Don't Spank Me - Sexology & Erotic Wholeness with Darshana Avila - Queer Women Rising® with Sophia Spallino | Finding Lesbian Love and Dodging Dating Drama

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Well, hello, Welcome back to Queer Moon Rising.
I'm your lesbian host, Sofia Espino.
I'm so glad you're here. And if you've never listened to
the show before, you should knowwe phone lesbian friends here or
queer friends here and talk about queer love, how to dodge
dating drama, embrace peaceful connections we all deserve, and
talk about all things queer dating.

(00:22):
So that's, that's what you're infor.
Today's gonna be a treat. The guest that I'm about to have
on literally her work is illegalin every state but California.
I was researching her. I'm like, Oh my God, this is
scandalous. Anyway, before we get into the
show, what I've been up to lately, my lower back went out.

(00:45):
I'm not sure if it's from too much sex or if it's from too
much Pilates. I went to a chiropractor today.
Shout out to Miss Michelle Carr,who's in my hometown.
I love her. She is a proud Mama of someone
very special in the queer community here, and she's an
incredible chiropractor. So she took care of me this

(01:08):
morning, and I was really happy to do that because I've been
very nervous. Like I feel like at 33, I
shouldn't get out of bed and feel like an old person.
But literally I couldn't even handle doing like, what is it
like? What's the yoga pose?
Warrior 2 like that hurt me the other day.
And I'm like, what are this? This is not normal.

(01:30):
And then on the last retreat, myluxury lesbian retreats, the
Canyon Ranch, shout out to the women who come with me on those.
They are so fun, so transformational.
You might meet your future wife.You'll for sure meet your soul
sisters. The last one I got off the plane
and I couldn't move. It was really scary for me
because I'm very passionate about hosting these and to get

(01:54):
off the plane and like literallynot be able to move, I had to
like the day before people got there, I was just pumping some
Celebrex and all the natural remedies and then went to get a
massage at Canyon Ranch. And then I was fine the next day
when everyone got there. But it was really scary for me
and I was like, OK, I can't keepputting off taking care of
whatever's going on in my lower back.

(02:17):
So yeah, went to the chiropractor today and I'm
feeling really good. I know people have like mixed
feelings about chiropractors, but I felt really comfortable
with Miss Michelle and she talked me through everything.
And I don't know, as a woman, I feel like we're not really
holistically seen. Like I've worked with a

(02:38):
nutritionist who's also my friend.
Shout out to Stephanie Mercurio,she's helped me get a lot of
answers and reduce lupus symptoms greatly.
But aside from her and Doctor Michelle, I feel like our
medical system in general in theUSA is pretty fidacled and women
in particular. Like the other day when I went

(02:58):
in for urgent care visits I had bronchitis.
The male doctor literally like laughed at me and made me feel
like I was being overdramatic even though I literally had put
like a all natural remedy that Igot from target up my nose.

(03:18):
Like it was like AQ tip type thing.
It was called zycam. Anyway, they were recalled
because of literal mold found init.
And I got an e-mail from Target and brought this to him and was
like, I had bronchitis. I'm really worried.
I'm worried about like this recall.
And I just put this up my nose, not these symptoms.
And he like laughed at me. I was like, I've literally been

(03:40):
living with a migraine for a day.
And he laughed at me. And like, I'm just tired of
that. I'm tired of men minimizing
women in every area of life, butespecially with our healthcare.
So anyway, I had a good experience this morning and I'm
still like kind of floating fromthat.
Isn't it funny, like how we can just be happy to be seen to be

(04:00):
treated well as women? Anyway, let me get into telling
you about the guests today because it's going to be a juicy
show. She's someone you might
recognize from Netflix, Sex, love and goop.
Oh yeah, she's that girl. But it's just the beginning of
her story. Back in 2015, Darshana Avila was
in a marriage and career, but nolonger fit.

(04:23):
I think we've all been there as late in life.
Lesbians. Like when something doesn't fit
anymore, we just leave. She walked away from both.
Now she's an internationally celebrated speaker and erotic
wholeness guide helping crew women and AFA BS come back home
to their bodies and their truth.Her work is trauma informed,
pleasure centric, and radically real.

(04:44):
If you've seen Goopy, no. It's such a good episode.
We're diving into healing after heartbreak, pleasure beyond
performance, and what it means to fully belong to yourself
again. Welcome to the show, Darshana.
I am so happy to be here, Sophia.
I'm so happy I always start withthe question.
I put the L in LGBTQ. What's your letter of the

(05:07):
alphabet soup? I put the Q in LGBTQ and very,
very clear. And like, when did you realize
this about yourself? So different answer is when I
started acting queer to when I realized that that label applied
to me because queer has been my whole lived experience.

(05:28):
My my formative sexual experiences were all same sex
experience. I was precocious.
I was a horny little thing. Like I was like like this is
fun. Like this feels good sneaking
around doing all sorts of things.
And it never actually occurred to me when I was young because

(05:49):
the only other, the significant LGBTQ role model in my life was
my aunt, who was a very, very dykey Butch lesbian.
And I wasn't that. And I didn't yet know about the
whole like spectrum of possibilities.
So I'm like, OK, well, I like guys, I like girls.
I, I like the things that feel good in my body.

(06:11):
So I'll just be me. And it really wasn't until
further into my adulthood, I think part of the cultural
zeitgeist were still in, of embracing queerness and, and a
more expansive understanding. Like it's in my my adult years
that really I'm like, Oh yes, queer that that is the word for
me. So that's.

(06:31):
The you got to grow up like being with girls, like that was
your first. I'm so jealous, honestly.
Is it, is it what they say as a sexologist that like women know
women's bodies better because lesbians, we tend to just go
with that? Or is that just like something

(06:52):
we say because, you know, we're proud lesbians?
I've seen it both ways. I mean, from my lived
experiences, I would say it's it, it comes down to confidence,
right? So one thing is what we know and
the other is how we feel about it.
And I think a lot of people particularly like more in my
experience, bisexual women, queer women who maybe have had

(07:16):
more experiences with men or with people of their opposite
sex don't necessarily feel the confidence to lean into what
they know about a few male body.And so that's the gap comes in.
But yeah, if we're paying attention to our bodies and
we're actually using what we know feels good to us and what
we like as like a jumping off point when we're connecting with

(07:39):
somebody else, then theoretically at least you've
got everything you need right here inside of you, you know, a.
100% And what's kind of funny tome is I grew up really religious
and I never really got into pornand I still have like, I guess
just like a little ick about it because of that religious
trauma. And so when I had my first time

(08:01):
with a woman, I really didn't know what it was supposed to
look like. I had only watched one piece of
porn to give myself an idea and then felt really weird about it.
But when I tell you I knew exactly what to do, like there
was no question. And I didn't even really
masturbate a lot either. So I feel like I just knew and
like I, I wonder where that comes from.

(08:24):
If, if you don't see it or you've never done it.
Yeah. I mean, and I, you're pointing
to the difference, I think between nature and nurture,
right? Like something in your nature
was like, I know what to do here.
This is the, this is resonant for me.
And even if the nurture wasn't there, nature takes over and it

(08:44):
could go in both directions. But that's, that's a beautiful
thing. I know in my early days it all
felt so like there, there was just so much innocence to it.
Different how it felt like youngme who connected with boys,
young me connecting with girls. There was at like it was a
qualitative difference. Never mind the physical

(09:05):
differences of like we, we were more playful and experimental
and there was like a sweetness alongside of the hotness that
just was like, this feels so natural.
It's like it's in my nature and that's a really delicious thing
to get to play inside of. 100% why I love women so much.

(09:27):
And just so you know my background, I first came out as
bike cuz for me as a lesbian in the South, it felt like a little
safer to not give my parents like no hope that I wouldn't end
up with a man. So there is that.
But as a queer woman who's been with both and I know you were
married, I know you made these big life changes.

(09:48):
Were you married to a man or a woman?
I was married to a man. I was monogamous.
It did like that was actually the least queer chapter of my
life because my ex-husband was incredibly straight in every
regard, not just sexually speaking like I was the more I

(10:09):
was the wild one, I was the experimental one, I was the
passionate 1. I had had a lot more sex than he
had when we first got together and I wanted more things during
our sexuality. But for those six years that was
all I was doing. And so it was like the
straightest chapter of my life. Yeah, it sounds like almost like

(10:29):
the. Whole place in my 20s, so that
was quite a while ago. So you got married young then?
I did my, my, I, I was living abroad.
I had done a study abroad program that turned into me
creating home and life for myself in Chile.
And I had gone there to learn how to speak Spanish.
And little did I know that I would like start a career path

(10:51):
and, and meet my husband and like total departure from the
life I thought I was going to live in certain regards.
But then I ended up in this likevery, very, like we were little
adults. I was 22 when we got married,
which I think about that now I'm44.
So that was half of my lifetime ago.
And it was puppy love. We were smitten with each other.

(11:12):
But then it was didn't take longto realize like, wow, we're,
we're very different and we wantvery different things and we do
life in very different ways. And my sexuality in every facet
is a huge part of that difference, right?
So not, I don't think anyone's necessarily surprised that I've
ended up where I've ended up. I just took a very circuitous

(11:33):
route to get here. Yes, as we do, as we do.
So many of the women I work withare actually like in their 40s,
in their 50s. Like, that's the women who are
like, OK, I've done all these things.
Now it's like time to make the change in my life for me.
But like, when you were younger,I mean, still, you're still

(11:54):
young. Even if you were together for
six years, Like, what was that breaking point where you're
like, this is not an alignment for me.
And like, how did you get brave enough to leave?
I, I give, I got to actually give him the credit.
He was the one who who finally called it like I in my
stubbornness. Oh, and I am stubborn.
Like I'm like, OK, well, I'm in this.

(12:15):
So I've got to figure out a way to stay in this.
I mean, again, things I would never ever say now or do now or,
or advocate for my clients now. But me in my 20s, like I was
like, well, this is hard and it's certainly not hitting all
the high notes, but here we are.And it really was actually, you

(12:37):
know, it's it's part and parcel with the story of how I got to
be doing the work that I do, which is while inside of my
marriage in my 20s is when I hada really profound spiritual
awakening. And yoga was a huge part of my
life. And I'm not just talking about
like, you know, go take an asanaclass at the corner studio.
I was at ashrams, I was in India, I was at like deep in

(13:00):
the, the esoteric study. It was, it was shifting how I
lived my life and saw my world. And he saw that happening and
was deeply supportive of me and also super clear that that
wasn't his path. And me being who I am, I
wouldn't be satisfied in partnership with someone where

(13:21):
that wasn't common ground for us.
So I give him the credit. It was messy as fuck initially.
This, this conversation where I where he shared with me what I
just shared with you happened three years after our divorce.
Like it took us that long to actually be able to have a like
a really heart centered, like open, honest.

(13:43):
Like this is what was real at the time that I couldn't say to
you then. And so my spiritual path and my
sexuality are the things that have been my guiding forces and
my biggest influences and still are.
It's, it's you know, what I'm known for.
The the body of work that I've built still really rests on

(14:03):
those two pillars in so many ways.
And yeah, here we are. It's beautiful that you've been
able to take such a different path.
And I relate to that because of my life before I was married to
a man too, in my early 20s, and just he saw me go to a Unity

(14:23):
Church and was like, that's not going to be my path.
And we're really Christian. And it didn't end up well.
But yeah, it's really interesting how those men can
have been so important to propelus onto the path and then
somehow, like, not even a thought.

(14:44):
Now, I don't know about you, butlike, don't you feel like it was
a different life? Like, you know, even anger, just
like peace be with you. In, in every regard, I mean,
including the fact that, you know, we no children, we, we
divvied up the shared property like it was an easy divorce as
far as divorces go. And yet we maintained a

(15:05):
relationship for quite a while after, like being able to have
that conversation I mentioned. And then like the I was still in
East Coast coaster then and thenwhen I, I've been a West Coast
girl for 11 years now and I havejust only gotten further and
further and further, not just geographically, but but like in

(15:25):
every facet of my being in the way that I walk in this world.
And so it's true. It's like we're not really in
touch now. And, and, and, and, and once in
a while I think about him and mostly it's very fond.
It's like, wow, little me and little him we, we had so many
beautiful formative experiences together and holy moly, do we

(15:45):
want different things in this life and beyond.
Want we're here for different things, you know, like and
they're so this is there's no coincidence for me.
I get that it's not everybody's path to create a body of work
out of what their their passion is, what their soul is about.
It's glamorous and and romantic to say that, but that's not how

(16:07):
everybody is doing life. And that's fine.
You know, you can you can channel that into so many
regards. I don't have an option.
Like this is what this creature came into this life to do.
So it's like for me to do anything else, I would not be
living my truth. I would not be actualizing my
full potential. And if I had stayed in that

(16:29):
marriage, this life would not bepossible.
I totally feel you and having the courage to leave something
like good or average for great and like women hearing that can
be like all the difference. Huge.
Huge. So you're not only done this in
your marriage, you've done this with your career.

(16:49):
What did you do before you before we even get into what you
do now? Because that's going to be like
an interesting conversation. What were you doing?
I've. Ever said this on a public
platform before? I mean, there's no shame in it.
It's like if you go on to my LinkedIn, like you can look far
enough back in my history and like find it all out.
There's nothing secretive. But I worked for Equifax.

(17:13):
Y'all what the credit? That's wild, I know.
People are like wait, huh? Make that make sense.
It's worth mentioning I have a different name.
Darshana is a given name by one of my spiritual teachers that I
received at the point of transition when I have stepped

(17:36):
out of my corporate career that much like my marriage was good.
It was good. I made good money, I had good
benefits. I worked from home way before it
was cool. That career is what let me in
monetarily pour into my spiritual explorations to travel
like and it was soulless. It was soulless, you know, like,

(17:59):
and, and I, it was a waste of mytalent.
And when I gave notice my, my supervisor at the time, my
manager like, was pretty taken aback by it and, and was like,
can we get you to stay on like part time?
I was great at my job, you know,like they're like, would you
stay part time? And I'm like, look, let me be
honest with you. I work part time hours as it is,

(18:20):
like, you know, like because I've managed to be good at my
job without breaking my back andI'm clear that I need to leave,
you know, like that, that conversation was a little
delicate, but you know, like a boss doesn't love hearing that
one of their top performers is actually only working like 2538
hours a week, you know, like, but again, it's like there are

(18:43):
things that were made to do and that was not it for me.
It was a stepping stone. And bless the ignorance that I
had, bless the naivete that I had to leap.
Like, because some of it was in there.
Like there's also a part of me that is I'm brave.
It's real. You know, like I'm not saying
that as like, like it's real. Like I will do crazy things and

(19:07):
then think about them later. Like that's how this make up is.
And that's one of the biggest examples.
You know, where I was like it was, it was a full moon.
I was out in the middle of the night underneath the the open
sky. And I'm like, I am in ceremony,
like channelling in the clarity that I'm like, this is done, you
know, full moon is a completion of a cycle.

(19:29):
I'm like, this career is done. This, this version of my life is
done. I don't totally know what's
coming next. Worth mentioning, never intended
to work in the air in in the sexindustry.
That wasn't what I set out to do.
But when you say yes to life andyou let life have its way with
you, you never know, right? You never know.

(19:53):
Yeah, I definitely didn't intendto be in this world either.
I it this all started with like a sex podcast.
And I am like I've had the leastamount of sex.
So, yeah, hearing you go from like like being this desk job at
home sales girl to doing what you do, I, I sincerely relate
and like I got goosebumps when you said it was the full moon.

(20:14):
You just had that knowing look, there's so many times in our
lives where we have it. And the saddest part is not
everyone follows that A. Lot of us don't, you know, I
mean, and this is you're, you'releading into what is effectively
like the, the, the seed behind everything I do, which is our

(20:34):
dominant culture is 1 of disembodiment and
disempowerment. That's, that's the soup we are
cooking in, that's the water we are swimming in.
And that has us distrust our intuition that has us, you know,
get that tingle up our spine andthen be like, Nope, I'm just
going to keep playing it safe. And.

(20:55):
It's not to be dismissive of some people listening to this
might actually be in circumstances where their
privilege and their access is not the same as mine was.
I have no children. I had a 401K that I was stupid
or not down to take some money out of if I needed to, to float
myself. I had friends and family that
that I knew if push came to shove, I was never going to end

(21:18):
up on the street, right? I had all I was educated.
I had to credit doing for me that that I want to acknowledge
the privilege that I had that allowed me to make a leap like
that. And also it's this piece.
It's that I had enough faith in myself and in the universe to

(21:38):
trust my intuition. And it's a big deal because we
especially now, like in the moment this conversation is
happening, like it the the oppressiveness is so heavy.
It is so easy and compelling to to get swept up in distrust of
our body, believing that we thatwho and how we are is wrong.

(22:02):
So even a little step I took a giant leap that may not be your
thing. Whoever is listening and needs
to hear this. Even a little step in the
direction of what your intuitionknows, what your body knows.
Like we need that in the world. We do, and we need your work.
I I loved watching your episode on Goop.

(22:23):
I want to say I watched it like during like pandemic time.
Right after, yeah. Probably would have because the
show came out in late 2021. We filmed during the pandemic.
It was, I remember like to to goto Gwyneth Palcher's house for
the party and you had to do likeCOVID testing and like it was
back in that age. But yes, oh, what a time I

(22:48):
remember like all the tests where you'd like have to stand
in front of thermometers to go to restaurants and.
Stuff we did that, we totally, totally did that, right.
You're also, it's also wild how that feels like talk about other
lifetimes, like does it, it lands like that for me.
Does it feel like that's for you?
Yes, it does. It really does and it's it's
weird to think that kids like there's some formative memories

(23:10):
will be like those times becauseI'm like, what is that going to
do for you guys? But okay, the episode was
amazing, one of my favorites to watch.
And I started doing some research on you and I read that
your work is illegal in every state except California.
Is that true or was that just like a crazy article?

(23:30):
No, it's, it's not untrue, but it's also not entirely
representative. So what that is speaking to one
of the certifications I hold is that I'm a sexological body
worker. And that's, that's the very
exciting thing that I do that people are like, Oh my God, I,
I, when I, I was just at this amazing business conference last

(23:51):
week, like black million women LED like super queer inclusive,
like be yourself kind of place. So when I walk in and I
introduce myself to people, I'm like, I'm a professional pussy
stroker. What like how many people get to
say that? And it's as a sexological body
worker, I do hands on hands in work.

(24:12):
I work specifically with women and female bodied folks.
And so that licensure or that certification, because it's not
a license, that certification was like given some credibility
by the California Board of Education.
They, they, they, they blessed the training program.
So no other state has done that.And that's this whole idea of

(24:36):
like legal, illegal. The truth of the matter is that
there has been no legal action taken against a sexological body
worker in the existence of the modality.
And it was born out of the AIDS crisis in in the 80s to support
the gay male population. So sexological body work has
been around for quite a while atthis point.
No one has ever had legal actiontaken against them for doing

(24:59):
this work. We have a very clear code of
ethics that we follow. And also, yes, technically
speaking, it's against the law to take money in exchange for a
sexual act. So most states could look at
this and say, oh, this is a formof maybe prostitution.

(25:21):
But the difference of how we work and and listen, I'm very
pro sex work, very pro sex work.So none of this is to knock any
other form. I I the the issue is the the
politicizing of this. But I work is 1 directional many
other forms of sex work or not, which is to say that I don't

(25:43):
receive erotic energy or touch from my clients.
It's one directional from me to them.
So if you watch me work on sex, love and goop and it's 3
episodes that I've been, it's half the shelf.
But I got to work with this amazing lesbian couple, Camille
and Chandra, and you'll see me doing hands on hands in work

(26:05):
with each of them, but the entire time I'm clothed, I've
got gloves on my hands when I'm touching their genitals.
It's way more in the same way that you might go to any other
kind of body worker or healer. It's that same context and
framework as opposed to creatingan experience as if we were
intimate partners with each other, right?

(26:26):
There isn't, You know, it's likethis Gray area.
I would love to live in a world where this was as respected and
accepted a healing modality as any other and absolutely legal
in every state. And we're not there yet.
Like that's fast. So I'm curious for someone who
has not seen the show, can you walk us through what you call

(26:50):
the pussy stroking appointment? Like like do I do I come to you
if I'm having trouble with masturbation?
Like what would be your ideal clients problems that they could
be having? Yeah, so people seek me out for
a wide variety of reasons. So sexological body work is one
of the main pillars of of what Ido.
I'm also a trauma therapist and I have a lot of first array of

(27:15):
embodiment and and body based practices in my toolkit.
And so some people come to me because they have very overt
trauma that they are working through.
It might be abusive dynamics in their family of origin or in
romantic relationships or, or whatever the case may be.
And they're really looking to dosome deep body based healing

(27:36):
around the trauma. Then there is the, we can call
it the little T trauma that quite frankly, there's not a
single one of us who's not walking around with that.
And, and for instance, to use you as an example, just the
little pieces of information I know about you, Sophia.
It's like growing up with religious conservatism, knowing
that who you were understanding yourself to be was not accepted

(27:58):
and having to adapt and adjust yourself to try to fit a mold
that was not made for you. That's traumatic for most.
Being being spanked. There we go, like and pile on
top of that right and. Forced affection after being
spanked. Like I was forced to talk.
My parents, like most Christian kids, were forced to expose my

(28:21):
bottom. And sometimes you know more.
It it's it sits with me and I'm not OK sometimes.
Yeah, and that's real. So that that would be a very
compelling reason why someone would come to work with me.
Chandra, half of the couple who I worked with on the show came
from a very religious conservative background, was

(28:43):
effectively cut off from her family at the, you know, like
they, they were not OK with her gayness.
And so the way that manifested in her body is she could not be
penetrated her. She literally had such an
intense bracing pattern that herpelvis would go on lockdown even
with her beloved, right. So the work that we did was to

(29:07):
take a very intentional, deliberate, slow, trauma
informed approach to helping herbody release that pattern, that
protective pattern, and actuallybecome receptive to the the
stimulation and the connection and the intimacy that she wanted
now. So that's one side of the
spectrum. Her partner, now her wife, they,

(29:28):
they were engaged, then married.Now Camille was coming in with a
different set of circumstances. And so Camille was dealing with
what many of us do, which is performing sex as opposed to
truly experiencing it. Performing the role that as
girls and women, we all are acculturated with the

(29:49):
understanding that our value is in being an object of another
person's pleasure. Our responsibility is to preempt
and care for and go along with what our parents need, our male
partners need. So whatever way you identify
here and now, again, that's the cultural soup.
So we can't talk about this out of context, right?

(30:10):
Like, it's, it's fine and well to be like I'm a progressive
queer or lesbian now, but somewhere in your history,
chances are good you were being indoctrinated with messages that
said that's not an OK way to be.And an OK way to be was
pleasing. And when we're busy pleasing
others, we often know very little about what pleases us.

(30:32):
We don't feel empowered and using our voice in folding our
boundaries. We don't have clarity about what
we like. So even when a well intended
partner is like, hey, tell me what feels good to you, clamming
up is often the answer. Or I don't know, it's all OK to
me or whatever you like. And that's that does not fly.

(30:54):
So the work that I do, I mean, when I say I'm a professional
posty stroker, it is absolutely the truth.
What I want anybody who might becurious about working with me or
any version of this exploration goes, we do not start there.
That's the deep end of the pool,honey.
We, we started the shallow end. You know, we go gently and that
would. Make me so nervous because like

(31:16):
sex is something I only do with someone for like after like a
few months of being together so I'd be like scared to death
right? Yeah, and it makes so much sense
because what ioffer is outside of almost every box we know, but
we also know that boxes are verylimiting and made of straight
lines and and we may not want those.

(31:38):
So what what this is fundamentally about it is
helping you to feel safe in yourbody.
So we're attending to your nervous system.
We got to get you regular, I'm getting tongue tied.
We got to get you regulated before you can truly be
receptive. And you've got to be receptive
before you can get in touch with.

(32:00):
OK, I take this input in and then I get to discern, does this
feel good or not? Do I like it like this?
Do I like it like that? And start to allow your
experience to then inform you about maybe I'm into this thing,
maybe not that thing. And to feel empowered in your
voice to understand the dynamicsof how we create and continue to

(32:23):
create consensual relating. You know, these are things that
seriously, if every grade schooler was taught the kind of
things but I am teaching adults,we would be living in a
different world. And it's not rocket science,
right? So other than the fact that we
wouldn't want to overly sexualize, you know, an
elementary school child, that would be highly inappropriate.

(32:45):
Everything else that I'm doing is pretty much elementary school
level, by which I mean teaching people about their bodies and
about consent and about know as a complete sentence.
This is not highly advanced, butit is rare still, right.
So it's it's a profound experience and you know, Sophia,

(33:07):
what you said about how like youcould imagine feeling like
coming into the space that ioffer you and most people.
It's a nerve wracking thing as much as it's an exciting thing.
Those two experiences and we just turn to the body feel very
similar, right? The like the, the, the, you
might get a little buzz of energy, you might get heated.
You, you might feel like movement, right?

(33:29):
Like it's like, oh, I, I think Iwant this, but I'm maybe a
little scared of this. And so we work with that energy.
There's no resisting it. There's actually embracing it
and being really methodical in how we build trust.
And what I can tell you, and I mean it when I say without
exception, like it's, it's, it'sone of, it's the highest
compliment that I've have as, aslike a professional doing the

(33:52):
work that I do. Every single client is like, you
know, that was not as weird as Ithought it was going to be.
That was not as scary as I thought it was going to be.
You make it feel so safe, Darshana, that this is like, I
can't believe how comfortable this is.
No one's ever touched me and, and, and gone that slow or like

(34:12):
these are the things that are happening.
Like it's not all about the swinging from the chandeliers
experiences, even though some ofmy clients get to have those
too. Like we're very, very pro
pleasure here. But there's pleasure in slowing
down. There's pleasure in what happens
when you really feel listened to, not just this is not, I'm

(34:33):
not talking about the mind, I'm talking about your body, your
nervous system, your heart feelsthat the person you are with is
listening, sensing, attuning. Most of us have never had that,
you know, like the sex we're having as adults is not all that
much more sophisticated than ourteenage sex.

(34:54):
Generally speaking, most adults are overgrown adolescents.
And what we get to do then is but sure, we, we, we get to
really have a far more adult wayof being intimate, both intimate
with ourselves and then whomeverwe share, choose to share
ourselves with. So it's, it's quite a, a

(35:15):
different, you know, paradigm than most of what's being bought
and sold out there. That is wild.
Like thank you for sharing all the the ways that you help.
How long do you typically work with a client quiet like before
someone takes their clothes off?Yeah, Well, so a lot of people,

(35:36):
thank you, Goop. A lot of people come to work
with me from different places. So I've literally had people be
like, I'm flying from New Zealand to be with you for three
days. I'm like, cool.
I wouldn't choose that for myself, but if that's what your
schedule allows. So I work in a very immersive
format where it's about like creating a customized retreat
basically, whether it's for you as an individual or you

(35:59):
alongside your partner. And if that's the way that we're
working, we do some preparation on Zoom beforehand.
We have integration on the otherside and we're spending 3 or 4
full days together that are verymuch progressing through the arc
of what I, you know, gave you a little bit of a description of.
And I do occasionally. I, I'm, I'm in Oakland, CA, I'm

(36:21):
a Bay Area girl. So I do have some clients that
live locally and I I take on a small number of people who I
might work with over an arc of several months, months to
following the same progression but spaced out in a different
way. Particularly people who have
more complex trauma histories will find that more accessible

(36:43):
because there's a need for a different amount of integration
in between. So I, I make that available when
I'm able to. And, and, but where whatever the
case may be, if it's, if it's three months, three years, three
days that I spend with someone, because I also do it like I have
a lot of clients who kind of popback in, like we do a deep

(37:04):
diving piece and then six monthslater, a year later, it's like,
hey, here's this thing that's upwith it.
I'm ready to re engage. And so it's, it's really
continuing to support people as they are evolving, as they are,
are becoming no one. It's it's usually 234 sessions
in at least before clothes are coming off, you know?

(37:26):
It's incredible. Yeah, there's a lot of
foundation laying that happens, and that's what lets it feel
accessible and safe. And I'd imagine with what you
do, you must have like an extreme vetting system, yes.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's we're dating each other in a
certain regard. Like truly it's, it's a very

(37:47):
intimate relationship. And so I don't work with people
who I don't like and love straight up.
I mean, and I, I love that I also get to work in a profession
where I can absolutely say I love my clients, right.
Like I don't have to hate that. It's a very energetically clean
love, you know, like it's, it's not a reciprocal of romantic

(38:09):
love, but I I need to have my heart open to you to do this
kind of work. And you want that from me,
believe me. So, yeah, somebody fills out a
form and then they're talking tomy assistant and and then we get
on a phone call together if it feels like this could work.
And then we get on a Zoom like so, so there.
And this is not, this is a very intentional, not just for my

(38:32):
benefit, but for yours, because it's it's all progressive,
right? And so just like it would be
entirely overwhelming to think about walking in the door and
immediately like pulling off your clothing and then diving
into the deep end of this. Even the getting to know each
other and the relationship building like happens in a very
stair stepped way because it's just easier on our nervous

(38:54):
systems like that. Yeah, it's so intimate.
Like, I thought what I did was pretty intimate, meaning that
like I, I, I, I'm in the DMS every day with lesbians from
around the world. And then I do private coaching
or have the most successful lesbians come to me for
matchmaking and I get to know everything about them during

(39:15):
those intake moments. Very vulnerable things that
they're sharing from their past.And to be honest, Darshana, I
feel kind of stress when I startto engage in any sort of
romantic relationship, even whenit's the beginning, because
partners historically have gotten really weird and can be

(39:36):
jealous or just question me after I lead an event or a
coaching call and be like, oh, did you like her?
So I'm curious, I definitely don't think you expected this
question, but does that affect your personal relationships the
way that it does mine? Because you're literally having
to touch someone. No, but that also is because

(39:59):
honestly, OK, here's here's the real vulnerable talk.
I'm single. I'm like super single and I date
and I have lovers. Like that's how I keep my tank
filled. I have, you know, people that I
can that meet me in delicious sexual ways.
I have an incredible intimate friendship group like chosen
family. But when it comes to dating.

(40:22):
I'm not the easiest person in the world to date.
Not because what I do makes people jealous.
I mean, they barely even get to that point.
It's that my bar is high. Y'all Like this is, you know, I
am so devoted to dismantling thethe normative ways.
And I'm not just talking about heteronormative here.
I'm talking about the normative ways that we assume access to

(40:46):
another person's body and that we don't actually ever feel
permission and comfort and totalsafety to be clear about what we
like and do not like. Like so much gets gets glossed
over or speed through in dating.That is not my way.
And so that means that that I'm I'm very much like a needle in a

(41:08):
haystack. Girl, have you heard that dating
method like the burned haystack?I'm like, that's me.
I'm like burn that haystack downand looking for my needle like
so if you are not that I don't got time for you.
Yes that makes sense. That makes sense.
Also as a trauma informed therapist I'm sure you can spot
so many more red flags in a relationship and.

(41:30):
And don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean that I don't have
my own. Like, I want to humanize my
fault here. Like I've got my stuff.
Like I did not grow up in a perfect idyllic setting that
left me, you know, without my scars.
So I am both from a professionallens, like incredibly well
informed, while also personally being deeply devoted to my work.

(41:50):
I am a human being becoming, youknow, like, and, and it happens
that this is what I geek out on.And so yes, I am more informed
than most. And, and yeah, and I love to
share it, but I don't want to have to be my partner's coach.
You know, people pay me really good money for this babe like
you. You're like, what are you?
What are you putting into the pot?

(42:12):
So good, so good. What?
What would you say with the information you have?
With the fact that not only you've studied so much, but you
have so much experience with people, what are the red flags
to look out for when you're getting to know someone?
You're in those early stages andmaybe you're starting to get to
know each other sexually. Like maybe you start to cross

(42:34):
that line. What would be like the official
Darshner red flags? Well, I mean, I'll talk.
I can talk like from a very recent experience where I
started up a like, you know, dating like we, we've known each
other for a number of years, like it was kind of friends of
benefits E and the ratio of pleasure to processing was super

(42:58):
off from the get go. And I'm like, if you are not
able to do some baseline self regulation and recognize when
you're projecting onto me and expecting me to show up and
process every little thing. And this is a female bodied
person. And, and like the whole like
lesbian U-Haul thing, like we know how that goes right?

(43:18):
Where it's like, oh, like, like,boom.
Like we're, we're, we're in this.
And I'm like, yeah, well, maybe not like, like, can we back up a
little? And, and actually just because
when you know, if, if pleasure is a deposit into the account
and processing could be seen as a withdrawal.
I'm not trying to knock processing.

(43:39):
I'm not trying to say do not bring your feelings to the
person you're involved with. However if you're somebody, for
instance, who has a very anxiousattachment system and you go
into projecting a lot of that anxiety on someone that you've
barely begun to connect with. And I have been this person.
Okay, So this is not like I havebeen this person really, really

(44:03):
important for me, for myself, for someone I'm going to date,
for someone I'm going to coach and support.
It's like we have to cultivate the level of self intimacy and
self-awareness to know what our patterns are, to know what our
triggers are and to take some accountability for those and to
have enough of a support system in our lives so that if we do

(44:25):
come into a connection with somebody new, we're not dumping
on them from, you know, from the, from go like, like
everything thing that comes up. And, and that's maybe my biggest
and another one that has bore out for me is if somebody does
not have friends and activities and like just their own things
going in life that really fill them up and give joy to them.

(44:48):
That for me too. I mean, I'm not knocking the
introverts. I'm pretty introverted, but
there's a difference between isolating and having pretty much
nothing going on and then looking to partnership to be the
center of your life versus seeing partnership as one facet
of a more like robust ecosystem of relationships of care, of

(45:10):
things that really like light you up.
Because I'm that person. I, I, I am, I have so much love
around me and I and people who adore me, who I adore, I have
things that I'm interested in. And so I want to know that that
I would be enhanced by being with somebody else because
they've got all that type of thing too.
Not that I'm going to be like constantly the one and saying,

(45:32):
oh, come and do this thing. Oh, come into my world.
I want to be invited into yours and I want it to be read.
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(45:55):
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(47:28):
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You're welcome. OK, back to the show.
Yeah. I was like, if your life isn't
like offering me the things thatI really want, but like I'm busy
creating my magical life myself.Like if it doesn't add value to
what I already bring to my tablebecause I can bring a whole

(48:11):
table, like I don't need to evenbring like I will bring the
whole table. If you can't bring something
incredible, like there's no point.
I might as well just, like, focus on myself, right?
Now, I mean, look at you, you'regorgeous, you're a badass
entrepreneur. You've done your work.
Like for real. Take it in.
Don't help too like deflecting any.
Take it in, take it in. So am I like?

(48:35):
Yes, you are like I mean. You're someone's kind of come to
the table and keep raising it. Yes, yes, like I'm like I last
night ate at my table like my first time I ever ate at this
new table that I got and I was just thinking I'm so blessed,
like there's nothing else I could really want in this.

(48:56):
Like when I find my partner amazing but like this is good
and I'm happy. You know, this is reminding me
of something. So when my ex-husband and I got
together 20 some odd years ago, pager were still a thing like
well, maybe not so like I I had a cell phone actually, but we
did a lot of like we still had codes that we texted with.

(49:17):
I don't you might be too young to even know this, but like we
had a code for you complete me and 22 year old me thought that
that was like the epitome of what a partnership should be. 44
year old me, I am complete. I am, I am looking for a

(49:38):
compliment to all of that. I am not looking for somebody to
complete me. So either you compliment me and
I compliment you, and we are respectively and jointly
elevating the game for one another and ourselves, or no.
So good, so good. And I'm gonna be vulnerable here
there. I think I'm completing a lot of

(49:59):
ways but I've heard you use the term erotic wholeness and as
much as I see wholeness in many areas of my life, because of
religious trauma and whatever other trauma I don't feel erotic
wholeness within myself. I don't have much desire for
solo masturbation. I'm curious does that have

(50:19):
anything to do with the term that you use erotic wholeness?
And like any advice you could give me personally because I
know other women listening have the same.
Well, let me start by defining erotic, right?
Because I use that word in a waythat is different than how most
of us interpret it. And of us hear erotic and we
hear it as a synonym for sex equal swap.

(50:43):
But I use erotic and I am standing on the shoulders mostly
of like total badass black feminists like Audrey Lorde,
whose essay Uses of the erotic. Go read it, Sophia.
It's short, it's on. You can YouTube it.
Like go read it. Seriously.
Audrey Lorde uses of the erotic.It's not super long.

(51:04):
It's game changing. And Audrey's perspective, which
is very, very much my own, is that Eros is life force.
So erotic energy is creativity. Erotic energy is what we're
passionate about. It's our activism.
It is our emotions and our passions.

(51:25):
It is our sex and our sensuality.
Not to the exclusion of the rest, but including all of that
in the whole. So the first thing I really love
to invite people to consider is how much of your erotic energy
is actually being suppressed by overemphasizing sexuality and,
and not considering all those other ways that it is here to

(51:47):
inspire and inform you. So that's the one piece, right?
Like your sex is a part of it. And, and I hear you talking
about like maybe not having as much desire and, and, and we can
go there in a moment, but for starters, just consider how this
is your God, Goddess, spirit, source given nature to, to be in
that flow of aliveness, that vitality.

(52:10):
That's Eros, that's Eroticism, wholeness.
I draw that from a very different influence.
So we're going from black feminist to like white dude.
One of my mentors, Bill Plotkin,who is his, his body of work is
known as soul craft. I, I did many years ago, like, I

(52:32):
did a lot of deep work inside of, of Bill's world that it, we
could put this under a, a term of like nature based
explorations, depth psychology, depth ecology.
It fuses all these things, and Iwon't go too deep down that
rabbit hole, but the idea of wholeness I borrow from Bill,
which is a way of understanding that fundamentally our soul, the

(52:55):
essence of who we are, that thatalways was, always will be, is
perfect and full. And then what happens is we come
into this very imperfect human existence with a million things
not actually designed to, to continue to foster that
experience of wholeness. A lot of people nowadays,

(53:16):
they're it's super, super popular.
If you've heard of ifs, internalfamily systems or hard work,
like there's a lot of overlap here in the idea that like parts
are protective strategies that have come online because of the
very imperfect circumstances that we all have had to live
with and, and indoor even I'll use that word endure.

(53:37):
Like I came from a family with alot of mental illness.
It was hella dysfunctional, you know, like they, I've developed
all sorts of protectors to be able to navigate not knowing if
my mother was going to be havinglike a, a bipolar episode, as we
called them, or going to be likethe sweet, loving, nurturing
version of herself. Like that's how I grew up.

(53:59):
And so parts of me came online to try to create bits of safety.
When we are identified with those parts, we're not connected
to our wholeness. When we learn how to actually
see those parts for what they are and really embrace them,
integrate them, offer them the soothing that they need so that
we can then have our energy on what it is that our soul is here

(54:22):
to do. Who it is that we are truly,
truly here to be in life. That's what our wholeness is
about. So in the early days of this
work, I talked about being a sexand intimacy coach like so many
other people. But then when I really started
to delve deeper into it and consider who the most
significant influences on me were, what I was noticing going
on with my clients and my students, how this work was

(54:44):
shaping itself, the idea of erotic wholeness emerged as the
most accurate way for me to describe what I'm up to now.
The the downside? Entrepreneurially speaking, I
have to define it for everybody because people don't understand
and it but I love to discuss this and I want to just like
pause it. Like I could go a mile a minute
here. When you hear me define it that

(55:06):
way. Like what is what does that
bring up for you, Sophia? Like I'd love, you know, you're
using your vulnerable self as example.
Like, so when you have that moreexpansive idea of what Eroticism
is and a little more hopefully of a compassionate understanding
of wholeness, and then how we get away from it, what does that
make you feel? It feels like like I'm like, oh,

(55:29):
I can recognize the place where I haven't prioritized filling my
cup in my own life force. And yeah, when I when you were
talking about Roddick defining it the way that you said Audrey
Lorde did, it was like I kept thinking of like the tarot, like
the wands being like that life force energy, which can be

(55:52):
sexual, but also it's just like what you need to fucking not be
depressed in the world. Yeah.
So I can tell I tend to not feelas erotically whole actually
when I'm in relationship giving energy versus what I originally
thought of whenever I first heard it.

(56:13):
When I'm in relationship giving energy and something's
misaligned, I actually feel lesslife force.
Yeah, and that makes sense. And what's true for the vast
majority of the women that I support is all the women who
come in saying I'm just really not into sex, it's because they

(56:34):
haven't been having the sex theywant.
Well, I have the sex I want, I will say that.
OK, great. I'm glad.
Yes. Like, OK, so that may not be
you, but it is many. It is many who who really are
like, yeah, sex has been more ofa chore or a performance as
opposed to a place where I go toget my cup filled, where I get

(56:56):
to be in my creative expression,where I get to be receiving all
the Yum, all the goodness, you know, and that's what's
possible. It's why I mean, I'm not going
to glamorize guys my like singleand having lovers life.
It has some wonderful things andI also want partnership.
I'm like super, super there in that.
However, I do get to keep my cupfilled up enough by having

(57:19):
wonderful, beautiful sexual experiences that feel safe to
me, that feel alliance to me like and and that is a form of
how my creativity then gets to flow back out into the world.
That is how I get to show up in service at the activism
component of what I do, the educational component of what I
do. All of that is fueled by by the

(57:41):
pleasure that comes into my body.
Many women don't Orient to physical pleasure and sex that
way. They Orient to it as a chore or
or something to dread. And so if that's you, dear
listener, we got some work to do.
But the thing I want you to hearthat I want you to know is, is
it's very doable. This is available to you, you
know, like you don't have to stay insight of that experience

(58:05):
from here until eternity. You you get to create a new
reality for yourself if you choose it.
So if you're not enjoying your sex, if you have trauma around
sex, those would be two of the reasons to, like, come to you.
Yep, very much so. And I couples as well as
individuals. So sometimes it is about like a

(58:25):
couple jointly saying, OK, we'rewe're not quite finding each
other here. Like I'm, I'm I'm going high,
she's going low like and and so it's like, how do we meet in the
middle? And so it's it's I mean, working
with couples is super fun for mebecause literally actually I am
the coach in your bedroom corner.
Like I hilarious my boundaries that I spoke about earlier as a

(58:47):
sexological body worker, they always apply.
But when I'm working with couples, couples can do whatever
they want with into each other in my presence.
And so sometimes I am literally coaching people how to have full
blown sexual experiences with one another in more skillful,
attuned, satisfying ways. That is so good.
Do you go to their house? Or do they usually come to me or

(59:11):
we have an Airbnb or something like.
But yeah, like, like that's whatgoes on.
And and I get that that can sound terrifying to some of us
because I acknowledge how out-of-the-box it is.
But again, that's the deep end of the pool.
We don't begin there. We, we, we make our way there
progressively. But if you are somebody who is
struggling inside of your relationship, maybe you and your

(59:34):
partner are like great friends and great allies for each other.
Maybe you raise kids well together or you have a thriving
social life together or you're in business together, like
whatever the other things that are going amazing and this area
is struggling, there is hope foryou, you know, like you don't
have to stay in that red. So good.
And I know, I think when you were talking earlier about like

(59:57):
people not having the kind of sex they want, I related to that
back when I was dating men and Ifelt in the closet like, OK, I
can't have the kind of sex I want.
Like I'm reaching for Ted's. That's never going to happen
with a man. But then lesbians like my
audience in particular, althoughthey may be really happy with
their partner, I feel things getstagnant in lesbian

(01:00:18):
relationships. Do you help with that as well?
Absolutely. Because you know, like back to
what I said earlier about most of us, even if we're adults,
like chronologically, we're having sex like adolescence.
And it's just, there's a, often there's a very like narrow lens
of like this is what our sex gets to be like.
And what I get to help people dois really widen the aperture and

(01:00:43):
consider all the ways of sensuality, of physical
intimacy, of slowing things downand, and really permission more
than anything for you to define sex on your own terms, right?
So even if we're talking about lesbian sex, we're still
indoctrinated to the idea of sexas penis and vagina intercourse.

(01:01:04):
And so the lesbian version of that is, is usually some
iteration, whether it's like genital on genital grinding or
it's that it has to be like fingers or a dildo or something
like that. That is that is in simulating or
or enacting intercourse is is often what we think of sex as
there's nothing wrong with that.I mean, I freaking love it.

(01:01:25):
And if that is all you are allowing yourself and it's not
going well, we have to take those narrow blinders off and
you get to then have a far more expensive and, and here's a
great place to bring my, my letter Q of our, of our gay
alphabet in like queering sex, to use queer as a verb here,

(01:01:47):
queering your sex then is you define sex on your terms.
Like, so that's a big piece thatI see with lesbian couples that
I work with. The other is often times there's
not clarity around like who's initiating?
Maybe one partner will be initiating and feels burdened by

(01:02:09):
that also might end up with rejection sensitivity.
If they are the 1 making bids for connection and their partner
isn't always receptive. That dynamic shows up a lot.
So we get to come out from behind these very like binary
roles that you initiate and I either gatekeep or I or I
acquiesce and, and create a little more like equality and

(01:02:32):
sharing of the opportunity to flirt, to initiate, to get the
things going. Like that's a piece of it.
I have some there's some couplesthat I've worked with where 1/2
of the partner, and I'm talking about lesbian couples, 1/2 of
the partner might be very, very tight and narrow around.

(01:02:54):
I only engage in these acts. I only wow this into my body.
I will do this to you. You cannot do this to me like so
and that's that's that's trauma,right?
Like this. This isn't so that is, and it's
not to make the person wrong, but it's to say that if that's
how you're showing up in your relationship or if that's how
your partner's showing up, then they're there is unhealed trauma

(01:03:18):
that that is blocking the two ofyou from the the degree of
intimacy that you might otherwise be able to have.
So sure, you could keep going with that.
I wouldn't choose that for myself personally.
And I without even knowing you, dear listener, I wouldn't choose
that for you either. All things being so it's, it's
really, I think in that case, it's just down to being able and

(01:03:42):
willing to lean into that vulnerable edge, just saying
like, something's not OK here. And I get that it might feel
scary to, to explore what that is.
And it matters. You matter.
We matter instead of just staying in the that, that
version of the status quo of it.So good.
I have one last question for youthat's really vulnerable.

(01:04:03):
And if you don't want to answer like if you're like, I can't do
that on the podcast, then it's fine.
But because of what I've gone, because of what I've gone
through with this spanking, I don't think it's something I'm
ever going to enjoy from a partner.
Even like playful little spankings will kind of bring
tears to my eyes or bring back something where I feel like my

(01:04:25):
partner was upset at me, like something earlier in the day
because spanking was associated with like, I'm mad at you for
this thing. So would healing that trauma
ultimately look like me being able to receive playful
spankings and not having triggered sensations?
Is that what that would look like?

(01:04:46):
That is 1 possible outcome, but it's not the only one because
here a a a little like lesson about what what are incredible
psyches, what our minds do with matic experiences, Where what
particularly This is why BDSM and kink which which is a which

(01:05:08):
are umbrella terms for so many things.
So spanking is definitely in that world when it comes to how
kinks develop, when it comes to how fetishes develop, oftentimes
if they are tied to something traumatic.
Notice that I'm putting emphasison the word if.
Just because you're into kinky things does not mean it.

(01:05:28):
It's not always. My parents spanked me when I was
a child, and thus I'm into this.That's.
Far too simple. It's the opposite for.
Me. It's the opposite for you, and
that's the point I want to emphasize.
Some of us get spanked as a child and end up in the
circumstances that you're describing where any even sniff
of that even done playfully is triggering you in a very not

(01:05:51):
good way. Other people get spanked as a
child and get super turned on byit.
Other people get spanked as a child and want to be the one who
spanks. So there are three different
pathways and never, ever is thattrue.
I hate using definitive terms, but I think it's, it's, it's
rare, if not never, that this isa conscious choice.

(01:06:14):
This is what our psyches have done in response to us being in
this threat, you know, and, and,and in your case, it wasn't just
the threat of it was the enactment of.
So this thing landed in your body as a trauma, simple
definition of trauma. Here is that something that was
threatening and dangerous to youcame your way and you couldn't

(01:06:36):
get out of the way. No.
And I had to do it over and overand over.
So that's your experience and soyou don't like that and you may
never could we work with it to desensitize and I that's not a
bad word, by the way. Could we desensitize or
deescalate some of the reactivity and potentially open

(01:06:57):
it up to where maybe you don't love it, but it doesn't trigger
you? Yes, that is absolutely work
that we could do. For somebody else who grew up
being spanked, it might actuallybe helping them to make peace
with the fact that it really freaking turns them on.
And, and that can be very confusing for some of us.
But what's going on there is ourpsyche is saying, I had no

(01:07:19):
choice about this then, but now as a consenting adult, I am at
choice. And I am choosing to place this
experience in a pleasurable context for myself.
It gets me off. Yet another person's version
might be to invert the role. So again, in a sensual way, to

(01:07:40):
become the one who spanks when you have been spanked might be
the power reclamation move, might be the way of integrating
that. So there's different ways that
our psyche goes about processingthose kinds of experiences.
Sometimes it's eroticizing it. Sometimes.

(01:08:01):
Sometimes it's like, oh God, no.And wherever you are, it's
really down to, you know, what just happened here hopefully.
And hearing this explanation forme is that first, let's just get
a little education. Let's just get a little
perspective about what's going on here and take away shame or
blame or wrong making. And then we can get curious

(01:08:23):
like, well, well, what would youwant for yourself?
You know, like I said, you mightnot want spanking to become like
the centerpiece of your sex life, but you might say it would
be great if this didn't activateme so much.
It would be so great because so many partners do it casually.
Like even in the kitchen, like alittle butt slap, but in bed,

(01:08:44):
like if I'm like on my tummy, like you see a little bare
bottom and if it's not traumaticto you, you probably want to tap
it. And I'm like, I'm I'm sorry and
but it'll throw me off. And then the rest of this sex
session is just, I mean, I try to work my way back there cuz
I'm like, hey, this is trauma, whatever.
But it just throws me up. I would love to not be thrown

(01:09:06):
off. Yeah.
So, so we get, you know, like what we get to do is in, in the,
in somatic terminology, we get to decouple the spank from the
reactivity, which is very, very different than saying we want
spanking to now become this likedeliciously thrilling thing,
totally different. It's just that we want you to be

(01:09:28):
able, if a lover innocently, butalso carelessly, like assuming
that you have informed them about this.
And, and you know, like it's careless is not the worst word
in the world. But but like, yeah, if it's
someone that you're in an activerelationship with and they know
that this is provocative for youin a way that isn't good, like
in the best case scenario, they would not do it.

(01:09:48):
And sometimes we're careless. So it might happen.
We would want for you to be ableto metabolize that experience
and maybe you register the displeasure or the the like
relative like, OK, that's not mything like that.
It but it but that's it that it doesn't pull you back into the
the six year old you, 16 year old you, whatever age we're

(01:10:11):
talking about here. And and have you have all of
your protective parts come online, which happens, you know,
in an instance because you feel threatened.
And so the protectors are just doing their job.
So what we want to do is we wantto help them distinguish between
what you lived through then and what's going on now, and make

(01:10:33):
sure that you've actually got the capacity in your nervous
system to be with the present moment instead of getting pulled
back into the past. And that's where the work comes
in with. You that's where the work comes
in and that's why it's, you know, they're for me, the
sexological body work and the trauma are, are very, very
necessary in tandem with one another.

(01:10:54):
I don't really see how you can work with sexual trauma in
particular. Like there are many sexological
body workers who are not trauma trained and that there and and
that's not because sexological body work is like it is
incomplete. It's that that's the scope that
it offers. And if you want to work with
people's trauma, you need something else.

(01:11:17):
And so I've I've built erotic wholeness and my body of work to
really stand on those two pillars because they are such
natural complements for one another.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine like actually solving the problem
without talking about the trauma.
So thank you so much for sharingthat and.
Thanks for asking. Yeah, and I and thank you for
being willing to share about your experience because it's not

(01:11:39):
all that unusual. And the more we're talking about
and normalizing what's going on and knowing that there are ways
to work with this and resources available like this is how the
collective healing and thriving and liberation happens.
And I'm here for that. I'm here for it too.
So, so if my audience is like I want to work with Darshana, I

(01:12:00):
need to get this erotic coolnessin my life, whether it's with my
partner or before I enter partnership.
So many women listening to this,they're in Queer Country Club,
my lesbian dating platform, and they're like looking for their
future wife and growth minded working through, but they may
have never heard of work like this before.
How do they work with you? How do they?

(01:12:21):
Reach you? Well, first of all, I want to
work with you. You are my people.
I am here for the queer fems. I mean, like that, that's my my
sweet spot. And so yeah, come into my world
too. The I mean, if you really want
the like deep dive that, then reach out and let's explore
working together directly. I also have a free online

(01:12:42):
community right now, which is a place full of resources.
It's called Galgasm. We're here for the gals.
It's super fun. And Galgasm mostly is a place
where a lot of my resources liveso that you get to have access
to them, whether that's basic embodiment practices, wanting to
improve your solo sex, wanting to start to get guidance about

(01:13:04):
how to show up in relationship differently.
That's a wonderful place to come.
I've got a YouTube channel. I occasionally do like little
short form programs like group workshops online and stuff like
that. So there are options, but the
best way is to just get on for my website, put yourself on my
e-mail list and and let's talk you.
You will if you'll get me, like we talked about earlier, I'm

(01:13:26):
very discerning about who I workwith.
And so if you are in earnest, like I want what she's got,
let's explore that together. So good.
I'm going to put your contact information in the show notes.
Of course, I'll tag you on Instagram.
I hope to have you speak inside of Queer Country Club because
this is amazing. Let's do that.

(01:13:46):
I feel so confident that you're going to bring so much to my
members inside of Queer Country Club.
Just in case anyone finds this podcast from you, Darshanana, I
want to make sure that they knowlike, it's a place for women to
find their future partner, like their lifetime partner.
And we offer coaching inside that comes from guest experts

(01:14:07):
who really are real therapists, real coaches.
It's not just like always me, I love coaching, but I have
experts like you who come in, speak and provide resources for
the community. And then we do live speed
dating. We have AI matchmaking.
Of course, you can level up and work with me as a private

(01:14:28):
matchmaker, but that's the summary of my services.
You can go to queercountryclub.com or my first
and last name, Sophia splino.comto learn more.
And I'd love to have you inside and you'll be able to get to
hear from Darsh right when you join because she'll be speaking
very soon. If we can, we'll talk about that

(01:14:49):
right after this record. I love it, I love it, I love it.
We're here for you, everybody. I think that's the overwhelming
message. So Thea and I are here for you.
Yes, yes. And one thing that I've learned
actually from one of my attendees of the last retreat
was like, it's crazy to put queer women together into a room

(01:15:09):
and assume that they're not completely traumatized by
something in their past. And yeah, and I've just seen it
so much the closer I get with myclients.
And it's, it's your whole world.But for me, like, I don't, you
know, build a quote UN quote practice, right?
Like I'm not a therapist. I don't build things based on

(01:15:31):
trauma, but no matter who I'm talking to, it comes up.
And so do the work. Get an expert, talk to Darshana
and get the help you need so youcan have the best sex of your
life when you find your future wife or partner.
Thank you for being here, Darshana.
This has been such a total delight.

(01:15:52):
Thank you for having me, Sophia,and I'm just sending all the
love to everybody who's listening.
All the love.

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Don't Spank Me - Sexology & Erotic Wholeness with Darshana Avila

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Don't Spank Me - Sexology & Erotic Wholeness with Darshana Avila