muse-ings
FA K I N G IT BY HALEY MARANDO
MUSE MAGAZINE
CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES SEXUAL TRAUMA AND HYPERSEXUALITY, AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS. When you’re a victim of trauma - in my case, sexual trauma - there’s a certain degree of pressure that you feel to give your story the conclusion that everyone expects. People want to hear that you made it out, so that’s what you tell them because the real truth, the twisted truth, is better kept hidden away in the dark. At least, that’s what I used to think. There’s a perception about what happens after trauma that crafts the mould of a “perfect victim.” It’s expected that you’ll endure explicitly negative side effects such as post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, and a complete fear of all things sex-related, all of which are true, and all of which I have been able to recover from, or at least manage. But there’s also the misconception that when you don’t find yourself in internal anguish any more, that means you’ve healed. For years, I felt an aching sense of shame because the thing that I was supposed to fear the most was the one thing I hungered for, day and night. So much so that I started to wonder if my mind had created fake memories of fake traumas. How can I be a sexual assault survivor if I’m constantly starving for the taste of sexual desire?
PHOTOGRAPHER: ERICA GIUSTINIANI 40
JAN 2021 - APRIL 2021
What I was externally displaying as the reclamation of my body and sexual liberation - which should be celebrated was internally the unhealthy behaviour of hypersexuality - a completely normal side effect to sexual trauma. The two appear identical on the surface but are
