In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- The BeNourished manifesto and why naming the systems and cultural stories we live inside of are crucial to our overall healing.
- What body trust is, when we had it, where we lost it, and how we can start finding our way back.
- Dieting mindset and some cues that your food plan or lifestyle might actually be a diet. (If you feel amazing on your food plan but it resulted in weight gain, would you stay on it? Probably a diet…).
- How we are taught to ignore signals from our body around food and hunger, and how we can start to heal that relationship.
- Hope. Play. Setting boundaries with loved ones. And the uncompromising importance of having total autonomy and control over your food choices and body.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:

- Embracing and delighting in all things awkward and why inviting in the awkward parts of ourselves can create much more meaningful (and consensual) experiences.

- Perfectionism and expectations we experience based on gender, and why men are expected to know it all.

- The predator narrative that encourages men to seek inexperienced, young sexual partners as a way to avoid awkwardness and embarrassment.

- Denying our desires from a place of fear and shame, and why investigating our desires can create so many more opportunities to experience them.

- Arousal in public and being able to sit in feelings of arousal and desire without needing to act on them.

- What happens when we can only make space for people when they are at their nicest and best version of themselves and the loneliness of avoiding messiness and uncertainty.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Why the stories we tell ourselves are a crucial part of our mental health.
- Historically, psychology and mental health have been about prescription and the therapist being the expert in your life, but there is a form of therapy about centering each of us as the experts in our lives. What might that look like?
- Personal story development and how fragile we can be when our identity or story about ourselves is shifting.
- Unpacking privilege and the fragility that often comes up around that privilege.
- Confronting patriarchy in mental health and in our own lives, what men can do to release defensiveness around patriarchy conversations.
- How to build a new story about yourself, especially when you feel broken.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Diet culture – what it is, why it’s a problem, and how dieting and weight stigma are entrenched in racism, sexism, classism, and eugenics.
- Finding generosity for ourselves and the ways we’ve ignored and denied our bodies through dieting.
- The Life Thief – what it is and how much of our power and autonomy we give away because of diet culture.
- Grieving the stories we’ve been sold about weight loss, thinness, and health. Confronting the existential questions of uncertainty, loss, and death, why diets are not the solution we believe them to be.
- Ways we can play with food, pleasure, and body that can help us step back into our lives and our power.
- Pleasure and how critically important it is in our lives, plus the ways diet culture denies us access to pleasure because of the morality around food and weight.
- Thin privilege – what it is and how Christy has come to understand the ways her own privilege impacts her.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Why Cindy, Sarah, and Ariel want to make intimacy more social and what would happen if it was shared as readily as the meals we eat and the vacations we take.
- How we can take micro-actions to shift the shame around pleasure.
- The radical act of witnessing amateurs and people recording real physical experiences on their terms.
- Why Cindy will not use the term feminist for the work they do and why Cindy believes MLNP would never have been conceived of by a man.
- Why their favorite parts of the films they curate is the conversations and laughter between people in the videos.
- How showing queer, trans, older, fat, disabled bodies can change the entire culture around $ex.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Boundaries as the way we create and experience the world. Why boundaries are so much more than no, rigidity, and keeping things out.
- Why our feelings about setting a boundary, the feelings others have about our boundary, and the boundary itself are three distinct things that need tending.
- Mistakes, hurt, and oops in relationship and community are inevitable. How can we create space for that and build tolerance for the uncertainty?
- Why being messy and sitting in the mess is crucial to connection and relationship.
- Binary thinking in relationship and how curiosity can create more movement in our stuck places.
- The inevitability of our trauma showing up in relationship and what it is possible to create when we aren’t worried about being perfect and can accept that mistakes are part of relating to each other.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- How comedy helped Danielle learn how to take up space and use her voice in a new, powerful way.
- The importance of friendship and how our culture pressures us to valuing romantic relationships above platonic.
- Why we need to hear “no” in order to find our edges and to stretch creatively into new spaces.
- Why Danielle found resilience and permission in being in community with disabled folks.
- Finding fulfillment in life without romantic partner.
- Why Danielle doesn’t want to be disability inspiration for people.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Elise’s book, How Mamas Love Their Babies, being the first kids book to feature a $ex worker.
Inserting Black bodies into traditionally white spaces within art.
- The expectations versus reality of being pregnant, giving birth, and being a new mom.
- How culture tells mothers they need to be selfless and make their entire identity their children, and rituals Elise has for maintaining her identity.
- What Elise learned working in a dungeon as a pro Domme, finding her power, and why dungeons are the most honest places she’s ever been.
- What it means to find a beginning in the middle.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Pop culture as a way to create conversation and to make art more accessible to the masses.
- The importance of joy in our lives and how Evette deals with the ongoing heartbreak of this world.
- What it means to be unlearning the myths and stories we’ve been given, and how to extend grace to those in our lives who do not yet have the language for the things we do.
- Evette’s sister friends and why they are her soulmates, the power of platonic friendship and what it has to offer that can be just as valuable than romantic and sexual love.
- Why we need to normalize platonic intimacy between men and what kinds of possibilities that offers us.
- Evette’s commitment to center fat Black girls in her work and what she’s creating.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- How to have fun and be playful around our activism.
- Navigating shifting identities as adults and the imposter syndrome that can bring up in us.
- Why current representations of queerness in movies and television are regurgitations of past representations like Will & Grace. Why Queer Eye and Call Me By Your Name are just more of the same.
- How straight people are creating and acting in queer roles and what it means when all the queer people we see on screen are so scrubbed of sex and queerness they’re practically straight.
- Blurring gender lines, rejecting rigid masculinity, and finding new ways to express ourselves with gender-less clothes.
- Drag, Eartha Kitt, and tarot.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Why movies have been called an empathy machine, and how we haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s possible with film.
- What it means for our culture that the vast majority of romance films for the 100+ years Hollywood has been making them have been written, directed, and produced by white cis men. What does it mean when all of our ideas and visual representations of romance and courtship have been determined by men?
- Desirability and the absence of women of color as love interests in film.
- Why male buddy films and even the latest rom-coms are ultimately about men wanting to touch each other but being unable to because of toxic masculinity.
- The arrogance of expecting tough conversations in our personal lives and at a communal level around power, oppression, and change to be comfortable and easy.
- Why sometimes we have to perform and conform in order to survive, and what it could mean to teach young people media literacy & awareness of systems.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- How busy-ness and over scheduling can be a sign we are avoiding something and the importance of slowing down and having time alone to reflect.
- The importance of representation within mental health, who has historically been centered, and increasing access and resources for marginalized communities, specifically Black women and girls..
- Break-ups – the myths we have around the importance of closure, why they’re false, and scarcity narratives around love and relationships.
- The power of platonic love, friendships, and the cultural hierarchy of love.
- Examining our boundaries and why boundaries and niceness are some of Dr. Joy’s favorite things to roll around in.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- How consent is like improv and why risk is inevitable.
- Why communication is so much more than the words we say.
- Play play play and more play – ways we played as kids, ways we play now, and what play can offer us as adults.
- How failure is practice, and why practicing (failure) can help us build the capacity to move out of panic and expectations.
- Naming our monster – the feelings we want to ignore, reject, and deny – and how letting our monster in can free us.
- Feeling duped by cultural stories around desire and shifting the questions we have about desire towards longing and yearning.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Kate’s potato metaphor. Are you showing up with dirty potatoes or making people in your life dig for them in the yard?
- How we can find more ease around a “no” when we ask for support and why we cannot burden our partners with the labor of being our only support system.
- How to be more supportable in our feelings and how to be a better support to people in their feels.
- Your feelings are valid but not universal: what this means and why it can inspire endless curiosity in relationship.
- How to create containers that are specifically for being messy in relationship and having that mess witnessed. POWERFUL idea.
- The spontaneity of play in Kate’s life and how for many adults, their only access to play is via sex.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- The conference closing ritual – intentionally giving ourselves a way to honor where we’ve been and what comes next.
- Writing prompts we do together (you’ll hear Leonore and me answer these personally, inviting you to join us, too).
- Why naming systems doesn’t always set us free and why personal work is still crucial to our collective healing.
- Inner critic work and why our inner critic is ultimately about self-protection and survival.
- The politics of pleasure and why pleasure is a MUST as part of our growth, activism, and relationship building.
- What it means to tap into your whole Self and stand in that power of wisdom within you.

NOTE: Spanish transcript & workbook are included. In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Lorena’s experience growing up in Mexico and why becoming a sex educator was so important to her.
- What consent looks like in a collectivist culture and what hyper individual cultures (like U.S.) will need to confront if we want to center community.
- Touch as part of community and the lack of skin hunger in Mexico.
- Lorena’s fascinating analysis on machismo and how it’s linked to colonization.
- What it looks like when communities center their most marginalized, plus one of the most moving stories of the conference on the art of the possible.
- Bringing improv and elements of participatory theater into our personal relationships, and how to share what we need when we don’t have the words.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- How the adult film community taught Mia self-esteem, healthy boundaries, and a safe place to explore identity after an abusive relationship.
- Creating safe containers for exploring edges and what kinky stuff Mia has tried that wouldn’t have been possible without that trust.
- Letting go of things that don’t serve you like toxic relationships, biological family, and labor you don’t want to do.
- The ugly side of $ex positive spaces – what’s missing, why they can be toxic, and what needs to change.
- Grey-sexuality and being neutral about $ex – what might that offer you and what Mia’s experience with it looks like.
- Wh0rephobia and why people who consume adult entertainment need to be more visible about their consumption.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- The importance of making mental health accessible to marginalized communities and having the professionals in the field represent those communities.
- Why it’s not your responsibility to educate the people you date about your mental health conditions, and how to navigate boundary conversations around care.
- How the coming out process puts the burden and labor on the more marginalized people and ways straight, cis folks can create spaces that are welcoming regardless of whether someone has come out.
- Intergenerational trauma, secrecy, and breaking the silence around abuse and harm.
- Quinn’s profound shift around parenting and confronting the stories she held kids and behavior.
- One of funniest moments of the entire conference. PURE DELIGHT.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- What embodied liberation means to Sage and what it means to be in our bodies with choice and agency.
- Why leaving the body and dissociating can be a wise and protective thing to do, and the importance of safety.
- How pleasure, curiosity, and play can help us to be more embodied, and why pleasure is not accessible to everyone.
- All of the ways we are taught to ignore and deny our bodies, and the extraordinary beauty in leaning into messiness and uncertainty.
- Why no one in the world is an expert in your experience but you and what it means to be a true healer in the world.
- How to create conditions for play and being present for people who are marginalized.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Community as our original sense of home and why the hyper individual, pull yourself up by your bootstraps narrative has not worked for us as a culture.
- Discomfort is not the same as pain, and why being in community with others is both the solution and will be uncomfortable.
- What it means to be in community and experience an exchange versus making a sacrifice.
- Shadeen’s formula for trust and why honesty may not be the best policy after betrayal.
- Why honesty can place labor on the people who are most in need of truth.
- Desire is a result of curiosity, so getting curious as a pathway to finding and igniting more desire in your life.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- How working in radiation and encountering cancer patients led Sid to see the gap in how medicine treats our pleasure.
- Why we need to expand our definition beyond body parts and specific acts, especially when our bodies are changing or experiencing illness.
- The rituals of solo pleasure and bringing more emotional, spiritual, and mental intention into the ways we experience our erotic selves.
- Motherhood and sex – how motherhood narratives make other identities invisible and the ways we expect parents to de-prioritize sex.
- How to use role play, play parties, and imagination to keep the erotic energy thriving.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Erotica as a way to examine our identities and to experience our sexuality.
- What bodies and identities are often erased by erotica.
- Hollywood’s obsession with firsts and our lack of role models for healthy, nuanced long-term relationships in pop culture.
- The heart break of staying and being in relationship with flawed humans.
- Kink as a tool for connection, eroticism, and embodiment.
- How Sinclair found their power and spirituality through kink.
- What many people overlook or assume about strap-on play and what we wish more people knew about strap-ons.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Being in a body is hard work. Using joy and ease as an entry point to your body.
- What it feels like to get grounded and settle into the body, and why most of us dissociate most of the time.
- Noticing what kind of physical support you have and also the objects or places that invite a sense of safety so you can better manage anxiety and panic.
- The inherent hopefulness of the human condition because of how our bodies have evolved throughout the ages, and how we can leverage that inherent resilience to learn, grow, and heal.
- How logic and reason is not separate from emotions and feelings, and how feelings inform our decisions.
- Healing trauma, the importance of play, and creating a bigger container within which we hold our trauma and pain.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Humor and laughter as a way to connect and to navigate tragedy and stress.
- Why Sunny & Ken use levity and laughter as a way to navigate awkwardness.
- What Sunny & Ken did on the night of the Trump Inauguration and how communal play can be healing.
- The inevitability of change and how to hold space for changes in your body, yourself, and a partner.
- Clown play, humiliation play, and bringing creativity and silliness into $ex.
- Parenting – how to build in consent around punishments and arguments.

In this talk, a few of the things we explore include:
 
- Examining our inner critic and the stories we tell ourselves about our bodies.
- The ways we censor and erase ourselves and our bodies in pictures.
- Self-angles and what they erase, and why full body shots can be terrifying and liberating.
- How to use the camera to start finding patience, acceptance, and trust with our bodies and how to take photos for ourselves that no one ever sees.
- Why the “perfect” photo or pose is just the patriarchy talking.
- Fuck flattering.
- The power and the beauty that can blossom when we ask, “What would happen if I…”