Since 1980, my work has emerged from deep roots of curiosity about the body as a source of power, pleasure, and wisdom.
I hacked something resembling a career path through the brambles.
In the 1990s, I was a counselor for women in profound distress due to sexual assault. In the 2000s, I invited art students in my Human Sexuality classes to articulate their inner worlds through their art. I taught Sex Ed for 10 years to elementary, middle and high school students (and their parents.) I taught teens and their parents Dan Siegel's early work on neuroplasticity and mindfulness. I developed a class called "Who's Your Jesus?" that helped parishioners untangle their relationship with Christianity. I ran Silver Sage Sojourns for ten years, guiding older women into the wilderness on multi-day backpacking trips. I've been working with my hands as a massage therapist since 1980.
All of this work with my fellow humans - but especially teaching Sexuality Education for ten years - made clear the ways in which we are shaped by and continue to tolerate behavioral constraints derived from cultural expectations.
The unforgettable motivator for this book was the annual question from an 8th-grade girl in our Sex Ed classes, "Does sex hurt?"
Reorienting the Sex Talk is my best answer to a question no one should have to ask.