Healing Sex: What is Safety?

[lb_lee]

This is excerpted from Staci Haines's Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma. Since we and other folks we know have trouble sometimes with defining or understanding safety, I thought it might be useful and relevant! From page 4:


Most people think of safety as a "feeling" of being safe. [...] It is not always reliable. You can be in a very safe situation and feel unsafe [...] Or, [...] you may be in an unsafe situation and feel just fine. [...]

When checking in on your safety in a given situation, consider the following:

• How do you feel in your body? Do you feel safe, scared, unsettled?
• Is your physical environment safe and free of violence and abuse? (No one is hitting, kicking, punching, or pushing you. No one is calling you names or threatening you or anyone you care about.) [LB's addition: and not just right this moment but in general.]
• Does your partner, lover, or friend consider your needs, wants, and desires as important and relevant as his or her own?
• Can your partner, lover, or friend really meet your needs? Does he or she have the know-how, the tools, and the good intention?
• Do you have the power in this situation to act upon your own behalf? To take care of yourself fully?
• Are you making your own choices? Not being pressured, pushed, or manipulated?

Asking yourself these questions gives you a way to assess whether or not you are safe--even when you do not necessarily feel safe.

Being safe and feeling comfortable are not the same thing.