Sex and relationship therapist is not likely to be seen on any undergraduate student’s list of potential careers.
It certainly wasn’t on Sue McGarvie’s either. Her involvement in the sexual health industry as a sex therapist was a far cry from a common career.
“I love getting paid to talk about sex. It’s a cool gig,” she says with a laugh, her voice light and musical. “But I also enjoy the diversity. You never know what’s going to come through your door.”
Today, however, the former host of the radio show Sunday Night Sex With Sue and guru on all matters regarding reproductive health is among Canada’s best known sex therapists, according to an online bio on her website Sex with Sue.
Originally she wanted to be a gynecologist, but struggles with statistics and organic chemistry left her disenchanted and seeking other career options, McGarvie says.
“Finding your career is really about reinventing yourself, because there was no such thing as a job as a sex therapist in Ottawa at the time that I graduated. So I got out of school and basically made my own job,” McGarvie says. “I could have gone and done my midwifery, but I got stuck in the reproductive system and never left.”
McGarvie says she started out as the sexuality co-ordinator for health services while at Carleton University. She also says she worked at Planned Parenthood and the Birth Control Clinic in downtown Ottawa.
It was through these experiences she says she discovered her “unshockable” nature with regards to all things sexual.
“Every now and again I get what I call the weird and the wonderful, which is a fetish or a transsexual — everything and anything — and that’s always fun,” she says.
“I’ve had guys that dress up like Little Bo Peep. I have seen hermaphrodites and amputees,” she says.
“But, what I find really unusual is how people interpret sex. As a therapist you see a lot of the same situations, but what’s most interesting is to see how people react to them.”
McGarvie says she took a job as a sex therapist on a live radio show and within six weeks she had the number one rated talk show in Ottawa.
Curious by nature and a compulsive course taker, McGarvie says she has dedicated the last 20 years to a thorough study of human sexuality.
“When I started, I was talking to people about birth control, and that’s what everybody wanted to know,” she says. “And now we`re talking about being 40 and what do you do? How do you keep it hot? How do you change the relationship?”
McGarvie says she has worked on radio, television, in private practice and has written several books covering common sexual difficulties such as premature ejaculation and low libido.
She is the recipient of several awards and distinctions as well as a nominee for Canada’s Top 40 under 40 according to a bio on the Banff Centre of New Media website.
“I’m in a unique position to talk to people and I literally have spoken to 10,000 people about their sex lives. This puts me in a position to be a spokesperson or a conduit for a lot of things which is a really cool position to be in,” McGarvie says.
Her current focus is back at the radio station where her career began. She will once again be broadcast nationally, giving advice and information about sexual relationships.
“The ideal job for me would be sitting on the beach and getting paid and I’m not there yet. But honestly, I love what I do and as long as you can say that I think you’re ahead of the game.”