“But my body responded.”
This is something I wish we talked about much more.
Some survivors of sexual assault or sexual abuse experience physiological sexual responses during an unwanted or abusive sexual experience.
They may experience lubrication, an erection, physical arousal, or even orgasm.
And afterward, they may carry an enormous amount of shame because their body’s response seems to contradict what they were experiencing internally.
They may wonder:
“If my body responded, does that mean I wanted it?”
“Does that mean it wasn’t really assault?”
“Is there something wrong with me?”
These questions can be deeply distressing.
So I want to say this loud and clear:
A physiological response is not the same thing as consent.
And it is not necessarily the same thing as desire.
Your Body Can Respond to Something Your Mind Does Not Want
We tend to assume that the body will accurately and consistently reflect what a person is thinking or feeling.
But the relationship between our physiological responses, emotions, thoughts, and intentions is much more complicated than that. We all know that your heart can race when you’re afraid. You can sweat when you’re anxious. You can blush when you’re embarrassed. You can startle when something surprises you. These are physiological responses that can occur without conscious choice right?
Sexual physiological responses can also occur involuntarily.
A person’s body may respond to physical stimulation even when the experience itself is unwanted, frightening, coercive, or traumatic.
As you can imagine, this can be profoundly confusing for a survivor.
Because when the body’s response appears to contradict the person’s internal experience, it can create an agonizing question:
“Why did my body do that?”
And sometimes that question becomes:
“Maybe I actually wanted it.”
But a physiological response cannot, by itself, tell us what a person wanted.
Arousal Does Not Equal Consent
This distinction is incredibly important.
Arousal is a physiological response.
Consent is a voluntary agreement to participate. They are not interchangeable.
A person can experience a physiological sexual response without wanting the sexual activity that is occurring.
They can feel physically aroused while emotionally distressed.
They can experience a bodily response while feeling frightened, trapped, disconnected, or unable to respond.
And they can experience a physiological response without consenting to the sexual contact.
Again: The body’s response does not create consent.
When the Body’s Response Becomes a Source of Shame
For some survivors, the distress doesn’t end with the sexual experience itself.
The physiological response can become another source of trauma and shame.
They may feel disgusted with themselves.
They may feel as though their body betrayed them. I hear this more often than one would imagine!
Your Body Can Respond While You Do Not Want the Experience
One of the most difficult things for survivors to reconcile can be the possibility that two seemingly contradictory things happened at the same time:
Their body responded.
AND
They did not want what was happening.
But those things can coexist.
A person can experience physical arousal while feeling emotionally unsafe.
They can experience sensation while feeling frightened.
They can have a physiological response while wanting the sexual contact to stop.
They can be physically responsive while psychologically overwhelmed or dissociated.
The body does not always respond in accordance with conscious intention.
And a physiological response does not provide a complete account of someone’s internal experience.
What If Someone Experiences Orgasm?
This can be particularly difficult for survivors to talk about.
There is a common assumption that orgasm necessarily indicates pleasure, desire, or consent. Guess what? It does not. An orgasm is a physiological response. It is not a declaration of consent.
“How could I have experienced that if I didn’t want it?”
The answer is that the body is capable of physiological responses that do not necessarily correspond with conscious desire or consent.
Understanding this distinction can be an important part of reducing shame.
You Are Not Responsible for Your Body’s Involuntary Response
If you experienced a physiological sexual response during something you did not want, you may have spent a long time wondering what that response means.
Maybe you have never told anyone.
Maybe you have carried shame about it for years.
Maybe you have wondered whether you are somehow different or broken.
Maybe you have even questioned whether you are allowed to think of yourself as a survivor.
If that is part of your experience, I want you to hear this:
Your body’s response does not mean you asked for it.
You Can Hold Both Truths
Sometimes healing involves making room for two things that initially seem impossible to reconcile:
“My body responded.”
AND
“I did not want what was happening.”
Both can be true.
You do not have to deny what your body experienced in order to honor what you wanted.
And you do not have to reinterpret an unwanted experience simply because your body had a physiological response.
Trauma Therapy in Pasadena
At Pasadena Trauma Therapy, we work with adults healing from complex trauma, childhood trauma, sexual abuse, dissociation, and other overwhelming experiences.
Trauma therapy can provide a supportive space to understand the ways trauma has affected your relationship with your body, your emotions, your memories, and yourself- without judgment or shame.
You don’t have to have everything figured out before reaching out for support.
You deserve a space where your experience can be explored with compassion.
