A sexual relationship is always
about responsibility, pleasure, enjoyment
education, and respect. The primary place
for learning all these things is the family.
* Enjoyable sexual relationships can promote health, reduce depression and stress, reduce pain for up to 12 hours, reduce medical costs, strengthen the marriage, and enrich and even extend life.
* Twenty years ago the major sexual complaints of couples were rapid ejaculation for men and absence of orgasms for women. Today, the largest number of couples in sex and marital therapy report low levels of sexual interest.
* Some sexual problems can now be helped with newer medications. Erectile problems and rapid ejaculation often respond to medication. Research on anorgasmia in women is promising.
* As our population ages, our sexual expectations increase. Viagra and other newer medications seem to solve some problems and create others. Intimacy doesn’t come from the local pharmacy.
* Large numbers of children are touched inappropriately or even assaulted, sometimes by those they trust. Many come to adulthood untreated and unrecovered from these childhood hurts.
* Almost 50% of married men have one or more extra-marital affairs. Perhaps 1/3 of married women also have one or more extra-marital affairs.
* 50% to 80% of all Internet searches are for sexual content or for “cyber sexual” contacts.
* Ours is a stressful world. Fantasies of sex, money, and success are routine ways of escaping from and reducing stress. These fantasies are rarely shared.
* Love does not grow where control lives.
* Integrity and honesty are the lifelong partners of intimacy.
* The British Medical Journal reported the risk of death in men who had a sexual orgasm twice or more a week was half that of men who had orgasms once a month.
Sex therapy can help individuals and couples…
…find the courage to talk about whatever is hardest to talk about with a non-anxious therapist.
…handle sexual silence and sexual secrets in a non-blaming way.
…recover from sexual hurts.
…identify, take responsibility for, and change sexual thoughts and actions that do harm to self and others.
…place sexual affections in a central place in their relationships.
…enjoy their relationship more.
…acknowledge and manage different sexual preferences and interests.
…celebrate and affirm their lives together.
