Why does someone choose to become a sex therapist? Our first episode offers a sneak peek at the rich sexual tapestry that shaped my fascination around sex. My unique story begins as a young child of a holocaust survivor. Set in South Africa, my relationship with my body was sculpted by the juxtaposition of living among showgirls in Sun City while attending a convent for school. If Catholicism, Judaism, hedonism, and the idea of unrepentantly loving the pleasures of the flesh don’t pique your interest, keep scrolling.
Show Notes
00:00 Introducing Michelle Fischler
00:24 Modeling vulnerability
00:43 Building Trust
00:50 Master’s Degree in Social Work
00:54 Oppression and disparities in power
01:07 South Africa during apartheid
01:12 Sun City
01:17 Anti-oppressive framework
01:20 Racism
01:31 Complicit in ongoing systems of racism, inequality, and injustice
01:42 Current knowledge and research on sex is based on White people
02:22 Advocate for more diversity in the sex therapy field
03:20 Moved from Toronto to South Africa at age 5
03:33 Hedonistic playground for adults
04:04 International boycott against South Africa's apartheid regime
04:16 Lived with extravaganza dancers
05:18 Father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor
05:55 Taught by nuns in a convent
06:48 Dream career was to be an extravaganza showgirl dancer
07:13 Shamed by the nuns
08:23 Internalized shame
08:56 Shame into adulthood
09:52 Challenge these shame beliefs
10:54 Sue Johanson and Dr. Ruth Westheimer
11:31 Sex with Sue
12:08 Sexuality starts from a young age
12:53 Subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts
13:05 Show is produced by Katie Jensen at Vocal Frye Studios
Michelle: My name's Michelle Fischler, and this is GETSOME.
[THEME MUSIC]
[00:00:15] Michelle: I wanna start off your sexual journey by giving you some insight into mine. How can I expect you to be vulnerable if I'm not going to do that myself? Like, would you trust someone to parallel park your car if their car looked like it had just come out of a demolition derby? Probably not.
[00:00:41] Michelle: So this is my way of building trust with you when it comes to sex. Aside from being a certified sex therapist, I have a master's degree in social work. I was trained to recognize the oppression that exists in societies and advocate against these disparities in power. My childhood, however, tells a different story.
[00:01:07] Michelle: I grew up in South Africa during apartheid. Just Google the history of Sun City and you'll see the antithesis to an anti-oppressive framework. Racism was normalized to the point that I didn't even know it was happening, so it goes to show you how privilege can allow you to become complicit in ongoing systems of racism, inequality, and injustice.
[00:01:37] Michelle: What does this have to do with sex?
[00:01:41] Michelle: Well, most of the current knowledge and research we have on sex right now is mostly done by white researchers, and the participants are mostly white, middle to upper class. And most of the people providing sex education and sex therapy are also white. And much of the education that we've received in our training was very much based on the Western idea of relationships and sex.
[00:02:15] Michelle: So, I don't wanna be complicit.
[00:02:19] Michelle: I wanna be able to hear the voices of Black people and people of color, and advocate for more diversity in this field because I see diversity in my practice. And I want the people that I'm seeing to know that I am doing what I can to get the knowledge that would be helpful for me to be able to support them and understand them in the best way a white person possibly can.
[00:02:52] Michelle: So we all have our own journey when it comes to who we are as sexual beings, and a lot of that is based on experiences that we had growing up. And here's mine. So without further ado, here's my episode called Coming into Myself.
[00:03:20] Michelle: When I was about five years old, me and my family moved from Toronto, Canada to South Africa, and we lived in a resort called Sun City, what can be described as a hedonistic playground for adults. There was this insanely big pool and a shopping center and a movie theater and horse riding staples and a circus, a casino, extravaganza, concert center.
[00:03:49] Michelle: It was honestly nothing I had seen before, some of you may be familiar with the song, Ain't Gonna Play Sun City. Well, this is the same place the song was bringing to light, the fact that even though there was a U.N. endorsed international boycott against South Africa's apartheid regime, performers like Frank Sinatra, the Village People and the Beach Boys continued to fly in to perform in the resort.
[00:04:16] Michelle: And my dad was the general manager of that entertainment complex. So, I was living amongst the performers and extravaganza dancers, and I became fascinated, in particular by the showgirl dancers that would sunbathe topless at the staff pool. In my eyes, they were so glamorous. I had decided that that was going to be my career goal.
[00:04:43] Michelle: And so here's where things get a little bit interesting, because we were there for two and a half years, which meant I had to go to school. And because it was during apartheid, it meant I was expected to go to a school for only white kids. And the only school that was anywhere near the resort, which I think it was 45 minutes away, it felt like a two and a half hour bus drive to hell because my father is a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and I was given strict instructions to not let them know that he was Jewish because he was worried that I would have nowhere to get my education. And so, I was terrified before I even got there. And this place was super scary. It was all nuns, white, of course, plus two headmasters that were terrifying.
[00:05:47] Michelle: And so here I am now being bused from the resort to the convent every single morning, going to church every single morning. Even having to take part in things like lessons teaching you how to take off your bathing suit without exposing your private parts.
[00:06:09] Michelle: We also had underwear checkers that would come and lift up our dresses to make sure we were wearing the matching green underwear. Otherwise, punishment would include being hit behind the legs with a ruler. Or just being publicly shamed. And then I go home to the pool and I am hanging out with half naked showgirls.
[00:06:33] Michelle: And then one day I'm in class and the teacher, who is a nun, asks the question, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And without hesitation, I say, I wanna be an extravaganza showgirl dancer. Like I had no idea that this answer would cause the nun's eyes to almost pop out of her head. She was totally mortified, and as you can imagine, she came up with some of the shamiest things that she could have possibly said.
[00:07:13] Michelle: Like, those women are dirty. Your body is sacred and you should keep it covered. Don't ever say something out loud like that again. And I remember feeling so scared because I wasn't sure if I was gonna get in trouble and be sent to the headmaster's office. That day I was sitting on the bus ride home and I felt so terrified and confused, and I felt really gross inside.
[00:07:48] Michelle: I tried to make sense of it, this thing that I found so exciting and cool and glamorous was supposed to be something that I was embarrassed about. This was something that I used to be so proud about and used to tell it to everybody, and people just thought it was so funny and cute. I was angry at my family for not telling me to stop, although I also didn't tell my parents that I had had the conversation, which would've given them the opportunity to tell me not to take the nun's perspective to heart.
[00:08:23] Michelle: So I ended up with this seed that kept growing in my mind around feelings of shame when it came to expressing myself in terms of attraction, sexuality, wearing bathing suits. I became hyper aware that people might be interpreting what I'm wearing or how I'm behaving in a sexual way when it wasn't, and this actually ended up by really fucking me up, and I can honestly say that I think it followed me up until I was pregnant with my first child, where I felt such discomfort that people would see my pregnant belly and know that I had had sex and that I was sexually active and that maybe they would think I was a slut.
[00:09:23] Michelle: And just like even the idea that they would create a story about me, I found very upsetting. And this is coming from somebody who at that time was very sex positive, was working towards becoming a sex therapist, and so I knew better. It was just really hard because it was me, and these seeds are so powerful until you really start to look at them with some curiosity. Because the more attention you pay and the more sense that you make out of these seeds, the less power they have over how you view yourself as a sexual human being.
[00:10:06] Michelle: The pivotal point of change for me, was when I was around 12 or 13 years old, and I started watching the show called Talking Sex with Sue, and it got me to start challenging some of these ideas around sex that I had in my head.
[00:10:23] Michelle: And the release of some of this shame was profound in terms of how it made me feel. And then that started to create a curiosity about sex. And so I went from wanting to be a topless showgirl dancer at the age of five or six to at the age of 12, 13, 14, I can't remember the exact date, wanting to become a sex therapist. And my dad thought it was amazing, and my mother was slightly mortified. And so I did it.
[00:11:01] Michelle: Here I am. I feel so privileged to be in this position, and if I can help even just one person the way that listening to Dr. Ruth or Sue Johanson helps me, then it's all worthwhile. So welcome to GETSOME where we go through this journey together because it is lifelong and where we listen to people talk.
[00:11:31] Michelle: Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's me interviewing other people who I believe have really interesting ways of thinking about sex and sexuality to help you to consider changing your mindset because sex is supposed to be a source of pleasure and fun. It's really adult play. I wanna help encourage thinking about it in a different way that maybe you've been thinking about it for the majority of your life that's been getting in the way of it being something that feels fun.
[00:12:08] Michelle: I want you to embrace this part of yourself. It's wonderful because within how you express yourself sexually comes such a rich history and that's why nobody ever fits into one box when it comes to sex, because how we express ourselves sexually starts from a very young age all the way into adulthood.
[00:12:33] Michelle: So what helps one person may not help another person, but it doesn't mean that something's wrong with you. It's just another example of the complexity, the wonderful complexity of sex and sexuality. I hope you enjoyed my coming into my self episode. If you'd like to listen to more episodes, subscribe to wherever you like to listen to podcasts.
[00:13:04] Michelle: This show is produced by Katie Jensen at Vocal Fry Studios. If you have show ideas or a question you want me to answer in an episode, email me at michelle@getsome.ca and don't forget to follow me on Instagram @getsome_podcast. You'll get insights on sex and sexuality, dating tips, and behind the scenes between episodes.
[00:13:34] Michelle: Thank you for listening.