A transgender YouTuber who was having sex up to 10 times a day for content for her channel decided to become celibate after being sexually assaulted.
Jolene Dawson, 24, transitioned when she was 19, and last year she decided to start making YouTube videos to share stories about her ‘awkward hook-ups as a transgender woman’.
At first, the YouTuber’s videos were mainly something she and her friends would laugh about but before long Jolene’s posts started getting thousands of views. Her channel gained 2,000 subscribers and as a result the vlogger felt pressured to come up with more content to keep her viewers entertained.
Jolene, from Australia, ‘began hunting for new interesting sex stories’ and in turn started having sex more often. After about three months she was having sex up to 10 times a day, though the encounters were no longer about making content for her YouTube channel.
The 24-year-old explained how she was addicted to sex, so much so it began affecting her work.
She told UNILAD:
I just wouldn’t go to work at all so I could have sex. I started running out of money because I wasn’t working but I couldn’t stop. I would have sex with at least four men a night.
The worrying trend continued for four months, during which time Jolene’s money depleted as she still wasn’t working. It was at that point she knew she ‘had a problem’.
While hanging out with some male friends one night, the YouTuber realised she ‘didn’t know how to communicate with men’ unless it was about sex. Two of the men there were celibate, which planted the idea that Jolene should turn away from sex altogether.
However, her addiction got the better of her and on the way home from her friend’s house she invited her Uber driver up to her room. Jolene explained how her guest ‘guzzled nearly everything in the mini bar’, so she asked him to leave and had to call security when he wouldn’t oblige.
Jolene described that night as her ‘breaking point’, explaining:
At that point I just broke down. I called my friend and cried for an hour.
Though Jolene was ‘was ready to change’, she said getting over her addiction ‘wasn’t that easy’, and her bad experiences continued when she invited a man back to her hotel room and ended up getting robbed of $1,000.
In a desperate attempt to get her life back on track, the YouTuber checked into a private rehab centre, where she underwent group therapy as well as one-on-one sessions with a therapist to help find ways to overcome her addiction.
While in the centre, Jolene lived alongside other sex addicts, and staff undertook nightly patrols to ensure the patients didn’t sneak into each other’s rooms to fulfil their addictions.
However, she said the patrols weren’t always successful and patients still ended up sleeping with one another, which made her addiction ’10 times worse’. The program had been the first of its kind for the centre and its lack of success resulted in patients having their money refunded.
After returning to her home city of the Gold Coast, Jolene booked herself onto a party boat in the hopes of having a fun evening. Tragically, it was there the ‘unimaginable happened’.
The YouTuber told UNILAD:
I was sexually assaulted and I felt like I had deserved it after how I had been living.
Jolene feared no one would believe she had been attacked, but her friends and family rallied around her and helped her cope with the situation.
She chose not to pursue legal action as she was not ’emotionally ready’ at the time, though Jolene admitted she regrets not reporting the incident immediately ‘because that would have been the best time to make a report’.
As a result of the alleged assault, Jolene decided she had to completely change her life and swore herself to celibacy.
She explained:
Rehab didn’t work but being a situation where I feared for my life changed everything for the better. I’m happy and healthy now and living without addiction.
Jolene has now been celibate for two months and has managed to get back to a point of financial stability; an accomplishment that encouraged her to donate $5,000 to a local sexual health clinic.
The YouTuber has also started creating more content for her channel, though the videos are no longer about her sex life. As a result, they don’t get as many views as her previous posts, but Jolene still enjoys creating them.
Speaking about her experience, Jolene said:
I wish our society wasn’t so sex-obsessed but I’m glad I got to grow and learn from this.
Jolene said she may choose to pursue legal action in regard to her attack in the future, though for now she’s ‘learning to love [herself] again’.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, contact the Rape Crisis England and Wales helpline on 0808 802 9999 (12-2:30 and 7-9:30). Alternatively you can contact Victim Support on 08 08 16 89 111.
Male Survivors Partnership is available to support adult male survivors of sexual abuse and rape. You can contact the organisation on its website or on its helpline – 0808 800 5005.
Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.