S2 Ep 10: Sex Coach Ruth Ramsay

In this final episode of series 2, hosts Jennie and Damian talk to sex coach Ruth Ramsay.

Ruth talks about her work as a sex coach and what that entails.
The conversation then moves on to Ruth talking about how she worked as an award winning stripper and how this work led to her working with disabled people.

It is fascinating to hear Ruth explaining how she did striptease for people with visual impairments.

We hope you've enjoyed this series and we can't wait to be back talking all things sex and disability again soon!

If you are interested in being one of our guests, or have a suggestion of a topic you'd like us to cover in the next series, please contact damian@enhancetheuk.org

Transcript

Jennie Williams: 0:10

Welcome to Enhance the UK Undressing Disability podcast where we strip back all things taboo on sex and disability

Damian Weatherald: 0:26

Hello, and welcome to Enhance the UK's Undressing Disability podcast where we talk all things sex and disability. Today we're talking to Ruth Ramsey, who is a sex coach, UK Erotic Award winner, and intimacy expert. Welcome to the show, Ruth.

Ruth Ramsay: 0:41

Hi, Damien,

Damian Weatherald: 0:42

How are you?

Ruth Ramsay: 0:43

I'm very good today.

Damian Weatherald: 0:44

So before we start, can you please for our listeners, audio describe yourself?

Ruth Ramsay: 0:50

Absolutely. So I am a 46 year old white woman with female gender expression. I've got very long dark hair swept over to one side, and I'm wearing a faded red t shirt.

Damian Weatherald: 1:03

Brilliant. I think the first place to start then Ruth is can you give the listeners a bit about your background and how you got into sex coaching?

Ruth Ramsay: 1:11

Absolutely. So this is normally people's first question. When I say I'm a sex coach, it's like, how on earth did you get into that? So I have been coaching in this niche only for 18 months. So I'm new to coaching in this regard. However, my background is as a striptease artist, campaigner for erotic rights, sex journalist, events organiser, all sorts of wild and wonderful stuff from the erotic worlds which I did for over 12 years. That was starting in around 2002. So that's my lived background and lived experience, which I now find in virtually every coaching session I do, is something that's incredibly valuable to my clients.

Damian Weatherald: 2:01

That's really interesting. So what made you want to do it?

Ruth Ramsay: 2:07

Well, I'd always wanted to be a striptease artist, right from when I was quite a young girl. And I can't remember exactly what I saw or read that taught me what a striptease artist was, but I had this definite vision when I was a small girl of being on a stage and removing long gloves and having this adoring audience. But I was a shy teenager. I didn't have my first boyfriend til I was 18. I wasn't kissed until I was 18. And I never thought in a million years, I could actually be a striptease artists, but I still had this fantasy in my head. And then when I was in my mid 20s, I saw an advert for the London School of Striptease, which was new at the time, run by Jo King, who some listeners might know from her involvement with various causes. And I thought, let's go and explore this, this fantasy that I've had for all this time, not realising that that was going to lead me away from my career at the time in fashion journalism into being a full time striptease artist. And then all sorts of other wonderful things following from that. So my first thing was working in striptease, and this was in the small pubs and clubs in East London that existed at the time, that were very much about stage performances, putting on a great show, playing different characters on stage. They were accessible to people from a range of financial backgrounds. It wasn't like the big glamorous lap dance clubs. And I absolutely loved it. And at the time, I was quite outspoken about how much I loved it. I was very fortunate in that I wasn't in a position where I had to keep it a secret from anyone. So one of the best bits of advice that Jo King gave me when I graduated from London School of Striptease was to start paying tax, to register as self employed and start paying tax immediately. She said, You won't believe how fast the time goes and you don't want to turn around in two years time and have tax problems. So the taxman knew what I was doing. I told my parents, my boyfriend at the time knew, I told all my friends. And so word went round the scene, oh, there's this new girl. She's English. She's educated. She's chosen to leave a career in fashion journalism. And all of that brought me to the attention of the Erotica Awards - Night of the Senses, raising money for the Outsiders charity. And I basically got nominated in stripper of the year I think, in 2003. So I'd like to think that technically I was a good dancer as well, but I was very new at the time and nominations in the awards as you'll know were to do with someone's intent and why they're there, as well as how skilled they are. So I was nominated in Stripper of the Year, and went along and performed at the award show at the Erotic Awards, and then went to the after party to Night of the Senses. So at the time, I was 27-28 but until that night, I had actually never spent time around people with physical disabilities. And I'd also never been to a kinky open minded sex party type thing. So suddenly, I found myself at this amazing event with all this raunchy, sexy stuff going on, with people with a whole range of physical disabilities. And so it never crossed my mind that someone with a physical disability should not or cannot be a sexual person because I'd seen that right in front of me. But then I began to learn through Outsiders the degree to which people with disabilities were being denied erotic recognition, erotic expression, erotic rights, and was shocked and horrified and furious. And so then began volunteering for the Erotic Awards and was very involved for several years with them. And because I didn't have to hide, as I say, from HMRC, from my parents, there was nobody who couldn't know that I was a stripper so that gave me a platform as an ally, to speak in the press about these issues to perform at events where the press might be present. So, Damien, you and I had a chat a few weeks ago, and I got quite tearful at the time discussing the Royal College of Medicine event that I danced at onstage for a deafblind client, who then afterwards got to express to the audience what it meant to him to be recognised as an erotic being. And that's my actual proudest moment in my striptease career, was that day on stage there. So that was one thread of what I was doing right throughout my time as a dancer, but then I was also just having a wild, wonderful raunchy time on and off strip club stages all around the world.

Jennie Williams: 7:39

I gotta say, Hi, everyone. It's Jennie on the podcast as well, I think I was at that Night of Senses, where you got your award, I think it was 2003. And because I was working, the Night the Senses with Tapi. And it was an amazing event. And it really changed things for me as well. Going to that event I knew that Enhance UK was something I kind of wanted to do. But it wasn't solidified in my mind how I was going to do that. And I think two things were left for me really, One this really highlights desperately, how many deaf and disabled people wanted to be involved in erotica and kink and how amazing it is. But actually the negative for me was there shouldn't have to be a separate event. And how upset and annoyed I felt about that, even though this was something that was great, and it was happening and is accessible, that it shouldn't be 'othering' and something that is happening for other people. Are you seeing as time has gone on, as that was 2003, we're obviously later on now, have you seen more events becoming more accessible, more disabled people naturally just being part of what you do?

Ruth Ramsay: 9:01

Well, first of all, I say I didn't win an award that year, I finally won an award in 2012. In recognition of the volunteering and campaigning that I did, so I did not win Stripper of the Year in 2003.

Jennie Williams: 9:15

I can't remember when it was that I went. I think I saw you win an award so maybe it was then, I really can't remember, years merge into one.

Ruth Ramsay: 9:22

Absolutely. Yeah. But then, in terms of the situations now, I can only speak from my personal experience in the kink and BDSM scene of which there hasn't really been any in the last two years, obviously because of events and clubs being closed down. Sadly, I don't think I've personally seen a big increase in diversity of bodies at these events. I would say that something that I personally enjoy about them is they are a very welcoming and inclusive environment of everybody who is there. And events like Torture Garden, it is not unusual to see people with differently abled bodies there at all. But those people who can be there and attend that event, I'm sure there's many, many more who would like to be, who are not there. So from what I've seen, if somebody has managed to get as far as being at the events, then that's wonderful. And they are not treated in any way different to anybody else there at the event, but the steps that they've needed to take to actually get there are steps which the vast majority of the community maybe can't take.

Jennie Williams: 10:44

Yeah their literal steps. You know, when I've been to Torture Gardens, the dungeons they're literally down at the bottom, aren't they? And yeah, if you do see a wheelchair user, five people have had to precariously carry someone down. And you're right, I mean, that I love going to Torture Gardens it's amazing. It's brilliant. Everyone there is so friendly, so warm, it's a really nice place to be, but it's not, from my experience, particularly accessible and that is something that people like yourself, you know, being able to reach out into other spaces maybe, that can help have these conversations and make erotica become more accessible for people, so you don't have to go to an event that's not accessible.

Ruth Ramsay: 11:31

Absolutely.

Damian Weatherald: 11:32

So going back to one of the stories you were saying, Ruth, when you did the striptease for the blind person, how did you adapt it for them?

Ruth Ramsay: 11:42

Well, that came about from me dancing at a venue called Sunset Strip in Soho. So I'd been involved with the Erotic Awards for a couple of years. And then I was at Sunset and I was up in the dressing room and one of the other dancers came running in all excited and said Solitaire, which is my stage name, Solitaire Solitaire, you need to go on stage next, because there's some disabled guys in the front row. And I was like, okay, okay, right, let me see what's going on here. And there was a group of six or seven deafblind guys of various ages, there with their assistants. And in Sunset Strip, it was, I guess still is, I've not been there for years, like a miniature theatre auditorium. And the front row was quite cramped in that it was very close to the stage. And so as the front row of the audience sat, their knees were quite often against the stage. So as a dancer, the stage was at knee height. So you could also get down and get very close to the audience. And so I went on stage and danced and because of my experience with the Erotic Awards, understood certain basics, in terms of, for example, letting my hair run across their hands. Strictly speaking, there was no physical contact allowed with customers, but if your hair or if part of your clothing, for example, was touching them, that was okay, this is going back probably to about 2005, I don't want to get Sunset Strip in trouble, I don't know what situation is now. But yeah, so as I took items of clothing off, I would let the guys feel them. I was running my hair across their hands. I had a little police girl uniform on and I remember I took my hat off to put it on one of the guys heads but knew to pause to enable his assistant to say now she's taken her hat off, and now she's going to put it on your head before I actually did it. And it was my experiences through the Erotic Awards that had given me that knowledge. And so then afterwards, I was up in the bar chatting with one of the assistants. At the time he was working for deaf blind UK. But I don't know if sacked would be the right word because I don't know the intricacies of what happened but shortly after this visit to Sunset Strip, he was no longer working for deaf blind UK because of having organised this trip. But we became friends and I also became friends with his best friend who was deafblind, who we'd met through deafblind UK who had not had any kinds of erotic education or been told much about women at all until his mid 30s. And so I was asked if I would dance for him and kind of give him a non physically explicit education about women. So a few times I went to his apartment and I was taking into account the textures of what I was wearing obviously, rather than colours or anything like that. I was making sure my hair smelt great, my skin smelt great and would slowly take things off. As his assistant was signing to say what I was doing, let him feel those outfits. I think my favourite moment, I was wearing stockings and him feeling the the attachment between the suspender belt and the actual stocking and seeing the intensity of expression on his face as he was learning, What is this? And then understood how it worked, you know? So yeah, it was a kind of physical education for him. And we were invited to go and perform at the Royal College of Medicine on stage to see how on earth does it work, striptease for someone who's deaf and blind. But then crucially, he then got the opportunity to explain to the audience what this process of learning, that had begun with me, but then was widening out as well what this was meaning to him, to his self confidence, his enjoyment of life, to his self identity, all these things that are so crucial, and that can come along with erotic empowerment.

Jennie Williams: 16:21

I'm going to sound like I'm completely stalking you but I forgot I watched that as well.

Ruth Ramsay: 16:28

You were there?

Jennie Williams: 16:30

Yes. And I was invited along and there was a few things happened on stage, didn't they? And just as you were describing that I was thinking I know I've seen something like this. And then of course that was it. And even just the way that you just described it, this is so erotic in itself. How do you feel as someone who is doing that? because a lot of men particularly, I'm not gonna generalise but you know, very much seem to rely on the visual and the stockings, but how does it feel to you as a performer, somebody else taking in everything else, and having to think about your hair smelling nice, and what you're wearing and all those things. How does that feel?

Ruth Ramsay: 17:17

I personally loved the challenge of it, absolutely loved it, and felt very, very honoured to be able to provide that for him. I danced at an event that JJ, who had worked for deaf blind UK that he organised for a few years called Extreme Burlesque, which was a striptease and burlesque show, for an audience of people with a range of disabilities. And one year, I took along a portable Dance Pole. And a few people in the audience had asked could they come and actually feel me on the pole, because they couldn't kind of picture what was happening. And again, that was fantastic to have a queue of people with visual impairments coming and actually feeling here's the pole, and here's her thigh, and here's her hand, there's a head, but her thumbs up there, you know, just just wonderful. Wonderful to be a tool in that way. I love serving people. So yeah, it was wonderful.

Damian Weatherald: 18:22

It's so interesting, because as someone who, apart from wearing glasses, doesn't have a visual impairment, I can't imagine what someone has to feel in that environment, like you said, Jennie the smell and things like that will help heighten your senses. But then to touch someone, it will give them such a heightened experience.

Jennie Williams: 18:46

So are you still doing that? Where are where are you now with what you're doing with work?

Ruth Ramsay: 18:54

Okay, so I danced for 12 years. And then I met my now husband. We met at an underground black dance party that I was organising. And ultimately to be with him moving out of London, which effectively meant leaving dancing, but also the kind of venues that I absolutely adored, which were the east end pubs, they were closing down with gentrification, rising rents, there was a smoking ban, so much happened. And what was being left largely in the London striptease scene was the lap dance clubs, which personally I didn't enjoy working at because it was 90% sales talk, 10% dancing and performing. So that didn't suit me. And I was getting into my late 30s and add everything together, I thought, Okay, I'm up for leaving London and leaving dancing and moving in with my almost fiance at that point. That also meant becoming a stepmom to an 11 and 13 year old, which was something I had never ever imagined having in my life. And so for several years, I was totally consumed with that, basically, and wasn't dancing, but desperately, desperately missed it. I qualified as a personal trainer, a fitness trainer, because I thought that would tick a lot of the boxes that dancing did, in that I'd be helping people, I'd be in an intimate space with people very quickly, which is what I enjoy. I would be physically helping them, psychologically helping them, I would have music on all the time. I'd be on my feet, I'd be self employed. And I did enjoy it but I desperately desperately missed dancing. A few times, I tried to go through my suitcase of outfits thinking, I need to get rid of rid of these, I'll keep one or two as souvenirs. And I just couldn't, I'd end up just sat on the floor crying my eyes out thinking I can't do this. And I remember describing to someone at the time, saying, In my heart, I'm a full time striptease artist but who happens at the moment to be working as a personal trainer, and not doing any dancing. But yeah, just desperately missed the erotic world. So when my stepkids got old enough, because at first they didn't know their stepmom was a stripper. It was enough of a culture shock and challenge for them to have this strange creature from London arrive in the house. But then they got older and went off to uni. And I thought, Okay, I'm not happy with what I'm doing but didn't know how to get back into it, was too old by the industry rules to be a stripper. Definitely, if you're still dancing when you're 40, you're in a tiny, tiny minority. And thought, How do I go back to this, to go back into something physical, didn't feel right, in the way that my marriage had evolved, and my physical commitment to my husband. And I felt lost and didn't know quite what to do. But I did feel drawn to Life Coaching. And so I did a coaching diploma, which took nine months, but didn't know quite what I was going to do with it. And then one of the people who'd been on the diploma with me, contacted me about a month later. And you know, when someone says, I want to ask you something but I don't want to offend you, and it's okay to say no and I don't know if it's okay to ask, and you're just like, what is it? What is it tell me? And she said, Would you coach me around my sex life? And on the coaching diploma, I hadn't talked a lot, I'd learned not to go into places saying, Hey, I used to be a stripper. Because generally, that causes more trouble than anything else. But in one of the breakout sessions, I've been teamed up with her and I did have cause to talk about my history and background and dancing. And it turned out that was why she was comfortable coming to me as a coach. And she'd said, I'm turning 40, my body's changing, for the first time ever I'm worried that my partner is looking at other women. He's not done anything, but it's in my own head. I'm worried I've got a finite number of shags left in me, is how she puts it. And I'm freaking out. But I can't talk to anyone about sex, I've never been able to. But because of your history, I feel like I can and you're not going to be shocked and you're not going to slut shame me, so would you coach me around sex? And so for me, that was the lightbulb moment of this is how I get back into the erotic world. So that was about two years ago and then I took a bit of time setting up the business etc. And so that's how I've got here now.

Damian Weatherald: 24:14

So how does the sex coach work in practicalities?

Ruth Ramsay: 24:20

Well, I had imagined initially that most of my coaching would be one to one, helping people with specific issues or concerns around their sex life. But what I found is that the level of awareness and education around sex is even lower than I had realised in mainstream society. So I'd come from a background of doing the dancing, of being a sex toy tester for a magazine and spending my time around a lot of very open minded liberated performers, mostly women, but sometimes different genders as well, but also talking very explicitly with men. Because even in the kind of venues I like dancing at, not all of your time was onstage, so much time was spent sat chatting with guys, who very often would use the opportunity to ask strippers questions that they'd always wanted to know, or to express sides of themselves that they felt they couldn't, you know to tell us their fantasies, their kinks. So I'd been in a very sexually liberated environment for so long that I hadn't realised how low the level of awareness of comfort in talking about sex, how high levels of shame are around sex. And that was actually a massive shock to me when I was first trying to get into the coaching. And what I've found that there's more demand for, rather than one to one sessions, is online courses. People are desperate to learn but most people aren't ready to actually sit and talk one to one with a coach. So I've got an eight week online course, that goes through all the basics of anatomy, and the physical sides of sex, the science of desire and arousal, which is something which definitely should be taught in schools, and which applies to everybody, whatever situation you are in with your body. It goes through communication with partners and with others, with how to actually make time for sex, the importance of that. It covers eight key areas. But rather than just me talking to people, and it was webinar format, the modules are now pre recorded. It's what I'm terming Guided Self Coaching. So when I first came up with this, I was not consciously aware of anyone else doing it, that's not to say I hadn't seen something which had inspired me, but what I do is explain a concept, so for example, that we have our own individual turn ons. And we're quite familiar with thinking about that, oh, what turns you on, what turns me on. But we also have our turn offs. And so it's like brakes and accelerators in a car. And if our turn offs are being activated, if the brakes are being hit, then however much we are bringing in our turn ons, it's not going to work. And in fact, can lead us to being more frustrated, confused and stressed, because we're Well why is this not working? which itself is a brake and turns us off even more. So I'll explain a concept like that, I'll credit where it came from and this one, for example, is over 20 years old. And then I'll say and now in your workbooks on page eight, there's two columns, I'm going to give you five minutes to think about and write down your own personal turn ons or accelerators, your own personal turn offs, or brakes. And then in the big box at the bottom, I want you to write your top turn off or brake, your top turn on or accelerator, and an action that you can take in your life to maximise the turn on and to reduce the pressure on the turn off. And then I will say okay, I'm going to give you five minutes to do that and then I'll shut up five minutes. So that actually, during the presentation, participants have the time to do that. Because if we just watch something, then we get given homework for afterwards it's all too easy to never get round to it. If we just watch something which is talking theoretically, it's all too easy not to spend the time to then apply it specifically to our own experience in our own lives. So to me, it was very important to give the opportunity to do that, and to actually give the time to do that within the actual presentation. And then I thought well what is this? and I thought well they're self coaching, but they're guided by me. So Guided Self Coaching. So that's how

Jennie Williams: 29:30

Sounds so interesting, because it's really that works. difficult, isn't it because counselling, going to see a sex therapist can be amazing but very expensive. It can be really difficult for people. And there are lots of wonderful podcasts out there, there are lots of things that people can listen to but again, you have to have the time, that accountability, so it sounds like a really great middle ground. I've got a two and a half year old and a four year old, most of my friends have got children around the same age, just finding time to spend with your partner and prioritise being intimate, and even just having a snog. You know, you just so quickly even just lose kissing, don't you? And making time for that and just stopping putting everything down. And almost looking at your partner again, and I'm not saying this is everybody who are parents, but certainly from my experience, you know, you almost stop seeing your partner as a sexual being all too easily and have to kind of learn again. It's the glue that keeps the relationship together and something like this sounds really amazing middle ground that you can do that. So how long does each session last for?

Ruth Ramsay: 30:56

The sessions are 60 to 90 minutes, some of the modules are longer and take more time than others. I provide a quite extensive resources list at the end of each module. So if somebody has got the time to explore further elements of that module, and if it's particularly fascinated them, then they can. But for people who are busy and have got kids, etc, they know that they can do the whole thing within that 60 to 90 minutes, there's no extra time. But you've just raised a very, very important point, which maybe we should have covered at the very start, which is what is a coach and how is coaching different to therapy or counselling. So as a coach, I work with people who are at a place to be able to positively picture the future, and to take active steps to get there. So if someone is held back by trauma in their past, and that needs to be addressed first, then they would need to see a counsellor or therapist. So the example I give is if somebody came to me and said, My sex life is a disaster, I can't get intimately close to my partner, because of this thing that happened with my ex, and I can't move beyond that, then I would support them in finding a counsellor or therapist to help them deal with that. Whereas if someone comes to me and says, I've had this trauma in my past, but I've dealt with that, I understand it. I'm ready, I'm in a place where I can picture a positive future and I'm ready to take steps towards it. That's then when they're in a place for coaching.

Jennie Williams: 32:43

Thank you for like clarifying that because I think that's a real problem a lot of the time for a lot of people, certainly that we come across Damian, is that people may have been through counselling, because of trauma and you know, it may be that they've acquired an impairment or disability and something's happened, and they've been through counselling. But then that's not right anymore but then they almost kind of left thinking I'm ready to move forward, I want to do this, I've worked on this, but I don't really know how to move forward and where to go with it. And like I said, there's a lot of things online that you can look at, but sometimes it's quite a lonely process doing that. And you've got to be quite dedicated to sit there and do that so to have someone guide you through that, almost like a halfway house, I can really see the appeal of that. So how do people find out about about your course?

Ruth Ramsay: 33:38

All the details are on my website, which is www.ruthramsay.com. And it is Ramsay with an A Y at the end. And I'm on Instagram@ruthramsay_ And you can email me via the website, you can DM me via Instagram. There is a page about the course Passion8, the passion8 programme on the website all the time. And I run the course three times a year.

Damian Weatherald: 34:13

That is absolutely amazing. And I urge our listeners to check it out and definitely follow your Instagram because some of the posts on there are so intriguing and enlightening. Thank you so much for coming on Ruth. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Ruth Ramsay: 34:27

Thank you for having me. It's been great.

Jennie Williams: 34:29

And like I said, over the years our paths have crossed. And I've seen you and you wouldn't have seen me, I'll be lurking in the background. But I've seen you doing all these amazing things so I think it's absolutely great the work you're doing and we'll certainly be pushing that out on our social media. So as Damian said, Thank you, Ruth, thank you so much. We really appreciate you coming along and chatting to us today.

Ruth Ramsay: 34:55

It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Audio recording: 34:57

Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like any more information about the work we do under the Undressing Disability campaign, then go on to our website at enhancetheuk.org and click on the Undressing Disability tab.