ALT the difference between sexual abuse and sex isn't just that you said no, or you couldn't even say no, and that sex is yes. it's that in sex, you say no all the time. not there, not like that, wait, not yet, too much, let's take a break. the line between consent and non-consent lives in your self-assertion of every tiny facet of your boundaries. your yes is only meaningful because it is surrounded by a momentous amount of"no's" aways with you. in sexual abuse, none of that matters. there is no "no," no assertion, no you. the very idea of the "gentle" rapist, the very notion of the "loving" pedophile is a fiction invented by rape culture that pretends it is possible for a rapist to care about your body on their terms. they take ownership of your body, and then everyone will take ownership over your body, overriding your pain, your experience, to tell you objectively how damaging it was.

ALT you're supposed to say yes. you were made to say yes. compliance was built into you. hold your body still. muscles and marrow gelatonious. your eyes unfocus. you say yes to more things than you ever want, yes to pain, yes to anything can 1? yes, of course they can. the places they are taking you may be horror, but they're familiar horror. the tension in your head between the false consent they gave you and your fear that your no won't matter is to say yes. you will live the rest of your life trying to make sure no one puts you in that place again, but they will. they will wear you down to a yes. what sexual abuse did is make you acutely aware of false consent; of power dynamics, of when bodily autonomy is just expected to be surrendered. it taught you to understand when your yes is meaningless, and when refusing to consent isn't seen as an option. it taught you how much it hurts, and how much you hate it. this will be referred to as your trauma for the rest of your life.

ALT if you say sexual abuse taught you something about the way the world works, that is also your trauma. it doesn't matter how common it is, how pervasive it is, if you understand its logic and can see where that logic is applied, the seams of a society that lets it happen, the stories it tells, the games that it plays, you need therapy to learn how to not see that anymore. "we elected a rapist into office," people will say. that is a political talking point, not a social one. it matters only because we hate him, not because of what it says about us that we did it. you need healing to understand that living a rape culture shouldn't affect how you understand your consent, your power, or sex itself.

ALT dangerous, i've been told. dangerous for survivors to speak to each other outside of the therapist office. dangerous that we might come to our own conclusions about our sexual violence, dangerous that we might help each other, dangerous untethered from an authority. we might think we know what happened to us, but it would be dangerous to think about it on our own, lest we invent false memories. we might think we know what's good for us, but it would be dangerous to think about it on our own, lest we do things not good for us (or don't do things that are good for us.) dangerous to think we can have our own consent, did a therapist give us permission for that? how easy it is to not know what you can be, what you can ask for, to not be able to build our own theories or make our own critiques. we can't collaborate, understand each other, stand firm in our own voice. we're not allowed to even name what happened to us at all, not unless an authority gave us those words first.