ABSTRACT
Therapists are in the relationship business. Some situations are ethically complex or ambiguous, most therapists agree that breaking an important promise is generally a bad idea. Some therapists assume that people involved in S&M must be re-enacting childhood abuse or exploitation. There is simply no meaningful data to support this. On the contrary, the studies that have been done on non-clinical populations show that S&M participants are no more likely to have been sexually exploited than non-S&M participants. For most of modern Western history, being sexually “normal” has been considered very important. “Abnormal” sexuality has even been criminalised. Most therapists accept the “normality” of a wide range of sexual activity: oral sex, anal sex, hand jobs, playful games, and toys, such as a vibrator or blindfold. Therapists have heard plenty from the partners who feel deprived; we would benefit from hearing more about this from the partners who masturbate rather than have sex with their mates.
