Thank you for your curiosity about me and my practice as a professional Somatic and Intimacy Educator, Surrogate Partner and Dating Coach.
Pleasure Activist
I am a sexual health and wellness educator and intimacy coach. I help my clients manifest more tender loving intimacy in their relationships. The more tender loving intimacy we have in our relationships, the happier we are in life. The happier we are in life, the more harmony we have with others. The more harmony we have with others, the less violence we have in the world. I honour feminist thought. The personal is political. I honour the old hippie assertions about how to create greater peace in the world: Make Love, Not War! I am a strong feminist and social justice advocate. And now, as an intimacy educator, I am also a true pleasure activist.
I believe that loving relationships are the basic foundation to happiness. I believe that having a healthy sex life and honouring the natural beauty of our erotic life-force energy is an inherent birthright. Erotic freedom is the reclaiming of personal power. Dominant society is still laden with scripts that perpetuates sexual silence, shame and repression and tolerates sexual abuse. This has a limiting effect on being present in our own authentic sexual desires and experiencing true intimacy and erotic joy with others. I’d like to help change that paradigm. I wish to support sexual sovereignty and our human right to enjoy healthy shame-free erotic pleasure on our own terms. This is true pleasure activism work!
‘Pleasure is a measure of freedom. It increases the amount of feeling-good time in our life. It decreases internal or projected shame or scarcity thinking. Pleasure quietens voices of trauma that keep us from our full sacred sensual life. Pleasure creates more room for joy, wholeness, and aliveness. Pleasure creates less room for oppression, repression, self-denial and unnecessary suffering in our life. It helps us to navigate equality in our relationships. Liberation is possible when we collectively orient around pleasure.’
These are thoughts expressed by Adrienne Maree Brown in her book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. This book has influenced my views about the power politics of sexuality and the power of pleasure as a tool for personal empowerment and social justice for all.
Somatic and Intimacy Educator
Somatic and Intimacy Education is a somatic (building body-awareness) modality that supports sexual health and wellness and intimacy development. When the talk-based only approach is used, the practice is somatic and intimacy coaching to build body-awareness, but it is done without touch provided by me. When the touch-based approach is added to the talk-based approach, the practice is somatic and intimacy coaching with corresponding bodywork. The bodywork involves receiving touch from me, which may include erotic touch when requested by the client. Clients have choice regarding the approach they want me to use; talk or talk and touch. Either way, pleasure orientation is the goal. Pleasure is healing; this is ethos of our practice. By guiding clients to choose and ask for touch that gives them pleasure, healing naturally follows. I ask clients to identify their desires for touch and then ask me for the precise touch they want in the moment that brings them pleasure. I ask clients to identify other touch needs and desires, as well, and ask for the precise type of touch they want in the moment, such as touch that is relaxing, comforting, connecting and loving in addition to, or in place of, touch that is erotic. Clear agreements and explicit consent for any type of touch received by my clients by me is what makes somatic and intimacy education a safe container in which to experience all types of touch. This is a bold new leading edge practice and true sexual pleasure and healing work.
Surrogate Partner
Surrogate Partner Therapy (SPT) is a therapeutic practice that dates back to the 1970s, pioneered by Masters and Johnson to help individuals overcome sexual dysfunction and intimacy challenges through guided, hands-on experiences. A surrogate partner works closely with a client and their therapist to address issues and barriers around dating, physical intimacy, communication, and emotional connection. As surrogate partner, I act in the role of a temporary intimate partner for the client. The client gets real life practice and an opportunity to build the skills and confidence needed to have a future successful intimate relationship with another person. The therapy is longer term in scope and regularly scheduled sessions take place over a number of months. I am personally enthusiastic about being a trained surrogate partner because it aligns deeply with my belief in the healing power of intimacy and sexuality.
Dating Coach
Dating Coaching combines the teachings of Somatic and intimacy Coaching and the goals of Surrogate Partner Therapy, but in a less intensive way. The time frame is shorter and there is no requirement for the client to have a collaborating therapist. I do not act as a temporary partner. My role is to offer guidance and coaching for my client to establish a navigation plan and process in the dating world. I help clients to develop the skills and confidence to experience success in locating the right match. Clients feel more empowered than in previous attempts to navigate the dating world. My guidance allows them to determine and direct their own dating processes and experiences. I guide clients to identify their dating goal, set their criteria and determine how to screen, select and assess partners best aligned to their criteria. Clients learn to take charge and have success, rather than just leaving it to chance and repeating old patterns and having poor results. Dating coaching can also include bodywork: getting practice, skill and confidence to initiate physical and emotional intimacy with a new partner. Clients have found success and happiness in finding loving relationship through the practice of dating coaching.
My Background
My background education and work experience include:
- Registered Nurse in the area of Community, Mental and Sexual Health
- Massage Therapist and Reiki Master
- Social Services Professional specializing in Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Violence
- Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership from Yorkville University
I am a woman hailing from the Canadian prairies who is happily married for over forty years. Joe and I are parents to two adult children. We love to travel and explore new landscapes and cultures around the world. I am a long-time feminist, social justice activist and life adventurer.
I learned about sexual pleasure and autonomy later in life from a somatic sex educator in Vancouver. He helped me to overcome my sexual shame, repression and trauma and become the owner of my own sexual pleasure. He helped me to revive my sex life with my husband after a sixteen-year sexless marriage. Here I experienced for myself, the transformational powers of somatic sex education practice in the ‘receiving role’ of client. I felt the healing changes in my body and empowerment feelings in my mind that was brought about by attending a series of sessions of this modality. This is why I became a somatic and intimacy education practitioner myself in 2021. In 2024, after 3 years of practice in somatic and intimacy education, I became a trained surrogate partner as well.
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