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Pleasure Uprising: Desire, Attachment, and the Sex You Actually Want
Formerly The Desire Gap Podcast
Most people who feel disconnected from their desire, their pleasure, or their partners have spent years assuming something is wrong with them. It isn't. The disconnection is real — but it traces back to what most of us were never taught: how to be in our bodies fully, how to connect to each other authentically, how to know and ask for what we need without guilt or shame. Culture shapes that — the broader culture we inherit, and the family we grew up in — and it can be unlearned. Pleasure, secure attachment, and authentic desire are your birthright.
You can learn what you were never taught — and unlearn what got in the way.
Dr. Laura Jurgens is a somatic sex and intimacy specialist, Master Certified Intimacy Coach, American Board of Sexology Certified Sex Educator, and former research professor whose work sits at the intersection of nervous system science, attachment theory, and genuine embodied pleasure. Every episode delivers the somatic, body-based tools that generic relationship advice and most therapists miss entirely — because desire, pleasure, and connection aren't fixed by talking more. They're fixed by giving your body and your nervous system reparative experiences and embodied practices that shift you out of your past.
This show covers: getting out of your head during sex · low libido and what actually helps · somatic and nervous system approaches to intimacy · desire discrepancy and mismatched libido · secure attachment and relationship repair · sexual shame and body disconnection · how to talk about sex without fighting · ADHD and desire · the orgasm gap and why it exists · reclaiming pleasure on your own terms.
Whether you've tried therapy, books, or just quietly wondering why intimacy feels harder than it should — this show will help you understand why those things don't move the needle — and what does.
New episodes weekly. Start wherever you are.
Free resource: Get Out of Your Head — A Starter Guide to Releasing the Pressure, Shame, and "Shoulds" Around Intimacy at https://laurajurgens.com/guide
For deeper dives-- including cultural analysis and the research behind desire, arousal, and attachment -- plus a chance to ask me questions, subscribe to my Substack: https://laurajurgens.substack.com/
Pleasure Uprising: Desire, Attachment, and the Sex You Actually Want
Sexual Shame: Why We All Have It and How to Give It Back
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Most people carry sexual shame so quietly and for so long that it starts to feel like a character trait rather than something that was handed to them. It isn't. Every flavor of shame — about wanting too much, too little, taking too long, not taking long enough, about your body, your history, your desires, your "low libido" — came from somewhere specific. And that somewhere is not you.
In this episode, I go through the full inventory of sexual shame I see in my somatic intimacy coaching practice, explain exactly where it came from (the culture, not your character), and go deeper into why shame lives in the body and nervous system — not just the mind — and what that means for how you actually release it. This is about a somatic, body-based approach to understanding and releasing sexual shame — and it goes where most intimacy advice, and even therapy, doesn't.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- The most common sexual shames — about desire, low libido, body image, sexual anxiety, sexual confidence, and what it takes to orgasm — and why every single one makes complete sense given the culture we inherited
- Why shame is stored in the nervous system and body as implicit memory — and why thinking or talking your way out of it rarely works
- What shame actually does behaviorally — why it makes you hide, avoid, and stay quiet, which is the opposite of what heals it
- Why speaking your shame to someone who stays in full somatic connection with you is the most powerful antidote — and why that's so hard to find on your own
- What somatic healing of sexual shame actually looks like in practice — and how it differs from traditional therapy or mindset work
- My own shame story — the things I carried for years without knowing I was carrying them, and what shifted when I stopped trying to think my way through it
The culture handed you this shame. You don't have to keep carrying it — but getting free of it requires more than understanding it. This episode is where that starts.
Get my free guide: Get Out of Your Head: A Starter Guide to Releasing the Pressure, Shame, and "Shoulds" Around Intimacy at https://laurajurgens.com/guide
Find out more about my offerings and read the blog: https://laurajurgens.com/
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