Love & Sex in WNC: A new monthly relationship column with Jamie Zane

Dear Readers,

I consider myself lucky to be a curious person who isn’t afraid to take risks. It’s brave to express vulnerabilities, and I value sharing from the heart. That’s what I keep telling myself as I step into this very exciting (and a little terrifying) adventure of presenting you with this new monthly column.

My hope is that this will be a space for us to explore the things that matter most to so many of us — our relationship to ourselves, each other and the world around us.

Before we get started, I’d like to share a little about me and my intentions for this endeavor.

I grew up in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey (yes — there are woods in Jersey), spent several years in Philadelphia, moved out to Colorado and then made Asheville my forever home in 2011. I am a transplant who dares to say she felt called here.

As a first-generation college student from a working-class background, I racked up more student loan debt than most and eventually earned several degrees while waiting tables and volunteering as a rape crisis counselor, including a master’s degree in education in human sexuality and a master’s in marriage and family therapy. The life experiences I’ve had are far more interesting than the degrees I forced myself to finish — but damn, that sex degree has become rather useful.

My current professional roles tend to be congruent with one another: psychotherapist specializing in human sexuality; clinical supervisor for therapists all over the country who are pursuing sex therapy certification; owner of a group practice that has grown way bigger than I had imagined; adjunct professor at my former therapy school in South Carolina; and now a monthly columnist. I’m also a mom, a friend, a partner, and a cat and dog enthusiast.

What to expect each month

Relationships are sometimes confusing, terrifying, messy and exhausting. I’d like to think that the rewards are worth the risk and aim to share the reasons why I’ve made an entire life that centers on relationships.

I feel quite comfortable talking about my work in certain terms but never about my people directly. There is nothing more sacred to me than confidentiality in therapy, and I am fiercely protective of this agreement. If I discuss something that I have done in my work, it will be in vague terms and mostly focused on what I said or did.

The topic of sex is triggering for so many people and for a variety of reasons that span across diverse identities. When a subject matter is so provocative that it can hardly be spoken about — yet it is also such an important part of our humanity and it can be seen almost everywhere — this drives my curiosity and desire to uncover what’s behind it all.

As the title suggests, this will be a space for feelings, and we’re going to discuss the difference between feelings and desire, the health of relationships, mental/emotional health and why these things are so important. We will engage about the barriers that we face in communication with others and within ourselves. We will contemplate the role of culture’s influence on relationships and sex. We will talk about fun things like how to incorporate play into your life and why it’s so important for us throughout our whole lives. We will address hard things like unwanted sexual experiences, desire discrepancies, navigating sex after cancer and coping with feeling chronically unsafe.

There is no single demographic in mind for this column. Sometimes you will see yourself in our discussions, and sometimes you will not — but you will hopefully have the ability to connect with the underlying human experience within the topic we are exploring. That is the ingredient to what I think of as next-level empathy — it’s not knowing exactly what the person is experiencing but understanding the underlying emotions involved in their experience.

This column will also be somewhat of a hybrid. Sometimes I will interview a guest based on the topic of interest. Other times I might just go on a rant that will hopefully take you for an interesting ride. And hopefully — I really do mean this sincerely — some of you will feel compelled to write in a question, and I can fulfill one of my lifelong dreams of doling out advice to strangers. Because that is not what therapists usually get to do. Just know that I’m not your therapist in this role, and nothing that I communicate with you in this space should be taken as a form of therapy.

Consider this 

For now, I will leave you with something to contemplate:

What is sex for?

If you are game for an activity, write down as many answers as you possibly can. Then circle the answers that matter to you the most. And then think about how connected or disconnected you feel with what I’m now going to call your sexual values. And if you’re looking for a deeper connection with a partner or a friend, engage in some conversation this Valentine’s Day (or any random day) on the above question.

If you’d like to contribute to the column by sending a question or a topic request, please email me at jamie@outofthewoodstherapy.com and indicate Mountain Xpress in your subject line. I will most likely not be responding to these emails directly and anything you write may be featured in the column anonymously.

Back in my graduate program in human sexuality, I learned that there are three underlying questions that people have behind almost every question about sex: Am I normal? Is this (fantasy, desire, proclivity) normal? Do I have permission to do this?

Over the following months, “Love & Sex in WNC” intends to address these — and many more — topics!