Double-whammy – the shame of lack of sexual experience 16 October 2020 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , Shame , No Comments As this site deals with awkward topics such as shame, generational trauma and porn addiction, from time to time I receive interesting queries. One such recent query was about the shame […]

What is the ‘sexual-spiritual split’? 25 June 2020 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Sexuality , No Comments The ‘sexual-spiritual split’ is a term that comes to us from Michael Picucci, PhD, co-founder of the Institute for Staged Recovery. Writing in The Journey toward Complete Recovery, Picucci describes the sexual-spiritual split as “a […]

Healing the “shambles” – uniting head, heart and genitals 28 May 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Patriarchy , No Comments In The Heart of the Soul, American spiritual teacher Gary Zukav writes that, “The longest journey that you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.” It’s a popular […]

Ancestral trauma #2 – Core sexual wound 21 May 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Patriarchy , Sexuality , No Comments In What is ancestral trauma? I describe the key psychological wounds that humanity suffered as a result of the drought, desertification and famine that gave rise to patriarchy. Here I want to focus […]

Lap-dancing clubs don’t sell sex, they sell a boundary 3 May 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Patriarchy , Sexuality , No Comments It’s a common misconception that lap-dancing clubs, or gentlemen’s clubs, as they are otherwise (and somewhat euphemistically) known, sell sex*. What they actually sell is an invisible boundary between fake sex […]

The sexual energy quadrant – creativity, passion, playfulness and confidence 15 March 2019 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Anxiety , Sexuality , No Comments We tend to think of sex as a component of our love lives, and that’s it. When we have a romantic partner, we have sex with them. Period. We don’t […]

Sex in patriarchy – how the past shapes sex today 15 December 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Patriarchy , No Comments In A brief history of shame, I wrote how patriarchy arose some 6,000 years ago, giving rise to male dominant, anti-female, anti-sexual societies. Here I’m going to examine the way […]

The birds, the bees, and the fear of sex 8 November 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , No Comments I can still vividly remember the place where my father took me aside, some time in 1976, for the obligatory ‘birds and bees’ talk that all teenagers faced back then. It was a […]

Is sexual shame keeping you single? 24 May 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , Shame , No Comments When I was young, for a few years we used to holiday at a hotel on Lake Lugano in northern Italy. And, every year, two English gentlemen—brothers—were there at the same time. One of […]

The sexual radicalisation of Lawrence of Arabia 9 March 2018 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Radicalisation , No Comments I recently wrote about the influence of unconscious shame upon the personality of perhaps the single most memorable individual to emerge from World War I, T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of […]