|
This is a page to which I will occasionally attend.
Last updated on April 18, 2002.Basically, it's just a bunch of "stuff" I've accumulated over the years. I'll give citations whenever possible. Hopefully, you will find it interesting.
If you're looking for a therapist, it might be advisable to get some idea of what s/he thinks.
As a sexologist, I view sexual behaviour that is not harmful as "normal," because the majority of all sexual acts which occur between consenting partners are normal, at least by some definition (statistically, cross-culturally, historically, cross-species, or legally).
As a result, I, and hopefully other therapists, are nonjudgmental about what people do sexually. Being nonjudgmental and knowing one's own biases are vital to being an effective clinician.
Except for purposes of procreation, sex is similar to chocolate. Some folks just like it more than others. It's kinda like sandbox play for adults. (David Hersh)
Catch 22: A "marriage" between people with widely differing sexual interests and frequencies of desire coupled with sexual exclusivity.
For the most part, by the time a couple gets to a marital therapist, it's too late.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Often, the difference between fantasy and reality is opportunity.
Sexoholic = A horny person who makes bad choices.
"Addiction is a physiological dependence. When alcoholics stop drinking, they get the sweats, their heart rates goes up, their reflexes increase, etc. They can even develop the DTs. Heroin addicts have their own withdrawal syndrome, but again it involves physiological changes (I do not mean to imply that there are not psychological changes as well.). If sex "addicts" are denied sex, they may have all sorts of psychological problems, but they do not go into a physiological withdrawal. For your information, addiction is not listed in the DSM-IV; it is called dependence." Charles Moser, Ph.D., M.D.
"Thinking," "Hoping" or "Wishing" won't make "IT" happen (whatever "IT" may be). They will all allow you to feel better before, if "IT" happens, but a lot worse if "IT" doesn't. (David Hersh)
For some people, psychotherapy is for people who don't have friends who will tell them the truth or can't hear unless they are paying for it. (David Hersh)12/14/00
(Actually, this sounds a bit glib, but it is a synthesis from a discussion on the topic. The fact is, we see our friends as flawed and may not trust their accurate perceptions of our problems. It is safer to go to a stranger about whom you know nothing of his/her frailties.)
Sometimes, it is important to just hear your voice say it out loud to someone who doesn't matter. (David Hersh)12/27/00
"...(A)nother entrenched notion sorely in need of examination: that men are attracted to younger women because they "have less power." I would like to suggest, first, that men are not attracted to "younger" women, but that they are attracted to "young" women. That is, boys of age 12 and 13 are maximally attracted to older women (e.g. 17-24 or thereabouts), 17-24 year-old men are maximally attracted to 17-24 year old women, and 24-94 year-old men are *also* maximally attracted to 17-24 year-old women.
"If men were looking for women with less power, they would be maximally attracted to lower social status, poorer, less physically attractive (i.e. older, "androgenized", and asymmetrical) women. However, this is clearly not the case. If we define power as the ability to effect one's will, it is clear that beautiful young women have more power than other women (with the possible exception of the very few extremely wealthy women or women entrenched in powerful corporate positions)." Paul Okami.
"My fourth Cosmetic Discovery occurred at 18...I awoke to a realization that would take a long time to play out, but in essence Cosmetic discovery #4 was this: If you're a young, blue ribbon egg-bearer, there's *nothing* you can't get away with.
"Nobody who hasn't been there has *any* idea, and even those who have won't really understand until after the stampede [of sperm-bearers] has passed because there's so much dust in the air." Lauren Hutton
Homosexual child play is found in more male sex histories and occurs more frequently than pre-adolescent male heterosexual play. It may simply be due to the accessibility of same sex playmates. Also, younger boys encourage disdain for girls' ways. (Alfred Kinsey)
Though there are many things that people do sexually, there are only a limited number of sexual outlets, and they are: masturbation, nocturnal emissions, heterosexual petting, heterosexual intercourse, homosexual relations, and intercourse with animals. Most people depend on two or more outlets for their sexual activities. (Alfred Kinsey)
"Most of the complications which are observable in sexual histories are the result of society's reactions when it obtains knowledge of an individual's behaviour, or the individual's fear of how society would react if he were discovered." (Alfred Kinsey)
In men, no other single factor affects sexual frequency as much as age. Having reached its peak in adolescence, sexual activity in men drops steadily into old age. Reasons for this may be due to the general decline in physical and physiologic capacity and also psychologic fatigue, which at times may be partially reversible with new stimuli. (Alfred Kinsey)
Heterosexual intercourse continues longer than any other outlet. It is probably that heterosexual intercourse would provide the major source of pre-marital outlet if there were no restrictions on the activity of the younger male. (Alfred Kinsey)
The sexual differences between religiously devout persons and religiously inactive persons of the same faith are much greater than the differences between two equally devout groups of different faiths. No social level accepts wholly the Judeo-Christian code, but each level derives its taboos from some part of the basic religious philosophy. (Alfred Kinsey)
Individuals rarely adopt totally new patterns of sexual behaviour after their middle teens. (Alfred Kinsey)
About 85% of younger males could be convicted as sex offenders if the law were as efficient as people expect it to be. (Alfred Kinsey)
"There seems to be no question but that the human male would be promiscuous in his choice of sexual partners throughout the whole of his life if there were no social restrictions." (Alfred Kinsey)
At least 37% of males between adolescence and old age have had some homosexual experience, and for males who remain unmarried until age 35, almost 50% have homosexual experience. (Alfred Kinsey)
No single factor more than determination is at the basis for the survival of any single marriage. And yet, about 3/4 of divorces have some sexual components.
Kinsey noted in both Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female that: "...pre-marital petting experience contributes definitely to the effectiveness of the sexual relations after marriage," "...pre-marital experience in masturbation may actually contribute to the female's capacity to respond in her coital relations in marriage," "...the quality of the marital response was furthered by the female's previous knowledge of the nature of a sexual orgasm," and "...77 percent of the married females, looking back from the vantage point of their more mature experience, saw no reason to regret their pre-marital coitus." And, these statistics are over forty years old!
Human infants, both female and male, are capable of being stimulated by and responding to tactile stimulation in a way which is sexual in the strictest sense of the term. (Alfred Kinsey)
"If a child were not culturally conditioned, it is doubtful if it would be disturbed by sexual approaches...(and) it is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched, or disturbed at seeing the genitalia of other persons or disturbed at even more specific sexual contacts." (Alfred Kinsey)
"...millions of the females in the United States, and a larger number of the males, have had their self-assurance, their social efficiency, and sometimes their sexual adjustments in marriage needlessly damaged -- not by their masturbation, but by the conflict between their practice and the moral codes." (Alfred Kinsey)
"...definitely smaller percentages of the religiously devout females and higher percentages of the religiously less devout or inactive females were experiencing orgasm from any source prior to marriage." (Alfred Kinsey)
"It is doubtful if any type of therapy has ever been as effective as early experience in orgasm, in reducing the incidences of unresponsiveness in marital coitus, and in increasing the frequencies of response to orgasm in that coitus." (Alfred Kinsey)
The human female is born with the nervous equipment on which sexual responses depend...(and) acquirement of any full capacity for response depends upon the sort of sexual experience that the female has in pre-adolescence, adolescence, and the later years, and on the variety of social factors which may condition her psychologically. (Alfred Kinsey)
Quick ejaculation is at some level favoured in the animal kingdom for survival of the fittest.
Nearly all sex manuals note how common it is to experience some measure of doubt about one's sexual ability.
Fears of sexual performance are often self-fulfilling.
The sexual arousal system requires a relatively rested, relaxed state of mind and body.
Parents don't listen. They invalidate sexual feelings that teens have. The parents behaviour shouts so loud that the kids can't hear your voices.
The teen birth rate is about the same today as it was in the 1920s. It was highest in the 1950s. Sex education is working.
82% of adolescent pregnancies are unplanned.
In 1960, 50% of teens who were pregnant got married. In 1992 only 27% of pregnant teens married.
The teens who have babies most often say with disappointment, "I really wanted to be something."
Teens who get pregnant have little self-worth or purpose.
Poor women have their babies young. Affluent women have theirs in their 30s.
The lower the educational level, the greater the sexual prohibitions. The lower the educational level, the greater the chance that there is religious orthodoxy.
Your children will not ask your permission to be sexual when the opportunity arises.
There will always be sexual harassment as long as religion defines sex roles and interferes with women's choice to be sexual.
My experience tells me that religious anti-sexual messages are akin to child abuse. They cause a lifetime of damage in more areas that just the sexual.
A first-trimester abortion is one of the safest procedures, certainly less complicated or dangerous than giving birth.
A recent study indicated that approximately 46% of women in the U.S. will have an abortion sometime in their lives.
Abortion with proper pre- and post-operative counselling does not have to be emotionally devastating.
The whole concept of virginity perpetuates the idea of woman as a commodity.
Learning about sex and being sexual is part of the process of becoming an adult with adult responsibilities for behaviours. It is about your responsibility, regardless of whether or not you want it, for your body, your health, and your medical care.
Anecdote: a teen mother on a talk show who was also pregnant again for the second time, in answer to an audience question, "Don't you know about birth control?" said, "It's not my fault if I forget to take my birth control pills every now and then."
It seems to me that daughters of ministers have more extensive sexual histories than one would expect by mere chance?
On one of the TV talk shows, a therapist used the phrase "giving sexual favours." Does anyone have any question as to which gender the "giver" or "receiver" of those sexual "favours" is?
Is teen motherhood at least partially the fault of the family who warns their daughter, "Don't you dare come home pregnant?" This, along with abstinence "education" and the anti-abortion attitude are responsible for the fact that here in Canada and in the U.S., we are breeding a nation of dumpster divers. This process is directly responsible for low self-esteem being transferred to the next generation. At some level, teen pregnancy is the result of the cognitive-dissonance in the parent that the teen experiences.
Teaching abstinence only guarantees that when the teen spontaneously changes her/his mind and chooses to become sexual, she/he will not be prepared with contraception or protection against sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs).
The top ten reasons why couples do not share their sexual fantasies with each other:
10) The fear that your partner will feel that you are unfulfilled sexually
9) The fear that your partner will consider you a cheat because you fantasize about others
8) Fear of the actual fantasy or your partner not living up to expectations
7) Embarrassed to reveal how you think about sex
6) Fear of exposure; your partner will not keep it secret
5) Fear you will not be considered a nice person if your partner knew what you fantasized about
4) Fear of loss of control; the fantasy will unleash an uncontrollable, animal-like side of your nature
3) Fear of face-to-face communication; owning the fantasy
2) Fear of being labelled
1) Fear of being morally judged
"Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of habit." W. Somerset Maugham
Comments?
David S. Hersh, Ed.D., FAACS
Clinical Sexologist
Nelson, BC
