Therapy for your sex life
a purity ring was replaced by a wedding band, but now your left hand’s ring finger is bare.
You were told that sex in marriage was going to be mind-blowing, but you kept waiting for that moment. And it never came. You get on the dating and hookup apps after Purity Culture, and you feel overwhelmed by options you didn’t know existed, or at least in “the mainstream.” The first DMs fill you with anxious dread. “I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m afraid to tell them.” So you leave them on read.
“Look at my smoking hot wife!” the pastor said at the pulpit,
Motioning his wife to stand and twirl for the congregation. Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that the pastor was preaching about the sin of lust? The mixed messages got your head in a tailspin, and you notice the whiplash of desire and avoidance staying with you long after leaving the Church.
Therapy Inquiry
After conversion therapy, having a consistent sexual partner without chemsex and alcohol sounds terribly intimidating.
About Kit’s sex therapy approach
When you are indoctrinated to push away sexual attraction and fear gender expression beyond stoic masculinity, sex gets complicated. Purity Culture isn’t just about abstinence from sex outside of marriage. It’s about controlling your relationship with your body, playfulness, pleasure, and sensuality.
For years, Kit received Christian Counseling where goals for counseling weren’t collaborative. Instead, the Christian Counselors set the goal: to conform with cisgender-heterosexual norms in the Church. After leaving non-affirming Christianity, Kit received counseling that was collaborative with goal-setting, and the autonomy in counseling gave Kit the courage to come out of the closet as a queer, trans man.
It can be difficult to talk about sex when you were taught that God is all-knowing and all-seeing, and the sole purpose of sex is for procreation and a wife’s submission to her husband. But not talking about “it,” is taking a toll on your sex life. To have the kind of sex you want, there has to be good communication.
A healthy relationship with sex can improve a person’s overall well-being. This is why Kit Morgan, LCSW decided to become trained in sex therapy methods and offer sex therapy in their practice. Kit is a doctoral student of clinical sexology and studies the effects that religion and spirituality has upon sexuality and gender.
Before getting started with sex therapy, it is important to name what sex therapy is, and what it is not.
Sex therapy focuses on collaborative goal-setting to experience a sex life where you feel satisfied. This is reached through talk therapy, coping skill development and practice, and potentially care coordination with your medical providers to meet your needs.
Professional boundaries are integral to Kit Morgan, LCSW’s practice. And it is important to note that ethical sex therapy never involves: the sex therapist having sexual activity with their clients, including sexual voyeurism or sexual exhibitionism with sex therapy clients by the sex therapist.
What Brings religious trauma survivors into sex therapy?
Religion controlling your relationship to sexuality and gender can have lingering impacts long after you leave the religious group.
The most common religious trauma concerns that Kit Morgan, LCSW sees in sex therapy with clients are:
Fear of being perceived as disgusting in communicating sexual desires
Flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, or ruminations about religious roles and rules for sex and gender that interrupt your mood and sexual satisfaction
Dissociation during foreplay
Anxiety with initiating physical affection and/or sexual encounters
Limited to no sexual experiences with the gender(s) you are attracted to
Erectile and/or vaginal penetration difficulties that have not been able to be treated by medical treatments
Difficulty orgasming without substance use because of sexual shame
Pornography use or secretive sexual encounters that have dynamics and people who remind you of past religious authority figures
Conversion therapy (religious counseling that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression for cisgender-heterosexual conformity) flashbacks or intrusive thoughts
Transformative therapy is collaborative.
The path to sexual alignment is developing a healthy relationship with your autonomy. Collaborative therapy helps nurture clients’ relationships to autonomy. Religious groups can distort therapy methods, which is why Kit tailors therapy methods to fit your needs. Therapies that Kit draws influence from and brings into their practice of sex therapy include:
Exposure Response Prevention Therapy (ERP)
Mentalization Based Therapy
Existential Therapy
Somatic Therapy
Gestalt Therapy
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Attachment-Based Therapy
Narrative Therapy
Psychodynamic Therapy
Exposure Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)
Feminist Therapy
Gender-Affirming Therapy
My partner feels terrible degrading and humiliating me, but it’s the only way I can feel sexual pleasure after leaving purity culture.
Investing in Your Sex Life
Individual sex therapy at The Liberated Porch is offered 100% online to adults living in the states of New York, Virginia, or Indiana— and the province of Ontario coming this fall!
Kit Morgan, LCSW is not in-network with any health insurance companies to protect the privacy of their clients as health insurance companies have access to therapy notes when a therapist is in-network.
Kit offers receipts of services (sometimes called “superbills”) for potential reimbursement from your insurance company, depending on your insurance plan’s offerings. Insurance companies may offer 20 - 80% coverage of out-of-network therapy.
The cost for individual sex therapy is $175 CAD. For American clients, this rate is approximately $130 USD based upon the currency exchange rate.