A sex coach is a trained professional who helps people with sexual issues. Whether you’re interested in sex coaching or relationship coaching for personal growth or as a profession, it is important to know the field.
Many different kinds of practices fall under the umbrella of sex and relationship coaching. Depending on your personality, your interests and your boundaries, you may be drawn to a particular approach. Here’s an in-depth description of all of the sub-categories of sex and relationship coaching so you can decide what suits you best.
Why Work with a Sex Coach?
Society tells us that we are supposed to naturally know how to have sex. The desire to have sex is natural, but the skills to be a great lover or to engage fully in sex aren’t. The truth is that people need to learn how to have great sex. Social animals (including humans) learn skills through modeling and explicit instruction.
Since sex is something that is shamed in our culture, talking about it or giving explicit instruction still remains rare. Young adults have very few good ways to learn how to have satisfying sex. A few will be lucky enough to have a partner that can teach them.
Unfortunately, most people don’t give good feedback, so many people end up not knowing what makes for great sex. This is where working with a good sex coach can be very helpful. Sex is learnable and teachable. The best way to learn about it is to get feedback from an experienced, non-judgmental and cheer-leading person. It’s most helpful if they also understand both the physiology and the psychology of sex.
What Kinds of Sex Coaching are There?
There are two main types of sex coaching: talk and experiential.
During talk coaching sessions, a sex coach asks you about your challenges and goals. They then give you suggestions for improvement, as well as book and video recommendations.
The other type of coaching is experiential sex coaching. In this method, your sex coach will teach you how to be a better lover through talking as well as hands-on practices. Experiential practices might include breath, touch, how to emit and share sexual energy, and how to verbally seduce a partner.
What is it like to work with a talk-based sex coach?
Similar to life coaching, in talk-based sex coaching the client comes to the practitioner with a problem. The coach then helps them figure out what steps they can take to solve their problem. The coach may ask the client to fill out an intake form. They then meet in-person, over the phone, or via video chat for an initial session. During this time, the client and coach work together to define the problem.
The coach develops a coaching plan with steps to address the issue. At each subsequent meeting, the client talks with their sex coach about which parts of the plan they’ve accomplished, or where they feel stuck. The coach helps them keep their commitment to continuing the plan.
Talk sex coaching can cover many topics – including dating, sexual identity, sexual abuse, sex addiction, sex and aging, open relationships, communication skills, gender identity, sex in long-term relationships, and sexual dysfunction.
Talk coaches will sometimes offer homework to do outside of the session with partners or potential partners. For example, a talk sex coach may encourage a client who is interested in dating to talk to five people they are interested in. They may offer suggestions to couples such as watching a video and practicing the kinds of sensual touch they see in it.
Sometimes sex coaches help clients accept themselves or help them speak to family, friends, or loved ones about who they truly are. Talk coaches do not typically have physical contact beyond hugs or handshakes. A coach may offer emotional support by placing a hand on their client’s back or arm when needed, but this is usually the extent of touch in a talk coaching session.
A talk-based coach will help you:
Identify your sex coaching goals
Talk through potential approaches
Create a coaching plan
Offer you emotional support, suggestions, and homework
Help keep you motivated around your goals
What is it like to work with an experiential or hands-on sex coach?
Experiential, hands-on sex coaching is where the coach takes a more interactive approach, guiding their client through exercises to help them feel more comfortable with their body, their sexuality, and intimacy. It begins the same way as talk-based coaching, where the coach gets a good idea of the client’s goals and includes talking about their issues and strategies for improvement.
At the same time, experiential sex coaches point out that just talking is often not enough to learn new skills around sex and intimacy. In the same way that one can’t learn piano, dance, or baseball from a book. Experiential coaches teach their clients better touch by touching and being touched by them. They give them feedback about how to touch and connect in a more sexy and sensual way. Somatic (or body-based) approaches to coaching and therapy are becoming much more prevalent as research continues to show their higher effectiveness. Somatica is an example of this kind of coaching.
A hands-on coach will help you:
Identify your sex coaching goals
Talk through potential approaches to resolve your challenges
Create a coaching plan with practical steps for implementation
Offer you emotional support and suggestions
Offer you new tools and skills to expand on your current skillset
Give you opportunities for hands-on practice of new techniques and offer real-time feedback
Help keep you motivated around your goals
When trying to choose a sex coach that is right for you, remember that deciding which of these approaches feels right for you is a very personal decision. Perhaps, in reading these different descriptions, one of them seems like it is the most helpful, comfortable, or in alignment with your personality.
It is important to make this decision with more than just your brain. Imagine talking with your coach, then doing some homework. Now imagine giving and receiving sensual touch with your coach. Which of these makes you feel most inspired?