![\"Day](\"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/day-bed-with-pillows.jpg\" "\\"Day")
My friend and colleague, Linda Poelzl, has been working as a professional surrogate partner for 17 years. As a local writer commented a few weeks ago after meeting both of us, what this means is frequently misunderstood.<\/p>\nMy friend and colleague, Linda Poelzl, has been working as a professional surrogate partner for 17 years. As a local writer commented a few weeks ago after meeting both of us, what this means is frequently misunderstood.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I think \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sex\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is the most powerful and misleading word in the English language! Call Linda a sex surrogate and people start imagining her writhing in coitus. \u00c2\u00a0Call me a sex therapist and local readers post, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How sicko and disgusting that we have a sex therapist here in San Luis Obispo County!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on their Facebook walls.<\/p>\n
Our local weekly (the New Times<\/em>) was particularly excited to arrange an interview with Linda and me because of the flood of positive publicity surrounding The Sessions<\/em>, a new film based on actual experiences in the late 1980s when surrogate partner Cheryl Cohen Greene worked with polio-disabled<\/a> journalist and poet Mark O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien.<\/p>\n In the trailer, there is one scene in which two astonished hotel workers watch a nervous and paralyzed O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien being loaded into an elevator on a stretcher. When one of them asks why they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taking him upstairs, the other explains that he has an appointment with a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sex therapist,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a misnomer that has Linda and other surrogates feeling frustrated.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The public doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t comprehend that you and I work together to help people heal!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she says. Where my work as a therapist is psychological, Linda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is physical, employing exercises focused on intimacy, body image, relaxation, and the giving and receiving of touch or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sensate focus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sexual intercourse<\/a> occasionally does occur, but it is a minor part of her work.<\/p>\n Common presenting issues for men include rapid ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, and very often, simple inexperience\u00e2\u20ac\u201done of Linda\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s current clients is a 32-year-old virgin. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never, until recently, held hands, kissed a girl, had sex,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Linda says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a gorgeous guy! There are a lot of people around who are silently suffering.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Some people refuse to differentiate what Linda does from prostitution, she explains. What they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t comprehend is that she never works alone. After each session, she relates her impressions to me, which enables me to better assist clients through many challenges toward sexual healing.<\/p>\n