Hi, I’m Jenn.

I’ve spent more than 20 years working in sexual health, from the bad side of sex to the good.

I started at 19, answering calls on a sexual assault hotline. That work led to a career in victim advocacy, consent education, and sexual violence prevention at a local crisis center, where I worked with survivors of all ages. But I spent most of my time in classrooms and community spaces doing workshops about sexual harassment, consent, and relationships—often to tweens who would’ve rather been literally anywhere else (to this day, I love winning over a hostile audience).

During that time, I created The Empowerment Project, an original three-day curriculum for young people focused on consent, boundaries, relationships, media, power, and self-worth. Over the course of a decade, I presented to more than 10,000 participants and built a reputation for being able to talk about hard topics in ways that were accessible, enjoyable, and surprisingly fun.

When I left this work, I began to realize where I’d missed the mark. I’d been teaching people how to ask for consent, but not how to talk about sex. I was validating survivors’ anxiety, fear, and pain, but I wasn’t equipped to help them enjoy sex again. I kept meeting people who were no longer in crisis but also not experiencing joy in their sex lives.

So, I did something about it.

In 2018, I opened WinkWink, an inclusive, “not creepy” sex shop and education space in Bellingham, Washington. Since then, I’ve helped thousands of people—from college students to grandmas—find sex toys, lube, books, and better language for what they want. WinkWink started as a pop-up shop, moved into a tiny storefront, and has since grown into a larger retail space with an education venue and e-commerce site.

To help more people, I also became a certified sex coach and sexologist, working with individuals and couples to figure out what kind of sex they want to be having—and build the skills, conversations, boundaries, and confidence they need to get there.

At the request of local parents who wanted more sex education for their kids, I created Uncringe Academy, a community-based sex education program for young people ages 9–17. Its goal is simple: give young people honest, practical, age-appropriate information about bodies, relationships, consent, identity, safety, and communication.

I also developed Sex After Bad Stuff, a six-week workshop for people who want to find their way back to pleasure after sexual assault, trauma, or bad-but-I-don’t-know-what-to-call-it experiences. That work has become the foundation for my book, also called Sex After Bad Stuff, which challenges the idea that people need the perfect label for what happened before they’re allowed to heal and have a great sex life.

Outside the sex shop, I also serve as an elected official on the Bellingham Public Schools Board of Directors. This hasn’t gone unnoticed: being a sex educator while also serving on the school board has caught the attention of national right-wing news outlets, including Fox News, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, and Libs of TikTok. After Tucker Carlson featured a story on my work in 2022, protests erupted and nearly all of my shop windows were broken. I’ve shared my experiences as a target of ideological violence with various audiences, including Dan Savage’s Lovecast and a featured piece on KUOW, Seattle’s NPR station.

Through career changes, community work, and media-fueled vitriol, I’ve stayed committed to one thing: helping people find their way through the bad stuff and into sexual pleasure. Working around sex isn’t just a salacious job—for me, it’s personal, political, and hopeful.