Sun
19
Apr
Sex and the soul: an interview with Gina Ogden, Ph.D.
by Daphne R. Howland
Gina Ogden, Ph.D. is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a certified sex therapist, and practices in Cambridge, Mass. She is also the author of the ground-breaking book Women Who Love Sex. Published in the mid-90s, Women Who Love Sex was the result of Ogden's curiosity about what women who enjoy sex might have in common. Interviewing women for that book led her to believe that women who find sex meaningful are also the most likely to experience sex as "hot."
Now Ogden is exploring sex and meaning more fully via a survey on sex and spirituality. In the past three years, she has received about 4,000 surveys from a diverse population of people ranging in age from 16 to 86. At least two-thirds of the respondents so far are women.
Ogden says she is more convinced than ever that, despite our culture's separation of sex and spirituality, spirituality is an integral part of the sexual experience for men and women who truly enjoy sex. She plans to present the results of her survey in a book, which she says will also include religious, historical, and philosophical context.
Health Gate reporter Daphne Howland recently interviewed Ogden by telephone.
HG: Do you consider yourself religious?
GO: No. I consider myself extremely spiritual and I do have a spiritual practice, but it's not anything I could put a traditional name to. I grew up as a nominal Protestant, and one of the things I remember from that training is the creed we used to have to recite: "I have not done those things that I ought to have done and I have done those things that I ought not to have done, and there's no health in me.." And I just never believed it.
HG: In an article you wrote for New Age Journal, you say, "Although not everyone realizes it, sexual response involves memory as well as physical sensation. It moves the imagination." What do you mean by that?
GO: What I mean is that when most people think about sex they think about two bodies coming together and coupling. That it has to do with skin, and that it's about satisfying a physical hunger. For the woman it's about clitoral sensation and for the man it's about having his penis stimulated. That it's definitely body-on-body, which is fine on one level.
But it goes a lot further than that, because before body meets body or even comes close to body, a lot of processing goes on in the mind. In fact, sex research continues to prove that the brain is the most important organ of sexual response. So what you bring to the body-on- body experience in terms of imagery determines much of your sexual response.
For instance, here is a typical case history scenario that I encounter as a therapist. A couple comes in because the woman can't get "turned on." She never wants to have sex. I will immediately try to find out what has gone on in her early life. There's almost always some history of either abuse or terrible messages about sex-- messages like "If you do that you're going to grow hair on your palms or die." And she brings those memories into the sexual experience.
That's the bad case scenario. But there is also a good case scenario. Lots of people bring to the experience memories of feeling free and wonderful when they were naked, like when they were children skinny-dipping in the pond. Not to mention the memories you've created with your partner. They may be very short-term memories, like that recent, a wonderful day at the beach. Or maybe you have a 40-year-old relationship that is incredibly meaningful because it is a fabric rich with the memories that you share, including children born and buried, etc. So when those bodies come together it feels like coming home.
HG: And what about "imagination"?
GO: Each sexual experience, although it's always different from the one before or after it, is part of a fabric that is made up of memory and imagery. I'm not specifically talking about sexual fantasies, although they can be part of it.
HG: How do the images of television or the movies or advertising affect this sexual imagination?
GO: When I talk about changing a religion, let's include the media, because the media shapes the culture for many of us. But the image is so wrong. Many people--men as well as women-- need to move beyond the images of a perfect body or shapely thighs in order to make sex feel free. In general, and especially for women, the media message is "Yes, be sexy, but don't be sexual."
Many of my clients talk about their body image and their fears that they don't look good enough. This seems more evident as women get older. I don't know if it affects women more than it does men or if men just don't talk about it.
HG: Traditionally, we haven't thought of older people having sexual experiences.
GO: Oh, the emotional response is ageless. The people who answer my surveys are anywhere between 16 and 86. You could put the 16-year-old's comments next to the 86-year-old's comments and the emotional response is the same. The particulars may be different; for example, the 86-year-old might not be "doing it" under water! And older people have the memories.
HG: There's a lot of talk about women faking orgasm and emphasis on achieving orgasm in the popular media, too.
GO: Well, what is orgasm anyway? Orgasm is more than just a series of physical spasms. Orgasms are filled with meaning, and that's one reason why women note problems having them. And that's also one reason they feel so wonderful. One of the points I'm going to make in my book is that women have not cornered the market on sex and meaning.
HG: How did you come to study sex and spirituality?
GO: I feel like this is work I've been doing all my life. But I've never been able to name it. I had written Women Who Love Sex, and eventually I realized what I'm really researching and writing about is sex and spirituality. I'm looking at all the aspects of sexual relationships that you cannot measure. Not just the physical orgasm or the sex flush or the rest of the characteristics that sex researchers love to measure and count.
When I began to work on this I looked around for what had been written and saw that nobody had ever done a survey on this subject. A lot has been written, including by Thomas Moore and Deepak Chopra, but it had always been somebody's personal reflections. So I thought I'd formally ask people and see what happened.
HG: And what happened?
GO: Well, a couple of things happened. I got some really interesting populations, like incarcerated sex offenders and nuns and priests and female prisoners, set against hundreds and hundreds of college students.
HG: Do you believe that spirituality and sexuality are linked in a basic way in our nature?
GO: Historically they are linked. You can go back to early images of paleolithic peoples, stone carvings and cave paintings and notice a sex/spirit link. You might see a couple making love surrounding by wings, which is a symbolism that suggests spirituality. Clearly, in some early cultures, sexuality was part of worship. Sex and spirituality are energies, they're part of the human soul and part of what has us yearning for connection.
If the most straight-laced people you know were to tell you what goes on in their sexual relationships (those that have them) there would be this incredible spiritual element. At first they might say that it's sacrilegious to talk about sex and spirituality, but they'll go on to say they've never thought about it this way before but, of course, it makes sense. Sex is meaningful and spirit is about meaning. Sex has meaning beyond creating babies or beyond consecrating a marriage.
HG: What do you think of the current White House sex scandal?
GO: That's sex devoid of spirit or of the sex/spirit connection. For one, it's gotten into the media. Another is that it's got a power male and a young female. It's lascivious, it's sensational, it's about celebrities... it's stunting. It's fetishistic, it's addictive on both sides, and I don't know who I like less.
Gina Ogden, Ph.D. is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a certified sex therapist, and practices in Cambridge, Mass. She is also the author of the ground-breaking book Women Who Love Sex. Published in the mid-90s, Women Who Love Sex was the result of Ogden's curiosity about what women who enjoy sex might have in common. Interviewing women for that book led her to believe that women who find sex meaningful are also the most likely to experience sex as "hot."
Now Ogden is exploring sex and meaning more fully via a survey on sex and spirituality. In the past three years, she has received about 4,000 surveys from a diverse population of people ranging in age from 16 to 86. At least two-thirds of the respondents so far are women.
Ogden says she is more convinced than ever that, despite our culture's separation of sex and spirituality, spirituality is an integral part of the sexual experience for men and women who truly enjoy sex. She plans to present the results of her survey in a book, which she says will also include religious, historical, and philosophical context.
Health Gate reporter Daphne Howland recently interviewed Ogden by telephone.
HG: Do you consider yourself religious?
GO: No. I consider myself extremely spiritual and I do have a spiritual practice, but it's not anything I could put a traditional name to. I grew up as a nominal Protestant, and one of the things I remember from that training is the creed we used to have to recite: "I have not done those things that I ought to have done and I have done those things that I ought not to have done, and there's no health in me.." And I just never believed it.
HG: In an article you wrote for New Age Journal, you say, "Although not everyone realizes it, sexual response involves memory as well as physical sensation. It moves the imagination." What do you mean by that?
GO: What I mean is that when most people think about sex they think about two bodies coming together and coupling. That it has to do with skin, and that it's about satisfying a physical hunger. For the woman it's about clitoral sensation and for the man it's about having his penis stimulated. That it's definitely body-on-body, which is fine on one level.
But it goes a lot further than that, because before body meets body or even comes close to body, a lot of processing goes on in the mind. In fact, sex research continues to prove that the brain is the most important organ of sexual response. So what you bring to the body-on- body experience in terms of imagery determines much of your sexual response.
For instance, here is a typical case history scenario that I encounter as a therapist. A couple comes in because the woman can't get "turned on." She never wants to have sex. I will immediately try to find out what has gone on in her early life. There's almost always some history of either abuse or terrible messages about sex-- messages like "If you do that you're going to grow hair on your palms or die." And she brings those memories into the sexual experience.
That's the bad case scenario. But there is also a good case scenario. Lots of people bring to the experience memories of feeling free and wonderful when they were naked, like when they were children skinny-dipping in the pond. Not to mention the memories you've created with your partner. They may be very short-term memories, like that recent, a wonderful day at the beach. Or maybe you have a 40-year-old relationship that is incredibly meaningful because it is a fabric rich with the memories that you share, including children born and buried, etc. So when those bodies come together it feels like coming home.
HG: And what about "imagination"?
GO: Each sexual experience, although it's always different from the one before or after it, is part of a fabric that is made up of memory and imagery. I'm not specifically talking about sexual fantasies, although they can be part of it.
HG: How do the images of television or the movies or advertising affect this sexual imagination?
GO: When I talk about changing a religion, let's include the media, because the media shapes the culture for many of us. But the image is so wrong. Many people--men as well as women-- need to move beyond the images of a perfect body or shapely thighs in order to make sex feel free. In general, and especially for women, the media message is "Yes, be sexy, but don't be sexual."
Many of my clients talk about their body image and their fears that they don't look good enough. This seems more evident as women get older. I don't know if it affects women more than it does men or if men just don't talk about it.
HG: Traditionally, we haven't thought of older people having sexual experiences.
GO: Oh, the emotional response is ageless. The people who answer my surveys are anywhere between 16 and 86. You could put the 16-year-old's comments next to the 86-year-old's comments and the emotional response is the same. The particulars may be different; for example, the 86-year-old might not be "doing it" under water! And older people have the memories.
HG: There's a lot of talk about women faking orgasm and emphasis on achieving orgasm in the popular media, too.
GO: Well, what is orgasm anyway? Orgasm is more than just a series of physical spasms. Orgasms are filled with meaning, and that's one reason why women note problems having them. And that's also one reason they feel so wonderful. One of the points I'm going to make in my book is that women have not cornered the market on sex and meaning.
HG: How did you come to study sex and spirituality?
GO: I feel like this is work I've been doing all my life. But I've never been able to name it. I had written Women Who Love Sex, and eventually I realized what I'm really researching and writing about is sex and spirituality. I'm looking at all the aspects of sexual relationships that you cannot measure. Not just the physical orgasm or the sex flush or the rest of the characteristics that sex researchers love to measure and count.
When I began to work on this I looked around for what had been written and saw that nobody had ever done a survey on this subject. A lot has been written, including by Thomas Moore and Deepak Chopra, but it had always been somebody's personal reflections. So I thought I'd formally ask people and see what happened.
HG: And what happened?
GO: Well, a couple of things happened. I got some really interesting populations, like incarcerated sex offenders and nuns and priests and female prisoners, set against hundreds and hundreds of college students.
HG: Do you believe that spirituality and sexuality are linked in a basic way in our nature?
GO: Historically they are linked. You can go back to early images of paleolithic peoples, stone carvings and cave paintings and notice a sex/spirit link. You might see a couple making love surrounding by wings, which is a symbolism that suggests spirituality. Clearly, in some early cultures, sexuality was part of worship. Sex and spirituality are energies, they're part of the human soul and part of what has us yearning for connection.
If the most straight-laced people you know were to tell you what goes on in their sexual relationships (those that have them) there would be this incredible spiritual element. At first they might say that it's sacrilegious to talk about sex and spirituality, but they'll go on to say they've never thought about it this way before but, of course, it makes sense. Sex is meaningful and spirit is about meaning. Sex has meaning beyond creating babies or beyond consecrating a marriage.
HG: What do you think of the current White House sex scandal?
GO: That's sex devoid of spirit or of the sex/spirit connection. For one, it's gotten into the media. Another is that it's got a power male and a young female. It's lascivious, it's sensational, it's about celebrities... it's stunting. It's fetishistic, it's addictive on both sides, and I don't know who I like less.