Sex Positivity: Creating a Therapeutic Environment for All Black Women
My name is Dr. Apryl Alexander and I am a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver. My research interests focus on violence and victimization, human sexuality, interpersonal violence, and trauma and culturally informed practice.
Finding a therapist can be hard for a lot of people. However, finding a culturally competent or culturally informed therapist can be even harder, especially for Black women. Although racial/ethnic client and therapist matching does not always indicate a perfect therapeutic alliance, Black women are looking for more therapists of color who may be more likely to understand nuisances in contextual and societal factors (i.e., structural and institutional racism) related to their presenting concerns. Resources, like the Therapy for Black Girls blog, podcast, and therapist directory and the Inner Hoe Uprising podcast featuring Black sex positive feminists, have been instrumental in helping Black women access mental health treatment and find Black therapists and psychologists who reflect their own racial identity. However, finding a therapist that has knowledge and expertise on issues related to race and sex and sexuality can still be difficult. What if a Black woman finds a therapist who does not understand her kink culture? Or a family therapist who has never worked with polyamorous couples? How might stereotypes regarding Black women and promiscuity or the fetishization of Black women enter the therapy space? Therapists without knowledge of these communities within Black culture may not be practicing culturally competent manner (i.e., not recognizing the intersecting oppressions) and inadvertently make microaggressions.
Since sexuality is an important aspect of one’s life, psychologists must be comfortable discussing sexuality with their clients. However, there still continues to be a lot of stigma, shame, and misinformation about sex and sexuality. My recently published manuscript discusses adopting an intersectional and sex positive framework in psychology. Sex positivity is when individuals (or groups) emphasize openness, non-judgmental attitudes, freedom, and liberation from sex-negative paradigms (Cruz, Greenwald, & Sandil, 2017; Donaghue, 2015). The framework moves beyond procreation-focused sex and monogamy and emphasizes sexual desire and diversity.
Given the absence of universal sex education, many graduate trainees themselves are not well-educated on human sexuality. Many clinicians did not have proper, comprehensive sex education, as a majority of states have abstinence only sex education. In fact, only 13 states require medically accurate sex education when sex education is provided. This lack of sex education often leads individuals receive inaccurate or harmful information about sex and sexuality, have shame around their own sexuality, and/or creates stigma and bias about certain sexual identities and sexual behaviors. Few training programs in clinical and/or counseling psychology have courses dedicated to human sexuality. Further, research on other marginalized sexual identity groups (i.e., LGBTQ+ populations, kink-involved individuals, and individuals engaged in consensually non-monogamous relationships), and Black people who also identify with one of these sexual identities or relationship structures, is limited.
Therefore, the manuscript is a call to action to improve clinical training. In order to provide ethical and true culturally competent care for Black women, psychologists need to consider adopting this intersectional sex positive framework into training, clinical practice, and research. The full manuscript is published in the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships here.
-Dr. Apryl A. Alexander, @DrAprylA