Like you’re just out here flooding your brain with dopamine, riding that roller coaster of emotions, activating the most primitive and sensitive parts of your brain, FOR FUN?

Which got me wondering … Am I the only person who friggin’ hates falling in love?

This spring, I decided to revive my old Queerie Bradshaw blog here on Stubstack and reclaim the parts of my sexual, kinky, and romantic self that I’d tucked away for most of my thirties.

In theory, I was out here looking for a primary partner, someone who would travel the world with me, buy me flowers, and make all of this career success I’ve had feel less lonely.

In practice, I was scared shitless of actually finding love.

I am.

I am scared shitless of falling in love.

Don’t get me wrong, I love love.

I write romance novels. I binge romcomcs. I have deep, loving, intimate relationships with people in my life.

But falling in love? That’s a whole other story.

Maybe it’s because of grief. I’ve been through some rough shit – not the least of which was watching my younger brother bleed out and die – and falling in love makes me face the loved ones that I’ve lost. Love requires intimacy, and intimacy requires me to share these sad, deep, horrific truths and life experiences that live within my soul.

Maybe it’s a neurodiversity thing. I spend so much time managing my mental health, getting my brain to focus, and trying to not spiral, that it feels quite literally insane to be out here hitting it with the ticking time bomb of emotions that is love.

Maybe it’s a fat and queer thing. I grew up being told I was unlovable because of my size and sinful because of my sexuality and gender. Not to mention all the ways I had pointed out to me that my personality made me “hard to handle.” It’s difficult to get over those voices from my formative years.

Or maybe it’s because I’m fucking fabulous, a total catch, and no one is good enough for me to love.

See that last part there? That’s called overcompensating and condescension. And it’s been a problem in my search for love.

When I get nervous that I’m unworthy of love, I put down everyone else as inadequate and therefore also unworthy. If no one is worthy of love, then I don’t have to worry about falling in love.

Easy, right?

What could go wrong?

Well, life had other plans for my carefully constructed emotional barricades.

Gentle lovers who held me as I cried.

Chosen family who supported me through the highs and lows.

People who remind me that I can be both flawed and lovable.

Imperfect humans that I love with all of my heart proving that it’s possible.

Between friends, leather family, biological family, and romantic lovers, I’ve had to learn to accept that maybe, just maybe, I can handle love.

Maybe I already am handling it.

Maybe my life is flowing full of love.

Maybe I have to admit that I can handle love.

Back when I was writing my first published book Bawdy Love: 10 Steps to Profoundly Loving Your Body, I did a deep dive into how we sabotage our relationships because we’re feeling unworthy of love.

I wrote a blog post titled How to Feel Worthy of Love and Stop Damaging Your Relationships, and it still gets about 1000 views a month, eight years later.

Apparently, I’m not alone in this struggle.

I read through the piece again and this quote from Brené Brown really struck out at me:

“The thing that undermines this thinking that I’m not ______ enough , is excruciating vulnerability. This idea that in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves … to really be seen.”

So, let’s sit with this question together today:

Are we willing to allow ourselves to truly, completely, and totally be seen?

I'm curious—do you find falling in love exhilarating or terrifying? And if you're like me and find it scary as hell, what do you think is behind that fear?

I’d love to know your answer.

Reply in the comments below.

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With you in the process,

Lauren

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I can live abroad and solo travel the world.

I can get dressed up, go out to a fancy dinner, and come home to give myself wonderful orgasm with my quite impressive toy collection.

But I’m tired of doing it all solo.

.

A child of the 90’s, I was raised on a third-wave feminism that emphasized empowerment through individualism and rejecting the norm, with Riot Grrl rockers, zine-making parties, and the Lilith Fair influencing my identity alongside the hyper-sexualized “girl power” movement. Whether the Indigo Girls or the Spice Girls, both sides of the feminist coin agreed: we were strong badasses who didn’t need a man.

Flash forward a couple decades and the Girl Boss movement of the early millennium took that empowerment to the board room, encouraging women to claim power in the workforce, start their own businesses, and pave their way forward through capitalism.

But nowhere in that imagery did I see a woman who had both a career and love.

Sure, many of the songs I blasted from my radio – and still rock out to today – talked about love, but it was always from a place of tension, heartbreak, and devastation, which further emphasized this belief in me that relationships would only lead to a massive emotional upheaval in your life.

Then I had one. My first ever lesbian love.

And god, was it even more horrible than the acoustic guitar-wielding coffee shop crooners had said.

She was in the closet, I was painfully insecure, we both were flailing around like the newly minted adults we were, barely able to function on our own, more of less in partnership with each other.

One after another after another, relationships upended my life, none of them lasting more than a year, all of them leaving me devastated and distracted from my bigger life goal of being a rich and famous … I didn’t know what yet, but I knew I was destined for riches and fame!

Each new heartbreak reaffirmed my suspicion that there was no way to have a relationship and a career.

So I chose my career.

Eventually even going so far as to shut down my popular sex blog because the pursuit of pleasure was getting in the way of professional aspirations.

I went to therapy, healing my own wounds and generational trauma.

I built SchoolForWriters.com up to a values-aligned and financially abundant business.

I published a novel that’s in almost every bookstore and airport in the nation right now.

I made all but one of my lifelong goals come true – and the wheels are in motion for that final one.

I did it all. Now what?

Reviving the Queerie Bradshaw blog is part of this bigger life question of “now what”?

I don’t yet know the answer – and I’m not sure a solid one will ever come, that’s just life, but I do know a few things for sure:

1. It must center pleasure.

2. It will include multimedia storytelling.

3. I cannot do it alone.

It’s that last part I am struggling with the most.

I know how to center pleasure: I wrote a sex blog for years, did my law school thesis on porn, am a total foodie, and have made joy the core of all I do since watching my brother die young.

I know how to tell stories in multiple mediums: I got a B.A. in cinema, have had multiple video podcasts, and love writing blog posts with pictures.

But I worry that I’ve spent so many years learning to be an independent woman who is comfortable on her own, that I don’t know how to let someone intimately into my life.

Yes, I can buy myself flowers. But I would love to have a lover show up at my door with some.

Yes, I can travel all over the world by myself. But I long to hold someone’s hand while walking down the streets of Coyoacán.

Sure, I can give myself an amazing orgasm. But I miss the feel of having someone there to experience it with me.

So, I’m out there dating again. And let me tell you, it’s as hard as I remember!

But I am softer.

I’m letting down the walls. I’m being honest with what I want. I’m treating myself and my dates with a tenderness and gentility that we all need right now in this moment.

One of the best things about being an independent woman who can take care of her own needs is the privilege of dating without desperation. I am not looking for someone to validate my worthiness of love. I’m not pretending to be something I am not. I’m not shrinking to be what I think others want.

I am dating with clear intentions and bold confidence – two things I didn’t have before.

Have I gotten flowers, orgasms, and romantic trips yet?

You’ll have to subscribe to find out in a future post. ;-)

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I can tell you this, dating is still as time-consuming, emotionally tumultuous, and nerve-racking as it always has been. But I am more experienced, empowered, and capable of handling it with care – and that makes all the difference in the world.

What's something you can totally do for yourself but wish someone else would do for or with you?

Let me know in the comments!

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On June 7, 2015, a friend tied a beautifully knotted pink rope around my neck, and suddenly, magically, a new kink was unlocked .. and then shut back away.

For a decade, I tucked that part of myself away. Not fully – I learned a couple knots from a friend, I watched some videos of self-tying online, I even bought (the completely wrong kind of) rope at a hardware store once – but enough that my mind forgot the joy of having rope run across my neck.

Still, my body remembered.

The body always remembers.

There is a deep, intimate, primal part of us that always knows exactly what we want and need. If we can be brave enough to ask for it and patient enough to find it, we can build a life full of pleasure, joy, and desire.

That’s what I’m trying to tap back into this summer.

And rope is a key component of that.

My rope resurrection started with a magazine article.

In January 2024, my internet friend Jackie Bryant posted on her Instagram that she’d done a healing post-pregnancy Shibari session and wrote all about it for San Diego Magazine. The pics were stunning and Jackie’s words were even more beautiful.

I realize I am really going to have to let all of this go—the ugly scar, the birth horror, yes, but particularly the disgust over my own body, this vessel that not only keeps me alive but created another life, too. I had taken that miracle for granted and gotten in my own head. This experience is objectively beautiful, and I am its centerpiece.

It’s the letting go that I’ve missed the most as I’ve been away from the BDSM world. Not just releasing power to someone else, but releasing societal shame, standards, and expectations in the process.

To be kinky is to radically embrace your body as desirable and worthy of pleasure, sensation, and attention.

BDSM asks us to explore the wildest, most risqué recesses of our imagination and to examine ourselves in the process.

The Leather community is a core part of the sexual revolution that led to current LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, and alternative family structures. Our art and culture is so intrinsically tied to the gay community, it is sometimes hard to separate kink and queerness – although they are two inherently different things, they often go hand in hand.

When we allow one part of ourselves to exist without shame or guilt, we enable other parts of our liberation to follow.

Nothing Jackie Bryant reported on in her piece was new to me, except for one glaring fact that kept popping up in my mind over and over again: San Diego now has a dedicated rope space – and it’s only seven minutes from my place.

Like so many of my personal desires, I ignored it, focusing instead on trying to get my business (SchoolForWriters.com) and my debut novel (Because Fat Girl) off the ground.

But the minute I declared it to be Sexy Summer, that voice came back in full force, shouting from the rooftop recesses of my mind: San Diego now has a dedicated rope space – and it’s only seven minutes from my place.

And on Monday, June 16, a decade and a week after that first moment when I realized I loved the feel of rope on my skin, I attended a class on knots and friction at The Rope Collective and I did my first ever self-tie harness.

I was awkward, felt completely behind (didn’t know I signed up for part three of a four part series, oops!), and went alone to a class that probably would have been better with a partner. And yet, I still loved it.

The feel of rope on my skin.

The learning of a skillset that was both familiar and yet completely new.

The look of my tits in that harness!

More than anything else, I loved the possibilities that rope presented. From tying up a partner during a kinky scene to learning to let go of perfectionism, I know in my heart – and have known for a decade – that rope has something vital to teach me.

And I’m excited to share what I learn here with you.

Some lessons I learned in my first official rope class:

• I dislike natural fiber rope. It itches my skin in an almost allergic way.

• I love the feel of nylon rope against my skin.

• Decorative rope alights the same femme joy in me as lingerie does.

• I can experience the pleasure of rope without needing a partner or years of experience. (This one was mind-opening to me.)

• Rope feels scary and overwhelming – but I’m diving deeper into it anyways.

I think it’s that last part that’s my biggest takeaway from the whole experience. I want to do rope not because it feels easy and fun, but because it feels difficult and new – and my Capricorn-rising soul loves a good challenge.

I’m excited to bring you along on the journey as I take on the task of learning rope. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss a step.

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Rope Resources

Rope is inherently risky and could cause a loss of life or limb if not done properly. If you’re interested in rope play, be sure to always have safety scissors around and learn some basics before you begin.

• If you’re in San Diego or visiting, check out The Rope Collective. And read Jackie Bryant’s piece on her experience there in SD Magazine.

• Not all rope is good for rope play! Twisted Monk can help you find the right rope for you, and offers educational resources on its website.

• Jessamyn Stanley has some cool self-ties she does around yoga and body-liberation. Worth following her on Substack and other social media channels for inspiration.

• One of my early experiences with rope was watching Midori tie someone up Shibari style. She has multiple books and teaches classes online as well.

Got a great rope resource or influencer you like? Drop the name below.

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Keep the convo going.

Let me know in the comments: What is your experience with rope? Are you interested in it? Love it? Hate it? I want to know!

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Not only did I run QueerieBradshaw.com, one of the very first lesbian sex blogs, but I also had columns for Curve, VICE, Autostraddle, and the Huffington Post, and wrote one-off pieces for multiple media outlets. A recent law school graduate, I was becoming the go-to expert on obscenity laws and queer porn.

I won awards, was written about and quoted in major publications like Cosmo, Glamour, and Bust, and got invites to speak at prestigious conferences and colleges, including Brown and Yale.

I was at the top of my game, rising meteorically in fame.

And then I burned it all down.

When people ask me why I stopped writing about sex at the peak of Queerie Bradshaw’s fame, I tell them “it was time,” or “I wanted to branch out.” Which is true, to an extent.

But more accurately, I would say that writing about sex and kink no longer felt good. Because sex and kink no longer felt safe.

Publicly, it was a time of intense doxxing, angry call outs, and a lack of empathy on the Internet. It felt like every time I published a new post on my site or one of the news outlets I used to write for, I would get some kind of death threat or trolling comment that would hit too close to home.

Personally, grief and PTSD from watching three family members die, one violently so, had really taken a toll on my mental health. On top of that, I was dating someone who wasn’t interested in sex, and our interactions left me frustrated and ashamed of my own desires.

The combination made me emotionally volatile, and when my partner told me I was verbally abusive, I took that to heart, swearing off sex and dating until I could trust that I wouldn’t harm myself or others.

What was supposed to be a stepping away from my Queerie Bradshaw online persona ended up becoming an ever-increasing withdrawal from the sex and kink community.

My thirties felt like a stacking of one thing on top of the other keeping me from feeling safe and secure in talking about, engaging in, and having fun with sex, kink, and romance. Some of the highlights include:

• Watching my brother die.

• Being told I couldn’t ever sell books on queer sex and that I should move to fiction if I ever want to be traditionally published.

• Wanting to create a name for myself as Lauren Marie Fleming, not the pen name Queerie Bradshaw.

• Knowing that my legacy was in helping others write their truths, not just teaching about sex.

• Dating someone who was not as interested in sex (and possibly asexual) and not having the skills to manage our difference in desires.

• Dating multiple people who shamed me for my body and its wants.

• Having a BDSM scene go very wrong in a way that left my body and soul feeling violated and unsafe.

• Losing my nephew and multiple friends to cancer.

• Having a sexual partner not immediately respect a no and call me too sensitive when I spoke up about it.

• Having sex with someone who told me, while inside of me, that she thought fat bodies were disgusting.

• Working for a celebrity speaker that had me non-stop traveling around the world and exhausted when I was home.

• COVID lockdown and a fear of communicable diseases.

• Launching SchoolForWriters.com and trying to grow my business.

• Getting a book deal for my debut fiction novel, Because Fat Girl, and working my ass off to make it a big hit.

• Two surgeries that removed four organs, which made sex painful.

In the ironic and spiraling way our brains work, I have spent these past years feeling shame about how much shame I feel about a topic I used to talk about specifically to reduce shame.

Looking at that list all compiled together, out in the open, for you to see, I’m able to truly give compassion to my past self. That is a lot to deal with in one lifetime, more or less a handful of years.

Looking at that list, I reminded that by talking about shame we are able to help diffuse it. By bringing things to light, we are able to stop being scared of the darkness within and around us.

It is not a coincidence that I am reviving my old Queerie Bradshaw blog in this time of political and social darkness. As I said in my post announcing the Queerie Bradshaw return:

• I can’t single-handedly stop the rolling back of LGBTQ rights. But I can practice my single-tailed whip skills.

• I can’t march every single day protesting ICE’s unconstitutional detaining of immigrants without warrants or due process. But I can have an orgasm every evening before bed.

• I can’t hug every single human who is scared for their life and freedom under our new administration. But I can make sure the bottoms who submit to me feel cared for, appreciated, and adored.

It is a radical act to proudly and openly experience queer, fat, kinky, neurodiverse, non-binary femme pleasure, love and joy. And right now is the time for radical acts.

So, I’ve decided to revive my Queerie Bradshaw blog for the summer as a way to reclaim desire, build community, and share my experiences so we both feel less alone.

If you’re not interested in sex, dating, and kink, but want to stay on my Substack list, you can simply scroll down, click “update preferences” and untick the publication “Queerie Bradshaw.”

But I hope you’ll join in on the adventures, read through the posts, and share your own experiences in the comments. Because a revolution is more fun with friends.

The world is on fire, let’s get kinkier together. 🪢

With love and lust,

Lauren

P.S. Got a topic you want me to discuss on the blog this summer? Let me know in the comments.

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The world needs your story now more than ever.™

My flagship Write Your Friggin’ Book Already® program is open for enrollment for our Fall 2025 Cohort.

Write Your Friggin’ Book Already® gives you everything you need: community, accountability, coaching, and a proven process that fits your busy life.

Join a community where collaboration beats competition, diversity is celebrated, and rest and fun are built in.

Learn more and enroll today.