Today we’d like to introduce you to Thaina Cordero.
Hi Thaina, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I always joke that I wanted to be like Rozalin from Meet the Fockers. The first scene where she shows up—teaching spicy yoga to a group of older couples—stuck with me. They’re all so happy, so connected to their bodies. She and her partner are open with each other, with their emotions, and with their communication. They’re living fully and with so much joy. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’ve been training to become that version of myself for over a decade.
There were so many crumbs across my life leading to where I am now. Since I was a pre-teen, I pushed back against the rigid gender prescriptions around me. I was curious about my sexuality and frustrated by the double standards I saw everywhere. Growing up in Puerto Rico, half-naked women were displayed constantly in media, yet if you showed interest in sex—or expressed yourself in a way others didn’t approve of—you were labeled and shamed. People had a lot to say about bodies, desire, and how people “should” behave according to a narrow gender binary.
Those experiences shaped my curiosity and my conviction that things could be different.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Like many others, I’ve had to work continuously to shed the shame attached to my sexuality and my body. I still grieve the years of pain and missed joy caused by a lack of proper sexual education and healthy relationship examples. For a long time, my sexuality felt like something I offered to others rather than something that belonged to me.
When my partner and I started our relationship, we had to navigate our differences—our histories, our values, and the parts of intimacy we had never been taught. Sex was one of the ways we connected, but it also became a source of tension. Later, after I had our first child, sex wasn’t possible for a long time. My body needed more healing due to unnecessary medical interventions during birth. I was touched out, exhausted, and disconnected from myself. It took months for us to find each other again.
Over the years, I had to learn how to be “selfish” with sex—to make room for my pleasure, my needs, my body. We had to unlearn so much and rebuild from a place of compassion rather than performance.
Finding yoga was one of the best things that ever happened for my relationship with my body. I always liked stretching, but yoga was something entirely new. I was lucky to have incredible teachers. Yoga taught me to move in a way that didn’t make me hate my body. To meet myself exactly where I was. In yoga, if all you need is to lie on the mat and breathe, that’s welcome. That was radically different from every “no pain, no gain” class I’d ever taken. That mentality had taught me to judge my body and shame myself for “lacking discipline.” Yoga taught me how to care for myself.
Like many people, we didn’t grow up with healthy relationship models. Years into our relationship—after moving from PR to Florida because of Hurricane Maria—we were burned out. The cycles of arguing, breaking up, getting back together, and accumulating resentment were overwhelming. That’s when I started researching couples therapy approaches.
I found Gottman and kept digging. I was also exploring generational trauma, somatic psychology, and books like The Body Keeps the Score. While trying to navigate our own relationship patterns, I fell deeper into studying how the nervous system shapes our emotions, behaviors, and intimacy. Yoga and somatic work were showing me what “healing from the body up” truly looked like.
A few years later, while working as an administrator at a mental health practice, I stumbled upon the book Sex Made Simple: Clinical Strategies for Sexual Issues in Therapy by Barry McCarthy. I remember wondering if I could do a sex coaching certification “on the side.” Instead, I ended up applying for the PhD program in Clinical Sexology at Modern Sex Therapy Institutes.
It turns out Dr. Barry McCarthy is part of their institute—he was one of the trainers during my very first weekend of classes. That moment felt like a clear sign that I was exactly where I was meant to be.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Sexuality is a window into how we manage stress, emotions, and relationship dynamics. As a Somatic Sex Counselor, I help people explore how their mind, body, and relationship environment continuously influence each other in a feedback loop. So much of our story lives in our body—our tension patterns, our pleasure patterns, our fears, our desires. My work focuses on the “soft skills” of sex: identity, emotional awareness, embodiment, communication, and the nervous system.
I work with individuals, couples, and non-monogamous relationships who want to feel more at ease, more connected, and more themselves—whether they’re exploring their sexuality, addressing sexual concerns, navigating conflict, or wanting to build a stronger foundation in intimacy.
My sessions feel like a candid conversation. We follow where your mind naturally goes and how your body responds. If it’s helpful, we create small, actionable steps or try out strategies that fit your real life. I often share curated resources that speak directly to the reason someone sought me out—books, videos, exercises, frameworks, and practices.
Because sex is never separate from the rest of life, we also talk about day-to-day habits and stress patterns. You’ll see the “mom energy” when I ask if you’re eating, sleeping, and drinking water. I check in on your rest, your joy, your downtime. Sometimes you’ll get “homework”—not assignments, but things to try, feel, notice, or explore.
I like to say that I have ideas, not solutions. I listen to your words and the way your body tells its story, then offer insights grounded in research, client experience, and the practices I’ve used in my own life. But ultimately, each person finds what works for them. My role is to create a space where you feel genuinely seen, heard, and understood. That’s the container where real change happens.
And it just so happens that I’ve invested well over 10,000 hours becoming an expert in that kind of container—from somatic psychology to sexology, yoga, mindfulness, relational dynamics, and trauma-informed care. I’m proud that my brand isn’t about “fixing” people—it’s about helping them take ownership of their lives in a way that feels grounded, pleasurable, and aligned with who they truly are.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
When I look back at my life, everything makes sense in hindsight. There’s no other work that feels as aligned with who I am. I’ve had moments of both good luck and hard luck, but each one nudged me closer to this path. I happened to be in the right places at the right time, meeting the right teachers, landing in the right conversations. Every small decision led to the next.
What I do now is almost exactly what younger me dreamed of when I imagined “what I wanted to be when I grew up”—but in a way that fits my personality, my values, and what brings me joy so much more deeply.
I’m grateful for all the turns that brought me here, and I look forward to many more years of discovery, connection, and community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://drthainacordero.org
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/drthainacordero
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thaina.cordero
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaina-cordero-271351122
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BiteSizeSexEd
Image Credits
Pictures with the Growth shirt: Emily Denton Photography at Sim’s Park in New Port Richey, Fl:
instagram.com/emilydentonphotography
Grad and burgundy dress by Angelina E Photography at Phillipe Park: https://www.angelinae.photography/
Boudoir shoot by Traci Lang Intimates Portraiture’s private studio in Spring Hill: www.tracilangintimates.com
