July 22, 2024

One of my friends—someone I met through the sex-positive, ethical non-monogamy world—likes to say “life gets life-y.” What she means by this is that all of us are challenged, at times, by difficulty. Even those of us who dedicate ourselves to naughty delights have moments where that kind of stuff is the last thing on our minds. And in fact, ever since I celebrated the publication of my book, Superfreaks: Kink, Pleasure and the Pursuit of Happiness, my own life has been life-y, with unanticipated hardships that put quite a stumbling block in the path to my own pursuit of happiness.

After a particularly rough stretch, I connected with Kathryn Nicolai, meditation teacher and host of the (can’t-recommend-it-highly-enough) sleep story podcast Nothing Much Happens, who told me, “What you have been going through has meant that you’ve probably gotten rusty at practicing pleasure. It’s time to try to start noticing and going toward it wherever you can.”