Sexuality and Intimacy
As individuals, sexuality and intimacy are crucial aspects of our selves that develop throughout our lives. But what contemporary trends might be influencing how they develop today?
Welcome to our final newsletter for the year. Sexuality (the theme for this newsletter), today embraces totally different parameters than we have seen in any previous generation going back to Adam and Eve. I will highlight some of these vast changes as well as suggesting how the Australian Bush Flower Essences can be of great benefit for someone navigating through this brand new landscape.
In my one day workshop entitled Sexuality, Intimacy & ABFE I follow chronologically the major events and influences shaping our beliefs and consequently our experiences of sexuality and intimacy. For this article I will start in the same place that we begin the workshop – your conception.
From the creation of our first cell to age three, ninety per cent of your beliefs, which are stored in the subconscious mind are already formed. These beliefs, unless removed, will continue to have a massive impact on your life and relationships throughout your whole life. Fortunately, the Bush Essences can help work specifically on the subconscious and modify our old belief systems that we formed in our formative years and allow us to act and make choices based on our experiences and wisdom of our current age. I would much rather have Ian at my current age making choices rather than my 2 year old Ian, who had very limited life experience making choices for me today.
Going back to conception, a child conceived through rape is going to have a very different belief system around intimacy and sexuality compared to a child who was consciously conceived by parents having great affection for each other and who wanted to bring a child into the world. There can be many other factors occurring at conception that will also have an impact on the child’s belief systems. Was the conception planned or unplanned? Was one or both parents not really enjoying the sex at the time of conception, was it for example a sense of duty or painful? Also, the frequency and quality of sexual intimacy that the mother experiences during the pregnancy will also have a major influence on the belief systems the baby develops around sexuality. As too will the actual birth. Both in my book, Happy Healthy Kids, and in this workshop, I discuss the impact of these and other various types of birth experiences. Children, for example, who are born through caesarean intervention can quite often have an incredibly strong craving for physical touch as a result of not having experienced the physical intensity of going through the birth canal. Another common outcome regarding belief systems for children born by caesarean is that they can either tend towards wanting to be in control all the time – because they had no control on their birth which was done for them – or they tend to be overly reliant on other people doing things for them. The Bush Essences to address these traits are Hibbertia & Gymea Lily for the former and Monga Waratah & Kapok Bush for the latter.
A breech birth is often very difficult for the mother leading to a very long and painful labour. A common consequence for children born breech is that they go through life with a fear of hurting other people. One of my patients who was a breech baby, came to me in his mid 20s in great distress because of his problem with premature ejaculation. I was able to determine that as a result of his birth, he had formed the belief that sex represented pain for women. Consequently, on a subconscious level he was wanting to end the love making with his fiancé as quickly as possible so that she wouldn’t suffer for too long. On a conscious level he had no understanding of why this was happening, was quite upset by it and it was having quite a negative impact on the relationship with his partner. The remedy Sturt Desert Rose, which addresses guilt, was very beneficial in resolving this young man’s issue.
So what is so different in regard to sexuality today compared to previous generations? For a starting point, there is the whole issue of transgender. There are now transgender toilets in state primary and secondary schools in Australia. When I was in primary school I had never even heard of transgender! Today there is a growing number of individuals who are questioning their birth gender and many are using surgery, hormones or a combination of both to transgender. In a separate article in this newsletter there is an article written by Jemma-Rose on her experience of using the Bush Essences in both making the decision to change gender and of helping her adapt to all this change. I first met Jemma-Rose at my workshops in the UK when she was a male and going through a lot of uncertainty in her life. It’s been quite fascinating for me to see her journey and to now read of her experience.
Just prior to giving my first Sexuality & Intimacy workshop a transgender man called me and shared his perceptions of sexuality through both male and female eyes. Some of the major differences he commented on were of how more visually stimulated he was in terms of his sexual response as a male compared to that of a female. As a female he was far more stimulated and aroused by feelings and emotion. He also noticed that he was very proactive in approaching and meeting a partner as a male compared to being a female, which he described as being far more subtle in initiating contact, but then waiting for the male to act and respond.
Today there is a very quickly growing market in many countries for sex dolls. Potential buyers can work with the manufacturer to design a doll with the exact facial features, hair colouring and style that they desire. With the uptake of AI (artificial intelligence) and technology these dolls are capable of basic language such as ‘you are very handsome, you turn me on’ etc. The dolls aren’t restricted only to males, although men are by far the biggest consumers of these products. It’s a worrying trend that many people are choosing to have a relationship with a doll rather than a human!
Associated with the more sophisticated technology is the ability for a person to control the speed and other settings of a vibrator that their partner is using on the other side of the world. This has already opened up a legal can of worms whereby is it rape if it’s someone else operating the vibrator different to who the person using it thinks it is.
Already we are seeing major legal ramifications of people uploading on social media videos and photos of another person, usually a former partner, that are of them nude or partaking in sexual activity. This is particularly common with tweens and teens. It can produce very considerable embarrassment, humiliation and distress for the person so affected. Along with custodial sentences for those posting them.
This is very much tying in with the impact that pornography is having on individuals across the world. By age ten, two thirds of children have already been watching pornography. Pornography can be very addictive as it, like other addictive substances and behaviour, hard wires the pleasure centre in the brain. This can lead to normal sex with a partner being perceived as boring and non-stimulating and can also lead to more extreme forms of pornography for stimulation. Fifteen years ago, child pornography centred on teens and tweens, 8–14 year olds. Today on the dark web it’s showing abuse of babies, toddlers and animals. The majority of charged paedophiles as well as teenagers accused of sexual abuse all have a common theme of prolonged watching of pornography.
Teens and tweens are all going to have a curiosity to look at pornography and for many of them this is how they get their sex education. However, pornography doesn’t teach anything about intimacy, caring, tenderness or respect. There are huge ramifications of pornography, from earlier and earlier occurrence of sexual abuse and violence from those as young an age as seven. There are many boys growing up who have been developing very disturbing and creepy aspects of their behaviour to females. There is also a great changing of mores today, where oral sex is as common and as non-consequential to many of this generation, as to what kissing was to former generations
Also, there are many young girls who today are experiencing intense pain and discomfort from having sexual penetration without sufficient foreplay. The boys are mimicking what they watch on the internet and the girls are thinking this is normal and not knowing that it can be any different. There are so many female doctors talking about the number of young girls they are seeing with this condition. The main treatment is abstinence, sometimes up to 6 months and a very gentle and slow resuming of sexual intimacy. There are a number of Bush Essences that can help here, especially Sturt Desert Rose to be true to yourself and resist peer pressure. All of the essences in the Sexuality Essence would also be indicated and highly beneficial, especially Flannel Flower, Fringed Violet and Wisteria. Wild Potato Bush will also help with the physical frustration of the restriction in their bodies. Black-eyed Susan will be especially helpful for their male partner – or themselves, if they are very impatient with the slow progress of this condition. Flannel Flower would also help their partner in being very gentle and caring in their touch and is also recommended.
On a purely physical aspect we are also seeing major changes as a consequence of the ubiquitous presence of oestrogens in our environment – these can be found in plastics and cleaning products. As a consequence, we are seeing male sperm count approximately half of what it was 100 years ago, but it’s not only affecting quantity of sperm but also the quality with increasing abnormality of sperm and a reduction in their motility. All these factors are leading to greater infertility. We are also now having girls, sometimes as young as 4 and 5, especially in South America and those with Afro-American heritage, going into puberty. They can’t get pregnant as there is no progesterone present only oestrogen, but they are having the emotional changes as well as the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts and pubic hair. Not only is this difficult enough to experience but then they are feeling ostracised and alienated by their peers who see them as freaks. Billy Goat Plum – this month’s featured video, will address the shame and embarrassment, whilst either Five Corners or the combination it is in, Confid Essence will help restore and boost their self-esteem.
As I mentioned earlier, it is a brand new world out there. Thank heavens for the Bush Essences to help one journey through it more easily and with self-love and respect.
Wishing you a very wonderful festive season. We will be taking a break in January and our next newsletter will come out in February.
Much Love, Light and Respect
Ian White
Founder & Director
