Pandora's Aquarium: Safety & Comfort. - Pandora's Aquarium

First Entry of This List2. What is safety to you? What is the difference between safety and comfort? What are examples of experiences in which you were safe yet uncomfortable? What is safety? That's a hard question to answer. I was never sure of how safe or how comfortable sex was. If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that safety is when there's no threat to each partner, where what ever is done turns us on. Feeling safe is disease-free, consensual, mutually exclusive activities done. S&M would be a big risk for me. I can't imagine the idea of being flogged or whipped. I'd rather be the one doing the flogging and whipping, but I've never experimented with that. When I've had safe sex with men in the past, penetration was painful in that he couldn't go deep without hurting me. I felt bad like there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't pleasing them enough, so I just tolerated it. They get off and I get sore. With women, I felt more pleasurable, but I always have this deep seated fear that I'll be accused of a non-consensual act. I like being on top, but I'm afraid of being too forward with women. The times I have been were pretty good, but a few times with this one woman, I felt unsure and wondered if she wanted me to be aggressive more or if she wanted me to read her signals instead of telling me. I'll know there's more safety when there's more of a connection. In the past, I didn't feel much of one, especially when their head was thrown back or they looked off to the side as if to concentrate on the act. I love looking into their eyes to click and read them so we can please each other and know what's going on. I think that's a good indicator. If the person looks upset or looks distant, then there's something wrong. I know I didn't look like I was enjoying it, that I tried to distance myselft from being violated in the last few years since the R and when I was little. I blocked most of that out until the memories came flooding back to me. I don't ever remember liking it. I just crawled up into my head so I wouldn't have to think about what was happening. With men, I felt like my desires didn't matter, that I wanted to feel like a woman and please him. With women, that shit don't matter. I feel more connected to my arousal, that the energy is there. When I went back to men, I realized what I was tolerating, that what I settled for wasn't satisfactory enough for me, that I had limited myself to what I thought I wanted; had I not had sex with a woman, I'd have always felt unfulfilled and wondered what was wrong with me. I'm suppose to believe that being with a woman is wrong and that being raped was my fault. Imagine if I believed all the ignorance that was thrusted upon me, if I actually thought they were right. I'd be as ignorant as them. They didn't go through what I did and yet they're acting like experts, meanwhile my experience was invalidated because they were blinded by mythology of rape and sexual assault. I put too much focus on what they said and how they think I should've acted and felt about it. I have to move on and think about myself. That's is so hard to do with past voices repeating damaging comments. I must unstick them.