Sexologist Dr. Charley Ferrer Discusses How Latina Self-Empowerment Can Lead to Better and Safer Sex

by Chael Needle

Ever since one of her sex-therapy classes as a grad student, Dr. Charley Ferrer has been searching for something “more.” She had been assigned therapy with an individual with erectile dysfunction, discovered that he was feeling guilty about desiring a particular sexual practice, and advised him to talk openly with his partner about it. The sexual practice wasn’t exactly vanilla, but it wasn’t illegal or harmful, either. When she reported back to her class that the couple had negotiated their comfort levels and the dysfunction was gone, her classmates and even her professor blanched at her accepting a non-judgmental attitude. Well, they “freaked,” says Dr. Ferrer, with a laugh.

This experience helped fuel her to continue her studies and reach out to people to provide information and education about the wonderful world of our “fantasies and fetishes.” Now an educator, researcher, and therapist, her latest mission is to educate Latinas about HIV/AIDS and sexual health.

A graduate of Institute for Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality in San Francisco and founder of the Ferrer Institute, Dr. Ferrer provides sexual therapy counseling and education, gives seminars and keynotes, and has added several award-winning titles to the bookshelves: W.I.S.E. Journal for the Sensual Woman and its Spanish translation (with more chapters devoted to Latinas), Para la Mujer Sensual; The Passionate Latina: In Our Own Words (based on her research study on Latina sexuality); and her latest work-in-progress, The Latina Kama Sutra. She is currently securing sponsors for the October 2 premiere of her play-cum-seminar, The Latina Monologues: Our Sexual Awakening.

Her experience at the United Community AIDS Network in Washington State while she was a student prepared her well for writing and speaking out about stemming the increasing rate of HIV transmission, especially within the Latino community. “Latinos are one of the top HIV contractors in the United States. Especially Latinas. My whole focus is getting our numbers down, doing it through education, self-empowerment, and saying to ladies, ‘We need to look at what’s happening in our own culture and get up on the information and start doing a little bit more than we have been doing.’” She says Latinas are where American women were in the sixties: “We’re just starting our sexual awakening.”

When Dr. Ferrer analyzed the results of her Latina sexuality study a few years ago, she found that twelve percent of the participants had already experienced their first sexual encounter before the age of twelve. These encounters were mostly through rape and incest. “Not talking about sex until young women are sixteen is [not productive]. Our children are already learning about sex, and not in a positive way.” They’re learning from a media saturated with sex and idealized versions of romantic love. Women and girls are also expected to shoulder the burden of honor in Latino communities, even in situations they never consented to. Where can these children turn to find out about sex, she asks, when “we tend to learn only what’s taught or given to us?” She adds: “In the Latino community, [sexual knowledge] is a bit more taboo than in the American community. We have that hurdle to overcome as well—you’re not supposed to be thinking about sex, so why would you pick up a book on sex?” But, she says, it’s up to adults to enter into the process of educating themselves and the youth of their communities. Sexual health starts with knowledge and self-empowerment.

As the first and only Latina doctor of human sexuality in the U.S., Dr. Ferrer knows firsthand how sexual dysfunction has harmed her community of origin as well as the wider American community. She even suggests that sexual dysfunction within the Latino community is more rampant than in the general U.S. population. What can the Latino community, and Latinas in particular, do to address this and protect their health, whether negative or positive?

Coming to understand the limitations of machismo, she says, is one way: “Latinas are very much still entrenched in the old machismo. We look to our men—and I say ‘we’ because I’m Puerto Rican—for information, for guidance, for help with our sexuality.” What she has discovered, however, is that men are often just as unaware of their bodies and just as misinformed about the basics of sexuality as women.

Fighting the pressures of stereotypes is another way: “You’re supposed to be this hot-blooded Latina who’s going to make wild, passionate love to your man 24-7. The reality is: We have the same amount of hang-ups that everyone else has, and probably more. We not only get the taboos of our culture; we also get the taboos of the [mainstream] American culture. It becomes a war: Do I listen to the old beliefs or the new beliefs? And how does that affect me?” Men are not immune to these pressures, either: “The Latin lover is supposed to want sex all the time, and he’s a horny little bugger running around like Pepé Le Pew. And it’s not true.”

Faith communities need to step up to the plate. Many religious leaders, she suggests, need to move beyond abstinence-only education and learn how to address sexual practices even as they’re preaching against them. They’re “faltering in what they can do for the community,” Dr. Ferrer says. “Because they don’t step forward...

[prevention] is not happening as quickly as it should.”

Perhaps the most important step toward self-empowerment is for Latinos, especially women, to become aware of their bodies and desires—and know that it’s okay to do so. “If you’re trying to teach individuals about STD prevention when they’re not even supposed to be talking about their bodies, you’re not getting anywhere. We need to take a step back and go: Let me teach you how to be comfortable about your body, about self-empowerment, about your value as a person.” Empowerment, she suggests, encourages people to seek out information about STDs, insist on condoms, and learn how to negotiate sexual situations.

Self-empowerment is vital for preventing HIV but it’s also important for living with HIV, as well. She makes a point of addressing the sexual doubts many have after diagnosis: “‘Can I still be loved, still be sexual, still have a fulfilling life? Can I still enjoy spontaneous sex?’ The answer is yes to all of those. Just because you’re positive doesn’t mean life ends. It might mean that you have to be more cautious, but you can be just as wonderful as you were before.”

Women who are living with HIV/AIDS especially need to pay attention to their health. They often develop more health complications than men do and their health often suffers because they are caring for others before themselves. “And I’ve had quite a few women tell me that after they’ve learned their status, their partner would turn around and blame her for it when it was the partner playing around,” says Dr. Ferrer. She also notes that women often wrestle with the question of what might happen to their children if their health fails or they die.

There are several sexual issues that everyone needs help with, she says: communicating with your partner about your needs and desires before, during, and after sex; finding ways to counter guilt feelings; examining one’s expectations about sex; checking out each other’s bodies for signs of STDs; and exploring other forms of sexual expression beyond penetrative sex, among others. It’s okay to be prepared, she says, to carry around condoms and lube and plant them around the house. Planning spontaneity, she says, is not a contradiction in terms; and having condoms does not mean that you are even going to have sex or that you are a slut. “It just means that you’re an independent woman who believes in taking care of herself, in controlling her own sexuality, in keeping herself safe.”

If you are a Latino male, click here to learn how you can participate in Dr. Charley Ferrer’s Latino Sexuality Study.

Chael Needle is Managing Editor of A&U.