horizontal with lila

I often say that this show is about intimate relationships of all kinds.

Not just romantic and sexual relationships, which tend to be the only ones that our society considers to be under the umbrella of "intimacy," but also family relationships and friendships and mentorships, platonic love affairs and business partnerships, and all the rest of the meaningful relationships a human can have.

We also deepdive into the one relationship that is intrinsic to all of these, and yet not always named as such: our relationship to ourselves.

The lion's share of this episode is about self-intimacy. How we think to ourselves, how we talk to ourselves, how we treat ourselves, care for ourselves, how we mother ourselves, and how we pick ourselves up…

In this episode, recorded on my trip to Los Angeles in early December, I lie down with Bevin, aka queerfatfemme, fearless torchbearer of body-positivity and positivity in general, warrior for self-love, creator of Fat Kid Dance Party aerobics, former lawyer, empress of tea, and purveyor of radically colorful fabulosity. She's also a reiki practitioner and a Life Purpose Coach. Go swimming in all things kind and sparkly and jubilant on queerfatfemme.com

She describes her gender as Dolly Parton and Miss Piggy. I pretty much wanted to talk to her forever. I settled for 3 hours. This is the first half of that conversation. It's a helluvan episode.

In it, we talk about a gender-expansive lifestyle, seasonal affective disorder, self-love, self-compassion, self-care for Future Us, fatphobia, multiple coming-outs, soulmates, and systems of oppression that, in Bevin's incisive words, "intersect on the body and bloom."

Next week's episode, 62. we can be benefits, but not friends... contains the second part of our conversation, in which I tell the entire 17-year story of the romance that led to my abortion in October, is available on Patreon to patrons of $5 and up per month.

Patreon is the love child of crowd-funding and a subscription service. When you sign up, you'll get a special RSS feed (that's the stream of episodes that are available to my patrons - which includes love poems of the month, for my $10 and up patrons). You add that to your podcast player, and it gives exclusive access to all the episodes, every part two, going back to the beginning. Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

Welcome to my darling new patrons this month: Pan, Nick, Louis, Ava, David, Emilee, Donald, Jacob, Charles, Olivia, Sheila, Trep, Renata, Greg, and Taekia, Nicole, Ariana, and an extra happy dance for Christian, who upped his patronage in December!

I'm deeply committed to Intimacy Maven as a career choice, and continuing to create work that diminishes loneliness, dispels shame, and alchemizes human connection, in multiple mediums. You can help me happen it.

Patronage begins at $2 a month, and I absolutely cherish every single patron. All patrons are invited to my secret Facebook group, where I share fascinating sex-positive articles, and behind-the-scenes things, and my Feels and goals and musings. I know some friends of mine have been hesitant to be a patron if they could only do $2 a month, but let me assure you: If everybody who was positively impacted by my writing or this podcast became a $2 a month patron, it would change my life. That's the beauty of this new era of creation.

And here's an extra special perk from now until the end of the year: When you become a patron by January 1st, I'll send you a handwritten thank you love note & a saucy horizontal sticker. My handwriting has been described as "perfect!" "ridiculous!" "like a font!" I'm just saying.

For more horizontality in your life, you can receive my words in your inbox once a week(ish). I call them missives, and they are full of my personal writing, bits of the show notes for each episode with links to the whole thing, invitations to my live events, and horizontal photos, often in unexpected places. The last missive was titled "how does it feel to want?" and was all about longing.

Sign up for all that goodness on horizontalwithlila.com and add [email protected] to your address book, because email servers are frustrating and strange and sometimes treat my email like Spam, which it is Not. If you used to get my emails and don't anymore, that might be why! Rescue them, please!

Here are the humans who helped make horizontal happen: Chad Michael Snavely edits horizontal. Check him out on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay drew horizontal. Hire her through 99designs. Alan Markley scored horizontal. Find him on Instagram as plasticcannons.

Now, dear one, come lie down with us and a Persian squashy-faced cat named Biscuit Reynolds, in Los Angeles, California.

Horizontal is a podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down. Think of it as consensual eavesdropping.

Together, we're making private conversations public, in order to dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and alchemize human connection.

Brene Brown, the world-renowned researcher/storyteller and expert on vulnerability, shame, and courage, states that shame (in a petri dish) needs 3 things to survive: secrecy, silence, and judgement. If you put the same amount of shame in a petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive.

I envision this podcast as a douse of empathy.

In this episode, I lie down with Samia Mounts in my bed at Hacienda Villa, the sex-positive intentional community in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Samia is a singer, actress, voice-over artist, creator of music, and a polyamorous podcaster of political proportions, with a voice built for stadiums and arenas. Currently based in Korea, I was fortunate enough to get horizontal with her when she was in town to sing at the Kennedy Center. She is a bisexual babe, a military kid, a half-Jordanian woman who grew up largely in South Korea, an advocate for nontraditional relationship structures, and a great believer in horizontality.

You may remember that I enthusiastically recommended Samia's political podcast: Make America Relate Again. In it, Samia did something I'd never heard before in my life — she had respectful conversations about politics with women who voted for Donald Trump. Pretty much all the political conversations I hear between liberals and conservatives are acrimonious and combative. Make America Relate Again is based on the premise that if we can communicate respectfully with people whose viewpoints frustrate, enrage, or sadden us, we can cultivate more compassion in this sorely-divided country of ours. And if we stoke the fire of that compassion, we can work together to create positive change. Samia managed to put the humanity back into politics for me. I am impressed and astonished that she had the reserves of compassion and empathy to engage wholeheartedly in this way for two entire seasons. I find her to be brave in a way that I am lacking, and this had me tuning in.

Now in 2019, lucky for us, she'll be applying those skills to a new podcast called Future Love, one about polyamory and unconventional relationships and and sex and love, in which she aims to help people have more authentic, passionate, longer-lasting romances by forgoing the conventional rules, and instead, writing their own. To be apprised when her new podcast launches, and for all things Samia, including her articles about polyamory for Huff Post and Refinery 29, point yourself to samiamounts.com, and sign up for her mailing list!

Since our episode was recorded in my room, you'll get a little local color from the Symphony Orchestra of Bushwick, but when you hear the crackling sounds of a Yule Log, that's Samia, vaping.

In this first part of our episode, we discuss growing up as a horny little beast on a military base, playing lumberjack, dry-humping girls at 8, coming out as bi at 14, the year of the purge, a play I was in called An American Family Takes a Lover, Sex at Dawn, my new fashion friend, ordering food while fucking, Samia's night with her new 48 year-old lover — we call him "Wild Man," being multi-orgasmic, and cultivating lifelong sexy relationships. We cover a lot of ground!

To listen to the second part of my conversation with Samia, which will be released next Friday as episode 60, in which she tells me the most epic love story of her life, and the most epic friend-love story of her life, become a patron of the horizontal arts!

Patreon is the love child of crowd-funding and a subscription service. As a $5 month patron, you'll get a special RSS feed that you can add to your podcast player, and it gives you exclusive access to all the episodes, every part two, going back to the beginning. I've made a little video tutorial for it, in case the RSS is confusing. It's available on my Patreon page. (See what I did there?) Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

And now, come lie down with us in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

***

For more horizontality, you can receive my words in your inbox once a week(ish). I call them missives, and they are full of my personal writing, bits of the show notes for each episode with links to the whole shebang, invitations to my live events, and horizontal photos, often in unexpected places. Sign up for all that goodness on horizontalwithlila.com and add [email protected] to your address book, because email servers are frustrating and strange and sometimes treat my email like a message Mr. Jim Carlos who misspells your name as well as several third grade words while asking you to wire money — which I'm pretty sure is not something that people do anymore. Please rescue my thoughtful, well-crafted emails from the depths of folders like "Spam" and "Promotions" and "Updates." Thank you.

Here's the credits: Chad Michael Snavely edits horizontal. Check him out on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay drew horizontal. Hire her through 99designs. Alan Markley scored horizontal. Find him on Instagram as plasticcannons.

Horizontal is a podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down.

I'm really glad you're here.

You can think of it as consensual eavesdropping.Together, we're making private conversations public, so that we can dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and alchemize human connection.

If you've been horizontal for a while, you know that each conversation is about 2-3 hours long, and gets divided into two episodes, released a week apart (by popular demand). For instance, this is episode #57. Next week's episode, #58. the love drive, will feature part two of my conversation with Shaun.

As I said in the last couple of episodes, I'm making a big shift in the way horizontal is released, and it just went into effect on Wednesday. All the part twos have now disappeared from your apps (unless you downloaded them, as I suggested! Thanks for being an early adopter!).

They are now gated, and available to patrons at $5 a month and up.

This is my first serious step toward making this work a sustainable career path. I intend to untether myself from my bread-and-butter job and continue expanding the horizontality … into videos, books, a TV show. I have big big dreams to SPREAD INTIMACY ACROSS THE GLOBE. And you can help me happen it.

Patreon is the love child of crowd-funding and a subscription service. As a $5 month patron, you'll get a special RSS feed that you can add to your podcast player, and it gives you exclusive access to all the episodes, every part two, going back to the beginning. I've made a little video tutorial for it, in case the RSS is confusing. It's available on my Patreon page. (See what I did there?)

In this episode, I lie down in my bed in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with Shaun Galanos. I live in Hacienda Villa, a sex-positive intentional community, and, just like most places on the vanguard, our neighborhood is (still) fairly gritty. So be advised: Bushwick— is a very noisy place. Trains and sirens and construction and unidentifiable buzzings and whirrings… let's just say, you're definitely gonna hear some local color in this episode. We'll call it...verite.

Shaun Galanos is a 30something silver fox, a Canadian, an American, a 12-time burner, a dog dad, and the host of the podcast The Love Drive, which aims to make sex and love less awkward. He's also a street performer who gives Free Love Advice. He sets up a sign and his recording kit all over the place, in public parks, at Burning Man, while waiting for transportation, and, before he got chased away for soliciting the customers, at the airport. Point yourself towards thelovedrive.com for everything Shaun (including that free advice he talks about).

Shaun and I met on the interwebz and started flirting and brainstorming and podcast-conspiring on Instagram. He's handsome and charming and skilled in cheeky banter. He makes cute videos in which he talks directly to camera, Ferris Bueller-style. He cares about intimacy! He's single! So when he came to New York, naturally, we hopped into bed. But only to record. (More on that in the episodes.)

In this first part of our conversation, we talk about cruising chat rooms and cybering, wizard sleeves and uncircumcised cocks, the pics of naked men that turn Shaun on, the pics of naked women that turn me on, self-voyeurism, check-ins, and our level of sexual attraction.

If you want to hear the second part of our conversation, released next Friday, in which we discuss our pheremones, the hierarchy of relationships, touch-starvation, Old Spice, my breasts, and Shaun tells me a story about risky wedding sex, become a patron of the horizontal arts!

And now, come lie down with us in Bushwick, Brooklyn. (whispers) We're naked.

Let's do the credits!

Chad Michael Snavely is my editor and a podcast maven. He has a slew of podcasts you can check out on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay is my illustrator and graphic designer. She specializes in good-looking character illustrations from photographs, like the one you see in my podcast cover art. Hire her through 99designs. Alan Markley is a rock star touring musician, and he created my intro music (with a little bit of sex vox from me - those are the breathy sounds). Find him on Instagram as plasticcannons.

Shaun and I also got vertical together. We recorded episode 28 of The Love Drive: how to get invited to a play party in Shaun's borrowed apartment in Williamsburg. (Despite the title, I make no promises.) But if you're curious about what a Hacienda sex party is like, well, darlin', we made you an episode.

At the end of that recording, Shaun asked me if I had a parting thought. I said all I could think of was the E.M. Forster quote, "Only connect." I don't think that we will regret any of the time we've spent trying to connect with other humans. What I mean is: the time we spent cultivating intimacy in our lives is time worth spending. It is among the worthiest of pursuits.

So thank you, thank you for getting horizontal with us.

To listen to the rest of our conversation, as we unpack our own challenges getting intimate with each other: Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

Until next week, I wish you someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.

This week and next week's episodes are the last ones recorded on my horizontal does america tour, which took place in October & November of 2017. Lucid Studios NYC provided a car, and I went on a solo road trip adventure, circumnavigating the U.S., covering 10,700 miles and recording with people in their homes, in their cities.

We recorded this episode in Austin, Texas, in a color-saturated cottage sanctuary filled with art and altars, called the Blue Star Temple.

In this episode, I lie down with Epiphany Jordan. Epiphany is a nurturer by trade, a professional cuddler, aka the Chief Oxytocin Provider of Karuna Sessions, described as the "rolls royce" of cuddling experiences," a 2-on-1 deepdive immersion in mothering energy and loving touch. Her forthcoming book, Somebody Hold Me: The Single Person's Guide to Nurturing Human Touch. Keep your eye out over the next few months for its release, by going to the website somebodyhold.me

You can also find her on karunasessions.com and bluestartemple.com

She is a reader of the tarot, proprietress of the Blue Star Temple guest house and sanctuary space. We recorded this episode there, and I can attest to the coziness, color therapy, and great good juju of the place.

At Blue Star Temple, Epiphany offers services like Cross-Dress for Success, Design a Ritual, and the iconically-titled Sanctuary. I love that she offers Sanctuary as a service. We could all use some Sanctuary, don't you agree?

In this part of our conversation, we discuss Epiphany's Muslim / Jewish / Catholic upbringing, being a sexual rebel in Reno, Nevada in the 70s, the cyclical nature of sexual mores, society's touch deficit, and my complicated relationship with my mother, and my mother's touch.

If you enjoy lying down with us, and believe in my mission to spread intimacy across the globe, that's how you can make sure that this podcast remains ad-free, and remains a podcast. Become a patron of the horizontal arts. Patreon is the love child of a subscription service and crowd-funding. You offer a monthly contribution, and you get a level of special access to me and my work. Beginning in the next couple of weeks, the second part of my conversation with each guest will be gated, meaning roughly every other episode will be free, and every other episode will be paid — but all episodes will always be available to patrons at $5 a month and up. So, download all the episodes while you can, and become a $5 a month patron for full access going forward.

Thanks to my newest patrons: Evyn, Melani, Mark, Christopher, Antonio, and Rex, I'm now halfway towards breaking even on the current podcast expenses! After breaking even, the next goal is to hire a transcriptionist. I've been painstakingly transcribing my show notes by hand in order to create gorgeous, informative, accessible to differently-abled folx blog posts. (And pssst, you can get my writing and photos and links to the blog posts in your inbox weekly, by signing up on horizontalwithlila.com and adding [email protected] to your address book.)

Since I am both unskilled and extraordinarily meticulous, each set of show notes takes me about 10 - 12 hours to put together. When I hire someone, 90 percent of those hours will be freed up to conduct more interviews, offer more live events, and create more horizontal goodness for you!

Just before we dive into the episode, I want to make this super clear: a lot of friends have told me that they've been hesitant to become my patrons because they feel embarrassed to only be able to give $2/month. Oh My goodness, if everybody who loves the podcast or my writing became a patron at $2 a month, it would CHANGE MY LIFE. Every patron is so incredibly valuable to me, and the beauty of crowd funding is precisely this - when many people give a little bit, it adds up appreciably, and with each new patron, I can feel how many people out there believe in me and my mission to spread intimacy across the globe.

Plus, I do a happy dance every time.

Go to: Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

You can also follow the link in my Instagram bio that reads "patron of the horizontal arts."

Dear Ones, did you know that I send what I call "missives" to my email list once a week? They include my personal writing, resources from the episodes, links, videos, saucy photos, and other miscellaneous bits of ephemera, like articles about my sex-positive intentional community … To receive all that goodness directly in your inbox, sign up on horizontalwithlila.com and add [email protected] to your address book, for good measure. I've heard that my missives have gotten buried in some "Updates" in Gmail, or even that they've gone to (gasp!) Spam. They are not Spam. Please rescue them.

Season Two has been edited by Chad Michael Snavely. Check out his slew of podcasts on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay drew my sensual cover art, and you can hire her through 99designs. And the rock star / father Alan Markley created my intro music. He's plasticcannons on Instagram.

In next week's episode, the second part of my conversation with Epiphany, we talk about her forthcoming book, Somebody Hold Me, about getting your touch needs met, what exactly is involved in a Karuna Session, and getting together to cuddle your friends.

Now darlin', come lie down with us in Austin, Texas.

Horizontal is a podcast about intimacy. It's recorded while lying down, wearing robes, sharing a single pillow. I take you into my bed (or in the case of these episodes, recorded while I was on the road across America, someone else's bed), and let your ears watch as I unzip intimate conversations. The goal is to make private conversations public, in order to dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and alchemize connection.

In this installment, I lie down with Wry of Wry Polytalks, a nonmonogamy consultant, a clear-talking, thoughtful advocate for alternative relationships and kinky stuff, an entertainer, a Dominant, a consent activist, public speaker, social justice warrior, and the host of many, many a panel.

Wry Polytalks are panel discussions with relationship experts that he moderates on a web of topics related to nonmonogamy. I got to see his showmanship in action when he hosted the Ethical Slut social at Hacienda Studio (twice!), and lead two such panels in our event space. His ringmasterishness sure can command a room!

He's also passionately involved in the movement to destigmatize the conversation around mental health. As the daughter of a woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder who has been fighting for her health nearly all of my life, and as a person who experiences depression myself, along with, or possibly caused by, undiagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder, this advocacy is very dear to me.

Wry's voice sounds like whiskey and a rec room with burgundy leather armchairs. I like it.

In this part of our conversation, we talk about playing 90210, internalized slut-shaming, choosing heartbreak, relationship anarchy, PREP, and how herpes is really not that big of a deal.

I want to let you know about a change that's coming up. I have big big dreams, like making a pilot for a horizontal TV show, and I realize that I need more freedom to be able to achieve them. And that means finances. I'm deeply committed to making this my career, and I'm still holding to my intention to bring you independent, uncensored, and ad-free radio.

The podcast doesn't yet break even. Patreon covers less than half of the monthly production expenses. And it's time for my project to grow up. I need to experiment with different models of income. Going forward, the second part of my conversation with each guest will be gated, meaning roughly every other episode will be free, and every other episode will be paid. All episodes will always be available to patrons at a certain level and up, and they'll be available for purchase individually as well.

If you enjoy lying down with us, and believe in my mission to spread intimacy across the globe, This is how you can make sure I continue to create independent, uncensored, ad-free radio: Become a patron of the horizontal arts. It's a cross between a subscription service and crowd-funding for artistic patronage. You offer a monthly contribution, from $2 a month on up, and you get a level of special access to me and my work.

Since in the next few weeks, every other episode will be free, and every other episode will cost a small amount, Patronage will be the way to unlock all the gated episodes. And I just want to make one thing super clear: many friends have told me that they've been hesitant to become my patrons because they feel embarrassed to only be able to give $2/month. Oh My goodness, if everybody who loves the podcast or my writing became a patron at $2 a month, it would CHANGE MY LIFE. Every patron is so incredibly valuable to me, and the beauty of crowd funding is exactly this - that when many people give a little bit, it can add up to something really meaningful, to something that supports me to fulfill my purpose. Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

You can also follow the link in my Instagram bio that reads "patron of the horizontal arts."

And now, come lie down with us in L.A.

***

I send what I call "missives" to my email list once a week. It's like lobbing a thousands messages in a bottle out to sea. I share my writing (the most recent missive was about my abortion and the right to choose), I share resources from the episodes, I share saucy photos, and other miscellaneous bits of interest, like that time I was in Playboy … talking about dating outside of your political party in the era of Trump. To receive all this goodness directly in your inbox, sign up on horizontalwithlila.com and add [email protected] to your address book, for good measure. We don't want it getting lost in some "updates" tab or something, do we? Indeed no. No we do not.

Season Two has been edited by Chad Michael Snavely. Check out his slew of podcasts on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay drew my sensual cover art, and you can hire her through 99designs. And Alan Markley created my intro music. He's plasticcannons on Instagram.

Next week, Wry and I get deep into kink, BDSM, and a wild FetLife story.

Until then, may you have someone to love, something to do, and lots of things to look forward to.

It's been a pleasure getting horizontal for you.

This episode was recorded on my horizontal does america tour in November of 2017. I took to the road in a little blue car and drove solo around the country with two intentions: to feel as free as I could possibly feel, and to lie down and record as many episodes with fascinating humans as I could manage.

In this quickie episode, recorded right before she headed in to therapize people in the morning, I lie down with the sex therapist Dr. Cat Meyer. Dr. Cat is a spritely, sensual whirligig, with big green eyes and big brown hair and a slender, bendable body. She's a yoga teacher, a creatrix, a playful creature, a dancer of her prayers, a licensed relationship therapist, and a reiki practitioner. If you live in Beverly Hills, where Dr. Cat sees people in her private practice, she could be your sex therapist.

Cat's own podcast, eatplaysex, which just sounds like whipped cream in podcast form, doesn't it? explores subjects in the very same wheelhouse as this one. On her Instagram, sexloveyoga, which I follow voraciously, and I suggest you do as well, she shares the writing she spins from thoughtfulness, self-inquiry, gentle nudging, and a vision she holds for us all to open the most profoundly to our deepest longing, pleasure, and confidence… her posts are little gifts for us, and each serves as a reminder of her mantra, "I choose myself powerfully."

Find her on the interwebz at sexloveyoga.com and catmeyer.com.

We first met at a birthday party in Ojai, a 40th birthday extravaganza that was more like a miniature festival than any birthday party I'd ever seen, complete with food trucks, a musical amphitheatre carved of rocks like a miniature Sedona, an elaborate sensual ritual invoking the energies of masculine and feminine to infuse the man we were celebrating, and a giant bathtub truck with a Dr. Bronner's "foam experience," like the one at Foam Against the Machine at Burning Man.

The amount of glorious attention and effervescent love paid to this man made me burn with a heady potion of envy, admiration, and inspiration. "I want people to come together over me in this way," I thought. "I want to facilitate this experience for someone else, too."

Inside the house by the pool, in a room made for cuddling and love, festooned with pillows and soft things, people were practicing AcroYoga. Having taught for so many years, and drifted away from the practice for many more, I sometimes move away from people who are in the throes of it, the ones who fly people at every opportunity, every park visit and ecstatic dance and house party. But this time I was drawn in. I offered a therapeutic flight to a friend of my friend. His first. That looped me in as one of them and built a bridge for them to talk with me. One of them was an AcroYoga teacher as well. When I told him about the podcast, he said, "Oh my God, There's someone here you HAVE to know." And he called Cat over.

Six months later, we were lying on a shaggy rug in her living room, her pet bunny hiding out in the corner, California morning light insistent through the blinds, shaking off sleep and recording this story.

We talk about threesomes and the right to change your mind, delayed emotional responses, how the point of sexual no-return is an illusion, being satisfied before orgasm, asking ourselves if it still feels good, looking for yeses and nos in the body as expansions and contractions, and how meditation and affirmations don't have to look like what we were taught they look like.

If you enjoy lying down with us, this is how you can make sure I continue to create independent, uncensored, ad-free radio. Become a patron of the horizontal arts. It's like a subscription service, crowd-funding for artistic patronage. You offer a monthly contribution, from $2 a month on up, and you get a level of special access to me and my work. You know that you are a direct catalyst for making the world a more intimate place. And I do a happy happy dance, and then get horizontal again. Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila

I have big plans, big big dreams for what's next in the world of horizontal, and you can help me happen it.

Also, I send what I call "missives" to my email list once a week. It's like lobbing a thousand messages in a bottle out to sea. I share my writing (the most recent missive was about my abortion and the right to choose), I share resources from the episodes, I share saucy photos, and other miscellaneous bits of interest, like that time I was in Playboy … talking about dating outside of your political party in the era of Trump. To receive all this goodness directly in your inbox, sign up on horizontalwithlila.com and add [email protected] to your address book, for good measure. We don't want it getting lost in some "updates" tab or something, do we? Indeed no. No we do not.

And now darling, come lie down with us, and a little white bunny.

***

Season Two has been edited by Chad Michael Snavely. Check out his slew of podcasts on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay drew my sensual cover art, and you can hire her through 99designs. And Alan Markley created my intro music. He's plasticcannons on Instagram.

On next week's horizontal, I lie down with Wry of Wry Polytalks, a super-entertainer, a clear-talking, thoughtful advocate for alternative relationships, kinky stuff, destigmatizing conversation around mental health, and the host of many, many a panel.

His voice is like whiskey and a rec room with burgundy leather armchairs. You'll see.

Until next time, I wish you someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.

It's been a pleasure getting horizontal for you.

Welcome back to horizontal! I missed you. This is the podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down, wearing robes. It aims to make private conversations public in order to dispel shame, diminish loneliness, and alchemize connection.

After a hiatus, during which I went to Burning Man, also known as: surviving a giant art project in the middle of the desert, and then came home and felt very sad to no longer be out adventuring slash surviving said art project in the middle of the desert, and then questioned nearly everything about my life, as is, apparently, rather typical, I'm back on schedule!

This episode marks a couple of horizontal milestones. And because I'm rewiring my nervous system for joy, I'm committed to celebrating successes of every size and volume. So… This is episode number 50! And in a bit of neat numbership, horizontal just surpassed 50,000 downloads. Thank you so much for listening, and for sharing this work with your people. Don't stop. Keep sharing it. Let's have a revolution!

For all things horizontal, including photographs of me horizontal-in-unexpected-places, intimacy resources, and my writing (some recent titles have been "the Wednesday night meltdown," "the right to choose," and "brave on the rocks, or, choosing to open when you want to shut but you know it would really be better if you opened"), sign up on horizontalwithlila.com

In this episode, I lie down with Pamela Samuelson. Pamela is a bodycare witch, a sex ed teacher, a renegade, an instigator, a libertine. Or perhaps she's really more of a wizard than a witch. A sexy female Dumbledore minus 50 years. Gravitas and twinkly eyes.

As a bodywork specialist, she is trained in sexological bodywork, holistic pelvic care, and the Arvigo techniques of Maya Abdominal Therapy. This means that she works on the pelvis and the pussy, inside and out. She's a warrior of bodily empowerment, Rosie the Riveter with a speculum.

We first met the day before we were supposed to record, in the gender neutral bathroom at an event called Cycles & Sex, which is about pussies, not bicycles. Pamela was leading roomfuls of women in a campaign called "Take Back the Speculum," which is part anatomy lesson, part show and tell, and part hands-on practice. Pamela shows the sexual anatomy of her own body, by inserting a speculum, and allowing the participants to see her cervix with a flashlight. Then, the participants are given a speculum, and get to try it on their own. I didn't do it that day. You'll find out why in the episode.

In this part of our conversation, we talk about ambiverts, cervical self-exams, femme-drag and bespoke suits, wonder women, moving people's wombs into a more optimal position, arousal vs. wetness, the husband stitch, and Pamela's viral rant.

My dear listener. Come lie down with us.

Patronage is what makes it possible for me to continue making independent, uncensored, ad free homemade radio. When my crowd-funding grows, I'll be able to dedicate myself to intimacy work. I believe that when we make private conversations public, intimacy becomes contagious, and the more intimate relationships we nourish, the happier our lives.

For $10 a month, you'll get access to the love poem of the month, a private recording of one of my favorites. For $15 a month, you'll get a ticket to a live show, or access to a secret episode, and so on. Be part of making the world a more intimate place. Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila.

Season Two has been edited by Chad Michael Snavely. Check out his slew of podcasts on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay drew my sensual cover art, and you can hire her through 99designs. And Alan Markley created my intro music. He's plasticcannons on Instagram.

Until next week, may you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.

horizontal is a podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down.

In this episode, I lie down with sexual folklorist Dixie de la Tour. Dixie is the founder, curator, and host of Bawdy Storytelling, the longest-running sex storytelling series in the United States. Samia Mounts, of the "Make America Relate Again" podcast, was the first to mention Bawdy to me in the late summer of last year, and she insisted that I SIMPLY MUST attend the RISK & Bawdy collaboration show at the Bell House last September. I did. I saw. I played Bang-o.

I started courting Dixie immediately.

She is a mesmerizing storyteller. Her Southern lilt, her flagrant nonchalance and nonchalant brazenness, her heart-o-gold, her heaving bosom. She's not just a Connector, in the Malcolm Gladwell sense of the word, she's a Super-connector, a Mmmega-connector. Her shows get people laid (it's happened so often that there's even a song for that!); her shows spark romance, start relationships, and, I believe may have even been tangentially responsible for a bawdy baby or two.

I was tickled and honored and seam-burst-ing with joy when I finally had the chance to get horizontal with Dixie in her chosen hometown of San Francisco, California. We recorded in the guest room of a 24-ish member intentional community in SOMA. One of my classmates from NYU lives there. It's like the Parthenon of intentional communities. For tales from the road, like the one about how I got totally infatuated with a guy there and wound up acting like a 13 year-old, for pretty pictures of my adventures and horizontality in unexpected places, for invites to live shows, and my writings about intimacy of all kinds, sign up on horizontalwithlila.com

While I was driving cross-country solo on my horizontal does america road trip, I didn't listen to music. I just didn't have the impulse to. I listened to books, I listened to podcasts, I talked to friends on the phone, I talked to myself, I sang to myself, or I drove along in meditative quiet. I listened to episode after episode of Dixie's Bawdy Storytelling podcast. After a while, Dixie started to feel like a road spirit, an auditory escort, my most frequent aural (a-u-r-a-l) companion. Behind the wheel of my borrowed Honda Civic, while listening to Bawdy, I repeatedly squealed, laughed, teared up, and said OH. MY! all the way across America.

We are so fortunate that Dixie has centered her life around living stories, telling them, and getting other people to tell them. What do they say about living legends? She's a national treasure. Explore her body of work, pun intended, on Bawdystorytelling.com.

If you enjoy our horizontal storytelling, become a patron of the horizontal arts, darling! You can become a patron for $2 on up, and the rewards get more delectable as you increase. For instance, for $10 a month, you'll get access to the love poem of the month, a private recording of one of my favorites. For $15 a month, you'll get a ticket to a live show, or access to a secret episode, and so on. Patronage is what makes it possible for me to continue making independent, uncensored, ad free homemade radio. I believe that when we make private conversations public, intimacy becomes contagious, and the more intimacy we cultivate, the happier our lives. Be part of it through Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila.

Your patronage helps make the world more intimate.

In this first part of our conversation, we talk about Bawdy, Bang-O, craigslist personal ads, the unknown hookup, and being a porn magnet. And Dixie tells me a tale about a porno booth (with glory holes everywhere).

Stick around at the end of the episode for a little treat: a bawdy song by Jefferson Bergey!

And now, come lie down with us in San Francisco, California.

The credits!

Here are the people who made this episode possible. Chad Michael Snavely has edited every episode in Season Two. Check out his roster of podcasts on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay created my cover art, and you can hire her through 99designs. And Alan Markley created my intro music. He's plasticcannons on the Instagram.

horizontal is the podcast of intimacies that's recorded while lying down.

In this episode, I get the opposite of vertical with Marcia B., co-founder of Cuddle Party, creator of The Good Girl Recovery Program, and co-leader of weekend intensives like "Make Hot Play Happen" and "The Wanted Man," that teach humans to have more fun, deeper connections, and hotter sex. Her co-teacher for these weekends is Midori, the renowned sex educator and doyenne of Japanese bondage.

Marcia is an educator, a writer, a wild-permission giver, a generator of joy. She's funny and warm and lovely and clear. Marcia is a boundary expert, and the set of rules that she co-created for Cuddle Party have inspired a legion of hosts, including pretty much everyone who hosts an event at Hacienda Studio — the event space housed in Hacienda Villa, the community I live in.

The Cuddle Party rules are so good, so simple and yet so profound, that I am compelled to share them here:

1. Pajamas stay on the whole time.
2. You don't have to cuddle anyone at a Cuddle Party, ever.
3. You must ask permission and receive a verbal YES before you touch anyone. (Be as specific in your request as you can.)
4. If you're a yes, say YES. If you're a no, say NO.
5. If you're a maybe, say NO.
6. You are encouraged to change your mind.
7. Respect your relationship agreements and communicate with your partner.
8. Get your Cuddle Party Facilitator or the Cuddle Assistant if you have a question or concern or need assistance with anything during the Cuddle Party.
9. Tears and laughter are both welcome.
10. Respect people's privacy when sharing about Cuddle Parties.
11. Keep the Cuddle space tidy

We got horizontal in Kensington, California (Marcia says that I should say Berkeley, because even people from the Bay Area don't seem to know that there is a Kensington).

My San Francisco stop was right in the middle of my horizontal does america cross-country road trip tour. For synchronicitous stories and pretty pictures, sign up for the missives on horizontalwithlila.com

We are in Marcia's "Room of Requirement," a designation borrowed from the world of Harry Potter (which I loooove. I used to re-read all the books every year, for comfort). It's a space that converts into whatever the seeker needs it for most at that very pressing moment, if they know where to find it. Marcia's Room of Requirement is a sometime office, sometime guest room, often living room, occasional Cuddle Party space… you get the picture. It's exactly the opposite of an austere apartment where you feel like you probably shouldn't touch anything or sit down. In Marcia's house, you should plop down straightaway. Purrrfect for getting horizontal.

In this first part of our conversation, we talk about Marcia's coming of age during the AIDS crisis, the some/many/most model of sex information, boundaries boundaries boundaries, the abnormality of "average," saying no gracefully and… asking for what you want.

***

If you enjoy lying down with Marcia and I, become a patron of the horizontal arts. You could receive monthly love poems, tickets to a live horizontal storytelling show, or horizontal pillows so that you too can get horizontal with lila. Every bit of patronage goes into continuing to make independent, uncensored, ad free homemade radio. I believe that making private conversations public makes intimacy contagious, and the more intimacy we have in all different forms, the happier we are. Be part of my mission to spread intimacy across the globe through Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila.

Show me you believe in what I'm doing. Patronage begins at $2 a month, and as it increases, the rewards get more sumptuous.

***

Now, dear ones, come lie down with us in Berkeley, California.

Credits!

Chad Michael Snavely is horizontal's editor-at-large. He and the rest of his coterie of podcasts can be found at Chad Michael.com. Alan Markley created my intro jams. He's plasticcannons on Instagram. And Shana Shay drew the sensual me that comprises my cover art. You can hire her through 99designs.

On next week's episode, Marcia and I discuss the dog/cat/bird model of play party personalities, touch deprivation, what is "queer enough," bi-erasure, constellations, poly pods, and the post-nuclear family. Also, Marcia reiterates that "if you can't say no, your yes is worthless."

Until next Friday: may you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.

In this episode, I lie down with one of my favorite humans, Lurleen. Lurleen lives in Portland, Oregon. Well, I still think of her that way even though she recently moved to the outskirts. Let's say she's Portland adjacent.

When I first met Lurleen, I thought, "This is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in real life." And just as my envy started to kick in, she made a joke or a funny face and it was as if to say, "You don't have to do that. We can just love each other."I had just moved to Portland in November of 2008 (an ill-advised bit of scheduling on my part) and it was grey and rainy and I didn't own a car and I was biking around without proper rain gear and I was cold and my butt got soggy and damp and that made me very, very cranky. I tried to remind myself that the universe did not owe me a car.... The tango scene was pretty much my only social life in PDX. So I bought the Comme il Faut 3 and a half inch heels, and dove in. My initial joy gave way to the shame and frustration (recognized by partner dancers of uneven skill levels everywhere) of not being as good a dancer as my new boyfriend. I tried to come to grips with the way he chased after dances like a dog with opposable thumbs. I came to abhor the way he would shark around the perimeter of the dance floor, snapping his fingers, smiling vacantly and hunting for a partner good enough for him. Hunting for a partner who was better than him, is what it was. And, more often than not, he'd forget to check in with me in the process. And then whine on the car ride home (after we fit my folding bike in his trunk) about the fabulous visiting dancer who wouldn't accept him yet, and how he was going to be good enough for Mila one day.

One such time, when he was off chasing dances, I sat down with Lurleen and her boyfriend. And I started to rant. They had eyes, after all. They were in the same scene with him. They could see what he was doing. But it was the first time I'd shared openly with them. Lurleen almost smiled at me in my rage."I like you so much," she said.And we've been saying that ever since. Even now, we still say, "I like you so much." It means, of course, I see you. I love you. You matter to me.Lurleen is a giraffe in a gazelle's body. She's a Vogue-colored candy shell with a creamy Saturday Night Live center. Lurleen is a fashion model who had thyroid cancer in her late teens/early 20s, was successfully operated on, and became an aesthetician. She still has the necklace-like scar, a smile across her skin. It serves as a daily reminder of how precious existence is, how crucial it is that we enjoy it, and how fortunate we are to still be able to laugh.I feel utterly at ease in her company. In a way, the fact that she's far more beautiful than I am gives me permission to be as beautiful as I want to be, and as talented as I am. What a gift that is. I never try to diminish my light around her, because she's bright enough that she has nothing to fear. She's never trying to dim anybody else.Lurleen learned at a young age that she could disarm people with her humor. In the acting world, she's what would be called a "rubberface." She learned how to contort her face for other's amusement, make herself momentarily less attractive so that others would feel more comfortable around her.Her steadfast friendship saw me through two narcissists and a kind, coffee-making guy I met on a summer trip back and decided I wanted to marry.I am unmarried.A few days before I left Portland to travel for a year, in October of 2010, I sat down with Lurleen on a bench outside a cafe and said, "There's going to be a time that we lose touch. I won't be living here and I know how you are with the phone. And I want you to know that, even when that happens, I will continue to love you as I do now." And it has. And I do.Whenever I announce that I'm coming to Portland she says, "How long are you staying, and how many days are you staying with MEH?"I love this woman so damn much that I hope you will too. This episode was recorded in Portland, Oregon at Lurleen's old, creaky, cozy apartment. It was recorded in October of 2017, on my cross-country horizontal does america tour, before she moved in with her boyfriend.

In the first part of our conversation, we talk about oversharing, proper boundaries, opening up a marriage to save it, simultaneously experiencing thyroid cancer and her parent's divorce, and shoulder-checking your sister.

Now, come lie down with us.

***

If you enjoy lying down with us, become a patron of the horizontal arts! You could receive monthly love poems, tickets to a live horizontal storytelling show, or horizontal pillows so that you too can get horizontal with lila. Every bit of patronage goes into continuing to make independent, uncensored, ad free homemade radio. I believe that making private conversations public makes intimacy contagious, and the more intimacy we have in all different forms, the happier we are. Be part of my mission to spread intimacy across the globe through Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila. Show me you believe in what I'm doing. Patronage begins at $2 a month, and as it increases, the rewards get more sumptuous.

***

Credit Where Credit Is Due:

Chad Michael Snavely edited this podcast. He's at Chad Michael.com. Alan Markley created my intro jam. He is plasticcannons on Instagram. And Shana Shay drew my cover art. She's at shanashay.com.

***

Tune in next week for the second part of my conversation with Lurleen, in which we discuss the art of masturbation, shapeshifting for boyfriends, the Nazi cuddle, my future man, and Lurleen's one and only time at a sex club...