SASH Annual Conference, Austin, Texas 22-24 September 2016
“Hi, y’all!” Such was the all-embracing warm welcome to newcomers at the annual conference for the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH) in Austin, Texas. The theme for the conference was Integrating Heart, Mind and Body. Our CEO, Mary Sharpe, having been appointed as a board member earlier this year, was delighted to meet a range of professionals working in the sexual health field in person at the event itself. The three previous board meetings had been attended via Skype starting usually at 1.00 a.m. UK time.
TRF Chair, Darryl Mead, also attended. Darryl and Mary gave a joint 90 minute workshop on the “Disintegrating Effect of Internet Pornography” setting out the latest research on the impact on the adolescent brain in particular and suggested steps for prevention of harm and recovery.
Mary Sharpe has taken on the role of Chair to the Public Relations and Advocacy committee for SASH. At the SASH Awards Ceremony on 23 September Mary presented two prizes.
- The Media Award was won by Paula Hall for her powerful TEDx talk We Need To Talk About Sex Addiction.
- The Research Award was won by by Dr Paula Banca from the University of Cambridge for her lead role in the paper Novelty, conditioning and attentional bias to sexual rewards. Her co-authors were Laurel S. Morris, Simon Mitchell, Neil A. Harrison, Marc N. Potenza and Valerie Voon.
In addition, the TRF team decided to take advantage of the presence of a range of world class experts in the field of sexual health to film interviews of them discussing their professional opinions on the impact of streaming porn videos and easy, anonymous access to porn on the culture. Apart from clinicians and academics, Mary and Darryl heard the stories from a young man who is a recovering porn addict, from a young woman who is a recovering porn and sex addict, and from the wife of a still-active, porn-addicted Christian Pastor from whom she is now divorced. She talked about the impact on her, their children and the reaction of the church hierarchy when they found out about her ex-husband’s behaviour.
Once these interviews have been edited we shall be putting them on the website.
