Vachon Imagined

Sex.

That sneaky thing my grandmother spoke about in hushed tones, as though it were secret, sacred, and somehow not entirely alive. As though it belonged to another era, tucked beneath heavy quilts and heavier expectations. A thing designed for reproduction. A duty. Perhaps a little enjoyment was permitted, but even pleasure arrived with conditions attached.

Enjoyment, as long as…

There was always an “as long as.”

For God’s sake, could someone make it less prescriptive and more honest?

Because I want to.

Ah yes, because I want to.

A dangerous sentence according to nearly everyone.

Yet “because I want to” has consequences too. An STD. An unwanted pregnancy. A reputation. The modern-day scarlet letter stitched not onto a dress but onto a psyche.

No matter where I turned, sex came with instructions. Rules. Warnings. Philosophies. Belief systems. Entire identities built around what should and should not happen between two people.

And somewhere in all of that, I lost sight of myself.

Often I wasn’t becoming who I wanted to be. I was becoming who someone else wanted me to be. Desire can be mutual, but people often feed on one another the way leeches feed on moving blood. We call it love. We call it intimacy. We call it connection. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

How sexuality enters a person’s life matters.

For me, it entered through abuse.

And because of that, even now, decades later, the first face that sometimes appears isn’t a lover’s face. It’s his.

The first scent isn’t desire. It’s memory.

That isn’t self-pity. It isn’t weakness. It isn’t a failure of healing.

It’s simply a fact.

I don’t make the rules.

But facts are not the same thing as meaning.

Meaning is perception.

And perception built around evil can make something as natural as sex feel evil. Built around love, it can feel sacred. Built around loneliness, it can become medicine. Built around desire, it can become an afternoon distraction squeezed into a lunch hour.

Sex is spiritual.

It is biological.

It is medicinal.

It is sometimes the thing people reach for when they are lonely and desperate for another heartbeat close enough to drown out their own.

But every time we let someone that close, we inherit things they don’t even know about themselves. Their fears. Their wounds. Their unmet needs. Their unfinished stories.

And when those stories collide with our own, people often do one of two things.

They run.

Or they try to fix us.

Even the people who love us most. A spouse. A best friend. The people who should know better.

Not because they’re cruel.

Because it is a lot to hold.

Speaking from experience, there are many standards established before me that I have not lived up to. There are stories about recovery, redemption, healing, and triumph that sound far cleaner than the reality I have lived.

I cannot write a book called How to Overcome Sexual Abuse.

That would imply an ending.

And endings, at least in this area of my life, have always felt dishonest.

What I can say is this:

When I see his face now, it still lingers.

Sometimes I can look away.

Sometimes I cannot.

Sometimes I am strong.

Sometimes I am simply human.

But honesty about who I am, where I come from, and what I carry has become the first step toward something far more valuable than overcoming.

Allowing.

Acceptance.

And if you find someone who allows you to be exactly where you are—someone patient enough not to rush your healing, forgiving enough not to weaponize your wounds, gentle enough not to demand a version of you that doesn’t exist yet—love them.

Even if that person is you.

Love them enough to let them go.

Love them enough to let them stay.

Love them enough to give them a front-row seat to your unraveling and your becoming.

Because sometimes those are the very same thing.