My Notes From Taylor's Presentation on Sexuality

Having referenced Debra Taylor's plenary session talk at CAPS in the post below, I thought some of my readers might be interested in the notes I took. (I could do this because my wife encouraged me to get a spiffy new netbook computer with an amazing 5-7 hours of battery life. Thank you Mary!) Needless to say, these note reflect what I took away from Taylor's presentation and any errors are mine and mine alone.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Debra Taylor, MA, “Prisoners of Hope: Is Healing Possible for Sexual Strugglers?”Institute for Sexual Wholeness (graduate program/ministry), Secrets of Eve (book)

Lk 4:18-19: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me...: we are all of us the recipients of this same call to proclaim liberty to the captive, to set free those who are burdened and battered.

SECRETS OF EVE: survey of 2000 Christian women about the sexuality

Then and Now...

1. 
   
   Sexual desire
   1. 
      
      Women and sexual desire: we've been pathologizing women for being women
   2. 
      
      Masters & Johnson, Kaplan; desire—excitement--orgasm--resolution (linear model)
      1. 
         
         developed in a lab watching people having sex while hooked up to ekg and measuring sexual desire mechanically.
      2. 
         
         focused on women who were able to achieve orgasm through intercourse alone (only 1/3 of all women)
      3. 
         
         Question: is desire really the basis of sexuality in women? Is M&J model really true? And how is desire measured?
         1. 
            
            Inadvertently, many people—e specially women—were pathologized because their sexual desires did not match the research
2. 
   
   Basson's model of sexual desire: women's desire begins in sexual neutrality [You can download a pdf of the model here.]
   
   1. 
      
      Sexual stimuli (psychological factors)
   2. 
      
      Sexual arousal
   3. 
      
      sexual desire & arousal
   4. 
      
      emotional & physical satisfaction (orgasm not necessarily present)
   5. 
      
      emotional intimacy (and then, much her partner's confusion, sexual neutrality)
3. 
   
   Some, but not all, women, have spontaneous sexual desire. Some, but fewer still, have a higher sex drive then their partner
4. 
   
   Receptive desire counts (receptive desire IS sexual desire)
   1. 
      
      The central question from the research: Am I good enough

Body image

1. 
   
   primary factor influencing sexual desire in women
2. 
   
   98% women dissatisfied with their bodies
   1. 
      
      clinically and personally, the best thing I can do for the women in my life is to encourage in them a more positive body image
3. 
   
   protective factors
   1. 
      
      family of origin
   2. 
      
      gender role satisfaction
   3. 
      
      health
   4. 
      
      effective coping strategies (identify and resist harmful cultural stereotypes)
   5. 
      
      sense of holistic balance and wellness
4. 
   
   pain is a bigger problem than we knew in the 90's
   1. 
      
      we don't know the incidence of sexual pain disorders
   2. 
      
      little research has been done
   3. 
      
      1-6% of women have vaginsmus; 16-19% experience chronic or recurrent sexual pain.

STD's

1. 
   
   in the 1960's we knew about only 2 STD's syphilis & gonorrhea
2. 
   
   NOW we know about 30 STDs
3. 
   
   >50% of all people in the US will have an STD
4. 
   
   in a national survey of US physicians, fewer 1/3 test routinely for STD's
5. 
   
   50% sexually active persons will have an STD by 25 years of age
6. 
   
   2008 CDC reports HIV/AIDS spreading quickly among young males 13-24; number of males jumped 12%
7. 
   
   15% of all new HIV/AIDS cases are over 50

Prisoners of Hope

1. 
   
   hope is our most important tool
2. 
   
   to inspire hope in our clients, we have to experience hope ourselves
3. 
   
   what do you do when you lose hope?
   1. 
      
      What are my skills for maintaining/recovering hope in the face of human suffering?
   2. 
      
      Compassion is not a flaw, but a strength.

“Broken heart syndrome” a real, medical condition, we can physically die because of extreme sadness and lose.

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