In honor of Venus moving into Scorpio, a sign ruled by Mars, here are excerpts from a pair of articles that reconsider or reframe two facets of sexuality. In the first, Joe Kort, Ph.D., discusses “Why I Am No Longer a Sex-Addiction Therapist” on Psychology Today. In the second, Stanley Siegel, LCSW, explains that, “When It Comes To Sex There is No Difference Between Male and Female Desire” on Psychology Tomorrow.
Venus and Mars by Michael Bergt.
Kort writes:
In the 1980s, addiction models were becoming increasingly popular, and the sex addiction model tagged onto that wave. Twelve-step groups on behavioral addictions were forming everywhere.
The groups, as well as the information, were easily accessible, and clients understood the concept immediately. I became a certified sex addiction therapist, and fully embraced the model until 2010 when I began to see some serious flaws.
Among those flaws are the pathologizing of certain sexual behaviors that, if practiced in safe and consensual ways, can actually enhance a person’s happiness and wellbeing; and also the focus on controlling sexual behavior in a way that puts people at odds with their own sexuality — a battle they are sue to lose, creating inner chaos in the process.
Siegel, in comparing notes with his daughter Alyssa who is also a practicing psychotherapist, writes:
The mind, just as the body, is naturally driven toward self-healing and sex is among its most powerful allies. Desire often grows out of unmet childhood needs or unresolved past conflicts. The longing to satisfy needs or reconcile old conflicts drives men’s sexuality as much as women’s. We all use sex to connect, communicate, negotiate power, give and receive pleasure and remake old relationships. Our desires grow out of our unconscious attempts to work through deep-seated feelings.
During our many conversations with people in and out of the therapy room, my daughter and I have found that sexual fantasies are a human phenomenon. We learned that men’s fantasies are just as deep and complicated as women’s. During the heightened sexuality of adolescence and young adulthood men sexualize the same painful childhood feelings as women, encoding them in fantasies – stories they tell themselves to solve deep issues and conflicts. And by surrounding them with erotic pleasure, men counteract feelings of powerlessness, guilt, shame, rejection, abandonment, inadequacy, loneliness, and insecurity in much the same way as women do.
If you read Len Wallick’s post Friday about Venus in Scorpio being an invitation to extend some love as a way to counteract the proliferation of Martian aggression in the world currently, you know that your expression of love need not be sexual. If, however, you choose that route, know that you are not alone — and you are normal. As Siegel points out, contemporary psychology’s casting of the sexes “in alien roles, with ‘men from Mars’ and ‘women from Venus’” only gets us so far.
As astrology shows us, we all have Venus and Mars somewhere in our charts. What we do to balance them may differ, but ignoring them and what they can teach us is not rally an option.
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