Cherokee Nation Will Now Recognize Same-Sex Marriage

The Cherokee Nation will now recognize same-sex marriage, according to an opinion issued Friday by the tribe’s attorney general.

Todd Hembree, the tribe’s attorney general, wrote in his opinion:

The right to marry without the freedom to marry the person of one’s choice is no right at all. The history of perpetual partnerships and marriage among Cherokees supports the conclusion that Cherokee citizens have a fundamental right not only to choose a spouse but also, with mutual consent, to join together and form a household irrespective of sexual orientation.

The decision followed a request made by the tribe’s tax commissioner for an official opinion on the issue a few weeks ago.

“We were increasingly being contacted by departments in the Cherokee Nation on how to handle certain issues with same-sex marriage,” Chrissi Nimmo, assistant attorney general of the Cherokee Nation, told The Huffington Post on Friday.

Native American nations are governed by Congress, not the federal courts. So the 2015 Supreme Court decision to recognize gay marriage in all 50 states did not legally affect the Cherokee Nation, but Nimmo said the bulk of Friday’s decision was indeed informed by it.

Hembree’s decision was also influenced by historical Cherokee Nation sexuality narratives. He wrote in Friday’s decision:

Our oral history teaches us also that the Cherokee and Euro-American worldviews differed dramatically regarding appropriate gender roles, marriage, sexuality, and spiritual beliefs. Indeed, while the majority of Cherokees subscribed to the traditional gender roles, evidence suggests a tradition of homosexuality or alternative sexuality among a minority of Cherokees.

“It think it’s a really interesting part of the decision,” Nimmo told HuffPost. “Through historical research, we were able to identify research sources that indicate there was some type of historical recognition of homosexuality.”

Hembree’s opinion nullifies a law the tribe passed 12 years ago called the Cherokee Nation and Family Protection Act, which banned same-sex marriage among tribe members. 

Though same-sex marriage is still illegal in some Native American tribes, like the Navajo Nation, Nimmo believes most tribes don’t take a stance on it either way. 

“I think you will see a mixed reaction [to Friday’s decision] like you do in the American public at large,” Nimmo told HuffPost. “Without a doubt, there will be tribal members and officials who support this and are proud of this, and there will be others ... who don’t like it.”

The Cherokee Nation’s legal recognition of same-sex marriage will take effect immediately. Nimmo said Hembree’s decision is “binding and considered legally valid,” though it can be challenged by other Cherokee officials at any time.

“I don’t really know who would challenge it,” Nimmo added.

Supporters of the decision shared their excitement on social media:

"

| Cherokee | Nation | Will | Recognize | Same-Sex | Marriage | will | recognize | same | marriage | according | opinion | issued | Friday | tribe’s | attorney | general | p> Todd | Hembree | wrote | opinion< | a>:< | p> The | right | marry | without | freedom | person | one’s | choice | history | perpetual | partnerships | among | Cherokees | supports | conclusion | that | citizens | have | fundamental | only | choose | spouse | also | with | mutual | consent | join | together | form | household | irrespective | sexual | orientation | p> < | blockquote> The | decision | followed | request | made | commissioner | official | issue | weeks | p> “We | were | increasingly | being | contacted | departments | handle | certain | issues | Chrissi | Nimmo | assistant | told | Huffington | Post | p> Native | American | nations | governed | Congress | federal | courts | 2015 | Supreme | Court | states | legally | affect | said | bulk | Friday’s | indeed | informed | p> Hembree’s | influenced | historical | sexuality | narratives | decision:< | p> Our | oral | teaches | Euro | worldviews | differed | dramatically | regarding | appropriate | gender | roles | spiritual | beliefs | Indeed | while | majority | subscribed | traditional | evidence | suggests | tradition | homosexuality | alternative | minority | blockquote> “It | think | it’s | really | interesting | part | HuffPost | “Through | research | able | identify | sources | indicate | there | some | type | recognition | ”< | nullifies | tribe | passed | years | called | Family | Protection | which | banned | members | p> Though | still | illegal | Native | tribes | like | Navajo | Nation< | believes | most | don’t | take | stance | either | p> “I | mixed | reaction | decision] | public | large | “Without | doubt | tribal | officials | support | this | proud | others | p> The | Nation’s | legal | effect | immediately | Hembree’s | “binding | considered | valid | though | challenged | other | time | know | would | challenge | added | p> Supporters | shared | their | excitement | social | media:< | p> |

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Bad Sex in Fiction Awards ceremony celebrates 24th year

“It’s terribly British, isn’t it,” said the man next to me at last night’s Bad Sex in Fiction Awards ceremony at the (appropriately named) In and Out Club in St James’s. He was referring, of course, to the yearly bash â€" now in its 24th year â€" in which the Literary Review magazine nominates half a dozen passages from contemporary fiction seen to represent sex at its most cringeworthy, reads them out to champagne-infused guffaws, and then awards a prize to the author of the worst.

It is a terribly British event, but it also provides a snarky satisfaction that transcends nationality. Because for anyone with the sneaking suspicion that the sexual act is better done or seen than artistically described â€" that its complex idiosyncrasy is one of the few things that lie outside the remit of the otherwise resourceful English language â€" the Bad Sex Awards hits its mark.

Yet as the entrants this year make clear, writing about sex with flagrant abominableness is still cheerily far from going out of fashion. Hearty examples were a passage from Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis’s The Butcher’s Hook:

When his hand goes to my breasts, my feet are envious. I slide my hands down his back, all along his spine, rutted with bone like mud ridges in a dry field, to the audacious swell below.

“Audacious swell”? Quite.

Then there was the American Gayle Forman’s entry, from Leave Me:

They were in that room, Jason had slammed the door and devoured her with his mouth, his hands, which were everywhere. As if he were ravenous. And she remembered standing in front of him, her dress a puddle on the floor, and how she’d started to shake, her knees knocking together, like she was a virgin, like this was the first time.

Erri de Luca.
Claudio Onorati/EPA

But the gong went to the Italian poet and translator Erri De Luca for The Day Before Happiness (de Luca understandably wasn’t present). “My prick was a plank stuck to her stomach,” the Neapolitan was justly rebuked for writing:

With a swerve of her hips, she turned me over and I was on top of her … I was her plaything, which she moved around. Our sexes were ready, poised in expectation, barely touching each other: ballet dancers hovering en pointe.

Not everyone felt this deserved the award â€" as an American woman nearby remarked to me, this could clearly be read as satire, plain and simple. Perhaps, but satire doesn’t necessarily get you home dry, especially when it’s ambiguous. After all, the book, a coming of age story, is not particularly comic in the way that, for instance, the early sex-mad tomes of Philip Roth and Martin Amis were.

In fact, the awards were conceived not to discourage writing about sex, but to discourage writing about sex badly. The wording of the original mission statement in 1993 by Auberon Waugh, then editor of the Literary Review, is revealing: the bash was to “draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction”.

It would be helpful to have some guidance on what non-redundant, good sex writing looks like, since it’s not entirely clear whether it can exist in a literary form at all. After all, the most sexually charged novels of the last 100 or so years use the rule of thumb that the act is unmentionable, boring, or best only suggested.

The novels of Dickens, Eliot and Trollope are full of sexual yearning, and their emotional and erotic pull are none the worse for the veiled references to kissing and love. Even in 20th century novels with subject matter devoted to romantic entanglements, the sexual act is not necessarily spelled out or even mentioned â€" Iris Murdoch doesn’t go further than “making love” as an account of the nocturnal activities of her highly sexually charged couple Dora and Paul in The Bell (1958).

And while Margaret Drabble’s super-sexy characters Clara and Gabriel get pretty steamy in Jerusalem the Golden, nothing beyond the fact is spelled out. It’s a blessed relief which does nothing to diminish the profoundly saucy atmosphere of the book.

The awards are also a humorous reminder not just of the imaginative power but also of the literary value of discipline and restraint in matters of bonking. A recent book about prime minster Herbert Asquith’s passionate attachment to Venetia Stanley tells of his thousands of letters to her, all passionately headed with variants of “my own darling” and “darlingest”.

Asquith’s desperate fixation with Stanley pours out from every page, but had he indulged in anything more sexually explicit than the desire to “go for a little drive, or will you come to Downing St & have a talk”, it would hardly have helped, and probably only hindered, the accumulated intensity of his fixation. Voluble lusters: take note.

Zoe Strimpel, PhD Candidate, University of Sussex

"

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Post-Election, Survivors Of Assault Are Struggling To Have Sex Again

After the now infamous recording of President-elect Donald Trump bragging about grabbing women by the pussy came out, Anna*, 33, went to her Facebook page to share her story. In high school, she had been raped by her boyfriend, and in that moment, she wanted people to know.

“I didn’t say anyone’s name, I just said I had been raped and I was a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor, and why it bothered me so much what Trump had said,” Anna told The Huffington Post. “I said, this is not just locker room talk. This happens to people, and this happened to me.”

After posting, Anna felt great. She heard from several women who shared their own stories and she helped connect them to resources. But then her ex-boyfriend reached out, saying he was going to sue her ― at the the same moment Trump was threatening to sue his accusers. It was an unsettling parallel Anna could not quite wrap her head around, and she was anxious for the election to be over.

“I kept wanting to think that Trump wouldn’t get elected and our nation would say this kind of thing isn’t OK,” Anna said. Since Trump’s win, she has been in a tailspin. For a week-and-a-half, she couldn’t sleep. She still hasn’t really been able to be intimate with her husband.

“Since Trump’s comment, we’ve only had sex a couple of times,” she said, adding that she was going to meet with her doctor to talk about options. “I don’t want to feel this way.” 

I had gotten to a point where I had taken my own power back from my rapist, and this felt like the American people telling me, "No, no. He still has more power over you." Ali, 28

The 2016 presidential campaign was difficult for many women, especially those who felt triggered by Trump’s so-called “locker room talk,” and a string of allegations that he’d groped and kissed women without their consent. But Trump’s win, they say, is even more difficult ― not just a reminder of everything they’ve been through, but a minimizing of it. And it has left their sex lives in shambles.

“It resurfaced a lot of past trauma that I had experienced about seven years ago when I was sexually assaulted,” Ali, 28, told The Huffington Post. “I had gotten to a point where I had taken my own power back from my rapist, and this felt like the American people telling me, ‘No, no. He still has more power over you.’”

Prior to Trump’s win, Ali had sex with her husband every other day. Now, they’ve been having sex maybe once a week ― not nothing, but not the same. When they do have sex, Ali feels far less enthusiastic. 

“I’m just not as comfortable letting myself be sexual right now,” she said.

It is hardly a surprising reaction, says Wendy Maltz, a sex therapist and author of The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide For Survivors Of Sexual Abuse.

“Here, we have a really unprecedented situation where a person who has been identified as a sexual perpetrator by many women has been elevated to the highest position in the country,” she said. “For many [people] who’ve been sexually abused, it’s a huge shock.”

Trump’s broader triggering effect has been well-documented. Soon after Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” tape came out, RAINN ― the sexual assault survivor nonprofit that runs the National Sexual Assault Hotline ― saw call traffic increase by 33 percent. At one point during the campaign, 3,000 therapists signed a “manifesto” detailing the psychological toll they believed Trump was taking on their patients, everything from anxiety and fear to shame, Politico reports. One therapist who works with survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault told Slate she’d seen an uptick in patients calling for emergency counseling sessions, and experiencing flashbacks and an inability to go outside. 

When I look at Donald Trump, I have this visceral reaction where I look at him as someone who actually sexually assaulted me. Jamie*, 31

But it’s not just Trump’s behavior, Maltz said. It’s the feeling that many Americans simply didn’t care enough about their experiences to vote against a sexual aggressor that has made it so challenging for women to be intimate again, even with trusted partners. And Maltz points to research that has found that “institutional betrayal” ― the kind that happens when a student reports an assault and his or her university fails to provide backup ― can exacerbate trauma, leading to further anxiety, depression and sexual problems.

“Those results suggest that institutions ― or in this situation, the election ― has the power to cause additional harm to assault survivors in the form of sexual effects,” she said. Women can feel re-traumatized, Maltz added. They can project their feelings onto someone else, such as a partner or even Trump himself.

That’s exactly what is happening to Jamie*, 31, who was date raped when she was 16.

“When I look at Donald Trump, I have this visceral reaction where I look at him as someone who actually sexually assaulted me,” she said. “It has put me into this hole, where I don’t feel like I want to be intimate with my live-in boyfriend of four years.” They have not had sex since the election, and she has no sexual appetite right now.

Jamie understands, of course, that Trump did not actually assault her ― but she can’t shake the feeling that she has been violated in some way. 

“I’ve never experienced looking at a stranger and having that kind of reaction,” she said. Jamie is hopeful she and her boyfriend will resume their sex life soon, but the thought of seeing Trump’s face every day for four years worries her.

“I just feel like, ugh. Dirty. Muddy,” Jamie said. “I feel like I was victimized.”

* First names have been changed for privacy reasons. 

Suggest a correction

"

| Post-Election, | Survivors | Assault | Struggling | Have | Again | After | infamous | recording | President | elect | Donald | Trump | bragging | about | grabbing | women | pussy< | came | Anna* | went | Facebook | page | share | story | high | school | been | raped | boyfriend | that | moment | wanted | people | know | p> “I | didn’t | anyone’s | name | just | said | domestic | violence | sexual | assault | survivor | bothered | much | what | Anna | told | Huffington | Post | “I | this | not< | locker | room | talk | This | happens | happened | ”< | p> After | posting |  Anna | felt | great | heard | from | several | shared | their | stories | helped | connect | them | resources | then | reached | saying | going | same | threatening | accusers | unsettling | parallel | could | quite | wrap | head | around | anxious | election | over | kept | wanting | think | wouldn’t | elected | nation | would | kind | thing | isn’t | Since | Trump’s | tailspin | week | half | couldn’t | sleep | still | hasn’t | really | able | intimate | with | husband | p> “Since | comment | we’ve | only | couple | times | adding | meet | doctor | options | don’t | want | feel | ” < | p> < | div> I | gotten | point | where | taken | power | back | rapist | like | American | telling | more | span> | span>< | blockquote> The | 2016 | presidential | campaign | difficult | many | especially | those | triggered | called | “locker | string | allegations< | he’d | groped | kissed | without | consent | they | even | reminder | everything | they’ve | through | minimizing | left | lives | shambles | p> “It | resurfaced | past | trauma | experienced | seven | years | when | sexually | assaulted | ‘No | ’”< | p> Prior | every | other | having | maybe | once | nothing | When | have | feels | less | enthusiastic | p> “I’m | comfortable | letting | myself | right | p> It | hardly | surprising | reaction | says | Wendy | Maltz | therapist | author | Sexual | Healing | Journey: | Guide | Abuse | em>< | p> “Here | unprecedented | situation | person | identified | perpetrator | elevated | highest | position | country | “For | [people] | who’ve | abused | it’s | huge | shock | p> Trump’s | broader | triggering | effect | well | documented | Soon | after | “grab | pussy” | tape |  RAINN< | a> ― the | nonprofit | runs | National | Hotline | call | traffic | increase | percent< | during | therapists | signed | “manifesto” | detailing | psychological | toll | believed | taking | patients | anxiety | fear | shame | Politico | reports< | works | survivors | abuse | Slate< | she’d | seen | uptick | calling | emergency | counseling | sessions | experiencing | flashbacks | inability | outside | div> When | look | visceral | someone | actually | Jamie* | blockquote> But | behavior | It’s | feeling | Americans | simply | care | enough | experiences | vote | against | aggressor | made | challenging | again | trusted | partners | points | research | found< | “institutional | betrayal” | student | reports | university | fails | provide | backup | exacerbate | leading | further | depression | problems | p> “Those | results | suggest | institutions | cause | additional | harm | form | effects | Women | traumatized | added | They | project | feelings | onto | else | such | partner | himself | p> That’s | exactly | happening | date | p> “When | “It | into | hole | live | four | since | appetite | p> Jamie | understands | course | can’t | shake | violated | some | p> “I’ve | never | looking | stranger | Jamie | hopeful | will | resume | life | soon | thought | seeing | face | worries | Dirty | Muddy | victimized | p> * | First | names | changed | privacy | reasons | strong>< | div> | Suggest | correction< | div> |

Thank You Very Very Much for Visiting this Blog

Post-Election, Survivors Of Assault Are Struggling To Have Sex Again

After the now infamous recording of President-elect Donald Trump bragging about grabbing women by the pussy came out, Anna*, 33, went to her Facebook page to share her story. In high school, she had been raped by her boyfriend, and in that moment, she wanted people to know.

“I didn’t say anyone’s name, I just said I had been raped and I was a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor, and why it bothered me so much what Trump had said,” Anna told The Huffington Post. “I said, this is not just locker room talk. This happens to people, and this happened to me.”

After posting, Anna felt great. She heard from several women who shared their own stories and she helped connect them to resources. But then her ex-boyfriend reached out, saying he was going to sue her ― at the the same moment Trump was threatening to sue his accusers. It was an unsettling parallel Anna could not quite wrap her head around, and she was anxious for the election to be over.

“I kept wanting to think that Trump wouldn’t get elected and our nation would say this kind of thing isn’t OK,” Anna said. Since Trump’s win, she has been in a tailspin. For a week-and-a-half, she couldn’t sleep. She still hasn’t really been able to be intimate with her husband.

“Since Trump’s comment, we’ve only had sex a couple of times,” she said, adding that she was going to meet with her doctor to talk about options. “I don’t want to feel this way.” 

I had gotten to a point where I had taken my own power back from my rapist, and this felt like the American people telling me, "No, no. He still has more power over you." Ali, 28

The 2016 presidential campaign was difficult for many women, especially those who felt triggered by Trump’s so-called “locker room talk,” and a string of allegations that he’d groped and kissed women without their consent. But Trump’s win, they say, is even more difficult ― not just a reminder of everything they’ve been through, but a minimizing of it. And it has left their sex lives in shambles.

“It resurfaced a lot of past trauma that I had experienced about seven years ago when I was sexually assaulted,” Ali, 28, told The Huffington Post. “I had gotten to a point where I had taken my own power back from my rapist, and this felt like the American people telling me, ‘No, no. He still has more power over you.’”

Prior to Trump’s win, Ali had sex with her husband every other day. Now, they’ve been having sex maybe once a week ― not nothing, but not the same. When they do have sex, Ali feels far less enthusiastic. 

“I’m just not as comfortable letting myself be sexual right now,” she said.

It is hardly a surprising reaction, says Wendy Maltz, a sex therapist and author of The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide For Survivors Of Sexual Abuse.

“Here, we have a really unprecedented situation where a person who has been identified as a sexual perpetrator by many women has been elevated to the highest position in the country,” she said. “For many [people] who’ve been sexually abused, it’s a huge shock.”

Trump’s broader triggering effect has been well-documented. Soon after Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” tape came out, RAINN ― the sexual assault survivor nonprofit that runs the National Sexual Assault Hotline ― saw call traffic increase by 33 percent. At one point during the campaign, 3,000 therapists signed a “manifesto” detailing the psychological toll they believed Trump was taking on their patients, everything from anxiety and fear to shame, Politico reports. One therapist who works with survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault told Slate she’d seen an uptick in patients calling for emergency counseling sessions, and experiencing flashbacks and an inability to go outside. 

When I look at Donald Trump, I have this visceral reaction where I look at him as someone who actually sexually assaulted me. Jamie*, 31

But it’s not just Trump’s behavior, Maltz said. It’s the feeling that many Americans simply didn’t care enough about their experiences to vote against a sexual aggressor that has made it so challenging for women to be intimate again, even with trusted partners. And Maltz points to research that has found that “institutional betrayal” ― the kind that happens when a student reports an assault and his or her university fails to provide backup ― can exacerbate trauma, leading to further anxiety, depression and sexual problems.

“Those results suggest that institutions ― or in this situation, the election ― has the power to cause additional harm to assault survivors in the form of sexual effects,” she said. Women can feel re-traumatized, Maltz added. They can project their feelings onto someone else, such as a partner or even Trump himself.

That’s exactly what is happening to Jamie*, 31, who was date raped when she was 16.

“When I look at Donald Trump, I have this visceral reaction where I look at him as someone who actually sexually assaulted me,” she said. “It has put me into this hole, where I don’t feel like I want to be intimate with my live-in boyfriend of four years.” They have not had sex since the election, and she has no sexual appetite right now.

Jamie understands, of course, that Trump did not actually assault her ― but she can’t shake the feeling that she has been violated in some way. 

“I’ve never experienced looking at a stranger and having that kind of reaction,” she said. Jamie is hopeful she and her boyfriend will resume their sex life soon, but the thought of seeing Trump’s face every day for four years worries her.

“I just feel like, ugh. Dirty. Muddy,” Jamie said. “I feel like I was victimized.”

* First names have been changed for privacy reasons. 

Suggest a correction

"

| Post-Election, | Survivors | Assault | Struggling | Have | Again | After | infamous | recording | President | elect | Donald | Trump | bragging | about | grabbing | women | pussy< | came | Anna* | went | Facebook | page | share | story | high | school | been | raped | boyfriend | that | moment | wanted | people | know | p> “I | didn’t | anyone’s | name | just | said | domestic | violence | sexual | assault | survivor | bothered | much | what | Anna | told | Huffington | Post | “I | this | not< | locker | room | talk | This | happens | happened | ”< | p> After | posting |  Anna | felt | great | heard | from | several | shared | their | stories | helped | connect | them | resources | then | reached | saying | going | same | threatening | accusers | unsettling | parallel | could | quite | wrap | head | around | anxious | election | over | kept | wanting | think | wouldn’t | elected | nation | would | kind | thing | isn’t | Since | Trump’s | tailspin | week | half | couldn’t | sleep | still | hasn’t | really | able | intimate | with | husband | p> “Since | comment | we’ve | only | couple | times | adding | meet | doctor | options | don’t | want | feel | ” < | p> < | div> I | gotten | point | where | taken | power | back | rapist | like | American | telling | more | span> | span>< | blockquote> The | 2016 | presidential | campaign | difficult | many | especially | those | triggered | called | “locker | string | allegations< | he’d | groped | kissed | without | consent | they | even | reminder | everything | they’ve | through | minimizing | left | lives | shambles | p> “It | resurfaced | past | trauma | experienced | seven | years | when | sexually | assaulted | ‘No | ’”< | p> Prior | every | other | having | maybe | once | nothing | When | have | feels | less | enthusiastic | p> “I’m | comfortable | letting | myself | right | p> It | hardly | surprising | reaction | says | Wendy | Maltz | therapist | author | Sexual | Healing | Journey: | Guide | Abuse | em>< | p> “Here | unprecedented | situation | person | identified | perpetrator | elevated | highest | position | country | “For | [people] | who’ve | abused | it’s | huge | shock | p> Trump’s | broader | triggering | effect | well | documented | Soon | after | “grab | pussy” | tape |  RAINN< | a> ― the | nonprofit | runs | National | Hotline | call | traffic | increase | percent< | during | therapists | signed | “manifesto” | detailing | psychological | toll | believed | taking | patients | anxiety | fear | shame | Politico | reports< | works | survivors | abuse | Slate< | she’d | seen | uptick | calling | emergency | counseling | sessions | experiencing | flashbacks | inability | outside | div> When | look | visceral | someone | actually | Jamie* | blockquote> But | behavior | It’s | feeling | Americans | simply | care | enough | experiences | vote | against | aggressor | made | challenging | again | trusted | partners | points | research | found< | “institutional | betrayal” | student | reports | university | fails | provide | backup | exacerbate | leading | further | depression | problems | p> “Those | results | suggest | institutions | cause | additional | harm | form | effects | Women | traumatized | added | They | project | feelings | onto | else | such | partner | himself | p> That’s | exactly | happening | date | p> “When | “It | into | hole | live | four | since | appetite | p> Jamie | understands | course | can’t | shake | violated | some | p> “I’ve | never | looking | stranger | Jamie | hopeful | will | resume | life | soon | thought | seeing | face | worries | Dirty | Muddy | victimized | p> * | First | names | changed | privacy | reasons | strong>< | div> | Suggest | correction< | div> |

Thank You So Much for Read this News

Post-Election, Survivors Of Assault Are Struggling To Have Sex Again

After the now infamous recording of President-elect Donald Trump bragging about grabbing women by the pussy came out, Anna*, 33, went to her Facebook page to share her story. In high school, she had been raped by her boyfriend, and in that moment, she wanted people to know.

“I didn’t say anyone’s name, I just said I had been raped and I was a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor, and why it bothered me so much what Trump had said,” Anna told The Huffington Post. “I said, this is not just locker room talk. This happens to people, and this happened to me.”

After posting, Anna felt great. She heard from several women who shared their own stories and she helped connect them to resources. But then her ex-boyfriend reached out, saying he was going to sue her ― at the the same moment Trump was threatening to sue his accusers. It was an unsettling parallel Anna could not quite wrap her head around, and she was anxious for the election to be over.

“I kept wanting to think that Trump wouldn’t get elected and our nation would say this kind of thing isn’t OK,” Anna said. Since Trump’s win, she has been in a tailspin. For a week-and-a-half, she couldn’t sleep. She still hasn’t really been able to be intimate with her husband.

“Since Trump’s comment, we’ve only had sex a couple of times,” she said, adding that she was going to meet with her doctor to talk about options. “I don’t want to feel this way.” 

I had gotten to a point where I had taken my own power back from my rapist, and this felt like the American people telling me, "No, no. He still has more power over you." Ali, 28

The 2016 presidential campaign was difficult for many women, especially those who felt triggered by Trump’s so-called “locker room talk,” and a string of allegations that he’d groped and kissed women without their consent. But Trump’s win, they say, is even more difficult ― not just a reminder of everything they’ve been through, but a minimizing of it. And it has left their sex lives in shambles.

“It resurfaced a lot of past trauma that I had experienced about seven years ago when I was sexually assaulted,” Ali, 28, told The Huffington Post. “I had gotten to a point where I had taken my own power back from my rapist, and this felt like the American people telling me, ‘No, no. He still has more power over you.’”

Prior to Trump’s win, Ali had sex with her husband every other day. Now, they’ve been having sex maybe once a week ― not nothing, but not the same. When they do have sex, Ali feels far less enthusiastic. 

“I’m just not as comfortable letting myself be sexual right now,” she said.

It is hardly a surprising reaction, says Wendy Maltz, a sex therapist and author of The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide For Survivors Of Sexual Abuse.

“Here, we have a really unprecedented situation where a person who has been identified as a sexual perpetrator by many women has been elevated to the highest position in the country,” she said. “For many [people] who’ve been sexually abused, it’s a huge shock.”

Trump’s broader triggering effect has been well-documented. Soon after Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” tape came out, RAINN ― the sexual assault survivor nonprofit that runs the National Sexual Assault Hotline ― saw call traffic increase by 33 percent. At one point during the campaign, 3,000 therapists signed a “manifesto” detailing the psychological toll they believed Trump was taking on their patients, everything from anxiety and fear to shame, Politico reports. One therapist who works with survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault told Slate she’d seen an uptick in patients calling for emergency counseling sessions, and experiencing flashbacks and an inability to go outside. 

When I look at Donald Trump, I have this visceral reaction where I look at him as someone who actually sexually assaulted me. Jamie*, 31

But it’s not just Trump’s behavior, Maltz said. It’s the feeling that many Americans simply didn’t care enough about their experiences to vote against a sexual aggressor that has made it so challenging for women to be intimate again, even with trusted partners. And Maltz points to research that has found that “institutional betrayal” ― the kind that happens when a student reports an assault and his or her university fails to provide backup ― can exacerbate trauma, leading to further anxiety, depression and sexual problems.

“Those results suggest that institutions ― or in this situation, the election ― has the power to cause additional harm to assault survivors in the form of sexual effects,” she said. Women can feel re-traumatized, Maltz added. They can project their feelings onto someone else, such as a partner or even Trump himself.

That’s exactly what is happening to Jamie*, 31, who was date raped when she was 16.

“When I look at Donald Trump, I have this visceral reaction where I look at him as someone who actually sexually assaulted me,” she said. “It has put me into this hole, where I don’t feel like I want to be intimate with my live-in boyfriend of four years.” They have not had sex since the election, and she has no sexual appetite right now.

Jamie understands, of course, that Trump did not actually assault her ― but she can’t shake the feeling that she has been violated in some way. 

“I’ve never experienced looking at a stranger and having that kind of reaction,” she said. Jamie is hopeful she and her boyfriend will resume their sex life soon, but the thought of seeing Trump’s face every day for four years worries her.

“I just feel like, ugh. Dirty. Muddy,” Jamie said. “I feel like I was victimized.”

* First names have been changed for privacy reasons. 

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