One of Drake’s most recent honors is the 2020 AASECT Audiovisual Award she won with Joan Price for their collaboration on the erotic sex ed film Guide to Wicked Sex: Senior Sex [NSFW].

AASECT is a highly regarded professional organization and certifying body that stands for the American Association for Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists.

Senior Sex was recognized as “a significant contribution to AASECT’s vision of sexual health and to the clinical and educational standards of the field.”

If Drake’s successful partnership with Price, a senior sex expert, proves anything, it’s that she is breaking the mold when it comes to celebrating sexual diversity in the mainstream—and that time can also bring great new opportunities.

RELATED READ: Senior Sex Expert Joan Price and Jessica Drake Break Taboos with Adult Film on Sex and Aging

Earlier this year I had the chance to speak with Jessica Drake at the 2020 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.

The industry veteran opened up on many topics, among them were her sex-ed series, managing a chronic condition and her journey to finding her own sexual voice.

In the first part of my interview series with Drake, she offers a glimpse into the future of Jessica Drake’s Wicked Guide to Sex and how she’s working to squash the stigma against sex workers.

On making a kinky sequel to Senior Sex:

“We’re going to do a second version because people were so fond of us introducing the idea of kink for seniors. I think that we have a really unique situation on our hands where people are getting older and they’re losing a spouse through death or divorce.

“And maybe these people have been married 30, 40, 50, 60 years, and maybe they have a kink that they’ve hidden or they’ve always wanted to be different or try something different.

“How would they possibly know how to navigate that at this point in their lives? So we integrated kink into the first one and we got such a great response that I want to have even more of it in the second one.”

On why she started Jessica Drake’s Guide to Wicked Sex in 2011:

“Fans kept coming to me who had just watched my movies that I perform in and they were asking me sex advice questions. At first, I thought, well, they’re asking me these questions because I have sex on camera.

“Then I became increasingly aware that they were asking me these questions because they’re seriously lacking in sex ed. Once I became aware of the problem, I became a certified sex educator. So I could backup the knowledge that I already had.

“I went to a few different training programs and I started doing workshops. Then as I was first doing the line I did the popular topics first, you know, fellatio and anal and positions and things like that.

“I also gendered them more than I would currently do. In retrospect, we don’t know what we know until we know it. But the first ones were fairly gendered. But as the line has progressed and I’ve grown as an educator as well and a person, I’ve just realized the need for better education for every group of people.

“When I am when I’m not able to do that, because it’s not my lived experience, I collaborate with someone who has that experience. And that’s sort of how Senior Sex came around.”

On her plans to create a Wicked Guide to Sex video on sex and disability:

“My goal is to do sex and disability at some point. It’s something that I’ve just started working on. I’ll be collaborating with people and we’ll be covering as much as possible.

“In one of the [sex ed certification] programs that I went to, we had a module on sex and disability and the film resources were seriously lacking. It wasn’t their fault; we’re just really lacking those resources. So I am compelled to change that.

“So far I’m talking to five or six people and also asking them for recommendations and people that they work with and possibly partners, they’re real-life partners.

“I think that it’s really important to have all the conversations instead of just portraying sex and disability as something that is a situation where one person has strictly physical limitations. I think that we need to go way beyond that.

“I want to include as much information as I can. And what that looks like in the final product, I won’t know until we’re there.”

On how she went from feeling like an outcast to an AASECT honoree:

“I feel in part because I’m a sex worker, I feel like that’s the biggest barrier,” Drake said when describing her mixed experiences with AASECT in the past, before becoming both a conference speaker and honoree.

“The first year that I went to AASECT I thought it would be a great idea to attend a SAR [Sexual Attitude Re-assessment].

However, her excitement turned to anger after participating in a group word asociation excercise:

“Words were like porn, sex work, sexting and sexuality things, threesomes, bisexuality, anything having to do with porn or sex work, everyone was only writing really negative things that were rooted in stereotypes.

“I was the only sex worker there. Nobody knew who I was because I was trying to be under the radar and I’m sitting there and I’m so mad my ears are burning.

“I thought this was going to be the place to be with all these people with letters behind their names. They are therapists and doctors and they’re helping people and these are the beliefs they held.

“So I got so angry about my first AASECT experience. I gave them my feedback and then I stayed. I almost walked out. I thought maybe this is why I’m here maybe I’m here, to write better words on each one of those pieces of paper

“Because if I wasn’t, I see what would be there, right, so I stayed. Then the second year it seemed like attitudes were changing, and the third year was the first year I was offered to present there.”

*Interview edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Image credits: Jenna Owsianik, Wicked

Supported by the Clinton Global Initiative, the project aims to lift the taboo surrounding the sexuality of disabled people and stereotypes that depict them as asexual or unattractive.

High abuse rates for people with IDD

Contino became passionate about IDD and sexuality issues after spending two summers in Guatemala as a special needs teacher while still in high school.

During this time, she realized that many students with IDD were clearly facing sexual abuse.

“We found that the problem is that students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are sexually abused at a rate that’s anywhere from three to 10 times more than the general population,” Contino said during an interview with DU Clarion.

People with intellectual disabilities are less likely to report sexual abuse due to the vulnerability implied by the disability itself, she added.

Contino’s dedication to the rights of people with IDD started long before the beginnings of the project.

Students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are sexually abused at a rate that’s anywhere from three to 10 times more than the general population.

Her brother has Sotos syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes delays in a child’s development.

For this reason, Contino participated in Best Buddies, Respite Care, and other programs that connected neurotypical students with young people with IDDs since middle school.

Why an online safety and sexuality game

The idea of creating a game derived from the need of presenting information in a concrete way, so it could be accessible to young folks with IDD.

“Saying something like, ‘When two people love each other very much, they can have private time.’ They’re [students with IDD] like, ‘Wait, what does that even mean?’ What does it mean that somebody loves another very much? What is private time? Private time could be the two of us right now doing this interview,” Contino said

Contino says sex ed curriculums currently available for students with IDD are outdated because they don’t tackle contemporary topics such as online pornography and gender identity.

To help make up for this lack of resources, the grad student clearly outlines the objectives and educational contents of the game.

They include modules that will teach students with IDD how to distinguish between safe and unsafe websites, the risks connected to online pornography, and how to share sex-related content on the Internet in an appropriate way.

Currently, Contino is looking for computer science students who would be able to implement said educational content in a real video game.

Her mentor on the project is Ritu Gwani, an Indian disability activist on a mission to help disabled women find work and start their own businesses. Gwani was assigned to the project by the Global Clinton Initiative.

Image sources: Rosie Contino

At their best, most public school sex education programs can leave us with more questions than answers. And even if we were provided with a complete, inclusive, and well-rounded sex-ed curriculum in public school, it would still only be the beginning. 

Sex education can easily be a lifelong journey, one that is undeniably and inextricably linked to sexual pleasure. When schools do try and provide inclusive, safe-sex education to their students, rarely do we see these curriculums extending into the who/what/where/why/how’s of sexual pleasure. 

In my home province of Ontario, Canada, the content of our public sex-ed curriculum has been a heated conversation.

Our Conservative government, elected in 2018, vowed to reverse a progressive sexual education curriculum that had been put in place by the previous Liberal government; at the time, the progressive curriculum had caused intense backlash from social conservatives. 

In the end, the curriculum landed somewhere in the middle of what either side wanted. Lessons about certain topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation have been delayed by two years in students’ education, but they are still present in the curriculum. 

Parents also now have the right to opt their children out of sex education entirely should they feel so obliged. 

Whether it’s in Ontario, Canada or anywhere else, sex education is a topic fraught with controversy. Bringing open, honest, and frank conversations about sex into classrooms is a fight against centuries of entrenched taboos, traditional values, and heteronormativity. 

But sex education is inherently linked to sexual pleasure; it is only by knowing more about our bodies, ourselves, and our partners that we can enhance our sexual experiences.  

If you don’t take my word for it, all of this is very cleverly laid out in Netlfix’s extremely popular Sex Education, (a show that made me Google “how to become a sex therapist” because of how much I identified with Gillian Andersen’s character, Dr. Jean F. Milburn). 

Personally, much of my own sex education has, like so many of my generational peers, been gleaned from the Internet—though not through the stereotypical avenue of pornography. 

Setting out to learn anything on the Internet can be a risky task; a minefield of potential misinformation.

Learning about sex on the Internet—whether that be searching for medical information, asking Google whether that strange thing that happened to you is “normal,” or wondering how you should behave at a strip club—has the potential to go horribly wrong.

For every sex positive, body positive resource, there will be a slew of others that will leave you with a sense of shame or a skewed sense of what you “should” be doing. 

(I recently stumbled across an Instagram post that was advocating that women ought to be using oral sex in order to get their male partners to open up emotionally; an example of very bad advice from the Internet!)

Good sex education is all about shedding shame. Getting started can be as easy as interspersing your social media timelines with some knowledgeable individuals who can share their expertise, or plugging into a podcast on a topic you’re interested in knowing more about on your commute to work. 

Some of my own conceptions of sexuality, pleasure, and even sex work have been fundamentally challenged and changed by the better by People On The Internet, and to them, I am eternally grateful.

Without further ado, here is a non-exhaustive list of people, collectives, and forms of media that offer helpful insight into the complex realm of human sexuality.

Dr. Jennifer Gunter, @drjengunter 

Dr. Jen Gunter’s pinned tweet at the top of her Twitter profile says it all: “Come for the sex, stay for the science. Come for the science, stay for the sex.” 

The Canadian doctor has literally written the book on vaginas, aptly titled The Vagina Bible, which The Atlantic called “a user’s manual for anyone who has one.” 

Dr. Gunter brings a lot of her sex education to Twitter as well, debunking myths as they circulate and calling out pseudo-science perpetuated by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop. 

Andrew Gurza, @ItsAndrewGurza

Andrew Gurza, a Canadian disability awareness consultant, is a popular media personality and activist who doesn’t shy away from talking about sex.

In his podcast “Disability After Dark,” Gurza aims to break the silence and fear surrounding sex and disability. You can find him on Instagram at @ItsAndrewGurza and on Twitter at @ItsAndrewGurza

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The Vagina Museum, @vagina_museum

It might seem like I’m harping on vaginal education here, but the fact is that male sexual anatomy has a tendency to be better explained both inside and outside of classrooms, and does not hold nearly as much taboo as its female counterpart. 

Cue The Vagina Museum; a real, brick and mortar museum based in London, UK, dedicated to education on and celebration of all things vagina. It’s very first exhibition is titled “Muff Busters,” and is dedicated to dispensing common myths and misconceptions about gynecological health. 

Can’t get to London? It’s body-positive messaging is prevalent on its Twitter page, too. 

Luna Matatas, @lunamatatas

Sex education goddess Luna Matatas offers in-person as well as online coaching and webinars focusing on body confidence and kink. Being in her presence is a delight as our two of her top mottos: “Peg the Patriarchy” and “Meditate, Medicate, Masturbate.” (Medicate refers to cannabis.)

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Cripping Up Sex with Eva, @crippingupsex

Eva Sweeney, a woman in her mid-30s who has cerebral palsy, is a sex educator focused on disability. Her work began as a queer teenager when Eva had trouble finding any resources or information about sex and disability.

It’s a gap she continues to fill today with her sex ed business Cripping Up Sex with Eva. She covers topics including consent with a non-verbal partner, sex toy reviews for people with disabilities, and how to talk to doctors about safe and responsible sexual activity (including getting STI screening done)—an incredibly important subject since some doctors wrongly assume their patients with disabilities don’t have sex.  

Giving The Talk, @givingthetalk 

This account is all about sharing “fun, compassionate, medically accurate info free of stigma and shame” and delves into tough topics like consent, communication, and masturbation. 

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Robin Wilson-Beattie, @sexAbled

Keynote speaker and educator Robin Wilson-Beattie began speaking on sex and disability in 2008 after acquiring a physical disability. If you are unable to see her in person, you can find her on Twitter and even watch an online webinar series at Kink Academy on BDSM and disability.

Sonalee, @thefatsextherapist

Sonalee’s Instagram page is dedicated largely to fostering body positivity and self-acceptance, but she does it through a sex-positive and trauma-informed lens.

All bodies deserve to engage in sexual pleasure should they desire to, and Sonalee’s is a good account to follow if you think you would benefit from being reminded of that from time to time. 

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Elle Stanger, @stripperwriter 

While I first discovered Elle on Instagram, you can find her across platforms (she is on Twitter @ElleStanger), read her work in various popular publications, or listen to her podcast on all things sex and politics, Strange Bedfellows. 

Portland-based podcast host, writer, and stripper. Elle Stanger educates her followers, readers, and listeners on everything from strip club etiquette and sex worker politics, to raising children to have a healthy relationship with their bodies, an understanding of consent, and an accepting and open understanding of sex, sexuality. 

A word of advice when following sex workers on social media; Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter tend to dislike sex workers existing on their platforms, and their accounts are periodically deleted. Be sure to follow their back-up accounts if they have them—Elle’s on Instagram is @Elle_Stanger. 

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Raquel Savage, @raquelsavage

“Sex Coach, Sex Educator, Slut,” reads her bio, and Savage does it all and more. A writer, podcaster, and producer, Savage has built something of a media empire sharing the knowledge she’s gained as a trained counselor, certified sex therapist, and former sex worker.

She provides topic-specific sex education videos that you can access through her Patreon, offers a NSFW sex education series called SexxxEd, and facilitates workshops and consultations for those with specific needs or questions. 

Savage also manages the production company @KinkMediaGroup and co-hosts her own podcast, The Savage Life Podcast. You can find her on Twitter @Raquel_Savage 

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The Body Is Not An Apology, @thebodyisnotanapology

Knowing your body will only take you so far; loving your body as it is right now is an often overlooked but crucial step on the path to sexual empowerment. In the famous words of RuPaul, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else!” 

The Instagram account @thebodyisnotanapology is all about curating self-love. The account often features words by the author of the book The Body Is Not An Apology, Sonya Renee Taylor, and curates body-positive and sex-positive posts from across the World Wide Web! 

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What are your favorite online sex education resources and sex educators? Let us know in the comments!

Image sources: Bru-nO

At the age of 61, the renowned sex educator was inspired by a passionate love affair to write her first book on seniors having sex. Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty was released by Seal Press in 2006.       

Since then Price has not stopped advocating for better senior sex education, including a recent collaboration with performer Jessica Drake on the adult film Guide to Wicked Sex: Senior Sex [NSFW].

Inside the world of erotic sex ed

Released in August 2019, the erotic movie is part of the popular educational series Jessica Drake’s Guide to Wicked Sex, written, produced, and directed by the award-winning actress.

The senior sex series, co-created by Price and Drake, explores the different ways aging can affect sexuality, both with a partner as well as solo. Its steamy scenes feature explicit demonstrations of sexy seniors who aren’t afraid of having passionate sex in front of the camera.

In fact, Jessica Drake’s Guide to Wicked Sex: Senior Sex [NSFW] could be considered an answer to the popular “granny” fetish in the world of adult entertainment. It shows senior sex in its most sensual and realistic form. 

The instructional film breaks taboos in how it portrays seniors having sex, doing so without the fetishization of older women that often appears in mainstream X-rated videos. It also brings a healthy amount of diversity with it to adult entertainment, proving that having a great sex life is not just an option for young models with perfect bodies.

The titillating scenes, which feature real seniors, will likely prompt many couples over 60 to discover the pleasures of intimacy again, without having to confront themselves with images of younger performers with unattainable bodies.

The sex scenes are provocative and stimulating, and they can be seen with or without audio commentary.

Sex after 50, sex after 60, and so on…

Before joining forces with Drake, Price shared her expertise on sexuality and aging in several books and forums.

Her work has received plenty of coverage in mainstream media, where she’s been called a “wrinkly sex kitten,” “senior sexpert” and “the beautiful face of senior sex.”

After the success of Price’s first book in 2006, hundreds of seniors began asking her questions about how to keep or regain a healthy sex life. 

She runs the blog “Naked at Our Age” and the column “Sex at Our Age” on the retirement community website Senior Planet. 

This prompted Price to write an instructional book about sex over 60: Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex, published by Seal Press in 2011. 

In 2012, the book won the honor of “Outstanding Self-Help Book” from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Additionally, it won the 2012 Book Award from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors. and Therapists.

After Naked at Our Age, Price explored the topic of senior sex further in The Ultimate Guide to Sex after Fifty: How to Maintain – or Regain! – a Spicy, Satisfying Sex Life (Cleis Press, 2014) and Sex After Grief: Navigating Your Sexuality After Loss of Your Beloved (Mango Publishing, 2019).

The former is her most comprehensive self-help book, while the latter was inspired by the loss of her loved one in 2008. 

‘Wicked Sex’ series

Jessica Drake’s Guide to Wicked Sex series has won several awards from the most prestigious institutions in the adult entertainment industry, including AVN, XBIZ, the Feminist Porn Awards, and the NightMoves Awards.

But its success has attracted the attention of sex educators as well: Dee Dennis, the founder of the sex-positive conference CatalystCon, praised Drake as “an amazing sex educator and speaker, who represents a new direction and is breaking new ground” in the industry.

The series’ chapters tackle various sex-related topics, including fellatio, plus-size sex, basic positions, foreplay, and female masturbation. They also feature popular stars, engaging in explicit but sensual demonstrations.

*Note: This article has been revised to include corrections, including that Joan Price is 76 (not 75) and that her book “Naked at Our Age” was both nominated for and won the “Outstanding Self-Help Book” award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors in 2012.

Image sources: Wicked Pictures [NSFW], Joan Price, Rachel Kramer Bussel

But just like anyone interested in trying kink, there are some challenges, risks, and important safety information to become aware of before diving into the scene.

Fortunately, sex and disability educator Robin Wilson-Beattie provides a great introduction to BDSM and disability in her Kink Academy video series aptly titled “BDSM & Disability.”

She examines what it means to be “safe, sane, and consensual” if you have a disability and/or are getting intimate with someone who has a disability.

The Kink Academy series features five videos on adaptive kink play, community access, challenges, finding a partner, and debunking assumptions.

To watch the full series requires buying a membership, which includes $20/month and $149/year options. However, the video on “Challenges” is available to view online for free.

Image sources: Kink Academy

The 10-week series offers free online workshops presented by notable sex educators. It’s geared toward “established and future sexuality educators, writers, event producers, & entrepreneurs.”

Although the complete webinar lineup is still being announced, the current program covers a range of topics. We’re pleased to see they include a strong focus on making sex education more accessible to people with various health backgrounds and needs.

Making sex ed inclusive

Want to learn how to make sex education presentations accessible to more people?

On Oct. 13, minimus maximus will present the webinar Sex Education and Autism and talk about the challenges and opportunities of being an autistic sex educator. The goal: to create awareness and acceptance of neurodivergence in the sex-ed community.

On Oct. 20, cripsex agitator Cassandra J. Perry (aka Caz Killjoy) will host “Making it More Accessible: A Very Abbreviated Guide for Presenters.” The workshop will help sex educators learn how they can make their presentations accessible to more people.

Already, a 45-minute video on “Understanding Sex After Cancer,” presented by Ducky herself, is available to view on her YouTube channel.

At the time of writing, nine webinars have been scheduled to take place from Sept. 22 to Dec. 15.

If, like us, you want to keep an eye out for any additions, follow the Twitter event account @SexToyRadio for updates.

The short film “Paving My Own Way – Episode One” profiles Sweeney, a woman in her late 30s with cerebral palsy, and her accessible sex education services. It was created by Chelsea Javier and Paul Sprangers of American Lagomorph.

After failing to find adequate sexuality resources as a queer teenager, Sweeney decided to make them herself. Today she provides online classes and private consults through her business Cripping Up Sex With Eva. Her website features her various course offerings.

With the help of Barbies, she teaches different sex positions that can work for people with disabilities. She also reviews sex toys with a focus on their accessibility on her blog Cripping Up Reviews.

Being non-verbal, Sweeny communicates with the filmmakers with the help of an aide. Sweeney points to words and letter on a board with a laser-pointer light attached to her hat, and her aide reads them out.

Throughout the film, we get to know Sweeney as a funny, smart, and confident person who isn’t bogged down by societal expectations surrounding women and sexuality.

When asked whether she feels pressure to live up to certain ideals of womanhood, Sweeney shares pearls of wisdom:

I am lucky becasue from the get-go I don’t conform, so I did not have that pressure to be what everyone else expect’s of a woman. So trust yourself. I know it is difficult to ignore society’s ridiculous standards, but think about what would make you happy.

View the documentary embedded above or on Vimeo to learn more about Sweeney. You can also help support her sex and disability educational services by contributing to her Patreon page.

Image source: American Lagomorph