Photo by Sherri Koop
By Kristi Alexandra
@kristialexandra
When it comes to women’s health, there’s no topic sexier than sex itself. So, if you’re a Vancouverite with an interest in reading about sex and relationships, then there’s a good chance you’ve already heard (or read) the name Dr. Lori Brotto.
Clinical psychologist, OB/GYN professor, researcher, author, executive director of the Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI)—the list goes on. There aren’t enough titles to describe Dr. Brotto’s career accomplishments, but she finds herself comfortably wedged between psychology and sexual health.
In this intersection is where you’ll see her name on as the voice of authority in certain Savage Love columns, breaking new ground on women’s sexual autonomy in medical journals and, most recently, in bookstores, as her book Better Sex Through Mindfulness hit shelves in April of this year.
“I’m not an author, I’m a scientist,” Dr. Brotto tells Loose Lips Magazine in her office at BC Women’s Hospital, recanting her reluctant experience of publishing Better Sex Through Mindfulness.
As a scientist, Dr. Brotto was used to writing journal articles, but in 2009, the New York Times published a spread about the doctor’s research on the correlation between sex and mindfulness. The following day, 22 publishers got in contact about writing a book.
“Over the years, I have developed a program of research focusing on a number of different aspects of women’s sexual health,” she explains. “A lot of my work over time uses mindfulness, meditation, and strategies as a way of improving sexual function. My book is on the translation of the science of ‘What have we discovered in this area of women’s health? How does mindfulness improve sexual function?’”
When she’s not taking a tangible approach to her work in her private practice, where she works two days per week, Dr. Brotto can be found at the WHRI at BC Women’s Hospital, where she currently sits as the executive director.
“[This role] has the women’s advocacy piece that was missing for me in my other roles. To be in a role that was enabling women, championing women’s voices, moving the agenda on women’s health topics that get ignored and not recognized…there was an opportunity to do this on a much broader scale.”
In Dr. Brotto’s own words, she’s more of an enabler than a researcher. She brings teams of scientists together to answer a common conundrum.
“We ask, ‘How can we really move the needle on women’s health and on awareness of women’s health?’ Research and funding are two key pieces of that.”
Take, for example, Dr. Brotto’s own research with UBC on women’s genital pain—a condition clinically known as Provoked Vestibulodynia (PVD), which affects about 10 per cent of women.
Because of her findings in conjunction with the UBC study, Dr. Brotto was able to prove that PVD is a real pain condition and address it with psychological treatment. To get the word out, Dr. Brotto and her team launched the #ItsNotInYourHead social media campaign to raise awareness about PVD.
The #ItsNotInYourHead campaign launched October 6, 2017 with a short video describing the condition and letting women know that their pain is real. Several hundred women joined the conversation about provoked vestibulodynia using the hashtags #ItsNotInYourHead and #PVD.
“Finally, we know that empowering women with the right knowledge about how to manage PVD is key to their recovery,” Dr. Brotto says.
The campaign aimed to help women advocate for their own health, where doctors had been typically dismissive.
“It’s time we take back the conversation around women’s own pleasure and autonomy,” she exclaims.
“[Better Sex Through Mindfulness] is about giving women permission to communicate what matters, and mindfulness is a great tool to be able to do that because mindfulness puts you in touch with what you want. It puts you in touch with how you’re feeling.”
With how impassioned Dr. Brotto seems to be about the subject, it’s hard to believe she was once reluctant to publish her book at all. But, she maintains, it was all about having the right publisher.
Greystone Books, an independent Vancouver-based publisher of non-fiction books, had published other works with scientists, and so Dr. Brotto took a shine to them.
“They allowed [these researchers] to stay true to the science without watering it down, and that was really important to me,” she admits.
“I did it very reluctantly, but now I’m so glad I did. The uptake has surpassed any expectations,” Dr. Brotto gleams.
Sexuality has been declared a fundamental part of the quality of life by the World Health Organization, and Dr. Brotto’s work is helping push the meter toward improving the sexual health of women everywhere.
“When women are healthy, there is undisputed data from health economists that everyone benefits. Society benefits, the economy benefits, people benefit, social structures and organizations benefit,” she says.
For Dr. Brotto, it’s all about having access to information. In order for women to be healthy, research is imperative; research will make the discoveries about the next advances to make sure that women live full and healthy lives.
“Healthy sexuality doesn’t mean you have to be in a relationship, it doesn’t mean you need to be having a certain number of orgasms per week, but everyone has an inherent sexuality—in whatever way they define it—and whenever that goes awry, it gives rise to quality of life impairments, or threats to identity and self esteem. My own view is that sexuality and sexual identity can be a barometer of your global sense of self- and sexual-esteem.”
So, the next time you find yourself in a position to stand up for your own sexual health and/or pleasure, tell them Dr. Brotto sent you. And what does she know about healthy sexuality? Well, she literally wrote the book on that.
Better Sex Through Mindfulness is available online from Greystone Books, Amazon and both in-store and online at Chapters Indigo.
Kristi Alexandra is an unabashed wino and wannabe musician. Her talents include drinking an entire bottle of cabernet sauvignon, singing in the bathtub, and falling asleep.
