Today we’d like to introduce you to Miranda Wylie.
Hi Miranda, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I founded Selfish Sexuality, an intimacy and embodiment practice offering sex and relationship coaching and surrogate partner therapy after 20 years working in the sex positive field. In creating my first podcast about sexual exploration in 2007 and then live storytelling show in 2010, I learned just how our relationships, romantic or otherwise, unlock our healing. And it is in our relationships that we re-write (or not) the stories of ourselves.
I believe that for the collective to heal, we have to heal ourselves. Healing can happen in many forms, one of which is through intimacy. I pursued certification as a sexologist with the American Board of Sexology and as a trauma informed practitioner with Viasomatic. Selfish Sexuality is a cheeky way to encourage dismantling people pleasing and becoming selfish – or self-interested – as a way to become embodied. I help people rewrite the story of their body, their relationship to shame, pleasure, and self.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest challenge was giving myself permission to do this work openly. For years, I worried about what people would think about my work as a surrogate partner therapist. Once I truly gave myself permission to step fully into this work, it became incredibly intuitive to build. The practice has grown organically through community building with talk therapists and healing professionals and word of mouth. What I learned is that I needed to resolve my own fear of judgment in order to ask my clients to do the same. I model the permission-giving process I now teach.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a certified sexologist and surrogate partner therapist specializing in intimacy coaching through my “Selfish Sexuality” framework. I help people understand that becoming self-interested isn’t selfish in a harmful way, but essential for authentic intimacy and embodiment.
I’m fortunate that my surrogate partner therapy training with Dr. Susan Kaye connects directly to the lineage of Masters and Johnson, the researchers who pioneered this approach in the 1960s. I work within the “triadic model” – a collaboration between the client, a licensed talk therapist, and myself as the surrogate partner.
Surrogate partner therapy (SPT) addresses that gap between intellectual understanding and embodied experience. You know that moment in therapy when you understand everything intellectually, but your body hasn’t quite caught up? That’s where surrogate partner therapy comes in. While traditional therapy helps you understand patterns, SPT helps you feel new possibilities in your body through guided, experiential learning.
What sets me apart is my lived experience, two decades of community building, trauma resilience training, a belief that intimacy can be learned and that intimacy moves at the speed of trust and safety. I’m a total sex nerd who never tires of parsing through the messy, nuanced landscape of human emotion and desire.
I’m most proud of creating a practice where people feel genuine permission to explore their authentic desires without shame. My clients have all kinds of breakthroughs from experiencing what safety feels like in your body (yes, it exists!), practice expressing boundaries, and differentiate between pleasure and outcome. What I love most is that I get to bear witness as clients step into the light and allow themselves to be truly seen.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I’m here for the Greenbelt pockets and Barton Springs, the spaces that embody Austin’s relationship with nature. What I like least is the profit-centered growth that’s changing the character of what originally drew creatives here.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.selfishsexuality.com
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRwXIAnYAJlSqyjtI7q-J4WcZCpBB9jFJ&feature=shared
- Other: https://selfishsexuality.substack.com
Image Credits
Jackie Klusmeyer
jackieklusmeyer.com
