Muizenberg sexologist and psychosexual educator Delene van Dyk will be discussing sex and intimacy during Pandora’s se Doos, at Joon in Palmer Road Muizenberg, tomorrow night, Saturday July 20.
The doos, or box, referred to in the title is the cardbox box. “mooi gedek with a feather boa”, according to Delene, which she will be asking her audience to place their written questions in.
Originally from Pretoria, Delene is working on a book, Binaries and Boxes, which deals with gender fluidity and sexuality.
Travelling and talking about sex has formed the basis of Delene’s work for more than 20 years.
Although the topic for Friday night certainly involves sex, Delene will primarily be talking about intimacy issues.
Delene says she’s always hoping to be asked something she’s never heard before – it’s all educational, she says.
And if she doesn’t know the answer (she laughs at this) she will find out, and post it on her social media accounts.
The idea is to get people talking and listening.
Delene says there is still a lot of shame, and equal amounts of projection, linked to sex and it can stop us experiencing real intimacy and connection, recognition and permission that we all crave.
She tells the story of a man who told her he was against gay people, and when she explored this with him, he said he was happily married with children, but although his wife was being satisfied in the bedroom, he was not.
“While we spoke, he said what bothered him was that gay and lesbian people were ‘allowed’ to or had the freedom to express themselves sexually in unconventional ways, and he envied that. So the realisation for him was that his objection wasn’t really about gay people. He understood that he was upset because they were being accepted and allowed the sexual freedom he didn’t feel in his own marriage,” Delene says.
Most people, she says, have these unconscious projections and harbour shame or fears of not being normal with regards to their sexual preferences and tastes.
The event at Joon, she says is an invitation to explore these preferences and have a discussion free of shame about what works, and what can work, for individuals and couples.
She says even the way we describe things is filled with blame and exclusion: people are love addicts or sex addicts.
“Why don’t we refer to these very human conditions as intimacy disorders?” she asks.
Tickets for Pandora’s se Doos are R65 and can be booked at www.quicket.co.za
