Pamela Madsen was a happily married mother of two with a successful career when she felt drawn to an erotic experience that made her jaw (and clothes) drop. It launched a life-changing journey of sexual exploration that continues today — her “nutrition,” as she calls it. Learn all about her journey, plus related wisdom, in the new Girl Boner Radio episode!
Stream it on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Spotify or below. Or read on for a lightly edited transcript.
“Back to Her Body: Pamela Madsen’s Story”
a Girl Boner podcast transcript
Pamela: My name is Pamela Madsen, and I was recently given the name of O. G. of Female Pleasure by Condé Nast. That’s not my title though.
August: I kind of dig it.
Pamela: I really love being called O. G.
[acoustic, encouraging music]
August/narration:
Pamela is also the founder and CEO of Back to the Body Sensuous Retreats for Women – something so far removed from what she learned about sex growing up, which was basically that sex was dangerous.
Pamela: You know, that I could get pregnant. If I was too sexy, I could be raped.
August/narration:
Pamela was the youngest of three. Her sister and brother were a decade and a half older than her.
Pamela: And so they were all Woodstock and rock and roll and sexual freedom.
August/narration:
And her sister was raped.
Pamela: And the message to me was that my sexuality had the power that it was big. And I had to tap it down
August/narration:
Or else, it would blow up her world. In the midst of so much sexual freedom, Pamela felt fear.
Pamela:
Like my best friends were having sex at 14 and 15, I wasn’t doing that. I have pictures of my father in like striped underwear in Rio de Janeiro and being sexy. I came from this very sexy family.
And you know what happens sometimes? It’s like the opposite of what you would think. So I was surrounded by all this permission to be sexual
But the first time I had sex, I was 19. For my age group, from my people, that was late.
August/narration:
And with the first guy she had sex with? She tied the knot.
Pamela:
I married him. I met him at 17. I mean, my whole thing was, I will get married. I will make lamb chops. And broccoli. And make babies. And I will be a good girl. [1950s housewife music]
August/narration:
Pamela’s good girl, good-in-the-kitchen wife lasted for a couple of decades. Meanwhile, she held her sexuality back.
Pamela: And it had nothing to do with orgasm or not masturbating, because I would, I’ve been touching myself since I’m like three. I have memories of having orgasms to music. So it wasn’t about anything being broken. It was about the fear that if I really let myself be fully sexual that I would somehow destroy my own life.
August/narration:
That she would somehow destroy her own life. Honestly, having known Pamela somewhat through the sex ed community, it’s hard for me to imagine her holding back. She is so vibrant in her sensuality.
August: Wow. What changed that for you? Was it a dramatic happening? How did you get out of these two decades and into your sexual bodaciousness?
Pamela: [laughs] Being the OG of female sexuality? I’m changing the title down, but we just stick with OG. Well, 40 happens. A couple of decades pass. And my girlfriends were all having affairs.
August/narration:
This wasn’t what we would today call ethical non-monogamy. It was full on cheating. And it was happening all around Pamela. Meanwhile, Pamela stuck to her good girl values. At the time she’d also built quite a career, working as the successful executive director of the American Fertility Association.
Pamela: And I was, you know, testifying before the FDA and CPC and passing laws and wearing suits.
August/narration:
It wasn’t that she didn’t have a sex life with her husband, she did. It just wasn’t anything exciting like the sex her philandering friends were having. Pamela wasn’t interested in cheating, but the glow her friends had? She wanted some of that.
Pamela: And there was this realization that I knew really, really early on that it wasn’t about my marriage bed. Cause we did the things. Licky licky, sucky sucky, fucky fucky.
Back in those days we had kids, we could like get in there and do the deed, happy, you know, grab a cup of coffee. It’s all good. “Hey kids, what’s for breakfast,” right? So I’m watching my girlfriends flourish and be alive and turned on.
August/narration:
To Pamela they seemed like sex goddesses. And it wasn’t just their sex lives she admired.
Pamela: We know, the erotic when it’s alive and present, that it, like, expands out into your world, right? So, like, the lasagna was better . How they dress changed.
August/narration:
It was…everything. Eventually, things started to shift toward all of those things for Pamela. She told me she credits everything positive she learned about sex to gay men. That all started with a massage at a “hoity toity health club” she had a membership to.
Pamela: And I had a gay masseur. You know, you get close with people. You go every week.
August/narration:
One day, during her weekly massage, Marcus shared something that made Pamela’s jaw drop.
Pamela: He’s telling me about these erotic massages that he was having.
And I almost knocked him unconscious. Like I sat right up and I was like, “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What, what, what, what are you talking about?” And he was like, “Pamela, it’s this thing. They call it sacred intimacy and you don’t have to have sex with the people. You got a massage table and you can explore your eroticism.”
And it’s what keeps me sane in my marriage. And I was like, oh my God. I couldn’t get my panties on fast enough to get home and get to my computer and start Googling erotic massage for women.
And I can go on. Would you like me to go on?
August: Yes, I want to, because I’m guessing this leads to a very sexy place, I want to hear. Don’t, don’t leave me hanging here, Pamela.
August/narration:
Okay, so it did lead to a very sexy place. But the beginning was a little rocky.
Pamela:
Back then, if you were a man, and I mean you just needed a cock, okay? You could get anything. Gay, straight, bisexual, you wanted Genghis Khan’s twin daughters to come give you a blowjob in your hotel, no problem, we’ll send them right over.
If you were a woman then, There was no Back to the Body. There was no August. There was no Girl Boner. But I was determined. Because this was cool, right?
They were going to touch me. I was going to explore my body and have some excitement. I wasn’t going to have to touch them. I wasn’t gonna, like, have sex with these people [whispering]. No sex. No sex. I wouldn’t be breaking any marriage vows.
August/narration:
She’d be able to stick to her values and commitments, stay faithful to her husband, and explore her eroticism? It seemed like a triple win. But not a single place she found offered these sexy sessions for women.
Pamela: I couldn’t find it. And so what I did was, I went to the source. I went to gay men. And I, and I started to, there was a thing then it was called men for men massage. I start writing to these guys, Hi, my name is, Oh, I didn’t use my name. I was incognito. I was Kate. It’s like, “Hi, I’m Kate. And I’ve never been touched by anyone but my husband. And do you touch women? Cause like, I don’t want you to like do anything to me that you wouldn’t want to do with a woman, but like, you know, anything about like vaginas?” We use the word vagina way back then. And I would write to them and I got all kinds of responses, like, you know, “no.” “Uh uh.” To, “Oh baby, I could spin you around on my cock.” Too advanced.
August/narration:
I just had the most endearing picture in my mind of Pamela frolicking around a house almost 1950s style and picking up the phone to hear, “Oh baby, I could spin you around on my cock,” and politely responding, “Thank you, but too advanced.” Click! So sweet. Anyway, she did receive some better responses. She signed up for her first session, which has some….surprises. At least, I was surprised. It started at the back door.
August:
Pamela: I had my first anal massage on my first experience because the guy knew a lot about anuses.
August: Oh, wow. That’s quite a way to start. Did that feel advanced to you? Or were you, I’m ready.
Pamela: I was terrified. He was much older than his picture. You know, back then I was like wanting some eye candy or something. So he was much older and not attractive to me. And I remember sitting on that sofa and he had the massage table set up in his dining room and it was looming there like a hurricane.
Like how do I leave? How do I get out of this? But he was a darling man and spoke to me and calmed me down , you know, started giving me massages. And he was like, you know, I don’t know that much really about, about vulvas, but would you be open to experiencing an anal massage? And I was like, sure. Right? It was lovely by the way.
And then I went to another and another and then developed a professional relationship with a man who has passed away. His name was Marcus Tantric Tiger. Another bisexual gay man. And he really nurtured me. He exposed me to other resources and other teachers and exposed me to sexological bodywork and took me to a training and opened a world for me.
It was through erotic massage, somatic therapy, sexological body work that I became literally like an icon of my own life. Without, at that point in my life, having other lovers. It was my healing journey I had an eating disorder. It like stopped almost immediately.
August: Wow.
Pamela: The therapy didn’t stop it. Nothing. I think my body wanted something. It wasn’t getting. Cause I, I think August, sometimes we don’t know what we, we don’t know.
August: Yeah, it’s so true. My journey was similar in a lot of ways. I was in therapy for an eating disorder. Nothing was helping until I started talking about sex and getting curious about sex and then exploring.
the moment that I went, oh my gosh, I had this huge epiphany about sex. Why had I never talked about it, like why didn’t, I didn’t even talk to my partner, who I was having sex with about it, so I know that feeling, because it, it clicked a switch in me. And it, it didn’t totally stop my eating disorder, but it definitely was the moment that I stopped wanting to brutalize my body.
And the way you said, I didn’t know what my body wanted. You get it. That’s exactly what it was.
Pamela: My body wanted impact play.
My body wanted, like, big releases. My body wanted the slap and the deep feelings. And it also helped with body dysmorphia because I could see an image which I’d have judgment about, but when I could feel my curves under his hands, I could feel my beauty I got friendly with my body. You know, I became compassionate towards my body and I could feel the actual beauty of me through feeling. And then eventually over time that translated to the mirror.
August/narration:
Feeling physically good in her body gradually allowed her to see her physical worth and beauty. The kind we all inherently have. And the release she got from her eating disorder, in unhealthy ways, she said, started coming from spanking and orgasms. Sexy playfulness. All on that spicy massage table.
Pamela:
August: That’s incredible. That’s incredible. So you are on this journey, it sounds like, with your own self through this. How did that impact your marriage?
Pamela: Well, the first six months, I didn’t tell him because, you know, honestly, I didn’t know what I was doing. And maybe it was kind of fun to have dark chocolate,
August/narration:
A sexy secret.
Pamela: that was mine.
August/narration:
Plus, she figured she wasn’t breaking any rules. Marcus was a professional, he was gay and only Pamela got naked. But there was another reason she didn’t spill the tea right away.
Pamela: And then, Marcus really had me open up to my fantasies. I mean, he was the first person I told about spanking. You know, this is before 50 Shades of Grey, folks. You know, for me, I didn’t have a lot of role models. And so, it was kind of hard telling him.
August/narration:
At a certain point, she felt the need to. She took a deep breath and told her husband what she’d been up to.
Pamela: And I asked him if he wanted to meet Marcus and if he’d want to come have a session. And he said, okay, and he came. And we put him on the table and Marcus and I gave him an erotic massage. He enjoyed it and he said, “Okay, babe, I’ve got it. Have fun. This is not for me.
August/narration:
Now, Pamela said, she officially had a hall pass, which would soon expand further as conversations between the couple continued.
Pamela: I started to share with him a little bit around my interest in impact play and sensation play. And he wasn’t very interested. Like we had an incongruent desire. And so we kind of made kind of a deal that I could have a dom outside of the marriage.
August/narration:
Pamela continues to practice D/S, dominance and submission, outside of her marriage – and other things she and her husband both enjoy within it. And she wants more folks to realize such dynamics are possible, whether they involve D/S play or not.
Pamela: You know, I think it’s really important for people to know that you can still be together and not be on the same journey all the time. For those out there who have congruent desire, as opposed to non congruent desire, lucky you. My husband’s a sailor. He’s into knots. Like, why doesn’t he tie me up? But he doesn’t. You know what they say, don’t go to the hardware store for milk.
August/narration:
Pamela definitely doesn’t, and she considers herself very lucky to have such a supportive partner. One she deeply respects and raised two sons with. They have a special marriage and bond, that’s probably strengthened by Pamela nurturing her sexuality. And nurture it, she does. When she thinks about her erotic journey and her orgasmic experiences throughout her life, a few things stand out.
One goes way back, to the time she discovered “erotic trance state” at a very young age. Before I knew about spanking and porn and erotica and sleeping beauty and…
August/narration:
Sleeping Beauty the Anne Rice erotic trilogy, that is. She found herself in a sexy trance of her own.
Pamela: It was a very pure state, an orgasmic state with music.
August/narration:
Today her sex trances are a bit different.
Pamela: What I crave more than the orgasm is really expanded arousal. I can be on the table for two hours. Really having almost psychedelic experiences. I can wear a blindfold and, and I’m not taking care of anybody.
Someone’s taking care of me and that’s super hot for me. You know, I sometimes think August that we have the words wrong. So I think that like a lot of women who don’t think they’re orgasmic actually are having orgasm. They’re having expanded arousal and peaks. They’re not having the big climax. They’re going up and down and up and down in pleasure. And so we can help women lose the story that they’re not orgasmic. Honey, if you’re feeling your vulva and you’re having pleasure and you’re going, Oh, oh…, like you’re in your breath and sound and movement and it feels good down there, you’re orgasmic. Maybe you’re not having a big climax. If I had to trade the big climax for 90 minutes of, Oh my God, I would do that.

[acoustic, encouraging music]
August (ad):
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[acoustic, encouraging music]
August/narration:
Another “big, hot” experience Pamela had involved early D/S explorations while playing in public.
Pamela: Back in my day in San Francisco, there was a place called the Citadel. It was a public play space and you needed to be a member.
August/narration:
Her dom at the time, Dark Knight Brian, would take her there.
Pamela: And we would play and have sex in public. Here I was like the perpetual virgin, right?
Pamela: And I remember there was one scene where I was bent over what they call a spanking bench. D. K. Brian was behind me and he was really long. He was so tall and had long arms and he was having sex with me and flogging me at the same time.
August/narration:
Nearby, from another bench, people watched.
Pamela: And I remember thinking, okay, okay, Pamela. If you die from too much excitement, Dark Knight’s gonna need to like, put a note on you. Like, “This is Pamela. Call her husband.” And just wheel me into a bus station. So that was like a really big experience for me too, was that discovery that I like public play, and I don’t like DS without the erotic.
August/narration:
Lots of folks enjoy DS play without sex. I have a friend who’s submission literally runs errands for her and that’s basically it. That is not Pamela. She wants “the whole shebang.” That’s not to say that her life, outside of sex, wasn’t touched by her exploits. In fact-
Pamela: Unleashing my sexuality did change my life.. And it blew up my life for a little while. when you do these deep journeys and these deep dives, you’re going to be different. Life will be different. What you want will be different. Some people will approve. You’ll make new friends, some friends will leave.
I changed careers. I left an incredibly big, important, visible career. And I left that to devote my life to this because this is where I really met me.
August/narration:
If you’re yearning for similar growth and discovery in your sexual life — or you want to figure out what turns you on in the first place — Pamela suggests easing in.
Pamela: Not too much, not too fast.
August: Don’t just dive right in?
Pamela: That’s really important. Like I took my time in this. I spent a year with Marcus. It took me a long time to say the word spanking. It wasn’t like an overnight thing. Becoming sexually empowered is a practice. And you’re not going to be dancing at the Citadel on day one. And if you do, it may not be the best experience of your life.
You know, I started out really rather slow . Step by step. Sex is a practice. People hate that. They hate this idea that they actually have to learn to play their own violin, but you do.
And know that you’re not alone in not knowing because we’re not taught this.Find a place where you can taste the buffet, in a really safe way. . You know, it’s hard, August. People want this always to be their partner and it’s not always your partner. For me, it was really important to find a space where it could just be about my body. And it could just be about what my desires were to figure that out.
Pamela: You know, the company I run, Back to the Body, is not back to the partner. It’s back to your body. And so be gentle with yourself.
Go slow, find your practitioners and take your time. Don’t gulp your meals. Chew your food. Let it digest. Ask yourself, do I have a reaction to this? What is it stimulating? Is it good or do I have a rash? And honey, I’m still on the journey.
August: I love that. Do you think you’ll always be discovering new things about your sexuality?
Pamela: Absolutely. And then taking it out into the world. Sharing it with other women.
August/narration:
As we speak, Pamela is off the coast of Panama, hosting an erotic trance retreat for women – inspired by her earliest erotic experience. If, like me, you are not on an exotic island with the OG of female sexuality right now, you can still partake.
Pamela: Cause you know, I want that, I want to have that five year old experience. [laughs]
August: I want that. I was trying to think if I’ve experienced that or not. Self pleasure is such a passion of mine, and I didn’t engage until age 30. That journey for me has been the most powerful sexual journey I’ve ever had. And I was trying to think, huh. I don’t know if I have. Maybe I need that workshop.
Pamela: You might. But you know what you can also do to enhance that possibility for yourself? Use a blindfold even in self pleasure. And find some music that you like instead of a story. We all have our spank banks, right? Like I have my special things that I like to look at on my phone, that special page in the book. That’s going to get me off.
Okay. So I could go rub one off in three minutes. That’s not the meal I’m looking for. Well sometimes. Maybe once a week, but trans state and expanded arousal is its own meal and it’s not role play. It’s not that.
So sex is a buffet. I could be the little submissive and, I can be kind of dominant, and I can want to be tied up and have multiple hot orgasms. And I also like erotic trance state. And to have erotic trance state, I can’t use any of those skills. I need a blindfold. Don’t tell me to breathe because you’re going to screw it up for me because it’s really a meditation. It’s an orgasmic meditative state. And so music without words. And whatever you like, however you like to touch yourself with whatever toys you like to use and then just go deep in you explore that.
You know, many people know the term edging. You’re not going for the come. You’re not going for the climax. You can have it. But spend some time in peeking and you’ll find it and you don’t need necessarily a guide to do that.
August/narration:
If you’re not sure where to start or you could use some support, around any aspect of your sensual, sexual journey, Pamela’s company offers it plentifully. Back to the Body offers free consultations with female sexologists and psychotherapists.
Pamela: Talk to them for free for an hour and see what might be right for you.
August/narration:
On the website, backtothebody.org, you can also take a pleasure quiz and check out the sensual retreats for women. If you attend one, as I hope to one day, you can expect some proven perks.
Pamela: What I’m the most proud of August is that we have a study. That we have data. You know, we just published. It’s like 45 pages. Touch works. Touch heals. We have data to prove it. You’ll feel better about your vulva. You’ll feel better about your body. You’ll feel better about other women. You’ll feel better about knowing your desires. You’ll start to initiate sex and you start with your body. You want to get back to your body? Bring your body. It’s really not that hard. And I know it’s hard for people to like make the call, but you know that at the other end of the line, there’s a woman who’s been on the journey. And I think that’s really important.
August: huge. Have you thought about what that would have been like for you? To connect with someone and say, “I don’t know what’s happening in my sexuality.”
Pamela: God. So much. And as it was, I had my girlfriends waiting outside when I would go to meet somebody for the first time, and I was terrified. I was sort of like, you know, when you see penguins, they show it on National Geographic. They’re all at the edge of the ocean, and they’re pushing, and they need one guy to go in to see if the killer whale is going to eat them. I was that penguin. I was that penguin. And so, yeah, to find a group of penguins that are not going to push you, but who are going to stand beside you, and who’s going to say, “You know what? I’ve been in the water, and the water’s really good. And no whale is going to eat you.” Unless that’s a fantasy, and then we can work on that.
August: If you discover that’s what your kink is, then we’ll find a way.
Pamela: Right. But you know, it’s really nice to know that boundaries are the boundaries.
August/narration:
And at the Back to the Body retreats, the boundaries are held by women – through experiences Pamela still yearns for.
August: I create all this pleasure for other women . And, sometimes I wish I could just be one of them.
Pamela: A lot of our female sexologists have all been to a retreat, but they’re dying to go to another one. They need the work. Sexologists come to do their work. You don’t have to have trauma. Yes, you can have trauma – we’ll work with that. We’ll work with all the things, but I think sometimes women think they have to be broken and in pain to spend money on themselves and give themselves time, to get the hall pass. So I’m just going to give everybody a hall pass. And if you’re just like I was, like I wanted to be a sex goddess, too. I wanted to explore. I wanted to know what I didn’t know. That’s available, too.
And I don’t think I’m ever going to stop. This is my nutrition. This is what keeps me well. This is what keeps me beautiful. This is what keeps me shiny and it’s what keeps me married.
August/narration:
Pamela told me she hopes that one day, sexological body work will be broadly available, in shopping malls or street corners, and as accessible as yoga classes. Imagine if health insurance covered it. Maybe someday.
[acoustic, encouraging music]
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