Sexuality Educators and Researchers in Canada

Sexuality education in Canada draws on a mix of people: academics, public health workers, community organizers, writers and independent teachers. Many combine several of these roles at once, with sex as the common subject. Their work sits at the point where politics, personal development and public health meet.

Why people enter the field

Educators often describe being fascinated by how deeply sexuality shapes everyday life and by how hard it is for most people to discuss it openly. That combination of influence and silence is one reason the field attracts people from many backgrounds, including women's studies, psychology, sociology, nursing and the arts.

Academic research

Canadian universities have supported research on many aspects of sexuality. Graduate research has examined grassroots queer and kink media produced in Canada in the late twentieth century, a body of work made outside the commercial industry. Other projects have studied community history, including the development of leatherdyke communities, a term that refers to lesbian and queer women within leather and BDSM subcultures. Studies of this kind often rely on interviews, archives and community documents.

Community organizing

Outside the university, educators often organize events and discussion groups. Examples include annual gatherings for particular communities, book clubs that read challenging sexuality writing and social groups that combine contact with serious conversation. These efforts give community members a place to meet and give researchers a way of staying in touch with the people they study.

Teaching and writing

Educators give seminars in many countries on topics such as dominance and submission, bisexuality and non-monogamy. Many write regularly for community and LGBTQ2S publications, newspapers and magazines, and some keep blogs. Appearances on television, radio and podcasts are also common, particularly for educators who discuss sexual health and relationships for general audiences.

The balance between work and private life

Educators are sometimes asked whether constant immersion in the subject wears them down. Many say that their professional interest is largely intellectual and separate from their personal lives, and that they apply the same ordinary social judgment about time and place in the classroom as anywhere else. Professional associations for sexuality educators and counsellors publish ethical standards that cover boundaries, confidentiality and informed consent.

Programs, projects and organizations in this field change from year to year, so descriptions of specific activities reflect the period in which they were written.