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My most recent San Francisco Chronicle column was really popular, and even got me invited to more than one medical convention. In the The Sex Doctor is Out, I cover the topic of finding a sex-positive doctor (at the very least one you can talk to about sex comfortably), and how to talk to a doctor about sex. For the piece I brought in two experts — two doctors, actually: Dr. Charlie Glickman, Ph. D. and Dr. Keely Kolmes, Psy. D. (drkkolmes.com). The article is an incredibly useful resource, and I’m extremely happy to see this information and advice now out in the world. Here’s a snip:
Whenever I have a bout of pesky, recurring Female Arousal Persistent Syndrome (FAPS), I immediately call my doctor. Within ten minutes, Dr. Doug Ross is making a house call from the year 1999, directly to present-day Castro, wearing my favorite scrubs. Of course he never makes it past The Lookout. At least that’s why I like to think he never shows up.
Most doctors are not sexy, and this is a sad, sad thing. What’s worse is that we have fantasies that not only should doctors be sexy, but that doctors are generally knowledgeable about sex. After the war stories I keep hearing about people asking their docs for sex advice, I’m starting to think that doctors are typically probably pretty bad in bed too. Never mind the bedside manner.
It started with an email from a woman whose doctor told her to use Crisco for lube with condoms, claiming that Crisco would not break latex because it is “natural.” (FALSE: Crisco contains oils that break condoms easily.) Then I got a panicked call over the weekend from a female friend in the East Bay who was just diagnosed with HPV. A lesbian, she asked her doctor how to keep from passing the virus to her sex partners. The doctor replied, “You’ll be fine. Men can’t get it.” (FALSE: If men didn’t get HPV, how would it be transmitted? And what an –hole. Dr. Jerkface needs a slap.)
It appears that the fantasy of the sexy doctor and the fantasy of the doctor that is trained like a SFSI graduate are both… well, fantasies.
All too often in sex education, we refer people to medical docs when it goes beyond our scope: referring people out is almost a point of pride in that you’ve recognized not only your limits, but that you got your client to medical help when they needed it. The problem is, I realized, we never tell people how to do just that: go talk to a doctor about their sex problems. (…read more, sfgate.com)
* After it was published: The only resource missing from this piece, which is heterosexual and non-kink focused, while including LGBT info, is a link to Kink Aware Professionals (ncsfreedom.org).
Reading this article and all of the comments that have followed confirmed my own personal experience that not too many docs out there are comfortable talking about sex. This is precisely how I got into the business of sex therapy after going through med school and then a specialty in psychiatry. Very few of my colleagues would discuss sexual issues with their patients and I couldn’t understand why. I had to seek out additional training and supervision on my own and now have a practice outside my hospital job that focuses solely on sex therapy with couples and individuals. I am also getting more involved at the med school level to teach med students how to talk about sex with their patients. I think that many of the comments here point out how important it is for these new doctors to overcome their own anxieties about sexuality so that they can be of real service to their patients.
http://ReclaimYourSexuality.com
http://ReclaimYourSexuality.blogspot.com
The book you mention, “Health Care Without Shame”, is available free online from the Humbolt University of Berlin.
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/BIB/hcws/hcws.html
It’s part of a whole online sexology section.