Dr. Marty Klein, When Sex Gets Complicated: Infidelity, Pornography & (Almost) Everything Else

About Dr. Marty Klein...

Dr. Marty Klein doesn’t just treat sexual and intimacy problems—he formulates new ways to think about the culture that spawns sexual and intimacy problems, and the ways in which psychology, medicine, and the media collude with pathology-based narratives that keep both professionals and our clients stuck.

Marty frequently appears in the popular media, such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Public Radio, and The Daily Show. Marty is an outspoken critic of many popular and clinical ideas about sexuality and emotional health, and is a dedicated advocate of sexuality training for psychologists, physicians, attorneys, clergy, and school boards. He recently gave two U.S. Congressional briefings on evidence-based sex education.

Marty’s blog and electronic newsletter Sexual Intelligence are frequently cited as sources of innovative thinking about sexuality, culture, politics, and the media. His new book is Sexual Intelligence; Psychology Today calls it “unflinching,” and encourages us to “read this if you want to improve your sex life.”

Each year Marty trains thousands of psychologists and physicians across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. He has been an invited Master Presenter at 9 state CAMFT conferences. Audiences consistently call his talks thought-provoking, down-to-earth, and entertaining.

About the training....

The number of clients involved in non-monogamy, pornography, sadomasochism, online eroticism, and sex toys has dramatically increased. Are we prepared to provide them quality therapy?

There are fundamental things about sexuality that the internet has not changed: the desire to feel desired; insecurity about “performance;” the search for the perfect partner; the yearning for connection; the fear of intimacy; the desire for pleasure; and fear of sexuality’s power.

The internet, however, has increased everyone’s opportunities for sexual expression: 24-hour pornography; apps that feed the hookup culture; the flood of online information; sex toys for sale on Amazon; Match.com & Grindr; and platforms for every kind of sex work.

With everyone’s old-fashioned brain and body attempting to function sexually in a post-modern world, new challenges have emerged for therapists, including:

• How can we help partners with contrasting sexual values talk with each other productively?
• After infidelity (online or offline), how do we hold both partners while they struggle to define their behavior, contract, and emotions?  What if they don’t agree on the definition of “infidelity”?  What if one partner wants to change their sexual arrangement?
• What is the structure of most couples’ conflicts about porn?  What are these conflicts really about?  How do we help two adults negotiate meaningful agreements when one or both feel sad, lonely, or angry about their sexual relationship?  How do we help someone who’s using porn self-destructively?