This week I have been in Dubai, flying out on Saturday and returning this morning. This was my second visit and I am beginning to recognise the physical challenges that are involved in taking a 12-hour journey and traversing time zones before joining clients to work in coaching partnership.

My energies have (mainly) been with my clients, getting what rest I need in order to give them the best of my (slightly jet-lagged) attention. I return tired and satisfied, present both to the challenges that coaching can bring and to the great sense of privilege that comes from supporting individual leaders and the organisations they lead in this way.

Returning home, Dubai is in the news as the trial of the infamous “sex on the beach in Dubai” pair, Britons Vince Acors and Michelle Palmer, reached its conclusion. The Los Angeles Times was quick to record the sentence on its blog, reporting that Acors and Palmer were sentenced to three months in prison, fined $272 for drinking alcohol and ordered to be deported immediately upon leaving prison.

As I reflect on the reportage of this case over the weeks since it first broke as news, I recall a great deal of commentary on the clash of values which is embodied in the lives of Western expatriates living and working in Dubai. It’s not just that Acors and Palmer were alleged to have had sex on the beach, something that would surely be as unwelcome in the UK as it was in Dubai. It’s also that they were drunk at the time of the incident and unmarried. Indeed, whilst they have been termed “partners” and a “couple” in headlines around the world, as best I understand it they first met on the day of the incident.

This raises many questions for me, amongst them, what needs were they seeking to meet on that day? And how well did they meet them? Marshall Rosenberg lists “sexual expression” as a fundamental need for physical nurturance in his book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Perhaps it was enough for Acors and Palmer to fulfil their sexual needs in this way. Perhaps.

And still I wonder. I recall that in 2007, as part of my International Intensive Training in nonviolent communication, I participated in a discussion about sex with a diverse group of men and women. Sharing our thoughts and feelings about this area of our lives it became clear just how many needs – for connection, for intimacy, for fun and play, for love, for self-worth, and many more – we bring to our close relationships, including our sexual encounters. Even putting aside the unintended consequences of their actions, I wonder what needs (if any) Acors and Palmer did not honour, let alone meet on that day in July on a beach in Dubai.

This causes me to reflect on an aspect of our own culture which may have played a part. As much as we describe ourselves as “permissive” in the West, I am not sure we permit ourselves the full truth: that we have needs and that it’s OK to honour them and to meet them when we can. Without this recognition we – as much as people in any other culture – are at risk of choosing poor strategies to meet our needs. And how can we do otherwise? For in order to choose a strategy at all, we are obliged to tell ourselves stories which make our actions OK within our culture, even whilst being unaware that our culture guides us in this way. How can such an approach be effective in honouring and meeting our needs?

As for Acors and Palmer, I wish them well. Whatever choices they make going forward, I would wish for them that they honour themselves, holding themselves as creative, resourceful and whole. I would wish for them that they honour their needs and meet them in ways which bring deep joy and satisfaction. This is no more nor less than I would want for anyone.