From Sex Therapist to Erotic Writer: How & Why

Throughout my career, people have asked how I became the sexuality educator and sex therapist, Dr. J. Most people who asked the HOW question, presented it in a naturally curious context, especially if they knew I grew up “in the deep south.” While the how question has dogged me throughout my career, my plan to write erotica upon retirement was met with a different question, WHY? It got served up as a main course of barbed judgment and a side serving of, “You write smut, what a waste.” It fascinated me that two separate words, “how” and “why,” rolled off a tongue with such different intent.

In my career, I was known as the fun professor at the university, the resource guru for everything sexual, and the go-to-person in the local community with sexuality know-how that was clear, accurate, nonjudgmental, and sex-positive.

Yet, my presence alone caused cognitive dissonance for many in my community. All I had to do was show up and sexual energy charged the air. People wrestled with the idea they held of what a sex expert was. But mostly, they were stumped that it could be someone like me, the farm girl next door, the partner of an attorney, and the community volunteer extraordinaire. Cognitive dissonance became my best friend.

Before I began erotic writing, I undertook one last single-subject design research. I examined the how and the why questions about my sexuality career. I guess I wanted to remember where I had been in relation to where I was going.

I launched with milestones: my first job (which was forty years ago last month) with Adam and Eve, my first human sexuality course in college, my first SAR, my first transsexual client, my first sexuality camp, my first Plato’s Retreat pin, my first Playboy Director encounter, my first AASECT presentation, and my first research presentation at SSSS.

I harkened back to my intense feelings at being asked to leave an upscale restaurant for discussing “sex business” with Wardell Pomeroy, chastised for breast feeding in public, and heckled when I went to work crossing abortion picket lines.

I recollected experiencing my cervix as a tester for new cervical cap designs, working with the local pharmaceutical company to create the first area herpes support group, and choosing to be an interactive model to teach physicians how to provide a positive sexual exam.

I remembered training professionals to answer sex information hotline calls and apply sex therapy models, while keeping their personal agendas out of the clients’ concerns.

I reminisced about meeting and working with sexuality pioneers, too numerous to name. They each instilled in me the spirit of positive sexuality and the politics of pleasure.

I relived my era in the evolution of US sexuality culture beginning with Roe v Wade, identification of genital herpes, AIDS and HPV, development of Viagra, the label of sexual addiction, the ebb and flow of contraceptive methods and ending with a gay marriage battleground, state by state until marriage triumphed throughout the land.

I recalled highly personal moments: my parents bravely adhering to the family dinner rule that everyone must share something from their day (even when at age nineteen-the oldest of three), I provided condom stories over meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I remembered the arrogant surgeon talking to my husband after surgery. When asked about the timing to resume our sex life, he answered, “Ha, if it’s anything like mine, it doesn’t matter.” I remembered attending countless couple’s workshops. I remained ever vigilant that I would never be a hypocrite about sexuality, I, too, did the work.

But at the close of my career, it was teaching human sexuality to adolescents and college students that stood out as what brought me true joy. When I showed them empathy with a genuine self, interested in their thoughts and feelings about sex, they blossomed into who they wanted to be. For many, they became the best versions of their sexual selves, integrated throughout their lives, not compartmentalized or ignored, but instead celebrated and shared. They were the inspiration embedded in the why answer for my new writing.

So in my sexuality analysis, perhaps the how provided direction into the answer of why I write erotic fiction. Maybe after all these years, I still had some information left to share. Maybe when I created a fantasy, I knew it might aid someone who needed additional psychological stimulus to attain an orgasm as defined by the Quantum Model. Maybe at my local beach tavern, when someone asked how I spent my day, I could tell them about my latest erotica story. I created cognitive dissonance one more time because I liked how it felt. Maybe I would stand as a reminder that one can choose to have MORE positive sexuality in life.

In the US, we continue to fight sexual ignorance.

We continue to fight for comprehensive sexuality education.

We continue to fight for sexual rights to be equal rights.

I believe that workers in the field of sexuality, no matter which sexuality profession, make sexuality visible and showcase it as an integral part of the human experience.

For me, human sexuality is a birth to death proposition. Maybe the last chapters of my life are about creating a new sexuality tool that celebrates the culmination of my work and continues to affirm sexuality within each of us, myself included. Maybe I found a new medium for my voice that I will craft and hone.

Maybe the short answer to why I write erotica is because I CAN.

This week’s WICKED WEDNESDAY was about questions. To Check out the other writing CLICK HERE.