Dear all members and member organizations of the European Federation for Sexology!
For the love of sexuality and diversity.
Grimstad Norway July 29th 2024
As summer slowly, very slowly, fades here on the Northern hemisphere, we see August coming. The month that a Norwegian poet describes as the softest, trembling string between summer and fall.
Vacation is over for many of us in the hight North, while in Southern parts of Europe vacation is imminent. Work commences (or continues, or rests), sexuality prevails in all its richness and splendour, as does gender.
We can see all challenges lying ahead of us in this world that appears to become increasingly hostile to that which is so dear to me and hopefully to all of you, namely sexuality and diversity. Presently both individuals and groups are on trembling strings between the polarities of being trashed or affirmed. Offers of positive belonging are taken away from our fellow human beings, leaving many in broken hearted loneliness and dispair.
Our job as professionals in the many fields and shades of sexology, is to assist when sexuality and/or gender has become stuck in some way or other. The policy of many societies increases the number of individuals and groups that are left stuck and unwelcomed.
Our job should not primarily be to battle, but for some of us that has become the case.
Ellen Laan once said that when working in the field of female sexuality, you must become an activist. Those around her nodded approvingly.
Some have tried to contaminate the term activist, not understanding that the activists are there to tell us where the suffering, the discrimination, the breaching of human sexual rights and all the injustice reign.
The activists are there to point out, they are the whistleblowers. Let us acknowledge and welcome them!
Sexology is both a profession of science and clinical work. We have the means to inform and to assist. Even those who seem to stand against that we work for, have a sexuality and a sense of gender. How can we make them see that we have something that is needed also for them? How can we increase our pride in the profession of sexology, so that we experience no reason to defend ourselves.
When our images of the world of today and tomorrow change, we can return to the past. We can re-introduce moralities and norms that were abandomed long ago, or we can widen our perspectives for the love of sexuality and gender. I go for the latter!
Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad
President of the European Federation for Sexology
info@europeansexology.com
