How to become a sex educator

My friend Robyn's perspective and path

Hi everyone - Please extend a warm welcome to my friend Robyn, who has been a huge help this year! One of the most common questions I receive is “how do I become a sex educator?” Here’s Robyn’s perspective on exactly that:

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Hello Confidence and Joy readers! My name is Robyn Manning-Samuels and I’m a health and sexuality educator working with Emily while she tours her New York Times bestselling (!!!) book, Come Together! I thought I’d introduce myself by answering one of the most common questions I heard while working with Emily on her tour. Folks wanted to know how Emily became a sex educator, how to become a sex educator, or how to become a sex therapist.

While I can’t answer for Emily, and I definitely can’t tell you about how to become a sex therapist, I can answer how I became a sex educator. I hope that this can help some folks who are interested in doing this professionally or exploring how to do this work in a different capacity from how they’re doing it right now.

I’ll say this up front: I ended up in this field in a similar way to how a lot of my colleagues ended up in this field, which is I kind of tripped and fell into it through academia. I was working on my undergrad campus, Marlboro College in southern Vermont (it doesn’t exist anymore 🪦RIP🪦) and my position as Student Life Coordinator for Sexual Respect and Wellness had three components: a residence life component, an advocacy component, and a programming/prevention component. I didn’t have formal training in those areas before taking on the role, so I figured out on my own how to do prevention education and advocacy in the most evidence-informed way possible. I did a lot of research, read “Come As You Are,” which had just come out, and then read all of Emily’s sources from CAYA. I developed programming that centered comprehensive sexuality education and best practices for talking about consent from a sex positive, pleasure positive perspective. 

That’s actually how I met Emily and other sex educators, many of whom became friends and mentors over the years: I invited them to come to campus as part of my programming series each year. I also networked with other preventionists on other campuses who were doing similar work. Eventually I chose to go to graduate school for public health to continue my formal education in health and sexuality education, while I was also working as a health educator at the New College of Florida. I chose health education because, as anyone who’s read CAYA and “Burnout” knows, all aspects of a person’s health and wellbeing impact their sex life. 

as anyone who’s read CAYA and “Burnout” knows, all aspects of a person’s health and wellbeing impact their sex life. 

So, like any formerly gifted and talented child, I started collecting degrees and certificates. I got my masters of science in public health with a concentration on public health education from the University of South Florida in Tampa. I got certified as a master certified health education specialist (MCHES) from the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing. I got a graduate certificate in sexual and reproductive health from Indiana University Bloomington. I was this close to becoming certified as a sexuality educator through the American Association of Sexuality Educators Counselors and Therapists (AASECT), but didn’t quite get there. I was doing survivor advocacy and prevention on college campuses up until 2021. I’ve since decided to pivot into library and information science so I can better serve a wider community of people while also working with Emily and other organizations doing direct education work. 

Through all of that, I met a lot of folks who were doing sex education in a public health capacity, in a prevention capacity, in community organizing capacity, or something entirely different. What I learned through doing all this and through meeting a lot of colleagues and people doing all sorts of really interesting and important work, was that there’s really no one way to do it.

The way I became a sex educator is definitely common for people who are doing prevention on college campuses because it’s become best practice to talk about consent and prevention from a sexuality education standpoint. There’s no real way to separate those things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s formal sex education training for those folks. I chose to delve deeply into the field because I love it, but that’s not everyone’s choice. I have met people who did not go to graduate school who are doing freelance work in their community and on college campuses, and I have met people who got their doctorate in sexology and still chose to become organizers and activists.

Really, what I’ve learned is that as long as you’re willing to continue learning from your peers, from the folks who were doing this before you, and from the people who are interested in doing this work now, then you’re doing it right. 

The formal ways of becoming a sex educator can be through academia or through organizations that offer educational courses and certifications, but those can be really self-selecting. What this can mean is that the same people who end up being chosen for positions also have their research published and have their ideas circulated and made into the foundation for future research. That’s not to say they’re not doing good work, but if I had a dollar for every colleague of mine who looks and sounds like me, I could have made a dent in my student loans by now. I’m happy to have been doing this work for as long as I have been and to have met all of the wonderful people I have. I also know that it is important to get new perspectives and new people into these roles. 

I’ll add some links to books and websites you can use as a resource to frame your own work and programming around. My hope is that by presenting my own journey, I can assure any aspiring sex educators that, if you’re reading this, you’re probably doing it right. If the formal avenues don’t feel like a good fit for you, then that’s okay and you don’t need to go down those roads to continue doing meaningful work. You can choose what feels good for you and what works for you and move forward from there. I also encourage you to reach out to other sex educators on social media. There’s a lot of folks who are talking about how they became sex educators, how they started doing this work, and why. I think you’ll find that no two stories are exactly alike.

I hope all this serves as an answer on how to become a sex educator. I’ll say it again: there’s really no right way to do it as long as you’re coming from a place of good faith, which I would assume you are, as a reader and fan of Emily’s. If you’re interested in going the sex therapy route, I don’t have as many good resources for that since it’s not my area. I would encourage you to reach out to sex therapists either through their websites or on social media. A good place to start is the list of certified sex therapists on the AASECT website. There are also folks who post on Instagram about their sex therapy work. 

Going forward, I’ll be answering some of the questions that are submitted for Emily around sex, pleasure, and relationships. In the meantime, you're welcome to find me on Instagram @robyn.mansam. If you have any questions for me in particular you can ask those there and I’ll do my best to answer them. I’m looking forward to being your newsletter person this year!

That name again is @robyn.mansam

Resources: 

If you want guidance or suggestions for developing informed and ethical content or what might be considered ethical practice as a sex educator, AASECT and The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) are good places to start. 

The People’s Book of Human Sexuality includes essays from a wide range of educators who come to the profession from a variety of backgrounds. The author, Bianca Laureano, ran one of the best Sexual Attitudes Reassessment (SAR) I’ve ever attended (more info here). 

If you don’t resonate with the current conversation in sex positive or comprehensive sexuality circles, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality offers a much needed perspective. 

There’s also the Sex Ed Lecture Series, if there’s a topic you’re particularly interested in. They change every month and the individual sessions can be more affordable than signing up for the whole series.

-Robyn

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Questions or comments? Please email my very tiny team at unrulywellness@gmail.com

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Stay safe and see you next time.