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Relationship coach who ‘tests’ sex toys reveals perks of mixing business and pleasure

They say you should never mix business with pleasure… but meet award-winning sex and relationship coach Rachael McCoy, who gets ‘paid to masturbate’.

The 32-year-old lives in Derbyshire with her two children and spends her working week meeting clients to share professional sex advice and testing out the latest adult toys.

MM caught up with the couples’ coach and the former face of sextoys.com ahead of her visit to Manchester for Sexhibition to find out how she became one of the country’s leading s-experts.

“I get a lot of envy from my friends and people always say to me ‘you have got the best job ever, you get paid to masturbate!’ There are various aspects to my job but that is just a massive bonus,” she said.

“Every time a new product comes out I get an email saying ‘we’ve got this can you try it out and review it’ and I’m like ‘yes!’.

“My aim is that I want people to trust me and I’m not trying to sell anything, I’m trying to give my honest opinion about the products that are out there. I’m definitely not afraid to say if something is crap.

“Some people can’t wait until Friday so that they’re not at work but I can’t wait till Monday because I love my job and it gives me lots of pleasure.”

Having always been ‘fascinated’ by the sex industry, Rachael started out working in sex shops with her ex-partner while in her early 20’s and went on to present videos and reviews for sextoys.com.

Brimming with ideas, the young brunette then had the chance to design some of her own toys for some of the biggest names in the business, including high street favourite Ann Summers.

“At the time I was very inexperienced,” she said. “I knew I loved the industry but didn’t know enough about it so I started volunteering at trade shows and networked as much as I could and I just fell in love with it and decided this is where I need to be.”

Noticing the industry was ‘swamped with sex toys and porn’, the 32-year-old told MM that she realised there was a huge gap in the market for sex education.

Rachael decided to take a gamble, quit her job and set up her own business, Inspiring Sexuality.

The site is an online portal to discuss sexuality and relationships, for both women and men, and provides online workshops, master classes and personalised one-on-one coaching.

The working mum meets up to 10 clients a week to share expert tips and advice on how to have ‘better sex’.

“That’s where I found my passion,” she said. “I’m quite spiritual and I think everybody has a purpose. It’s quite strange because it’s not something I planned to be as a child or a teenager but as I got older I found I have a unique way to be able to talk about sex openly.

“I’m very open about what I like and don’t like and I can influence people and help them to get what they want out of their relationship.”

As well as sharing top tips and tricks with clients, Rachael also gives physical demonstrations (on realistic moulds of intimate body parts) to demonstrate exactly how to do each technique.

She said: “There’s so much information about sex out there and traditionally the way people have learnt about how to have better sex is through using books.

“And books are great, especially for people who wouldn’t feel conformable coming to a master class, but for me personally, I’m a practical learner.

“If I read a book and am shown diagrams of how to do something it wouldn’t process in my brain the same way it would if somebody was sitting in front of me going this is how you do it now you try.

“So that’s why I’ve developed these techniques were people can come and I demonstrate first and then we do the technique together and I’ve just found that to be such a brilliant way of teaching.”

But if the thought alone of sucking on a plastic mould in front of a room full of strangers is enough to make you gag (excuse the pun), fear not, because Rachael promises all participants leave the ‘informative’ and ‘light hearted’ exercise feeling like they’ve had a whale of a time.

“I, of course, don’t get embarrassed one little bit. I’m always really happy after these sessions to hear that people who have come to the classes with anticipation thinking, ‘oh my god I can’t do this in front of people’ actually leave saying ‘that was so fun’ and it was a really great way to learn,” she added.

“That’s what I love so much about what I do. I know it gives people this amazing confidence and it can often be very overwhelming for me to watch people blossom into confident sexual beings.

“I feel very lucky to be able to work with people and do something really beneficial because I’ve had people who have come to me and they are sexual people but they’ve never been able to express it for one reason or another so I get to help them and that’s really great.”

Rachael will also be on hand to share her advice at this year’s Manchester Sexhibition, a weekend event which promises to bring together performances, music, workshops and classes, cocktails and cuisine and a ‘unique’ shopping experience.

Straight, gay, bisexual, pansexual and transsexual singles and couples are welcome and organisers say diversity is ‘positively encouraged.’

Rachael said: “Most people don’t realise this but the sex industry is one of the friendliest businesses you can work in.

“People sometimes assume it’s a bit seedy or creepy or perverted or uncomfortable but it’s not and I have such admiration and respect for anybody working to help others.”

But how does one become a sex coach? Do you need qualifications? Can you (officially) study love making at university?

“Obviously you can’t go and do a degree and study how to give the best blow job or the best hand job can you?” she said.

“I don’t have a degree in psychology but I’m always going to read and do things that will help me be a better teacher and a better lover.”

Having recently been voted the UK’s Top Sexpert, Rachael owes her success to her reputation which she says has taken ‘years to build’ and she is now comfortably making a living from her expertise.

She added: “It’s been a long hard slog because obviously I left my job and started my own business.

“I have lots of respect from my peers and people in the industry for what I do and I really value that.

“I do want to make my work accessible to everybody and I don’t want it to only be available to people who have hundreds of spare pounds but at the same time I value my work and I ensure I’m able to make a comfortable living from it.”

But surely all that sex talk must be exhausting and only a sex crazed addict who’s had hundreds of men would choose their 9-5 to be wholly based on the dirty deed, right? Wrong.

“I definitely don’t class myself as a sex addict,” Rachael told MM.

“People assume that because I teach better sex that I’ve had hundreds of lovers, which is completely not the case. With sexuality I think that, without sounding cheesy, it should always be quality over quantity.

“I have kids and I had a 12-year relationship with the father of my children and when you’re with somebody you love and trust there are so many opportunities to get experience and knowledge.

“Sex is very important to me but as much as I love it I would go without it if it wasn’t with the right person.

“I’ve got enough sex toys to last me a lifetime so I’m quite happy masturbating away until I meet somebody special.”

Sexhibition will take place on August 22 2015 at Event City, Manchester. For tickets, click here.

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