Sex Ed For You

“The therapeutic value of friendship must be emphasized…”

I kept thinking of this quote by Robert Firestone while I was in Europe. My loves, I deeply believe that friendships are one of the most overlooked relational teachers we have.

Most of us did not grow up with healthy models of romantic love. We inherited fusion, shame, over-functioning, mind-reading, projecting, and the pressure to perform closeness rather than actually experience it. We pieced together our ideas about s*x and romance from movies, sitcoms, p**n, and other cultural narratives.

But I’ve discovered that FRIENDSHIPS can be our greatest teachers and I got to experience the magic firsthand on my recent trip to Europe.

Healthy friendships teach us how to remain connected without possession. How to tolerate our differences. How to repair. How to hear “no” without collapsing. How to maintain individuality while still staying emotionally available.

I can hear you saying, “but Lauren, why are friendships good for our s*x lives!?!?”

David Schnarch wrote that “s*xual desire is fueled by individuality, not by fusion.” In other words, eroticism deepens when we can remain ourselves in the presence of another person. (And chances are - you do a better job of this in friendships then in your romantic relationships…)

The more self-defined we become, the more capable we are of bringing our real wants into the room. (Kinky, vanilla, tender, or wild!)

Friendship is a practice ground for differentiation.

Intimacy is not built through perfect harmony. It’s built through the capacity to stay present when vulnerabilities, differences, uncertainties, and true desires emerge.

And last, but not least, the incomparable bell hooks says that, “ rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation.“ Friendships teach us that we can continue to evolve inside of a relational container! That we can experience pleasure even while we are still messy!

Tag a friend who’s good for your s*x life!

2016 didn’t look dramatic from the outside.
There was no announcement. No leaving. No rupture.
Just a girl quietly gathering herself.

This was the year of micro-awakenings.
The year my nervous system started noticing what felt alive and what felt dead.
The year I tasted agency before I knew what to do with it.
The year I learned that wanting wasn’t dangerous. It was informative.

In the Stages of Change, 2016 wasn’t action. It was contemplation and preparation.
It was my body learning the truth before my mind could tolerate it.

So when everything did explode at the end of 2017, when I finally asked my husband to move out, it wasn’t sudden.

It was preceded by a thousand quiet moments of becoming.

I couldn’t have survived the rupture without the year before.
And I couldn’t be who I am now, a s*xuality educator and relationship coach who is deeply alive and thriving, without honoring that invisible season.

If you’re in a year that feels confusing, restrained, or not enough, please know this:

Nothing is wasted.
The roots are growing.
The year before matters.

Two years ago, our vacation went completely wrong.

We were supposed to be relaxing and reconnecting but found ourselves wounding one another again and again. Our relationship had hit a developmental milestone and we needed new tools.

That trip was a turning point. Instead of assuming connection would “just happen” on vacation, we started creating it on purpose.

This game - The Partnership Game - (our version of the newlywed game) is one of the tools we utilized on our “repair trip” last year. It centered our time, helped us laugh, reminded us why we choose each other every day, and sparked spicy memories from long ago. We couldn’t wait to play again this year.

🔗 If you want the full story of the vacation that “went wrong” and how we rebuilt from it, comment “MORE” below and I’ll send you the episode link where we unpack it in real time.

And if you’re reading this thinking, “I need tools like this that are made for us, my relationship, and my season of life…” That’s exactly what I do in private coaching sessions with my individuals and couples. No cookie cutter advice. I build personalized intimacy tools, scripts, rituals, and games that actually work for you. DM me “CONSULT” if you’re ready to work towards this level of partnership in your own life.

Connection doesn’t just happen, my loves. It’s created and nurtured.

🛟 Save this for your next date night or vacation!

I’ve just returned from Barcelona, and I can’t stop thinking about the ways great travel and great s*x mirror each other.

Both invite us into the unknown. Both awaken our senses. Both return us home changed.

Swipe through to see how travel can nurture eroticism and why stepping into new experiences might can your pleasure, confidence, and self-trust.

💾 Save this for your next adventure.

🔁 Share it with someone who loves both travel and pleasure.

Today is my 40th Birthday.

I took myself to Barcelona with the intent to contemplate on what I’ve learned over the last 40 years and where I want to go next. But all I’ve wanted was to be present.

So I have been.

My life looked nothing like this at 30. Over the past 10 years, I have deconstructed and reconstructed my life from scratch. I have learned that I can be happy on the floor of a basement apartment with a dead rat in the wall. I’ve learned that I must be the first, best, and last lover to myself. I have learned that it is good to want. And I’ve learned that it is not my work that determines my worth.

It was personally important to me to come to a country where no one knew me. Where I could build relationships purely based upon connection, truth, and presence - not work or accomplishments.

Barcelona delivered. Over the past nine days, I have met the most incredible souls. I have had the most stimulating conversations, and been romanced by humanity.

I am thankful for this beautifully messy life I have lived. I’m thankful for all of the lessons that at times have been hard to swallow. I am thankful for the mistakes I have made, the bridges I have burned, the relationships that will never be restored, and the dreams I will not fulfill in this lifetime.

I am ready. I am ready to receive every drop of goodness this next decade has for me. I am ready to stand in my integrity and in my wanting. I am ready to flourish. I am ready to amaze myself into the world.

Let’s go.

“What happens when your s*xuality is built on shame and secrecy?”

So much of what I was taught about s*x in religion wasn’t really about love or intimacy - it was about control.

That suppression can create a secret world where deceit feels erotic, where “being bad” is hypers*xualized, and where the “naughtiness factor” is the only path to pleasure.

In this conversation with Annette, I share how survivors of and can use kink not as something “taboo,” but as a conscious, healing practice. Kink can become a playground for renegotiating trauma, reclaiming agency, rewriting the scripts we were given, and finding joy in our bodies again.

These clips are just a glimpse into the freedom that comes when we stop letting shame tell our story. Watch or listen to the entire TALK S*X WITH ANNETTE episode on YouTube or Spotify. (Link in highlights.)

👉 Does any of this resonate with your own journey?