Hi newtothis,

Welcome to the forums! I'm glad you took a chance and posted. First, I want to reassure you that you have done nothing wrong, this was a good place to start this topic and there was nothing wrong in what you said in it. The reason you're not finding much about the topic of sex is that we have a private forum called "Intimate Discussions" since a lot of people do not feel comfortable discussing sex on the OF. It's accessible from the main forum, but you need permission to access it. Anyone is allowed to join, you just need to request access and be signed in to read or post there. If you would like access, just send me a private message requesting it (or you can just request it here, if you prefer, totally up to you) and I can give you access. I should let you know though that we have very few men posting (NOT by design, it's just happened that way) so I'm not sure how much is here for you. But I also think it would be easy for a woman with a male therapist to relate to what you're going through.

As far as the actual topic of sex and talking to your therapist. It's totally up to you. Therapy is about your needs and you should be able to discuss whatever concerns you in whatever detail you need to work on the problem. If your therapist becomes uncomfortable then she should be able to non-defensively let you know any limitations (honestly, the only time I would expect a therapist to draw a line in this area would be if a patient was being openly seductive by talking about sex or going into great detail to titillate themselves, neither of which I hear you doing at all. ) So really it's your comfort level that sets the bar. I'm a heterosexual woman with a heterosexual male therapist and we don't discuss sex often but when we have, he's no different from when we discuss anything else. I may be stammering and blushing (I'm not all that comfortable around the subject) but he looks like he's discussing the weather. I hope some of this helps. Looking forward to getting to know you.

AG

Thanks AG, I appreciate your feedback. I guess your comment is exactly my question - is it the same for men seeing a female therapist as a woman seeing a male therapist when it comes to talking sex and sex details for that matter? I probably am just hung on the societal labels - since we men are supposed to be sexually obsessed, and typically the aggressor - does a female therapist have the same comfort level talking about a male clients sexuality as a male therapist talking with a female client? Maybe so. I just would not want to come across inappropriate or threatening in anyway (not that I plan to). My therapist is great and I am sure she can "hold" the space for that. I just would love to hear from even a very few other men that have been through that! Thanks again.

Welcome newtothis! I'm glad that you've found your way here. We do have a few men that post from time to time. Perhaps one of them will see this and chime in.

I think that pretty much anything that you might want or need to discuss would be okay with your T. Perhaps you could tell her that you would like to approach the topic, but are worried about the boundaries around the topic. If you start there maybe it would give you a sense of what you would then feel comfortable talking about. I totally agree with AG here that anything should be okay as long as it doesn't cross her personal boundaries (i.e. coming onto her etc.) and even then that would be good fodder for therapy.

Welcome newtothis!

quote:

I'm a heterosexual woman with a heterosexual male therapist and we don't discuss sex often but when we have, he's no different from when we discuss anything else. I may be stammering and blushing (I'm not all that comfortable around the subject) but he looks like he's discussing the weather.

Ditto here. My T is completely at ease. I did have a lot of fears over what was taboo as far as sharing past abuse type stuff and present day issues and I found the most helpful thing was just to tell my T I was concerned about what was appropriate to share, that he was uncomfortable with it, etc. He was very reassuring and told me there is absolutely nothing off-limits in terms of just talking about those events and issues. I would suggest, just for your own peace of mind when sharing this stuff in the future, bringing up your discomfort and anxiety over how these discussions might be perceived. It sounds like you have a good T and I'm sure she will be able to reassure you about sharing this stuff.

Thanks to those of you who commented on my question about talking sex with my female therapist. I dove right in this past week, first with my anticipation/hesitancy/questions, then to sex stuff itself and it went great. She was completely comfortable, even when i talked about details. She said to me "I see a lot of couples, men and women, and have heard a lot of stuff, sexuality is at the core of who we are and so nothing is off limits". It was a relief to be able to talk about stuff that I have never spoken to anyone, ever.

newtothis,
Thanks for letting us know. You should be very proud of yourself, it's scary to take those risks. I am very glad to hear that your T was really comfortable and open and that it was such a relief to finally be able to talk about it.

AG

(((newtothis))) Great job! I know how hard that first conversation (and well, many after) can be!