Sexuality & Biodynamic Theory
THE INHERITED STANDARD: Reich’s orgasmic potency — a specific physical process treated as the marker of psychological health.
THE RECONSTRUCTION: the goal is not orgasmic normalisation. The goal is sexual self-authorship.
What Biodynamic theory inherited from Reich
Biodynamic Psychotherapy grew out of the Reichian tradition, and some of its underlying assumptions about vitality and “healthy” bodily functioning carry that lineage’s specific model of sexual health — built around a particular physical process many bodies, disabled and otherwise, don’t experience in that exact form.
Why this matters here specifically
Disabled people are already frequently desexualised or treated as though sexuality doesn’t apply to them. A body psychotherapy tradition that implicitly measures sexual health against a specific physical standard risks reinforcing that erasure in clinical language, even unintentionally.
The reconstruction
A rich, legitimate erotic life doesn’t require a specific physical process to count as real. Sexuality, sensuality, fantasy, touch, intimacy, self-pleasure, the use of assistive devices, ambivalence, refusal, and grief about what’s changed are all legitimate parts of sexual self-authorship — not deviations from a required standard this tradition happened to inherit.
A question worth carrying
Am I measuring my own sexual life against a specific process this theory assumed — or against what actually feels alive and mine?
You may also want to explore
Disability, Sexuality & Pleasure · Vegetotherapy · Biodynamic Psychotherapy & Disability