Healthy Relationships in an Unhealthy Hyper-Sexualized Culture
The holiday season is a time our hearts turn to the relationships in our lives. Family and friends move to the forefront of our consciousness and on our calendars. For many it is a time for joyful reflection on the blessings of all the relationships in their lives.
But for some the season involves a heightened sense of grief and loss. When one’s family has experienced the devastation of an addiction or when friends have become alienated due to chaos that swirls around a hypersexuality disorder, the holidays sometimes cast a lonely shadow.
Hypersexuality disorder and sexual addiction affect one’s personal health and are also public health issues. Insofar as they undermine a person’s freedom to live life fully, everyone is diminished in some way by the disorder.
During this holiday season we invite you to take a moment to review the blessings in your life. Take the time to recall what you value most about members of your family. Think about how you appreciate your friends. This holiday season do not take your family and friends for granted.
In this issue we explore the value of high quality relationships in your life. We then pause to consider how a hypersexual society puts those relationships at risk. A good relationship takes work. Invest the time with people who matter most to you. Scan the horizon to identify risks that may put those relationships at risk. Look for opportunities to let the people in your life know how much they really matter, in this holiday season and every day!
If you know of someone who may struggle with a sexual addiction, call now for help: 916-728-5433.
The Quality of Your Relationships
In this long-term study begun in 1938, Harvard University researchers discover the secret of a long, healthy, life. Exercise and eating right matter. But they do not matter as much as the quality of your relationships. If you had cancer, you would go to see a doctor. But what if you really believed that the quality of your relationships mattered as much or more than the health of your body? What would you change if came to that realization hat being partnered well and having enduring friendships is a truly a matter of life and death?
Culture Reframed: How Pornography Undermines Healthy Relationships
Dr. Gail Dines is Professor Emerita of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College in Boston, an internationally acclaimed speaker, author, and a feminist public intellectual. Her writing and lectures focus on the hypersexualization of the culture and the ways that porn images filter down into mainstream pop culture. In this TEDx talk, Dr. Dines explores how pornagraphy shapes a hypersexaul culture and how a hypersexual culture undermines our ability to enter healthy relationships others. Warning: Strong language & potentially triggering images. Learn more at Culture Reframed.
Fight the New Drug
This presentation from Fight the New Drug, explores the value and importance of relationships and how pornography undermines our natural need to love and be loved. “Think twice about giving your heart to something without a pulse.”