Tag: safe

In today’s culture, individuals are on high alert about abuse and harassment issues to the extent that the quest for meaningful relationships is affected by concerns about whether or not a person is trustworthy.

Nevertheless, the need for belonging, the desire for close relationships and the yearning for emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual intimacy beat away in human beings. Taking risks and making ourselves vulnerable to each other in forming connections is always fraught with a certain amount of anxiety; there is yet one more hurdle in the process of meeting and mating. Where, we ask, are we safe? How do we conduct ourselves in daily relationships?

"Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it’s a cure." ~ Thomas Szasz

Of all the sexual acts on the planet, masturbation leads the way as not only the most commonly practiced and safest ways to have sex, but also as the one that most frequently and reliably ends in orgasm. Not terribly surprising when you consider who would know better than you, the mysterious pathway to climax.

Your car is in the shop, again; your once adorable toddler is now a raving, raging adolescent; that job you thought would be yours forever has disappeared in the reconstruction of an uncertain economy, and to top it all off, your spouse is off and running on this "great opportunity" which leaves you with too many chores, lonely weekends, and too many nights of an exhausted "not tonight" mate.

You dream of the "good old days" when cars ran well, children obeyed, jobs stayed put until you quit, and spouses—well—just stayed put!

The term "catfish" comes from the 2010 movie in which a young New Yorker named Nev Schulman has an online relationship with a woman on Facebook. Turns out the woman fabricated her entire life on the social network, and when Nev finally made plans to meet her in real life, he realized that everything she told him was a lie.

Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o had a similar online relationship with what he thought was a 22-year-old woman named Lennay Kekua.

Most of what matters and gets better in life happens through education. Yet remarkably, when it comes to sex, many people were not only deprived sexual education in their youth, but have carried the "ignorance is bliss" approach way too long into adulthood. In fact, when it comes to cultivating and sustaining an erotic life, persisting in not knowing may well be the kiss of death.

As a psychologist, I see people with all sorts of problems: anxiety, depression, work stress, relationship difficulties, PTSD, even people self-diagnosed as having ADHD. And while every person has their own nuanced story of why they don’t feel quite right and need therapy, after a few sessions a common theme emerges: many people don’t feel safe and secure in their lives.

Let me explain what I mean by the word "safe" in this context:

It’s that sense of waking up on a Saturday morning and having no plans and being able to find something to do with yourself that is not a kind of work. It’s that relaxed and cozy feeling that you can have when the weather is awful outside and you decide to take the time to make yourself breakfast or even, pick up a book and read it without feeling like you should be doing something else.