Introduction and Personal Background

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Natasha Helfer Parker [00:00:39] So my presentation I'm Natasha Helfer Parker and my presentation is called Baby I'm Broken. Not Broken. Now, I'm no Mindy Glen Hill, but gotta bear with me. All right, so I'm a big believer in disclosures and expectations. I always begin my presentations with them so that we can get off to a good start by me sharing my boundaries so you can decide if you want to participate with me or not. This is an important skill for consent, effective communication and good relationships. So here goes. 1. I will be talking about sexuality and I'm actually qualified to do so. I'm an ASEC accredited sex therapist and newly supervisor. I've been in practice for over 20 years and for the most part in the field of sexuality. I know what I'm talking about. Sadly, most mental health and medical professionals are not qualified to talk about sexuality because our current educational systems reflect the sex negative inheritance we as humans have been passing down for centuries. So be careful who you listen to and who you give authority to in this arena. 2. I briefly mentioned sexual abuse, but I do not go into any specific details along with this. I just want to state that this presentation does not address dealing with sexual abuse. Although I'm very cognizant anytime I'm presenting that about a third of us present have dealt with unwanted sexual experiences. However you choose to language that if you've been affected. 3. I use explicit sexual verbiage throughout this presentation. I'm not even sure if it's PG13. It might be more than that. Not because I'm trying to shock, get attention or be crass, but because I believe that talking about vulvas and penises should be as normal to talk about as elbows and knees. 4. Any swear words I use are done so intentionally, following the model of righteous anger the biblical Jesus exemplified with many changers in a temple. Swear words can be quite cathartic in a healing, thriving process and this is backed up by research. Look at the Atlantic article. It was great. 5. There are a few sexually explicit photos at the end in the Medium of drawing, art, not photography and 6 I hope to teach three principles in 20 minutes that I've been allotted that will help you in your journey towards thriving sexually. However that looks like and is defined by you. So please invite your own authority to trump mine in regards to knowing what parts of what I have to say are useful for you versus not. I'm going to start by telling you a bit about my own sexual development story, so please bear with me as I have a promise that I have a purpose in doing so. I'm not just melancholy and showing you my baby pictures, but this is me starting my sexual experience because I was born and I was born a sexual being with the research supporting that more than likely my hand lingered in touch on my genitals as early as in the womb. This was my first sexual partner. Lola had the most perfect plastic head. I could grind my little vulva lips and clitoris against from I'm guessing the age of two or three. And in this way I reached wonderful sleep inducing orgasm. And although she looks a little freaky here, she still gives me the tingles. Grinding by the way, is a much more effective technique for a female body to reach orgasm than penis and vagina intercourse. That's just a little tip. This was how old I was when I first remember experiencing unwanted sexual behavior by an adult. When I first experienced sexual abuse, the perpetrator was a trusted adult. Part of me liked how it felt, part of me was confused, part of me was upset. Part of me felt special and loved. I had no idea that I was experiencing sexual abuse, nor would I for many years to come. I did not have language nor brain development to understand what was happening to me. That's the slide. No, that was a slide. These experiences continued throughout my growing up life. From time to time until I was 17. This was how old I was the first time I remember sexualized play between children around my same age. We were either church kids or family kids. I was five or six the first time and remember this happening from time to time until I was probably about 12 or 13 playing doctor so to speak. Sometimes I was the younger one being influenced by others. Sometimes I was the older one leading the pack. This is a phenomenon we don't speak about and yet most of us have experienced and carry great shame and confusion around. This shows up in my practice all the time. This is how old I was when I started dieting and seeing myself as fat. I was 11. This cute boy is my husband. This is how old my husband was when he started internalizing messages about being sexually chaste to the point of feeling extreme guilt and shame over something as normal as touching his own body and masturbation. It's also when he started internalizing the idea that if he could just hold out until marriage, serve a mission, and do all those good little Mormon boy things, he'd have earned and be deserving of a virginal, pure and innocent wife. He was 11 or 12. This was how old I was when I had my first French kiss. I was 13. It was sloppy, foreign, exciting, fun and weird. The fact anyone would kiss me with that hairdo is fairly commendable. So thank you Ethan, wherever you are. This is how old I was when I got my first object lesson at church. I was 14. It happened to coincide with the time where my family got sealed together in the temple, and the object lessons I was privy to in my experience as a young woman included nails and boards touched and bruised flowers, chewed gum and poopy brownies. And even though I was never explicitly told that masturbation was bad as a young woman, I began having a gnawing feeling that Lola and I had entered into a very perverse relationship early on. And my relationship with personal worth being tied to my ability to stay pure and virginal was well on its way. This is how old I was when I was first fat shamed by a boyfriend. And this has been my experience in almost every single serious romantic relationship I've had. I was also fat shamed by my family culture and of course our overall culture. I was 14 and probably a size 6. This was how old I was when I became sexually active with my first serious long term boyfriend. I had just turned 16. I was in love and other than believing what I had been taught, in other words that I was a lustful, selfish person in the grasp of Satan who had now entered the realm of unworthy. It was a wonderful experience. This is how old I was when I went through my first repentance process to a super loving and supportive bishop who I still hold in high regard. And he had been taught to tell me that my sin of consensually exploring sexuality with a person I loved and was committed to was a sin next to murder and that I should never see my boyfriend again because it would inevitably lead to more sex, a few doozies for my sexual psyche to handle. I was 16. This is how old I was when I finally looked into a mirror and physically mouthed the words I've been sexually abused. I had no idea what to do or where to go with that. Kind of information. I was 17. It would be years before I would get the help I needed. This is how old I was when I wrote a paper about masturbation habits of children at BYU of all places because I so desperately wanted to know if I was normal. I still remember the faces of the poor young men working at the library reference desk where I had to go to ask for material from the restricted zone not made readily available to mind you adult students at an establishment of higher education. I was 19. This is how old I was when I got kicked out of BYU for repenting once again for sexual sins. Yep, you guessed it. I saw that old boyfriend again mid semester with no tuition reimbursement. I was 20. And those events forced me to have to tell my parents private aspects of my sexuality that was none of their business. No entity in my entire developmental journey of growing up taught me the concepts of correct sexual boundaries and or privacy. This is how old I was when I got married in the temple. And thank goodness we had the foresight before it was popular these days to do a ring ceremony for our non member family. And good on you and me, Andy. I had wonderful sex that night with this man of my choosing and for a night anyway, we were able to transcend the many shitty messages and experiences that had wounded us and misinformed us and really set us up for failures and meaning ruts and unnecessary tragedies between us. The church organization did not equip us to come together as two complicated sexual beings with different developmental sexual histories. In fact, it harmed that process. It pitted us against each other as enemies, truly sleeping with the enemy, as do most gendered messages in our society. I was 23. I'm so thankful and proud of both of us that we have persevered in spite of this and loved each other. I think incredibly well in spite of being dramatically set up by this system. So thank you Andy for being with me here today. This is how old I was when no one prepared me for the experience of searing excruciating sexual pain. After a C section I thought my vagina was intact. My husband's usually friendly penis all of a sudden felt like a dull knife and both of us were shocked and again ill equipped, let down by an overall system that did not offer us any comprehensive sexual education as adults. I was 28. This is how old I am now when I am very much still in the throes of trying to make sense of all of my stories, how they've shaped me, how they will inform me going forward. I am 48. Even with what I've shared here, I have not told you even the vast majority of my sexual story. Things that are complex and raw and private, things I don't have permission to share because they include other people. Things that have cut me to the core, things that have elevated me to pleasures and orgasms I could have never imagined. So what's the method of my madness? How is sharing parts of my own sexual developmental story meant to help with my goal of teaching you three principles of sexually thriving? Well, because the first principle is that of storytelling. As a mental health professional is my thank you. As a mental health professional who sits in the presence of story day after day with those of you vulnerable and brave enough to show up in a space like the one that I offer, I'm a huge believer in the impact storytelling has on healing and through the power of story. In this context of your sexuality starts with taking a personal sexual development inventory. Knowing where you come from, what messages you received, when and from who, and being mindful on how they have impacted you. Experiences you've had, the negative, the positive, the neutral. And being able to share this information you gather in a relatively space, safe space with somebody. How do we learn if we don't have modeling on how to do it? So I offer my story as a model. One example of how to begin to think about your sexual life cycle. What would your PowerPoint look like? the same time, before you give me any credit that I'm able to share so much in a room full of people in such a public way, I want to recognize that I have a lot of privilege in being able to share my story. 1. I am at a point in my life and my career that I could really give a rat's ass about what people think of me. But that's because I have social clout, I'm fairly financially stable, and I've had fairly easy access to a professional education that my parents supported. I've done a lot of healing work of my own in taking back my own worth and authority. 2. I am white. 3. I am heterosexual. 4. I am cisgender. 5. I'm an extrovert. 6. I am female. Which means in some ways I can get away with talking about sexuality that's different than men can. 7. I've had to sit in many uncomfortable spaces as part of my sexuality training, getting used to topics most of us still consider highly taboo. The intersection of these many factors complicates the telling of stories for many, and I want to make sure we remember our own privilege or lack thereof before you go doing any comparison work between you and me. But back to the power of story. In order to heal, we need to normalize our stories, we need to tell our stories, and we need to understand the impact of our stories. Ask yourself, what baggage and messages have I been fed in the name of family honor, in the name of righteousness, in the name of God, in the name of authority that most likely trumped mine from day one? How has my own development been stunted and taken hostage? And don't just blame your Mormon upbringing in this process. Mormonism is only one aspect of a much larger sex negative world that has contributed to internalized shame for all of us. Mormonism is in of itself a victim of sex negativity. Once we normalize, we can begin to integrate instead of compartmentalize. An integration of our sexuality in everything we are is pivotal to self identity. Every aspect of our sexuality, orientation, gender identity, libido, your tastes and preferences, your fantasies, your bodies, your your minds. Once we integrate, we can share share of ourselves effectively and pleasurably with our partners of choice. This all starts with the willingness to step into storytelling, advocating for yourself, which in of itself advocates for your partner and for your children. And whether or not you ever step onto a public stage. Once you advocate for yourself, for your partner and for your children, you are advocating within our community. And we need our community to sexually heal. So start. Start like I did here. Maybe not in front of hundreds of people, but tell your story. Tell it to yourself. Journal it. Record it. Look into a mirror as you speak to yourself. Tell a trusted partner if they have the capacity to honor you and hear you and hold the sacredness of your story without it somehow threatening their own. Tell a friend or a therapist who is sex positive. Tell those who have earned your telling we can heal one sexual story at a time. Now onto principle number two. Thriving is not a destination that you get to go to like a fun vacation resort and stay at indefinitely. I know that that maybe feels like this today, but thriving is an ongoing process with many, many, many trips back into the healing path. In the culture of being ye therefore perfect that we were all impacted by, we have a tendency to have some very unrealistic expectations about what thriving looks like. The sooner we make room for our healing and for our brokenness to coexist within a thriving paradigm, the better off we're going to be. And the brokenness is everywhere. Every working day I start off sessions listening to the I'm so embarrassed to even be talking about this the. I've never told anyone this before. The presentation usually is about there is something wrong with me. I can't enjoy my sex life. I feel sexually stunted. I'm a sex addict. I'm an orgasmic. I'm out of control. I'm too in control. I want to want. I want to not want. I can't stay hard enough to satisfy my lover. It hurts daily down there. I'm pushing through encounters and trapped in what has become duty sex. I won't initiate anymore with a partner who keeps rejecting me. Somebody touched me and I don't know if I would call it rape. I hate how I look. I think I'm bisexual or asexual. Is that really a thing? I'm scared of what turns me on. I don't know what to think of the pornography I watch. Ultimately, it comes down to two questions. What's wrong with me? And can you fix it? I'm broken. And you, Natasha, your job is to figure out how to fix me so that I am no longer broken. And when I ask people what no longer broken means, it's usually a form of that thriving vacation land we get to stay in indefinitely. Having unrealistic expectations means you will continue to feel like you are failing. So let's go back to this lovely picture. At least I think I look lovely. I'm an expert in my field. I'm sure I come across as confident, maybe fun. I'm a sex therapist, so I must be having an amazing sex life all the freaking time, right? I'm presenting at Thrive, so I must be thriving. I must have all my ducks in a row and healed from all wounds, right? This picture was taken that same week. I actually come to you currently in the midst of a very painful and challenging chapter in my own life. I am broken, not broken. In the culture we come from, we are not used to gurus who tell you that they too are falling apart. Cultural Mormonism fetishizes idealized presentations, plans of happiness and equational success. If I do A, B and C, then I'm promised D, E and F missionary work masked with never ending smiling faces that are not allowed to show imperfection or scowls or grief because it might create doubt that the plans and the equations fall short, which they do. I become very concerned of becoming pedestalized in such a way that we have done with church leaders. And I want to be crystal clear that I am the epitome of yes ands. I am smart, I think I'm empathic. I can be confident. I'm super loving. I rock at and love my job and I'm a freaking hot mess. I have anger management issues, body image issues. I still experience trauma interruptions at the most inopportune times because they love to show up right before I'm about to climax. I people, please. I'm not confident enough when I should be and overly confident when I shouldn't be. I am broken, not broken. Healing and thriving coexist. You are never in one state without aspects of the other. The whole premise behind many evidence based therapy approaches is acceptance of this reality. The third thing I'd like to talk about is the principle that knowledge is power. I'm actually very grateful for a faith tradition that in spite of all the crap it doled out to me, it also offered me some very precious gems. It offered me a Genesis story where a woman, a body I could see myself in and relate to, chose knowledge over obedience and where this was actually seen as necessary for growth. Where we honor her as wise and capable, capable of seeing necessary steps even when less than ideal steps into new territories and worlds that, albeit painful and hard, will teach and liberate of the fruit she did eat. This has been an incredibly healing concept for me as I look at myself and my story through the common lenses of regrets, mistakes, doubts, do overs the seductive what ifs in our tradition, the principle of obedience is pitted against the principle of knowledge from day one in a very powerful lesson. They are contraindicated. They typically cannot coexist. Obedience does not offer us knowledge nor growth. It does offer innocence and sometimes safety. It also offers us the avoidance of responsibility for ourselves at times when we hurt others. I invite us all to take the risk of knowledge, of opening ourselves up to the uncomfortable space of learning about sexuality in general, personally and in the context of the systems you are currently a part of your marriage. Being willing to have the difficult conversations you've been avoiding, learning how to contract and negotiate effectively your parenting paradigms, and talking to your kids about sex, understanding true principles of sexual health. May you partake of the fruit. May you get cast out of pristine gardens. May you heal from the thorns and noxious weeds only to go back out and get your hands dirty again. May you thrive in your sexuality by going back to the healing process over and over and over again. Thrive and heal and thrive and heal so that we can all someday sing Baby, I'm broken, not broken. So be it. Amen.

Surviving Abuse and Finding a Voice

Sexuality, Storytelling, and What Thriving Looks Like

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Sam [00:25:21] Sam.

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