Global Love: Expanding Sexual Wellness, Pleasure and Connection Across Cultures
100% Online Conference!
What if your understanding of sex, intimacy, love, and relationships wasn’t limited by culture, geography, or tradition?
This March, we are learning about love on a global scale. This event brings together internationally recognized cultural experts, sex therapists, educators, and clinicians to explore how intimacy, identity, and pleasure are experienced around the world.
Through global perspectives and research-informed discussion, you’ll learn cross-cultural frameworks for sexual health, strengthen your clinical and coaching skills for working with diverse populations, and gain practical tools you can apply immediately in your practice. Expect meaningful conversation, real-world relevance, and connection with international leaders shaping the future of sexology.
OVER THESE TWO DAYS YOU WILL DIVE INTO:
Learn cross-cultural frameworks for sexual health and pleasure
Understand global perspectives on intimacy, identity, and relationships
Build clinical and coaching skills for working with diverse populations
Connect with international experts in sexology and cultural studies
Gain actionable tools you can apply immediately in your practice
Dr. Justin Lehmiller, PhD
Sex, Connection, and Culture: What Global Research Reveals
Dr. Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli MBBS (India), MSc (England), PhD (Belgium)
What the Science Says: WHO Evidence on Integrating Pleasure into Sexual Health Education
PANEL: Beyond Risk: Emerging Conversations on Sexual Health, Intimacy, and Sexual Wellbeing in India
Maria Sophocles, MD, FACOG, MSCP, IF
Menopause and Women's Sexual Health Around the World
Dr. Laith Al-Shawaf, phd
A Cross-Cultural Look at Maintaining Consensual Non Monogamy
Anita Krishnan-Shankar, MSW, MSc
Pleasure Beyond the Peak: Safety, Stability, and Relational Joy
Dr. Tolulope Oko-Igaire, phd
When Culture Meets the Bedroom: Rethinking Sex Therapy for African Clients
This presentation explores key cultural practices, beliefs, and norms surrounding sex and sexuality in Africa and examines how these factors shape client behavior, expectations, and experiences in therapy. By sharing these insights, the session offers a deeper understanding of the African sexual landscape and highlights how culturally informed approaches can strengthen clinical understanding and improve sex therapy interventions for a global audience.
Jim Pfaus
The Neuroscience of Falling in Love: What Actually Happens in the Brain
Dr. David Rodrigues, phd
Across the Iberian Peninsula: How Portugal and Spain Teach Sex, Relationships, and Consent
Dr. Sharon Flicker, PHD
Love Languages: What We Know and Recommendations for Practice
Rachel Hope Cleves
Good Food, Wicked Sex: An Intimate History of the Lustful Appetites
Use this world clock to find the corresponding time in your time zone!
SCHEDULE
SATURDAY, march 14th
START TIME: 10:00AM - 6:00pm cst
SUNDAY, march 15th
START TIME: 10:00AM - 6:00pm cst
PRESENTERS
More presenters coming soon!
Dr. Justin Lehmiller, PhD
Dr. Justin Lehmiller leads the Sexual Health Alliance Study Abroad program to Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Iceland, Barcelona and more coming soon. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Purdue University. He is a Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute and author of the book Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Dr. Lehmiller is an award-winning educator, having been honored three times with the Certificate of Teaching Excellence from Harvard University, where he taught for several years. He is also a prolific researcher and scholar who has published more than 50 academic works to date, including a textbook titled The Psychology of Human Sexuality (now in its second edition) that is used in college classrooms around the world. Dr. Lehmiller's research focuses on topics including casual sex, sexual fantasy, sexual health, and friends with benefits. His studies have appeared in all of the leading journals on human sexuality, including the Journal of Sex Research, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Dr. Lehmiller has run the popular blog Sex and Psychology since 2011, and it now receives several million page views per year. He has been interviewed by numerous media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, CNN, The Atlantic, The Globe and Mail, and The Sunday Times. He has been named one of 5 "Sexperts" You Need to Follow on Twitter by Men's Health and one of the "modern-day masters of sex" by Nerve. Dr. Lehmiller has appeared on the Netflix series Sex, Explained, he has been on several episodes of the television program Taboo on the National Geographic Channel, and he has been a guest on Dr. Phil. Dr. Lehmiller has also appeared on numerous podcasts and radio shows, including the Savage Lovecast, the BBC’s Up All Night, and several NPR programs (1A, Radio Times, and Airtalk).
He is a popular freelance writer, penning columns and op-eds for major publications, including The Washington Post, Playboy, USA Today, VICE, Psychology Today, Men’s Health, Politico, and New York Magazine. In addition, the articles he writes on Sex and Psychology have been syndicated on major websites, including Business Insider, Huffington Post, and Thought Catalog. He has also interviewed several prominent authors, journalists, and psychologists about their work for his blog and podcast, including Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Lisa Ling, Drs. John and Julie Gottman, and bestselling authors Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn) and Lisa Taddeo (Three Women).
Dr. Lehmiller has given talks around the world on sex, love, and relationships. He is available as an expert speaker and has experience consulting on legal cases, including taking the stand as an expert witness. Dr. Lehmiller has also worked with several major sexual health and wellness brands and is available as a spokesperson, as well as a media, marketing, and product development consultant.
Dr. Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli MBBS (India), MSc (England), PhD (Belgium)
Formerly: Scientist, Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization
Now: Independent adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights learner, communicator, adviser, teacher, and supporter of advocacy, research and action
Dr Venkatraman Chandra Mouli (referred to by colleagues and friends as Chandra) worked for the World Health Organization’s headquarters staff team for 30 years. For 27 of these years, he worked on adolescent health. A particular focus of his work was adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights. He worked with colleagues and collaborators around the world to generate and distill research evidence and programmatic experience, and use that to strengthen national policies and programmes. Following his retirement from WHO in August 2023, he continues to learn, communicate, teach, advise and support adolescent health work. He does this independently, without renumeration, and selectively (on issues that interest and concern him).
Maria Sophocles, MD, FACOG, MSCP, IF
Dr. Maria Sophocles has been at the forefront of women’s healthcare for 30 years, bringing an unparalleled depth of knowledge, compassion, and innovation to her practice. From her academic roots at Duke University and Jefferson Medical College to her groundbreaking work at Women’s Healthcare of Princeton, Dr. Sophocles is a vanguard in menopause management and female sexual health.
From 2001 to 2007, Dr. Sophocles was a visiting professor and member of an NIH research team at the Frauenspital in Basel, Switzerland. When she moved back to the U.S. in 2007, she founded Women’s Healthcare of Princeton, a progressive gynecology practice that now draws patients from all over the U.S.
A board-certified ob/gyn, she is also a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner. She has been recognized for her contributions to gynecology and, as such, has been named a fellow of both the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (ISSWSH) and the International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Diseases (ISSVD).
In 2015, she was one of the first U.S. clinicians to recognize the need for a non-estrogen option to treat vaginal atrophy in breast cancer survivors and pioneered the use of CO2 laser both intravaginally and on the vulva. She has taught clinicians this technology on five continents and advocated for women’s health, reproductive, and sexual rights in the U.S. and abroad.
Working with New Jersey Senator Shirley Turner in 2023, she played a crucial role in the passage of a bill in New Jersey allowing women to obtain contraception without serial visits to a clinician.
She is the CMO of EMBR Labs, a Boston-based wellness device company.
She is the Director of Women’s Health Services for Curia Health, a performance science and health optimization practice based in New York and London.
She is a member of SheMedia’s Flow Advisory Council, is the author of a forthcoming book, “The Bedroom Gap,” on sex in midlife, and was a recent speaker at TEDWomen2023. Her TedTalk and upcoming book release discuss taking small steps towards gender equity by achieving better communication in the bedroom, better education for women and men and clinicians around sexual topics and age-related sexual changes, and ways to advocate for yourself.
She has been the host of a livestream show, Gynecollege. She is a frequent guest on Sirius XM Doctor Radio.
Jim Pfaus
Professor Jim Pfaus, PhD, IF, is a basic and preclinical researcher in the neuroscience and psychology of sexual behavior and neuroendocrine function in the Department of Psychology and Life Sciences and the Sexological Institute at Charles University in Prague, and director of research for the Center for Sexual Health and Interventions at the Czech National Institute of Mental Health.
Originally from the US, he received his bachelors in Psychology in 1983 from The American University in Washington, DC, then his PhD in Neuroscience in 1990 from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC Canada. He did a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship in molecular neurobiology in the laboratory of Dr. Donald Pfaff at Rockefeller University in New York City, after which he became a Professor of Neuroscience in the Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology, Department of Psychology, at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada from 1992 to 2018. He left Concordia in 2018 and was a visiting researcher at the Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa with colleagues in the Instituto de Investigaciones Cerebrales from 2019 to 2021, after which he moved to Prague in the Czech Republic to become a Professor of Neuroscience at Charles University and Research Director at the Center for Sexual Health and Intervention where his laboratory is located.
Jim’s research uses both rats and humans to understand how the brain and its neurochemical and neuroendocrine systems are organized for basic sexual responses like arousal, desire, sexual pleasure and orgasm, and sexual inhibition and disgust. His work has also shed light on the neurochemical, molecular, and epigenetic mechanisms by which conditioned sexual responses potentiate sexual preferences and reproduction, and how they figure in the development of individual preferences, including fetishes and paraphilias.
He has published over 260 peer-reviewed scientific papers and book chapters on the neurobiology of sexual behavior in both females and males, and his work has led to the formulation of new drugs to treat sexual dysfunctions and ways to compensate for psychiatric medications that have debilitating sexual side effects.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Current Sexual Health Reports, Associate editor of Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, and Sexual Medicine Reviews, and past Associate editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, and sits on the editorial boards of other scientific journals in sexuality, neuroscience, and pharmacology. He is a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health and a Past President of the International Academy of Sex Research.
Dr. Laith Al-Shawaf, PhD
Dr. Laith Al-Shawaf is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at UCCS. Before moving to the United States, he was a professor at Bilkent University in Turkey and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. Dr. Al-Shawaf is a member of the Arab-German Young Academy (AGYA) and Chief Academic Advisor to the Center for Applied Social Cognition Research (CASCR) in Lebanon. In 2019, the Association for Psychological Science (APS) named him a Rising Star, and in 2022, he won the UCCS Faculty Award for Excellence in Research and the UCCS Students’ Choice Educator of the Year Award. In 2023, he won the UCCS LAS Outstanding Teaching Award for online teaching. In 2024, he won the UCCS LAS Outstanding Research Award, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society’s Early Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions, and an international Visiting Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), France. In 2025, he won the Human Behavior and Evolution Society’s Fellow Award.
Anita Krishnan-Shankar, MSW, MSc
Anita is a mental health practitioner with over 20 years of experience in counselling, therapy, education, and coaching. She holds degrees in Psychology and Social Work from leading institutions in India and the UK, including The London School of Economics and Political Science.
She has worked as a school counsellor, university lecturer, and Head of a Psychology Programme, and has been in private practice for two decades supporting children, adolescents, individuals, couples, and families across a wide range of concerns.
Anita uses an integrative, client-centred approach, drawing from evidence-based modalities including Relational Life Therapy, ACT, Narrative Therapy, Schema Therapy, DBT, CBT, mindfulness, and strengths-based work. Her style is collaborative, non-judgemental, and culturally responsive, informed by having lived across multiple countries and cultures.
A certified Sex Therapist and Sex Educator, Anita is also a Sexual Health Alliance Couples and Sex Therapy Graduate. She is sex-positive and LGBTQIA+ affirmative, working from a psychosocial framework that honours cultural, relational, and emotional contexts.
Anita is a full member of the Singapore Psychological Society, the British Psychological Society, and the Canadian Counselling & Psychotherapy Association, and is fluent in English and Hindi.
Dr. Tolulope Oko-Igaire, phd
Dr. Tolulope Oko-Igaire, also known as “The Fixer”, is one of Africa’s leading couples, sex, and mental health therapists. She is a clinical counselor specializing in sexual health, sexual dysfunction, trauma, depression, PTSD, and family dynamics, with advanced training in Gestalt Therapy, CBT, and Psychodynamic approaches. A pioneer in advancing professional mental health counseling in regions where sexual and mental health topics remain taboo, Dr. Oko-Igaire has worked extensively with multinational organizations, government agencies, and NGOs across Africa as a speaker, facilitator, and consultant. She is the President of the Association for Counseling, Matchmaking & Psychotherapy of Nigeria (ACMPN) and the Executive Director of the Institute of Counseling in Nigeria. Dr. Oko-Igaire is a U.S.-certified Human Sexuality Specialist, holds an honorary doctorate in counseling, and is currently completing PhDs in Counseling Psychology and Sexology. She is internationally recognized for her commitment to ethical, inclusive, and evidence-based sexual health education.
Rachel Hope Cleves
Rachel Hope Cleves is a hungry historian and novelist, and a professor at the University of Victoria.
Cleves is the author of four award-winning works of history: Lustful Appetites: An Intimate History of Good Food and Wicked Sex (2024), Unspeakable: A Life Beyond Sexual Morality (2020), Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America (2014), and The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery (2009).
In 2023, Cleves published her first novel, A Second Chance for Yesterday (2023), co-authored with her brother, the futurist Aram Sinnreich.
Her research has been featured in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, salon.com and brainpickings.org. She writes in a treehouse in Victoria, British Columbia.
Dr. DAVID RODRIGUES, phd
Dr. David L. Rodrigues completed his Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Iscte) in 2010 and has since focused primarily on his research career. He has co-authored multiple international peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, including contributions to The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology and Romantic Relationships, often in collaboration with both international and national research networks.
His work has been recognized with an Honorable Mention for Best Psychology Paper by The Journal of Sex Medicine, and in 2018 he received an award from the Center for Open Science for transparency and strong research practices. He has also published pedagogical work on improving scientific communication and regularly presents at national and international scientific events.
In addition, Rodrigues has been invited to share his research with broader audiences, including the Sexual Health Alliance, and has participated in public science initiatives and socially relevant projects. He has contributed to several competitively funded projects, currently serves as principal investigator on a “la Caixa” Foundation project, and leads an individual project funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.
His current research focuses on how motives for security and pleasure shape sexual behavior and sexual health practices, as well as the roots of stigma toward minority groups, including individuals in consensual non-monogamous relationships and asexual individuals.
Dr. Sharon Flicker, PHD
Dr. Sharon Flicker is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at California State University, Sacramento. Her most recent work examines relationship quality and attachment in Bangladeshi love and arranged marriages and in consensually non-monogamous relationships, such as open relationships, polyamory, and swinging.
Dr. Flicker's research examines a range of topics related to intimate relationships, with particular interest in examining Chapman's 5 Love Languages and Consensual Non-Monogamy. Her recent research tests the major assumptions of the Love Languages concept, as proposed by Gary Chapman, and examines compersion (positive feelings that one feels about one's partner's relationship with another intimate partner), jealousy, attachment, and relationship satisfaction in consensually non-monogamous (CNM) relationships. Dr. Flicker’s clinical expertise lies in family therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy for adults, adolescents, and parents.
WANT TO BECOME SHA CERTIFIED?
Imagine completing your Certification in Sexology (and including your AASECT application) in a fraction of the time—saving hundreds of hours—while gaining every CE you need, all in one place. When you become SHA Certified, you’re not just checking boxes; you’re joining a global community of sex educators, counselors, coaches, and therapists who are shaping the future of sexual health.
Instead of piecing together conferences one by one and hoping they align with International standards or the (US AASECT requirements), you can enroll in SHA’s Sexuality Educator / Counselor / Coach / Sexology / Sex Therapy Certification Program, where every training is intentionally curated, tracked, and streamlined to support your AASECT path. No guesswork. No overwhelm. Just a clear, supported journey from start to finish.
As an SHA Certified professional, you’ll gain:
Access to a thriving global community of practitioners and leaders
Expert faculty, mentorship, and guidance every step of the way
Exclusive SHA trainings, tools, and support you won’t find anywhere else
A complete, organized portfolio for international associations (including AASECT-aligned hours)
If you’re ready to take your sexual health education further—and become truly sexceptional—apply to become SHA Certified today. Your future clients (and your future self) will thank you. Apply HERE.
Sexual Health Alliance has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7730. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Sexual Health Alliance is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
This event is eligible for a maximum of 14 CE hours.
-
Enroll in SHA’s Sexuality Therapist/Educator/Counselor Certification Program to earn AASECT hours and all necessary CEs in one program. Apply HERE to become SHA Certified and advance your sexuality education or contact us at 720-248-8618.
-
Email shacertifications@gmail.com with your student ID and current or next term’s course schedule to receive your student rate.
-
Yes, this event is eligible for a maximum of 14 CE hours. Please email shacertifications@gmail.com or call us at 720-248-8618 if you are interested in receiving these credits.
“I loved this experience so much. I also cannot wait to continue my learning experience because there’s so much more to learn! This has truly been amazing! I can’t wait for my future! ”
