Hello Doctor Dan,

I'm a 35 year old wife and mother. I have a very normal life. I just feel like at any minute I will lose myself and everything I have. When i was little I was molested and number of times by different boyfriends of my mothers'. I was removed along with my sister and brother at 11 years of age. I was again molested by a neighbor of the foster family i lived with at the time. I was in 6th grade then. Thats a little bit of my history.

Dr Dan I now have horrible, I don't know what to call them. Wants, needs, desires, I don't know. Don't worry I never have sexual thoughts towards a child. What I desire is for me. I want to be hurt not just like safely, I really want to be hurt to be humiliated and sex to hurt. I want to feel the total uncontroled rage of a man on my body. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to die! My husband dosn't know he never will i hope but its becoming so strong in me its hard to control. I'm so afraid to tell someone, I'm so embarrased and ashamed. I dont know what to do with it. I dont even know if it has a name. Even when I was little I liked getting hit, it made me feel good. I'm not crazy or am I? What is it in me that wants to be hurt and fucked in a way that has nothing but pain and humiliation? Like being raped? I'm in control but I want it so bad more every day. Tell me what it is give it a name Dr Dan.

Anonymous, 35 Female

Hi Anonymous! Let me first say that you are NOT crazy! And that I feel for you and the damage you have suffered as a result of someone acting on their own perverted desires at your expense during your childhood. Kids and their innocence are something that we need to protect and nurture, not damage and destroy.

The 'desires' and 'needs' you have described point to a rough sex fetish . By defenition, a fetish is 'something a person MUST have in order to function satisfactorily in the sexual sense'. Fetishes come in all shapes, sizes and kinks, and often develop as a result of trauma during childhood, most commonly sexual abuse.

What I believe is happening in your case is that you are inadvertently carrying a lot of self blame for what happened to you as a child, and you feel that being hurt during sex is appropriate punishment for that. You say that even as a child being hit made you feel good, which makes me think that you felt that you needed punishment for some reason, or it may have been because it drew attention to you when you badly needed it.

In addition, I feel that because your early encounters with sex were painful, deeply embarrasing and just plain awful, you now have nothing good to associate with the act of sexual intercourse and/or sex play. So the only way you can achieve orgasm during sex is to recreate what you know from early experience, the pain and embarrasment.

I really urge you to go and see a counsellor about this, because I am worried that your state of mind could deteriorate further the longer you keep your demons bottled up inside. Even if you have had counselling before, you need to go again before your need for rough sex gets you into trouble. You are right to be scared of losing your family and friends, because that is what could happen if you don't come to terms with this as soon as possible. But don't be embarrased to talk to someone about it, you would be surprised to learn how many other women and girls have the same kind of problems as you!

I am really worried that you may be hurt or killed in a rough sex session gone too far, which has happened all too often in the past. Promise me you will do it! And keep in touch ok, I want to know that you're alright.

Love Doctor Dan

Reader Response

Just wanted to say that your response to anonymous 35 y/o mother was right on. I was sexually abused between the ages of 7 - 14. It has only been in the past 3 years that I received appropriate therapy via a lcsw in ATL who used emdr. I went to him a a gay man finding myself very turned on by father/daughter incest. It didn't make any sense to my why this was happening. I learned that there was a transferance between what was sexually happening to me (at the hands of a sadistic cousin) and the emotional abandoment by my father. I still enjoy the incest fantasy and I probably always will. I now know, however, alot more about what makes me tick and what I can do to control feelings when they get out of hand.

Anonymous, 42 Male

"Anonymous 35 female" sounds familiar because I'm very submissive and enjoy rough treatment (bondage, pinching, spanking, humiliation). If it were me answereing, I would say that she should confess to her husband (including details of how she got that way) and see if he was willing to make a lifestyle change to Master and Slave-Girl. If he wasn't and really did love her, perhaps he would be willing to at least play games. But I think any woman with sub or rough-handling desires would instinctively be attracted to strong, aggressive men.

Lucy, Female, USA