Susan Block

Susan Block, also known as Dr. Susan Block and Dr. Suzy, is an American sex therapist, author, filmmaker, cable TV talk show host, and cultural commentator.

She is perhaps best known for her television specials on HBO.

She is the founder and director of The Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences.

Block is also known for her philosophy of ethical hedonism and The Bonobo Way, as well as her writings on sex, love, politics, and culture in Alternet, The Ecologist, Perfect 10, the New Haven Advocate, LA Weekly, the San Francisco Bay Guardian , Metro, The Brentwood Bla Bla, Beverly Hills, The Magazine, and her own publications Dr. Susan Block's Journal, The Cannes Bla Bla and her weblog, Bloggamy.

Block is also known for her bacchanalian celebrations attended by couples and other participants, as well as her Internet, TV and radio shows featuring professors and porn stars, erotic art exhibitions, sex educational salons, seminars and other events at the Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences, a.k.a. Dr. Suzy's Speakeasy in Los Angeles.

Block is also a self-proclaimed sex therapist in private practice and works with clients from all over the world, using her therapy techniques to deal with various sexual problems, both in person and over the telephone.

Block was born in Philadelphia, and grew up in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

Block comes from a Conservative Jewish upbringing.

She was an honors student at Harriton High School, recipient of the DAR Award, President of the Philadelphia Model United Nations and Editor-in-Chief of the Harriton Forum student newspaper which she renamed the Harriton Free Forum (the name stuck for over 20 years).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Block continued her studies in theater, sex and philosophy at PWU, San Francisco State, UC Berkeley, and the Naropa Institute.

She also worked as a New Haven City Mime, performed as a member of the casts of New England Commedia and La Mer Mime, and Mask Theater, and wrote freelance articles.

She climbed to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, several times with members of the San Francisco Suicide Club.

She also traveled extensively throughout the United States, Mexico, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal.

She was accepted into Yale University in 1973, graduated from Yale magna cum laude, majoring in Theater Studies, in 1977.

In 1984, Block published her first book, Advertising for Love (William Morrow) which forecast the personal ad revolution that soon began in newspapers and magazines and now, the Internet.

Toward the end of that year, she began hosting her first radio talk show Radio Match, It was broadcast from KIEV in Glendale, California, where she helped singles meet on the air, (but only on the air).

Later it went out as Date Night on Saturday nights.

The content was largely provided by listeners, male and female, who would call in and be linked up with each other from the control room.

The show was produced and financed by John Clark.

In late 1984, she met her husband-to-be Maximillian Rudolph Lobkowicz-Filangieri through KIEV.

Though they became good friends, they were in relationships with other people, and didn't get romantically involved until six years later.

In 1986, Block started some of the first 976 and 900 number telephone dating, advice and fantasy lines.

In 1987, Block moved her radio program to KFOX 93.5 FM, where it became less of a matchmaking show and more of a call-in talk show about sex, politics and culture with guests like Dr. Timothy Leary, John Densmore of The Doors and comedian Sam Kinison.

During this time, she also contributed short stories to Dr. Lonnie Barbach's anthologies, Pleasures, Erotic Interludes and The Erotic Encounter.

She wrote the last story with Lobkowicz.

In 1990, Block collaborated with Lobkowicz to produce the audio cassette series "Desert Susan," distributed to the troops of Desert Storm, and "Bedtime Stories for Adults."

They also published Dr. Block's Journal.

She received her master's and doctorate degrees in philosophy from Pacific Western University (now called California Miramar University) in 1991, a school without regional accreditation, and wrote her doctoral thesis on "Being A Woman: A Philosophical Analysis of the Four Aspects of Female Psychology According to Toni Wolff."

In 1992, Block and Lobkowicz got married in Philadelphia.

That same year, they began filming Block's radio show, now called The Dr. Susan Block Show, for cable TV.

They also founded the Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences.

In 1993, Block's show was syndicated nationwide on over 75 radio stations through the Independent Broadcasters Network.

In 1994, Block first saw the "Make-Love-Not-War" Bonobo chimpanzees on PBS, and in 1996, she started the Block Bonobo Foundation, an advocacy group for the highly endangered bonobos who also figure prominently in her book The 10 Commandments of Pleasure.

Called "the Erin Brockovich of the Bonobo" by Salon, Block uses the highly sexual, relatively non-violent and non-male-dominant Bonobo "lifestyle" as inspiration for her philosophy of "Ethical Hedonism," a.k.a. "The Bonobo Way of Peace through Pleasure."

She contributes to the conservation efforts of the Bonobo Conservation Initiative and Lola ya Bonobo, among others.

She has produced several Bonobo oriented radio and TV shows and DVD's including "The Bonobo Conservation Revolution" with Deni Béchard, "The Bonobo Handshake" with Vanessa Woods, The Bonobo Imperative with Bushmeat Project Director Tony Rose, "Letter to Kabilah," "Peace, Love and Bonobos" with Sally Jewell Coxe and "The Bonobo Way" with Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham.

She is also featured in the documentaries Cousin Bonobo and Humanimal, among others.

In 1996, after the owners of IBN were indicted for fraud, Block started one of the Internet's first radio stations, RADIOSUZY1.com, where her show is still broadcast, live and taped, 24 hours a day.

That year, she also hosted her first HBO special, Radio Sex TV with Dr. Susan Block, and published her third book The 10 Commandments of Pleasure: Erotic Keys to a Healthy, Sexual Life (St. Martin's Press).

In 2011 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.