December letter
Texcoco, Mexico Jan 7th 2025
By Dec. 31st, 2024 became part of history. 2025 Is still newborn. In the immediate future we face that fate would have it such that, the inauguration of the forty-seventh president, Donald Trump, will fall on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on January 20th.
History does not always take us to the better.
Let us hope that we in EFS will find ways that can benefit sexual and gendered life in the years to come in spite of that which may take us in opposite directions.
Our mission is the same:
EFS recognizes sexuality as central to human life, health, well-being, and human rights.
EFS is the voice and the core network for professionals working in sexology in Europe.
EFS promotes excellent and ethical practice in education, knowledge, and skills to celebrate sexual health, intimacy, and diversity with compassion, free from prejudice and violence.
This is not just a mission, it is certainly also a bright shining vision! This vision would actually find support in the visions of Martin Luther King Jr.
The sexological professionality is based on a growing body of science and clinical experiences. When interrogating people around the world, however, the perceptions of sexology are remarkably varied, leading me into reminding us, what is the content of our profession. What is it that concerns science, education, advocacy, policy making and clinical work when it comes to human sexuality and gender? The answers are many, in sum they exceed the frame of a monthly letter, but nevertheless, here are some main contents of sexology:
- Working with sexual ”dysfunctions”
- Sexual pain
- Establishing sexuality after sexual harassment and/or assault
- Working with sexual abusers
- Working with people that are mentally impaired
- Medical sexology and physical rehabilitation
- Variant gender and sexuality
- Follow changes and developments in sexual cultures and practices.
- Supply advocacy when relevant
Sexology takes insights, wisdoms and research from many fields. That might be one reason for our profession to be hard to define.
Of course, sexology is far too psychological to be left to the medical, and far too medical to be left with the psychological. In addition, sexology harvests from and interacts with lawmakers, biologists, sociologists, theologists, anthropologists, historians and from most of the arts. None of us can be fully knowledgeable in all these fields, but in describing sexology to ourselves and to others, we should have all this complexity in mind.
The field of sexology dates all the way back to the late 1890’ies, which makes sexology as old as psychiatry. Contrary to the latter, sexology has met far more resistance to the level of being banned. Still sexology is called “dirty science” by some, and the sexologist is not officially recognized as a health care professional in most countries around the globe. As professionals one important goal is to lift the remnants of those bans and advocate for a much needed professional recognition.
Happy New Year!
Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad
EFS president
