Kenya: Men are clueless as to what a woman is. Women are clueless as to what a man is. And we're all clueless that we are both masculine, that's left brain, feminine, that's right brain, and corpus callosum, androgynous, the connector. We are all three in one body. There is no such thing as this man, woman, this, that, who, ha, you know, no.

 

Nadège: Welcome back, everybody, to Pleasure Science, a podcast that makes sexual liberation your new normal by changing the way you love and feel loved. And today is a really special episode. 

 

So talking about changing the way you love and feel loved. I first met Kenya K. Stevens, our guest, in a virtual kind of sexpert community. And Kenya shared with me some of, well, actually shared with all of us, all the sexperts, her incredible modalities for communication and couples. And I knew I had to get her on the podcast because... in 15 years of being a sex scholar, I have never seen anything like the work that Kenya does. So today I am so excited to welcome Kenya K. Stevens to the podcast, the CEO of Progressive Love Academy. Welcome, Kenya.

 

Kenya: Thank you, Nadège. I am so excited to talk to you. Hey, look, we saw each other in Los Angeles and now we get to see each other on your new podcast. Congratulations.

 

Nadège: Thank you. And Kenya, for everyone who may not know Kenya, I bet some people already do because you have been doing this work for a long time, both publicly and privately, and your journey is super incredible. But before we even get into who you are, I always start off this podcast by asking my guests the same question. What is your definition of sex?

 

Kenya: To me, sex means connection to source. Connection to the universe. You know, that's all it means to me. I don't know all the other definitions, but when I am in my sensual space, I am connected to the universe. Some people call this God or goddess, but that is when I connect to source. 

 

Nadège: Yeah, I love that. And I agree because I do feel like sex is sacred and sacred sexuality is something we need to talk about more when we're talking about sex. And so I love that. I love that you said that. And I think you're the first person who's been on the podcast so far to actually name that as well. 

 

And so, like I mentioned, you have such a beautiful story with how you have come to be the expert that you are. And one thing that I loved when I first met you was that you have two husbands and you also have, I believe you have a daughter, maybe more than one child. But one thing that we always hear when people talk about open relationships is, oh but you can't have kids. You can't have a productive and fulfilling life, like if you choose that road. And that is just not even true. So tell me a little bit about your story. How did you become the CEO of Progressive Love Academy doing this incredible work, both in your personal and professional life?

 

Kenya: Well, I feel honored to be one of the foremothers of this polyamorous movement in the United States. I've been doing this for 20 years and I've been married for 30 years. So watching how things are now, the openness, everybody's exploring and, you know, us, sexperts and sexologists and sociologists, we are just flourishing. But I started this back in 2005 when it was very challenging to talk about polyamory or even, I mean, I think that sexuality was an open piece back then, but not polyamory and especially not in the Black community. 

 

So my husband and I opened our relationship when our three children were small.

You know, they were three, five and seven when we started our open marriage. And we explored polyamory. We learned about it. We read everything that we could. And we ventured into that space of open relating at a time when it was really challenging. 

 

Our children, we took them on that journey with us. We told them that we don't have to follow somebody else's traditions and rules. We can create our own traditions. We can, you know, create things that work. Our children loved that we were polyamorous because all of their friends, their parents were divorced. That's the bottom line. Their friends would come over to our house to have normalcy of family with both a father and a mother, sometimes several fathers, several mothers. We had the village, Nadège, and we build it that way. We build it as a village. We build it as community. The rebirth of community in Western culture. Polyamory is what it is. 

 

So I think that you're asking, how did we come to be where we are today? 12 books later, we documented every day of that journey, a 20 year journey into polyamory. And we found the modalities that work for us, put them in books. And that's what we share with our couples and our clients. Yeah.

 

Nadège: Yeah, and what's so fascinating about you is a lot of the couples who work with you are monogamous, actually. Yeah, which is kind o…f and I love that because I feel like… I see this in my own life where I work with a lot of straight people, but I'll teach them how to queer sex and suddenly things are amazing. Right. And it's like, and so I love that you monogamous people find you and it's like, hey, I know all of these modalities because I decided to create my own relationship, which is what we should all be doing, whether it's monogamous or not. And so why do you think that monogamous people have flocked to you in such a way, even though you're living a lifestyle that they may not want to create, but they still can sense from you, Kenya knows something? What do you think that that connection is?

 

Kenya: Well, when you look at the basic six human needs, we all have a need for acknowledgement, attention, stability, and adventure or the unknown. So whether you are monogamous or polyamorous, you're still going to have a desire for the unknown, a desire to, in your relationship in a safe way, experience the unknown or the adventure. 

 

So I show monogamous couples how to have that. You don't have to have sex with a million people in order to have a nice sense of adventure, fun, and new experiences, valuable community connections. A lot of monogamous people don't even know how to have friends of the opposite sex because that's taboo. That's scary. That's unsafe. 

 

Nadège: Yeah, even though it isn't. 

 

Kenya: Yeah. So I take couples into the world of community in a safe way, whether they want to expand all the way into the community and get sexual with the community, because there's levels of that, you know, before polyamory, they're swinging. So before swinging, there's just, you know, there's a lot of steps before polyamory that monogamous people can benefit from without opening their relationship.

 

Nadège: Absolutely. And I agree with that. I see that all the time. And I think one of the biggest struggles in relationships is people are taught how to be in a relationship from such a young age that they never ask themselves what they want or need. And then all of a sudden they're in this relationship and it's boring and there's no end in sight, you know? And it's like that. And humans do need novelty. We need adventure. 

 

Kenya: Variety.

 

Nadège: We need stimulus. And by the way we're taught to relate to others is boring, frankly. It is. It’s like, okay, I fall in love with you. All the movies tell me that the fall in love part is the best. And then the getting married part is the reward and then wait so but now I am married and I have 20 more years with you. But all the fun parts are over. And before I… cause I have a lot of questions that I want to talk deeply about like all the stuff you do with couples, but going back to your journey, something that is so beautiful. So you open up your relationship, you know that feels right. You share it with the kids. What were some fears you had at the beginning of your journey?

 

Kenya: Right. I was afraid because I felt isolated in marriage. And that is what you're discussing. When we say, oh, no variety, no friends outside the relationship, no community, you are utterly isolated with you, your husband and your kids.

 

That is where the work begins. The work of that makes women into, you know, that makes women feel like they're losing themselves. They're losing their life. They're losing their personality. I wasn't, I cannot, I couldn't go down that road, honey. I was just like, well this is not the road that I want. But oh, there's a fire truck. Can y'all hear that? 

 

Nadège: I love it because we're having a hot conversation, everybody. And the world knows, you know, we're getting notifications, we're getting sirens, but I love it. Yeah. and I agree totally. So you're not wanting to sign up to that and then you're feeling isolated. 

 

Kenya: I didn’t sign up to that.

 

Nadège: Yeah. 

 

Kenya: Right. And I wouldn't even want my daughter to sign up to that. That's where people say, how could you tell your daughter that you were polyamorous? I don't want my daughter to be in a marriage that's isolating, unfulfilling, and be angry at her husband about it instead of being creative enough, she and her husband, to open doorways that have been closed only due to religion or culture. Yeah, I don't want that for my children. I don't want that for my sons. 

 

To live in a way that isolates them and makes them solely responsible for somebody else's happiness. It's just the entire underpinning of it, whether you're going to become polyamorous or or not. It's still, you have to revamp marriage when you have a system that's failing at 55 percent. You got… that's an F. That is an F. And when your children got an F, you're going to take them to tutoring. You're going to revamp how they're learning. You're going to do something different. But we just keep doing it. Just try it again. Maybe mine will work. Fingers crossed. If a flight was going to crash 55% of the time, all the planes that take off, they're going to crash 55% of the time. Is your ass getting on a plane?

 

Nadège: Absolutely not. Okay. Absolutely not. I even sometimes struggle getting on a plane now, you know, but totally. And I think we don't realize that the system is failing.

 

Kenya: Well, how can you not realize those stats? 

 

Nadège: Yeah, because people I find… so and tell me if you see this, too. People are always like, well, mine will be different. My love will be different. My relationship will be different. And relationships are our work. I think that's one of the things that people very quickly on realize and then they don't know what is the right work to be doing. And another question I have for you, hearing your journey, what do you think monogamous couples, what are some things that they can really get from polyamorous open relationship framework?

 

Kenya: So let's make an important distinction before we go into that. We don't have monogamous couples. We have couples who are choosing sexual exclusivity. Humans are not a monogamous species. So how do we have a monogamous couple? That doesn't make sense, right? But a lot of things don't make sense in Western culture. We're not going to ignore it on this podcast. 

 

Nadège: Yeah. We can. I like going into that stuff. We need to go into that stuff or else... We're ignoring the roots of the problem. But yes, continue with what you're saying. 

 

Kenya: Monogamous species mate one time and for life. If their partner dies, so does their sex drive. Monogamous species look the same, male and female. The penises are retractable. There's no protruding breasts. There's nothing that would delineate the difference between a male or a female. Check out geese. Check out gibbons. Okay, monogamous species are four percent of mammals. Definitely doesn't include us. Us and dolphins have the highest sex desire okay and desire for variety. Monogamous species, the males create spermicide in their sperm. Why? Because they're constantly fighting off other sperm that's already in the track.

 

All right. Monogamous species only have sex when the female is in heat. Now, how many humans do you know say, I cannot have sex because my woman's not in heat or the woman's at. 

 

Nadège: No, it's the opposite. It's overpleasing. Actually, to the detriment… you know, yeah. But, you know, it's… I love that you're bringing all of this into it because we forget that, one, humans are animals and mammals. And then because we forget that humans are animals, we stop noticing how other animals behaved compared to us as animals. 

 

Kenya: Oh my gosh, yes. 

 

Nadège: Right? And so what you're saying, I mean, it's so important. And I love what you're also saying about bodies and in truly monogamous species, the bodies and the differentiation between bodies is different. Because so often we hear as sex experts talking to people who are not sex experts that monogamy or a man and a woman together is the highest form of connection because men have a penis and women have a vagina and our bodies are meant to, you know, and all of that stuff. 

 

And I have said this many times on the pod. I believe in love. And whenever I talk about different relationship styles, if you are listening and you are monogamous and you're married, love that for you. We're here to help you have the best relationship. But yeah, there's all these other things we have to acknowledge. 

 

Kenya: Yeah. But Nadege, acknowledging these things helps my sexually exclusive couples. Because now they're not upset that their partner's actually behaving like a human and having attractions to other people, attractions to community. They can discuss it without feeling like somebody's bad or wrong. This openness that I share helps couples who are choosing sexual exclusivity. Okay. So let's keep that. Let's keep all that together.

 

Nadège: I love that. And it's true. Like choice is the big, or one of the big factors that I'm hearing because a lot of couples again, are not consciously choosing. Like when you choose into your relationship, it changes the game. And so on this vein, something that you really specialize in that's unique is making couples divorce proof. And you have done this with like dozens and dozens and dozens of couples. 

 

And again, I love that it is the poly multi-relationship person teaching people how to be divorce proof. But you know, because it's being in open relationships, I've been in all the different relationship styles, poly, open, and monogamous. And I would have never had successful monogamy without all of my other exploration because of what it teaches you, how to communicate, how to think, how to problem solve. But for you, so you specialize in making couples divorce proof. What is the one thing that people don't realize is destroying their relationship?

 

Kenya: Lack of authenticity. And it's not that they're not being authentic. A lot of people think, I mean, a lack of telling the truth. That's not what authenticity means. Authenticity means how much of my brain can I share with you without getting in trouble? Okay. Authenticity is sourly lacking in marriages because if I tell you this part of my thoughts today, I'm going to get in trouble.

 

And so it's not that people want to lie or they want to be inauthentic or they want to be… I'm hiding from their partners. It's that they cannot literally say these things without causing trauma or problems or pain for their partner. These are very considerate reasons as to why we're not authentic, right? We don't wanna hurt somebody by saying that I was very attracted to my secretary today. We don't wanna hurt our partner's feelings by saying, I don't wanna have sex with you this month, you know or maybe ever again. We don't want to hurt nobody.

 

So we are very nice. We have manners. We have great species. However, this is going to erode the relationship because it's not a relationship if you're not two real people meeting and able to share authentically. That's what the relationship is. There's nobody in most of these relationships because your real self cannot show up in the relationship.

 

Nadège: Yes. And yeah, no, that makes complete sense. And I see it all the time and it's like a slow burn to death to a sexless, loveless connection. And we make these compromises all the time. I think one of the biggest lies I have ever heard is that compromise makes a good relationship because compromise will…

 

Kenya: Oh no.

 

Nadège: Right. Like everybody that I speak to who has been in a relationship for over a decade or two, they don't compromise or they realized at some point they were compromising, they were shrinking to please the other person, but they became aware of it and both people committed to changing that trend of compromise.

 

Kenya: I think that compromise is a great word because compromise compromises your relationship. Your relationship is compromised because compromise only leads to resentment. So we show our couples how to do that in the inverse order. If you want to compromise, it has to be backed and powered by your desire to grow a new muscle. You can't compromise to please somebody else because that's going to lead to resentment and it's not sustainable. How long can you keep going to the restaurant you hate because your partner said, let's go there without exploding on someone? You eat food. Right? You eat food you don't like every day. Or I hear a lot of people compromise with their husband to let them be open. How long is that last until you bust that dude in the head when he comes home from his dates? Because you all have nothing to do.

 

Nadège: True. Absolutely And I actually, I want to pause and talk about that for sec because I hear that a lot too. And in fact, in my own personal life, so I'm single, I've been dating, I have a long distance lover who just told me he got into a relationship and the girl that he is in a relationship with, I don't want to make assumptions, but it sounded like he told her I could never be monogamous and she said, I want you.

 

And when I heard that, I was like, listen, y'all good luck, have the best time, you know, nothing but love and friendship. We're on great terms. But the sex scholar, sex coach in me was like, uh oh, you know, does she want that too? But I see this a lot. And I see this a lot too, especially with this person, this guy that I was dating, a very open communicator, very warm hearted person, very caring, sweet person. And so I could see why another woman would say, you know what, he's so trustworthy and sweet that I will enter into this dynamic because I trust him. It's starting in a good place, but it's a recipe without self-conscious awareness, it's a recipe for exactly what you said. How many dates are you going to go on before I bust your head open and feel chosen? 

 

And there's a difference between feeling chosen, like people, I think, also make the mistake of, I'll feel chosen when you give me everything.

 

Kenya: Oh, wow. 

 

Nadège: Versus I'll feel chosen… like what do you think people want or need when they, because I hear this all the time and I know you do too, of like, I want to feel chosen. What do you think people are actually really saying underneath that statement?

 

Kenya: Well, I think that they're talking about how they felt since birth in Western culture. You know, none of us have felt, where do we belong? What are we doing? This is a bigger issue than a couple. And we think a couple can solve it. But really, they're asking, who am I? And where do I fit in? For women, we're asking, we're trying to play out what we were told to do. We're supposed to be owned. We're supposed to be possessed. We're taught to find that man who's going to claim you and choose you. And when actually the feminine is the chooser, we'll talk about that later. Like when did men become the chooser? 

 

Nadège: Totally. And I actually, I want to talk about that for a second because I see this all the time, especially with couples. Like I'll see couples come to me and I'll see the woman say I just want him to grab me and I'm always initiating and I'm always… and the more I work with people, the more I talk to people, the more I'm just like, I think a lot of women or femmes or non-men, you know, queer folk, trans, but all the non-men people, I think need to step into the fact that actually you naturally have masculinity, you naturally have dominance and you are a chooser, you are a picker, you're an initiator. And so this is making me think of your modality now, because one of the things that blew my mind when I was meeting you and learning about your work is is how you teach couples and women specifically how to express rage, and you teach men how to receive very primal, aggressive, suppressed rage in women. And I would just for anybody…

 

Kenya: Yeah. Which men should love because if you want a woman to be orgasmic, she has to be in her primality. So what are you talking about? I hear men say, I want my woman to just be nice and never have emotion, never be angry, never cry, never, never act like an animal. But be an animal in the bedroom. Are you serious? That's never going to happen. So yes, 15 years ago, I had to go to a whole Tantra practitioner to learn to just ask for what I want in the bedroom. Just learn to have a desire and say what I want. This was a learning process. What I'm saying is about being chosen and all of that goes back to how women are acculturated and men in this culture. 

 

Men are clueless as to what a woman is. Women are clueless as to what a man is. And we're all clueless that we are both masculine, that's left brain, feminine, that's right brain, and corpus callosum, androgynous, the connector. We are all three in one body. There is no such thing as this man, woman, this, that, who, ha, you know, no 

 

Like for me, for instance, I have a lot of left brain warrior energy. And because even in the left brain of masculinity, there's a spectrum of masculinity. Yes, there's that diplomatic leader, but there's also that brute warrior. And then there's also the negotiator over there, logic and sales and marketing. There's so much to just the masculine part of who we are. And women don't even know we got access to that.

 

Then a layer on top of that, we equate dominance and submission with masculinity or femininity. No, sir, no, ma'am. Dominant feminine energy is like a diva. Where's my champagne? Where's my Coca-Cola? I said I'm not going to be singing unless there's a Coca-Cola here. That's one of a famous blues singer, right? That's feminine dominance. Masculine dominance looks much different, but either one could be dominant.

 

I love masculine submission. Oh, it's service. A king is supposed to be in masculine submission, serving. Right. And so these are all concepts that have been completely discombobulated in the West. And it makes us think that there's some difference because we have a different genitalia that we may not have access to all the energetics that be. It's ridiculous. So that's what my work unfolds into couples and they get so much relief that just because I have this genitalia, I'm supposed to be doing these roles. No, we're going to assess who you are, where you are, what roles you like, what's natural for you, what's the chemistry about. And then we get to that. 

 

But I think your question is really pertaining to, How do I teach my couples such a wide universe? This is a new paradigm. Like build a new culture. You can't just take one piece of it and fix that unless that's your role on the planet. My role on the planet has to be creating a whole new foundation for a new culture.

 

Nadège: Yeah, and I feel that and I sense that. And I remember when I saw your teaching in action, and to give people like a little snapshot. So you had shared a video of a coaching session. And in this video, there's this woman who is crying, screaming, expressive… And expressing… and it was just a snapshot of the moment. You could tell it was a long in-depth session. But she's saying, you don't do this. And I feel like… and just but like truly expressive, primal crying, screaming. And you see her man next to her taking notes, receiving it all. And it was so cool because you kind of showed all of us, and by us, this is in this virtual kind of sexpert community, sort of the end climax of your work together where people can do this with each other. 

 

And when I was watching this, I literally thought of a friend of mine who's been in a marriage for seven, eight years. They just had their first kid. And for many years, this couple has been… they're super in love and very disconnected in this chapter of their relationship, I know they'll fix it. And I've told them, I'm like, y'all need to go to Kenya. 

 

And the reason why they're disconnected is… and it's so funny because it's something I see so many couples experience where the man, he fell in love with this woman because she is feisty and she is stubborn and she knows herself and she's interesting. So the longer that they, the two of them have been together, I've heard her husband say several times, he's like, I wish you were… he doesn't say it like this, but he's underneath it, he's saying, I wish you were more submissive and accommodating. And then she'll turn around to him and she's like, if you wanted to be with one of those women, you would, but you're with me. And I am not. And I affirm it. I'm like, listen, the reason you like her is because she isn't that way. 

 

And then on the flip side, they're feeling really disconnected because she also feels like she does need to be like a wife and mother. And that is supposed to mean a very specific type. It's supposed to look a certain way. And so they're both assimilating. And it's just the downfall of their connection that they will get over, that they'll figure out how to heal. But I was thinking, I'm like, this couple could use the modality because I can see my friend, the woman needing to express rage and pain that has nothing really to do with her husband. It has more to do with existing in a whole system of oppression and then being in a relationship that is assimilating to it because they both think that that is success. Right. 

 

And so one of the things you had shared when you were talking about your modality is you really teach men… like you teach women how to go primal and how to have rage. But then you also teach men how to receive it and how to create a space where their love can be extremely angry and expressive, but that creates deeper connection. And so I think everyone should go and purchase and work with you and pay for your services. But do you have anything that as you were creating this modality and existing in it, any tips or any thoughts or anything you want to share about why this is so powerful and necessary?

 

Kenya: Well, I love what you said, and I'll segue from there, is that these issues that this couple had that you're talking about have nothing to do with the couple. This has to do with the paradigm. Again, it's back to the culture. And when we can remember that, we won't be so hard on our partnerships, you know. 

 

So the book that I wrote called Uplevel Communication, where I describe what this new communication system is about, comes from a Black woman. Black women have been told to be, y'all angry, y'all angry, this and this and that. But guess what? Rap music and the anger that we express, I think Black men and women, through music, through dance, through communication, through slang, all of the slang and all of the music is picked up by everyone because everyone wants to express rage. Every human has rage, has anger, has all of these different emotions that are so beautiful and tie into right brain, left brain, corpus callosum, you know, the spectrum of masculinity, the spectrum of femininity. These are all indicators of our humanness to have these emotions. And Western culture has said, suppress that. Don't ever access that. Be quiet, women. Be strong and machismo, man. Ignore your emotions. And so that's y'all problem. I'm just coming in a culture to say, we got to get over that because guess what? When we produce our products that encase the rage, everybody picks it up and sings along because we all need these releases. 

 

Now, I show you how to have those in your relationship. So that you can be real humans. Again, back to being a human in your relationship. Men have rage too. And they've been taught to sneak into femininity. Hide, lie, sneak, ghost, misrepresent. That's feminine. Y'all acting, the men are acting feminine because they're not allowed to have their rage. The women are acting, I don't know what, invisible because they're not allowed to have their rage. And then the marriage is not a marriage because again, there's no real people inhabiting it. So my modalities help the real people come back and inhabit the marriage. Now y'all got something to work with. 

 

Nadège: Absolutely. And what do you think couples today get wrong about anger and rage?

 

Kenya: That is wrong. That is bad. That it means we're failing. That it's a problem. Like, what are you saying? The whole purpose, in my view, the purpose of a relationship is growth. G-R-O-W-T-H. That's the only reason I'm attracted to this main dude who gonna trigger me. I'm not even attracted to people who don't trigger me. Y'all know that. Women, y'all should really know that. Feel it down in your pussy right now. Are you attracted to a man who doesn't trigger you? No, you're not. 

 

Nadège: I’m not. And that's such a good point because I agree relationships are growth. You're attracted to growth. You're attracted to your wounds. You're attracted to your healing. What is the difference between that being toxic and that being productive?

 

Kenya: I don't know where this word toxic comes from. What are y'all talking about? Everything that we experience on the earth realm, in the earth school, is to our benefit. Everything. And I'm a Black woman from Detroit whose grandparents were slaves. I said everything that I have experienced here is for my spiritual growth and development. I only incarnated into the earth plane in order to have these experiences to bring forth my superpowers so I can find them and cultivate them. That's the road y'all on too. I'm sorry y'all culture forgot. I'm sorry our culture was forced to forget, but it's rebirthing right now. That's why I'm here. That's how I'm here. That's what I'm doing here. So it's a lot of light workers doing this. And just when you feel attracted to that, go toward that flame because we're all being sucked into the vacuum of remembrance. And that's what I'm sharing. I hope that makes sense. 

 

Nadège: Yeah, it does. But what I love, what I'm really getting from, and this is the first time I have ever heard this, that we need to throw out the word toxic. And that maybe, because I see this all the time, especially with dating, especially with singles, of like he's toxic, she's toxic. I left because you know trauma bonding. And we're not talking about the fact that you are attracted to what triggers you because you need growth. And that perhaps this idea of quickly labeling something as toxic or trying to find the difference between, okay, I'm going to heal someone that makes me grow, but it won't be toxic, but it will be healthy, but we'll still fight. And like, sometimes I'll hate you, but I'm going to love, right? And like, what I'm hearing is you're just like, fuck this, be toxic or not. That's not, or it's not the right question even. It's not the right… yeah. 

 

Kenya: It’s not the right question, yeah. People have to think of the gym. I know a lot of people hate the gym, but if you hate the gym, you need to hate the muscles too. The gym is what you're talking about when you're talking about toxic. Toxic means challenging. I'm challenged. Okay, you challenged. What happens when you're challenged. What happens when you challenge this muscle right here? It grows.

 

One of my husbands has straight narcissistic personality disorder. I'm not divorced from him. This man has taught me to respect myself, to respect my talents. He used to go off on me and call me a fake and a phony and a this and a that and go into these name callings. And I had to develop the muscle to understand you don't know what you're talking about. I know who I am. Ooh, now I'm claiming my divinity. Ooh, now I'm able to sit in my power. Do you understand? I wouldn't have been able to do that without him and his toxicity. This too toxic. It reminds me of a woman sitting on the porch drinking lemonade. Honey, it's so hot. It's so hot. She's not even working. We working in the field. 

 

So I don't understand toxic. What are you… toxic!? Everything we've been through and will ever go through is a gift to our… and I think what needs to balance that. Cause I don't want to be too harsh on your audience. Cause they like the word toxic. What needs to balance this? 

 

Nadège: Listen, people listen to this podcast because they're ready for growth and truth, you know? And I bring people on like you purposefully because I am not here to have another cookie cutter conversation about like talk more and ask and say no. Like we know those things. People come here for the messages they're not hearing. And this is a big one that I love actually, because I think two single people can benefit from this because I think so many single people are trying to find a quote unquote good relationship, but they don't realize that good means growth as opposed to… people think good means I'm not triggered, I'm not activated, I'm not, you know, and I love what you're saying. 

 

And I also agree. I think you should run towards your passions. Even if it's a passion that's going to burn you because you are going to learn. I learned my greatest lessons from my greatest heartbreaks. Even the one I was just talking about with my lover who's in a relationship now. When he told me that, I actually got really depressed for two days and it made me realize, wait, I'm actually ready to start finding deeper love. Missing out on this man who… because I never told him when we were together, I really liked him. And I never told him that I'd be open to a relationship with him. And part of that was because of the long distance. And I didn't want to commit, I didn't want to put myself in a position where I'd have… I already travel a lot. I don't want that. So there was a logical reason I stand behind. But when he told me he was with someone else, I was heartbroken. And I'm like, well, I didn't communicate that I would be open to that with him. So he didn't even know. And this is showing me I want something more. I'm learning. It's positive. It's painful and it's positive. And I think something I'm hearing too with everything that you do with couples, a reason why they become divorce proof is you teach them to stop running from the pain.

 

Kenya: A secret. That's my biggest secret of all time. But it's no secret to people who was born in indigenous culture because we know the purpose of life in this realm. Now, there's other realms and other times. But right here, this is only for warriors. If you was born into the earth plane, baby, especially in the United States, honey, you are here to do massive work. And how you going to do that if there's no work to do?

 

The work to do is what you call toxicity. I think that's the word. You can keep calling it that, but you know, you got to put it on. 

 

Nadège: It's not toxic. It's just the love gym and you got to work out. But I love what you’re saying because I think this is also very important. The difference between the Western culture, white supremacy, the colonialist culture, the monogamous culture, all of these systems, and then indigenous cultures that we're slowly reclaiming, refinding. And for you as a Black woman who is bringing these indigenous modalities to the forefront, what are some things that you find are so important for people to know about why they should care about all of these practices?

 

Kenya: Well, that's what I was going to say. These practices is what makes what Westerns call toxicity feel less toxic and feel actually good and great. I love my relationship with my narcissist. I loved it when my husband came to me and said, I want to have another wife. And I was monogamous.

 

Everybody around me said, get rid of him. He's toxic. I was like, let me run toward that fire. Man, I learned what it felt like to express what I want, to have freedom in my life, to be a whole human, to use the parts of myself that I had to bury in marriage. I learned so much from what people thought was toxic. But I think what the big deal is, is having the tools to walk through that fire without getting burnt, without feeling like you're… without losing yourself.

 

I want you to lose your ego, some of your ego parts and that's going to burn and be reborn parts of your ego. But we got to do it in a safe way. And I think that the tools that I've created help us to walk to the fire, dance in the fire in a safe way. Safe where you're not irrevocably harmed, like domestic violence, for instance, right? I help couples through that to the other side of that and show them how to be in a safe space. You have to keep your body safe because that's keeping you on this realm. Otherwise, you won't get to go from these challenges. Yeah. 

 

Nadège: Yeah, absolutely. And, again, I think it's so helpful to hear this because for people who maybe are in a really… like a relationship where they're deeply in love, but there's abuse or violence, maybe it's verbal, maybe it's physical, you know, the solution that people hear is often let's get you out of that. And that, listen, I'm a big fan. I'm team leave. If you want to leave, I think, choice is so important in a relationship. 

 

But there's this other side of the coin, like, okay, so you're in a relationship that has abuse, you leave it. But the abusive partner is going to go on to abuse someone else when maybe the growth is, what if we find out how to make these patterns stop happening? What if we, you know, like, because that's what we like… push people to be irredeemable. Like, oh, if you hit a woman, you're always going to hit… once a cheater, always a cheater, once an abuser, always an abuser. And maybe the relationship is where we can learn how to not do that. Like, what are your thoughts?

 

Nadège: Yes, and it's really not even learning how to not do that. It's learning why do I do that? And then once you know why you do that, then you're going to dig and heal a trauma because the trauma is why you do that. You know, what you learned is why you do that. Oh, well let me learn something new. Now it's not even that you are broken or you're wrong. It's that the path you went gave you this app that downloaded into your hard drive. Oh, you don't like that behavior of that app? Delete that app. It's not you, it's the app. You understand? 

 

That's what I know about all humans. That's how I got over quote unquote racism. Nobody's doing anything to me. They got an app running that's causing them to live in fear and pain and devastation, mental devastation. I feel sorry for that. I empathize with y'all. Oh my God, delete that app. But it's not you.

 

So that's what I help my couples to do. If I can do that with racism, any two couples can do that over any concern, whether it be cheating or blood or whatever they've been through. And then once you're thinking on that level, now your heart is opening to love. 

 

Here's the thing. You say we got to stay safe. I say we got to stay safe. Our animal has to be safe. But let's say you get your animal. Let's say you have these three parts. Animal, your physical body, ego, your thoughts, and your CPU, where the apps are stored. And then your higher self. The higher self that's running all your selves without your ego help, is beating your heart, is blinking your eye. You can't stop blinking. Can you? No, because that's not you running it. That's not your damn ego. That is your higher self making 70 trillion selves work together.

 

So if we got this animal, we got this ego, we got this higher self. Yes. Keep your animal safe. But your ego is still in that relationship. That's why I laugh at breakups. You in the relationship in your mind with that person for the rest of your life. You still have to sort it out. You're still in the fire. So what you gonna do? You need the tools to help you work through all of your stuff. Keep your heart open. Understand nobody's doing anything to you. All of these experiences are growing me. Thank you. 

 

We used to have to do this ceremony when I was being initiated as a priestess in the African, indigenous African tradition, where we say thank you to every challenge that come up. Thank you. Laugh, thank you, oh here come poverty, thank you, here come Jim Crow, thank you. Oh here come your husband.

 

Because now your ego is learning how to categorize and understand your life, not just getting your animals safe, getting your ego safe too. And educate so it all matches the higher self, which has no likes or dislikes. 

 

Nadège: I'm going to start doing that practice, that thank you practice. Like hearing you say that was… because I feel like I do that, but I don't conscious… I'm not actively consciously thinking. And that's so powerful. And as you bring… again, like thinking of these indigenous practices, a lot of people aren't familiar with, what do you think is so powerful about indigenous practices versus everything that we kind of have and think that we should want or need?

 

Kenya: Well, just like they told you to suppress your emotions in Western cultures. When I say Western cultures, I mean the big three. I mean, Christianity, Islam, Judaism. That's the big three. That's where Western culture is housed within a system with a male God, right? In indigenous African. And when I say indigenous, I mean, African people who've been all over the world and we're the indigenous of every land. I'm talking about we have the divine within us. Right? 

 

So the western culture said forget about your emotions. We say dance when you have emotions, celebrate your emotion, get angry when you have an emotion, express your emotion. Indigenous versus western. And then with god, western says god is up here, he's going to punish you if you do something wrong. We say god is you, is inside of you, so this is just the basic differences between indigenous and western cultures, and right now I think western culture is like, Can we know about indigenous? Cause we like that better. And we say, come on over baby, let's do it. Let's do it. That's how I'm on this podcast. That's how I know you. 

 

Nadège: Yup. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, and like community. Yeah. Like one of the things whenever I hear or learn more about indigenous culture history versus all the Western things, community is another big piece that is completely missing. The community element and the family as community, lovership as community. I mean, I love all of this. And so the final few questions I have for you, I really want to start talking now about sex specifically, because what we see so often with couples is sexless relationships. They become roommates. There's even with the queer folk lesbian dead bed, you know, you just end up with your best friend. And so many people can relate to that. And so what do you think is the biggest sex problem between long term partners right now?

 

Kenya: Well, I like to study Esther Perel. I think, again, Western culture has it that you fall in love and you're supposed to be in love forever and romantic love, I mean, these are all huge illusions, optical illusions. And really what we're looking at with falling in love is that chemical cocktail. The chemical cocktail that starts to compound when you first meet somebody, got butterflies, and by two years it's gone.

 

I mean, everybody knows, everybody who married, we know, right? Even if you've been in a long term relationship, you know, the feeling changes for that person, the more that you have sex. So 40% of US marriages are sexless. Sexless means sex less than four times per year, okay? One of my marriages is sexless, but we're sexless by choice. We know what happened. We know that that chemical cocktail is there for the bonding phase. We've moved into the unconditional love phase and we're not sexless because we have sex with our other partners.

 

So, you know, community resolves a lot of the issues that Western marriage creates. You understand? Western marriage creates the conundrum of you losing polarity with your partner because you sleep in the same bed every night. You're making that hormone go down even faster, honey. If you share a house, share a bed, let me tell you, the hormones is like, oh, they bonded already. We're gone. We've done our job. Let's move them to the next phase, unconditional love. They don't need all these crazy hormones for that. And we think, well, I don't love them anymore, when we just different… having a brain, different brain chemistry because of the proximity.

 

So these easy understandings to, to deal with. And you can actually adjust the way that you do marriage in order to… a lot of people are saying I can be married, but I'm not living with anybody. That's going to prolong the hormones. Some people say, I'm going to have my own bedroom. That's going to prolong the hormones, but you will get to the place where the hormones shift. We're creating community naturally, not couples. Couples cannot survive in the wild. Couples could not have survived with fangs and claws and living as among my wild animals. We survive because of community. So all of our natural instincts is gonna lead us to build community, not couples.

 

Nadège: Oh my God. And so a good way to heal sexless relationships, I'm hearing, create community, seek out community, create mystery, distance, space, maybe not sharing the same bed, maybe having separation. I've seen actually a lot of people will poo-poo long distance. And I'm like, you know, it can be quite nice to take a break from your love for a month. 

 

There was a couple that I worked with who… they had been together for over 10 years. They had a great sex life. There were some things they wanted to improve. But when I saw them, I was like, y'all are way ahead of most couples that I see. But there, because of work, they would spend three months together, three months apart, three months together, three months, their whole… over 10 years. And I was like, this is why you guys have hot sex. And that has never left because you're not always around each other. 

 

And so what would you say to couples who like maybe they don't have the budget? Like, oh, well, wait, we can't get a new house with more bedrooms or we can't go… I can't send him to Paris for three months. Like, what would you say to couples who are like, OK, we do have this problem. We're too familiar with each other. How do we create that mystery or that distance again in a productive way?

 

Kenya: Well, I think just knowing is half the battle. 50% of it is knowing. Read the book Sex at Dawn. Deal with Esther Perel. Understand really human physiology so you're not having these wayward expectations that are not humane. They are inhumane. I used to want my husband to have sex with me every day and do this and do this. This is inhumane. I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do. This is inhumane. I wanted him to, you know like you said in the beginning, claim me and... and initiate, like these are inhumane, and extraordinarily impossible expectations. So just learning that first and then starting to come up with your own creative plans. 

 

Nadège: So when people become aware and they're like, okay, and they're educating themselves… well, I guess at that point they could, yeah, what would you say would be a next step other than seeing Kenya, right? Like reaching out to an expert, but what could be another...

 

Kenya: If they want the full expanse of the new culture, come see me. I mean, you need step by step. I have 99 initiations that go and take you into step by step, dismantling the entire Western quagmire that is running in your brain as several apps that need to be deleted. They take up too much weight. You know, they got a big kilobyte. That's too much. 

 

Nadège: Emphasis on the killer. 

 

Kenya: The deal though is like, for instance, some of my couples say, well, we don't want to be polyamorous. And I'm… couples who come to me and say, we want to be polyamorous. I say, no, you don't. You're going to have to go all the way back to the beginning. You need your new creed, your new constitution. Do y'all have a relationship contract? Do you have a communication framework that works? Don't tell me it's nonviolent communication because that does not allow you to express your emotions. Do not tell me it's radical because that allows you to express emotions thinking you telling the truth. Do not talk to me about these Western systems. We get their new systems in place so that they can actually start to build new frameworks. 

 

Now, one couple got their system in place and said, well, we have been pretty sexless, so what should we do? They decided they're going to go to clubs together and see how many numbers they can get. So they have a competition. They go to the club separately. The husband gets several numbers, gets the attention, gets the community, gets the connection, gets to buy the women's drinks and do whatever he want at the club. And so does she. They collect numbers, come home and just laugh about who got the most. 

 

Nadège: I love it. I love it. 

 

Kenya: These are things you can do when you're walking on top of a firm foundation of a new culture that doesn't set your relationship up as a trap and make y'all enemies and not real people showing up. We have to fix that first. Then the sky's the limit. Y'all gonna have so much fun. Oh my God. 

 

Nadège: Oh, I love it. And speaking of that… all of those pieces, do you feel like there's a sex argument that you see commonly between lovers too when they come to you?

 

Kenya: There is, but that sex argument, it really boils down to authenticity. They're not able to say, I'm not attracted to you anymore. I don't want to have sex with you anymore. I remember having to say that to my partner and him having to say that to me. And it brought us so much closer. But many couples, when they feel that way, they have so much guilt or shame. They don't even want to have that discussion. So the… all of these sensual or sex issues boil down to the lack of authenticity and the lack of safe space. 

 

Also, if you're not allowed to rage, if no emotion's allowed in your relationship, forget sex. It's never going to be anything without the ability to have the emotional involved. Sex is emotional. Sex is primal animal. You have to let your animal into the relationship and pet those animals. I show my clients how to pet that anger. Oh, thank you for sharing that anger with me, baby. Come here. Let me pet that anger. Mm-hmm, it's so funny. You gotta get there, y'all. Or stay where you are, but there are outlets to get to the next plateau of human relationships. And that is progressive.

 

Nadège: It is. And it's just… everything you're saying is so beautiful. Like anger is not gonna stop your relationship. Admitting lack of desire is not gonna… because I think so many people are afraid to be authentic because they're like, the second I am, it's over. And what you're sharing is the opposite. The second you share, it starts.

 

And so, I mean, this has just been such a good episode. I have a couple rapid fire questions to ask you just to close out all the amazing stuff that we have talked about today. And so with these questions, you could think of a word or a sentence, but they're all like rapid fire, quick, fun questions to close on. And so my first question is, what is the best sex advice you ever received?

 

Kenya: That I ever received? That the feminine is free. She needs freedom in order to feel sexual vitality. That when she's pinned down, that's the end of her sexual vitality.

 

Nadège: Now, what is the worst sex advice you've ever received? 

 

Kenya: The worst sex advice I've ever received is that a man is supposed to bring you to orgasm. There's no man ever bringing me to orgasm. I bring an orgasm into the room, baby. And it's going to be multiple multiples because orgasm is me. It's my joy. It's my emotion. It has nothing to do with a man.

 

Nadège: Ah, yes. And then final rapid fire question. What do you hope will change about the way the world views sex and sexuality in years to come?

 

Kenya: In years to come, I hope that we remember that sex and sexuality is a ritual that takes the entire body back to homeostasis. Homeostasis is the place where all of your organs are functioning in full vitality and without any illness. And from that space, we can create whatever we want.

 

Nadège: Ah, I love it. Kenya, you are so cool and interesting and badass and your expertise is just… like I said, I have been in this field for so long. And one thing I love about you is at every stage you're just dropping bombs that I have never heard before. That is the 1% thing people need to get better. So Kenya, you're amazing. Where can people find you? Get your book, learn about your teaching modalities, follow you on Instagram. Kenya has also been on TLC if you want to watch her show. But Kenya, where can people find you?

 

Kenya: Progressive Love Academy on all platforms, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and of course, ProgressiveLoveAcademy.com. You can see one of my three books on Amazon. They all have me on the cover, except the other ones that I wrote with my husband. So Change Your Man, Uplevel Communication, Nine Expressions of Love. We've written a new culture and we invite you to come and partake.

 

Nadège: I love it. And everyone should. I'm actually going to buy your communication book like literally right after this episode because I can't wait. And so thank you for being here and thank you all for listening. That is it for this week's episode.

 

Kenya: I want to give your guests a free gift. Let me give you a gift. 

 

Nadège: Oh gosh, yes.

 

Kenya: So also they can check out a free gift that I have a class on up-level communication and how you can start letting your animal roam through your relationship like a free animal, a free bird that you are. I'm going to give you the link, Nadège, and they can use the free link.

 

Nadège: Amazing. Everybody go check that out because I mean, like I said, even just getting a little taste of Kenya is going to make your relationship so much better. So go and check out that free gift. Thank you so much for giving it to our listeners because like I said, everyone who listens to this podcast is an ambitious cutie who wants to have the best relationship of their life and you can. So thank you for that. 

 

And that is it for this week's episode of Pleasure Science. Please join us next week where I am going to be sharing with you the secret history of Wonder Woman, how she was a BDSM icon inspired by a secret, unconventional polyamorous relationship. Seriously, this episode will fascinate you and blow your mind, so be sure to listen to it next week. 

 

And in the meantime, you can say hi to me on Instagram and TikTok at Pleasure Science. I love hearing from you guys, so shoot me a DM. And if this episode made your heart or your hips or your relationship feel a little bit better, subscribe and leave a review so we can keep giving you what you love. And if you are watching this on YouTube, please leave a comment letting me know what was the thing that Kenya said that changed your relationship, because I know she said something that had your eyebrows shoot to the sky and made you rethink things. And I want to know what that was. So go ahead and leave a comment on this video. 

 

And before we leave you guys today, I have a special gift to everyone listening to the Pleasure Science podcast. A few years ago, I created something called the Touch and Trust Method. And this is a video guide that shows you how to read your lover's body like a map and how to de-shame your brain so you can show up to sex feeling present, proud, and fully yourself. The Touch and Trust Method has already helped thousands of people and as a special gift, listeners of the Pleasure Science Podcast, get 10% off using the code pleasuresciencepod. So click the link in our show notes. I want you guys to grab Kenya's freebie, learn about communication. Then I want you guys to grab the Touch and Trust Method and go to pleasure science.com. And then you're going to learn how to communicate, how to trust. You'll get 10% off. It's going to be glorious. 

 

And thank you all for listening again this week. Before we go, I challenge you to think of one thing that you've been craving to do, a big or small pleasure. And I dare you to go out and experience this pleasure in the next 24 hours. My pleasure was wearing this fabulous Baby Yoda onesie. So if you're not watching on YouTube and you're listening on Spotify or Apple, come over to YouTube, see Kenya's beautiful face and my baby Yoda onesie. And that is all for now. I will see you next week.

 

This podcast is a pleasure science production hosted by me, Nadège, your resident sex scholar. The Pleasure Science podcast is produced by Laura Moore and edited by Camille Furman-Collot. Our music is by Octasound and is licensed under the Pixabay content license. To find out more about Pleasure Science and to sign up for our online courses, please visit www.pleasurescience.com.