From Shame and Shutdown to Sensuality: Reclaim Your Path to Pleasure

A letter from the other side.

Sex and Style is written by Somatic Sex Coach Sarah Ward. This is intended as general advice. If you’d like a personalized guidance, I’d be honored to connect with you in a discovery session.

Hi, I’m Sarah, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Of all the places on the internet you could be, somehow desire brought you here. (Clue: where desire leads, we follow.)

I have lived many lives. Flamenco dancer. Cat mama to fierce felines. Pianist / Composer. Writer. Wardrobe Stylist. Somatic Sex Coach. Lettering Artist. Survivor. Divorcee. I embrace all these facets of me.

Emily Nagoski

in her best-selling book Come As Your Are, talks about how our sexuality is like a plot of land that we were given when we were born. Other people planted seeds in that garden: your family, your community, your religion, society at large. You didn’t get to decide what was cultivated.

But now you do. As the owner of this sacred plot of land, you get to put on your garden gloves and uproot the beliefs that are no longer serving you. You get to decide what is given water, and fertilizer, and love, and sunshine.

Nothing is wasted here. Whatever experiences you’ve had will serve as compost for your garden.

Sex and Style

Here in this corner of the internet, we talk about things that feel taboo. The things that sex-ed and your mom never taught you. (Hi, Mom!) All of you is welcome here. In this safe nest, you can be unabashedly who you are.

My writing is a little irreverent, a little amusing, and brimming with love and sexy goodness. I share plenty of free resources to help you be embodied and tap your pleasure potential.

And since you really shouldn't take advice from anyone without knowing something about them…

Shall we get better acquainted?

Being raised in the Mormon church heavily skewed what I learned about sex and how women should be. What I saw modeled was modesty and obedience to the patriarchy and a male godhead. Flamenco dance provided a reprieve from that (thank the goddess). These fiery women shook me to my core and showed me what women could be.

In the midst of a faith crisis in my 30s, I struggled with the mental gymnastics of being in the fold when I felt so conflicted about many core beliefs. I went to Mormon feminist retreats. I found my tribe on the fringes.

“Wait, isn’t Mormon feminist an oxymoron?” people have since asked. Maybe. For me, it equated to my very survival.

After five years of walking the line, I heard a whisper from the Holy Ghost, or my higher self, urging me to take a leave from the church. “Just take a year and see how you feel."

It wasn’t anti-Mormon literature that led me astray. It was a holy voice. After years of fighting, I resigned and accepted this quiet invitation. That was nearly ten years ago.

The one thing you have that no one else has is you. Photo by Graham Rickerman

So how does a former Mormon girl become a sex coach?

In truth, I never set out to work in the sexuality field. But one doesn’t leave a sexually conservative religion without religious trauma to unpack. As I was seeking healing, this path found me.

I studied with a medicine woman, an internationally renown tantrika, living flamenco legends, a witch, a gynecologist and a somatic sexologist.

After a personal study of sex for over a decade, I minted it with a 650-hour VITA Sex, Love and Relationship Coaching certification. Our Headmistress Layla Martin took us deep into ancient tantric and Daoist practices blended with modern neuroscience.

To put it into context, most medical doctors receive a paltry ten hours of sex education. Let me say that again. Ten hours.

This year, I began a new certification with Jaiya in the Erotic Blueprints. This methodology lays out five different Blueprints: energetic, sensual, sexual, kinky, and shapeshifter. (Take the free test here!) Learning your primary type, and the type of your partner(s) can help you understand how to love yourself—and them—in their native tongue. My primary type is kinky, which means that I get turned on by the taboo. That’s hot.

An integrated approach to sex

As a Somatic Sex Coach who works through a tantric, sacred sexuality lens, I believe in an integrative approach to intimacy. Clients sometimes say to me after session, “We talked about so many things other than sex.” This is why.

When things go sour in our sex lives, it isn’t just the sex at play. This is a symptom of other underlying things that are happening in our lives. Because how you do one thing is how you do everything.

When things feel off, this is an invitation to get curious.

Sex and Style is how I serve you

None of us got the sex education that we deserved. Many of us have been able to piece together an adequate map. To borrow from my darling friend

Cher Anderton

, could it be better? Yes. A resounding yes.

Here’s the thing. I suffered for decades thinking I was the only one. No one I knew was talking about these kinds of things. So I’m providing the very content that I didn’t know I needed all those years ago. May this be medicine for you too.

If it feels like you’re broken or that something’s wrong with you, believe me when I say you’re not. Chances are you are grappling with a lifetime’s worth of accumulated trauma. Pleasure helps us to digest that trauma, to sequence it out of our bodies.

If sex and pleasure and desire feel shameful, I feel you. I was buried under that weight for decades. If you’ve experienced sexual shut-down, this isn’t the end of the line. This is the beginning. The only way out is through. Take my hand, bb. I got you.

The only way out is through. Lettering by me.

As someone who has been an educator since she was 16, the best way I know to learn something is to teach it. This is what I feel called to do: To help unravel our limiting beliefs that prevent us from being the fully embodied, orgasmic beings that we are.

Evidence that I always wear high heels at home. Photo by Sierra Greenlee

Sacred Sexuality

If you have a body, it is hard-wired for pleasure. You have an entire ecosystem that exists for you, and you alone. Pleasure is your literal birthright.

Your body is a temple. (And a disco ball.)

Orgasm is a sacred. (And brazen.)

And if you’re a vulva owner, lucky you: the clitoris is a veritable masterpiece with 12,000 exquisite nerve endings, designed for pleasure alone.

And if you’re someone in lovership with a vulva owner, lucky you — think of all the ways that you can shower pleasure upon that body.

Don’t take my word for it:

“Thanks for your newsletter. It’s been really healing for me.” - A.J.

“my life is at turning points and reading your blogs answers many of those questions. Keep posting, it's like walking through waterfalls.” - F.L.

Let’s dismantle the taboo around the topic of sex, one conversation at a time. Communication leads to the kind of sex we’ve dreamed of.

Is there a topic or question that you’d like covered? Leave me a comment below, or respond to this email!

Welcome, love, to Sex and Style. I hope you’ll stay a while.

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Sex and Style is written by Certified Somatic Sex and Relationship Coach and Wardrobe Stylist, Sarah Ward. She has spent the last 20 years studying human sexuality and minted it in 2021, certifying in the VITA™ Methodology with Layla Martin and as an Erotic Blueprints™ Coach with Jaiya. For personalized support, schedule a free discovery call with Sarah.

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Thirsty for more? I got you, babe.