Welcome to Your Body Remembers Pleasure. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. This podcast is devoted to sexual embodiment, intimacy, and the body's innate capacity to heal, feel, and remember pleasure. If something here resonates with you, you're welcome to explore more writings and resources at RahiChun.com. And now,

Let's begin.

today's episode, I'm joined by Ariel Szabo, writer, somatic sex educator, and the voice behind the erotic frontier for a conversation at the edge of culture, trauma healing, cervical awakening, plant medicine, and erotic sovereignty. Now in full transparency, Ariel is my beloved in life, and this interview was actually intended to test a new recording platform.

But as you'll see, the material exploring how voicing your sexual truth can lead to cervical awakening, the journey from numbness to sensation, how our societal systems suppress our sexual embodiment, as well as insights about sex work, decrim, and trafficking, made this one of the juiciest and informative interviews to date. Enjoy.

Ariel, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today. Ariel, for our listeners to understand your personal journey, when you look back, was there like a specific turning point when you realized that erotic embodiment could be the doorway to the transformation of personal and collective consciousness?

Thanks so much for having me here.

Yeah. And there's a couple of turning points that that question brings me to. The first turning point, which was sort of me like opening the door, but then it got shut with a lot of confusion pretty quickly, was when I first felt called to get into sex work and I became a stripper. And there were many different things that brought me there, but one of them was a very wise part of me that understood how...

much wisdom there is in connecting to our sexuality, the power of our sexual energy and the capacity it has to transform us. There are a lot of reasons that I wasn't really to fully open that doorway at that moment in time. Now, fast forward many years later, and it was in plant medicine journeys with ayahuasca that I was really fully able to open that door and step through it. It was the first time that I...

really was able to fully connect with my authentic sexual energy and feel it surge and move through my body and live in every step.

Wow, wow, that's so profound. So it sounds like early on in your journey, you were drawn to being a dancer and that was a way for you to, it was like a platform for you to explore the erotic embodiment and the life force. And later on it was through plant medicines. you, know, for lot of our audience have probably experienced plant medicines. Some have probably not. When you speak about how

like all of your cells were infused with this energy. What happened from there? Like how was your ayahuasca journey and your relationship with the plants a catalyst for you to really like reclaim your erotic embodiment?

Yeah. So, you know, before I started working with plant medicine, there was a lot blocking me from really actually being able to connect with this energy because I had, you know, I had couplings living in my system of like danger coupled with sexual energy. There was so much fear. There was so much shame. had a long history of sexual trauma and I had not...

been able to really fully, really open the gateway to all the grief and the shame that lived in me. And plant medicine supported me in accessing it in ways that other therapies had not yet really been able to support me in doing. So once I had access to all the grief, the shame, and had enough tools and capacity and support I needed at that point in time to actually feel it, ⁓ then once that moved,

Yeah

then I could start feeling pleasure moving through my body without like just so much fear blocking me or something else coming in.

Wow. So this is really actually a very profound point. It sounds like the couplings you mentioned were preventing you from a full embodiment of your pure erotic energy. And those couplings involved guilt and shame as a result of past sexual traumas. So I feel like what you're sharing is so important that it sounds like the plant medicines allowed you to really do a deep dive and feeling those feelings.

that previously maybe were not very accessible through different forms of therapy. Is that accurate?

that's completely accurate. And there was something too about connecting so deeply with the plant world that allowed me to repair the original fracture I had from nature, just growing up in the society I grew up in and the community I grew up in where I wasn't so connected to nature, which also made a disconnection from my body. Coming into this like deep, intimate connection with the plants, which also felt safer to me than people at that moment in my life.

really allowed me to start like exploring not just what is it like to feel pleasure and connection with myself and my own body with all my different parts of my being but also with another being, playing.

Yes, yes. Wow, this is really fascinating because, you know, what you're speaking to is the safety that connecting with your sexuality involving live organism in this instance, the form of plants, was much safer for you than relating with your sexuality with other human beings. And as well, it sounds like it was a way of you returning to the nature of your

body as you're returning to the nature of our macrocosm.

Yeah. Yeah, and I really carried that practice over, you know, a lot of people call it ecosexuality for years, just like connecting with trees, connecting with the ocean, connecting with the wind, with the earth, and having very erotic, very orgasmic experiences with all of these beings and entities.

Wow, that sounds so beautiful and so like, just so natural. I have a question for you and that is, you know, as you were going through this profound, you know, exploration and sensitive reawakening of your sexuality through the support and guidance of the plant medicines, were you, was it like an intuitive unfolding between you and the intimacy of the plants?

What worked for you and what would you recommend for people?

Yeah, so it was a lot of different things overlapping. mean, you know, I think one of the reasons that my journey with ayahuasca and with plants in general has been so sexual is because part of my dharma, part of my purpose on being this earth is teaching around sexuality, right? So it might not look that way for someone else.

Mm.

So there was something that was happening intuitively and instructionally from the plants themselves and where they were inviting me into, what they were showing me and telling me. I certainly had a lot of support from the shamans that I would work with in Peru, from teachers here in the States who have extensive training and experience working with plant medicines and psychedelics. And then also,

Hmm.

My training with sexual energy, although it's separate from my training and the work I do with plant medicine, it has certainly informed it, right? So I was going to school for somatic sex education and sexological body work and really starting to learn how to consciously work with my sexual energy. And meanwhile, I'm walking these two paths that were absolutely intertwining and informing one another.

That's really remarkable knowing now that what you do is hold space for the intersection of pleasure and plants to learn that your actual reclamation of your body and sexual reawakening, it was happening concurrently with plants and pleasure as a somatic sex educator. That's fantastic. I'd love our listeners, you know, who may feel numb and hopeless to learn, to be able to

understand your journey from numbness to pleasure. So we know that, you know, the wisdom of the plant, the wisdom and guidance of the plant medicines was a key. And concurrently, you were studying to be a somatic sex educator. ⁓ curious, like, what advice would you give people who are out there who don't feel a lot of pleasure or sensation in regards to what that journey from numbness to pleasure could actually look like? Like, what kind of support would they

benefit from psychologically, somatically, emotionally.

Yeah, mean, you know, so much can happen with our own hands and our own breath and our own presence. And I spent a lot of hours, a lot of hours with myself in a room, really just learning to hold myself.

And I think this is something that we all need to learn how to do. And of course I also had a lot of support. had, worked with somatic therapists, I worked with psychological body workers, I worked with, you know, plant medicine facilitators, but a lot of the transformation happened because I was willing to sit with myself. ⁓ And what I learned in my... ⁓

training in somatic sex education was with what's called the pleasure of practice. So sitting with myself and starting to ask myself, like, what would feel good to me right now? And as a trauma survivor, as someone who's experienced sexual violence and exploitation, it was radical for me to ask myself, what would feel good and what do I need? ⁓ And asking myself those questions over and over and at the beginning, I often didn't know the answer.

Hmm.

And a lot of grief would come up and it would be difficult, but I kept asking and I just kept listening. And for a long time, that was the practice. And then eventually pleasure started to open. So I think along the way, right? Because it can be hard to trust. Like, ⁓ this is just frustrating. Like, I don't know what I need. I don't know what I want. Things aren't feeling good. This is painful. But I think if you can find even little things that feel good, like...

Wow.

Maybe taking a sip of water or your connection with your dog or the tree outside. Just some connection, whether it's with yourself, whether it's something outside of yourself, and just slowly over time, let it grow from there.

That's fantastic. So I'm hearing a number of things. know, earlier you shared how sitting and being with the grief, right, was really pivotal in metabolizing, you know, the grief, helped you kind of decouple the shame and the guilt. But what I'm hearing you say now is like really sitting and being with your own body and your own emotions, as frustrating as it might be, because I've got clients who, know, they don't self-pleasure because

They say, it's a reminder that I can't feel and I get really disheartened. But it sounds like there's a persistence, a self-loving persistence that's really required. And at the same time, you are also receiving support from sexological body workers and plant medicine integration facilitators. So it's a multi-pronged kind of supporting yourself through the process.

Yeah, and like loving friends too.

That's

so, so great. I'm curious, like as you were moving through your healing process, were there myths or beliefs around sexuality that you had to unlearn personally? It's endless. Yeah. What were some of the main ones that were like, my God, that is just...

my god, it's endless.

You know, what comes to mind first is that like more intensity will lead to more pleasure.

Ooh, that's a good one.

Right, and so as someone who previously had a pretty numbed out body, I would often need a lot of pressure to feel.

Yes.

But I also didn't even give myself a chance to see what I might feel if things were softer or gentler. So a lot of that was also tied up in conditioning of, know, partners I was choosing at the time who were really also just like me conditioned by the heteropatriarchy that tells us that, you know, sex is all about penis and vagina and pounding. And I was also unconsciously

Right.

often replaying scenarios that may have been traumatic or patterned. So there's so many different contributing factors, but when I did learn to start like, wait, hold on a second, maybe if I try to be really gentle and slow with myself, things might start to feel, maybe I'll feel more, maybe things will open up, and that is what happened.

Right, right.

Wow. Wow. What a beautiful, you know, I just was you sharing that I have this image of just this delicate flower like being able to open and blossom.

speaker-1 (14:24)
It is. And you know, a metaphor that I love for it as well is like ⁓ a starry night. Like if you come outside from a really brightly lit house, when you first look at the sky, you might not be able to see many stars. But the longer you stay, the more stars you'll see. And it's like in our body, when you first start feeling and looking, you might be like, I'm not feeling anything. But the longer you sit with it, the more you listen and look.

you'll start noticing more and more sensations. Some will be really loud and some will be like so subtle and almost imprecise.

speaker-0 (14:57)
Ooh, I bet those are the really interesting ones.

speaker-1 (15:00)
they

are. And like I find that the more spaciousness and slowness and gentleness that I ⁓ give my body, that I invite my partners to give my body, over time what I've just noticed is that more and more sensation opens.

speaker-0 (15:16)
Isn't that fascinating? It's like, it's just like this endless evolution of sensation when the safety, the consent, the choice, the getting the kind and quality of touch your body actually wants. Just, it is like more and more stars start to reveal in the sky.

speaker-1 (15:37)
Yeah. And if we go so fast, we can't even, we miss cues from our body. We don't really give ourselves a space to feel into like, huh, what would actually make this feel better right now? Is this actually what I'm wanting? Maybe I want a little bit of an adjustment or something different.

speaker-0 (15:54)
Yeah, so, so important. So, you know, it sounds like for those folks listening who are numb or who are healing from trauma, really having the space to go at the pace that you feel safe with and slowing down and really teasing out sensations and being with the emotions that inevitably will arise, you know, as you retouch those ⁓ sensitive areas. Like that's all inherent in...

an integral part of the healing journey. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So I have been a fan of the erotic frontier, your substack, and you explore with such nuance and you're conveying very complex intersectional areas of how our cultural conditioning affects our society. And I wanted to start off by kind of asking you a broad question, which is, I mean, you've written about this.

speaker-1 (16:25)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (16:51)
How do you see power, culture, and societal conditioning shape our relationship to personal pleasure? Because everyone listening, they may not realize how these societal influences of power, culture, and conditioning, the norms in our society, affect our actual individual personal pleasure.

speaker-1 (17:13)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's take America, for example, where we live. America was born from people stealing land, raping and pillaging people, using power over to dominate, to conquest. That is, that bleeds into, into our culture, right? That's what this culture here is born from, the dominant over culture. And so when we're taught that power, that

Power, is tied with success, so both success in your life, achieving power, is about dominating, about conquering, is about having power over something. We're also taught to do the same thing with our bodies, to do the same thing with our sexuality. you know, it can look in two different ways. It can look like people kind of like outwardly having power over wielding sexuality as a weapon.

to a particular outcome for something they want, for taking. It can also look like power over inward, suppressing your own desires, your own sexual energy, performing, versing. what I'm really speaking to as an invitation is collectively moving away from power over to power with.

speaker-0 (18:32)
Hmm.

speaker-1 (18:33)
So what does that look like with sexuality and with pleasure? Well, it looks like actually listening to and partnering with our pleasure, with our sexual energy. So pleasure can actually be used as a compass. And I wanna make a distinction here. I wanna talk about two types of pleasure that I see. There's a type of pleasure that's disconnected and that's an escape.

that brings you out of your body, but there's a type of pleasure that's embodied that brings you deeper into yourself. And in this type of pleasure, embodied pleasure, you are going to feel grief, you're gonna feel anger, because it connects you with all parts of yourself. Your pleasure is then connected to your heart, your whole being, your soul. So that's the kind of pleasure that I'm talking about here. Listening to this pleasure, which points us towards what feels good, which points us towards our purpose and our passion and our life.

speaker-0 (19:16)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

speaker-1 (19:28)
It also can be used as a resource. It's foundational nourishment and care for ourselves. It also can be used to heal wounds and alchemize shame. As we know in our work as sexological bodywork.

speaker-0 (19:40)
and

Yeah, it's profound. is profound.

speaker-1 (19:49)
And then when we're partnering with our sexual energy, it's like being in right relationship to it. So not denying it or suppressing it. Sexual energy is neutral. Power is neutral. They're all neutral energies. What matters is what awareness do we have to them being present, ⁓ and also what consciousness do we bring to what we do with these energies.

Like you might start to feel sexual energy. It doesn't mean you need to do anything with it. You can do with it or you can choose to create art with it. You can sing from it or you can have a sexual exchange with yourself or with another being.

speaker-0 (20:33)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you touch on a lot of really, really important points. And the culture in this country, you know, in America, it is very much, you know, you know, get it, you know, like, it's so much about achieving and proving and performance. And what I'm hearing is how that seeps into our intimacy, where it can be weaponized or used as a tool for...

prestige or for gain rather than, you know, I love the distinction you make about, you know, the two kinds of pleasure. When we really do look inward for the pleasure, it's really honoring all of that we're feeling, you know, and being with pleasure rather than wielding some sort of influence or power over. That's really, really great. I want to, you know, I want to ask you again,

The recent Substack article that you wrote, I think it was released just recently, it was really profound because you spoke about how speaking your truth and being fully seen as a sexual being actually transformed the embodiment of your cervical pleasure. So I think listeners will be fascinated by that. How does reclaiming pleasure shift how we show up in the world, like beyond just sexuality?

Like how does it shift how we show up, you know, in our humanness?

speaker-1 (22:04)
Right. You know, our sexual energy is the same energy that animates our voice. It's the same energy that animates our creativity, our purpose, our desire, our passion. So when we disconnect from our sexuality for any number of reasons that it can happen, we're disconnecting from our life force, from our vitality. Yes. And we can really like, we lose our compass because our desire is our compass. And you know that thing that a lot of people say like, I don't know what my purpose is. I feel really off.

they're very likely disconnected from their authentic sexual energy.

speaker-0 (22:38)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, that's really poignant. I feel like so many, I don't know, I have a niece and nephew who are just coming out of college, and I feel like a lot of young people are kind of lost. And I wonder whether the, you know, there's a correlation between ⁓ them not being in their bodies and feeling their pleasure because they're so fixated on screens and not other people.

speaker-1 (23:01)
I think there definitely is, there definitely is. you know, something else about that, that article I wrote about my cervical awakening and kind of what my cervix taught me about visibility is as a woman, I was taught that being from a very young age, that being sexually visible is dangerous. I could experience harm, rejection, punishment. And what I kind of...

speaker-0 (23:24)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (23:27)
discovered as I started to claim myself as a sexual being publicly is that as I allowed myself to fully embody my sexuality, let it be seen, I actually started experiencing more pleasure. So I learned a different truth from my body that actually when I fully step into my sexuality, my eroticism, when I allow myself to be seen, I actually feel safer because the cervix only

opens, it only softens, it only comes back to its aliveness and pleasure capacity when the body actually feels safe. It's directly connected to our vagus nerve.

speaker-0 (24:08)
Yes, yes. So what I'm hearing is, like you were conditioned when you were young to believe that being seen as a sexual being was dangerous. But part of your reclamation and your of your body's pleasure came about from allowing yourself to be seen and speaking your truth as a sexual somatic sex educator and a sexual being.

And that you found that that actually made your body feel safer to really claim the truth of who you are. And with that came an opening of your cervix.

speaker-1 (24:43)
Yeah, and embodying my erotic power also allows me to voice my boundaries, which keeps me

speaker-0 (24:51)
Right. Right. So part and parcel of being seen sexually means also being seen for where your sexual boundaries are.

speaker-1 (25:00)
Yeah, yeah. That's huge. And I want to make a distinction here because I think there's a lot of confusion in our culture about what does sexual visibility mean because there's so much performance for the male gaze. So when I am fully embodying my sexuality and eroticism, that doesn't mean I'm like shaking my ass online. I mean, if I want to, I can, but I think a lot of people in our culture equate those two things.

So if you're a sexually empowered person, that means that you're taking half naked pictures of yourself. That does not necessarily mean that.

speaker-0 (25:39)
Right, right, right. So this is very, very important distinction. So what can that look like? In your experience, being seen as a sexual human being, is that simply not hiding, not wanting to be invisible, just showing up as you are? Yeah. our audience understand.

speaker-1 (25:57)
Yeah, it's like for me, what it feels like is being fully in, like when I enter a room, I am fully in myself. I can feel myself in my body. Because I'm in touch with my erotic sexual energy, I'm able to express myself in the room. I'm able to express my boundaries. I'm able to share my gifts with the world. Yes. And also for me specifically with the work that I do, that I talk about sex.

And that was really, really scary for me for a while as I was stepping into this work.

speaker-0 (26:34)
Yeah, I bet. mean, given what you just shared about being culturally conditioned to believe that it was dangerous to be seen as a sexual person. Like here you are becoming a somatic sex educator and speaking about sexuality. mean, it must have been, you were leading into an edge for probably.

speaker-1 (26:54)
Definitely

leaning into an edge and yeah, like, you know, letting people know that I touch genitals and bodies and I'm teaching about extended love making and I have a ton of sex and my God, like it was really intense at the beginning.

speaker-0 (27:10)
Yeah, but what I'm hearing you share is that to show up fully as the human being that you are, you also must show up as the full sexual being that you are. I'd really love our audiences to have a context of the visceral, sensorial experience of your cervical awakening and how you see that tracking with the more vocal and...

public. You've been around your writings and your work as a somatic sex educator.

speaker-1 (27:42)
Yeah, so, wow, cervical pleasure is really unique. Sensorily, it's very warm, like warm, tingly, and I feel it like deep, like I feel it in the depths of me. And at its peak of sensorial pleasures, it begins in the depths of me warm and tingly, but like radiates outwards beyond me. Wow.

speaker-0 (28:10)
Mmm, wow.

speaker-1 (28:12)
So delicious.

speaker-0 (28:14)
Yes, it sounds amazing. what I'm curious about is, you know, for a number of years when before your cervix awakened, you did not have a context of the depth of that warmth and tingliness, you know, spreading beyond you. Like, do you remember the first time? Like, was it really like kind of a subtle sensation you weren't really sure about? Was it like boom, my god, what is this? Like, you know, for

For people who are curious about awakening their cervix, help us understand the evolution of your sensorial, energetic, cosmic connection.

speaker-1 (28:52)
Yeah, so my cervix did gradually come back online. So I remember specific moments where my cervix was asking for touch. And there wasn't a ton of sensation there when it was being touched, but it wanted it. And then over time, I started to feel more and more sensation. And then the peak of the most intense sensation I've experienced is from climax.

speaker-0 (29:20)
Mm-hmm.

speaker-1 (29:21)
cervical, like climax from cervical touch and pleasure.

speaker-0 (29:25)
Okay.

speaker-1 (29:27)
But

that didn't happen at the beginning. It's definitely been a gradual process. And it was this past year that I started to feel like, wow, there's a lot of pleasure there. Like, yummy.

speaker-0 (29:38)
So it sounds like there was like a yearning for your cervix to be touched and made contact with and it kind of like as you attuned to it and fed it what it desired, the sensations and the energy experience of it just naturally evolved and spread.

speaker-1 (29:58)
Yeah. And when my cervix first started to want to be touched, because when I started engaging with sexological bodywork, there was a pretty long period of time where I, like my mind wanted to touch my cervix, but my cervix was like, no. And then I remember my cervix wanted to be touched and then it didn't want to be touched again for maybe like six months. So it's really been like this kind of gradual, slow practice of listening.

speaker-0 (30:25)
And you know, like, I think some people are wondering, especially if their cervixes are numb, is like, how do I listen to a part of my body that's numb? Like, what was the journey for you to start really attuning and feeling like you were accurately listening to a part of your body that had been numb?

speaker-1 (30:43)
Yeah, I mean, this has been years of practice for me, of just like relentlessly showing up for myself in devotion and asking, learning to ask all parts of my body, like, what do you need right now? And keep asking, even when many times over and over I heard nothing, I felt nothing.

speaker-0 (31:01)
Wow. Okay. So it goes back to what you said earlier about like this practice of asking yourself, what do I need? What do I want? What do I need? What do I want? And you're kind of like, you know, including and engaging with your cervix in that way as well. Beautiful. Beautiful. I want to touch upon ⁓ the Epstein files, which is everywhere in the news right now. And in your Substack article, the price of proof.

And one of your first articles, you wrote about how the same system that created your trafficker was the same system that protected Epstein for decades. So you point out the burden that's placed on survivors, not the perpetrators in our judicial and government system. What does this reflect about our society and what is necessary for it to change?

speaker-1 (31:51)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, you know, something that I talk about in the first article that I wrote in examining what created my trafficker and how the same system protects Epstein.

I really show how because of what our colonial capitalist patriarchy teaches us about power, right, power over, about certain bodies being disposable. And then also in this case for my trafficker as a black man, what he was facing with racism, like the conditioning that occurred for him that could lead him to believe that ⁓

he wasn't actually even doing anything wrong. that trafficking is actually a feature of the culture that has been built in the United States. So like it's to me, it's not a surprise. It's not a shock. I'm actually happy that more and more people are now seeing what has been happening for a very long time, just more under the radar and more hidden and behind closed doors.

speaker-0 (32:43)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. So as you're sharing this, I'm just imagining this colonial patriarchal power hierarchy is the same hierarchy that allowed for the enslavement of African slaves for centuries. And it's that same kind of mentality and structure. It's like human beings are disposable or are of less value. It's the same kind of structure and messaging.

Yeah. know, that has allowed Epstein's horrid system to go unnoticed or for him to get away with it.

speaker-1 (33:38)
Right. then we

see mountains of evidence against all of these men whose names are still not being named and who are protected and are not being held accountable. And these victims who over and over are asked to tell their story, whose names are being released.

speaker-0 (33:43)
Mountain.

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, your article, The Price of Proof, just kind of nails it on the head with what we're seeing now. You know, it's like the survivors needing to relive their trauma and fight, you know, whereas the wealthy men seem protected by our government.

speaker-1 (34:15)
Right, and you know, I've even just been going through this really interesting process, which is what inspired me to write that article. There's a remissions program from the Justice Department for survivors of sex trafficking who were trafficked on back page during a certain period of time. I qualify for this remissions program. So I've been going through the application process and when I immediately looked at it, I was like, this is a fucking joke because they're asking me.

to qualify to prove that I was trafficked on back page, to find ads. And the reason that this is such a joke is because the whole structure of the way traffickers operate is for everything to disappear.

speaker-0 (34:57)
Right. ⁓

speaker-1 (34:59)
I mean,

yeah, they don't want to leave a trace. Exactly. they have systems to cover everything up. Right. And they're controlling the victims' often lives in every way, their finances, their phone, their computer.

speaker-0 (35:13)
So it's almost impossible for someone, I mean, in the moment, no less a decade or two decades later to find any kind of paper trail to ⁓ prove evidence.

speaker-1 (35:28)
Yeah. Yeah. So it just infuriates me because I think about all the people who qualify for this and are not going to be able to receive any money. And I'm just like, you know, why didn't they consult with trafficking survivors on how to make this process a little bit less painful?

speaker-0 (35:47)
Of course, of course. like logistically and administratively, it's a big headache, but then the emotional toll is a whole other level that you're putting survivors through to prove their case.

speaker-1 (35:59)
Yeah, and I understand that they're trying to prevent fraud, but honestly, how many people are going to be committing fraud with this? And there still will be people committing fraud. You know, it's kind of part of it. I mean, the easiest solution that's so obvious in my eyes is that they have a group of social workers that they assign to this that anyone who says they qualify can talk to. And then the social worker is going to be able to tell if they're a trafficking survivor or not.

it's going to be pretty obvious.

speaker-0 (36:30)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That seems to be much more supportive and a ⁓ way, like showing goodwill and wanting to rectify the situation, right? So I do want to ask you ⁓ about decriminalization of sex work. So what led you to advocate for decrim? And I feel like it's a really important topic because there's, I think, lot of lack of education around what that actually means.

Some people in Scandinavia, they've turned the onus on not arresting sex workers, but the clients. Some people are advocating legalization. Why is decrim the best avenue?

speaker-1 (37:14)
Yeah, so, ⁓ you know, I've actually been through many iterations of different opinions over the years. And where I've landed is that Decrim is the is the only policy that would reduce trafficking. We are not going to end trafficking in our current system. As I said, it's a feature of the system. But Decrim does provide an avenue for reducing harm because it takes the power away from the state.

and puts it into the hands of the sex workers. So decriminalization ⁓ allows sex workers to move more freely above ground and all sex workers, because there are, like, for example, the Nordic model, which there's a lot of anti-trafficking organizations that advocate for this, but it only allows, it doesn't actually allow,

the industry to fully move above ground because the Nordic model criminalizes the buyers. So the buyers are still going to be afraid to give their information. makes it harder for then sex workers to actually take time to make decisions before jumping into some situation. And then like legalization, it puts...

speaker-0 (38:22)
Screen though. ⁓ well. Yeah, of course.

speaker-1 (38:34)
It puts the power in the hands of the government. It makes it like so only the people who can cross the red tape and afford a license will be able to practice legally. And then it's still illegal for everyone else.

speaker-0 (38:50)
That's right. I see. see. Yeah. So it's still kind of as a reflection of this hierarchy, know, this privilege of people who can go through the paperwork to legalize. And there's going to be a whole sub-economy of disenfranchised people who can't do it legally.

speaker-1 (39:06)
Yep. so whenever there's any industry of any kind that has to operate underground, that's where predators can thrive. And then even with legalization, because of the way it would be set up with hierarchy, there would be a lot of legal operations where there's a lot of abuse going on, a lot of exploitation. For example, we can see that in the way strip clubs are run right now. Not all of them.

But a lot of them, there's a lot of exploitation and abuse going on in the legal structure.

speaker-0 (39:39)
Can you give listeners some insight as to how that power is being abused in strip clubs now?

speaker-1 (39:47)
Yeah, so, you know, I've certainly experienced at some clubs that if you are not providing sexual favors to either the bouncers or the owners, you know, if you're about to, if you're talking with a client who's about to take you to the champagne room, they will intervene and take away that client from you and give it to someone who is providing them with sexual favors.

speaker-0 (40:09)
Wow. So this is the danger of legalizing sex work is those people kind of in power or in power can still abuse the sex workers legally.

speaker-1 (40:23)
Right. So what we really want to do is, in whatever way possible, give the power back to the sex workers themselves. they are empowered to be making more of their own decisions on how they want to be operating.

speaker-0 (40:38)
Right, right, okay. So it really speaks to the autonomy of the sex workers. So they're not like, you know, bound to, ⁓ you know, their bosses, right? They're autonomous and that reflects their safety and their health.

speaker-1 (40:57)
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I went through this really fascinating healing journey around my experiences as both a sex worker and a sexually trafficked person where there was a good while where I was really confused because I thought sex was the wound, like that sex work is harmful. But as I, as I continued my healing journey, what, what I came to was a very different truth that sex work is not harmful.

The harm comes from the systems in which sex work is operating.

speaker-0 (41:30)
Okay. And just for audiences to know, when you use the term sex work, what are you exactly referring to?

speaker-1 (41:37)
Sex work is an umbrella term for any exchange of sexual services for money or goods. So it can include camming, pornography, phone sex operators, escorts, strippers, sexological body workers, erotic massagers of all and any type.

speaker-0 (41:59)
So what you're saying is, and I've known dancers who love dancing, you know, and they're getting paid for it. And I've also known dancers who feel like they're kind of stuck in it. And what I'm hearing you say is it's not the inherently the dancing or the sugaring or the full service. It's how that is being abused or treated that that affects whether it's safe or not.

speaker-1 (42:24)
Right, right. So as I say, what I have discovered in all of my experiences and all of my research that I've been doing is that sex work is holy work, but in a capitalist colonial patriarchy, it can be extremely dangerous work.

speaker-0 (42:41)
Yeah, extremely dangerous and yeah, I don't know how to say it. I mean, I know, you know, I've had clients who were sex workers and the armor that it creates in their bodies as a result of the work that they do seems very damaging, you know, even though they're independent and so forth. So yeah, I mean, to your point, I think it's very, very individual and it depends on, you know, how that sex work.

speaker-1 (42:54)
Mm-hmm.

speaker-0 (43:08)
is there's so many layers of consent and autonomy and free choice. it really depends on how it's being experienced.

speaker-1 (43:17)
Yeah, right. And does the sex worker have the capacity to feel into their own body and their own boundaries? Do they have the capacity to voice them?

Do they have mentors and teachers? mean, you know, if it was above ground and people had more support, if there was widespread education on sex that was pleasure and consent based, it could be safer.

speaker-0 (43:47)
Absolutely. And another question I wanted to ask was, what do you feel are people's biggest misunderstandings about sex work and sex workers?

speaker-1 (44:00)
Yeah. So there are so many. And one of the biggest misunderstandings is the collapsing of all sex work into sex trafficking, the conflation between the two.

speaker-0 (44:12)
inflation.

speaker-1 (44:14)
So, right, sex work is inherently consensual. I would actually include that in my definition, that it's the consensual exchange of sexual services for money or goods. And it's not to say that there can't be exploitation that occurs even when you're doing it consensually, just like in any job. Like, you know, if you work at a restaurant, your boss could say, I'm going to fire you if you don't do X, Y, Z. So that's exploitation.

But exploitation is not the defining factor of sex work. Exploitation is the defining factor of sex trafficking. So someone is engaged in sexual services when they're being sexually trafficked due to manipulation, fraud, or coercion.

speaker-0 (45:01)
That's a really clear, mean, like crystallizes the definition of sex trafficking really well just by summing it up by naming it for what it is, which is exploitation.

speaker-1 (45:12)
Yeah. And then the other place my mind goes to is just the stigma. So many people that I've come across just like are kind of like disgusted or horrified by the idea of sex work. And I really want to, and it can be hard to imagine this because again, what our culture is like and all that comes with our culture around sexuality and money, but there was a time in

other cultures where sex workers were revered teachers. Teachers of love and pleasure and grief.

speaker-0 (45:45)
Mmm.

Yeah, so really inviting people to look at sex work historically and considering how sex workers were revered. I know in Japanese culture, the geishas are trained, like the most trained crafts people, in knowing how to provide both intellectual and sensual openings of...

of their patrons. What are you most passionate about teaching right now? And I want our listeners to know, like, where should they start if they're feeling called to work with you?

speaker-1 (46:25)
Okay, well, I am the kind of person who never has just one thing I'm really passionate about teaching. ⁓ One thing that I'm super passionate about teaching right now is working with individuals and couples who want to experience ecstatic connection with a partner, who want to use pleasure and sexuality.

speaker-0 (46:31)
Okay.

speaker-1 (46:50)
as a way to heal childhood wounds, as a way to open portals of consciousness. And I love teaching that with you. Oh, you do. Divine union for lovers. that's one of the things that is very exciting to me right now.

speaker-0 (46:57)
Wow.

Lucky me.

Yes, me too.

speaker-1 (47:11)
And I'm also having a lot of fun teaching practitioners to develop the capacity for high integrity for embodied presence in their facilitation. Awesome. Yeah. And I'm that with a colleague, Candice, who I facilitate ayahuasca plant medicine retreats for women in Peru with. We actually have one coming up in April.

speaker-0 (47:34)
Okay. Okay. And if people want to find out about that you're holding space work, how can they find that?

speaker-1 (47:41)
Well, if they go to my website, sacredmoonflower.com, in the offerings, there's a virtual offerings page, because this is a virtual offering. We're running a cohort right now. There will certainly be future cohorts.

speaker-0 (47:53)
So you're in the middle of offering this cohort now. Is there any sense of when it'll be offered again or in what format?

speaker-1 (48:00)
Again, virtually, and I think probably we'll run another cohort later, maybe towards the next half of the year.

speaker-0 (48:08)
⁓ exciting. Okay. And what is it that excites you so much about this particular offering?

speaker-1 (48:13)
Well, it was a really fun challenge to figure out how to teach people attunement. And I think, and also about power and oppression. And it's just been a really fun for me to dream into these different frameworks and just provide people with different practices to be the best facilitator they can and also to feel more confident in sharing their gifts.

speaker-0 (48:20)
Yes!

That's so great because I feel like that, you know, I've seen the framework of your course and I feel like attunement, I've never really seen attunement being taught for spaceholders, which is really the skill that's most needed. You know, if you want to hold space for a safe, you know, group experience. And, you know, as you're mentioning, a space of high integrity really requires the facilitators to have the capacity to attune.

to what's happening in the room. And so I can imagine how fun and exciting and how valuable that offering is. Okay, so your website is called, it's sacredmoonflower.com and people can find your offerings there. To close, I want to ask you a couple of rapid fire questions. I'm gonna start a sentence and I'm gonna invite you to finish it. Okay, so pleasure means.

speaker-1 (49:37)
The most delicious heart-opening, expansive experience of sensations in the world.

speaker-0 (49:43)
Awesome.

Okay. The biggest myth about sexuality is...

speaker-1 (49:49)
Is that it's shameful.

speaker-0 (49:51)
Good one, good one. Okay, one thing you wish everyone understood about their body is...

speaker-1 (49:57)
Your body is a buffet of delicious decadent meals and desserts.

speaker-0 (50:03)
Nice, nice. I love that. Okay. A practice that changed your life is

speaker-1 (50:09)
is saying hello to my genitals.

speaker-0 (50:12)
So good, so important for everyone. The future of erotic culture feels...

speaker-1 (50:18)
It feels like wild fire burning away all the old and opening into this field of wild flowers and streaming waters.

speaker-0 (50:29)
That is a vision I think everyone would love to live into. Ariel Zabo, thank you so much for joining us today. This was delightful. It's been a real pleasure to hear your perspectives on all of these very critical to our society, to live healthily, to thrive. I'm just struck by your insight about how the more fully seen you allowed yourself to be,

the more your body and pleasure opened up. Now that's just like so profound and I wish that for all of our listeners.

speaker-1 (51:04)
Yeah, click in with me again in five years and see how much pleasure I'm experiencing then.

speaker-0 (51:09)
I will, I can't wait, I can't wait.

How is today's episode landing for you and your body? Right now.

Can you imagine what realms of intimate, vulnerable, and expansive experiences could evolve from consistently asking yourself, what do I need and what do I want?

Can you recognize ways for shifting dynamics from power over into power with that are affecting your experiences of pleasure, sensations, and intimacy?

Can you attune to the nature of your cervix and feel its connection to the voicing of your truth and how opening one just might lead to sensitizing and awakening the other?

Links to Ariel's work at sacredmoonflower.com and her substack, The Erotic Frontier, can be found in the show notes. If you found this podcast helpful, consider leaving a five-star review or sharing it with a friend. And until next time, take good care.