I don’t prioritize pleasure, which I guess means I don’t value it as much as the other things I do make time for, and it’s really a struggle for me to prioritize intimacy in my relationship with my husband. Especially this summer: we’ve got three kids in the house, my business is growing and taking up a lot of my attention, and we moved last week.

And I resent the fact that he won’t bring up any discussion about what he wants. He always waits for me to start the conversation or take action to change things. He doesn’t understand why I’m not more interested in sex, and I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to put more intention into the relationship. Probably if either one of those improved—the sex or the relationship—it would improve the other one. But we’re stuck (again).

Let’s start at the beginning: not prioritizing pleasure is not the same as not valuing it.

Three kids at home, a business in growth phase, and a move. Nobody looks at that list and thinks you don’t value sleep because you aren’t getting eight hours of it.

Pleasure works the same way.

In the 1990s, researchers at the Kinsey Institute developed the Dual Control Model of Sexual Response, and the easiest way to picture it is a car.

You have accelerators, the things that turn you on. And you have brakes, the things that turn you off. Both are learned over a lifetime, and almost anything can weigh on the brakes: stress, exhaustion, body image, hormones, gender roles, how satisfied you are in your relationship.

When the accelerator wins, your body responds. When the brakes win, it doesn’t, no matter how much you want it to.

Right now, much of what’s on your plate has a foot on the brake. No amount of “valuing” pleasure lifts it. Priorities are a ranking of what matters. Bandwidth is what’s left after the day has taken its cut.

And you know what makes it worse? Judging yourself for it. Every “I should” is one more foot on the brake.

The Fifth Shift

In 1989, sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the term “the second shift” for what she saw in the homes of working couples: women came home from a full day of paid work and clocked into a second, unpaid one—the cooking, the cleaning, the kids.

We’ve named a few more shifts since, for the mental load and the emotional labor that also land on women’s shoulders.

More recently, writer Amanda Montei named a fifth: the work heterosexual women do to keep their marital sex lives alive. The date nights, the books about desire, the intimacy courses. Reading this newsletter, if we’re being direct about it.

I watch it happen in my coaching practice. The men who want more sex don’t do the exercises I assign unless their wives insist. Even when he’s the one who asked for help, she’s the one who carries it.

So yes, of course you resent it. You run the house and you’re expected to run the relationship too, while he doesn’t understand why you don’t want more sex.

But a relationship is a two-way street and there’s a reason you keep getting stuck. Here’s what it is, and what you can do about it.

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.

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2. Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. Start with one session and a clear plan for what to do next.

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His version: I initiate, she sighs, so I’ve stopped initiating.

Hers: When he reaches for me, just thinking about getting in the mood feels like a lot of effort.

So I asked Mara: when you have sex, do you enjoy it? She didn’t hesitate. “It’s great. I can’t remember a time I regretted it once we got going.”

That answer told me this wasn’t necessarily a desire problem, but rather a transition one dressed up as desire.

Last week I wrote about sexual initiation, and how we often struggle because we tend to reach for a partner in our own language instead of theirs.

But what happens on the other side of that moment, when your response is often shaped by your struggle to context switch? What could make all of this easier?

That’s what I want to talk to you about today.

The sigh has a name: adaptability.

Adaptability is how easily you adjust to changes and transitions. It’s a trait that determines how intuitively you respond to your partner with emotional engagement, rather than with criticism, problem-solving or a simple “no.”

In Daniel’s case, he changes channels cleanly. He can close his laptop and be fully in the next thing before the screen goes dark.

Mara, on the other hand, buffers.

Every transition in her life has a loading screen: leaving the house, ending the workday, focusing on a presentation. Each switch costs her something, and she feels the cost before she has consciously decided anything.

Some of us are more Mara, and some are more Daniel.

When Daniel reaches for her at 9 PM, mid-episode, her body does the math: the cost of leaving the show, the mental tab of tomorrow’s meeting, the mom-mode she’d been in since 6 AM—and the long trip from allllll of that to a sexy state of mind. What escapes her is a sigh.

Daniel hears “not you again.” What she means is “the switch is expensive.”

A no answers the question of sex in that moment, and that’s a completely legitimate thing to answer. Nobody owes anybody a yes.

But what goes unaddressed is the feeling underneath the ask. An initiation is a bid for connection. More specifically, it’s a bid that falls under one of these four reasons for wanting sex.

The missed opportunity therefore isn’t the sex, but the emotional engagement.

How the two of you handle the no, and whether you can talk about the yes or the no and how you each feel about it, is where trust gets built or eroded.

“Trust is so much the foundation of any connection that the absence of trust is essentially the absence of connection,” writes Dr. Emily Nagoski in Come Together.

What exactly are we talking about, when we talk about trust?

Sex therapist Dr. Sue Johnson frames trust as a question: A.R.E. you there for me? Are you emotionally Accessible, Responsive, and Engaged?

A no to sex can be all three. “Not tonight” coupled with “but I love that you want me. Can we plan for tomorrow?” is accessible, responsive, and engaged.

Dr. John Gottman’s definition takes this a step further: trust is what accumulates when both of you keep choosing, over and over, to make things easier for the other, even when it costs you something to do it.

Mara’s cost: the transition.

Daniel’s cost: the patience with the transition.

Here's how each of them put that into practice, and what changed when they did.

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.

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2. Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. Start with one session and a clear plan for what to do next.

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“Our sessions with Natassia became the foundation for a stronger sexual and intimate connection. We experiment more, feel safer with each other, and it shows in every part of our relationship.” — George S., 4-yr relationship

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It’s an important reframe.

Initiation isn’t the few minutes before sex starts. It’s the whole atmosphere between encounters—every touch, every bid for connection, every conversation.

By the time most couples think initiation has begun, it’s mostly already happened.

For the past two weeks I’ve been writing about The Invite—first about how contempt suffocates desire, then about what we’re actually asking for when we ask for sex. This week, I want to talk about how sexual invitation gets started.

Think about how initiation is portrayed in that movie.

Joe’s version is a grievance: “You’re supposed to want me.” Angela’s is silence.

And upstairs, the neighbors’ soundtrack plays on, a nightly reminder that other people apparently just... fall into it. Spontaneously. Effortlessly. The way it happens in movies.

Which is precisely the problem.

Movies are where many of us learned to initiate. We absorbed a script—the sudden grab, the smoldering look, the wordless escalation—and we’ve been running it ever since, wondering why it only lands sometimes.

Yet we also carry long-held ideas that shape how we approach or avoid making the first move.

That men should always initiate.

That wanting sex too visibly is needy, or unladylike, or desperate.

That if your partner really desired you, you’d never have to ask.

That initiating and being rejected says something about your worth.

We absorbed them from our upbringing, religion, culture, past relationships.

On top of the inherited beliefs sits a near-universal error I often see in my practice: one partner says “I do initiate. I reach for them in bed every night, and I keep getting turned down.”

And when I ask the other partner how they’d love to be initiated with, the answer has nothing to do with reaching over in bed.

It’s “I want to feel like they thought about me during the day, like a person they’ve been paying attention to, not a body that happens to be in the bed.”

Or “I want to feel wanted, not needed, like they desire me, not just sex.”

Or “I want to be touched slowly first, without it being a request. A hand on my back that isn’t in a hurry.”

Yes, there are many layers to this, but often what I find is that one partner tends to initiate the way they would want to be initiated.

What reads as thrilling to you may read as pressure to them. What feels romantic to them might feel like a detour to you. Treating your partner the way you want to be treated is guesswork.

This is where the research is useful.

In 2021, clinical sexologist Dr. Petra Zebroff published a study in the Journal of Sex Research. Nearly all previous research on sexual initiation studied the initiator: how people make the first move.

Zebroff built the first validated measure of the recipient’s experience: what actually turns you on when someone starts something with you.

Her framework identifies four initiation styles:

1. Sensation: touch is the doorway.

This style come’s alive through physical contact. The caress on the back of the neck, the slow massage, the kiss that’s about two mouths exploring each other rather than checking a box. The key with a Sensation partner is patience.

Start with non-sexual touch and build gradually. They can often go further than any other style, but only if you don’t rush the runway.

What kills it: going too rough or too sexual too fast. The reach-for-the-genitals opener is exactly the move that shuts this style down.

2. Sentimental-Emotional: connection is the doorway.

This style’s erotic brain switches on through feeling cherished. The initiation that works looks, to other styles, like it isn’t initiation at all: undivided attention with the phone face-down, meaningful eye contact, a declaration of affection, or doing a task they asked you to do. For this partner, emotional closeness is the beginning of sex.

What kills it: distraction, transactional energy, and any initiation that makes them feel like a body that happens to be nearby rather than a person who was thought about.

3. Seductive-Exotic: the game of desire is the doorway.

This style runs on anticipation and the dance of being wanted. The initiation that works started with the loaded text at 2pm, the look across the dinner party, the slow undressing, the passionate kiss that leaves no ambiguity. They want to see and feel your desire for them, expressed with confidence and a little theater.

What kills it: hesitation. Confidence matters because a tentative first move breaks the spell of being irresistibly wanted. If you seem unsure whether you want them, the whole game collapses. The failure mode is weak desire signaling.

4. Surrender: power is the doorway.

This style wants to be told, not asked. Their arousal lives in handing over control—the confident grab, being pulled in or pressed against the wall, clear direction in the heat of the moment.

The paradox that makes Surrender work: it requires the most communication outside the bedroom to need the fewest words inside it. Boundaries negotiated in advance, turn-ons and hard limits named, safe words in place. That scaffolding is what makes the letting-go feel free instead of frightening.

What kills it: being asked “what do you want?” mid-scene, and any confusion between confident direction and unwanted aggression. Consent isn’t the constraint on this style; it’s the foundation of it.

Most of us are strongly wired for one or two of these.

Here’s the collision that runs through so many bedrooms:

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.

Shop Intimacy Card Deck

2. Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. Start with one session and a clear plan for what to do next.

Book a Session with me

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But there’s another scene worth mentioning:

Midway through the dinner party, Joe (Seth Rogen) asks Piná (Penelope Cruz, his neighbor and a fellow sexologist like me) how she knew her last relationship was over.

She said she felt dead inside, and they had stopped having sex.

The disconnection came first, the sexlessness followed.

When I meet with couples, there’s often some variation of: we barely have sex anymore, and I want more. And when I ask the question I always ask next, the room often goes still.

When you want sex, what is it that you actually want?

Usually, they’ve never been asked that. They stare at me. “I want... sex?”

But sex is never the thing itself. It’s the delivery mechanism for something underneath.

Sex researcher Dr. Emily Nagoski posed this question to hundreds of people and found that the answers cluster into four:

Connection. The most common answer by far. You want to feel close, bonded, taken care of.

Shared pleasure. Not just sensation, but the specific magic of enjoying each other’s enjoyment.

Being wanted. You want to be desired, chosen, seen, pursued. For many of us, this is the deepest one.

Escape. The freedom to lose yourself. To be, for twenty minutes, no one’s employee, no one’s parent, no one’s project manager. Just a body in ecstasy.

Here’s why this matters so much:

Two people can both “want more sex” and be asking for entirely different things. He wants escape; she wants connection. She initiates hoping to feel desired; he receives it as pressure to perform. They’re having a frequency argument when they are really having a translation problem.

I see this all the time: one partner hears “I want more sex” as an indictment—you’re failing me—when what their partner is actually saying is I miss feeling wanted by you. Those are different sentences. One triggers defensiveness. The other, if it could only be said out loud, would probably melt it.

And the question has an equally powerful inverse, which Nagoski also offers: when you don’t want sex, what is it that you don’t want? Almost nobody who says “I’ve lost my libido” means they’ve lost the capacity for pleasure. What they don’t want is to feel obligated. Or rushed. Or touched only as a prelude. Or to have one more thing asked of a body that has been giving all day. Name what you’re declining.

Your desire needs a runway, not a spark.

If you’ve been reading me for a while you know there are two desire styles:

Spontaneous desire arrives out of nowhere—the way it works in movies, and the way it works for a minority of people.

Responsive desire arrives after stimulation begins: the touch comes first, the warmth comes first, and the wanting follows.

Neither is better. They are two different operating systems.

But here’s how the four reasons and the two desire styles collide:

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.

Shop Intimacy Card Deck

2. Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. Start with one session and a clear plan for what to do next.

Book a Session with me

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There’s a scene in The Invite that I haven’t stopped thinking about.

Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Olivia Wilde) are a married couple hosting their upstairs neighbors for dinner—the neighbors whose very loud sex life has been keeping them up at night, reminding them of the lust they no longer have for each other.

The whole movie takes place over the course of one evening, and long before the guests arrive, you understand everything you need to know about this marriage from a single data point: how they speak to each other. Sharp. Contemptuous. Mean in the casual way that only two people who once loved each other can be.

The neighbors–Piná (Penélope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton)–pick up on it the moment they walk in.

Toward the end of the evening, a heated discussion erupts between Joe and Angela after they admit they haven’t had sex in a year.

He says, “You’re supposed to want me. You’re my wife!”

To which she responds that it’s hard for her to desire someone who chooses to be miserable.

I hear a version of Joe’s line in my coaching practice more often than you’d think. It’s underneath so many of the conversations couples bring to me.

It’s a script worth tracing back to its source. Whether it came from our upbringing, religion, the rom-coms we watched, or the social contract we absorbed, most of us were taught that desire is a given in marriage.

But desire doesn’t respond to obligation. It responds to conditions. It notices how you’re spoken to and how much affection is present. That’s because affection is the oxygen of erotic connection, and contempt pollutes it faster than anything else.

In fact, in over four decades of couples research, Drs. John and Julie Gottman found contempt—the sarcasm, the mockery, the eye-roll that says you are beneath me—to be the single strongest predictor of divorce.

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.

Shop Intimacy Card Deck

2. Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. One private hour, and you leave with a clear plan for what to do next.

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Heterosexual women orgasm roughly 30 percentage points less* often than their male partners. We carry more sexual shame, report lower desire, and describe less satisfaction—and then we’re told this is simply what sex is for women.

So when a female gynecologist builds an entire practice around the motto “sexual health is health,” of course I want to stand up and applaud.

Dr. Sally Greenwald is that gynecologist. The New Yorker recently profiled her under the headline “The Billionaires’ Vagina Club”, a concierge practice where Silicon Valley’s wealthiest women pay upwards of $30,000 a year to optimize what she calls their “sexspan.”

She prescribes the hormones other doctors withhold. She treats orgasms as a legitimate health outcome tied to sleep, stress, cardiovascular function, and longevity. She takes seriously the symptoms that medicine consistently dismisses as “just a natural part of aging.”

All of this, I celebrate.

There are, however, a few things in this article that didn’t sit right with me as a sexologist and that’s what I want to talk to you about today.

The celebrity’s wife

Dr. Greenwald has a session with a patient named Kristen. Kristen is married to a celebrity and drowning in the mental load of motherhood. A couple of years ago, she was also struggling with the hormonal oscillations of perimenopause, which have since been evened out thanks to Dr. Greenwald.

Kristen’s husband, who lives a more glamorous life and takes testosterone, wants sex constantly. Satisfying him has become one more chore.

She misses wanting sex, but when he asks her if she wants to do it, she finds it manipulative because she knows he’ll be visibly annoyed if she says no.

And Dr. Greenwald’s prescription? To have efficient sex.

“She believes that the best way to improve sex is to drop the romantic notion that it requires a special frame of mind,” writes Melanie Thernstrom for The New Yorker. “Better to have a quickie, even if you’re reluctant, because an orgasm can improve your mood, and ultimately your health and your relationship.”

Now I’m not one to dismiss efficient sex. For many, an hour-long rendezvous is unrealistic. And she’s right: an orgasm will improve your mood.

But efficient sex only works if you enjoy it. And Kristen clearly isn’t enjoying the fast food meal she’s being served.

Telling her to warm herself up with a vibrator, text her husband to come upstairs for five minutes, get it done, and then compliment each other on how efficient they were sounds cheeky, but won’t fix that. Much like losing weight and quitting smoking, if you don’t genuinely want to do it, forcing yourself rarely does the trick.

We were taught that sex should be simple and straightforward, when it’s the most complex thing we do. It’s called an eco-bio-psycho-social phenomenon for a reason.

Dr. Greenwald focuses on the bio. When you dismiss the remaining factors, women will keep walking away disappointed, suspicious that the problem is them.

This isn’t how you treat responsive desire

She explains to Kristen that most women in long-term relationships lose spontaneous desire and retain responsive desire. Desire that arrives after stimulation, warmth, connection.

She’s right about the science. But responsive desire is an invitation to build contexts where wanting can actually emerge: anticipation, seduction, novelty, safety.

If you brace yourself every time you say no, safety has left the room.

If sex is initiated with “do you have five minutes?” seduction and anticipation are hard to come by.

If you keep resorting to quickies, novelty rarely stands a chance.

The vibrator-then-text protocol treats Kristen’s body as an engine to jump-start so it can perform the same sex that isn’t working, which doesn’t honor responsive desire. Instead, it optimizes for her husband’s satisfaction while ignoring hers.

Heteronormative sex needs help for a reason

At one point in the session, Dr. Greenwald tells Kristen she’s not going to talk about “chandelier sex.” Instead, they’ll stick to what she calls “super-heteronormative, vanilla, white-picket-fence sex that has data behind it.”

Here’s the irony: the heteronormative script—kissing, brief oral, penetration, his orgasm as the finish line—is why the orgasm gap* exists in the first place. Most women don’t orgasm from penetration alone.

Research shows that variety predicts satisfaction. More pathways to pleasure, more kinds of touch, more flexibility in what counts as sex.

It’s a major reason queer sex tends to be more fulfilling for the women involved: 86% of lesbians usually or always orgasm during partnered sex, compared to 65% of heterosexual women.

For them, penetration isn’t the main event. It’s optional, one item on a much longer menu of oral sex, manual touch, toys, and psychological play.

In So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex, Dr. Ian Kerner calls this an “outercourse” model: while straight couples default to intercourse about 90% of the time, queer couples build sex around varied, touch-based pleasure. And that’s what the research says predicts more orgasms for women.

So when Dr. Greenwald prescribes more of the standard script, faster, she’s prescribing a higher dose of the thing that’s failing.

What I would begin exploring with Kristen (and her husband) instead

First, a reframe I share often: foreplay begins when the last time you had sex ends.

Desire in a long-term relationship isn’t built in the five minutes before sex. It’s built in everything between.

So if any part of Kristen’s story feels familiar, here are five questions worth sitting with, ideally with your partner:

• How is the mental load split? A woman carrying the entire invisible workload of a household has no bandwidth left for wanting. It must be redistributed.**

• Are you setting aside time for your own pleasure? You cannot access sexual pleasure if you’re not consistently experiencing pleasure in your daily life. Find a hobby that lights you up.

• How is sex usually initiated, and does it actually work for you? If the current bid feels like pressure instead of invitation, the approach needs to change.

• What actually happens during sex? What does good sex feel like to her? What works, what doesn’t and what variety could you introduce: different kinds of touch, different pacing, different power dynamics, a different definition of what counts?

• Can you both ask for what you want without flinching? A healthy dialogue about sex predicts more desire, more arousal, and more satisfaction. It’s a skill, not a personality trait.

I know these questions are easier to read than to actually ask. Sitting across from your partner and saying “I want us to talk about our sex life” can feel more vulnerable than the sex itself.

If you want help in this department, I have two suggestions:

You can turn this awkward conversation into a great date night experience with the Intimacy Card Deck for Couples that I created. It’s the card that asks the question, not you, and the guided prompts allow the dialogue to unfold and build from a more romantic context to seriously spicy. Readers get 10% off with code LUST.

Shop the Intimacy Deck

If what’s happening in your relationship feels bigger than the card deck, I work with individuals and couples to bridge the desire gap and strengthen emotional connection. Book a 1:1 session and we'll work through what you're experiencing and you'll leave with a clear plan for what to do next.

Book a Session with me

“Working with Natassia superseded all expectations. She is attentive and genuinely cares, and by the end of our sessions we felt deeply reconnected and clear about how to keep nourishing our intimacy.” — Julie K., 16-yr marriage

*The Orgasm Gap: In a U.S. national sample of over 52,000 adults, 95% of heterosexual men reported usually or always orgasming during partnered sex, compared to 65% of heterosexual women (Frederick, St. John, Garcia & Lloyd, 2018, Archives of Sexual Behavior). The same study is the source of the lesbian (86%) and heterosexual women (65%) comparison above.

**Pew Research Center (2023) found that even in marriages where wives earn the same as or more than their husbands, women still spend roughly 2.5 more hours per week on housework and 2 more hours on caregiving, while husbands enjoy about 3.5 more hours of leisure. Meanwhile, couples who share routine housework equally report the highest sexual and relationship satisfaction—and are the only group whose sexual frequency has increased since the early ‘90s (Carlson et al., 2016, Journal of Marriage and Family).

Before you go: some Lust in Translation news

Season one of the podcast is officially a wrap! Eleven episodes, and I’m so proud of what we built. Thank you for watching, listening, and writing to me about them. Season two picks up in the Fall.

In the meantime, we’re not going quiet. Over the summer, I’ll be publishing snippets worth listening to—roughly 5 to 15 minutes, the sharpest moments from season one—anywhere you get your podcasts. Perfect for a walk, a commute, or convincing a friend to catch up before season two.

Last, but not least: this newsletter is growing up! Essays like this one —where I take what’s happening in culture and break it down through a clinical lens, with the frameworks and takeaways to actually use in your own relationship—are the direction I’m heading. What you just read is a taste of it.

So I’m launching a paid version of Lust in Translation:

• $6/month or $60/year

• Founding member: $120/year — and you get a free Wonderlust Intimacy Card Deck as my thank-you (yes, the one I mentioned above valued at $45)

The weekly newsletter stays free. Paid subscribers get Deep Dives every Tuesday—frameworks you can apply to your own relationship—plus a live Q&A with me every Thursday, where you can ask what you’ve always wanted to ask a sexologist.

Subscribe now

This work is independently produced and self-funded, so if this newsletter makes you feel more informed, becoming a paid subscriber is the most direct way to keep it going.

I get it. I study and talk about sex for a living. But ever since launching this podcast, I’ve been overworked learning a new skill I’m passionate about.

At the end of the day my brain is fried and my body is exhausted. This could be a strain in my marriage, but my husband and I talk about this enough for both of us to respect that this is a season, and desire fluctuates with the life it lives inside. When it passes (I’m almost there!), we’ll put in the effort to reconnect like we used to.

Why am I telling you this?

Because people often ask me, “Is the amount of sex we’re having normal?”

And it drives me crazy. Not because the question is shameful, but because it’s the wrong question entirely.

This week’s guest has built a career on asking better ones.

Birna Gustafsson is a sex educator and public health advocate who lives at an intersection many people don’t know exists: she teaches at Harvard Sex Week, has led over 50 pleasure-centered workshops, and instructs nurses and midwives in sexuality in clinical practice at the University of Iceland.

As she put it in our conversation, she teaches blow jobs, and she teaches consent for patients with Alzheimer’s.

Somehow, it’s all the same work: helping people talk about sex like it matters, because it does.

Besides Substack, you can tune in to the episode on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple.

Here are the highlights:

It’s not what you’re doing—it’s how you feel about it

A couple having sex twice a month—where both times are hourlong, deeply intentional sessions they look forward to—is thriving. Someone having sex almost every day who, when you ask about it, is quietly enduring it, is not.

You may assume the frequency tells you something, but it’s the feeling that tells you everything.

So instead of “How often do you have sex?”, try “Tell me about the last time you had sex. Did you enjoy it?” It’s a different question, and it opens a different conversation.

It’s also a great question to ask yourself.

When your mind goes blank

Have you ever been asked “so, what are you into?” and nothing came up?

It’s the same reason “what’s your favorite movie?” erases every film you’ve ever seen.

Direct interrogation shuts memory down; specific, low-stakes questions open it up.

“What was the last movie that made you laugh really hard?” works. So does “what’s something we did in bed that makes you smile when it crosses your mind?”

Building desire literacy is a skill, and it starts with better prompts. It’s actually the entire reason I created our Wonderlust Intimacy Card Deck, because most of us were never handed the questions. (Readers get 10% off with code LUST)

The class men are embarrassed to take

At the sex shop where Birna taught in Iceland, the blow job class packed an auditorium, like standing room only. The class on going down on a vulva? Not so much.

A couple browsing the store summed up why: she cheerfully signed up for the first, suggested he take the second, and he recoiled.

“That’s crazy. Like, why would I do that? That’s so embarrassing. I don’t wanna be sitting in a room with a bunch of dudes, talking about going down on a woman,” he said.

Birna explained that that’s not how the class goes. You’re not sitting there talking about how poorly you do the job.

And his response was, “I don’t want to be aroused around a bunch of dudes.”

Which blew me and Birna away.

The gendered script underneath it—her pleasure is optional homework, his is core curriculum—is a great example of what keeps couples stuck.

Enthusiasm beats technique (and “real eaters” prove it)

If you’re over 30 or blissfully off TikTok: a “real eater” is the internet’s term for a man who genuinely loves going down on a woman—not as a favor, not as a warm-up, but as the main event.

Playboy interviewed Birna about the trend, and her read is what separates the real ones from the performers isn’t skill. It’s attraction to the moment.

They’re patient. They switch things up. They’re not narrating, not coaching, not checking the clock, and there is no “magic button” technique that substitutes for that presence.

Enthusiasm can’t exactly be taught, Birna says, but the pressure blocking it can be removed.

You can build up a partner’s confidence so they feel like they can and want to do this.

Sex is not a scarce resource

We’ve been handed a story where sex is a woman’s bargaining chip. A currency to be withheld, spent, traded.

Birna dismantles this: “Sexuality, love, affection, intimacy…these are abundant. They’re infinite. You cannot run out of love to give.”

You can sleep twelve hours and still sleep tomorrow. Desire works the same way.

Treating it as scarce is a disservice to everyone, and where so much resentment in long-term relationships begins.

If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe to Birna’s new substack Explicit Studies!

In case you missed it, tune in to last week’s episode or read the highlights here:

Lust in Translation is independently produced and self-funded.

If you shop any brands I share, using my links and discount codes is the best way to financially support this work. I promise I only feature products I actually use and believe in.

If you love what you’re reading and watching, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

Share

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Therapists are trained to help you heal, but there’s an element to what comes next that is often missed: how to have a passionate relationship again. How to feel pleasure in your body without bracing. How to want.

This week’s guest built her entire career inside that gap.

Dr. Holly Richmond is a somatic psychotherapist, sex therapist, and the author of Reclaiming Pleasure, a book I often refer to and recommend. She is also my dear clinical supervisor.

Holly is the person I bring my toughest client cases to, so getting to sit across from her and having this honest conversation was a personal highlight of this season.

Holly spent her 20s and early 30s as a journalist—celebrity profiles, health, beauty—and in a sexless marriage. Rigid, shut down, somaticizing everything (”it would be my knees one week, then my stomach, then my shoulder—and there was never anything wrong”).

She describes herself as worse than the most disconnected clients who now walk through her door, the ones who say they don’t care if they ever have sex again.

And then, through a creative writing class of all things, everything changed. For years she credited the man she met there, now her husband of 18 years.

But as she puts it in the episode: it wasn’t Danny who saved her life. Sex saved her life. Eros. Vitality. The choice of possibility over the comfortable, safe, dead life she had built.

We go deep into how she—and the hundreds of survivors she’s worked with since—rebuilt from there.

You can tune in on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Here are the highlights:

Control, pleasure, connection

Holly’s framework for reclaiming your sex life after trauma came out of her doctoral research, and it moves in a specific sequence.

Control comes first, but not the way you’d think.

Most survivors arrive already hyper-controlled: vigilant, rigid, excellent at keeping themselves safe. The work isn’t building control, nor losing it or giving it up. It’s learning to relinquish it, gradually, on your own terms.

Pleasure comes second, and it starts with discovering your sexual template: what do you actually like?

Desire (the psychological process of wanting) and arousal (the physiological one) get mapped slowly, and not just sexually—through food, movement, music, anything that brings you back to aliveness. You cannot access sexual pleasure if you aren’t experiencing pleasure anywhere else in your life.

Connection comes last, and it’s the phase where you “have to go out into the world and do this.” If you’re partnered this can look like exercises you’ll apply together, but it’s also an exercise in integrating into the community, whether that’s volunteer work or a sports hobby, for example.

If you’re interested in reading her book Reclaiming Pleasure, you can purchase it here.

The body doesn’t keep the score

Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score brought somatic trauma work into the mainstream, and recent research—the Friston paper—has challenged parts of it.

Holly agrees that the body does not store trauma. It’s not sitting in your tissues.

What the body does is express trauma. It has a story to tell.

And that distinction isn’t semantic—it’s the difference between “you are stuck with this” and “your body is trying to communicate something we can work with.”

It goes back to something Esther Perel said that Holly carries with her: words inform our experience. Victim versus survivor. Existing versus living. Stored versus expressed.

The language we use about our own healing changes what feels possible.

Safety is a process, not a place

Couples get the safety-risk balance wrong when they conflate safety with comfort.

Safety is not a state you arrive at and stay in. No one moves through the world with a permanently regulated nervous system. What we’re actually after is flexibility: that middle territory between rigidity and chaos where play, risk, and desire live.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth for long-term couples: when everything becomes familiar, familial, and frictionless, you haven’t built safety. You’ve built comfort. And comfort, left unexamined, is where desire goes quiet.

To that I’d add my own observation from my practice: couples also conflate safety with a lack of communication.

“We talk about everything” often means “we’ve agreed not to say the things that would hurt.”

Holly shared a Ram Dass line I loved:

Most couples make a contract I won’t hurt your ego if you don’t hurt mine. Healthy couples make a contract to tell the truth.

Your “forbidden” fantasies make sense

Many survivors of sexual trauma—overwhelmingly women—have forced seduction fantasies. And nearly every one of them believes they are the only one, and that something is deeply wrong with them.

Holly has heard this fear so often in her practice. Her answer is always the same: it makes complete psychological sense. These fantasies are about control: you are the author, the architect, the one deciding everything inside the safety of your own mind. Far from being evidence of damage, they’re often the psyche playing with the very thing it’s healing.

Nothing is wrong with you. You are not broken. And your fantasies are information, not indictments.

Additional practical advice

If you lose the moment during sex, like a stray thought, a noise, your to-do list, reframe it as not having lost it, but rather paused it.

Go back through sensation: your partner’s hands, your breath, how touch feels on your own skin. Ask for what brings you back (”stroke my hair,” “grab my hips tighter”). Presence is the doorway, and pleasure follows.

Say yes to something. Holly shared a practice from her own marriage: when her husband initiates, she tries never to reject him outright, but she doesn’t say yes to sex every time either.

She checks in: what can I say yes to? A long hug. A kiss. Sometimes more.

It keeps the channel of touch open without obligating anything, and it protects both partners from the corrosion of constant rejection.

Reintroduce touch without expectation. For so many long-term couples, touch only happens when sex is being initiated, which teaches the lower-desire partner to flinch at a hug in the kitchen. Affectionate touch with no agenda is, in Holly’s words, a female libido healer.

Go for day sex. Estrogen is higher in the morning through mid-afternoon. If you’re waiting until 9:30pm—after work, after kids, after everything—you’re not initiating sex, you’re pushing a boulder. Stop having leftover sex.

And for the touched-out mother: 20 minutes a week. A self-pleasure protocol that starts with nothing more than your own hands moving from your toes to the top of your head, in a way that feels good to you. That’s different from masturbation. It’s a slow reclaiming of your body as yours, so that touch with your kids, your partner, and yourself can live in different containers.

We dive into so much more, including my own past with sexual trauma and how that manifested later in my life, so I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s deep, and uplifting.

Last year, I published a recap of my event with Holly. You can read it here:

Holly's self-pleasure protocol starts with your own hands, and when you're ready to expand from there, what you reach for matters.

My own nightstand staples are from LBDO. Melt, their massage candle that melts into a warm oil (this is exactly the kind of slow, no-agenda touch Holly prescribes), and Rush, their air-pulse stimulator that took three years to design and lives in a glass base so beautiful I've never once thought about hiding it in a drawer.

If reclaiming pleasure is your work right now, they're a gorgeous place to start and you can explore more at lbdo.com — use code LUST15 for 15% off.

Shop LBDO

In case you missed it, tune in to the last episode or read the highlights here:

Lust in Translation is independently produced and self-funded.

If you shop any brands I share, using my links and discount codes is the best way to financially support this work. I promise I only feature products I actually use and believe in.

If you love what you’re reading and watching, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

Share

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And then we go to bed with the person we actually love, and nothing flips on, and we lie there thinking the most quietly devastating thought there is: what is wrong with me?

This week, I sat down with Rachel Baker, the founder of LBDO, the Australian-born sexual wellness brand that has been making some of the most beautiful pleasure products I’ve seen — the kind you’d actually leave out on your nightstand instead of burying at the bottom of a drawer.

Rachel’s story starts the way a lot of ours do: a fluorescent-lit sex shop, an old man watching her browse, walls of bright pink products designed, as she puts it, “by men for the male gaze.” She walked out thinking there has to be a better way.

Years later — after losing her mother and leaving a career at L’Oréal — she launched LBDO in the middle of lockdown.

Our conversation weaved in pleasure and product education, so that you can better understand your options and what works for you.

You can also tune in on Spotify, Youtube and Apple Podcasts.

Here are the highlights:

1. Your desire is responsive — not broken

One of the most freeing ideas in sexuality research is this: desire doesn’t only work one way. For some people (and yes, this often tracks with higher testosterone), desire is spontaneous — it shows up first, and then you go looking for sex.

But for so many of us, desire is responsive. The touch comes first. The connection comes first. The warmth, the safety, the right ambience — and then the wanting arrives.

Rachel said it perfectly: she used to wonder if something was wrong with her because she wasn’t “constantly or instantly aroused like I’ve seen in porn and movies and TV.” Nothing was wrong with her. She just had a body that needed a runway.

This is exactly why I tell people to focus on building the on-ramp, and to make that on-ramp something you genuinely look forward to rather than a box to tick.

Touch is one of the most reliable ways back into your body, which is why I’m a believer in starting with a massage before anything else is even on the table. LBDO’s Melt is a candle that melts into a warm massage oil, and their Mood oil is a lightweight, multi-use blend made for exactly this kind of slow, hands-on, no-agenda touch.

For a responsive desire style, that warm-up isn’t foreplay to rush through — it’s how arousal builds.

2. Pleasure is contextual, and your libido is allowed to change.

Desire lives “in a constant state of flux throughout our lifespan,” shares Rachel.

Right now she’s pregnant, and her libido has, in her words, gone quiet.

For me, for clients, for her, the things that move desire are rarely about attraction at all. They’re about stress. Grief. Hormones. How safe you feel in your body. How seen you feel by your partner.

Dr. Emily Nagoski calls these your brakes (what turns you off) and your accelerators (what turns you on), and the work isn’t forcing yourself to want more—it’s learning how to gently take the feet off the brakes.

It’s asking each other: What contexts make it easier for us to feel close, playful, and turned on—and how can we create more of those on purpose?

For most, stress is the number one brake. So we find ways to release the stress and feel more at home in our bodies, whether that’s through dance, movement, music, breathwork, meditation or another outlet we religiously tap into to make space for comfort.

Your libido is not a fixed trait. It’s a conversation between you and your life.

3. The “I’m addicted to my vibrator” myth

This is the fear I often hear: if I use a toy, I’ll get desensitized, it’ll be harder to orgasm and I won’t be able to enjoy sex with my partner as much. Rachel hears it too. And the research is clear: desensitization is a myth. What happens is that temporary dip in sensitivity comes back within the hour.

What’s actually happening when someone feels “addicted to their vibrator” is much simpler: they’ve only ever practiced one road to orgasm. The fix isn’t fewer toys; it’s variety.

This is why I love that LBDO’s two flagship devices do genuinely different things. The Essensual Vibe delivers classic, targeted vibration; Rush, their air-pulse stimulator, creates a suction-like sensation that builds slower and, somehow, more intensely —

Rachel and her team spent three years designing it, and you can feel that obsession in your hand (it also lives in a glass base so gorgeous you’ll forget to hide it).

So, alternate. Diversify. Use your fingers some nights. Let oral take a little longer.

Sexual health is like physical health: you don’t only ever do one kind of movement, and you shouldn’t only ever take one road home.

4. Communication is lubrication

“It’s more detrimental to not talk about sex than to not have sex,” says Rachel.

The data backs her up. Couples who actually talk about sex report more desire, more arousal, more orgasms, less pain, better function across the board. And yet it’s the conversation almost no one was taught how to have.

That’s the entire reason a tool like LBDO’s Journey Deeper: Intimacy Edition exists — 100 prompt cards, built with sexologist Kassandra Mourikis, that move from light and playful into the genuinely deep.

Think of it as training wheels for the conversation: no one’s being put on the spot, you’re just answering the card in front of you. Some of the most connected couples I know didn’t begin with a Big Serious Talk.

They began with a single question neither of them knew the answer to — and let it open everything else.

5. Shame dies when pleasure becomes beautiful

A woman in her seventies wrote to LBDO after her husband died. Their product, she said, had made her feel like herself again. Their customers are teenagers buying a first vibrator without shame, mothers reconnecting with their bodies, women in their sixties and seventies discovering there was never an expiration date on any of this.

That’s what happens when we stop treating pleasure like something seedy to be smuggled home and start treating it like what it is: a form of wellness as ordinary and as worthy of beauty as your skincare or your fragrance.

If you want to explore any of the products above, you can find them at lbdo.com — use code LUST15 for 15% off.

Lust in Translation is independently produced and self-funded.

If you shop any brands I share, using my links and discount codes is the best way to financially support this work. I promise I only feature products I actually use and believe in.

If you love what you’re reading and watching, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

Share

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That question sits at the heart of this week’s episode, and there’s almost no one better to answer it than my guest, Amanda Dames—better known as The Kink Consultant.

Amanda is a sexologist and Somatica-certified sex and relationship coach. But before all of that, she lived one of the more fascinating double lives I’ve come across: by day, she worked at the Wall Street Journal. By night, she was a professional dominatrix in a New York City dungeon.

For years, she was the person powerful men trusted with the desires they’d never spoken aloud to anyone. And what she learned in that dungeon completely reshapes how most of us think about kink, shame, and desire.

“These were powerful men—men with high-income jobs. If you looked at them, you’d think they had everything. But they were missing one thing.”

Here’s the through-line of our whole conversation: your desires aren’t proof that something is wrong with you. They’re information about a deeper emotional need.

Or, as Esther Perel says, they reflect a problem and a solution: what you want and how to get it.

The work was never about fixing what you want. It’s about understanding the feeling underneath it, releasing the shame around it, and learning to ask for it.

We talk about her journey from the dungeon to The Kink Consultant, the psychology of what powerful people really crave, and—most importantly for so many of you—how to actually bring kink into a long-term relationship without it blowing up in your face.

Besides Substack, you can tune in on Youtube, Spotify, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

Below are 6 key insights from our episode.

1. First, what’s the difference between a kink and a fetish?

We tend to use these words interchangeably, but a kink is a nice-to-have—something that turns up the heat. A fetish is something you need to think about in order to orgasm; it compels you.

And here’s the part that surprises people: “kinky” is defined almost entirely by the status quo, which is constantly moving.

As Amanda points out, blow jobs were once considered kinky. What counts as “normal” is just a target that shifts by culture and by decade—and anything outside the current default reads as kinky.

2. No one is broken.

One of the most common fears Amanda hears is, is my kink tied to some trauma? It can be—but the research shows it usually isn’t.

Sometimes a desire imprints from something as innocent as a childhood moment that had nothing to do with sex. Sometimes there’s no clear origin at all. Her point, and mine: the hunt for “why am I like this” often matters far less than simply accepting that you are.

As long as it’s consensual and pleasurable (some derive pleasure from pain), then it’s all good.

3. What powerful men are really looking for.

The clients who filled Amanda’s calendar were often high-powered decision-makers—the people who run things all day, every day. What they came looking for wasn’t sex (in the dungeon, there is no sex and no kissing). It was the chance to surrender.

But underneath even that was something far more human: they wanted to be seen.

That need—to be witnessed without judgment—is the real engine underneath most desire.

4. To bring kink into your relationship, start outside the bedroom.

This is the question so many of you wrote in about. When one partner is kinky and the other is hesitant (or doesn’t even know yet), Amanda’s framework is to build a bridge to each other—and, crucially, she begins that work outside the bedroom.

Her unforgettable example: do you know that when you take out the garbage, you have to replace the garbage bag? You cannot fully surrender to a partner in the bedroom if you don’t trust them to show up for you outside of it. The mental load, the division of labor, whether each person feels supported—all of it shapes what’s even possible erotically.

A few of her principles:

• Both partners’ desires matter. If a couple comes to her about his kink, she won’t move forward until she knows what she wants, too. You can’t build a bridge for one person.

• The stressed partner’s desire tends to come last. Often the wife (and mother) is carrying so much that her own wants land dead last. Sometimes the real work is simply uncovering that her desire exists at all.

• Trust outside the bedroom is the foundation for surrender inside it.

5. How to actually bring it up to your partner.

If there’s one section to screenshot, it’s this. Amanda’s guidance on starting the conversation:

• Pick the right moment. Not in bed, not right before sex, not when they’re busy or distracted. Choose a calm, connected time—morning coffee, a quiet evening.

• Lead with curiosity, not a confession. Don’t dump your fantasy on them. Open the door instead: “Have you ever had a fantasy you’ve wanted to explore?” And if they share something, listen. If they don’t, you can share a part of the fantasy you’re wanting to explore, and see how they react to that fraction of it.

• Share the feeling, not just the act. This is the key. Don’t only present the what—present the why. Instead of “I want to be tied up,” try: “I want to try bondage because I think it’ll make me feel safe and held.” Feelings are relatable, even when a specific kink isn’t.

• Give them a next step. End with an invitation: “Would you be willing to explore this with me?”

If the hardest part is starting the conversation, that’s precisely why I created the Wonderlust Intimacy Card Deck. It lets the card ask the question, so you don’t have to—turning these tender, vulnerable conversations into something closer to an intimate game night. You warm up on the lighter prompts and work your way toward the seriously spicy ones, at your own pace.

Shop Intimacy Card Deck

6. If you’re brand new, go from zero to one—not zero to ten.

Curious but intimidated? Amanda’s rule is to try the entry-level version of anything before you dive in.

• Impact play? Start with a hand, not a heavy implement.

• Bondage? Skip the metal handcuffs. Reach for silk ties or even Velcro cuffs—something that comes off easily.

• Want the gentlest on-ramp of all? A blindfold. It builds anticipation, quiets a busy mind, and lets you practice surrender. (It’s one of my personal favorites—and if you’re someone who can’t stop thinking during sex, it’s a gift.)

• Curious about something more advanced, like Shibari? Learn from a practitioner. Ropes are stunning, but they can get dangerous.

If this episode speaks to you and you want to go deeper, you can work with Amanda or explore her courses at amandadames.com, and find her on Instagram at @the_kinkconsultant.

In case you missed it, tune in to last week’s episode or read the highlights here:

Lust in Translation is independently produced and self-funded.

If you shop any brands I share, using my links and discount codes is the best way to financially support this work. I promise I only feature products I actually use and believe in.

If you love what you’re reading and watching, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

Share

Subscribe now

It’s a script so pervasive that most of us absorb it before we ever get there. The dominant cultural narrative treats midlife as a problem to be solved: manage the symptoms, age gracefully, accept the dimming.

I’m here to tell you that narrative is not just incomplete. It’s wrong.

Because the women I know who are most attuned to their sensuality—the ones radiating that magnetic, self-possessed energy—are often the ones who came into it later. Not despite midlife, but because of it. Because they finally had the courage (and frankly, the fed-up-ness) to stop performing and start feeling.

No one embodies this more than this week’s guest, Juliette LaMontagne.

is the writer and creator of , a serial memoir about her midlife erotic awakening that is now being adapted for television. I came across her work exactly a year ago, on a flight to Napa of all places (she’s based in Sonoma County—kismet), and I was so moved that I interviewed her for this newsletter last year. This week, I finally got to sit down with her for the podcast.

On paper, Juliette had done everything “right.” Raised Catholic, she followed all the rules: marriage, kids, a successful career in New York City.

But behind the scenes, her marriage was unraveling under the weight of her husband’s addiction relapses—until a night in the E.R. became her breaking point. They separated for nine months, on opposite coasts. She was certain it was over.

Then the pandemic brought them back under one roof, and what happened next is one of the most extraordinary stories of erotic rebuilding I’ve ever heard: 12-step recovery, psychedelic-assisted therapy, sexological bodywork, the Wheel of Consent—and ultimately, the best sex of her life, decades into her marriage.

This conversation is for anyone who has ever wondered if it’s too late. It isn’t.

Besides Substack, you can tune in on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple.

Below are 5 key insights from our episode.

1. There’s a difference between remission and recovery—and it applies to marriages, too.

Juliette’s husband had been sober for most of their marriage, but he’d never done the deeper work of recovery. He was white-knuckling it—channeling that addictive intensity into adrenaline, work, and blame.

Meanwhile, Juliette was living in a state of constant vigilance, never knowing when the next relapse would come. Her nervous system was locked in fight or flight for years.

Through Al-Anon, she learned what she calls radical accountability: the practice of saying this didn’t happen to me—this is an opportunity for me to learn, and I have to take responsibility for my part. It wasn’t until both of them took that accountability—him in recovery, her in Al-Anon—that anything could actually change between them.

If your relationship feels stuck, this is the question worth sitting with: are you in remission, or are you in recovery?

2. Desire can’t come back online until your nervous system calms down.

This is a key part of Juliette’s story. Her eros didn’t return because of a new technique or a lingerie purchase. It returned when her body finally felt safe.

For Juliette, psychedelic-assisted therapy (alongside hormone replacement therapy) is what allowed her nervous system to finally rev down. And when it did, everything came back online—not just erotically, but sensually. Colors brighter. Sensation amplified. Alive.

She’s careful to say psychedelics aren’t the only path. But the principle is universal: you cannot access desire from survival mode. Whatever helps your body exhale—that’s where the work begins.

3. Your body keeps the score, and a skilled practitioner can help you release it.

When Juliette’s sensuality started stirring again, she sought out a sexological bodyworker—a practitioner who uses one-way touch to help clients cultivate their erotic well-being.

She describes a practice called vulva mapping: slow, intentional, exploratory touch (not aimed at arousal) that locates the places where the body holds tension, history, and—for many women—trauma. Spots that were once almost unbearably sensitive would release under patient, breathing presence, and suddenly fill with sensation and pleasure.

Her practitioner put it beautifully: going into the vulva is like opening a box of old photographs.

We also talk about orgasmic meditation—a partnered, time-bound practice that uses gentle clitoral stroking as a form of mindfulness, cultivating present-moment awareness, embodied pleasure, and emotional connection rather than chasing orgasm.

Juliette describes learning to breathe the building sensation outward through the whole body, until she was tingling to her fingertips—a completely different relationship to climaxing than the peak-and-done model we tend to experience.

And as Juliette points out, having a partner do this for you is its own practice: you’re not driving the car. For those of us socialized to monitor everyone else’s experience, learning to let go and simply receive—with no responsibility for the other person—is where the real work (and the real medicine) lives.

4. The Wheel of Consent will make you see your partner—and yourself—anew.

This is where Juliette and her husband rebuilt their erotic connection, and it started smaller than you can imagine: his hands resting on her feet, over her socks, for three minutes.

The Wheel of Consent, developed by Dr. Betty Martin, breaks touch into four quadrants—serve, accept, take, allow—and asks you to get crystal clear about who the touch is for and which direction the energy is moving.

It sounds contrived. It is anything but. Through this slow, negotiated practice, Juliette watched her husband ask for what he wanted from strength and integrity rather than neediness—and she found herself, for the first time in years, able to receive.

And then there was the moment he told her “wait.” One word. So hot. Because there is nothing sexier than presence—and for women who are used to driving every part of their lives (raising my hand here), surrendering control to a partner who can hold it is its own profound eroticism.

You don’t need whips, chains, or a play party to rebuild your sex life. You need exploration through touch, negotiation, and consent.

5. Surrender is the whole game.

The thread running through Juliette’s entire journey—the psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions, the bodywork, the sex retreat—is surrender. The turning over of control to something, or someone, you trust.

I got emotional in this part of the conversation, because surrender is exactly what I’ve been struggling to access in my own life. I work with sex, I preach this daily, and yet building this business has kept me gripping the wheel so tightly that letting go—truly letting go—has felt almost impossible.

My own recent shibari experience cracked something open in me, and Juliette’s story reminded me why this work matters: it’s one thing to tell your mind to let go. It’s another to let your whole body be held.

Sometimes the bedroom alone can’t give us that container. And it’s brave to seek out the practices and practitioners that can.

If Juliette’s story resonates, do yourself a favor and read . It is phenomenal—intimate, literary, and wildly hopeful.

In this episode, Juliette mentions a previous episode with . Tune in below:

If you’re bracing for irritation, infections, or yet another post‑sex UTI, it’s almost impossible to stay present in the bedroom.

Momotaro Apotheca offers organic solutions that I use everyday to take care of my intimate health—from their soothing balm, Salve, to their UTI supplement, probiotic, and yeast infection suppository.

Curious to learn more? Build your own ritual at https://momotaroapotheca.com/discount/lust and get 20% off with code LUST.

Lust in Translation is independently produced and self-funded.

If you shop any brands I share, using my links and discount codes is the best way to financially support this work. I promise I only feature products I actually use and believe in.

If you love what you’re reading and watching, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

Share

Subscribe now

“All the men I know are nice guys. I wish I had a panel of fuckboys to consult about this issue and really get to the meat of it. Like, why did he do this to me?”

Val, her close friend and a comedian, heard that and said: that would make a great comedy show.

And she was right. Two years and 3,000 tickets later, Ask a Fuckboy always sells out and tours nationwide. It’s one of my favorite shows and a guaranteed night of laughing.

Andie and Val are now in serious relationships, and have learned a ton watching dating horror story after story unfold on stage.

Side note: I presented at Ask a Fuckboy! My husband was one when I met him (sigh). Fresh out of a divorce at the age of 43, he didn’t want anything serious with 30-year-old me. Until one day, we sealed the deal.

Six years later and married, I offer a ton of self-deprecating humor on this topic, mostly because women are told they should be chased and chosen–and I certainly did the opposite, and have zero regrets. Of course, there’s a fine line between overstaying and knowing when to walk away, and we talk about that in this episode.

This conversation is about desire in dating: what we’re drawn to, what we settle for and what we finally stop putting up with. It’s also hilarious.

Tune in on Youtube, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Here are a few ideas that stuck with me!

Anxious vs. avoidant: your attachment style is your dating instruction manual

Andie and Val represent opposite ends of the spectrum, and both approaches worked, because they played to their own wiring rather than performing someone else’s.

Andie is anxiously attached. She gets invested quickly, needs communication, and wants to know early if someone can meet her where she is. So she asks the big questions upfront, communicates her needs clearly, and moves on fast when someone can’t meet them. Her fiancé loved that about her and in less than one year, they were engaged.

Val is avoidant. She doesn’t get swept up easily, treats early dating like a low-stakes game, and lets people prove themselves over time before she extends emotional investment. Brad passed the test, and they just moved in together.

The problem arises when you pretend to be the other one: if you’re anxious and you try to play it cool, you’ll just suffer. If you’re avoidant and you force yourself to open up before you’re ready, you’ll panic and pull away.

Not all fuckboys are created equal

Andie and Val draw a useful distinction between two of the most common archetypes.

The breadcrumber keeps you just fed enough to stay. He texts sporadically, shows up when it’s convenient, offers just enough warmth to sustain your hope — and never enough to build anything real.

The love bomber does the opposite: he floods you early with intensity, future-talk, grand gestures, the whole romantic movie arc compressed into three weeks.

What makes love bombing particularly insidious is that it doesn’t feel like a red flag; it feels like finally being seen. But the crash, when it comes, is proportional to the height of the high. You’ve already built a future in your head.

The breadcrumber lowers your bar slowly. The love bomber raises your hopes catastrophically and then lets them fall.

What really changes a fuckboy’s behavior?

There’s the myth of a woman who comes along and changes him.

But according to a guy they interviewed for their own pod, your friend group sets the tone:

He stopped being a fuckboy once most of his friends were in relationships. Suddenly, fuckboy behavior looked juvenile.

You can’t say the wrong thing to the right person

So much modern dating culture is about calibrating your behavior: how long to wait before texting back, whether to seem too eager, what the “right” amount of vulnerability is on a first date.

What Val and Andie say: that math doesn’t work. If someone is right for you, your natural self is not a liability.

Choosing from fullness, not fear

There’s a difference between choosing a relationship because your life is already good and you want to share it, versus staying in one because you’re afraid of what happens if you leave. Or stepping into one for fear of being alone.

I experienced both sides of this personally. The first time, I came from a place of scarcity: expecting a partner to fill a void I found unbearable on my own. It turned out to be six years of a controlling relationship that left me unrecognizable to myself.

Two years after that ended, after taking real time to heal and actually enjoy my own company, I met my husband. The beginning wasn’t perfect, but my positioning was different. I had clear boundaries and communication, and today it’s an incredibly fulfilling relationship.

The desire you feel in a relationship, the aliveness, feels stronger when the ground under your own feet is solid.

Curious about Ask a Fuckboy? Check out their website for upcoming shows and follow along on Instagram.

One thing nobody talks about in dating advice: it's hard to show up as your confident self and be present if you're bracing for irritation, infections, or yet another post-sex UTI.

Momotaro Apotheca offers organic solutions I use every day to take care of my intimate health — from their soothing balm, Salve, to their UTI supplement, probiotic, and yeast infection suppository. Get 20% off with code LUST.

build your intimate health ritual

In case you missed it, tune in to last week’s episode or read the highlights here:

Lust in Translation is independently produced and self-funded.

If you shop any brands I share, using my links and discount codes is the best way to financially support this work. I promise I only feature products I actually use and believe in.

If you love what you’re reading and watching, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

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I started waking up at 2 or 3 AM for no reason, my energy dipped, my skin looked tired.

Nothing in my regimen had changed: I was working out consistently and eating reasonably well.

Because I often work with women in perimenopause and menopause, I started suspecting that the former was knocking at my door. It felt early, but age 35 is when it can begin.

I asked my doctor for a full hormone panel and the results were “within normal range.”

Women unfortunately hear this all the time, along with a slew of other dismissals like “It’s a natural part of aging” or “Let’s get you on Xanax or an SSRI so these symptoms bother you less.”

Medical gaslighting is real, and it’s the reason why I always tell my clients to find a practitioner who is certified by the Menopause Society, and to get more than one opinion.

These changes we feel in our disposition significantly affect our quality of life, and have everything to do with desire and libido.

They also impact our partners who are left scratching their heads, trying to understand what’s going on and how to best support us during this unstable period.

That’s why I invited Jackie Giannelli to the podcast. Jackie is a board-certified family nurse practitioner specializing in women’s health, longevity, and sexual medicine. She has a private practice serving women in New York and Connecticut, and is also a clinical strategist for the new Carolyn Rowan Center at Mount Sinai. She is one of the most rigorous, nuanced, and genuinely funny people I’ve talked to on this subject.

This episode is essentially a masterclass in what’s actually happening inside your body in your late 30s, 40s, and beyond — and what you can do about it. We cover everything from hormone replacement therapy to GLP-1 to peptides.

You can tune in on Youtube, Spotify and anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Here are the highlights:

“Normal” and “optimal” lab results are not the same thing

When your doctor tells you you’re “within normal range,” they’re telling you that you don’t have a diagnosable condition. There is no clinical billing code for brain fog. There is no standard of care built around “I feel flat.”

And because conventional medicine is structured around diagnosis and treatment rather than optimization, millions of women are told to just live with symptoms that are actually addressable.

That’s why Jackie uses a symptom-first approach, asking where you are in your cycle, what’s changing, what’s getting worse. Hormonal lab tests are the third guardrail to her practice.

If you want to find out the essential lab markers every woman ages 35+ should know, I found Jackie’s free guide to be very helpful.

Your ovaries age twice as fast as your biological age

By age 35, women have lost 90% of their ovarian hormonal reserve and function. Ovaries are the primary production site for testosterone, estrogen and progesterone.

More specifically, ovaries produce testosterone, and much of that testosterone is then converted into estradiol, which is the most biologically active form of estrogen.

Progesterone is what helps you sleep through the night, keeps your PMS in check, and supports mood stability. So as it starts to decline, those 2 or 3 AM night wakes I started having begin to make a lot more sense.

The Women’s Health Initiative study did a lot of damage

You may have heard that hormone replacement therapy causes breast cancer. This is one of the most consequential pieces of medical misinformation of the last few decades, and it’s still shaping how women are treated today.

Here’s what actually happened:

In the 1990s, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) studied whether estrogen could protect women from heart disease. They enrolled women in their 60s and 70s—many hadn’t taken estrogen for 20+ years since menopause—and put them on it. The study ended early after finding small increased risks of stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer.

The media panicked. Headlines screamed that estrogen was dangerous. Seventy percent of prescriptions were dropped overnight. Doctors stopped learning how to prescribe it, pushing women into cash-based hormone clinics with riskier compounded treatments.

But what the study actually showed was timing matters. Estrogen is heart protective—it helps prevent plaque buildup in arteries, which is one theory for why women get heart disease later than men. But once estrogen disappears and plaque accumulates, reintroducing it can destabilize existing plaques, causing the strokes seen in the WHI.

The breast cancer findings were equally misleading. The study wasn’t properly randomized for cancer risk, and some participants had previously been on estrogen. Women who developed breast cancer while on hormone therapy actually lived longer than breast cancer patients not on hormones. Breast cancer is common regardless of hormone use.

Here’s what we now know:

Estrogen when taken early protects against heart disease, anxiety, depression, breast cancer, colon cancer, cognitive decline, insulin resistance, and osteoporosis. It increases longevity—women on hormone therapy live on average three years longer than those who don’t.

What about GLP-1s?

GLP-1s blunt reward-seeking pathways, which includes food and even libido. So if you’re taking it and you’ve noticed a drop in desire or difficulty reaching orgasm, this may be why.

Jackie takes a microdosing approach in her female patients for this reason.

It’s great to manage inflammation and metabolic changes we tend to experience after age 35, but you should also closely monitor other side effects: libido, hair loss and muscle loss.

That’s why Jackie suggests pairing GLP-1 with testosterone therapy, thoughtful nutrition, strength training, and close monitoring.

Peptides: the next frontier (and the wild west)

Peptides are small chains of amino acids that act as signaling molecules. They tell your body to do something it already knows how to do, just more efficiently.

Unlike hormones, which travel everywhere and affect the whole body, peptides tend to work locally and clear quickly, which is why many are injected directly.

Two worth knowing:

• GHK, a.k.a the “beauty peptide,” supports collagen production, hair follicle health, and skin. Jackie loves it compounded into a topical cream for scalp and face for microbiome optimization, hair regrowth and follicle health.

• And PT-141, which we cover below under FDA-approved options, works on arousal pathways in the brain.

The catch with peptides right now is regulatory: many exist in a gray market, technically classified as research-use only, which means purity and safety testing vary wildly.

Jackie’s rule of thumb: only work with a compounding pharmacy that will hand you a certificate of analysis. If they won’t, walk away.

FDA-approved medications you may not know exist for desire and pleasure

I’ve spoken to enough women who haven’t heard of these, so I’m leaving them here, and why they matter:

• Vaginal (or vulvar) estrogen: Arguably the most underused treatment in women’s health. It can prevent dryness, pain, recurrent UTIs, and even reverse the disappearance of the labia minora that happens with genitourinary syndrome of menopause. Jackie prefers a combination of estrogen and testosterone applied to the vulva, because the vulva is rich in androgen receptors. It can be used proactively, not just reactively. And it carries no breast cancer risk.

Jackie’s closing thought on this: “It’s one of the few treatments we have for anything that I can almost explicitly say is risk free. I mean, think of Tylenol. Tylenol is not risk free, right?”

• PT-141 (bremelanotide / Vyleesi): Works on melanocortin receptors throughout the body and brain, improving arousal and dopamine production. Jackie describes it as more of an arousal medication than a desire one, and notes it pairs well with SSRIs (which famously suppress orgasm) and GLP-1s.

• Addyi (flibanserin): Approved for premenopausal and postmenopausal women, it works directly in the brain, modulating serotonin and dopamine. It’s for women whose desire just won’t “turn on” despite being in situations where they want it to.

A note on designing for desire

Jackie is undergoing a home renovation and designing around her sexual wellness and connection to her husband. Lighting and mirrors in the walk-in closet, removing the TV from the bedroom, installing a whole-home sound system.

She even collaborated with a DJ who is also a therapist to build a 22-minute playlist calibrated to help women move from mental load to physical presence. (She got the idea from Barilla, who made pasta playlists timed to the exact minutes their pasta takes to cook. Genius.)

The underlying principle is that for women, arousal requires a transition. You can’t go from scheduling school pickups to feeling sexy without some kind of bridge. What does your bridge look like?

If you want to learn more about Jackie, follow her on Instagram and work with her here.

While we’re on the topic of perimenopause and menopause:

If you’re bracing for irritation, infections, or yet another post‑sex UTI, it’s almost impossible to stay present in the bedroom.

Momotaro Apotheca offers organic solutions that I use everyday to take care of my intimate health—from their soothing balm, Salve, to their UTI supplement, probiotic, and yeast infection suppository. Curious to learn more? Build your own ritual at https://momotaroapotheca.com/discount/lust and get 20% off with code LUST.

In case you missed it, tune in to last week’s episode or read the highlights here:

Lust in Translation is independently produced and self-funded.

If you shop any brands I share, using my links and discount codes is the best way to financially support this work. I promise I only feature products I actually use and believe in.

If you love what you’re reading and watching, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

Share

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Roughly 70% of women rarely feel aroused out of the blue, and spend years believing something is wrong with them. They think they have low libido, when in fact what’s often missing is the stimulation of their imagination. They say they don’t have fantasies, or know how to cultivate them.

If you’re not new here, you’ve heard me say this: your largest sexual organ is your brain.

I’ve found that the women who are most attuned to their sensuality and desires are the ones who read erotica (including yours truly). And the research backs this up: women who regularly consume literary erotica report higher levels of sexual arousal and satisfaction (Lehmiller, 2018).

But what is it about this medium that works so well, especially for women?

There are two layers:

1. Reading is an incredible relaxation tool. As little as 6 minutes of reading can slow heart rate and reduce stress, making it one of the most effective ways to remove the barriers (anxiety, mental load, performance pressure) that prevent women from accessing desire.

2. Women’s desire thrives in rich storytelling and plot lines. Psychological research confirms that narrative-based erotic content engages emotional and imaginative regions of the brain alongside arousal.

In fact, men have a 50% overlap between their physiological genital response and their subjective experience of desire, while women only have around a 10% overlap.

The body and the brain are frequently operating on separate channels in women—and literary erotica engages the brain, where female arousal truly lives.

If you’ve ever wondered why the romantasy genre is so popular amongst women, this is why. However, romantasy (literature that combines romance with fantasy, often in the form of fictional worlds like dragons, magic and fae) doesn’t vibe with everyone.

That’s why Carly Pifer, today’s guest, created Aurore. It’s a space for writings based on our own, real experiences. As she likes to put it: it’s as smart as it is sexy.

There’s a reason why p*rn doesn’t resonate with many women, and why literary erotica does.

What I personally love about Aurore is that there are over 300 stories and it offers a playful way for you to sample different scenarios, learn what actually lights you up (and what doesn’t), and bring those discoveries back into your own sex life.

Here are two snippets from different moments of a story called My Favorite One Night Stand:

“With my back flush against his broad chest, I let the music take over my body, rolling my hips into his as his fingers intertwined with mine. We moved together, sweat beading at my hairline, a bolt of electricity moving through me every time his hips ground into me from behind, feeling his cock grow harder with each hip roll. I turned to face him, letting my hands graze over his chest and down his sculpted arms, and then reached up to wrap a hand around the back of his neck, feeling the hairs rise in response to my touch. His hands gripped my hips, still swirling to the music, as he leaned in and kissed me.”

“His lips were on my neck, soft and then scraping as he slowly unraveled, his growls in my ear reverberating through my entire body as my moans echoed off the tiled walls. One of his hands slid between my thighs and he stroked my clit, slowly, achingly. My legs quivered and he wrapped one arm around me to hold me upright.”

In our conversation, Carly and I go deeper into how women fantasize: we talk about responsive versus spontaneous desire, body image and turning insecurity into eroticism, “real‑eaters” and why emotional safety matters so much, common fantasies, and how writing erotica can help people rewrite painful sexual or relational experiences.

Before Aurore, Carly was a writer with bylines in Vogue, Brooklyn Magazine, Slate, Refinery29, and Vice, and she now holds erotic writing workshops to guide people through the healing power of verbalizing their desires and commemorating the best sex of their lives.

If any of this resonates, I hope literary erotica can be a great source of inspiration for you to explore what turns you on.

And in that process, talk about, and even act on, your fantasies.

If you’re curious to explore more, you can browse additional teasers here, and if you decide to subscribe to Aurore, use code NATASSIA for 10% off.

Read Aurore

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It’s also the kind of thing we rarely talk about. Everyone overshares on the internet, but this still feels like the kind of TMI you keep between you and your pharmacy receipts.

That’s why I invited Lindsay Wynn, founder of vulvovaginal wellness brand Momotaro Apotheca, to talk about this foundational part of our sex lives.

If you need any convincing that this education is necessary, here are some shocking stats:

• 1 in 4 American women can’t correctly identify the vagina on a diagram

• 1 in 5 American women believe they pee and menstruate from the same hole

• 50–60% of women have at least one urinary tract infection (UTI) in their lifetime

• 20–30% will develop recurrent UTIs

• Women get UTIs roughly 30 times more often than men

• 1 in 3 women will have bacterial vaginosis (BV) and 4 in 5 will not recognize it

• 3 in 4 women will have a yeast infection, with half experiencing it more than once.

I’ll be the first to admit: until I was 30 (and before I became a sexologist), I had never heard of the word vulva (it was all the vagina to me) and I thought I peed from the same canal I menstruated from (we pee from the urethra and menstruate from the vaginal canal).

I also had recurring UTIs and yeast infections, and hated how–when treating the latter–Monistat felt like the only solution available to me, yet it burned and itched so much!

I did not believe in organic homeopathic solutions until I tried Momotaro Apotheca’s Yeast Infection & BV Suppository. It worked within a day and it did not burn. I was flabbergasted.

It took Lindsay 8 years (!!) to develop that suppository, bring it through testing, and get it certified—and it shows in how it feels and how it works.

For the past three years, Momotaro has been core to my daily routine. I preemptively insert one suppository after sex or after a long day at the beach in a wet bikini to prevent infections, and I use it religiously when I (now, rarely) do get one.

If I have any cuts, discomfort or itching, I reach for the Salve–their certified organic balm that soothes right away. It’s also great for sunburns and small wounds anywhere else on the body. More recently, I used it to heal a swollen ingrown, which it did overnight.

After every shower I massage the Tonic Oil onto my vulva to moisturize and nourish it. This is one daily intimacy ritual that makes me really feel myself, and I’ve talked about this at length on Instagram over the years. 10/10 recommend.

And if I don’t have time to shower after a quick romp or a workout, I spray the Hydrosol Toner for a quick antimicrobial refresh.

This is genuinely how I use Momotaro on a regular basis. It’s helped me build a better relationship with my body.

My hope is that this episode and this piece expand your sense of what’s possible in your intimate care routine—that you’re allowed to have products, rituals, and knowledge that support your vulva and vagina as much as your skincare routine supports your face.

Over the years, Lindsay and I have become close, so this episode is equal parts informative and unhinged, as we overshare personal stories and break down the science with a lot of humor.

[You can watch it on Youtube, Spotify, or anywhere you tune into podcasts.]

Beyond my own experience, we also answered anonymous questions from you. Here are the highlights:

Do supplements actually work or are they expensive pee?

A lot of them are, especially in the beauty and “wellness” space. But when it comes to targeted products like probiotics or urinary‑tract support, the real question isn’t just what’s in them—it’s how much your body can actually absorb.

You only have so much bioavailability for vitamins, minerals, and active compounds, so more is not automatically better. When you’re choosing a supplement, it’s worth asking:

• What’s the bioavailability of these ingredients?

• Why this dose or this many CFUs (for probiotics) compared with other brands?

• What else is in the formula besides the “hero” ingredient?

A good probiotic is a truly active product. Momotaro’s Daily Probiotic doesn’t need to be refrigerated because the strains are freeze‑dried; they re-activate and interact with your gut microbiome once you take them.

Their Urinary Tract and Bladder Supplement is built around effective antimicrobial dosing—designed to help your body push back against the “bad” microbes introduced by things like friction from sex, bacteria entering micro‑tears, or irritants from flavored lubes that can tip you into an infection.

I see ads for probiotics that claim they’ll make your vagina taste like strawberries. What should a vagina actually taste like?

A vagina should taste like a vagina, not fruit.

A healthy vagina is naturally acidic, with a pH usually between 3.8 and 4.5—the same ballpark as tomato juice or some beers. That doesn’t sound as sexy as pineapple or strawberries, but that acidity is part of what keeps harmful bacteria in check.

It’s also why your underwear sometimes bleaches. Those pale spots on dark fabric aren’t a laundry fail; they’re a sign that your vaginal fluid is acidic enough to lighten the dye.

Taste and smell can shift through your cycle. Around your period, you might notice a more metallic, iron‑y taste or scent because of blood. That’s normal.

If you’re worried about odor before sex, skip the scented wipes and douches and just rinse your vulva with warm water in the shower or over the sink. That’s usually all you need.

If something smells strongly fishy, foul, or just very different from your normal—especially with itching, burning, or unusual discharge—that can signal an infection like BV or something else worth getting checked.

If you want a great breakdown of what different smells can mean, this guide written with one of Momotaro’s OB‑GYN partners goes into 10 common vaginal scents and what they might be telling you about your health.

read the guide

What are some best practices to maintain vulvovaginal health?

• If you want to be proactive, take a vaginal probiotic that is all-encompassing, addressing gut microbiome, vaginal microbiome, and immune health.

• Keep the vulva clean with water and gentle, fragrance‑free products; avoiding douching or harsh “feminine washes” that strip the microbiome.

• Use the Salve if you did something that was “bad”, like using flavored lube, wearing a swimsuit all day, or going from one hole to the next without protection.

• Let your vulva breathe. Wear breathable cotton underwear, loose fitting clothing, and sleep naked (or, at least without panties).

• Stay dry! Take off gym clothes and damp swimsuits as soon as possible. Excess moisture is a breeding ground for bad bacteria. If you can’t rinse off after a heavy sweat sesh, Hydrosol can help maintain a balanced pH without drying out your skin.

• Stay on top of your menstrual care. Regularly change your pad or tampons, and set a reminder on your phone if you tend to forget. You should also look at the ingredients and materials in your menstrual care products. Some have hidden fragrance synthetic materials that cause irritation and it’s worth switching up your product of choice to see if it helps.

• Get enough sleep, eat whole foods, drink enough water and reduce stress. You probably already know this, but when you’re overstressed, it can affect your sleep, digestion, and immunity, which lowers your body’s natural defenses and can make you more vulnerable to infection.

If you’re curious about trying Momotaro, I managed to snag a 20% off code for this community. You can build your own ritual at momotaroapotheca.com with the code LUST at checkout.

shop 20% off momotaro apotheca

Thank you for tuning in! If you have any questions or comments, please drop them below or hit reply.

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In this week’s episode of Lust in Translation, I sit down with Hayley Folk, a very good friend who also has a gift with words. She is perhaps the only sex and relationships writer I know who makes the kinkiest story sound, dare I say…angelic?

For example, here’s her account of the first time she got flogged at a play party by her husband:

“Afterward, in a fog of aftercare, I felt like I had opened up my chest to show him what was inside, and he met me with love; he kissed me and held me and told me I was brave. I’ve never felt so close to anyone else in my entire life. I’ve always trusted my husband, but after playing with impact together, it opened up a new level of vulnerability for us both.”

See what I mean?!

Hayley is also the founder of The Poly Pocket, where she shares her life as a polyamorous, bisexual woman married to a man, and–as her community has grown–built a dedicated online space for queer, non-monogamous women and non-binary folks.

I know a lot about Hayley’s life from our friendship, but I was surprised about how much I learned in this conversation.

And as I was editing it, I thought to myself, goodness, I could’ve gone deeper here or unpacked more of that there. Which means, I’ll eventually have to have her on again (and I’m learning how to become a better interviewer along the way).

We talk about her marrying at 23, opening her marriage, owning her bisexuality, and how falling in love with someone other than her husband at the time forced her to confront what she really wanted: polyamory.

She has since remarried, and generously shares her experience with play parties, impact play, therapy, and the daily rituals that make her marriage to Kyle feel wildly expansive, yet safe.

This episode is about how to move slowly, talk honestly, make mistakes without burning everything down, and create relationships that actually fit who you are.

Besides Substack, you can tune in on Youtube, Spotify, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

Below are 5 key insights from our episode.

1. What, after all, is the difference between open relationships and polyamory?

An open relationship means partners can have sex outside of their main relationship (and, sometimes, have limited romantic connections too).

Polyamory goes deeper. It gives you space to fall in love and build a life with multiple partners.

2. What are the so-called rules, agreements and boundaries everyone talks about?

Rules are hard lines that can feel rigid, whereas agreements–while respected–have more flexibility that reflect the messy reality of life. Boundaries are your limits, needs, and what you will or won’t participate in, based on your own well‑being.

So, for example:

• Rules are, “You can’t go on more than one date a week with anyone else.”

• Whereas an agreement is, “We’ll check in with each other if we want to go on more than one date a week with someone else.”

• And a boundary says, “If seeing someone more than once a week starts to affect our time together, I will ask to pause new dates while we re-evaluate, because I need regular connection.”

One of Hayley’s favorite examples of healthy non‑monogamy is a friend who keeps a literal “living, google doc” with her partner—a 20‑page list of every rule, boundary, and agreement they’ve ever had, crossed out and updated over the years.

In her own marriage, many things that began as rigid rules (like no sleepovers) eventually became more nuanced agreements as trust grew.

The point isn’t to “get it right” from day one, but to keep the dialogue alive.

3. If you’re thinking about opening your relationship…

Hayley’s advice to couples is to go slower than you think and talk more than feels comfortable.

Many people rush from “monogamous with kids and careers” straight into “let’s open everything up now,” skipping the months (or years) of conversation they actually need.

Questions she suggests asking yourselves:

• What is genuinely inspiring you about non‑monogamy—curiosity, desire, a specific fantasy, a philosophy, or the hope it will “fix” something?

• Are you truly on board, or agreeing because you’re afraid of losing your partner?

• Can you sit down together and write a list of your agreements, and boundaries that feels good for the both of you?

If you’re looking for well-rounded advice, Hayley offers guidance calls, which I highly recommend.

Book a guidance call with Hayley

4. I’m curious about play parties. What should I look for?

Hayley shares her experience frequenting them, with environments that very much resemble Eyes Wide Shut (without the satanic rituals).

If you’re curious about play parties, Hayley’s advice is to treat them a bit like dating: know what you’re looking for, and do your research.

A few things she suggests considering:

• Vibe and curation – Is it more luxurious, or a casual house party? Do you want queer‑centered spaces, or a specific kink focus?

• Screening and consent culture – Do they do applications, interviews, or consent workshops? How do they talk about safety and behavior expectations? And what about STI tests?

• Dress code and structure – Is it cocktails‑then‑play, or more free‑form? Are there rituals, performances, or clear guidelines about phones and anonymity?

She also stresses that you do not have to play just because you’re there. Going in with the expectation “we must have sex or we’re failing” creates pressure that can ruin the experience.

Some of the most powerful nights for couples are simply watching, talking, and using what they saw as fuel for later conversations—or for their own bed.

If you’re looking for a curated list of the best play parties, Hayley made a guide for you.

Get Hayley's Curated Play Party List

5. What is impact play, and where do I begin?

Impact play is a consensual erotic practice in which one person strikes another’s body (by hand or with a tool) to create intense sensation for sexual, emotional, or psychological gratification.

It is a form of BDSM and can range from light spanking to more intense practices like flogging, caning, or whipping, always grounded in explicit consent and negotiated limits.

For Hayley, impact play is the one thing that can fully shut her brain off, allowing her to drop into pure sensation. It can be sexy—hair pulling, dirty talk—but the real draw for her is the mental quiet and the intense trust it requires.

If impact play is calling you, Hayley’s guidance is clear: don’t just let someone say, “Don’t worry, I’ve done this before” and start hitting you.

Her practical steps:

• Talk first, in detail – Share your boundaries, fears, and any trauma or health issues. Agree on areas of the body, intensity ranges, and what’s absolutely off‑limits.

• Learn about drop and aftercare – Both subs and doms can experience an emotional or physical “drop” afterward—feeling low, raw, or disoriented—so plan for comforting food, blankets, cuddling, or whatever makes you feel grounded.

• Build slowly – Start with light touch and gradually increase intensity, checking in verbally or with agreed‑upon signals. Don’t jump straight into “full scene” mode.

• Read or learn together – Books, essays, workshops, and classes can help you understand the psychological and physiological sides of impact play, so you’re not improvising with each other’s nervous systems.

Above all, she emphasizes that because you’re literally giving someone power over your body, you need a strong foundation of consent, knowledge, and trust before you pick up, say, a flogger.

Thank you for tuning in! If you have any questions or comments, please drop them below or hit reply.

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To all of the moms of Lust in Translation, I wish you a beautiful Mother’s Day this weekend!! I did not have time to curate a Mother’s day Gift Guide for partners this year as I was deep in the weeds with the podcast, but I hope it’s restful and full of love.

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Until next week!

Natassia

Before I dive in, I want you to know that you are able to tune in directly on Substack (click on the video above), as well as anywhere you listen to podcasts.

The most popular ones are Spotify, Youtube and Apple Podcasts, so I’m linking them here.

Lauren Elise Rogers is a Certified Holistic Sexuality Educator and Embodied Intimacy & Relationship Coach who grew up in an evangelical Christian community.

We talked about purity culture, erotic literature and self-pleasure, painful marriages and joyful liberation, and raising sexually empowered teens—all in one arc.

I wanted to start here because it’s a complex and enlightening episode. Even if you didn’t grow up religious, chances are you were taught to fear your own desire. Most of us were.

Lauren’s story shows how deeply those scripts can live in us, and how possible it is to rewrite them at any age.

Below, I share 4 main frameworks and/or insights from our conversation.

1. The 7–14–21 framework: mapping your erotic timeline

One of my favorite practical pieces from this episode is the idea of tracing your sexual formation through key developmental ages: 7, 14, and 21.

Lauren describes guiding people to analyze their own “metaphorical sexual gardens,” going back through their experiences and messages at these ages.

Here’s how you can do this as a reflection practice (journal, voice note, or talk it out with a trusted friend/therapist/coach). I took the liberty of adding my own questions to this guide.

Age 7: Early messages and “good/bad” bodies

Ask yourself:

• What did I learn about bodies and nudity around this age?

• How did adults react if I was curious about my body or someone else’s?

• Were there any rules—spoken or unspoken—about modesty, touching, or privacy?

At 7, many of us absorbed foundational ideas like “my body is dirty,” “curiosity is shameful,” or “we don’t talk about that,” even if no one ever said those words out loud.

Age 14: Adolescence, desire, and social scripts

Ask yourself:

• What were peers, media, or religious communities saying about sex and “good girls/boys”?

• Was I taught that my value depended on staying pure, not being “easy,” or managing someone else’s arousal?

• Did anyone talk about pleasure, orientation, or consent in a way that honored my experience?

Lauren notes that many of her female-bodied clients realize, at this stage of reflection, “Oh, that’s where I learned that my job is to protect men from my body, and that their desire is inevitable and my responsibility.”

Age 21: Adult sex without sex education

Ask yourself:

• What was my relationship to sex, partnership, and commitment around then?

• Did I feel like I had to “perform” being a good partner, spouse, or lover without any real education?

• Was there a gap between what I was doing sexually and what I actually wanted or felt ready for?

Lauren shares that 21 is also the average age at which many people begin engaging in penetrative sex, even though experimentation and curiosity often start earlier. Yet most of us arrive there with prevention-focused, shame-based education at best.

Once you’ve done 7–14–21, look at your answers and ask:

• Which beliefs did I consciously choose, and which were embedded by family, religion, or culture?

• Which ones feel like “soil”—deep in my body, especially my pelvic floor—showing up as tension, shutdown, or guilt when I feel desire?

• Which scripts do I want to retire, rewrite, or reclaim?

This exercise isn’t about blaming your past. It’s about understanding the origin story of your erotic self so you can rewrite it in a way that actually fits who you are now.

2. Faith, pleasure, and reclaiming your body

Lauren helps clients distinguish between embedded theology (the harmful add-ons—gender roles, sexual double standards, shame-based teachings) and essential theology (their actual spiritual values and connection to the divine).

We explore how pleasure can be seen as sacred rather than sinful: from the simple fact that fetuses self-pleasure in utero, to the existence of the clitoris as an organ whose sole purpose is pleasure.

Instead of treating the body as a problem to solve, we can treat our anatomy as evidence that we were made for joy, connection, and erotic aliveness.

For people who choose to keep practicing their faith, the work often looks like:

• Letting go of rigid gender roles and scripts that equate “goodness” with sexual submission or self-erasure.

• Developing a personal ethic where sex, self-pleasure, and erotic exploration are aligned with core values like consent, mutual care, and honesty.

• Allowing pleasure to be a site of worship, gratitude, and embodiment rather than performance or obligation.

3. Toys, variety, and everyday eroticism

For those of you who’ve been taught that using a toy in bed is “cheating” or “corrupting”, a great analogy is that vibrators are like snacks or smoothies, not replacements for meals. They are different ways of nourishing the body.

• A vibrator is not in competition with a partner. It’s more like a pool toy you bring into the water together.

• You don’t become “dependent” on toys, unless they are truly the only kind of stimulation you ever allow yourself. If that bothers you, add in more variety and go acoustic (using your fingers).

• Solo pleasure practices (with or without toys) make partnered sex better by deepening your understanding of what you like and how you respond.

If you’re curious about bringing more intentional play into your erotic life, I partnered with Epiphany to bring you the Mind and Body Bundle: a clitoral arousal serum to heighten sensation (I carry it in my purse at all times!), and my intimacy card deck to spark the kinds of conversations and experiments that keep desire alive.

Think of it as a practical lab for everything we talk about on the podcast—more chances to feel turned on in your own skin, and more chances to create connection (and orgasms) instead of waiting for them to magically appear.

Explore the Mind & Body Bundle

4. Raising sexually literate, empowered teens

One of the most moving parts of the episode is when Lauren talks about parenting her 15-year-old daughter very differently from how she was raised. Instead of secrecy and silence, she centers comprehensive sexuality education and ongoing conversations as acts of deep care.

She compares it to learning how to drive: before a teen gets behind the wheel alone, they have to study, pass a written test, and log many supervised hours on the road.

Yet we often expect young people to “just figure out” sex with no information, then shame them when they struggle.

Some of the outcomes she sees at home:

• Her daughter can clearly articulate boundaries, desires, and what she is and is not interested in doing with her body in a relationship.

• She is not having sex to please a boyfriend or to validate his desire; she is able to center her own wants and limits.

• Research backs this up: young people who receive comprehensive sex education tend to take fewer risks, delay intercourse, and make more informed decisions, compared with those who receive abstinence-only messages.

For those of you raising kids or in close relationship with teens, this is an invitation to move from “protecting them from information” to equipping them with tools, language, and frameworks they can carry for life.

If you’re curious where to start, Lauren has an online course called Sex Ed Prep for Parents.

Thank you for tuning in! If you have any questions or comments, please drop them below or hit reply.

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Connect with Lauren on Instagram, and learn more about working with her here. ⁠

Follow Lust in Translation on Instagram, we recently started our new account!

If you enjoyed this, please share with anyone else who would too. Spreading the word helps us grow and bring you even better content.

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Until next week!

Natassia

For the last 20 years, I’ve been an avid podcast listener. It all started with NPR’s This American Life, which had a way of teleporting me far from my high school reality. In my twenties, while working in finance, I was obsessed with Guy Raz’s How I Built This — a show about entrepreneurs who really shot it out of the park.

I knew I wanted to build something of my own. I just had no idea what it would be.

How I got here always surprises people. But like most entrepreneurs, I kept betting on myself until I found something I genuinely loved—and that people were willing to pay me for. I didn’t expect to feel this fulfilled by my work, and I don’t take that lightly.

What began as Wonderlust, an ecommerce brand centered around my Intimacy Card Deck (designed to help couples talk about sex and bring more play into their relationships), took an unexpected turn when I went viral on TikTok. I shared “5 things couples who have great sex do,” based on research from the Gottman Institute, and something clicked.

That’s when I realized: most of us were never actually taught how to build a healthy, fulfilling sex life or relationship. We’re left to figure it out through trial and error.

But what if we didn’t have to?

How different would our relationships feel if we learned—early on—how to communicate clearly, navigate conflict, and explore pleasure without the quiet layer of shame so many of us carry?

That question led me to become a sexologist, certified by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists. Today, I work 1:1 (primarily with couples), host educational events, and create content designed to help you build a foundation that makes intimacy feel alive.

The Lust in Translation Podcast has felt like the natural next step for a while now. So many of you have asked for it over the years, and I’m excited to finally bring it to life in the way I imagined: in-studio, with thoughtful production, and conversations that go deeper than what we can do on social media.

New episodes will drop every Thursday at 5 AM EST, wherever you listen to podcasts—including here on Substack. Each episode will be paired with a newsletter like this one, breaking down the key ideas for those of you who prefer to read and reflect.

This is a show about what actually keeps desire alive, which means it’s about much more than sex.

You can expect smart, evidence-based insights woven into the kinds of candid, slightly-too-honest conversations you’d have with your closest friend. There will be stories, expert guests, and practical scripts you can actually use to build confidence and deepen connection—in and out of bed.

I’ll also be answering your anonymous questions, which is what the podcast cover art alludes to. I’ll be sharing a link for that soon.

The first episode drops tomorrow! Yes, I know, it’s not a Thursday. A small behind-the-scenes glitch pushed us back by a day. But in a way, it felt fitting and I decided to take this opportunity to write to you today.

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.

Shop Intimacy Card Deck

1. Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. One private hour, and you leave with a clear plan for what to do next.

Book a Session with me

Thank you for reading Lust in Translation. If you think anyone else would enjoy reading this too, please share it with them.

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Chances are, you’ve never heard of Shere Hite. I hadn’t, until six months ago.

Somehow, across my studies and readings as a sexologist, Shere’s name never came up.

It wasn’t until watching Fifty Shades of Grey last October that I fell into a Dakota Johnson rabbit hole and learned she had produced and narrated a documentary called The Disappearance of Shere Hite.

A whole documentary about one of the bestselling sexologists of all time whose forgotten name is, unfortunately, no accident.

So it feels right that on International Women’s Day, I share the story of a woman who changed how we understand female pleasure—and then slid out of the public eye.

This is a story about sex research, yes.

But it’s also a story about what happens to women who insist that their experience counts as evidence.

From Missouri to Manhattan

Born Shirley Diana Gregory in 1942, in St. Joseph, Missouri, she grew up in the American Bible Belt, raised by her grandparents after her mother had her at sixteen.

She earned a bachelor’s and master’s in history at the University of Florida before moving to New York City for graduate work at Columbia University.

To pay for her education, she modeled. Sometimes for book illustrations, sometimes for magazines, and—famously—for an Olivetti typewriter ad with the tagline, “The typewriter is so smart, she doesn’t have to be.”

When she found out about the tagline after she’d already shot the ad, she was enraged.

Shere joined feminists from the National Organization for Women (NOW) to protest, and that act became a hinge in her life: the woman used as a prop in a sexist ad crosses the picket line and becomes part of the movement to dismantle it.

From there, she moved deeper into women’s liberation work and, eventually, into sex research.

In the early 1970s, there were already big names in sex research: Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, all mostly focused on bodies as observed from the outside, in labs, through the lens of penetrative sex.

But at a NOW meeting, a conversation about female orgasm exposed something glaring: we had almost no data on women’s own experiences of pleasure in their own words.

Hite’s response was simple, yet subversive.

She took her graduate research training and wrote a long, open‑ended questionnaire—over sixty questions—and started handing it out to women, asking them to describe, in detail, how they felt about sex, orgasm, masturbation, relationships, and their bodies.

At first she distributed the surveys by hand around New York City, even enlisting her boyfriend and his motorcycle to ferry questionnaires around the boroughs.

She published an earlier book, Sexual Honesty, by Women, for Women, and used it to reach more respondents, then advertised nationally and invited women to mail their responses back.

Printing these surveys was not easy.

Shere found a publishing company that allowed her to print after hours, on her own dime. She wanted women to feel like they were writing in a diary, so she added colors and design elements to make it warm and inviting.

Out of roughly 100,000 questionnaires, about 3,000 came back in enough detail to analyze.

In 1976 she published The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality.

The book became an immediate bestseller, and remains so, with over 50 million copies sold worldwide.

The headline that made her famous—and infamous—was that about 70% of women in her study did not have orgasms from intercourse alone, but were able to orgasm easily via masturbation or other direct clitoral stimulation.

In other words: the problem is not women’s bodies.
The problem is what we’re calling “sex.”

Women at the time felt seen, reassured, even vindicated.
Men felt mocked or threatened. Playboy dubbed it “The Hate Report.”

Reading Hite now, it’s striking how obvious this sounds.

But nothing about it was obvious in 1976, when Freud’s old binary—”vaginal” orgasm as mature, “clitoral” as childish—still haunted women’s understanding of how they “should” experience pleasure.

Here’s the part of the story that becomes uncomfortably familiar.

Hite’s work was attacked from multiple angles.
Methodologists criticized her sampling and statistics, arguing that self‑selected respondents could not stand in for “American women,” making the data suspect.

Media figures mocked her as hysterical, man‑hating, unscientific.

Television appearances became gauntlets.

In one clip in the documentary, she sits on The Oprah Winfrey Show facing an all‑male audience that openly berates her.

On another program, she’s ridiculed and interrupted as she tries to explain her findings.

At the exact moment when she had given millions of women a language for their pleasure, she was being publicly punished for her audacity.

The criticism wasn’t just, “We have questions about your methods.”
It was: Who do you think you are?

Her past as a model who posed nude was dredged up and used to discredit her.

Over time, the attacks escalated into a decade of sustained assault on her and her work.

She became the scapegoat for anxieties about porn, feminism, divorce, changing gender roles—everything that made people uneasy about the sexual revolution.

Double standards

As Hite’s critics loved to frame her as unscientific, they held up Masters and Johnson as the gold standard in contrast.

The irony? Masters and Johnson’s landmark 1966 study was based on lab observations of 694 volunteers—much smaller than her sample of 3,000, which proved to be more representative of American society at the time.

And while Masters and Johnson did conclude—crucially, against Freud—that there is no physiological difference between a “vaginal” and a “clitoral” orgasm, they also noted that internal clitoral structures extend beneath the labia, meaning penetration could stimulate the clitoris indirectly from the inside.

The broader culture absorbed this as “penetration works,” conveniently glossing over the word clitoris.

Hite, by contrast, was relentless about what that actually meant for women’s lived experience: if most of you aren’t orgasming from penetration alone, then penetration-centered sex is not serving women.

But before the backlash, there was a spectacular rise.

The Hite Report made her rich. She moved from her cockroach-infested apartment, repaying everyone who had helped fund the research, and landed on Fifth Avenue—the same building Gene Simmons called home.

She also used the funds to continue investing in her research, committed to self-funding her work on her own terms, beholden to no institution that might redirect what she could ask or say.

Public crucifixion

And it didn’t stop with the first Hite Report.

In 1981, Hite published The Hite Report on Male Sexuality, and again she did what she always did: she asked men, in their own words, to describe their emotional and sexual lives.

More than 7,000 responded to the survey, reporting not feeling safe being emotionally vulnerable, craving more emotional support from their relationships, and experiencing loneliness within their own masculinity.

We know today that these are very real consequences of socialized masculinity—the research on male emotional suppression, the mental health crisis among men who can’t ask for help—it’s one of the most important conversations in psychology right now.

But in 1981, when male TV hosts interviewed Hite about it, they didn’t say, “Wow, that’s concerning.” They said, “The men in this book don’t sound like men I know.” And with that, they discredited both her and the men who had trusted her enough to tell the truth about their inner lives.

Shere Hite couldn’t win either way.

We love the language of empowerment; we’re less comfortable with the women who actually do the empowering.

Exile

Eventually, the pressure and death threats became unbearable.

In 1989, Hite moved to Germany with her husband, Friedrich Höricke, a concert pianist nineteen years her junior.

From there, she continued to write and publish—eventually on families and even her own memoir, The Hite Report on Hite: A Sexual and Political Autobiography.

But from the American mainstream perspective, she essentially vanished.
Her name receded, even as her ideas seeped into sex education, therapy, and the way we talk in bed.

She died in London in 2020, at 77, having lived for years with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

I feel a very particular tenderness towards Shere.

Like her, I came to this work through New York City. I also studied at Columbia University, and have had a sharp taste of what happens when you say something true and inconvenient about women’s pleasure out loud.

When my piece on “The Burden of Maintenance Sex” went viral, the responses that came in weren’t just disagreement—they were personal, corrosive attacks designed to make you wonder whether it’s worth continuing. She received that a thousandfold, for decades.

So on International Women’s Day, I want to remember Shere for the pioneer she was—and for paving the way for women like me to do the work I love today.

She won’t be the last woman in this series whose name you should know, but she’s the right one to start with.

If you’re curious about learning more, I invite you to watch her documentary The Disappearance of Shere Hite. It’s so well-done and what I’ve shared here is just a glimpse of her story.

And order The Hite Report or any of her other books. She poured her heart into them.

Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:

1. Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.

Shop Intimacy Card Deck

2. Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. One private hour, and you leave with a clear plan for what to do next.

Book a Session with me

Thank you for reading Lust in Translation. If you think anyone else would enjoy reading this too, please share it with them.

Share

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We’ve barely recovered from the holiday hangover, and Valentine’s Day is already two weeks away.

In this economy no one is exactly jumping at the thought of spending more money again, so I created this gift guide for those who want to give something thoughtful within their budget.

I’ve rounded up 14 gifts I genuinely use and love—things that actually enhance intimacy, relaxation, and pleasure—organized from wallet-friendly to splurge-worthy.

1. Momotaro Apotheca Organic Botanical Bath Soak, $28

Last weekend, my husband and I turned date night into a bath ritual. We lit candles, played Miles Davis, served ourselves some Cabernet, and dissolved this soak into hot water. Thirty minutes of pure relaxation thanks to mineral-rich magnesium salts, nourishing jojoba oil, and tea tree. It melts tension, softens skin, and is handcrafted in small batches in the US. Pairs beautifully with their Tonic Oil for post-bath glow.

2. Helen Phelan Studio Online Pilates, $29.99/month

It’s no secret that feeling good in your body builds sexual confidence and stamina. On days we skip the gym, my husband and I roll out our mats for Helen Phelan’s online pilates. Classes run 15-50 minutes, suit all levels, and require nothing but a mat. It’s challenging enough to make you feel accomplished but won’t leave you too exhausted for bedroom adventures later. Use code NATASSIA4945 at checkout to get $10 off your first month.

3. Epiphany Clit Serum, $34

This is a must-have that my friends and I carry in our purses at all times. One drop massaged onto your (or your partner’s) pleasure zone creates a tingling sensation that amplifies everything, especially orgasms.

4. The Boudoir Bible: The Uninhibited Sex Guide for Today, $35

Bondage? Role-playing? Anal? It’s all here in The Boudoir Bible, illustrated by artist François Berthoud. A comprehensive, gorgeous guide that gives sexuality in the 21st century the sophisticated treatment it deserves.

5. Wonderlust Intimacy Card Deck, $36

Turn each other on, one card at a time. Couples call it date night with happy endings for a reason. There are two levels of 69 cards each (yes, that’s intentional), building from romantic to seriously spicy, featuring stunning erotic art by Brazilian artist Nathalie Edenburg. Full disclosure: I created this deck, but the 5-star reviews speak for themselves. It’s the kind of gift you’ll reach for again and again.

6. Kate McLeod Sex Stone, $48

This massage and intimacy oil shaped like an actual stone is genius—it glides on skin like silk, enhancing touch and pleasure. I’ve already reordered mine (it comes in a reusable bamboo canister, which I love). Pro tip: it doubles as full-body moisturizer, but since it’s oil-based, skip it if you’re using latex condoms or silicone toys.

7. Alex Mill Cashmere Socks, $50

You’ve probably heard that wearing socks increases orgasm chances by 30%. The truth? That study happened in a freezing lab—and being cold is incredibly distracting. So no wonder I’m a winter sex-with-socks evangelist. These Alex Mill cashmere socks are genderless (my husband and I have matching sets), impossibly soft, and the ultimate cozy-sexy accessory.

8. Maude Come Undone Kit, $60

Maude partnered with Wuthering Heights (premiering February 13!) for this limited-edition kit. Inside there’s a Burn No. 3 massage candle and Oil No. 2 for bath and body—the ultimate combo for slow-burn desire and exploration (very on-brand for Brontë). It includes an exclusive poster and behind-the-scenes booklet for my film nerds.

9. Diptyque Baies Candle, $120

I was gifted this at a Secret Santa ten years ago and became instantly obsessed. It’s a cult favorite for a reason: clean musk with woody undertones creates a masculine-leaning scent that sets the mood without being cloying. The kind of candle that makes your space feel instantly more sophisticated.

10. Cere Pleasure Duo, $172

If you’re ready to level up, this is the move. This bundle pairs Cere’s award-winning Enchantment Gel with the Spellbound Stimulator—14 modes of air-wave and vibration designed to work in tandem. What I love about the dual stimulation is how versatile it is: you can explore your partner’s body in multiple ways, or use both sensations on yourself. I’m a fan of building arousal with the vibration first, then bringing in the suction for a more intense finish. It’s thoughtfully designed and worth every penny.

11. Magic Wand Waterproof Rechargeable Massager, $179.99

The Magic Wand is legendary for a reason—it’s the gold standard of powerful, reliable pleasure. This waterproof rechargeable version means you can take it into the bath or shower (game changer), and the intensity is unmatched. Whether you’re using it solo or with a partner, this is the kind of tool that becomes a staple.

12. The Ultimate Lovers Art Kit, $189.99

This is for couples who want to get messy in the best way. The Lovers Art Kit turns intimacy into abstract art—literally. You use your bodies, movement, and a whole lot of paint (12 extra colors included) to create something completely unique. It comes with stretcher bars so you can actually display your work of art. No skills required, just a sense of play and willingness to let go. Perfect for adventurous couples or anyone looking to try something totally different.

13. The Prim Sex Pillow, $195

Wedge pillows get recommended constantly by pelvic floor physical therapists and sexologists for good reason: they alleviate back and hip pain during sex while improving angles and pleasure. The problem? They’re usually ugly foam bricks you hide in the closet. The Prim solves this. It’s made with memory foam and custom washable linen, with a patented design that actually looks like a gorgeous throw pillow that belongs on your bed. Function meets form, finally.

14. Fleur du Mal Rouge Luxe Gift Set, $268

Wearing lingerie is one of my favorite ways to tap into my sensuality. My husband knows this, which is why silk sets like this are his go-to gift. This one from Fleur du Mal includes a Flutter Thong with a high-leg cut, a Luxe Triangle Bra, and a matching silk blindfold—all in rouge silk charmeuse. The ruffle detailing is delicate without being overly sweet, and the minimal silhouette feels effortlessly sexy. It’s the kind of piece that makes you both feel seen.

This guide is meant to be short and sweet, but if you’re looking for something that’s not listed, drop a comment or hit reply. I love helping people find the perfect gift!

And if you try any of these, please report back. I’m always curious what resonates.

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P.S. In case you missed it, last week’s post has been getting a lot of love: