On The Couch with Stella Topaz from Abundant Body

[00:00:00] Jennifer Farinella: Hello and welcome to an episode of On the Couch, where we collaborate with experts, practitioners, authors, advocates, and influencers to explore current social themes, sex positive topics, and share stories and insights that matter. This podcast was recorded on Aboriginal country. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that were never ceded on which we live, work and record upon.

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Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, enjoy this episode of On The Couch.

[00:00:34] Naomi Viret: Hi, my name's Naomi Viret. I'm one of the health promotion officers with Caddyshack Project, and today we are absolutely delighted to have Stella Topaz from Abundant Body joining us for this episode

[00:00:46] Stella Topaz: Hi, thanks for having me, Naomi and Caddyshack.

[00:00:49] Naomi Viret: Thank you so much, Stella.

Stella is a sexological body worker, an erotic coach and a sex educator with over 40 years experience in healthcare and community work. Stella is certified by the Institute of Somatic Sexology, a facilitator for the Wheel of Consent by the School of Consent, and a graduate of the Urban Tantra Professional Training Program. So love all of these qualifications Stella. I'm so excited to be able to get into what these things actually are and what it all means.

So sexological bodywork celebrates and strengthens us in who we uniquely are, beyond restrictive binaries that are imposed by roles and structures. Stella will bring her own experiences and gaps of living queer, feminist, white and female in the world, whilst embracing and loving the body that she is in and the person that she is. Taking care to live with compassion, gratitude and presence to today's conversation.

[00:01:45] Stella Topaz: Thank you. And thank you for reflecting on my work and and putting it in those words. That's really lovely to hear that read back to me.

[00:01:52] Naomi Viret: I just love it. So I guess before we get into parts of your story and what it is that you're doing, it would be a really good opportunity for us to start, just in terms of breaking down, some of these terms that we're going to be using about sexological body work in particular.

So are you able to explain for us the practice of sexological body work, please?

[00:02:15] Stella Topaz: Yes. So sexological body work is a somatic based education and coaching practice. And what that means is that people like me, working in this field, we're interested in starting with where your body is at rather than where your mind is at. And it's, can be a combination of, education, coaching, sex education, body education, and it can also involve touch.

So one of the things that kind of sets us apart from some other practitioners in the sex education field is we can, we can bring touch and erotic touch into our work, um, to, support someone to do the learning about their body. And it also comes from a pleasure angle. So we're looking for how to develop and expand your, comfort in your own body and in your sex and your sexuality and in your erotic day to day feelings.

[00:03:16] Naomi Viret: It's such an interesting field of work, you did mention that it does vary from, say, practices like sexology, it does sound, as you said, like something very different and you have just briefly touched on those differences. Are you able to go into that a little bit deeper for us?

[00:03:33] Stella Topaz: Yeah, so I'm not a sexologist in terms of what people might understand about that term. It's usually a qualification that somebody will do through a tertiary, institution to be a sexologist.

And sexologists are really just studying the, um, study of human sexuality, and they might then move into working as a therapist, working as a researcher, working as a sex educator, but sexology tends to be less about hands on, work with people. And so some people might be a sexological body worker and a sexologist, and others might kind of go into one direction more than the other.

The qualification that I have is through an institute that is able to issue certificates to people who do the course. The course takes at least six months and sometimes a year, and it involves theory, online work, practice, working with people and reporting on that work with their consent.

 And really sexological bodywork grew out of, the, the aftermath of the HIV/AIDS epidemic back in the 80’s and 90’s or earlier. And it really grew out of the time in the U. S. when, when people were noticing that particularly gay men had kind of pulled back from being able to have intimacy, sex, but even just to touch and have affection because they'd been so devastated by loss and death and the effects of HIV/AIDS.

So sexological bodywork sort of came in as a revisiting of how do we, get in touch with our own bodies, but also how do we start touching and having intimacy and care and sex with other people?

[00:05:16] Naomi Viret: And I think that just hearing some of those words, I guess, trauma informed work, is that very solidly based in what you're doing?

[00:05:23] Stella Topaz: Yes, I mean, I think to be doing any work, which involves people's bodies, and people's sense of themselves, we need to be trauma informed. And I guess, the more important thing is for people to want to, to have the right to check out, what the particular therapist is going to offer to them and what their awareness is, what their practice is. It's a conversation between the person and the practitioner around that. But yes, it wouldn't be right to work in this field and not tend to the, the presence of trauma in so many people's histories and present.

[00:05:58] Naomi Viret: Yeah, wonderful. And I like how you said it's about matching yourself with a person you're going to be working with, because we know that in a lot of those clinical kind of practices and things that it's sometimes hard to find a match of someone that you really gel with to be able to work with. And particularly when you're addressing such vulnerable, I guess, areas of yourself and your life and your body. So yeah, thanks for reflecting on that.

So I would really like to move into hearing a little bit about your background and your story, Stella, where you feel comfortable to share that with us. What's brought you to working in this particular space as interesting as it is?

[00:06:31] Stella Topaz: It was good to reflect on this. I mean, I've always felt fortunate that I've pretty much felt good in my own body throughout my life. And that I've enjoyed sex and intimacy and touch in my life. So I feel like I've, like I had quite good experience of my own sense of body.

And I started nursing in my, um, actually when I was 19, 20. So my background is a registered nurse and I've mostly worked in sexual health, not big on working in hospitals. So I've mostly worked in community settings, women's health was really where I started out, feminist women's health. And over time I became more involved in queer health. Um, and, you know, a lot of things changed over the 80’s and 90’s around language and identity and access to healthcare. Less binary models of health care.

So feminism and queerness have been huge in my development, in my practice. I've always touched bodies in my work, whether it was through doing sexual health examinations or, other kind of body practices. But I was usually working with, with bodies that was more about the, uh, a problem and then a solution. Um, so there was less room for working with kind of pleasure, and fulfillment. And then kind of in the, and I came out as a lesbian and then a queer person in the late eighties. And I came out into a pretty stereotyped kind of lesbian separatist world.

And it was a while until I actually learned about queerness, about breaking down the binary, about the, the, what was on offer in a world where there wasn't such a separated and binary version of gender and sex and sexuality. And then, in about 2014, I went to a couple of weekend courses or, or week long courses, which had much more focus on pleasure, like it was about bodies, it was, um, Urban Tantra with Barbara Carellas, it was, um, a radical ecstasy weekend with Dossie Easton, and, I came out of those courses just going, I want to do that as work.

Like I loved it for myself. It was, liberating and fun. And I was already experiencing parts of the queer and BDSM world privately, but I wanted to bring that into my work. So, so from there, I went into sexological body work. I was working part time as a nurse when I did that, and I was working in management and policy kind of roles in nursing, and then I did, um, more of the Urban Tantra, and then I did the scar tissue remediation training with Ellen Heed, and, um, working with vaginismus, so just sort of looking at a few specifics, as well as this overall sexological bodywork training.

And set up my own business about 2017, 18, and then the biggest change in my practice came through developing the Wheel of Consent into my sexological bodywork. So that's two pieces that kind of fit together, and formed what I'm doing now, I guess..

[00:09:50] Naomi Viret: I love it. And how nice it is that you've just been able to, I guess, make a career out of something that you're so passionate about and really feeling that sense of being able to help others, particularly in that pleasure space, when I guess society still has so much taboo around pleasure.

[00:10:06] Stella Topaz: I just wanted to mention, I think actually the combination of my nursing background and then this new practice has really been, kind of, useful because nursing taught me so much about, um, meeting people where they are, working with people, around their bodies. Being able to work with people around consent. And so I've stopped working as a nurse only in the last year, after 40 years. But I feel like my nursing is a part of my identity, feminist and queer based nursing. Yeah, so sexological bodywork and Wheel of Consent has kind of enhanced and added to that, but they're kind of in fusion as well. So grateful for my nursing background.

[00:10:51] Naomi Viret: Lots of transferable skills there, definitely, I think around that empathy and that caring nature because you wouldn't be able to do what you're doing without those strong skills that you've taken from nursing.

[00:11:00] So, Abundant Body is the name of your business and I just love it. I feel like the business name in and of itself is a really powerful statement for people searching out a sexological body worker. So when we have a look at the meaning of abundant, it means "someone that has a plentiful supply of something that is valuable or desirable."

Where did the business name come from and what's driving you in business? What does this Abundant Body mean to you?

[00:11:28] Stella Topaz: I mean, the actual name came through, kind of, workshopping with some key friends. And then one friend in particular and I sat down and really found that language, found that title together. And it does mean abundance in terms of turning, being aware of the abundance that we hold in our bodies already. It may not always feel like that, you know, like it's not a Pollyanna approach to the body, a lot of the struggle with our bodies and our body image. Or where our bodies have genuinely let us down, or where we wish for something that we feel we don't have.

So it is a, it's, it's kind of an affirmation of what I hope to offer to people. An environment of abundance, and also a recognition that your body and my body has a lot of abundance held within it already.

[00:12:18] Naomi Viret: And is it exploring somebody, I suppose, to better understand that abundance and what that might look like and to go, it is there, but sometimes it's about digging a little bit deeper to find it.

[00:12:28] Stella Topaz: Yeah, our bodies are what carries us around every day. We also relate our bodies to our spiritual, emotional, our personality, we can express our personality through our bodies.

So it's really just offering up an affirming version of, how we might be able to regard our own bodies. It's very tricky to try to, you know, it's, it's not useful to be saying to someone you should love your body more, as if that's easy to do. So I'm really conscious of not, presuming that people can feel or find that abundance immediately in their body, and it may never resonate for them. So in some ways it says more about me. Having my business name in that way and saying, this is where I'm coming from, this is what I'm hoping to offer up, is a sense of abundance to explore.

[00:13:17] Naomi Viret: Makes so much sense. It really is great.

So I'm really interested and curious to hear what a day of a sexological body worker might look like. Are you happy to share that with us?

[00:13:25] Stella Topaz: I am. I wrote some notes about this because it's actually useful to think about what an average day is, which does not exist. Unfortunately, the first thing that came out was like, there's a lot of admin. I think anyone who works in private practice would, would know that there's a lot of time, um, thinking about my work, thinking about what I could do, what I am doing, what I have done.

There's time, you know, actually managing the day to day stuff of running a business, the, um, bookings and the payments and the, the descriptions, the promotion, which I'm fairly poor at, but those are some of the things that are involved.

I'm pretty open about having emails or texts with people before they decide to, book in or not. Um, so I do give a lot of my time, I guess, to trying to support people to decide if it's the right path to go. I have a free introductory call for people who want to have like a 20 minute Zoom, then we can, we can kind of see each other. They can suss out whether they, feel like they'd like to work with me and I can also assess whether, what they're looking for is something that, that might be something I can help them with. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes I'll refer on.

It's also, um, thinking about, If there's themes coming through my work, could I run a group on that, or could I do a workshop around that? So I'm also thinking about that.

If I'm seeing people online or in person, I wouldn't usually see more than say four people a day. It's probably more common for me to see three, and I don't do that every day of the week. Um, I travel to Sydney to see people in person, so I see people in Newtown and I can do online sessions as well, which surprisingly work better than I thought, but I think COVID delivered us with the opportunity to refine how we work online.

And what that means is that I can see people from all different locations. And for some people working online, feels, feels more comfortable or safer for them. And for other people meeting in person feels more comfortable and kind of safer for them. So it gives choice.

Um, I also am part of connecting with communities of other similar practitioners and I have peers and kind of people I admire across the world that I connect with. And also seeking supervision for my own practice as well. So there's lots of behind the scenes work that goes along with this work.

[00:15:54] Naomi Viret: Yeah. And I think that's true. Like you said, of many businesses that, you know, the party fun stuff up the front, but there's so much of the preparation that goes on behind the scenes. I just love the way that you offer that free 20 minute connection first session to be able to see, like you said, if you're the right fit for them, and if this is the type of work that's actually going to help them with the concerns that they're presenting with. When you mentioned possible referrals, like, what would that be to, like, psychologist or sexologist or?

[00:16:22] Stella Topaz: Sometimes it's, it just might be that I'm not a good fit for them in terms of my identity or my approach or my style. I'm not offended if people feel like they'd rather see somebody else in my field. Um, but sometimes it could be that someone's looking for an erotic kind of experience that sounds more like sex work. So I'm happy to refer people or talk to them about whether a sex work booking might give them more of what they're looking for. I can do erotic touch and that's always in an educational framework. And if someone's looking for an experience of pleasure, two way touch, a sexual experience that might fit more with sex work. So that's quite a common conversation to have, um, with people.

And sometimes it can be useful for me to know if someone is coming with, effects of trauma, whether they also do have a talk therapist, and that is quite often a good combination for some people to have a talk therapist to talk about, how they're dealing with this in their day to day life, what the history of it is, what the meaning of it is, why has this happened.

My territory is, what's happening in your body right now today? What can we work with today that's happening in your body? So they're two different things. Um, they're connected, but I, I do need to say to people, I'm not a counselor, I'm not a talk therapist. I'm a body worker.

[00:17:51] Naomi Viret: I love that distinction. And I guess because you did say that, you know, so much of what you do can evolve around touch. How has that transformed into that online space?

[00:18:03] Stella Topaz: Good question. All my work moves at a slow pace because it is about sitting with your body in its current state and noticing what is happening in your body. And if there's touch involved, it involves really slowing that down to be able to identify what touch you might want to then trust that, and then to be able to ask for that, and then for the other person to go through the same process. Can I offer that? Yep. I can offer that. And then you move to the touch. So it's a slowed down process. All of that process can happen online except the actual touch.

So, if I was to ask someone, how would you like me to touch you for a couple of minutes right now? They can actually slow down and really notice what their body calls for. So it might be, Oh, will you hold my face in your hands, so they might ask for that touch and I can reply, yes, I'm willing to do that. That whole process of identifying and asking and waiting for the answer actually is quite a complete process without the touch even occurring.

It's not the same as having the touch and being in the room. But a lot of people will be in the room and they still may not want the touch to happen. We might go through that kind of process and the touch doesn't happen. The other thing is that there's things that we can do online, which might be, um, movement, shaking, making noise, like, you know, having games across the screen, doing distance exercises where you move back and I move forward. So there's things you can do that will evoke the feelings in your own body when the person's not in the room. And you can be coached on practices. So even touching yourself on your own arm.

If I say to someone, what would it be like if that went really slowly? And what do you notice? And what do you notice when your hand comes off and goes back on? You know, that could be any part of the body that could be masturbation coaching, that could be feeling parts of your body that you're kind of, out of touch with like your belly, or your bottom, your butthole, your anus, you know , you can coach and be in discussion around touch without the touch happening.

[00:20:25] Naomi Viret: Sounds so creative, the way that you've come up with those ways to work online, and I really respect that, um, change in modality. So, you're working with people often, I guess, in their most raw and vulnerable states, what are some reasons as to why individuals or couples or even groups might come and seek out the work of yourself?

[00:20:46] Stella Topaz: Mm hmm. Most people come at a time when they want something to be different, or they want to feel something they haven't felt. So it's usually a time of wanting. There's a, there's some kind of wanting involved. So there might be wanting something not to happen anymore. So I don't want to get in relationships where this same dynamic happens over and over, where I don't get to ask for what I want and I just end up doing what the other person wants, I want to change that.

Sometimes it could be relational, about relationships and who you choose and who you partner with. Other times, it's about your own body. So maybe it's a transition in your life around, menopause and experiencing your body differently. It could be post surgery, which could be, um, gender affirming surgery, or it could be, other unrelated surgery, that's not necessarily to do with sexual organs, but might be abdominal or, um, mobility kind of has changed. So sometimes it can be with wanting to reconnect with one's body in a new way, or wanting to honor a change in the body.

Um, sometimes it's the actual problem. So I guess vaginismus. It's a word that really refers to, where someone experiences pain, with any kind of touch or insertion around the vagina. Um, or the front hole, and it can also be around a sense of clamping or, tightening, which is really painful, or it could be pain on the tissue. So that can be an acute problem, that's, a chronic problem, that someone comes with.

So, yeah, sometimes it's problems, sometimes it's wanting more, wanting better, wanting to not repeat old patterns. It's quite common for people to kind of say, I'm at a point where I don't know if I'm still a sexual being, do I give up on myself or do I give it one last go? That's not uncommon. Yeah.

[00:22:53] Naomi Viret: I find that really interesting too. And like you say, because people sort of cycle through these changes, in their life and things happen for various reasons and you know sex isn't the positive experience for all that we would hope it would be and you know at different points and so it is interesting that they're still exploring like, is there still that hope that I can seek that pleasure and desire. Is it sometimes that people have these, I guess, sort of undiscovered or pleasures and desires that they haven't been able to have met before and they sort of discuss that with you?

[00:23:24] Stella Topaz: That's so true. So it might be about wanting to experience yourself differently. So maybe around sexuality, like maybe I'm interested in BDSM and I never have had that experience.

Or maybe I'm interested in, um, whether I'm actually, bisexual or I'm poly or, you know, it could be those kind of questions. Maybe I'm, I'm limiting myself in who I have, sex with. So it can be those kinds of questions as well, or maybe I'm newly single and I've never just had casual sex. I've always been in long term relationships. How would I go about having casual sex? And what do I even like? How would I even ask for what I wanted?

[00:24:10] Naomi Viret: Do you find that sometimes I guess you're validating or allowing people permission to explore that because that's what they're sort of like being held back by?

[00:24:18] Stella Topaz: Yeah. Yeah. And people are, people are naming it for themselves. So it's very brave. I, I'm always quite astounded by the sort of courage of people to show up and, and say, I don't really know what you do. But I feel like you can help me with this thing and this is what I want. And I think that's incredible because it is really, you know, we're still dealing with, um, a modality that is fairly not well known and there's not a lot of places to go, sometimes a session might just be talking about the real nitty gritty of sex and bodies.

Like, or it might be looking in the mirror at your own genitals or looking in the mirror at your whole body. It might be talking about what kind of sex you really like or what you've never really asked for. And what would, what would that be like? So sometimes sessions can just be around having the freedom to talk, ask questions. I make myself available for questions. If people want to ask me stuff, I say, you can ask me anything. I will say if I don't want to answer something. So people might ask me about my sexuality, my path, or what kind of sex to do. I like, and I might not answer that, but they can ask. It's really important to have places to really ask.

[00:25:38] Naomi Viret: It just gives me that perception of, um, offering that really sort of safe and open place for somebody to explore some of these inner thoughts or feelings that they might be having. Yeah, I'm picturing a session. It's quite remarkable. And how about things like, I guess, bodily autonomy or sexual function? Are they sort of things that play into the role as well?

[00:26:00] Stella Topaz: Yeah, for sure. I mean,

 A starting place in the session might be to start with some movement or activities or breath. And I might sometimes ask questions like, Oh, where are you feeling that in your body right now? And for some people, that's a pretty easy question. A lot of people that's not, it's like, I don't even know what you mean.

What do you mean? But what do you mean, um, because a lot of people have experience of tending to their bodies when they're in pain or discomfort, or when they need medical care or something kind of, practical, but to look for pleasure in the body can be challenging for some people. Others, it's not, but to, to know that you have a body and to know that your body is yours, is not as simple as it kind of sounds when you just say it out loud. And for some people, their body is, or has been very much the property of somebody else or a relationship. It's been kind of the property of a relationship or, or kind of a community or a culture or a family or, you know, a relationship.

So exploring what it's like to really know your own body, it's okay to touch your own body. It's okay to look at your own body. Many people, particularly with vulvas, have not looked at their own vulva in the mirror, or if they have, it's a long time ago. Um, so, you know, I've asked people, do you think if I put up 20 pictures of vulvas on the wall and yours with one of them, could you pick yours out?

And for some people it's like, I don't know, or your anus like has, who's looked at their anus lately with a mirror or who's touched their anus lately. So, do you get to look at yourself in the mirror full length? Do you take time with that? Would you look at your face in the mirror each day? Some people don't want to. That's okay. I'm not trying to make them, but I'm asking the questions around what is your relationship with your body?

[00:28:09] Naomi Viret: And I guess there's a real range of emotions that would sort of flow out from that too. Yeah. Like people's experiences of that.

[00:28:16] Stella Topaz: Yeah. Yeah, there is. I mean, for some people it might be clear that they, that's, that's too, that's uncomfortable or it's just not interesting to them. They're questions that can be asked to try to open up a dialogue about how do you live in your body and how do you regard your body? What parts of your body do you feel, actually, you haven't really spent time being friends with?

[00:28:44] Naomi Viret: Hmm. It's an interesting way to put it. And so, I guess these two notions of pleasure and curiosity are really playing into that work and become a strengths based approach to the work that you're doing. How do you use that pleasure and curiosity to work with clients and get them to be exploring some of these things that they're presenting to you with?

[00:29:02] Stella Topaz: Yeah. With pleasure. So, often, if there's, say if I asked, you or someone like, what do you notice in your body right now? Many people will go for actually my shoulders a bit stiff or I'm tired, my feet hurt. They're all valid and they're real. And they also tell me what the problem parts of your body are. Like, where is like, what hurts? What's not working? What are you not like, and then shifting that over to where is there something in your body where there's, a sense of ease or comfort, or is there a part of your body that feels pretty neutral right now? Where in your body do you feel drawn to in a pleasant or warm way? It's shifting the focus around ease or pleasure, and then possibly being able to start there as a way to move through body work session.

So that's a kind of pleasure approach, leading with pleasure, building on pleasure. Um, there's parts of our body that react because they've had a history or an experience of, fear or pain. So if somebody comes with something to do with fear or pain, I would be interested in knowing more about that and starting somewhere that's not with that part of the body immediately. Because you know, if you're used to people bumping into your injured shoulder, which I keep saying, cause I had an injured shoulder for a long time, but if you get used to worrying that people are going to bump into your injured shoulder, when you're walking down the street, you're kind of guarding, you're moving away because you're constantly aware that that could be, that could be pain coming. And so if I go to see a practitioner and the first thing they do is reach for that shoulder, I'm going to be pulling away. So I'd be more interested in them working with my posture, my whole body, how does it feel in my shoulder? That's not painful. What can I learn from that? How might we be working towards that?

That could be the same with working with an anus or working with a vulva or vagina. Same principle, you're not the, the approach of trying to move towards that injured part or that sore part or that protected part, that would slow down and we'd come from a place of curiosity, a place of choice. You choose when that, when, when any touch happens, you choose when that touch stops. You choose how long that touch happens, and you choose when it comes off. So we're really developing, in yourself a trust in what your body wants and needs. And then also it's a relationship with the practitioner, with me, which takes time to trust that I'm actually gonna not do anything that you didn't ask for.

And I'm not going to add anything and I'm only going to do what you ask, in the negotiation and agreement making.

[00:32:09] Naomi Viret: It's um, it's so intertwined and, you know, we talk about that move within society towards being more sex positive and it's even to be more body positive is, is what you're sort of saying the work that you're doing.

So, as we sort of touched on before, I guess the notions of pleasure may still be quite taboo or unexplored territory for some individuals. So it's great that they can work with you to uncover, some of this. Is there anything else that you'd like to say just in terms of like the client's pleasure and what happens when you change some of that focus from those, um, I guess the more negative aspects to more of those pleasurable aspects, what that sort of unlock for them?

[00:32:47] Stella Topaz: Yes, what I notice is when I slow down in my practice, and I really truly stay at the pace, where, where we're negotiating that their body learns best, I notice how there's like a kind of drop in the room, it's easier to drop into your body when you can slow down. And the other piece of that is knowing that you have a choice in this space.

So, like I'll also say, you can end this session at any time. You can leave at any time. This is not about having to endure and stay to the end. I will give a choice of like two or three places we could start today. They might not like any of those. And it's like, okay, well, let's come up with some more things. So knowing you have a choice and then experiencing that is core in this work. I would say pleasure is kind of like noticing sensations and touch that you like, or noticing feelings that you like, and then being able to build on those and trust that you actually have choice in those.

[00:33:52] Naomi Viret: I like it. And yeah. Flowing on from choice and trust just takes us so nicely into the work that you're doing around the Wheel of Consent.

Would you like to take a moment to introduce that concept of work to us a little bit more and how that perhaps differs from consent models that other practices may be using?

[00:34:12] Stella Topaz: The Wheel of Consent is a, is a practice. So it's not something you can just read about and then I've got it. It's a practice of actually experiencing embodied consent.

So experiencing choice in your body. And I came across the Wheel of Consent through sexological body work. It's introduced there in the course. And from there I went and did more training with Betty Martin, who's the creator of that work. I'd only just set up my website and my business. And then I did the five day intensive course for practitioners.

And then I was like, holy shit, I have to change everything. It just kind of reoriented my, It reoriented how I wanted to work and what I realized was important in my work around how I create agreements in session with people. And it is really all built around making agreements and choice.

And really what Betty's work has done has really asked two questions in any exchange of touch, and even non touch, which is who is doing the thing and who is it for. When you go to see, say a, medical practitioner or a nurse, like I've been, you're usually going with a, problem. So I need to have a sexual health screen. The nurse says, okay, so here's what we need to do. It kind of then turns into a treatment or a service model where I'm going to be doing this test for you. It might be uncomfortable, try and make it as comfortable as possible. Um, but it is like a transaction where it is for the person, but it doesn't feel like it's for the person. And it can sometimes feel like it's for the practitioner. That they need to do this to get to the solution or the answer.

 Body work is more about, you come to me and you have what you want. And how do we make sure that you stay in that place it's trying to stop people from going along with stuff. And we're all really good at going along with stuff.

So the Wheel of Consent is a practice where it breaks apart when you're giving and when you're receiving and you get clear about who that is for. So it's a doing thing. Okay. So it's like if, if, if you picked up a book about yoga and you read the book about yoga, you can't do yoga, but you need more about it.

[00:36:36] Naomi Viret: You have to see somebody like, yeah, role play that out for your internal, like gimme an example.

[00:36:41] Stella Topaz: Yeah, do it. And you have to have help with it. So this is a modality where you learn to exercise your choice. And you learn to notice what's going on in your body through that process. And you actually also then to shed light on how many times we go along with stuff that we really don't want to be doing.

Sometimes we have to because we need the cervix screening or we need the, blood taking, but sometimes we don't have to, but we do anyway. So we might be having a massage and someone's digging into your, muscles down your spine and you're like, this is really hurting, but you go along with it. Cause you go, they must know best. They're the masseuse. They know what they're doing. I'll get through it. It won't be too long. We go along with stuff.

[00:37:28] Naomi Viret: So it's people pleasing societies.

[00:37:30] Stella Topaz: Yes. Trying to kind of tease apart those things.

[00:37:34] Naomi Viret: So unique in its approach, but I guess also just a practice, as you say, and something that you need to be doing ongoing to better understand that concept and really like the concept of it's not just who it's for, but who's giving as well.

[00:37:50] Stella Topaz: Yeah, who's doing, which is different.

[00:37:54] Naomi Viret: So, I'd like to talk a little bit about advocacy now, if that's okay. You're a huge ally and advocate across many spaces, as you've already mentioned, including but not limited to queer, feminist, and also people living with disability.

Why are those ally roles important to you and the work that you're doing?

[00:38:13] Stella Topaz: Work in pleasure and desire is still kind of a radical act, like it's still, I'm working in sex and sex education or sex work or body work, erotic work. There's still pretty radical acts in our society. There's constantly threats to our ability to even talk about sex, or eroticism or, um, our bodies or our anatomy.

Those things are still censored on lots of platforms. Um, the, the laws around sex work generally are constantly under threat and being clawed back and then suppressed. So I can't work in this space and not know that I am part of that. I'm part of being able to challenge that, and I'm part of receiving some of the pressures upon that.

Also working with bodies can't be separated from how bodies get criminalized or marginalized. So it's important for me to be constantly learning about oppressions that may or may not affect me, but they affect all of us. So around racism, racialized bodies, around disability, discrimination, around stigma of of certain people's being even allowed to have sex if they have to have, you know, they have to rely on others to be granted permission for sex or not if they live in an aged care facility, or if they have a disability and they have full time carers or part time carers.

So there's so many areas where our bodies are regulated, stigmatized and marginalized, and they are not just individual, they're systemic. So it's really important for me to understand. Where I fit in those systems. And when I might be actually contributing or colluding with those systems and when I can act against them and highlight them and push back and educate myself.

I mean, I think coming from feminist healthcare, kind of, you know, in the eighties and nineties, that was really the personal is political was the cry then. And it still is like, and I feel like the individualization of bodies is an enemy to bodies. We need to look at our collective bodies. How we relate to each other, which bodies get preferenced, which bodies don't.

So I, I can't not hold those things in my work and my personal life.

[00:40:46] Naomi Viret: Yeah, it is really powerful. And like you said, it's when you're having a look at the collective body, it's, you know, look at the similarities as opposed to the difference.

[00:40:54] Stella Topaz: Yeah.

[00:40:54] Naomi Viret: And I think that's really powerful in and of itself too.

So you have just touched on some of the barriers and the challenges that you face as a sexological body worker . Are you happy to talk to some of the challenges that you yourself and other sexological body workers face when trying to do this work and deliver it out into the community?

[00:41:12] Stella Topaz: Yeah, I mean one barrier is it's hard to understand what we do. So that could be something I could improve and all of us can improve, but I also think it's hard to understand the world of pleasure because it can often be seen as kind of a luxury, or it can be seen as something private and stop talking about that. So the privatization of, you know, of those things. There's also really practical things like, on social media, for example, there's words that you'll get blocked or censored for. So even using the word sex can get you bumped off that platform for a period of time or, if you're seen to be working in the sex industry, which is a broad word for what I do, I work in the sex industry, that, that can lead to being deplatformed in terms of your payment systems or websites.

With globalization, a lot of the conservative and aggressive laws of the U. S. do, do filter into other countries and to our environments. So there's kind of those big systems and legal barriers, and then there's kind of the social awkwardness or stigma that can go along with this work. , and I think, you know, when you talk about, if I talk about sex or someone talks about sex and pleasure, there's also some conflicts around, well, if I talk about sex, am I implicating my lover, you know, or am I, you know, talking, am I implicating people in my friendship network?

So there's still a lot of stigma about being free about sex and bodies and sex education, you know, Caddyshacks part of the, the effort to try to improve how we do sex ed and how we reach people. But there's still a lot of barriers to actually just being able to see other people's bodies in their diversity or talk about anatomy in an erotic way or in a sexual way, or to talk about things like polyamory or BDSM or, you know, let alone just different ways you can have sex.

Yeah, it's just a lot.

[00:43:20] Naomi Viret: It is, it really is. There's plenty of work to still be done. . And I guess that's from yourself as a practitioner, but are there any sort of common themes around barriers or challenges that your clients or participants might have in terms of accessing yourself and the work?

[00:43:35] Stella Topaz: Yeah, money. Cause, so, you know, for someone like me, I can't. People can't get a rebate to see me or someone like me. Um, some people can get funding through, other sources. They can't get it through private health. NDIS will sometimes fund people to see me or people like me. Um, but money is probably the biggest barrier.

 There's not a lot of us. It's a growing field, sexological body work, but in effect there's not a lot of us, so there's not always a lot of choice. So if someone doesn't kind of think they'd gel with me, their choices might be a bit slim. Quite a lot of my clients come through queer community, people who know of me, some who might know me.

 And there, there can be barriers around, you know, being able to pay for something like this on top of all the other things, especially if you live in Sydney and you're renting or you're on low income or you're on support. It, it's hard to, to center this work as an essential or as a high choice. Which means that it can sometimes mean someone will come when things have got too bad for them. Like I can't ignore this anymore, rather than it being something that you could see as a maintenance or a kind of choice that you make in the middle ground. Um, so yeah, I'd say money is a lot of it.

 And fear, it just feels scary. Lots of people contact, and say I've been thinking about coming to see you for a year, and I've got the courage to come or you know, it, it is a big step and it's vulnerable, it's a vulnerable kind of step for a lot of people.

I guess for me, what the flip side of that is, it means that it's not easy to necessarily make a regular income in this work because of those barriers for other people. So it, the ebb and flow of the work for me means that it's an unpredictable kind of income. So you've got to love this work and I'm not particularly entrepreneurial and I I prefer to just show that this is who you work with when you work with me.

 And for people to make that choice, but it's, it's not a easy way to make work. If you mindful of fee structure,

I feel generous in my work. I like that. I don't want to let go of that. And I also want it to be sustainable.

So, you know, , I've been in salaried jobs for most of my life. So I'm newer at this. It's only been say six or seven years in this field and it actually trying to, , set up my practice in this field. So. It's a new world, but I, yeah, I love it.

[00:46:08] Naomi Viret: We are starting to draw to a close and I would just like to ask if you feel that there's any really strong points to get across or tips to get across , just in terms of advocating for your work and embracing the discussions that we've had today.

[00:46:25] Stella Topaz: I mean, if I come from a position of wanting to offer up my work, it's like I'm, I'm really open to people contacting me and having those conversations before they decide, whether to book or not. I do do speaking requests. I run workshops. Um, I also work with, with other organizations, with groups, I've worked with some people around neurodivergence, mental illness, disability, in terms of bringing some of this consent and embodiment work in

I really feel, I get surprised that when I step into some of the bigger organizations around this work, that the taboos around sex feel to me like the eighties all over again. So we go through cycles, you know, someone said to me the other day, there's someone offering a workshop where you, you know, get in the circle and you put a mirror and you all look at your genitals. And it's like, that's fantastic, but it's not a new idea. That's been happening since the 60’s and the 70’s and the 80’s and the 90’s, um, which is great, but the feeling that it's a new idea tells me that this, there's not a continuity. We're still going in these kinds of cycles. And I, I feel astounded that we're still saying the same kind of things, like it's okay to look at your own genitals, it's okay to talk about sex, it's okay to have sex, it's okay to be supported to have sex if you live in a supported environment.

All of those things, sexuality, I feel like we're kind of still clawing our way towards a more free concept of bodies and sex and relationships, and I want to be part of it.

[00:48:03] Jennifer Farinella: Thanks for listening to On the Couch. We create this podcast because we are allies in actively challenging discrimination, microaggressions, and exclusionary behaviors.

We want to create spaces where people feel safe to share their thoughts, knowing they will be heard and respected. Such an environment fosters collaboration, innovation, and contributes to a more inclusive society.

Connect with us on Instagram and Facebook, where you can share On the Couch with your colleagues, friends, and family. On The Couch is made by Jennifer Farinella, Naomi Viret, Maddy Stratten and Winnie Adamson.

Until next time, peace, love and protection.