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Sexual oppression bedevils men, women, and children far too frequently. Throughout the course of human history, innocent people have suffered grossly from traumatising acts of child sexual abuse, rape, eroticised bullying, and even sexual enslavement. More recently, with the advent of modern technologies, young and old alike have come to endure sexual oppression through cyber-bullying and through the manufacture and distribution of child pornography.
But sexual oppression can also be a state of mind, and one can struggle with oppression in the complete absence of any obvious external traumata.
In this article, the author will consider the many ways in which human beings become oppressed by private sexual fantasies and desires which result in shame, in attacks on intimacy, in the cessation of sexual activity, or in the indulgence in addictive and destructive sexuality: symptomatic states which often serve as unconscious repetitions of early trauma. In particularly severe instances, the sexual fantasy constellation becomes so pathogenic that it threatens the very life of the individual and his or her partners. The author has referred to this type of deeply entrenched sexual fantasy as the “erotic tumour”.
Drawing upon clinical and research materials, we will explore some of the painful and deadly paradoxes of human sexuality and discuss the ways in which psychotherapists can intervene more effectively to reduce the traumaticity of erotic tumours and other dangerous states of mind.