For someone with an injury or disability, sexual encounters can bring physical, emotional, and psychological complexities that require open communication to ensure safety, comfort, and pleasure. It’s perfectly reasonable to raise those complexities with your partner(s) because again, sex is about pleasure for everyone involved. People are not mind-readers and that means communicating what works and what doesn’t is paramount. That might mean not only expressing what feels good and what doesn’t, but also something specific such as a change in position, additional time, the need to adjust tempo or amount of lube, or specific forms of touch.

If you're interested in exploring how embodiment meditation, somatic practices, and yoga therapy can support your healing journey, I invite you to connect with me. As a psychologist, sex therapist, and certified yoga therapist, I offer a holistic approach to navigating trauma, dissociation, and deepening your relationship with your body. Visit this link to learn more about my services and how we can work together to foster growth and healing in your life.

Consent is the crucial element in this discussion. None of these women and girls (because deepfake pornography is also being created about young girls) said “yes” to having their faces splashed across the internet engaging in sexual acts. In an era where privacy is increasingly compromised, the ability to obtain someone's image or voice without their knowledge and then manipulate it for malicious purposes poses a serious threat. These women, because it’s almost exclusively women, are victimized by the unauthorized use of their likeness, leading to emotional distress and strain on their relationships.

Trauma leaves a lasting impact on a person’s sense of self and affects their mental well-being and intimate connections. There are many ways the body can process trauma and one of them is ethical, consensual fetish and kink play. A fetish is a behavior that someone cannot get sexually aroused without whereas kink is an activity or behavior someone enjoys that goes outside the bounds of “traditional,” or “vanilla” sex. A person may get incredibly turned on by a kink, but not necessarily need it to get off. If they do, it becomes a fetish. Fetishes may be kinks, but not all kinks are fetishes.

Speaking of finding each other and feeling at ease, online platforms have made it easier to feel at home wherever you are because connection with loved ones is possible in an instant. As a Bay Area sex therapist, I do a lot of work around intimacy and improving relationships. Online platforms make it easy to stay in touch while people are traveling or to nurture the flame of long-distance relationships. Sharing jokes, memes, and pictures of daily life can help people who are far away from each other feel like they’re still involved in each other’s lives. And video calls mean if you want to see one another in real time, you can.

We all know TV and movies don’t always get it right in terms of their portrayals so how does Sex Education stack up in regards to sex therapy? Is it more fiction than fact? Surprisingly, no. Is it unrealistic that Otis would know so much about sex therapy without going through proper training and certification? Absolutely. As a Bay Area sex therapist and sexologist, I had a rigorous training process – more than 300 hours of additional training and an additional 50 extra hours of supervision on top of my licensure. The things I learned cannot be gleaned by osmosis so in that way, Sex Education is a complete work of fiction.

While over-familiarity can indeed decrease sexual attraction, it is not an inevitable outcome of a long-term relationship. Couples can take steps to maintain and even reignite their sexual attraction.

At Whole Person Integration and Psychology, we don’t think sex should ever be painful. In fact, if sex doesn’t involve pleasure, is it even sex? Something can look like sex and even result in pregnancy, but if there’s no pleasure, what are the people involved even doing? There are numerous reasons to have sex, but just as we mentioned, an orgasm is perhaps not what you think it is, there should be different names for sex because not all sex is created equal. It’s perhaps why people already put a qualifier onto sex, classifying it as “good” and “bad.”

Have you ever noticed all the phallic symbols in the world, the monuments, the figurines, the everything that pay homage to the penis, and wondered where the corresponding vulva tributes were? I know you have. And if you haven’t, perhaps you now will. Like most things pertaining to the divine feminine, they were hidden away. And while that can feel unfair and just plain wrong, it also makes a sort of senf because  the physicality of the vulva and vagina themselves are hidden inside of tissue folds. The vulva has been a mystery, a sacred mystery, since this is where life is birthed through. But the ancient “Sheela Na Gig” brings this mystery out in a very bold way.

Sexuality consists of five circles, which means it’s not limited to one body part in another body part. Sexuality is also flirting, touch, fantasy, sexual identity, and health, and, perhaps above all, a psychological state of being. So no, it’s not just about body parts. And even then, don’t discount the various ways sex can be performed be it oral, mutual masturbation, and digital, to name just a few ways of expression!

This lack of focus and knowledge can create a lot of issues for those with clitorises.  Psychologically, there is a message put forth that there’s less importance on these bodies, that women overall are less important, and that can affect self-esteem, confidence, and a general sense of embodiment. This is changing but/and the change is so very slow. It’s important to talk about the issues for people with clitorises, understand it, and have deeper knowledge of the vulva, vagina, and clitoris. Normalizing pleasure is key to a sense of embodiment.

For folx who have sex with people with clitorises, it’s important that they realize vaginal penetration alone may not cut it, and as with all satisfying sex, communication is key. At Whole Person Integration, we say bring consciousness back to the bedroom. Communicate wants and desires. But also explore…and explore widely, vastly, and wildly…if you so desire. You may have “tried and true” methods of coming but part of the fun with sex is learning new forms of pleasure. What else can you try? The answer may surprise you.

Mostly what I care about is folx keeping in mind two things: sex isn’t supposed to hurt, and if it does, there may be a physical reason as to why. There’s no shame in asking for help and doing so could make all the difference. It’s important in my line of work to have colleagues to refer to who are sex-positive.

That’s a problem for numerous reasons but what’s interesting to me is that straightwashing is not relegated to Hollywood. When someone gets into a man-woman relationship, people default to calling it a heterosexual one or believing both parties are heterosexual. It may look that way on the outside, but is it? What if one or both people are bisexual, pansexual, or identify in a way other than hetero? What if one or both people are trans?

None of these scenarios allow for flexibility or for the wide range of feelings and emotional expressions that are within the human experience. And that includes people with penises.

Perhaps I should back up and make sure we are all on the same page regarding sex and gender. Sex is biological. It is vulva. It is penis. It is scrotum. It is uterus. It is anatomy, the reproductive system and the secondary characteristics. Gender is expression of femaleness and maleness and everything in between.

You know you are embodied when you feel that pit in your stomach that says, “Stay away!” or “Move closer!” to a particular person, event ,or situation. While you have to be embodied to receive that message, whether you consciously listen