Heather: Hi Alex! I feel like we’ve really gotten to know each other under a set of bizarre of circumstances this past year. You’ve definitely been one of those bright spots of the pandemic… the whole “lack of being local” was no barrier to our co-creation! We’ve recorded, what like 9+ hours of really fun sex ed in 2021 so far?? 

Alex: Hi Heather! Truly, it’s been a wild time. This work relationship is definitely one of the highlights of 2021! I’m pretty sure that’s correct too, 9 hours sounds like a lot but I swear it flies by! We have so much fun. 

Heather: I love that Pelvic Global (Pelvic Guru, LLC) has taken on these sex toy courses that we put together. I know lubes and toys are certainly things I get asked about often. What are some of the questions that you get most from patients (or other practitioners) on these topics?

Alex: That’s a good question! Usually it’s something along the lines of a patient telling me they don’t use lube or use a not so great lube because they’ve never really thought too much about it and I can then recommend a better option. Regarding toys, a very popular conversation is around what the options are for dilation products that aren’t as clinical or that can be multipurpose. This can be really really helpful in bridging the gap between the clinical dilation process and the patient feeling connected to their body in a more fun, pleasurable way! 

Heather: Every time we teach together, I feel like you surprise yourself with the actual depth of knowledge you have on SO MANY sexual health topics! Seriously, I think we could have done a 1 hour course just on harness selection (and we probably will). Tell the folks reading this how you have accumulated this wealth of knowledge. 

Alex: Haha, I do recognize I have that reaction often. I’ve always been a big nerd about all things sex and sexual health related, and I worked at a local sex shop for a few years. When I was there I went through an extensive sex ed training headed by a well known sexologist, and got a lot of on the spot experience with talking to customers from all walks of life about pleasure and products. I loved to teach a wide variety of workshops, and got to create a few brand new ones myself! This really dovetailed beautifully with pelvic health PT and the more clinical anatomy training. 

Heather: I know that I got into the field of sex education from a combination of 

• Seeing how stressful sexuality and relationships were for my patients to talk about during their medical history for pelvic PT

• Becoming aware of my own “not-as-straight-as-I-thought-ness” in my 30s and then starting to deconstruct why it was so hard for me to see it where there clearly so many bright flashing lights along the way

• Having many of the same struggles with sexuality, desire, connection, and communication as my patients were having and being able to really feel on a deep-soul level the pain that happens with those issues and the feeling like I didn’t have anywhere to turn for answers. 

• My experience since childhood of making a safe space for others to explore and learn about themselves. My mom helped create this for me and so I extended it to my friends. I remember teaching my middle school friends about the angle of the vagina to help them understand why tampons were challenging to use, and I remember giving permission to my friends to sleep without underwear on! I mean, really, “sleeping at home by yourself without underwear on” was fairly scandalous for us at that time! 

What were some of your motivations for starting the sexual health journey, Alex? 

Alex: I think some of my biggest influences have been hearing my friends and partners struggles in getting accurate and gender/sexuality affirming information from providers or, more generally, on the internet. Another influence is watching other providers (especially when I’m in the patient role) show very obvious discomfort with talking about sex and struggle even with basic sexual health knowledge. It’s just always been glaringly obvious that there’s a huge lack of training for providers, along with our disappointing sex ed throughout middle and high school. It’s also been deeply rewarding to get to talk folks through picking out their first vibrator, gender affirming product, strap on, or whatever! 

I had a similar experience with thinking I was cis and straight through most of my life (thank you compulsive heteronormativity and cisnormativity) and I do wonder whether a comprehensive sex ed experience would have helped me figure out a lot of aspects of my identity sooner. 

Currently, one of my biggest motivators is being able to offer this information to all of my patients in a safer and judgement-free space. It really never gets old! 

Heather: So we recorded these sex toy courses in two sections. Each section is about 2.5 hours and is FULL of so much information. While I was honestly a bit surprised at how big this topic was, it was kind of confirming as well… because when I’ve tried to record an hour worth of content (for Bubbles & Bubbly which you were also a part of) I feel like we only get to scratch the surface in so many ways. Do you mind telling our readers a little bit about the breakdown of the two courses and what parts you were particularly excited about getting to geek out on?

Alex: Of course! We broke our talk into the general topics of Materials (what your toys/barriers/lube is made of), Compatibility (what can and can’t go with what), Safety (what can and can’t go where), toy and product options (why this over that), and how all these things connect to patient care. To be honest, I loved the whole thing! It was truly one of my favorite projects to work on, but if I had to pick a few highlights it would be talking about all things lube – I’m a huge lube nerd – and getting to showcase our toy collections for science!! Sometimes I still can’t believe this is something I do for a living.