In this episode, I lie down with Grant Stoddard. Grant is an experiential journalist who specializes in reporting from outside of his comfort zone (sometimes way, waaay outside). The wild situations he has experienced bodily have appeared in Thrillist, Vice, T, New York Magazine, Penthouse, and Maxim, among many others. 

He’s the author of one of my favorite memoirs of all-time, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert. When I was reading it on the bus, I laughed so hard that I completely missed my stop and had to double back about ten blocks. It follows Grant’s journey from lovelorn small town virgin to sex writer at Nerve.com.

In 2002, Nerve was the very first place where I posted an on-line dating profile, after my friend Marley insisted that it wasn’t a weird and scary thing to do. As a budding sex-positive advocate, I began devouring Nerve’s sexy offerings, including erotica, photography, and Grant’s column, “I Did It For Science!” Last year, he began collaborating with Kenneth Play, our community co-founder, and I met the author of "I Did It For Science" in my hallway.

This episode is the first Horizontal with Lila recorded on the road, in a cozy, creaky, charming airbnb in New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grant and I (along with another writer, her fiance, and my boyfriend Alex) were staying for the weekend in order to attend a Hacienda Maison play party themed “The Year of the Cock.”

Andrew Sparksfire, owner of Hacienda Villa, the sex-positive intentional community in which I live, created Hacienda Maison down in NOLA as a sex-positive retreat center. The Maison is a sumptuously-appointed, several-storied, meticulously-restored plantation house, available to rent out for your sexiest events.

In this episode, we talk about sex parties (dubbed “play parties” in the sex-positive community), the alchemy of attraction, the benefits of having two partners, and Grant’s first experience seeing female pubic hair.

So there. Come lie down with us in New Orleans.

You can hire Grant to sling some words for you. Peruse his zillion-article portfolio here.

More horizontality, please:

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Without whom, it would not be possible:

Badass theme music by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons

Saucy cover art by Shana Shay (hire her!) on 99designs

Mixing and mastering magic and sorcery by Owen Muir of Self Disclosure productions, on Twitter as @psychdisclosure