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I’m going to take a wild guess.

You came to this page because:

1. You are currently bedeviled by a bonafide sexual dilemma (BFSD).
2. You are curious about sex, irresistibly drawn to the taboo, and peeking through the keyhole at alternate forms of sexual expression broadens your understanding of what is considered “normal” both inside and outside the bedroom.

If you answered a):

You’ve come to the right place! BFSDs are like fingerprints, ultimately unique but with recognizable patterns. BFSDs may include, but are not limited to:

You have a particular fantasy you can’t live without but don’t know how to tell your partner.

Your partner has disclosed a fetish or kink, and you’d like to understand it better.

You want to talk about your kinks with a therapist who is fluent in kink.

You work in the sex industry and want a therapist who will treat you without judgment, as a whole person, not just a sex worker.

You consider yourself a regular-fucking person and would like a therapist who will speak frankly and directly about regular-fucking issues.

Your partner left their browser open, and you got an eyeful of something that you can’t believe, and you can’t unsee – also known as The Worst Kink Scenario – and you don’t know what to make of it, nor how to approach them about it.

If you answered b)…

I get it. I felt the same impulse when I took a job at an S&M parlor in the early 1990s. I was fresh out of Journalism school, a hungry writer searching for a job and a story that only I could write. I figured I’d don the leather, sell a few articles, and my time in the BDSM underworld would be a story I’d dine out on for months.

As it turned out, I loved the work, stayed for years, and had the great good fortune of selling many articles in high and low places. The articles became a book, Mistress Ruby Ties It Together, and my super-secret undercover job became my calling card. Take that, Catholic school!

I spoke on panels, worked in Hollywood, and developed a reputation as an expert in non-traditional forms of sexual expression.

The secret is out of the closet.

But the work I’m most proud of happened privately, one-on-one with my fetish clients, helping them understand, accept, and fulfill their kinks.

Remember, this was the early 90s. There wasn’t an Internet to bring kinky folks together. Sometimes, I was the only person my clients could confide in. The only person that could walk them back from the shame and secrecy they’d carried over a lifetime – just because they happened to be turned on by something other people told them was weird and wrong.

I quickly recognized that the kink was not the problem – the shame and isolation surrounding the kink negatively impacted every area of their lives. I’d often ask if they were currently seeing a therapist. Answers ranged from “absolutely not” to “I tried and felt judged” to “Why do I need a therapist when I have you?”

I’m a real person, too.

I also remember how difficult it was, as a sex worker, to find a therapist who didn’t want to talk exclusively about my job. Like, obsessed with talking about it, as though it were the root of my identity.

Worse, they got it all wrong. I was amazed at how many so-called sex-positive therapists were actually quite prim, even squeamish about sex. Even the most well-meaning were hampered by their hang-ups and a lifetime of bad stories about what a person should and should not desire.

Now, I’m ready to listen to you – and I can help.

I took my whip money, spent it on graduate school, and got some initials after my name. I decided to become the therapist that I would want to see. Someone who could handle sex talk. A therapist who understood that sex can be a party, a prayer, a production, or just another bodily function. A therapist who could celebrate the brilliant spectrum of sexual expression.

Whether you are turned on by a feather or a fist, top or bottom, or somewhere in between, you deserve a therapist who can meet you there.

Let’s get started together!