August letter 2025
Heatwaves are swiping, forests are burning, heavy rains are falling and fierce winds are hitting us.
Our habitat in the Universe is under siege by some of its own dwellers.
Even way up North, in Norway, July unfolded in a way that had rarely been seen before.
Are we actually, by our own will, inducing ill health on our global home, and what are we doing to prevent it? It is time for an extensive globe health assembly.
The answers are out there, as are the answers to another vital question: What do we do to prevent ill sexual health, and on a deeper level: What is this we call “sexual” to which we attach not only health, but also justice, rights and politics?
Sexual health of course goes much wider. It affects our very sense of being accepted, loved and positively valued. Hence sexual health is one basic factor in life quality ebven though sexuality is often excluded in forms meant to measure quality of life.
Hardly anyone would openly claim that they do not qualify a need for sexual health, when health is the concept in question. Health as such is not that very hard to “sell”.
Sexual is far more contested to the point of being non existent in many cultures and subcultures on the globe.
In an endeavor to unite all professionals who work for the benefit of sexual health, sexual rights and sexual justice for all, the inaugural meeting of the World Sexual Health Assembly (WSHA), will be held on 5 September 2025 at the University of Porto, in Portugal.
The day before, September 4th, is the World Sexual Health Day. All who are participating in the WSHA is invited to take part and celebrate sexuality, hereby also you who read this text.
Joy to the world! This is very exiting!
We can surely see it as a mobilization and an organizing of forces to counter the already well organized people, who in their actions and attitudes work against sexual health without directly expressing this as their motive.
What then does this concept sexual stand for?
The answer may get lost in the battles for rights, health and justice.
Sexuality permeates life. Sensuality, erotics, attractions, lust, inspiration, love tokens are parts of everyday life for most of us. Our visual world is loaded with sensual and erotic impulses, as is what enters through our ears.
Good, pleasurable sexuality is linked to longevity and happiness. Sexuality can bring us to the most blessed and beautiful moments in life.
When sexuality is met with obstacles, we are taken into deep despair. Obstacles may be bodily betrayals like so-called sexual dysfunctions, tabooed routes to sexual satisfaction, lack of partner(s), bodily dissatisfaction, lack of attractiveness, lack of permission, learned bad conscience, lack of love and much, much more.
Some might say that these chambers of human lives are where angels fear to tread, and that is exactly what happens. We can in this context, skip the angels and just look at health professionals, teachers, parents and educational systems.
The loin cloth so aptly applied in the narrative of the fall of man. A tale that is taught all over the Western world, is still resting within our emotional systems.
One consequence is that we are more or less blocked from insights to the plethora of human talents that are actually linked to sexuality.
We cannot fully fight for sexual health, rights and justice without thorough knowledge as to what sexual is all about.
Sexual health is the goal, sexology is one very important mean to that end.
When taking a look around Europe where we, the EFS, is located, we find hardly any official recognition of sexological education, not to mention sexological positions in health care systems and teaching institutions.
Norway is by many considered a free and liberal country with a remarkably high level of trust in authorities. Since 2001 the Norwegian state has educated more than 500 sexologists to the level of skilled sexological counsellors and established but a handful of positions for sexologists! I fear the case to be as bad or worse in many European countries. To wrap it up even more, we who work professionally to the benefit of sexual health, are very poorly funded.
From moonlight grows naught says a Norwegian poet.
From loincloths and neglect can no sexual health grow.
As we are in urgent need to see to the total health on the globe we live on, we have an urgent need for professionals that can see to the totality of the health that we are living from.
Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad
President EFS
PS. ISSM – the International Society for Sexual Medicin offers a row of webinars for learning ISSM newsletter is to be found here: https://issm.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=f39471026f6ca60b17df64fcd&id=7e890f9ad5
Check out the ISSM 2. september! Theme: Sexual Wellbeing in Neurodiverse and Neurological Patients
Here is the link: https://mailchi.mp/issm/register-now-for-the-issm-webinar-january-18122101?e=f1e53ff302