Wendy Maltz, a marriage therapist with over 20 years experience treating sex and intimacy concerns began her fantastic essay, “Staying Hot and Sexy in Midlife” this way. “One day a few years ago, I was standing in line at a little bakery in Cannon Beach, Oregon thinking about the fact that I hadn’t had a period for months and worrying what that would mean for my sexuality. In front of me in line was a couple wearing matching blue jean jackets and hats, and barely able to keep their hands off each other. She had her arm around his waist under his jacket, rubbing up and down on his back, his hand gently massaging her butt. They giggled like school kids. Ah, young love, I thought to myself. Their sexual energy was palpable and I was more than a little envious. Just then they took off their hats and turned around. These young lovers, these school kids must have been at least 70-something! Her hair was white, his, a distant memory. They were both wearing gold and turquoise jewelry against their wrinkled skin. And, oh, those smiles. Smiles that said, “We had sex this morning!”
All of us “older folks” should read Maltz’s article. And all healthcare professionals and doctors need to get serious about sexual medicine because sexual health is crucial to human health and happiness and because sexual intelligence is necessary and crucial to humanity as a race.
Sex is at the center of more things than we would like to admit and there are those institutions that would have us remain as ignorant as possible about our sexualities. “The idea that we are vital, sexual creatures is still looked at in some cases with disgust or in other cases with a bit of embarrassment,” says Dr. Joy Davidson, a New York psychologist and sex therapist.
It’s a good moment to talk about sex now that the population of the human race has passed the seven billion mark. We breed like rabbits and are quite content to do so but is this intelligent? It is just because we literally create life with sex that puts sexuality on center stage in our lives and in medicine. We need our sexual energy if we want to live with any kind of passion for life. It’s impossible to be creative and to be sexually cold because imagination, creativity and sexual fire all really are one. Sexuality resides in the deepest nook of most people’s souls, as any holistic healthcare practitioner knows.
Dr. Rachel Carlton Abrams said, “Taoism is a spiritual tradition that embraces our sexual desire and uses it within our bodies as a force for healing and spiritual growth. Desire is a rich and potent part of our human experience. The Taoists think of desire, called sexual energy or jing chi, as part of our life energy, or chi. To be passionate is to be full of chi. The English words “desire” or “passion” connote a feeling of yearning and fervor that includes sex, but they also reflect our strongest feelings about life. When we are passionate about anything—our family, our work, our spirituality, an important social cause—we are investing our chi in this experience. Our passion is what moves us to action and ultimately is what gives us joy. We are passionate about the things that matter most to us.”
Doctors will be surprised at all the health benefits of sex.
1.Sex relieves stress.
2.Sex boosts immunity.
3.Sex burns calories.
4.Sex improves heart health.
5.Sex boosts self-esteem.
6.Sex improves intimacy.
7.Sex reduces pain.
8.Sex reduces prostate cancer risk.
9.Sex strengthens pelvic floor muscles.
10.Sex improves sleep.
There are some pretty important medical issues on this list so it behooves us in medicine to pay as much attention to sex as we do to other areas of basic medicine, like water, sunlight and re-mineralization of the body’s cells. Healthcare professionals need to be not only out front but upfront with human sexuality and that starts by recognizing that we are all sexual beings who need their sexuality for the benefits it showers on us physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Sexual expression is a form of communication through which we give and receive pleasure and emotion. It has a wide range of possibilities—from sharing fun activities, feelings and thoughts, warm touches or hugs, to physical intimacy. It is expressed both individually and in relationships throughout life.
In the ancient Chinese world, sexuality was considered a major topic within the framework of general healthcare, so much so that it won a respected canon of its own. This canon, the Su Nu Jing, was compiled, probably several centuries B.C., of five volumes in a very similar literary style as the famous Huang Di nei Jing, the Yellow Emperor’s canon of internal medicine.
Sexual Suffering
One healthcare practitioner put it this way: “When I finally had the courage to speak my truth in my own clinic, I found that many of my female patients had been sexually abused during their childhood and teenage years, some of them into their 20s. Those who had not addressed their violent past found themselves having insecure and unequal relationships with men. This realization gave me clarification as to why I felt so passionate about becoming a healer for my profession.”
Until recently, men have hidden their sexual problems[1] behind closed doors. Sexual impotence, or erectile dysfunction, is an inability to maintain an erection during intercourse. The drug company Pfizer’s promotion of Viagra has exposed the problem and opened the door to more men making the call for help. But there are solutions much less dangerous than Viagra that are important for us to explore.
One of the biggest differences in treatment of impotence between Western medicine and Chinese medicine is Chinese medicine really tries to build up the person from the foundations, while Western medicine is usually looking for a quick fix. My Natural Allopathic approach incorporates Chinese medicine. I am an acupuncturist and have been trained in the Chinese paradigm of medicine with thousands of years under its belt.
Sexual medicine touches down on every level of being and for this and many other reasons I have decided to finally put my writings together on love and sexuality into a book entitled The Heart of Sex. My hope is to publish this and finally The Marriage of Souls, my earliest writings, sometime next year. It is hidden away in my Survival Medicine compendium as are all my writings from before 2007.
[1] A sexual problem, or sexual dysfunction, refers to a problem during any phase of the sexual response cycle that prevents the individual or couple from experiencing satisfaction from the sexual activity. The sexual response cycle has four phases: excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. research suggests that sexual dysfunction is common (43% of women and 31% of men report some degree of difficulty),
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