Pleasure may be the key to the successful working of the reproductive systems of humans, but for all the enjoyment sexual relationships can provide, there are countervailing forces of guilt and disappointment at work on the individual psyche. Religious and social norms enforce limits on sexual expressiveness. These controls are defended as means to protect individuals and their partners from unhappiness due to infidelity. The contrasting balance of potential pleasure on the one hand and deeply felt self controls on the other gives rise to many problems of sexual health. Couples with discordant expectations about sexual pleasures can find their relationships crumbling. Deeply planted understandings about inappropriate behavior can cause individuals to feel shame or fear when faced with choices about their sexuality and particularly their desires. People unable to achieve desired pleasures due to physical handicaps experience a loss of wellbeing that can be extremely distressing. Simultaneously society struggles to control the individual expression of harmful sexual behavior such as pederasty while protecting the rights of individuals to enjoy personal satisfaction. The recognition and promotion of sexual pleasure as an integral part of wellbeing is one of the most challenging elements of the sexual health agenda. Progress in this area requires extraordinary efforts by professional groups and political leaders to forge a forthright understanding of the meaning of pleasure in people’s lives, and the priority of promoting healthy sexuality as a part of a global health agenda.
Conflict of Interest: None disclosed
Financial Support/Funding: None disclosed
Recorded: Sydney, Australia, April 2007
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