Good Vibrations Magazine

What led you to become a Sex Educator?

The realization some years ago that people were woefully uneducated or undereducated about sex and sexuality led me to decide that I wanted to be a sex educator. I specifically became interested in it when I realized how little accurate sex education teenagers were getting, largely as a result of the asinine “abstinence only” indoctrination, and vowed to do something about it. I was working on an undergraduate degree in business administration and changed half way through college to psychology, specifically so I could orient myself toward graduate studies suitable for a sex education career, in fact.

How did you start giving sex advice?

I joined a forum for teens and young adults when I was 15. That forum included one specifically for discussion of sex and sex-related subjects. I found that I was far more knowledgeable about sexuality than anyone else posting advice there (including those much older than I). As time went on, I became the senior “go-to” person for legitimate information about sex. Even at that age, I had been doing my own research on a variety of subjects related to sexuality for my own personal edification, and that knowledge proved beneficial for others as well.

Where did you get your education?

My undergraduate degree in psychology is from the University of Miami (FL). I am currently working on my Masters degree in Human Sexuality Studies at a university in California, and will go on to get my PhD or EdD in sex education once I have my masters.

What do you love about giving sex advice?

My favorite thing about giving sex advice is when someone comes back and tells me that something I’ve told them “worked” or helped them deal with a specific issue. One of the most common pieces of advice I am asked is how to prepare for the first anal experience. A lot of people, girls and women especially, are afraid of it – they think it will hurt, or be messy, or any number of other myths they’ve heard about it. When I explain to them how to prepare for it, they invariably come back and tell me the advice I gave them was sound and worked just as I said it would, and therefore they enjoyed the experience. A good first experience is critical to being able to enjoy any sex act, so the fact that I can contribute to someone’s life-long satisfaction with anything related to sex is very gratifying to me.

What is your most common question?

Easily the most common question I get (and that I see in any forum where young people hang out), is “Can I get pregnant from…X?” In schools today, even those where “comprehensive” sex education is taught, teachers usually aren’t allowed to discuss specific sex acts to any great extent. And of course, students are hesitant or embarrassed to ask a teacher about specific acts in front of a class. So they won’t ask a teacher about a guy ejaculating on their pubic mound and the likelihood of becoming pregnant that way. None of these questions surprise me any longer because I know the state of sex education as it exists in most public and private schools these days.

What is the most difficult or hard-to-answer question you’ve ever received?

The most difficult question I’ve had to answer over the years always involves unexpected pregnancies, especially from the really young ones (12-14). A great many girls will ask what they should do – should they keep it; should they try to hide it from their parents and/or the father; should they have an abortion? It’s impossible for me to make those decisions for someone else, so I do the best I can to educate them, honestly, about all of the options available to them. This is exacerbated when the question is asked in an open forum because you’ll have people on all sides of the issue chiming in trying to coerce the girl to make the decision they’d make rather than the decision that’s right for her.

What is your favorite sex toy and why?

My favorite sex toy is my OhMiBod, which is a vibrator that attaches to your iPod. It transfers the beat of the music to your body through the vibrator. Listening to trance music and club music with a driving beat while that thing is pulsating inside you has to be experienced to be believed.

Where do you teach? If you travel, what is it like? Where was your favorite place to teach? Most unusual panel or experience?

I only teach on the Internet at this point, in a variety of forums under a variety of different monikers. I do plan to go onto to form my own sex education business once I’ve completed my education. I am already working on plans for that.

What was the most interesting thing you learned in your exploration of sex?

How incredibly individualized the sexual experience is and how individual psychology plays into ones understanding and perceptions about their own sexuality. The understanding of sexual psychology is one of those topics that will likely fascinate me to the day I leave this world.

What would be your number one piece of advice for someone interested in a career of sex education?

Don’t go into it unless you can deal with the subject in a mature, rational manner, even with young people, who are far more intelligent about it than many might believe. This means being prepared to explain the truth to young people, absent any religious or political ideology. If you “educate” children about sex with the veil of religious ideology, you’re intentionally harming them in my book, and that is not what education is about.

There’s one website where any time someone asks about how to masturbate (which a very common question from young females, especially), the site owner won’t allow people to talk about how to masturbate. Instead, she insists they be told to “Google” it. I’m not sure if you’ve ever Googled “masturbation,” but the first 2 million hits you get have little to do with sex education for young people to be sure. Telling people to look it up on the Internet is tantamount to directing them to porn, in my opinion. I don’t believe that is a rational way to instruct young people about sex. If you’re going to market yourself as a sex educator, be prepared to deal with all aspects of sexuality in a level-headed, rational manner, and be prepared to fight the battles with the censors, the politicians, and other anti-sex forces in our society. We have enough misinformation and incomplete information out there these days. We need more people who’ll stand up and actually teach young people that sex is perfectly healthy to explore if done within the right context.

What’s the best thing you’ve learned or best advice you’ve received?

The best thing I’ve learned is that I am responsible for my own sexuality – not my partner, not society at large, and not anyone else. Fortunately, I learned that at a young age.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about sex?

That anyone who practices anything other than “mainstream” sex (i.e., the four basic positions, PIV intercourse & oral) is deviant in some way. I am so tired of people using the term “normal” to refer to sexual practices. Some people enjoy anal sex; some people enjoy being spanked or beaten during sex; some people enjoy pee play during sex. All of that is perfectly normative behavior between two or more individuals when done consensually.

Which is your favorite project that you’ve worked on?

My favorite project is a website I am working on dedicated to sex education for young people.

What is your best piece of sex advice for women?

Own your sexuality. Period. Don’t let other people tell you how to enjoy your sexuality. Don’t let other people tell you that you shouldn’t enjoy X because of Y. Don’t let people tell you you shouldn’t do X because you’re too old to be doing it. Manage your own sexuality the way you see fit, to include embracing your inner slut if that’s what you want to do.

What projects are you working on now?

Right now, my focus is on completing my education. As I indicated earlier, I am also working on business plans to develop my own sex education enterprise once I am done with my education. I have a couple of other projects I work on related to the rights of sex workers. The My First Professional Sex website, for example, allows sex workers to explain why they got into sex work, what they enjoy about, what they dislike about, it. It allows sex workers to explain why they got into it instead of the anti-sex work crowd being the only source of that information.

Where can people find out more about you?

Since I am writing this under a pseudonym necessary for my current line of work, the only real place you can find out more about me and my philosophy regarding sex education is my blog, Real Princess Diaries.