Pleasure used to be taboo. Now it’s an expectation. Neither brings us freedom.
I developed Chakrubs, the original crystal sex toy company, in 2012. At that time, the conversations around sexuality were different. Being new to the adult scene was scary. At my first tradeshow with my products, I remember seeing banners with tongue-in-cheek mottos like, “The sexiest show on earth!” paired with exaggerated, almost cartoonish imagery - a glossy- lipped model suggestively biting her finger, eyes wide with faux innocence. Sexuality was still seen as taboo, and in spaces like this, the only way to package it for public consumption was through a kind of performative, winking absurdity.
The popularity of my booth, though, proved to me that my inkling that there was a deeper conversation to be had was right. There was a quiet, unconscious need to deepen our reverence for our erotic selves and to understand what held us back from taking pleasure in, well, pleasure.
What was missing from the conversation about sex was energy. Intention. An acknowledgment of the deep pains we repress and the vulnerability of wanting to feel good. When I started Chakrubs, it was partly because I felt like I wasn’t just looking for quick orgasms that other toys on the market promoted. I was longing for a way to reclaim a connection to myself that had been lost or ignored from years of the mishandling of my sexuality.
Chakrubs took off. And I think it’s because I wasn’t alone in this underlying feeling. Chakrubs found a way to remove shame not only from self-pleasure but from sharing about sexual trauma. After the Me Too movement gained momentum, these conversations about sexual trauma went into hyperdrive in the mainstream. There became a cultural urgency to understand what it meant to feel safe in our bodies, to heal, and to redefine pleasure on our own terms. writing, music, and creative expression, she continues to redefine what it means to be in deep relationship with oneself.
But in just a few years, the conversation changed again. Pleasure was no longer whispered about - it was everywhere, celebrated, promoted. And then, I started to feel something new. Pleasure was no longer just accepted. It was expected.
In trying to remove shame from pleasure, we’ve added shame to not feeling enough sexual pleasure. The irony is that this pressure often presents itself as empowerment. But what kind of empowerment tells us we’re still not enough? And if you’re not fully sexually expressed, you must still be repressed. We’ve moved from shaming pleasure to pressuring it. But isn’t the whole point of pleasure to relieve pressure? To offer freedom rather than another expectation to meet?
I felt this shift personally. I was invited to speak on panels about sexuality, feeling like it was assumed I woke myself up every morning with an orgasm (as promoted by many sexual wellness advocates in this space). The assumption was that to be sexually liberated meant to be sexually very active, open to every new expression of sexuality – that if I was going to keep up the image of being the founder of Chakrubs, I had to embody the fantasy of someone who had it all figured out. Naked. Kundalini awakened. A goddess, glowing and all-knowing.
Pleasure comes from being awake to how I feel. Sexuality is nuanced and complex - it unfolds, blooms, and shrivels up again. This is what makes it fascinating enough to be a lifelong study for me. I’ve realized that even discomfort, uncertainty, and restraint are part of that unfolding. All my feelings are gifts. The feeling that comes from my unfurling connection to sex isn’t about reaching some perfect state - it’s about staying present with the experience, however it reveals itself to me.
The opposite of disassociation isn’t stimulation. It’s presence. Somewhere along the way, the conversation shifted from liberating sexuality to almost demanding it. And in that shift, we have created a new kind of disconnection.
Pleasure is not another thing to achieve. It is not another way to prove your worth. It is something to experience in a way that is true to you – not in the way that is expected of you. By taking intentional time to be with myself in the intimate moments that Chakrubs encourages, I have learned to surrender to life, to trust that moments of ecstasy and love will find me. I don’t need to force it. I don’t need to perform it. Sometimes, liberation looks like accepting that we still have certain ‘hang-ups.’ I can be free even while working through them.
That, to me, is freedom.
