Biography

Dr. Jane Fleishman, Ph.D., MEd, CSE is an award-winning writer and Sexuality Educator, certified by the American Association of Sexuality Educator, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT). She is an independent consultant and provides education in the community focused on her passion about older adults’ sexuality. She is a Principal at Speaking Of, LLC, where she teaches in assisted living communities, senior centers, councils on aging, gerontology conferences, sex therapy certification programs, and sexuality conferences. She came to this work as a sexuality educator later in life, after a 30-year career in the public mental health sector. 

Dr. Fleishman earned her Master of Education and her Ph.D. in the education track at Widener University Center for Human Sexuality Studies. She also holds a Master of Science in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Completing her doctoral work at the age of 62 has reminded her that it is never too late to find a new career path.

She is on a mission to promote the sexual well-being in older adults and doesn’t shy away from the difficult and complex realities of making that happen. She focuses on the contradictions around ageism, sexism, racism, ableism, and other ways that people get placed on the margins. 

After completing her doctoral research using a quantitative analysis to study the sexual satisfaction of older adults in same-sex relationships, her curious nature led to her delve deeper into the lives of those who participated in her study and she accomplished The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging which recently won a coveted Nautilus Book Award. 

She co-hosts a regular podcast on sex about sex in the second half of life with three other sexuality professionals, Our Better Half podcast, which won the Podcast of the Year award from AASECT for 2024. And she recently completed a popular TEDx talk, Is It OK for Grandma to Have Sex? which has gotten over 90,000 views. In 2000, Jane received the CT Governor’s Service Award in Healing of Racism; in 2015, a Graduate Scholar Award from the Aging and Society Knowledge Community; and in 2016, the William R. Stayton Award for Leadership in the field of human sexuality. 

She is the proud mother of two really fabulous millennials and lives in Northampton, MA with her partner where they are both engaged in building equitable communities. She is passionate about experiential learning, popular education, and bringing a social justice lens to all her work. You can reach her at her website.