Depth Psychology Perspectives on Guilt and Shame Part 4

PART – FOUR

• To clarify the elements of healthy sexual violation survivor shame.
• To clarify the elements of toxic sexual violation survivor shame.

How can there be shame within the survivor of a sexual violation that is healthy and helpful?

UNDERSTANDING HEALTHY – SEXUAL VIOLATION SURVIVOR – SHAME

The healthy shame that visits the violated individual, the survivor, to the surprise of many is a shame that is designed to facilitate emotional and psychological healing from those injuries that the human psyche sustained from the violation. In order to understand the capacity of shame’s ability to facilitate healing it is important to note the difference between healthy shame and toxic/irrational shame.

Healthy shame as we noted in the section above surrounds the notion of modesty which refers to the human sense of the sacred worth of the body. This sense of modesty that one might encounter in that moment when a father rushes inadvertently into the bathroom at the exact time his 13-year old daughter steps out of the shower is a universal human sense that leads to screams of protest from the daughter and a string of red-faced apologies from the father. This common sense surrounds the idea of reverence and the healthy human capacity to protect the sacred nature of the body’s natural sex appeal and the intrinsic worth of that appeal. Shame in this form is often referred to as shyness or modesty. This modesty is actually a natural boundary and protection. This natural boundary surrounding the nude body seems to clarify that there is worth residing there, a worth that merits protection. This boundary of protection sometimes called protecting the innocence of the eyes related to a healthy lust for the flesh suggests that there lies within us an organic mechanism designed to regulate that lust.

The notion of healthy shame is further supported by the common sense of disgust individual’s may experience when hearing about a boundary violation such as a father sexualizing his daughter or a brother kissing his sister. The suggestion here is that boundary setting mechanisms like healthy shame free us from a slavery to lust that when unregulated may lead to the sexualizing of each and every human connection. This idea of sexualizing everyone and anyone may seem like sexual freedom but most individuals come to find that the resulting sexual preoccupation is more something akin to slavery. Our development as sentient beings relies heavily on human attachments that are non-sexual. While the boundary of healthy shame can be broken the natural consequence for many tends to be a deep sense of despair and an overwhelming desire to repair and reinstate the broken boundary. The driving force behind this reparation is the compelling nature of healthy shame. This suggests that healthy shame is not only a guardian of worth it is also a regulator in an organically designed check and balance system surrounding the government of healthy lust.

In the event of a sexual boundary violation such as rape or molestation given the above information we can see the necessity of healthy shame’s presence. The critical nature of healthy shame in this moment of the survivor’s experience is further realized when we consider the question what if shame did not come to the conscious mind of the violated individual? How else would the survivor know that that they had been violated? In the absence of shame how would survivors know that their worth had been assaulted? Imagine the survivor of a rape moving on as if nothing had occurred, as if their worth had not been devalued. Shame brings home the meaning of rape which surrounds the violation of the sanctity of the womb. This is also true for gay sexual violation events in that the partner who was violated was in the moments of the rape in the archetypal role and physical position of the feminine. The womb is reduced into a disposable pleasure deserving of punishment and humiliation. Shame helps to clarify this meaning while taking the place of the Maiden Worth who is safely relocated. Shame protects Worth from this deep psychological injury by taking her place during and after the violation event, sending the message to the violator you may have me but you will never touch my sister.

The survivor herself does not tend to see the role of healthy shame and frequently will focus more on toxic shame which involves self-blame and self-loathing. It is in this way that Healthy Shame’s message tends to be missed as the convictions of toxic shame become overwhelming to the survivor often leading to high risk and self-destructive behaviors.

In the event of a sexual violation, and the initial feeling of Shame’s arrival on the scene, the violated individual may feel that they are being punished and will therefore try to find a wrong that they committed that might justify this punishment. Shame however by design appears in the conscious mind in the event of violation not as a punishment but rather as a messenger. Shame’s purpose is to notify the violated individual that a violation has occurred. Shame’s appearance to the violated is specifically designed to announce the absence of worth. Shame seeks to clarify that worth is absent because worth and violation cannot occupy the same space. This is due to the nature of Worth which surrounds the sanctity of life and cannot exist in the same time and place with a violation. This design resolves that worth cannot be reduced, nor lost, nor altered in any way because the inherent worth of the soul is not mortal and comes from a divine origin.

Thus, in the event of violation, by divine design, worth in its whole and pristine form is effectively relocated to another realm within the soul. Shame then appears in worth’s absence. Shame’s intention is to; instruct the violated individual on the nature of the violation, including clarifying that you have been ill-defined as worth less than you actually are, clarify the process by which the violation can be purged, guide the individual on the journey to reconnect with one’s relocated worth and restore that worth to its rightful place.

TOXIC – SEXUAL VIOLATION SURVIVOR – SHAME

Toxic sexual violation survivor shame surrounds a very specific form of self-blame and self-loathing that surrounds what is often called body shame. Survivors experience a deep and disturbing alteration to their view of their own body. This altered body perception has reduced the sanctity of the body’s divine worth to a sexual object that is void of free will or human rights. When we deconstruct this shame we can see that it is the act of sexualizing the body that puts the dirt in the dirty that permeates the body and soul of survivors as they process the meaning of the violation that they have survived. It is then the removal of the worth of the survivor’s being that solidifies the stain that marks the body that has been sexualized.

This stain is stigmatic for survivors and the stigma goes far deeper than a Scarlet Letter. This stigma is internal and comes with a personal self-blame driven, self imposed judgment of shame. This is a shame that is so harsh and cuts so deep with the sickle of despair as to make social stigmas pale in comparison. For survivors this shame means I have been used to gratify a sexual appetite which is to say that the act of being manipulated, forced or coerced to respond to the needs of the offender’s sexual appetite reduces survivors to the role of unwilling sexual appetite responder. Thus, the sexual appetite itself is the primary element of the stain. The act of responding to the sexual appetite under duress and the process of being an unwilling part of the appetite’s gratification is the true core of the sexual violation. It is at this moment that survivors feel trapped in this soul tainting pathological union. How survivors wonder can they sever this bond of violation and restore their organic virtue? What is the secret to actually removing the stain from the inside out?

The short answer to severing and restoring includes understanding that that the survivor’s divine organic wholeness is so majestic in its authenticity it cannot be reduced my mortal cowardice. Regarding restoration the survivor must find a healing path with a spirit guide who understands that the survivor’s worth was never lost nor even altered but was rather relocated. The journey to relocate the worth that successfully escaped the violation is a major part of the healing process. Stain removal requires separating the violation event from the survivor’s pre-existing toxic shame and clarifying the elements of the stain including the violator’s sexual entitlement and the projection of the violator’s sexual appetite upon the survivor.

The shame generated by this stain presents itself in a visceral sense of internalized ugliness that generates deep sensations of self-disgust. This sense of ugliness stems from a deep inner perception that the body has been stained to its core and the stain which is perceived to somehow be deserved cannot be removed. As survivors further process the deeper meanings of the violation they find it more and more difficult to evade self-blame as the process of being an unwilling responder seems to include the notion of some form of survivor responsibility in the violation process. This tendency for survivors to engage in self-blame and look for ways to sit in judgment upon themselves stems directly from toxic sexual survivor shame. The self-blame suggests that survivors had intent and held an active role in determining the outcome of the violation. The suggestion is that the survivor had some aspect of control surrounding the violation and this suggestion is both distorted and irrational.

This form of toxic shame is irrational because the survivors have done nothing wrong nor do they have any role surrounding the cause or the outcome of the violation. This shame is toxic in that it convicts the individual with a value judgment that becomes a part of the body and soul of survivors. This stain marks the individual with an inner ugliness that feels irreparable. The aspect of the sexual violation event that causes this staining dimension of the sexual trauma wound is found within the process known as reductionism.

This toxic shame is invoked by the process that removes the elements that are essential to the substance, dignity and worth of the soul. To understand the process of Reductionism we must first understand what it means to be human or sentient. The truth that humans are sentient beings means that we are self-aware, and intelligent with a soul whom possesses free will, human rights, divine worth and spiritual purpose or destiny. Reductionism at its core is the process by which the above 7- qualities of the sentient being are removed in order to produce and refine a marketable sexual product designed to be consumed and disposed.

Sex offenders including offenders who sexually harass and sexually intrude with looks, gestures or verbalizations are viewing the human individual through a sexual entitlement lens. This dark patriarchal lens is designed to reduce human souls into sexual products, created specifically for the purpose of consumption. When considering the impact of each of the elements that are comprised in a sexual violation event there are few that loom as large as sexual entitlement. The power of this entitlement is the ferocity with which violators believe that entitlement is real and true. Imagine a total stranger comes into your home and begins using various belongings and possessions as if they belong to him. He is so convinced that your things are his things that after only a few moments into the intrusion you begin to think that maybe it is true maybe these things really do belong to him, he believes it so strongly as if it were a foregone conclusion that your belongings have always been his. How can he be so sure? Thus., it is not just the entitlement itself that stains the survivor it is the violator’s tunnel vision faith in that entitlement. This is the big lie, the bro code lie the lie that is so normalized it takes thousands of survivors to wake up the blind faith entitlement believers. The psycho-pathological word for what is happening here is delusional. Entitlement believers are delusional but what do you do when a whole country of individuals are embracing the same delusion, such as the delusion that males are entitled to use the feminine to gratify their sexual appetites. The bigness of this delusion is a force to be reckoned.

There is a specific process by which sexually entitled individuals cast the sentient being into the role of disposable pleasure, reducing the soul into a sexual product to be pursued, acquired, consumed and discarded. Those who buy in to treating the feminine like a commodity quickly become well-schooled in the ritual of ‘reductionism’ which involves the 4- step process, (sexualize – objectify – depersonalize – dehumanize).
Why we might ask is this reductionism process required? Why is it so central to those who serve the sexual entitlement master? The answer to these questions lies in the meaning of the word sentient which is to say that sentient beings in their natural holistic state are impossible to consume. If you are craving a cheeseburger you would not proceed to the nearest farm slap a hunk of Velveeta on a cow and attempt to take a bite. So, it seems for the purposes of consumption the whole must be reduced. Thus, to consume a sentient being sexually, the being must be reduced by a process that removes the Sentient elements from that being.

Here is how reductionism works as a process to reduce human beings into pliable material that can be used to fulfill sexual consumption appetites, designs, and agendas. First, you must Sexualize the person by assigning the being with a sexual gratification purpose and identity while removing all non-sexual features. (Look at how she dresses. She is a slut.).
Second, you must Objectify the person by assigning property definitions and classifications to the being. (Look at that hot piece of ass). The word piece is a property word and reduces the being into something that can be owned and operated as the owner sees fit.

Third, you must Depersonalize the being by removing the soul from the individual’s body so that the consumer’s sexual appetites are permitted to take precedence over the person’s self-awareness, human dignity and intelligence. Things like dignity and intelligence interfere with sexual entitlement appetites. (I like chicks who don’t talk. I like my bitches blonde and dumb.) Chicks and bitches suggest property that is soul-less, primarily possessing a sexual gratification purpose. The absence of a soul also allows the consumer to keep the conscience from interfering as it might, with bouts of guilt or remorse. Employing Patriarchal entitlement tactics the sexual consumer pushes back on the conscience with justifications like; “I’m not doing anything wrong if it’s a just a slut who puts out”.
Fourth, you must Dehumanize the being by removing the person’s human rights. (You let me into your apartment that means you want sex. No means yes. Females are only good for one thing.). Imagine the escalation of entitlement quotients awakened within the sexual consumer alone, in a room with human sex appeal that has no human rights. This outcome is strategic.

This design includes a growing sexual excitement with each reduction step for the male sexual consumer. This means that the closer the male gets to completing the reduction process, the closer they get to pure animal brain. It seems that this reptile state of consciousness may well have been the goal all along. This might suggest that the sexual excitement that comes with stripping the sentient female being of her human rights to safety, security, dignity, freedom, and mutual consent, is less about the notion of power and more about the pleasure of depravity. The role of power seems to have more to do with the truth that depraved states of consciousness are more easily achieved from power positions. This implies that power is a means to an end, a doorway, if you will, to a state consciousness that holds greater measures and purer strains of pleasure chemicals.

Thus, it could be said that it is then only after the 4th step of this 4-step process that actual admission into the lower brain is truly granted. This means that the process of reducing the feminine into a sexual product is paralleled by the process of degrading the sexually entitled individual into a state of depravity. This means that during those moments of reptile consciousness both beings must be perceived by the individual practicing this patriarchal code to be less than human. This is true because depravity and humanity cannot occupy the same space. Depravity is essentially the absence of humanity.

This information on the process of reductionism is intended to cast light on the subject of reducing something from its natural whole into something less. It is also intended to reveal some of the strategic agendas of the psychological programming found within the Patriarchal code. One such strategy suggests a deliberate process that is designed to reduce the feminine into a product that is purposed to serve the male sexual appetite while at the same time permit the masculine to explore depraved appetites otherwise known to many as Pandora’s Box. This suggests that this dark Patriarchal strain may be less about power and more about the pursuit of consumption states of consciousness that cater to inhuman appetites.

The impact of this reductionism process for survivors is the toxic shame of an irreparable stain surrounding the removal of their sentient qualities. Thus we might ask is this stain the presence of something or the absence of something? The answer is both. The presence is the violation itself which surrounds the intent to define another with the terms of a sexual appetite. This tells us that the sexual appetite is the presence of the stain. The absence element of the stain is the violation’s removal of the survivor’s sentient qualities.

What makes the stain stick is the pre-existing tendency that all sentient beings have towards shame. The shame could be toxic or healthy but most individuals around the globe hold large measures of toxic shame. The violation sticks to the preexisting toxic shame and amplifies what many survivors already strongly and wrongly suspected, that they got what they deserved. This preexisting toxic shame acting like the fuzzy end of the Velcro strip attaches to the violation and the reductionism crystalizing the stain and giving it quality of permanence.

Additional elements surrounding the adhesive properties of the stain include the competition between the survivor’s ability to believe in their own self-confidence and their personal sense of worthiness and the offender’s ability to believe in the delusion of sexual entitlement. This hidden contest taking place deep within the soul of survivors is weighing and measuring the survivor’s ability to have more overall self-confidence than self-doubt. The muscular strength of any mind weighs heavily on one’s ability to believe in oneself. Confidence is a psychological muscle characterized by one’s ability to embrace a belief or a being as a truth. The strength of this muscle varies from person to person. If the offender’s confidence muscle is stronger than the survivor’s confidence muscle then the offenders self-confidence tends to over-ride the survivor’s self-confidence. This means that the offender’s stronger confidence in the delusion of entitlement could then override the survivor’s weaker confidence in their personal sense of self-worth. The result for survivors is significant increases in self-doubt and crushing fears that the offender’s entitlement delusions are true. In time the blooming self-doubt of survivors cascades into a certainty that they are a disposable pleasure worthy of the violations that they have survived. Over prolonged time periods the violation is normalized as survivors continues to give in to the notion that they are subject to the laws and Lords of entitlement. This process continues with survivors as their fragile levels of self-confidence continue to crumble leaving only self-doubt. This self-doubt leads survivors towards embracing the belief that the stain is permanent.