What does it feel like to come home to your body as a cancer survivor? How do you reclaim pleasure, sensation, and connection to your body after treatment?
The need to holistically address sexual wellness for cancer survivors is urgent, real, and often unrecognized by many medical professionals. Cancer and cancer treatments affect sexual function, sexual organs, and sexual self-concept. Being a cancer survivor impacts people deeply in a way that they might not even have words for – leaving them with not only a lack of resources, but also a lack of skills and confidence to advocate for their own needs.
In this episode of Sex Is Medicine, Certified Sexologist Stacie Steinbock shares their personal story of surviving ovarian cancer, undergoing cancer treatment, and how having cancer and being a cancer survivor has impacted their sexual health and sensual wellbeing.
If you are or know a cancer survivor, this is an episode discussing sexual healing and self-empowerment you won’t want to miss.
Tune in to find out:
- Why sexual health is a top concern for many cancer survivors, and the lack of services addressing this very important topic
- What resources are available, including how to self-resource
- How cancer affects sexual function, sexual organs, and sexual self-concept impacts people deeply in a way that they might not even have words for
- How LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC cancer survivors face additional obstacles as people who often experience well-documented discrimination within the health care system
- How somatic sexual practices provide a host of benefits: trauma release; a pathway to self-connection; knowledge about one’s changing body; gentle entry points to developing new communication skills and sensual practices with partners.
About Stacie Steinbock:
Stacie is an MEd, ABS. For the past 20 years, they have been dedicated to the field of human sexuality—working as an educator, facilitator, and organizational leader. Stacie holds a Master’s degree in Human Sexuality Education from Widener University and spent 16 years in higher education, including their role as Director of the LGBT Center at the University of Louisville Health Sciences Campus. During that time, they led a groundbreaking collaboration with medical school faculty to develop the first fully LGBTQ-DSD-inclusive medical school curriculum in the U.S., and contributed to peer-reviewed publications advancing sexual and gender health equity.
After two decades of teaching human sexuality to diverse audiences, Stacie’s life took an unexpected turn when they were diagnosed with ovarian cancer. While treatment saved thier life, it also dramatically changed thier relationship with their body and sexuality. In their search for healing, they discovered Tibetan 5 Element Tantra—not just as a recovery tool, but as a deeply somatic, body-based practice that helped them reconnect to pleasure, regulate their nervous system, and reclaim a sense of wholeness.
That experience led Staci to create The Golden Thread, an intimacy-focused educational practice that now offers 1:1 coaching, programs, and retreats—both online and in-person in Louisville, KY. Stacie collaborates with therapists at Strong Roots Center as their resident Tantra Specialist. Stacie’s mission is to help people rediscover the healing, transformative power of pleasure—and reclaim intimacy as a sacred, life-giving force.
Are you a cancer survivor ready to reclaim pleasure and connection?
Register now for Stacie’s 10-week program for cancer survivors: “Coming Home: Sexual Healing for Gynecological and Breast Cancer Survivors.”
Spots are limited—secure yours today and begin your healing journey.
