Sex Therapy with Erotically Marginalized Clients

Book excerpt: Sex Therapy with Erotically Marginalized Clients: Nine Principles of Clinical Support provides a clinical guide to relational sex therapy with individuals, partnerships, polyships, and alternative family structures where one or more of the clients are erotically marginalized. This term refers to people who are at risk of being pathologized and oppressed both outside and inside the clinical setting due to their gender identities, sexual orientations, or sexual practices. The book outlines nine principles for therapeutic practice which meet the needs of erotically marginalized clients, whose forms of sexuality and desire are rarely spoken about and for whom there is a dearth of language in therapeutic contexts. Each principle concludes with a series of ‘key points’ and then followed by illustrative clinical case studies, contributed by sex therapists and clinicians who self-identify as erotically marginalized and who also work with erotically marginalized clients. The book also provides a full glossary, ‘Defining Erotically Marginalized Identities’. The authors and case contributors use a radical and affirming lens to examine erotically marginalized identities that are often neglected. The book bridges gaps between the past, present, and future in the field of sex therapy and greatly expands the diversity of experiences and identities within the field, particularly the experience of multiple oppressions. The book marks a valuable contribution not only to sex therapists but to the wider clinical and therapeutic community.