Skin and Soul™: Beyond the Pale with Gwenm A. Carsley

In this episode of Skin & Soul, Gwenm sits down with Paul Aaron Travis, founder of School for Love and School for Lovers, certified sexologist, AASECT-certified sexuality educator, long-time men’s group facilitator, and author of The Spark You’ve Been Missing.
Paul’s work asks what happens when love stops being a fantasy we chase and becomes something we practice.
We talk about the divorce cycle, conscious endings, the voice in the mirror, dating fatigue, surface connection, the loneliness hiding inside “I’m fine,” and Paul’s framework of Authintimacy — authenticity on the out-breath, intimacy on the in-breath.
This conversation moves through love, sex, pleasure, communication, men’s work, adult sexual education, and the quiet places where relationships go numb long before they officially break.
It’s about the spark we lose when we perform our lives instead of inhabiting them — and what it takes to come back into truth, contact, and connection.

What happens when you mix a sex-positive grandma, a childhood spent figure-skating on frozen lakes, and a lifetime of dismantling religious shame… with modern parenting, porn, and kids with iPads?
In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I sit with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers — therapist, educator, and author of Sex, God & the Conservative Church and Shameless Parenting — for a wildly honest, surprisingly funny conversation about raising shame-free kids in an over-sexualized world.
We talk about babies discovering their genitals in the bath, toddlers who just want to hug everyone, and why “hands in your pants at the dinner table” is not a crisis but an invitation to teach boundaries without shaming desire. Tina walks us through what real “family life education” looks like from 0–18, why one hundred tiny, awkward one-minute chats beat the one Big Talk, and how to start when you feel like you’re years too late.
We go there with porn, phones and tablets, patriarchy, boys’ right to say no too, and how to help our kids recognize exploitation instead of becoming numb to it. We also talk about re-parenting ourselves, healing the little one inside who never got these conversations, and the strange grace that can show up with aging parents and dementia.
This one is for the exhausted, tender, secretly terrified parents who still want their kids to know: your body is yours, your pleasure is good, and you never have to trade your soul to belong.

What happens when you mix a sex-positive grandma, a childhood spent figure-skating on frozen lakes, and a lifetime of dismantling religious shame… with modern parenting, porn, and kids with iPads?
In this episode of Skin and Soul: Beyond the Pale, I sit with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers — therapist, educator, and author of Sex, God & the Conservative Church and Shameless Parenting — for a wildly honest, surprisingly funny conversation about raising shame-free kids in an over-sexualized world.
We talk about babies discovering their genitals in the bath, toddlers who just want to hug everyone, and why “hands in your pants at the dinner table” is not a crisis but an invitation to teach boundaries without shaming desire. Tina walks us through what real “family life education” looks like from 0–18, why one hundred tiny, awkward one-minute chats beat the one Big Talk, and how to start when you feel like you’re years too late.
We go there with porn, phones and tablets, patriarchy, boys’ right to say no too, and how to help our kids recognize exploitation instead of becoming numb to it. We also talk about re-parenting ourselves, healing the little one inside who never got these conversations, and the strange grace that can show up with aging parents and dementia.
This one is for the exhausted, tender, secretly terrified parents who still want their kids to know: your body is yours, your pleasure is good, and you never have to trade your soul to belong.

What are women really seeking when they reach beyond the usual scripts of dating, sex, and intimacy? In this episode, Gwenm speaks with George Goulburn, who left corporate life at 51 to become a professional male companion in Australia. Together they explore longing, tenderness, desire, loneliness, safety, fantasy, and the deeper hunger beneath what people say they want. This is a conversation about what it means to be met, without performance, confusion, or apology.

What are women really seeking when they reach beyond the usual scripts of dating, sex, and intimacy? In this episode, Gwenm speaks with George Goulburn, who left corporate life at 51 to become a professional male companion in Australia. Together they explore longing, tenderness, desire, loneliness, safety, fantasy, and the deeper hunger beneath what people say they want. This is a conversation about what it means to be met, without performance, confusion, or apology.

Suzanne Raja has spent decades working with women at the intersection of power, intimacy, leadership, and love. In this conversation, we go into the deeper terrain of The Well Loved Woman ~ not as a polished ideal, but as a lived experience. What does it mean for a woman to feel cherished without losing herself. To be met in her strength, her sensitivity, her hunger, her complexity. To stop performing competence and begin receiving love in a fuller way.
We talk about feminine power, relational dynamics, the patterns women fall into when they have spent too long holding everything together, and the shift that becomes possible when a woman no longer defines worth through overgiving, over-functioning, or self-abandonment. This is a conversation about being deeply loved, yes—but also about becoming the woman who can inhabit that love without shrinking, armoring, or disappearing from herself.
This one is about devotion. Softness with spine. Power with heart. And the kind of love that does not ask a woman to betray her own aliveness.

Suzanne Raja has spent decades working with women at the intersection of power, intimacy, leadership, and love. In this conversation, we go into the deeper terrain of The Well Loved Woman ~ not as a polished ideal, but as a lived experience. What does it mean for a woman to feel cherished without losing herself. To be met in her strength, her sensitivity, her hunger, her complexity. To stop performing competence and begin receiving love in a fuller way.
We talk about feminine power, relational dynamics, the patterns women fall into when they have spent too long holding everything together, and the shift that becomes possible when a woman no longer defines worth through overgiving, over-functioning, or self-abandonment. This is a conversation about being deeply loved, yes—but also about becoming the woman who can inhabit that love without shrinking, armoring, or disappearing from herself.
This one is about devotion. Softness with spine. Power with heart. And the kind of love that does not ask a woman to betray her own aliveness.

What happens when usefulness ends and life finally slows down.
In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The moment when roles fall away and time opens up, leaving many people face to face with freedom, grief, desire, and a quiet panic they did not expect.
We talk about identity after productivity, what surfaces when no one is waiting for you to perform, and how retirement can become a threshold rather than a retreat. This is a conversation about aliveness, unlived longings, and the courage it takes to meet yourself when the scaffolding disappears.

What happens when usefulness ends and life finally slows down.
In this episode, I sit with Dawn Marcotte, a Certified Professional Retirement Coach who works at the inner edge of retirement. Not the financial planning. Not the bucket lists. The moment when roles fall away and time opens up, leaving many people face to face with freedom, grief, desire, and a quiet panic they did not expect.
We talk about identity after productivity, what surfaces when no one is waiting for you to perform, and how retirement can become a threshold rather than a retreat. This is a conversation about aliveness, unlived longings, and the courage it takes to meet yourself when the scaffolding disappears.

Producer Laura Z. Barket shares her journey through widowhood, motherhood, and finding aliveness again through theatre.