Beyond Safe & Social with Eros Ocean

What if “safe and social” isn’t the highest expression of nervous system regulation?

In this episode of BodyJoy After Office Hours, Melissa D. sits down with entrepreneur, somatic pleasure artist, and product designer Josh Eros Ocean Rosenfield for a rich, embodied conversation about sacred touch, sensation play, pleasure without performance, and what it truly means to feel held, nourished, and safe in the body.

Broadcasting from his eco-village home in the Costa Rican jungle, Eros shares his personal journey into somatic work, the origins of sacred (non-sexual) touch, and how intentional sensation, tools, and affirmations can radically rewire the nervous system. Together, Melissa and Eros explore vagal nerve theory, islands of pleasure, boundary literacy, couples work, and why the body—not the intellect—is often the missing link in healing and intimacy.

This episode is a deep dive into pleasure as regulation, touch as language, and intimacy as a skill that can be practiced, learned, and embodied.

Whether you’re a practitioner, a curious human, or someone longing for more connection in your body or relationships—this conversation opens new worlds of possibility.

Topics We Explore

• Why “safe and social” may not be enough
• Sacred, sensual, non-sexual touch and nervous system healing
• Touch as our first language and its role in early development
• Islands of Pleasure™ and asking for what you want
• Re-learning consent, boundaries, and embodied yes/no
• Couples work beyond talk therapy
• Pleasure stacking, sensation play, and altered states
• Masculine presence, reverence, and repairing gendered wounds
• Using tools, ritual, and affirmations to deepen connection
• Creating containers for intimacy with integrity

Links & Resources

• Lit (Love & Intimacy Tools)
• Free Lit Ebook & Guided Practices
  (Available via QR codes included with Lit tools)
• Lit Workshops & Events
  Hosting opportunities available — reach out via the Lit website
• BodyJoy
  Somatic education, workshops, and private sessions

Transcript

Eros (00:00)

I believe that there's, you can evolve your vagal pathways way beyond safe and social. Because even in safe and social, imagine you're walking around a room, you're at a party or a gathering, and you have a beverage, and you're talking to people.

Melissa D. (00:05)

Yeah.

Eros (00:12)

But where is your breath? Where is your muscular tightness? How do you feel at the deepest emotional levels? I think it's time to open our minds to a completely different spectrum at the higher end of what does it mean to feel completely held and deeply safe and nourished and revered and inspired?

to move your energy, to make noises, you know, imagine new worlds of possibility for yourself.

Melissa D. (00:52)

Welcome back to the BodyJoy After Office Hours podcast. This week I'm chatting with a dear friend and colleague, Josh Eros Ocean Rosenfield. He's an entrepreneur, a product designer, and a sacred, somatic pleasure artist.

Eros Ocean co founded lit, which is love and intimacy tools helping couples create deeper and more authentic intimacy through sensory exploration, which is one of my favorite ways to explore honestly, it's always a pleasure dropping in with this dear soul and geeking out about our work. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Melissa D. (01:32)

Eros Ocean, thank you so much for joining the conversation today.

Eros (01:37)

Thank you Melissa, so good to be here.

Melissa D. (01:41)

like you are in the jungle. Do you want to let us know kind of where you're at, what you're doing there?

Eros (01:44)

I'm...

Yeah, I am in Costa Rica and deep in an eco-village neighborhood where I have built a house and we have tons of lovely jungle and a river and monkeys and birds and cool people from all over the world. So this is where I'm hanging out.

Melissa D. (02:08)

Mmm.

Beautiful. Is this your finished home or is this one that you're still in till your home finishes?

Eros (02:17)

It's nearly finished, we're still working on it, but yeah, we're fully moved in.

Melissa D. (02:23)

I it. had the pleasure of visiting y'all last fall, I believe, and bringing some lights and various things to help you with the build. it was so beautiful to, yeah, it was so beautiful to drop into an established community that was doing a lot of the things that really inspire me, you know, building a garden and, you know, swimming in the river. And there was people from all over the world kind of doing their thing. It was really special.

Eros (02:35)

You did.

Yeah, I'm so glad you came. I can't wait for you to come back.

Melissa D. (02:57)

Yeah,

that's been my dream for many years is to, it doesn't necessarily have to be Costa Rica, but finding a smaller community where everyone, you know, works collaboratively, they're planting trees or eating from the garden and they're all doing their own projects, but also building together.

Eros (03:19)

Yeah, it's amazing. It's a growth path and I'm always down for the growth. it's great to be here and be in it. ⁓ it really brings you into your body. This place, the jungle is so alive, kind of brings you out of the matrix of of busyness and really like fully present with what's in front of you.

Melissa D. (03:41)

When you say growth, what are some of the big things that you have noticed, you know, going from, I believe you lived in Tahoe when we met years ago, is that right? Yeah, and then you made this transition and was kind of living between Reno, Tahoe and Costa Rica. Like, what are the big ⁓ ahas for you in that growth path?

Eros (03:53)

Right, right.

I think the more the closer in community you are with other people, the more it accelerates the feedback and reflections you get and the more you start to realize where you need to work. And that could be, you know, living in community, living in the jungle, living in a third world country, all of those kind of accelerate the feedback loop. And it's kind of like being in a constant state of meditation. You can't escape like whatever is going on for you because you're, you know, other people are in your

mix and you're having your experience and witnessing their experience and so it kind of just brings you right up front and close and personal with like whatever it is you've got going on and I think a lot of people come here and they maybe subconsciously want that and you know it may not always be a conscious choice but once you get here you realize ⁓ okay this is it I'm in it now and

Melissa D. (04:50)

Hmm.

Eros (05:07)

You can't run away, you just have to live it.

Melissa D. (05:11)

Yeah, face your stuff, be in a community hopefully that can have grace for you as you figure out, you know.

things. So when I was there visiting you, you and your partner Trisha were offering for the first time in this community setting this workshop to kind of highlight your work, to show the sensual tools that you created. Let's go back into that ⁓ and share a little bit about what inspires you to do the work that you do, especially in community.

Eros (05:50)

Thanks. Yeah, I wanted to share a quote that I found that is really inspiring. Your hand touching mine, this is how galaxies collide.

Melissa D. (06:01)

Mmm. I love that.

Eros (06:03)

and it's

Sennubar Kahn. For me, that's where it all begins is the magical potential of touch as ⁓ a touch point of connection and just how much is there. And literally, it's the galaxy inside you meeting the galaxy inside me. And for me, I think ⁓ that's what's most exciting about this work is

It's a very human experience and we're all humans. know, science has proven that we are stardust and vibrating energy. And so it's like, well, what does it really mean to be a human and have a human experience? And touch is one of those things that really dissolves the illusion of separation and brings us into connection with another person, with life, with the universe. And so...

That's my touch point and my starting point for visualizing the transformational work that can happen with mindful touch or conscious touch.

Melissa D. (07:10)

Mmm.

I love that. was talking to another friend and colleague. We did ⁓ a short workshop just with our friends for her birthday and we had to pick a place on someone else's body, know, non sexual in nature. So it could be like the little divot between your pointer finger and your thumb or, you know, the back of an arm or something, or maybe someone's elbow or maybe someone's earlobe. And you just focus your attention, what's called sensei focus and you allow yourself to go into

to this touch portal of like really activating the nerve endings of your finger and really paying attention and noticing how deep you can go in just that beautiful connection with that little tiny space underneath the pad of your finger. And so we spent, you know, a good 20 minutes exploring this and it was so rich. And I just remember.

not being totally turned on to that type of touch until much later in life. And so I get curious, your path, have you always known about the capacity of galaxies or was there something that really turned that on for you?

Eros (08:26)

So when I was a baby, I used to lay in bed with my mother's mother.

and she had lost her husband to a heart attack and never remarried. And I think because I was a baby and I was naturally, you know, in her arms, she bonded with me in a very like intimate way. We'd lay in bed for hours and I think she'd like, you know, stroke my head and my body. And so very early on, you know, I had this natural comfort with just...

being touched and being held and ⁓ it layered into my nervous system and into my body. And I think with that also came a compassion for the wounded feminine because she had lost her husband in a very tragic way and it kind of shook the whole family. And so it was both at once like truly feeling her wounds and also feeling her care.

and realizing, you know, before I was even speaking, because touch is really our first language, right? Before we even speak, we understand our mother's touch right away. It's hardwired into our bodies and...

So I think early on that was there and I was always fascinated by touch, know, exploring with girlfriends and partners. And then I went to massage school at 19 and just felt drawn to learning some professional skills and figuring out how I could offer that as, you know, as a service. And over time, I kept layering in, you know, ⁓

more facets of the work and there was things like BDSM and ⁓ know ⁓ energetic healing work and then personal growth work and sensation play and

It all came to a point where I realized I wanted to offer something that was way beyond like licensed massage therapy and I had friends that were daikinis and they said One in particular said I think you could be a great DACA This is something you could offer people and so I felt this invitation from the universe to actually

Considered doing the work and then I had ⁓ a very close female friend that was a licensed massage therapist who also kind of felt this Calling to do more deeper richer more, you know ⁓ Authentic work and so we began this this lovely time of exploring ⁓ just as two practitioners trading and and kind of like

having a very clear container, this is what we're doing and ⁓ let's see what's there. And we got into, you know, really deep emotional release and exploring the boundary of sexual versus non-sexual touch. And what we realized was the depth of experience we were having with each other was way beyond anything we'd ever had with anyone. Partners, therapists, know, family, because we were willing to

to let it be like whatever it needed to be and it became transformational. And there was just so much waiting inside of us to be touched, to be held, to be released. And it was through that that I kind of started to develop the notion of sacred touch, which is, you know, a deeply held safe space for transformational somatic work that's non-sexual.

And we realized by drawing the sexual boundary, things became much more clear and ⁓ more powerful and we felt safer. And it crystallized for me that things could be incredibly sensual, intimate, connected, and clearly non-sexual and that that became this magic place for transformational healing.

Melissa D. (12:39)

I love that. You know, so much of our culture ⁓ doesn't give space for touch to be just something nourishing, even amongst friends and different people. It's either like we're touching. ⁓

or maybe you're hugging more of parental thing or we're having sex. And so there's this gap of where else in our community can we get grounding and nourishing touch that doesn't have some story attached to it, that it needs to be explicitly erotic or this is someone that I'm dating. I noticed that in my community is that...

when I started going into sex positive spaces that I could have cuddle friends, you know, and there's this whole movement around cuddle parties, and we could offer and also accept different kinds of touch that didn't have a story. And so I love that there's different, you know, a variety of things available once we open up to it and have clear conversation around it.

I notice in some other spaces where maybe that culture is not happening, if you sit too close to someone or put your arm around them, there's a story created. And so I'm curious what your experience ⁓ is around that, if you've noticed that.

Eros (14:00)

Yeah, and maybe we can edit what I'm about to say to the beginning. ⁓ I've been so excited to talk to you in this format because I'm a huge fan of your work and the way that you show up in the world and you kind of ⁓ speak the same language as me, know, touch and... ⁓

intimacy and you like to nerd out on it in the same way that I do. So it's totally fun to talk about this stuff. I'm all jazzed up on it.

and I can't wait to get into this with you. So that's for the beginning. This, to answer your question, I think you're right. I think it's a cultural thing, right? Because touch is essential for human development and they've studied that throughout history, genetically, socially. It's how we feel safe, it's how we feel ⁓ loved and included. But after childhood...

touch really drops off. And it's exactly what you said. Our story about it is it has to be romanticized, you know, and there's a lot of taboo. So I think it's so important to reweave healthy touch into our culture in whatever ways we can, whether it's holding hugs longer with men and women and normalizing that or putting your arm around people or doing contact improv.

Melissa D. (14:58)

Yeah.

Eros (15:26)

and trying to deconstruct and deprogram this idea that the touch is not okay and you know that it's only okay with your romantic partner or you know a lot of times you'll see guys hug and they'll do the like one pat two pat on the back right

Melissa D. (15:46)

Right,

standing as far apart as possible.

Eros (15:46)

or they'll do the, yeah, they'll do

the, the, the gimme five and lean in and it's, it's totally cultured and that's where this kind of work gets interesting because then we've, you know, we've normalized and legalized things like licensed massage therapy. But in a lot of states, it's, if you add the element of like pleasure in any form,

it becomes prostitution and it becomes illegal which is just crazy and you know ⁓ it's wild and you know having gone to a professional massage school they don't really hold any space for for you know

Melissa D. (16:17)

It's not wild.

Eros (16:29)

the humanness of pleasure or sadness and grief, they don't talk about things, well, what happens if someone starts to have emotion and they need to have a good cry and really sob? For me, the way I learned it, was like you drape someone, arm, arm, leg, leg, flip, and very little real authentic connection. And so...

I think this is so important and so as part of this work I've been studying the science of touch, skin receptors, neurophysiology, vagal nerve theory to try to understand you know what does it really mean to be a human and be wired for touch and how can we access that system in ways that not only make someone feel relaxed or pleasurable but also heals them or inspires them or can actually help them rewire their

entire programming and that's where it gets super juicy and interesting.

Melissa D. (17:30)

Yeah, and it requires, at least in my experience, is practitioners, friends, or people kind of holding the space with so much integrity and clarity. ⁓ I know for me, earlier on my journey, I had this somatic response around people getting close to me and...

It was interesting because it wasn't always there, but sometimes I would just notice I'm kind of like lean out and actually I still have it. It shows up in spaces. ⁓ And I can.

I can kind of backtrack to I didn't get a whole lot of hugs and nurturance that I remember. mean, God bless my mom. She showed up the way she did. She did some really neat, wonderful things with me as a kid. But as far as just holding, I really didn't have that. And so I noticed when I started hanging out in communities and people would hold me or be close to me, I was like, what does this mean? Where is this going? I had a lot of confusion around it.

to unpack that.

⁓ One of my favorite things to offer now and Kafin Jesse coined this is offering clients or friends islands of pleasure and that's where they come into the space whether it's a room or a massage table or whatever and they get to request touch from somebody you or I or a friend and it's just for them to explore pleasure in their body without a story attached to it and the cool thing about that also is it doesn't have to be gentle little focused it

can

also just be like, what's it like to just request some arms around you that just hold you until you feel complete or a foot rub or maybe just cuddling together or

touch can look all these different ways and still be pleasurable. And I think there's a deep, like I want to take a deeper breath in that because exploring that with my friends and colleagues has been a game changer for how I respond semantically in spaces around touch.

Eros (19:36)

Yeah, I love that. I love that practice. And you know, it's interesting when you look at, you know, vagal nerve theory. Historically, they describe three states. So you have safe and social, which basically is supposed to capture every way that a human would feel like normal and acclimated in a situation. And then you have fight or flight, which means you're triggered and you know, your adrenaline's pumping and your nervous systems hijacked. And then you have freeze where you've shut down.

But actually, I think you'll probably find the same thing. In our work,

I believe that there's, you can evolve your vagal pathways way beyond safe and social. Because even in safe and social, imagine you're walking around a room, you're at a party or a gathering, and you have a beverage, and you're talking to people.

Melissa D. (20:16)

Yeah.

Eros (20:23)

But where is your breath? Where is your muscular tightness? How do you feel at the deepest emotional levels? I think it's time to open our minds to a completely different spectrum at the higher end of what does it mean to feel completely held and deeply safe and nourished and revered and inspired?

to move your energy, to make noises, you know, imagine new worlds of possibility for yourself.

And when you start giving people, for instance, like the islands of touch, I love that because you're normalizing so many great things. You're normalizing people asking for what they want, which is totally taboo in...

Melissa D. (20:54)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the island.

Yeah, the island of pleasure. So it's pleasurable doesn't have to be doesn't have to be sexual in nature. So yeah.

Eros (21:10)

Island of Pleasure. Yeah.

Right,

right, sorry. I'll start that over. So in your island of pleasure ⁓ offering, you're normalizing so many great things because you're normalizing people asking for what they want, which is so rare even in relationship, know, ⁓ let alone socially. And for it to not have a story, a romantic story from one human to another, just to say, I would like to experience this touch.

Melissa D. (21:18)

You're good.

Eros (21:43)

on this part of my body, you're normalizing ⁓ so many great things. People are taking care of themselves. They're allowing themselves to experience pleasure, to receive touch. And so you're starting to create a deeper level of nervous system regulation where touch is okay. It's a language that we practice with each other. It's something we deserve to receive. We deserve to ask for all of these things layer by layer start to actually evolve our

our sense of safety in the world because you know most of my clients especially women say they they've never felt safe in their body ever and especially in the presence of men and it when men i think are dialed in enough to really check in with themselves oftentimes it's the same way to feel truly safe in the world

genetically and generationally, this is something we're all working on. How to feel really safe in our bodies and so the work that you do and the work that we do I think is helping people take steps and ⁓

create a new vibration not just for us but between us, you know, together where the way we're showing up with other people, the way then they go back to their lives. And science has shown that the more relaxed your nervous system is, the more you can handle stress better, the more you have compassion, know, kindness, patience. It's life-changing stuff, right?

Melissa D. (23:13)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you have access to, you're not just living from the neck up.

you know, which I find so many people ⁓ that come into my studio or first timers into the workshop, they're like, how do I learn this language? How do I go from my mind, which is quite useful in this day and age, but dip into the body and safety and allowing pleasure to come through and feeling connected to myself, my partner, my community. They want, you know, ⁓ a way to do that, a map.

to do that.

It's...

Eros (23:52)

So what do

you find when you work with clients? What do you find is the response from people that have maybe never tried that before?

Melissa D. (24:02)

Good question. Everyone's different, but one common thread that I notice is it takes time for the body to come online and to work through the story. So I allow the conversation to be there. We're also like,

Eros (24:13)

Hmm.

Melissa D. (24:19)

doing other things, we're front loading the sessions with just some basic boundary work and make sure we're talking about the same thing. like, for example, the wheel of consent or the four quadrants. So we're all working from that space. And I want to make sure that everyone knows that what their yes feels like in their body, what their no may feel like.

Eros (24:23)

Right.

Right.

Melissa D. (24:41)

⁓ have comfortability in saying no and asking for what they want. Because if they don't have that language and you go right into touch, then you risk them falling into a fawning response, which is like super agreeable and yeah, whatever you want. And we don't, we don't want that game. I mean, that, that can be a fun game, but you want to make sure someone feels comfortable speaking up for themselves and really like asking for things that they want and feeling what it's like to actually receive it. So

Eros (24:41)

Mm-hmm.

Right?

Melissa D. (25:10)

We spend a lot of time there and then we can start building the session together. Because often people come in and they're like, I don't even know why I'm here. I'm just inspired by your video or I saw you do this thing at an event. And I'm like, I want that too. I want my body to respond in this way. Or I want to feel free or I want to be comfortable with my partner or whatever the thing is. And so teaching them these small ways of just how can you allow more pleasure, more comfortability, more access.

Eros (25:25)

Right.

Melissa D. (25:40)

And then we create little games around that. And then we can move into more edgier play or again, just islands of pleasure. Many people come to me just because they want a safe container to explore that. Maybe they're freshly out of divorce or their partner is not someone that wants to offer that to them or sometimes couples come in together and they're like, teach us new ways to be together.

Eros (25:56)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah, it's great. It's such important work.

Melissa D. (26:06)

Yeah.

I get curious about what are some of the sessions that you and Trisha do ⁓ that seems to be really supportive ⁓ for couples and or individuals.

Eros (26:25)

It's a lot of the same stuff that you're doing. Everything you just talked about, you know.

When we work with couples, it actually gets really interesting. I've mostly worked with individuals, but I do see myself moving more towards working with couples. And when you work with couples, for me, it gets exponentially more intricate because you have their dynamic as well as each one of them. ⁓ But it's really fun and it's creative and...

What I love about this work, and I think it's the same with your work, is we've really created a more diverse container than one-dimensional talk therapy or licensed massage therapy. And even though there isn't a lot of good regulatory support for what we're doing yet, it's so legitimate and so needed and... ⁓

you do need to layer in all of these things. So for instance, people, you know, learning to use their voice is so important. And even in the context of relationship, it's just so rare that people actually make a container where one person just gets to ask for what they want or practice saying no or negotiating. All of those things are so healthy. ⁓ And layer by layer, you know, the body drops in like you're saying the body comes online.

In couples work, ⁓ it's interesting because I find that I might be guiding one partner to give the other person touch and then something might come up for both of them and you're kind of facilitating and guiding and ⁓ studying the way that their energy dynamic has become sometimes like a rigid pattern and then they get stuck and just the addition of a third person who's creative and dialed in could say,

Melissa D. (28:14)

Mm-hmm.

Eros (28:21)

what if you just tweak it and what if you did this thing and they're like, wow. And then you watch them like totally change their whole pattern. I think there's so much there and you know, it happens for all of us. We get stuck personally or relationally. So having a practitioner who can offer tools and even just small adjustments that can kind of change everything. Like just something you didn't see like, you're not really listening to her.

Melissa D. (28:26)

Wow, yeah.

Eros (28:51)

You know, there's a whole galaxy waiting for you if you just listen a little bit more and it just blows people's minds. But yeah, it's super fun. ⁓ Most people haven't experienced the kinds of things that we're talking about and touch just for the sake of touch and pleasure just for the sake of pleasure. And ⁓ there's just so many layers that you can add in. It's just really fun. mean, ceremony, ritual. ⁓

Melissa D. (28:51)

Yep.

Eros (29:21)

affirmations and that's the work that we do. I really I like to be artful in the way that I weave in all the different you know ⁓ layers and modalities and when I teach it to people I kind of say hey whatever it is that you're really passionate about this is a format that you can weave in so maybe you're a poet

weave in your poetry as you touch someone or if you're a musician sing while you touch someone or you know sometimes when I'm doing a massage I find I'm actually dancing on the person's body and I'm bringing that energy to it and so I'm actually working on a book called the art of sacred touch and trying to figure out the way to to layer in all of the groundwork for the framework to understand you know what is this work really

about what's possible, how do you come to understand the exquisite space that you can hold for someone? What are all the different layers of things to kind of teach people and think about and dial in so that you can then set a container for your partner or you know someone that you care about or a client and start to weave these things you know into the work you do.

Melissa D. (30:35)

And this is way different than say talk therapy because even some of the dynamics you just spoke to of like patterns of being together and maybe like hidden resentments or maybe not totally listening to our partner, ⁓ talk therapy can be so useful on one level, you know, from the neck up.

and maybe coming up with certain strategies, but it's a completely different ball game when you get a couple in the room and you enroll their body and actually notice and figure out what might be happening when touch is actually happening or when they're meeting their partner energetically. You can see it and feel it. And then they've got the felt experience of like how to do something different versus just intellectualizing it. And I love that you brought in.

Eros (31:19)

It's so true.

Melissa D. (31:21)

Yeah, and I love that you brought in, okay, what are you passionate about? Are you an artist? Are you a painter? Are you really into rope? You know, do you like, you know, keeping your hands busy? Like all these creative ways that really open up the possibilities of how we engage with another person, our partner, or even our friends. It's really incredible.

Eros (31:43)

Yeah, I mean, bringing the body into it is so important. I was in talk therapy for 30 years and I had same therapist and actually I first met her when my whole family went to her. So she got to meet my whole family. I was a child and then I kept seeing her.

Melissa D. (31:49)

With the same therapist?

Eros (32:02)

And eventually we became friends and even colleagues in a way of sharing books with each other, know, modalities. But the thing is that she was very loyal to the system that she had been taught, which was clinical talk therapy. And so she didn't touch, she didn't touch clients. That was part of her training. And, you know,

So like you're saying, it was neck up. And as a somatic practitioner, one of the things I've realized is if you only stay there, you really can't access what's happening in the body most of the time. So for instance, someone might have some stuck emotion. They could talk about that for 20 years and it might actually take you tapping on them to bring it home to the body. And then boom, the floodgates open and they start sobbing.

Melissa D. (32:53)

Yeah.

Eros (32:53)

And until

you touched the body where everything was stored, know, the memories, the molecules, the patterns, the energy, everything. So that's, I've realized, you know, you have to kind of unpack the rules that we've put on the different modalities. And they don't teach massage therapists to talk and they don't teach talk therapists to massage and or to touch, you know. And so what happens when you stack, stack all these modalities and it's not that it's like an unheld container or it's reckless.

Melissa D. (33:17)

Yep.

Eros (33:23)

or it's loose, it's quite the opposite. But what you've done is you've unpacked and expanded the container to hold the full human experience, which is emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual. And when you start to touch all of that, for me, that's when it becomes a truly human experience, when you're getting all the facets of a human and they can cry, they can scream, you know, they can...

Melissa D. (33:32)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eros (33:53)

stretch their bodies. Another thing I love that you have clients come in and they might say, don't know what I'm doing here or what's going to happen, but it's like you decide together. There's a natural flow that happens when they're allowed to use their voice. And when they can say, I feel like turning over now or I really want to cry or I feel like I want to jump up and down and scream. It's like great, you know, and then

Suddenly they're guiding the session with you and it becomes this discovery right that you're doing together ⁓

Melissa D. (34:24)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like going on an adventure with somebody instead of laying down on the table and just getting something done to you, which again is another game, but collaborating and then feeling in your body what's it like to, yeah, share the thing, receive the thing, feel what that feels like. Yeah, so beautiful.

Eros (34:28)

It is.

Right. Right.

These are all life-changing things for people. They really are. Some of this stuff, I would say most of this, most people have never experienced in their whole lives. So for instance, feeling truly, truly safe and held could be a life-changing first experience for someone. Or for a woman to feel...

totally held in a reverent way by a man that's all present and dialed in with no expectation of sexual gratification, no ⁓ energy of taking sexually, you know, it's very possible that person's never experienced that their whole life from their father, from brothers, uncles, partners.

So this is like, I'm not sure how it is for you, but when people come to me, a lot of times they say, I've tried everything else and I really love what you're doing and I feel ready to take this next step. it's like, until you really do this level of work, people are still waiting to really, for it really to come home, right? All the way to the body.

Melissa D. (35:34)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah, one pattern that I know is a lot of women that I work with ⁓ are used to enduring whatever the other person wants, whether it's a partner, a boyfriend, a past experience, know, whatever. ⁓ And so getting them to identify and articulate what they actually want and feel it in their body for themselves.

is incredible. And then I love that you're doing it because you bring another element as the masculine. Like I can show up for women, it feels very like either motherly or sisterly, but there's something else that's available when working with, you know, masculine energy that is actually quite loving and supportive and listens. And then them feeling that it's, it's really incredible. ⁓

Eros (36:29)

Right.

It is and you some people who are trying to wrap their heads around this maybe from a more conservative mindset might say well why as a man is it important for you to work with women or how can you touch a woman and give her pleasure but it's not sexual and they're trying to understand it but what you just said is so true for a lot of women the benefit of working with a man in this way is it does empower their voice and if you're working with a man or a couple men probably don't

realize that their partners have been enduring whatever it is they were doing like there isn't enough listening and understanding and sensitivity so for men it's like getting more in touch with their sensitivity and women it's learning to use their voice and that that's totally their right and that that ⁓ is necessary and wanted and together you start to heal the gender wounds and the cycles and the patterns and yeah

Melissa D. (37:39)

Yeah.

We noticed that at the Himaros project retreat that we do every year, we'll work with eight men, really small container. And I've seen a few men kind of break into tears after learning, you know, the concepts of the four quadrants and realizing, wow, I've been in my taking energy and not really checking in with my partners and they feel...

like it just is life changing and then they get to learn okay how do I bring my arousal my interest my eroticism but really check in with integrity with my partner and bring them into the conversation so teaching people these really they seem so simple but in the body and how they show up in our relationship is profound. So I have a stack

Eros (38:26)

So profound. Yeah.

Melissa D. (38:32)

of really fun tools on my desk. For those that are listening, we're gonna describe them as best we can. ⁓

Eros (38:37)

Amazing.

Melissa D. (38:44)

So sometimes in session, or actually most of the time, I use a plethora of different tools. Now, not all the time, but I find these to be gateways of opening up the body, of experiencing pleasure, of being playful, or maybe symbolic in some way.

⁓ The thing I love about your tools, so your company is called Lit and this is something that you created with your partner, Trisha. Tell us about the earlier stages of developing these sensation tools.

Eros (39:05)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm, right.

Wow, Melissa, like you, I've had a collection of different tools for a long time and I've seen your collection and it's really great. And we are drawn to these things because of the work we do. And like you said, different tools can elicit different responses and bring different energies. So I have this collection and it became such an integral part of my work because... ⁓

Melissa D. (39:28)

You

Eros (39:45)

the tools create context and activation and illicit pleasure or nourishing. And so it became a language of using tools. you know, I was using these in my practice and I thought to myself, I really want to develop my own tools and develop a whole line and share these because I had found these, you know,

I had like a calligraphy brush that I'd found in a shop in Chinatown, you know, or something like that, but a lot of this stuff wasn't available and the stuff that was out there ⁓ wasn't always high quality and it was kind of more limited to...

the BDSM frame. And in terms of using tools as sensual art, I felt like this is something I want to bring into the world. So when I met Tricia, she was ⁓ blown away by the work. She'd never experienced it before. And she said, you need to share this with the whole world. And I said, yeah, I really want to. Do you want to do it with me? And she said, yeah, let's do it. So we just went for it.

Melissa D. (40:51)

Yeah.

Eros (40:56)

I also have my stack of tools here. yeah, we do, have fluff daddies. know, I had a hit, we do, and actually using two at once is really amazing. If people are ever like in our workshops and have the chance to do that.

Melissa D. (41:01)

Ooh, we both have fluff daddies. We have dueling fluff daddies.

Ugh.

Eros (41:16)

It actually changes everything to have two of these. One is also good. ⁓ Yeah, I had done product design and I'd collected these products and I was just so passionate about the experience of them. It was so much fun to develop these. So yeah, our company's called Lit. ⁓ I have a package here to show you too. ⁓ they...

Melissa D. (41:35)

It is some of

the most thoughtful, sexy packaging that I've ever seen. Each one of your tools comes with this beautiful case that you can travel with or just store it. Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Eros (41:42)

Aww, thanks.

Yeah.

Yeah,

so the packaging's super fun. It's kind of like Christmas meets New Year's meets birthday. It's like festive and glamorous and exciting. And that was, you we wanted this to be really fun. You know, I tend to be the more serious one and Trisha is more of fun loving one. So it's a good combination. Like she did most of the work with the names like Fluff Daddy and being really playful. And I was like, yeah, that's the vibe. So yeah, we have a whole line of tools. Fluff Daddy is one of the

Melissa D. (41:59)

Yeah.

Eros (42:20)

favorites and it's kind of like a stuffed animal blankie hug but for adults I mean kids love it too but it's just ultra ultra soft and it's designed to be ⁓ have a lot of volume so you can we call it softness immersion where you can you know drag it over someone's face or across their whole body and it gives them a feeling that they probably never had before and that's part of the magic of this stuff

is I believe that we map our mental states and our vibe to what we've experienced in our body. And it's usually the same patterns, you you might be sitting at your desk or sitting down eating or whatever you do. If you give someone a sensation that they've never had in their whole life and you pair it with mindful intention and affirmations, you can actually alchemize ⁓ a state that's like,

like plant medicine or deep meditation. It's transformational because you're hitting all these different layers at once. It's the physical, it's the emotional, you have spiritual ritual and people feel like, wow, this is a sacred moment. I'm high right now on what's happening and I'm gonna use this moment because I've shared this intention with my facilitator, my partner. This is about...

Melissa D. (43:30)

Hahaha

Eros (43:38)

me owning my voice. And now they have this rush of dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin and they feel safe and they feel held and they feel witnessed and they say, you know, I've been waiting and waiting and waiting and now is the moment where I'm going to actually change my life. And now I own my voice, you know, and so that's really, that's really the magic. And so the sensation play is adding ⁓ this nervous system activation and all of this neurochemistry and you're actually getting people high.

in different ways, right? And you do this too because you have your collection of tools and know certain tools are gonna elicit adrenaline or you know, ⁓ activate the body or body awareness in places like the feet and the backs of the knees, places we don't usually take our attention, right? So I saw you grab the whip whip.

Melissa D. (44:08)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, my favorite thing. Yeah,

I grabbed this little pink silicone whip. I love this because you can use it softly, but you can also use it with oil. Because a lot of tools, once you have oil on the body, you have to be really mindful of what goes on next. And so if you're doing pleasure stacking, for example, if you're doing fluff daddy and then coming in with the...

Eros (44:46)

Right.

So true.

Mm-hmm.

Melissa D. (44:55)

tickle of the claws or these little mittens here. Then you can add in, yeah, then you can add in oil and either do a body slide or just use your arms and hands and then you can bring in different tools that are fine. They're gonna wash off and they're gonna still be able to be in the layers of pleasure stacking.

Eros (44:56)

Yeah.

Right, you're so right.

Yeah.

spoken as an expert practitioner. Yes.

Melissa D. (45:20)

Well, one of my favorite things

and I came to you about it ⁓ and I don't think we've actually been able to really do it in its fullness is my background in hypnotherapy and then my background in using pervertibles, AKA sensation toys, taking everyday items and using them to elicit a response on the body. So like I've got paint brushes and I have these little scratchy tools and

Eros (45:33)

Right.

Melissa D. (45:45)

When someone's eyes are closed or you have a luscious blindfold on or you're laying in a certain position, you're just focusing on the quality of touch. It really takes you into an altered state and it's quite delicious. And yeah, you can add in something more spicy layered in with something nourishing and soft, but people move to a different altered state. And so I noticed that and I love teaching that sequence to people of like, okay, here's...

Eros (46:06)

They do.

Melissa D. (46:12)

all the sensory toys go around your house. You if you're not ready to invest in something, you just go around, get creative and you lay them out. And then you offer your partner an experience of just feeling and they don't need to give anything back other than just allowing and going into their pleasure, their movement, their sound. And that alone, you know, giving partners that it, you know, roadmap.

Eros (46:17)

Right.

Melissa D. (46:37)

can open up the way that they communicate, the way that they play, the way that they engage together. It's really beautiful.

Eros (46:45)

It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. I love that you're using our stuff. And yeah, we were just talking about hypnotherapy yesterday actually. And I've been so curious about that. We definitely have to explore with that. So yeah, you're right. Some tools can be used with oil like these for instance, the claws of attraction and... ⁓

These are game changers, think. Sometimes with my partner, I'll leave these on for like a whole lovemaking session because the amount of the rush that she's getting and that I'm getting from then seeing her, the adrenaline and the dopamine and the body awareness it brings, you can use these.

Melissa D. (47:07)

my gosh.

Eros (47:28)

almost in like an acupuncture way of like five points or ten points in one spot and massage or you can these can be the ultimate back scratching tool or body scratching tool or you can get like a really primal totally activating rush from them and with or without oil so those are super fun ⁓ you have our whole set I know yeah

Melissa D. (47:43)

Hmm.

I love those claws. I have the whole set. I'm so spoiled.

Yeah, actually I left a crop at a play party and I'm having a hard time getting it back. They're probably really enjoying it.

Eros (47:59)

Well, I happen to have

one, the Crop It Like It's Hot. And, you know, we also teach to use these in, like you're saying, in different ways. You can use them to get, you know, a really sharp, pointed, activating smack, but you can also pat the body and be more percussive, like in massage we would say, to potement. you can pet with them. It's like a little hand, so I like to pet with it. Yeah. ⁓

Melissa D. (48:24)

Hmm.

Eros (48:28)

I brought scratch me if you can and this one we call it a body Rover or you know, like acupressure type massager and yes, these are Yeah, a lot of people feel these and it's like the most fun is seeing them feel it for the first time because

Melissa D. (48:37)

⁓ so good.

Eros (48:46)

it's a natural reaction and they might just be like, And that's actually how we test. Like when we first developed the 007, you know, this ⁓ is a pleasure stacking tool where you can give someone seven lines of silky gliding pleasure. When I first developed this, I realized, okay, they need to be separated because if they bunch together, you don't get the separate lines, which is more.

Melissa D. (48:59)

love it.

Eros (49:14)

more sensory pleasure. And so I cut up like a satin pillowcase and I stapled it to a piece of cardboard and I dragged it over Tricia. And we were laughing because it was the middle of the day and she was naked and we were in the bedroom and I was like, this is our job, you know? And we were laughing about it. Yeah, yeah. And when I dragged it over her, she went, ugh. And I was like, okay, that works, you know?

Melissa D. (49:30)

This is your job, yeah.

Yeah,

I want to see the prototypes, like, you know, what this looked like early on in the stages of development. That's so cool.

Eros (49:45)

Yeah.

Yeah, and this one's great. It's a wand and I think you had asked me, you had asked me for the giant fluff daddy, the extra long fluff daddy, right?

Melissa D. (49:58)

I want like

a seven foot fluff daddy, you know, because it's like a flogger, but like fluffy, you know, rabbit's tails basically. like, how cool would that be to start at someone's head and just drag it so slow and it goes all over the back and then it continues? Like, yeah, I'm already like,

Eros (50:01)

Yeah, yeah. Yes.

VR.

Ugh. ⁓

I still

need to do that for you. And I wanted to do the same thing with this. I wanted to whip a satin whip that I could whip from like across the room. And I just imagined it like the strands just floating and flying, you know, across people's bodies and yeah, we'll do that for sure.

Melissa D. (50:28)

Ugh.

Yeah. So the little,

what's the one that has, it's kind of like that one device that you kind of put on the top of the head and all the talons open up and it kind of, it almost makes me orgasm. It's really, whoo.

Eros (50:41)

Right.

Yeah,

it's funny because that, you know, the scalp massager, a lot of people have tried and you can get those, but to actually make one ⁓ that's this style was a real engineering challenge and,

to get the spacing right and the flexibility right and the attachment. A lot of times they just jam a bunch of wires into a pipe and they jam a stopper in there, but it's not something that might last and it could be dangerous if you get sharp ends and stuff. we actually engineered ⁓ a machine aluminum piece where holes are drilled and these are ⁓ woven through. This is all machined aluminum. It actually threads together and ⁓ you have the weighted ball which

This is another one you can use with or without oil, and with oil you'll get a different, you get the glide and the kind of ⁓ stimulating pointed pressure.

Melissa D. (51:33)

Yeah.

I could even feel things

when I watch people do it. Do you have that response? ⁓

Eros (51:47)

Yeah, it's true. It's true. You're in your body. You're all dialed in. We do some feathers and ⁓ there's so many feathers out there and different feathers actually have completely different feelings. So this one for me is more velvety. This is the stroke in me softly. And I use the feathers in almost like an angelic, motherly, nourishing, ⁓ really sweet, innocent kind of way.

You know, these can be used during a session. ⁓

maybe if you, as a practitioner, you sense someone is on the edge of like some real emotion and you just feel like that emotion is asking for nurturing, I might come in with a feather and say, you're safe, you deserve to feel everything, you're a beautiful soul, whatever intuitively I feel like they need to hear in that moment. And for men too, this is great because it offers them a softness that's

⁓ maybe more approachable than then for instance like talking about their feelings. If it's someone that's just starting to lean into their sensitivity and their emotions it goes beyond the brain straight to the body and it's it might feel like they're a baby receiving their mother's touch and this I think goes back in terms of ⁓ epigenetics to we came from animals that maybe had a mother with a furry belly.

And so, you know, somewhere in our DNA is that memory of nuzzling up to mama's furry body. And so this is like, you know, taking us way back into the developmental brain and being like, you're safe, you're home, you belong, and you're nurtured, you're held, you know.

Melissa D. (53:37)

I love that you mentioned affirmations because some people may ask, well, why would I do that? Or how do I do that without feeling contrived? I often just say, you know, as you're like layering the tools together or you're taking your time and really noticing how your partner's responding to whatever sensation you can just lean in and just ask, is there anything you want to hear right now? And this and the layer of that question and also just

allowing them space to feel really teaches them ⁓ how to open up the body and how to feel in new ways. It's so beautiful. ⁓

Eros (54:12)

Yeah.

It is,

it's amazing. The affirmations added.

the most powerful layer to it, know, ⁓ playing with words. Sometimes when I intake a client, I'll have my intake form and I'll go and I'll extract pieces of what they wrote and sometimes I'll actually print it out and I'll have some wordplay of like different, you know, phrases or affirmations or things that they'd like to hear or receive. Or we might have couples write on a whiteboard before we start, like, and sometimes they won't know until the session actually happens and it actually

Melissa D. (54:50)

Right.

Eros (54:51)

know, cues up for them what they want to hear, but then you're layering in, you know, the brain and it starts to unlock things for people. There could be one phrase that they need to hear and maybe hear it a few times because we have the layers of kind of our defenses and our self-protection. So the first time they hear it, they might have like,

he doesn't really mean that or whatever. But then layer after layer, they hear it again and again and again. You're worthy, you're worthy, you're worthy. By the seventh time, they just start crying because now you've like landed. You've really landed in a place where they're like, their body's regulated enough, they're receiving it. They're actually receiving it. then, yeah, I know that you like me, ⁓ you're tracking, you're really attuned and you teach people how to be attuned to their bodies, to their

Melissa D. (55:28)

Hmm.

Eros (55:45)

partners, you get to this place when you start to pay attention where you're seeing in that person, maybe their body's tight or...

now they're starting to loosen up or they just made a sound that cues me into like, okay, they're in their pleasure body now or maybe, you know, their lips are quivering and their eyelids are quivering and you can see the emotion that's, you know, bubbling up and you're like, okay, if I tap on them or if I rock them or put my arm around them, it's gonna open them to like this deep crygasm or whatever it is, you know.

That's another amazing layer about this work is you're teaching people how to pay attention to their bodies in ways that they probably no one's permission and we're not modeling this stuff like culturally as a society and families right it's so exciting to do this work yeah

Melissa D. (56:19)

Mm-hmm.

Permission too.

Right.

Yeah. Josh, I could keep talking to you all day, but we'll put a tiny, a sweet satin bow on our conversation. Where can people find you out in the world? And also, is there any events? go ahead.

Eros (56:52)

Hmm.

They can find me.

No, ⁓ they can find our business at litup.love and we have a really great ebook that we offer on all of these, you know. ⁓

practices and the different layers that we add in. We do offer workshops and we can actually come to people's town or city if you feel like hosting. We can come and co-host with you or we can teach people how to host their own gatherings. ⁓ And then we have a calendar. I've been really busy building a couple of houses down here in Costa Rica, but they're just about done and we're gonna start doing more workshops and traveling and offering events for people.

⁓ They can also find us in Aria boxes and you know Aria is a monthly subscription box for couples. ⁓ We're in their ⁓ kind of premium web store but also we're now shipping out in some of their monthly boxes which is super exciting so lots of people are seeing us there. Yeah.

Melissa D. (58:03)

Wonderful. And that's a subscription,

like if couples or people, individuals want direction on what to explore, the box will show up and then give you all the tools and all the directions on exploring in these new ways together.

Eros (58:20)

Yeah, it's fun. They're scenes and I think they have a system where they guide you through a concierge and they learn about you as a couple and then they pick a scene for you. And we also do a similar thing. So in all of our packages, there's a QR code. And when you scan that, you go to a video where we guide you through an exercise on how to take the tool and do a practice that's fun and easy, but also takes you deeper. So each tool has a different practice that we offer for free with that.

Melissa D. (58:49)

Yeah. Thank you so much for taking time out of your jungle life to hop on with me. Always a pleasure to drop in with you. yeah, I'll see you in Costa Rica soon.

Eros (59:03)

Such a pleasure, thank you Melissa. I can't wait to explore more with you.