Key Points
-
Sexuality can be negatively affected by society, culture, lack of education, abuse, medical conditions, homophobia, and so much more.
-
Damaged sexuality requires professional help to overcome shame, guilt, and trauma.
-
Through proper care and work, you can discover all the pleasure you deserve and enjoy intimate moments with others.
-
Properly trained sex workers can help clients find comfort and pleasure in vulnerability, intimacy, and sex by actually exposing them and guiding them through these encounters.
Sex, love, and intimacy guide David Wichman said "You can have the best diet. You can have all the exercise. You can be as healthy as you want. You can have a lot of money. And you can sit in meditation. And you can do all of the yoga… but if you're not being touched in a way that makes you feel fully and completely accepted, then there is a part that's missing."
Sexual Healing
Can sex workers be sexual healers?
First, what is a sex worker? By definition, a sex worker is an individual who provides sexual services in exchange for payment. These sexual services include prostitution, strippers, cam models, porn performers, dominatrixes, and many other occupations that provide sexual satisfaction.
Sexual healing is a therapeutic process that addresses and heals emotional, psychological, and physical issues related to sexuality. It involves working with a trained professional to explore and address individual or relational challenges, traumas, or concerns regarding one's sexuality.
Sexual healing involves various techniques, including talk therapy, somatic practices, mindfulness, education, and exercises to promote self-awareness, self-acceptance, and positive sexual experiences.
The goal of sexual healing is to enhance sexual well-being, improve intimacy, and resolve any blockages and traumas that are negatively impacting one's sexual health and fulfillment.
The Ethical Slut is a book by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton, which according to Cosmopolitan has gained huge popularity in July 2023. In a passage discussing the benefits of legalizing sex work, the authors said, "Many sex professionals have worked hard to acquire skills that most of us don't even know are possible: freedom of choice about our physical responses, timing of orgasms, ease of erection, G-spot fountains, the amazing possibilities of all the muscles in the pelvic area to bring pleasure in so many ways.
"Sexual healers could help free us from the terror and inhibitions learned in a sex-negative society and show us what amazing sexual geniuses we all might be. Healing shame, healing trauma, the amazingness of sex beyond violation, the power of fantasies… so much is there for us to learn and grow. Sex can be a powerful journey into healing and general goodness, and there are professionals who can teach us how."
Negative Effects on Sexuality
One's sexuality is easily affected by countless circumstances. Living in a society where there's shame or secrecy about sex, it's very common to have negative feelings surrounding sex. Everyone has a unique experience with their sexuality, although many outside factors tend to be similar.
Societal Stigmas
From childhood, we're taught that genitals are private, touching yourself is wrong, sex is taboo, and countless other misconceptions. Stigmas create shame and fear around sex, leading to the repression of one's natural sexual instincts.
Our society promotes unrealistic body image ideals, which negatively impact the self-esteem and body image of most people. If you don't look like the supermodels on the cover of magazines or have a nine-inch penis like you see in porn, you judge yourself and believe you're not sexy enough.
Lack of Education
Lack of comprehensive sexual education results in misinformation, myths, and other misinformation about sex. For example, we learn that the safest practice is abstinence. However, it's unreasonable to expect someone to go their whole life without sex! Rather, we should learn about the true safest sex — self-sex.
Sex ed tends to instill fear and stigma of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and pregnancy. Many are under the impression that chlamydia is a serious disease that ruins one's intimate life. Yet, when you contract the disease, you rarely have symptoms and it's easily cured with antibiotics.
Limited access to sexual healthcare services can hinder one's ability to make informed decisions and maintain their sexual well-being. Educate yourself on sexual health and seek resources to take care of yourself and break the cycle of poor sexual health.
Abuse
Sexual trauma and abuse are common causes of sexual dysfunction and affect someone quite deeply. Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse can negatively impact one's view of sex. Abuse damages one's views of intimacy they become untrusting. This leads to feelings of fear, shame, guilt, and a distorted vision of sex and intimacy.
Conflicts, lack of communication, trust issues, infidelity, and unresolved emotions in a relationship can negatively impact sexual satisfaction and intimacy. As you mistrust your partner, you become hesitant or uncomfortable with intimacy and sex. If you agree to have sex with your partner for their satisfaction, but you don't want to do it, this negatively impacts your sexuality and mentality surrounding sex.
Sexual abuse isn't just rape or violent acts. Sexual abuse is as common as one partner begging the other for sex until they cave and agree. This isn't consent — this is guilt, and it's damaging.
Culture and Religion
Many religions and cultures consider sex to be taboo, and teach people from a young age that sex shouldn't be pleasurable, but rather shameful. Some cultures and religions instill shame in members through a lack of normalcy in nudity, forbidden sex outside of marriage, bans of contraception, and enforcing the message that sex is simply for procreation.
Cultural or religious beliefs may impose strict guidelines and moral judgments on sexual behavior, gender expression, menstruation, and other natural parts of you.
When you're taught that sex is shameful, embarrassing, or a sin, you become very disconnected from your body and your pleasure. Everyone has a right to feel comfortable in their own body and find pleasure in any way they wish.
Beyond partnered sex, masturbation is often forbidden. Self-pleasure is a natural part of life and is even good for your health! Reclaim your right to masturbation and start exploring your body.
The shame surrounding menstruation severely impacts women in a way of feeling ashamed of their bodies. Bleeding doesn't make you "unpure" or "dirty," it's a beautiful and natural part of being a woman.
Breaking out of cultural or religious beliefs surrounding sex is extremely difficult. Going to proper therapists and counselors is a step in the right direction of accepting yourself as a sexual being.
Homophobia
Have you ever asked your favorite little niece if she has a boyfriend in her class? Cute, sure, but even small expectations of someone being straight suppress one's sexual and gender identity. Leave room for someone to be any identity, and never assume someone is cis-gender and straight.
Individuals outside of the "normal" cis-gender, straight identity often struggle with their sexuality and acceptance. Rejection of a sexual or gender identity from society, cultures, peers, and family leave individuals feeling shameful and embarrassed. This leads to unacceptance of themselves and secrets from family or society.
LGBTQ+ individuals face discrimination, prejudice, and lack of acceptance for their sexual or gender identity. This discrimination also comes in nonobvious ways, such as a lack of representation in the media or a lack of LGBTQ+ mention in sexual education.
Reclaim your sexual identity and learn to fully accept yourself. You can find the love and pleasure you deserve in this world by proudly being who you are!
Medical Conditions and Sexual Dysfunctions
Beyond mental struggles and external factors on sexuality, physical well-being is a huge factor in sexual health. Conditions such as erectile dysfunction (ED), premature ejaculation, vaginismus, or low libido can hurt one's views regarding sex.
When someone has ED or vaginismus, they often experience shame surrounding their disease. They can't perform in the bedroom or enjoy sex in the way they wish. This shame damages one's confidence and mentality regarding sex, exasperating the problem.
Certain medical conditions — such as hormonal imbalances, chronic pain, side effects of medications, handicaps, and mental health issues — negatively impact one's ability to have sex and their confidence in their sexuality.
Many who struggle with chronic pain, find themselves uncomfortable or in pain during sex. You may feel embarrassed about this issue and try to hide your discomfort from your partner, so that you can be as satisfying as possible for them. However, this is damaging and unnecessary. Many people with physical aches and pains try to "perform" from their partner and hide their discomfort, creating a negative association with sex in their minds.
Mental Healing Journey
Work with a sex therapist, counselor, or healthcare professional that specializes in sexual health to guide you through your journey. Explore past traumas, experiences, or emotional blockages that are negatively impacting your sexuality. This can involve talk therapy, trauma resolution techniques, and self-reflection to process and heal wounds associated with your sexuality.
Education
Educate yourself on various topics related to sexual health, consent, pleasure, and communication. This can dispel misconceptions, increase self-awareness, and cultivate a positive and informed approach to sexuality.
Communicate
Work on open communication with your partners. Openly express your sexual history, share your desires, and discuss boundaries. Open and honest communication can foster understanding, mutual consent, and greater sexual satisfaction.
Self-Acceptance
Practice self-acceptance and self-love to gain a positive self-image and acceptance of your unique sexual desires, preferences, and boundaries.
Take time for self-exploration and self-pleasure to reconnect with your own body and desires. Masturbation can be a healthy way to increase self-awareness and reclaim agency over your sexuality. You're responsible for your pleasure, learn what you like to find satisfaction, and teach others your preferences. Being aware of your own body makes a huge positive impact on your sexual self-confidence.
Mental Well Being
Consider incorporating holistic approaches such as mindfulness techniques, meditation, yoga, or breathwork to enhance embodiment, sensuality, and mental health. Remember that healing is a process and may take time, patience, and self-compassion. It's essential to listen to your own needs, pace yourself, and seek support from professionals or supportive communities.
Physical Healing Journey
You can sit in your therapist's chair for countless hours discussing and working through past traumas and insecurities. You can feel fully healed and comfortable expressing who you are. If this acceptance doesn't translate into the physical act of sex, you're not healing as you need.
Feeling comfortable having sex is the goal of a sexual healing journey, but it's not appropriate for your therapist to climb onto the couch with you. This is where a sex worker comes in.
Just like overcoming a fear or acclimating yourself to be comfortable with something, you need to throw yourself into the action.
What They Do
A sex worker can help someone on their sexual healing journey by providing companionship, intimacy, and guidance to clients, overcoming past traumas, exploring desires, and developing a healthy and positive relationship with their sexuality. While sex is a part of this job, it's not the only thing going on. Simply cuddling with someone and sharing intimate moments opens doors to intimacy and sexual healing!
There are famous stories, such as in the movie An Intimate Life where a disabled person discovers their sexuality for the first time through a sex surrogate. While this is a great example of how powerful sex is for healing, it's a more extreme case. Many degrees of struggles with sexuality can benefit from the healing powers of a sex worker.
Sharing Vulnerability
Sharing vulnerability with a sex worker comes as you're naked together. People feel very vulnerable when fully exposed. By spending time with someone on the same level of vulnerability, you become more comfortable with nudity and intimacy.
Vulnerability increases as you progress in physical touch and other forms of intimacy. Having the sex worker on the same playing field as you make you more comfortable, as they're also sharing these "private" parts of themselves.
Discovering Pleasure
A common downfall of those with sexual repression is feeling guilty or ashamed of finding pleasure in sex. By learning the beauty and importance of pleasure in sex, one can allow themselves to sink into the moment and fully enjoy it.
A sex worker can show a client pleasure and allow them to fully enjoy it, releasing this guilt and self-restraint. Working with someone that reassures you to enjoy yourself and feel pleasure breaks mental and physical blocks.
Live Out a Fantasy
Sexual fantasies often root in dark parts of our consciousness. For example, trauma from childhood of sexual abuse may manifest as a fantasy in adulthood. Living out this fantasy allows you to regain control of the situation and view it through a lens of pleasure rather than victimization.
For example, a man that was tied up and raped as a child has an overwhelming fantasy as an adult to be tied up during sex. While it's awesome to enjoy sadomasochism, overcoming such a fantasy is important to his marriage and views of sex. A sex worker can help him live out this fantasy until it has lost its power, and he can feel more free to control his sexual thoughts and desires.
Glitches in the System
While prostitution and sex work can be healing, do clients truly come for this service?
The main argument against sex work for sexual healing is that people go to a sex worker for pleasure, not healing. While this is true, the reason someone seeks sex work doesn't negate the power these practitioners hold. Many people are sexually healed by a prostitute without having the intention of seeking this service. It's just an unexpected benefit!
Additionally, going to a sex worker simply for pleasure or stress relief shouldn't be diminished. All sex workers are legitimate workers that deserve respect for their profession.
Purpose for Pleasure
Not every sex worker is a healing practitioner. Some of them serve their purpose purely for pleasure, which is also totally fine. Sex workers trained for healing can provide this benefit for clients whether or not they're searching for it. Some sex workers provide healing without knowing they're providing this benefit or without training to do so.
The lack of intention in clients for healing doesn't mean healing is impossible. Likewise, the lack of training and ability to heal others as a sex workers doesn't diminish their importance for pleasure.
Not all sex workers and all clients are on a healing journey. However, the right practitioner can certainly make a huge impact on someone's comfort with sex.
Part of the Healing Journey
Going to a sex worker won't fix all of your issues surrounding sex. Healing requires resolving mental, emotional, and physical aspects. Talk therapy and mental work are just as important as physical work.
Resolving traumas and shame surrounding sex is the foundation for resolving your issues. The physical practice is relearning how to be comfortable with your body, sexuality, and intimacy.
Don't rely solely on a sex practitioner to reclaim your sexual nature. Begin with talk therapy and trauma resolution, and eventually progress to prescribed sex. You're likely going to need many sessions to reach your desired results!
Credentials
In an unregulated field, it's easy for anyone to proclaim themselves as a sex worker, sex therapist, tantric healer, sexual surrogate, etc. Check the credentials and training of sex workers you go to. Proper training is essential in seeing a professional for sexual services, for your safety and healing.
Heal Through Love
Sex practitioners make huge impacts on their clients. Releasing someone from shame, guilt, and blockages surrounding sex is extremely powerful. A trained sex healer can properly guide someone to surrender, relax, and be fully present in intimate moments.
Everyone deserves to fully enjoy their natural sex instincts and explore all realms of pleasure they wish. If you're struggling with your sexuality, go to a sex therapist to begin your healing journey. Clear your mental blocks, overcome trauma, discover your body through masturbation, and turn to a sex surrogate to make you comfortable in intimate moments.
For more sex and mental health advice, subscribe to Cupid's Light
