Pleasure Uprising: Desire, Attachment, and the Sex You Actually Want

Laura Jurgens, Ph.D.
  • 5.0 (30)
  • Sexuality
  • Updated Weekly

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 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, date nights, 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/guideWheel of Erotic Emotions: https;//laurajurgens.com/wheelFor deeper analysis and the research behind desire, arousal, and attachment -- plus a chance to ask me questions, subscribe to my Substack here:  https://laurajurgens.substack.com/

  1. 3d ago

    Sex After Divorce and Purity Culture: How Amber Let Go of Sexual Shame

    "I want to create a relationship with my body, my mind, pleasure and intimacy that is rooted in my values & freedom, without guilt or shame. I want to have sex with someone I'm not married to and not feel dirty or immoral the next day."  That's what my client Amber wrote on her intake form in June. She rated herself a 1 out of 10. Ten weeks later, she rated herself a 10. In this episode, Amber and I talk about how she made that giant leap.  This is a conversation about building sexual confidence after divorce and letting go of sexual shame. Amber grew up in purity culture and came to me when she was just starting to date again, worried that her desire was too much and feeling that her job in bed was to make the other person comfortable. She tells you what she practiced to shift into owning her pleasure, receiving pleasure without shame, and letting go enough to get back into her body and enjoy the way it responds instead of judge it. She also talks about learning to accept her own desires and preferences for relationship, rather than worrying about being "too much" or assuming having needs means you have an attachment problem (which is not necessarily true).  In this episode:  How Amber learned to receive: lying back, being seen in pleasure, and accepting her face, her sounds and her shaking legs instead of being embarrassed by them What changed when she said her fantasies out loud to someone who didn't flinch, after years of feeling "insatiable" and dirty for wanting so much The anatomy lesson, mirror work and daily breath practice that changed how she feels about her vulva Asking for what she wants without apologizing, including an orgasm before penetration Why sex stopped hurting once foreplay took as long as her body needed How she went from freezing or fawning to saying no out loud, starting with low-stakes role play Why wanting more contact from a partner wasn't anxious attachment. It was having needs and not getting them met The sentence she prepared for the morning after, so shame didn't get the first word. Amber got here by listening to what her body asked for, one small decision at a time, and practicing until she trusted herself. If you're starting over after divorce, struggling with people-pleasing, feeling like you're "too much," or still hearing the voice of religious shaming in your head, this one is for you.  Topics: sexual confidence, sex after divorce, sexual shame, receiving pleasure, purity culture, boundaries  Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

  2. Oct 5

    How to Last Longer in Bed: What It Really Takes & What Partners Really Want

    If you want to last longer in bed, the stopwatch is probably not your biggest problem. Most men who orgasm faster than they want to are carrying performance anxiety, and it shows up as tension in the pelvic floor, tension in the whole body, and a habit of pulling away from the person they're with. Here's the thing. When researchers asked women whose partners came quickly what distressed them most, the top answer was not how fast it happened. It was his lack of attention and his focus on his own performance. This episode is for men who come faster than they want to, and for the partners who love them. In this episode: Why partners are usually upset about the shame and the withdrawal, not the clock, and what research says about average time to orgasmHow anxiety, pelvic floor tension, and old masturbation habits train your body to orgasm fastA five-minute breath and pelvic floor practice, plus how to slow down and ride the waves in self-pleasureWhat to say to your partner, whether you're the one struggling with PE or the one who's partner is strugglingHow to take the pressure off tonight, before any practice has time to workWhere c**k rings, positions, and medication fit, and when to see a doctorLasting longer is worth working on. But staying present and engaged with your partner, whether you've orgasmed or not, is what your partner will remember, and that part you can start right now. Topics: how to last longer in bed, lasting longer, performance anxiety men, premature ejaculation, early ejaculation, pelvic floor exercises for men  Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

  3. Sep 28

    How to Initiate Sex With a Responsive Desire Partner

    If you ask your partner "do you want to have sex?" and they say no almost every time, the problem might not be desire. Seriously.  It's the question. Responsive desire doesn't show up to that question. It shows up in response to something tangible happening that enables desire. So if nothing has happened yet, there's nothing there to say yes to. That's not rejection. That's an honest answer to a question that can't be answered yet. Responsive desire is also the most common form of desire in long-term relationships, and in most adults over 40, regardless of gender, in my practical experience. Almost nobody depicts it that way, so a lot of people think something's wrong with them for having it. Today I'm going to help you understand responsive desire and how to navigate it, including how to make more effective invitations.  In this episode: What responsive desire actually is, and why it works like breadcrumbs rather than a switchWhy asking for sex point blank almost always gets a no from a responsive desire person, and why that's not the problem it looks likeWhy no has to be genuinely safe before yes becomes possible, and why nobody is ever entitled to their partner's bodyWhat to actually ask for instead of asking for sex, and how to build a "menu" of what generally feels goodThe exact conversation to have before you're in bed, not duringHow to avoid the pitfall of turning a good night into next time's obligationWhy this matters even more if you're neurodivergent, and what pathological demand avoidance (PDA) has to do with itIf you give yourself real time and space, with no predetermined destination, desire tends to show up. You just can't demand it in advance. Topics: responsive desire, initiating sex, sexual rejection, desire discrepancy, consent, neurodivergence and intimacy Links to other episodes mentioned: Saying No Vs. Rejection: https://laurajurgens.com/138-sexual-rejection-vs-saying-no/ The Freedom Wound: https://laurajurgens.com/137-the-freedom-wound-why-you-say-yes-when-you-want-to-say-no/ Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

  4. Sep 21

    Your Superpowers: Building Sexual Confidence From What You Already Do Well

    You know what you struggle with in bed, and you're probably pretty hard on yourself about it. But if I ask what you're good at, do you go blank? Focusing on our deficits is just what brains do, but it costs us more than we think. You're not broken, and you are not starting from zero. I spend a lot of time on this show talking about what gets in the way. Shame, performance, the stories you absorbed about your body. That work matters. But there's a flip side that gets overlooked: you almost certainly have sensual and sexual strengths right now that you have never once given yourself credit for. The things that come easily to us just feel like the water we swim in, so we assume everyone has them and we don't count them as anything. And that costs you, because when all you can see is the gap between where you are and where you want to be, you start using that gap as proof you'll never get there. In this episode: Why fixating on what's missing quietly undermines your ability to get thereThe tale of two Lauras: the softball season I quit before it ended, and the Olympic weightlifting I'm still doing and lovingHow measuring backwards from where you started keeps motivation aliveSixteen categories of sensual and sexual superpowers, from knowing your erogenous zones to flirting, receiving, consent, imagination, and taking your timeWhy nobody has all of them, and why you don't have to work on everythingAn exercise to find your own, and what to do once you have the listGetting out of performance isn't only about putting down the act. It's also about finding out what's underneath it and owning that. You can't stop performing if you don't believe you have anything real to offer without the performance. You do. Topics: sexual confidence, sexual self-esteem, body confidence, embodiment, pleasure, sexual shame Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

  5. Sep 14

    The Worth Wound: Why You're Attracted to People Who Don't Want You

    I used to break up with the good ones. The kind, available, clearly-into-me ones. Not because I got bored. Because it made my skin crawl. I knew it was bad for me, but I didn't fully understand why I felt that way until I learned to feel worthy, twenty years later. This is the final episode in my series on attachment wounds and how they shape desire and relationship dynamics. Today's is the worth wound: the belief that love has to be earned. We talk about how this impacts relationships and, among other things, turns intimacy into performance instead of presence. In this episode: Where the worth wound gets built in childhood, even in loving families, and why high-achieving or scarcity-driven households produce it so reliablyHow it shows up differently in the body: sexual numbness or pain in people with vulvas, erectile difficulty or hypersexuality in people with penises, both tied to performance anxiety Why being fully wanted by someone who's clearly into you can feel like an ick instead of a relief, and what that reaction is actually protecting you fromThe two erotic pathways this wound creates, why playing with them can be healing if you know how to ask a partner for the right stuff, and how to tell which one your fantasies are runningHow this wound plays out in long-term relationships: testing partners, over-functioning, and the black hole dynamic where nothing your partner offers ever feels like enoughThe two-part practice for healing it: soothing the inner child parts that hold the not-enoughness, then practicing being instead of doingThe sentence most worth-wound carrying people crave from themselves and their loved onesYou are not required to perform your way into being loved. That was never the deal, even when it felt like it was. You get to just be wanted. Topics: feeling unworthy, attachment wounds, dissociating during sex, feeling numb during sex, performance anxiety men, people pleasing Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

  6. Sep 7

    How to Say No to Sex Without Rejecting Your Partner

    She wanted more sex with her husband. She flirted. She invited him to bed. She was not subtle. And he had an entire set of moves for avoiding it. Staying up working late. Taking a very long shower and hoping she'd be asleep by the time he came to bed. Acting harried, a quick peck, roll over. He almost never said no out loud. He told me directly that he was avoiding saying it because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. He thought that was the kind version. It was so much worse than a no would have been. Because what she was receiving, night after night, was not "not tonight." It was "I don't want you." Here's the punchline, straight out: a no and a rejection are not the same thing. A no is information about this moment. A rejection is the withdrawal of connection. Most of us have collapsed them into one thing, and it's costing us. In this episode: Why a no is just one piece of data about right now, and a rejection is something you do with your body and your attentionThe two reasons people overstate their no: not feeling entitled to say it, and never having seen it done wellWhat the nonverbal rejection dance does to a relationship over time, and why invitations eventually stop happening altogetherA four-step way to say no out loud and stay connected while you do itWhat to do if you're the one receiving it, because this is not a one-person jobWhy the desire for an orgasm and the desire for connection are different wants, and what happens when you conflate themOther ways of connecting, and why most of my clients turn out to want to feel wanted more than they want sex at any given moment (regardless of gender)You can say no as often as it's true. A no is a gift of trust. It's the rejection that does the damage, and those are two completely different dances. This episode will show you how to separate them.  Topics: sexual rejection, saying no to sex, desire discrepancy, mismatched libido, responsive desire, feeling rejected by partner Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

  7. Aug 31

    The Freedom Wound: Why You Say Yes When You Want to Say No

    Picture someone who says yes to almost everything. They're helpful, they're loyal, they always show up. And yet there's always some reluctance. A headache. A tiredness. They take forever to get out the door. Underneath all that yes is a wagon load of resentment about being asked in the first place. This shows up in bed exactly the way it shows up everywhere else. They think they want intimacy. They say they want it, and they probably mean it. But when the moment comes, their body does something else. If you ask what changed, they may genuinely not know. This is episode four of the specific attachment wounds and erotic emotions series, and it's about what happens when a small child's no was not allowed. Around age two to five, we're supposed to discover that we get to decide things for ourselves, at least sometimes. When that gets squashed, or love is conditional on compliance, life turns into a series of obligations. The autonomy that never got a legitimate outlet goes underground into slowness, procrastination, and quiet resistance. A lot of people with this wound have to be allowed to say no before they can find a yes. Not as a preference. As a requirement. In this episode: Where the freedom wound comes from, and the two very different directions it goes depending on whether compliance actually earned loveWhat it feels like from the inside, including the pride in enduring and the fury about having had to endureWhy procrastination and slowness are the body's protest response, not a character flawWhy welcoming a partner's no is one of the most erotic things you can do, and why it's non-negotiable for this woundThe paradox of chosen restraint, and why submitting to control you selected can feel like freedomWhy dragging your partner into anything is the worst available strategy, and what to do insteadHow to start telling the difference between an obligated yes and a real oneThere is nothing wrong with you. This was a wise strategy for a small person who wasn't allowed to have preferences. You're allowed to have them now. Topics: sex feels like obligation, people pleasing in relationships, resentment in relationships, saying no, attachment wounds Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

  8. Aug 24

    Penis Size, Performance Anxiety, and What Women Really Want

    A man came to me because his marriage was close enough to over that they'd both used the word divorce. Underneath the resentment and the withdrawal and the fights about everything else was this: his erections came and went. Sometimes they softened partway through. Sometimes they didn't show up. That is normal. It happens to men at every age. But he was so ashamed of it that he avoided sex with his wife for ten years. She had guessed, and she had told him more than once that it did not matter to her. He did not believe her. We solved it in about four sessions. None of the actual problems were about his penis. They were about the shame, the silence, the misdirected anger, and the avoidance. This is the third episode in my body shame series, and it's the one for people with penises. I'm giving you the real numbers on size, hardness, and duration, because they are nothing like what porn taught you. Then I'm going through each specific worry with a fix that gets you both more pleasure and less anxiety. In this episode: Where penis shame comes from, and what porn does to your subconscious when you don't get better informationThe actual average erect length, from clinician-measured data on over 55,000 men, plus what's normal variation (hint: 3" is as normal as 7")Why 85% of women are satisfied with their partner's size while only 55% of men are satisfied with their own, and what to do about size, regardless of yoursThe single change that solves lasting-longer anxiety better than any technique, and why stopping sex when you orgasm is the real problemWhy 75 to 80% of women don't orgasm from penetration alone, and what that means for where your anxiety is aimedHow performance anxiety physically restricts blood flow, and why you cannot will an erection into existence by worrying at itSpecific fixes for size concerns, a genuinely small penis, erections that fluctuate, delayed ejaculation, aging, and lower desireWhat women consistently report actually caring aboutYour penis was never the problem. Don't spend any more years of your life creating unnecessary misery because of shame about it. Topics: erectile dysfunction anxiety, penis size, delayed ejaculation, premature ejaculation, how to last longer, what women want in bed Send Laura Fan Mail 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   Follow me on Substack for deeper dives into the research and notes from my practice at https://laurajurgens.substack.com/ The Guide to Finding Your Secret Turn-Ons includes the Wheel of Erotic Emotions: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel  © Laura Jurgens, PhD, Pleasure Uprising. Quote with attribution and a link to the original. No reproduction in full and no use for AI training.

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About

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 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, date nights, 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/guideWheel of Erotic Emotions: https;//laurajurgens.com/wheelFor deeper analysis and the research behind desire, arousal, and attachment -- plus a chance to ask me questions, subscribe to my Substack here:  https://laurajurgens.substack.com/

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