Unmasking the Abuser Episode 19 - Between the Sheets

Welcome to episode 19, the latest edition of the Unmasking the Abuser Podcast. I'm Dr. Dina McMillan. I'm a social psychologist, relationship expert, and an authority on domestic abuse and violence. I'm the author of a book on Abuser's manipulation tactics called, "But he says he loves me." So how are you doing with this information so far? Is your new superpower working? Are you able now to figure out how you or someone you know was tricked into a toxic relationship? Are you feeling more confident about the choices you'll make now and into the future? I hope your cape is now firmly affixed and you're ready to go. Now I feel like I should do this episode in a deeper smokey voice, because in this episode we're going to be talking about abusers and sex. I'm covering this topic at the request of a listener who contacted me recently. If you get involved with an abuser, it will definitely show up in the bedroom. I'm glad that listener reached out. You can contact me too at [email protected]. That's unmaskingpodcast, all one word, at gmail.com. For the first time with this episode, I've put an explicit notice on as a warning. But I'm well aware of the fact that some of my audience includes young teens, as well as multiple generations in a family. Listening to a podcast that's too spicy while you're sitting with your mom or for moms with their teens can be embarrassing on all sides. So today I'm going to be frank and open, but I'm still going to watch my language. You know this saying, if you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough? That quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein. The Dr. Dinoversion is if you can't explain human sexuality without using obscene or coarse language, then you really aren't much of an expert. It's possible to inform without being shocking. Here's a bit of relevant background information. My doctoral studies at Stanford required two areas of specialization. I chose social stratification, looking at issues like racism and sexism. And as my second area, I chose interpersonal relationships. As you can imagine, human sexuality was an important part of my studies. I even taught an interesting course called Deviant Behavior for Two Terms. In my professional career, I've worked giving relationship advice during in-person sessions, in articles for countless women's magazines, on television and in radio interviews. I even worked as an agony aunt, giving relationship advice at a gay men's magazine in Sydney. All this to say, I've learned a lot about sexual relationships and I'm completely unshockable. Please don't think that means I'm an advocate for everything. I'm not. Working at length in human relationships offered me insights Hollywood seems to have decided to eliminate from their films and TV shows. Unlike them, I noticed and didn't try to disguise the fact that there are clear consequences for sexual choices. Some of these can be heartbreaking. If you're romantically involved with an abuser, many of those sexual choices you make will be less about any preferences you may have and more about your submission to the manipulation and coercion, and unending demands made by your abuser. Let's take a walk through the ways and means this plays out in real life. You're listening to the Unmasking in the Abuser podcast with Dr. Dean McMillan. Today, we're taking a cold, crisp look at the sexual relationships of abusers. If you're a parent and you wanted your teen to listen to this podcast series, but discussions on sexuality worry you, I respect that and that's why I put the explicit label on this episode. It's up to you. You choose what your children hear at least when you're dealing with me. I also think, though, you should be aware of research on teen pregnancy. When girls become pregnant before the age of 15, in 50% of the cases, the father of these babies is in his 20s or older. The average age difference between these men and these young mothers in the studies I saw was 8.8 years. That means grown men are having sex with young girls. The youngest age of the girls in the studies I read were aged 11, and it's not just one study. Investigate any credible research on teen pregnancy and the hair on the back of your neck will stand up. Your teen and even your preteen need to know how to spot an abuser and a predator. These men will try to groom and manipulate your child into having sexual contact well before they're ready. There's a site called recap.etr.org. It's the resource center for adolescent pregnancy prevention. They have a lot of articles, research, and suggestions for protecting young girls. Of course it's not just adolescents who are vulnerable here. Let's look at some of the most common attitudes towards sexuality you find with abusers of all ages and then we'll look at how they start to manifest in the relationship. Now there are some key insights to keep in mind before we talk about how abuse manifests in your sex life. Abusers are planting seeds on fertile ground. I mean that both literally and figuratively. All of us have grown up hearing a range of rationalizations and excuses for bad behavior by males. Starting with boys will be boys. Your dad is just stressed. He works hard. You know he really loves you underneath it all. You've grown up seeing imagery and hearing song lyrics by males flaunting their promiscuity and misogyny and it's not just accepted, it's praised. Many of the concepts in second way feminism have been overwritten by something described as liberal feminism. What it means is women are parading themselves and writing hit songs about how much they're willing to do and be sexually with little or no discussion or attention on their own physical satisfaction. Everything is focused on pleasing men sexually, satisfying men sexually. The message, the attention, the fame teach other women this is how to be validated. Second thought, bring this to the forefront of your mind as you listen to all of these podcasts. Cunning up users will manipulate you using the strings that are already there. That's what the intensive getting to know you face is all about. Learning what you believe, how you've been conditioned through your parents and society by rewarding certain behaviors and punishing others, how your life experience so far has shaped your hopes and dreams. We all have strings. That's worth saying again. We all have strings. We all have things that can trigger strong emotions in us or incite powerful fears. We all have beliefs about ourselves and other people that influence our choices. Anyone who makes the effort to detect our strings like abusers, but also marketers, political and social campaigners, charities, employers, family members can pull us by these strings and get us to dance to their tune. Third! Most abusers have a Madonna horror complex. Like all things abuser, it's distorted. It doesn't mean they necessarily want a partner who only has sex for procreation and with the lights off. Some abusers are very sexually adventurous. For them, the ideal woman, their Madonna, is a woman whose focus is on pleasing the abuser, doing whatever he wants, whenever and however he asks. The horror identity, the unacceptable woman for these men, is defined in their minds as any woman who considers her own needs and desires as much as, or even worse, more than, the needs and desires of her man. Women are designed to serve according to the abuser. Put this all together and we have a large percentage of women who have been preconditioned to adapt their sexuality according to the wishes and will of their men, accepting his selfishness and even forgiving his cheating. The factors enabling this manipulation were already in place, put there by her family, her community, and our broader society. An overall perspective on abusers and sex is that many of them use sex the same way they use any other tool in their manipulation toolbox. Here's what I mean. If you've taken my seminars or workshops or read my book, Buddy Sessie loves me, you'll remember how I discussed the research many abusers will do and the effort they'll put in to hone their craft. They'll listen to groups of women. They'll read women's magazines and romance novels. They'll watch the so-called chick flicks to get a real feel for what impresses women, what women are looking for, and how women want to see themselves. Even if it's only by trial and error, they'll use what they learn on their targets. By their late teens, most have developed a cunning ability to complement a target on something true and something she wants to be true. They will make her feel good, so she's more likely to continue the conversation and continue having contact. Some of those magazines and books include highly sexually focused magazines like Cosmopolitan. In addition, current romance novels are incredibly explicit now, so insights into women's sexuality can be gained there too. Abusers can also seek out the wealth of books on human sexuality, many of which are available in audible version for abusers who don't like to read. A good number of abusers I interviewed were well acquainted with all of these materials. Those abusers knew it will give them a significant advantage if they understand women's bodies and women's sexuality and what pleases women. Let's be honest, it offers those guys a big advantage over average Joe who often can't be bothered and who's been misled by his frequent porn usage to believe anything he does is going to bring his partner to orgasm. A lot of abusers are more cunning than that. They take pride in being a proficient lover. They know how this gives them a significant edge. It also makes them feel powerful and superior, not only to the women they seduce, but also to other men, which fits right in with the grandiosity and the narcissism in their psychology. With these abusers, their actions during sex aren't really about intimacy, although they can fake it well with some practice. It's centered on their own ego. Their sexual technique and behaviors are being offered as a powerful tool to encourage their target to bond with them. They know all about oxytocin, the hormone that's often released in women in these circumstances. Now men have it too, but it's far more likely to flood a woman's system during and after sex, especially if she experiences pleasure and orgasm. Even if the abuser shows no affection in any other way, many women will then convince themselves they and the abuser are emotionally close because he takes the time to make sure she's sexually satisfied. Because we're talking about abusers, I won't surprise you by saying the situation isn't simple. I mentioned a while ago that good sex, even great sex, is another tool in the abuser's manipulation kit. Even if the sex is great at the beginning, their partners are rarely in for a lifetime of sexual satisfaction. When the abuser is grooming someone or if their target or victim does something where the abuser feels she deserves a reward, or if the abuser has done something terrible and wants to keep the victim from leaving, those with the skills to do so will often use satisfying sex as part of her reward. He'll be considerate and passionate and affectionate afterwards. He'll talk about their future together, weaving the promise of a wonderful sex life into his other promises of happily ever after. This aspect of the relationship rarely lasts or if it does, it's used infrequently. Why should he make that kind of effort? A relationship with an abuser is really all about him. Serving his needs, making him happy. Usually, their sex live quickly morphs into something else. So what's that? We discussed before how abusive relationships begin with testing and training. The abuser constantly pushes up against the target's personal boundaries to condition her, to train her, to do things she doesn't want to do, or to do things before she's ready. He knows every time he's successful in getting her to comply, it increases both his power and her commitment to the relationship. So abusers push often. Most are unrelenting. You can imagine how this extends into sexual contact. Here also, will be the you and me against the world ploy, where the abuser will constantly assure the target that his attitudes, behaviors, requests, are secret and special, just between them and not something he does or wants to do with anyone else. Lies, lies, and more lies. But practice lies are like an actor's lines in a play. They can sound so convincing, especially if it's something we want to hear. If and when a target resists or openly refuses a request, she's punished. The punishment in the sexual realm initially involves painful comparisons to other women or previous partners, cruel comments about her body or her performance, saying she's unable to please or satisfy him. He may even raise questions about her sexual orientation or tell her she's frigid or in some way highly and permanently flawed as a partner. Threats or the commission of infidelity are also common, where the abuser tells the target if she doesn't give him what he's asking for, he'll get it somewhere else. Or in many cases, he'll just cheat and not be subtle about it. Threats to end the relationship are also grenades to be thrown in case of resistance by targets or victims. The timing of the introduction of sex also varies and is part of the overall training and conditioning of a new romantic partner. Some abusers are like blunt instruments. They start pressuring their target for some type of sexual contact right away. If the target is young or inexperienced or conservative, the abuser may not immediately demand sexual intercourse. He may instead request topless or nude photos or intimate touching. In these cases, he usually quickly progresses to demands for her to perform oral sex on him. Once she's given in to any of that, intercourse is the rapid-next phase. Some abusers are more savvy. They don't want to. to scare off their target before she's been firmly captured emotionally and psychologically. In those cases, the abuser may surprise the target by not requesting intimate contact right away. These guys are smart enough to know it will set them apart from their competition. It will match all of the sweet nothings that will be whispering in their target's ear about how she's unique and this relationship is special. They'll be the perfect gentleman and she'll be impressed. Right before she begins to wonder if there's something wrong and he doesn't find her desirable. Often in these perfect gentleman scenarios, the abuser will be having sex with other women while he's building his relationship with the target. The claims of abstinence and waiting for someone special are just another set of well-practiced lies. The abuser is biting his time to make sure the target's feelings for him are strong, her trust in him is complete, and then like a raptor, he will swoop in. So what happens when the sex starts? There's variation among abusers, but some common themes reoccur. First, once the sexual relationship is established, abusers expect their partner to be available to meet their needs at all times without complaint. Here's an example. When we were adults, I remembered my mother telling us about a woman who shared her double room in the hospital after she'd given birth to my younger sister. Both my mom and the other woman in the room were resting after their babies were born. The other woman's husband came in, pulled the privacy curtion around her bed, and began having sex with her. That woman was still in terrible pain. Having sex just after giving birth can also cause permanent damage. Her husband obviously didn't care how she felt or what she needed at that time. It was his own needs that took priority. This is how abusers behave. Second, it's not only the timing of sex that's decided by the abuser. I should mention here that it's not unusual for an abuser to become angry if his partner initiate sex, only he's allowed to decide when, how, where sex occurs. And what occurs as part of their sexual repertoire is only the abuser's choice. A large percentage of abusers get sexual thrills from pushing their partner to do things she dislikes, finds demeaning, or even finds painful. You can imagine the range of activities that occur in these cases. When discussing sexuality with survivors of abusive relationships, many of them broke down in tears when they recalled the acts they were coerced into by their demanding and abusive former partners. When an abuser gets his jollies from pushing his partner to do things she doesn't want to do, the goalpost will constantly move. After a while, she may find a way to mentally adapt to his demands, so he'll make new demands. His victim may never understand that it's forcing her to do things she hates that arouses him and gives him pleasure, that makes him feel powerful. The specifics of what he's asking for, that's just details. Now, there's a large group of abusers who won't ever make real effort to sexually please and satisfy their target or their victim. Often these guys have a sufficiently advantageous position over their target, or they know she's very attracted to them, or they know she's in love. Perhaps they're financially successful and by or promised to buy things they know their target could never afford. In these cases, abusers make it clear from the start that sexual enjoyment is something for them, not their partner. These men may or may not be cruel or kinky or excessively demanding, at least not at first. They'll just be completely selfish sexually, convincing their partner the support he provides in other ways should be enough to satisfy her, or that her love should make her want to please him, or that she should be grateful that such a handsome or successful man wants to have sex and a relationship with her. Compared to the other types, this may not seem so bad, until you recognize the high cost of a lifetime of sexual frustration and dissatisfaction for their victims. Third, like that man who insisted on having sex with his wife in the hospital bed, the time and location of where sex occurs can also be a challenge when dealing with an abuser. Many abusers enjoy coercing their partner into having sexual contact in spots that are inappropriate in the bathroom at a dinner party, loudly when sleeping next door to her parents, in an empty office at her work party. They may even push for sex when their children are nearby and could either hear them or walk in, or they want to have sex in an airplane bathroom. Again, part of the thrill for this type of abuser is the potential embarrassment that will be suffered primarily by the victim if they get caught or if someone overhears. The more the victim will dislike it, the more powerful the abuser feels, and the more pleasure he experiences if he's able to convince her to give in. So the harder they'll push for her to do it. Moving on to something highly linked to all of this, it's important to mention here that in the research I've done and in the interviews I've conducted, I've rarely met an abuser who isn't highly reliant on pornography. Many have admitted to me that they're addicted. This is a critical aspect of any discussion of abusers' sexuality. Abusers will have an expectation that whatever they see depicted on screen can and will be replicated at home with their partner. This has increasingly started to include third parties being added to their sexual activities, usually another woman, where the victim is expected to perform sex acts with these other people. It often includes bondage, physical pain for the victim, acts like choking, and aggressive vaginal and anal rape. The use of pornography isn't just harmful in abusive relationships. When someone is addicted to pornography, they're constantly being lured into increasingly deviant and forbidden acts by the sellers. If you're curious about the harms of pornography and the broader damage caused by the mainstream pornification of our culture, one of the best books I've read is called "Big Porn Ink," edited by Melinda Tankhard-Rist and Abigail Bray. Melinda Tankhard-Rist is a well-known advocate against the harms of pornography and the sexual exploitation of girls and women. If you just type in "Big Porn Ink," into your favorite search engine, you can easily find it. Pornography has a lot of issues associated with it, but some of the biggest are its complete separation of sexuality from intimacy. The sexual arousal, stimulation, and fulfillment that happens while masturbating watching porn has a very high price. It creates powerful conditioning around the images being displayed. Even when its users begin by being aroused just watching other couples having sex, the purveyors of porn want to draw them further into their dark web. They quickly begin offering more sexually explicit and illicit materials. Many teen boys and men, even those who aren't abusers, soon find themselves unable to get aroused by normal sex with their partner. In addition, sex is constantly reinforced as physical arousal only. Anything done in pursuit of this arousal and its following orgasm is viewed as a positive. This quickly becomes things like anal sex, group sex, four sex, sex with underage children, sex, with dolls, sexual exploitation of unwilling partners. Pornography promotes sexual arousal as a result of watching other people participate in demeaning acts, verbal and psychological abuse, even physical torment. The use of pornography distorts understanding of human sexuality and desire, morphing it into something grim, fake, and often cruel. The women in porn are always aroused and never seemingly traumatized by what occurs unless their pain and resistance is presented as fuel for the arousal of the audience. Even when the women depicted initially object, whatever is done to them during the film is presented as stimulating and pleasurable for all participants but especially for the males. And exploitation and maltreatment become tied into the experience for the audience. And pornography doesn't just stay in its lane. It's the pornification of mainstream culture that had Amazon selling t-shirts for years that said, "No means yes, yes means anal." And another one that said, "It's not rape, it's a cuddle with a struggle." I used to show people photographs of those t-shirts in my workshops and seminars. Amazon has recently stopped selling them after more than a decade of availability and goodness knows how many complaints. You may be asking yourself what kind of guy would find the sentiment in those t-shirts amusing. Well, abusers would, although the ones still pretending to be sensitive new-aged guys would act appalled if anyone was watching. For abusers, sex is a pure manifestation of their power over their partner. Because our sex lives are usually private, this is an area where the mass comes off first and stays off. Many women are humiliated, demeaned, harmed by what occurs in their bedrooms and too ashamed to share what's occurring with anyone else. They often feel they have to take responsibility for giving in, and for the fact they stayed in a relationship with someone who subjected them to such terrible things. In some cases, the brains of victims adapt to these behaviors and victims try to convince themselves they enjoy the acts being forced on them by their partner. Whenever I've interviewed or counseled women in that category, however, their acceptance of these acts rarely lasted if and when the relationship with the abuser ended. They didn't need to pretend anymore. Their brain recognized they didn't need to mitigate the discomfort or even the trauma anymore. They were free. Another thing I feel is really crucial to mention in this episode is the manner in which abusers will often coerce their targets and their victims into participating in acts that can later be used against them if their victim wants to leave the relationship. Let's start with photographs and videos. I've mentioned I've been doing this job for more than 20 years. Over the last decade I've seen an explosion in the number of victims being blackmailed by a former abusive partner who has nude photos or sex videos. At times, no demand is made. After the breakup, the abuser just sends copies of these pictures or these films to the parents at the school where their exes children attend or to a mailing list of her work colleagues or clients or to her extended family. Everyone by now is heard of revenge porn where guys post intimate photos or videos of their exes online on popular sites that are easily accessible. It's not even illegal in many places to do this, yet it can ruin someone's life. The media does not help. They keep publishing how much money young women can make on sites like only fans, as if it's harmless, as if those young women aren't now being fully displayed to every weird guy who wants to pay a few dollars to look at them naked. This is something those girls can never take back because the internet is forever. And those only fan girls have to live somewhere. Will anyone they know treat them the same afterward? Will a designer purse make up for having every weirdo they meet trying to get them to perform sex acts? And yet young women and young teens are still being talked into providing nude photos or to participate in sex videos with their new boyfriend. They're doing intimate and sexual things on Zoom or on other video conference platforms not realizing these can easily be recorded. You just need to push a button. In that case, you wouldn't even know he's done it until the guys at work say they sing you on porn hub and begin treating you differently or even asking you for sex. Too many young women look at celebrity icons like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian and remember these beautiful women who have no talent whatsoever became famous only after their sex videos were put on the internet. If you're a young woman, please hear me, that won't be you. If you give that ticking time bomb to a guy, your life experience will include having a boss with nose hair and a big gut who sing you naked or watched you perform sex acts on someone. Men basically believe if they've seen you naked, they can have sex with you. Socially, you become something that my friend Carolyn M. West, the professor at the University of Washington, calls "unrapeable". Now that doesn't mean you can't be sexually assaulted, of course you can. But try pressing charges when women without nude photos or sex videos can't get prosecutors to even run the rape kits. I have to mention here that I recently read that in the UK 99% of rapes over the past year haven't resulted in any type of conviction. That's horrifying to me and it should be to you. For women of all ages when it comes to your sexuality and your personal image, your brand, you are on your own. It's key that you learn to protect yourself. Don't try to convince yourself it will be okay this once or allow someone to use triggering terms like "prood" or "childish" to get you to comply. For any woman listening to this, don't have sexual contact with anyone until and unless you want to do it too. Really look hard at anyone who uses the threat that he'll cheat on you if you don't do something you dislike or find a meaning. Be wary of any guy who says he'll break up with you or who claims his last girlfriend or wife went along with it and enjoyed it. Those aren't things a decent guy who cares about you would say or do. And also be on the lookout for everyone's doing it or it's just for me I won't show anyone or I miss you and this will get me through. Guys have a lot of lines to try to convince women to do something like take pictures or do videos that's so risky it's almost like they're saying hey jump off this building I'll catch you again this advice isn't just for teens or young women either. I know a woman who spent two years in court after her abusive ex-boyfriend tried to post nude photos of her online to punish her for recognizing he was abusive and then breaking up with him. Finding your new superpower when it comes to your sex life means looking past now and asking yourself what's okay for you don't participate in anything that makes you uncomfortable is too soon you find humiliating or you find physically painful. Sex that doesn't involve your wants and needs is using you it's the opposite of intimacy. And expect better well that's it I know a lot of you will have questions and comments about this episode don't be shy email me at [email protected] if I get repeated questions or comments I'll add the topic to an upcoming episode. Now next time I'm going to delve back into serious issues surrounding abuse. We're going to cover behaviors linked in the danger assessments to increased risk of serious harm or even homicide. Some of these behaviors are being promoted as sexy or underestimated by showing them as harmless or no big deal in the media. You need to know the truth. I hope you'll join me next time. Thank you for listening. I'm Dr. Dina McMillan.