Your Body Remembers Pleasure: Somatic Sex Education & Sexual Healing

"Without realizing it, we are actually in a state of orgasm. We are actually orgasming far more than we think we are."

Explore this episode and deeper teachings on somatic sexual healing: https://rahichun.com/podcast/cartwright-neo-tantra-orgasm/ 

Who this episode is for: Anyone who has quietly sensed that sex holds more presence, connection, and aliveness than the brief release they were taught to aim for.

Dawn Cartwright arrived at her first tantra retreat, in the mountains above Santa Barbara, wearing a blue business suit and heels and carrying suitcases. She had no idea what tantra was. She signed up because the ad promised "the art of sexual magic." More than three decades later, she is the founder of the Chandra Bindu Tantra Institute in Los Angeles, creator of the year-long Fragrance of the Lotus Teacher Certification Training, and host of the Be Fully Alive podcast, with more than 325 episodes. She has studied with teachers including Margot Anand and Daniel Odier, and holds a degree in psychology from UC Davis.

Dawn and I explore why so much of what we call orgasm is built on resistance - holding back... holding back... until we can't anymore.  And what opens when the tension guarding our pleasure softens. She describes orgasm as a doorway into how the body is designed to feel all the time, and walks through the practices she teaches: tracking sensation without labeling it, breathing beneath the belt, and ceremony as a structure for meeting.

In this conversation:

• Why the familiar "exclamation point" orgasm follows a resistance model - and what an ellipsis feels like instead
• Where Dawn says orgasm is already happening in every body she has worked with
• What tension in the jaw and belly during sex may be protecting
• Numbness as a sensation worth tracking, not a verdict on your body
• Breathing beneath the belt, and the oceanic breath that wakes the pelvic floor
• Ceremony - which Dawn once thought would ruin sex - as a space for meeting
• How holding back in pleasure mirrors holding back from love
• What Dawn, at 65, means when she calls sexuality the fountain of youth

Timestamps: 

04:36 — A business suit meets a tantra retreat
 08:48 — What neo-tantra actually invites
 16:02 — Orgasm as a doorway, not a destination
 23:50 — The resistance model of orgasm and love
 28:34 — Tracking sensation and breathing beneath the belt
 34:35 — An invitation for the tantra-curious

Resources & Links: 

Dawn Cartwright: dawncartwright.com - @dawncartwright Be Fully Alive podcast: Dawn Cartwright on Patreon 

Reclaiming Your Pleasure: rahichun.com/courses/ 

Awaken Your Body: rahichun.com/courses/

If this resonates — follow, share with a friend or partner who's curious about tantra but unsure of the word, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps this work reach those who are ready for it.

"The fears that come up around the container are likely the fears that show up around sex in general."

Explore this episode and deeper teachings on somatic sexual healing: https://rahichun.com/podcast/routhier-kinkead-erotic-reclamation/ 

Who this episode is for: For anyone carrying a desire they've never had the language - or the permission - to speak aloud, and who secretly wonders whether what they want is too much, too dark, or too strange to ever be met.

Nicolette Routhier and Kari Kinkead are embodiment facilitators, relationship coaches, and co-creators of Erotic Reclamation - a platform living at the intersection of kink, power dynamics, and personal transformation. Nicolette came to this work through a religious upbringing that silenced her vivid inner fantasy life, and later through the twin revelations of self-pleasure and online expression that "let the inner freak fly" in safety. Kari arrived from a science-based field where she couldn't feel much more than hot and cold in her own body - and built her practice on the radical belief that expanding the body's vocabulary for sensation is the beginning of erotic freedom. Together they co-facilitate Temple of Yes, their in-person retreat, and a growing suite of coaching programs.

In this conversation, we go deep into what it actually means to reclaim your erotic self - not as a one-time event, but as a living, evolving practice. Nicolette and Kari share the somatic frameworks they've developed - the Weather Report, the North Star, and the desire claiming process - that are quietly revolutionizing what kink and power dynamic spaces can hold.

In this conversation:

• Why the fears that surface around a sexual container are the exact same fears living inside your sex life - and why that's useful
• What it means to slow desire so far down that its true nature is finally revealed beneath the performance, the conditioning, and the noise
• The Weather Report: the moment-to-moment somatic attunement practice Nicolette and Kari use to teach body literacy before anything erotic begins
• How conflicting desires between partners - the yes and the no - can become the doorway to the most co-created, alive sex imaginable
• Kari's controversial belief that everyone is kinky - and the quiet liberation hiding inside that claim
• What aftercare actually looks like when it's woven through an entire intimate interaction rather than bolted on at the end
• Why the reclamation of erotic innocence is what participants most frequently walk away naming after their retreats

Timestamps: 

00:00 — What erotic reclamation actually means 

03:37 — Nicolette: religious shame, vivid fantasy, and finding freedom 

05:24 — Kari: when a science brain had to learn the body's language 

10:07 — Slowing desire all the way down to find its truth 

14:43 — The Weather Report and the North Star explained 

20:27 — When desires conflict: the path to a shared yes 

48:22 — Witnessing participants reclaim erotic innocence

Resources & Links Erotic Reclamation: https://www.eroticreclamation.com/  @eroticreclamation 

The 3 Keys to Genital De-armoring and Erotic Embodiment & Sexual Awakening : https://rahichun.com/courses/ 

If this resonates — follow, share with a lover, a friend who's been quietly curious about kink, or anyone who knows there's more aliveness available in their body than they've been given permission to feel. 

A review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify helps this work reach those who are ready for it.

"When you push just slightly too hard, you went past the fascia. When you don't push enough, you're not in connection with it. When you find that exact still point - the boundary between my finger and the client's body dissolves."

Explore this episode and deeper teachings on somatic sexual healing: https://rahichun.com/podcast/susanne-roursgaard-stine-krage-soft-de-armoring/ 

Who this episode is for: Pelvic floor and sexuality practitioners ready to go deeper, and anyone who has sensed their body is holding something that has never had language - or safe enough conditions to surface.

Susanne Roursgaard is the originator of soft de-armoring and the Gaia Method — a body-oriented modality weaving together de-armoring, breathwork, sound, movement, energy work, and psychotherapy. A psychotherapist, body-oriented trauma therapist, family therapist, and sexologist specializing in sexual abuse, she brings 23 years as a midwife and over 30 years of experience to her practitioner trainings across Europe and beyond.

Stine Krage is a certified midwife, somatic therapist, integral sexologist, and Compassionate Inquiry practitioner. Through her practice Amosoma and as co-creator of the Prostatic Portal, she has become one of the most respected voices in male sexual health, prostate healing, and the intersection of emotional release and erotic aliveness.

In this conversation:

• What de-armoring actually is - how it differs from massage, what it touches in the fascia, and what "matching tone" means for a practitioner
• Why 70–80% of what lives in the genital tissue traces to early childhood wounds that have nothing to do with adult sexuality
• How the body tests the practitioner before it trusts - and what it takes to pass that test
• What prostate work reveals about male surrender, and why men arrive carrying shame about the very area most in need of healing
• How breath patterns can lock the nervous system in fight-or-flight - and why Stine addresses breath before she addresses anything else
• The role of sound and sounding in de-armoring: vocal cords, Tibetan bowls, and why frequency medicine bypasses the mind's defenses
• What genuine space holding requires - including why sexual energy leaking from a practitioner into a session is a real and addressable phenomenon
• The psoas as a psychoemotional and sexual organ: why you cannot massage it into release, and what indirect approaches actually work

Timestamps:

• 00:00 — Rahi introduces Susanne and Stine: the two most-downloaded guests in five years of the podcast
• 01:00 — Susanne Roursgaard's bio: the Gaia Method, soft de-armoring, practitioner training across Europe
• 02:00 — Stine Krage's bio: Amasoma, the Prostatic Portal, male sexual health and prostate healing
• 04:00 — What de-armoring actually is: fascia, nervous system, and the ultra-light touch
• 05:00 — "Matching tone": the still point where the boundary between practitioner and client dissolves
• 06:00 — The energy body, the HeartMath Institute, and the two layers de-armoring works on simultaneously
• 07:00 — Presence without agenda: why being a blank slate is a cultivated skill
• 09:00 — Why the body tests the practitioner before it opens — and what that testing looks like
• 11:00 — How Stine's sessions begin the moment a client walks in the room
• 13:00 — Why the pelvis holds so much — and the cultural avoidance of genital touch for healing
• 15:00 — Why Susanne stopped using the phrase "sexual de-armoring" — and what the tissue actually reveals
• 17:00 — The core wounds that surface in pelvic work: self-worth, shame, and the voices formed in early childhood
• 19:00 — Prostate work: the parallel between prostate and cervix wiring, and what surprises people most
• 20:00 — The level of surrender prostate work requires — and why it is so transformative for men
• 22:00 — Space holding: what it genuinely requires of a practitioner
• 25:00 — Clear sexual boundaries in retreat and session containers — and why ambiguity here costs clients safety
• 26:00 — Slowness as a skill: how slowing down creates the conditions for the body to surface what it holds
• 28:00 — Breath as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool: the three diaphragms and how Stine reads breath from intake onward
• 30:00 — Breathing space into tension: a simple practice for communicating with the body through breath
• 32:00 — Over-breathing, CO2 tolerance, and why a trauma breath pattern can make de-armoring unreachable
• 34:00 — Sounding in de-armoring sessions: vocal cords, the cervix and prostate connection, and amplifying what the body is already doing
• 36:00 — Tuning forks versus Tibetan versus crystal bowls — and why overtones matter
• 37:00 — The advanced Gaia Method training: how it came together and what excited both practitioners about bringing it to the field
• 39:00 — Why clinical knowledge matters alongside intuition — including when erectile dysfunction signals the need for medical referral first
• 41:00 — Palpation training: why practitioners need their fingers to recognize anatomy, not just their minds
• 43:00 — Energetic ethics: why sexual healing is a murky field and what this training does about it
• 44:00 — Learning to consciously open and close sexual energy flow — and the live feedback process in training
• 47:00 — The three-month online container: seven modules, monthly Q&A, and how the live intensive is structured
• 48:00 — Specialized trauma knowledge: how early childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual abuse present differently in the body
• 49:00 — The psoas as the seed of the soul: fight/flight/freeze, TRE, the vagus nerve, and the rebozo tradition
• 50:00 — Why the psoas cannot be directly manipulated — and what indirect approaches actually work
• 51:00 — How to find the training, the landing page, and the application process for practitioners outside the Gaia Method
• 54:00 — Susanne's retreats for non-practitioners, her online female community, and the coming 21-day embodiment challenge
• 55:00 — Stine's Prostatic Portal practitioner training and add-on certification pathway
• 57:00 — Closing reflections

Resources & Links

Susanne Roursgaard & the Gaia Method: https://the-gaia-method.com 
Stine Krage & the Prostatic Portal: https://theprostaticportal.com/ 
Stine's practice, Amosoma: http://amosoma.com/ 
Advanced Gaia Method training: https://gaiatrain-ke7mejo6.manus.space/ 

The Gaia Method 21-Day Challenge: July 2-July 22: https://www.the-gaia-method.com/product-page/21-day-challenge-a-womens-journey 

 The 3 Keys to Genital De-Armoring — Rahi's practitioner training: https://rahichun.mykajabi.com/the-3-keys-live-training-CA 
Reclaiming Your Pleasure course: https://rahichun.com/reclaimingyourpleasure/ 

If this conversation reached something in you — follow, share with a practitioner colleague or someone on their somatic healing path, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps this work reach the people who are ready for it.

"Her rational brain said this is what happens at the border sometimes. Her body registered it as a sexual assault."

Explore this episode and deeper teachings on somatic sexual healing: https://rahichun.com/podcast/tema-mercado-birth-consent-sexuality/ 

Who this episode is for: Anyone navigating postpartum disconnection, birth trauma, or the quiet question of whether desire and a felt sense of self can return after everything the body has been through.

Tema Mercado is a Licensed Midwife in California, Partera Profesional Certificada in Mexico, and founder of La Matriz Birth in San Diego. A first-generation daughter of Purépecha and Yoreme lineage, mother of six, grandmother of two — her own births span the full spectrum from medicalized hospital settings to reverent home births. Before midwifery, she spent years as a sexual assault survivor advocate. When she entered birth work, she expected it to be different. It wasn't.

What she found in the delivery room — the same power dynamics, the same coercion, the same PTSD symptoms in mothers who were supposed to be celebrating — changed everything. Out of that recognition, she built a practice grounded in somatic consent, ancestral medicine, and the truth that sexuality doesn't disappear when motherhood begins.

In this conversation:

• Why the delivery room mirrors the power dynamics of a sexual assault investigation
• How somatic prenatal care metabolizes fear before it becomes armor in labor
• The woman who arrived saying "I have no trauma" — and what her pelvis revealed
• Why postpartum loss of desire is almost never about hormones
• How a father's newborn caregiving rewires his brain — and reopens intimacy
• Belly binding as ancestral somatic practice
• How being truly seen during birth transforms how a woman moves through the world

Timestamps:

• 00:08 — Tema's origin story
• 14:33 — Consent as somatic practice
• 22:58 — Ancestral medicine and belly binding
• 32:13 — The woman who "had no trauma"
• 46:18 — What actually brings desire back postpartum
• 59:29 — From disempowerment to sovereignty

Resources & Links

Tema Mercado: https://lamatrizbirth.com — @matrizmidwife

Somatic sexual healing and embodied intimacy: https://divineunionforlovers.com/course 

Awaken Pleasure course: https://rahichun.com/reclaimingyourpleasure/ 

If this resonates — follow, share with someone postpartum or healing, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps this work reach those who are ready for it.

Explore this episode and deeper teachings on somatic sexual healing: https://rahichun.com/podcast/erotic-sovereignty-cervical-awakening-sex-work-truth/ 

In this raw, unfiltered conversation, I’m joined by writer and somatic sex educator Ariel Szabo, creator of The Erotic Frontier, for a deeply embodied exploration of sexuality, trauma healing, and erotic awakening. This episode moves beyond surface-level conversations about pleasure—and into the deeper terrain of nervous system healing, cervical awakening, and the reclamation of erotic life force. Ariel shares her journey from sexual numbness and trauma into profound embodied pleasure, including how working with plant medicine opened pathways to authentic sexual expression and inner truth. We explore how shame and fear become wired into the body… and how presence, grief, and devotion begin to unwind that conditioning. 

We dive deeply into:

• The difference between disconnected pleasure and embodied pleasure
• How slowing down rewires sensation and opens the cervix to profound warmth and climax
• Why sexual visibility can actually increase safety in the body
• How erotic energy fuels creativity, voice, and life purpose
• The power shift from “power over” to “power with” in intimacy and culture

• The crucial distinction between consensual sex work and trafficking
• Why decriminalization — not legalization — reduces harm
• The emotional cost placed on survivors within our judicial systems

This conversation moves from the deeply personal—genital listening, cervical awakening, and embodied pleasure—into the collective dynamics shaping sexuality, power, and culture. If you’ve ever felt numb, disconnected from desire, or shaped by narratives that limit your expression… this episode opens a new possibility. Because erotic sovereignty isn’t about performance. It’s about presence. 

And your body may be waiting for you to ask: What do I need? What do I want? 

Go deeper: Explore somatic sexual healing and embodied intimacy : https://divineunionforlovers.com/course 

Learn How To Awaken Pleasure: https://rahichun.com/reclaimingyourpleasure/ 

Connect with Ariel Szabo: Website: https://sacredmoonflower.com  

Substack: The Erotic Frontier  

If this resonates: Follow the podcast, share with someone you trust, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it helps this work reach those who are ready for it.

What if arousal and pleasure weren’t “inappropriate”… but powerful markers of health?

Explore sexual sovereignty and embodied pleasure:
https://rahichun.com/podcast/sexual-sovereignty-rewilding-the-body/ 

In this richly embodied conversation, Rahi Chun sits down with Dr. Saida Desilets — pioneering teacher of sacred sexuality and creator of the Embodied Psychosexual Method — to explore sexual sovereignty, erotic innocence, and the body’s capacity to heal through pleasure, breath, and deep attunement.

Saida shares the astonishing origins of her life’s work: from a childhood rooted in natural sensual connection, to surviving violence, to being told at age twenty she had only two weeks to live — and the radical path of choosing life, reclaiming vitality, and rebuilding her relationship to desire from the inside out.

Together, we explore how shame disrupts the body’s natural aliveness, why relaxed arousal is the foundation of true intimacy, and how rewilding in nature can restore the pre-verbal sensual intelligence that makes us more connected lovers and humans.

This episode bridges:
embodiment • sexuality • nervous system wisdom • pleasure-based healing • and the wild intelligence of the body

Inside this conversation:

• Saida’s origin story and how her life force became her teacher
 • What “sexual sovereignty” actually means — beyond the buzzword
 • Why arousal and pleasure can be normalized as wellness indicators
 • The difference between performance sex and relaxed arousal
 • Erotic innocence: reclaiming turn-on without shame or meaning-making
 • How wilderness rewilding restores sensual attunement and presence
 • Why leaning into discomfort in intimacy can transform into deeper pleasure
 • Breath as the simplest daily practice for reclaiming aliveness
 • “Yum vs. yuck”: training attention as a pathway to more vitality
 • What it really means to “marinate in your own essence”

Learn more about Saida’s work: embodiedloveuniversity.com 

More resources about Somatic Sexual Wholeness:  rahichun.com 

If this conversation supported you, leaving a 5-star rating or brief review is a simple way to help this work reach more people.

What if your sexuality was never broken — only buried?

Explore rewilding eros and reclaiming aliveness:
https://rahichun.com/podcast/rewilding-eros-healing-shame-grief/ 

In this expansive conversation, somatic sexuality coach Victor Warring explores the process of “rewilding eros” — reconnecting with the innate erotic intelligence we’re all born with before shame, culture, and conditioning taught us to disconnect.

Drawing from his work in somatic psychology, grief work during the AIDS epidemic, and sexological bodywork, Victor shares why grief and pleasure are inseparable, how shame limits our erotic capacity, and why reclaiming your aliveness is a radical act of healing — and even activism.

We explore:

• the connection between grief and eros
• sexual shame and “upper limits” to pleasure
• erotic sovereignty and owning your desire
• how culture domesticates our bodies and sexuality
• creating an erotically alive home and community
• why healing is subtractive (removing conditioning, not fixing yourself)
• erotic embodiment as activism
• practical ways to expand your pleasure ceiling safely

This episode is an invitation to remember: your erotic nature isn’t something to learn — it’s something to uncover.

Learn more about Victor’s work at RewildEros.com 

More resources and writings: rahichun.com 
If this episode supported you, leaving a 5-star rating or brief review helps this work reach more people.

What if your deepest wounds could become the doorway to your greatest healing?

Explore pelvic healing, birth, and embodied pleasure:
https://rahichun.com/podcast/orgasmic-birth-miscarriage-pelvic-healing/
 

In this powerful conversation, Rahi Chun sits with somatic sex educator, pelvic care provider, and birth worker Katie Spataro to explore how the body itself can initiate us into sacred work through grief, birth, trauma, and pleasure.

Katie shares her extraordinary personal journey — from miscarriage and spontaneous ritual… to an unexpectedly orgasmic birth… to nearly a decade of supporting survivors of childhood sexual trauma through somatic, pelvic, and erotic healing practices.

Together, they explore the profound connection between birth, sexuality, grief, and pleasure — and how tending the pelvis can unlock deep nervous system healing and reclaim embodied power.

Inside this episode:

• What an orgasmic birth really is (and why birth is inherently erotic)
 • Miscarriage, grief rituals, and womb healing
 • How trauma is stored in the pelvic floor and fascia
 • Somatic pelvic and prostate bodywork as activism and healing
 • Why pleasure is medicine for the nervous system
 • Prostate and anal care through a therapeutic, trauma-informed lens
 • Community healing for survivors of sexual trauma
 • The role of consent, touch, and attuned presence in deep repair
 • How grief and pleasure are portals into one another

This conversation is tender, grounded, and radically hopeful — an invitation to trust the body’s wisdom and remember that healing doesn’t happen by forcing… but by feeling.

Learn more about Katie’s work:
SacredWombServices.com 

Explore Rahi’s somatic sexuality resources:
Rahichun.com 

If this episode touched you, leaving a 5-star review helps this work reach more people reclaiming their bodies.

Why do so many people long for deeper pleasure and intimacy — yet feel blocked, disconnected, or unable to receive?

Explore erotic liberation and the power of receiving:
https://rahichun.com/podcast/four-phases-erotic-liberation/ 

In this grounded and illuminating conversation, somatic intimacy guide Darna Avila shares how trauma-informed somatics and consent practices create the foundation for true erotic liberation.

Together, we explore how nervous system safety, regulation, and clear boundaries open the door to authentic desire, deeper connection, and more expansive pleasure. Darna introduces her four phases of erotic liberation — regulation, receiving, allowing, and expressing — and explains why many of us, especially women and AFAB bodies, have been conditioned to people-please, overgive, and disconnect from our own needs.

We talk about:

• the link between trauma and sexual shutdown
• the fawn response and people-pleasing in intimacy
• why receiving pleasure can feel unsafe
• the Wheel of Consent and clear communication
• rebuilding trust in the body
• reclaiming desire and erotic sovereignty
• pleasure as a source of power and activism
• how personal healing supports collective liberation

This episode is an invitation to slow down, listen inward, and remember that your pleasure is not selfish — it’s life force.

More about Darshana:  darshanaavila.com 

Learn the erotic practices for Reclaiming Pleasure: rahichun.com/reclaimingyourpleasure/

If this episode supported you, leaving a 5-star rating or brief review helps this work reach more people.

What if your “sex problem” wasn’t sexual at all?

Explore relational dynamics and somatic mapping:
https://rahichun.com/podcast/sex-problem-is-relational-geometry/ 

In this episode, I’m joined by Ali Mazza, a sexologist and somatic therapist with 40+ years of experience, to explore a deceptively simple method that reveals what’s been shaping your intimacy from underneath your awareness.

We begin with Family Constellations Therapy—a powerful group process that exposes hidden family dynamics—and then dive into Ali’s unique innovation: Personal Geometry. Using post-it notes, objects, and spatial mapping, Ali helps clients externalize their inner relational landscape—so patterns around porn, orgasm, commitment, heart–sex splits, and emotional enmeshment become visible, movable, and transformable in real time.

If you’ve ever felt like your “sexual issue” isn’t actually about sex—this conversation will land.

In this episode, we explore:

• What Family Constellations are, and why “representatives” can feel what they don’t intellectually know
• How Personal Geometry maps unconscious relational dynamics in minutes
• Why “addiction” often functions as support, protection, or avoidance—and how mapping reveals the function
• The heart–sexuality split: what it is, why it happens, and how it shifts
• How inhibition and performance blocks grow from cultural expectations—and what honesty unlocks
• Why somatic work can sometimes reveal in one session what years of talk therapy can’t access

Learn more: Ali’s work and trainings can be found at alimezey.com 

More resources about Somatic Sexual Wholeness: rahichun.com 

If this episode supported you, leaving a 5-star rating or brief review helps this work reach more people.