2020, The Year That Stole Our Orgasm

You're not broken just because this year has been difficult. When we have nothing to look forward to we end up feeling stagnated in our bodies as well as our minds. Therefore, nothing surprises me less about 2020 than the “I lost my orgasm/desire” statements I’ve been hearing these past few months. These are indeed listless times.

Here’s where your typical sex educator will tell you to “grab that vibrator!” - but you know what? That's sometimes hard to do when you're feeling busy, overwhelmed or lost. And that’s also more than okay.

Orgasms are an exploration of life and death, hence the French "le petit mort," in reference to the "the brief loss or weakening of consciousness" post-orgasm. Life, like orgasm, is a bath of the unseen and uncontrollable. It’s a release to the unknown, a necessary process of moving through shame and guilt or fear of judgement. Therefore, exploring the inability to orgasm (whether the root be emotional or physical) typically presents as manifestations of fear of death, fear of life, or a creative block. How much does this sound like 2020?

We're born of a creative process and our main purpose is to continue to perpetuate creative processes until our life force is no more. A curiosity and interest in that life force is necessary for the physical manifestation of life (orgasm!) So what can we do to find this life force, especially during challenging and mundane times? The answer lies in the mundane…

It’s no surprise that the most powerful and moving experiences of human artistry and poetry begin with the wonder of the shadows cast by leaves on a tree or the way a cat sleeps in the sun. Our social software tells us these things have nothing to do with orgasm, but this is where I invite you to suspend that belief.

Slow down and feel the mundane experiences that this year has offered you. Where is the experience you’re overlooking? How does it make you feel to be there? Were you considering that experience to be negative? What happens when you take the fear of living or dying out of that experience? What does it feel like on your skin? What does it feel like in your pelvic bowl?

Remembering that it’s okay to be present with all parts of our day can help to reignite us. Perhaps there’s pain. Where in that pain have you felt happiness, even the smallest ounce? Find the beauty in all of it. Feel it in your body.

Why do we seek to heighten our sexual experiences in the first place? Typically we’re looking for intimacy and connection, or we think something is “wrong” with us/our relationships/our bodies, and those things need “fixing.” But I’m here to remind you that it’s exactly in the moment you release those needs that you’ll find the route back to your life force, which will inevitably end up in a little death… and from there we start all over again.

New podcast episodes!

this week:

“The Art of A.R.T. (Areola Restoratative Tattooing)” with Lucy Thompson

In this 30 minute pod mini episode I talked to Lucy Thompson about the art of A.R.T (Areola Restorative Tattooing). Lucy runs a special tattoo clinic dedicated to the 3D restoration of lost nipples, and the censorship her business endures as a result.In this 30 minute pod mini episode I talked to Lucy Thompson about the art of A.R.T (Areola Restorative Tattooing). Lucy runs a special tattoo clinic dedicated to the 3D restoration of lost nipples, and the censorship her business endures as a result.

what you may have missed:

"Women's Bodies & Allopathy: The Effects of Industrialized Birth” with Isabella Malbin

The western medical model pathologizes birth. What does it look like to navigate a system without this view of women's bodies as "broken"? How do holistic medicine practitioners find themselves playing into this belief system? Find out in this chat with birth worker Isabella Malbin.

To Vibe or Not To Vibe?

As an ex-hypersexual with half-healed codependency complex and more than a few obvious recurring trauma reactions, my healing had to start at the most basic of basics, which meant rejecting sex toys. Let me explain.

Classically desensitized, disoriented and disembodied, my sex toy drawer used to be filled with all kinds of fun. I could have sex without the toys, but where would my attention go and what would keep me feeling, propelling toward orgasm? That was the goal, after all, right? Especially when the sex wasn’t particularly desired or wasn’t going “well”…

Fast forward through the beginnings of my multi-layered (and multi-year) wake-up call to the realization that, although I wasn’t afraid of it, I didn’t particularly like being with my own body. Much like any enlightened moment, I pulled a 180 degree turn to the opposite direction, turning away from all the toys, all the kink, all the things I suddenly judged as dissociative. I stuck with that mindset throughout my first few years of my own healing, and I initially brought the sentiment with me to my job as a sex educator. I was staunchly against all the things that I judged to have removed me from my body. But hey, I needed that moment of rejection. And I’m proud to have come around to the fact that, like everything delicious in life, moderation is key.

So WHEN do we pick up the vibrator versus meeting the challenge of manual labor? The short answer is: how well do you know yourself?

For those of you on a journey to reconnect with your sexuality: are you comfortable touching yourself, fingers to vulva? If your answer is yes, I’ll ask again: are you sure? We often skip over direct touch for varying unconscious reasons (“I don’t like getting messy”) and go straight to adding a barrier to the act. If this describes you, I invite you to reconsider, and take about 10 minutes experiencing yourself with direct contact, then journal about what it was you did and didn’t like about the experience.

Next: I don’t care what that vibrator company’s ad copy or that Instagram sexfluencer told you, too much vibrator use can cause desensitization. This is real. I’ve experienced it myself and I’ve seen it with my clients. If this is you: take a damned break, or try using the vibrator on different parts of your body to remind your brain that sensation can be had other places. Re-sensitize!

Lastly, it’s time to ask yourself: are your toys enhancing or distracting you from sensation? It’s okay to use toys to journey through erotic fantasy land. Just know that fantasy land is a different experience than embodied mindfulness. Make no mistake: I’m not saying that ALL SEX needs to be a meditation, but if you’re in the throes of healing your relationship to yourself, you may want to consider the truth of your relationship to your toys.

But wait!

This isn’t about throwing the baby (toys) out with the bathwater (self-healing). It’s about discernment and self-honesty. It’s about taking the time to know what you need and being open to experimenting with presence no matter what.

Does your vibrator offer you sensation that can’t be found with your fingers? Of course it does. Try taking it slow - staying present to those sensations, and allowing the vibe to give you a different experience than you’re used to - with mindfulness!

Never thought you’d be able to meditate with your vibrator, hm?

You’re welcome.

NEW! Maggie’s Podcasting!

Yes, it's finally happening!

Episodes released bi-monthly

Featuring guest conversations about radical embodiment, sexuality and feminism, (with a special emphasis on the conversations we're sometimes afraid to have).

Episode 2: The Subtle Energies of Self vs. the Collective w/Tutu Mora is live now!

In Learning How to Touch, We Remember How To Be Alive

As the world has now been in social/physical isolation for an extended period of time, I wonder how we’re all doing considering the levels of touch we’re either over or under-receiving.

Touch is how our nervous systems first connect with our caregivers as babies. It’s our contact with the outside world. It’s such a rich and distinctive form of awareness that without it we’d be spacially lost. It’s also a major connective tool for us as community-oriented beings. Levels of intimacy via touch are so important that there’s even a word for feeling touch-starved: “skin-hunger.”

In Chinese medicine we say that the skin and body hair are controlled by the lungs. Just as the lungs are in charge of the intake of oxygen from the outside world, our skin and body hair have a great deal of contact with our external environment. In fact, the skin is one of our first alerts to changes in said environment, whether it be a goose-bump from a shift in temperature or arm hair standing at attention to the slightest threat of danger. It’s also no coincidence that grief, or sadness, is the emotion of the lung/skin/body hair complex. Sadness inevitably takes over when we don’t receive skin contact, or when the energetic boundaries of our skin-covered bodies is poor, for a long period of time.

As we age out of our baby brains and tendencies toward youthful texture exploration, we train ourselves to expect the world around us to be as we already know it. Fascination falls away and the world becomes mundane. But it doesn’t need to be that way. In fact, our sense of touch is a profoundly healing perception tool when we choose to use it wisely.

The sensual nature of touch, when activated with full awareness, is one of the quickest ways to down-regulate (calm) the nervous system. It can be a useful way to train the brain to highlight things that feel pleasurable in the body - offering a respite from pain, both emotional and physical. We also know that touch can be both a receiving mechanism and a giving mechanism. If we can provide what touch brings to someone or something else, we can also gain from experiencing it in the other direction.

Take a moment today to check in to touch. If you’re feeling over-touched by children or a partner, ask yourself if you’re giving more than receiving. Notice if you could shift the perception of giving to receiving in your mind whenever touch is happening. If you feel you’re not receiving enough touch, perhaps shift your tactile awareness to the mundane objects you thought you knew, to enlighten your experience of touch.

Touch is my favorite sense, so of course I’m super excited to be offering a free Self-Healing Touch Workshop next week (details below)! Touch invites us to delight the mind and the body in the offerings of the outside world in such a particular way that very few other things do. Learning how many different ways you can touch and be touched is more than just healing - it’s mindfulness in action. It’s a reclamation of the explorative mind. It’s the active process of re-learning how to be alive.

. . .

happenings

 Free Self-HealingTouch Workshop!

Saturday, May 9, 10 AM Pacific Time

Craving touch in this weird quarantine time? Or maybe you're feeling "over touched" by kids or partners? Perhaps you're simply looking for new experiences to reconnect with yourself...

Join me on Zoom for 1 hour of somatic touch-based practices to get you back in touch with... touch! I'll be leading a deep embodiment meditation followed by sense orientation and movement to recalibrate what touch means to your body.

Don't worry, this workshop is rated PG and perfectly friendly to anybody who desires to join. Sign up below and make sure you read the follow-up email as attendance will require some household objects for exploration!

. . .

because I’m feeling extra

Embodied Birthday Dance Playlist

Because today’s my birthday…

I wanted to spread some embodied dance vibesssss! 

Click here.

Feel your body.

Every inch.

Thank you for being alive with me.

xo~ 

m.

Life In The Portal

Sometimes, when we fear imminent change, we end up stuck between the “in place” and the “out place.” I’ve experienced this myself when it comes to finishing some of my less “safe” projects, or when it comes to putting something out into the world that triggers potential insecurities. A notion of “safety” will keep me in the portal, forever one foot in, one foot out.

I’ve seen people talking about the uptick in vaginal yeast infections/BV-esque symptoms this week, and I was thinking today about the depth of meaning here. The world is in stagnation in a way we’ve never experienced. We’re waiting for something to happen: a change or restart. But even if we intellectually decide that the “restart” will look the same as life before the shift, we intuitively know that we will come out of this forever changed. What happens when we fear that change? We end up feeling stuck in the portal between the “inside” and the “outside.” In our bodies this translates to the vaginal canal. When we wait in the portal of change for too long, whether it’s out of necessity or fear, discomfort grows. And, yes, that can lead to actual… growth. As in, stagnant growth, or growth of something that increases discomfort… and what happens when we’re uncomfortable? Well, that’s another motivation for movement or change. And the cycle goes on.

Our global society is sitting in the birth canal, which makes it ever more interesting that both death and birth are major topics in the news right now, both wrapped in their own unique blanket of fear. Here’s where I can talk about fear of change, or how we can try to change that fear. But instead, I’m going to suggest that we recognize it for what it is and invite it to be a part of our experience. I can feel this way, because I trust that safety is relative to the design of the universe.

Safety is an illusion. But there’s a certain level of safety that our bodies need to sense in order to move forward. Herein lies the paradox of needing to feel “safe” in our animal bodies, and knowing that safety is relative to whatever will happen. Strike the balance and step forward. Notice what that does to your body. Where is the shift? Be curious here. Interest doesn’t require that we be in pleasure or pain, it’s just curiosity in what exists.

. . .

happenings

The turnout for last weekend’s Grief Movement & Pelvic Grounding Workshop was amazing! Because of the poor Zoom connection we didn’t get to record it live, but that presented the opportunity for us to make it even better. Watch it here and feel free to share with me your personal experience if you feel inspired to so. I hope these practices are as helpful for you as they are for me in this time of global uncertainty.

. . .

pussy news notables

Salty: Getting Sexy When Endometriosis Makes Sex Hurt

M: I loved this uplifting look at taking pleasure in changes and shifting out of destructive thinking with sexual curiosity. Worth reading even if you don’t suffer from pelvic pain.

Time: COVID-19 Could Permanently Make Abortions Harder to Access Nationwide

M: Abortion access is now banned in several states due to the pandemic, which is an acute disaster for women’s health. But what of the future of these clinics? “As abortion providers face destabilizing conditions, it’s unclear whether they will be able to access government relief funding the way other medical providers and nonprofits will be able to do.”

Pelvic Panic And The Beauty of Chaos

I’ve received an array of messages and emails this week, some more panicked than others, regarding menstrual health. Many of my current hands-on clients are on herbal regimens for womb, hormonal or vaginal health. Suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, almost everyone is reporting longer cycles, pelvic pain, flare-ups, PMS... and asking what's wrong with my herbs? or worse: what's wrong with me? This is a perfect example of getting caught in linear thinking, or as I like to call it, "one way, and that's the highway" thinking. This kind of analysis attempts to break our female systems down in a mechanical, linear, "masculine" way. And if there were ever a time to step outside of that thinking, a time of global chaos is certainly it. Let's take this opportunity to reframe our perspectives in these circumstances.

Currently, all over the earth, chaos is doing its best work. Yet we're still responding in a linear or "masculine" fashion, as is our global custom: rationalize, mechanize, simplify. We refer to the cause as a  mechanism: a virus, which works by XYZ principles. We take to stringent guidelines and operations, putting ourselves in a restricted social state. It makes sense that this is a course of action we respond to in panic mode (the masculine responds to threat, after all).

I want to remind you that, in our ancient past, rituals celebrating chaos were as important to wartime as war itself. Therefore I invite you to see your menstrual symptoms as a reflection of your mind and body's response to the state of the world: the state of chaos.

This is the moment to ask yourself: is your current experience the culmination of linear-thinking, or are you in a state of Allowing to be able to ride the wave of chaos?

. . .

Female bodies are made to thrive in community. When in close proximity for an extended period of time we cycle together. We raise children together. We are built to support our small communities as healers and gatherers. When we menstruate we release the grievances of the world, emotionally and physically. Our wombs are meant for three actions: create, hold, and release. I mentioned in a post earlier this week that our bodies have never had the opportunity to adjust to the ways of the world as it is today. In a very short period of time we’ve gone from holding the grievances of small communities to responsibility to hold said grievances on a global scale. This is where we find ourselves dysregulated. And if you’re feeling it emotionally, you’d better believe you’ll feel it physically, sooner or later.

The beautiful thing about all this forced downtime is that we now have time to ask ourselves how we’re experiencing our bodies. Are your herbal formulas or exercise regimens suddenly not working, or is the weight of the world suddenly much heavier than the capacity of its container?

Feel your reaction to the each of these individual words: chaos… swirling… death… birth… creative… inconsistent… sudden…. crash… playful... erratic… new… This is the essence of the feminine. This is what’s being offered us. Let’s not shy away from it because it’s uncomfortable. Take this moment to embrace the unknown and fully be in chaos. Your female body will thank you for it.

. . .

Grief Movement & Pelvic Grounding Workshop

Join me this Saturday, April 4th @ 10:00 AM Pacific Time for a FREE one hour online workshop!

We'll start with a discussion on grief and what it means to hold grief in the body, followed by movements to open the channels of the body that hold grief, and end with a deep pelvic floor grounding meditation.

A replay will be available for those who can't make it live.

Lessons From Being Grounded

Although the official word from today’s psychologists is that grounding kids for poor behavior does nada, perhaps it’s nothing less than special to be forced into a circumstance in which we must tend to that which we’ve moved too fast to see. I can’t help but feel that, as a collective species, we’re being grounded for our errant behaviors. And while the Earth doesn’t seek to punish, the nature of All is seeking equilibrium and balance always. Grounding, as it is, can be seen as a slowing, a letting down of that which we’ve been holding up high above our heads for far too long. While we carry the weight of the world, how likely are we to “have time” to look down to see what remnants of self care we’re dropping, like socks from the collective laundry pile?

"What does this have to do with my pussy?" you may be wondering, and rightly so. In Ayurvedic medicine we find the sacral and root chakras as relating to groundedness, safety and stability. Being the place of the genitals and womb space, it can be sobering to find these areas feeling energetically stuck, mucked up or numb, especially when we're lost in the clouds (the thinking mind). As a society we've been floating around in the clouds of the thinking mind for a very long time. Without balance between upper and lower, we may float away, get caught in anxiety, and feel a lack of creativity. Seeds sprout from the soil, after all. The good news is that coming back down might only require recognition of what we've been ignoring.

. . .

Personally, it’s been a sobering experience to have been forced to closed my practice during this strange pandemic moment in time. In doing so I was forced to realize that I’d been abandoning my creative work in order to pursue my hands-on practice. And although I love working with my clients one-on-one, my personal resources were being sapped daily, simply because I didn’t believe in myself enough to commit time to the creative projects that I truly loved and truly fed my soul. So I hid. I hid behind busy-ness. And while the collective energy this week has repeatedly sent me on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, I believe that this is the hard reset button I personally needed.

I spoke on IgTV this week about recognizing when our womb space turns into a holding place for the weight of things we refused to recognize or let go. It’s well known that this creates congestion in the pelvic bowl. In time we lose who we really are and we avoid spending time on that which truly feeds us, because that would mean cleaning out the closet. This is my theme of the week, and I’d like to remind you that a simple recognition of this pattern is the key to change, no matter how uncomfortable that may feel.

One more reminder: fear and hopelessness are in the top tier of emotional overflow. This is good news, because it means that, as a collective, we’re headed for the emotional release that comes after the tears. How beautifully relieving that will be… and, amidst the chaos, may we learn to recreate our experiences.

. . .

covid-19 birth resources list

If you or someone you know is planning a birth amid the COVID-19 crisis, below are some resources. Note that many hospitals are not admitting partners or doulas to the birthing process. I urge all those with non-high risk pregnancies to consider home birth as an option.

Evidence Based Birth

Free Birth Society

San Diego Birth Resources

. . .

in case you missed it: pussy news notables

The Conversation: During Coronavirus Hospital Surge, A Midwife Recommends Home Birth

New York Times: Some Pregnant Women In New York City Will Have to Deliver Babies Alone

Harvard Business Review: That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief

M: Important insights on collective grieving and grief management.

YouTube: Eckhart Tolle Responds to COVID-19: Staying Conscious in the Face of Adversity

M: A wonderful speech, meditation and perspective shift!

In 2020, Let’s Change How We Talk About Sex

As a somatic sex educator and writer, finding a platform that won’t discriminate against “impure” keywords is difficult. Time and time again, the faint call from the sex-positive community for a new, accepting platform rains down from the mountaintops like a slow-rolling moan. Please, they plead, stop shadowbanning us and tearing us down! The world needs to know about sex!

Then one day I received an unsolicited email addressing me as a content creator in the topic of sex. I was being introduced to a NEW platform, one on which I could talk freely about sex without censorship, billing itself as the “Digital Sex Revolution.” My heart skipped a beat — yes! Could it be? A place for orgasm talk and pleasure activism and education? Sign me up! I clicked on the link, only to be transported to a hyperspace themed website spattered with salacious colors and bold eroticism. It was just what I’d be hoping for, but not. My disappointment mounted upon seeing the logo, a sexy pair of lips, slightly agape. Sigh, looks like the “digital sex revolution” that sought my voice as a sex educator might actually be another social media platform for sex party information. Regardless, I signed up with an innocuous username and poked around for all of twenty minutes. The website, like many others, drips with the type of exaggerated eroticism one would expect of a phone sex operator at 3AM. Sure, perhaps it was well-intentioned. And while the allure is understandable for a certain cross-section of society, it misses the mark as an appealing place for the average person to seek learning and exploring one’s individuality and needs, which is exactly how it was advertised to me. Regardless, this only served to remind me of one thing: it’s this extravagant, x-rated approach to the topic of sex that keeps the average Jane in Idaho from pursuing that orgasm she can’t seem to have with her husband, and keeps the average Joe in his delusion that good sex requires chains and whips and lascivious whispers from an untouchable busty dom.

Kinky, erotic language and setting have a place. It’s delectable and fun when the time is right. The problem is that many, if not most, who need to hear sex-positive messages are far from being reached by the directive and lingo most commonly offered by the sex-positive community. Sure, the lush sex talk lands for many people. It appeals to a kinky, sensuous nature. Yet it also perpetuates the idea that sex needs to be a certain way, or that one needs to be a certain way to attain it. Worse, it preserves the belief that the masculine, hypersexual view of sex is what real sex is. What’s being forgotten is that many real people have messy, non-kinky sex. In losing this perspective, we’re missing an opportunity to forge a new social understanding of sex in the 21st century.

In the last decade we’ve seen body positivity, sex positivity, gender neutrality, and transgendered rights embraced. In recent years, the idea of feminine “rewilding” began to take over social media in the form of embracing women’s reproductive rights, menstrual self-education and step-by-step guides to ditching “what the patriarchy thinks of us.” Yet we still, perhaps unbeknownst to us, espouse a rather masculine, one-sided approach to how we speak about sex. To begin to recognize sexuality as something that exists for ourselves alone means ditching the language and the scenery we’re taught to espouse when we set the stage to talk about sex. In order to continue a healthy sex-positive dialogue, we need to begin to make an effort to walk away from the male-dominated and religion-heavy viewpoint of sex as “smut.”

It’s important to offer adult sexual re-education to the public in order to offset rape culture. What society needs is language that seeks to teach adults and children that sex is normal and natural so that they can have it themselves in safe, consensual environments. If we can’t educate the general public to embrace sexuality in plain clothes, we won’t get anywhere with future generations. The labeling will continue, the inequality will continue, and sex will remain seen as a separate, hushed and ultimately “forbidden” part of the human experience.

The majority of those in need of sexual re-education often believe deep down that their erotic tendencies are shameful in nature. They may live with penetration pain, sexual dysfunction, and trauma that keeps them in relationship black holes. They may still exist far, far away from effectively learning the steps they can take to embrace their bodies, their sexuality, and their lives. They may not ever know or even realize that their sexual health goes far beyond STD identification, and that a healthy sex life is a healthy life, physiologically and psychologically. Most of these people don’t dress in leather and lace every night, use sex toys, feel they have the opportunity to explore kink, or have the emotional means to begin to approach why they desire it in the first place. Many people need sex education with real language and a design that represents humanness. Otherwise, we’ll constantly be missing the mark and we’ll only be reaching the people who are already in the know. By continuing to talk about ALL aspects of sex in drippy, erotic, and hushed voices, we lose those who respond to straight-talk and admission to the reality of humanness.

Social sex re-education can change the world. We need to start by teaching Plain Jane about her anatomy, and showing Joe Schmoe that sex is more than a penis in a vagina. But to get there we need to speak to what sex really means for those who are most in need of hearing it. We need to change the scenery to show the humanity of sex. Sex is messy, sex is intimate, sex is scary, sex is joy, sex is slow, and sex isn’t always “sexy.” Let’s be real.

Sexological Bodywork, Sex Therapy, Tantra or Pelvic PT: What’s the Difference?

I often joke that when people ask me what I do I have to check in with my energy level before I give the full answer. Sometimes, to save myself the energy, I’ll just say that I’m an acupuncturist (also true). It’s honestly not because I’m afraid of anyone’s reaction, but because sometimes I’m just not up the the discussion. “Sexa-what?? What’s that?” Is the most typical response. Depending on the questioner’s background and visceral response to anything with the root word “sex,” they might assume I do tantra or erotic work (I don’t). Given more information, they might also assume I’m do pelvic floor physical therapy work. Nope, not that either. Well, what then?

The true beginnings of what we now call sexological bodywork started with a man named Joseph Kramer during the AIDs epidemic in San Francisco, circa 1990. Kramer noticed a need for intimacy development for and amongst the gay community who were suffering from lack of physical touch after their diagnoses. He began to teach them embodiment skills to be more present with their sexuality. Fast forward many years, and sexological bodywork has now blossomed into a sex positive community of open-minded people stepping up to assist the public with any issue that relates to sexuality. Perhaps you might feel that you have difficulty relating to your partner. A sexological bodyworker will use this opportunity to assist you in being more present with your own sexuality, perhaps offering sessions that teach both people to be present with each other. The difference, and gray area, came when touch was being offered. In a society so laser-focused on sex hypervigilance, where do we draw the line between sex work and sex education? The answer, simply, lies in the practitioner’s boundaries and ethics. Certified sexological bodyworkers follow strict ethical guidelines that dictate the wearing of gloves and staying clothed while present with a client.

Tantra, the ancient art of intimacy, has its benefits for those looking to deepen their experience in sexuality. Breathwork, partner massage and the depths of the masculine and feminine, in exploration within both the self and with a partner, can be beautiful things. The spiritual tilt that comes with the tantra experience also offers an amazing community of soulful people. While many tantra practitioners offer one-on-one work, there’s no designating body that requires lack of sexual contact between practitioner and client. This is where boundaries can get fuzzy, and while deception can lurk in any space or under any title, there are many tantra practitioners who might not have as dandy a reputation as one might hope. If you’re thinking of going the tantra route, more power to you! Make sure that your practitioner has a solid reputation in the community, research their credentials if possible, and ask where or under whom they’ve studied. Ask about their boundary and consent skills - do they have a protocol they personally follow? Be clear about what you expect from a session, and get clear on what kind of session or interaction they typically offer. As with any of these interactions, clarity is key, especially when one does not practice under a certifying body.

Sex therapy is typically performed by a licensed therapist who’s gone and done an additional certification to further their skills in discussing sexuality and intimacy issues. You won’t find touch in these sessions, at least not in the US, Australia or most of Europe. Talk therapy is the basis of this modality, and whether the therapist decides to incorporate trauma therapy skills is dependent on their personal background. You’ll find that these sessions are mostly based on lifestyle changes and interpersonal communication skills. Finding a sex therapist in particular might be challenging. Many LMFTs or psychotherapists have comparable skillsets, depending on the type of additional training they have. The key here is to ask the therapist in question which modalities they prefer to utilize. For example: do they lean toward trauma resolution therapies such as EMDR or Somatic Experiencing? The type of therapy you’re looking for might be dependent on whether you’re interested in addressing issues that feel like a trauma response, or if you’re desiring more of a behavioral talk therapy approach.

Finally, people often ask me if what I do is on par with Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy. Pelvic floor PTs are western doctors of physical therapy first and foremost. All of them learn what I call the western medicine “mechanics” of the body. (Examples: If you correct your positioning here, it’ll effect your posture there. If a muscle is tight here, it may be pulling on that tendon, ligament or joint connection there). From here, some PTs choose to attend a continuing education school, in addition to their original schooling, which teaches them how to work specifically with the physiological aspects of the pelvic floor. Now this is a super wonderful thing - we’ve now got western medical providers with scope to do internal pelvic floor work. The upside is that there is now help for those who need it in the most physical sense. The downside is that not all practitioners are trauma informed or clued into the subtle or emotional body of a patient. Now don’t read me wrong - there are some truly amazing pelvic floor physical therapists who have developed a felt sense the body’s needs in such a sensitive area. But just like any type of practitioner, getting clarity about what you expect from your session is key. If you choose to see a PT, ask them how long they usually take to do any internal work. If you are nervous about being touched, be clear about your needs for a gentle approach or clear verbal communication before your session begins. As for the difference between sexological bodywork and PT, unless they’re trained otherwise, don’t outright expect embodiment coaching from a physical therapist. Their job is typically mechanical in nature. And this in and of itself could be very beneficial if a body mechanic is what you’re looking for. If you’re in the game to address some more subtle emotional issues, a sexological bodyworker or embodied pelvic care provider is likely a more aligned choice.

And me? Well, I’m a sexological bodyworker. However, the basis of my medical training is in acupuncture, which is why you’ll see me writing a lot from a traditional Chinese medicine perspective, talking about organ systems and Taoist philosophy. Acupuncture is also heavily about the physical - that western mechanical view of the body is not without merit, by the way. If your pelvic floor needs releasing (don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds, and we never put needles in the genitals), then you better believe that’s what we’ll be doing, in addition to balancing the rest of the body, reproductive system, and emotional state.

The perspective focus of a provider’s education is what formulates the type of attention and work you’ll receive in the long run. There are so many different ways to work within the scope of sexuality and pelvic floor health. The important thing to note is at what level you feel you’re ready to approach your problems. Are you only prepared for the physical at this point? Are you more interested in your relationship patterns? Are you willing to expand your spiritual side? Are you ready to explore your emotional depths? What level of growth and healing are you looking for? There is no shame in desiring any one path over another. Be true to you and what you’re able to handle right now. Baby steps are okay. Big leaps are okay. Knowing and owning what works for you at this point in your life is what matters most.