Professional Ethics

The SSEA welcomes and supports all members, celebrating their unique skill sets and chosen practices. Members pledge to operate ethically, but the SSEA does not monitor members’ ethics, nor does the association take any responsibility for members’ personal conduct within sessions. Each member is responsible to uphold their code of ethics as agreed upon and outlined with clients during the intake process. Each client is responsible for ensuring the practices and relationships they are experiencing with a Somatic Sex Educator are educational, healing and empowering for them.

Ethical Practice in Somatic Sex Education

Through Somatic Sex Education there is effective help available for people struggling with various challenges around sex and sexuality, and there is the potential for them to develop a sense of wholeness and wellbeing.

Professional training in Somatic Sex Education and Sexological Bodywork means that practitioners are taught to practice the profession with honesty, integrity, and competence. Our primary commitment is to the health, well-being, and safety of our clients.

Somatic Sex Education is a safe way for people to explore and heal their sexuality, because we are ethical practitioners who work within clear boundaries and roles.

Members of the SSEA pledge that:

The practitioner’s chief focus and primary ethical responsibility is on their client’s wellbeing.

The practitioner works to support the client in the experience of embodiment and empowered, enthusiastic consent.

When touch is included in Somatic Sex Education it is for the purpose of the client’s learning & growth.

During the session the practitioner is fully and consistently at the service of the client’s personal growth and learning.

The practitioner commits to their own professional development and ongoing self care.

The practitioner is aware of the potential for attraction within the client-practitioner relationship and ensures the focus is always on the client’s growth & learning.

The practitioner practices in a way that is free of narcissistic focus on power, admiration, or sexual gratification.

Entering into a client-practitioner relationship involves an intake process in which limits and boundaries are clearly set out and agreed to.

Somatic Sex Educators practicing as Certified Sexological Bodyworkers have additionally pledged to follow these ethics:

The Association of Certified Sexological Bodyworkers Ethical Code