Today we’d like to introduce you to Ty Ryavec.
Hi Ty, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
TW: baby loss, religious trauma surrounding sexuality
There are approx. seventeen-thousand minor life happenings and conversations and people I’ve met and learned from, along with two major life events that have shaped me and lead me to my work as a practicing sexologist and starting Relate. I’ll stick to the two major events, though boy do I wish I could shape this to tell you about the time I moved a friend across the country, on Amtrak, during COVID, with a contraband cat, a sewing machine, and someone else’s guitar, all carted on a skateboard.
1.) When I was 19, I lost my virginity on a twin mattress on the floor of my tiny first apartment to my boyfriend of almost a year. A little over week and a half, and approx 3.25 mediocre rolls in the hay later, my parents texted me around 1am to “come home for a serious conversation”. They sat me down and told me that I was disgraceful. Clearly stated was that I was not welcome in their home or to see my brother and sister until I was married; because that’s how God saw my relationship now and they didn’t want to expose their more impressionable children to my dirty ways. My dad told me I was no longer his daughter while I behaved in such an unbecoming manner. I spent the subsequent months fielding shame-filled calls from my parents’ friends, sneaking my siblings to my apartment to watch TV and eat junk food and tell me about their lives. I begged my then-boyfriend to propose, because that seemed to be the only way out of this utter spiral.
My closest friend had told my mom about my twin-bed debauchery for reasons unknown, sprinkling in a few outrageously harmful mistruths while he was at it, and I ended up in a failed marriage by the time I was 21 years old.
Shame on public shame. A calling began…
2.) Twelve years and lots of life later, on a Monday in April of 2021, I accepted an offer on a Victorian home in Kentucky that my spouse and I had saved and renovated. I was mentally gearing up to move myself, my husband, and my high-risk, in-utero daughter to Nashville to be closer to our moms, who somehow, by what felt like a stroke of magic, had both ended up here.
That Friday, I found out my daughter had died. The next night, I was induced, then inducted into the loss moms club the following morning at 11:11 when I delivered her in silence. After I had been given the clear to travel by my brand new OB-GYN, my husband drove the two of us back to Louisville to pack up the house, leaving my daughter’s ashes with my Mother-In-Law for safe keeping. I couldn’t help lift things because I just given birth, so I sat on the couch in a state of shock, lightly packing and making moving decisions when I could, eating the rest of my pregnancy Jolly Ranchers while crying and hate-rewatching Vanderpump Rules and crying some more. During this time, I sought-out and read all I could find on grief, wanting to learn everything about this sorrow-filled experience I was now being handed.
Curiosity has never been my problem…
I wanted to maintain my sanity, and I carried a desperate intent on keeping my marriage together after babyloss. I refused to let the gift of my daughter’s short life ruin the bond and friendship, the trust my husband and I had spent the previous decade building.
Wanna guess how many resources I was able to find on maintaining intimacy post-loss?
Two.
A resounding two resources; first, a cursory web article with basic marital intimacy tips, the second, an old PDF from an Australian non-profit.
I had more early losses before triumphantly getting my son here in Summer of 2022. In that time, I met wise women and mindful men who guided me and showed me kindness and what it was like to experience a positive practitioner from the side of a grief-filled, expectant mother.
My calling got quite a bit louder during this time.
As a young woman, I had discovered sex educator Betty Dodson and, in some manner, she saved my psyche. The knowledge and information about sex that she openly published, and that I sneakily read as a thirteen year old, stuck with me as I navigated public shame, allowing me to always know, inherently, that sex is not sin and that god still loved me despite my v-card status. Years later, when I found myself at the bottom of the grief well, the anatomical knowledge surrounding pleasure that I had gleaned from Betty all those years prior helped me to forgive myself and forgive my body for what felt like such a massive failing.
Those humans that kept space with me and guided me through such deep trauma helped me in ways unable to be put into words. I merely wanted to pay it forward and decided to finally heed that sexological calling I’d been ignoring for so long.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Find me a human with a smooth road and let’s study ‘em and figure out what they know that the rest of us don’t?
_
When I was 18, I drove with my best friend to the beach for our first “grown-up” vacation. He drove first shift, and we got about 45 minutes south before realizing that we were driving into a hurricane. We spent somewhere around 11 hours driving through a torrential downpour, both of us in a silent terror that if anything unnecessary was said, we’d be personally responsible for sinking the ship… er, mid-sized SUV.
That’s a pretty accurate representation of my journey to get to today.
But here’s the thing… when we drove out of that hideous storm, I saw one of those memorable skies, and we both spent the rest of the trip in such sheer relief that we laughed and whooped and carried-on for the next six hours til we arrived, our vacation feeling that much more triumphant.
The obstacles I’ve faced in this life have been varied and have felt, at times, quite lonesome and quiet and weird. Because of these obstacles, though? I get to live every day here; as a more present practitioner, mom, friend, wife…I’ve been given the gift to experience how it feels to be this fucking grateful for life, filled with a daily relief that “I made it.”
Also, along the way, a guy blew by us, riding a motorcycle in 2’ deep water through downtown Atlanta, and talk about inspiration that’ll stick with you…
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
In the top 40 med schools in the US, med students are only given between 3-10 hours of education on sexuality. Sexological knowledge is so different from medical knowledge, and people are so often left in this lurch, feeling deep shame and/or finding little solution to pain and suffering simply because they’re going to the wrong source. Sex and sexuality are essential needs for a human and, simply put, I help clients to understand, define, and address those needs.
When people first hear “sex coach”, the image conjured up is usually that tantric sex lady from Sex & the City. In reality, I bring deep knowledge surrounding sexual anatomy, scientific and psychological information on sexual realities, and a rolodex of ways to either perspective-shift or address and heal sexual dysfunction.
In my practice, I get to help couples maintain intimacy and relational communication while dealing with chronic pain and illnesses such as MS or cancer. I have the privilege of helping victims of SA find pleasure in their bodies again. Sex is consistently in the top 3 reasons for divorce, so by addressing shame and pain, I’m doing what I can do to keep families in communion. I educate adults about how their bodies work and give them the resources on how to educate their own families, doing what I can do help reduce sexual assault for this next generation.
I get to help women forgive their bodies after what feels like a massive failing, passing along the gift that Betty Dodson and those empathetic practitioners had given to me over the years. And I get to help people experience JOY again. The hardships I dealt with have allowed me to sit in the foxhole with folks, and I pride myself on the gentle, knowledgeable, yet deeply truthful approach I take with clients.
The treatment model that I utilize for approaching sexological work with clients is called the PLISSIT model, which stands for Permission, Limited Information, Specific Suggestion, Intensive Therapy and is a way of healing and dealing with sexual qualms, issues, or dysfunctions in a gentle, yet effective manner. I’ve never quite been able to talk about it in a way that didn’t make a non-sexologist glaze over, so here’s a short, fun video to get the gist of how my work…well, works. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBleG8SU0NI]
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Five Things I’ve Learned About Risk:
1. Good risk requires forethought and lots of it, a solid internal life-calculator, and a high-level willingness to fail and/or look stupid _a lot_.
2. If you’re going to take risks, learn quickly not to judge others for either doing risk their own way or not taking risks at all; elsewise your failures will feel monumentally more karmic and that much more shame-inducing when you’re doing that mental “rolodex of dumb shit I’ve done” act at 2am [https://www.instagram.com/p/DNx9huk3Ljo/]
3. Your risk doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. I’ve had times in my life where going to the grocery store felt risky, while at the same time, I was living a risky-appearing, bicoastal, bohemian life. It’s more than cool to feel “I did it!” proud of yourself when you take those small risks, too. Not everyone wants to rock climb, you know…
4. Remember that the risk is yours – your village doesn’t deserve to be dragged into your challenges unless they’ve explicitly asked to be there. Don’t mistake a lack of desire or a lack of motivation to come along for your risky ride as a lack of support. Give people time and space to come around and more often than not, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
5. No one is gonna know who you are in 200 years anyways, so does it really matter to experience a little discomfort for desired knowledge that will stairstep you further towards whatever it is you’re looking for in that risk?
In closing (tl;dr)
If you want to take risks, stay kind, stay open, stay curious, and chuck your ego out the driver’s side door.
Pricing:
- Individual: 150/hr
- Couples: 180/hr
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.relatenashville.com/
