While at the Creating Change conference this year, I attended a day-long workshop on sexual liberation, facilitated by Ignacio Riviera and Aredvi Azad. The presenters talked about the idea of “sexual harm” as an addition to our conversations about sexual violence.
When we talk about sexual violence, we often have a specific idea of what that looks like–one that tends towards extremes of rape and sexual abuse. Sometimes, recognizing and naming the specific harm that happened to us is helpful for healing. Other times, we might brush off these situations because what we experienced “wasn’t really that serious,” or because we believe it didn’t impact us that much.
Sometimes it’s harder to see the smaller (but still significant) ways that harmful beliefs about sexuality have hurt us. Sometimes they’re so built-in to our cultural beliefs that we can’t easily identify them.
To be clear, “sexual violence” and “sexual harm” are both useful terms—one is not “better” than the other. We have agency in the words we use to describe our experiences, and “sexual harm,” “sexual violence,” or something else entirely might feel like the most accurate or meaningful way to describe what happened. What talking about “sexual harm” does is broaden our conversations and understandings of our own and other peoples’ experiences.
Sexual harm includes both individual and systemic actions that contribute to sexual oppression and victimization. Some of the examples the presenters shared with us included:
- Being hyper-sexualized or de-sexualized based on your race/ethnicity
- Being told that modesty is your responsibility to prevent sexual violence
- Being taught that having a penis makes you inherently violent
- Having your queer desires dismissed as “just a phase”
If we look at the “fear of having nude photos leaked keeps you quiet” example, there are many ways this might play out. The most “obvious” is that someone might be in an abusive relationship, and fear leaving or saying anything because their partner has nude photos of them that they could share to intentionally hurt the person. This is what my mind jumps to, and is a more straightforward example of sexual violence.
In another case, someone might find it liberating to take nude photos and share them with trusted friends or partners. However, they know that if those photos were accidentally leaked, they might lose their job. They might face social judgement and isolation from their peers. Those who judge, harass, or fire a person because they’ve shared nudes are causing harm, but we might not label this kind of behavior as “sexual violence.” At the same time, larger cultural beliefs and biases about sexuality, sex work, and sexual liberation prevent people from expressing their sexuality in the ways they want to.
Sexual harm doesn’t necessarily mean physical violence. It doesn’t even mean that one individual person is intentionally causing harm. Sometimes we experience harm even in healthy relationships, while having consensual sex, because of the cultural beliefs or expectations about sexuality we carry.
Using this definition, pretty much everyone has experienced some form of sexual harm. And while some of us receive supportive and non-stigmatizing messages about sexuality—from our parents, a particularly great sex ed teacher, a loving partner—we often still receive harmful messages from others—our friends, our church, our political leaders.
Even when we ourselves are not the ones being shamed, seeing others told to be quiet or hide their sexuality teaches us about what’s okay to express and what isn’t.
We are all impacted, in some way, by sexual harm.
This has gotten me thinking about unique ways I see sexual harm impacting queer and trans folks. Some of these might include:
- Asexuality being dismissed because “everyone has/wants sex”
- Masculinity being perceived as violence, leading transmasculine survivors to be disbelieved or ignored around survivorship
- Transfeminine people being perceived as the aggressor in situations of harm because of the body parts they are assumed to have
- Queer/”non-normative” sex being seen as inherently riskier or more taboo than cisgender, heterosexual sex
- Young queer/trans people tolerating predatory behavior because we feel it is the only kind of intimacy we will get/we are deserving of
- Adult trans people worrying about being perceived as predators for working with youth
- Queer/trans folks believing that sexual violence is “just going to happen” to us
…and many more.
What does this mean for us?
I’m going to bet that almost every queer or trans person has heard at least some of the messages I listed above, from ourselves or others. When sexual harm is normalized, we may internalize these beliefs. They become part of our reality.
They also shape the kinds of communities and services we have access to. When a widespread cultural belief tells us that men do not experience sexual violence, trans masculine people may not be able to find a support group or shelter that doesn’t require them to minimize their identity or the role it played in their experience with sexual harm. When trans folks expect to be shamed by our healthcare providers for having kinky sex, we may not get the routine STI screenings we need. When a queer teenager believes that the much older person they’re talking to online is the only person who will find them attractive, they may not bring up troubling dynamics with family or friends for fear of being blamed, or losing this connection.
When our ideas about sexual violence (what it looks like and who experiences it) come from a cis- and heteronormative lens, we might struggle to see ourselves as survivors. Our experiences might not fit into these frameworks. We might intentionally or unintentionally minimize the impacts of this subtle and pervasive harm in queer/trans communities. We may even not believe people when they tell us they’ve been harmed. So much of this begins to feel “normal” when we hear about it happening to people we know.
What can we do about it?
Recognizing the prevalence of sexual harm is part of healing and sexual liberation. Understanding these experiences of harm as things that we carry in our bodies and interactions with others is how we begin to untangle their impacts. Being able to name the lies we have been told and have told ourselves about sexuality takes away their power.
This is a process, and not something we can easily do by reading one blog post or attending one workshop. Instead, I think it takes a lifetime of learning and unlearning, conversations, and telling ourselves new stories.
One place to start is the Rivera-Azad Sexual Healing Integration Model (RASHIM), created by the two workshop presenters. RASHIM provides a model for understanding our own sexual development, and proposes steps toward sexual liberation.
While attending the workshop, I had the opportunity to explore these topics with folks at my table. Even though it was a day-long workshop, it still wasn’t enough time! It left me with so many ideas and questions. I hope that anyone who connects with this idea of sexual harm might be able to start a conversation with someone they trust, recognizing the ways sexual harm has impacted their experiences with sexuality. Journaling, meditating, or making art are other ways we can explore.