Hypersexuality As A Coping Mechanism

I’ve been telling my story publicly since 2008. I’ve told it to millions via broadcast, print and internet media as well as during live presentations on college campuses and military bases. One of the more difficult parts to add to my story when presenting was the risky coping skills that I adopted pre-therapy. In particular, hypersexuality was the hardest to discuss at first. Now, it is like talking about anything else. I’ve desensitized myself with the topic over time. I can joke about it in a slightly self-deprecating way while still getting the point across.

In 1990, I was raped by an older, female acquaintance when I was 19. Nothing groundbreaking there. I’ve talked about it at length. I buried what happened for years. My coping skills involved over-working to the point of trying to be a perfectionist. Overall, that was not destructive, just exhausting.

However, the destructive side of my unexamined trauma resulted in hypersexuality with mostly older, often married, emotionally unavailable women for the next 3 years. That destructive coping skill was influenced by the perfect storm of that rape in 1990, a groping incident on the campus of Illinois Central College in 1988 and grooming by adult women when I was a teenager. Men and boys aren’t supposed to talk about this stuff. We are just supposed to say “thank you” and get unsolicited high-fives. Sadly, both Men AND women expect this of us, despite incompetent activist claims to the contrary.

Anyway.

So, what did hypersexuality look like for me? Not knowing last names. Not always being able to remember first names. Mostly unprotected, spontaneous sex with random partners. No feelings. I was often dissociated during the acts, but ultimately my autopilot was good enough that they never really knew. Finding out third hand several months later that I had sex with a good friend’s sister while she was in college but having no real memory of it. Deluding myself occasionally into thinking these hookups might mean something more. I never went looking, but I just never said no. A vicious cycle that just kept rotating around and around.

This was the part I didn’t want to work on at first. This was the part that social programming called “lucky”.  Removing the stigma around hypersexuality as a trauma response is so important if healing is going to happen.