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9
If you are a health care professional, I hope this
book can give you some insight into understanding
and communicating with your sexually active patients,
especially those with alternative sexual lifestyles.. This
sensitivity and knowledge will enable you to treat all your
patients in a more caring and effective manner.
If you identify as a sexual minority or engage in non-
traditional sexual behaviors, I want to give you some
ideas about how to find health care professionals who
will be able to give you the care you deserve, and how to
talk to them once you find them. In today's health care
environment ­ where even the most caring of physicians
has at most fifteen minutes to spend with each patient ­ it's
important that you understand what kind of information
your health care professional needs, and the best ways to
present that information. (Remember, the only way he
has of knowing whether you're a happy self-actualized
pervert or a desperate abuse victim or a potential mental
patient is the information you provide!) I also hope to give
you some skills and suggestions regarding how to proceed
if your physician is not accepting of your lifestyle.
So if you're a doctor, psychologist, chiropractor,
osteopath, nurse, physician's assistant, therapist, physical
therapist, dentist, massage therapist, or perhaps even an
accountant or attorney...
Or you're a submissive, polyamorist, crossdresser,
transgendered person, sex worker, asexual, sexual only
with yourself, sadist, fetishist, dominant, intersexed,
modern primitive, swinger, or perhaps even simply gay,
lesbian or bisexual...
... please allow this book to act as an introduction.