Pamela Madsen is a somatic wellness educator and founder of Back to the Body, a series of immersive retreats where women explore touch, pleasure and embodiment in a safe, structured space. Before this work, she was a nationally known fertility advocate and founding executive director of the American Fertility Association, where she coined the term "biological clock." Her memoir, Shameless, tells the story of a married mother who, decades into her marriage, went looking for a more honest relationship with her own desire.

Pamela and Andrew talk about the boredom, not brokenness, that started her own search for something more after more than two decades of marriage, why touch work is often the missing piece talk therapy alone can't reach, what many men misunderstand about women's pleasure, and why she believes desire doesn't have to fade with age. They also discuss the professional structure and strict boundaries behind her retreats, and how permission, not perfection, is what keeps long marriages alive.

This episode includes frank, anatomically detailed discussion of sex and pleasure and is intended for a mature audience.

Guest: Pamela Madsen, somatic wellness educator, founder of Back to the Body, author of Shameless

• backtothebody.org
• @thepamelamadsen
• @backtothebodyorg
• https://backtothebody.org/pages/masterclass

Host: Andrew Phipps, Intimacy Inquiry

Nikkiema Rai is a somatic sexologist, self-discovery coach and international speaker based in Melbourne, Australia. With almost a decade of experience, she works at the intersection of somatics, NLP, sexological bodywork and what she calls "the erotic mysteries," helping career-driven women move out of overwhelm and back into genuine connection with themselves and the people they love.

Nikkiema and Andrew talk about why so many successful women feel disconnected from their own bodies, what a session with a somatic sexologist actually looks like, and why a mismatch in desire between partners is rarely just about sex. They cover how modern porn is quietly reshaping expectations of intimacy, why curiosity fades as we get older, how to build the capacity to talk to a partner about a kink or fantasy, and one small, practical way to start reconnecting with your own body today.

Guest: Nikkiema Rai, somatic sexologist, self-discovery coach and international speaker

https://nikkiemarai.com/

Host: Andrew Phipps, Intimacy Inquiry

Heather "Lulu" Mazzei is a licensed clinical social worker, certified psychedelic-assisted therapist, and practitioner of tantra and sacred sexuality. Three years ago she left a thriving sex therapy practice and burlesque career in LA, moved from solo polyamory to a monogamous marriage, and relocated to a small community in the Sacred Valley of Peru, tracing a path toward what she now calls "spirit-centered sexuality." She's the author of the guidebook Spirit Sex.

Lulu and Andrew talk about the night she realised her old life wasn't enough, even at its most outwardly successful, what surrender actually feels like when it isn't weakness, why slowness and reduced distraction let us access real pleasure and connection, and why she believes redefining sex as something broader than a fixed menu of acts changes people's relationships to their own bodies. Toward the end of the conversation, Lulu shares a recent stage IV colon cancer diagnosis and what she's holding onto for the future.

Guest: Heather "Lulu" Mazzei, licensed clinical social worker, certified psychedelic-assisted therapist, tantra and sacred sexuality practitioner, author of Spirit Sex

Host: Andrew Phipps, Intimacy Inquiry

website: alternativelove.com

Substack: https://alternativelove.substack.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/alternativelove.sf/

Kori Strobl spent two decades doing the emotional labour of people-pleasing before learning to hold boundaries instead of just setting them. A self-leadership and relationship coach with a master's in spiritual psychology, she works with couples both individually and together, a combination most therapists are trained to avoid.

In this conversation, Andrew and Kori talk about the real difference between a boundary and a request, why chemistry so often gets mistaken for compatibility, how victim/villain thinking keeps couples stuck, and why some differences between partners are simply irreconcilable, without either person being at fault. They also cover ethical non-monogamy, the modern loneliness epidemic, and why the body often knows what the mind hasn't caught up to yet.

Guest: Kori Strobl, self-leadership and relationship coach https://www.koristrobl.com/ https://www.instagram.com/koristrobl/

Host: Andrew Phipps, Intimacy Inquiry

Dr. Anna Elton is a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical sexologist with over 15 years of clinical experience. She's the author of Couples Therapy in the Digital Age, and her new book, The Formula of Desire, draws on research with over 700 couples to explain what actually sustains attraction over time.

Andrew and Anna talk about why desire in long relationships doesn't disappear, it redirects, sometimes toward parenting or career, sometimes toward AI companions, and what that means for couples who feel like they've simply "gone flat." They cover the relationship shift model that predicts how couples drift from positive to neutral to negative, the research behind pre-terminal and terminal stages that quietly precede a gray divorce, where the modern lines of cheating actually sit in a world of OnlyFans and AI chatbots, and the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire. Anna also shares the one simple practice she recommends to every couple she works with.

Guest: Dr. Anna Elton, licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical sexologist, author of The Formula of Desire

Host: Andrew Phipps, Intimacy Inquiry

• https://annaelton.com/
• https://theformulaofdesire.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaelton/
• https://www.facebook.com/drannaelton
• @drannaelton
• @drannaelton

Shoshanna Blanca, known publicly as Jesus Christ Pornstar, is a sex writer, adult performer, sexologist and PhD candidate in clinical sexology. She talks with Andrew about how psychedelic experiences, from MDMA and mushrooms to ayahuasca and iboga, helped her recognise and work through patterns of workaholism, disordered eating and self-rejection.

The conversation covers why she believes many men are unsettled by a woman who openly knows and states her own desire, the double standards sex workers face in dating, how she uses image and persona to reclaim control over how she's seen, and her concerns about AI, from generic AI-written communication to the ethics of submissive sex robots. She also discusses reconciling her religious identity with her work, and her ongoing PhD research on religious sex workers.

This episode discusses sex work and sexuality in explicit terms and is intended for a mature audience.

Guest: Shoshanna Blanca (AKA Jesus Christ Pornstar), sex writer, adult performer, sexologist, PhD candidate in clinical sexology

Host: Andrew Phipps, Intimacy Inquiry

https://linktr.ee/shoshannalovesjesus1

Caroline Hood grew up in a religious family and religious school, learning virtually nothing about sexuality except that it was something to be ashamed of. What stayed with her was a nagging suspicion that it couldn't be right: something so universal couldn't also be shameful. That suspicion became a career, a book, and a practice she calls Desire in Real Life, dedicated to the conversations women wish they could have with a trusted friend who happens to be a sex therapist.

In Sex Begets Sex: Reclaiming Desire, Power, and Pleasure in Long-Term Love, Caroline challenges the assumption that desire must precede sex. Drawing on Emily Nagoski's research into spontaneous and responsive desire, she argues that physical and emotional intimacy form a loop, not a hierarchy, and that maintaining physical closeness is itself a buffer against the drift toward roommate, co-parent, and coworker that so many long-term couples experience.

In this conversation with Andrew, Caroline covers a lot of ground. Why the gender archetypes around desire are serving nobody, including men. Why women's desire always seems to require an explanation while men's is validated without question. Why defining sex as penetration creates unnecessary barriers and diminishes female pleasure, given that around 80% of women orgasm through non-penetrative means. Why the most pleasurable sex reported by many people is not spontaneous but planned, communicated, and intentional.

They also explore: the difference between touch that is a request for sex and touch that simply is; how to start the desire conversation outside the bedroom and before things reach crisis point; why mismatched libido is better understood by asking what need is actually being met; why the high and low libido labels are too static to be useful; and whether monogamy is a natural human state or a relatively recent social construct, drawing on Esther Perel and recent research from the Kinsey Institute.

Caroline also talks about what writing the book did to her own relationship (spoiler: only good things), and why she believes the mundane, imperfect, ten-minute version of sex is just as important to a relationship as the two-hour tasting menu.

Warm, practical, and genuinely freeing.

Sex Begets Sex is available now. Caroline writes at Substack under Desire in Real Life.

https://www.desireinreallife.com/

Dr. Stephanie Zwonitzer is a doctor of nursing practice, certified nurse practitioner, and the founder of Revive Institute of Sexual Health, a cash-based clinic dedicated to hormone optimisation and sexual wellness. She also hosts the podcast Between the Sheets with Dr. Z. Her path into this work began in cardiac, surgical, and geriatric nursing, but it was urology and sexual medicine that changed everything: saving relationships, addressing erectile dysfunction and vaginal pain, and realising that dramatic change was possible for patients who had simply been told their bodies were done.

In this conversation with Andrew, Stephanie traces the thread from a rural Wisconsin upbringing where sex education meant abstinence and essentially nothing else, through a clinical career that repeatedly exposed the same gap: nobody in mainstream medicine was connecting hormonal decline to quality of life, and nobody was treating sexual wellness as the essential part of overall health that it is.

They cover a great deal of ground. Why erectile dysfunction is often one of the first signs of heart disease, and why it is always multifactorial. What happens to testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone from your 30s onwards, and how those changes affect everything from cognition and mood to pain during sex. Why hormone replacement therapy is still not taught in standard medical school training. Why women were not required to be included in US research studies until 1993. And why early hormone replacement may reduce the risk of dementia, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease.

Stephanie and Andrew also explore what it means to redefine sex as pleasure rather than performance; the value of wellness tools and a self-pleasure practice; what providers can learn from the BDSM community about ongoing consent; and why a single yes is not a yes for life.

She explains why she walked away from corporate medicine and ten-minute appointments to found Revive, a clinic where she takes as long as each patient needs, examines hormones in combination rather than in isolation, and has no intention of franchising.

Practical, warm, and long overdue.

Revive Institute of Sexual Health: revivish.com

Between the Sheets with Dr. Z: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/between-the-sheets-exploring-sexual-health-wellness/id1760176031?uo=4

https://www.instagram.com/betweenthesheetswithdrz/