The ideas that came together to form the book Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality started many years ago in the early days of my own healing journey from PTSD. During the initial phases of my own healing work, I focused relentlessly on understanding and processing my life experiences that impaired my functioning, affected my relationships, and impacted my sexual well being. Slowly, over the course of many years of therapeutic work and participation in ceremonial plant medicine ceremonies, I began to change; to experience some distance from my own anguish, to start to build a loving relationship to my body. But a missing piece remained. It wasn’t until I was called to work with the San Pedro cactus in Peru that medicine bestowed upon me one of the most supreme gifts available to humankind. I, for the first time in my life, experienced what it was to be in a space free from trauma connected to the earth, connected to other people, connected to God, and most importantly, fully connected to the present moment. The greatest gift of the medicine was to be offered a relationship with the absolute ecstasy of what it can mean to be in a human body, alive, free, and expansive. 

The gift of psychedelic medicines is not only about relief from our past traumas, but an invitation to step into a state of pleasure available to us at any moment. Our erotic energy is deeply connected to this expansive pleasure state because it is not only the energy of sexuality but the energy of our very lifeforce and vitality. As a sex and trauma therapist, however, I began to see exactly how sexual shame, trauma, and a lack of positive sexual mirroring among other ways our sexuality might be damaged, impacted myself and my clients. Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality seeks to explore how psychedelic medicines can help us heal on the deepest levels and offer us the opportunity to cultivate a deeply sacred relationship to our bodies, to our relationships, and to our erotic vitality. It is intended to be both a philosophical and practical guide to psychedelic erotic fulfillment. 

While I’m proud of this book and the information contained within it, one crucial question needs to be addressed. In a time of great political violence, fear, climate crisis, racism, and aggression particularly toward queer and trans individuals and communities, why write a book about pleasure? Is this not the time to fight? To be focused on protecting our values and protecting the earth? Yes. Yes, it is. But it is inevitable that we will become burned out, disconnected, and despairing if we continue to fight without anything to nourish us, to guide us, to help us connect to the authentic magic that is still very much alive in this fractured world. So, why pleasure? Why focus on building a relationship to our erotic bodies, to joy, and to the people we love? Because it is that very pleasure that will continue to support us in being truly politically empowered people. Whatever is to come, what is clear is that every moment we embrace pleasure in the face of hate, unbridled greed, and violence is a radical act. Every moment when we can connect with our holy bodies and share them erotically in joy is a little act of healing, and what’s more, an act of rebellion. 

I hope this book speaks to you and offers some small gift; a word, an idea, a concept that brings you closer to love. Healing our sexuality can be a critical step in coming into a deeper sense of wholeness so we can enjoy the body we are in, and offer that healing back to the world, to our partners, and communities. I believe that psychedelic medicines are the unique gift offered to us by our mother Earth to help us become more self-actualized in our bodies and minds. They offer the possibility of connecting to eroticism and love in ways we can’t even comprehend. The question is, are we ready to receive a love that big?

Dee Dee Goldpaugh, March 2025