As a queer person (I am attracted to pretty much everyone, regardless of gender), I tend to surround myself with people like me. That means other people who enjoy attraction to multiple genders including their own, people who enjoy group intimacy or non-monogamous dynamics, people who want to discuss sex, consent, desires, boundaries and so on.
Being able to discuss my hook-ups with my other partners and my desires with people I am intimate with seems perfectly natural to me. Everyone around me in my circles are doing it all the time. Growing up queer is incredibly isolating - you tend to feel like you are the "outsider". But when you get older, and you find your fellow queer people, you are met with a community that is so close and caring that it is almost worth all the pain we have to go through to find each other. I am so grateful for my queer friends, my queer life, and the privilege of living in a city where I can be open about it.
...what a lot of you are missing is the option to talk about what you want, sexually, with the people around you.
But what I am noticing for a lot of my clients at the moment is that these things I take for granted (i.e. being able to openly discuss my sexual desires with the people I am sleeping with or my friends) is not an option for a lot of you. I guess having not moved in either "straight", "vanilla" or "heteronormative" circles for so long, I seem to have forgotten that what a lot of you are missing is the option to talk about what you want, sexually, with the people around you.
That's where I come in. As part of my practice I offer couple's therapy, to both parties but also sometimes just to individual members within relationships. I am not a qualified relationship or sex therapist, but I am is a sex worker. And of course if you know anything about sex work, you'll know that being a therapist comes with the territory. Before working with new clients who are just starting out on their journeys through sexual self-discovery, I always share the caveat that I am not a trained therapist of course. That doesn't seem to bother the couples I am working with. At the start, this was a little confusing. Why come to me to work on your relationship or your sex life?
During my first session with a truly lovely couple, the answer dawned on me.
What I am offering to couples, which is what my friends and lovers offer me, is a way to talk about sex, intimacy and desire that most "straight" couples don't sadly have access to.
I sat there gently and slowly asking this young married couple questions like "how often do you both masturbate", "what's your goal when having sex", "what turns you on" - questions that to me are questions I get to discuss all the time with my partners and friends. But for many people, this couple included, no one had ever asked them questions like that. In their friend circles, sex was not appropriate dinner conversation.
What I am offering to couples then, which is what my friends and lovers offer me, is a way to talk about sex, intimacy and desire that most "straight" couples don't sadly have access to. I functioned in that first moment, and continue to with the couples I work with, as a way to open-up the usually very awkward topic of conversation: what you want.
If you or someone you know might be interested in booking an initial consultation with me, drop me an email.
Cover Photo by Julian Myles on Unsplash.
Photo by Leonardo Sanches on Unsplash