Earlier this month, I attended a four-day sex educator conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. While there, I was gathering information for three different assignments but, because I was curious and because it felt particularly relevant to my interests, I also attended a workshop on the sexualization of sex educators.

It was held in a room large enough for over 200 people, with a wall of windows looking out over the Atlantic City beach. As the rows of chairs began to fill up, I looked around at my fellow attendees: educators, yes, but also clinicians and program coordinators and me, the lone writer.

The workshop began and the co-facilitators immediately got attendees involved, asking them to shout out the types of people by whom they’d been sexualized, so they could write down all of the answers on a giant easel pad at the front of the room.

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