Lauren and The Amazing, Ridiculous, So Good, Very Surprising Sex
I got to talk about this experience (and a lot more) on the Psychedelics, Sex and the Superconscious podcast - the episode is called Non-Monogamy and Relationships with Lauren Hayes. If you'd rather listen than read, start there. If you want the full story, keep going.
There is a children's book, you probably know it, about a boy named Alexander who has the worst day of his life. Everything goes wrong, in escalating, absurd fashion, and the title says it: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I hesitated to make a children's book reference with anything lifestyle, but I couldn't resist. I recently had an opposite experience and the title just wrote itself.
It started, as many good lifestyle stories do, with a slightly awkward dinner.
Hubs and I had matched with a couple who lived in our neighborhood, which felt exciting. Local! Convenient! Maybe even friends someday. We met them at a bar, and when they walked in, she was... a little off. Soft-spoken in a way that read less introverted and more something's happening here. I couldn't place it, so I filed it and moved on.
The table dynamics sorted themselves out organically: she and Hubs ended up deep in conversation across from me, while her husband and I got increasingly comfortable on our side. A bit handsy, even. She was clearly into Hubs. Mid-evening, she set her glass down with an unmistakable energy and said, “We should go back to our place and play.”
We all looked at each other. We all said yes.
Quick sidebar, because it's relevant and I want to be clear about it: I've been using a low dose of THC – usually around 5 milligrams in a gummy form - to help facilitate orgasm. If you didn't know this was a thing, it is absolutely a thing; studied and documented. For those of us who don't orgasm easily, it can be quietly revolutionary. I'm telling you this not to be edgy, but because it matters to the story and because information is power, and you deserve both; information and power…ful orgasms.:)
So. We arrived at their home. We were doing the new-place walkthrough, drifting upstairs, when she produced a THC tincture and asked if I'd like some. I asked what it was. She said THC. I asked how much. She said five milligrams.
I opened my mouth and the dropper went in. Just as she finished, she said, "well, maybe ten."
Ten milligrams of a tincture hits differently than five milligrams of a gummy. I knew this. I noted it. I also noted that the dropper was already empty and what was done was done. I made a quiet peace with my decision and rejoined the evening.
That ended abruptly about fifteen minutes later when she got sick in the bathroom. Hubs had gone to check on her, came back, and we all wordlessly agreed: we're going to see ourselves out. We got dressed, said our genuine well-wishes, and left.
By the time we got home, the tincture had fully introduced itself.
I looked at Hubs. "We need to get to the basement. Now." (We have a room in our basement designated the sex room - further from the kids' rooms, etc.)
What happened next is genuinely hard to describe, but that never stops me from trying.
I am a self-identified slut with a rich sexual history. I say that with zero apology and complete accuracy. I have also done medicine journeys - psychedelics, MDMA retreats - for personal growth. I've held space for other couples in that work. I do not say transcendental experience lightly or loosely.
This was a transcendental experience.
Almost immediately, I was beyond words. Not metaphorically - literally, I could not speak. I was riding something enormous (that's what she said), and the only job I had was to stay on. At some point I had a conscious, amusing thought: I wonder if Hubs is having the same experience right now. Amusing, because he seemed to be somewhat of an afterthought.
When I found a moment where I could speak, I asked. He was not. (He always needs more of everything. The tincture barely touched him.) But he said he could tell something significant was happening, and he showed up for it with the kind of patience and stamina that deserves its own appreciation post.
The sex was not just good. The sex was one long orgasm with more orgasm layered on top of it. For hours. I want you to sit with that sentence for a moment.
The lesson that kept arriving - and I do mean arriving, like messages - was surrender.
There were moments where the pleasure was so intense I almost leaned away from it. I thought about ending it several times. Every time, I just kept repeating it quietly to myself: surrender, surrender, surrender. Then I would go deeper.
I've never been someone who enjoyed anything resembling pain during sex, but in those moments, I got it - because pain and pleasure walk a fine line, and because surrender is surrender. Whether you're releasing into pain or into pleasure, the mechanism is the same. You stop bracing. You stop managing. You just... go.
That's also, not coincidentally, how I try to live.
At some point during this experience, I had another funny thought: oh no. This is the sex I'm going to chase for the rest of my life. Like an athlete who plays the best game of their career and then can never wear a different shirt again. I laughed at myself, in my head, while still very much in the middle of everything.
I also thought: what a completely bizarre chain of events led me here. The awkward dinner. Her weirdness - which I suddenly understood now as her being high. Going back to their house. Opening my mouth for that dropper. All of it. Instead of second-guessing any of those decisions, I was in that moment deeply, genuinely grateful for every single one of them. That's a strange gift - when a series of questionable events leads somewhere extraordinary. Maybe that was the first part of surrender.
Here's the part I also want to linger on. Hubs and I have had a hard year. I won't unpack it here - some of you have likely picked up on it if you follow this blog - but I will say this: even in a difficult year, even when a relationship is complicated and tender and being actively worked on, there is a particular kind of safety that only comes from a person who truly knows you.
I don't think this experience could have happened with someone else. Not because of chemistry or circumstance alone, but because of safety. The surrender I kept dropping into - that required a container I trusted completely, and that container was my husband. Years of real intimacy, all of it. I tried to imagine what I would have done if that tincture had hit me during a play session with someone new. I speculated that the tincture is what made her sick that night - maybe it would have made me sick too, if we hadn't found our way back to our home, our room, each other.
I was grateful for that. Unexpectedly, profoundly grateful. For him. For us.
I've since tracked down the tincture. I haven't tried it again yet. I've been sitting with the question of whether I even really want to - because one thing I know about transcendental experiences is that you cannot manufacture them. Expectation is the enemy of allowance. Ask anyone who's meditated seriously, or sat in ceremony: you can create conditions, but you cannot create the experience.
But of course, I will try. So maybe it happens again. Maybe it was a perfect, unrepeatable confluence of events that arranged themselves into something I'll carry for the rest of my life.
Either way, I'll keep you posted.
And in the meantime - surrender something today. Even something small.
You might be surprised where it takes you.
P.S. If THC-assisted orgasm is new information for you, it's worth researching. Low dose, legal where you are, and potentially life-changing. You're welcome. Here’s a start to a fun rabbit hole to go down: femaleorgasmresearch.org