Alicia reflects on what it truly means to reclaim pleasure as a form of self-trust, not performance. For years, she lived with anorgasmia and carried the silent fear that something was wrong with her. But her journey was never about “fixing” herself. It was about waking up slowly, unlearning shame, and realizing she was never broken. What changed everything wasn’t a single technique. It was the deep shift from self-blame to empowerment and the understanding that women’s pleasure is often shaped by cultural conditioning, lack of education, and a world that rarely realizes female desire.
She speaks openly about the pressure women carry in their daily lives and how productivity culture can disconnect them from their bodies. In her view, pleasure cannot thrive in a nervous system that is constantly rushing, overthinking, and surviving. Healing begins with slowing down, feeling safe, and allowing small moments of presence to return. From “micro-pleasure” rituals like enjoying warmth, softness, and stillness, she explains how women can reconnect with desire in a way that feels natural, guilt-free, and real.
In this conversation, Alicia also challenges the biggest misconceptions around women’s libido and the orgasm gap. She believes women are not less sexual; they are simply tired of intimacy that ignores emotional connection, mental load, and equality of pleasure.
She explores how porn, media, and unrealistic body standards impact sexual confidence and why so many women self-police during intimacy instead of feeling fully free. With her message rooted in compassion, Alicia reminds women that pleasure is not selfish. It is self-expression, healing, and a powerful way to come home to your body.
How One ‘Aha’ Changed Everything
Until the age of 24, you experienced anorgasmia. What was the most unexpected “aha” moment that shifted everything for you, something that went beyond technique and sparked a bigger change in how you relate to your body, your sexuality, and your place in the world?
Alicia: I think there is so much that goes into how you feel about yourself as a sexual being, so much subconscious conditioning and socialisation that it would be difficult for one moment to change everything. For me, at least, it was more a gradual waking from a hazy dream, like lifting a curtain, with the realization and relief of knowing I wasn’t broken seeping in. Being able to shift the blame off myself and step more into a place of empowerment meant I suddenly saw anorgasmia as a reflection of the world we live in. As I uncovered more layers, I realised that so many women have the same experience, but not many people were talking about it, which sparked my curiosity to start studying it.
Although, in all honesty, I do need to give credit to Gwyneth Paltrow’s show Goop, which I watched during the first year of COVID (the same year I learnt to Orgasm). That was the first time I saw sex as something that I could learn about, something that wasn’t fixed, and something that you could interact with and change. It was also the first time I realized being a sexologist was a job.
Photo Credit: Michael Jalaru Torres (@jalaruphotography)
Integrating Sexuality and Everyday Life
For women who feel “stuck” in productivity loops, what small, daily shifts can help integrate sexual self-care into an otherwise busy routine? How can they honor their desires without guilt?
Alicia: I think for women who are stuck in the productivity loop, especially if they are already a bit disconnected from their sexuality, it’s too much and can feel too overwhelming to try and lump more sexual self-care into their routine.
A lot of us have learned that fast is safe and slow is lazy. So the first shift that needs to happen is to change the belief that slowing down is unsafe; otherwise, they will end up feeling guilty when they do or feel so much resistance to slowing down that it just won’t happen.
Shifting the belief to something like “It’s safe to slow down” or “Slowness is nourishing for my body” will then allow women to honour their desires without the guilt. It primes their nervous system to crave and enjoy pleasure.
Then it’s about how they can find moments of slowness, presence, and pleasure in what they are already doing BEFORE they try and add anything. Starting with “smile moments”, can they drink their coffee in the sun and feel the warmth on their face? Can they eat lunch with a friend and put their phone away? Can they meditate while in the shower? Can they be more present when they put moisturiser on? It’s all about cultivating small moments of micro pleasure throughout the day.
Once busy women have learnt how to take and enjoy small moments of non-sexual pleasure in their everyday lives, they will be more likely to carve out time for sexual pleasure. The important piece here is that there is no pressure, and the sexual pleasure is reflective of how they feel that day. If energy is low, maybe it looks more like sexual meditation or a nourishing self-massage; if energy is high, then well, it can be whatever they would like it to be. I recommend planning a self-pleasure session like you would a self-care appointment with yourself. Putting it in your calendar works great for the A-type girlies.
Lies About Women’s Libido
What are some widespread misconceptions A big part of your work about women’s libido that you wish everyone would stop believing? How can we start normalizing more honest conversations about desire?
Alicia: I think the biggest misconception is that women are less sexual than men, that they are the ones who never “put out” and have low libido.
No, they just don’t want sex that only centers male pleasure, misses any emotional or mental component, dismisses their desire type, has no effort placed around creating a context that nurtures what actually turns them on, and completely ignores the disproportionate mental and emotional load they are holding around home.
On top of that, a lot of women have been actively discouraged from exploring their sexuality and have been conditioned into being the “nice girl”, meaning they struggle to know what they want and how to ask for it. Honestly, why would any woman want sex after all that?
If women are given the space to feel safe in being sexual, uncover what context supports their desire, figure out what kind of sex they like and want more of, their desire will flourish.
Normalising it starts with better education for both men and women around how desire actually works, equality of pleasure during sex, and improving communication between both parties. I hope that this trickles into Media, and we see a different narrative in the books, movies, and Pron that are being consumed. But for a start, if you see sex portrayed in the traditional ways, call it out, start the conversation, and talk to your friends more. The more we talk about our collective experiences, the more we can normalise the differences.
Orgasm Inequality:
Women report “orgasm gaps” in heterosexual relationships. Do you think the responsibility lies more with sexual education, cultural conditioning, or individual communication within relationships?
Alicia: All three. In my opinion, the orgasm gap is a reflection of the same problems that have created the libido misconception. There are lots of different reasons why women don’t orgasm, but at the centre of it is that we have been taught to have sex in a way that prioritises how someone with a penis will most reliably orgasm. Having sex that only involves intercourse and expecting a woman to orgasm is the same as having sex that only involves fondling a man’s balls and expecting him to orgasm. On a macro level, we need widespread education that expands our current definition of sex so that we learn to centre pleasure, rather than following some staircase to male orgasm straight from the patriarchal script. Hopefully, this education will start to disrupt the conditioning that every gender is victim to, letting people figure out pleasure based on what they like, not what they are expected to like.
At the micro level, I do believe that everyone is responsible for their own pleasure. In heterosexual relationships, most men actually do want to learn how to pleasure their partner, how she wants it. We have a responsibility to prioritise learning about ourselves, what we like and don’t like, and how to communicate it clearly. Your partner isn’t a mind reader.
Photo Credit: Michael Jalaru Torres (@jalaruphotography)
Body Image and Porn:
Porn often presents unrealistic body standards and sexual performance. What impact does this have on women’s sexual confidence, and how can they reclaim a positive relationship with their own bodies?
Alicia: Porn, movies, and social media have a lot to answer for how women feel about their bodies. We have grown up in a world where women’s worth has been attached to how small they are and how perfect they look. If you don’t fit this perfect mould, then you’re unworthy and unlovable. If you internalise this message, it can lead to a deep sense of disgust. Disgust is one of the hardest emotions to carry, and when you’re disgusted at yourself, it will fester, because you can’t get away from it. This can manifest as women avoiding sex completely, not initiating, turning down their partner if they initiate, or only having sex with the lights off.
The other way this will affect women’s sexual confidence is through self-policing. In the bedroom, it is known as spectorating. This is when women get in their heads during sex, “how does my body look from this angle”, “I hope they can’t see this part of me,” “does this angle give me a double chin?”. It looks like not wanting to explore certain types of sex or positions due to a fear of being seen in a certain way.
Learning to accept your body is a journey, not a destination. It takes consistent daily practice to unlearn the conditioning and learn to accept and love your body just as it is. It starts with making the shift that your worth as a woman is not tied to how you look, it’s tied to who you are and how you show up in this world.
It’s about appreciating all the things your body does that has nothing to do with looks, learning to speak kindly to yourself, treating your body as you would a good friends, catching the negative thoughts and replacing them with neutral or positive thoughts, doing kind things for your body, learning how to get into your body and experience your senses, experience and feel pleasure and appreciate it from a place of embodiment, not judgement.
In all honesty, reclaiming your body for you and accepting your body for all she is and choosing to live a life free from the constraints and policing of body image it’s an act of rebellion, in a world that tries to keep women small and quiet.
Do Women Really Need Sex to Be Fulfilled?
Some people say women “shouldn’t need sex to be happy.” What’s your take on pleasure as a form of self-expression or even self-care?
Alicia:We live in a world that idolises hustle culture and goal-oriented productivity. “Pleasure” is reserved only for those who make it, and if you haven’t made it yet, then you’re lazy, and you don’t deserve pleasure. The problem with this is that the game is stacked; women will burn themselves out trying to do everything and be everything to everyone, bypassing their own needs.
To feel pleasure, you actually have to say no and put your own needs first enough times to learn how to be in your body so that you can feel all your sensations. That’s where the self-care piece comes in: you have to set boundaries for yourself to have pleasure.
I like this term, self-expression, when thinking about pleasure. At the heart of pleasure is joy, play, presence, and awe. It’s what we knew as children, when we could take pleasure in playing. We could get lost for hours, expressing ourselves in whatever way we felt like. Then, as we grew up, play and pleasure became restricted and limited as we were expected to mature and disconnect from that part of ourselves. Sex is essentially adult play, and being able to connect to our pleasure and express ourselves without limitation, where you can feel the depths of any emotion, well, that’s true self-expression.
Why ‘Good Enough’ Sex Isn’t Enough
In your experience, is “good sex” actually overrated for most women, or is the real issue that society has convinced us mediocre, male-centered sex is the best we can expect? What’s your hottest take on why so many women settle for “fine” instead of demanding mind-blowing?
Alicia: Think of the sex scenes in every movie you’ve seen. The majority of them showcase spontaneous desire (most common in men). If there is any “foreplay”, there will maybe be 5 seconds of it before the “main event”, intercourse, where the woman almost always comes quickly and at the same time as the man. The probability of this happening reliably in real life would probably be less than 10%. But everyone is fed this lie, that it’s the pinnacle to aim for. And without good sex education, that’s all women and men know. It’s not that women are settling; it’s just that they are following the sexual script they have been hand-fed and told is the recipe for the best sex of their lives.
On top of that, “good girl conditioning” has made it incredibly hard for women to speak up about what actually feels good, if they even know. We need to empower everyone to explore different types of sex in a safe environment so they can figure out what mind-blowing sex looks like for them.
One Lesson Every Woman Should Know
You’re now opening 1:1 coaching to help women have sex they genuinely crave. What’s one piece of advice you wish every woman heard before starting that journey, one that could prevent years of disconnection or self-blame?
Alicia: I wish every woman who starts this journey knows that they aren’t broken, there isn’t anything wrong with them, and it’s not their fault, it’s just that they don’t have the right tools yet. Be patient, gentle, and compassionate with yourself.
This is a journey of un-learning and re-learning, but it is, without a doubt, one of the most life-changing journeys you will go on.
Photo Credit: Michael Jalaru Torres (@jalaruphotography)
Editor Note
Through Alicia’s experience, we see that pleasure is not a luxury or a checklist; it’s a language of self-trust and presence. For too long, women have been told there’s something “wrong” with them, or that desire must follow someone else’s rules. Her perspective is a call to slow down, listen to your body, and embrace curiosity without shame.
True sexual empowerment begins with compassion for yourself, small moments of pleasure, and the courage to define your own desires. Reclaiming your body and your pleasure isn’t just intimate, it’s revolutionary, and it can transform how you move through the world.
“You are never broken, and your desire is valid”.
