GCN__February_2018

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Feature Mindfulness – Spirit – Presence THE INTIMACY CRISIS
While physical sexual health is prioritised and highlighted in the LGBT+ community, emotional sexual health is often left by the wayside. In a culture that’s increasingly defined by technological advances, our relationships, or lack thereof, are taking a queer turn, say therapists Sarah Gilligan and Fi Connors. Illustration by Oliver Weiss. We are all aware that the modernised world we inhabit is fast-paced, hectic and massively dominated by technology. Seismic changes in the way we communicate and interact with each other (think Grindr, Facebook etc.) are having an untold effect on how we deal with each other and how we have relationships. This is not breaking news, but something that’s gaining more and more traction as the months pass. These days it is difficult to speak about relationships and sex without recognising the all-pervasive nature of technology in our daily lives. For this article, I took the opportunity to Facetime with my friend, Fi Connors, a natural medicine clinician, educator and author of the emotional sexual health book, When Love is A Drug, who currently resides stateside. We have an appointment to discuss some of the recurring themes that have emerged in our individual practices, in the areas of emotional and sexual wellbeing – the real-time, real life effects that we are both witnessing with our clients on a weekly basis. And so, breaking news, the biggest commonality on both sides of the pond? You guessed it. The rise of the challenge of the relationship and of course the increasing challenge of being single. The questions we hear our clients asking are becoming ever more critical. Do I want to be single? Do I want to be out there playing the field? Have I chosen to be single? Or is too difficult to get into a relationship, and even when I manage to, is it impossible to sustain? Having difficulty in emotional relationships is never fun. When we are out there struggling on our own, it makes it almost impossible to make the vital changes needed to succeed. How do we succeed in relationship, if we don’t even know the parameters of emotional and sexual success? Working in clinical practice, Fi and I are starting to see that it is becoming extremely common that people are increasingly unhappy with their lives, and in particular their primary relationships. A huge amount of pain is wrought from looking around social media and thinking that everyone is extremely happy and ‘perfect’. This social comparison is causing a self-harming and self-hurting behaviour that a lot of the time people can’t even identify. As opposed to feeling connected and free through the use of social media, people are often becoming more isolated, disillusioned and lost. There is a growing pernicious unhappiness that is happening between comparison with others and the curating of selves, our beloved ‘personalities’ on social media sites. Of course, this comparison is poisonous for emotional balance, happiness and contentment. THE RISE OF CHOICE The next most difficult thing to contend with, in terms of the rise of technology and its effect on our relationships, is choice. We have choice at our fingertips 24/7, and we are paralysed by it. We think, ‘why do we have to deal with our partners, like their shitty humours, or the fact they are upset or the fact they won’t have sex tonight? There are a hundred thousand people that can give me what I need, so why would I bother doing the hard work with this person?’ With so much choice in the ether, people think that if they’re not happy, then the right action is to move on immediately. That’s what all the popular psychology gurus seem to be saying, the Instagram mantras of ‘be your best self,’ ‘live your best life’. The quick-snap solution is often to get rid of anything perceived to be standing in the way of deserved ‘happiness’. With the advent of apps like Tinder, Grindr and others, access to people and sex is instantaneous and we have commodified ourselves more dramatically than ever before. We flip through catalogues of faces and bodies, seeking attraction but not pausing to see how we actually feel. We all want everything, and we want it now. There is little concept of waiting or working through the deeper stuff; it’s all instantaneous, instant gratification. Of course, this is a very hollow, deep place to be digging ourselves into and the result is that people increasingly lack the attention and patience to stick around and nurture fledgling relationships. There are many who may read this and say, ‘Sure I’m grand. I’m delighted with life, ‘I’ve got the things I want, I’ve got a boyfriend or girlfriend, or I‘ve got many. I can have sex whenever I want; I have mates and we go out and have the lols. Don’t be annoyin’ me with this emotional stuff.’ Then there are many that will read this and deep down will know they are struggling with these exact issues. If these themes sound familiar it is because they are. These exact currents are endemic within the queer community, and because “everyone else is doing it” means it is more likely to be more and more difficult to get out of particular patterns of behaviour. g 37
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