Being Naked, Literally and Figuratively
I’ll admit straight away that just about nothing ranks lower for me than being naked, literally or figuratively.
Literally is coming face to face, so to speak, with your body and exposing it to someone else. That fear kept me locked away for far too long because I couldn’t bear the thought of showing myself to a man. I felt unacceptable, repellant, and if I felt that way, what would they think? It was too gruesome to imagine.
Figuratively was no easier. Sharing my secret about my history of sexual abuse engendered the same feelings. Being that vulnerable, something I struggled mightily with, was too unsafe.
I’ve changed, as evidenced by what you’re reading now. It was an evolution and a transformation made possible by a lot of time and therapy. But it was a long process. I’ve made great progress in sharing my story, which, to be honest, is shocking to me. I’m constantly astounded at my ability to grow and change, even after stopping therapy more than five years ago.
When I began therapy, it was with one goal: to open myself to love. For me, that meant tackling my weight issues once and for all and to begin dating. There were a great many stops and starts along the way, but managing my weight was, in many respects, the easiest part and I’ve successfully maintained a 100 pound weight loss. That is not to say I didn’t struggle along the way and hate how I looked, but instead of gaining and losing 50 to 75 pounds every two years, I would bounce among a 15-pound spread. It was great progress but still a mindfuck every time it happened, and it happened all the time. (I still fluctuate about 10 pounds and have accepted this is just how my body works. It bugs me, but it’s manageable.)
By the time I was around 160 pounds, I believed I looked acceptable to the male race, even if I didn’t see it myself. After more than a decade with no contact with a man, I thought about online dating. The next morning, I woke up consumed with anxiety. It seemed clear it was because I put the idea in my head of joining an online dating site. I told myself I didn’t have to do anything; I was just considering it. But the anxiety didn’t dissipate.
Later I met my friend Molly for dinner and, on my way home, contemplated what type of snacks I could get. That used to be my modus operandi. I would go out to dinner and rationalize and forage for treats after. It was very much an all or nothing mentality that I worked extremely hard to combat. Over the last several months, the overwhelming desire to binge when I went out receded to the background and now it was roaring back front and center.
Managing my now all too frequent binges superseded online dating and it wasn’t until a few months later that I joined a dating site. It was equal parts terrifying and demoralizing.
Every part of it was hard. I was dismayed by the men that were attracted to me or lack thereof and felt my pickings were slim. Of those that were acceptable, not being attracted to anyone filled me with fear and doubt that I was capable of feeling anything. Being attracted to someone was just as loaded because all I could think about was how I would tell them about me. Worse, I had spent so much time locked away that my isolation and inexperience became another secret I dreaded revealing.
I also feared the prospect of kissing, which I assiduously avoided as it conjured memories of a family member’s tongue jammed into my mouth. This was especially problematic because kissing comes so early in dating. Regardless of whether I found the love of my life, chances were good that at some point, someone was going to want to kiss me. While I could likely delay having to reveal my past to someone too early on, the kissing thing was going to be a problem I had to confront. I felt woefully inexperienced, and it became another badge of shame.
In addition to everything else, there was the fear of someone seeing me naked. Even though my friends and therapist reassured me that I looked great, all I could see was my fatness and everything I hated about my body.
I felt besieged on all fronts. Could I be open enough, courageous enough, to manage all the stressors associated with being naked in mind and body? Or would I be able to forgive myself if I didn’t at least try? I felt trapped in a no win situation.
Despite my fears, I forged ahead and joined a dating site. Surprisingly, I managed to meet a couple of men that I tiptoed my way through dating. One I was genuinely interested in, and I revealed my inexperience kissing. He was awesome and we practiced. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I also didn’t hate it. When next we went out, I wanted to try it again which he took as an invitation for more. It was too much too soon, and I felt overwhelmed. I didn’t know how to assert myself – how to protect myself – and shut down. After that experience, I retreated safely back into my apartment and away from men
Over time I joined more dating sites and struggled with the same issues. The crux of the problem was that I didn’t feel entitled to say no, to anything. If someone took the trouble to send me a cogent note, I felt obligated to respond, even when I had no interest in them. If someone then seemed acceptable on the phone, I felt as if I had no choice but to agree to a date. As little as I dated, it was often with men I had no interest in. If I couldn’t refuse a date, what chance did I have of protecting myself in a sexual arena?
Because I wasn’t interested in or attracted to many of the men I dated, I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which I would be. As a result, whenever I imagined revealing myself – whether telling someone about my past or being in a physical situation – it was always because I had to, as if my back was up against a wall. It was never from a place of wanting to so that I could be known.
Over the years, in my ongoing and increasingly desperate efforts to open myself to love, I tried a number of different therapies while continuing to work with my therapist and EMDR. This included a short stint working with a sex therapist. (It sounds terrifying, and it is, but it’s talk therapy only). Because I wasn’t sexually active in mind or body, we read a couple of books together and did the exercises to suss out how I felt about sex and how best to address my specific roadblocks.
One of these books, The Sexual Healing Workbook, included a section about mindsets. Specifically, a sexual abuse mindset and a healthy sexual attitudes mindset. People that have been sexually abused, especially children, form their attitudes about sex based on their experiences and it becomes the template for their beliefs and expectations. One of my beliefs was that my past makes me damaged and my lack of experience as an adult makes me an undesirable partner. As a result, I feel as if I am lacking and don't have enough to offer.
The book includes a chart with sexual abuse attitudes on one side and healthy sexual attitudes on the other. The one that made me stop is that sex is a condition for receiving love. Obviously, this is on the sexual abuse spectrum but the one on the healthy sexual attitudes side read that sex is an expression of love. I just kept looking at it, as if I couldn't believe the words I was seeing.
In my heart of hearts, I am hopelessly romantic and absolutely tie love and sex together, that's how I managed to stay celibate for so many years. But to read that sex is an expression of love made me feel for the first time as if all of my fears were misplaced. If I met someone and he loved me and I loved him, I could have sex. Instead, I worried about what is appropriate sexual behavior on dates and it filled me with fear because I didn't know what was normal.
It doesn't matter what the norm is. What matters is that I believed, no matter how incorrectly, that to date or to try to meet someone meant I had to go along to a certain extent, even if I didn't want to or feel ready. Learning that sex is supposed to be an expression of love helped me believe that I don't have to do anything I don't want and if someone really cares about me, they'll understand. I can do what is best for me, even if it’s not what someone else wants. In the world of dating, I can and should put myself first.
It made me hopeful that if I meet someone who makes my heart flutter, I’ll want to be with him, and dare I say it, desire him. And perhaps it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that someone I feel those things for could reciprocate them for me. Our feelings would be shared and whatever I do or don’t do, I do so willingly, of my own volition, based on my needs and wants, first and foremost. And it doesn’t make me selfish or bad. It’s how I can take care of myself in any situation.
Suddenly I had so much more clarity into what scares me. That awareness was empowering. Whether I like the man I'm corresponding with or seeing will inform what should happen. How I feel actually matters and, in many respects, is all that matters. And if I feel nothing, then nothing will happen. Because it is me and my body and I'm in control of me. I don't have to let things happen. I can decide.
I did finally meet someone and addressed my issues about being naked, both literally and figuratively. I promised myself I would tell him everything causing me angst so that he could dispute or validate for fear it would become a distraction to me. It didn’t matter what it was about – whether I was in an unflattering position and thought I looked or felt fat or I feared that I was too much work. If I thought it, I said it, no matter how difficult the conversation or batshit crazy I might seem.
As for the big reveal about my past, it was hard, as I knew it would be. But in all of my scenarios about how I would disclose my history of abuse to a potential love interest, I always imagined being swept away by emotion. I never imagined that someone would actually care about me and want to hear what I had to say. I think I also never fully believed that I would want to be in that situation and want to be known, versus some feeling of having to reveal more than I was ready to. But I did meet someone that I cared about who cared about me, too. I trusted him, with me and my body, and I was able to be fully naked without drowning in my grief and shame.
While I haven’t been naked literally with anyone since, it is a pandemic after all, I trust that I can be when the time is right. As for being figuratively naked, look at me now. The old me wouldn’t have believed it was possible. But I am possible. And so are you.
