Getting Paid as a Sex Educator
- Feb, 07, 2013
- Charlie Glickman
- sex education
- 5 Comments.
There are a lot of people calling themselves sex educators these days. It’s a really exciting field and getting to talk about sex and pleasure is a lot of fun. But the abundance of people teaching workshops makes it hard to make a living at it.
In my experience, that’s even more true in the kink world. The BDSM scene has always placed a big emphasis on education, mostly because many kinky skills require more know-how and come with more risk than vanilla sex. And since there are lots of BDSM events, conventions, gatherings, and community spaces, there are plenty of opportunities for people to show off what they know. Plus, there’s a lot of social cachet in being a presenter in those circles. (I’m deliberately leaving out the folks who offer themselves as presenters in order to cruise, but that’s another motivation for some.)
Sarah Sloane recently wrote an excellent piece in which she explored the difficulty many new (and not-so-new) presenters face when trying to navigate getting paid:
Novice educators – you will have to pay some dues. Until you have a proven track record of classes on your CV, understand that, for many groups, you are a genuine risk to bring in. The more prestigious the organization that is inviting you to speak, the more that they have to lose if you do a poor job – and that can be anything from speaking offensively to giving unsafe information. What this means financially is that our initial forays into presenting may require us to pay our own way to and from the event, cover our expenses, and occasionally even be asked to pay for our own registration in full. Is this bad? It depends on your outlook. If you see it as an investment in building your resume, it may be a perfectly acceptable (and perhaps even desirable) situation that you’ll want to take advantage of. However, if money and time are a challenge and the benefits don’t outweigh the expense, it’s likely to not be worth it to you – and if you opt to do it, you’ll need to check your resentments about the terms at the door before you walk in, or else you can be assured that you won’t be invited back.
It’s not just kink presenters who face these hurdles. Any sex or relationship educator has to figure out how to get over them, too. And part of the challenge is that with so many people trying to break into the business, it takes a lot to explain why one should get paid at all, much less a reasonable amount. As Moss Hart put it:
“Writers, actors, and prostitutes all face the same fundamental economic problem: they are competing with amateurs who are pretty good and will work for nothing.”
Sex educators fit in there, too.
But I think it’s also important for educators to understand what it’s like on the other side of that dynamic. Convention and and event organizers can barely break even and when presenters start demanding what they think they’re worth, it makes it impossible to run events. That’s doubly true when folks rightly point out that high ticket costs reinforce the financial privilege necessary to get to conventions and classes.
I’ve been on both sides of this difficulty. As a workshop teacher, I know how hard it is to navigate getting paid for teaching. To be honest, if my travel expenses are covered by my portion of the ticket sales, I consider that a win. And having run the workshop program at Good Vibrations for 15 years, I also know how difficult it is for event spaces to break even for anything other than big name speakers with significant followings. I didn’t even need to worry about renting a location or paying staff since the store was open anyway. If I’d had to deal with that, there wouldn’t have been any way to offer presenters anything reasonable.
So what can we do about this?
First, I think sex educators need to be realistic about why we do what we do and what we hope to get out of it. Don’t get into the field if you think that teaching workshops is going to bring you much income. Instead, most successful educators either have other jobs that pay the bills or have products or services they offer. Whether it’s a book, coaching services, or something else, it’s important to have something you can sell. When you do, your workshops become amazing promotional opportunities, though you need to do it with a very light touch. I’ve seen two-hour workshops that seemed like infomercials, which only leads to resentment and a damaged reputation.
It’s totally fine if you also want to teach classes because of the social status, to get free convention registration, to be able to travel and take it as a business expense, or even to cruise people interested in your topic (as long as you’re very mindful of not violating teacher-student dynamics and you’re not doing it to find inexperienced newbies to take advantage of). But be clear what your motivation is before you start trying to negotiate a fee.
I know it’s not easy to figure out how to monetize your teaching. To be honest, I struggled with it until Aislinn & I wrote The Ultimate Guide to Prostate Pleasure. If you have an area of expertise, having a book you can sell can make a big difference. Whether it’s a physical book or an ebook, get your knowledge into writing. Or start selling videos in which you give people advice and tips. Reid Mihalko is an excellent example of how to promote videos through an affiliate program, and Kink Academy offers fantastic kink education. You can also do what a lot of folks do and develop a freelance careers that lets you travel. Beyond that, there aren’t many paths, other than to make sex education a hobby rather than a career.
I wish there were more options. It’s ironic that there are so many people who want and need sex information, at the same time that it’s so difficult to make a living at it. I will say that it’s easier to get paid when you teach at stores since they don’t have to pay additional rent and they have the incentive of being able to sell products. That’s much more feasible at vanilla sex toy stores than at kinky stores since there are more of them around, but you have to have a topic that’s relevant for them. And if it promotes store sales, that’s even better, so choose your topic with that in mind.
In the end, though, I think it’s important to be realistic about this issue. Most sex educators do it because it’s what we love. If you can find a way to make a living at it, you’re very fortunate, indeed.
If you’re thinking about getting formal about it, check out my post on where to get trained as a sex educator for plenty of tips.
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Home > Getting Paid as a Sex Educator
Thank you Charlie! This is immensely helpful and, oddly, even though it highlights the how rough the road can be, encouraging.
JoEllen Notte(Quote) (Reply)
I have been teaching classes to the alt sex and spiritual demographics for over fifteen years. I’m most well known on the East Coast, but I have had the fortune to travel to many interesting places in America in the pursuit of being a sex/kink/spirituality educator.
My assistant joined me four years ago, and before then she had been a frequent attendee at alt sex conferences. She was shocked to learn how little – if any – compensations the presenters are given. She’s witnessed events not only ask me to pay to teach, but to provide experiences to hundreds of strangers (frequently at “exploratoriums”, where different BDSM techniques are demonstrated at stations manned by presenters who teach on that technique) while providing all the disposable equipment myself. She has heard event producers deny me a second comp for her, even after I’ve made it clear that I use a manual wheelchair and cannot navigate a hotel without someone to push. From her POV as an attendee, it seemed that the classes and events (like performances, rituals, etc) is what gave these conferences meat and meaning, and yet so little focus is given to making it a viable life option for people who spend the time and money necessary to have the panache and education necessary for a professional-level experience.
On the other side of the coin, I and several of my colleagues are frequently accused of making money hand over fist doing what it is that we do, and how unfair it is that they can’t afford to, or don’t have the contacts to, break into the sex education industry. I once published a fair and accurate accounting of my income and expenses from a year of teaching, and it showed that even with the comped entries and the meager honorariums, after 15 years of doing this (and I’d like to think doing it well) I am still going into the red pursuing this vocation. It didn’t stop my accusers.
In some ways, I think it’s not that dissimilar from the debates in spiritual demographics about whether or not clergy should charge money for their services. We come from milk religions with established financial solvency, bolstered by the entwining of concepts like “tithing” as both a spiritual and a financial requirement. Anyone who operates outside of these religions does not benefit from these things, but since people are raised to assume that a clergy person should be available 24/7 in case of crisis, and that should you need guidance or counsel from them that no money is given at time of service, this should somehow cross over into spiritual traditions that don’t benefit from the same sorts of legacies. And it is further complicated by the exact same issue facing sex educators; for each person who charges $20 for a tarot card reading, for example, there are twice as many who are willing to do it for free in exchange for the social cache that comes from merely doing it. And yet, most of those giving it away eventually get better, practice more, pay for better training, buy fancier supplies, get so many requests it becomes difficult to work a daily job *and* give away the time and expertise, and voila! Now they’re the ones asking for $20 while the new generation is still giving it away.
I talk extensively about a concept I was taught as part of my spiritual training: FEE. It stands for “Fair Energy Exchange”. The idea is, no matter if it’s teaching a class, mentoring someone one on one, or offering your expertise in a consultation, that person is giving you energy they could choose to direct as something else. At the very base level, the least you can do is give them the same energy in return. In our culture, often “energy” is represented by currency – I give you a class, you give me pieces of paper that represent the energy you’ve expended at your place of employment. However, FEE isn’t always about money; all I ask in exchange for the opportunities I provide and the expertise I have is that the person or organization receiving that energy recognizes the expenditure in a way that is roughly equivalent to the expenditure of energy I am giving. Yes, there are times when a person or organization may benefit from a donation, but even in volunteering there needs to be some energetic replenishment. It could be that teaching “for free” at an event means I get exposure in a new part of the country, or gives me the opportunity to try a new idea or technique or subject without fear of failure (after all, they didn’t *pay* for it, so if it tanks there’s no loss).
I sometimes wonder if the FEE concept should be more useful on a one-on-one basis. If you attend an event (*especially* if you know that the event does not compensate their presenters or volunteers) and a class, event, or service enriches your experience (or, y’know, your *life*), maybe it shouldn’t be so foreign to go up to the person in question and slip them a $20, or take them out to dinner, or offer them a backrub (in a non-creepy, I’m-not-doing-this-for-the-bragging-rights sort of way). Many attendees hear and seem to understand that although they’re paying to attend the event, that money is not being spent on the presenters, and so the argument that the class is part of what they paid for with their registration no longer holds water. I understand why a large event may frown upon passing a hat, but if you have the ability to even out the energetic exchange, why not? Some of the best experiences and rewards I’ve had from teaching have been when someone has gone out of their way to let me know that I said or did something that benefited their life in a tangible way.
Del Tashlin(Quote) (Reply)
Thank you for the reality check.
Emi(Quote) (Reply)
The thing about having so many people teach sex ed, who do you know how to trust and how do you value the information that each person provides in their meetings. It’s like seeing all these psychic readers working from their home and posting a sign on their lawn. What is the possibiltiy that I could have 4 REAL psychic readers in a 2 block radius right?
I would be worried taking advice from just any Sex Educator these days…especially if the guy/girl is just trying to sell some sex toys and make a quick buck.
Sam Weston(Quote) (Reply)
Sam Weston, that has always been a problem in sex ed, even when the field was smaller. Look for their credentials- where they went to school or got trained. Do they have any certifications? Can you find info about them online? How long have they been teaching? While not infallible, that can help.
Charlie Glickman(Quote) (Reply)