Trauma after rape impacts sex and sexual health. How survivors heal.

• Sexual violence can impact a person's entire sexual health.
• Sexual trauma can erode trust, confuse consent and blur boundaries.
• When survivors feel safe, they can do the work to heal, especially with a supportive partner.

During sexual violence, the body does many things to survive. It may fight, flee, freeze or dissociate. All of these are automatic reactions that serve a purpose when a person is being violated. The problem is that even after the violence has ended, those responses can get trapped inside, showing up in the body in frustrating ways, including in a survivor's sex life.