Sex is War’s Antidote

Over the last 2 years, I conducted 3, 4 month trainings, followed by a 3 month train-the-trainer program with Ukrainian healthcare providers who work with veterans – some of them combat veterans themselves. This was some of my most rewarding and meaningful work to date. Because of my work at Walter Reed, talking about sex amongst the chaos of war will always live in a special place in my soul and the Ukrainian colleagues now live there too.

With the train-the-trainer program wrapping up, the Ukrainian teachers are now prepared to facilitate sexual health trainings Ukraine-wide and will be able to reach hundreds of Ukrainian providers a year! It was such a pleasure to get to know all of the trainers, learn from them, and witness each of their talents as they developed their facilitator skills. This small group of passionate and confident providers will make history in the Ukraine!

With the Russian invasion going on in the background, we held class in the evenings over zoom. They are dealing with calamity and trauma every day, yet they came onto the call with such purpose, dedication, and humor. They would say, “the missiles are going off right over my head, but we’re shooting them down”, “I slept in the stairwell last night in my dog’s dog bed, good thing I have a big dog”, “We don’t have electricity or heat, but I am here”…

All to help provide holistic rehabilitation that their wounded veterans deserve. All to support and celebrate sex.

Because sex will always be wars antidote.

To the Olena Punchuck foundation, thank you for this opportunity.

Slava Ukraini

I pray for peace, but so long as there is the chaos of war, I hope I’m there talking about sex.