When We Fawn in the Bedroom

“I didn’t say no. But I didn’t say yes either.”
I just lay there, silent.
Letting him do what he wanted with my body.
While I disappeared off to another place, crying, silently, into the pillow.

I told myself not to let him see I was upset.
If I hid my distress, maybe I could keep the peace.
Maybe he’d still love me.
Maybe he would stay.

The truth of the story was,
I abandoned myself.

Over and over again.

I silenced my distress.
Silenced my voice.
Silenced my body.

I’ve spent years exploring sex, power, and intimacy,
But this part of me — the part that fawns, folds, disappears — has been the hardest part to meet.

She doesn’t scream.
She doesn’t resist.
She just… goes still. And silent.

A pattern reminiscent of my girlhood.
And present in all kind of relational dynamis.
She’s the part of me that learned early that
people don’t hear me or get me.
That love and attached meant silencing my needs.
That staying close to someone who held power meant abandoning myself.

The Blueprint Was Laid Early

He was the first man who claimed me.
I was still young.
He was twice my age.

He didn’t force me. He didn’t need to.
He offered attention — daily, obsessive, intoxicating.
He told me I was mature beyond my years.
That I was special.
That we were soulmates.

I didn’t register the power imbalance.
Not then.
All I knew was that the masculine finally wanted to be with me — wholly, intensely —
in a way my father never had.

That early lack left a void I couldn’t name —
a deep, subtle longing that lived in my bones.

When this man walked into my life with promises of forever,
when he looked into my eyes like I was the centre of the universe,
I didn’t see danger.
I saw deliverance.

Chosen.
Important.

And when he made it clear that sex was expected, daily,
I allowed him to take what he wanted from my body.
Not because I was free to choose it.
But because I was shackled by attachment —
an attachment that felt more vital than honouring the needs of my own body.

That dynamic shaped everything.
It laid the blueprint for my sex life, my silence, and my submission.
It taught me that my body was the currency I used to buy closeness.
That love meant tolerating what I didn’t want.
That intimacy meant enduring.

The Shape My Silence Took

This is the fawn response.
It’s not just a trauma buzzword.
It’s what happens when your nervous system believes that submitting is safer than being seen.
It’s what happens when you choose being liked over expressing your truth.

I’ve done all of that.

Sometimes it felt like consent — because I didn’t say no.
But silence is not consent.
Consent is more than the absence of no — it requires presence and agency of self.

Fawning isn’t just about fear.
It’s also about hope.

Hope that I’ll stay chosen.
That I’ll feel belonging.
That I will experience safety.

But the more I fawn, the more disconnected I feel.
From myself.
From the person I’m with.
From the aliveness that true intimacy offers.

The Moment I Noticed I Wasn’t There

Awakening didn’t come as a thunderclap.
It came as a slow dawning —
like a light gradually brightening a room I didn’t know was dim.

To fawn effectively — especially during sex — you have to dissociate.
You have to separate from your body.
Disconnect from the part of you that knows:
I don’t want this.
This doesn’t feel good.
This isn’t safe.

That’s the opposite of what good sex is all about.
Sex, when it’s great, is about presence.
Feeling. Connection.
Not performance. Not endurance.

It was my journey into Tantra that began to shift things.
Many of the practices I learned there, and in other somatic spaces, brought me back into my body.
But like light casting new shadows,
they also revealed where I still disappeared.

In Tantra temples, and later, relating with a man that I trusted, I began to notice how often I drifted.
Overwhelmed by sensation.
Drifting out of connection.
Out of myself.

And one day, in the heat of tenderness, he looked at me and said:
“Where did you go?”

And I didn’t know how to answer.
Because I hadn’t even realised I’d left.

That moment cracked something open.
The dissociation I’d learned in my formative years had always been tied to pain,
enduring touch I didn’t want, collapsing into stillness to avoid rupture.

But this was different.
This was a moment I had chosen.
There was care.
There was pleasure.
And still, I left.

It wasn’t fear this time.
It was the imprint of disappearance —
a nervous system reflex triggered not by threat,
but by sensation in my case.

My body didn’t yet know how to stay in connection
while also experiencing pleasure.
I didn’t know how to stay with myself
while being with someone else.

Disappearing had become my default,
even when there was nothing to run from.

That night, I experienced the quiet heartbreak of being seen,
not for how deeply I was feeling pleasure in my body,
but for how completely I’d disconnected from our relational field,
leaving us both separate and alone in the experience.

The Practice of Staying

One truth I keep returning to on this path of becoming,
is that healing happens in relational spaces.

In being embodied.
In receiving all of our knowing and somatic wisdom.
And in finding the courage to share that — open-hearted — with others.

Whether in lovemaking, or in speaking the unspoken truths from the soft, vulnerable underbelly of our emotional experiences —
healing happens when we risk being real… and discover we are not alone.

Staying present in the body after a lifetime spent disappearing is a practice.
A nervous system practice.
A healing practice.

It asks us to feel safe enough to be seen.
In our rawness.
In our authenticity.
In our truth.

I’m still practicing.
Maybe you are too.

If you’ve ever smiled while your body shut down,
if you’ve ever floated away mid-pleasure, or praised a partner while your heart quietly contracted,
this isn’t failure.

It’s a signal.
A soft, sacred whisper from your nervous system that says:
“Let’s create safety here”,
“I want to stay.”

Start there.
Not by forcing presence,
but by gently noticing when you’ve left,
and choosing to return.

Over and over.
With tenderness.
With full self-expression.
With love.
For yourself.