How can a non-sex educator become a sex educator? And what types of sex educators are there?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: Someone wrote in and said, “How does a lay person become a sex educator?
Reid: You said lay. Sorry. This is Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com .
Cathy: This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com . How does a muggle … have you ever used that term before?
Reid: I refer to in my geeky way sex educators are like the Harry Potters of the world, people with the magic. And then there are the muggles. The non-sex educators, the non-sex geeks out there. There are lots of different ways to become a sex educator.
Cathy: A lot of different types of sex educator you could be.
Reid: Yeah, in the industry of sex education, for somebody who doesn’t really know, what you need to do is start investigating and researching what kind of sex education you’d like to do or you think you feel called to and then that will help then form the path that you’re going to do. Are you going to do some sort of Ph.D program at Weidner? Are you going to study and get accredited through a different accreditation situations? Are you going to become a sex therapist?
Cathy: Or a coach.
Reid: Or a coach. There’s all these different things. You’re going to be like some charlatan like me jumping around like a Muppet on espresso who is just teaching workshops or creating online content. This is something that Sex Geek Summer Camp as an institution, as a business retreat for sex educators, part of what we do is help people, expose people to all these different ideas so that you have an idea of what’s going to be a good fit for you, whether that’s working for Babe Land or Pleasure Chest or Good Vibes or some store and being in the retail side of the industry where you’re in the trenches helping people who maybe have walked into a sex toy store for the first time ever.
Cathy: I remember my first time was terrifying. Yeah, there’s all different levels of people you’d like to work with. One of the things Reid does beautifully at Sex Geek Summer Camp and Sex Geek School for Gifted Sex Geeks is helps you identify. I’ve never seen this taught anywhere else this way. It’s really beautiful. He helps you identify what your passion is and what you want to create. There’s a lot of different ways you can be a sex educator but identifying the demographic, the people that you really care about, that you’re going to get out of bed to help and what issues you want to help transform, that can take a lot of friction out of the business and help you be successful a lot faster.
Reid: Then you can start figuring out if you really want to be the educator who writes books or has a blog or creates videos like we do, or is somebody who wants… you want to do sex education but you want to work with teens and you want to work for an organization because you don’t want to be an entrepreneur and hustle your own paycheck. So then when you start looking at that like maybe plan parenthood or these other organizations are the ones I should be working with.
The answer not to escape answering the question is there are a lot of different ways for a layperson to become a sex educator and understanding that doing the research to figure it out will start to help you what track and what journey you’re going to have, whether it’s academia or retail or entrepreneurial ship or maybe your version of sex education is being just a social worker who happens to deal with families who have abuse issues. There’s so many choices out there in the industry of empowering people around sex and relationships.
You can do the research and start to hone in on what industries might be a good fit for you or at least where you want to start. Programs like Sex Geek Summer Camp can be really useful in helping you start to get those directions. Even though I’m the creator of this, I think I created it in a way where it will give people resources. Please check out SexGeekSummerCamp.com. Sign up for some free videos. Check out Cathy Vartulli’s work. Amie Jo Gardner does some really great stuff, the Center for Sex and Culture is a great resource as well. Then there are all the Planet Parenthood, there’s… I lost some other ones. There’s ASEX which is all for sex therapists and counselors.
Cathy: Wood Hall.
Reid: There’s Wood Hall, Sexual Freedom Lance, there’s Quadessss which is all about scientific research, four S’s.
Cathy: ASEX.
Reid: I already said that.
Cathy: I’m sorry.
Reid: But there’s all these stuff out there. You can come to me for some of these resources and Google some of the places that we mentioned and we’ll drop some of those URLs in the description below. Again, thank you for writing in, the person who asked. Just for being interested in wanting to be somebody who helps people feel more empowered around sex and relationships.
Cathy: There’s such need.
Reid: There’s such need and I appreciate having your curious and maybe someday you’ll be a peer of ours. Bye.