a pleasure-based life is your birthright.
I’m here to help you trust your body as it shows you the way there.
“There are truly no words to express how grateful I am to have worked with Irene. Of all the practitioners I have worked with, Irene has had the most impact on my overall healing.”
— SG
Hi, I’m Irene.
I am a somatic coach, pleasure witch, intimacy educator and author who empowers pleasure liberation and emotional freedom to help folks create the relationships that actually work for them, whether that’s with themselves or others.
I am a lover of all things human and a believer in the transformative power of vulnerability.
My work guides clients into the core of their holistic pleasure and supports them to become fully self-expressed in their desires. Together, we untangle how cultural contexts and oppressive systems have worked their way into our beliefs and bodies in ways that keep us disconnected from ourselves and from each other.
Together, we embrace both individual and collective healing by using pleasure as medicine.
My work is:
-Body-first
-Experiential
-Collaborative
-Consent-focused
My philosophy is deeply rooted in healing for the self as but one aspect of cultivating our collective liberation. When we cultivate awareness, honesty, and celebration within ourselves—particularly as it relates to pleasure—we are better equipped with the tools to live more fully and to use our gifts to heal the world around us.
Background:
Training and Education:
Maryland University of Integrative Health; Master of Science in Yoga Therapy
The Gottman Institute: Clinical Foundations in Gottman Method Couples Therapy (enrolled 2023)
Institute for Sexuality Education & Enlightenment (ISEE); Advancing Clinical Education in Sexuality Certificate
Jane Clapp’s Movement for Trauma
Rachael Maddox’s ReBloom Foundations: Somatic Skills for Post-Traumatic Growth
Health Imperatives; Clinical Sexual and Reproductive Health Counseling for All Ages
Planned Parenthood; Sexual Health Educator Immersion
DONA; birth and labor doula
More than 2,000 hours of formal yoga training in Rishikesh, India, New York City, Martha’s Vineyard, and Baltimore, MD earning certifications in:
Yoga Therapy
Kids’ Yoga
Prenatal Yoga
Wesleyan University; Bachelor of Arts, Sociology
Accolades:
My first book, The Polyamory Paradox achieved bestseller status in categories of Counseling Psychology, Human Sexuality, Anthropology, Lifespan Development, and Social Science
2017 recipient of Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship; Yoga Therapy Applications for Substance Use Recovery and Tick-Borne Illnesses
Personal Lineage and Influences:
Some of my own coaches and support in this work include Che Che Luna, Larissa Conte, Amelia Travis, Varvara Erochina, Bear Hebert, and Lynne Anne Salman.
My work/philosophy is also deeply shaped by the works of adrienne maree brown, Sonya Renee Taylor, Prentis Hemphill, Emily Nagoski, Peter Levine, Jessica Fern, Gabor Mate, and Kristen J Sollée.
Irene’s pleasure reclamation story:
My own healing story begins with my mother’s cancer and early death when I was 14. The developmental trauma I experienced through her illness and its impact on our family took me on a journey of perfectionism, people-pleasing + high achieving, substance use, abusive relationship dynamics + fawning, disordered eating, disempowered sexual choices, abortion, anxiety, depression and overwhelm, all of which would later lead to diagnoses of a panic disorder, depression, ADD, and C-PTSD.
It sounds like a lot because it was.
And through it all, most people would probably tell you I marched to the beat of my own drum, that I pursued what I wanted regardless of others’ expectations. I thought of myself as sexually liberated simply because I liked sex.
Meanwhile, internally I struggled to have any idea of what I really wanted. Time after time, I recreated chaotic conditions for myself because it was, in part, more familiar than the vulnerability required to take responsibility for my true desires. My relationship with sex was more about feeling desired than it was about exploring my own wants or understanding my own needs. I displaced my agency by staying focused on what others’ were doing and how to best serve them before supporting myself. Many of the things I pursued were more about upholding a persona I’d created and receiving accolades than an honest expression of my truth. I operated with a constant presence of defensiveness in my body in order to keep pursuing what I thought would get me where I should be.
And then…
I reclaimed my pleasure. And it helped me embrace my purpose.
As I simultaneously stepped into a life of self-employed terror, the beginning of a sexual awakening, and a claiming of my queer, polyamorous identity, it became very clear very quickly that all this time the trauma that lived in my body had been saying “pleasure isn’t for you. you need to focus on protection.” I didn’t know how to take care of myself in the ways that would strengthen me in the face of challenge. I didn’t know how to communicate in ways that would keep both me and my relationships safe. It became clear I wasn’t as empowered in my pleasure as I thought. I had to learn how to center my own pleasure if I was going to claim my work, my sexuality, the full expression of my queer self.
So finally, I got to it; I began taking stock of all the places in which I had learned to abandon myself and my pleasure. I allowed myself to grieve all the places I’d either been denied or had denied myself pleasure. I began adapting many of the body-based practices I already use to better support my connection to desire, my need for new boundaries, and my capacity for pleasure to be more present in all the areas of my life (you know, like taking shame-free masturbation breaks from work). I got more support; I hired people who could hold the right kind of space for the journey I was on.
And slowly, I began to find so much more power within myself. Each experience of a YES showing me my own wants, and each communication of a NO being a practice that affirmed my ability to show up for myself.
It was learning to work with the shame, the restrictive stories, and the grief that accompanied embodied pleasure that ultimately set me free.
And truly, I believe that’s where the transformation happens in this work. Yes, the pleasure itself guides us to incredible things like visions of interdependence, creative genius, and communicative relationships.
And along the way, we are also skill-building in self-awareness, shame-busting, narrative re-writing, and nervous system resilience.
I now find myself smack dab in the midst of a life of nurturing, intimate relationships, self-employed creative flow, continuous sexual exploration + expansion, profound self-love, and ongoing de-conditioning. Pleasure is a guiding principle in every single realm of my life and damn, do I love how it feels to trust that.
If you see yourself in these words, I know I can support you on the path to trust yourself and your desire more easily, love yourself more fully, claim the power of finding their own peace, and embrace the pleasure that is your birthright.
