Many of us were raised with insufficient positive information about pleasure, intimacy, and sex. We were raised in a culture of silence and fear.

Our sex education was about shame, abstinence, STI’s and unwanted pregnancies. For many of us, our religious, cultural, and familial taboos were aimed to thwart our biological desires; while our culture was telling us “no!” our bodies were telling us, “go!”

When we are subjected to that kind of powerful polarity, especially during puberty and early adulthood (when our nervous systems are forming along with our new found sense of self and sexuality) it builds guilt, shame, and secrecy onto our erotic blueprint. For some it is even more extreme, where we have learned that to “behave” is to have no interest in our own body or pleasure at all. This often leads to physical numbness and a sense of detachment from erotic feelings. Somatic Sex Education can rewrite the blueprint and reconnect people to their ability to access pleasure.

In my practice, I find many people reach mid life with a nagging suspicion that something isn’t quite right about their sexuality, or at least, their sexual experience is not what they want it to be. The ways they express themselves erotically don’t nurture or satisfy any more. Perhaps habits, rather than engagement, have taken over. Maybe these habits exist because of guilt, shame or denial. These are common negative emotions that people often experience, which inhibit their personal erotic exploration, and acceptance of their own sexual desires.

Sexuality is as much biological as it is sensory, as much nature’s imperative to survive as the human love of pleasure. Our own personal expression of sex is where these biological and human urges collide with society’s repression of those very urges. While sex brings people together, deepens relationships, builds families, communities, and populates the planet, that energy is also culturally reviled, mistrusted, and tightly controlled. Such negativity brings with it the shadow aspects of sexuality: guilt, shame, and denial of healthy sexual desires. Sexuality explored through shadow often develops into limiting beliefs, habits, and patterns. These unwanted attributes can weave together to become what is “normal” for us when it comes to sex. It didn’t happen all at once, it happened over many years and experiences, and it’s not until some event or stimulus challenges our norms that we are invited to ask ourselves why we do what we do.

That question, which turns our learned norms on their head, is enormous. What if our education had been focused on self respect and respect for others? What if boundary setting had been taught as a loving act? What if we had been permitted the freedom to discover pleasure in our own bodies? What if we were always able to wholeheartedly say yes, no, or maybe? This is consent. Such a different experience would have helped us to more fully embody our sexuality, enrich our lives, and heighten our ability to relate. I believe that this is the work of a lifetime; knowing ourselves, loving wholeheartedly, and the practice of consent.

Foundational to my practice is the belief that when people are supported in cultivating a healthy eroticism, healing happens. It is grounding and wholesome.

I see many clients deepen their self understanding through simple explorations and conscious touch to unwind harmful patterns. It is my life’s work to support my clients as they learn to slow down their pathway to arousal, start to recognize where the negative feelings and coping responses take them out of the moment and prevent them from truly being present.