Misseducated

Tash Doherty
  • 4.9 (31)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Biweekly

Misseducated is on a mission to help make the world shamelessly sexy. Covering topics like sex workers' rights, femtech, porn, domestic violence and fertility, Tash Doherty discovers the stories of fascinating people and explores their unusual viewpoints in conversations we rarely have. misseducated.tashdoherty.com

  1. Sep 1

    A Love Letter to My Magic Wand 💌

    The folks at Magic Wand heard I was a fan and asked how they could support my writing and readers. I suggested they pay me to write this article. Still, the opinions and the 1,500 orgasms are entirely my own. Check out their Substack, Rumblings! This piece discusses sex in depth. I advise my family to not read or listen it. Continue at your peril! 😈 Audio Pairing for today’s love letter: Dear Magic Wand, You were born into my loving relationship in the fall of 2019, when my boyfriend bought you on Amazon. He said he had done all the research. He said you were the best thing he could find. You joined our collection of dildos and butt plugs, but from that first day, you were, undoubtedly, mine. You were a gift. Cum back for more! 😋 It meant a lot to me. I’d never had somebody give me that kind of gift before, one that would let me access and experience new aspects of my body. You arrived in the middle of those first few months, when two people were learning how to love each other fully, deeply, and unapologetically. Sadly, the boyfriend who gifted you to me has blocked me on everything. We didn’t end amicably. We divided you and our other sex toys up during the breakup, and then had a couple sessions of steamy breakup sex (which were amazing). But we’ve barely spoken since. And yet, given that I still have you, he continues to have a positive impact in my life every single day. Not many people can say that about their ex-boyfriends. I am grateful to him for that, even now. At first, I didn’t appreciate your power or your beauty. How could I? I had never used you before. I had no idea what the appeal was. I’d been cycling through cheap bullet vibrators, which I had bought in discreet embarrassment from the checkout registers of sex shops. A collection of their tiny, dead, round batteries that looked like coins had gathered in a little sack in the bottom of my stuff drawer. It was either that, or just my hands, which I’m still not opposed to using. Then you changed everything. You have taught me so much about my body. You taught me that I can orgasm more than once in a row. In sessions of dedication to finding my truest self and “returning to source,” you helped me reach new heights. At my peak, I got up to six or seven orgasms in a short sequence. It was pretty crazy. When I get going in a rhythm like that, my vision blurs, fluids spray everywhere, and my limbs are shaking, pulsating. I lose control. It’s quite a sight to see. Not my most lady-like in the traditional sense, but undoubtedly my most raw. With you, I’ve entered new realms beyond what I thought my body was capable of. I wish I sat down for longer sessions with you more often. Taking time fully for myself, no interruptions. Still, I like the daily ritual we have going on, too. It’s a low hum. A brief one-two. I reach into the third drawer of my wardrobe, where you exist alongside my other “contraband,” like my onyx butt plug, my enema, and a bag of magic mushrooms that have lost their potency since I stopped microdosing. I don’t know why I leave you there. Maybe at some level, I feel some shame about you. I keep you hidden, though I’m sure my cleaner has probably found you at least once or twice. Still, this is where our routine begins. I pull you out. It’s quick. It’s quotidian. Like the first sip of a warm latte. You help me get through the day. You lighten the mood. Some might call it basic, pedestrian. But I see it as a necessary, daily reclamation of my pleasure. I grew up in a world where I believed that, as a woman, enjoying myself was wrong, selfish, and morally reprehensible. The three minutes we spend together each day challenge the world of my childhood, and bring me peace. Most of the time, I close both doors to my bathroom and my living room. The sun shines through the checkered French windowed door of my bathroom. I lie down on the large blue-and-cream-striped Oaxacan linen bedspread, with arrowed yellow stitching along some edges and cream-braided tassels at the corners. I am clothed; my knickers, trousers, and whatever I’m wearing on my bottom half hang around my ankles. Images of the objects and people of my desire cycle through my mind. I use your short-short-looongggg pulsing sensations to get me there, or the single, intense stream to stop my mind from going to other places. The cute, moody guy with the tattoos and the wavy black hair who I see when I cowork at La Laguna. An ex who was tall, and strong, and buff, who could pin me down in bed or in the shower, but offered me little else. A married former coworker inseminating me. Well, I never said I was perfect. It’s gentle. It’s quiet. I snatch these tiny moments with you each day. Sometimes watching porn, especially on a Saturday afternoon in the warm daylight of my bathroom, before I’ve showered after pickleball. In the hushed nights when I’ve met a new partner, who is going to be in my underwear for a good time, not a long time. I now insist on bringing you with me. Since I’ve set out on my mission to help the world be shamelessly sexy, you’ve helped me live my values. You are what I bargain for when I tell a new partner that I want to come, too. That my pleasure matters, too. At least, a little. If not, equally. Some men use their words and complain, but I am doubtful of their skills to back up their whiny confidence in themselves. Their little egos are scratched like a new car. I’ve just met them, whereas you have never let me down. With time, I’ve chosen to care less about what they think. You help me make sure that I get my fair share. We’re closing the orgasm gap, together, baby. One climax at a time. That’s what matters most. There was only one man I didn’t need you with. We still used you a couple of times, though, because unlike the whiny gentlemen, he was a man of generosity, care, and abundance when it came to enjoying each other. More is more. There, I said it. He was a barista whom I met here in Mexico City. When I was his, he was just as passionate about tasting me as he was about tasting drinks. He taught me how to talk dirty in Spanish, the nuanced Mexican slang that I’ve wowed lovers with since. He told me I was very tasty. He figured me out, one might say. He could read what my body needed when I still didn’t have words for it. In plain and simple terms, that meant a healthy dose of consistent clitoral stimulation, then teasing me with butt stuff. Just a finger would do. Or so he knew, somehow. Maybe he studied me like a map. Maybe I already had the directions and told him where to go. I guess I’ve learned the importance of knowing thyself. No one gave me the answers. I had to experiment with you, explore with my partners, and learn what I liked in order to be happy and free. You’ve helped me find new dynamics with my partners, too. Like with the man who was bearded, smart, and extremely hot, but who had a terrible personality. I insisted on using you and having an orgasm every time we changed penetrative sex positions. It was awesome, like a buffet that just kept going. To my partners who have said they don’t like you, or don’t want you around, I remember my favorite quote from Psychology Professor, Dr. Laurie Mintz: “Do carpenters become addicted to power tools? No, power tools just get the job done faster. Many women really love their vibrators, but that’s a personal preference, not an addiction.” At the age of 31, I no longer put the natural or manual way of doing things on a pedestal. I’m not compromising my pleasure for anything or anyone, thank you very much. Because you’ve been through it all with me. As I write this seven years later, you’ve moved with me from San Francisco to New York, and New York to Mexico City. From being a somewhat disgruntled Product Analyst working in tech, to an independent author writing about you on the internet, living my dream creative life. Six apartments in three cities later, here we are. It’s strange to think that you have given me more orgasms than I have given myself. You give me, probably, 270 orgasms a year. Maybe more. Sometimes, I foolishly left you in a cupboard somewhere when I was traveling, and became grouchier because of it. If I had to guess, it would be 1,500 orgasms you’ve given me. That’s a lot to think about. You fit seamlessly into my life like a glove I put on briefly and take off. Like the running notes down the scale of a xylophone. How many charges do you have left in you? I hate to think of the day, if ever, when you will die. What would I do then? Given your longevity so far, I have faith you’ll be around for a while still. I hope you’ll carry me at least into my next loving relationship, so I can pass you over like a baton to my next master. Into the hands of the next man I choose to control me, and give me a good one-two-three orgasms. I’m a sub, after all. You know that. Thank you for always being there for me, and for helping me claim my pleasure. You’ve helped me transform my shame into shamelessness. I love you, Tash 💌 ✍️ Extra Treats 🍬 My Online Course “Awakening” is my first online Intimacy Writing course! It costs $30, and in it, you’ll get a 1:1 guided writing session with the poem, prompts, and writing accountability from me right there on the screen. Misseducated readers get 20% off with code INTIMACY at checkout! Or if you’re more of a fictionista, check out my debut novel! It’s a spicy, coming-of-age story set in London in 2010. Keep in touch! 🥰 Instagram TikTok LinkedIn Cum again? 💦 Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

  2. Aug 19

    My Creative Manifesto 🎨

    Have a listen to my narration if you like an audio experience! Introduction 📕 You’ve caught me in the messy middle. I’ve self-published two books, and my creative vision is still coming to fruition. I’m currently broke, yet when it comes to building a creative life, this is what I have faith in. This is what I believe. I grew up in London, in an environment where nothing really mattered except being academically gifted in serious subjects like science and business, and making lots of money. I believed that in order to make that money, you had to dedicate your life to something you hated. The more you hated your life, the more money you’d probably make. This has never been my approach to life. In my mind, I’ve never separated work, life, and pleasure. Despite evil corporate forces and societal expectations, I’ve found and dedicated myself to things I deeply care about. Not because I believe that I’m special (though I’m sure ego has something to do with it). But more because, for better or worse, I’ve been guided by feelings. For example, I’m enjoying writing for you right now. Let me do more of it. I like this piece of art, the design of this thing, or the look of that architecture. It’s pretty. It’s nice. Pure, basic aesthetics are what drive me. In this manifesto, I push through the frankly toxic beliefs of my childhood and move into a world of feelings, self-expression, and pretty things, while also making a living. To do this, I’ve brought together data, philosophies of new role models, and “alternative facts” (lol). This is not a dream. This is not a rehearsal dinner for the wedding of life. I’ve reconstructed a way to live that centers joy as something to be taken seriously, where you can make money, and potentially lots of it, doing something you absolutely love. I’ve written this for you because I believe that how we see the world changes what we believe is possible for us. Feel free to tell me I’m full of s**t in the comments. Let’s begin. Subscribe to see whether I make it or not professionally, lol 😅 1. Make stuff. 🔨 The words I hate to hear most out of someone’s mouth are: “I’ve always wanted to…but…” Come on, people! It’s the 21st century, and climate change is about to burn us all to a crisp. Do not tell me about your ideas and dreams you have no intention of pursuing. Do not be like that woman in her 60s, whom I met at a sushi dinner party, who always dreamt of becoming a sitcom screenwriter. Wtf is wrong with you? Sit down right now and write the first word. There is nothing stopping you. Dreams are not real, just a fantasy that will die with you. You actually have to start somewhere and make stuff. I don’t care if you write really slowly. I don’t care if what you start creating is literal crap. Just make something. Start with one brush stroke or write one word on the page, and make it real. Then you’ll have something to work with. The only exception is if you are a mother with young children under 5. Everyone else, no excuses. As Anne Lamott said: “[A] lot of my workshops involve people explaining to me that they’re going to start writing as soon as their last child is out of the house, as soon as they move to the Russian River, as soon as they retire…if you’re not writing now, you’re not gonna write then…The key is not to try harder, but to resist less.” 2. Replace your idols. 🧿 Despite the core philosophy of depressed money-making in my childhood, there was one quirky side character whom I’ve tried to bring to the center stage. Sir Paul Smith is a legendary British menswear fashion designer. I grew up a privileged little tot, and at one point in 2012, I found out that he lived on my street, in a large house on the corner covered with purple wisteria. It was a very dark, empty, and mysterious place because I later learned that Paul leaves at 5am every day to go swimming, and I imagine his wife, Pauline, does too. I was on the committee of a lecture society at my fancy school, and so I wrote Sir Paul Smith a handwritten letter inviting him to speak. I got an email from one of his assistants not long after, and he accepted the invitation! She later told me that Paul had never really used a computer, so a handwritten note was really the only way to get his attention. The day Sir Paul Smith came to speak at my school, I introduced him to a crowd of 400 curious teenagers. One thing that stood out from his talk was that he showed a picture of a row of beach houses he saw in the UK, and then a new suit and pair of socks with their color palette translated straight onto them. He also threw keychains across the room to students who asked questions in the Q&A. It was awesome, and we later toured his studio in Covent Garden. Sir Paul Smith made an impression on me. To this day, I regularly think of his words at the beginning of his interview on the Blamo! Podcast, “And I thought: I wonder if you can go earn a living doing something that’s creative like this. It could be a brilliant way of earning a living. And it just progressed from there.” I keep a little chromatic blue dog on my desk. It’s a miniature of one that I couldn’t afford to buy at Paul Smith’s shop in Notting Hill. But it reminds me that making money isn’t all grind and pain. It can be fun, and even inspired by a colorful row of beach houses. 3. F**k the gatekeepers. 🙉 “While the artist’s goal is greatness, it’s also to move forward. In service of the next project, we finish the current one. In service of the current project, we finish it so it can be set free into the world.” — Rick Rubin, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” Putting a piece of creative work out into the world is a vulnerable thing to do. If we don’t have a ton of creative experience, it’s natural to want validation from some industry leader or accomplished person. We may anxiously proofread our email to them 100 times before we send it. What if they say no, or worse, don’t respond at all? Who will we be then? Rejection of your work from a gatekeeper might feel like the end of your world, but I’d argue that it’s just the beginning. It doesn’t matter if it’s one gatekeeper or 10; it means nothing. So what if Sarah, the New York literary agent you really wanted, probably hungover in the Hamptons, emailed you to say “Thank you for the chance to read your work, but it’s not a fit.” You spent fifteen years writing that novel (in my case) and put real effort into making something awesome. F**k it! A piece of work you put a lot of effort into is probably good, and your effort alone is enough of a reason for it to see the light of day. It deserves to arrive in its final state of completion: birthed, published, shown, seen, witnessed. You need to finish this piece so that you can start making something else. I spent years and years writing my debut novel, queried a metric s**t ton of literary agents, and got all rejections. My inner teenager needed “These Perfectly Careless Things” to be published, but I wanted to work on other things. I decided to self-publish it. Even if it wasn’t perfect. Even if I never quite got the marketing right for that book. But I did it. Here I am, free on the other side, to make more work. I haven’t sat around for another 3 years waiting for a traditional publishing deal and fantasizing about becoming an author, because I already am one. Of course, I would have loved to have a big publishing deal, lots of money, and millions of copies sold. Maybe if I had been patient for six more months and then waited another two years for the book to be published, I’d be as rich and famous as Sally Rooney or Dolly Alderton. But also, more likely, I wouldn’t be. I might have gotten discouraged and traipsed back to New York to my horrible corporate life again with my tail between my legs. Most creative careers are built through teeny, tiny actions to no fanfare or clapping audience. Maybe a few people will clap for you, and a few people will email you to say how much they loved your work. But ultimately, waiting for acceptance can be a far greater risk than experiencing the rejection itself. p.s. There is one way gatekeepers can be useful to you. I’ve noticed that when I write something to pitch to The New York Times or McSweeney’s, I produce better writing. If you’re pitching a publication, you’re probably not going to send them something crap, so they’re useful as a phantom, 3rd-party accountability buddy that can challenge you to raise the bar for your work. Yet, when they inevitably reject it, put your work out there anyway! The previously rejected pieces that I published myself are among my most successful and widely shared. My readers love it. My creative cup is filled. And I take one more step to building a body of impactful work that I’m proud of. 💡 Save my two best rejected works for later: 4. Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. 🧘‍♀️ I met a girl last summer who absolutely enraged me. As we chatted, I learned she was an impressive, traditionally published author of two books. Her first book was, in publishing terms, a “flop” because the release date coincided with the beginning of COVID. She wrote another book, and that one did a bit better, but she had fallen out of favor with her publishing gods, and both of her books would soon be out of print. “Can’t you release the paperbacks somehow?” I said, reeling. “There’s got to be something you can do about this.” “Nah,” she said, shrugging. “They own all the rights. I pitched them another book idea, but they wanted me to write something else. I’d basically have to start writing again from scratch.” I mean, yes, you would, I thought to myself. But isn’t that the point? It’s your writing, your name, your life’s work! But for her, clearly it wasn’t. The publishing gods had decided which

  3. Aug 4

    How To Talk Dirty in Spanish

    This post has been updated! You can read the latest version here on tashdoherty.com. Introduction “How did your Spanish get so good?” a well-meaning gringa (American) asks me, gaping. She’s been in Roma Norte for six months, trying to improve her Spanish by taking classes. Unsurprisingly, that wasn’t going well for her. “It’s a long story,” I shrug. My last four and a half years of romantic date spots and spontaneous hookups flash before my eyes. I remember all the Mexican men who patiently listened to me during my broken-fluency phase, probably because they wanted to get into my underwear. “I’ve found that dating in Spanish helps a lot.” “Huh,” she says, pulling out her phone as if taking serious notes. Be promiscuous. Sleep around. “Once people started complimenting me on my speaking and my ego got involved, that’s when I really started perfecting it. It’s nice to impress people, you know? But let’s be real,” I said, leaning in closer. “There’s a lot of words they’re not going to teach you in Spanish class.” “Really?” she said, looking extra perplexed. “Like what?” I paraphrased this list of flirty terms for her, and I’m about to share them with you. This list is not comprehensive at all; it’s organic and random, much like the way you learn a language naturally by “coqueteando y cogiendo” (flirting and f*****g) in the day-to-day. Immersion isn’t linear, and neither is fluency. Still, I hope you enjoy these silly, dirty phrases and the honest, embarrassing stories behind how I learned them. What dirty phrases do you know in Spanish? What’s the story behind how you learned them? Share them in the comments! Cringey Mexican Spanish Phrases I’ve Learned 1. ¿Te gustan las nalgadas?” 🫱 It was April 2022, and I had just arrived in Mexico City. In my first two weeks, I was already exploring the Barista Man’s body (you know, the one I give the highest praise for eating me out). I had just moved into an apartment in Roma Norte with a lovely gay man and a lovely bisexual man. A couple of days after I moved in, my housemate, Sebastian, said to me, “¿Te gustan las nalgadas?” I looked at him, confused. My Spanish at the time wasn’t very good, and it was almost impossible to understand him in his thick, “Chihuahuense” (person from Chihuahua) accent. “Tú sabes,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “Nal-gad-as.” He made a kind of hitting (spanking) gesture. “Oh!” I cried, laughing awkwardly and blushing, “Nal-gad-as. Sí, I guess.” That’s when I remembered something: this two-bedroom apartment had been split into three, and Sebastian had a flimsy curtain for a door. The walls were thin, and I’d really made no effort to keep the volume down. Yikes. Official Tash Translation: “¿Te gustan las nalgadas?” = “Do you like to be spanked?” Cringe Learning Level: 8/10. It would have been 10/10, but I was too proud and newly falling in love with Barista Man to care. Cum again? 💦 2. “Eres bien sabrosa.” 👅 This was one of the first dirty things Barista Man said to me. With his head between my legs, telling me I am so tasty, he somehow stroked my ego and my c**t at the same time. There’s something particularly hot about someone professional, who tastes things for a living, telling you that you’re yummy as hell. I replied, “¿Tenías hambre?” As you know from my BDSM test results, I love being a brat, feigning power before I relinquish all control and descend into blissful chaos. I didn’t speak very good Spanish at the time, but this phrase seemed fitting. Official Tash Translation: “Eres bien sabrosa” (to say it to a girl) or “Eres bien sabroso” (to say to a boy) = “You’re so tasty.” “¿Tenías hambre?” = “Were you hungry?” Cringe Learning Level: 7/10. Extra Treats 🍬 Or if you’re more of a fictionista 💃…. What I’m Currently Listening To 🎶 I love Susanne Sundfør. She’s awesome. Keep in touch! 🥰 Instagram TikTok LinkedIn Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

  4. Mar 26

    4 Lessons From 4 Years Since I Quit My Job

    Dear Wonderful Reader, Tuesday, March 17th, 2026, marked 4 years since I freed myself from the shackles of my corporate job. Four years is a decent chunk of time. For the same duration as my undergraduate degree, I’ve been frolicking around Mexico City, perfecting my Spanish and waking up every day to the joy of being alive. How have I survived without a regular paycheck? And, more importantly, have I learned anything that’s useful to you? It has been mostly a dream, but this quit-my-job-aversary comes at a particularly difficult time. I’ve barely made $2,000 this quarter, not even close to my personal OKR of $15k. Selling some of my index fund investments to pay my rent makes me feel like I’m failing at being an adult. Then again, I did take six months off client work to launch my second book, get it funded on Kickstarter in just 12 days, and get featured in The New York Times. Still, it’s hard to see the beauty in all that I’ve accomplished when reality is currently kicking my ass. As you know, last week I was hit by a family emergency, causing me to fork out a couple thousand dollars more to fly to LA and say goodbye to my grandmother, who it seemed was on her deathbed. I sat with her in the hospital for five days as she went through a heart operation, reflecting on life in a mortal-imperative kind of way, while somehow helping to nurse her back to health. It was a close call. Not every day is sunshine and roses. Sometimes those deeper, existential questions irk me. Am I really that much better off than before I burned my New York 9-5 life to the ground back in 2022? However, all it takes is a five-minute conversation with another software engineer who hates his life to knock my own sense back into me. I’ve definitely made the right choice. I’m definitely not in the same place in this “creative career” as when I started. My direction is clearer and narrower in a way that’s motivating. I have a product to sell. I have workshops to teach. My path has a lot more shape, but it’s not easier. In fact, I’m still suffering. Yet I am following the advice of Graham Weaver, from my favorite episode of Lenny’s Podcast: “Life is suffering, so make sure you pick something worth suffering for.” That’s how this feels right now. It’s a lot of work, but I’m much happier doing this than sending Sean a stupid, boring spreadsheet. (If you remember, in my corporate tech career, I worked with more men named Sean than with women on my teams, lol). Here are four lessons I’ve learned in my fourth year of freedom. A second date? 🫦 1. Money still doesn’t really matter. Yes, I’m a hypocrite. Aside from keeping the lights on and paying my rent, I still believe that money doesn’t really matter to me in my life. Through much self-reflection, I’ve learned that making money for money’s sake means nothing to me. I only make money to fund my creative projects and have control over my time. I couldn’t give a s**t about owning a home. Sometimes I wish I had a bit more disposable income to travel, but that’s about it. At the same time, the highest highs of my life cost next to nothing. Creating The Intimacy Journal in the second half of last year was pure creative bliss. Designing the pages, curating the erotic poetry, I had never felt so alive as I brought that book to life. Same with meeting up with a special group of incredibly talented poets and writers in Mexico City. Reading my work to them, experiencing their work, and feeling held creatively is absolutely f*****g amazing. Enough said. Send this to a fun, creative friend 🚀 2. There are doers, and there are dreamers. The other day, I was talking to a guy who planned to sell shoes from Mexico in the US. “What shipping service are you using?” I asked him. “Well, we haven’t actually done it yet,” he said, “We’re just developing the idea and exploring our options right now.” Huh, I thought. So he hasn’t even really faced the issue, which is shipping stuff from Mexico to the US. He doesn’t know that Correos de Mexico, the Mexican postal service, isn’t permitting anyone to send more than a postcard. He doesn’t know they just digitalized their system and charge a s**t ton more to send anything? Got it. Something that continues to carry me through these years is that when I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Many people stand around commenting that what you’re doing is cool and that they’re doing it too, but then they don’t actually do it themselves. You also don’t realize how much you will grow through this whole process. I look back, and I’m like: oh s**t! I fulfilled 99% of the orders on my Kickstarter campaign. I hosted those workshops. I’ve done a lot of things, actually. And I’ve learned a lot, too. If you’ve been doing the things, you probably know a lot more than you think you know. By doing anything, you’re already way ahead of someone who hasn’t done anything at all. The same thing goes for reading books. A lot of people don’t read any books these days. Even if you just read one page of one book, that’s infinitely more than someone who just goes around saying how much they’d like to read more. Everyone talks a big game. When someone tells me about their dreams, but they aren’t actively doing them, I tune out. But when someone is doing something, even if they suck at it and they’re failing, I respect them. 3. Always be selling. Show, don’t tell. If you bump into me on the street today, I am carrying 2 copies of my latest book, The Intimacy Journal. I have one sample copy and one copy in a gift-wrapped plastic sleeve. Why? Well, when people ask me what I do, I don’t tell them; I pull the sample copy out of my bag and show them. I read them a line or a short poem, I show them the pages that I designed myself, and I tell them the story of how the book came about. I’m really proud of my book, and I think it’s beautiful. So I enjoy watching people interact with it for the first time. What happens after that? Unexpectedly, they often want to buy one! And that’s when I sell them the gift-wrapped copy. This doesn’t always work, but I’ve sold about 42 copies of my book this way, which is about $1,250 USD in revenue for me (over a month’s rent!). Plus, people often add a little tip. It’s nice to have some extra cash on me. At times, it can get a little exhausting, and I feel torn or guilty if I’m not carrying copies of my book wherever I go. But I did sell 4 copies at my friend’s Christmas party. In fact, the last thing I did in 2025 was sell a copy of my book to a lovely gay man at a New Year’s Eve Party. Neat, huh? I keep track of how they pay me (Cash, Venmo, PayPal) and the currency they pay in (GBP, USD, MXN, EUR). This is a true story: when I was a teenager, my family lived on the same street as the esteemed English fashion designer, Sir Paul Smith (he was knighted by The Queen years before). I only saw Paul Smith on my street a couple of times because he wakes up at 5am every day to go swimming. But one time, I ran into him and asked how he was. He immediately said to me, “I’m excellent, thank you. I’m just picking out the furnishings for a new shop we’re opening on Albemarle, in Mayfair. You might like to go check it out.” His words left an impression on me. He’s perhaps the most famous designer of men’s clothing in the world. His clothes are on billboards. He has shops in Tokyo and on Melrose in LA, and he’d been designing collections at Paris and Milan fashion week for longer than I’d been alive. As a 16-year-old girl, I wasn’t exactly his target demographic. And yet, here he was, imploring me to check out his new shop on Albemarle. I never forgot that he said that to me. And believe it or not, I did visit that new shop a few months later. And I liked the furnishings. You’re not an obnoxious guy standing there with a big sign that you’re flinging around at a car depot. Don’t do anything tasteless. But if someone asks you what you do, or what kind of things you write, it’s about 1000x cooler to show them a beautiful book that you’ve created yourself than just about anything else. 4. Focus on one thing at a time. One thing that has changed my life in the last year was deciding to focus on only one project: The Intimacy Journal. The world is a wide, complex, and distracting place, and each of us only has a limited amount of energy each day. When you work on 5 different projects, that energy is spliced out in 5 different directions. It leaves you too discombobulated and distracted to rise above the noise. And you need to do everything you can to rise above the noise because you’re competing with everyone else for people’s attention. If you put all your energy into one project, you have a chance of breaking out of your little bubble of people and reaching escape velocity. Yes, I still wrote the odd article and kept up with my newsletter every week. But I concentrated all my energy into the journal. The launch. The Kickstarter campaign. The printing. Yes, I became a significantly simpler and boring person, but everything was more defined, and I found I made a lot more progress faster. My friends came back from the summer holidays, and I already had the first printed sample of the book to show them! A project like The Intimacy Journal is like a pillar. Once I got this book done, it opened up so many other revenue streams, including workshops, collaborations, podcast interviews, books, and audiobooks. I got a photo of me holding the book in the New York Times. Things just happened because I sat down and got that book done. Whenever you feel that tug, that desire to ship this thing out into the world, and you’re excited about it in a deep way that makes you come alive, you just have to f*****g do it. Because, like Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in Big Magic, “Trust in the miraculous truth that new and ma

  5. Mar 17

    No Money, But I’m Rich

    Dear Wonderful Reader, The money dwindles in my bank account. My grandma is dying. I have to sell my investment stocks and ETFs to pay for these flights. Hit by a “family emergency” when I have the least wiggle room. I gave up my Soho House membership, which in hindsight seems like an irresponsible and pretentious expense. Today is also my four-year anniversary since I quit my job in New York to pursue this creative life. I’ve spent 95% of my days since then extremely happy. No regrets. Yet two books published, workshops being taught, a feature in the New York Times, and a mention in Vogue isn’t much comfort when my client pipeline is dry. This is a hard moment in my journey. Yet, I still have you, my lovely reader! Thank god you’re still here. We’re all still here, somehow. Today, I have something special for you. It is one of my favorite images. It is an image that sustains me in these difficult moments of life, and being a human on this planet. I wrote it when I returned to San Francisco from my friends’ betrothal. A former tech minion, I have seen the bridge many times. But something about that day was different. Thank you for the opportunity to edit this and give this a little more love and polish. I will keep this in mind when I get on a plane tomorrow, and sit at my grandmother’s bedside. Things are hard, but this is keeping me going. This is a gift. This is my gift for you, Love, Tash Send this to someone you love 🩵 ✨ The Golden Gate - Friday, October 3rd, 2025 🌁 On Sunday, I was sitting in a quiet, dimly lit cocktail bar with an old friend. She’s very rich now. She told me she’s going to have five children, but not give birth to any of them herself (surrogacy). Now, that’s money. She’s getting engaged to her equally wealthy partner. Together, for her engagement ring, they’ve found an extremely rare jewel that naturally changes color with the light. If it’s a yellow light, the jewel is dark green and brown. If it’s a normal light, it’s purple and pink. I chuckled to myself as she told me this story. Living in Mexico City as a writer, I don’t have even close to that level of wealth. Yet I smiled to myself because I think I feel just as rich. Earlier that same day, I had gone to Crissy Field in San Francisco with the rest of the wedding troop. It was the final send-off before my friends’ honeymoon in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As I sat on some picnic blankets on the grassy sand, and munched on the last of the feta salad, and cookies, and ham, and chips, I looked out over the Golden Gate Bridge. I had never taken a good look at her from that angle before. Of course, she’s a she. I found myself turning away from the bustling group of millennials and gazing at her. I looked at her long and hard. If you’ve been to that part of the world before, you know how insanely windy it is through the Marin Headlands. But she stood there. Unwavering. So tall. So strong. So majestic. Her goldenness was a burnt umber, crimson, brick-colored. It is funny to realize that I always thought of her as golden herself, not thinking that it’s the place she inhabits. But the light there is golden too. It’s just enormous. The swell of the bay in green-blue-grey waters. The clouds dipping through her, spreading out into pools of sunshine over the grassy banks of land behind her. The smooth hills glowing. Her curved nature hanging perfectly still. Straight upright. Unflinching. There. Looking at her, I felt myself expanding. I felt I saw myself in the somewhat distant future. I’ve made it. I am taller than I am now. I have grown beyond in ways that my current little human self cannot even imagine. In the future, I am taking up space. I am moving. I am powerful. I make an impact. This is all culminating in something. I’m going somewhere, even if I don’t know where yet. Even after a week of stress and dealing with the printers and fear and self-doubt and worry, despite the treachery of the waters surrounding her, and the giant freight-bearing boats that passed beneath her, and the roaring, unrelenting wind, she stood there. Graceful. Whole. She had stood there all these years. Made a small scratch in the greatest force of erosion of all: time. That’s all to say, I laughed when I recounted this all to my friend. Here she was, chasing a rare stone around the world for her engagement ring, and I just sat on a beach and looked at a bridge for an hour. My riches were free. I was just as transformed, just as inspired, just as contented, just as driven, and moved. It was moving, that experience. Maybe I saw something of myself in her, that bridge. Maybe at times she might underestimate herself, whereas anyone looking at her could easily see her excellence, how exceptional she was. Or maybe she knows her worth. Through her very existence, she is strong. Her strength, in that sense, is never to be questioned. Her talents a given. Her energy, immense, radiating out from all aspects of her everywhere, as she let the giant waves and ships pass beneath her like it was nobody’s business. Choosing not to lower herself to small problems that were literally beneath her. And the space she took up. The space that was meant for her to inhabit. So anchored and grounded by nature. I felt grateful to just see her, to receive her energy. I couldn’t look away. 💌 ✍️ Come back soon! Listen to my grandmother’s story on the Misseducated Podcast: More Stories about my Grandmother from Misseducated 💌 ✍️ Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

  6. Mar 5

    A Poetic Invitation to Face Our S**t

    A Poetic Invitation to Face Our S**t Marie Ida Sequence: Writing Prompts to Love Our Mothers Hello Wonderful Reader, The mother-daughter bond is just about the last thing I wanted to share about this week. I only wanted to give you a taste of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven because next week we’ll be working with another poem by her in a “Fantasy”-themed Intimacy Writing Workshop (which I’m very excited to teach!) I found her poem “Marie Ida Sequence,” and I liked it. But once I sat down to illustrate, I got the message: she’s talking about her mother, their resemblance, and her love for her. Her mother, Ida-Marie, who died of uterine cancer when Elsa was only 19 years old. Her mother, who had suffered from mental illness and spent time in a sanatorium in Stettin, Germany (theartstory.org). Her mother, who had been stuck in an abusive, violent relationship with her father, and contracted syphilis because of him (Elsa blamed her father for her mother’s death). I’m not going to lie, the complexity of it makes me feel a bit better about myself. I’m going through a difficult time with my own mother. I am trying to accept her for who she is, while she cannot do the same for me. My boundaries are met by her silence. I’m still an afterthought in her web of family gatherings, always wanting everyone to be close while still not really knowing what closeness means. It’s f*****g complicated, and not fun to think about. Still, the clear images in the poem captivated me. The slate-green eyes, the copper hair. Maybe that’s what writing is about sometimes. Facing the dark s**t. Processing the stuff we’d rather not look at. In fact, in the research from UT Austin that I base my workshops on, they say that there are more mental and physical health benefits from writing about your most traumatic and difficult experiences than from writing about neutral topics. So, here’s to facing our s**t. Love, Tash 💌 ✍️ Join my next Intimacy Writing Workshop! Theme: Fantasy 🧚✨ Next week on Thursday, March 12th, I’ll be collaborating with the wonderful sex-positive podcast, Honeydew Me, for an evening of writing about our intimate fantasies. We will be using a poem by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Join us! Marie Ida Sequence By Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927) (Gesture of soul—action-:architecture —evolutionary) I. Mine flaunting dress—mine copper hair— Thou—purple—dark— —  Slate iris— forehead wide.  Mine lips—as shaped and chiselled after thine—  The nose is not—mine nose is aquiline—  like tower—thine is short, Thine hands—so imminently lovely—  Frail—faintly dimpled—tapery fingertips—  To worship—they are not the hands of me—  Nor chaste as thine ponder mine lips. Mine scarlet heart—mine slate-green eye—  copper-sprayed star—  Are thine—profound—!  —Learned mine eyes what never thine eyes lit— !  Desire incarnate—erected fit  Cradle for thine soul. Nay—fundamentally I am thine root—  Gyrating dizzying and high  Upon that bloodcrest—mating a galoot  Of steel and flame—making thee die. Source: The Little Review, 1920. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵 The edition of The Little Review where “Marie Ida Sequence” was published.  Send this to a friend who should have been born 100 years ago 🕰️ Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️ For 20 minutes, write a memory, a reflection, a letter, or whatever comes: Explore the physical similarities you have with your mother, and what they say about you. Inspired by: “Mine lips—as shaped and chiselled after thine—”  Write about your most vivid memory of your mother. Inspired by: “Cradle for thine soul.” Write about the ways in which you and your mother will always be interconnected. Inspired by: “fundamentally I am thine root—“ Write about what you wish you could say to your mother but can’t for whatever reason. Inspired by: “(Gesture of soul—action-:architecture —evolutionary)” Elsa herself! Image courtesy of ArtCurious Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven herself was an exceptionally interesting woman. I don’t have time to go into it too much here, but give her Wikipedia page a read. Her “elaborate costumes both critiqued and challenged the bourgeois notions of feminine beauty and economic worth. She adorned herself with utilitarian objects like spoons, tin cans, and curtain rings, as well as street debris that she came across.” (Wikipedia) Yes, spoons are jewelry, friends.  I hope this invitation stirred something deep within you and inspired you to process it, as hard as that may be. Which writing prompt resonated with you the most? Let me know. I read and respond to every DM I get! Sending love, Tash p.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me! 💌 ✍️ Can we have a second date? 📅 🫦 Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

  7. Feb 24

    The Ultimate Guide to Decentering Men

    Introduction “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” — Irina Dunn, 1970 I heard about the movement of decentering men on TikTok. With zero expectations, I decided to try it out for a month. It was October 2025. I was sick of dating apps and about to publish my second book. I’d been single for three years, but this was something different. I’m here to tell you everything about it and share all the reasons why I’m never going back. I wrote this article to give us, women, a blueprint for how to be the main character in our own lives. Our mothers and grandmothers couldn’t teach us this; they depended on men (financially) to survive, and had to center them accordingly. This article is not about hating men; it’s about unlearning the ways that the patriarchy has trained us to prioritize making men happy. This pressure comes just as much from the women in our lives (aunties, influencers, our mother), as from men. After all, it was my mother who let my brother get away with never doing the dishes after dinner. Starting this process for the first time scared me. I was worried that if I stopped trying to date men, I was giving up on my dream of becoming a mother. Yet as I began to decenter men, I realized that my idea of motherhood was purely a fantasy. Facing the reality of motherhood, those statistics scared me much more. In this article, I will cover everything I’ve learned from the internet, economists, and my own experience, so that you can decide whether decentering men and trying it for a month to start is right for you. Let’s begin! 🌞 What does it mean to decenter men? Decentering men means focusing on our own needs, desires, and dreams rather than prioritizing men’s feelings or validation. We believe our needs matter just as much as a man’s needs. We take our dream jobs, move to our dream city, and live fully without waiting to be “chosen.” If we do want a relationship, we believe the right man will support us in being our fullest selves. We are complete without a man, marriage, or motherhood, and our life choices, careers, and bank accounts reflect that. We respect other women’s decisions without judging them harshly either way. In our lives, we can decenter men in big ways, such as by staying single forever, or small ways, such as following feminist creators on Instagram over trad wives. We seek content that promotes our right to choose, not content about women being controlled or subservient to husbands. It’s okay to want marriage and babies, but decentering men helps us see our people-pleasing tendencies and assess whether we’re getting a good deal. We only give what we are able and willing to give. Why did I start decentering men? I started decentering men just before I turned 31; the same age my mum was when she gave birth to me and became financially dependent on my dad forever. I had been living independently, yet, like many women, I felt that constant, sneaky, underlying pressure to “find a man” so I could have babies one day. The “manxiety” haunted me from coffee shops to house parties to bars (all the meet-cute spots). I’d built an amazing life for myself, and was about to birth my second book into the world. Yet, deep down, I believed I wasn’t enough without the stamp of some dude’s approval. I listened to Raye, wondering what the hell was taking my husband so long to find me. I had swiped through a million men (probably) in my dating app “career.” But as my thumbs ached, I considered a new possibility: “What if I just…gave up? Well, not forever. Maybe I can just give up trying to find a partner for a month and see what happens.” So that’s what I did. How to Decenter Men while in a Relationship Negotiate a Better Deal “I can’t mop the floor with my uterus.” — Professor Corinne Low, Having It All For women in a heterosexual relationship, centering your man can have devastating consequences. Of course, it’s okay to care about your man, but you still need to take your own feelings and needs just as seriously as his. In her book Having It All, Dr. Corinne Low, professor of Economics at The Wharton School, points out that while women have gained economic and job equality since the 1970s, men have not faced similar pressure to take on household and childcare chores equitably. This leaves many heterosexual women with two full-time jobs: their day job and housework (plus childcare). The reality is shocking: “Women in heterosexual marriages who are the primary breadwinners do almost twice as much cooking and cleaning as their male spouses” (Low, 2025). Gay and lesbian couples do not face the same inequities in the home, by the way. It’s gender-based b******t. Low challenges us to ask ourselves, “Am I getting a good deal?” Essentially, in your relationship, are your needs prioritized as much as your male partner’s? This could mean advancing your career, getting enough leisure and sleep, balancing household chores, protecting your happiness and wellbeing, managing commute time, and maintaining social support. The list goes on, and Professor Low wants to make sure you are not just happy, but ideally optimizing your personal utility on what matters most to you. She suggests you plan time in your schedule for leisure, whatever brings you the most long-term joy and fulfillment. Is it a massage? Brunch with the gals? To test this, Low suggests asking yourself: if you got a job opportunity in a different city that would give you a 50% pay increase, but it required your partner to take a 20% pay cut, how would you decide whether to move? A woman decentering men would advocate for moving. Or if one of your kids is sick, how do you decide who stays home? Decentering means demanding a balanced household. Please, whatever you do, don’t give up your apartment that’s a 15-minute commute to your work because your male partner is quitting his job and going on a “find-himself” sabbatical. Don’t get spun up in his chaos. And if you find yourself wondering whether to prioritize your career or your husband’s, Low encourages us to imagine that the gender roles were flipped. Would he ever give up his apartment for your sabbatical? If your male partner remains useless around the home, and you’re sick of your job, commute, and living situation, “It might be time to renegotiate the deal.” (Low, 2025) Send this to a friend whose partner needs to do more chores 👀 How to Decenter Men while Single * Pick your starting time frame. I recommend giving it a month to see how it goes. You can always extend if you’re enjoying it. * Prioritize yourself and your close friends. Delete the apps and stop dating. Decentering men means not trying to find a partner at all. For example, I stopped flirting with the random guys at parties, hoping they’d sleep with me. Instead, I’d catch up with the person I came with and deepen my female friendship. If a man talks to you at a bar, that’s fine, as is getting introduced by friends. But you’re not putting yourself out there. You can still prioritize platonic friendships with men, the gays, and the theys. You can also dress in a way that doesn’t revolve around the male gaze, because you no longer give a f**k. Wear what makes you feel happy, exuberant, comfortable, and loving your life. Try to disentangle what you think you should wear to please men versus what you actually want to wear. It’s a thornier topic that I’ve written about before, but it’s worth paying attention to. * Prioritize your schedule and your needs. In a life where your needs matter, prioritize your gym classes, sleep schedule, mental health, self-love, and prep time for work meetings. This is easier said than done, because if your life has been anything like mine, you may struggle to identify your needs. Growing up as the eldest of four children, I rarely owned anything that was just mine, and I internalized that my needs didn’t matter. Three years of therapy and two years of regular ACA meetings, a 12-step program for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, have helped me learn to identify my needs and believe they matter (and that’s improved my self-esteem). Decentering men is about respecting your own time, energy, and space, not bending over backwards and screwing up your night of sleep for someone who probably sucks and won’t commit. Noticing our feelings is crucial; they alert us when our needs are being compromised or boundaries are crossed. Try to do regular feelings check-ins: “What am I feeling right now?” You can and should be feeling multiple things at any given time. Use a feelings wheel to identify your emotions in the moment, or even do a needs check-in: “What do I need right now?” I could write a whole other article about this, but if you’re interested in learning more, I recommend reading The Loving Parent Guidebook. The book will teach you how to be your own loving parent, including things like: “An inner loving parent can remind us that we don’t need to strive. We are already enough.” * Talk about anything else. The world is a wild and wonderful place. You could talk about getting that bag, your dream holiday to Alaska, world domination plans, or perfecting your lemon cake recipe. Personal growth comes in many forms. Instead, you’re ruminating again about your inconsistent, alcoholic, man-child situationship. Your friends are probably bored of hearing about this walking piece of trash, but they’re just too nice to tell you! When I was younger, I used to like getting all excited with my female friends about whoever in high school we were trying to kiss. Now I’m just sick of it. I have left women’s groups and avoided people hung up on literal losers. Do yourself a favor: notice what percentage of your time you spend talking about men. Then…stop talking about them and talk about anything else instead. It’s more in

  8. Feb 10

    An Erotic Invitation to the Moon 🌙

    An Erotic Invitation to the Moon Moonrise: A Poem & Writing Prompts for Secret Anticipation Hello, Wonderful Reader, Today, I’ve chosen a special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore secret anticipation. So grab a pen and paper, set aside 20 minutes to journal, and let’s get started. Moonrise By H.D. 1886-1961 Will you glimmer on the sea? Will you fling your spear-head on the shore? What note shall we pitch? We have a song, on the bank we share our arrows— the loosed string tells our note: O flight, bring her swiftly to our song. She is great, we measure her by the pine-trees. Source: Poetry Foundation. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵 Share Send this to a friend who likes poetry 📜 Share Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️ Write about the anticipation of waiting for a lover to arrive. “Will you glimmer on the sea?” Write about a time when you stayed up all night with someone. “on the bank / we share our arrows—” Write about the music, meals, or delicious things you made with a partner. “We have a song,” Write about a place in nature that expanded the depth of your love. “She is great, / we measure her by the pine-trees.” About H.D. (1886—1961) Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her father, an astronomy professor, hoped she would become the next Marie Curie, but she chose poetry instead. In 1911, she set off for a short trip to Europe with Ezra Pound, and only returned to the United States four or five times before her death. Openly bisexual with many lovers (including the novelist Bryher), H.D. became a leading voice in the Imagist movement, whose poetry focused on sensuality, precise images and emotion. In 1933, she traveled to Vienna for analysis by Freud, hoping to process her trauma from WW1, her paranoia about the rise of Adolf Hitler (!) and her sexuality. Freud encouraged her to write about her traumatic experiences, advice which shaped her work. Decades later, we now know that expressive writing about our more personal experiences is good for us and genuinely aids healing ❤️‍🩹. Here are other quotes by her that I love (source here): “...if you do not even understand what words say, how can you expect to pass judgement on what words conceal?” “Words were her plague and words were her redemption.” “Writing. Love is writing.” Send this to someone who likes writing, please! 🙏 Share Hire me for an Intimacy Writing Workshop! ❤️ ✍️ After my sold-out workshop at Soho House, I am now looking to teach intimacy writing workshops to women’s groups, writer’s groups, corporate ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) and wellness communities. If you organize a group like this, or know somebody who does, please reach out! You can respond to this email, comment, or send an email of your own to misseducatedtash@gmail.com. I can’t wait to hear from you! I hope you enjoyed this invitation! Reply and tell me: which writing prompt resonated with you the most? I read and respond to every DM I get! Sending love, Tash p.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me! 💌 ✍️ Can we have a second date? 📅 🫦 Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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About

Misseducated is on a mission to help make the world shamelessly sexy. Covering topics like sex workers' rights, femtech, porn, domestic violence and fertility, Tash Doherty discovers the stories of fascinating people and explores their unusual viewpoints in conversations we rarely have. misseducated.tashdoherty.com

Information

  • Creator
    Tash Doherty
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    121
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Tash Doherty
  • Show Website
    Misseducated