Pleasure, Intimacy & Relationships Advice

Sexual Fantasies: What Do They Mean? Sexual fantasies are as common as daydreaming. Imagining ourselves in a hot tryst with a (several) flight attendant(s), being desired by strangers at a sex party, doing unspeakable things with a celebrity crush, being punished by a cruel owner or getting paid for sexual acts we’d never do in…

Why reclaiming pleasure for women, begins with changing your relationship with your body, not making yourself more desirable. Erotic embodiment requires the ability to take up space in a culture that has spent centuries teaching us women that eroticism is something we offer, not something we receive. We learn to make ourselves desirable, attractive, accommodating,…

The Role of Attunement in Sex, Intimacy and Other Human Relationships Attunement is the process of being emotionally present and responsive to another person – reading their emotional state and adjusting your responses accordingly. It’s like an ongoing emotional conversation where you’re continuously sensing and responding to what someone needs in the moment. It’s the ability…

Spontaneous Sex: The Fantasy of Desire Without Effort Ahhh, spontaneous sex. The phrase alone conjures images of youth, tropical holidays, cocktails on the beach, stolen moments and the intoxicating feeling that sex simply happens. For many people, the fantasy isn’t really about having sex somewhere unexpected. It’s about what spontaneity represents: abandon, freedom, passion, possibility.…

Erectile dysfunction can be about much more than getting or keeping an erection. For some men, erectile dysfunction begins with a physical change. For others, it appears during a stressful period, after a difficult sexual experience, or seemingly out of nowhere. Sometimes the body responds differently from one sexual encounter to the next. As a…

Advanced Non-Monogamous Dynamics: Beyond Jealousy in Polyamory Polyamory and Non-Monogamy is often introduced through the language of jealousy. How do you handle jealousy? How do you communicate? How do you create boundaries? How do you reassure your partner? Those conversations matter and they are just the beginning of the work. Once you’ve been practicing polyamory…

Male Performance Anxiety in NYC: Sexual Performance Anxiety, Erectile Dysfunction and Treatment Male performance anxiety can make sex feel like a test. You may want sex, feel attracted to your partner, and still find yourself worrying about whether you’ll get an erection, keep it, orgasm, or satisfy your partner. That worry can become part of…

Mismatched Desire In Long Term Relationships is Normal (and very frustrating) “Mismatched libido” is one of the most common reasons couples feel stuck, ashamed, or quietly resentful. It’s also one of the most misunderstood. We tend to talk about desire as if it were a fixed personal trait—something you either have or don’t—rather than a…

When Chaos Feels Like Love Have you ever had a relationship that felt more intense than anything you’d experienced before—and yet, looking back, you know it wasn’t good for you? Maybe you still think about that person years later. Maybe you’ve compared new partners to them and wondered why healthier relationships don’t give you the…

Wanting Sex and Liking Sex Are Two Different Things You can like sex and not feel like having it at the same time. That contradiction confuses a lot of people, but it’s more common than you’d think, because your brain and your body are responding to two distinct experiences. You might think, I want to…

Emotional Capacity vs. Willingness vs. Emotional Availability vs. Emotional Labor You can be fully willing to work on your relationship and still lack the capacity to make the changes it needs. That gap is where couples stall for years, often misdiagnosed as emotionally unavailable, emotionally distant, or emotionally shut down, when what’s missing is a…

The Orgasm Gap. Why Women Aren’t Having Orgasms I  have orgasms alone, but not during sex with my partner… what’s wrong with me? It’s one of the most common questions I hear in my practice from women, and if you’ve ever asked it about yourself, you’re in good company. This problem has a name: The…

(Your orgasm isn’t a mystery — it’s a pattern.) Many people assume that if they can orgasm alone but not with a partner, something must be wrong with their body, their relationship, or their attraction. They wonder whether they’ve become “too used to masturbation,” whether their partner simply isn’t skilled enough, or whether they have…

How To Process Your Emotions One of the most common pieces of advice in self-help culture is that you need to feel your feelings and process your emotions in order to heal. It sounds simple enough. But in practice, many people end up doing one of two things instead: they either think about their emotions…

Fawning In Bed: Sex as a Peacekeeping Device  Saying yes to sex, when you’re not especially into it, can be a type of fawning response many of us unconsciously do in relationships. Its origins are complex for each of us, and it’s not always alarming or a problem. Sometimes sex is about generosity, sometimes curiosity,…

When Emptiness After Sex Feels Lonely You put enormous energy into becoming someone worth wanting. Almost none into learning how to actually be with someone once they want you. And that gap, more than anything else, is why sex feels empty for so many people, even when nothing went wrong. This isn’t a conversation about…

Why So Many Women Don’t Know What They Want in Bed: and The Question That Actually Helps You know what car you want. You know what neighbourhood you want to live in, what you want from your career, where you want to eat, how you want your hair cut. Ask what you want in bed,…

How To Build Intimacy We are living through a loneliness epidemic, and while men are often at the center of the conversation, loneliness touches all of us. Most of us have had the same exchange so many times it barely registers anymore. Someone asks how you are. The answer is ready before they finish the…

Why Fantasy Love Feels Better Than the Real Thing (And What That’s Actually Telling You) The deliciousness of longing is what romance novels are made of. The fantasy is all-encompassing. You are, after all, in charge of the entore story. It feels like certainty. Like finally. Like this is the person who will make everything…

Sex Won’t Fix Your Sexless Relationship. But It Might Show You What Will. There’s a particular kind of hope that comes with being in a sexless relationship: the belief that if you could just have more sex, everything else might finally feel better. It makes sense on the surface. Sex has become rare, absent, or…

What If You’ve Never Seen A Relationship Built On Love? Most of us arrive at midlife carrying relationships like old luggage — overpacked, worn at the seams, and full of things we don’t remember choosing. We’ve learned what relationships look like from people who were also just figuring it out, passing down habits shaped more…

What Actually Keeps a Relationship Running Relationship advice is everywhere, and most of it is either painfully obvious or built on the quiet assumption that if you just do the right things and say the right words, you’ll get the relationship you want. But unfortunately, that’s not how it works. What actually keeps a relationship…

The Capacity Gap: Why Willingness Isn’t Enough to Sustain Your Relationship Sarah sat in my office, watching Mike fumble through another question about his feelings. “I don’t know,” he said for the third time that session. “I guess I just… shut down?” She felt the familiar tightness in her chest. Mike wanted their relationship to…

The Foundation You Can’t Skip: Why Great Relationships Start With Yourself There’s a romantic idea most of us grew up with — that the right person will complete us. That love is something that arrives from the outside and fills in whatever is missing. It’s a beautiful thought. It’s also, quietly, one of the most…