(800) 379-9220, (732) 246-8439     Highland Park, Jersey City, Freehold       Margaret Nichols Ph.D., Director

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PEACE ON EARTH                            JUSTICE FOR ALL



Issue 3 - December 2004

This, our third issue, departs in format from our others. The entire issue is devoted to news about IPG and to the results of our IPG Female Sexuality Survey. Specifically, we compare women of different self-declared sexual orientations – lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual – and we compare the experiences of women currently in relationships with other women and those currently in relationships with men.

We like to think that these results are of interest “Not for Women Only.” We speculate here about the nature of sexual orientation, male-female differences, differences even in the definition of a ‘sexual experience.’ So you men might find something to pique your interest……and we certainly count on you to take the IPG Male Sexuality Survey when it is on line early in 2005.

A personal note: some of you know I lost my beloved daughter Jesse on June 2, 2004, four days before her tenth birthday. As I went through the ten week hospital ordeal that preceded her death, and as I’ve gone through grieving, I’ve thought many times about what I have learned from the GLBT & friends community. Sadly, I have thought about my years spent working with AIDS in the 1980’s. I never thought that what I learned about death and loss back then would be applied on such a personal, devastating level. But working with AIDS prepared me to lose my daughter as best it could……from the practical lessons I learned then – like about the need for medical advocacy-- to the spiritual ones – I haven’t thought that life was remotely “fair” for two decades. I wish that I had never had to put that knowledge to such use…..but I did, and it helped.

But most of all, I learned thirty years ago that family is created, not biological. The lessons of ‘queers’ ostracized by their families of origin are these: 1) make your family, make your own support system; 2) there are no hard and fast rules about how good families can be constituted. When you create your own family in a small, minority community, you can not afford to have many enemies, so you try to remain friends with old lovers. And you take support where you can get it.

And so the ‘family’ I turned to in crisis was not my family of origin. It was my son Cory, of course – but other than that, it was friends, ex-partners, colleagues, clients and former clients, Cory’s ‘tribe,’ friends of friends…..this is the family that ‘got me through.’

And when I decided to adopt two more girls from an orphanage in Guatemala, it is not my family of origin that I will look to for help, either. I will rely on my two ex-lover/co-parents, my son, his friends, my friends, Jesse’s school …..a village, indeed, but not a village compromised of my blood relations – a village of my heart relations. And that I learned from nearly thirty years of living in the LGBT ETC community. Bless us all for loving one another, thank you all who have loved me.

Peace and love,
Margie Nichols Ph.D., Editor

Click here for Growing, our general interest newsletter.

IPG NEWS BRIEFS: Expansion of Offices and Services; TG Group Approaches Third Anniversary

PSYCHOEDUCATION: Symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder, the ‘Winter Blues’

RESULTS OF THE IPG FEMALE SEXUALITY SURVEY

Lesbian Bed Death and other Myths

Introduction

This past January we launched a survey of female sexuality: we invited women from all over the country and the globe to give us information about their sexual history, their feelings, and their experience. Originally, the idea was to find out about lesbian sexuality and compare lesbians to heterosexual women. But our vision quickly expanded beyond an interest in sexual identity: we realized we wanted to find out about ALL female sexuality, whether the women who filled out our survey were self-identified as straight, gay, bi, or something totally different.

So, as of November 2004, we’ve gotten nearly 1100 responses, and while Dr. Nichols has written a couple of professional papers that mention the data, this is our first attempt to present it to everyone. We presented general data, and information about heterosexual women, in the December 2004 issue of ‘Growing.’ Here we concentrate on what distinguishes between lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women, and the differences in the sex lives of women currently in relationships with other women versus those in relationships with men.

First, some of the general information discussed in ‘Growing’ is worth repeating here. When you do Internet research, you never get a ‘representative sample.’ In fact, our women were quite different from the ‘average American woman’ as described in what is generally considered the best data we currently have available, the National Health and Social Life Study (NHSLS), done in the 1990’s.

The IPG Survey women are highly educated - 90% had at least some college- and mostly from the U.S. (over 90%). But what makes them REALLY unusual is that as a group, these are women who have lots of sex and tend to live on the sexual fringe.

So here are some comparisons between the IPG Survey women and NHSLS ‘average American woman.'

• Most of the IPG survey women are gay or bisexual, compared to only about 5-10% of the NHSLS women
• Between 19% and 42% of the IPG respondents identify with the ‘kink’ community (people who practice S/M, dominant-submissive, or other kinds of less common sexual behaviors). Bisexual women are the ‘kinkiest’ and lesbians the least involved. Only a tiny fraction of the general U.S. population self-identifies this way.
• Many of our respondents consider themselves ‘polyamorous,’ e.g. practicing multiple open sexual relationships at the same time. A whopping 58% of our bisexual women are ‘poly’ with 18% of the lesbians and 22% of the heterosexual women in this group.

The IPG survey women aren’t just unusual in their sexual lifestyles, either. They are also MUCH more sexually active than the average American woman:

• More than half our women have had over ten lifetime sexual partners; the average American woman has had less than four lifetime partners.
• In the last year, half of IPG women had sex at least once a week; 33% of NHSLS women had sex that often.
• 65% of the IPG women think about sex at least once a day; the average American woman thinks about sex from a few times a month to a few times a week.
• 57% of IPG survey respondents masturbate at least once a week; only 8% of the NHSLS women masturbate that much.

So, given that we have information from a group of pretty sexually active women, what can we learn from them? (NOTE: all ‘differences’ reported are statistically significant at p<.05, most at p<.000)

Well, to begin with, the lesbian women and the heterosexual women resembled each other on variables like age, race, and educational level, and sexual experience indicators like average number of lifetime sex partners and percent who identify as ‘kinky’ or ‘poly.’ That means they are good comparison groups. The bisexual women were much more sexually experienced and ‘fringe-y,’ so for some data comparisons we’ve left them out of the analysis. And our sample contained a wide range: not all the IPG Survey women had multiple sexual partners or masturbated frequently. So we think we can learn a lot from this group about sexual orientation – and about female sexuality in general.

Self-identified Lesbians, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Women

It has been speculated that women may be more inherently bisexual than men, and there is some research that suggests this may be the case. We asked our survey respondents to identify themselves as lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual. As we reported in ‘Growing,’ five percent of our respondents found they couldn’t ‘pigeonhole’ themselves into one of these categories. Moreover, most lesbians reported both sexual attractions to men and sexual experiences with men; the majority of heterosexual women were attracted also to women, and one-third had had sex with a woman.

What this means is that depending on how you define ‘bisexuality,’ an awful lot of women are bisexual. Certainly, the vast majority of our sample is sexually attracted to both genders, and large numbers have had sexual experience with both men and women. When we have our male sexuality survey online, we’ll be interested to see if comparable numbers of men report bisexual behavior and attractions.

But while these women may exhibit bisexual feelings or behavior, most of them self-identify – consider themselves – gay or straight. So what does it mean to LABEL yourself bisexual? What kind of women uses that label to designate her sexual orientation? The women in the IPG Survey who call themselves ‘bi’ certainly aren’t doing it to hide their ‘gay side:’ two-thirds of the self-identified bi women are currently in relationships with men and could thus ‘pass’ for straight if they wanted to. Our bi women seem to be sexually adventurous - 42% call themselves ‘kinky,’ as opposed to 25% of the heterosexual women and 19% of lesbians. The majority – 58% - engage in polyamorous lifestyles whereas just a fifth of the lesbians and heterosexual women who filled out our survey did so. The self-identified bisexual women masturbate more and think about sex more than their gay and straight sisters. Moreover, they have had a higher number of total sex partners: bi women have an average of 23 lifetime partners, while lesbians have 15 and heterosexual women 16. For these reasons, we did some of these first analyses excluding the bisexual women, since in many ways they stand out from our other survey respondents.

How Do Lesbians Differ from Straight or Bi Women?

As we’ve just pointed out, in some ways gay women and straight women are no different sexually other than the obvious: self-identified lesbians report stronger attractions to women, more female sex partners, and more current female partners, while heterosexual women are more attracted to men, have had more male partners, and are currently in relationships with men or married to men. And in some ways bisexual women are ‘wilder’ than both their gay or straight counterparts.

But lesbians DO differ from both bisexual and heterosexual women, however, in some very significant ways:

• They have way fewer sexually transmitted infections or sex related medical conditions (STI’s). 73% of the lesbians have never had such a condition, while only 53% of bisexual women and 56% of heterosexual women reported no STI’s. This is probably because penises are good transmitters of infection; for many diseases, male to female/male to male infection is more common than female to male or female to female.
• Lesbians do have slightly less sex than other women. They report overall frequency of sex in the last year to be less, and lesbians in relationships have slightly but significantly less sex than women in relationships with men. The difference in rates of sex is significant but not large, and there were no more cases of ‘lesbian bed death’ in our sample than ‘heterosexual bed death.’ In fact, relatively few of our subjects have NO sex at all. But it does appear that lesbians overall have sex about once or twice a month while bi and heterosexual women have sex closer to once a week.
• ALL women in relationships have sex more than their single counterparts. But women in relationships with other women have less frequent sex than women with men – about three times a month compared to once a week or a little more. Interestingly, this has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Bisexual women in relationships with women have significantly less sex than bi women with men; and lesbians currently with men (there were some of these) have sex MORE than lesbians with women. This suggests that sexual frequency in couples is male-driven to an extent – making sexual frequency itself a male-oriented measure of quality of sex life.
• Lesbians also report significantly fewer sexual problems than either bisexual or heterosexual women. Women in relationships with other women have more frequent and reliable orgasms and spend more time on sex. Not surprisingly, the amount of time spent on sex was related to whether or not women regularly orgasm. Thus, sex between women seems to ‘satisfy’ women in some ways more than does sex between women and men, in part because women with each other take more time for sex.

What does this mean, not only for lesbians, but for all women? To begin with, the myth of lesbian bed death – that lesbian couples have no genital sex – needs to be put to rest. While sexual frequency was lower for our lesbian couples – it was only slightly lower. More importantly, sex between women lasts longer and more frequently results in orgasm. We all – all of us in the field of human sexuality – need to rethink our definitions of a healthy sex life. Perhaps we have been too focused on quantity and not quality. Where women are concerned – less frequent sexual encounters that are more long-lasting and more reliably result in orgasm may be far more satisfying than the ‘quickies’ that might be acceptable sexual encounters for some males.

A Word About Future Issues to be Explored:

We have just begun to look at the rich information we have in these surveys. We hope to complement our data by gathering comparable information about gay, bisexual, and heterosexual men from the IPG Internet Survey of Male Sexuality, due to be launched January 2005.

But even just within our group of female respondents, we have opportunities for data analysis not open to other researchers. For example, we have a sample of over four hundred self-declared bisexual women, of hundreds of women who consider themselves part of the BDSM community, hundreds who are polyamorous – allowing us to take an in-depth look at groups of sexual minorities rarely studied.

We also can look at gender experimentation within women’s communities. Nearly 5% of our women described themselves as having gender identities that are ‘outside the box’ – bois, butches, femmes, trannies. How are these women different from others – if they are at all? Do they have male counterparts? The ‘queer’ community is a place of gender and sexual experimentation, and looking at our survey results more closely can give us a window to look inside. Be sure to look for more information about our surveys in future issues of ‘Growing’ and ‘Growing Diversity.’

Expansion of Staff and Services

In spite of a year full of problems for many of the IPG staff and their families, we’ve managed to expand in many ways.

First, we’ve hired new staff with fresh ideas in all three offices. The Jersey City now boasts eight therapists and accounts for a fifth of all our new clients. Freehold has an additional therapist, and the Highland Park office has acquired three more counselors as well. All offices have GLBT therapists, Highland Park and Jersey City have African-American staff, and there is a Spanish-speaking therapist in the Jersey City office, as well.

Second, we’ve recognized the importance of ‘evidence-based medicine’…specialized treatment protocols with proven effectiveness…as it affects the field of psychotherapy. So we’re getting the technical skills we need to stay on the cutting edge of our profession:

• These days, IPG gets more and more requests for sex therapy, not only from couples whose primary problems are sexual, but also from couples who come in for help with communication or general areas of conflict – and then realize that their sex life could use an overhaul, as well. So we’ve sponsored two IPG staff members in a year-long postgraduate training course in sex therapy, to add to the numbers of our therapists qualified to do this work.

• Just as many couples realize, once in relationship counseling, that they have sexual issues as well as general problems – other couples with sexual problems find they cannot work out their sexual differences without first fixing the more basic conflicts. Because it is such a complex form of therapy, our entire staff is in the midst of an intensive series of training seminars with Bruce Wood, C.S.W., an internationally-known Certified Imago Therapy Trainer, author, and master relationship therapist. Among other things, Bruce collaborates with Maya Kollman, a well-known New Jersey Imago Therapist who has translated Imago principles for gay and lesbian couples.

• In general, there are few psychotherapy techniques that research has proven more effective than others – in most studies, the personality and ‘match’ between therapist and client has been the most important factor in predicting treatment success. An exception is cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, in the treatment of mood disorders. IPG therapists have always used CBT to help with depression, as the ‘first-line’ treatment for depression is the combination of medication and CBT. But now there is substantial evidence that CBT is even more important in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Anyone who has seen the movie ‘As Good As It Gets’ know that people who have OCD or related conditions like body dysmorphic disorder suffer a tormented existence of anxiety and ritualistic or avoidant behavior they are compelled to repeat over and over. Even the best medications for OCD are not completely successful. However, an extremely structured form of CBT, designed specifically to work with obsessive-compulsive disorder, gives great relief. Staff in both the Highland Park and Jersey City offices are being trained to offer this specialized service.

• Another treatment technique that is generating promising research results is the use of Eye Movement Desensitization Reprogramming (EMDR) to help relieve people who have suffered traumatic events, including those who have a child or adult history of abuse and violence. Because it is a largely nonverbal psychotherapy technique, it is effective for people who are not helped by ‘talk therapy’ alone. By the Fall of 2005, a half-dozen IPG staff will be certified EMDR practitioners.

• Lastly, our skills have grown in an area we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves. This past year many IPG staff members have suffered deaths in their families. Through the healing of our own personal wounds we have learned first-hand the skills and subtleties of grief counseling, and we are more prepared than in the past to truly understand and help those who suffer through the pains of bereavement.

TG Group Approaches Third Anniversary:   March marks the third anniversary of IPG’s Transgender Psychotherapy and Support group, run by Debbie Williamson, R.N., Assistant Director of IPG, Susan Menaham, L.C.S.W., Staff Therapist, and Terry M., Peer Counselor. The group has expanded so rapidly it has nearly outgrown our space; some months we have twenty participants. People at all points on the transgender continuum are welcome at our group. For more information, call Debbie at (800) 379-9220.

Do you find yourself feeling increasingly depressed as winter comes upon us? Have you had this same feeling occur for the past two or more winters? You may be suffering from SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is a type of depression that affects an estimated half a million people every winter between September and April, in particular, during December, January and February. It is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus due to the shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight in winter. Just as sunlight affects the seasonal activities of animals (e.g. reproductive cycles and hibernation), SAD may be an effect of this seasonal light variation in humans.

Symptoms may include:

• Excessive eating and/or sleeping during the fall or winter months, with full remission in the spring. Or disturbed sleep such as early morning wakening.
• Symptoms have occurred for at least two years, with no symptoms in spring and summer.
• A craving for sugary and/or starchy foods.
• Feeling fatigue and inability to carry out normal routines.
• Feelings of depression such as misery, guilt and loss of self-esteem, Irritability, decreased interest in sex and physical contact.
• Many sufferers show signs of a weakened immune system during winter months, and are more vulnerable to infections and other illnesses.

So what can you do about this?

Light therapy has been proven effective in up to 85% of diagnosed cases. That is, exposure an average of 1-2 hours to very bright light, at least ten times the intensity of ordinary domestic lighting. Ordinary light bulbs are not strong enough. At least 2500lux (Lux is the technical measure of brightness) is needed, which is five times brighter than a well-lit office. The user can watch TV or read, just allowing the light to reach the eyes.