Change your way of experiencing intimacy, radically. A training based on methods of Sexological Bodywork.

Why join the Sexological Bodywork Training?

Are you:

• Curious to explore your sexuality in a space that’s safer, held, and judgement-free?
• Someone who believes pleasure, joy, and aliveness are your birthright?
• An erotic adventurer always seeking opportunities to learn and grow?

Then this is for you!

This training is based on the methods of Sexological Bodywork. This brilliant no-frills modality has been around since the 1980s, yet had never made it to the African continent until 2025 when we hosted the first Sexological Bodywork Training in Cape Town.

Sexological Bodywork supports people in discovering and expanding their sexual potential on a physical, emotional and spiritual level. The training offers the opportunity to refine your body awareness, intensify your somatic sensations, and deepen your relationship to your sexual self.

Are you interested in joining the next one? If yes, please click the button below and fill in the form to let us know of your interest (no strings attached).

Who is this training for?

Anyone wanting a deeper connection with their body, sexuality, or relationships. Anyone interested in personal and/or professional growth and curious to explore their full potential for pleasure, aliveness and freedom. Anyone wanting to improve intimacy, explore desire, strengthen boundaries, heal shame, or simply deepen self-awareness.

It is also particularly well suited to already-practicing, soon-to-be or want-to-be facilitators / practitioners / therapists / bodyworkers / educators who feel they are missing the pragmatic “sexuality” piece, or simply wish to enrich their skills and experience.

The best preparation is to apply and have a chat with Simon to see if this training is a good fit for you.

Focus of the training

• Erotic embodiment: Develop a more body-connected sexuality and become more fully available and present to sensory and sensual experience.
• Erotic empowerment: Expand your erotic horizons and confidence while compassionately including your current erotic realities, fears and insecurities.
• Erotic exploration: Discover your own unique map to pleasure and feeling, while also deepening and expanding intimacy in relationship.

The basis of our journey together is breath, movement, sound, consensual whole-body touch in both giving and receiving roles, as well as creative body expression.

How is Sexological Bodywork different from Tantra and other approaches to sexuality?

While there can be some overlap with other modalities, Sexological Bodywork is distinguished by several core principles:

• Experiential, not just talk-based. Sex therapy and coaching typically stay verbal. Sexological Bodywork uses hands-on, body-based techniques alongside conversation. The premise is that some patterns live in the body, not just in the mind, and change happens through direct embodied experience.
• Education, not just relaxation or connection. Where some modalities emphasise connection between partners or teach practices where touch is passively received, Sexological Bodywork sessions are typically self-focused and structured as active somatic education. We learn to track sensation, expand capacity for pleasure, work through shame or numbness, or address specific concerns (like pain during sex, difficulty reaching orgasm, or disconnection from one’s body).
• Secular, not spiritual. Tantra, or Neo-Tantra (as is popular in the modern West), draws on ancient spiritual traditions and philosophies with many different schools and lineages, some of which include sexuality. Sexological Bodywork has no spiritual framework attached and draws instead from sexology, anatomy, and somatic psychology, focusing on functional, embodied learning (though many find a spiritual dimension emerges naturally through the work).
• Client-led. Nothing is initiated without the client’s explicit input. Not all sessions include touch, but when touch is requested, the client directs what happens, and consent can be adjusted or withdrawn at any point. The purpose is not to provide pleasure as a service, but to facilitate learning, awareness, and new experiences that clients can integrate into their own lives. You remain an active participant in your learning rather than a passive recipient.
• One-way touch. Touch goes from practitioner to client only – there’s no exchange or reciprocity. This one-directional structure keeps the focus entirely on the client’s own experience, learning, and embodiment.
• Practitioner stays fully clothed for the entire session. This is a firm professional boundary across the field, for the same reason of keeping the focus on the client’s own experience – distinguishing it clearly from practices where mutual nudity or exchange is part of the format.
• Practitioners are uniquely trained in genital and anal touch for education and healing – something outside the scope of general somatic therapy or sex coaching.

Examples of content included in the training

• Erotic self-exploration
• Self-empowerment massage
• Genital mapping, massage & meditation techniques
• Voicing desires & personal boundaries
• Movement & body-based expression
• Conscious touch & body awareness
• Breathwork techniques

Erotic self-exploration
A series of consciously practised self-exploration exercises that cultivate erotic mindfulness and the ability to be present in the body, and also in contact with different states of arousal. We include an approach borrowed from Authentic Movement that assists in dissolving limiting habits and deepening the erotic experience.

Self-empowerment massage
A form of massage in which the touch is guided entirely by the person receiving it. This allows for a somatic experience of self-determined as well as self-affirming sexuality and intimacy.

Genital mapping, massage & meditation techniques
Techniques that help us become more familiar with our own bodies and their erotic potential (e.g. body mapping, vaginal-penile and anal mapping). Playful exploration spaces that support us to develop a language for the way we want to be touched. Meditative experiential spaces in which we work with intentional yet goalless genital touch to practice detaching from goal-oriented orgasmic experience.

What is included and what is not

This training teaches all the important basics and foundational methods of Sexological Bodywork. The focus is on self-awareness and the personal development of the participants. It is important to note that this 6-month journey, which includes 10 days in-person, is for self-education only and does not yet certify you as a Sexological Bodyworker. This training forms the basis for people who would like to move on to the diploma course to become a certified therapist (optional after the training – see below).

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

The training consists of the following parts:

• On-site training 10 days:
  10 days on-site training split over 4 weekends, each 2.5 days. We cover one module per weekend in The Center Noordhoek (composition of the modules see below).
• Guided online home study:
  Divided into different blocks (one block before the first module as preparation, one block between every module and one last block after the last module).
• Practice sessions:
  As part of the guided online home study between the on-site modules, you will arrange sessions with people you know (eg. friends, partners or classmates) or people you don’t know to practice what you have learned.

WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED?

• Food and accommodation are not included in the price and must be organised by each individual.
• Sleepovers at The Center Noordhoek are possible for an additional fee (reach out to us).
• Certification as a professional Sexological Bodyworker (optional after the training, see details below).

Sexological Bodywork Certification

If you decide to certify in Sexological Bodywork, this is an optional addition to the 10-day training and at extra cost. The certification can take between 6-12 months and happens after the completion of the basic training.

The certification consists of:

• A 3-day practical in Sexological Bodywork
  The 3-day practical offers a space to expand and deepen learning around the core methods of Sexological Bodywork. During the 3 days, case examples from real-life practice will be presented and guidance will be given by the facilitator on which Sexological Bodywork methods can be used to best support clients.
• 30 practice sessions
  You will organise 30 in-person sessions to practice and deepen what you have learned during the 10-day training. You will write reports for 15 sessions, on which your coach will give supervision and feedback.
• 2 professional sessions with a bodyworker
  You will attend two sessions with a professional bodyworker (not limited to Sexological Bodywork) to experience the work for yourself.

After fulfilling all these requirements you will get a certificate to practice Sexological Bodywork professionally.

Facilitator &
Co-Facilitator

Simon Heller (lead facilitator)
– Sexological Bodyworker and Somatic Sex Educator
– Teacher at the International Institute of Sexological Bodywork
– Founder/Partner of Touched South Africa

Kate Gardy (co-facilitator)
– Founder/Partner of Touched South Africa
The training is supported by a co-facilitator who has experience in Sexological Bodywork.

Dates & Venue

The training takes place over 4 weekends, each 2.5 days.

Module 1: 12.-14. February 2027
Module 2: 12.-14. March 2027
Module 3: 16.-18. April 2027
Module 4: 21.-23. May 2027
Times: Friday 6-10pm, Saturday 10.00am – 7pm, Sunday 10.00am – 7pm

Online study:
Block 1: 15. January – 11. February 2027
Block 2: 15. February – 11. March 2027
Block 3: 15. March – 15. April 2027
Block 4: 19. April – 20. May 2027
Block 5: 24. May – 30 June 2027
You choose your own time schedule for your online study (±6hrs/week).

We are hosting the training at The Center in Noordhoek.

Costs & Application

Early Bird until 30 September 2026 – R 3050 x 8 months (full price R24’400)

Standard until 15 January 2027 – R 4800 x 6 months (full price R28’800)

To make the training affordable, we will work with monthly payment plans so that more people can find a way to attend the training if interested.
(Our payment plans have no interest or extra costs – the final sum is the same whether you pay monthly or one lump sum.)

Sexological Bodywork Certification (optional extra)
R 1800 x 6 months (full price R10’800)

Are you interested?
Step 1: Fill in the application form.
Step 2: Have a call with Simon to see if the training is a good fit.
Step 3: Decide in your own time if it’s a yes or no for you.

Testimonials

What students say about their experience in our training in 2025.

See more of these stories on YouTube.

Sexological Bodywork on Netflix

Sex, Love & goop was released on Netflix in 2021 and it was a massive success. It was the first time (that we’re aware of) that Sexological Bodywork really entered mainstream media. The series involves 5 courageous couples diving into their sex and relationship struggles with a team of sexperts, where they explore their bodies and learn methods to enhance their relationships. It makes a brilliant showcase for Sexological Bodywork.

Watch the Trailer of Sex, Love & goop here

In “The Beauty of Sexological Bodywork” the Editors of goop speak with Darshana Avila, one of the Sexological Bodyworkers from the series. She refers to Sexological Bodywork as a healing modality that sits at the intersection of erotic and therapeutic touch and distills the essence of the work pretty well.

If you had the opportunity to experience this, would you?

Well, now you do! Apply here and book a chat with us.