horizontal?

Yep, this is the newsletter (with pretty pictures & read-alouds) that has the same name as my first podcast, horizontal with lila, in which I had intimate conversations about sex, love, & relationships of all kinds, entirely recorded while lying down.

To be honest, most of this stuff was written while lying down, too.

free vs. paiddd?

There is a free version and a paid version of horizontal with lila. They’ve both got words, but most of my favorite words are in the paid version. Because I’d really love to pay my rent, and put gas in my Vespa, Loralei, and eat, occasionally.

I am also partial to lipstick.

Free subscribers get stuff bi-monthly (does that mean twice a month or every other month or semi-monthly WHO KNOWS I am WILD). They also get the beginnings of the paid stuff. I love beginnings, don’t you?

Paid subscribers get stuff multiple times a week. Weekly at least. And perks such as those exclusive read-alouds, in my velvety horizontal voice. 

I’m already delighted you are here, and

I will do a full-on HAPPY DANCE if you become a paid subscriber, dahling.

about meee?

Well, alright bb, here’s a bio just in case you wanted one of those:

My name is Lila. 

I'm an Intimacy Specialist. I'm also an Actress, Writer, Public Speaker, & Curator of Immersive events.

As the daughter of an American psychologist & a Brazilian social worker, I've been a student of human relationships for just about as long as I've been a human.

I've had pillow talk with thousands of people (most of whom were not my lovers!), and approximately 127 of those conversations are broadcast for the world to hear on my indie podcast (that’s right!) horizontal with lila.

horizontal is consensual eavesdropping. It’s private conversations made public. It's a show about sex, love, and relationships of all kinds ... recorded entirely while lying down, wearing robes. The Mission: to dispel shame, ease loneliness, and alchemize human connection. I know most people don't have access to the kind of raw, revealing, vulnerable conversations I get to have every day, multiple times a day. I wanted to give access. 

And so I have.

In the words of listener ghost_heart, horizontal "takes you into her bed and lets your ears watch as she unzips intimate conversations." Marie Claire dubbed the show "an intimate, thoughtful, often funny sex podcast" and calls it “sexy, poetic, and eye-opening," naming it among “The 35 Best Sex Podcasts of All Time.”

Which is an honor! That points to a problem.

We use the word intimacy as synonymous with sex. But intimacy is not sex. And sex is not always intimate - as many of us unfortunately know!

I believe intimacy is the cure for the pandemic of loneliness, but only if we can expand our definition of what intimacy is and can be. 

horizontal with lila THE SUBSTACK has the same goal that horizontal with lila the podcast did: to make the world a more intimate place. It is here where I’ll continue to explore relationships of all kinds, including the one with myself.

I’ve presented my intimacy frameworks as a TED Idea Search Latin America 2021 finalist, a Business of Fashion VOICES conference speaker, and a SXSW 2022 presenter. Putting my NYU Tisch Drama BFA to use!

In 2022, I made a podcast for iHeartRadio (the #1 podcast network). It was called Positively Sex! PS! is sex ed, with pleasure. That podcast began as a live interactive audio show, winner of Clubhouse's Creator First Program.

It was recorded while upright.

I have variously been a yoga teacher (fashion designer Pola Thomson's fave one, in fact), a world-touring AcroYoga instructor, creator of The Acrobat's Workout (featured on ABC7, The Today Show, and mic.com), a Thai Bodywork practitioner, and a v. serious Argentine tango dancer (socially). 

I speak Portuguese, my mother's native language (with a slight accent, to my eternal chagrin) and I've lived in Brazil, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, & Bali, Indonesia. My hometown is Brooklyn, New York. I’m flirting with being bi-coastal. My pronouns are she/her; I'm a bisexual 1 on the Kinsey scale, and I really like lipstick. Among my favorite things are community, dresses, the podcast Ear Hustle, closets organized by color, question games (I made one!), & my Vespa, Loralei.

I was a founding member of Hacienda Villa, Brooklyn’s premiere sex-positive intentional community & center for intimacy education, and I lived there happily for 5 years. (Want me to write a memoir about it? Let a gal know! The proposal is ready to go!) My article on life as a Villan, "You Call it a Sex House; I Call it Home" was published in BUST Magazine in 2015.

As an intimacy coach, my clients explore kink, pleasure, alternative relationships, emotional intelligence, communication techniques, & unbraiding their true desires from what they're "supposed to" want! (Note: Not necessarily all of these at once. But typically at least two of them.)

As an actress, I originated the role of Piper Pilfer in Woodshed Collective's New York Times-lauded immersive production Empire Travel Agency. Immersive is my JAM. But I won’t say no to a proscenium, either. Black box also good.

As a public speaker and creator of immersive events, I host happenings such as horizontal storytelling pajama parties, Femme Domme Kink Tasters, connection games, hot love talks & 14 Rooms: a sensual, intimate Valentine’s experience for everyone, regardless of relationship status. (Friends who met at my events are still dating, 6 years later?!)

You must know this: 

I don’t shy away from sex. Obviously! VIVA LA SEX! POSITIVELY SEX! YES! YES! YES!

I just want to put sex where it belongs: right alongside all the other forms of intimacy that make a nourishing life.

Now that! 

That is positively sex.