Can Sex Rewire Trauma-based Negativity?

Defaulting to focusing on the negative is no more realistic than defaulting to focusing on the positive. Both are equally distorted projections with their own sets of limitations and consequences.

Those who look at a painting and only see the dark colors, only see half the picture, just the same as those who only see the light colors.

As in all things, balance is the key. Being able to stand back and see the whole painting brings harmony and insight. It is only then that one feels the essence of the piece of art and can engage its richness.

Trauma can re-wire us to only see the negative and brace ourselves for more of the same.We expect the same negative pattern to keep occurring so we see it everywhere - until that is all that we see.

Our nervous systems become hypervigilant about focusing on that negative pattern and we fear even looking at the positive in case it means we won't be prepared to fight off the negative.

Healing trauma doesn't mean we never see the negative. Nor does it stop us from recognizing those patterns when they occur. Healing does not invalidate the fact that these negative things were very real when we experienced them in the past, and that it is possible for them to happen again. It doesn't mean we can't be prepared to take appropriate action when necessary.

It does mean that we now have room for the full spectrum of life possibilities and can engage the wonderful again too.

Here's where sex comes in.I've long observed that to create lasting changes in our subconscious wiring, it is helpful to enter into the subconscious and talk its language. That is, it is helpful to enter into altered states of consciousness and do the changes there. Think about how hypnosis can help you stop smoking or shift an attitude.
Sex can lead to a variety of altered states of consciousness that are different from our everyday states of consciousness. That is, when turned on, horny, blissed out in pleasure, in sub or dom space, or transcendent spiritual sex states, we have access to parts of ourselves that we normally do not. Anyone who has ever been turned on has experienced this to some extent. A horny person does not think or act the same way as a person who is not horny. 
When I was a sex worker and pro dominatrix, I noticed that when I deliberately created a safe space for a client to explore their unique erotic wiring as it was, they got to encounter states of being that gave them far more access to their subconscious - and as a result, the opportunity to shift a negative into a positive naturally presented itself. 

Here, when we encountered things that would normally be traumatic, they were not experienced as negative but instead transformed into positive through the pleasure of play. 

Something that was once humiliating became a source of pleasure. It lost its power to harm. 

Something that would normally paralyze with fear of rejection, was flipped on its head to create acceptance. 

Loss of control was no longer a real violation but paradoxically created the exact opposite effect. Re-enacting situations similar to when the client had previously been genuinely powerless, became a source of power for them. 

They took their power back! 

Again and again, I learned to trust people's fantasies and follow the compass of their sexual desires. I learned to trust "horniness" itself as a naturally powerful mechanism that enabled deep shifts.
I wasn't trying to be a therapist. I was just creating the safety to explore by using great pre and post-play communication, using embodied consent and safewords, and by being a willing, non-judgemental playmate.

I didn't heal them. They healed themselves if I created the right space for them to express their unique pattern of turn-ons, and enthusiastically got into the flow of play with them.

I noticed shifts in them where they relied far less on the self-protective hypervigilance of negativity. They became more open and balanced, able to perceive both the light and the dark colors and paint their own complex pictures that incorporated both.
It was playing with the dark that made that possible.

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