Sex & Intimacy Therapy

Two women laughing together on a living room couch

Maybe sex has started to feel like a chore, or a test you are afraid of failing, and desire has gone quiet in a way you cannot quite explain. Or maybe there is a fantasy or a kink you have carried privately for years, along with old messages that told you wanting it meant something was wrong with you.

Nothing about your desire needs to be defended here. I offer sex-positive, queer-affirming, and kink-affirming sex therapy by telehealth to adults in California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington, for individuals and for Dyadic and Triadic+ relationships. The goal is not only to work through what feels stuck. It is to make more room for pleasure and connection in your life.

Who this is for

I work with people of all genders and sexual orientations, including asexual and aromantic folx, people exploring their sexuality for the first time, and people who have been with partners for decades. That includes queer and trans people, people in non-monogamous relationships, and people who practice BDSM, power exchange, fetish, or other forms of kink.

You do not need to arrive with the right words or a clear problem. Many people start with a sense that something about sex, desire, or intimacy feels stuck or confusing, and that is enough.

Kink and BDSM

Kink, BDSM, and power exchange can be sources of pleasure, play, trust, and deep connection. In our work together, you will not have to explain your terminology or defend your desires. We start from the understanding that what turns you on is part of who you are.

Many kinky people carry shame learned from purity culture or from a world that treats anything outside a narrow script as dirty. Some freeze right at the edge of wanting, worried about being found out or about what their desires say about them. We can work with the parts of you holding that fear, so you can explore what you want with more freedom and less self-judgment.

Therapy can also be a place to sort through the practical and emotional side of play: negotiating scenes and limits, finding partners who take consent seriously, making sense of drop or big feelings after a scene, and bringing new desires into an existing relationship. For some people, kink becomes a meaningful way to reclaim power and pleasure after trauma. When a scene stirs up more than you expected, we can slow down and make sense of it together, without assuming your desires are the problem.

How I work

Sex therapy is talk therapy. There is no physical contact, nudity, or sexual activity in sessions. Sometimes I may suggest reflections or exercises for you to explore privately, always at your pace and only if they feel right.

I see pleasure as worth pursuing in its own right, not only as a reward for fixing a problem. I hold sex through the same intersectional feminist, queer-affirming lens as the rest of my work, which means questioning the scripts we were handed about what sex is supposed to look like and who it is for.

Through IFS, we get to know the parts of you that carry shame, fear, or pressure, alongside the parts that feel curious and alive. AEDP helps us stay with what you feel in the moment, including desire and pride. With partners, I pay attention to communication and consent, and to the emotional connection underneath your sexual relationship.

Common reasons people reach out

  • Differences in desire between partners

  • Low desire, or desire that has changed over time

  • Concerns with arousal, erections, or orgasm

  • Pain or discomfort with sex, alongside care from your medical providers

  • Sexual shame rooted in religious, family, or cultural messages

  • Sex and intimacy during or after gender transition

  • Sex after trauma

  • Sensory and communication needs in sex for neurodivergent people

  • Exploring kink, BDSM, and power exchange

  • Telling a partner about your desires, or responding when a partner shares theirs

  • Navigating power exchange and D/s dynamics outside of scenes

  • Negotiating limits, consent, and agreements, and renegotiating them over time

  • Drop after a scene, and the aftercare that supports everyone involved

Frequently asked questions

  • In a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, at least 30% had engaged in spanking during sex, and at least 20% had tied up a partner or been tied up.

  • More Americans described these kinds of behaviors as appealing than had actually tried them.

Kink is far more common than its reputation suggests. Much of the shame people carry about desire comes from stigma, not from anything wrong with them.