Sexuality doula, sex educator, and sensualist Ev’Yan Whitney, shares daily online about sexual liberation defined on your own terms. But a little over a decade ago, she was much like the clients she’s helped, on a journey to discovering her sexuality while processing an immense amount of sexual shame (in part from her religious upbringing where at eight years old, she was asked to sign a purity contract.)
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That moment of frustration sparked her interest to chronicle her own sex journey through a blog called Sex, Love, and Liberation. “Naturally as a writer, I started the blog and people found resonance with my story. They saw themselves through my own story and from there this work began.” Years later, Yvan is now a leader in the sexual liberation space, wellness educator, and the author of her new book sensual self-helping women, femme, and non-binary people reimagine sexual freedom.
Black Love: Would you say that your sexual shame is attached to your experiences growing up?
Ev’Yan: When I was dealing with the sexual disconnection and inability to even have sex, I thought something was medically wrong with me because the books I was reading was just like “sex is natural everyone has sex and if you’re having issues you need to talk to a doctor.” There weren’t a lot of layers of the nuances of why I was experiencing these things. The deeper I went into this work, it was revealed to me that there was so much more to this issue than I thought.
Looking back at the way I was raised in the church, there was so much squelching of the sexuality of young girls and a lot of talk about abstinence. This idea that I am supposed to abstain abstain abstain and the moment I get married all of the sexy goddess feelings are supposed to happen, and it doesn’t work that way. So for me, the shame was rooted in that and the thoughts I was taught to believe about sex. And innocent things additionally like when I’d watch movies with my parents and a sex scene would come on, you could feel the tension in the room when I was told to look away. These are little things that I think people need to think about when they are asking themselves what blocks are in the way from you accessing your sexuality – asking yourself what things you were taught that are inhibiting you from sexual freedom.
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Black Love: Your tweets are a beautiful call out to your followers to think differently about sex. Specifically, this particular tweet where you told them to stop saying yes to sex they’d rather say no to. Where did this realization come from?
Ev’Yan: Those tweets are actually from a piece that I wrote several years ago where my partner was coming on to me, and I felt my body screaming no. And I thought I should say yes because I didn’t want to make my partner upset, but that made me feel like I was violating myself and my body. It retraumatized me as someone who had experienced sexual trauma or intimation because sensations in my body were telling me no this isn’t what I need, I was really going against myself and the voices and desires of my own body. And sometimes those reasons were I just don’t want to today, and others were I just don’t want to be in this experience. There are still a lot of sex therapists and educators who still teach that I am still helping people to unlearn. It’s so deeply embedded in culture to agree to sex as a wifely duty even when you don’t feel like it, we don’t teach women to honor their bodies.
So many people think that all you need in a good relationship is sex, but sex isn’t everything and it’s okay to say no. This realization caused me to wonder if we were taught to believe that we are worth more, would we value not just sex but feeling worthy, safety, respect, being heard, body autonomy. They are all just as important.
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Black Love: At what point did you realize you had power over your consent, and what would you tell any Black woman looking to tap into that power for herself?
Ev’Yan: You are your own sexual expert. If your body says no, honor the no, and if it says yes, honor that too. And if you are shaky about who you are as a sexual person this is a great time to learn and there’s no shame in doing that at any age – I mean I have clients in their fifties. You can be whoever you are sexually and you can have the kind of sex that you want, you just have to be very clear about what you want and don’t want. In the beginning stages of my awakening, I asked myself two questions. Who do I wanna be as a sexual being, and what is getting in the way of my ability to open myself up to the full spectrum of my sexuality?
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Black Love: We’ve talked a lot about sexual trauma in this conversation. How would you recommend anyone healing from sexual trauma to vocalize this to a potential sex partner?
Ev’Yan: First, I have to recommend another sexual educator, Jimanekia Eborn, who is another leader in the sexual liberation industry that does amazing work. She recommends with her audience that you share upfront so that you can make sure that you will be taken care of. That said, not everyone will feel super comfortable so I would tell them you don’t have to tell someone “I’ve been traumatized” to let them know you want to go slow, or “I require a lot of foreplay before we get into it.” And if they’re still not sure, I definitely recommend talking with a certified sex educator or therapist that can help them create ways to feel as safe as possible.
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Black Love: As a Black queer woman, is there anything you’d want to specifically say to other Black queer women to encourage them during their sexual awakening?
Ev’Yan: Go slow and stay curious. One mistake that I’d say I did was that I wanted to diagnose myself quickly so I could get it cracking and have sex. But sexual liberation is not a one-and-done thing, it’s an ongoing journey because we are not static beings. We are constantly changing. Our libidos, sexual arousals, and sexual desires change and we should stay curious. It doesn’t always have to be heavy and focused on trauma resolution, and shame, it can be pleasurable. Ask yourself what makes you feel good and chase that. As Black folk, it can be really easy to focus on the trauma and bad things that happen to us, and we forget that we can feel things other than pain and joy. So while you are doing this important work of healing and liberation, seek joy along the way.
To learn more about Ev’Yan Whitney, follow her on social media, purchase her book sensual self, and listen to her podcast about sexual liberation.
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