Lessons Learned from Being Malta’s First Sex Therapist

When I first entered the world of sex therapy, I wasn’t merely starting a clinic, I was coming into the midst of issues around sex in Malta. I was starting a conversation that others simply didn’t want to have, confronting silence with honesty and discomfort with truth.

So I knew that it wouldn’t be easy. Resistance was expected. What I didn’t expect was the level of pushback, not just from the public but also from institutions, educators and my professional circles.

Some experience has been beautiful, some painful, and others priceless, but not all lessons are easy. Not a lot, but being first means fighting the fire alone.

Being the first sex therapist in Malta I did not have a blueprint. I did everything from scratch, and had no community to build on through my first years, no mentors at the community level, no real guidance in navigating whatever reaction was sure to come in order to raise some thorny subjects about sex in such a reactionary environment.

My work was seen as a threat. They accuse me of polluting young people, attacking the values of family, advocating foreign ideas that did no place in our national culture. At the same time critics from the other end of the spectrum wanted me to be more radical, more extreme and more inclined to tear down tradition than help mold it. I could never be the version that many thought they wanted me to be.

Some wanted me to be more radical; some more traditional, but neither fit my mold. That, I learned, is what you are willing to pay to be first. You carry the weight of everyone’s expectations; and yet take the hits before people begin to get what you’re after. And you do it alone.

Sex Education Was A Fight, Not Just for Students but Teachers and Parents as well.

I was tasked with attending schools and giving talks about sex and relationships. Frequently, I was not only teaching students, but also to teachers and parents who might also have as many misconceptions and discomforts as their children.

I had no problem with that. I voluntarily took my place in those conversations. But the surprise I found most surprising was how much resistance I received from within the very institutions that had invited me with open arms.

I used to take hours to prepare resources and adjust presentations to suit what each school needed. That effort had little impact, and final decisions, sometimes made at the highest levels, still resulted in unexpected rejections.

Other times, I found people watching me talk on TV or Facebook and saying I was “not suitable.” In other cases, the complaint from a single parent was sufficient. Teachers who resisted my approach sometimes managed to subtly sidestep me.

At just one of our talks a priest sat in the back, not knowing, but trying to figure out something that he could report. He snapped at me, furious that I had spoken of masturbation, and sprinted to his superior to file a complaint.

At my other schools, parents protested my presence. Teachers got into trouble for answering students’ questions about pornography, questions they initiated. I never pressured any topic, but I declined to lie when youths posed genuine, straight-talking questions.

Sex education in Malta was not just the schooling of students; it was also the struggles born out of the layers of fear, shame, and generations’ silence.

And sometimes I wasn’t allowed to win my battle.

The Fear of Open Conversation Is Deep.

After speaking on national TV about sex therapy, the floodgates opened. Some people reached out for help. Others sent hate messages. And then some invoked my public presence as an excuse to shut off my work.

After verifying what I said, one school took a sudden stand, another instance of sex in education being a challenge that still robs many of our schools. They didn’t go into one session, and one parent complained about something I had said. In another, a teacher considered my presence too risky in the classroom.

So what I discovered was that Malta wasn’t afraid of sex education; it was afraid of open discussion.

Many didn’t think young people should be able to think critically about sex and relationships. They wanted them to adhere to the rules rather than to ask questions. To obey, not understand. But the avoidance of conversations doesn’t make the problems disappear. Young people were already watching porn. They are already receiving misinformation from their friends. Already dealing with issues of body image, consent and unrealistic expectations in relationships.

The one difference was that finally, while there in the room, they had somewhere safe to call and ask.

People who criticized me in public actually reached out privately, This was one of my most puzzling lessons.

Some of the people, who criticized my work online or protested my presence in schools and dismissed it, were the people who contacted me later privately. At one of my events, I quickly lost count of how many times someone pulled me aside and whispered, “Hey, I actually have a question about something personal…”.

Some parents didn’t want me at their child’s school, but then emailed me to suggest that we support his or her marriage. Teachers weren’t keen on my talks but then acknowledged that they knew nothing about a student who approached them with real complaints about sex or relationships. It taught me that resistance isn’t always about rejection. Even Sometimes, It is for fear that people resist.

The hardest resisting change–those who resist most often the most need it most.

Loneliness Was Part of the Job.

I expected challenges. I could only imagine how isolating the journey would be.

As Malta’s first sex therapist, I was walking into rooms where no one else understood my work as often as I did.

Some of the other therapists I saw were uncomfortable with me. Not infrequently did I make the rounds with educators and be labeled too controversial. I at times was reduced to a punchline or misunderstood headline among the public.

There were moments when I nearly quit. Times when the criticism felt greater than the impact I was having. It had its quiet, hard moments. Times when I questioned whether it was worth the drain of continually smashing against a wall that appeared to stand still.

But every time I sat with a client who was relieved after years of shame … Whenever a couple revealed to me that they had reconnected after months of distance … When a young person wrote, ‘Thank you for responding to that. No one else would.’ I knew it was worth it.

The Long One: Change Is Slow, But It Happens Malta also still has a long way to go on open, informed conversations around sex and relationships. But it progressed more than many realize. When I started, nobody wanted to talk about these things. Now, at least, the talking is occurring. Even when there’s backlash, even when there’s resistance, the fact that the topic is out in the open means change is a fact.

The new generation is far more knowledgeable, far more questioning and far more free to question the old. Professionals are starting to get comfortable working sex and intimacy into their work. Progress is slow. Frustratingly slow. But it happens. If you’d questioned me in my early days when I was overwhelmed, when schools were cancelling my talks, when strangers were attacking my character, I might have been hesitant.

Absolutely, without a doubt. There was a profound isolation when I became Malta’s first sex therapist. It was trying to be in a way I would never have expected. It had me second-guessing myself at times more than a few times. Still, it did turn out to be important. In retrospect, I wouldn’t change a thing.