Carole Clements, MA, MFA

Carole Clements (they/them) is Professor of Psychology at Naropa University teaching graduate and undergraduate courses related to gender, sexuality, and intimate relationships within sociopolitical and multicultural contexts, centering complexity and difference. Carole is also an LGBTQIA+ informed, inclusive, and responsive contemplative psychotherapist in private practice, specializing in gender, sexuality, and relational dynamics for monogamous and consensually non-monogamous, straight and kinky, partnerships and relationship constellations. Carole identifies as queer and uses the pronouns “they/them” to emphasize multiplicity, given that “multiplicity” is defined as “the quality of being multiple, manifold, various, multiplex, or numerous”.

Carole’s research interests focus on sexual complexity and the role race (specifically White Supremacy) plays in shaping affectional and sexual normativities. Carole has presented extensively nationally and internationally on such topics as 6-word Sex Stories: Reclaiming Sexual Narratives from Sociosexual Storylines at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT); Toward a Queer Model of Developmental Sexual Complexity at the Council for Relationships; Queering Whiteness in Sexuality Leadership: An Exploration of White Fragility, Heteropatriarchy, and Sex Positivity at the International Lecture Series of the Association of Black Sexologists and Clinicians (ABSC); Illuminating the Shadow Side of Sex Positivity: An Art Therapy Approach at the Annual Conference of the American Art Therapy Association (AATA); Queering Time and Space: Beyond the Binary of Gender and Sexual Orientation in Group Psychotherapy and Straddling the Gap: Gender and Sexuality in the Group Context at the Annual Meeting of the American Group Therapy Association (AGPA).

Carole’s book Sex Positivity and White-sex Supremacy: Ending Complicity in Black Body Erasure (Clements, 2024) is part of the book series on Leading Conversations in Black Sexualities and Identities published by Routledge. As the only white author in the series, Carole urges white sex therapists to examine their racial privilege, including how their silent complicity reinforces oppressive cis white heteronormative discourses in therapy. Carole’s article “Being Sex: A Contemplative Take on ‘Doing It’” (Clements, 2024–25) published in Naropa Magazine’s 50th Anniversary Issue discusses how sex (and eroticism) is a quality of presence (i.e., “beingness”) not just behavior. Carole’s article “The Erotic Academy: How Mindfulness Misses the Mark,” published in Naropa Magazine (Clements, 2016) addresses how mindfulness without erotic embodiment fails to uphold ethics of social justice. Carole has co-authored the book chapters “Addressing White Fragility Through Mindfulness-Based Inquiry in Sexuality Leadership” in the Handbook of Sexuality Leadership, published by Routledge in 2020 and “White Fragility and Decolonizing Sexuality Research” in Locating Critical Sexuality: Forecasting the Trends of ‘Glocal’ Sexual Literacy, published by Anthem Press in 2021. To learn more about Carole’s work, visit caroleclements.com.