Sexual Reawakening - 10 Simple Steps (2 page)

Are you satisfied with being male or female?

Do you ever wish you could be the other sex?

What do you believe males should do or be?

What do you believe females should do or be?

Do you fit your own idea of the way men or women should be and
what they should do?

Do you fit what you believe is the way men or women should be
in this society?

Has your satisfaction with being male or female changed?  How?
 When?  What caused the change?

Have your beliefs about male or female roles and behaviors
changed? How? When? What caused the change?

How have your satisfaction with your gender and gender roles
affected your life and your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

Have you had any illnesses?

Operations?

Injuries?

Aches and pains?

Other physical problems?

In the past?

Recently?

Has your physical health changed?

How?

When?

What caused the change?

How has your physical health affected your life and
your sexuality?

Have you had any emotional upsets?

Traumas?

Problems causing you distress?

Problems causing you to seek help or to take
medication?

in the past?

Recently?

Has your emotional health changed?

How?

When?

What caused the change?

How has your emotional health affected your life and
your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

How old are you?

How do you feel about being your current age?

Are you comfortable or uncomfortable with your body as
it is?

Has your physical appearance and comfort with your body
image changed?

How?

When?

What caused the change?

How has the physical appearance of your body and your
body image affected

your life,

your sexuality

your spirituality?

What effect does your current age have upon your life
and your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

How easy or difficult is it for you to find or connect
with an available sexual partner?

Has your partner availability changed?

How?

When?

What caused the change?

How has your partner availability or lack of
availability affected your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

The second step is to review your origins: your birth,
early parenting, and how your earliest beginnings have affected your current
life.  For some of us, this second step is even more difficult that Step 1. 
However, if you've already practiced being totally honest with yourself, you
may find your answers flowing easily.  As you examine your origins, notice any judgments
you may have, good and bad, about yourself, your parents or other caretakers,
the way life has been for you, the way you believe life should be, what you
feel you deserve or don't deserve, and the way life is.

You are about to go on an imaginary journey back to the
moment of your own conception.  Allow your mind to participate fully.  Do not
censor any thoughts that arise.

Allow your imagination to run free, recalling times you
can only know intuitively.

Imagine that special date, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80+
years ago, the moment when your mother and father performed the sexual act that
created you.

How do you imagine your parents felt about each other
before, during and after the moment when you were conceived?

Were either of your parents experiencing stress,
physical or mental illness, under the influence of alcohol or drugs
(prescription or recreational) while you were being conceived?

Close your eyes and
reflect upon your responses.

How did your mother describe her pregnancy when she
was carrying you?

Were there any complications?

How did she say she felt physically and emotionally?

How did she describe her sleep, exercise and rest?

Were your parents thrilled, conflicted or disturbed
about your impending birth?

Did either of your parents want you to be the other sex?

Did your parents lose any children before you were
born?

What effect did your mother's pregnancy have upon your
life and your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect
upon your responses.

How did your mother describe her experience of labor
when she was giving birth to you? How long did it last?

Was your father present in the delivery room and did
he participate?

Who else was present in the delivery room?

Did you willingly and easily emerge or was there some
dfifficulty?

Were you in a twisted or breech birth position?

Was the umbilical cord tangled around your neck?

Did you resist being born and find yourself pulled out
with forceps?

Were you born through your mother's vaginal canal or
cut out of her abdominal cavity by a caesarian section?

Were you born prematurely and were you placed in an
incubator?

Was anything physically wrong with you when you were
born?

What effect did your birthing process have upon your
life and your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect
upon your responses.

How was your mother's physical and emotional health
after your birth?

Were you breastfed and until what age?

Were you held and nurtured and by whom?

Did you sleep in the same bed or room with one or both
parents or caretakers?

Were you left alone, neglected, or abused for any
period of time?

What effect did your early infancy have upon your life
and your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

How was sexuality talked about and treated in your
family of origin?

Who did you live with in your earliest years?

Mother?

Father?

Both parents?

Relatives?

Adoptive parents?

Foster parents?

Siblings?

Or someone else?

Were your parents or early caretakers physically
affectionate toward each other.

Were your parents or early caretakers physically
affectionate  toward you?

Did you ever observe your parents or someone else in
the sex act?

How did you respond?

Where and from whom did you learn about sexuality?

At what ages?

Has your sexual education changed?

How?

When?

What caused the change?

How has your sexual education affected your life and
your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

Recall and describe your earliest sexual experiences, as much
as your memory will allow.

as an infant,

young child,

adolescent and teenager

For each stage of life, answer these same questions:

With who were you involved?

What happened?

Who initiated?

Did you want to be involved or were you

Pressured?

Seduced?

Coerced?

Forced into submission against your will?

What emotions did you feel and were your feelings
reciprocated by the other person?  How were you treated and how did you treat
others?

What effect did those early experiences have upon your
current sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect
upon your responses.

Recall and describe your most significant sexual
relationships during each decade of your adult life

Twenties,

Thirties,

Forties,

Fifties

Eighties

Describe your sexuality,

how you felt about your body,

your appearance,

your overall feeling about life.

Recall your hopes and dreams for your future.

Who loved and nurtured you and who neglected,
abandoned or abused you?

Who did you love and nurture and who did you
neglect, abandon or abuse?

Did your sexuality change?

When?

How?

What caused the change?

How have your sexual relationships as an adult
affected your life and your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect
upon your responses.

What events, situations,
and people are significant in your sexual history?

Has your sexual history,
or what you know about your history, changed?

How?

When?

What caused the change?

How has your sexual
history affected your life and your sexuality?

Close your eyes and reflect
upon your responses.

Many of us are confused about our sexual identity or
sexual partner or object preferences.  The Kinsey Continuum has been a useful
source to help define for ourselves where they fit.  In massive sexual surveys
of the 1940's and 1950's, Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues discovered that most
people exhibited degrees of homosexuality and heterosexuality, with bisexuality
representing a midpoint. They created a seven-point heterosexual-homosexual
continuum.  People fit on the continuum according to two criteria: homosexual
or heterosexual behavior and attraction to same sex or opposite sex.  People in
category "0," exclusively heterosexual, claimed no attraction,
desire, or sexual activity, ever, with the same sex.  People in category
"6," exclusively homosexual, claimed no attraction, desire, or sexual
activity, ever, with the opposite sex.

In Kinsey's studies, about 4 percent of men and 1-3
percent of women were categorized as exclusively homosexual, "6". A
larger percentage were considered predominantly homosexual, "4" or
"5", or predominantly heterosexual, "1" or "2". 
The largest percentage of people were classified as exclusively heterosexual,
50 - 92%.  Thirty-seven percent of men and 13 percent of women claimed to have
reached orgasm through homosexual activity at some time after puberty.

A 1970 nationwide survey conducted by the Kinsey
Institute, a 1988 survey, and a 1993 Louis Harris poll, had results similar to
the earlier Kinsey studies.  Studies indicate that a large number of men and a
smaller but still significant number of women have engaged in homosexual
experience during their lives, and a very small percentage, 1-4%, within the
last year to five years.

Look at the Kinsey Heterosexual/Homosexual Continuum
below.  Circle the number that most accurately describes your experiences
throughout your life.

0
= exclusively heterosexual, having had no
homosexual experiences at any time in your life

1
= almost exclusively heterosexual with one or
more homosexual experiences

2
= mostly heterosexual with some homosexual
experiences

3
= bisexual, indicating you have had sexual
experiences with the same or opposite sex to about the same degree

4
= mostly homosexual with some heterosexual
experiences

5
= almost exclusively homosexual with one or
more heterosexual experiences

6
= exclusively homosexual, having had no heterosexual
experiences at any time in your life

T
HE
K
INSEY
C
ONTINUUM

0.…...1….…2.……3.……4.……5.……6

______________________________________

Heterosexual……Bisexual……Homosexual

(
Human Sexuality in
a World of Diversity
, 1995)

Where do you fit on the Kinsey Continuum?

Do you define yourself as

heterosexual,

bisexual,

homosexual?

How do you feel about your
sexual identity?

Have your sexual identity and
partner preferences changed?

How?

When?

Cause?

How have
your sexual identity and partner preferences affected your life and your
sexuality?

Close
your eyes and reflect upon your responses.

Each of us has different reasons for choosing to have
sexual relations with another person.  At different times in our lives, we may
have sex to feel pleasurable sensations, to play like children, to relieve
tension, to alleviate pain, to avoid facing our problems, to feel comforted and
touched, to express our emotions, to create a family, to explore our
spirituality, or to discover our own true nature.