I was very cautious because I did not want my 2 children to be hurt if our relationship did not end well. He treated my kids like gold so I thought maybe he changed and that with age he had dealt with his anal sex issue. Boy was I wrong yet again. One night we started making out and I told him I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have sex with him yet. He started getting a bit forceful by holding my hands above my head with one hand and touching me with his other hand and teasing me saying oh I bet I can convince you and you cant stop me because I have your hands held tight.

Big breaths as I am typing this.

He starts having sex with me and this look comes over his face like he knows what he wants and he isn’t going to stop until he gets it. At that point all I could think of is my 2 little boys upstairs and how I did not want them to feel how I did growing up seeing their mom get hurt. Instead of kicking and screaming and doing whatever to stop him I surrender and hope that its done and over with fast. Maybe if I don’t fight him he will do what he needs to and this can be over with. Well guess what I was wrong again. I was very wrong.

He looks me in the eye as he is having sex with me and starts begging me to let him have anal sex with me. I shudder and look at him and say no please don’t make me it hurts too much. He says I am not going to make you do anything but I will convince you to say yes to it. I will have my way. I keep telling him no as we are continuing to have sex. He is starting to get angry at me and WHAM!!! his fist slams down beside my head as he starts whining at me. He makes sure he has both hands beside my head and looks me in the eye and says I will not stop having sex with you until you say yes to anal. He takes his hand and grabs at my vagina and says I bet you are starting to feel sore as we had been having sex for almost 2 hours at this point. He then holds my hands behind my head and shoves himself into me again. He keeps looking at me waiting for me to say yes. He keeps asking me repeatedly and I keep saying no.

My son who was a baby at the time wakes up so he lets me up so I can tend to him. As I am getting my son back to sleep which only took a few minutes I thought oh thank goodness maybe he will be done now. I was wrong again. The moment I am back near him I start talking to him like normal and trying to show that I am done as I was fully dressed in my pjs again. He looks at me and says I am far from done and pulls my pj shorts off and shoves himself inside me again. He has this look on his face like he thinks its funny that he is totally in control and there is nothing I can do about it.

Finally after 3 hours of sex I decide I cant take anymore. I try and make deals with him and anything to get him to stop without me having to have anal sex. It doesn’t work. He set his mind on it and he is going to get what he wants but what is the most sick part of this is he wants me to tell him yes and give him permission. He knew that what he was doing was wrong but if he got me to say yes that meant that what he was doing was not wrong. I said yes. I just wanted it to stop. I knew once he got what he wanted he would be finished quickly. This time I was right.

Over the next few weeks I acted like it never happened until one day I opened up to a friend about it and she told me that what happened was wrong. I knew she was right but I was taught that a strong woman has a stiff upper lip, holds it in and does not say a word. Not long after that talk I decided to bring it up with him and tell him how I feel about what happened. He got so mad at me and said you enjoyed every moment of it. He played the victim and acted like I was violating him by even thinking like it was abuse or wrong. His thinking was because I had experienced orgasm during the 3 hours of sex that it meant that I enjoyed all of it. He also felt that because I said yes to anal that he did nothing wrong. I even found information on the newer Canadian law that states its rape even if someone says yes if you have to threaten them to get it or if their body language is saying no. He got even more mad at me. Then he told some family members of his about it and he made sure to tell me they were mad at me for implying that he was capable of rape or sexual abuse.

We have both moved on since this has happened but because I never dealt with it, it has come back to haunt me. Why now you ask. The reason why is that lately I have seen lots of articles and Facebook posts about anal sex where it is being glorified and taken very lightly the dangers and pain that go along with it. In one article it talked about what a woman can do to her anus to prepare it so she can let her man have pleasure by having anal sex with her. It tells women to practice putting their own finger inside of their anus when they masturbate so that it will stretch the anus and that maybe in doing this the woman wont feel as much pain when she does have anal sex. There was no mention of how dangerous anal sex can be. It is the easiest way to get an std. When someone has anal sex there are often times that little rips and fissures happen and because waste comes out of your anus it can actually get stuck in those crevices and cause infections and lots of pain. They don’t talk about the fact that you feel ashamed afterward because you had anal sex. They don’t tell you how terrible it feels to have the person you love to get immense pleasure while you are in immense pain. I know more and more people are engaging in anal sex. I also know that many women are being manipulated and forced into it by the person they love. A good woman pleases her man. Since when is it about one partner being pleased. I like to believe that its about both people in the relationship having pleasure together.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to figure out how I can get my power back from this person. I completely cut him out of my life but I still felt like he had my power. I knew I needed to tell my story and let it out in the open. The thought of that scared me. I know how our society looks at these situations and I really did not feel like being violated all over again. I know that I will not take this to court. His family has money and good lawyers and I know how the court system works at violating the victim in a game of he said she said. I have great things I am doing with my life and 2 boys I am raising on my own so I don’t have time for that.

However I can share what happened to me and not hide it any more.

I can gladly say that for the first time in 12 years I have my power back. Wow does it ever feel great.

Now I can get some much needed sleep.