He’s not attracted to me anymore, which really hurts me. It’s easier sometimes to just give in.

He never hits me, but he did force me to have sex once.

We both have an infection now, and he says it must have

come from me, but I haven’t had any affairs, so I know it’s him.

It seems like the only time we feel close is when we’re making love.

LIBBY SCOWLED, the muscles in her face and neck tightening, as she described an abusive boyfriend she had left three years earlier. “Arnaldo never hit me, but he seemed to get a thrill out of being mysterious and terrifying. One day he described in graphic detail how he was going to

torture and kill my cat, because he knew how precious my pets are to me. Another time he was giving me a massage, talking in this hypnotic, faraway tone, and he said, ‘When I was in Green Beret training, I learned about a certain spot in a person’s neck where, if you poke them hard and fast, you can paralyze them permanently.’” Libby found out later that Arnaldo had never been in the military. He had told other lies, too, like the one about his terminally ill grandmother who was going to leave him thirty thousand dollars. But his stories had all sounded so convincing. “He got me to support him for a year and to lend him a lot of money besides. I’m out five

or six thousand dollars because of him.” Resentment rang through her voice as she gained momentum. “I would be in such a different financial position right now if it hadn’t been for him. And I bought it when he promised to pay me back any day, always saying that the money was just about to arrive. What a con artist!” And she told me how Arnaldo would harangue her about being too skinny, so that she became shameful of her body. I couldn’t tell which was more potent inside of her, rage or grief.

Then, abruptly, Libby’s face softened. A hint of a smile formed at the corners of her mouth, and her eyes shined lightly as she focused on an

image inside her mind. “But there was one thing that wasn’t like the rest with Arnaldo. Sex. Lovemaking with him was great. He was so completely into it. He would light candles and build the mood for a while. It would last a long time. He was so intense, and passionate. There was this drama around it that was so transporting. I have never experienced anything like it before. Or since, really. I wish I could capture just that one part of the relationship. The rest was awful.”

Libby’s story is not as unusual as you might think. When I interview partners of my clients, I always ask whether there has been any sexual

mistreatment. It is not uncommon for me to hear the woman’s voice lose its tension, as Libby’s facial expression had, and hear her say with a certain lilt, “Oh, well, we’ve never had any problem in that area,” followed by a contented and slightly embarrassed chuckle. In fact, memories of the better aspects of their sexual relationship can be part of why a woman who has left an abusive partner feels so tempted to give him another chance.

But there is also the other extreme. I have had clients whose only interest in sex was for domination and degradation. For the woman, being in bed with this style of abuser can be a nightmare. He wants sex when he wants it, the way he likes it, and with little attention to how she may feel or what her needs might be. Sexual episodes with him may feel like sexual

assaults to her. As the partner of one of my clients said to me, “I don’t even want to go into it. It’s just ugly.”

The sexually abusive man won’t necessarily rape his partner in the literal sense of using physical force or threats of harm—though some do. Instead he may insult her when she declines his advances, call her names like “frigid” or “lesbian,” or snarl accusingly, “You must be getting it

somewhere else, since you never want to make it with me anymore.” He may make her feel guilty about his sexual frustration, tell her that he feels

like she doesn’t love him anymore, or say that a man must have his needs met. He may threaten infidelity: “Well, if you won’t have sex with me, I can find plenty of women who will.” And he may carry that threat out; many

clients of mine have used affairs to punish their partners.

A woman named Cynthia recounted how her partner coerced her by using relentlessness: “If I don’t want to have sex with Ernie, he just goes on and on, and he won’t stop until I change my mind. He’ll beg me, then he’ll get crude and say I’m fucking someone else. Then it’s nonstop insults. If I go to sleep, he wakes me up. Some nights I’m just exhausted after a while.

So what do I do? Usually I finally give in. I can’t stand to go through it. It ends up being better to just get it over with, even though it’s awful, because then at least he lets me sleep.”

When people think about forced sex, they picture physical assault. So when an abuser forces sex through pressure or manipulation or sleep deprivation, a woman doesn’t know what to call it and may blame herself. Dozens of partners of my clients, including Cynthia, have said: “It’s my own fault. I shouldn’t give in to him.” A woman can need some time and

distance before she can come to realize that she was not responsibile for her partner’s sexual mistreatment of her, before she can even name what he did. An ex-partner of one of my clients said to me, about two years after she and the abuser divorced, “Looking back on it now, I can see that I was raped over and over again for more than ten years.” And she was realizing how

destructive his actions had been to her soul. Studies show that women whose partners abuse them sexually can have some of the greatest emotional difficulties, including depression, of any abused women.

HOW MANY ABUSIVE MEN LOOK AT SEX

Arnaldo, the sexually amazing abuser, and Ernie, the sexually degrading abuser, are not as different as they may seem. Their underlying orientation toward sex is similar. One style of abusive man may behave in a sexually

appropriate manner for the early period of a relationship, and then one night from hell he may broadside his partner with aggressive, degrading sex or even force her outright. The woman is left in shock, heartbroken and betrayed, feeling that her life has been turned upside down. A few of the women I’ve worked with have even told me of the anguish of being

sexually assaulted on the night of their wedding or within a few days thereafter. With other abusive men the change may be gradual rather than abrupt, the early months of exciting and loving sexuality blending slowly into arm-twisting and ugliness. When we look inside the abuser’s mind, we often find that dazzling lovemaking and spirit-murdering sexual aggression can actually be two aspects of the same mind-set.

Before I take you through the details and subtleties of how abusive men typically approach a range of sexual issues, I want to emphasize the

underpinnings of the sexual mentality of many abusers, the foundation that often supports the rest of the structure.

1. IT’S FOR HIM

   The abuser’s orientation toward sex is likely to be self-involved. Sex to him is primarily about meeting his needs. He may put some effort into creating pleasure for his partner, but probably not because her satisfaction, or sharing a mutual experience, is important to him. He is invested in having her reach orgasm so that he can see himself as a great lover. He

   wants to be erotic because he believes that his sexual prowess will enable him to dominate women. Of course, any lover gets some pride out of bringing pleasure to a partner. But to many abusive men, that’s the only reason why the woman’s satisfaction matters. Everything refers back to him.

   An abusive man commonly rolls all of his emotional needs into one tremendous bundle, which he expects sex to be able to carry. He tends to have little real heart-to-heart connection with his partner, since a man

   cannot be truly close to a woman he is abusing. (Although his partner may feel very attached to him through traumatic bonding, and he may feel very attached to having her meet his various needs, attachment and closeness are two different things.) So he compensates for the lack of genuine intimacy by elevating sex to the highest plane, burdening it with the responsibility of providing for him all the emotional satisfaction that he is not receiving

   elsewhere in his relationship.

2. SHE OWES HIM SEX.

   My clients commonly believe that a woman gives up her right to decline sex once she becomes seriously involved with a man. It’s her responsibility to have sex with him to make him feel loved, to meet his sexual needs, or simply because that’s her job. The specific point at which she loses her right to say no varies from abuser to abuser. For some, the gateway to sexual domination is the first time they have sex. In other words, she has the right to say no as long as she always says no, but the first time they actually

   make love, she forfeits her option to turn him down from that day forward. I find this particularly true of my younger clients. To other abusers, marriage is the moment when her body is transferred to his ownership. To still others, moving in together is the demarcation line.

   A majority of my clients seem to believe that the woman loses her right to refuse him if the man determines that it has been “too long” since they

   have had sex. The definition of how many days without sex is too many differs for each abuser, but he watches his internal clock and expects access when the alarm goes off. Her decision not to have sex may be respected up to that moment, but then his entitlement tends to take over.

   In a typical abusive inversion, my clients often attempt to convince me that they are the sexual victims in their relationships. As one man said: “My partner uses sex to control me, that’s how women jerk men around. Women are the ones that really have the power over men because they know they

   have what we want the most, and they have the power to shut us out. My wife wants me to be her little puppy dog, begging and drooling and wagging my tail, that’s the only way I’ll get sex.” The underlying attitude

   comes bursting out of his words: He believes his wife is keeping something of his away from him when she doesn’t want intimate contact. He sees sexual rights to a woman as akin to mineral rights to land—and he owns them.

3. SEX IS A WAY TO ESTABLISH POWER AND DOMINANCE.

   We have been looking at the abusive attitude that says: “We have sex because I have power over you.” On the flip side of that outlook is an equally prevalent aspect of abusive thinking: “I have power over you

   because we have sex.” In this respect his sexual actions are like those of a tomcat marking territory. Once he has “gone all the way” with a woman, he

   feels that he owns her, or at least owns a piece of her. Both the kinder and more cruel aspects of the sexuality of abusive men can spring from the use of sex to establish dominance.

   One quarter or more of my clients cheat on their partners repeatedly.

   These men seem to get excitement from establishing their power over women in general, by demonstrating their ability to get sexual access. An abuser may get all this sex by creating an image of himself as a stupendous lover; by telling woman after woman that he is in love with her and that he is planning to leave his partner for her “as soon as I can break the news to her, but I just need a little time to let her down easy”; by using drugs or alcohol to impair a woman’s ability to resist, or by force and intimidation.

   This man is heavily focused on “scoring,” and the actual effect he has on the lives of these women, from broken promises to sexually transmitted infections, never seems to hit home for him.

   Sexual access to lots of different women may not only make him feel powerful vis-à-vis women but also in relation to other men. If he feels

   competitive with men, he can demonstrate his superiority by having more notches in his belt, “bagging” women like deer. He may surround himself with men who share his view that high status in the pecking order accrues to those who can control or exploit the most women. (See “The Player” in Chapter 4.)

   For those abusers who are not chronically unfaithful to their partners, this competition with men may still exist, perhaps taking the form of desiring to have the most beautiful or sexy partner and wanting other men to see how he owns and controls her. His partner may be flattered by his

   pride in her at first, but gradually she comes to feel that she is being used as a showpiece, with her humanity ignored.

4. HE SEES HER AS A SEX OBJECT.

An abuser who exhibits any one of the sexual attitudes described above

—or all three—has to distance himself from his partner’s thoughts and feelings in order to avoid guilty feelings about how he is using and

wounding her sexually. One way he may do this is by seeing his partner as a sex object, as if she were a pornographic photo rather than a person, devoid of emotions or ambitions, free of any need for personal integrity or safety.

This style of abusive man looks at his partner as a machine to be used for his sexual use. This depersonalizing of his partner can, in the long term, be as psychologically injurious to her as any of his other abusive behaviors.

Partners of my clients sometimes tell me:

“He just makes me feel gross.” “I feel dirty and slimed on.”

“He makes me feel cheap.”

“The sexual stuff he does is what has really ruined my self-esteem.”

“It’s been years since I’ve had sex that really felt loving or voluntary. With him it seems more like he thinks he’s winning a war or something. It’s like an invasion. I hate it.”

Dehumanization can be a sickening, horrible experience for the person at whom it is directed. If you are involved with a sexually exploitative partner, you may find that sex is sometimes, or perhaps always, a nightmare. Exploitative, rough, coercive, uncaring sex is similar to physical violence in its effects, and can be worse in many ways. And part of why it

feels so degrading is that a woman can sense the fact that in her partner’s mind she has ceased to exist as a human being.

Abusive men who have these kinds of attitudes of sexual ownership sometimes refuse to use birth control or to practice safe sex. I have had

numerous clients, for example, who have conceived children through sexual assaults on their partners. The implications of these kinds of sexual abuse for a woman—and for her children—are very serious.

BACK TO MISTER AMAZING

Having laid out the worst aspects of the sexual mind-set of many abusive men, we now can go back to reexamine Arnaldo, the sexually exciting and engaging abuser. Ironically, part of why he is so sexually dynamic is that he is profoundly self-involved. He can create a vibrantly sensual lovemaking

experience because of how engrossed he is in seeing himself as an awe- inspiring person. (This is connected to why severely self-centered people in general, not just abusive men, can often be charismatic and seductive.) When Mr. Amazing is lighting the candles, choosing the music, and using his soft, smooth voice to conjure the sexual mood, you may be thinking,

“Wow, this is so amazingly deep, and here we are going through this together.” But in reality the abuser is secretly off in a world by himself, engaged more with his fantasy than with you.

Mr. Amazing is enraptured for another reason: He finds possession enthralling. He feels like he is entering a magical realm where you belong to him totally, where he can be the ultimate master and you his unquestioning and contented slave. He craves, in short, a sexual partner with no mind or will of her own.

Finally, on some level he hopes that his ability to transport you sexually will tie you to him, so that he can have power over you in other, nonsexual ways. And, in some relationships, the abuser’s belief in the power of his sexuality is self-fulfilling: if much of the rest of the time he acts cold or mean, the episodes of lovemaking can become the only experience you

have of loving attention from him, and their addictive pull thus becomes greater. In this way he can draw you into being as dependent on sex as he is, although for a very different reason.

THE ABUSER WHO ISN’T INTERESTED IN SEX (AT LEAST NOT ANYMORE)

Not every abusive man is pressuring or demanding with respect to sex. In fact, a substantial number of the partners of my clients complain of the

opposite problem: The man has lost sexual interest almost completely, and the woman is feeling rejected and hungry for sex and affection. His drop in sexual energy can be propelled by several forces, including:

 

A substantial proportion of abusive men are sexually shallow and so are only attracted to women with whom they have not had sex or to those they have been with only a few times. Your partner may not be interested in the kind of deep connection needed to sustain a lively sexual relationship over time and instead is off pursuing his

latest fantasy of a great sexual relationship. His body may not be cheating yet, but his mind is.

 

Similarly, he may be incapable of sustained sexual attraction to any woman who doesn’t meet his exaggerated ideal. He may want a woman with perfect features and a flawless body, like the airbrushed models in magazines. He may lose interest rapidly in a

real-life woman whose body changes over time (from childbearing, for example, or simply from age) or one who, on close examination, is revealed to have blemishes or imperfections, as any real human being does. He’ll never find his dream girl because she doesn’t exist, but he may pour a lot of his time and mental energy into the search—and into punishing you for not being her.

 

He may be attracted primarily to sex involving domination, referred to by some researchers as the sexualization of

subordination. As your relationship progresses, he may feel disappointed to discover that you don’t fit his fantasy of a

concubine—submissive and servile. There may be ways in which you stand up to him, refusing to relinquish certain aspects of your life or thoughts to his control. Some abusive men unfortunately

have difficulty in achieving sexual arousal once they discover that a woman is determined to be her own person.

 

He may be punishing you for some way you have challenged him, or for times when you have not felt like having sex with him. It is common for abusive men to withhold sex as a control tactic.

 

If he is indeed having an affair, his energy for sex at home is bound to be siphoned off some. The chances that he is carrying a

dangerous infection are also rising. If you have any concerns that your partner may be cheating on you, be sure to insist on safer sex practices. If requiring him to use safe sex feels dangerous to you because of how he may react, call a hotline for help right away.

 

He may be addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some substance abusers lose their sex drive.

 

He may be gay. A small number of my clients have eventually admitted to their partners, or to me, that they are primarily

attracted to men. In a slightly larger but still small number of cases, the man never admits that he is gay, but the woman either catches him with a man or realizes that he spends most of his time at gay

hangouts or with gay friends. Just because a man is gay doesn’t mean that he can’t be abusive to women. He may, for example, use a female partner as a window dressing to give him social respectability, diverting attention from his homosexuality. This is simply another example of how abusive men, straight or gay, tend to use women for selfish purposes.

He may ration out sex as a way to gain power, sensing that you will try extra hard to keep him happy in hopes of getting him interested in lovemaking.

 

As I have discussed, abusive men tend to move between extremes, from loving and attentive to hateful and intimidating, from being overly involved in the minute details of your life to expressing no interest, from showing

exclusive concern with what is good for you to being unboundedly selfish.

The swing from electric sexual charge to loss of all sexual desire can increase his power just as the other highs and lows do.

SEX AS A CURE-ALL

A baffling question arises over and over again among the female partners of my clients: “Why does he want to have sex right after an incident in which he has been horrible to me? Sex is the last thing on my mind at that

moment.”

 

Question 12:

Why does he want sex after abusing me?

 

Contrary to what some abusive men seem to believe, women do not find abuse sexy. When a woman’s partner calls her “bitch” or “whore,” mocks

her, or physically intimidates her, the image of entwining herself intimately with him recedes far from her mind. How can you “make love” after

someone has just treated you in a way that feels more like hatred? Abusive men do not grasp how ugly they appear when acting cruel.

So why are his feelings so different? Does abuse turn him on? Perhaps.

Some men do appear to find abuse arousing, probably because they

associate sexuality with domination. But other reasons why he might want sex after mistreating you are more common, including:

He is seeking a quick-fix for his abusive behavior. He feels that if you have sex together, it proves that his verbal degradation or his

 

violence is not that serious, that you aren’t hurt by what he did, and that everything is forgiven and forgotten.

He wants to reassure himself that his abuse isn’t going to cause you to pull away from him emotionally or sexually. In fact, pursuing sex after abuse can be an expression of the man’s entitlement, as if to say, “Even if I’m mean to you, I should still get to have sexual access.”

 

An incident of abuse leaves the abusive man with a bad taste in his mouth, which he wants to chase away quickly, and sex helps him do that. But the woman can’t drive her anguish off so easily, as it runs much too deep. Unfortunately, the abuser’s self-focus makes him unwilling to understand that difference.

SEX AS A WAY TO KEEP WOMEN DIVIDED

Some of my clients are the focal points of swirling wars among females who hate each other passionately. The man creates and feeds these battles by being sexually unfaithful, making promises to various women that he’s going to pursue a long-term relationship with each one of them, bad- mouthing women to each other, getting women pregnant, and making them feel sorry for him. (See “The Player” in Chapter 4.) By getting women to channel their energy into fighting with each other, he escapes confrontation or accountability for his own actions and gets women to focus on meeting

his needs and keeping him happy. Here are a couple of the approaches that clients of mine have used:

Chris and Donna

Chris makes his partner, Donna, insecure by frequently looking hard at other women or speaking flirtatiously with them and by spending a lot of time on phone calls for which he has odd explanations. He likes Donna to be aware that a lot of women are interested in him, so he drops suggestive

comments from time to time. He pretends that he feels hostile toward these women, whom he accuses of “trying to tear us apart because they want to be with me.” When Donna starts to hear rumors that he is sleeping around, and when one woman finally tells her outright that she has been having an

affair with Chris, he tells Donna that these are lies designed to drive wedges between them. Donna spends a lot of time wondering whether Chris is really telling the truth and hating the women who are trying to take her man away from her.

Sam and Nancy

A few years into his relationship with Nancy, Sam has a secret affair for a couple of months with a woman named Zoe. He finally cuts off the affair and confesses to Nancy. He claims that Zoe seduced him and that he knew all along they shouldn’t have been seeing each other, but he was afraid of

hurting her because she seemed deeply depressed, so he kept postponing the decision to end it. “Zoe kept saying that she and I are right for each other, but I always knew it was just a fling and that I belong with you. She just wouldn’t listen, though.” He says that what finally prompted him to break

things off with Zoe was her unkind comments about Nancy, which he

quotes to her. Nancy becomes furious at Zoe upon hearing about her insults.

A year or so later, Nancy senses that Sam is drifting from her, including losing interest in sex. She snoops around a little and discovers that he is involved with Zoe again. She demands that Sam stop seeing her and he reluctantly agrees, but two months later he is involved with her again. “I don’t know how to explain it,” Sam says, “because I don’t have feelings for her like I have for you. She just has some hold over me. It’s a sexual thing I guess. I just can’t seem to say no.” Nancy comes increasingly to hate Zoe for ruining her relationship.

Meanwhile, Sam uses his tortured feelings about being “caught between two women” as an excuse for mounting abuse. For example, Nancy

confronts him one day about lying to her and stealing her money. Sam

responds by apologizing and explaining that he feels guilty and torn about his relationship with Zoe. He says that he stole the money to buy something for Zoe because she was so depressed that he was afraid she might try to hurt herself. Years go by, and he is still putting off making a clear choice between the two women, so their mutual bitterness is deep.

Over this period Sam’s treatment of Nancy gets progressively worse, including one incident in which he knocks a table over onto her leg. He doesn’t show any signs of using his abusive behaviors with Zoe, which makes Nancy hate her all the more. Zoe, meanwhile, goes around telling people: “Nancy treats Sam so badly; he is so hurt by her. He’s told me all

about how mean she is to him, and that’s why he wants to be with me. The reason he has trouble divorcing her is that they go back a lot of years together and their families are friends of each other, but he’s almost ready.”

Both of the above scenarios involve an abusive man who keeps getting women to focus on each other’s behavior rather than his. He relies partly on popular negative stereotypes of women, from which women themselves are not immune. Women are conditioned, for example, to see one another as catty, conniving, and eager to steal men from other women. Meanwhile he gets to remain a player, which is what he wants. On a couple of occasions, my colleagues and I have overheard clients in the waiting area joking and laughing about ways in which women fall for these machinations, as if their ability to get away with it reinforced their masculinity.

How to Stop This Routine

Women can interfere with these manipulations if they keep the following principles in mind:

1. An abusive man lies a lot. Don’t believe what he tells you about what is happening in his relationships with other women, including what those women have supposedly said about you.
2. Communicate directly with other women as much as possible to

   compare stories about what he is saying and doing, so that he can’t play you off against each other.

3. If a man cheats, that is 100 percent his own responsibility. Don’t let him channel your anger toward the other woman as if he were the helpless victim of a seduction. Abusive men love to portray

   themselves as unable to control their hormonal urges, which is nonsense.

4. Apply the principle of “no third chances.” When a man, especially an abusive one, cheats for the second time, that means that more affairs will follow, no matter what promises he may make.
5. Many women want to have a sexually intense partner, which is fine; men don’t have to cheat to be sexy. Abusive men love to

create the impression that their sexual wandering is a product of how passionate they are. But the reality is that sexual passion and faithfulness are entirely compatible. The reason he cheats is

because he is a manipulator, not because he’s sexy.

THE ROLE OF PORNOGRAPHY

In pornography that is geared toward heterosexual men, women are portrayed as very simple. They are always in the mood for sex, and they never say no. They have no sexual needs—or needs of any kind—of their own; all they seem to care about is the man’s pleasure. They require no commitment, no sacrifice, and little money. When a man is finished with them, he turns off the video or closes the magazine, and they’re gone. What could be easier?

Most pornographic images regrettably fit well with the abusive mind- set. The woman is available and submissive. Reduced to a body, and usually further reduced to just her sexual organs, she is depersonalized. The man

owns her, literally, because he owns the video or magazine or computer image. The woman is sometimes even depicted as being sexually excited by verbal abuse, roughness, violence, or even torture. Cartoons and jokes in pornography often insult or degrade women and their anatomy, or even

make rape appear funny, feeding anti-female ways of thinking.

For many abusive men, pornography has shaped their sexuality since they were teenagers or even younger. It has helped to form their view of what women are like and what they ought to be. When a graduate of what I

call “The Pornography School of Sexuality” discovers, for example, that his partner does not find a slap in the face arousing, he thinks that’s evidence of something wrong with her sexually, not him. His mind-set is: The women in the magazines and videos all like it, so why don’t you? A large

percentage of abused women report that they have been pressured one or more times to behave like the women in pornography, often to the point of acting out a specific scenario that the man finds enticing but that she

experiences as repulsive, frightening, or violent. Abusers thus sometimes directly model their sexual interests on stories or images from pornography.

Partners of my clients report to me on their efforts to set limits regarding the presence of pornography in the house, especially where children might get access to it. These women have good instincts. Abusive men absolutely need to be kept away from pornography, as it feeds the

precise thinking that drives their abusiveness. Women who like to use pornography themselves should try to avoid doing so with an abusive partner.

I have received numerous reports over the years from women who have told me that they were being pressured or required by their abusive partners to watch pornography. This seems largely to be a strategy to break down the woman’s resistance to performing certain sexual acts the man wants, although the actual effect is often to increase her repulsion rather than to

create desire. Pornography tends to be filled with abuse of women, so his drive to make her watch it can also come from wanting to prove to her that his degrading treatment is normal.

WHAT ABOUT SEX THAT INVOLVES GAMES OF FORCE OR VIOLENCE?

Is all sex play that involves adopting roles of domination or force abusive, even if it’s consensual? This is a highly controversial question among

heterosexuals as well as lesbians and gay men. My opinion is that the answer is no. The key words, however, are consensual and play. For example, couples who play sex games involving force need to have a mutually established signal that means “I want you to stop for real,” and that signal must be respected. If one partner gives the “stop” signal and the force doesn’t immediately cease, what is occurring is sexual assault, not lovemaking.

Here is another critical point: The meaning of what happens during sexual play is determined by the context of the relationship. If partners are consistently kind to and respectful of each other in daily life, they can probably share kinky lovemaking without making either person feel unsafe or degraded. But in an abusive relationship these lines are too blurry. It’s a stretch to call any sexual contact fully consensual when it takes place in an atmosphere of abuse; the woman is always having to gauge whether her partner will react abusively if she says no to a particular sex act, so her

choices rarely feel truly free. Many abusers get a thrill out of taking sex play too far, to where it isn’t play any more and causes genuine pain or fear. When the woman tells him later that she felt assaulted or raped, he may respond disparagingly, “We always play games like that. Come off it.” When she tries to explain why the sex felt so bad, he isn’t willing to listen, mostly because he knows it was not consensual this time, and he got a charge out of that.

When you are being mistreated in a relationship, stay away from force scenarios during lovemaking, even if the times when your partner does stay within appropriate limits are fun. Other times it isn’t going to be fun at all.

If you can say no to those games without running the risk of being attacked, do so. These kinds of games can only be played safely in a nonabusive relationship.

SEX AND DOUBLE STANDARDS

The double standards that are endemic to abusers can stand out sharply in

the sexual arena. The most obvious one involves outside relationships. The abuser who has frequent affairs is often the same one who interrogates his partner about her movements and social contacts and goes ballistic when he has the slightest suspicion that she is developing any kind of connection— sexual or otherwise—to another man. He may enjoy looking over other women from head to toe as he and his partner walk down the street, but if

she gives so much as a sidelong glance at a male, he screams at her and calls her a “slut.”

A popular justification for this double standard is that men have an inherent need to be with many different women, whereas women want to be monogamous. Over the years I have had many clients use such

sociobiological arguments with me, saying that from a genetics standpoint males have reason to desire sex with as many different females as possible, while females succeed best—in evolutionary terms—if they choose their

partners carefully. You might call this the “human beings are basically baboons” argument. In reality, there are plenty of examples of stable

monogamy in nature. But these arguments are ultimately beside the point; there is simply no excuse for double standards or for any other aspect of abuse. (I sometimes ask my clients, when they attempt to lead me into this theoretical quagmire, “Do you cook your meat before you eat it?” When

they answer that of course they do, I say, “Isn’t that awfully unnatural? I’ve never seen any other animal doing such a peculiar thing.” Human behavior can only be measured by human standards.)

My clients sometimes pressure their partners with the myth that men can suffer physical pain or damage if they become sexually aroused and are not satisfied. Of course, I have never heard them claim that this risk applies to unsatisfied women.

A fair number of my clients have imposed an additional double standard, according to which the woman is expected to consent to sex any time the man is in the mood, but she is never supposed to initiate sex herself. As one partner of a client said to me: “If I’m in the mood, I have to

make sure not to let it show too much, because he shuts it off real fast if it’s coming from me.” Nothing could better illustrate the way in which an abuser’s approach to sex reflects his overall orientation toward power and control. He wants to run the couple’s sex life, and he doesn’t want her needs interfering with his fantasy in any way. He prefers the two-dimensional women in the magazines, who never come to him asking for anything.

SEX AND VULNERABILITY

For most women (and perhaps for most nonabusive men as well) sex is an

area of emotional vulnerability. An abuser’s charm during the better periods of a relationship can lead his partner to open up to him about deeply personal and potentially painful issues. Sexual relations then add an additional layer of vulnerability, as the abuser learns about the woman’s sexual likes and dislikes and about her previous sexual experiences. She may confide in him about some sexual victimization she suffered earlier in

life, or about a period of promiscuity she went through, or about “hang-ups” or sexual difficulties that she has. The abusive man tends to make mental

note of the highly personal knowledge he gains. At another phase in the relationship, when things turn ugly, his partner may find that her

vulnerabilities are being thrown back on her. If she revealed to him earlier that she sometimes has difficulty reaching orgasm, he now may be throwing words like frigid and cold fish in her face. If she shared any discomfort regarding sex, he now will call her uptight and repressed, especially when

she doesn’t happen to like what he likes. (To the abuser, sexual liberation means the freedom to do whatever he wants.) If she told him about suffering child sexual abuse or previous experiences of rape, he now will characterize her as being permanently damaged by those violations or use her past to discredit her current grievances: “That’s why you think I don’t

treat you well, because you were abused before. It’s not me.” In some of my cases the abuser has even spread private sexual information about his partner in public, including her sources of shame, thereby humiliating her and making it difficult for her to continue being around other people. Other clients of mine have been careless or insensitive regarding the risk of pregnancy or of communicating sexually transmitted diseases, increasing

the woman’s sense of violation.

The shock to a woman of having her deepest vulnerabilities thrown back in her face by someone she has loved and trusted can cause a burning pain unlike any other. This is intimate psychological cruelty in one of its worst forms.

SEXUAL ASSAULT IS VIOLENCE

Over the years I occasionally have had clients who do not punch, slap, or physically hurt their partners but have repeatedly forced them to have sex through threats, intimidation, or physical force, including holding the woman down. The partner of this style of abuser sometimes says, “He was never violent to me,” despite describing a degrading and debilitating history of coerced sex. But sexual assault is violence. An abuser who forces his partner to have any form of sexual relations against her will is physically battering her. There is a societal tendency not to recognize the violence present in sexual assault, which can make it more difficult for a woman to

understand her own reactions and reach out for help. If you feel like you have been sexually violated by your abusive partner, trust your own

perceptions and call an abuse or rape hotline (see “Resources”).

Repeated studies have demonstrated that men who embrace certain key myths about rape are more likely to carry out a sexual assault. The

misconceptions include the belief that women find rape arousing, that they provoke sexual assault with their style of dress or behavior, and that rapists lose control of themselves. These myths are easy for many abusive men to accept, because they are consistent with the other characteristics of an

abusive outlook on female partners. It is not surprising, then, that the risk to an abused woman of being sexually assaulted by her partner is high. I also have had clients who use sexual assault to punish their partners, sometimes because of anger directly related to sex and sometimes not, including some who have raped their ex-partners for leaving them. The impact of such

assaults can be devastating.

SEXUALITY IS a central arena in which the abuser’s relationship to power is played out, including power over his partner’s reproductive process.

Although he may appear to keep his abusiveness separate from your sex life, closer examination of the dynamics of his conduct may persuade you that he carries his core attitude problems right into the bedroom with him. The subtle undercurrent of “sexualization of subordination” can take some time to identify. It is rare, unfortunately, for any aspect of an abuser’s relationship with his partner to remain untouched by his entitlement and disrespect.

 

Key points to remember

 

 

The abuser often believes that the ultimate decision-making authority regarding sex rests with him. He may see his partner as his sexual possession.

 

Sex with an abuser can be especially good, but it can also be a horror show. The two extremes actually result from similar

attitudes in the abuser’s mind-set regarding sex.

 

The majority of abusers sexualize power, including some who find violence sexually exciting.

 

Since sexuality is an area of particular vulnerability for most women, an abuser may use any of your sensitivities against you.

 

If you feel uncomfortable about sexual interactions with your partner, listen carefully to your inner voice regarding what is good for you. An abusive man will try to tell you that your discomfort is your own problem rather than a product of his coercive, disrespectful, or humiliating sexual behavior.

 

Women (and men) can heal from injurious sexual experiences, but healing is not likely to happen while abuse continues in the present. Attaining an abuse-free life is thus the first step to sexual wellness.