I am really lost and can't get my head straight.
I have a history of emotional abuse, and some sexual trauma (memories not clear, something wrong happened, but not a big deal even though it was totally unacceptable) and have also spent my 20s in BDSM relationships I can now see were destructive and damaging.
I don't know what to do. I feel very sad because I would love to be in a healthy, loving, respectful relationship, but I have no template for what it looks like or how to get there.I have no idea what passionate sex looks like without force at best, or pain at worst. I have identified as bisexual in the past, but I honestly feel like I don't know who I'm attracted to. Some days I think I would love to be with a kind, good man, and then others that feels so threatening I feel like I am definitely gay in my heart of hearts, and I think how wonderful it would be to be with an amazing woman.
One long term relationship was 25 years older than me, was with him for several years, while he was nice in many ways I feel he took advantage of me, which means he wasn't so nice after all. I lost my virginity to him and while I wasn't naive at all I was not good at prioritizing my needs because I hadn't really worked out what they were, not just about sex, but about lots of stuff. I grew up a lot throughout my twenties and was a bit clueless, and he exploited that. Maybe not intentionally, perhaps due to a lack of emotional intelligence, or perhaps because he was an arse and knew he could manipulate me to a certain degree. He set the agenda and I went along with it.
When it came to sex, he didn't really care what I needed - we did some things we both found fun at that time, ie spanking etc (sorry if tmi) but the most important thing for him was going through what I now see as almost a ritual, where I would dress up for him and give him oral sex a lot, and was his 'slave'. It was like role play even when we weren't really intending to play any roles, if that makes sense, I felt like I wasn't an individual woman to him. I did relish it and enjoy the excitement of it all in the first couple of years and do feel like we had some very intense connected experiences...but with hindsight I just feel so angry with him.
I had another long term relationship then with another sadistic man, and while that was more genuine in terms of feeling he knew who I was and saw me as a whole person, again the sex feels wrong with hindsight because on several occassions he went too far and what he did would be classed as assault. I remember lying there after one of those times very detatchedly thinking, so this is what it feels like to be raped.
I have done a lot of work on myself over the last few years with counselling etc and now no longer am interested in being a masochist. It doesn't feel healthy to me any more and I don't want it. I don't feel aroused at the idea of being hit anymore, though whenever I am in the mood I do think of rough sex and that really upsets me.
I just want to be nomal (whatever that is) and have healthy relationships and a healthy sexual appetite. How should I go about this?