PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao
This is Embodied, from PRX and WUNC. I’m Anita Rao. How do you navigate sex after sexual trauma? It’s a question that writer Katie Simon needed an answer to but struggled to find.
Katie Simon
There's no guidebook so it was sort of up to each individual to try out different things related to sex and safety and sort of figure it out on our own.
Anita Rao
After their own process of trial and error and talking with other survivors, Katie decided to write that guidebook themself. It compiles stories about everything from triggers and healing to consent.
Katie Simon
There's so much pressure on us to sort of like say no or say yes, like right in the moment. Whereas our bodies tend to react for us. And it's not so much saying like, oh, don't listen to verbal consent. It's more like, let's add this layer, and not, face it completely alone.
Anita Rao
That conversation... just ahead on Embodied
Writer Katie Simon has a complex history with sexual trauma. They were sexually abused as a child, which complicated their early exploration of sexuality. Then when they were 18, they were raped. After that assault, they started combing the shelves of bookstores looking for help. They specifically needed answers to a burning question, how will I ever have sex again?
Katie Simon
I was really looking for anything that was sort of at that intersection of the double taboo sex and sexual assault, and I found a couple of books about that issue, but they were very prescriptive, very top-down advice, and they also weren't really, for an 18-year-old, that moment of needing support that they couldn't find planted a seed in Katie's mind, and it only grew over time.
Anita Rao
As Katie explored new relationships, they yearned for a roadmap for dealing with triggers, disclosure, and consent. Finally, after talking to many other survivors, Katie decided to write that guidebook themself. This is Embodied a show about sex, relationships, and health. I am Anita Rao. More than 400,000 people in the US experience sexual violence each year. And Katie interviewed dozens of these survivors. They collected examples of how people navigated the big and small decisions around sex. Those stories are featured in their new book. Tell me what you like, an Honest Discussion of Sex and Intimacy After Sexual Assault. It's a resource not just for sexual assault survivors, but for their partners and friends and in it, Katie also shares a lot of their own story, starting with how they felt in those early years after being raped at 18.
Katie Simon
I actually asked my trauma therapist at the time, sort of towards the end of our time together. Um, you know, like, I'm thinking of dating again. Like how do I navigate that? And the therapist literally just told me to join a dating app and, you know, I'd, I'd find that I could date again. And it wasn't a huge deal. And I understand the sort of positive outlook she was going for, but it is really so different approaching dating. After having been assaulted, after having gone through PTSD, that even then I sort of recognized like, oh, therapists are not super prepared for this conversation 'cause she was otherwise a great therapist and I wanted to seek out partners and like my sexual self, but I was very afraid about safety issues. And in those early years, anything I did was sort of decentering my own pleasure in order to really ensure that the experiences would feel safe to me moving forward in my healing journey. I definitely centered pleasure, actively sort of tried to get it back. But it wasn't so easy in the beginning. Um, and even the cultural conversation at the time was much more about like consent as a safety tool and not getting re-traumatized and not so much about, you know, sexual assault survivors as full human beings that have. You know, sexual needs and desires and, you know, it's more than just sort of overcoming like the worst parts. It's also about creating something really, uh, positive and pleasureful.
Anita Rao
It's really interesting to hear you say that even in a therapy space, there wasn't really a lot of room for a more practical conversation about what sex could look like. Did you find that in like, support groups? Like is that a space where people are talking more openly about having sex again?
Katie Simon
Yeah. You know, I've actually found several support groups that don't allow you to speak about sex more than just maybe like mention the word, and I think it's, people don't want to trigger survivors, but on the other hand, it's like. Who better to talk about this with? Yeah. Than our community. And I also learned over the years, through experience with therapists, but also sort of digging into it, that there is very, very little training for therapists, even sex therapists on sex after sexual assault. And that lack of training really comes through in the experiences survivors have told me about with therapists where they just didn't wanna engage with it. They didn't have much to say. They changed the conversation topic like therapy has not been the best place for many survivors to go and. I think that's really sad and there's potential to improve that. Definitely now that we can sort of recognize it. But on the other hand, it points to something really cool with how survivors are getting better and how we are coping and, uh, creating like sex lives we want without great therapy on that topic.
Anita Rao
So there is this expectation that folks have, and I guess this assumption that you ran into that. After a sexual trauma, people either are dating a ton or having a lot of sex, or they're having no sex at all. It's kind of this binary response. What was your response? You were looking for resources, you didn't find them, so were you having sex and being intimate with people?
Katie Simon
It took me a long time. I think it was. Almost two years before I had sex again, it felt like a long time at that age especially, um, surrounded by, you know, college students that were dating, hooking up. I did sort of try going out with this really great woman, but I was so afraid of like moving forward sexually that it just kind of died off and that was really sad for me. Kind of one of those moments where I'm like, oh, this is the cost of being sexually assaulted. Like that whole relationship never came to be. But later I did find a guy that was like very kind and patient and good at communication and I ended up dating him for actually like, like many years. Um, and a lot of my early healing kind of took place with him.
Anita Rao
You mentioned earlier that you were kind of in this. Headspace of not knowing exactly how to center your pleasure, you were really focused on consent. How did that show up in your relationship with this person who you really started kind of building back some trust with?
Katie Simon
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of pressure on sexual assault survivors to have like perfect verbal consent and like say yes and no at the right time, and. That focus sort of distracts from the reality of like connecting with someone and you know, defining what you do want. I definitely experienced that with that first partner that I had and he felt so safe to me that I felt comfortable, you know, exploring pleasure. But I think I still felt like in my core, like it was up to me to keep myself safe. And I needed to focus on that.
Anita Rao
You use this phrase, uh, in your book trial and error, that like, that's how sex felt for you as a survivor. That's how it can often feel for a lot of people. Can you give me an example of what that looks like? What did that look like in your relationship with this person?
Katie Simon
Yeah, definitely. When I say trial and error, I'm talking about how there's no guidebook, or at least before I wrote my book, there was no guidebook. So it was sort of up to each individual to try out different things related to sex and safety and trauma and sort of figure it out on our own. And, uh, like for me, that actually meant. Until I was researching this book and interviewing other people, you know, so directly asking questions about this stuff, I thought quite a few elements of my post-traumatic experience were singular and that it was just me that, you know, for example, had a lot of issues with this one particular sex act, and so I would just feel like it was just me, that it wasn't working, but it is actually sort of more of a. A communal phenomenon and something we could learn from by talking to each other and not staying in that trial and error alone space.
Anita Rao
So as you continued on your healing journey, as you said, you did start connecting with other survivors, but you also started realizing that. Partners of survivors need to be part of this conversation too. They need resources, they need, um, ways to respond. So, big picture, as you went into this process of writing the guidebook that you wish you'd had for yourself, what did you feel like both survivors and partners needed that didn't exist out there?
Katie Simon
So much of it is around communication. I think people don't know how to talk about sex after sexual assault in general. And then when it comes down to like sitting down with a partner who has experienced something like that, or maybe both partners have experienced something like that, nobody's teaching us how to have that difficult conversation. And I think like the first step is permission to talk about it. Uh, and feeling like that is going to be. Well received. So in a sense, it's really about building trust with a partner to make the safe space in which these conversations can happen.
Anita Rao
So you were in this long-term relationship. You were really focused on kind of boundaries around what you didn't want. The two of you broke up, and that kind of was a catalyst for you to start figuring out what you did. Like. Tell me about what that process was like.
Katie Simon
Yeah, I guess I was answering for myself like the question that's in the title, tell me what you like Uhhuh. Um, and for me it was less about specific sex acts or things that, you know, I really enjoyed and more about figuring out what I was looking for in. Partner. And it was really interesting, uh, because I, around that time, started writing publicly about sexual violence and having experienced sexual assault. And one time I sent a Tinder match guy that was curious about my writing a piece about sex after sexual assault. And he said, you're very brave for writing this. You must be helping so many people. And it was just a very positive reaction. Hmm. It made me think, oh, I should go out with this guy and like sort of, you know, see more. And he ended up reacting really badly to a trigger I had and like throwing me out of his apartment. And it really taught me like to be careful about sort of what people might say in one context. Does it translate to another? But on the flip side, I dated another person. He had met me and then we didn't really talk for a couple years, and in that time he was reading everything that I was publishing. And so he knew a lot about my personal experiences from having done that. When we did get together and. He used that knowledge to be more understanding and to be more patient. And I think in some ways that's what the data collection was about, was about, you know, figuring out like what to pay attention to. And you know what like actually makes a difference.
Anita Rao
Just ahead. We'll talk with Katie about how they and other survivors navigate triggers during sex. We'll also get into models for consent beyond a verbal yes or no. You're listening to Embodied from WUNC, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear Embodied as a podcast. Follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. Most sexual assault survivors experience, post-traumatic stress disorder after their assault. Support groups and trained therapists can help survivors work through that trauma, but there are fewer resources available for navigating the nitty gritty of sex and intimacy. After assault writer Katie Simon decided to fill that gap, their book, tell Me What You Like, minds Their Own Experience and those of dozens of other survivors. It aims to provide models for everything from navigating triggers and understanding consent. To figuring out how to disclose a trauma history. Katie's approach to disclosure sometimes includes sharing articles they've written with potential partners. Other survivors may choose a different approach.
Katie Simon
Yeah, that's so tricky. And it is up to the individual. You don't have to do anything you're not ready for. You think this isn't the right person to talk to. But survivors I spoke to for my book, had some really good ideas. Um, and one of them, one of my favorites was a survivor that had, you know, a kind of a panic attack and had some space from her partner for a while, and then she. Was watching, uh, surviving r Kelly, the docuseries, and she felt really like aligned with some of the experiences from the survivors in that docuseries. And she. Actually sent the docuseries to her partner and said, you know, like some of what just happened can be explained. Like I had a similar experience to these people. Hmm. And that I think is so smart. Like people are really afraid of not being believed. And that's a valid concern. It happens all the time and it's terrible. But if you tell your story in a way where like you're like, look, there are other people like me, then automatically that's kind of like validating. The story you tell to other people. I thought that was so smart of her to do that. And the the other thing survivors did that just really. I think is so smart is instead of telling a story of something that happened to them and sort of like leaving it there as like a, you know, a shared conversation, they would say like, Hey, like I have this need, I have this, you know, sexual desire I have. Like a boundary I need to tell you about, and I'll tell you where it came from and I'll tell you, you know, why this is important to me. And then they share some of their trauma history, but it's not sort of like detached and like just this like floating story. It's very attached to. Reality and like their present day needs. I think that works really well because partners are just, people who are receiving stories about violence can feel kind of overwhelmed by what a survivor is telling them and feeling helpless, like there's nothing they can do. This happened in the past, but the reality is there is something that, you know, people can help you with. Whether that's like listening better or you know, respecting a boundary that they didn't really understand. So I think framing stories. In this kind of need-based way is a really helpful strategy for people who are sort of overwhelmed by like, well, where do I start and where do I stop? Like you can pick a particular thing you're looking for support on and uh, like tell a story around that.
Anita Rao
Exactly. Yeah. So I wanna, I wanna talk about navigating what happens during a sexual encounter. So even if you go into a consensual sexual encounter with someone you feel good about, even if they're aware of your trauma history, a trigger might come up. You were talking earlier about triggers. I'd love for you to walk us through a time that this happened for you and, and how you work through it.
Katie Simon
Yeah, definitely. Um, I actually specifically had this experience that I think is really telling. I was hooking up with someone very casually and I didn't know them that well, and something about sort of what we were doing really triggered me. And I, you know, began to have trouble breathing and was not very present. And I was trying to sort of like get the words out to like explain why this bothered me. But again, this was somebody that I just didn't know that well and he. Looked at me and he said, Hey, like, I would really like to help you feel more comfortable. I can't really like hear the whole story of what happened to you right now, but if you could share with me a few ways that like, I could help you feel better in this moment, I would love to do that. And that interaction really taught me a lot. Uh, I think he handled that very well. Uh, nobody has ever sort of like. Entitled to support. You know, like if somebody is your partner and you have a relationship with them, you know, I think that's sort of different, but like a lot of people sleep with people that we don't know that well. And so how do you sort of navigate when a trigger comes up? When that happens and. In this case, I just sort of shared a couple ways that would help me calm down and he was fully on board to like do those things and I calmed down and like sometimes I think it can be that direct. And the other thing about triggers that I was hearing from survivors from, tell me What You Like, is they. Aren't necessarily like sexual or like context. Yeah. Tell me more about that context. Specific. Yeah. Yeah. Like you can be triggered by like the sound of someone's laugh or somebody you know, that like smells a certain way and all these things can happen like not in a sexual context, and then kind of appear during sex or we notice them during sex and that can feel. Really overwhelming, but it's actually, it's so normal to have triggers that are not like very sexual, like can be like sound, smell. It can be taste, it can be so many things and they're all things that you navigate in real life, but also through sex.
Anita Rao
So we talked about how specific triggers can be to a person, and I'm guessing that for some people it's hard to know necessarily beforehand, to preempt a moment so you can, you know, assume or expect all the triggers that might come up. So what are some of the tools to kind of deal. With a trigger when it comes up in an unexpected way and you realize it in the moment and, and maybe you hadn't even realized it before. Tell me about what that can look like.
Katie Simon
Yeah, so much of triggers is, you know, physiological and like having skills around grounding and being present in the moment is really sort of what makes ultimately the difference in terms of. You know, moving through the trigger. I think also it's important to consider like preventing triggers from coming up. Like yes, in an ideal world we would all kind of like get over everything, but there's often some stuff that kind of lingers, like I really don't like having my wrists touched. And that's from like a series of traumatic things that have involved my wrists. And I like to go into a sexual encounter and. Tell the partner, you know, Hey, I just, I don't really like having my wrist touched. So like, try and avoid doing that. And I also usually say like, I don't mind having my hands touched. So like, if you want to like, hold onto something or, you know, like hands are right there, but not all triggers are gonna be something that we like. No longer are bothered by. Yeah, and I think normalizing that is really healthy. And you never know, maybe in five or 10 years, like something sort of happens and you have a lot more peace around that. But like, I think it's okay to be nice to yourself. Like you, you can be nice to yourself. You don't have to push yourself super hard.
Anita Rao
So you mentioned thinking about physiological responses. You were talking about it in the context of, you know, how your body might respond to a trigger or to trauma, but I, I wanna talk about physiology and how it can show up in what you call embodied consent, which is the idea that consent does not just need to be. About the words that are said out loud, it can also be about observing body language and cues. Tell me a little bit more about that and what you heard from survivors about why that works.
Katie Simon
Well, yeah, a lot of survivors spoke to me about this and not just survivors from like one sexual experience, background, like not just kinky survivors or something. Uh, it was pretty, uh, popular embodied consent and. I think one reason why survivors really gravitate towards it is there's so much pressure on us to sort of like say no or say yes, like right in the moment. Like not get it wrong for like one single second, and it can be overwhelming to do that verbally and to sort of make that like brain to speaking connection and like to take, you know, full. Control over our communication, like in that very moment. Whereas our bodies tend to react for us. And you know, a lot of people sort of know about their body, uh, or could learn about their body. Like what does it look like when you want to stop? Like, does, does your breathing change? Do you like move where your hands are? Do you have a different facial expression? Like what sort of Like shifts and usually that shift is faster than we can talk even. Mm. And it's not so much saying like, oh, don't listen to verbal consent. It's more like, let's add this layer of very helpful, sort of like automatic communication and we can learn about each other and not. Sort of face it completely alone if we go out of our way to kind of teach partners about this. And I will say of the survivors I spoke to, most people liked Embodied consent with more of an established partner. Yeah. And not just sort of like some brand new person that didn't really know them, but it's something that you can learn pretty. Quickly through experience like you, if you go out of your way to kind of make note of what your body language is, that's something that you can like communicate to partners, even if you're not totally operating by embodied consent.
Anita Rao
And it's gonna be so different person to person, I'm guessing, which is why Yeah, you do have to balance that what you say and what you show. Because for some people kind of a, you know, a faster heart rate or, or like faster breath might be. One. Like Signaling green. Yeah. Like yes. No, this is good. So it seems like part of that is, I guess that brings me to another question of like a lot of what we're saying requires, seems to require some insight into how your own body works into what feels good, and that I'm sure is its own journey for survivors. So how did you personally like begin to figure, figure that out? Like how did you develop that self-awareness and self knowledge?
Katie Simon
Honestly, it is a little bit of a cheat code. I just paid attention to what partners were saying about me, huh. And sort of checked in with myself, like, is that really what's going on? But often partners are pretty observant. I think there's like all sorts of ways to explore yourself, but like you're allowed to like take the notes somebody else gives you and do something with them.
Anita Rao
Did self pleasure or masturbation play a part in your journey to kind of reconnect with desire and, and figure out what you wanted.
Katie Simon
You know, I have some,
Anita Rao
Do you have some thoughts? I feel like you're about to say I have some thoughts. I'm ready for them.
Katie Simon
Um. I think masturbation on its own is like super helpful for any kind of like Embodied healing. I sort of always shy away from the masturbation talk with this just because it's so often used as the benchmark that you have to meet before you're supposed to interact with another person. And I think that. Is not realistic and not necessary and like I think you can do what you want without having things go in a certain order. Like I was more comfortable exploring with other people. It felt safer for some reason than masturbating on my own, like in. Immediately after being raped and there's sort of no one size fits all path. So masturbation is definitely a positive. I just don't think it has to go in a certain order.
Anita Rao
I really appreciate that reframe. And it's kind of back to this idea that you were talking about before that like there is no, I have healed and nothing is gonna come up again. Or I follow this and now I'm healed. Like it is a non-linear, ongoing. Journey.
Katie Simon
Yeah. Because even if you like, sort of do get to a super healed place, the circumstances of your sex life or relationship are, you know, very likely to change at some point. And then when you enter your next relationship, you're almost back at the beginning. Like, sure you have some insight, but it's a really different context. So there's no really, there's like kind of never such a thing as like, oh yeah, like I am like. Back where I was or anything. 'cause you're really, it's really all about moving forward.
Anita Rao
I want to talk to you about times when you had to separate like this. Encounter didn't feel good. This encounter felt traumatic, but this person is still safe. And like being able to hold both of those at the same time and being able to talk to a partner about that seems really important. But it requires the partner to not be defensive when you bring up the trigger and requires a lot of like vulnerability from both people, it seems like.
Katie Simon
Yeah, definitely. And I think it's really important to separate out like when a partner is violent because like there is revictimization and you know, there that is an issue for some people versus like when something just was like triggering and felt bad. And sort of being able to separate the two is not always super easy for some people, I think, especially at first. Um, but like you can always like take time alone to think about things. You don't have to sort of like break them down with the partner that was part of this like triggering moment. You can talk to your friends about it. Um, and I think like similar to how partners should be, you know, more sort of involved in this, I think friends of survivors also could stand to be like a lot more involved, sort of even just changing the baseline expectations for what their survivor friend is going to be talking about when it comes to sex and dating. For example, like if before somebody was assaulted, they were really focused on dating a lot, going out with a lot of people, finding a partner like that was a big part of their life, like that might not be in the same position in their life moving forward. So if friends and communities sort of, uh, drop those expectations that people are going to be the same after assault, I think it really helps people have a safe space to talk about things and heal.
Anita Rao
One of the other spaces for healing that you explored is Kink and BDSM and how it can be a space for survivors to process through triggers in a safe environment to explore fantasy in a safe environment. I would love to hear a little bit more about any stories that stand out to you about how kink has helped survivors.
Katie Simon
Yeah, I think what some people, you know, just absolutely love about kink is how it takes so many things that are unspoken and like, literally like writes them down. Uhhuh like, not even speaks to them, like makes, you know, a contract or a plan. Um, and I spoke to a bunch of people who were into kink. There was one survivor who I feel like very intentionally. Explored elements of her sexual assault. Kink and in scenes. And she told me about, in particular, uh, like part of a sexual assault or an attempted sexual assault that she experienced was like running away from the assailant. And so she had some problems with running since then. And so she, instead of going the super vanilla route and like tackling that separate from sex. She found a partner that would explore like being chased and and running as part of their sexual play, and it makes a lot of sense to like heal. Things that happened in a sexual assault context, like in a sexual context, like it's sort of, there's like this mirroring that sort of, you can see on the other hand, like you can definitely explore kink without it all being about your assault. A lot of people like kink that have never been assaulted, of course, and it's sort of like choose your own adventure.
Anita Rao
How do you think about like the process of figuring out whether or not kink can be healing for you? 'cause I can imagine that, you know. Playing with triggers in an intentional consensual way can work really well for some people and and not for others. Like how do you go about figuring out if that will work for you?
Katie Simon
Yeah, well part of it is I think, accepting that you might try something that you don't like. Yeah. And that's really hard for sexual assault survivors in particular with sexual things. 'cause there's this self blame that comes up and all this and it feels very heavy. Even if it's really just like, oh, I just like tried that. Probably not gonna do it again. You know, like E, even if the reality of it isn't so intense, like it can feel that intense. And I think in terms of like picking things you want to explore. What I heard so much from survivors in my book was how important it is to. Like, listen to your own reaction and listen to your own body and sort of when somebody else says, like, I just had, you know, this encounter and we did this stuff, and like, if that brings up positive feelings and feelings in your body that you want to, you know, explore more, like that could be a good way to, you know, figure out if you wanna try something because you can't really figure out if you're totally into something without actually trying it. Also being open to what our partners, you know, want to try with us. Like on the one hand, I think, you know, exploring things that partners like can be really lovely if you care about them, you know? But. On the other hand, you don't have to do what a partner wants you to do. Like no matter how much they want to do it, like you never have to do it. And that goes the flip side too. I've had a couple people come up to me after events I've done and they say, I am a partner to a sexual assault survivor, and they want to try. You know, X, Y, Z thing. And I just like have thought about it so much and I just really don't want to do it. Like, how can I become more comfortable and sort of like meet their needs? And I said, this is not a need. You know, this is like something they want to try. And if you don't wanna do it, you guys definitely shouldn't do it. You know? And there's always more ways to explore things. There's always sort of like alternative paths. But you know, nobody has to do something just 'cause the partner wants them to.
Anita Rao
Just ahead. We'll talk about how Katie continues to center pleasure in conversations about sex after sexual assault. As always, you can hear the podcast version of this show by following Embodied on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. Katie Simon's new book, tell Me What You Like is the guidebook for sex and intimacy. They wish they'd had over a decade ago. It features honest reflections of their own experience with sexual assault and interviews with dozens of other survivors. Whether talking about navigating triggers or exploring kink, Katie doesn't shy away from the messy parts of this conversation. Like how for some survivors, there isn't always a clear dividing line between what's a trigger and a turn on or how something that can lead to a flashback. May also be part of a sexual fantasy. Acknowledging those gray areas was a big part of Katie's goal with the book.
Katie Simon
Definitely. And I mean, right off the bat, like if you see something as like negative or positive can change over time. Mm-hmm. So you might feel like you have it all kind of. Figure it out and then something comes up and how you think about it changes. I think it's really brave when survivors will like try something and not really know how it's going to turn out. But I also always say like, you know, you don't have to be into kink or you don't have to like do some particular kind of, you know, sex act or practice or anything. Um, in order to be like healing from sexual assault. I think there is this like little. Conversation going on. That's sort of like kink is the answer to sexual assault survivor's needs. But I don't, I would really question anybody that says that like people experience their sexuality in such diverse ways, like there's no single answer. And it also depends on like identity. Like my book is more than 50% queer survivors and like our identity. Plays a lot into our healing. Like if we have certain, certain sexuality or certain desires or something like who our partners can be is a smaller population. And so you're looking at sort of like a different experience.
Anita Rao
Yeah, I did. I really did wanna ask you about. That because you and a number of other survivors you interviewed shared the experience of sometimes exploring their sexual orientation in a new way following an assault. And, and I wanna hear more about your understanding of the impact sexual trauma can have on sexual orientation and, and maybe what you think the, the conversation gets wrong about those two things.
Katie Simon
Definitely, I think there are a lot of false beliefs around like having a certain sexuality, you know, means something about your sexual assault history and vice versa, and I would really shy away from those. I spoke to a few survivors who either were assaulted, like when they were very young, uh, when they were children, and so sort of didn't have a sexual identity to like go back to. And I also spoke to people who identified as having a. Their sexuality change as sort of like a result of their assault or like at the, you know, same time as their assault. And those conversations were really interesting and there's this like sort of difficult to grapple with idea that, you know, if you, for example, were. A certain sexuality and then had an a really, you know, negative sexual assault experience from somebody of like a different gender than you were used to. It. Sometimes people have told me that that kind of exposed them to like sort of an alternate sexuality in a way. And it's like not about the assault, it's just about sort of like something that came up for them as a result of it and. These are really tricky conversations. 'cause I think there's so much resistance to the idea that sexual assault could like. Affect our sexuality. But if you really look at it, it's more like how people are like learning from or taking things away from what happened and sort of approaching them more with the mindset of like post-traumatic growth.
Anita Rao
Yeah. Like it's, it's not causation, it's it's correlation that this experience of trauma could maybe highlight something that was already there or could help you begin to explore your sexuality.
Katie Simon
Yeah. Or even like. In the other way, like I was sexually abused as a child by someone who was female. And it sort of made me afraid to explore my, like very present, very like, obvious feelings for women, um, because I'd had this negative experience. So like, it can kind of go, you know, any, any way. How does having this new relationship to your sexual identity affect your sex life and and what has that journey been like? Yeah, I mean, a lot of this happened a long time ago. I always feel like when we talk about these like big changes to sexuality, we should keep in mind that you know, your sex life isn't happening just because of one thing you experience. Even if it's like big, like sexual assault. There's so many different things that go into sort of like shaping who we are sexually, and those things can shift over time. And I, I think that's definitely been true for me. Like I am a person that, you know, sort of will like slowly discover stuff about myself or sort of like feel one way for a really long time and then it'll sort of click. Uh, like for example, I think I just thought like everybody was. Non-binary, uh, and that I like was just like everybody else. And then like slowly later in life I realized like, oh no. Like nobody else is really feeling that way, except very small group of people. I'm actually in that small group of people. But I think it's just all about paying attention to what you're actually feeling, what you actually want and need rather than just going along a prescribed path. And that was what was so cool about all the survivors. And tell me what you like is I felt like they were all kind of. Like marching to the beat of their own drum. Like they were all like taking it upon themselves to sort of even like sort of do this self sex education. 'cause like most people, you know, get terrible sex education here. And that was something that just came up a lot was this sort of post-traumatic growth mindset and like taking it upon ourselves to like heal into something that we like
Anita Rao
As part of the journey for a lot of. Survivors is setbacks and, and there are so many kinds of things that can lead to a setback. A, a difficult breakup, a challenging medical situation, another sexual trauma. What did you hear about how these kinds of setbacks shape folks' relationship with sex?
Katie Simon
Yeah, I mean like, you know, something medical or like another sexual assault, like these are things that very directly impact like. The experience of having sex afterwards, and so we kind of like have to grapple with these things. I felt like there's this really harmful false belief that. Like if you put in all the work, uh, like you'll be sort of like safe and like set for life and you can like figure everything out. But so many things that happen to us in life are outside of our control. Even the person that shared about being sexually assaulted again, like I am so grateful to that person. That's a reality that, you know, including me like so many people have. Face and will continue to face and it can feel really, really discouraging. Like you have to sort of restart the clock, but in reality we can sort of apply what we've learned to healing like a second or a third or a fourth or you know, how many ever times there are and we can kind of get better at healing. And I really like sort of that reframe. 'cause you know, you can't. Control what other people do to you, or like if bad things happen, but you can absolutely sort of like develop skills to cope better.
Anita Rao
How you spoke to a, a range of survivors for your book, folks of a variety of ages of. Sexuality preferences. As you mentioned, a lot of queer folks, you spoke to men. I'm curious about the conversations you had with men in particular about what it is like for them to navigate these conversations, especially as a group for whom sexual assault is not as as talked about openly.
Katie Simon
Yeah, I really appreciate how you said that. I think some people assume that men are not sexually assaulted very much, but actually like research is showing more and more that that is not true and there's just kind of no narrative for male sexual assault survivors and like across different sexualities and stuff. Like there's not something to kind of tap into and feel. Like a community around for the most part. Like that is what men sort of told me overall. And I think that's something that is changing and like hopefully this book helps people, you know, get there a little faster. It was really important to me to include men's voices. I did find more than kind of any other group men were the most likely to. Get in touch about being interviewed and set everything up, uh, and then not show up, and not have the, not have the talk and not do the interview. And I, at first like was worried I was doing something personally, you know, wrong that was keeping them away. But then I realized like, if. If you are a man going in to be interviewed about how sexual assault affects your sex life, like there's so many layers to that and you might not really have seen that represented before. And so it can be kind of scary to go and share your story. So I'm really hopeful that the stories of men in my book and sort of serve as that baseline layer of like, this is what you can expect if you're going to be interviewed about or share your story and that like. You know you can do it. 'cause I think we need way more men's narratives similar to how you mentioned age. I did interview people across, I think the youngest was 19 and the oldest was like 70 something uhhuh. And like similarly, we talk so much about sexual assault even now, like as this sort of like college phenomenon or this like young person phenomenon. But that is a very limited way of seeing it. Uh, and sexual assault occurs in a lot of other contexts and at a lot of other ages. And there are differences in like how it affects us, depending on sort of the. Context in which it happens. So keeping it like a very nuanced sort of diverse conversation, I think will help the most people and like keep us from just sort of falling into these like assumption traps.
Anita Rao
You. I have been touching on this idea of like social support and the ability to have the conversation out loud with a variety of people in your life. We talked earlier about, uh, friends and how they can play a role in helping support survivors. We've obviously talked a lot about partners. But you also kind of feel like there are non-traditional people or unexpected people who can be part of this network of support. I would love to know a little bit about that and how you think about like building this, this bigger network beyond maybe what we think of as the healing community.
Katie Simon
Yeah, so. This book I, the opening is of me searching through these bookstores alone for stories in a book and help. And the end of the book is really a discussion of sort of community and how accessing community can help us heal, sort of no matter our circumstances and our social, you know, support network. Like we can tap into this community and. It ends with the statement, we are not alone. Like even if your friends are not good at talking about sex or sexual assault or your family, the reality is there are support groups. There are, you know, chat lines, there's hotlines, there's like meetups, there's advocacy that you can join like marches and like places where you'll meet people that have had a similar experience. 'cause I think people are looking for. This community, and I was so privileged to gain it through the course of researching this book, and that really sort of plugged me into a lot more community. But it's something that anybody can do. Like even if you're feeling like your partner doesn't get it, like nobody, nobody gets it. There are people that get it and you can find them.
Anita Rao
We have talked so much in this conversation about navigating disclosure, consent triggers, and it makes me think about something that you said in the book, which actually really made me chuckle. You said Having sex after sexual assault can be exhausting. It feels like project management and I, it's a lot of information. It's a lot to synthesize and sift through. So I would love to hear about like the strategies you found to help sex feel less like project management and more enjoyable.
Katie Simon
Yeah, I think some of that comes with time. I think like at the beginning it can feel like a project, it can feel like a to-do list, like you wanna check everything off to make sure everything is safe. You really wanna prevent something bad feeling from happening. And I like at this point in my life. Do, do I see sex as project management? Um, I think sometimes elements of that come up like with new partners or trying new things or like managing if I have a difficult reaction to something. But I think that you can kind of get to this point where, you know, for at least for a while. You can sort of navigate sex intuitively or just based on desire and thinking less about, you know, prevention or boundaries. But, you know, it's, it's like I've been saying like, I don't really expect this to last forever. I have like, as soon as I introduce some new element, you know, it goes back to being a little like project management, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to be planning, you know, like all the challenging stuff related to Saxon being on top of it. Uh, I think. It's just something that we can sort of like get used to again, like the new reality and enjoy.
Anita Rao
The title of your book is Tell Me What You Like, and that is a question that I know you have posed to some survivors. You were really trying to center pleasure as important to this conversation about sex after sexual assault. So I would love to know how your own answer to that question has shifted after all of this steep dive and reflection.
Katie Simon
Yeah, I think it really continues to shift. I, I mean, I'm single right now and I feel like I still see dating as sort of this exploration and. When I titled the book, tell Me What You Like. There was a lot of debate, but we settled on this title because so many people are asking sexual assault survivors, like, Hey, what do you not like? Like we wanna avoid that stuff. We wanna like keep away from the bad stuff, but like, tell me what you like. The book as it turned out, is all about like what people do like and what is ful, what feels safe, like what we do want and. I think like that emphasis, like that shift from, tell me what you don't like to tell me. What you do like is something that I'm still getting used to in my own life and probably will forever, but you can like, have fun while doing it. You know? It's not, it's not like a, it's not like all bad.
Anita Rao
Katie Simon, thank you so much for the conversation.
Katie Simon
I really enjoyed talking with you. Yeah. Thank you so much. I absolutely love talking about this and talk about it with anybody who wants to listen.
Anita Rao
You can find out more about Katie Simon, and their book. Tell Me What You Like at our website, embodiedwunc.org. You can find all episodes of Embodied the Radio Show there and subscribe to our weekly podcast. You can find behind the scenes and bonus content for every episode by following us on Instagram our handle is @EmbodiedWUNC. Today's episode is produced by Kaia Findlay and edited by Amanda Magnus. Wilson Sayre and Sara Nics provided additional editorial guidance. Nina Scott is our intern, and Jenni Lawson, our technical director, Quilla, wrote our theme music. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District. WUNC is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am Anita Rao.