Graham Stevenson

Sex and Relationship Therapist and Coach, Exeter, Devon - working online.

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June 16, 2020 By Graham Stevenson

Why Does Sex go Wrong? (part one)

Most people will have a bad sex story and it will probably have been more than just an embarrassment.  Sex is such a core aspect of who we are that we can be very sensitive to negative feedback … better fake it than lose face or expose a loved one.

When sex is on the menu, whoever notices the wallpaper in the bedroom?

If we really understood how important the wallpaper was to our sexual enjoyment, it would be one of the first topics of conversation.  The wallpaper I’m talking about is the backdrop of our minds on sex.  It is the subtle but powerful array of influences that have been forming you and me from the day of our birth, if not before.

Culture

Culture is like water to a fish; the air we breathe from life’s first breath.  Each people group has a story that gives them understanding of the context in which they live.  It is handed down and reframed with each generation so that it still makes sense of the present in the context of the past.  In specifically sexual terms, it will define who they can touch, when, where and how.   

The method of making sure everyone keeps within cultural norms is the weapon of choice for social control – Shame.  Shame in this context tells you if you’re one of us or you’re on your own, excluded.

Culture is also the accumulated baggage of previous generations who were unable to work out their collective traumas.  The children of war and genocide will inherit tensions and anxieties that aren’t their own, except by virtue of an epigenetic inheritance.  Rape is deliberately employed as a weapon of war because it degrades so deeply.  The after-effects can be even worse, as the defiled victim becomes unacceptable to their own people and not one of us anymore.  Like other traumas, it will most probably affect subsequent generations.

Religion

Where culture speaks to us through the voice of our ancestors, religion goes one step further and speaks with the authority of God, the almighty, all-seeing and all-knowing One.  Accept ‘the Word’ or be condemned, because who do you turn to in an argument with God … who hasn’t already been judged?

When people try communally to represent a God of love, His/Her/Their unconditional acceptance often gets turned into law and judgement.  The grace-space is God’s special playpen in which to learn, and make mistakes without eternal repercussions, so that we can grow up spiritually.  Unfortunately, the freedom of expression that should encourage creativity and diversity ends up becoming more uniform and ordered, like a classroom.

Not all religions are hard on sex, of course, but it is those people who come from a conservative religious background who have the most problems.  It’s not just what you do, but also what you think, that you cannot hide from an all-seeing God.  If fear doesn’t keep you in line then there’s the other side of shame to deal with – Guilt.

Did patriarchy give rise to the three major world religions or vice versa?  In any event, these three religions have influenced many cultures in which men and women are restricted in discovering their true sexual selves.  Both genders have well defined roles and social positions in which men should be proactive and assertive and women compliant and submissive.  Similarly, men can be sexual but not emotional, except in anger, and women can be emotional, except in anger but not sexual.  Giving people permission to explore in the process of self-discovery is one of the most satisfying aspects of being a therapist. 

As people discern the difference between spirituality and religion, the public reverence that enabled the hypocrisy to be hidden falls away.  Spiritual leaders of all kinds are being outed for inconsistent and sometimes criminal behaviour.  The beneficial side-effect is that people are becoming more introspective and starting to access their own inner resources for their lives.  The realisation that we can have access to spiritual resources without any institutional middle-man is life-changing.  The realisation that we are all made in the divine image with a common spiritual destiny changes our view of ourselves and our relationship with all other humans.

Family

We are located in terms of culture and religion when we are born.  Our family nurtures us with food, ideas, experiences and values and these all go up on the walls of our minds.  The templates of how to be a man and how to be a woman will be enacted in front of our eyes by our nearest and dearest.  Our primary care-givers, like other authority figures, not only model behaviour but also embody values.  Before we can verbalise these values we construct avatars in our imaginations of the kind of people we aspire to be.  Then, like a distant North star, we unconsciously orientate ourselves in all our behaviour towards our intended future selves.

However, there aren’t such things as perfect parents, and families can also be the place where the worst of human behaviour is enacted.  From small ‘t,’ cumulative trauma, to big ‘T,’ incident trauma, many limp out of their childhoods with massive issues to resolve and big deficits of love and attention to make up for.  So often these get unconsciously projected onto others, and in intimate relationships they can play havoc.  When we become conscious of these undercurrents , we suddenly realise that we married our mother or father – our unfinished business.  This needn’t be a catastrophic mistake if we accept it as being our unconscious and wise choice for life and the freedom of mature love.

Education and Peers

Puberty comes to each child’s body at a different time, which can bring its own problems amongst peers.  Some cultures and families celebrate it, others cover it up or ignore it.  A rite of passage is helpful in making the transition in society, if it honours the body and the person within.  Circumcision only adds another trauma that will affect the body as important parts are mutilated or severed completely.

Most sex education curricula reflect the fears and anxieties of the parents and not the desires of the children for knowledge.  Some seem explicitly designed as a deterrent with minimal facts and only the bad news.  But pleasure-averse societies will not encourage their children to enjoy themselves.  Nor will it be easy for their loving and respectful children to enjoy themselves more than their parents.

With a deficit of knowledge and little available wisdom the door is left wide open for peers to find out for themselves.  Those wanting to know what to do, and how things work, will look to other sources such as pornography.  This is how acts such as oral and anal sex become almost mandatory for a relationship in certain age groups.

Thankfully, lessons on consent and boundaries, first developed in the BDSM community, are being more widely incorporated into educational establishments of every kind.  The aim is to clarify intimate interactions and the process asks us to feel our bodies’ responses.  Being aware of our body’s responses as well as our emotions helps us discern our real boundaries and able to make genuine choices.  Slowly and steadily, the wallpaper of our minds will change to reflect our choices and our tastes.

Filed Under: Relationship, Sex, Transformation Tagged With: culture, religion, sex education, sex therapy, spirituality

May 21, 2020 By Graham Stevenson

Why is Sex so Important?

exuberant sexuality

Sex is so important because it affects us in our bodies, our emotions, and relationships and can even expand our spirituality.

Let’s look at some aspects of the biology of sex.

Everyone came into being because two people had sex – our biological mother and father.  Sex is hardwired in our brains and without it we would die out as a species.  It’s hardwired into every form of life that reproduces in a myriad of fascinatingly different ways.  To live, reproduce and die is the most basic expression of life.  There’s no life without sex when you consider say, plant life or animal life.  It is the same energy working itself out in different life forms, either in a linear way (as in evolution) or in a cyclical way (as understood in re-incarnation).

The scientific evidence for the benefits of sex has been growing into a crescendo that needs to be actively paid some attention.  Even the financial advantages for healthier happier people should have governments and religious institutions actively promoting it.  Sadly, many cultures are still sex-negative and locked in ignorance and shame.  There is plenty of evidence that sex is good for:

  • your heart – reducing the likelihood of angina, heart disease and lowering blood pressure
  • your immune system – boosting the production of Immunoglobulin (IgA) by up to 30%
  • reducing stress by lowering ‘stress hormones’ like cortisol and epinephrine
  • improving digestion and lowering the risk of duodenal ulcers
  • improving brain function such as memory in older people
  • relief from pain such as headaches and menstrual cramps
  • strengthening core muscles and reducing the risk of incontinence and prolapse
  • reducing the risk of prostate cancer
  • heightening the sense of smell, improving dental health and skin lustre through increased DHEA production 
  • improving the quality of sleep
  • increasing libido and longevity of life.

Sex is one of the ways in which adults play.  As animals, our foreplay is about grooming, bonding and connecting.  This is how we down-regulate our survival instincts so that we can relax and enjoy each other.  Play then offers the space in which to explore roles and be creative, allowing hidden parts of ourselves to come into the open and connect. However, as groups of humans developed their cultures and societies, different views about sex arose.  Some were sex-negative and covered it with shame and embarrassment. Others were sex-positive and embraced it more openly exploring the subject further.  It seems that for the sex-negative, sex was a necessary evil for reproduction and they denied it. For the sex-positive, each person was affirmed as a sexual being who could also connect with the divine.

The emotional and relational benefits.

The biological systems that enable us to fight have to be shut down for good sex to happen and so we have to learn to relax. You can’t make love and war at the same time. The survival bias of our brains and bodies has to be pacified so that we can enjoy life rather than just keeping ourselves alive. In learning how to relax, we have to connect with our bodies, which enables us to access our innate embodied wisdom. This wisdom tells us about what we like and need, how to act and how to respond and how to find satisfaction in a healthy, natural way.  Great warriors seldom make great lovers as their skillsets don’t translate well to the bedroom; one is about taking life and the other about giving life … and celebrating it.  Sex itself is abused when it becomes a battleground in relationships and even more so when used as a weapon of war.

Whilst it is a primal urge that keeps the species going, sex doesn’t feature on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, although an updated version might include it.  Many disregard its importance because we can actually live without it, and many do, compared to say food and drink.  I personally think that although you might not die from being unable to have sex, something dies inside without it.  Like air, it’s not noticeably important until you’re deprived of it … then it becomes vital! 

Studies have shown that sex:

  • raises self-esteem and improves self-image
  • reduces insecurity
  • increases connection through the release of oxytocin, the bonding hormone
  • increases connection and intimacy in relationships
  • lowers the likelihood of divorce or separation
  • increases relationship satisfaction.

The spiritual benefits of sex

In those few sex-positive societies that openly celebrated sex and explored its possibilities, we have a rich treasure of knowledge, from art showing the human form in sexual poses, to advice on ways of experiencing the life force in us and meeting the divine such as Tantric yoga.  This storehouse has helped inform a diverse discipline of practitioners able to deal with sexual issues to dispel our ignorance and shame and heal all the harm it has done.

Our immature duality of thinking that mirrors the male/female gender binary is challenged by these pathways to enlightenment.  Right and wrong no longer serve any purpose and whatever was a binary polarity becomes a continuum with the freedom to play along the whole spectrum of gender, sex and relationship.  The sincere enquirer not only enjoys the thrills and spills of new experiences but the ability to become more present and to be aware beyond the confines of self and the physical body.  When our consciousness includes not just the physical, but also the spiritual, we can deal with the blockages that prevent us fulfilling that sexual urge to merge and experience oneness with each other and all life.

As a result of our cultural backgrounds, the families we were born into and the experiences of our early years, many of us are cut off from our bodies and experience our sexuality at arm’s length, under the shadow of shame.  We don’t feel fully alive, as if we have been robbed of something precious, and, all the while, time and opportunity is passing us by. The experience of fully connecting with our sexuality enables us to feel whole and at peace, with a newfound vitality. Sex is life, and life is about loving creatively.

Filed Under: Relationship, Sex, Transformation Tagged With: health, Relationship, Sex, spirituality

February 8, 2018 By Graham Stevenson

PLEASURE AVERSION

It is a sad fact that we are hard-wired for pain. Our old brain is constantly looking out for danger. Survival is its primary concern. It is a risk to enjoy pleasure because we have to relax … let go … and be vulnerable.

You deserve it

We meet pain from birth onwards and learn how to deal with it. It is the first confirmation we get that we are alive. By contrast pleasure is strange and we are not sure if we can survive its intensity and so we often resist and play safe.

All this freely available pain has a subtle message – somehow or other you must deserve it. In the simple logic of the dualistic mind pain is conflated with being bad, possibly evil and destined for eternal pain, or hell. We end up hating ourselves for deserving it and not knowing why. We can’t accept pleasure because we don’t deserve it and to do so would be wrong, only confirming what we already knew – perfect catch 22.

Crowd control

This is probably why so many religions major on pain. Salvation through the cross, self denial and making up what is lacking in the suffering of the saviour … as if there was a lack. The cycle of reincarnation and suffering that purifies the person on the way to a higher state of consciousness. Very few religions major on pleasure or seem to endorse it as the true purpose of the body and its nervous system. No wonder the clitoris was such an enigma to the Victorians … a God-given organ … with no other purpose than pleasure, and that in multiple, seemingly endless, orgasmic spadesful.

Another deterrent to pleasure is the pain when the pleasure ends. In another twist of logic it becomes safer to not participate in pleasure to avoid being tortured by the memory of it. What you haven’t tasted you can’t miss and so ignorance becomes bliss.

The truth is that everybody understands pain. Suffering is the universal human condition in which we see another’s pain and feel a oneness with them, known as empathy. Pleasure is almost an affront. People who enjoy themselves openly display a separateness that only minorities such as the rich, famous and elites willingly foster.

A just reward

So, if we deserve pain, then we have to earn the right to pleasure. It comes in packages like heaven, nirvana and paradise… all at a very high price. Of course, if you control the market on pleasure you can exercise amazing power over people. How so? Because deep down we know it is all a lie and we know this because we have hope. This hope yearns for better things, a better life and a better world. We believe in justice, which is the ultimate balancing of pain and pleasure – the true and right perspective on life.

Having had authority endorse our unworthiness for pleasure we often need authority to allow us to enjoy ourselves. True authority would say be free, go ahead and enjoy life until you are replete … even if you vomit along the way. False authority says no, it is sinful, unholy, unlawful and can only be metered out in proscribed behaviours on set days in certain circumstances … ALL of which are controlled by US, the God-ordained authority! Of course, some authorities are self-appointed and thus they keep the divine authentification in-house.

Heaven on earth

Thankfully, these days pleasure is being seen for what it really is … the human raison d’être.   It is vital for life and the source of both physical and psychological health. Justice is the glue that holds communities together and makes a better world. Heaven on earth is what a God of love would surely want … so go out and enjoy yourself. Maybe, with just one caveat … ‘do unto others what you would like them to do unto you’, consensually, of course.

Filed Under: Sex, Transformation Tagged With: authority, heaven, pain, Pleasure aversion, religion

June 8, 2017 By Graham Stevenson

THE SECRET TO A FULFILLED LIFE

Living in tune with your values is the key to a sense of personal fulfilment. Your values drive your desire for a meaningful life and they are an essential component of your sense of security.

What are Values?

Values are the qualities that we choose to express like kindness and being fun-loving. They may be the image of God that we reflect onto the world in being open-hearted and compassionate. They can be the ideals we aspire to live by and the character we desire to become such as trustworthy and courageous. They define how we behave when we prioritise our family or gaining wealth. Deep within each of us are unconscious drivers that predict our decisions – our personal values. Think of times when you were happiest and most proud of yourself. Try and identify the value you were connecting with at that time.  Choose the top five values that shape your decisions.  Simply reminding yourself of these will help you have a less compromised and more meaningful life.

Values Motivate us.

A recent study on helping people to exercise more compared two groups. Each was told the importance and the benefits of exercise. For a period of time they were all sent a text reminding them to increase exercise in their daily routine, such as walking around and up and down the stairs. One group had an extra separate text reminding them of their values. At the end of the study this group was found to have been twenty percent more active than the control group.

Values Keep You Safe

Considering the power of values to motivate and direct our decisions it isn’t surprising then that they keep us safe. It is difficult to trust a person whose values you don’t know and whose behaviour you can’t predict. What better way of being sure of your teenage children than by knowing the values that guide their lives? That’s why 71% of parents want the teaching of values priotritised at school.

The conflict between our core values and our behaviour is experienced as conscience. Our need to silence the accusing voice in our heads and have a clear conscience is what helps us find the way back to be reconciled to our values and have peace of mind.

The best way to teach children is to be a living example to them and affirm the values you see them beginning to express. Children are rightly sensitive to what is not true. They are busy choosing, in myriad ways, how they are going to live their own lives. In the end everyone despises a hypocrite.

 

‘Practice what you preach before you try to teach it to someone else.’

Anon

The Value of Life

I believe that each person has a set of values to express in their own unique way. When they do this they unknowingly help to raise others’ aspirations, challenging those around them to step up themselves. However, too often we avoid doing so by idolising others, taking on their values, imitating their lifestyles and denying our own uniqueness.

 

‘God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.’
William Shakespeare

 

If we follow the call we all have upon our lives to be true to ourselves it will lead us into the power to actually live. Living authentically enables us to genuinely enjoy life. It is a move from the externals of imitation and material things to the inner constancy of our own being. People will take note that ‘you’re comfy in your own skin.’ It is not just a man that’s ‘gotta do what a man’s gotta do,’ we all have to.  If you would like help in this area then call me on 07933 709169 or email me here.

Filed Under: Transformation Tagged With: children, fulfilment, security, values

May 22, 2017 By Graham Stevenson

MORALS – DO THEY EXIST?

soldier-military-uniform-american

No, because morals are the snapshot of our defended egos on the vast landscape of who we really are.

I’ll use the example of water.

I like my tea hot and my tap water cold … but does cold exist? Isn’t water either hot, cold or anywhere in-between? Well that is how we decribe it all the time. And we can even measure it scientifically by taking the temperature. In a roadside coffee stop in the states, the man infront of me ordered his coffee with “Can I get a regular latte, extra expresso, with soy … at 122 degrees?”

I don’t know if I was more astonished by the order or the fact that the waitress didn’t miss a beat, as if it was normal. I suddenly panicked thinking that she was going to expect that much information with my order, “I’ll have a white coffee … please.”

Are the polarities real?

When does hot get hot and start to move towards warm and then cold? The truth is that these are all relative terms that are defined by individuals. So I position myself on the temperature scale and think, oh it’s going to be hot today. Someone from the tropics would say, this isn’t hot, and another from the polar regions might call it boiling and unbearable.

The Continuum.

Even from a scientific point of view temperature is actually molecular activity.  It is on a continuum from absolute zero to the unimaginable activity of stars – red giants are said to have a core temperature of a billion degrees.

Moral Relativity.

Could it be similar? Good and bad is all relative, depending on where you stand. If you’re Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Hindu or animist you might think there is a clear line. However, you soon realise that it is still all defined individually when some Christians start killing others and one Moslem sect slaughters another. For many cultures it is the worst crime to premeditatively kill someone. However, it is acceptable for the whole group to kill ‘their neighbours’ in war.

So what is the continuum on which morals stand?

Just as hot and cold are relative positions on the continuum of molecular activity called heat. Similarly, good and bad are relative positions on the continuum called love. If we realise this we can start putting our opinion into context. The most important context is my opinion about myself – am I a good or bad person? The way I answer this question will greatly affect my opinion of others.

“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.”

Thomas Merton

The great revelation we need to come to, if we dare, is that we are not ON the continuum (an ego view); we ARE the continuum (the nature of our essence).

Filed Under: Transformation

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