This intro was recorded in Baltimore, MD because, throughout the month of October, horizontal does america. It’s just me, a Honda Civic, and a backpackful of recording equipment circling the United States together … and you can be a part of happening it.
Patreon.com is a platform for crowdsourcing patronage. Whereas in the olden days, an artist survived on the support of one single patron, now, you can support the horizontal arts with a monthly contribution of any amount whatsoever, from $1 on up. Rewards include handwritten postcards, tickets to the horizontal storytelling live show, behind-the-scenes videos and sensual photos, and having an episode curated to your chosen theme, amongst other perks! Go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila. I’m just a few dollars away from filming a video of the elaborate happy dance I do every time I get word of a new patron! This month, I’ll use your support for gasoline, the recording equipment I just bought, and horizontal storytelling, where the quickies are recorded.
You can get horizontal photos (I aim to take one in every city), video postcards, and missives from the road by signing up for the mailing list at horizontalwithlila.com - also check out the website if there are any vocabulary words we use that you don’t know yet - because it has a glossary.
Horizontal’s cross-country tour was sponsored in part by Lucid Studios, a New York-based production company. They’re meticulous and passionate people, and they truly care about how your work affects the audience. Find them on lucidstudiosnyc.com (not ny, as I said last week - oops!)
In this episode, I lie down with my housemate Zed. He’s a sound engineer who works mainly on musicals, and before he moved into the house, he worked on Broadway touring shows for seven years. Our relationship has been fraught in the past, especially during the early months of living together, which we share about in the second half of our episode. Our respect for each other has grown, though. Zed’s motto is, “Always leave it better than you found it.” He often lives up to that. And without Zed’s generosity, this podcast would probably not exist, as, up until two weeks ago, I was borrowing my sound equipment from him. He is fiercely dedicated to his work and our home, Hacienda Villa, a sex-positive intentional community in Bushwick, Brooklyn. To record this with me was a great act of bravery on his part, and I hope you feel that.
In the first part of our episode, we talk about the sex table, the “poly” house, outsiderness, and being a sex-positive germophobe. Come on. Come lie down with us.
**
Horizontal’s sensuous cover art is by the illustrator Shana Shay - find her on 99 designs.com. My intro & outro music were created by Alan Markley, plasticcannons on Instagram. And every episode is mixed and mastered by Owen Muir, of Self-Disclosure Productions.
On the next episode of horizontal, you’ll hear the rest of my conversation with Zed, in which he allows me to read one of the hardest letters I’ve ever written, a letter that I wrote him.
Follow horizontal around the country by signing up on horizontalwithlila.com
The intro for this episode was recorded in Burlington, Vermont, because, for the entire month of October, horizontal does america.
Lila is circling the country on a big podcasty solo road trip which began in New York and heads up to Maine, down to Baltimore, across the northern states, down through California, back across the South, up the East Coast … and you can be a part of happening it.
Patreon.com is a platform for crowdsourcing patronage. Whereas in the olden days, an artist survived on the support of one patron, our global web allows everyone who believes in an artist’s work to have a hand in sustaining it. You can support horizontal endeavors with a monthly donation of any amount from $1 on up. There are rewards at every level, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. I cherish every Patreon supporter - each dollar means that you champion my mission of cultivating intimacy around the world. This month, I’ll use your support for gasoline to get across the country, recording equipment, and horizontal storytelling events, where we record our quickies.
If you can’t support horizontal financially just yet, you can still get sensual horizontal photos, video postcards, and missives from the road by signing up for the mailing list at horizontalwithlila.com
And if you know a particularly compelling human with fascinating, raw, vulnerable stories about sex, love, and relationships of all kinds, send me a message through Facebook or the website. I definitely want to know who you think I should lie down with next.
horizontal’s podcasting tour is sponsored in part by Lucid Studios, a New York-based production company that crafts video content, books talent, and produces live events. They are meticulous and passionate people who care deeply about the way your work affects an audience. For your production needs, contact them through the website.
In this quickie episode, recorded live at my podcast launch pajama party, I lie down with Alana Heiss. Alana is a Google product marketing manager … and a sex writer. She is probably the famous-est real-live unicorn - a term used for the (not as mythical and rare as one might think) person who has sex with couples. She wrote an excellent, titillating article about it for GQ entitled “Confessions of a Real-Life Unicorn.” She tells this quickie story at my request, because I wanted more about Unicorn Life. Alana calls herself a “fake gonzo journalist” at the beginning of her story, but I completely disagree. I think she’s a real gonzo journalist. You can find her work on alanaheiss.com.
So you know what you have to do, right? Come lie down with us.
+++
Horizontal’s saucy cover art is by the illustrator Shana Shay - find her on 99 designs.com. My intro & outro, complete with sex vox (did you know that heavy breathing, when it’s used as an effect in music, is called sex vox? I didn’t.), those were created by Alan Markley, plasticcannons on Instagram. And every episode is mixed and mastered by Owen Muir, who you heard at the beginning of this quickie, of Self-Disclosure Productions. You can find Owen on Twitter at @psychdisclosure
In this episode of horizontal, I lie down with Jackie, aka Anya or, Anyalita. Jackie is a Shibari aficionado - a rope artist. You can follow her adventures in surrender on theropediary.tumblr.com and on Instagram as Anyalita. On The Rope Diary, she introduces herself as “a rope and bondage enthusiast, a sadomasochist, a sensualist, and a switch.” Jackie is also a sex tools educator who works at Babeland, a queer-owned, lady-friendly sex toy shop. I have great love in my heart for Babeland, as it was the first sex shop I ever felt comfortable in.
When we recorded, Jackie had a cold, so she sounds rather snuffly. But I don’t think you’ll mind.
In the first half of this episode, we talk about happy parents, unhappy parents, depression, self-soothing, and a first kiss with a kitchen boy. Come lie down with us.
***
Hey! Exciting news! In October, horizontal does America. Lila will be driving cross-country, recording episodes, and getting horizontal in unexpected places across the United States.
If you know someone who lives in the contiguous U.S., has excellent juju, and would make a fascinating guest for horizontal, contact us through the website.
For exclusive subscriber content, like virtual postcards from the road, sign up on horizontalwithlila.com! And if you’d like to be a part of this cross-country horizontal venture, become Lila’s patron on Patreon! patreon.com/horizontalwithlila Wheeee!
***
Credit where credit is:
Horizontal’s badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons.
It’s saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.
Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned for Owen’s own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their own experiences with mental health. You can find Owen on Twitter at @psychdisclosure
To sign up for the horizontal show notes, exclusive subscriber content, sexy vocabulary words (really!) and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com
In this episode, I lie down with Grant Stoddard, my first repeat guest! (It's the accent.)
Grant is an experiential journalist who specializes in reporting from outside of his comfort zone (sometimes way, waaay outside). The wild situations he has experienced bodily have appeared in Thrillist, Vice, T, New York Magazine, Penthouse, and Maxim, among many others.
He’s the author of one of my favorite memoirs of all-time, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert. When I was reading it on the bus, I laughed so hard that I completely missed my stop and had to double back about ten blocks. It follows Grant’s journey from lovelorn small town virgin to sex writer at Nerve.com.
This quickie elaborates on a story from the book and involves a trivia contest, a sex column, and sex on the subway.
This quickie episode was recorded live at my podcast launch pajama party on May 21st, 2017, at Hacienda Studio, a sex-positive event space in Bushwick, Brooklyn. My guests enjoyed reiki, massage, empathy sessions, and cookies upon arrival. After a brief cuddling tutorial from one of my housemates, a professional Cuddler, fifty people in kimonos, flannels, onesies, and short-shorts got horizontal and snuggly on an enormous Megabed the size of three kings put together, while, on a bed-island across the room, my guest and I arranged ourselves as we would for any horizontal recording session - lying on our backs, almost ear-to-ear, sharing a pillow, microphones hanging down above us, with a starry blanket as our backdrop…
You can hire Grant to sling some words for you. Peruse his zillion-article portfolio here.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
For all things horizontal with lila, including show notes, horizontal-inpired writing, and saucy saucy photos, subscribe at http://horizontalwithlila.com
Without whom, it would not be possible:
Badass theme music by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons
Saucy cover art by Shana Shay (hire her!) on 99designs
Mixing and mastering magic and sorcery by Owen Muir of Self Disclosure productions, on Twitter as @psychdisclosure
In this episode, I lie down with my housemate Tiger.
Tiger goes by many names, but we'll only use two of them here. Tiger is a Professional Cuddler, or, Cuddlist. Her cuddling name is Ellen. You can find her on Cuddlist.com.
She's also a reiki practitioner, a trained yoga instructor, a comedian (check out "The Comedy Witch"), and a cats fanatic. That's the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical theatre version of cats, to be clear. In lieu of performing in the actual musical, Tiger cosplays regularly as feline, and soon plans to host Cat Cuddling events at Hacienda Studio, in which the cats are actually humans in full cat costume because "you could cuddle real cats, but they're unreliable."
She writes and performs funny songs, and last year I saw her in an hour-long one-ish-woman show entitled "Kiss Me, I'm Jew-witch." She sang about celebrity sex dreams and her period. Her parents were there. It was pretty amazing. Tiger is the closest thing I have at this point to a sister. We have deep talks in the kitchen, during which we usually quote the title of her yet-to-be written inspirational memoir, "Breakthrough Junkie." She scrapes me up off the floor when I need it and texts me that there are Puffins in her cabinet for a late-night snack, when I don't. I love her. I hope you will.
Come lie down with us.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Credit where credit is:
Horizontal’s badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons.
It’s saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.
Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned for Owen’s own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their own experiences with mental health. You can find Owen on Twitter at @psychdisclosure
To sign up for the horizontal show notes, exclusive subscriber content, sexy vocabulary words (really!) and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com
In this quickie episode, recorded live at my podcast launch pajama party on May 21st, 2017, I lie down with my friend Becca and tell her a story.
That series of recordings from the party comprise the first installment of my ongoing series Horizontal Storytelling. We recorded at Hacienda Studio, our sex-positive event space in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
My guests enjoyed reiki, massage, empathy sessions, and cookies upon arrival. After a brief cuddling tutorial from one of my housemates, a professional Cuddlist, fifty people in kimonos, flannels, onesies, and short-shorts got horizontal and snuggly on an enormous Megabed the size of three kings put together.
On a bed-island across the room, my guest and I arranged ourselves as we would for any horizontal recording session - lying on our backs, almost ear-to-ear, sharing a pillow, microphones hanging down above us, with a starry blanket as our backdrop…
In this quickie, I speak about a best friend, a road trip, several fiances, a suicide, and a breakup. I titled my story, Another Word for Breakup." Becca has been my friend for 10 years, and knew much of the story already. I was glad to have her by my side.
Come lie down with us.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Credit where credit is:
Horizontal’s badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons.
It’s saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.
Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned in August 2017 for Owen’s own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their own experiences with mental health. You can find Owen on Twitter at @psychdisclosure
To sign up for the horizontal show notes, exclusive subscriber content, and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com
In this episode, I lie down with Dr. HazelGrace Yates. In a twin bed. At a summer camp. In the wilds of New Jersey.
HazelGrace is a clinical sexologist, a scholar, and the founder of The Cock Project and The Pussy Project. She holds a PhD in Human Sexuality, and a Masters in Education.
The Cock Project offers those who identify with having a cock the opportunity to speak about their experiences living with it, and their feelings about it, directly to a group of others who self-identify the same way, while being silently and compassionately witnessed by a group that does not identify with having a cock, or would prefer to act as a compassionate witness. The Pussy Project is the inverse. Right after we recorded this episode, I had the opportunity to experience both workshops.
HazelGrace and I were both taking part in Connection Camp, a summer camp for adults that’s centered around activities designed to encourage authentic relating. It is produced by The Connection Movement, which is based in New York and led by Amy Silverman. More info on that in the show notes.
I felt extremely moved by my experience at The Cock Project workshop. Even though I live in a community in which we generally feel comfortable to speak openly about bodies and sex, I had never before heard even one cock owner speak in detail and at length about their experience with their cock. Certainly not more than an anecdote or two from a lover, definitely not to or in front of other cock owners, and decidedly not while witnessed by those who identify with having a pussy. I felt such admiration for their willingness to share. And I felt a kinship with their expressions of embarrassment, confusion, wonder, disappointment, and joy. I also felt a greater surge in my compassion for the challenges of growing up with an assigned male gender, as many of the feelings they expressed were inextricably intertwined with societal expectations of cock owners.
I’ll be inviting HazelGrace to Hacienda Studio to give workshops! You can contact HazelGrace if you'd like The Cock Project and The Pussy Project to come to your town by visiting hazelgraceyates.com.
In the first part of our conversation, we talk about hugging our parents, the touch palette, how intention changes the timbre of the way we touch, the human car wash, and nonsexual naked coconut oil contact improv movement, aka, the Coco Jam …
Come lie down with us.
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Horizontal’s theme music was created by Alan Markley. You can find his gorgeous blue eyes and rock star visage on Instagram as plasticcannons.
My saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay - check our her gorgeous character illustrations on shanashay.com
Every episode is mixed and mastered by Owen Muir, of Self-Disclosure productions. Find him on Twitter at @psychdisclosure - Owen’s podcast, Self-Disclosure, in which people speak openly, and often for the very first time, about their own experiences with mental health, is coming soon.
For most things horizontal, head to horizontalwithlila.com and sign up for the mailing list. Detailed show notes with vocabulary words! And articles! And sensual photos! will be delivered right to your inbox.
In this episode, I lie down with my housemate Rene.
Rene is the most genuinely enthusiastic person I have ever known. When I first met him, I didn’t trust him. I thought, “Is this guy for real? Is he really this happy?” He is! It’s incredible. In response to his tendency to fold other people’s laundry, I coined the in-house hashtag PRIMOVILLAN, and started regularly asking myself, What would Rene do? The question was like a lovingkindness tune-up.
Rene is quite a hunky fellow, and often genderfluid in the way he dresses, rocking skirts and shiny little short-shorts in the same way he rocks a bow tie and a sport coat. He’s the housemate who looks better in your clothes than you do! Rene and his 8-pack can be seen pole-dancing at the House of Yes, often on Pole Play Wednesdays — he actually defies gravity while Horizontal!
You can follow his pole journey on Instagram @The_Renesance, which is a nickname that I made up for him. I’m pretty proud of that.
In the *first half of our episode, we talk about our parent’s relationships, divorces, oral sex in the shower, compartmentalizing emotions, and Rene’s nearly unbelievable cheerfulness.
You’re invited … won't you come lie down with us?
* The second half of this episode has been released separately, by popular demand.
If you’d like to become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage. Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule tours of world domination, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes. You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Horizontal’s theme music was created by Alan Markley. You can find his gorgeous blue eyes and rock star visage on Instagram as plasticcannons.
My saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay - check our her gorgeous character illustrations on shanashay.com
Every episode is mixed and mastered by Owen Muir, of Self-Disclosure productions. Owen’s podcast, Self-Disclosure, in which people speak openly, and often for the very first time, about their own experiences with mental health, is coming soon in August 2017. Listen, if you are a person. With Feelings. Owen can be found on Twitter as @psychdisclosure
For most things horizontal, head to horizontalwithlila.com and sign up for the mailing list. Detailed show notes with vocabulary words! And articles! And sensual photos! will be delivered right to your inbox.
In this episode, I lie down with my housemate Elaine. Elaine is a consummate world traveler - it’s quite the feat to catch her at home but on one of her brief stays at the Villa I got lucky. In between jaunts to her home country of Taiwan and remote islands, outdoor sailing adventures and the climbing of mountains, running races in Europe and engaging in other extreme sports and endurance activities, as she puts it, “like sex,” we had the chance to don some robes and get horizontal.
Elaine lives in the room across the way from me, a space so tiny that it has only a skylight, and no window. She calls it a closet - but she means it as a good thing. She likes how cozy it is.
Elaine holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and has done 10 years of stem cell research and patent prosecution for Biotech Startups. She cooks Taiwanese food that would make you wish she were your wife, and she has a deep and abiding love for turtles - so much so, that she doesn’t travel the world alone, even when she’s by herself - she always brings her stuffed turtle along. The turtle’s name is Dr. Turtle.
I experience Elaine as unfailingly kind, possessing an incredible amount of grit, and her candid explicitness, combined with a voice that sounds like it belongs in an anime cartoon, delights me to no end.
In the first part of our episode, recorded in my loft bed, we talk about how she came to live at the Villa, sex camp, the differences between swingers and poly people, and Elaine’s very first fetish party.
Hey, c’mere. Come lie down with us!
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Credit where credit is:
Horizontal’s badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as plasticcannons.
It’s saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.
Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned in August 2017 for Owen’s own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their experiences with mental health. You can find Owen on Twitter at @psychdisclosure
To sign up for the horizontal show notes, exclusive subscriber content, and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com
In this episode, I lie down with Philip Stehlik, of the sex-positive venture Cambyo.
Cambyo is designed to help people develop their intimate lives. Through their online publication, research, community building, and in-person events, such as a sort of salon / meeting in which people are invited to share their experiences around intimacy, sexuality, and relationships in semi-public, Cambyo aims to cultivate a safer space for people to discuss. On Medium, they publish real stories about people’s intimate lives. If you want to contribute a story of your own to the ongoing, destigmatizing dialogue, please reach out to them!
I first met Philip at a small cocktail party in the West Village - Philip and Cambyo co-founder Matt Hunter were in town for just a few days, and by the strength of their charisma alone, and also a little nudge from Bryony Cole, host of the fabulous sex tech podcast “The Future of Sex,” they gathered a mix of sex tech entrepreneurs, educators, activists, and therapists together for a night of conversation. Philip is German, and now based in San Francisco’s sex-positive nexus. He’s an excellent communicator, a world-class hugger, and somehow his presence simultaneously both calms and excites me - I wish he lived in New York!
This episode, as an experiment, was recorded in the basement event space at Hacienda Villa, called Hacienda Studio. It’s roomy and echo-y, we’re marooned on a little island of a mattress with a purple sheet in the middle of a huge space that spans almost the entirety of the brownstone, and the house itself makes some noise, as if it wants to be a third character in our conversation - but it was worth the experiment.
In the first part of our conversation, we talk about the lack of proper sex ed, the book that taught Philip about being a good lover, condoms, and VR porn. The second half has been released separately, by popular demand.
Won’t you please...come lie down with us.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Credit where credit is:
Horizontal’s badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as plasticcannons.
It’s saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.
Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned for Owen’s own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their experiences with mental health. Coming in August 2017 @psychdisclosure
To sign up for the horizontal show notes, exclusive subscriber content, and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com
This quickie episode was recorded live at my podcast launch pajama party on May 21st, 2017, at Hacienda Studio, a sex-positive event space in Bushwick, Brooklyn. My guests enjoyed reiki, massage, empathy sessions, and cookies upon arrival. After a brief cuddling tutorial from one of my housemates, a professional Cuddler, Fifty people in kimonos, flannels, onesies, and short-shorts got horizontal and snuggly on an enormous Megabed the size of three kings put together, while, on a bed-island across the room, my guest and I arranged ourselves as we would for any horizontal recording session - lying on our backs, almost ear-to-ear, sharing a pillow, microphones hanging down above us, with a starry blanket as our backdrop…
In this, the first of many quickies to come, I lie down with Ralph de la Rosa.
Ralph is a highly regarded meditation teacher in New York City. His Rebel Heart Meditation, a weekly class combining meditation, psychology, and neuroscience, was the first - and is still the only - meditation class I’ve ever attended regularly. He’s a punk at heart, a feminist, an anarchist, a raw, utterly honest and relatable teacher, a truthful writer, and his forthcoming book about working with trauma in meditation will be published by Shambhala Publications in 2018. I will be the first to buy it carry it around with me like a talisman.
Full disclosure: Ralph and I first met through on-line dating, went on one date, didn’t talk for six months, meditated alongside each other for three, and then became very dear friends. Ralph is also my birthday twin. Last year we celebrated on a weekend retreat with close friends that I dubbed “the option to fall apart edition.” I think Ralph fell together, while I fell apart, and it worked out beautifully for the both of us.
To keep apprised of his offerings in cognitive behavior therapy, coaching, and meditation, visit ralphdelarosa.com.
In the span of this 20-minute quickie, Ralph manages to share a history of sexual repression, broaching his first sex ed talk, first porn, first time, the celibacy practices of the Hare Krishna, and spiritual sex.
Won't you please ... come lie down with us?
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Credit where credit is:
Horizontal’s badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons.
It’s saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.
Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned in August 2017 for Owen’s own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their own experiences with mental health. You can find Owen on Twitter at @psychdisclosure
To sign up for the horizontal show notes, exclusive subscriber content, and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com
In this episode, I lie down with Dr. Zhana Vrangalova.
Dr. Zhana is a sex scientist, researcher, and professor of Human Sexuality at NYU. She has a PhD from Cornell in Developmental Psychology with a focus on casual sex. She co-founded The Casual Sex Project (thecasualsexproject.com), a website that allows people to share stories of real-life hookups - in a science-y, data driven sort of way. (If you listened to episode 3 with Mistress Leigh, this is the website that a dominatrix codes!)
In our event space at the Villa, Hacienda Studio, Dr. Zhana hosts Sex Science Socials, in which she wades through peer-reviewed studies on topics like Infidelity, Squirting, and Bi-Curiosity, and breaks the data down in a way we can all understand.
She believes that popular sex myths ruin lives, and spends her time both debunking those myths on DrZhana.com, and also replacing those messages - by working to make sex ed as accessible as porn. You can read her breakdown of scientific data on Facebook and Instagram. The Dr. Zhana icon, wearing her trademark glasses, is the stamp of “legit sex science.”
As I like to think of it, Zhana makes sex safer, saner, and better-informed. Because she uses her given name, and she's such a well-respected, badass female force for sex-positivity in the world, Zhana's example inspired me to “come out” in a way, to publicly proclaim my sex-positivity, and the fact that I live in a sex-positive community...a choice which led to this very podcast. I’m proud to call Zhana my friend.
In the first part of our conversation, recorded at Zhana’s apartment in Bushwick, we talk about sex ed in Macedonia, liking older boys, the jets at the recreation center pool, my first time, and the cartoon that inspired Zhana's very first masturbation session - and just a little bit about butt plugs. So heeey. *Come lie down with us.
*The second half of this episode will be released separately, by popular demand.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Credits:
Horizontal’s badass theme music was created by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons.
It’s saucy cover art was designed and illustrated by Shana Shay. Hire Shana for character illustration and graphic design through 99designs.
Horizontal was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure productions, right here in Brooklyn, New York. Stay tuned for Owen’s own podcast, Self-Disclosure, a show where people talk openly for the first time about their own experiences with mental health. Owen is on Twitter as @psychdisclosure.
To sign up for the show notes, exclusive subscriber content, and sensual horizontal photos, head to horizontalwithlila.com.
In the third episode of horizontal, I lie down with Mistress Leigh, a professional Dominatrix, fetish consultant, educator, and performer. Mistress Leigh went on a BDSM tour in May 2017 (did you know that there was such a thing?! You should probably find out about this on her website.). Keep up with her kinky antics on LeighEntertainment.com
As well as being a pro dom, she’s a performer, a martial artist, and a general badass. She’s full of characters and stories and charisma. This episode of Horizontal was recorded at Mistress Leigh’s apartment, in her little loft nook, in another neighborhood in the land of Brooklyn.
We talk about fetish work, session-ing with disabled clients, dominant women / submissive men, the difference between power play and position, and feefees.
So hey...come lie down with us.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
To sign up for the blog, including sensual horizontal photos and extensive show notes, head to horizontalwithlila.com
Credit where credit is:
Horizontal’s intro and outro music was created by rock star musician Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons.
The saucy character illustration was designed by Shana Shay - hire her through 99 designs.
This episode was mixed and mastered by Owen Muir of Self-Disclosure Productions, @psychdisclosure, right here in Brooklyn, New York.
In this episode, I lie down with Grant Stoddard. Grant is an experiential journalist who specializes in reporting from outside of his comfort zone (sometimes way, waaay outside). The wild situations he has experienced bodily have appeared in Thrillist, Vice, T, New York Magazine, Penthouse, and Maxim, among many others.
He’s the author of one of my favorite memoirs of all-time, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert. When I was reading it on the bus, I laughed so hard that I completely missed my stop and had to double back about ten blocks. It follows Grant’s journey from lovelorn small town virgin to sex writer at Nerve.com.
In 2002, Nerve was the very first place where I posted an on-line dating profile, after my friend Marley insisted that it wasn’t a weird and scary thing to do. As a budding sex-positive advocate, I began devouring Nerve’s sexy offerings, including erotica, photography, and Grant’s column, “I Did It For Science!” Last year, he began collaborating with Kenneth Play, our community co-founder, and I met the author of "I Did It For Science" in my hallway.
This episode is the first Horizontal with Lila recorded on the road, in a cozy, creaky, charming airbnb in New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grant and I (along with another writer, her fiance, and my boyfriend Alex) were staying for the weekend in order to attend a Hacienda Maison play party themed “The Year of the Cock.”
Andrew Sparksfire, owner of Hacienda Villa, the sex-positive intentional community in which I live, created Hacienda Maison down in NOLA as a sex-positive retreat center. The Maison is a sumptuously-appointed, several-storied, meticulously-restored plantation house, available to rent out for your sexiest events.
In this episode, we talk about sex parties (dubbed “play parties” in the sex-positive community), the alchemy of attraction, the benefits of having two partners, and Grant’s first experience seeing female pubic hair.
So there. Come lie down with us in New Orleans.
You can hire Grant to sling some words for you. Peruse his zillion-article portfolio here.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
For all things horizontal with lila, including show notes, horizontal-inpired writing, and saucy saucy photos, subscribe at http://horizontalwithlila.com
Without whom, it would not be possible:
Badass theme music by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons
Saucy cover art by Shana Shay (hire her!) on 99designs
Mixing and mastering magic and sorcery by Owen Muir of Self Disclosure productions, on Twitter as @psychdisclosure
Come lie down with us!
Welcome to the very first episode of horizontal with lila. Horizontal is the podcast of intimate conversations about sex, love, and relationships that's entirely recorded while lying down.
I invite you to eavesdrop on stories that might seem almost too personal for you to hear, which is, of course, exactly why I want you to hear them. Many episodes are recorded in bed at my home, Hacienda Villa, a sex-positive intentional community in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Sex-positive = dispelling the shame surrounding sex through sexual education, open dialogue, and the celebration of all genders and sexual orientations, and all relationship structures and sexual acts between consenting adults. Intentional community = living together on purpose in accordance with common ideals, in order to offer everyone roots and wings.
I've been inspired, humbled, unburdened, seen, and thoroughly schooled by the everyday conversations we have in this house, and I thought it was a shame that we were the only people who got to hear them.
Hacienda's mission is to bring sex-positive culture to the world. This is my part.
In this episode...
In this episode, I lie down with my housemate Mirelle. Mirelle is a sensual nurturer - sometimes nicknamed the Mama of the Villa, at other times the MVP, and a member of what she calls the Villa Dream Team, a group of my housemates, or, Villans, who provide a kind of fantasy fulfillment service, curating scenes and initiating people into sensations, kinks, settings, configurations, and stories that they've previously only dreamed of. She is profoundly and happily polyamorous - she has many relationships, many loves. She's a bisexual woman, an outstanding cook, a connoisseur of delight, and somehow manages to lovingly sustain an incredibly intricate and extensive web of partners and lovers, with such tender attentiveness to the way people wish to be loved, that I feel deeply impressed by the way that she relates. I think Mirelle could teach a multi-part course on intimacy.
This episode was recorded in my loft bed at the Villa, on a snow day.
We talk about the word "slut," love languages, overcoming shame, feeding your delight, intimacy, polyamory, comets, fantasies, and fear - mine. Come lie down with us, and you'll wish your head was on the pillow next to Mirelle.
More horizontality, please:
To become a patron of the horizontal arts, support me on Patreon, a website for crowdsourcing patronage! Patronage allows artists like me to buy equipment, schedule recording tours, and devote my time to creating more horizontal goodness, for you! Becoming my patron has delicious perks, ranging from exclusive photos and behind-the-scenes video content, to handwritten postcards, spring cleaning phone calls, and creative input on future episodes! You can become a patron for $1 a month on up, and the rewards just get more sumptuous. patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
To subscribe to the horizontal blog, for the shownotes, horizontal musings and sensual photos, head to https://horizontalwithlila.com
Just pictures? Instagram @horizontalwithlila
Without whom, it would not be possible:
Badass theme music by Alan Markley, on Instagram as @plasticcannons
Saucy cover art by Shana Shay (hire her!) on 99designs
Mixing and mastering magic and sorcery by Owen Muir of Self Disclosure productions, on Twitter as @psychdisclosure