Hello Pleasure Activists,

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If you love vulvas, if you are someone with a vulva, and especially if you are someone with a vulva who loves vulvas, this one is for you.

 

The vulva is one of the most responsive, powerful, and erotically intelligent places on the human body, and its capacity for pleasure continues to astonish me. Rolling orgasms that rise in waves, the warmth that spreads through the pelvis, wetness that rises as the body opens into connection, sensitivity that deepens as arousal builds.

 

The vulva carries a fullness of erotic possibility that many people were never given the chance to explore. Its pleasure is generous. Its responsiveness is powerful. Its intelligence is undeniable. The clitoris alone has a higher density of nerve endings than the penis, making it more sensitive to touch and revealing just how vast the vulva’s erotic potential truly is.

 

Week after week in The Pleasure Practice, I watch people rediscover this truth in themselves and in their relationships. A softening of the breath becomes an entry point into connection. A small release of tension in the pelvis becomes the beginning of pleasure. A moment of allowing oneself to be seen becomes the first step into a deeper erotic life. The body remembers what has always been possible, even long after shame, silence, or survival taught it to shut down.

 

This remembering is often quiet at first.

A single exhale that carries a little less fear.

A moment of warmth where there was once numbness.

A shift in the way someone allows themselves to receive.

A recognition that pleasure does not need to be earned.

 

It took me time to understand these things in my own life. Growing up inside purity culture meant desire had no safe place to land, especially desire directed toward women, femmes, and gender-expansive people. The longing arrived early, before I had language, before I had any kind of roadmap, before I believed that queerness could ever connect me to joy. I felt drawn to certain people without understanding why, sensing a pull in my chest and pelvis that my environment taught me to suppress.

 

That inner conflict shaped my nervous system. It created a subtle, constant tension that kept me from my own aliveness. Shame teaches the body to shrink. Silence teaches the body to pull inward. And for many of us, growing up inside systems that fear sexuality, particularly queer sexuality, carved pathways of self-surveillance that made pleasure feel unreachable.

 

There was a time when the only way I could access parts of my queerness was through alcohol. It was a messy form of expansion, one that lowered the cognitive constraints purity culture had etched into me. Those fleeting openings were disorganized and often painful, but they offered a glimpse of something real: the early, trembling truth of who I was becoming.

 

In my work with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy now, I recognize that pattern immediately. Psychedelic medicine softens rigid narratives and allows the body to feel what the mind has been protecting itself from. I see every week how ketamine, MDMA-assisted frameworks, and integration practices open portals into long-buried truths.

 

People speak desires they have never said aloud. They feel pleasure or longing or grief that had been inaccessible for decades. They rediscover parts of themselves they assumed were gone forever.

 

This kind of opening is not foreign to me. I know what it means for a substance to create a temporary passageway into desire when conditioning has made that desire feel dangerous. I also know what it means to finally reclaim that opening in sobriety, embodiment, and clarity. This letter is written from that place:

the place where people begin to feel themselves again,

the place where erotic life becomes spacious,

the place where the vulva reveals its brilliance.

 

The vulva responds quickly to attention and warmth. A kiss to the inner thigh can shift the entire field. A gentle stroke along the outer labia can awaken breath. A slow exhale can widen the space inside the pelvis. These are not techniques; they are invitations. The body speaks long before words form, and the vulva speaks with clarity.

 

In sessions, clients often describe believing their bodies were somehow “difficult” or “too slow” or “too sensitive” or “not sensitive enough.” They tell me stories of disconnect, of dissociation, of performing pleasure instead of feeling it. They talk about shutting down desire in order to survive family systems, relationships, religions, or partners who were never taught to cultivate erotic safety.

 

And then their embodiment begins to shift.

 

A client who had never experienced a deep orgasm before her forties found herself moving through wave after wave of pleasure once she gave herself permission to feel without rushing. Someone else discovered that her wetness increased dramatically when she stopped worrying about how she should respond and allowed her body to move at its own pace. Another client described the experience of her pelvis softening for the first time in years, letting her partner stay connected long enough for her arousal to build.

 

These are not accidents.

These are awakenings.

These are bodies returning home.

 

The vulva offers pleasure that is abundant, rhythmic, and multi-layered. Its orgasms can roll through the body without depletion, deepening as the nervous system settles. Its responsiveness increases with safety, trust, and attuned touch. Its arousal rises through warmth, connection, breath, and presence. It thrives in relationships where lovers are listening with their whole bodies, not trying to perform a script.

 

I see this every year in the Pleasure Liberation: Sexuality Groups, how a single moment of being met with curiosity or tenderness can shift someone’s entire erotic landscape. When people are held in community, surrounded by others who are also unlearning shame and expanding into desire, their nervous systems begin to trust themselves in ways that transform their relationships.

 

This is why I want people to understand that sex, and especially oral sex, is not a mechanical act. It is a relational one. Licking the vulva creates a form of closeness that feels both grounded and electric. The temperature of breath, the pressure of lips, the movement of tongue, the smell of arousal, the way thighs soften or tense, the rhythm that emerges between bodies, all of these elements form a connection that feels deeply human. Oral sex invites a kind of presence that many people rarely receive outside of therapy, ritual, or profound intimacy.

 

For people who carry vulvas, it is powerful to understand that your pleasure is already whole.

Your arousal is a force that deserves devotion.

Your orgasms are expansive and capable of reshaping the erotic field you share with others.

Your pace reflects the depth of your body’s wisdom.

Anyone given the privilege of touching your vulva is being invited into one of the most extraordinary places a human body can open.

Your desire is intelligence.

Your pleasure is truth.

Your sexuality is something to honor, to explore, to celebrate.

 

For people who love vulvas, part of this work is learning to follow the body. Pleasure deepens when touch is responsive rather than prescribed.

 

Erotic presence is not about mastery; it is about attunement.

 

Lovers who pay attention to breath, to subtle shifts, and to the arc of pleasure create the conditions for profound experiences. Some of the most erotic moments I have witnessed, have emerged from this kind of intuitive listening.

 

Pleasure is a relationship.

Pleasure is a rhythm the nervous system learns to trust.

Pleasure is a place where truth becomes easier to speak.

 

One of the most moving parts of this work is watching people step into that truth with bravery. The moment someone says, “I want more,” or “Go slower,” or “Stay right there,” or “I didn’t know my body could do this,” something transformative happens. They begin to author their erotic life rather than survive it. They begin to see their pleasure as meaningful rather than indulgent. They begin to trust themselves.

 

This is the work we do in The Pleasure Practice, helping people unlearn internalized shame, reconnect with their erotic intelligence, and cultivate relationships where desire feels safe to express. Some come to heal from trauma. Others come because pleasure feels distant or confusing. Many come to explore queerness or non-monogamy or erotic identity. No matter the reason, we work with the body as the starting point, the compass, and the teacher.

 

The vulva holds so much wisdom inside it.

It teaches connection.

It teaches slowing into sensation.

It teaches intimacy that is awake and attuned.

It teaches the body’s capacity for profound erotic pleasure.

 

And when someone allows themselves to truly feel that, when all the old narratives begin to loosen, the expansion that follows is astonishing.

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Your Pleasure Practice:

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Journaling Invitation: What parts of your erotic self feel most alive right now, and what sensations accompany that aliveness? Where does your body feel curious? Where does it feel ready to open further? Write without editing and let your truth come through in its own timing.

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Embodied Invitation: If you have a vulva: explore yourself with a mirror, not for critique but for curiosity. Notice color, temperature, softness, fullness, and sensitivity. Trace your labia with your fingertips. Explore the edges of sensation without rushing. Let your breath guide you. Allow your body to show you something new.

 

If you love someone with a vulva: ask them where their body feels most alive. Follow their cues. Let your hands and mouth respond to what rises in the moment. Stay close to their breath. Listen with your whole body.

 

Relational Invitation: Set aside intentional time with a partner or lover to explore the question: “What helps your body open into deeper pleasure?” Share openly. Listen fully. Let your connection build through presence rather than expectation.

 

A client recently shared that when she finally let herself lean fully into the pleasure rising inside her, her orgasms deepened into sensations she didn’t know were possible. Her journey began the moment she trusted her own body enough to feel.

 

May this be the year your erotic life expands.

May this be the year pleasure becomes a steady companion.

May this be the year you explore the brilliance and erotic generosity of the vulva, yours or your beloved’s, with embodiment, empowerment, and connection.

May this be the year you listen to the wisdom your body has been waiting to share.

 

Sending All My Love,
Dr. Nicole

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Dr. Nicole Thompson

Sex and Relationship Psychotherapist

Psychedelic-Assisted Liberation

Clinical Psychology