The missionary position is a trauma response 15 August 2024 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , Patriarchy , Sexuality , No Comments In Sex in patriarchy – how the past shapes sex today I describe the ‘3 M’s’—married, monogamous, missionary (position)—as the bedrock of modern sexuality. At the time, I attributed the […]
Slavery, circumcision, and the male fear of nudity 24 June 2024 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Sexuality , No Comments When working with shame—particularly sexual shame—we continually encounter manifestations of the fear of being seen naked. For men at least, this fear is linked to ancestral traumas around slavery and circumcision. The […]
7 Divine truths about the energy of sex 26 October 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , No Comments Sex is the most maligned aspect of human existence. It’s also the most necessary—we wouldn’t be here without it. The notion that sex is a divine aspect of our being—and thus subject to divine […]
When men become emotionally available their sexual demons emerge 6 September 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , No Comments In a blog titled Is there a hole at the heart of your relationship? I describe a situation I see in a growing number of relationships: one partner (usually the woman) is emotionally […]
The woodlot – using early sexual memories to heal trauma 19 August 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , No Comments I recently recovered an early sexual memory, from a woodlot in Switzerland aged 10 or so—around the same time as my first experience of porn. Recovery of this memory shows that I’m […]
The 1960s Sexual Revolution – breaking mass sexual repression 18 August 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Sexuality , No Comments My attention has recently been drawn to the 1960s Sexual Revolution, an event that has largely receded out of memory and is mostly remembered through the occasional popular song on the […]
Measuring shame – Wilhelm Reich’s 1930s oscillograph experiments 8 July 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Anxiety , History , Sexuality , Shame , No Comments Unconscious shame may seem like a vague, subjective concept. In the 1930s, Wilhelm Reich conducted experiments using an oscillograph showing that not only was shame—particularly sexual shame—measurable, but […]
Premature Ejaculation – how shame short-circuits sex 28 February 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , Shame , No Comments I recently wrote about the impact of shame on Erectile Dysfunction. In this blog, we’re going to look at that other great bête noire of male sexuality, Premature Ejaculation (PE). Bugbears & black […]
Erectile Dysfunction – how shame prevents sex 27 February 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , Shame , No Comments In a blog titled The forbidden image of the penis I examined the fundamentally shameful nature of the penis. Here let us examine how that shame manifests in Erectile Dysfunction (ED). According to the British […]
Libido disappears when shame is absent 28 November 2022 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , Shame , No Comments “My libido is strong. I have a high sex drive.” How often are such phrases used to justify inappropriate, disrespectful, and unhealthy sexual behaviour? How often do politicians, actors and other celebrities make the […]