X is for eXamine

X is for eXamine

 

Welcome to the A to Z of Sex. I’m Dr Lori Beth Bisbey and I am your host.  We are working our way through the erotic alphabet one letter at a time.  Just a reminder this podcast deals with adult content, so if you don’t have total privacy, you might want to put on your headphones.  Today the letter is X and X is for eXamine.

 

Today we are examining some of the myths around homosexuality and paedophilia that have been raised in light of the scandals in the Catholic Church.

Today I’m joined by my bff,  Melanie Gorman, who is the senior VP of Yourtango Experts.  Yourtango is a major platform that provides advice in the form of blogs, articles, and videos to people who want help with love, relationships, sex and life. She is a Master’s level relationship therapist and a business and relationship coach.  She co-developed a coaching program based on the work of Dr John Gray, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus for those of you not familiar with his name.   From there she became the director of operations for the MarsVenus sites.  She has been working with Yourtango since 2009, having started by helping their visionary team create the Expert’s Platform. 

 

We started by talking about the difference between paedophilia and homosexuality and making a clear distinction.  We continued talking about some of the issues raised in the run up to the DSM V and the distinction between acting on the urge and not acting on the urge.

 

We discussed how upsetting it is that the answer to dealing with this widespread abuse seems to be calling it a ‘gay thing’ (which it is not) or ‘as the result of celibacy’ (which it is not).  Melanie described the theory about celibacy that is being put forward and I disputed this theory.  In my view, two types of paedophiles enter the priesthood:  Ones who are simply predators and see this as a good place to find prey and ones who are looking to the church to help them to control their impulses – as the structure requires celibacy and for the priest to focus on other aspects of life and forego erotic, sexual and romantic thoughts, activities and relationships.

 

Melanie talked about how hard it is to be a Catholic in the midst of all of this and how embarrassing she finds it as the church does not seem to be able to address these issues head on and transparently.

 

We talked about the necessity to do the work that needs to be done so that victims are not being created and that they are able to heal fully.  We spoke about how almost impossible it is to change someone’s sexual orientation because the urge is so strong and gratification is built in.  We spoke about changing behaviour which is at least possible.

 

We spoke about how betrayed Catholics feel by the Church’s refusal to be transparent and their lack of success in routing out all of the perpetrators as well as their inability to make the space safe again for parishioners.

 

Melanie spoke about the training she had to undergo just to be able to keep score for her son’s hockey team which includes training about grooming and paedophilia.  It amazed both of us that the church is not able to implement a full effective training programme when there is so clearly a lot of this going on in the secular world. 

 

The main myth that we disputed:

The myth that gay and paedophile are linked.

This is entirely untrue. 

Gay is attracted to the same sex.

Paedophile is attracted to children (who cannot give consent).

 

Many people talk about power differentials but the crucial point is that paedophiles are attracted to children not adults.

 

Melanie invited listeners to submit other myths or stereotypes for me to talk about on the show and debunk if possible.  So please send these in.

 

The DSM-5 and DSM-4 mentioned are the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, edition 5, and 4 respectively. 

 

Thanks for joining me for the A to Z of Sex this week. Write to me with suggestions for the show, myths for me to debunk, questions you want answered on the show at drloribeth@atozofsex.com , follow me on twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Check out my YouTube channel: Dr Lori Beth Bisbey.

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