In my work, I meet many people with sexual trauma who are trying to find a way back to intimacy and sexual connection. When profound experiences remaining unaddressed for a long time – or perhaps never having been put into words – they can leave deep traces. Especially when they occurred in early childhood. Often, people don't even remember exactly what happened. They just feel that something is not right.
Then I hear sentences like: ‘It feels like something is broken inside me.’ Sometimes this manifests physically, for example when an orgasm seems difficult or impossible. Sometimes emotionally: a feeling of distance, detachment, or confusion in contact with others.
Protective parts
What often becomes visible beneath that is how early in our lives we develop strategies to protect ourselves. Parts of ourselves that ensure we don't get hurt again. These protective parts have often worked extremely hard for years to keep us safe. They take their job so seriously that over time we sometimes begin to completely identify with them.Â
At the same time, something else often lives inside us as well. Many people recognize the experience of having different parts present simultaneously. I frequently encounter the inner conflict this can cause, and clients sometimes describe it very aptly: ‘It feels as though the seven-year-old is still inside me, while I am now a thirty-five-year-old woman.’
The 35-year-old woman feels desire, curiosity, and the need for connection and intimacy. But somewhere in the body there also lives a younger part that wants to scream, freeze, run away, or shut down.
For many people, that is confusing. And painful.
Time is money
The question then becomes: how do we create safety again? How can the body experience once more that closeness is possible without becoming overwhelmed? Going slowly is essential in that. nervous system needs time to feel that it is safe to relax and allow new experiences. Time is gold for the nervous system.
In that process, the body plays an important role. What we have experienced is stored not only in words or memories, but also in our body. In tension, in reflexes, in how we breathe. As trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk puts it: the body keeps the score.Â
Restoring intimacy and sexual connection is therefore not a matter of ‘just thinking differently’, but of relearning how to feel and experience – in small, safe steps.Â
A gentle danceÂ
What often emerges then resembles a dance. A dance between protection and desire. Between tension and relaxation. Between fear and curiosity. And what I see people discover over and over again is that that younger part does not have to go away in order to feel intimacy again.
On the contrary. When we learn to tune into our bodies and our boundaries, and give ourselves the time we need, that younger part can slowly begin to experience that it is no longer alone.
And right there, space is created. Space for touch. For curiosity. For sensuality. Not because we force anything, but because the body is allowed to discover, step by step, that closeness can be safe again.
A gentle dance, in which protection and desire slowly learn to coexist side by side.
Katjalisa Reiter
Anthropologist, body-oriented trauma therapist, and founder of the Slow Sex Movement
More about Katjalisa
Katjalisa is an anthropologist, body-oriented trauma therapist, holds a master's degree in Transformational Psychology, and is certified Voice Dialogue facilitator. She was trained and mentored by Robert Stamboliev, founder of the Institute of Transformational Psychology (ITP). Katjalisa is the founder of the Slow Sex Movement, in which intimacy, sexuality, and life energy are approached from trauma sensitivity, presence, and deceleration. She is currently writing a book on sexual fantasies and how they can be used as a therapeutic tool. The release of the book is scheduled for late 2026.
