Usually, our conversation is long and languorous, and lasts between three and five hours. When I release it, I divide it into two parts (if we recorded for three hours) and four parts (if we recorded for five). The first half of the conversation is available in all the podcast places, and the second is available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts.
You can become a patron for access to The Full Horizontal by signing up on patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
At the end of each conversation, I ask my guest to tell me a story, and the story marks the conclusion of our final episode together. It can be any personal story that falls under the broad umbrella of intimacy — sex, love, or relationships of any kind. In episode 102. you can’t have dibs on a person, Dennis’s story was about how he met his biological father. In episode 97. let me show you what I can offer, Leidy’s was about the best sex of her entire life. I’ve had stories of being carried down a mountaintop, watching your wife have a miscarriage, giving your parent’s body to science, a friend breakup, and a particularly epic tale about the Cretan Resistance, thievery, journeying, and a skull.
When I ask them to tell me a story, I say that it can have any kind of tone or outcome, as long as it’s a story that they truly desire to tell me — because if they have the impulse to tell it, and they’re also just a bit afraid to do so, it will be the right one: a narrative that others need to hear.
My live event, the horizontal storytelling pajama party, is an eveningful of these stories. I get horizontal with my guest just like we do when we record a full episode, wearing robes, sharing a pillow, microphone above us, gazing upward as though stargazing, or post-coital, or whispering in the wee hours of a really good sleepover.
This quickie was recorded live in June 2019 at horizontal storytelling: the summer pride edition. We all donned rainbow pajamas, noshed on milk and cookies, and curled up together, all 50 of us, to listen to five storytellers from across the LGBTQIA+ community, one after the other.
In this quickie, I lie down with Kaleena. I asked her what I should share when I introduced her that night, and this is what she told me: Kaleena is a pansexual poly kinky Latinx woman, and a first generation Dominican American. She loves 80’s horror movies, powerlifting and dancing. Her favorite author in elementary school was Edgar Allen Poe. She played roller derby for 7 years, skating under the name Sugar Smacks. She was one of the few Latinas in derby when it was making a comeback. She loves dogs, and has a soft spot for the difficult adoption cases. She is a former high school prom queen (although it was completely chosen at random)! She believes food is a great expression of love, and enjoys cooking (although she cannot bake a single thing successfully). She is currently an office manager, and hopes to try and combine her administrative skills with her love of dogs into a career working with both disadvantaged humans and canines.
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadhoury, IGrecording.com on the interwebz. My cover art was illustrated by Shana Shay, whom you can find on 99designs. The remix of my original intro music was created by kidmental, an accapella beatbox musician. Get a theme song of your very own by hiring him on Fiverr or becoming his patron on patreon.com/kidmental
Come lie down with us in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for a story called, “If You’re So Proud.”
This is THE 100TH EPISODE OF horizontal!!!
Naturally, this one is a bit different than the others. In celebration, I am releasing a never-before-heard experimental episode, recorded on May 21st, 2019 — the 2 year anniversary of horizontal.
In every other episode, I lie down with one or two people at a time. In this special, I lie down with 9!
I gathered as many previous horizontal guests, patrons, and supporters as I could, and asked my boyfriend at the time to join us. We recorded at Hacienda Studio, the event space of Hacienda Villa, my intentional community. We had three beds and three microphones. None of us were sure how it would go. What would come up when the 9 of us tried to have one conversation?
In this episode, I lie down with:
Kristi Ann, spectacular dancer and movement artist, and my friend who, behind the scenes, has quietly helped me choose between the titles for my episodes.
Mirelle, horizontal’s very first guest! Resident of the Villa, my housemate and friend, and, as you may recall, a consummate connoisseur of delight.
Steve Dean, my friend the Superconnector, dating coach, dating industry consultant, and guest on episodes 82. 200 dating profiles, and 83. you do not have voting rights in this startup (relationship).
Jillian Richardson, creator of The Joy List, author of Unlonely Planet, and my most recent horizontal guest on episodes 98. withhelds & unsaids, and 99. indiana jones is my father.
This 100th episode interrupts my 4-episode arc with Jillian and Dennis, but they will be back next week, and the week after that, with episodes 101 & 102. Those episodes are available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts, so for more Jillian & Dennis, plus The Full Horizontal, which includes all the part twos (and in this case, threes and fours) going back to the beginning, become my patron on Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila — You’ll get all the independent, uncensored, sex-positive horizontality, and you’ll be a part of the mission that I share with Jillian: to make the world a less lonely, more intimate place.
Also in this episode, we lie down with:
Owen Muir, MD, my friend, is a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, half of the team behind Brooklyn Minds, and the audiophile who made the first season of horizontal possible, by somehow mixing & mastering every episode in the midst of fathering, psychiatrist-ing, and running a business that is changing the world of mental health.
Tiana & Orion, my dear friends, poly partners, leaders in the POC (Person of Color) kink community in New York City, and my guests on their own 4-episode arc, episodes 78. surprise surprise he liked black chicks, 79. not gonna be the abusive guy, 80. definition of a primary partner, & 81. sneak attack group sex. These are some of the episodes I am the proudest to have made, and I’m ever-grateful for their bravery and generosity.
Venus & Jason, who have been patrons of the podcast and delightful, avid participants in nearly every horizontal event I’ve produced, including the podcast launch pajama party, 14 Rooms (my immersive Valentine’s experience), The Art of Trust (my connection games workshop), and horizontal storytelling (a live recording of the quickies).
And Patrick, Engineer, fixer of things, fearless explorer of self… my ex-boyfriend.
In this episode, we do a round of “If you really knew me,” which is probably my favorite of all the intimacy games I lead, and then a round of Brags. We discuss the experiences that Jillian and I had with the man that we both dated, disassociation, novelty drive, feelings as puppies, healthy narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, emotions at 110%, opt-ins and opt-outs, normative dating behavior, and needing other minds to support us in not losing ours. Then we conclude with a round of gratitudes. This episode is unlike any other, because, with Owen present, we have the benefit of a psychiatrist’s insight.
Happy 100 episodes to meeeeeee! If you have any ideas for else I might celebrate, reach out through the @horizontalwithlila Instagram or on horizontalwithlila.com
This episode was recorded by Owen Muir, with mixing and mastering by Irving Gadhoury. Find Irving at IGrecording.com on the interwebs, to hire him for your Tri-State Area based audio needs. My cover art was created by Shana Shay, whom you can find on 99designs. And this episode features a remix of my original intro music by kidmental, an accapella beatbox musician. I first heard kid’s work on my favorite podcast, Ear Hustle, when he remixed their theme song. He creates theme songs for everyone, podcast or no, and you can snag one by becoming his patron on patreon.com/kidmental
Next week we’ll pick back up with Dennis & Jillian in episode 101, part three of our conversation. To gain access to part three, in which we delve into Jillian’s household growing up, that incident with the vibrator, Dennis’s high school work as a peer-to-peer Sex Educator, his biological brothers, the topography of our friendship lives, and how Dennis used to rely entirely on his long-term relationship to get his intimacy needs met — become a patron of the horizontal arts!
Until next time, dear ones, may you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. I’m looking forward to attending Samia’s anti-wedding, today! Samia, of episodes 59. i’m gonna fuck him forEVER and 60. consexual experiences, is getting married, wearing a skeleton catsuit. I’m gonna be their social media maven, so you better believe there’s gonna be loads of videos! Check my Instagram if you wanna see ‘em!
If you haven’t yet, do me the honor of clicking the Subscribe button in your podcast player of choice. It makes a difference in my world.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for inspiring me to make 100 episodes, and beyond. Thank you for getting horizontal.
And now come lie down with all of us in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
horizontal is Slow Radio about intimacies of all kinds. I think of it as consensual eavesdropping — we’re lying down, wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears.
In this, the second episode of a four-part series with those who consider themselves chosen brother and sister, I lie down with Jillian Richardson, creator of The Joy List and author of Unlonely Planet & her housemate Dennis E. Sarkozy, Lifestyle Designer and co-lead of Personal Development Nerds.
Each horizontal conversation is typically between 3 and 5 hours long. When it’s 3 hours long, it gets divided into two parts: part one is available to everyone in all the podcast places, and part two is available exclusively to my patrons. When the conversation goes for most of the night, like this one did, it gets divided into four parts: parts one and two are available to everyone, and parts three and four are available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts.
In part one of this conversation, episode 98. withhelds & unsaids, Jillian and I cleared the air after our cancelled event, I shared how I feel about Dennis, and we talked about the difference between being drawn to someone and being attracted to them, The Touch Gauntlet, safeporting, and a distinction between sensual and sexual energy. Then, I made an erotic confession. One that’s still giving me a vulnerability hangover.
In this, part two, we discuss Dennis’s creative family tree, including Indiana Jones, his communal roots, and his mother’s indomitable matriarchal strength. We discuss his biological father who preferred not to be a father, the crush in kindergarten that lead to a bit of violence with a block, and his grade school infatuation with each of the girls in his class, in turn. We discuss passing the torch, becoming the patrons and matrons and caretakers of our families. Jillian presences that she’s feeling distant, and we grapple with my intentions for making our clearing part of the recording. We discuss having a good public image, the Wounded Healer syndrome, and the brief personal essay Jillian shares at the outset of every Joy List email, which often reveals something she is actively struggling with. And then Jillian shared the story of how she induced her parents to attend a 5-day family therapy retreat. I am in awe of it.
To listen to part three, in which we get into Jillian’s household growing up, that incident with the vibrator, Dennis’s high school work as a peer-to-peer Sex Educator, his relationship with his biological brothers, the topography of our friendship lives, and how Dennis used to rely entirely on his long-term relationship to get his intimacy needs met — for access to The Full Horizontal, including part three and four of this conversation, become a patron of the horizontal arts. Be a part of my mission to make the world a more intimate place, continuing to create independent, uncensored, sex-positive work by navigating to patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadoury. I highly recommend him for all your audio needs, including live shows! You can hire him on IGrecording.com . My cover art was created by Shana Shay, whose character illustrations you can find on 99 designs. And my intro music was composed by Alan Markley, on Instagram as plasticcannons.
If you haven’t yet hit the subscribe button in your podcast player of choice, would you do that? It makes a difference. Thanks!
This is episode 99, and since the next episode is 100, (100! Something to celebrate!) I may have a bit of a surprise experiment coming next week… or maybe just a surprise. I'm not sure.
But until next time: May you have someone to love (I’m especially wishing that for myself right now). May you have something to do. And may you have at least one thing to look forward to.
I’m looking forward to Samia’s wedding! Can you believe it? Samia, of episodes 59. i’m gonna fuck him forEVER and 60. consexual experiences, is getting married to a man on November 19th. The theme of her wedding is death and rebirth. She is wearing a skeleton catsuit, to the great chagrin of her mom. I can’t wait. There will be photos.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for getting horizontal.
And now, come lie down with us again in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
I love snuggling, sleepovers, storytelling, sex, and stargazing, among other things. So I’ve metaphorically rolled them up in audio form and made you this podcast. Horizontal is Slow Radio. We’re lying down (usually late at night) wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears. It’s like consensual eavesdropping.
During Seasons 1 and 2, I got horizontal with one guest at a time. This is Season 3. Season 3 is mostly comprised of threesomes: myself plus two guests in some kind of relationship with one another. The relationships we’ve explored so far are manager/client, play party co-hosts, men’s group leaders, primary poly partners, monogamous married (soul)mates, and a couple of Wizard friends.
Typically, each horizontal conversation is between two and three hours long, and divided into two parts — the part ones are available in all the podcast places, and the part twos are available exclusively for my patrons.
This horizontal conversation took place over the course of five hours. I’ll be dividing it into four parts: the first two: episodes 98 & 99, will be available in all the podcast places, and the last two will be available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts.
To become a patron, go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila — at the $7/month tier, you get access to The Full Horizontal, including all the part twos (in this case, threes and fours). You have to click the link or type the exact address into your search engine, because “adult” creators are made unsearchable on Patreon.
I am more committed than ever to independent, uncensored, sex-positive art that makes the world a more intimate place. You can be part of my mission on patreon.com/horizontalwithlila.
In this episode, I lie down with my friend Jillian Richardson, anti-loneliness crusader, creator of The Joy List, author of Unlonely Planet, and Dennis, Lifestyle Designer, co-lead of Personal Development Nerds, her housemate, her chosen family, her brother.
Jillian and I share a mission: to make the world a less lonely, more intimate place. She is a kindred in public vulnerability. A gatherer. A connector.
Jillian is in the business of belonging. It is such important work. Soul-saving work. The Joy List is a weekly compendium of events in New York City that you can go to alone, and leave with a new friend. It is one of the few newsletters that I read every week without fail. I suggest that you sign up for The Joy List on joylist.nyc and follow joylistnyc on social media, even if you don’t live in New York.
In each edition of The Joy List, Jillian shares a brief personal essay about something she’s grappling with, or breaking through. She does this because she’s as committed to authentic communication as I am. She doesn’t want to purport that she has it all figured out. I respect that so much. And even so, I sometimes find myself feeling envious — of her productivity, her diligence, her powerful mission-focus, her myriad invitations, and the adoration of her peers, her audience, and pretty much everyone who comes across her work.
What I really want to do with my envy is connect, understand, motivate, collaborate… and lift each other up. Jillian once said that she felt like we were this GIF of women’s hands continually lifting each other up, over and over and over. And that, I am committed to.
Unlonely Planet: how healthy congregations can save the world is her heart-full book about seeking, curating, and creating the kinds of communities that truly nourish us. I have five words for it:
Buy.
Read.
Gather.
Nourish.
Love.
You can find it, of course, in the Amazon.
Jillian & Dennis have been living together with their other two housemates in mini-community for two years.
Dennis is a curator of many kinds. He designs Community & Wellness strategies for large corporations, experiences for multiple groups in New York City, and events for his beloved Personal Development Nerds (PDN for short). Jillian describes him as the most extroverted person she knows.
PDN was one of Jillian’s first communities in New York (but it’s not where they met — you’ll get that story in a later episode). It’s a gathering of lifelong learners, co-lead by Dennis & Juvoni. Their Main Events consist of brief lectures and breakout conversations. Members are encouraged to bring in their works-in-progress, their nascent presentations, their burgeoning projects, their early iterations — to experiment, and activate, to give and receive feedback. They stand for each other’s growth.
And that is the sense I get from Dennis. Dennis stands for everyone’s growth. He stands for potential, and for possibilities. You can find him @desarkozy on Instagram.
In this, the first episode of our four-part conversation, I clear the air with Jillian after our cancelled sleepover event. I also express how I feel about Dennis. We discuss the difference between being drawn to and being attracted to, the difference between sexual and sensual energy, The Touch Gauntlet, an inner tickle, safeporting... and I share a sexual fantasy that I’m pretty sure is gonna make Jillian uncomfortable.
Come lie down with us for the first time, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
horizontal is a podcast of intimacies recorded while lying down. It’s Slow Radio. Consensual eavesdropping. Because I love sleepovers, spooning, secrets, sex, storytelling, and stargazing, I’ve metaphically rolled them up in audio form and made you this.
Each recording is typically between two and three hours long, and divided into two parts — the part ones are available in all the podcast places, and the part twos are available exclusively for my patrons. This conversation, however, was recorded over the course of nearly five hours. And so I’ve divided it into four parts — the first two: episodes 94 & 95 are available to everyone, and the next two, episodes 96 & 97, will be available only to patrons of the horizontal arts.
So when you get to the end of this episode, and your mouth is hanging open in a bit of a gasp, and you simply must hear the rest of Leidy’s epic romance (and I do not use the word “epic” lightly), you can sign up on Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila for The Full Horizontal (including all the part twos — and in this case, threes and fours — going back to the beginning), plus monthly intimacy tips, and the secret patrons group with behind-the-scenes access. Patreon is the love child of crowdfunding and a subscription service, designed to help us creators earn an income independently of networks, ad revenue, and selling our souls.
My dearest goal right now is to liberate myself from my location and my current job, to be able to support myself as I tour America in 2020, and record episodes, teach trust games, create installations, shoot video, and write about making the world a more intimate place. Patreon is one way you can be a part of happening it. Another way, is if you or your company wants to sponsor a shame-dispelling, loneliness-eradicating, connection-cultivating cross-country tour. I am particularly in need of renting a camper van!
Join me on Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila or send me a message with sponsorship propositions through the website, horizontalwithlila.com
In the last episode, 94. i want to make love to my soulmate, part one of this four-part conversation, I got horizontal with Leidy Dahiana and Dino, her husband and lover and soulmate. Leidy is a Licensed Erotic Blueprints™️ Coach, a sexuality sherpa, and one of the most sensual, delicious, effervescent, mischeivous, and delectable humans I’ve ever known. Dino is a former pro basketball player and current Movement Coach, an exceedingly tall, exceptionally calm, present, and grounded person.
In the first part of our conversation, we talked about unspoken Latina rules & and spoken ones, chickenheads, dancing in the middle of the circle at family parties, the porn section of Leidy’s family’s video stores, Dino’s Croatia, the day his mom decided not to give him the sex talk, and his circle of high school friends. We talked about Sven, his best friend / brother, who had just visited them in New York. We talked about not allowing blood family or marriage to keep us unhappy, when people are no longer able to function as a unit. And Dino told us about his first time, and his unshakeable certainty that he would meet his person.
In this episode, we discuss Leidy’s belief that passion always has an expiration date, and how Dino began to change her mind. We discuss making out when you say hello, making out in general, what making out is even, Dino’s first heartbreak and nearly two years of celibacy, and the importance of a connection that goes beyond the physical. Dino talks about the trap of sleeping around and the freedom in monogamy. Leidy tells the tale of her first obsessive teenage love, fondling each other in the living room of her mom’s house, smothering, engulfment, and being loved in a way that feels stifling. We discuss moving towards what feeds you, being able to take space while in the same room as your partner, mindful touch, and the glory of body heat. And then Leidy begins the story of her first big love affair, which involves a large bribe, Club Med, Turks & Caicos, two playing cards, a seduction, a work romance, one Italian mother from the village, and a grand gesture. And that was just the beginning.
Come lie down with us again in Midtown Manhattan, New York, New York.
To hear the rest of the story of Leidy’s first epic romance, become a patron of the horizontal arts on Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Be sure to hit the Subscribe button wherever you’re listening to this, because it really makes a difference in this podcasty world. And for intermittent missives with saucy photos, bits of writing, and things of horizontal interest, you can sign up for my mailing list on horizontalwithlila.com
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadhoury. Find him for all your audio needs at IGrecording.com. My intro music was composed by Alan Markley, @plasticcannons on Instagram, and my cover art was designed by Shana Shay, whom you can hire on 99 designs.
Until next time: may you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. I’m looking forward to seeing both parts of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway this Wednesday, my birthday, with two of my favorite humans, who also happen to be horizontal guests, and horizontal patrons.
I’m glad to see another year. I’m glad to be alive.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for getting horizontal.
I love sleepovers, and spooning, secrets, sex, storytelling, and stargazing. I’ve metaphorically rolled these things up in audio form and made you this podcast. horizontal with lila is Slow Radio. Consensual eavesdropping. Intimacies of all kinds. It’s us lying down right next to each other, wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears.
During Seasons 1 and 2, I got horizontal with one guest at a time, but in Season 3, I intend to record as many threesomes as possible: myself plus two guests, who are in some kind of relationship with one another. Usually, each recording is between two and three hours long, and divided into two parts — the part ones are available in all the podcast places, and the part twos are available exclusively for my patrons.
But this conversation, just like the one with Tiana & Orion, which comprises episodes 78 - 81, was recorded over the course of five hours. It was fueled by a vat of watermelon and several, several pee breaks. I’ll be dividing this conversation into four parts as well: the first two, episodes 94 & 95, will be available in all the podcast places for all the podcast people, and the last two: 96 & 97, will be exclusive to patrons of the horizontal arts.
For access to The Full Horizontal, including all the part twos (or as the case may be, threes and fours) plus access to the secret patrons Facebook group, and a monthly video of intimacy tips, go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila — you have click this link directly though, because, due to the unfortunately lingering prudery of our society, as a quote unquote “adult” creator, I am relegated to an invisible ghetto on Patreon where all the people who dare to talk about sex go, in which our pages are un-searchable, even if you type them in my name.
In this and the following 3 episodes, I lie down with Leidy Dahiana (which sounds, in the mouth of an American, just like the Lady Diana, but is spelled quite differently, and sounds very different in the mouth of a Latina) and Dino, her husband and lover and soulmate.
Leidy is an effervescent. An undulating, curvaceous, mischief of sensuality. She is a Licensed Erotic Blueprints™️ Coach, a sexuality sherpa. Her curiosity about the erotic is capacious, and I always feel a bit more delicious in my body when she’s around. She has been coaching movement for 20+ years, and is one of the most embodied people I’ve ever known. Before becoming an Erotic Blueprints Coach, she spent a few years interviewing couples as research for an Instagram series she called “The Lovers Cafe.” She interviewed me too… sans lover.
Dino is a former pro basketball player. Now he dedicates his days to helping people live a pain-free active life, as a Movement Coach. He is present and clear-eyed and easy and warm, like the cousin you look forward to laughing with when the family gets together.
Leidy & Dino met at a gym where we’ve all worked — but that’s a story for a later episode.
In this one, we talk about unspoken Latina rules (be sexy) and spoken ones (don’t be un cuero / don’t be a slut). We talk about chickenheads, dancing in the middle of the circle at family parties, and the porn section of Leidy’s family’s video stores. We talk about Dino’s Croatia, the day his mom decided not to give him the sex talk, and the depth and longevity of Dino’s circle of high school friends. We talk about Sven, who just visited them in New York, for whom the word “friend” is insufficient. We talk presence, anticipation, and undressing very, very slowly. I tell them the story of my Happy Dance. We talk about not allowing blood family or marriage to keep us unhappy, when people are no longer able to function as a unit. And Dino tells about his first time, monogamy, soulmates, and his unshakeable certainty that he would meet his person.
And now I feel I must give you a disclaimer. This is a disclaimer about how: In the process of leveling up, sometimes you... level down for a moment.
So I've been working on improving my recording quality. I got these two shiny new ElectroVoice radio quality microphones. But it takes me a while to incorporate new technology. Probably because I dislike reading instruction manuals, and even more than that, I am disinclined to learn from the internet. So I skim the manual, and don't watch tutorials, and then.... Well, then I have entirely unsurprising technical difficulties. Since I prefer learning from humans, I should cultivate situations in which knowledgeable humans can teach me about my equipment. Luckily, I did that with Irving Gadoury, my audio engineer, today, and learned more about recording in a 2-hour tutorial with him than I have in the past two years. But! I didn't do that before recording this episode, and it probably shows. This really bugs me, because sound quality is so important. It's the difference between feeling like you're lying down cuddled up right next to us .... And un-listenable.
I really hope this episode is listenable for you, because Leidy is a sensual dynamo and I want the chance for her to tickle your ears.
Come lie down with us on the West Side of Manhattan, New York, New York.
***
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadhoury. Find him for all your audio needs at IGrecording.com. My intro music was composed by Alan Markley, @plasticcannons on Instagram, and my cover art was designed by Shana Shay, whom you can hire on 99 designs.
Be sure to click the Subscribe button wherever you are listening, because it makes a difference in this podcasty world, and for extremely intermittent missives with saucy photos, bits of writing, and things of horizontal interest, sign up for my mailing list on horizontalwithlila.com
Until next time: may you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. I’m looking forward to seeing BOTH PARTS of Harry Potter on Broadway with two of my favorite humans on my birthday, in mid-October. (And dressing up.)
Thank you for listening. Thank you for getting horizontal.
This is a podcast about intimate relationships of all kinds. It's Slow Radio, consensual eavesdropping. It’s us lying down, sharing secrets, in your ears.
Each full-length recording is between 3 and 5 hours long, divided into two episodes. Part one: available in all the podcast places. Part two: available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts. And at the very end of the part twos, I ask my guest to tell me a story...
Occasionally, I release a quickie episode. A quickie is just the story (or in this case, stories, as she was feeling inspired).
This particular quickie episode was recorded live at my horizontal storytelling pajama party of February 2018.
In this quickie, I lie down with Diana Oh. Diana Oh is a Force.
An instigator, an activist, an actress, a musician, a singer, a creator of myriad kinds. She is an Interpreter, and also, a Maker - a sensual, gutsy, and glorious queer theatre-maker, happening-curator, and music-creator. Since Diana uses both she and they pronouns, I will use them interchangeably.
They are the architect of {my lingerie play}, a series of installations, performances, and concerts profiled in places like Upworthy and The New York Times, which includes public declarations of lingerie, body positivity, and standing for the right to walk down the fucking street without being harassed.
Recently they hosted a series of slumber parties - can you see why she’s a woman after my own heart?! - and called them The Infinite Love Party. I love that. I love that so much.
I’ve had a horizontal sleepover in the works for a while, and this coming Sunday, September 29th from 5-8pm at Hacienda Studio in Brooklyn, I’m hosting horizontal + chill: #notaplayparty.
It’s a 3-hour sleepover! We’ll have connection games, a cheeky film screening, massage toys, a hot tub, and surprises (which may or may not include a serenade or two).
I first saw Diana perform in a staged reading of a musical over a decade ago, in a teeny tiny black box theatre in the very West Village. I don't remember the plot. I don't recall the music. I only vaguely remember who I was with. What I *do* have memory of, vividly, viscerally, is Diana's sensuality. As she sang and flipped her hair to the side and cocked her head, smiled and rocked her body to the beat, her sensuality penetrated every crevice of that space..... and I wondered, "Do I want to be her? Do I want to kiss her?"
I think what I admire the most about Diana is her refusal to color in the lines of your medium. Her whole career seems to say, "Why can't these things go together? Obviously they fucking can. I'm gonna put them together and see what happens."
Is it a play?
Is it a concert?
Performance art?
An installation?
A happening?
Yes. Yes it is.
Find all things Diana at dianaoh.co (It rhymes.)
For the visuals, point yourself to her Instagram: oh yea Diana
(As usual, everything will be linked in the blog post on horizontalwithlila.com)
You can be a part of her multidisciplinary glory by becoming her patron at Patreon.com/dianaoh
And in order to receive access to all the part two episodes of horizontal, as well as a personal Happy Dance video and monthly intimacy tips, become a patron of the horizontal arts by navigating directly to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila.
You have to navigate there directly from the link, or type it in perfectly, because unlike Diana (lucky!) I am relegated to the ghetto of sex-positive creators on Patreon.
It doesn't matter if we are providing sex ed. It doesn't matter if our work is not explicit. It doesn't matter if we hide all our content and only make it available to patrons, as I have done, after they froze my account last year - Patreon hides our profiles and makes it impossible to search for our work, because we are categorized as "adult" creators.
So, in order to support our sensual, sensory work, find us on Patreon.com/dianaoh ... And Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila:
In this quickie, Diana tells us stories about queer liberation, reparations, sex in a theatre, and inviting a roomful of NPR subscribers out on a date.
Now! Come lie down with us at horizontal storytelling, in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
***
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadhoury. Find him for all your audio needs at IGrecording.com. My intro music was composed by Alan Markley, @plasticcannons on Instagram, and my cover art was designed by Shana Shay, whom you can hire on 99 designs.
Until next time: may you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. This week, I'm looking forward to experimenting with co-working at The Wing, and seeing some immersive theatre!
Get your tickets for this Sunday night’s horizontal + chill!
And thank you for getting horizontal.
horizontal is Slow Radio about intimacies of all kinds. It is entirely recorded while reclining. I think of it as consensual eavesdropping— we’re lying down, wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears.
In this episode, I lie down with Dr. Alexandra Solomon: clinical psychologist, author of books, Northwestern University Professor, and creator of the internationally-renowned undergrad course “Marriage 101,” which I wish was taught to every incoming freshman in college (and ideally, every outgoing senior in high school) and really, to every adult everywhere who didn’t take that class— across the world.
I read about the course a few years back, long before I met Alexandra in person, in an article in The Atlantic, titled “The First Lesson of Marriage 101: There Are No Soul Mates.” In Marriage 101, she guides students, through both book-learning and experiential means, towards relational self-awareness, guiding them through an understanding of attraction, conflict, sex, and forgiveness. Who doesn’t need this class?! We all need this class! I need this class!
Alexandra’s entire body of work, it seems, is devoted to guiding us to make heathy, conscious choices in love.
Her 2017 book Loving Bravely: Twenty Lessons of Self-Discovery to Help You Get the Love You Want, is an ongoing dose of compassion, and I imagine that her forthcoming book, Taking Sexy Back: How to Own Your Sexuality and Create the Relationship You Want will be a guide to undoing the shame that most of us were indoctrinated with by religion and our sex-negative society.
You can do a deep dive into her work on dralexandrasolomon.com
Each horizontal conversation is between two and five hours long, and divided into two parts (except for the 5 hour-long one, which was divided into 4).
Part one, like this episode, is available in all the podcast places, and part two is available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts.
Patreon is like the love child of crowdfunding and a subscription service. A great big Happy Dance welcome to my newest patrons — Jacob, Hannah, & Michael. Elisa, Amanda, Becca, & Dominique. Helena, Matt, Farah, Bob, Eric, & Joe. And an extra excited Happy Dance to Rex, for doubling their pledge this month!
Here’s the deal with the Happy Dance:
I come from anxious and depressive stock. I’m also a recovering perfectionist. No accomplishment was ever big enough. I would look at celebrities and compare and despair. Nothing I achieved felt like success. I felt good about it for perhaps half a second, and then re-commenced thinking about other people who had accomplished so much more. Now I’m in the process of rewiring my nervous system for celebration and joy. I decided approximately a year ago to celebrate every accomplishment, no matter how small, no matter how big, with comparable enthusiasm. Hence: the Happy Dance.
Every time I get notified of a new patron, I stop what I’m doing, wherever I am (literally: on the subway, in the hot tub, at the podcast conference) and do an elaborate Happy Dance that lasts for a solid 15 seconds at least, long enough for me to bypass any bit of embarrassment and to viscerally feel the joy rush through my body.
I made a pact with myself when I was in college. I determined that the compliments I think in my head don’t belong to me. And if they don’t belong to me, I need to return them to their rightful owners: the people I think them about. Having this philosophy has spread a lot of joy that would otherwise have never been actualized. So, in much the same way, I think that Happy Dance belongs to my patron. And I’m now making a Happy Dance video for each and every new patron!
So for access to The Full Horizontal, all the part twos going back to the beginning, including next week’s episode with Dr. Alexandra Solomon — as well as for your very own Happy Dance video — become a patron of the horizontal arts.
In this, part one of my conversation with Dr. Alexandra Solomon, I talk a lot. It’s just so lovely to have a capaciously compassionate, therapeutic ear. I’ve missed that.
We talk about:
Now come lie down with us in Midtown Manhattan, New York, New York.
***
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadhoury. You can find him for all your audio needs — including recording live music — at IGrecording.com. My lovely intro music was composed by Alan Markley, @plasticcannons on Instagram, and my lovely logo was illustrated by Shana Shay, whom you can hire on 99 designs.
One of my key takeaways from the — phenomenal — Podcast Movement conference in Orlando was the realization that I haven’t been asking you to subscribe!
If you enjoy this episode, would you please take a moment and hit the SUBSCRIBE BUTTON in your podcast player of choice? It makes a difference. Every subscriber helps me toward my mission of making the world a more intimate place.
And if you found this episode with Dr. Alexandra Solomon powerful, would you share it with someone who could use a compassionate voice in their ear?
Thank you.
In next week’s episode, part two of my conversation with Dr. Solomon, we discuss marriage, navigating mismatched libidos, the difficulty of being an academic in the field of sexuality, the faculty Greek chorus in her head, taking sexy back, teaching college kids how to communicate with their lovers, and the societal pressure for women to be beautiful while brilliant.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for getting horizontal.
Season 3 mostly consists of threesomes, and in this episode I lie down with the founder — as well as the New York City host — of Skirt Club, a private women’s club for the curious kind.
Skirt Club is also the name of their sex party, an event designed exclusively for women to explore their bicuriosity. Many of these women are primarily in romantic and sexual relationships with men. Just as I was, when I attended the Rocker Chic-themed edition of Skirt Club a couple of months ago in a mansion-like loft in New York’s Financial District.
If your bunny ears perked immediately, darling, you can apply to be a member at skirtclub.co.uk
Genevieve LeJeune created the Skirt Club enterprise (they currently have parties all over Europe and the U.S.) to give women a space to explore their sexuality, without men present. She felt her bisexuality was being exploited for her boyfriend’s amusement, and wanted a space away from the male gaze, curated specifically for female empowerment, freedom, and sensual exploration. She couldn’t find it anywhere. So she built it. She is a fiercely independent businesswoman and adventurer, a world-traveler, a stigma-challenging, femme-presenting, entrepreneur of the unconventional. And she is also very, very beautiful.
Shelby Nicole is Genevieve’s friend (Genevieve said that she doesn’t work with anyone she wouldn’t want to be friends with, so she is living the maxim “do what you love with people you like”). Shelby is also Skirt Club’s New York City Event Manager and hostess. She greeted me with lingerie and a smile when I arrived in my sequins and leather. Shelby is a creative of many kinds, an actor, a filmmaker, a writer, a model. She can be found in her sex kitten form, resplendent in lingerie on her Instagram @reclusemuse — but you’ll have to request to follow her, because she is Private.
Shelby is a challenging person, as in, she challenges every idea. You may find this conversation to be less vulnerable than my usual episodes, perhaps because I had just come from a funeral, but maybe also because I felt, in a way, a bit on guard. This was interesting. I usually curate conditions for myself to record under which I don’t feel defensive in any way. I don’t usually get horizontal with people I feel the need to verbally parry with — it makes it harder for me to share with you my special self, my soft underbelly. I did my best here, and I was honest about feeling challenged, which is ultimately the the powerful thing I ask of myself.
So in this episode you’ll see what happens when I feel the need to justify and defend my words — I get louder, I talk over them, and I do not cry. I try to live by Brene Brown’s mantra: “Don’t shrink, don’t puff up, just stand your sacred ground.” But. I think I puffed up here.
Still, in this episode we talk about Max’s death and the funeral, magical thinking, how Genevieve was taught nothing about sex growing up, and Shelby learned through books left on her bed. We talked about Shelby’s matter-of-fact-ness and my reaction to it. We talk about British humor, awkwardness, and media, the internet as a safe haven, Shelby’s first period, how none of us want children (and how refreshing that is for me!), the story of how Genevieve married a man when she never wanted to marry anyone, having very little sex, personally, in a life that’s full of it, marital bed death & resensitization, the 4pm masturbation break, a brief history of Shelby’s search for orgasm, my deep envious crushes on girls, the kind of women we’re attracted to, distinguishing bisexual & pansexual, recognizing if we are bisexual and biromantic, and how Genevieve’s ex was repulsed by her interest in women.
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadhoury. You can find him for all your audio needs at IGrecording.com. As ever, my lovely intro music was composed by Alan Markley, who is on Instagram as @plasticcannons, and my saucy likeness of a logo was illustrated by Shana Shay, whom you can hire through 99 designs.
In next week’s episode, which is available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts, we discuss first sexual experiences with women, my desire to voyeur at their Skirt Club party, and, to complete the trifecta of taboo topics, we also talk about: money. To listen to that episode, and for access to The Full Horizontal, which includes all the part twos of every conversation, go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila and become a $7+/month patron.
Until next time: May you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. In 3 days, I fly down to Orlando to attend my first podcast conference, so that is what I’m looking forward to!
Thank you, my dear. Thank you for getting horizontal.
And now, come lie down with us in the Financial District of New York, New York.
In this episode, I lie down with Geoffrey Miller, PhD: evolutionary psychology professor, author of books, out polyamorist, lifelong investigator of human nature.
I met Geoffrey at a dinner party hosted by a Blue Man and curated by an adventuresome scholar of the brain— expressly for the purpose of discussing the future of intimacy. The sex scientist Dr. Zhana was there, our mutual friend and my horizontal guest of episodes 4 & 5. She and the brain scholar invited Geoffrey. In fact, the dinner party was scheduled around his visit to New York.
And then, I knew why.
He would listen and listen, and then say something so incisive, so crystalline-clear, backed by conscientious research and immersion in the topic of human sexuality. He spoke quietly and with a gravitas reserved for someone who has studied their studies and lectured their lectures and doesn’t need to prove any of it to you.
He was also a bit rakish in the way that my first-ever lover was. They have the same je ne sais quoi about the eyes— a mischeivousness, an insouciant uplooking through a fringe of lashes, a Domly-ness that’s only partly concealed by their glasses... but loudly visible, if you know how to look for that sort of thing.
We recorded on a king bed in a mancave in Bushwick, Brooklyn, an airbnb that Geoffrey had rented for his New York stay. There was a fish tank. An enormous leather couch, and a flat screen TV. Because we recorded in my neighborhood: this episode has plenty of local color. If it’s not the overhead train squealing to a stop, it’s the incessant galumphing of the toddler upstairs (uaghhh), or the ice cream truck playing it’s deathly tune in the background. If you add in some planes, cringe-worthy music played at an unholy decibel, and a whole lotta sirens: This is what it’s like to live in Brooklyn. Or at least, in my part of Brooklyn.
In this, the first part of our voluminous, far-ranging conversation, we talked about his family dynasty (11 aunts & uncles, 28 cousins), growing up with intellectual, activist parents, his Dad’s weekly pre-college briefings about Things That Will Happen in New York (lecture one: prostitutes), an act of sexual altruism, a tale of CPR dummies and lady ghosts of the asylum, the difference between anthropology and evolutionary psychology, 80s cotillions, dating before cell phones, the similarities between Geoffrey and his brother the preacher, heteroflexibility, bisexual stigma, future sex-positive societies, talking to college students about polyamory, how Geoffrey met his first wife and became an Instant Stepdad, struggling with monogamy, stepfathering in prehistory, how marital therapy fails men, psychotherapy solutions vs. manosphere solutions, why most clinical psychologists aren’t well-versed in different relationship styles, and Geoffrey’s coming-out-poly story. Phew. And then I begin the tale of how I met Patrick, which begins with 14 Rooms and culminates at the Love Immersive, with Steve Dean (a recent horizontal guest!) as the catalyst.
In the second part of my conversation with Geoffrey, which will be released next week as episode 88, I dive deep into the massive revelation I had around my own jealousy, and he gives me a broader understanding of my emotions from an evolutionary psych perspective. To listen to that episode, become a patron of the horizontal arts at $7 or more per month (Yes yes! There’s now a $7 tier, by popular demand.)
Patreon is the love child of crowd-funding and a subscription service, and $7 a month gives you access to The Full Horizontal (all the part two episodes, and any bonus episodes which, P.S. One such bonus shall be released sooooon — plus an invite to the secret patrons group and our patron get-togethers!) Go to patreon.com/horizontalwithlila.
Now, come lie down with us in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
***
This episode was mixed and mastered by Irving Gadhoury. You can find him for all your audio needs (including recording live music!) at IGrecording.com. As ever, my lovely intro music was composed by Alan Markley, on the Instagram as @plasticcannons, and my saucy likeness of a logo was illustrated by Shana Shay, whom you can hire through 99 designs.
Also, what do you think about this: horizontal listeners as a group, are hozzies… Thoughts Comments? Concerns?
Season 3 mostly consists of threesomes. Whereas in Season 1 and 2, I was lying down with a single guest at time, many of my Season 3 episodes will have me lying down with two people at a time — in this case, between two wizards.
These humans are in some kind of relationship with one another. Thus far, I’ve had a manager and his/her trauma specialist client, co-hosts of a sexuality conversation series called the Discerning Dick, primary poly kinky romantic partners, and now, Wizard friends and esoteric collaborators.
In this episode, I lie down with Devin & Kevin. I’ve known about Devin for years. My former housemate Tiger, who you heard from in Season One, used to say, “My Wizard friend,” quite regularly in casual conversation. But it wasn’t until Lola Jean’s Kinky Carnival when we became properly acquainted and made a podcast pact. He fulfilled his part of the pact months ago.
My episode of his series This Podcast is a Ritual is called “How To Take Life Lying Down,” and in it, we talked at a moderate incline, about the origin of my horizontal curiosity, couples therapy, reflective listening, and my working definition of intimacy. Then I made a call for closing rituals, to end romantic relationships.
I also cast you a Spell.
I am truly delighted by my blossoming friendship with Devin. He is impossibly quick-witted and fantastically charismatic, adventurous in spirit, and eternally playful. I get the sense that he could communicate with anybody, anywhere, for any amount of time. His long white-blond beard never fails to make me smile, and I am excited for our friendship to grow, because he’s one of the humans that I wish to bring my conundrums to, just to see what his brain will do with them.
He’s something like your most compassionate therapist, if your therapist were a young handsome Dumbledore proficient in computers who studied improv at Second City for 7 years. If you listen to his podcast, or participate in any of his events, like the Wizarding Hour (a collaboration with Kevin) or the Wizard Walkabout, in which 50 of us took ceremonial gummy bears and went gallivanting about Central Park on 4/20, guided by the Wizard in Person, as well as the Wizard in our Ears — you’ll know that Devin has a thing for numbers.
Not for nothin’, I also took part in a Sex Magick ritual for his podcast, on 6/9, from 6 to 9pm, with between 6 and 9 people.
His fiancee, L.A. Marks, had me on her poetry podcast, A Daily Dose of Poetry, and last week, told a tale of bisexual discovery at my horizontal storytelling: the summer pride edition.
On their mailbox is written: The Poet and The Wizard… (Can you imagine the Glory of Such a Wedding?!)
Kevin is a musician, a Senior UX Designer, and one of Devin’s dear friends. Their friendship has mostly taken place in the ether, in the form of Wizard emails, the record of which form a virtual diary, a correspondence that marks the living of our lives - in much the way, perhaps, that our grandparents wrote to their cousins.
Kevin was formerly the proprietor of Tarot Society, which was a center for the curious to gather in Bushwick and muse about things hidden and obscure. Devin & Kevin used to host a summer series there called New Age & Chill.
I never dropped by when Tarot Society was in existence, so I will have to entice Kevin to give me a reading at a pop-up or a party... His mischievous eyes and delight in getting away with things make me quite curious about the Wizardry of his Tarot.
The day of this recording was the first time I met Kevin, and, since he is a private person by nature, I am grateful that he chose to share, in the service of friendship and intimacy in this way, in this medium, with all of us. Thank you, Kevin.
In this episode, the first half of our conversation, we talk about the origin of the White Collar Wizard emails, middle-school boys and cock-shaming, Devin’s first acid trip, in 8th grade, the grand Bohemia of Olympia, Washington, learning that you aren’t "supposed to" cum too fast if you have a penis, sleep-sexing, learning about sex by asking a sexual partner, “What is your other sex like?”, Devin’s Wizard Tinder profile, 80s Penthouse, imprinting on your first porn, Kevin’s therapist, Ethical Porn for Dicks, shame-y, judgemental sex, and how some fantasies should just remain fantasies.
In the next episode, 86, the second half of our conversation, Devin and Kevin actually read us some of their private Wizard emails, we discuss what it means to be a present-day Tarot Dealer and a modern Wizard, and Devin tells us the truly incredible — as in, if you saw it in a movie you’d say, “That never happens in real life!” — and the incredibly true tale of how his hair turned Wizard White.
To listen to that episode, and for access to The Full Horizontal, which includes all the part twos plus a monthly video containing a pearl of Intimacy Wisdom, become a patron of the horizontal arts. Patreon is the love child of crowd-funding and a subscription service. Find me there!
In next week’s episode, we will be treated to the story of how Devin became a Wizard, and get to hear Devin & Kevin read some of the most pivotal Wizard Emails of their friendship.
This episode was mixed and mastered by Christopher Liang, of Audio Dojo. I’m truly grateful to have him on my team, and have already learned a great deal from him in one week of collaborating! He does Sound Mixing, Editing, and Design as well as original music for TV & Film, and composes under the name Ninjaboy.
My intro music was composed by Alan Markley, who is @plasticcannons on Instagram, and my cover art was designed by Shana Shay, whom you can hire on 99 Designs.
And now, come lie down... between two Wizards.
Usually, our conversation is long, sensual, and languorous, lasting between two and three hours, and when I release it as horizontal with lila, I divide it into two parts— the first half is available in all the podcast places, and the second is available exclusively to my patrons of the horizontal arts.
You can become a patron for access to the Full Horizontal, plus a monthly video of Intimacy Tips, and an invitation to the secret patrons group:
My part two episodes always conclude like this: At the end of each conversation, I ask my guest to tell me a story. It can be any story under the broad umbrella of intimacy — in other words, a tale that is related to sex, love, or relationships of any kind. I ask that my guest choose a story they feel deeply compelled to tell me, and trust that it will be the right one: a narrative that others need to hear.
I’ve had stories of myriad types and tones — stories about the first time ejaculating (episode 2. stuff came out), about friendship and suicide (episode 15. friend death), about having a relationship with a couple (episode 10. his fingers are always hard), about a big freaky wedding (episode 49. bawdy storytelling), etc. As I said. All kinds.
My live event horizontal storytelling, is just these stories, told back-to-back by six different pajama-clad, reclining storytellers. And on this coming Sunday, June 30th, two days from the release of this episode, I’m hosting another one. This time it will the horizontal storytelling pajama party: summer pride edition, and all tales told will be from the lips of LGBTQPIAD storytellers.
LGBTQPIAD stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Pansexual, Intersex, Asexual, and Demisexual. If you’re unfamiliar with any of those terms, check the glossary on horizontalwithlila.com, and while you’re there, sign up for the mailing list, so that you’ll know about all the events.
This weekend’s horizontal storytelling will include tales from folx across the gender and sexuality rainbow, and tickets are sliding scale for anybody in the community — just message me for a personalized discount code. If you are an ally, use the code LILALOVE in all caps, for $5 off.
So... I am broadcasting this quickie episode in honor of Sunday’s upcoming event.
This is one of the never-before-released tales from the last horizontal storytelling, held in February 2018!
In this quickie, I lie down with Bill Demeritt.
Bill is a thespian, which means that he spends a large portion of his life pretending to be someone else. Most of the people who do that exceptionally, are gifted with a formidable sense of compassion, and I believe that Bill is no different in that regard.
He performs on stage and screen (you can see him in the Emmy-winning The Normal Heart and Season Two of the acclaimed Vimeo series The Outs). He narrates audiobooks and longform journalism. He studied acting at Marymount Manhattan and the Yale School of Drama. He’s currently at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival working on Paula Vogel’s play “Indecent.”
Bill is charming and game and playful and handsome and nebbishy and a leetle bit nervous, all at the same time.
You can find all things Bill on WilliamDemeritt.com
I first met Bill while doing a live recording of Carol A. Jantsen’s Help: a podcast for those who need it, in which an agoraphobe character with self-help aspirations begins to get out in the world.
In Season 2 Episode 1: Lila Donnolo and the Double Date, Carol & I, Bill & Celeste go on a fictional double date in a very real Chinese food restaurant. Bill was cast as my “date,” and on the day we recorded, Bill brought me a dozen roses, that’s how committed he was to the scene. (I somehow ended up with 11 and they were sort of a consolation prize, but it’s fine.)
He’s getting married in November, after pulling off one of the most theatrical stage proposals I have ever seen captured on video. Congratulations, Bill. And thank you for showing me how it’s done.
In our quickie, Bill tells me a story about pierogis in New York, a callipygous behind, going to Poland for sex (and love), kohana, the word for sweetheart, a romantic trip to Nice, and the Grand Gesture.
And now, join us on Sunday for the next horizontal storytelling…
And come lie down with us at Hacienda Studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
* This episode was mixed and mastered by Christopher Liang at audio dojo.
Welcome to horizontal, the podcast about intimacy of all kinds, recorded while lying down, wearing robes. I know I said that Season 3 would be threesomes all season long, but we will still have the occasional dyad, because, sometimes it just works out best that way.
In this episode, I lie down with Steve Dean. Steve Dean is a dating expert, a MmmmEGAConnector, an adventurer, a perpetual nomad, and an event SuperHost. He’s the founder of the dating industry consulting firm dateworking (which you can find on dateworking.com). He stewards workshops, dinners, coworking sessions, and massive meetups like the food-court-centered Hygge [HOO-GAH] (which means cozy in Danish).
Steve Dean intentionally dates people from all different parts of the social spectrum, including those he would never introduce to his friends, in order to understand their perspective on the world. I think he’s actually an anthropologist at heart, and dating is the Tribe he studies. He’s a quintessential participant-observer. His experiences are research. His research is experiential. His brain incessantly crunches data, and relentlessly seeks for the most optimal of the optimal outcomes. I’ve never met a human machine quite like him.
One week this February, I had the mean blues, and I reached out to my friend Jillian, patron of the podcast, and creator of The Joy List, a weekly compilation of events that one can go to alone, and leave with a new friend. I asked her what she was excited about that week and she rattled off three or so happenings. Then she asked, “How about you?” And I realized that I wasn’t excited about anything that week. I had, in essence, nothing to look forward to. So Jillian decided to fix that. She encouraged me to go to Open Brain, a roving salon for art and ideas that takes place in living rooms and public parks and spaces in-between. This was a living room edition. I almost didn’t go, I was just feeling so blah. But I eventually dusted off a tango song I used to sing, and showed up.
At Open Brain, two things happened in quick succession: I met a man from San Francisco, Michael, who became my lover, and he invited me along to an after-event hang in a hotel lobby in the Financial District. There I would meet Steve Dean, who was orchestrating the event. Everyone kept saying his name. Nobody said his first name on its own. He was Steve Dean to everyone. Jilian said, “You don’t know Steve Dean? Oh. You should know Steve Dean.” That clinched it. And so I went along to talk Burning Man with Michael, and meet Steve Dean. When Steve Dean and I met, I told him, “Jillian said that we should know each other.” Steve said, “What’s your name?” “Lila,” I said. “What’s your last name?” A bit bemused, I said, “Donnolo.” “Yep,” said Steve Dean. “We should know each other.” And then we talked intimacy, dating, and why teenagers are having less sex these days, until the wee hours.
Because I had recently curated my intimate immersive Valentine’s experience at Hacienda Villa, 14 Rooms, Steve consulted me about his love-language-themed townhouse full of intimate encounters, The Love Immersive, set for March 30th, and invited me to be a part of it. Knowing that the environment would be overwhelming — potentially magnificent, but certainly overwhelming, I set up a breather-space. A closet with a cozy mat, blanket, and pillow set-up, like a child’s secret hiding spot, with three headsets programmed with an 11-minute audio experience I pre-recorded, about the upper limits problem, catching it in time, and the radical recalibration of rest.
The day of the Love Immersive, Michael was back in town from SF. I hadn’t seen him in three weeks, and we had ferocious, pounding sex that soaked all the way through my mattress cover. That night, at the Love Immersive, juiced up and well-fucked and sex-haired and satisfied. I met my current partner, Patrick.
Because Steve Dean is a Superconnector, I’m in the most communicative, loving romantic relationship of my life so far.
In this, the first half of our conversation, we talk about VR World, where Steve met Patrick, my tendency to codependency, Steve’s dating habits, whether connection or commitment requires compatibility, optimization the skill of connection, dating across 200 different dating apps, the Sex on Demand app, whether comets are partners, or if they might be growth charts, polyamory as part orientation and part skill-set, how relationships are like start-ups, and the libido-killing cycle that Patrick and I found ourselves in at the outset of our relationship.
In other words, come lie down with us in Chelsea, on the island of Manhattan, New York.
P.S. Cats were drugged in the making of this episode. And by cats I mean: one singular cat. And by drugged I mean: with catnip. Still. I thought it was important to tell you.
Welcome back to part 2 of 4 episodes with my dear friends, primary poly partners, kinky lovers, and entrepreneurs, leaders in the poly / kink People of Color community, Tiana & Orion.
In episode 78. surprise surprise he liked black chicks, we dove into Tiana’s sexual development. We talked about natural musk, her parent’s divorce, commuting between the two households, what Tiana & Orion’s parents have in common, face-sitting on teddy bears, her first inklings of exhibitionism, being a good girl, then fucking til you die!, how Tiana met her husband in middle school by dropping books on him, the story of their marriage, a very good tip for good anal play, the taint, camming on Chaturbate, looking for threesomes on Feeld, Tiana’s first polycule and first triad, and how her ex demolished their relationship by wiping out their accounts on payroll day. And that was just the first quarter of our conversation, and you should listen to it first.
In this episode, we discuss Orion’s family legacy: the violence of his father, his mother’s pattern of dating abusive men, coding love based on what we experienced as children, and how even abuse can be coded as love if it was all you could get from your caregivers, witnessing more than one way to father, poverty & private school, Orion’s interplay with the archetype of the strong black woman, us-against-the-world, compartmentalization, bullying, Orion, The Soldier, and The Beast, going to the Renaissance Faire as a black couple, microaggressions at a white boat party, how Orion is the first black male primary partner that Tiana has had, and Orion’s biggest difficulty being in relationship with Tiana. (I don’t think you’ll guess what it is!)
And this is just part two!
You definitely want to hear part three & four of this conversation.
Tiana and Orion allow us to witness the inner workings of their relationship, talking through the biggest strain that they have have experienced so far, live, involving broken agreements, a communication breakdown, and sex with secondary partner. It’s fresh, and alive. New information is revealed in the conversation: there is hurt, and introspection, and questioning, and loving challenge, and we get to hear — in real time — how they work through the Deep Feels.
They are beyond generous to allow us this true window into their poly life. It is an edge. I am deeply honored that they would navigate that edge and allow us to listen in. This has my aim for the podcast all along— to allow you to eavesdrop on a private conversation, so that we can learn some of the forms that intimate dialogue can take. I feel certain there’s something there for you, poly or not.
In order to listen to part three and four, become a patron of the horizontal arts! Go to Patreon.com / horizontal with lila ... At the base tier of $10/month, you get access to The Full Horizontal, including all the part twos going back to the beginning (or in this case, threes and fours) plus access to the secret patrons Facebook group, and a monthly video of intimacy tips and a love poem.
In keeping with my commitment to myself to rewire my nervous system for joy by celebrating triumphs of any size, I have something to share:
On May 21st, 2019, I will celebrate 2 years of horizontal. A Horizontal-Aversary!
I have never loved a project for so long before. I have never felt so powerfully committed to a mission before. And I have never before had the soul-satisfaction of knowing that my work resonates. I am going to mark this occasion in two ways: first, with another Confetti Project Open Studios photo shoot, and then, on May 21st, with a Horizontal-Aversary party at which the invitees are all previous horizontal guests & current patrons. (Become one in the next 10 days for an invite!)
I plan to attempt the recording of an episode unprecented in the horizontal-verse!
I’d be honored if you’d celebrate this milestone with me in any one of these ways: becoming a patron, sending me a personal message about how a particular horizontal concept or episode has made a difference for you, or by sharing this art I’ve made you with the people you love most in the world.
Thank you for listening.
Come lie down with us again in the The Bronx, New York.
My name is Lila, and I love sleepovers, spooning, sharing, storytelling, sex, and stargazing, among other things. I’ve metaphorically rolled them up in audio form and called it a podcast. Horizontal with lila is Slow Radio. It’s intimacies of all kinds. It’s consensual eavesdropping. It’s us lying down right next to each other, wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears.
During Seasons 1 and 2, I got horizontal with one guest at a time, but Season 3 will be mostly comprised of threesomes: myself plus two guests who are in some kind of relationship with one another. Typically, each conversation is between two and three hours long, and divided into two parts — the part ones are available in all the podcast places, and the part twos are available exclusively for my patrons. But this episode is something truly remarkable. We recorded for over five hours, and we went both broad and deep. I’ll be dividing this conversation into four parts: the first two, episodes 78 & 79, will be available in all the podcast places, and the last two 80 & 81, will be exclusive to patrons of the horizontal arts.
To become a patron, go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila — at the base tier of $10/month, you get access to The Full Horizontal, including all the part twos (or in this case, threes and fours) plus access to the secret patrons Facebook group, and a monthly video of intimacy tips and a love poem.
In this and the following 3 episodes, I lie down with two of the people I love most in the world, Tiana and Orion. I’ve known Orion for 13 years, and Tiana for 1. They are: my people. I cherish them. With great regard. I believe in them. I believe in them like a good parent believes in their kids. I see them.
Orion is a massage therapist, a father, a personal trainer, a polysaturated lover, and a newly-minted kink educator. Orion and I met at the very beginning of my yoga teaching career. We worked at the same gym. I knew him when he had dreads. I knew him when he was married. I knew him when he became a father. For many years, we saw each other every single week — I’d teach him a private yoga class, and he would give me a massage, and we would tell each other all about our lives. He is one of the most overscheduled people I have ever known, but he always always made time for me. It was therapeutic in so many ways. He healed my body when I was training acrobatics. He made space for my moods and did not judge my depression. He knew of every heartbreak, every abandoned project, every new desire, all the plans and all the schemes. He was a primary confidant. He is firmly in my corner.
Tiana is the glittersaurus: the sparkliest, most fabulous human I have ever personally known and loved. She is an entrepreneur with a pet-care business, a professional dominatrix, a model and a stylist for fun, a craft-er, and not for nothin’, one of the most gorgeous women that exists. She is so beautiful, and yet focuses so little on the physical beauty of her lovers, that I joke that she’s like Fleur from Harry Potter, “I am beautiful enough for ze both of us!” She has singlehandedly inspired me to live into the Burning Man principle of radical self-expression with the way I present myself every single day. I think some people might be surprised that before a year ago, I wasn’t fully self-expressed with my clothing. But I wasn’t. I was always concerned about being “too.” “Too too.” But Tiana, because of her willingness to be gloriously bold, to tolerate the attention that that brings (and it brings all kinds), and to go larger, bigger, shinier when she feels challenged, not LESS, she unlocked that for me, and I am so grateful.
Tiana and Orion are polyamorous, which means they have many loves, and they are primary partners, which means that they prioritize their connection, even though they are linked romantically and/or sexually to multiple other partners and lovers and romantic friends.
In this episode, Tiana, Orion, and I talk about natural musk, her parent’s divorce, commuting between the two households, what Tiana & Orion’s parents have in common, face-sitting on teddy bears, first inklings of exhibitionism, being a good girl, then fucking til you die, Tiana meeting her husband in middle school, the story of her marriage, a tip for good anal play, the taint, camming on Chaturbate, looking for threesomes on Feeld, Tiana’s first polycule and first triad, and how her ex ended their marriage by wiping out their accounts. And this is just the first quarter of our conversation. (!)
This podcast was edited by Chad Michael Snavely- he's Chad Michael.com on the interwebz. My intro music was created by Alan Markley, @plasticcannons on Instagram, and my sensual cover art was illustrated by Shana Shay, whom you can find on 99 Designs.
Come lie down with us, in the Bronx.
Welcome to the second threesome of Season 3!
Horizontal is still Slow Radio. It’s still consensual eavesdropping. It’s still us reclining, sharing secrets, in your ears. But while the first two seasons had me lying down as though post-coital and stargazing with only one person at a time, in Season 3 I’ll often get horizontal with two people at a time: people who are in some kind of relationship with one another. In this case, they are co-hosts, business partners, and friends.
In this episode, 76, and the following, episode 77, I lie down with Dominick Q and Bryan Stacy of The Discerning Dick, a monthly series focused on generating worthy inquiry and meaningful introspection into the forces that shape a man's sexuality, behavior and intimate relationships.
I attended the first three Discerning Dick events at The Assemblage in Manhattan, and it gave me an echo of the feeling of the day I got to be a fly on the wall during a men’s group meeting in Ashland, Oregon in 2008. Undoubtedly, what I saw and heard was changed somewhat by the fact of my witnessing. But what I heard was still a powerful window into minds and bodies that I wanted desperately to understand.
Dominick Q is a men’s group leader, an executive mentor, a speaker, and a writer. Bryan is a sexual health advocate, a testicular cancer survivor, and the co-founder of the app biem, which is designed to allow people to easily get tested for STI’s and share their test results with partners.
Bryan and I have been planning to produce an event together — look out for TESTFEST 2019!
Dom & Bryan also co-host the “Man Amongst Men” podcast, which they call a “High Achieving Man's Journey to Personal Development.”
They are both men who have spent the majority of their lives focused on standard notions of external success. And now they are focused on what that energy might look like, and what it might eventually do out in the world, if they first focus on their inner world.
They are cisgendered straight white males trying to heighten their self-awareness in order to do better, to be constantly in the process of becoming better men without claiming to have arrived at it, and sincerely making the effort to bring other cis straight white men along with them.
I can think of many men that I would like them to talk to.
Men also suffer from the indoctrination of a culture that shames us for our natural human sexuality yet objectifies women to sell things to nearly everyone. These men aim to be a bridge between a man who doesn’t know that he’s swimming in water… and the sex educators and personal development leaders of the world. They aim to speak directly to men who feel stuck in a lackluster sex life or mired in sexual habits that are destructive or secretive, or both.
Just as it is a white person’s responsibility to educate themselves and other white people about intersectionality, injustice, and the perniciousness of racism, so too is it a man’s responsibility to educate himself and other men about intersectionality, injustice, and the perniciousness of sexism.
I deeply, Heartbreakingly believe that a lack of self-inquiry combined with sexual repression is a direct cause of the lion's share of violence on this planet. They are aiming for the root. And I want to do everything in my power to stand for that.
Dominick and Bryan don't claim to be experts; they just aim to be willing: willing to be educated, to be called-in, to adjust their worldview, and to tell other men what they've discovered, publicly.
Find Dom’s work on dominickq.com and dominickq on Instagram, the Biem app in the app store and Bryan on Instagram as @talkingnut, and you can find their projects together, including the Man Amongst Men podcast, on DoInnerWork.com
*
On April 27th, The Joy List and I are hosting The Sleepover, which is not a sex party, but an overnight opportunity to indulge in copious playfulness, connection, and joy! There shall be:
Pajamas
SNAX
personal development quizzes
Intimacy games
A sound bath meditation
Sensation Play with car buffers and pinwheels
a giant teddy bear named Tiny
And
Surprises
You can get 20% off of your ticket if you use the secret code: HORIZONTALITY, in all caps.
*
In this first part of our conversation, we talk about erections, the three forces that shaped their early view of sexuality: Faith, Family, & Friends, scrambled porn, an addiction to masturbation, what the Bible actually says about premarital sex, Unitarian Universalism, bargaining with God over sexuality, and how Bryan’s sexual shame kept him from getting tested, and led to a dual diagnosis of testicular cancer and chlamydia.
Come lie down with us in New York, New York.
This conversation is not like the others. It's still Slow Radio. It's still a conversation about intimacies of all kinds. But this time, to close out Season Two, this time we recorded while sitting relatively upright, because my guest, is my Dad.
We recorded about a year ago, sitting on a somewhat noisy leather couch sectional, in a house that’s perpetually under construction, because my father loves the process of things.
My father’s name is Anthony, but he’s Anthony only to the family, and Tony to his friends. He’s always been “Dad” to me. He was born in Boro Park — at the time a half-Italian, half-Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. It’s also where I was born. He almost became a priest, but become a child psychologist instead. I suppose he would have ministered to souls either way. As far back as I can remember, my father’s greatest love has been carpentry. The house I grew up had a garage that functioned exclusively as my dad’s woodshop. I didn’t share my father’s fascination with building things, but to this day, I love the smell of sawdust, and have a great warm respect for those who craft with their hands.
My Dad’s a Catholic. I am not. The story goes: my parents gave me the choice between Hebrew School and Sunday School, and I chose neither. They didn’t force me to go. As a teenager, I became a Unitarian Universalist. My Dad has always respected my choices and approved of me.
After the age of 12, when my parents got divorced, I didn’t live with my father. My mother moved us down to Florida, and my father stayed in New York. In this conversation, I ask him questions I had never questioned before.
When I was 17, and I moved back to New York to go to college at NYU, my father moved me in and out of the dorms. He came to every play and avant-garde piece I did in college (like the Antigone I did in the fountain at Washington Square Park), and for many years thereafter. He has been free with his affirmation, and has always supported any choice that I enthusiastically made for my life. While my mother questioned the prudence of studying theatre in college, and threatened to pull her support if I persisted, my Dad said that he would support me to the best of his ability. He approved when I wanted to become a yoga teacher. He approved when I wanted to become an AcroYoga teacher. He approved when I wanted to dance Argentine tango in Buenos Aires. He said yes when I asked him to loan me his car for two months in the summer of 2008 to make my first cross-country road trip, teaching AcroYoga all along the way. He didn't mind that I put 10,000 miles on it. He approved when I decided to move to Portland. He approved when I had a Saturn Return crisis and all I wanted to do was travel for a year. He received me when I burned out 9 months into that year and spent a couple of months at my mom’s place, and then flew up to stay a cold winter in his fixer-upper house with him, stacking firewood and nursing myself back to adulthood. He approved when I told him that I lived in a sex-positive intentional community whose mission is to eradicate shame and encourage freedom of expression. He approved when I started a podcast, even though I’m broadcasting my secrets out into the universe, and he is a very private person. And, though a private person, he agreed the moment I asked him to make an episode with me, even though he has no interest in being recorded anywhere else. You see, he still has the capacity to surprise me. But maybe it's exactly true to character. Because this*is my* project. And my father has always, always supported what I mean to do in the world.
So you see, my father has been easy to love.
In this episode, the first part of our conversation, we talk about his father, a grandfather I never met, also named Tony: who battled with the prejudice against Italians, beat his kids with a machine strap, gave a eulogy in Harlem, never told my Dad that he loved him, and raped at least one of his daughters. My father broke the cycle of abuse. It only takes one generation to break a cycle, and that generation can be yours.
We also talk about why my father decided to go to seminary, the ad hoc sex ed that he got by asking priests, and why he decided not to be ordained (it's probably not what you think. At least, it's not what I thought.)
Dad regularly goes on tangents, so we meander a lot here, even more than usual, and there’s a lot of reminiscing. He also uses the word “whatnot” more than anyone I’ve ever heard. Actually, I can't recall hearing anyone else use the word “whatnot.”
***
In just a few weeks, I’ll be transitioning to a very different Patreon model and streamlining my tiers. The lowest tier will be $20 / month, and will give access to x unreleased, raw episodes (with never-before-heard guests) plus other choice, what do the kids call it these days? Premium content.
If you want to be grandfathered in with access to The Full Horizontal, all the part twos at $5, $10 (which includes the monthly love poems), or $15 per month (which includes a ticket to a live event), now is the time to become a patron of the horizontal arts! Go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila, if you want to be a part of my mission to cultivate intimacy across the globe.
This is the best conversation I’ve ever had with my Dad in my life. And I had it, because I was making something for you.
So: come sit down with us.
***
Chad Michael Snavely is my editor. He’s a podcast maven. Find his full roster on chadmichael.com. Alan Markley composed my intro music. Seek him on Instagram as plasticcannons. Shana Shay created my cover art. Hire her for graphic design and character illustration on 99 Designs.
This episode comes with a call to action: If they are alive, accessible to you, and you are willing and curious — interview your parents. You don’t how many chances you’ll get. And if you never recorded them, you might wish you did.
In next week's episode, the second half of my conversation with my Dad, we discuss how he met and married my mother in Brazil, the day of my birth, forgiveness, feminist vs. mainstream pornography, how my mother left my father, why my Dad didn’t move to Florida to be close to me, how he feels about the fact that I don’t want kids, and the kind of partner that he seeks now. He also tells me a story about my Grammy and a radio agent. For access to that episode and all the part twos, become a patron of the horizontal arts now, before the tiers go up in a few weeks! Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Until next week, may you have someone to love, something to do, and many many many things to look forward to!
Thank you for being, in this case, relatively upright, with us.
My name is Lila, and I love sleepovers, spooning, sharing, storytelling, sex, and stargazing, among other things. So I metaphorically rolled them up in audio form and called it a podcast. Horizontal with lila is Slow Radio. It’s intimacies of all kinds. It’s consensual eavesdropping. It’s us lying down right next to each other, wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears.
Each horizontal session with a guest is between 2 and 3ish hours long, and divided into two episodes. Part ones, like this one, are available anywhere you get your podcasts, and part twos are available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts.
As you might imagine, the part twos go deep, since we’ve been marinating in conversation for over an hour. And at the very very end, my guest tells me a story of some intimacy. For access to The Full Horizontal,go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila, and become a patron of $5 or more per month, because...
Fair warning, horizontal lovers!
When I launch Season 3, (and it is happening Soon) I’ll be shifting some things, revealing a couple of surprises, and revamping my Patreon tiers: If you’ve already become a patron, you’ll be grandfathered in with access to all the episodes and my gratitude for being an early listener.
In this episode, recorded in a slender little apartment in Brooklyn, New York, I lie down with Lee. Lee is a Pleasure Guide: a Tantrika, a Bodyworker, an Intimacy Coach. She’s a Sensuality specialist.
I first met Lee when she was working with a friend of mine at The Women of Venus (which you’ll hear about in part two, episode 71). I’ve been trying to get her to move in with us at Hacienda Villa for about a year now.
When I’m around Lee, I feel warm and grounded. She is exceptionally supportive and clear-eyed, at the same time. Her belief in the version of me that I love the most, my favorite self, and my potential to embody that self and act beautifully on the world is like … an amulet that she has made by hand. She has her finger on the pulse of the Great Mystery, without being a prig about it. She’s a girl’s girl, a woman’s woman, with a generous dash of humility, and a fierce commitment to stand for her own growth, and for yours.
For all of the information about Lee’s Intimacy and Pleasure Coaching practice, find her on LeeNoto.com
This episode was recorded in Lee’s bed, in another part of Brooklyn, and though you are spared the trains screeching around the bend like they do when I record in my room, there’s a few sonic visitors: an old heating unit, a creaky ceiling that is someone else’s floor, some pretty raucous neighbors, and… a plane or two. City living. Local color.
In this part of our conversation, we talk about slow-going sex and celibacy, plant medicine journeys and masturbation, objectifying yourself and faking orgasms, promiscuity as rebellious self-expression, pushing buttons just to know what they’re for, the glorious practice of bragging, a Tiger Mom, and driving herself to perfection so hard that her face paralyzed itself to get her attention.
To see pictures from this recording session, and get behind-the-scenes access to horizontality and my sex-positive life, follow @horizontalwithlila on Instagram, and sign up for my missives on horizontalwithlila.com
And now, come lie down with not one, but two recovering perfectionists, in Brooklyn, New York.
***
Let me give some credit where credit is due: Chad Michael Snavely is my editor. He’s a podcast maven, and you can find his full roster on chadmichael.com. Alan Markley composed my intro music, and his exploits can be witnessed on Instagram as plasticcannons. Shana Shay created my cover art, and you can hire her for graphic design and character illustration on 99 Designs.
In next week’s episode of horizontal, the second part of my conversation with Lee, episode 71, we discuss intentional masturbation, receiving oral sex, fantasies of auto-cunnilingus, giving yourself what you wish for a partner to give you, the indefinable mystery of tantra, red tantra, white tantra, urban tantra, a tantric temple called The Women of Venus, Mama Gena’s practices of Trinities, Swamping, and Spring Cleaning...
And Lee & I do something unprecedented on the podcast, something I’ve never heard recorded anywhere else: we each do a Spring Clean on a topic we’re struggling with in real time, stream of consciousness style, and entirely unedited. I feel a little bit nervous to share it, actually, but that’s when I know I have something really worthwhile to reveal.
Next week’s installment is available exclusively to my beloved patrons of the horizontal arts. Become one and get access to The Full Horizontal catalog on Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
On Saturday, March 16th, Lee is curating an event called Eating Out: an Erotic Feast inspired by oral sex. She calls it an Edible Education. For all the details, visit her at LeeNoto.com and sign up for her mailing list.
On Thursday, March 28th, I’m leading The Art of Trust: an Intimacy Games Workshop. If you’ve seen any of the shots from my Intimacy Warriors photoshoots, you might have an inkling of what this workshop will be like. We’ll play games like Sphinx, Hot Seat, Human Conveyor Belt, and the Touch Gauntlet. Details coming soon.
Until next week, may you have someone to love, something to do, and many things to look forward to!
Thank you for getting horizontal.
This episode is a little different than the others. It’s a quickie.
If you’ve been listening to horizontal, you know that: at the end of every conversation with a guest, I ask them to tell me a story. Each full conversation is between two and three hours long. It gets divided into two parts and released as two episodes. Part ones are available to everyone in all the podcast places. Part twos are available exclusively to my patrons through Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila. Sign up there for access to The Full Horizontal.
Naturally, our conversations get deeper and deeper as my guest and I drop in together. So when, at the very end of those part twos my guest tells me a tale, (except in the case of Annie Lalla, because we ran out of time!) it is a tale of intimacy of some kind. Any kind. It can be about friendships, lovers, family. It has been about being carried down a mountain on the back of a hunky guide, a literal and figurative friend death, the first time ejaculating where stuff came out, a big fat freaky wedding, and a miscarriage, among many, many other things. I always tell my guest that it can be any story that falls under the umbrella of intimacy, with any kind of tone or outcome, as long as it’s a story that they truly desire to tell it to me.
This quickie episode (which consists of three little stories, rather than one big one) was recorded live at my last Horizontal Storytelling Pajama Party, which was held at Hacienda Studio in Brooklyn. At Horizontal Storytelling, we all donned pajamas, had milk and cookies, got exceedingly cozy, and curled up together, all 50 of us, to listen to just the stories, back to back, by six storytellers, one after the other. I got horizontal with my guest just like we do when we record a full episode, wearing robes, sharing a pillow, microphone positioned above us, gazing upward as though stargazing, or post-coital, or the wee-morning hours of a really good sleepover. I’m planning to host another one (or something like it) in the Spring of 2019, so make sure you’re on the mailing list through horizontalwithlila.com and all the details shall come!
In this quickie I get horizontal with Kenneth Play, my friend, my housemate, and world-renowned Sex Hacker, Sex Coach, Sex Educator, and co-founder of Hacienda Villa, the intentional community in which I live and love, and where I am a founding member. We’ve been living in the same house for four and half years. I introduce him quite fully in the episode, so I’ll just say here that I have been privileged to live in the same house as a Master of Sex. Kenneth taught me how to verbalize specifically the kind of oral sex that I desire. He taught me how to insert and operate my nJoy pure wand dildo. He also taught me the most nourishing technique I've ever come across for grounding with my lover after sex.
And now he's gathered all these tips, tricks, and techniques from his teachers — some of the greatest sex educators and coaches and tantra masters alive — as well as from hours upon hours of, let's call it "laboratory practice," and distilled them into a Sex Ed video series that is accessible to everyone. It focuses on giving pleasure to women and those with vulvas and consists of The Oral Course, The Squirting Course, The Penetration Course, & the Sex Hacker Bundle
This quickie was edited by Mr. Chad Michael Snavely, bearded man, podcast impresario. His roster is available on chadmichael.com. My sensual cover art was illustrated by Shana Shay based on my photograph. Hire this woman through 99 designs. And my intro music was composed by Alan Markley, rock star, and plasticcannons on Instagram.
Speaking of Instagram. Feel free to reach out to me there if you have any questions, ideas for dream guests, or musings spurred by any of the episodes. It’s lovely to know that you’re listening, and pondering.
And if you want access to The Full Horizontal, right now you can still get that when you become a patron of $5 a month and up. Very soon, I’ll be launching Season 3, and with it, I’ll be streamlining my tiers and raising the bar for patronage. But if you lock it in now, baby, you’ll be grandfathered in, with my gratitude for being an early patron of the horizontal arts. I have big dreams, and every single patron helps me happen them. Patreon.com/ horizontalwithlila
In other words, come lie down with us, in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
I love sleepovers, spooning, sharing, sex, storytelling, and stargazing, among other things. So I metaphorically rolled them all up in audio form and called it a podcast. horizontal with lila is Slow Radio. It’s intimacies of all kinds. It’s us lying down, wearing robes, sharing secrets, in your ears.
Each session with a guest is between 2 and 3 hours long, and divided into two episodes. Part ones are available anywhere you get your podcasts, and part twos are available only to patrons of the horizontal arts. Become a patron of $5+ per month soon, because...
When I launch Season 3, I’ll be shifting some things, revealing a couple surprises, and revamping my Patreon tiers: If you’re already in as a patron, you’ll be grandfathered in with access to all the episodes at the 5 - 15 dollar level. Fair warning, lovers!
***
This Thursday night in Brooklyn, come Valentine’s with us!
Valentine's Day is in less than a week, and I would usually be fretting about what to do.
This was especially true if I was single, but it was also very much true when I was part of a couple. What could I do that wouldn't have me feeling lonely? How could I turn this day of forced romance and commerce and couples privilege... into a day that would actually be nourishing for Me?
I tried dating myself on Valentine's. I tried friend-time. I tried tango festivals. I tried Galentine’s Day.
But what I actually desired was an intimate, pleasure-focused experience for myself. I desired sensation play, delicious treats (that were safe for me to eat), titillating performance, immersive theatre, and one-on-one connection. I really wanted to make Valentine's day about delighting all of my senses, not about the arbitrary fact of whether I was romantically linked to another person on that day.
So I’m curating it.
It's called 14 Rooms, and it will be on Valentine’s night. It’s an event for everyone, whether you’re not in a relationship, in a relationship, in a polycule, in a situationship — no matter what our quote unquote status is, we can gather and explore intimate moments of different kinds.
Together. As a community celebrating pleasure, our senses, and our aliveness. Celebrating Big Love.
Come Valentine's with us. It will be delicious.
It's the Valentine's I've always wanted.
P.S.
If you’re short on funds but full of enthusiasm, send me a message through horizontalwithlila.com or Instagram to see about a possible volunteer shift.
***
Apropos of everything - in this episode, I lie down with Annie Lalla, Goddess of Love and world-class relationship coach. Annie stands for true love. She is a gladiator of empathy.
In this first part of our conversation, we talk about the correlation between self-esteem and soul mates, how couples cross-train each other, footnoting our parents for the superpowers born on the back of their crazy, optimizing for aliveness, empathy algorithms, integration and differentiation (the inhales and exhales of relationship), the phrase “I’m angry, but I love you more than I’m angry,” and using your creativity to adjust your emotional response to your reality.
I first met Annie when she gave a talk about true love in the Speaker Series I co-lead at Burning Man 2018. The theme was The Year of the Robot, and we had... technical difficulties. The mic was down, so somebody found Annie a little toy bullhorn, and we all gathered round her like children at storytime, to press our burning questions into her hands like love letters. She is one of the most poignant extemporaneous speakers that I’ve ever witnessed on stage.
I took copious notes, because I’d literally never heard anybody speak about love the way that Annie does. These are some of the words I captured:
“cartographer of love”
“kilojewels of energy”
“There’s an I that has to be sacrificed on the altar of us. If you’re not feeling terror, you’re not actually playing the game.”
“the sacred mirror”
And
“Nothing compares to the gymnasium, to the dojo of a true love relationship.”
I imagine by now, you know how I feel about words. I savored Annie’s words, wrote them down in red ink, and fervently hoped that she would get horizontal with me someday. The time wasn’t right at Burning Man.
But when I booked my ticket to Miami, taking a loving risk to go meet a man I’d been communicating with for four months, but had never met in person (a risk I imagined that Annie would approve of mightily) and I found out that Annie was in Miami!
Well!
Come lie down with us on a big white bed with a view of the ocean, in Miami, Florida.
***
For horizontal photos and behind-the-scenes videos (like the one I took of Annie’s glorious red carpet ocean-view apartment), follow @horizontalwithlila on Instagram. I’ve been getting reallly into Instagram lately, and I have a cache of colorful photos to share.
If you are in need of the services of a Love Coach (and really, who isn’t?) you can commune with all things Annie through annielalla.com
This episode was edited by Mr. Chad Michael Snavely, bearded man, father, and podcast impresario. Have a peek through his roster on chadmichael.com. The character illustration and graphic design for my cover art was drawn by Shana Shay. Look her up on 99Designs. And my sweet intro music was composed by Alan Markley, rock star father and @plasticcannons on Instagram.
Next week’s episode, 68, part two of my conversation with Annie, will be available to patrons of $5 a month and up. The Patreon tiers will change in the next month or so, so lock in access to The Full Horizontal at the grandfathered rate by becoming a patron now! Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila
Welcome to my newest patrons, Bob & Lee! And so much gratitude to Julene for raising her Patreon pledge.
After my trip to Miami, I’m feeling turned on by life. I wish you that! And as always, I wish us someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.
Thank you for becoming horizontal.
People say “do what you love.” And I love sleepovers, spooning, sharing, sex, storytelling, and stargazing, among other things. So I metaphorically rolled them all up in audio form and called it a podcast. Welcome to horizontal! It’s Slow Radio. It’s intimacies of all kinds. It’s us in your ears, sharing secrets.
If you’ve been listening, you know that each recording is between 2 and 3 hours long, and divided into two episodes. The part ones are available anywhere you get your podcasts, and the part two are available only to patrons of the horizontal arts. Right now, when you become my patron of $5 per month or more, you get access to all the part twos going forward, and going back to the beginning. Go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila and join in now, because...
In a month or two, some big changes are coming to the podcast and the Patreon. When I launch Season 3, those who already have access to all the episodes will be grandfathered in at the same patronage level, with my deep gratitude for being an early listener. In other words, if you want access to all the episodes for $5+ per month, become a patron Now and lock that down! Fair warning, lovers!
I have an announcement. I’m over-the-moon delighted to share the details of my Valentine’s Day event, a spectacular Spectacular. It’s called 14 Rooms, and it will be an intimate, immersive, sensual Valentine’s experience. I usually don’t like Valentine’s Day very much, for obvious reasons. So I’m throwing a Valentine’s that I would want to attend.
A townhouse full of delights for all the senses, including:
4-handed massages
live erotica readings
the best hot cocoa you've ever tasted
sensual performances
sweet smells from the oven
a hot tub
and a giant teddy bear named Tiny.
And that's not even what's in the 14 rooms...
Each room unlocks a secret: an intimate, sensual, immersive experience.
Your ticket comes with 5 tokens, which you can exchange for delights and experiences. Choose how to spend them — on treats, on libations, on a rendezvous or two. If you wish to collect more experiences (there are 14 rooms of delight, after all!) you may purchase more tokens for $5 each, cash, from someone very prettily dressed. 1 token for a treat, 2 tokens for a rendezvous.
This event is for people not in relationships + people in relationships + people in situationships + people who frankly don't give a damn + everyone, Everyone. Let's celebrate sensuality and loveliness all together! I usually dislike Valentine’s Day, so I’m curating an event that *I* would love to go to!
Buy your tickets here, and come Valentine’s with us!
Okay, here we go.
In this episode, I lie down with Wednesday Martin, PhD, #1 New York Times bestselling author, social researcher, anthropology scholar, and one of the most knowledgeable people about female sexuality on the planet. She would demur, and say that she merely interviewed 31 female sexuality experts across a range of disciplines, but I’ll say that she has integrated, synthesized, and made their work widely accessible. She’s managed to harmonize a vast array of historical, anthropological, scientific, and anecdotal wisdom on the subject.
She is the author of many books, all in some way about quote unquote bad women. Marlene Dietrich, stepmothers, the rich mommies of the Upper East Side, and now, adulteresses. In her new book Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set Us Free, she debunks fallacy after fallacy, and highlights the conditions that invite female sexual autonomy to flourish. In other words, a woman after my own heart.
I admire Wednesday’s career immensely. I hope to have that kind of reach and grandiosity, some soon day. She said it’s gonna happen. I’ll just take her word for it, since her words have gotten her where she is.
In this first part of our conversation, we talk about social media’s crackdown on sex educators, the dark legacy of abstinence-only education, male attempts to control female sexuality and reproduction, and female counter-strategies, the single worst thing to ever happen to women, how the transition from tribal living to nuclear family homes cost women an important power base, a surefire formula for the uniquely human female dependence on men, and how, for me, living in a sex-positive community provides a counter-formula.
It’s such a rich episode, anthropologically, historically, contextually. Come lie down with us in New York, New York.
In this and next week’s episode, I lie down with my college friend, the actor-romantic, Triple Threat, improviser, mimic, voice-over artist, chameleon, ham, and all-around delightful, well-adjusted human, Burl Moseley.
He’s such a phenom that he recently got his own song on the musical TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. If I were you, just before listening to this episode, I’d go straight to YouTube and type in “Don’t be a Lawyer.” He sings, acts, and dances the bejeesus out of it, in a full-on bright-pink 90s suit with a chunky tie. I have watched it an embarrassing number of times, I have insisted that my housemates watch it, and when I arrived at Burl’s apartment to record this episode in early December, I danced around his place singing it back to him. I’m reaally into it. And if you’ve ever known a lawyer (and I’ve dated two!) I’m pretty sure you'll be into it as well.
Burl and I both went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for Drama. He was a luminary in my favorite improv troupe, and I always made it a point to show up to their shows and cheer them on. Improv was never my thing, but Burl is a natural improviser … I think that’s part of the reason he’s so good at life-ing.
In this first half of our conversation, we talk about the origins of being such a live wire, the two types of military kids, making as many friends as possible, casual misogyny and male friends, Burl’s “showing out” at school, and my attitude problem, our childhood crushes, how Burl felt about his parent’s PDA, the first kiss ritual, the mom & dad sofa, and trying to undo the damage that Disney has done.
If you enjoy cozying up with us, and want to listen to next week’s episode with Burl (episode 64), become a patron of the horizontal arts. Patreon is the love child of crowdfunding and a subscription service, and you can access all the part twos of every episode by becoming a patron of $5 a month or more.
Welcome to my newest patrons: Michael and Daniel, and an extra joyous thank you to Tiana, Rex, and Donald, for raising their pledges this month!
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.
Next week’s episode will be released next Friday and available to patrons of $5 and up. In it, we discuss the three C’s of relationshipping, reflective listening, Burl’s first kisses, willyoubemygirlfriendyoucananswermetomorrow, how movie sex and porn sex are like pro wrestling, my theory about why young people are having less sex, relationship takeaways, how Burl feels about marriage now, and a story about emotional release.
I’ve got just a few more episodes in Season Two, and the grand finale is something really special. I can’t wait to share it with you.
And then, I have some exciting twists coming for Season Three, which will start in the next couple of months, and I’ll also be revamping my Patreon tiers then, so if you want to be grandfathered in at the $5 level (meaning that the tier will go up, but you’ll still get access to all the episodes) go to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila and become part of my mission to make the world a more intimate place!
For more horizontality in your inbox once a week-ish (okay, full disclosure, lately it’s been once a month-ish), sign up on horizontalwithlila.com for my raw personal writing, photos of me horizontal in unexpected places, images of my guests and links to the show notes, and the occasional bit of additional fabulosity, like a plug for my sex educator housemate’s online course on how to be a great lover.
Here are the humans who helped make horizontal happen: Chad Michael Snavely edits horizontal. Peruse his podcast roster on chadmichael.com. Shana Shay drew horizontal. Hire her through 99designs. Alan Markley scored horizontal. Find him on Instagram as plasticcannons.
And now, come lie down with us, in a place called Hollywood, in Los Angeles, California.