A counselor describes his meaning centered and non-judgemental approach to counseling about unprotected sex.
C: Maybe the biggest intervention I'm doing is presenting a way of talking about sex and talking about "So how do you feel about him coming inside of you, I mean, what does that mean for you?" And you know, one of the things helping you to be really comfortable with that is I've had that discussion with my mother, you know, who had this whole thing about uh, cause I was having unprotected sex with my boyfriend and my mom was just, her worst fear in the world is that I'll get AIDS and die, right, and so she's convinced, you know she was convinced that I was going to get AIDS and so her solution was condom every time, have this safe sex, so we'd have these conversations where she'd say you're being safe aren't you? And uh, so finally I said Mom, we need to have a talk. HHH. And that of course makes her heart stop and say you know let me ask you some questions, maybe to kind of help you here, how would you compare times when a guy doesn't come inside of you and when a guy does come inside of you. Would you say that his coming inside of you, and by coming inside I mean, leaving the sperm, the cum in, uh, not coming in the condom inside of you,
Nicolas: Planting his seed
C: Planting his seed, exchanging body fluids, how would you compare that experience to when you don't do that? Which one would you say is more pleasurable for you? And there's this huge silence on the other end of the phone like I can't believe my son's asking me this but my mom is very advertursome, she's like well yeah no it would be the latter, HHH and uh, I was like exactly, I said isn't it just incredibly more satisfying and do you know what, that's just a mystery, it has nothing to do with rationality, because what the hell difference does it make, you're on birth control, well she's past menopause I mean, you know, so there's no pregnancy potential here, and what's a tablespoon of inocuous liquid, uh, but it has incredible symbolic, and once again it's your mind that's your own sex tool, and that's why we have to actively engage people's minds in the process and not just their parts, because it's the mind that makes the difference and if we can start off and say yeah you know, having somebody come inside of you is an option, now let's talk about how you can make that option work for you and how you want to get there, uh, but let's also talk about some other things when that doesn't make sense for you. When are some times when you would want him to come inside of you, you know, or at what point in a relationship would you want him to come inside of you, rather than saying like this one counselor told a friend of mine who was going in to get tested to have unprotected sex in a monogamous relationship, [ ] and she just said to him well you realize you're trusting him with your life. Boy, howdy, I mean, that statement's true in one way but it sure is disenpowering and it sure is anxiety producing. And whose anxiety is that, is that hers or the client's, and it's so easy to do that, I also hear it with counselors around anal sex. There's one counselor here who is very good, very competent, all that but she has this thing about anal sex and just feces in general and kind of like, she's not anti anal sex cause it's kind of like well I know those homos are gonna do it, I mean you know she didn't say, I mean it's kind of like people are gonna do it whether I think it's wrong or not, but
N: "But if you are gonna do it."
C: If you are gonna do it. you just need to know there's all these kinds of diseases you can get, so it's not for her it's not just about HIV it's about all these other diseases.
N: "And I've done my duty warning you"
C: And I mean, there's these things, HHHH lots of things you can get and you know we have a culture that's very anti feces and very anti, like the average person doesn't handle it everyday practically, I mean, and some [ ] can come into contact with it, you know, I mean, we're constantly coming in contact with it cause you're producing it on a constant basis but uh, the sense of kind of denial that we have around well, you know, and I'm not saying there aren't other disease factors that get transmitted but kissing transmits alot too, and so does vaginal intercourse and the vagina grows a lot of things, uh, it's not a hygenic environment itself, you know, and you're peeing down there and when you're sucking on my cock, I'm peeing and cum and all these other kinds of things, those things aren't all sterile fluids, you know, just like feces isn't sterile, uh, and you know, I've been having anal sex for 18 years and I've never gotten anything, you know, uh, so this sense of that it's almost like you're searching for a disease if you have anal sex is/what that does of course is just make people anxious about it
N: If the're not already anxious enough from their [ ]
C: And this is to say you know what, if you approach sex as a hygenic issue you would never have it, sex is not hygenic, you know, so let's just get real clear on that, uh, and you know, there, you have options around how to reduce the transmission risk around anal sex. So, let's empower and educate people about things that you can do rather than immediately assuming there's no reason why, for example, like rimming I'm sure would totally flip her out and put her into the next planet, and I would hazard a guess, I absolutely don't know this, that she's probably never been rimmed or rimmed anyone and has no appreciation for what that might be like or what the significance of that could be and in part because it is so forbidden, so. So anyway. it's been kind of a ramblings but I think in terms of approach and working with clients is the key job that we have is to assess and decide where is it that I can help, have the most impact.
N: Prioritize.
C: Yeah, and to realize that probably the least important thing you need to talk about is a lot of information about HIV, you know now, if it's their very first time or whatever.
N: But you should have them ask the questions first not
C: Right, you know where I like my favorite entry point, I don't always use this but my favorite entry point is have you ever been tested or when were you last tested? And they say well I've never been tested to then say well oh woww, well welcome, love to see new people, so what brings you in? And to really give them an opportunity, cause that's my most powerful thing on how to assess, you know, they're gonna be my primary source. Not my own biases or whatever, you know, so to get that and to realize that I've, it's rare that a person ever comes in and articulates why they're there.
N: Why is that?
C: Uh because it's not about health. I mean you know. And that's the number one barrier to getting tested and the number one problem to effective interventions through testing is this whole orientation to health. You know and I've dedicated my life to working in health, I'm not anti health but to realize that that's just a major problem and that, so people come in and say well I just want to know my status,or well my partner's getting testing and we're just starting a relationship, you know there are some pretty pass go, collect 200 kind of answers that get you to check off. I mean I've been in situations where I've been getting tested and I don't you know, I get on the phone and to[ ] give me the least amount of resistence, you know, whatever it is they want to hear.
N: They're putting it on the form so you're thinking about what's gonna work on the form, not some long narrative about your childhood,
C: Right, right, so uh, so we like to do the assessment to realize that rarely do they have an insight to realize no matter what they tell me to say what is it in my inventory that might be useful to them and then to be respectful of where they're at and that may be hey, they just get the health talk, cause that's where they're at and that's all they want. uh, or, so that's the challenge for the person who'se tested once or twenty times you know, the more they test of course then the more you know there's a lot of anxiety going on which a lot of, there's a lot of risk taking behavior and a strategy that's not working for them or there's this prophelactic, they're kind of, the way they're not gonna get AIDS is to get tested. And so one of the things I really say right up front is well, testing doesn't do anything, it's information at one point in time, it's what you do outside of the test session that makes a difference. So it's behaviors not testing.
N: Right, I have almost exactly the same words it's like what you do between the tests.
C: So let's, the solution is not testing. I think everyone should get tested cause it's a great opportunity, come in and get to talk
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