How I Found My Way Into the Sexuality Field (And Why I Still Don't Use Just One Title)
How I Built a Career in Sexuality Without Fitting Into a Box
You’re in kindergarten, seated at your assigned table with your classmates. The scent of glue and crayon wafts through the air. You stare at your pencils, labeled with your full name to match your Lisa Frank pencil pouch bursting with neon tigers and rainbow puppies. You watch your classmate pick their nose across the room, oblivious to your gaze.
Suddenly, the teacher calls your name: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
When you’re young, it seems like such an innocent question. But I’ve found as I grow older, I’m not certain in stating a label that fits.
Many people wonder how one gets into the sexuality field in the first place. There’s no one pathway. When I was that little kindergartener, I wanted to be a teacher. But it evolved into other…creative pursuits.
In middle school, my aspirations shifted. I wanted to be an interior designer AND a professional basketball player. While I did get the first three-pointer on my basketball team, I was by no means competitive in sport. It’s one of the reasons I chose not to play a sport in high school.
When college approached, I went back to my childhood instincts. This time, with more specificity. As I submitted my intended major, I checked the box for Elementary Education.
…I know. I don’t enjoy children, don’t want children, and once wanted to teach them. My major fluctuated in the early months of undergrad until I finally found home in a surprising twist:
Interdisciplinary Studies - Gender and Sexuality Studies.
The program captivated me, offering a unique opportunity to explore issues from multiple perspectives. How does sociology approach women? What does history say? How is gender represented in art and understood in psychology?
I never grew tired of it. It’s in this space that I first learned about sex therapy as a career. It’s also where I learned one of the, if not the most important, research lessons.
I was invited to take a graduate course as an undergraduate student. There, I conducted archival research in my small university setting.
How was I supposed to find evidence of a sexual revolution at a school on the conservative Eastern Shore of Maryland? The answer lies in what’s not pictured just as much as what is. I spent hours in the small research center looking through old university newspapers, reading about panty raids buried in the fine print.
These whispered references revealed a sexual subtext carefully veiled from plain sight. Subtle, but undeniable proof that something was happening in this small, conservative college town. Just not loudly.
But what I discovered next didn’t just change how I approached research; It reshaped how I show up in the world today.