Hello Dear Listener,
I’m honored you are tuning into Modern Anarchy, a podcast born from both personal exploration and professional devotion. My name is Dr. Nicole Thompson. I’m a Sex and Relationship Psychotherapist and the founder of The Pleasure Practice. My work weaves together somatic psychology, trauma-informed care, liberation-based theory, and my advanced clinical training in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy from the renowned Sana Healing Collective.
I created this space because I believe we all deserve more, more connection, more truth, more authenticity, and more pleasure. This podcast is an invitation to challenge the restriction of the status quo and write your own empowered narrative. It is a collection of heart-felt conversations with radical healers, artists, theorists, and other pleasure activists like you who know deep within their bones that another world is possible. And, together, we are building that world, one conversation at a time.
The path here, of course, has not been linear.
Growing up, I was raised inside conservative and fundamentalist Christianity, a culture that tightly policed sexuality and condemned queerness. For years, I believed what I was told: that homosexuality was sinful, that self-negating submission was holy, and that embodied pleasure was dangerous. I feared my body. I silenced my desire. I performed the role of a pure and righteous Christian woman. Looking back now, I hold that younger version of myself with so much tenderness. She hadn’t yet discovered the power of her queerness, her feminist rage, or her embodied intuition.
Leaving the grip of religious dogma, and the white supremacist, patriarchal, sex-negative ideologies that came with it, was not easy. And yet, once you wake up, you can’t go back to sleep. That kind of awakening unravels everything. Slowly, through waves of confusion and tears, you begin to stretch your paradigm beyond dogmatic expectations and into a life grounded in your own truth.
This transformative awakening deepened after surviving sexual violence in early adulthood. That rupture cracked me open and from that place of rawness, I made a vow: I will reclaim my body. I will feel pleasure again. And, I will help others do the same. That promise led me to become a sexual assault counselor, sitting beside survivors in emergency rooms, bearing witness to both devastation and resilience. It led me to pursue my doctorate in Clinical Psychology, where my research focused on trauma-informed healing and dismantling relational hierarchies through the lens of Relationship Anarchy. I became a certified yoga teacher and brought the powerful wisdom of the body into my clinical work. And, I trained in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and studied how we can integrate expanded states of consciousness into our healing journeys. And through it all, I kept returning to the body, mine and others', as the site of both trauma and possibility.
The Pleasure Practice is the intentional culmination of all of that work, clinical, political, and deeply personal. It is a crafted sanctuary where I support individuals, couples, and polycules in crafting sex lives and intimate relationships rooted in authenticity, consent, and deep embodied liberation. This transformative healing work is the living expression of my values, my research, and my reverence for what becomes possible when we embrace the revolutionary power of our pleasure.
This same devotion to collective liberation also gave rise to one of my most cherished tools, my free e-book: The Psychedelic Jealousy Guide. Written for individuals navigating non-monogamy, this guide offers grounded, psychologically-informed support for integrating the jealousy and fear that can arise in expansive relating. I believe that resources should not be locked behind a paywall because the work of liberation cannot belong only to those with financial access. Free, accessible resources are not just educational, they are political. They are a way of planting seeds, of ensuring that ideas and practices that expand our capacity to love, to feel, and to relate with care are not reserved for the privileged few. For me, this guide is part of a larger commitment to the movement, a way of offering something tangible to anyone, anywhere, who is ready to step into deeper consciousness, erotic integrity, and relational freedom.
Today, I live a life that once felt unreachable: surrounded by loving, supportive partners in queer, polyamorous connection, educating the world about pleasure and consent, supporting clients in profound transformation, providing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and inviting you into the continued exploration.
Modern Anarchy is an offering. It’s where I get to be fully myself, psychotherapist, researcher, storyteller, community member, and humble beginner. It’s a space for the questions that matter. What does it mean to live beyond the scripts we’ve been given? What happens when we stop settling for what is expected and start listening to what we actually want? What new futures can we build when we center care, curiosity, and embodied pleasure?
So whether you’re here to listen, to question, to unlearn, or to remember the power of your desire, know that you are welcome. All of you is welcome here.
The pleasure revolution is already underway. And you, my love, are part of it.
Sending all my love,
Dr. Nicole
MEET THE HOST
Dr. Nicole is a globally recognized Sex and Relationship Psychotherapist, Researcher, Leading Academic Theorist on Non-Monogamy, and Founder of The Pleasure Practice.
MY
CO-HOST
At times, you may hear my lovely co-host, Miss Fat Cat, join our conversations. She likes to add her input with a little meow here and there. When not sharing her opinion, you can find her cozily snuggled up on my lap as we record.
