Sexual Education & Integrity © Martyn Carruthers

Online Life Coaching, Counseling & Soulwork Therapy

On to Page 2: Sexual Abuse & Addictions

On to Page 3: Infertility, Masturbation & Menopause

Do you have a Choice?

Our families had to cope with traditions that were accepted from ancestors, and with commands from priests, politicians and the media. We grew up with conflicting messages about religion, success and sexuality – and some of us got lost.

Most sexual dysfunctions result from physical or psychological causes. Possible physical causes include diabetes, heart disease, neurological diseases, hormonal imbalances, menopause, chronic diseases such as kidney disease or liver failure, and alcoholism or drug abuse. In addition, some medications, including antidepressants, can affect sexual desire and function.

Possible emotional causes include stress and anxiety, worry about sexual performance, covert or physical incest, marital or relationship problems, depression, guilt, or other effects of trauma.

Sex appeal is 50% what you’ve got and fifty percent what people think you’ve got.
Sophia Loren

1. Sex Education

Many people will attempt to control your sexual behavior. Sexual behavior that violates norms set thousands of years ago can bring punishment, imprisonment and, in some countries, death.

The consequences of such sexual control include the reluctance of many parents to prepare their children for adulthood. The results of this lack of preparedness include single teenage mothers and immature adults who are unable fulfill the responsibilities of partnership and parenthood.

Many children learn about sexuality in biology classes or childish sex talk. Whether the parents were too shy, too religious or too ignorant – their children will carry a burden.

Media sources of sexual education conflict with the needs and goals of most people in most cultures. International media promote sexual fetishes for commercial gain, ignoring the consequences to immature readers. The top shelves of many magazine racks, like the dark corners of the internet, often glorify, promote and encourage the unpleasant consequences of sexual obsessions and compulsions.

We coach people on how to express love, the skills of partnership and parenthood, and alleviating the consequences of sexual abuse, sexual obsessions, unwanted pregnancies, miscarriages, vanishing twins and abortions.

Child Sexual Abuse . Divorce and Children

2. Sexual Happiness

Long-term happiness, as opposed to short-term fun, rarely depends on sexual activity. Sexuality offers a luxury for people who already enjoy wonderful relationships – a distraction for others. People using sexual activity to replace intimacy are doomed to failure – often desperately searching for a perfect partner or some perfect sexual act to realize immature fantasies of orgasmic oblivion.

Women often seem to feel more comfortable talking about sexual activities than their male partners … women have told us that orgasm is less important to their happiness than feeling that their partners are sexually content or satisfied; and much less important than feeling emotionally close to their partners.

Men often tell us that their sexual happiness is more physical. The satisfaction of a woman may be less important to such men, although some men pride themselves on giving orgasms to women.

It seems that adults who seek sexual pleasure outside partnership (prostitutes and affairs) are often fixated on their opposite-sex parents. If happy partnership represents betraying a parent, then happy partnership must be avoided. Such pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of happiness is a common feature of cinema, television, lyrics of ‘love’ music and much advertising.

We help people change sexual bonds and relationship problems. We coach people to find freedom from emotional blackmail and covert emotional incest. Identifying emotional incest can be confusing because survivors often perceive themselves as special – not as victims. Also, many people cannot even imagine that emotional damage can occur without physical sexual contact.

Not all sex addicts are survivors of covert emotional incest and not all covert incest survivors are sex addicts. However, the consequences of emotional incest seem to underlie many sexual problems given the predictable impact on emotions and beliefs.

3. Sexual Harassment at Work

Workplace harassment presents enormous potential liabilities to individuals and organizations. Claims of sexual harassment bring adverse publicity, loss of revenue, legal penalties and the costs of replacing talented, experienced people.

Demeaning or sarcastic tonalities, unwanted body contact, borderline comments, lewd non-verbal behavior or sexist jokes from colleagues can precipitate legal actions. As some managers lack communication skills – we often coach managers to act appropriately and with dignity at work. Some don’t know how to do this.

4. Sexual Harassment by Professionals

Sometimes, helping professionals take advantage of people who cannot think clearly nor make informed decisions.

A health professional who rapes an unwilling client may be easy to judge. A client who seduces a health professional, and later claims diminished responsibility poses more difficulty. Some cases are fraud, to obtain money from malpractice insurance or to punish a practitioner. (Professional associations often settle sexual cases out of court and provide internal discipline for their members.)

The appropriate time between providing professional counseling and an intimate relationship can vary from a few days to never. The codes of conduct used by health professionals often specify a minimum cooling off period, during which intimacy with an ex-client is forbidden.

This period is often between six months and one year … but this is difficult to enforce and many helping professionals have told us that it is only a guideline.

We often help people who have suffered from affairs, and people who were abused by helping professionals. We also help health professionals prevent, control or reduce their risk of intimacy with clients. Contact us to solve relationship problems.