Lessons Learned From Meeting Gloria Steinem Last Week

Walking the few blocks from my home to where Gloria Steinem was going to be speaking this past Wednesday evening, I was positively giddy. Finally, I was going to meet a favorite heroine of mine, a woman who has advanced women's social equality in America and throughout the world for over four decades now. How privileged I felt to have a little private time with this pioneer whose courage to speak out against injustices to females has inspired me for as long as I can recall.

While I was at a private reception waiting to meet her, I thought about what I might learn tonight that could prove inspiring and useful to partners of sex addicts. I will share those gems in this post.

An hour after I arrived, we met. I had read interviewers describing her as approachable, affable and warm (not to mention intelligent, funny, wise) and nothing could be more accurate. With keen interest, she listened as I shared with her my concern about the increasing riptide of pornography, the glorification of prostitution and the resulting destruction we are witnessing.
And that it was happening despite (or, because of) the gains made by a movement she was so hugely influential in.
We talked about helping women know they have the right to say "no" to it, particularly challenging for young women growing up now within this ever-more-pornified culture. "No" doesn't feel like a viable option for them.

In a moment of shared repulsion as we parted, we both agreed that Hugh Hefner is one of the vilest men on the planet. She added, "He's worse than most people even know".

I believe her, she would know. He sued her for writing about him, exposing the misogyny behind his industrialization of women as sexual objects to be used as masturbatory fodder.

Later that evening, Ms. Steinem gave an impactful talk on the politics of gender, the future of feminism and on how we can foster a national spirit of cooperation to continue the advancement of the rights of all citizens.
I recorded and then transcribed her twenty-minute talk as well as a few relevant-to-our-audience questions and answers. You may read that transcript here: An Evening With Gloria Steinem

Walking back home, reflecting on her definition of feminism as "the radical belief that women are full human beings," I felt truly championed to continue helping women who are struggling through the shattering discoveries of chronic infidelities in their "committed" relationships.

There are days when we can fall prey to discouragement in our quest to create a more just system, one that not only focuses on stemming the tide of commercialized hypersexualization, but to help those who get personally hurt in that process: the partners of "sexual compulsives", who become the collateral damage.

The often unrelenting unfairness to partners that I see not only in their relationships but in the way they are often treated in therapy, by men's groups, clergy, divorce lawyers, the law itself, etc. can sometimes be incredibly daunting.
Partners are so often silenced, put back into the "penalty box" when they find their voices to speak up. Traumatized by their betrayals at home, they easily lose their power to remember they have rights as wives, partners and as paying clients of therapists and lawyers. Over time, they internalize the defeat and slink off silently into the night, leaving the corrupt systems intact and flourishing. But their struggles aren't going unnoticed.

Listen, then, to how Ms. Steinem outlines the way revolutions of change happen:

"When movements first start, it's people who have been invisible, rising up, it's issues that have been invisible rising up and needing to be named. So they grow up in a particular way that is very important..."

To anyone who feels too brow-beaten post-Discovery to advocate for themselves, let alone have an ounce of leftover energy to care about the unfair systems that disadvantage partners, know that we do care, and there are organizations that do care about how you are treated-- APSATS.org, the work of Dr. Omar Minwalla, Dr. George Simon, Sisterhood of Support, feminist-informed groups working alongside and behind the scenes (we count ourselves happily among them), and other sources too numerous to mention. Be encouraged by Ms. Steinem's wisdom:

"We believe that there are these huge problems that we have no impact on. We do! All change really comes from the bottom up, like a tree. A tree does not grow from the top down; revolutions do not grow from the top down. They grow from the way we treat each other... I mean, if we just changed that, we create a wave of change that will continue. It is truly about how we treat each other."

Another important takeaway from my evening with Ms. Steinem was about the power of the collective, of groups, to not only ignite external changes to dysfunctional systems but to support and care for one another, to encourage our wounded selves to heal in community:

"....we are communal animals. We cannot do it alone.
If we are by ourselves, we come to feel isolated and crazy and wrong.

We have been sitting in a circle around a campfire for 100,000 years at least, listening to each other's stories. And that's what we're doing here. And that's why it's so important to be in the same room where we can empathize with each other, understand each other...listen to each other and create the kind of future...just tomorrow, and the next day and the next. I think it's in our cellular memories, that we once had these collaborative, cooperative, circular cultures. I think we long for it, and we can do it. We can do it in this room, we can do it the next day and the next day."

To read these quotes in context, view the entire transcript here: An Evening With Gloria Steinem

Take solace that you are not alone and consider adding your voice to the Comment section below so that one other person reading this in a remote part of the world (or who feels alone in their relationship) can take heart from your sharing.

What inspired, encouraged, angered or in any other way moved you as you journey towards your whole self again? Please Comment, Share us, and Like us so others can find us!

You May Also Like: My Boy Brain on Porn: How Fantasy Can Affect Intimacy Second Hand Porn: The SpreadingCircle of Damage Why I Stopped Watching Porn--A Young Man Speaks Out at TEDx Talks The Healing Path For Partners

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