Posted by JennyR on February 23, 2001, at 20:08:38
In reply to Females for me..., posted by Rach on February 14, 2001, at 8:37:44
My therapist is male. I never thought it made a difference. To me people are people, just different packaging. But it has been very uncomfortable when we've talked about sex. I remember after several sessions spent about sex, he asked how I had felt talking about it with him being a man. And that wasn't the first time he referred to his gender and I always thought that didn't matter. Like he would say that I feel attached to him or appreciate his attentiveness (which I used to express from time to time) because my father didn't pay much attention to me and my brother wasn't nice to me growing up. And to me I would think, well, my mother was a bitch with a terrible temper, so what does gender have to do with any of this. But then I was having some menstrual irregularities and needed to have some tests done and when I started to mention it, I felt very inhibited. He asked was it a problem with my periods. I was finding that weird to talk about though with a woman it might not have been. And I guess on some level I must have some kind of unconscious love thing going on because I'm intensely jealous of the wife when I've seen him with her or seen her alone or with their kid. I compare myself to her, wonder what he sees in her, etc. If he were a woman, I don't think I'd have this jealousy thing going with the spouse, so maybe there gender does matter. Even what I believe to be a very pure love within all the boundaries, still causes me to be jealous in that way. And I do find him attractive, though I have no illusions about anything beyond the boundaries.
poster:JennyR
thread:4601
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010209/msgs/4804.html