Want Coaching For Open Relationships And For Military?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Dr. Liz Powell from SexPositivePsych.com
Reid: Who is this amazing being? This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and you are?
Liz: Hi, I’m Liz Powell. I’m a psychologist and coach from SexPositivePsych.com.
Reid: Uh-huh… and tell this amazing YouTube audience a little bit about yourself Dr. Liz.
Liz: Alright, well I am, like I said, a psychologist and coach. I specialize right now in helping people build their relationships and the lives and the sex lives especially that they’ve always wanted to have. So I love being able to get people to come into my classes or come into office and figure out what it is that’s been holding them back so that they can move forward and have their best relationships possible, their best sex possible rather than just settling for what they’ve got.
Reid: Okay and I know this about you because we’re friends so I’ve full disclosure and I hope I’m not outing you but you were in the military…
Liz: Yes, I was.
Reid: Okay and so for those of you who were military folk, this might be of interest to you.
Liz: Yeah. I actually served in the army for 5 years as a psychologist including one 9 month deployment to Afghanistan. One of the areas I’m doing a lot of working right now is exploring how we can make sex positive spaces accessible to people who are in the military or who are veterans and how we can help address their sexual health needs. A lot of people may not know is that the VA system and the military health system don’t often assess for sexual health problems outside of things like, “Do you have a sexually transmitted infection or do you have erectile dysfunction?” And so there’s a study recently that found that over 25% of people seeking care at the VA had a sexual health concern that they weren’t going to talk to their doctor about and would have never mentioned had it open for that survey.
So it’s a really serious issue and there are a lot of people in those branches who need a place to express themselves sexually that they’re not able to find yet.
Reid: And for people who have a military background currently or veterans, what resources aside from your own, where do they go to look for help because I’m assuming that the military is not “sex positive” in the way that we as sex geeks talk about it?
Liz: Right. So the way that we as sex geek talk about sex positivity, you wouldn’t find much of that in the military. What I would say though is that in the military, as long as you’re pretty good at your job and you’re not causing trouble in general, most commanders aren’t going to want to pursue anything against you doing activities that are less mainstream sexually. You’d have to start causing problems before they create an issue for it.
Reid: Okay. So if you’re being healthy and you’re good at your job and things are handled then things are pretty good?
Liz: Yeah, pretty good, yeah. You can get care for most sexual health issues through military services, they just may not know how to ask you about it and they may not have any familiarity of what you’re talking about.
Reid: And that’s where they come to you for advice?
Liz: That’s when they come to me, yeah, to myself or there’s a great website Warrior Intimacy that’s from by Dr. Antoinette Izzo and she’s working on helping disabled veterans find ways to connect with their intimacy in healthier ways so that another great resource.
Reid: And where should they go to find you again?
Liz: So for me SexPositivePsych.com.
Reid: Alright, awesome. Well, thank you. Leave some comments below and share this video with a friend in the military if you have one because maybe they need some good resources of they feel they’re not alone.
Liz: Absolutely.
Reid: Comments below. Bye.
Liz: Bye.