When people seek out sex therapy, they’re often looking for answers to very specific questions: Why don’t I enjoy sex the way I think I should? Why is it so hard to ask for what I want? Why do I keep going along with things that don’t actually feel good?
What Dr. Betty Martin has shown through decades of somatic education is that these questions rarely begin with sex itself. Instead, they begin with something far more foundational: learning how to notice desire, express preference, respect limits, and stay present in one’s own body.
For professionals pursuing sex therapist certification, Dr. Martin’s work offers a powerful reminder that insight alone is not enough. Real change happens when clients practice—when they are supported in experiencing consent, pleasure, and agency in their bodies, not just understanding them intellectually.
Why So Many People Struggle With Desire and Communication
One of the most striking themes in Dr. Betty Martin’s work is just how common it is for people to feel disconnected from their own wants. Many clients genuinely don’t know how to answer questions like:
What do I want right now?
Do I like this touch or not?
How do I say “no” without guilt?
How do I ask for something without fear or shame?
These are not fringe issues. As Dr. Martin often emphasizes, most people never learned these skills at all. Cultural conditioning, gender norms, trauma, relationship dynamics, and performance-based models of sexuality all contribute to a widespread lack of embodied consent literacy.
For sex therapists in training, this reality has important implications. A sex therapist certification program must prepare clinicians not only to talk about sex, but to help clients experience new ways of relating to themselves and others—safely, ethically, and with clarity.
The Role of Experiential Learning in Sex Therapy
Historically, some therapeutic models recognized that insight without practice has limits. Dr. Martin references the early work of Masters and Johnson, who introduced a triadic model involving a therapist, a client, and a surrogate partner when clients lacked a partner to practice relational and intimacy skills.
While surrogate partner work is often misunderstood, Dr. Martin is clear: intercourse is rare. The focus is far more fundamental. Many sessions involve:
Learning how to hold hands
Practicing eye contact
Navigating a conversation over dinner
Experiencing non-performance-based touch
Noticing bodily sensations without pressure
What matters is not sexual technique, but relational capacity. For clients, these experiences can reveal how difficult it is to stay present, to receive, or to prioritize their own experience—even for a few minutes.
For clinicians pursuing sex therapist certification, this highlights the importance of somatic awareness, consent education, and pacing. Therapy often needs to move slower than clients expect, especially when foundational skills were never learned.
The Wheel of Consent: A Framework Every Sex Therapist Should Understand
Dr. Martin’s most well-known contribution is the Wheel of Consent, a deceptively simple framework that distinguishes between giving, receiving, taking, and allowing. At its core, the Wheel clarifies one essential question: Who is this for?
In practice, the Wheel invites people to take turns:
One person focuses on their desires, within agreed boundaries.
The other temporarily sets aside their own wants to support that experience.
Roles then switch.
What surprised Dr. Martin was how challenging this was for nearly everyone.
Many people struggle to put themselves first—even briefly. Others find it deeply uncomfortable to receive without performing or pleasing in return. These challenges often surface powerful beliefs: I shouldn’t want anything. I’m selfish if I ask. Something is wrong with me if I don’t like what I’m supposed to like.
For sex therapists, the Wheel of Consent is not just a teaching tool—it’s a diagnostic lens. It reveals where clients get stuck, confused, or disconnected, and it provides a structured way to build new experiences of agency and clarity.
Gender, Socialization, and Common Patterns
Through years of experiential work, Dr. Martin noticed patterns shaped by gender socialization—though never rigidly divided.
Many women struggled to ask for what they wanted and often went along with touch they didn’t enjoy. Many men, particularly cisgender men, found it surprisingly difficult to focus on full-body sensation that wasn’t goal-oriented or performance-based.
These observations challenge common myths: that men are naturally selfish or that women are inherently more attuned to others. Instead, they reveal how deeply social expectations shape erotic experience.
For clinicians in sex therapist certification programs, understanding these patterns helps avoid oversimplification. The goal is not to reinforce stereotypes, but to help each client recognize their conditioning and develop new, more authentic choices.
Somatic Education and Pleasure Without Performance
A recurring theme in Dr. Martin’s work is helping people experience pleasure without anxiety, self-monitoring, or the pressure to perform. For many clients, even noticing sensation in their own skin feels unfamiliar or unsafe.
Somatic education focuses on:
Slowing down
Tracking sensation
Separating arousal from obligation
Allowing pleasure without producing a result
Some sessions are entirely clothed. Others may involve guided touch or erotic massage—not as a goal, but as a way to learn what pleasure feels like when it’s not being evaluated.
For sex therapists, this underscores a critical distinction: therapy is not about fixing sexual behavior; it’s about expanding capacity. Capacity to feel, to choose, to communicate, and to consent.
What Sex Therapist Certification Should Prepare You For
A comprehensive sex therapist certification program must go beyond theory. It should prepare clinicians to:
Work with clients who have never learned how to notice desire
Normalize confusion around consent and pleasure
Support clients through discomfort without rushing outcomes
Integrate somatic awareness ethically and safely
Recognize when experiential learning—not more insight—is needed
Dr. Martin’s work reminds us that many sexual concerns labeled as “dysfunction” are actually signs of missing foundational skills. When those skills are taught and practiced, profound shifts often occur naturally.
Becoming a Sex Therapist Who Teaches What Was Never Taught
At its best, sex therapy is not about prescribing solutions. It’s about creating conditions where clients can discover themselves—sometimes for the first time.
For professionals considering sex therapist certification, learning from thought leaders like Dr. Betty Martin offers a vital perspective: people don’t need to be told what to want. They need support learning how to listen to themselves, how to ask, how to say no, and how to stay present in their bodies.
That is the deeper work of sex therapy—and it’s why high-quality training matters.
If you’re passionate about helping people build healthier, more consensual, and more embodied relationships with pleasure, pursuing sex therapist certification is not just a career move. It’s a commitment to teaching what most of us were never taught—and to doing so with care, ethics, and respect.
Want to become an in-demand sexual health professional? Learn more about becoming certified with SHA!
