Feminist and Queer Sex Therapy: The Ethnography of Expert Knowledge of Sexuality in Poland

Abstract

In Poland, there is a single official path to becoming a certified sexologist. This involves experience as a physician or therapist, attending courses at a state-sponsored center for medical education, frequenting approved conferences, publishing in select journals, basing one’s knowledge on several canonical textbooks, and serving as an intern at accepted sites. My research on this educational process (participant observation during classes and conferences, analyses of the textbooks, interviews) reveals that it centers on a heteronormative and male-oriented understanding of sexuality and gender. Transgressing the rules or introducing new concepts to the field is difficult as those who criticize trainings and books might experience problems in gaining the required certificates, since the authors, lecturers, and members of certification committees are the same people.