After an engagement as a dancer at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she returned to Paris in 1970 and joined the experimental theater group, Coltra, with her partner, Sun Guérin.
The group premiered the first feminist theater play performed in Paris, Mod Donna by Myrna Lamb, at the 1972 Biennale Internationale des Jeunes Artistes.
She found role models for women's intellectual and sexual empowerment in members of the French MLF (Mouvement de Libération des Fennes) who were writers: Christiane Rochefort and Monique Wittig.
Her essays and articles appeared in major feminist magazines including Feministische Studien, EMMA, Sinister Wisdom, WomanSpirit, and Trivia: Voices of Feminism.
After joining Chernin in Berkeley, CA, in 1986, the couple published the first of three coauthored books, Sex and Other Sacred Games, a lesbian version of the Platonic dialogue on love and eros, in 1989.
Both were lovers of classical music and opera, and when they heard an unknown singer at Hertz Hall, in Berkeley, in 1991, they saw the performance as the debut of a world star.
[11] They followed the evolution and fame of the young mezzo soprano, researched her performances at European opera archives, and published a portrait, Cecilia Bartoli: A Passion of Song, in 1997.
After three years of internships and passing the written licensing exam, they opted out of the conventional therapy system, choosing a more spiritual path.
Stendhal served for several years as a provost for UIL, guiding students through MA and Ph.D. programs in spiritual psychology that rewarded lifelong learning.
She worked with individuals and couples, pursuing her reflections on women and eros with a guidebook for couples: True Secrets of Lesbian Desire: Keeping Sex Alive in Long-Term Relationships (North Atlantic Books, 2003), originally published as Love's Learning Place: Truth as Aphrodisiac in Women's Long-Term Relationships (EdgeWork Books, 2002).
[16] The memoir is intended as a love declaration to the City of Light and a self-ironic portrait of the excess of sexual liberation, the romance of a bohemian life-style, and the creative chaos of the French women’s movement.