http://www.sensualsolutions.ca/companionship/our-founder-trish-st-john/
2005 Sexual Health and Disability Alliance
Dr. Rosalind Mary "Tuppy" Owens (born 12 November 1944) is a British sex therapist, consultant, campaigner, and writer.[1][2]
Tuppy Owens was born in Cambridge. She gained a degree in zoology from Exeter University, and then worked in ecology in Africa and Trinidad[1] during three years as a scientific administrator at the Natural Environment Research Council.[3] She settled in London,
where at first she continued that work. Then, in the late 1960s, she
established a sex education book publishing company, for which she wrote
and published The Sex Maniac’s Diary[4] successfully between 1972 and 1995, and which she operated as a thriving and attention-grabbing business from her Mayfair flat[3] — for example, the 1975 Sex Maniac's Diary was launched in August 1974 with a reception at the Bristol Hotel in London which was reported on the following day in the Financial Times.[5]
From 1974, Owens also began lecturing on the subject of sex.[6] In 1979, she started Outsiders Club, for people with disabilities seeking new friends and partners. From 1984, the Sex Maniac's Diary was published as The Safer Sex Maniac's Diary and provided the first visual instructions to the public on how to put a condom on securely; it also reviewed condoms and offered safer sex advice, all at the beginning of the outbreak of HIV.[7]
Also in the 1980s, Owens trained as a sex therapist at St George's Hospital Medical School in London, where she gained a diploma in Human Sexuality in 1986.[2] She was also subsequently awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Institute of Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco.[2] In 2009 Tuppy was named one of the Family Planning Association‘s 80 most influential achievers in the field of family planning.
In the 1990s, after more than 30 years living in London Dr Tuppy
Owens moved away and has, since then, lived in a croft in the North of
Scotland.[8]
In 2005, Tuppy Owens founded the Sexual Health and Disability Alliance (SHADA)[1]
to bring together health professionals interested in sex and
disability. In November 2009, a conference with the title "Disability:
Sex, Relationships and Pleasure" was held by SHADA with the Royal Society of Medicine.[9]
Tuppy produced the Sexual Respect Tool Kit and started the sexual
advocacy service, ASAP. Tuppy also answers the Sex and Disability
Helpline. Her book "Supporting Disabled People with their Sexual Lives
will be published by Jessica Kingsley on 19 November 2014.
Dr Tuppy Owens remains active in running Outsiders.[10] At the same time, she also runs the Sex Maniacs Ball to fund Outsiders, and is the founder of another fundraiser, The Erotic Awards,[11] now called The Sexual Freedom Awards and run by Charlotte Rose. Tuppy is the chair of the Sexual Freedom Coalition[12]
