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.