Check Out Ev’Yan Whitney’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ev’Yan Whitney.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started my work as a sexuality doula and educator 12 years ago from a selfish place. I was desperate to “fix” myself after struggling for years with sexual shame, body disconnection, and dealing with the aftermath of being indoctrinated in an abstinence-only, purity culture upbringing (I signed a purity contract when I was 8 years old). I couldn’t figure out why it was that all my friends were having these incredible and uninhibited sex lives and I was feeling unconfident and closed off. At the time, when I was experiencing these issues, I was scouring the internet trying to find resources that would give me some guidance but not only were they difficult to find in the early 2010s, what was largely out there was coming from people who didn’t look like me or have the kind of lived experiences I had as a Black, queer, survivor. So I decided to do what most marginalized people have to do—create my own space for sexual healing and liberation. As I talked publicly on the internet about my struggles and curiosities about my body, shame, and sex life, I kind of fell into sex education because of having to be my own sexuality doula.

My work has been through many iterations through the years but the throughline has always been in focusing on decolonizing, unshaming, and liberating sexuality at the intersection of identity, trauma healing, pleasure, and embodiment. As a sexuality doula, I am a guide and companion for folks who looking to step out of sexual shame and into an authentic expression of sexuality—whatever that means to them. As someone with a background in breathwork and other somatic methodologies, my work always begins with the body: what relationship do we have with our bodies? What narratives have we internalized about our bodies that could be inhibiting how we access pleasure, connection, and intimacy with ourselves and other people? People are often surprised when I tell them that as a sexuality doula, I’m less in the territory of sex toys and orgasms and more so in the space of honoring and connecting to the body outside of the bedroom. In my personal process, I’ve found that true and lasting sexual liberation starts in the body, it starts with our ability to know what we want and what we’re worth, to understand what we like and don’t like, and to access our inherent dignity that helps us not only identify those things but to seek them out again and again.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Believe it or not, while we’ve come a very long way in talking about sex and destigmatizing identity, expressions, and desires, we still live in a sex-negative world. So a lot of the struggles I’ve had in my work have been about the shame, stigma, and taboo that lives in the utterance of the word ‘sex’. I deal with censorship on regular basis on places like Instagram that see my work as being “not safe for the community” because I am helping to educate people around sex, pleasure, and identity—even though my work has never been explicit. But that’s the reality of navigating a world that is simultaneously sex-obsessed and sex-negative: Society wants us (women and non-binary femmes especially) to be a “freak in the sheets” but keep a certain level of decorum and respectability in public. It’s strange and it’s no wonder why so many of us are confused because of the mixed messaging around it.

Outside of that, I’ve personally dealt with a lot of backlash in the beginning from my family who were horrified that I was being so open and honest about things that we’re taught not to talk about. My family is still pretty religious and while they’ve come around in a lot of ways, there are still aspects of my work that they either don’t understand or accept. But I’m honestly okay with that. What I’ve seen happen in my family, particularly in the relationship I have with my mom, is that there is a tenuousness about the work that I do but also a quiet curiosity too. She and I have had some really beautiful conversations both publicly on my podcast and in private about the impacts her conservative upbringing made upon her ability to be a sexual being. Those conversations offered us both a lot of healing and understanding that I don’t think we would’ve gotten to if it weren’t for the work I do. I’m grateful for that.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a sexuality doula, somatic practitioner, author, and host of the podcast, Sensual Self.

As a sexuality doula, I am a guide and companion for individuals who are wanting to heal, liberate, and come into authentic expression of their sexual selves—whatever that looks like for them. My focus in my work is in identity, trauma healing, pleasure and sensuality, and embodiment.

As a somatic practitioner, I blend my sex education background with body-based practices and methodologies to help folks get to the root of sexual shame, disconnection, and trauma in their bodies. I work with breath, movement, and emotional awareness to help people connect to what’s alive in them and guide them in the direction of who they want to be as sexual/sensual beings.

I wrote a book called Sensual Self: Prompts and Practice for Getting in Touch with Your Body. It’s a guided journal filled with questions and exercises folks can do to connect them to the wisdom and pleasure of their bodies. I also host a podcast of the same name where we create conversations about identity, desire, relationships, queerness, gender, and practices to get us in our sensual bodies. You can my book wherever you find book and my podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was insatiably curious. I remember having a keen connection with and curiosity about my body, so much so that I was labeled as being “fast” even though it never was about sex, it was just about wanting to understand and explore the world through my senses. I was an avid reader and writer; I kept journals from the time I was 6-years-old. Writing has always been the way I grow and process myself so it’s not surprising that so much of my work in the beginning was about writing these really vulnerable essays about my own messy process of trying to figure out my gender identity, sexual orientation, and who I am without the stories of sexual shame. I was a “good girl”. I was homeschooled, went to church a lot, and was honestly a bit of a goody-two-shoes. So to be here, doing this kind of work, is both humorous and also really appropriate for me.

Originally, I wanted to be a makeup artist. I was really into fashion and thought I would get into that industry either by being a model or a designer/artist. But my parents couldn’t afford to send me to a proper makeup school so I went to a small beauty school instead and learned how to style hair. I worked as a cosmetologist for a few months because realizing that it wasn’t what I actually wanted to do. Shortly after quitting my job in the salon industry, I started exploring my sexual identity publicly on the internet. In 2011, I officially started my work as a sex educator (my framework and title of sexuality doula would soon follow), and the rest is history.

Contact Info:

• Website: evyanwhitney.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/evyan.whitney
• SoundCloud: https://open.spotify.com/show/4RJ6X2uZwV4bHxVlFL5WqG?si=d6d101db37e14ba6
• Other: https://bookshop.org/p/books/sensual-self-prompts-and-practices-for-getting-in-touch-with-your-body-a-guided-journal-ev-yan-whitney/16467084

Image Credits
J Rei Photo