The helpful, needed work of a sexologist

The sexologist has a difficult job: the very focus of her work is hard for people to talk about. Honest discussions of sex and sexuality – her areas of expertise – are at best circumscribed and at worst forbidden.Talking about sex is usually either shameful, funny, or awkward; rarely can sex (and especially sexual problems) be talked about honestly. Yet sex is of such tremendous spiritual, emotional, and physical importance to many people’s lives that not being able to talk about it often leaves people to navigate their problems alone. This is where the sexologist steps in – she helps people and couples of all sexual proclivities regain control of sex in their lives. Whether confronting difficulties or spicing up an already spicy love life, she can help people better understand the needs of themselves and their partners. Her work reflects her own spiritual and educational journey, and she discusses it below. 

Every time I say I’m a sex therapist, people think I’m in a couple’s bed with them, cheering them on. Which isn’t necessarily untrue, though I’m not actually in the room with them. I do most of my work online, video calls and phone sessions. It’s a sixty-minute session, you get homework, and there are email check-ins between sessions. After a session, I’m thinking a lot about what was talked about and will write a client to give more insight and give suggest more work they can do. I am here to help and encourage everyone to liberate their sexuality.

Sex is such a difficult subject for people to talk about – there’s so much shame and guilt, and we’re taught that we’re just supposed to know how to do it, how to ‘perform,’ how to orgasm. Sometimes its lack of experience and lack of confidence, and other times it does have to do with their past. Maybe there’s trauma. Performance anxiety is one of the biggest sexual concerns. We’re so influenced by movies and porn. People are silently struggling with their sexual experiences. We have to debunk every myth that we carry, and de-condition and critique our inner dialogue about sexuality. In listening to my clients, we listen to what happens in the act of sex from beginning to end. I listen for what is happening in the mind, emotions, body, energy and spirit of my clients, this guides me to find where the client is blocked.

Every couple is different, every person is different. It’s all relative. There are different issues in the trans community, different issues in the lesbian, gay, queer community. I can help ignite a passionate spark in a relationship that will result in deeper intimacy and pleasurable sex. For individuals and couples, sex coaching can help people wake up to the power of sexual energy and bring them into a deep intimate relationship with life. Sometimes the techniques I recommend work for everybody, but mostly I cater to an individual’s needs. I give simple solutions. I give them tools and techniques. Maybe one of the issues is that someone is not the greatest lover, but I can teach techniques to people to boost their confidence. I get to tell people what to do, and I’m really good at that. [Laughs] I give a home assignment every session, whether it’s for self-pleasure, for a couple, or for more than two people. When they go home, they have something to work on.

It saddens me to think that all around there are so many people, and so many partnerships in marriage, that end up sexless. It is very common for couples, especially after having children, to feel like they are in a relay race all day, often forgetting that they were once a romantic, sexual, and passionate couple. This is one of the most common sexual concerns people have, and why they seek out my services – there is no more sex in their partnership, or it’s rare, or one partner has a higher desire than the others. There is no typical explanation for the disparity.

For the person who has less interest, I work with them to find out why. Have they always had lesser interest? Do they want more than what they are experiencing? Some people have low desire but want to have sex more, so we’ll refer them to have their hormones checked. Hormones in food and plastics affect people and can affect sexuality. We’re finding more and more that there are lower testosterone levels in men, whereas four years ago it was reversed. We look at physical issues, medical issues. Medication is a big factor in sexuality. SSRIs are a major libido killer. You can’t just take someone off their medication, so we’ll work with them to regain their libido or help them have a satisfying sexual experience even when desire is at its lowest. Some people have naturally low desire, and that’s OK too.

I think sexuality can be terrifying. It’s a very lonely, isolating experience to grapple with whatever concern you have, especially when we are raised with parents who never talk about it, with no sex education, or abstinence only education. It is something that is not acceptable to talk about in our culture, especially in religious communities. You are not supposed to talk about sexuality or sex or orgasm, at all.

So many people are embarrassed or ashamed to talk about how they are feeling sexually. Often, we have shame around what we desire. Many people are ashamed to have particular fantasies or desire something outside of what is considered ’normal.’ I encourage my clients to embrace their sexuality, whatever what form it takes, as long as it is healthy, harmless to everyone involved, and between consensual adults. My job is to give them permission to do it. And usually, most people really need that permission. “You’re normal, your desire is OK, and if everyone is doing it in a healthy, consensual way, there’s nothing wrong with it,” even though everything else in society tells you there’s something wrong with it, or even diagnoses you with a disorder.

I always knew I wanted to be a therapist, and I was always very interested in relationships. I’ve always been fascinated with relationships because I didn’t know how to be in one. I didn’t know how to do it. I knew how to have sex but I didn’t necessarily know how to cultivate intimacy, longevity, and trust.

I did a three years master’s program at Berkeley, and that was for Marriage and Family Therapy. I saw individuals and couples when I began working. I did a depression group for years. I felt like I was just getting my big toe wet, like I was on to something but it wasn’t quite what I wanted to do. Then I started a PhD program in Los Angeles, also for Marriage and Family Therapy. In marriage and family therapy, there would be no extensive training in sexuality. We would help couples communicate and mediate in divorce, but we weren’t heavily trained in actual sexual concerns and issues. I went through two programs and there was never any talk about sex. Most psychotherapists and psychologists do not have extensive sexuality training, but when I started working as a therapist, sex was a big concern.

But it was through this program that I met my current mentor and trainer, Dr. Patty Britton, a world-renowned sexologist and sex educator. I started to train with her, and I did my certification through her in Clinical Sexology.

Dr. Britton was one of the first sex-positive doctors. She didn’t pathologize sexual problems; there were no “dysfunctions.” In the 90s there was the whole movement concerning men’s sexual dysfunction, founded and funded by the pharmaceutical company so they could promote Viagra and Cialis. And now they have a new movement for women’s sexual dysfunction, and a related drug. As a Sexologist, I am very weary of these drugs for a few reasons. For one, the Viagra-type drugs for men are simply to help sustain an erection, they do not generate erections. A man who has trouble getting an erection in the first place would not benefit from these types of drugs, but these drugs are marketed in such a way that leads men to believe otherwise.

I think with men, it’s often about performance and being able to please, and penis size. Usually with men, there’s so much performance anxiety that it causes them not to get an erection. Usually, that’s in the mind. Sexologists get to where their concern is – is it in the body? Is there low testosterone? Is there something we can do with hormone therapy? Is it in the mind, emotions, stemming from childhood? A lot of times men who come in with delayed ejaculation, it has to do with not trusting their partner. It has to do with something about the relationship outside of the bedroom. They are not comfortable entering into someone else.

I found that through the conversations I was having with women, they didn’t feel like it was their right to enjoy and receive and give as much pleasure as they wanted to. If you get married, that’s it. The women I talked to felt like, “well, you get married, then sex kind of ends, especially when you have children,” or you’d only have sex every couple of months after you have kids. But the power that women hold with their own sexuality is extremely powerful. Once a woman comes into her sexuality and has the power to give herself an orgasm and be responsible for her own orgasms, it is so liberating. We don’t want to empower women to have that ability, to be liberated.

But I think I’ve gained a lot more compassion for men as well. I don’t think I realized the emotional depth to which they thought about and worried about and had anxiety about giving pleasure and that being enough for someone. Now I feel that our society doesn’t allow men to access that emotional component. But I don’t think men are going to be able to talk about this until their penis stops working. If your penis is working, and you’re getting off, there’s no problem. They’re not going to see themselves the way they potentially could if something goes wrong. If you’re not a spiritual seeker and you aren’t trying to experience your full self, then you’re not going to look [for something that’s missing] if nothing’s going wrong. That’s the way our culture is set up.

When you can open up to sexual desires, whether you’re with a partner or by yourself, you get to know yourself in a really deep way. If you’re secure in a partnership or in a group relationship, if you can share that with others, there is a very, very deep intimacy that can arise from that kind of connection. You are giving yourself in sex. You are allowing yourself to be entered, or enter yourself into another person. There is nothing more intimate.

For me, sex was my gateway into understanding humans and human behavior and how we relate. I learned and got so much information through my sexual experiences. As a young adult, I remember learning about pleasure and sex and being completely fascinated that I could potentially contain a super power. I was able to see the connection between spirituality and sex and I was determined to incorporate sex into my spiritual path. I was able to heal myself and I uncovered a wealth of energy and knowledge around sexuality.

I have an understanding and non-judgmental view in religious communities with regards to sex and relationships. Having been raised in a Jewish community, I wanted to understand how religion, spirituality and sex fit together. I understand the complications that may arise with sex and relationships within a religion. Although there are challenges and hurdles with sex and intimacy, I can help people find pleasure and sexual fulfillment within a religious structure.

Speaking again on the spiritual side of things – I’m also a yoga teacher – it plays to the energetic systems of the body. Once you have orgasms on a regular basis or simply just cultivate sexual energy in the body, you have a tremendous amount of vitality. If you are not exercising your sexual organs, they atrophy. Once you start to re-engage in sex and orgasm – no matter what kind of sex you’re having – you regain a tremendous amount of energy, and life force. Use it or lose it!

I think when someone gains control over their sexuality, there is nothing more empowering. I focus clients to feel comfortable talking about their sexuality. Sex coaching is not sex therapy. The past will come up, but we don’t do any deep therapy work around the past. We acknowledge it and see where problems come from, but I try to stay in the present and move to the future. While sex therapy delves deep into the past, sex coaching is solution focused and result driven. Sex coaching is not just about processing feelings, it is also about finding concrete answers to keep a person moving forward and reaching their sexual and intimacy goals.  As a sex coach, I am dedicated to helping people make changes in their lives as quickly as they would like to change.

I haven’t seen a pedophile. To be quite honest, I would refer out if I saw someone with those tendencies. It’s not my area of specialty and I just don’t have the capacity for it. Bestiality, I understand, I have less judgment. I know where my boundaries are. Thoughts are different than actions. If they are acting on something illegal, I’m obligated to report them. But if they are thoughts, illegal thoughts that harm people or animals in some way, I help them not act on them. Thoughts are OK, actions are not. Violent fantasies are actually pretty common. Rape fantasies are very common, more common than you’d think. I absolutely deal with those. If someone wants to play out their fantasy in real life, I can help them do that in a safe way. I can teach them how to get the experience with someone who knows boundaries and safety. There’s a way to set up any fantasy. It may not be exactly what they are looking for, but I can help them.

From what I have gathered, there aren’t many Sexologists in Ohio. But now I feel like there are more and more people seeking this kind of help. They realize they have a choice, and that they don’t want to live the unfulfilling [sexual] life that they’re living. Perhaps there wasn’t ever passion [in someone’s relationship], and they think it’s too late to discover it. But once the conversation starts, then maybe we start to feel more empowered to look at our own lives and make those changes.

I have a lot of anxiety going to parties where I don’t know people, because I don’t really know how to start a conversation. But once someone brings up my profession, it’s the most fun thing because everyone wants to talk about sex but can’t just bring it up. I can answer questions and talk about what I do and it’s totally comfortable.

I sort of don’t care what people think of me. For personal and scientific reasons, I could think about and talk about and look at sex all day, every day for the rest of my life and I’d be the happiest person on earth. This is my path – it feels so right, I know that I’m meant to do this work. I know that I’ve helped people and helped couples and partnerships. I’m pretty straightforward and say it like it is. Some people are going to really like that, and some people are going to think I’m the devil coming to town.

I understand how important it is to have a healthy sex life, whether you’re alone or with other people. I want people to know there is no normal, or that everything’s normal. Everybody has sexual concerns. Everybody. So let’s just start the conversation. Everybody’s got their issues. It’s beautiful to watch people come into their sexuality. Healthy sexuality makes for a healthy human being!

This post originally appeared in an abbreviated form at the Yellow Springs News.