“Anybody who’s going to sit on a pedestal and be like, “This is what it means to be sexually liberated. And here are all the steps you need to take,” they’re lying. Don’t listen to them. You get to make the rules! ”

— Ev'Yan Whitney

Can you start by telling us about yourself?

I call myself a sexuality doula, a somatic practitioner, and a sensualist. As a sexuality doula, my job is to guide and be a companion for folks who are wanting to understand, unshame, and liberate their relationship with sex and sexuality on their own terms. 

I do this from a space of emotional space-holding, because in our experiences around sex and sexuality, there's a lot of shame, trauma, questions, and curiosities. I work with a lot of people to help them unpack what their authentic sexuality and relationship with their body looks like outside of cultural norms or things they have internalized.

Can you tell us how you define a “sensualist”? 

I am a lover and a learner of the art and practice of sensuality. When I say sensuality, I know a lot of folks might immediately conjure up images of sex and sexuality. I actually don't teach about sensuality from that perspective. 

For me, sensuality stands alone, away from sex. Sensuality is defined as having an intimate relationship with your body and its sensations. I think a lot of us walk around feeling like our bodies are a drag. It's hard to have a body. As a sensualist, my job is to pay attention to what my body is telling me at any given moment. What are the messages that are coming up in my body? How can I honor those messages? How can I make space for feeling good in this body, particularly in a world that is throwing so much at us all the time that is very unpleasurable? 

To be a sensualist is to be a devotee to the sensations and the pleasures of my body.

What did the beginning of this journey look like for you?

I came into this work wanting to fix myself and address my sexual shame. In my early 20s, I was looking around and seeing my friends having beautiful experiences with their sexuality, exhibiting sexual liberation, and freedom. 

I was looking at myself like, “Wow, this is not where I'm at at all. I actually feel really shy and don't have a lot of confidence around sex. I’m holding a lot of baggage around my sexuality based on being raised in a religious, conservative household.” I wanted to get to the other side.

I began to peel back these layers: it's not just about what Cosmopolitan was telling me – “wear the lingerie and give that sexy look and contort your body this way and that will activate your sexuality”. 

I needed to get into my body. 

I started my work from there. It was from this very personal place. I was not trying to be a leader in this field. I was really intensely curious about my own wounds, traumas, and curiosities within my sexuality. 

I've been a writer since I was six years old, and I've kept diaries forever. At the time I started this journey, I had a very public blog, and decided one day that I was going to write an essay about the struggles that I was having around sex and sexuality, particularly because I had just recently gotten married. 

There's an assumption that, ‘Oh, once you get married, your sexual beast comes out’. It was not coming together for me, so I started to write about it. And I got a lot of people that responded with, “me too”; “I have the same fears”; “I have the same insecurities around my sexuality.”

I can say now, after doing this for 12 years, a lot of us— I would say damn near all of us— have some kind of baggage with sex, sexuality, gender, or our bodies, because we live in a world that has told us to dissociate from that. 

I want to be a possibility model for folks. It's possible for you to heal. Sexual liberation is not a destination. It's a journey. I strive in my work to be the example of sex education and sexual liberation that I didn't have growing up. I was not given any of the messages that I now put out into the world as I was coming up. 

I operate within this work wanting to give this gift of showing people the humanity within growth and within sexuality, particularly because exploring sexuality can be so serious.

“People put entire sexual stories and identities on us before we ever get a chance to actually ask ourselves if that’s what we want. ”

— Ev'Yan Whitney

I've worked with people, and I have also been this person that has felt a lot of shame around like, “dang, if I had been 15 and gotten this education, I would be a whole different person. Now I'm 35; 45; 65. I'm just now beginning to understand who I am as a sexual being. I'm just now starting to unpack a lot of these learned, limiting beliefs about sexuality and gender and relationships.” 

I've worked with people who’ve felt really bad about coming to this understanding when they are older. But I'm of the belief that, whenever it comes to you, that is okay. 

I want for all of us to hold curiosity about what is possible as we continue to go through this process of growth and transformation within this realm of sexuality and identity. I want to be 82 and still be coming out as something. That's part of growth and exploration, and a part of just being human.

Do you have thoughts about sexuality and sensuality as a part of someone's health? 

I think “health” is a sticky word. I would love to change that to “wellbeing”, because there are many different expressions and examples of “health” and what is “healthy.” Particularly in this culture that has made certain folks, like fat folks and asexual folks, seem like medical abnormalities. 

I'm more interested in what makes people feel good, what makes people feel well. We can allow folks to determine what is important to them. I don't want to presume that in order to have a healthy life, you have to have sex or that you have to engage in sensuality. 

A lot of us feel really familiar with the terrain of grief, anger, numbness, anxiety, and depression in our bodies, and I want for there to also be exploration of the good parts of being in a body. Like eating something that's really delicious. Being with friends that make you feel like your shoulders can soften. Going to see art that inspires something creatively inside of you. 

I want to give power back to people and have them decide how they want to operate within the realms of sensuality and sexuality. Because that's what it's all about. Anybody who's going to sit on a pedestal and be like, “This is what it means to be sexually liberated. And here are all the steps you need to take,” they're lying. Don’t listen to them. You get to make the rules!

Many people are new to this space and coming into this with a lot of shame and stigma, how do you encourage people to open up to the sense of transparency and curiosity that you lead with?

Before we even get to a practice or a methodology, I just want to speak into this conversation that being in the realm of sexual healing is really fucking hard work. There's a good reason that a lot of us put this off. There’s so many things working against us that have told us to deprioritize it.

I think one of the things that has helped the folks that I've worked with is just being very honest and real about how difficult sex is for a lot of people. There is a lot of baggage, shame, fear, anxiety, and trauma that comes along with this. 

I've seen a lot of folks stop because they're expecting it to be easy. Or they think, “Okay, when it feels easy, that's when I can do it.” Let's dignify the fact that it's hard. Let's dignify the fact that we live in a culture that has completely warped our understanding of the way that sex is supposed to be, that we live in a world of rape culture, a world of acephobia, a world that says that only certain bodies or certain people are allowed to experience pleasure in this world. 

It's gonna be hard. Be easy on yourself through that. There's going to be moments where you're not going to want to do this work. And that's okay. There’s no hurry. There's no rush.

Is there an area that you're exploring right now that you'd want to share?

So many things! One of the things that has been front and center for me is desire, particularly sexual desire, and how that fluctuates and shifts over time. 

I used to think that I was supposed to be horny all of the time. Like, no matter what: I could be sad, but I should at least still be horny. I’m so happy to be in a place where I can allow myself to be a human being. I don't freak out as much if I haven't had sex in a while, because it's just part of being a human being. We're not meant to be in one fixed space. 

I think the biggest thing that I've learned in this work that I've done both professionally and personally is that we are not stagnant creatures. We're not meant to think of ourselves as, “I am this, and I will be this for the rest of my life,” or “My desire is this and it will be like this for the rest of my life.” These days I’m operating from this place of, “Who am I today? How do I feel today? What is my sexual desire like today? What is my relationship like with my body today?”

And how that can fluctuate based on the environment I'm in, where I'm at in my moon cycle, the people that surround me. It's really exciting to see the different ways that I can be, the different persons and different energies that I can embody.

Are there any recommendations you have for someone who's just starting out on their journey? 

I like to give reflection prompts, I wrote a whole book of them! I love a good prompt to get people really going inward and thinking about these larger questions.

People put entire sexual stories and identities on us before we ever get a chance to actually ask ourselves if that's what we want. Prompts really help me and others begin unpacking without the noise of the outside. Allow yourself to dream of who you would be or who you want to be, how you want to feel, what pleasures you want to partake in. The two prompts that really started me on my journey was: 

The t

wo prompts that started me on my journey:

Who do I want to be as a sexual being? 

◌ How do I want my sexuality to be expressed?

◌ What sort of relationship do I want to have with my body and sex?

◌ What kind of partners do I want to be with?

◌ What sort of relationship do I want to have with my orgasm?

What do I think is getting in the way of me being that person?

◌ What stories have I inherited from my parents, pastors, friends, or grandparents, about sex and sexuality? 

◌ What traumas do I feel have halted my ability to fully actualize myself as a sexual being? 

◌ What ignorances do I hold about sex in general and sex education in general?

What I like about this writing practice is that it really creates a beautiful lay of the land: where you want to go and what is keeping you from getting there. 

When I first did this writing practice, seeing all the versions of myself, all the ways that I wanted to inhabit my sensual body was really inspiring. It allowed me to see that, despite feeling so broken, I have desire. I want to change, I want growth, I want pleasure, and I want beauty and I want intimacy and connection. That was really heartening for me, and it has been for clients of mine as well. When you're in this space of what feels like sexual dysfunction, you feel so cut off from what's possible.

That first question allows you to dream, and then the second question gives you a glimpse of the first steps in your journey. If trauma is a really big and strong narrative within what's holding you back from accessing your sexuality and being in your body, consider looking for a body-based therapist, a somatic practitioner that can really help you to break down some of the stories that you're holding in your body. If you feel like you don't have education, follow some sex educators on Instagram or TikTok. Read some books. There's such a wealth of information: podcasts, articles, even sex toys these days can come with so much education and information. 

This isn't something that you should feel like you need to solve on your own. It's okay to invite folks—a sexuality doula, a somatic practitioner, a sex therapist—that are aligned with what you want for yourself to help guide you on that journey. 

Self inquiry within this work is so important. More important than knowing certain cunnilingus techniques or knowing which sex toy to use with what sex act. What do you know about yourself? What do you really want? 

That’s one of the reasons why I wrote Sensual Self, because I didn't want to give people a resource where they just consumed information and put it on a bookshelf. I wanted to give the power back to them and say: you get to decide how you want to be as a sensual person. You get to decide how you want to explore your emotional landscape, the relationship that you have with your body.

I think that's been one of the most powerful things that I've learned in this work is that there's no one out there that is going to give me the healing, the liberation, the actualization that I want. I have to be the one to take it. I have to be the one that opens that door. I hope that my book is an entry point for people, and that it reminds them of their softness, their sensuality, their pleasure potential, and also their power.

How do you take care of yourself?

Ah, what a nice question. Thank you for asking that. These days, taking care of myself has been looking like taking intentional breaths and slowing down, like slowing my pace. Making sure that I'm drinking enough water. 

I know that these are basic things, but they make such an impact. I can feel the difference when my breaths are belly full, when my pace is not super, super fast, when I move at a pace that I can still hear my body. 

I'm trying to prioritize breath, pace, water, and just like feeling into the differences. How my days feel when I take care of myself in that way. It allows me to show up to my relationships better. It allows me to show up to my day with more fullness and more intention.

Kaori Crystal Sueyoshi is a lifelong Womanly fan and teammate. See how her mom cooks Japanese meals in Issue. No. 6.