Most therapists get almost no training in sexuality. This means they may not know more about sex than you do, and may not know how to talk about it.
Their questions about sex are often the same as yours. Here’s how I change the questions before answering them.
The “porn addiction” movement claims that one of pornography’s biggest problems is the way it disrespects women. But the movement itself is what’s really disrespectful to women–claiming they are hysterical creatures so overwhelmed by the porn issue that they can’t negotiate like adults.
Maria was dying. She and her husband had discussed all the practical arrangements. Just one more thing–what did she want if she temporarily recovered? “Sex!,” she said. Why?
Exotic sexual activities can be great. But encouraging people to do them when they feel inhibited, ashamed, or desperate can be counter-productive.
As an everyday therapist, shame isn’t some abstract idea—it’s quite real to me. It’s why people keep secrets. It’s why they do exactly the opposite of what they want to—to prove that they don’t want it. It’s a big reason people behave self-destructively—unable to talk about their impulses, their feelings, or their curiosity, they act them out, despite the consequences. (Note: When the behavior involves sex, this may be mistaken as “addiction.” Nonsense.) There is no part of being human about which Americans feel more shame than sex. Predictably, that leads to sexual secrets, sexual violence, sexual acting out, and…
If you ask most people what they want from sex, they’ll say some combination of pleasure and closeness. And yet people’s decisions around sex are clearly about other things. The way men and women select partners; choose to initiate or decline sex; relate to their preferences or fantasies; obsess on how they look, sound, or smell; and remain present or check out during sex—all of these decisions make it clear that for many people, their sexual agendas go way beyond pleasure or closeness. In fact, pleasure and closeness may be quite far from what people are really going after in…