About twenty years ago I
participated in a workshop that explored how being fat-negative as a society
was connected to being woman-negative. In the workshop we talked about how the
fat on many women’s bodies is different from the fat on many men’s bodies. We
looked at where fat is on many bodies (not just bodies of people who identify
as women), i.e., breasts, hips, thighs. After hours of sitting and listening in
this workshop, I finally raised my hand and asked, What about the genital area?
It was noticeably missing: it was the only part of the body not discussed in
the workshop. Years later, I came across sexuality and anatomy books that show
clearly that there is fat in the genital area. There was no reason why it
should have been excluded from the conversation other than, perhaps, the
workshop leader was too uncomfortable to include it.
One of the things I have done for
money is being what in Minneapolis is called a patient instructor. Elsewhere
across the country, it is called other titles such as “gynecological teaching associate.”
As a patient instructor for the medical community, I have let future doctors,
nurses and even chiropractors practice breast and pelvic exams on my body over
a period of five years. I have written and published on this topic and the
importance of teaching medical students how to do these exams with sensitivity
and respect. I don’t minimize the discomfort that can exist in our culture when
dealing with the genital area: I have observed many students sweating in
nervousness prior to practicing these exams on me. I acknowledge that a health
care practitioner touching the genital area is different from, for instance, a
health care practitioner touching an arm. However, my experiences doing this
work confirmed what I as a sexuality educator believed all along: the genital
area is just one part of the body—not less or more important than another part.
And the more comfortable we can be with all parts of our bodies including our
genitals, the better we can take care of ourselves and communicate effectively
whether with a health care practitioner or with a sexual partner.
I have a neck injury from a car
accident that happened over twelve years ago. While the initial recovery right
after the accident involved dealing with the acute injury, over the last ten
years I have found that the muscles in my neck can still tighten and cause
severe pain. I spend much of my day, every day, doing rehabilitation exercises,
stretches and yoga. I have spent much of the past ten years learning what makes
my neck injury worse and what can help it. While learning how to swim for the
first time as an adult, I incidentally discovered that swimming helps my neck
injury. Shoveling snow hurts. Heat helps. Minnesota winters make it worse. In
the process of dealing with this severe neck injury, I have often wondered if
the principles of what happens in my neck would not also hold true for the rest
of my body. Why wouldn’t the same principles of muscles tightening and what we
can do to help them relax hold true for all parts of the body, including the
genital area?
There can be all kinds of reasons
why we tense certain muscles in our bodies. Injury from an accident is one.
Other reasons could be the impact of sexual abuse, desk work in an office or
just living in a society that is negative towards sexuality and all bodies
generally. Our emotions can come into play. Fear, anger and anxiety can all
contribute to contracting muscles. Relaxation and blood flow are important to
the entire body. A major focus of my sexuality education work in the past five
to ten years has been to talk about the concept that blood flow is important
everywhere in the body and about how massage, pressure and touch can be important
to enhance blood flow and relaxation everywhere in the body including the
genitals. I’ve made clear that we have options for how to do this important
healing bodywork for ourselves. We can massage ourselves, have a friend,
partner or lover do genital massage or perhaps pay someone to do this
intentional healing touch. I do not view this as being necessarily sexual any
more than I view the hundreds of pelvic exams I have received from medical
students as being sexual.
I’ve asked this question in the
workshops I’ve led: What if every time I went for a massage, my left arm was
never massaged? What if every time I had a professional massage or received
massage from a friend or partner, the rest of my body was massaged but not my
left arm? After some time, would my left arm feel different from the rest of my
body? I don’t ask this question because I think my arm is exactly like my genitals
or that these issues are simplistic. But I insist on asking the question
because I advocate for a holistic approach to healing, whether sexual healing
or other kinds of healing. Being holistic means addressing all of the
nonphysical aspects of ourselves, i.e., emotional, spiritual, mental, as well
as all of the physical aspects of ourselves. The physical aspects of healing
include every cell and part of the body, including the genital area.
What I seem to say more often than
anything else in my education work is that it is not what we do or say, but how
we do or say something that is most important. So it is not whether the genital
area is included but how it is included that matters the most.
What makes touch intimate? Touch
and intimacy are not so simplistic to me that we can assume that the genital
area is the most intimate part of the body. After having hundreds of people
practice breast and pelvic exams on me, I can say I stayed present for every
exam so I could give feedback to the students and make sure I was not hurt. Those
are not the experiences in my life in which I felt vulnerable or had a sense of
deep intimacy in a body contact situation that involved an exchange of money.
While those situations were certainly respectfully intimate or I would probably
not have done that work over all those years, I’ve often thought that because
of the intense pain from the injury, my neck is the more intimate area for me
to have a practitioner work on. Of course, every person is unique, and what is
a vulnerable area could be different for the same person from one time to
another.
Again, I am not suggesting that the
genital area is not important and unique. But I would not say it is more
important or even more sexual than other parts of the body or other parts of
our whole selves, including our minds, emotions and spirits. Often it is said
that our brains are our most sexual organ, and perhaps our skin, considered as
one organ, has as high a potential to be erotic as our genitals have. So the
idea that we can keep something nonsexual by excluding certain body parts
misses the point of the complexity of touch, sensuality and sexuality. It is
fine that our genitals are included in sexuality at a very basic and primal
level. However, I view touching anywhere on the body, eye contact, sharing
breath with another person and a whole host of other activities to be
potentially as intimate and sexual as anything genital, depending on the
circumstances. Moreover, an interaction involving the genitals can be nonsexual
if that is the intention for that particular interaction.
I can’t think of anything more
important than consent and respect. However, it is not so easy to clearly label
something as respectful or not respectful by what is visible or what part of
the body is being touched. Respect is a subjective factor. In my writings about
doing patient instructor work, I’ve described how a student could do everything
technically correct and still something wouldn’t feel right to me. Conversely,
a student could do something that, generally, I would advise them not to do in
terms of their touch or the language they used while doing a pelvic exam, but
somehow their touch or language did not feel bad to me. In both instances, I
could not know the intent or thoughts of the students without asking, but I
could trust myself. We each have the right to identify what feels respectful to
us in every instance of our lives whether it involves touch or not. What I
advocate more than anything else is for us to trust ourselves as to what feels
respectful and acceptable to us in every interaction we have and certainly any
that would include touch.
Healing is about healing our entire
being—body, emotions and spirit. Nothing should be excluded in the healing we
do for ourselves, and we all should follow our unique, authentic path that includes
all aspects of ourselves in the healing we seek.
First Published on Good Vibrations
Magazine, January 21, 2011
Copyright 2011 by
Susan Miranda. All
rights reserved. No part of this writing may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint
permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.
