Social workers engage with sex and sexuality in all kinds of practice settings and with a variety of client populations. However, conversations about healthy sexuality and sexual well-being are all but absent from social work literature, education, and practice. Many social work professionals have internalized sociocultural taboos about talking about sexuality and tend to avoid the topic in their practice.
This book provides an overview of key sexuality-related topics for social workers from a sex-positive perspective, which encourages agency in sexual decision making and embraces consensual sexual activity as healthy and to be enjoyed without stigma or shame. It discusses a wide range of topics including physiology, sexual and gender identity, sex in older adulthood, BDSM and kink; nonmonogamous and polyamorous relationships, and ethical considerations, including erotic transference. The book is designed to embolden social workers to engage discussions of sexuality with clients and to provide an opportunity for self-reflection and professional growth. Accessible to students as well as social workers and mental-health professionals at all levels, Sex-Positive Social Work emphasizes the relationship between sexual well-being and overall well-being, giving social workers the tools to approach sex and sexuality actively and positively with clients.
A good introduction to sexuality-related topics for social workers or other professions who feel like the curriculum didn’t cover these topics enough. You might even learn something that your own sex education missed to address. Strong recommendation
Accessible and timely. This book has been adopted in multiple MFT programs because it speaks to clinicians in training who are learning how to talk comfortably and competently about sex in sessions, and to assess with the most up to date language and theories to understand clients. Good for any therapist who feels they are not well-versed or socially or emotionally prepared to address sexual concerns in therapy.