Sex and Love Mentors

I’ve had really great sexuality education on many levels, yet the part of education that rarely gets discussed is mentorship. I just started a mentorship program for sexuality professionals, but that’s not the mentorship I’m speaking of. Often, when I teach my college health courses and we discuss Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, my students will debate whether love and belonging or self-esteem come first on the hierarchy. Inevitably, someone brings up that old adage that tells us “You have to love yourself before anyone else can love you.”

Really? I don’t think it’s nearly that cut and dry. Sometimes we do push people away with our self-hatred or self-love struggles. Yet, I think that sometimes when we are struggling to love ourselves as much as we wish we could, somebody comes into our lives and they love us so fiercely, so big and so wholly, that they teach us how to love ourselves. They become our model for our own self-love.  

My first true love was that person for me. Still, to this day I credit him for teaching me how to love. He showed me what was possible in love in a way I’d not yet experienced in my life. My BFF is the most loving person I’ve ever known and she just amazes me with the way she loves me. She has taught me so much of what friendship is about.

Sex is the same way. When we have good lovers, who are deeply giving, who listen to our bodies and respond to our requests and help us to figure out what requests we even want to make, it goes a long way in our becoming a good lover who can have great sex AND who truly loves oneself.

I can teach people a lot of things in my work. Nothing can replace a lover who really shows up and creates love and a sexual life that makes you feel seen and adored, heard and appreciated, happy and fulfilled. A friend who is with you in every moment-good, bad and ugly, loving you all the way. Who doesn’t want that?

We all do. Many of us have it. Some of us want it but aren’t sure it can happen. Others think it will never happen so they turn down the dream. And yes, ultimately, to really receive all of that and to not NEED it, you have to be able to give it to yourself. Then you can really show up in your relationships as that mentor, that exquisite lover that can co-create magic with another human being. I say turn up the dream.

Look at your life and who your sex and love mentors have been. They may have been a parent or teacher or other caretaker, good friends, and often, they were your partners, boyfriends, girlfriends and lovers. I can remember a one-night stand that involved a surprise spanking that opened up a whole world to me that I had no idea existed or that I’d even want to be a part of. Sometimes it happens like that…a short-lived experience that goes a long way in one’s sexual development.

“The Call”, Remedios Varo (1961)

 I dedicated my first book to all of my lovers, for each of them have taught me something really important about myself sexually and/or about love. I really meant that, as I thought of each one with grace as I wrote that book. My love for myself is as big as it is, in part, because of each of them. Learning to love oneself is a journey that has ups and downs and lots of lessons along the way. If we all waited until we achieved perfect self-love to let someone else love us, we’d be missing out on a whole lotta love in our lives.

Today take a moment to think of your sex and love mentors and send a prayer of gratitude to them for what they gave you. Those gifts are precious and they really do last forever, even if the relationship doesn’t. Your relationship with YOU is the only one that’s forever.

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, courageous love, developmental tasks, growth in relationship, healthy relationships, intimacy, opening up, Sexual Growth, vulnerability
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What Made You Become a Sexuality Professional?

This is the most common question people ask me about my work. I answer it by telling my story of being an isolated teenager, of struggling to understand who I was sexually, to find resources to help me get through pregnancy scares, unplanned pregnancies, regretted sexual experiences and sexual assault. I talk about the young college student who finally got the information she needed to be able to have a healthy sexual relationship, complete with orgasms. The one who got so inspired by her teachers, that she decided she wanted to be one too. That’s where my journey began.

When I decided I wanted to study sexuality, there was no internet, there were few places to study sexuality and I didn’t know anyone who had ever done it personally, besides my college instructors. I had the tricky task of figuring out where one goes to study sexuality and to prepare for a field that was amorphous to me at best. After some phone book and library research and many phone calls later, I spoke to a helpful and friendly man at SIECUS and started on my path to become a sexuality educator.

Over the years, eager young sexuality students and people starting in the field have written to me asking for support on their journeys. When students write me, I want to give them the moon. I used to write generous responses filled with resources to each person who contacted me, as I wanted to return th e mentoring I had generously received from people like Betty Dodson, Carol Queen, Ron Moglia, Konnie McCaffree, Elizabeth Schroeder, Suzanne Iasenza, Barbara Carrellas, Kate Bornstein, and many other incredible professionals.  Over time, the frequency of those messages and my own deepening professional work meant I could no longer personally connect with each seeker.

Ultimately, I realized there is a need for a place where sexuality professionals and budding sex pros can come together to learn, to support one another, to network and to have the critical conversations we don’t always get to have because we are going-going-going in our busy work lives. So many of us are really isolated in our work and need connection with our peers.

It is out of this story, that my brand new program, SPECTRA, was born. Today we launch this professional mentorship program for feminist Sex Positive Educators, Counselors, Coaches, Therapists, Researchers, Activists and Advocates in the sexuality field. I could not be more thrilled to see this dream come to fruition.

The conversations in SPECTRA will be decidedly feminist because that’s who I am and that’s who I will resonate with. SPECTRA is the program I never had and wished I did. It will help sexuality professionals connect with each other, develop their skills, and make more money doing exactly what they love so they can serve the world in a bigger way with their gifts.

I know that I have to do my own work in order to help others do theirs. I’ve got coaches, business mentors, an awesome therapist, amazing healers, body workers, and a primary care physician who I trust to do my healing and hard work with. I’ve got my team and I’ve built my business. One thing I know is that I cannot lead someone through a process I myself have not experienced.

I could not have developed this program 10 years ago. It would have been inauthentic and premature. Today I can stand in my own personal journey of sexual empowerment, my deep work as a sexual being, my wide-ranging career, my education, my self-transformation and my business development and say, “Yes, I’m ready to help others follow their vision because I have indeed followed mine.”

As someone who has seen and followed my work and knows who I am as a professional, I’m pleased to announce to you my new endeavor. I hope you’ll help me spread the word about SPECTRA, and if you are in the sexuality field, that you will consider joining me. Please stop by www.sexualityprofessionals.com and check out the SPECTRA community.

Yes. Yes! YES!

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, L/G/B/T/Q, Reid Mihalko, sexuality, sexually empowered life, SPECTRA
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Release Sexual Shame and Blockages: Sexually Empowered Life Step 2

It’s virtually impossible to grow up in a culture like ours, which treats sexuality as taboo, something to be afraid of, or something to avoid, without experiencing sexual shame. At some point in our lives, we all take in messages of shame about our sexuality, our sexual body, our sexual responses and desire, our experiences or lack of experiences, our gender and identity, or other aspects of who we have been or who we are as sexual people.
That shame is tremendously powerful and it isolates you and makes you do anything you can to never feel that way again. It comes from all directions: from your family, friends or peers, church, synagogue or temple, from the media. As you are molded to be a certain kind of sexual being (or even a non-sexual being), if you divert from cultural standards and expectations, you are questioned, and sometimes feel a sense of guilt for what you have done or not done, or shame for who you are.

I was shamed by my mother for touching my genitals when I was 8 years old and that kept me from touching my genitals, masturbating, or otherwise exploring my body until college! For 10 years, I internalized all kinds of messages about my genitals and what it meant to be curious about them. Shame is powerful.

Maybe you got caught masturbating, playing childhood games, exploring your body, or playing make-believe in ways that made the adults around you feel uncomfortable. They may have even come from a good place of wanting to protect you, yet the result was your being humiliated by them, which can turn into a deep sense of shame for who you are.

    Sex is so personal that it’s the most painful place a person can be shamed. There is a new term being used, “Slut shaming” where teenaged girls are being shamed for their sexual expression or assumed sexual experiences. This has become more commonplace with the internet being such a convenient way to harass someone. Shame affects everyone, but it especially affects those of us who do not fit the dominant norms of our culture. So gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are easy targets, as are sexually expressed/powerful women and girls.

   Many shaming experiences happen so quickly you hardly know what happened, but the result can be years of feeling bad. If a peer who you respect asserts that she doesn’t do such-and-such kind of sex, or that only “sluts” would do that, you become red in the face if you are the “slut” who has done that.

Shame is often tied up in people’s experiences with abuse: a victim of abuse might be humiliated as part of the abuse, and told that they deserve it for some reason. They might walk away holding so much shame for what happened that they never tell anyone, or they do tell and the person they confided in blames them for what happened or questions them in a way that shames them all over again.

The thing about shame is that it exists and becomes bigger in isolation. So the more you keep it to yourself, the more it can overcome you and the more painful it gets. Shame is never good for sexuality. It serves to keep you feeling small, staying in line, acting small or outside of what you would authentically do, feeling undeserving, and it keeps you disconnected from others who can support you and help you escape it.

 We all have experiences of shame to work through at some point relating to our sexuality. Sometimes it comes later as you age and have shameful feelings about how your body and sexual responses are changing. To live a sexually empowered life, you need to directly work on your internal shame that keeps you from being the fully actualized sexual person you are meant to be.

I am constantly helping my clients look at their shameful places and work on releasing the shame that holds them back. Quietly holding onto shame does not serve your sexual growth-it only serves to limit who you are or believe you can be. The antidote to shame is compassion, according to Brené Brown, so creating situations where we can speak our shame and be received in a place of compassion and empathy is one of the ways to let it go.

And if you are making decisions based on feeling shame, or fear of future shame, that’s a sign it’s time to look at how shame is getting in the way of you living your life and being who you want to be.

Releasing sexual shame and blockages is the second step of my “9 Steps to a Sexually Empowered Life”, a dynamic process I use in my private coaching and in my Women’s Sexually Empowered Life program. For more information about working with me, go here.

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, opening up, Sexual Growth, sexuality, shame, vulnerability
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Sexual Empowerment Step 1: Tell Your Sexual Story

If you are to become sexually empowered, you must tell your story.

We ALL have a sexual story to tell.Your story might include your experience of your own body from very early in your life up to now. It might include feelings of desire or crushes or past relationships and sexual experiences. It includes shame and rejection, ignorance and trauma or other difficult parts of your sexual experience–the parts you rarely, if ever, share. It includes your relationship to your own sexual identity and how you came to know and name your sexuality. It includes your experience of your gender and of all the expectations and messages you received from your culture. It includes so much–your rich, unique experience of sexuality.

Many of us never tell our sexual story–in part or in whole because we learn that sexuality is taboo and we shouldn’t talk about or acknowledge sex. Many of us have had difficult experiences that we’d rather not remember so we repress them and do not speak of them. Some things make us feel so much shame that we stay quiet and keep them to ourselves.

When you stay quiet about your sexuality, you limit it–you can only grow it so much in silence. When you keep the shamed parts to yourself, you maintain your own shame instead of releasing it.

I think this is why the Vagina Monologues have been so popular and have had such a long vibrant life of opening up the world of storytelling about our genitals and the private things that relate to our genitals. The production has helped thousands of people break the silence they have about sexuality and about their vulvas/vaginas. It’s also why Take Back the Night and other events are where women can offer testimonials about their traumatic experiences are so valuable. They help us not to be alone with it. I travel a lot teaching workshops at colleges, conferences, and in community spaces. One of the workshops I teach relating to the Vagina Monologues is “My Own Vagina’s Monologue.” I love teaching this workshop because it helps women to open up about their stories relating to their bodies.

Telling your story is the first step of releasing the painful parts and embracing the delicious parts.

Telling your story also helps you let go of the parts of it which do not serve you anymore.

Telling your story helps you to expand, to enrich and continue to make the story you want.

Telling your own sexual story is the first step in my Sexually Empowered Life Program. I work with people to examine their stories–and give them a place to tell them, release them and to grow them to a new place, the one of their choosing…which is much more empowering than feeling like we are simply a recipient or victim in a story. We create the story and that can start right now.

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, developmental tasks, Sexual Growth, sexually empowered life
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My Sexual Life Would Be Good, If Only…

How many times do you put off your own growth, self-development work, fun, pleasure or education because of some made-up reason that really just slows you down and keeps you from having what you want, for no good reason?

With sexuality, many people have a chronic problem with putting it on hold because, well, “I’d work on it if only I had the time,” or “I’d be able to get my needs met, if only I had the right lover,” or “I’d indulge in something I want (a new toy, a weekend workshop, a pamper day) if only I had the money.” Or “I’d have more fun sexually if only I were younger/prettier/didn’t have kids,” etc.

You disempower yourself and you prevent yourself from having what you really want with your “if onlys”. “If only” is a clue you are making an excuse. How often do you find yourself thinking or saying, “I’d do it, if only…”?

I want to suggest that you get that little phrase out of your vocabulary.

You might be thinking, well, I can do that for some things but not for others. I hear people make lots of excuses about why they don’t work on their sexuality and sexual relationships. They call me and claim they want to work on themselves, and then come the litany of reasons why they just can’t. At that point, I suggest they think about it and when they’re ready to make the commitment, contact me again.

I’m most interested in and satisfied by working with people who are committed to living more sexually fulfilled lives. People who want deeper levels of intimacy and more aligned, satisfying relationships. You want to know why I work with these people? Because when you’re committed to something, really committed, you drop the excuses and you do whatever it takes. That’s what makes it a commitment. And that makes what I do far more satisfying, than someone with one foot in and one foot out.

If you find yourself going back and forth in your mind about something and lots of excuses keep coming up, you might be interested and in a place of contemplating it, but you have not yet made a decision to do it and there is no commitment.

Sometimes people even do relationships that way, even the ones they call “committed”.

They have made a false commitment to someone because they are still waffling with excuses and “if onlys” about the relationship. Pay attention if you hear yourself saying things like: “Well, he’s a great guy. The relationship would be awesome if only he were a better lover, or if only he wanted kids…” or “Our sex life is good but not great. I get other things from her, so maybe this just isn’t the thing we will have”, or “We have good sex, but I want more emotional depth. If only he could provide that, I’d be totally fulfilled.”

Many people settle in relationships, and then feel bad for settling. So to compensate for that and convince themselves they made a sound choice, they make excuses for their mate, or for why they are with them.

Does this sound familiar? I’ve certainly done it. So begin to notice where you are making excuses, holding back your own true desires with “if onlys”. What can you begin to let go of and cut out? How much happier would you be if you let it go, and stopped making excuses for why you don’t do or can’t have something?

It’s not bad to want something bigger for your sexuality. You are meant to expand sexually. If you are constricting rather than expanding, look at the reasons why and make a commitment to change them. The way to change your life is to take decisive action, commit and move.

What can you take action on right now in order to create movement in your life? What “if onlys” will you let go of this week?

Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, fulfillment, healthy relationships, personal needs, Relationships
Posted in Getting Unstuck, Pleasure & Desire, Relationships, Sexual Growth | No Comments »

Take Your Sexual Temperature

Sometimes you get so stuck sexually and you are so used to feeling stuck, you have no way to gauge how or why.

I see this a lot with new sex coaching clients and prospects. If a woman has gotten far enough in her process to call me, she at least has some sense that her sexuality needs attention. Sometimes that’s as much as she knows. Figuring out the way into it or how to break it down feels hard and the whole of her sexual issues becomes a series of symptoms with vague ideas of the root causes.

I recently spoke to a woman who described her sexuality as a ball with no handles that just rolls and rolls and she doesn’t know where or how to get a grip on it. I think many people feel this way about sexuality because it’s so big and so many potential issues come up that they do not know where to begin.

You can start by taking your own sexual temperature, so to speak. Look at the various key aspects of your sexuality and if you could literally take your temperature, how would the mercury rise and fall?

Your Sexual Temperature Key