Today's episode features a presentation of the Minwalla Model of Deceptive Sexuality and Complex Trauma Treatment. In 2006, Dr. Omar Minwalla began to study the signs of Complex Trauma related stress in people whose spouses had committed infidelity. Minwalla’s powerful educational metaphor, the “Secret Sexual Basement”, has made the personal, relational, and sociological abuses that comprise deceptive sexuality accessible to everyone. 

By putting the spotlight on the harms of “deceptive sexuality,” Minwalla shows how clinically significant deficits in integrity enable infidelity and can rise to the level of an Integrity Abuse Disorder, which he categorizes as a form of intimate partner abuse. 

From here we take Minwalla's model a step further and posit that closeted LGBT+ spouses in mixed orientation marriages have a Secret Sexual Basement of their own. This compartmentalized secret sexual reality not only contains secret sexual behaviors that may or may not be going on, but also contains their hidden or obscured sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s not just that deception is employed to cover infidelity, it’s that, intentional or not, deception may be deployed to cover sexuality itself.

In the case of marriage closets, as with infidelity, concealment behaviors, manipulation and deceptive management of straight spouses constitutes patterns of emotional, psychological and relational harm that may give rise to symptoms of complex trauma in straight spouses. 

DR. OMAR MINWALLA WEBSITE: https://minwallamodel.com

DR. OMAR MINWALLA PODCAST INTERVIEWS

Understanding Betrayal with Dr. Omar Minwalla. Part 1

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/helping-couples-heal-podcast/id1462962051?i=1000465644823

 

Understanding Betrayal with Dr. Omar Minwalla. Part 2

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/helping-couples-heal-podcast/id1462962051?i=1000469245574

 

Understanding Betrayal with Dr. Omar Minwalla. Part 3

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/helping-couples-heal-podcast/id1462962051?i=1000472914618

 

Real Talk About Cheating (Tell Me How You’re Mighty with Chump Lady Tracy Shorn)

 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tell-me-how-youre-mighty-real-talk-about-cheating/id1703987977

 

OURVOICES PODCAST EPISODES:

Michelle Mays 

https://bit.ly/S6Ep13OPOV_YT

 

Debi Silber

https://bit.ly/S4Ep2OPOV_YT

 

Tracy Shorn

https://bit.ly/S6Ep1OPOV_YT

 

Ryan King

https://bit.ly/S4Ep3OPOV_YT

 

William Dameron

https://bit.ly/S2Ep15OPOV_YT

 

Helen Fitzgibbons

https://bit.ly/S2Ep11OPOV_YT