Episode 033: Your Sexuality and Intimacy Through Cancer
Aug 29, 2018•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
Cancer sweeps into your life like a hurricane, and you’re not the same person you were before treatment, and sometimes it’s tough to adjust to those changes, and even tougher to open up about it with people you love, with people you care about. And that’s where we need to talk about sexuality and intimacy and how it works through cancer so today you’re going to hear from Sage who has such an eloquent and down to earth way of working through things, you’re getting the best advice on the planet! Here are some things we cover today:
Key distinction between sexuality and intimacy
Separating sexuality from image
Who is the best person to turn to speak about sex and intimacy
Top online resources that can make a huge difference for you
and much, much more!
Links
Sage Bolte
Sex and Intimacy (Living Beyond Cancer)
Sex and Intimacy After Breast Cancer Diagnosis (Young Survivor Coalition)
National LGBT Cancer Network
Self-Image and Sexuality (National Cancer Institute)
Sex & Intimacy Discussions on Stupid Cancer Community
Episode 026: Stand Up For Your Rights
Full Transcript
Joe: Sage, it’s such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your time.
Sage: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Joe: Cool, Sage. I think I really want to start with some definitions about talking about sexuality and intimacy. Are they the same thing?
Sage: Sexuality and intimacy are not the same thing. They are two different things, although, they might come together in a sexual and intimate relationship. Intimacy is really a human need. It’s about connectivity and desire to be in community or connectedness with someone, to feel safe and trusted in a relationship with someone. We might be intimate with our best friends. We might be intimate with our partner, our family, people from our faith communities. That intimacy, again, is about that connectivity and connection.
Where sexuality is really about how we define ourselves and parts of ourselves as humans. Yes, it might have to do with sexual activity, but really, it is up here in our brain. How do we define ourselves? What does sexuality look like? That might be, again, sexual activity including intercourse, but it might be touching hands, expressing sexual expression. They can also be strongly influenced by our spiritual backgrounds, our cultural backgrounds and guide us to what we feel comfortable with or not comfortable with. It might be in some cultures or faith practices, we keep our bodies very hidden or covered because that’s sacred. That expressing sexual expression would only be within the sanctity of a marriage/relationship that the body or the sexual acts would only be seen by that person.
Sexuality is freer that they may feel very comfortable expressing their sexuality more outwardly. Neither, again, right nor wrong, it’s all very individual. Sexuality, again, is just really again an individual expression.
Joe: Yes, Sage, that was beautifully put. Such a personal and, like you say, a sacred thing. That it’s not only critical to a relationship if you’re in that, but to also how you see yourself. I think that cancer can obscure that, so that not only it’s difficult for you to deal with it, but it’s also difficult to acknowledge it as a problem for yourself. What’s your perspective on that?
Sage: Yes. I think sometimes that also, that depending on where you live in America, the way sexuality is expressed is probably different and probably in other countries, as well. As well as the media, right? The media, at least in America, over sexualises everything. Things that are sexualised would be things like looking at the breasts or the butt or who has the most rock-solid body gets over sexualised. When that’s considered sexy or sexual, my goodness, that not only sets up 90 percent of us for failure,
