Alternative Sexualities Research

Wow - I just got home from attending the CARAS conference on Alternative Sexualities. A lot of really neat, hard-working, creative people, doing research and therapy with the kinky communities. I was lucky enough to present there last year, just before my book came out. This time, I just attended, and had a blast hanging out with a group of amazing people, pondering some really challenging questions, like:

How many closets are there? - We know that for gays and lesbians, living in the closet in a stigmatizing community can be emotionally damaging. But what if you are gay, and into BDSM, and not monogamous? I end up with an image of those Russian dolls, closets in closets in closets, and I can only imagine how claustrophobic and strait-jacketed someone must feel in this situation.

What is it like to do therapy with a couple, who is REALLY into BDSM, and where one partner is dominant, but it is the submissive who needs therapy? Can you, as therapist, tell that dominant to back off, but not destroy the couple's functioning lifestyle? Maybe the submissive is depressed, and it affects and is affected by, the BDSM, but the submissive doesn't want to give up that part of their life and sexuality? Where are your ethics as therapist here?

Does it make the discussion harder, when we divide sex into "kinky" or "vanilla," rather than discussing sexuality and sexual interests as a continuum? Does it just further the alienation, if we draw lines between different peoples' sexual activities?

What is really going with gay men, who pursue condom-free (bareback) sex in high-risk situations? Are they crazy? Lazy? Or are they finding a frightening, but effective way to rid themselves of the anxiety and fear, of contracting HIV, by simply embracing the disease?

What is "normal" sex, anyway? Is it normal if lots of people do it? Is it only normal, if it is heterosexual, or intimate, or safe, or monogamous, or involves "copulation (either heterosexual or homosexual)"? Who gets to define what normal is? Doctors, lawyers, judges, police, politicians?

There were lots of "stars" there - fellow Psychology Today blogger Marty Klein, Dossie Easton the therapist and author of the The Ethical Slut, physician and sexologist Charles Moser, San Francisco therapist David Ortman, and many others, all wonderful people, working hard to help people and families deal with complex sexual situations in healthy, positive ways. And, helping each other, and newbies like me, to wrestle with these hard questions.

Keep an eye on CARAS. There's a lot of really amazing stuff happening there, and lots of very intriguing questions being asked.