Our greatest concern for the feasibility of online sessions was with regard to couples. In our sessions with couples, we have figured out some great workarounds. One of our favorite new techniques is to have each partner participate from separate devices in separate parts of a home. Interestingly, we are finding that couples are doing a better job of turn-taking in conversations during these video therapy sessions!

This article in Vice by Caitlin Flynn outlines more ideas for continuing to ensure you’re getting the most out of your video therapy sessions.

Looking for some support?

If you would like some support for your relationship, or your sex life, feel free to reach out to us. LIIST has an outstanding team of therapists. We specialize in helping individuals, couples and relationships navigate difficult times.

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Cool bonus is that this article was picked up by the amazing queer blog Autostraddle!

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Question: What types of clients do you work with most often?

Answer: Interestingly, for the whole time I’ve been in practice, half of my clients are couples and half of them are individuals. About half identify as female and half identify as male, with trans men and trans women included. Many of my clients are exploring gender identity as well as sexual orientation. The majority of the couples I’m working with fall in to three general categories: couples 55+ who have decided to call it quits on their dull or nonexistent sex lives, couples who are around the time of having their first children and are experiencing new sexual difficulties, and couples who are struggling together through a chronic illness such as Multiple Sclerosis or Breast Cancer and are seeking to maintain their intimate connections. The majority of individuals I work with are struggling with low sexual desire, sexual pain, sexual compulsivity, and erectile dysfunction.

Question: What’s your favorite type of client?

Answer: I honestly enjoy working with all of my clients. As a therapist in private practice, I have the ability to work with a vast array of clients on many different issues, so I never get bored. As a social worker, one of my favorite therapeutic skills is integrating health care services for my clients, so I happily spend the extra time working with clients who require the coordination with other professionals such as gynecologists, oncologists, acupuncturists, physical therapists, pelvic physical therapists, urologists, nutritionists, health coaches, primary physicians, couples therapists, individual therapists, psychiatrists, chiropractors, attorneys, etc. (pointer: my Long Island favorites in their respective fields can be found on my website).

Question: Why do some people like to be hurt during sex?

Answer: If you think of sex as the adult version of the playground, then you can start to see that sex can be fun, it can be freeing, it can be bonding, and it can be playful. Within the realm of a playground, anything is allowed to happen so long as it is safe, sane and consensual. If someone wants to be the alligator in the moat while others are knights attempting to break in to the castle, then go for it! Play is how we learn the boundaries of ourselves and each other, it is where we can transcend into other realms in a safe way. There are tremendous avenues for both physical and emotional pain that isn’t safe, sane or consensual which is why communication is essential. As a sex therapist, I am always assisting clients in enhancing their communication of their thoughts, feelings, wants and needs in order to improve both their physical and emotional intimacy.

Question: If I’m being intimate with someone and I’m okay with what’s happening and then we keep going and I don’t want to go anymore, am I allowed to say no?

Answer: Absolutely, positively, without a doubt—Yes! No, for real, means NO! This latest post using the example of tea explains it all—to the T.

Question: If a girl has sex with more than 5 people, does that make her a slut?

Answer: As a professor in my PhD program at Widener University’s Center for Human Sexuality Studies has said, a slut is someone who has sex with one more person than the person doing the judging. No one is a slut. If you find empowerment in using the word slut to define your sexuality, then use it. If you aren’t fond of the word slut, then don’t ever allow someone’s ill-understood words to tarnish your self-worth! Your sexuality is yours—as is your sexual pleasure.

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By providing a new model of how two people can live together equitably, same-sex marriage could help haul matrimony more fully into the 21st century. Although marriage is in many ways fairer and more pleasurable for both men and women than it once was, it hasn’t entirely thrown off old notions and habits. As a result, many men and women enter into it burdened with assumptions and stereotypes that create stress and resentment. Others, confronted with these increasingly anachronistic expectations—expectations at odds with the economic and practical realities of their own lives—don’t enter into it at all.

Read more in the Atlantic article. 

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• No, men don’t always want sex all the time.
• Women can pay for dinner, clothes, cars, a home, etc. 
• Men can clean a bathroom floor. 
• Women definitely curse. 
• Women can be pretty hilarious. They can also be pretty darn nerdy.
• Men like all types of women… and all types of men.
• Women and men dress in whatever clothes and wear whatever makeup they like because they want to.
• Men have the right to commit, or not, to any relationship type.

Now, instead of “men” or “women” what if we just put in “People”?

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What would it be like if we approached sex as a lifetime of jam sessions? This video by Karen B.K. Chan takes us through a great journey in understanding sexuality as collaborative, process driven, and pleasurable.

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