Consent is the crucial element in this discussion. None of these women and girls (because deepfake pornography is also being created about young girls) said “yes” to having their faces splashed across the internet engaging in sexual acts. In an era where privacy is increasingly compromised, the ability to obtain someone's image or voice without their knowledge and then manipulate it for malicious purposes poses a serious threat. These women, because it’s almost exclusively women, are victimized by the unauthorized use of their likeness, leading to emotional distress and strain on their relationships.

It can be hard to reconcile the image you have of a person with who they really are. We all do this and psychologists have a term for it: cognitive bias. There’s a lot of information coming at us all the time and the brain likes to make shortcuts. A bias helps us make sense of the world and reach decisions with relative speed. However, it also means we can discard information that doesn’t prop up our view of reality or a person, which is known as confirmation bias.

Being ghosted can be a traumatic experience, and it can take time to heal from it. Here are some steps you can take to help you move on:

Many people deal with wanting to put off tasks that are hard, physically and emotionally. Perhaps you are at a job that you don’t really enjoy but stay because it’s financially advantageous. If you find yourself putting tasks off until tomorrow (or the next day…or the next day) and you have had traumatic events or relationships in your life, it may be hard to discern if the avoidance of a task is procrastination or a trauma response. Both trauma response of freeze and procrastination can involve avoidance behavior, but they have different underlying causes and motivations.

As a trauma-informed practice, we work with many folx who have experienced trauma. Sometimes this may result in a diagnosis of PTSD. This can feel very stigmatizing for some patients, while others feel freed by finally having a name for what is happening within them. Yet others may feel all sort of things in between. We hear PTSD on the regular these days. But what exactly is it?

Some people may go along with something sexual in order to people please, to make sure the other person doesn’t get angry with them, feel disappointed, become upset or whatever it is they’re afraid will happen. The person is “fawning” and not engaging in the sexual activity because it’s pleasing or pleasurable to them, rather, they’re doing it for the other person.

Mostly what I care about is folx keeping in mind two things: sex isn’t supposed to hurt, and if it does, there may be a physical reason as to why. There’s no shame in asking for help and doing so could make all the difference. It’s important in my line of work to have colleagues to refer to who are sex-positive.

By doing so, these folx with penises learn more about themselves. They are able to decipher their body's cues and act upon them. They understand their bodies are not machines that obey every command. Instead, the body is a living, breathing organism with its own rhythms and wants. Reconnecting the mind and body creates attunement and harmony, which is more satisfying for everyone involved.

We’re seeing the shadow side of the Catholic church, the side they want to hide but must be dealt with. Carl Jung popularized shadow work in the West and emphasized that we all have different parts of ourselves that have been exiled, that we try to repress or keep hidden. One of Jung’s most famous quotes is, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

I created a technique about 15 years ago called “Sexuality Mapping” as a way of working with a person’s sexuality and sexualness in order to potentially heal trauma by gaining a deeper understanding of their sexual past so that going forward they can make choices in alignment with who they really are.

Just as the mind and body registers an event (or events) as traumatic, the mind and body can also release those traumatic events. Here are some techniques I’ve found are helpful for releasing trauma from the body: