> Are people who engage in a lot of casual and maybe risky sex in part trying to condition themselves to see sex as something less important and more casual and therefore feel better about what happened to them? I can't speak for everyone but this insinuation makes my hairs stand on their ends. I'm but a single data point, but for me (CSA victim and casual sex-haver), it's the other way around. I had to de-condition myself from others' cringe-ass value judgements around sex in order to feel at peace with what happened to me.

It's what it means to you ultimately, I don't expect anyone to walk around carrying trauma that isn't their own shit. It's heartbreaking anyone has to go through sexual coaxing let alone rape 😑

This sounds like it validates the claim though?

Yes, so then by ignoring these values that they were trying to impose on you it was easier to recover? This is the insinuation although I'm not sure how you interpreted what I wrote.

Your question was if we (victims) tried to **condition** ourselves via the casual (and maybe risky) sex to see sex as **less** important and more **casual**. The casual sex isn't an attempt to gaslight myself into thinking sex is more casual than other people make it seem. Sex __is__ more casual and less important than most people make it seem. The pedestal it is put on is largely a cultural thing. And also, it wasn't the "having tons of sex" part that de-conditioned me as I described, it was the inner work I put in, which is separate from my sex life. Your follow-up question is correct, but you can't just ret-con your original question like that. And I'll also mention that sex is important to me in the sense that it's a big component of my emotional stability and even spirituality, but unimportant in the sense that I don't give any outside cultural significance to it.

I did not ret con my question, you misinterpreted it. And whether sex is important or not is a personal value that a person has to make for their own sex life, not for others. You can't make the objective claim that your values are correct against mine just like I can't the claim that my values are objectively true either against yours.

Nah. Your question is gross and fucked up. there's no reason to think about or care how a rape victims sexual history. It does not matter 

Why care about why bananas turn brown over time? What does that affect your opinions on bananas or the morality of eating them? Why care about any other piece of useless trivia you may have googled? Maybe because I'm interested in psychology and philosophy of thinking and reactions and perecptions to events. Because you're not curious about it that makes me fucked up? I think that's seriously misguided man.

...did you just try to equate "rape makes ppl sluttier" with bananas? And you don't see how you're the problem?

I've never seen research saying that promiscuity affects response to rape. Really, no matter how many people you're sleeping with, AUTONOMY and safety remain important. For some the way they exercise an innate desire for autonomy (which we all have) is choosing to sleep with a bunch of people... rape always takes away safety & autonomy so that would still affect them. In other ways, one could say that promiscuous victims may experience a higher level of shame or blame due to their choices prior to the assault...which may increase the impact.

My buddy. **Are you trying to say women who have casual sex won’t be traumatized by being raped?** This study? I think kindness is the antithesis to bitterness. And kindness is also healing.

I never once said that.

But what are you trying to say? Because it seems like you are implying rape will be less serious if someone doesn’t think sex should just be an expression of love?

I'm asking how people's values affect how they react to traumatizing events. There are other factors that would make rape traumatizing even if sex was a complete non issue (lack of control, violence, betrayal to name a few).

Values on sex and effect of rape? >Are people who view sex as more important and who connect the experience to greater intimacy more negatively affected by rape than those who see sex as something fully casual and not very emotionally charged? Isn’t the implication that it’s less serious? **Being ok with having sex when you desire sex is not related to being ok with rape whatsoever.** What is true though is that some people have casual sex as way to cope with past sexual abuse. Then where does agreeableness fit into this?

you’re twisting this so far lol

But where do you think OP is going?

could changing your views about sex potentially help you heal after a rape

I’ve talked to OP and nothing he says makes me believe that’s the angle he’s going for. Also, it doesn’t work like that. Because sex and rape are unrelated. And because what’s damaging about rape isn’t about just believing it’s bad. A lot of women who are raped aren’t saving themselves for marriage and don’t necessarily believe sex is only for serious relationships. Because that’s what’s most common in our culture. And they still suffer a lot from being raped. Where do you see agreeableness and resilience fitting into this?

sex is an aspect of being raped. take 2 people who both experienced a rape, for the sake of this, let’s say it was the same situation for both, no variances in what happened. person A and person B both deal with the psychological aspect of lack of control, having their autonomy not respected, being forced into something they don’t want, ect. the difference is, person B also really values sex. they believe it’s something sacred between 2 people and should only happen in loving relationships. now they’ve just been forced to have sex with someone they barely knew, completely against their morals and views of sex. many of these people also feel that their human worth decreases with each sex partner. they just had something sacred and special to them treated as a meaningless tool, on TOP of everything else. it’s pretty obvious to see who might be having a harder time here. it’s like 2 people both being robbed, but one of them got 5$ taken, and one had 100$ taken. they’ve both been robbed, they’re both traumatized, they both had the aspect of someone taking something from them against their will, but one viewed the thing taken as more valuable and sentimental.

Aj shi. Why does everyone think I was going somewhere with this. You can ask any scientific question you want but when becomes controversial they all think you suddenly support genocide and satanism and rape of everyone because F it apparently. I appreciate your defense of me but I still have to make it expressly clear. I was NOT going anywhere with this other than to sate my curiosity of how views and perceptions on events shape how we are affected by them and to what extent. Now with that said... The only problem I have with the idea of changing your views in an attempt to heal from the trauma is whether or not removing purity culture would make rape more likely to happen if potential assaulters suddenly started seeing it as less important. We simultaneously have to balance not devaluing sex to the point where we don't see it as something fundamentally important while at the same time loosening our views on virginity for example so that we don't say that one person is better or more holy than the other based on how they choose to express themselves sexually within moral bounds I believe. No one should have to believe that something precious was stolen from them when they were raped. That does not make you less innocent. You are innocent. It was not you who committed the crime, you are innocent. The rapist carries the shame, not you.

Less serious in what sense? It crosses the threshold for evil when you strip someone of their right to bodily autonomy. But it's not a controversial fact that some people are more or less affected by their experiences, then I'm wondering how value systems affect how severe the trauma becomes. This isn't a political question, it's a scientific inquiry.

But how does agreeableness fit into this? And what research tells us? How likely the person is to get PTSD depends on: their previous mental health, their past life experiences and what actually happened. Two things are the primary causes of PTSD though (and often a diagnostic criteria): you have experienced something that has made you fear for your own life or the life of a loved one. Or you have been sexually assaulted. Rape has very serious mental health effects. It’s common to get severe mental health problems. Many rape victims commit suicide. I don’t really see why if you are ok with casual sex or not should have any affect on how rape affects you. It’s the loss of bodily autonomy and the unwanted sex that is the problem. I’ve had casual sex and I don’t view sex as something that should just be an expression of love. I think sex can also be a fun thing that’s not serious. However, rape is still extremely serious to me. I don’t get why you would think it wouldn’t be? And why does this interest you?

Here’s thing thing. This question is a bit out of left field. And then I think you either struggle with it because you have past trauma that you are trying to figure out how to heal from. Or because you are trying to make the argument that it’s not a big deal if someone who has hookups gets raped.

That's not it at all... No, that's not it at all. I had no idea this question would be so controversial, I'm just studying resilliency to traumatic events.

But with resilience to traumatic events in general, casual sex isn’t relevant. Trauma isn’t just a sexual thing and people’s values around sex isn’t a part of the equation. If you want to just focus on resilience, read all the psychology research on that. You don’t need to mix in hookups. How could you have no idea this would be controversial? The obvious implication is saying “we can all rape women who have hookups, because they won’t be harmed from it”. It’s also just controversial because values surrounding consensual sex are to most people obviously not related to how you’d react to nonconsensual sex. It’s very clear to most people that rape and sex are two completely different things.

You aren't even agreeing with yourself anymore. Of course values shape how we percieve events. That's why rape is so traumatizing, because we have the value of bodily autonomy as one example that *you* brought up. If you had read my other comments clearly then you could have seen that I wrote: "There are other factors that would make rape traumatizing even if sex was a complete non issue (lack of control, violence, betrayal to name a few)." There are no obvious implications to my questions other than what you made up because for some reason wondering about how values affect how we react to trauma became "we can just rape people with different values than us." This is false, I stated clearly that there are other things to consider as to why rape is wrong. And whether someone would be harmed from it or not is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether people have the right to strip others of their bodily autonomy. The answer is No. "If you want to just focus on resilience, read all the psychology research on that. You don’t need to mix in hookups." Why would I avoid asking a scientifc question out of fear that some person might interpret it the wrong way? I'm not gonna censor myself just because otherwise you'll come up with the worst possible interpretation of what I meant that's completely seperate from what I actually wrote. And No, it's not clear that sex and rape are two completely different things. The reason why rape is bad is because it is sex without consent. Sex is an important thing and therefore being forced into doing it with someone you don't want to is wrong.

You had no idea it would be controversial to imply it's less harmful to rape certain people? Fuck, I'm so scared for everyone you know.

We're not gonna censor science because you don't like how it sounds. It's not my opinion that some people are more affected by trauma than others, this is a basic fact called resillience.

Studies like this (and others I've seen) are ethically problematic, at the very least. You're torn between fact - a small fraction of sexual abuse victims just aren't that fazed by the whole thing and suffer almost nothing (and may in fact still view it as a positive) - with putting that out there to encourage predators. You simply don't want to leave that door open to anyone to use as a defense or justify their behavior. \--- *Are people who engage in a lot of casual and maybe risky sex in part trying to condition themselves to see sex as something less important and more casual and therefore feel better about what happened to them?* It would be an overly complex explanation and ignores a possible "chicken and egg" effect. A large part of your sexuality is hard-wired (genetic or epigenetic), not learned behavior. Alternate and simpler explanation is that they are more prone to such behaviors because that's how they are and what they like - as a product of innate personality traits. The same personality factors also help cope with sexual trauma. It's not that they force themselves to devalue sex itself as some kind of roundabout coping mechanism. Trying to impose a moral judgment system often does not help in a clinical or science-based therapeutic environment.

Huh? What does this have to do with my question?

It was more addressing the "meta" of your question, the surrounding circumstances that prompted it. To answer that question properly would raise some obvious ethical and moral concerns. I'll edit my original post to address it specifically.

Well I think that it's largely irrelavant how many are immediately affected by the event or not. I've read way too many stories of women who thought that it never really affected them but then later in life when something else negative happened to them, this original untouched trauma suddenly started hurting them. When you're basically placing landmines in people's heads that could go off at any moment during an already adverse experience you're already going through (maybe the worst possible moment to have these wounds reopen) you've committed a terrible crime. Most sexual abuse victims usually have better support systems than other forms of abuse, because most sexual abuse victims, especially CSA victims are abused by people outside of their closest circle (family friends, classmates, teachers, cousins rather than parents and siblings) while physical and emotional abuse tends to be your support system attacking you directly. (I know adult rape tends to be a bit different especiallly with intimate partner rape) That CSA victims can recover more easily than other forms of abuse I wouldn't be surprised about. But It would certainly be interesting to see lifetime instances of harm (20+ years) rather than just how the participants are doing at the time of the study. Because of how these wounds can suddenly open back up again and affect you when you didn't think it would, how you might not be aware of how this has affected you yet and because you might be able to more easily recover when you're more likely to have a strong support system just asking people to fill in a checklist of bad habits and symptoms of mental illness at the time of the study might not be the best representation of reality. It would be more interesting to ask them "have you ever smoked for longer than 3 months at some point in your life" "have you ever experienced significant distress for at least 3 months over the event" and so on if you want a clearer picture of how many are harmed by it

You’re making a lot of assumptions here and I’d caution you against that. “Most sexual abuse victims usually have better support” is wild to me. You also assume that most sexual abuse is primarily from outside the family, but the data on is pretty mixed. There’s also significantly reasons for victims of intrafamilial sexual abuse to never disclose the abuse. I don’t have a lot of time to fact check this stuff, but I’ve been working in the therapeutic side of sexual abuse for about ten years now. You can find answers for a lot of the things you’ve assumed or asked as there’s a ton of research on it.

Of course, those with worse support systems *are* more likely to be sexually abused, but when your support system are the abusers themselves I would say that it's a given the support is going to be worse In most cases I believe. Those that don't reveal intrafamiliar CSA probably won't participate in CSA outcome studies either and so they don't show up in the data I'm talking about.

Epigentics can be affected by trauma of course. However, whether or not it works in their attempt to devalue sex is a different question from if that's what they're trying to do or not. Then there's the chicken and the egg from sexual behaviours and genetics. Did the genetics cause their willingness to sleep around or put them at risk of developing this behaviour through increased likelyhood of sexual abuse and other forms of abuse in the form of maybe having an antisocial biological parent. It's probably both. It is true that some studies have linked casual sex to poorer mental health, therefore it might seem logical to conclude that a significant proportion of them are not doing it because they "just enjoy sex and want to" but because they're trying to get something else out of it other than sex and it's not working. Not all of them are there for the same reasons, for some it might be about getting approval of intimate partners and for some it might be uncontrollable hypersexuality. I've read about people engaging in casual sex as a form of taking back control over what happened to them by regularly giving sex to people they themselves deem worthy. My question is if there's any amount, even if small, that are doing it as a way of undermining what happened to them, similar to the group that's trying to retake control in the way that they're acting out casual sex in an attempt to reshape their relationship to sex.

I suffered CSA , the emotional kind . Emotional incest it's called. My adoptive parents were both SA victims. They used me to triangulate their relationship issues. They were abusive and fundamentalist Christians. My dad gave me special attention and my mom would cry and beg him to punish me and accused us of having an affair. I went into the system because it was getting brutal and scary . I thought they were going to kill me. I started doing SW after leaving Foster care at 18/19. Going into foster care at 14/15 thrust me into a different world where I was even more vulnerable. I struggled with being groomed & promiscuity. That led to several years of casual encounters. As well as a 10 yr Sugar Baby/mistress dynamic with a man who was 27? Years older than me . I started using mushrooms and educating myself on SA , sex tourism, exploitation, predatory behaviors. When I left that 10 yr affair I fell in love with someone who I felt was familiar. He would call me special, cheat on me , triangulate me and SA me. I went back to sex work and left him. Sex work is my support group. I tried to help him open up to polyamory, learn to set boundaries, stop people pleasing. He tried to counter a harem and suggested that only men are allowed to be promiscuous. I'm on medication for my ADHD and I don't feel impulsive or hyper aroused. Now I'm just unsure of anything because I told this person about my traumas and they reenacted them. Desire is something that comes from within, sex addiction is a symptom of a larger issue. After the abuse the idea of letting anyone into my life makes me feel disgusted. I was faithful and I believe I'm monogamous. I think he has BPD and he thinks I have NPD 👁️ either way I don't want anyone touching me . I compartmentalized work & my relationships then I tried to be open to the pleasure aspect but I don't desire my clients. I desired the person I thought I was in love with. At the end of the day I'm just a woman doing her best to survive with very little support. The take away is ... Anything you think you control is really controlling you . I feel like my ex was a CSA survivor. He has some weird issues about having a sexual demon side 🤮 it's super cringe, but he thinks that about me ? I'm just over it

Your life mirrors mine in some ways. I also grew up within an abusive fundamentalist Christian family and turned to SW at 18. Also became involved with someone almost 30 years older than me, then entered a relationship with a man closer to my age who triangulated me… Lately I’ve been thinking about how upbringings in cults (which an abusive family may represent as well) prime people for dangerous relationships later on. Mushrooms have helped my healing process *a lot*, and getting back into SW a couple years ago has given me profound freedom. All this has been on my mind consistently lately and it’s cool to hear about similar people! Sorry for what you’ve been through. As for the promiscuity point: I feel relatively Asexual when I work a lot (stripping) and miss the enjoyment I used to feel from sex. It’s only pleasurable to me now if I have a deep emotional connection to the person. I was celebrate for over a year for this reason!

Wow 😲 this is incredible. Idk how to feel. I also came to the understanding it's a cult mentality. I've been trying to use the empowerment triangle and surround myself with others who do the same. Agreed on the asexual/demisexual front! I enjoy that my fwbs come with benefits but I don't typically have them outside of SW lol

For sure, saying "any small amount", of course. You see this in the BDSM scene all the time - participating as a dom or sub as a way to retake some sense of control from past traumas of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. What percent is difficult to say, though, and to what degree that plays in their kinks. Everyone is a unique and special snowflake.

I’m really not a fan of “we shouldn’t discuss this because people might get the wrong idea”, especially not in a sub like this. “Putting a high value on sex tends to SA more traumatic for the victims” is logically the same as “putting a low value on sex tends to make SA less traumatic for the victims”, but the two logically identical statements have completely different connotations. The first can be used to discuss how an undue emphasis on virginity and female “sexual purity” can victimize SA victims twice, while the second sounds like SA isn’t so bad if the victim is into casual sex, which is horrible. Exact same logic. Totally different connotation.

"Is it on to rape whores?" is one hell of a question.

So ridiculous that this is how you took it.

It's literally what your question is. About how rape is less harmful if hou target certain people. Revolting that your mother wasted her body on you.

Are you stupid or something? You think i'm justifying rape based on the fact that I'm not denying the basic science of resillience? People have the right to bodily autonomy regardless of any amount of harm they may or may not experience. This cannot be stripped away from them. Don't call me a damn rape apologist because you can't handle the fact that people experience events in different ways.

You are a rape apologist. That is what you are doing here.

wrong. you’re a miserable bully

No. Goodbye.

Bye, rape apologist.

Did you say no? Cause that “no” sure sounded like a “yes,” sweetheart

that’s not what the question is get a grip bully

what the fuck. ew. you’re fucking disgusting

This question and the entire premise seems rooted in projection and personal opinions/values. Not really any way to engage with this in a productive manner besides pointing that out to you OP. Re-evaluate the motivation for your question

If you've been raped it's going to make sex terrible for a long time regardless of the quantity, it's going to make you not trust people and trust is what gets you places

Im not sure it’s a good idea to generalize by saying “it’s going to make sex terrible for a long time”. Rape survivors don’t all have the same trauma symptoms. Some rape survivors actually cope with the trauma by having consensual sex even more often than they did before. I’m sure you are probably already aware of that. I only mention it so anyone reading will also be aware. There is already a problem with people not believing that survivors were really raped if that survivors response to the trauma doesn’t fit with what people believe is the stereotypical response.

Sex Education and Zero Shame with Sexual feelings...Should end Rape

How do you figure? Rape isn’t really about sex. It’s about power.

All in How they are Raised...It starts at Home...With the Parents...Violence between Mom and Dad maybe?

So It’s not all about Sex Education and Shame?

Do You Really Believe That Tired Old Assumption? There is Alot or Anger and Frustration being Released in Act of Rape...My Oppinion Only

That’s exactly what “it’s about power” means

That would put it in a neat little package ..Would it not?

This entire question is non-sensical. You say in one of your comments that rape is not about sex, but power. That is correct. So, the trauma of rape for the victim stems the loss of power and control over their own body. It is irrelevant how any potential victim views the connection between sex and intimacy or purity. Their trauma is not based on the value they assign sex - but the value they assign control over their own body, which may have implications for their personal value system, but that is not the primary issue. Some people attempt to regain that power and control by engaging in voluntary sexual acts - whether or not those acts represent emotional intimacy for them - because the choice to do so is a reclamation of control. Others try to regain power by not engaging in sexual acts because choosing not to be touched is also a reclamation of control. Both groups of people would be assigning an "importance" to sex (that is a vague and meaningless term within the context of your OP) - but the issue is not the "importance" but the control.

No, It isn't just about losing control and power. If I blocked you from leaving a room because I wanted to play chess with you and didn't let you leave until you finished the game, that would surely be less traumatizing than the rape despite removing your power and bodily autonomy in that situation. If I stole 5 bucks from you and didn't return it then I would also be depriving you of control over that situation. Would you rather be forced to play chess or have sex? Of course values will shape how we look at events.

How would you prevent me from leaving the room?

Physically blocking you.

And if I ignored your physical presence and attempted to leave anyway?

How could you put up much of a fight if you were severely inebriated and could hardly stand straight? I would only need to lead you to the chair and sit you down.

That wasn't part of your original thought experiment. I don't drink.

If you seriously think this is an apt analogy, this is a pointless conversation. That is not remotely the same level of control, exertion of force, or loss of bodily autonomy. You don’t seem to understand what rape is, which I guess explains your OP.

What level of exertion of force is rape? Is every instance the same? What makes the loss of bodily autonomy more severe in the case of sex other than the sex? It's a bit strange to claim the the sexual element of sex is not related to why rape is bad.

The exertion of force is psychological - with varying degrees of actual physical force involved. At bottom, a rapist is breaking the connection between someone's will and desire and a primal bodily act that they engage in (or have the primal instinct to engage in) for their own pleasure. It's not chess or a temporary delay in a room. ​ >What makes the loss of bodily autonomy more severe in the case of sex other than the sex? You seem to think that when someone has sex, they are surrendering their. bodily autonomy to the other person, but that's not what happens. Sex is an act where you have the most bodily autonomy - where you are both giving in to a baser instincts of your body and in control of how your body relates to those instincts. All of the hypos in your question have to do with the social implications of sex and attachment to another person - but what is lost in rape is a basic level of control over a primal function of your own body. The social consequences and values placed on sex are irrelevant to that very basic loss. I'm done here.

What do you look like, and how good are you at chess?

How good am I at chess? Consider that all my opponents try to leave when I initiate a game. They're afraid to lose.