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If you know someone was abused and traumatized in the past, but haven’t dealt with it yet, would you go ahead to date them knowing fully well the troubles and stress you could be getting yourself into?
If one person has been through trauma, they will probably have post traumatic stress disorder, so they will need to be handled more gently than the other partner. If you like them enough, you will do that because you think it is a small price to pay. So if you are a guy, and like raunchy pornography and want to experiment a lot and you partner is a victim of rape, you will have to be more sensitive and understanding.
They may still enjoy sex, but take it a lot more seriously than you. You may think of it as fun and light, because everyone is portrayed as happy in your pornos, but you face the reality, that it also has a dark side where sex is also used as a weapon to control people.
The challenge is then to help your partner to enjoy it and overcome fear, while you learn to be more sexually sensitive.
Trauma survivors often believe deep down that no one can really be trusted, that intimacy is dangerous, and for them, a real loving attachment is an impossible dream. Many tell themselves they are flawed, not good enough and unworthy of love. Thoughts like these can wreak havoc in relationships throughout life.
Certainly it will create problems known as “emotional labor” and only understanding can solve. The non-traumatized person will have to learn what emotional triggers to avoid, and the traumatized person will have to accept that his or her partner will sometimes unintentionally say something insensitive or triggering.
I mean, if the non-traumatized partner uses the emotional vulnerability of the person who’s been through trauma to manipulate or harass the partner, the non-traumatized partner is an abusive jerk who the traumatized partner should leave but otherwise, such relationships can work if both parties are willing to work.