April letter 2025

April is the month of natural “resurrection” on the Northern hemisphere. Birds and insects are alive and rejoicing. Hibernating bears are peeping out of from their winter dwellings, taking in the odours from the awakening forests. Nature seems to be in a state of euphoria, – and it is contagious! People smile to each other on the streets, our fluids rise and for many sexuality blooms in step with all that is happening around us.

Euphoria! – Arises from the deep sense of being loved, being noticed and welcomed, just the way you are with your flaws, your beauties and your strengths.

When I was a child, an adolescent, a young adult and even still in older days whenever in a clover field, I will look for the ones with four and at times even more leaves. I will pick some, cherish them and in pride I will show them off to those around me. In spring the clovers sprout from the soil. Nature does not expel that with is not normal.

Diversity is the normality of Nature.

Euphoria! All is in, naught is out.

Nature is diverse, generous and welcoming.

Some cultures strive to deny natural diversity. The four, five or six leaves clover in a metaphorical sense, is not cherished and not met with pride.

In 2002 Jeffrey Eugenides published his book “Middlesex” where we follow Calliope Stephanides’ family over several generations travelling from Greece to Detroit. Calliope is assigned female at birth, but enters a male puberty where the labia merge, and the penis comes forward. Calliope missed the enzyme 5-alfa-reductase in fetal life, hence the merging of labia and the outgrowth of the penis starts first at puberty.

This book got the Pulitzer prize in 2003, euphoric I am sure, for the author.

One of our new EFS members Silva Neves, who is linked to the institution Pink Therapy, says:

EFS could be at the forefront of social justice in sexology, including women’s rights to access abortions, advocating for trans healthcare, promoting sex-positivity, challenging heteronormativity across all psychotherapy, psychology and medical professions, and advancing the knowledge in queer/ LGBTQ+ studies.

Recently, in British High Court, five judges ruled unanimously that the term “woman” in the existing UK Equality Act should be interpreted as only people born biologically female, and that trans women, even those with GRCs, should be excluded from that definition. Perhaps had they not read the beforementioned Pulitzer prized novel.

Maybe they were more interested in presidential orders?

We can wonder what will happen to people like Calliope Stephanides in this ever so reductionist view of human diversity?

It is estimated that approximately 2% of the human population have visual intersex traits. All we know of the origins of gender incongruence, include brain structures. That add about 2% more to the ones that are no more welcomed in British restrooms. Where shall they run in other to follow their bodily necessities? It might be a long way home, a long way to empathetic people that offer a loo for the needy. It is even a longer way to countries that still let those who feel like men use the men’s room, and those who feel like women use the ladies room.

As sexologist we should advance the knowledge in queer/ LGBTQI+ studies, and in this way oppose and at best contribute to the elimination of these fascist like ways to discriminate fellow human beings.

Elon Musk’s recently claimed that empathy is the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation. Empathy can be defined as the ability to take the perspective of others without losing our own. I will say that empathy, love and care is exactly one of the most basic reasons for our success as a species.

In the field of sexology we assist and enhance peoples’ lives leading to an increasing amount of a euphoric sense like a new spring.

Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad

EFS president

In the picture:

Nature handed us this lovely flower bouquet through our fence posts. Beauty and diversity find their ways.