Sexual wellbeing: A missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle
While sex can’t solve all our problems, neither should sexual wellbeing be overlooked, says sex and relationship therapist Madina Demirbas.
04 April 2024
It was exactly a year ago that I went to the BPS conference on wellbeing in Northern Ireland. I enjoyed every single presentation and the 'extracurricular' activities that we had, like Irish music performance in the evening and morning run / sea swimming with some of the participants.
At the same time, I was feeling that there was something missing for me personally, but I could not yet define it. By the end of the second day, I had an 'aha' moment, when I realised that we talked about all kinds of wellbeing except for the sexual one.
For me it was like a missing piece of the puzzle of a big picture. When I posed a question: "I am curious as to why the closest we got to discussing sexual wellbeing was a joke, 'Life is a sexually transmitted disease', even though research shows that sexual wellbeing (not just sex as a physical act) plays a big role in overall satisfaction of life..." and the answer was: "Well, here is a topic for you to present on the next BPS event."
And boy did I follow this advice!
The next thing I knew I was registering for different events offering a talk about this topic. The more I presented, the more I had a sense that there is a gap between the demand for this information from psychologists and other professionals, and the supply of it.
Some of us have received some sort of sex education back at school (how helpful was that?) and then we go on with our adult life as professionals and as individuals without much sense of how to go about it in our personal and professional lives (if we are counselling psychologists).
I am a sex and relationship therapist, and yet I do not think that sex alone can solve all of our problems, but I do believe sexual wellbeing in general should not be overlooked. It is a complicated topic, but there are some patterns that could be more common
than we think. And one of them is diminished sexual wellbeing in long-term committed relationships. That is how I came up with the idea of organising a workshop about it in Leicester.
With tremendous support from the BPS East Midlands team, we managed to gather quite a varied audience consisting of students, university professors, practising psychologists, and those who are interested in psychology in general.
What struck me most was the receptiveness of the audience, its playfulness, and curiosity in the different aspects of the topic.
One of the highlights was sexual fantasies and their impact on a relationship.
I suppose that would be the topic for my next event. Until then, I would like to thank BPS East Midlands for their help with organising the event and the engaging participants. It was such a pleasure to interact with you!
About the author
Madina is CEO of the Centre for Thriving Relationships in Leicester the author of various books and online courses.