Living with trauma and continuous emotional distress typically make life an unsatisfactory and unpleasant experience. Hence, helping people to heal from trauma and regain pleasure in life and living is an important goal of many somatic therapies.
The above counts for anyone and not only for LGBTQ+ individuals, but for LGBTQ+ folks regaining pleasure is often closely connected with being able to again enjoy sexual activity. In fact, hiding or struggling with one’s sexual orientation or gender identity not only makes for an inauthentic way of going through life, it usually also deeply affects the sexual sphere.
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Society’s ignorance or outright rejection towards non-traditional sexual orientations and gender diverse people can create profound feelings of shame or guilt of being lesbian, gay, or a transgender person — to give some examples — which in its turn can lead to somatic tensions and blockages in the genital area for those affected. This is a normal psychosomatic reaction, but nonetheless one that significantly affects one’s quality of life.
In the long run, these genital tensions and blockages can result in a variety of sexual disorders or dysfunctions, such as erectile dysfunction, pain during sexual intercourse, low libido, vulvodynia, vaginismus, or premature ejaculation, among others. This, of course, takes away much of the pleasure one can have during an intimate sexual encounter with another person, or can even lead to avoiding having any sexual contact at all.
A therapeutic LGBTQ+ affirmative approach will take into account that a healthy and gratifying sex life can be of great importance for one’s overall wellbeing, notably of relevance for LGBTQ+ individuals being a group of people that often suffers from sexual trauma or deep emotional distress in the sexual and genital sphere.
Regaining guilt free sexual pleasure in lovemaking and freedom in one’s sexual expression isn’t just an end; it’s also an important means to be able to again enjoy life as a whole.
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