Pleasure Bound Podcast
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A juicy, honest podcast about reclaiming pleasure, joy, and power in any body.
07/03/2026
Tomorrow marks 14 years since my spinal cord injury. 14 years ago today, is the last day that I literally walked the Earth. So wild. Yes, so wild she was. So wild she IS.
I don’t call it my injurversary anymore. I call it my rebirthday.
It’s the day my life split into a before and and after. The same way there was life before my dad died, and life after. Life before my brother died, and after.
We all have these benchmarks in our lives. They’re usually marked by points of profound change. And whether we deem them good or bad, they’re still change. Pivoting points, at which we will never be the same.
Tomorrow is the day I lost one way of moving through the world, and slowly began learning another. Letting go of the old and embracing the new. Mourning what was, and stepping into what could be.
This year, I’ve been thinking less about what I lost (while still honoring the truth of that) and more about what I’m choosing. — Joy. Pleasure. Delight.
Not because life has been easy, and not to bypass what is real, but because these practices have become the way home to myself. They have become the reminder of magic. The link to the present. The conduit to our divinity.
I’ve learned that sharing our joy isn’t selfish. In fact, it’s downright generous.
Continued in the comments…
Slide contents and image descriptions there as well
06/25/2026
NEW EPISODE, LOVERS —
Pleasure isn’t always a bath ritual, a perfect date, a solo pleasure practice, or a big moment of deliciousness.
Sometimes pleasure looks like saying no, or canceling plans, or making space to grieve who/what has left, or what isn’t working anymore.
Sometimes it looks like finally listening to the part of yourself that’s been agitated, exhausted, overwhelmed, or quietly asking for more, or just…something different.
Sometimes it’s a million little things, sprinkled throughout your day — decorating the mundane.
In Episode 11 of Pleasure Bound, Kate and I talk about what happens when we stop chasing outcomes and start paying attention to the actual experience of being alive. When we own our needs and our truths and let the fu**in chips fall where they may.
THAT is pleasure, because that is freedom.
We explore:
✨ The difference between pleasure as a practice vs pleasure as another thing to accomplish
✨ Why the “scenic route” often leads somewhere more delicious or real than the destination
✨ JOMO (the Joy of Missing Out) and the relief of opting out
✨ Friendship, care, and tending the ecosystems that sustain us
✨ The grief and freedom that come with closing one chapter and stepping into another
✨ Why pleasure might be less about getting somewhere and more about HOW we travel
This conversation felt especially vulnerable because neither of us had it all figured out. We were living the questions in real time. Raw.
If you’ve been feeling disconnected from yourself, overcommitted, stuck in survival mode, or exhausted by the pressure to perform or be “better” or different — in the bedroom, in your work, or in your life in general — we think this episode might resonate.
Pleasure isn’t a box to check, my loves.
It’s a way of being. Let’s be there together.
On the journey with you,
Kelsey and Kate
🎧 Episode 11: The Scenic Route: Pleasure & the Erotic as a Way of Life — now out, wherever you listen to podcasts.
This part of our conversation with Jim made me reminded me of when I finally started finding friends within the Disability community. And how it changed everything.
I went from rejecting my new disabled identity, and from trying to escape from it, to knowing that being with my people was the way to love myself again. It was the yellow brick road.
Forming relationships with other people like me, people who knew and understood what it was like, was one of the most vital aspects of seeing myself more clearly.
Learning to love other people with disabilities through new friendships — learning how to see them/us, how to care for each other, and learning FROM each other — was teaching me of my own worth. My own power. My own potential for joy. It was showing me of the possibilities. It was showing me the ways I need to be loved now, the ways I deserve to be loved. It was teaching me how to love better.
Relationships with my disability community continue to teach me to have pride for my disabled identity. That my disability isn’t something to be ashamed of, or something to hide, or something to see as a deficit.
This community teaches me to look at how my disability has innate value, because it is an extension of me. It’s part of what makes me beautifully human. It’s part of what I offer the world through my unique life experience. And in that way, disability is an extension of love.
I’m so grateful for this community, and all the different ways we invite the world, the ways we teach the world, to love more.
Our GoFundMe is still going, but we need your help. Join us. Let’s keep these healing conversations going.
https://gofund.me/001de8d18
Link in bio and story as well⚡️
Xoxo,
Kelsey and kate
Living in a body is complicated. It’s beautiful, it’s painful…it’s so many things.
If I’ve learned anything about being a human in a body that has changed profoundly — it’s the importance of knowing that, despite how hard s**t can be, or how differently the story can unfold from what you had though y or known — being human is a rich and sensuous experience.
No matter what way you are human-ing, there is an aliveness in you that no one can take from you.
I lost the ability to feel 75% of my body, and yet, I still feel SO MUCH.
Yes, I feel pain, but I also am capable of feeling so much pleasure and joy.
I feel at all. I allow it all. I am real with it all.
And the more I tune in to that, the more I can experience my own divinity, my own magic.
The more I wake up to the eroticism of life, and the more that I can see that my pleasure is medicine, the more I love my life and myself.
Don’t let the world minimize your joy or your pleasure — it’s why you’re here.
The more we reclaim that, the more free we truly are.
So, thank you. Thank you for being on this journey with us. supporting us. Our GoFundMe is taking off and we’re so grateful.
I’ve included a link here and in our bio and stories, for those of you who are able to donate.
We appreciate your support, and we look forward to continuing to tell stories with you.
https://gofund.me/86e1df4e8
Xoxo,
Kelsey and Kate
I remember this moment so clearly.
I was only six months out from surgery, talking to a new romantic interest, and for the first time in my life, I had to tell a potential new lover I have a colostomy bag.
At the time, I remember thinking I had to “break it to him.”
Listening back now, I find myself wanting to shift that language.
Because I wasn’t breaking anything to him.
I was simply sharing the truth about how my body functions and how I care for it.
At the time, though, it felt terrifying.
I was scared of rejection. I was scared that someone I was deeply attracted to would see my body as less desirable. I was scared that this one piece of information could somehow determine the future of our connection.
And I don’t blame myself for feeling that way.
When we live in a culture that teaches us there is a narrow definition of what bodies should look like, how they should function, and what makes someone desirable, it makes sense that sharing something outside of that norm can feel vulnerable.
But what I’ve come to understand is this:
A relationship worth having doesn’t hinge on whether someone uses a wheelchair, has a colostomy bag, needs assistance, takes medication, or has a body that functions differently than expected.
Those things aren’t bombs to drop.
They’re simply truths to share.
And if someone’s inability to embrace those truths becomes a dealbreaker, then the connection wasn’t built on very solid ground to begin with.
More importantly, it doesn’t diminish our worth.
There’s an earned sovereignty I feel in my skin now. A knowing that the next time I have this conversation, it won’t feel as scary.
Not because rejection is impossible, but because I no longer believe my desirability hangs in the balance.
My body is not an apology.
My needs are not an apology.
The way I move through the world is not an apology.
They’re simply part of who I am.
And the people who are meant to love us will want to know the truth.
EPISODE 10 with Jim LeBrecht is out now. Listen wherever you podcast 😘🌹⚡️♿️✊
You are allowed to want seggs simply because you want pleasure.
Because you want to feel good.
Because you want to be touched.
Because your body is ALIVE.⚡️
There doesn’t have to be a deeper justification.
No backstory.
No performance of worthiness.
No needing to “earn” desire.
And at the same time —
your pleasure is sacred.🌹
Your body is sacred.
Your pu$$y is sacred.
Your c**k is sacred.
Which means your needs MATTER.
Your comfort matters.
Feeling seen matters.
Feeling safe enough to surrender matters —
Especially for those of us who move through the world carrying harmful narratives about our worth.
Women.
Disabled people.
Fat people.
POC.
Q***r people.
Anyone who has been taught — directly or indirectly — to settle for less.
To accept crumbs.
To be grateful just to be chosen.
No.
You deserve pleasure that honors you.
Pleasure with presence.
Pleasure with care.
Pleasure where your humanity is not negotiable, it is seen and celebrated as it is.
Wanting to get f*cked and wanting reverence are not contradictions. 💋
They belong together.
New episode of Pleasure Bound out now.
LINK IN STORY AND BIO
“I came here for the f*cking ice cream.” 🍦
AKA:
Yes, sometimes we want the orgazm.
The release.
The peak experience.
The big, delicious, transcendent thing.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But in episode 8, we talk about how so many of us have been taught to rush straight to the “ice cream” — bypassing the sensory experience, the embodiment, the intimacy, the slowness, the actual being in our bodies.
Pleasure isn’t just the climax.
It’s also the anticipation.
The score.
The first bite.
The warmth.
The unfurling.
The laughter.
The texture.
The saaaaavoringgggg.
The nervous system softening enough to actually receive.
You are allowed to want the f**k!ng ice cream.
But what if you allowed your life to become rich enough to savor the whole experience too?🤯
Yuh-ME🥵
⚡️Episode 8 of Pleasure Bound is out now⚡️
Link in bio and story or listen on Spotify, apple and substack
05/10/2026
This journey with Pleasure Bound has been a profound classroom of learning that feeling good has so much more meaning than we may think…and sensuality is not about escaping different kinds of pain, but listening more deeply to what the body, the heart, is trying to say. What we’re worthy and capable of as living beings.
I’ve been dealing with pelvic pain on and off for a couple years, and this season of my life is asking me to slow down, simplify, and stop overriding myself in the name of survival. I’m learning how connected our bodies are to grief, exhaustion, desire, anger, tenderness, and the places where we’ve abandoned ourselves just to keep going, or to feel seen.
And in a culture where marginalized bodies are so often dismissed, misunderstood, or disconnected from their own authority, I keep coming back to this truth: we are the ones who know our bodies most intimately. But it’s a practice to know ourselves. An unlearning and a leaning-in. There is both a responsibility and an opportunity in that — to listen deeply, to learn to trust our intuition, to dismiss harmful narratives and controlling systems, and to create a more loving relationship with our inner knowing.
This month’s Pleasure Guide was born from that space — a softer, more holistic and sensual investigation into embodiment, beauty, rest, ritual, and reconnecting to the body through the senses.
Because “feeling good is not frivolous, it’s freedom.” - 🙏🙏🙏💜💜💜
The new May Pleasure Guide is now live on Substack. 🌹⚡️
Happy Mother’s Day, y’all — with love and tenderness.
-Kelsey and Kate
🖼️🖌️🎨
imagedescription: painting by disabled UK, artist, Lizzie Griffin. Depicts a diverse group of disabled people, adorned in vines and flowers. Some are wrapped around them tightly, and some gently entwine them around different body parts. Flowers extend from some of their bodies. People with different assistive devices. People caring for others.
05/09/2026
For your pleasure…
pleasure can be agency.
a reclamation of yourself, your s**t.
especially when everything else
feels out of control.
when your body hurts.
when signals get crossed.
when systems fail you.
when you’re waiting on help.
when you’re overwhelmed, grieving, frustrated, dependent, or exhausted…
pleasure can become a way back to yourself.
not escapism.
not denial.
agency.
sometimes agency looks like:
* making a new plan and taking the lead
* changing your mind, because you’re allowed to
* cleaning and redecorating your altar
* letting yourself rest
* wearing something that makes youfeel hot
* saying “no”
* saying “more”
* adjusting your body instead of forcing it
* touching your own skin the way you want to be touched
pleasure won’t magically solve oppression, pain, burnout, or loss.
but it can interrupt the feeling that your body only exists to survive.
it reminds you:
“i am still a divine human in here.”
not just a thing to manage.
sometimes reclaiming agency is tiny.
a deep breath.
a different glass because it brings you joy — expressing a change in preference can be so powerful.
a moment alone.
a favorite blanket.
music that makes your body remember.
a hot washcloth on your face.
a vi****or.
a really good meal.
tiny doesn’t mean meaningless.
and honestly?
for a lot of disabled, chronically ill, grieving, overwhelmed, andmarginalized people…
pleasure is one of the few places where we get to hear ourselves clearly.
not productivity.
not performance.
not obligation.
just pure f*cking DESIRE.
curiosity.
choice.
you do not have to become independent to become embodied.
you do not have to be “fixed” toaccess joy.
you are allowed to experience beauty, softness, intimacy, sensuality, humor, and pleasure while still needing support.
that is not failure.
that is human.
Continued in the comments…🌹⚡️
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