Want by Julie Peters

Author:Julie Peters [Peters, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781633539655
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2019-04-29T15:53:24+00:00

Sexual Assault and Disordered Eating

Like any other addiction, eating disorders are dangerous and have negative consequences, but they are also a tool for survival. They are a function of the nervous system trying to protect itself. Disordered eating was already a part of my toolbox when I was assaulted, and eating issues are sneaky because you can’t quit food like you can quit drinking (no matter how hard you try). Food was an enemy that I unconsciously associated with sexuality, my body image, and being seen as sexual prey, so in order to heal from sexual assault, I had to make friends with food.

Women are much likelier than men to have some form of an eating disorder like anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder, but that doesn’t mean men don’t suffer from them: one in every three people affected by an eating disorder is male.122 No one knows exactly why it’s so prevalent in women, but the common theory is that it’s because women have more pressure to be thin. I know for myself, though, that anorexia wasn’t really about trying to be thin. You don’t resist your fundamental survival urges just because you want to fit into your skinny jeans. What I wanted was to be safe. At least one study on the topic has found that the occurrence of bulimia, the binge-and-purge cycle of eating, was 2.5 times higher for girls who had one incident of childhood sexual abuse and 4.9 times higher for girls who had experienced one or more episodes of abuse.123 The pressure to diet might just help a woman find a way to make her threatening and scary sexuality disappear, especially if she’s already been assaulted.

In my life and those of many of my friends who have experienced eating disorders, there is always some relationship between trying to control our food and trying to control our sexuality. It’s not always about some specific moment of sexual violence. Often, it’s about protecting our bodies from the ambiently threatening sexuality that infuses our culture, as in, I don’t know, perfume ads that show a woman who looks kind of dead strapped to the hood of a car. Some of us try to disappear by not eating enough. Some of us try to disappear underneath a protective layer of fat. Some of us binge, desperately trying to fill the void, and then, consumed with guilt and nausea, purge the shame right back out. Some of us do cleanses where we consume nothing but lemon juice and cayenne pepper—the ol’ shit-yourself-thin diet. This one makes us feel pure and empty, and, as a friend of mine who did it has jokingly phrased it, as if “no one will be able to see my bowels!” We refuse the violation of food entering our vulnerable bodies, or we try to stuff ourselves with comfort, and then, panicked, eject it back out. Kasl writes, “Many women, unable to say ‘no, I don’t want to be sexual, I’m hurting inside, I’m afraid, I’m sad, I need to change my life,’ use food as a language for their feelings.

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