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horizontal with lila

126. you spilled your hot come on my hot girlfriend: horizontal with the king of cuckolding [1 of 2]

in episodes on 21/04/21

Here, lookin’ at you kid, is Dallas.


126. you spilled your hot come on my hot girlfriend: horizontal with the king of cuckolding [1 of 2]

Hello my horizontal lovers, my intimacy investigators, my horizontalists! horizontal is the podcast about intimacy of all kinds, recorded while lying down (and usually, while wearing robes).  With few exceptions, our conversations are languorous, meandering, and long-form, as though post-coital, or stargazing, or staring out onto the open road in the wee hours of a very long road trip.

Dallas:  Your role is to not love her, fall in love with her, steal her away, or any of that bullshit. Your role is to please. That’s it! You’re there, for one thing. Now, that’s singular. There’s a spectrum, of course. Some people want other things. I’ve been asked, Oh, take her out on dates, you know what I mean, Go on vacation with her. Come to Vegas. Take her to Vegas. Fly over here with her. Actually be the, basically the side boyfriend, that they don’t have time to be. You know what I mean, I’ve been in those situations. So— but in its singular form, you’re there to provide a good time, in the bedroom, behind closed doors, in an intimate sensual and sexual fashion.

Lila:  So what turns you on about that?

Dallas:  It’s so raw. It’s just so raw. That, in more cases than not […] the guys that are asking me to sleep with their wife or girlfriend, are not pushovers. These guys are CEO’s. They own businesses of a hundred people, employees. They don’t have any money problems. They go on vacation, more than they fuckin’ live their life. They’re fuckin’, they’re top of their pyramid. These guys have no problem getting a woman, or anything like that. To be asked, by another alpha male, to do something that he can no longer do? It’s pretty amazing.

Lila:  Is that the case, he can no longer do it? Most of these scenarios? 

Dallas:  […] Oh man, there’s such a spectrum. It could be: I’m tired of fucking my wife. It could be: My wife is tired of fucking me. It could be that: You know what, I only get off on watching porn, not my wife anymore. But I’ve met couples where they’re in their first year of marriage, so no one’s tired of fucking anyone, at that point! Then it’s just something different. No, I get turned on by watching. By voyeurism. Not only that! I get turned on by watching somebody please somebody that I love. I get turned on by watching somebody turn on somebody that I love, cumming all over their face, so that, when you leave, I can kiss her all night. These are the different spectrums. I mean there’s so many different variations, but it comes down to one variation where, it is in its simplest form: another man, is in one way or the other, getting turned on, by letting another man sleep with the wife. Now, here’s a funny— here’s a interesting, not a funny one: I’ve known guys, that want this from me … just for the outcome of causing conflict […] and issues and drama and conflict and anger, with their wife or girlfriend. Just for that.

Lila:  Yeah! Because! Jealousy is an age-old aphrodisiac. 



Hello my horizontal lovers, my intimacy investigators, my horizontalists!

horizontal is the podcast about intimacy of all kinds, recorded while lying down (and usually, while wearing robes).

With few exceptions, our conversations are languorous, meandering, and long-form, as though post-coital, or stargazing, or staring out onto the open road in the wee hours of a very long road trip. It’s a private conversation made public. It’s consensual eavesdropping.

Typically on horizontal, each conversation is between 3 and 5 hours long, and divided into two to four parts. The former half is available to all horizontalists, and the latter, is available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts.

This is Season 4, my Season of Experiments. During this season, I’m investigating form and format, length and structure, context and content. Playing aurally. Trying things I haven’t tried yet.

Thus far, Season 4 has seen a mash-up with Devin Person’s “this podcast is a ritual” show, episodes with more-or-less intrusive narration (you decide), and a session with a matchmaker in which I get interviewed, as the client.

you spilled your hot come on my hot girlfriend, this episode, is my very first recording spotlighting a single sexy topic!

Meet Dallas.

In episodes 126 & 127, I lie down with Dallas King: L.A. native, global hedonist, director, filmmaker, hot professor, model, and profoundly experienced bull.

He is writing the book on cuckolding. Literally. That’s what he’s in Bali to do.

It’s called GASM.

For images featuring such highlights as Dallas’s rippling abs, brooding fashion sense, and graphic tattoos, witness his Instagram @dallasking1

In this first half of our recording, we talk about:

  • craigslist personals
  • what cuckolding means
  • “the lifestyle” versus sex-positive culture
  • working as a massage therapist in L.A. & becoming a bull
  • his first time pleasing another man’s wife & being watched while doing it
  • grappling with professional, mental, and religious inhibitions
  • homophobia & sexual performance
  • how being a bull can affect your romantic relationships
  • humiliation & emasculation
  • agreeing on where to come
  • navigating couple dynamics
  • dealing with your own expectations
  • cuckqueens, and …
  • my desire to be a female bull.

For access to the spicy second half of this conversation, as well as 50 other exclusive episodes, navigate yourself directly to:

Become a Patron!

Make sure you click that link or type that in exactly, because, as a creator who is considered “adult,” my profile isn’t searchable on Patreon. (!)

Other than that, Patreon is great. It’s like the love child of crowdfunding and a subscription service. You can become a patron for $7/month on up, and the rewards get more and more sumptuous. For instance, at the $100 level, you get a 30-minute one-on-one Intimacy Guidance session with me every month…

Upcoming in Season 4, I have a recording from my guest spot on Dominick Q & Bryan Stacey’s “The Great Man Within” podcast, a couple of episodes with the journalist Sue Jaye Johnson, in which she interviewed me for her project “The Pleasure Report,” a 5-part mini-series with Jet-Setting Jasmine, who you must know — a badass Black therapist & porn star, and her incredible Dom husband, and a daughter that gives me hope for the future of humanity, as well as shows with segments, a la NPR, among other explorations.

Until next time: May you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.

I’m looking forward to scripting and rehearsing my first TED-style talk, and the event I curated around it to celebrate the 4-year podcast-aversary on May 21st, 2021! It’s gonna be called “Hot Love Talks.”

Thank you for listening. Thank you for getting horizontal.

Now, come lie down with us, in Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia.

horizontal with Dallas King in Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia


Links to Things:

Dallas’s IG with ripplings abs, etc.

On FOSTA-SESTA: “Sex Workers Tell Us What Support They Actually Need From Politicians”


Show Notes:

(if you quote from this resource, please link back to this post or the horizontal Patreon!)

[4:46]  Dallas on wanting to be a senator when he grew up. Lila on wishing that a politician’s sex life didn’t affect public opinion on the way they govern.

Dallas:  I wanted to be a senator when I was younger—

Lila:  Seriously?

Dallas:  — yeap. You know, a politician. A senator of California. And I was like, “Na, the sex tape already came out. It’s too late for that.”

Lila:  I would love it if we got to the place where that didn’t fuckin’ matter, right? (Dallas hmm’s) Where it didn’t have to come out as a scandal later because […] you would just know — 

Dallas:  Yeah.

Lila:  — and it’s not a big deal! Somebody’s sex life does not determine how they can—

Dallas:  Right.

Lila:  — do this job! Come on!

Dallas:  Someone later would be like, “Was that— wasn’t that you on Craigslist?” And I’d be like, “Fuck yeah it was!”

Lila:  Yes indeed it was!

Dallas:  Weren’t you on there too? (laughs) 

Lila:  It was a great time. I’m sure we met…

[5:42]  Dixie de la Tour & Craigslist personals, as community

Lila:  Dixie de la Tour. She has the longest-running sex storytelling series in the U.S. […] You just reminded me of her, because she told a story about Craigslist, Personals back in the day.

Dallas:  Oh gosh! Oh yeah. That’s still! Infamous, what are you talkin’ about?

Lila:  Yeah but it’s not— it’s shut down now, because of FOSTA-SESTA. 

Dallas:  I know. But we, we we upgraded. Or we— it’s like we got orphaned little children and we all got put out on different apps— 

Lila:  Yeah!

Dallas:  And we’re lucky if we find each other again, you know.

Lila:  Really!

Dallas:  I mean I can only from about, Los Angeles, but there was such a community. To the point where it was like, Oh yeah, I remember I saw your posting! You know what I mean, Oh we finally meet! You know? There were some guys I had talked to for years, looking to like, combine forces for like swinging parties and then, two/three years later we finally meet up and we’re like, “Where did we meet?” “Oh fuck! Craigslist ad, man!”

Lila:  Wooooow.

Dallas:  And it was already been taken down. But we still stayed in contact, you know.

[6:40]  Lila & Dallas reminisce about Craigslist’s Missed Connections

Lila:  I remember loving Missed Connections. I posted, probably twice, over the course of maybe 6 years in Missed Connections, and I remember just reading them just for joy!

Dallas:  Yeah… Somebody posted on Missed Connections to find me, and, somebody said, “Hey, I think someone… described you on Missed Connection—” (laughs)

Lila:  Woooow! I was hoping that would happen. 

Dallas:  It does! It has happened. Yeah, for sures.

Lila:  Yeah, wow. Even in such a big city as L.A.

Dallas:  Yeah… yeah, big little city— technology though really,

Lila:  Makes a big city smaller.

[7:24]  Dallas on cuckolding vs. cock holding

[8:00] Terminology: The Lifestyle vs. sex-positivity

Dallas:  It just goes to show it’s not a very common sector within The Lifestyle. And when we say “Lifestyle,” when I hear that, I mean: it’s a broad spectrum.

Lila:  Do you mean sex-positivity when you say Lifestyle?

Dallas:  You know what’s funny is that, not until I traveled internationally do I even hear that word as much,  like— and again, you know, I’m always coming from a voice of Los Angeles for most of my life, and, although I’ve traveled 60 countries, I, I wanna feel like I could, have kinda an international vibe but it always blows my mind about, depending upon where you’re at, not where you’re from, the terminology of things being used more and less, is very very interesting to me. And so, my time here coming to Bali, I had to try to just keep an open mind and an open ear about things that are commonly used and things that are not, and things that I’m used to may not be here. No judgements at all, I just think it’s a different vibe and a different feel.

Lila:  I very rarely hear anybody say The Lifestyle. Actually, the only people I’ve heard say that are stringers— str— 

Dallas:  Swing— swingers?

Lila:  (laughing) Stringers!

Dallas:  I wanna meet a stringer, yeah!

Lila:  Whoa, what are stringers like?

Dallas:  String— string me on, you know? Lead me on! (laughs) 

Lila:  Hey! I think you’ve met a few of those though.

Dallas:  (reluctantly) Yyeah.

Lila:  Alright, no, swingers: are swingers specifically. […] And that’s what I associated it with so I thought The Lifestyle equals swinging.

Dallas:  Swinging. It’s kinda like: So in America we say EDM music, Electronic Dance Music, which encompasses all 20+ genres. Anything electronic, synth-made, it kinda falls underneath EDM, right?

Lila:  Yeah.

Dallas:  I come to Bali, everyone’s just like, “Oh, techno.” And I’m like, “Techno?!” Like, techno’s actually a specific genre in America— 

Lila:  Oh, of EDM.

Dallas:  Yeah, of EDM, like, there’s techno artists. And I didn’t understand that, for like a month. […] I guess for me it helps me understand that The Lifestyle, there’s a huge spectrum. And we can say from conservative, to extremely radical, if we’re looking at a spectrum, right? And in that spectrum of, quote unquote, a lifestyle or kink lifestyle, I think there’s many different playgrounds for people and obviously, there’s so many crossovers, so many hybrid, so many grey area, I mean, there’s not gonna ever be like, Oh, this is the religiously this and if you don’t do this then you’re not that— 

Lila:  Of course.

Dallas:  I mean I don’t— Yeah, please. So, it’s just a easier way to define things, I believe. And mind you, when I’m meeting people, this is the first time they’ve even dipped their toe into the puddle of any Lifestyle. So I really have to keep an open mind and try to welcome them in. I really try to use friendly terms to not scare the fuck out of people, coming into it, because they’re kinky, they’re openminded, they know they want more sexually, or sensually, or mentally. But they don’t know the ins or outs of going about it. 

Lila:  So do you feel like The Lifestyle as terminology is less scary to people than sex-positive culture?

Dallas:  You know, here’s something interesting: I’ve been using the word “sex-positive” more, and, I’ve said it to people that have no idea what that word means […] annnd, they’ve taken it the wrong way. So you almost have to educate people about what sex positive actually means.

Lila:  (overlapping) You do. When you say it, you have to define it usually.

Dallas:  Right. I can, tell the stories of someone’s like, “Sex-positive— No, I don’t have HIV!” […] They’re like, “Positive, sex-positive, no I don’t have a lot of sex.” No no nonono, that’s not it either. […]

Lila:  Absolutely. And I think of that as part of my job, so I do it a lot. So I use the terminology, and then, you know, wait. (giggle) So that, so that I get the question, so I can answer the question. But I’m, I’m getting you as, it is an umbrella term— you’re using The Lifestyle as an umbrella term, just as I use “intimacy” as the umbrella term and underneath that, I place sex, love, and relationships of all kinds. All kinds of connection I place under the umbrella of intimacy. So when people say I make a sex podcast, I say, “Well that is partially true. Yes and.” That and all other kinds of intimacy. And that is also something that’s really important to me, is to sort of expand people’s notion of what intimacy is, and also see if I can… soften the primacy of the romantic and the sexual relationships— people are putting all their eggs in that basket and then, going hungry, basically.

Dallas:  I understand.

Lila:  When they don’t, don’t have that.

[12:54]  Dallas’s early experience as a virgin bull

Dallas:  So circling back to cuckolding, it’s been a challenge, and a very learning experience, going back now, let’s say, 9 years, in the lifestyle of cuckolding. And, starting from basically a virgin, a virgin bull (chuckles) as we would say.

Lila:  Wow.

Dallas:  Starting from a virgin bull of just being offered: Hey, would you like to sleep with my wife? You know, and how alien that felt. Which, for me is everything. Because, when I meet people who are just getting into cuckolding, and, quote unquote, that specific lifestyle, I go back to my early years, of how I misperceived, and didn’t know, and just, my mind wasn’t that exposed and that experienced and that open at the time. And, my mind is connected to my emotions— I remember the first time I was put in that situation, I couldn’t perform because, my mind and— I didn’t know how to separate my mind and my emotions and therefore it connected to, my other body parts and they didn’t work! You know! And it took a while to retrain, rewire, and re, re-synthesize things for it to work in this type of scenario. 

[14:10]  Dallas tells the story of the first time he was propositioned to be a bull… as a massage therapist

[22:47]  Dallas shares his virgin bull story

[26:36]  The inhibitions that can arise for the bull, of the spiritual, moral, ethical, professional, & mental varieties

Lila:  What are the things that came up? What are the inhibitions that came up? What’s in your brain, that’s keeping you from connecting your body to your arousal?

Dallas:  Yeah I mean, that, in itself, is the biggest journey. And I mean this is something, in the book I’m writing, that, I’m very much focusing on, because, so many times people think like, cuckolding … in its, in its rawness term, which is: when another man, enjoys to see his wife or girlfriend, getting pleased by another man. I mean that’s in its general term, right? But see, immediately you’re just thinking the sex, the fucking, the whatever, right? But no. It’s, it’s so much more than that. And, for the bull? There’s the emotional hangups, because you’ve had past lovers and what does this— how does this apply? What if you’re wi— in a relationship, too? I’ve had that issue. And not even be able to get excited or perform with somebody that I’m in love with, and because I’m so used to this type of extracurricular lifestyle. The mental, of course, the blockages there, of somebody else being in the room, somebody else being involved, and there’s many ways to not be involved, there’s many ways to be involved. I had, in the very beginning, a lot of issues morally, because of my spiritual and religious foundation of Catholicism, of adultery, and Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. […] Thou shall not sleep with another man’s wife!

Lila:  Right!

Dallas:  So I had that issue to even go through, you know what I mean? So that’s a huge one to understand. And then, all of those, I don’t care how King Ding-a-Ling you are— it’s gonna have an affect on your performance.

[29:04]  The homophobic hang-ups that can reveal themselves when being witnessed in a sexual situation by a man

Dallas:  Then you have the idea that, there’s another person in the bedroom […] watching, that’s a male, and you’re not, you’re not gay, and you don’t, and you don’t—

Lila:  What does it mean?

Dallas:  Right, so there’s these homophobic issues that you have as a heterosexual. Then there’s the issues of: you have to perform above and beyond, because now you have a woman, and depending on what level of experience, and most of them are pretty experienced— well their expecting a fuckin’, a bull! I don’t like to dilute that word! I mean you’re, you better step up to the plate. You’re a lion, so you better perform like one! Because that’s why you’re being invited into the room.

Lila:  That’s why you’re there. So there’s this performance stress, basically this is like game time, it’s go time— 

Dallas:  Sure, sure. Sure!

Lila:  And you gotta show up and you’d better have an erection, etcetera.

Dallas:  And let me tell you, I’ve been in many rooms with many other guys that are considered bulls that did not rise to the occasion. And I think a lot of it has to do with the mental blockage and mental preparedness.

[30:03]  What did the cuckold do when Dallas, as requested, brought another bull into the mix, and that bull failed to rise to the occasion?

[33:08]

Dallas:  We’re doing DP stuff here! And it’s working! It’s flowing! And it’s very difficult to do, and she’s with it, and it’s happening. It goes an hour! We all finish in some glorious bukkake-style stuff. And uh, afterwards— now mind you, I’ve known this guy for about five months. This is at least five, six, or seven encounters. But this is like: This is the end. […] Never hear from them, never see them ever again. And, then he reveals: He’s like, “Hey.” And I (chuckles) I don’t know how to take this, but I’m just gonna say it: He’s like, “Hey. I used to be a porn star.” He’s like, “You did really good.” […] Translation: just being able to stay hard and stay excited in the moment, of so much conflict happening, is everything in this, this Lifestyle. It is so challenging, I must say, to be excited, from a male’s point of view. Because we’re so external. And if our thing isn’t hard then we’re just useless as a bull. As a bull in in, in the wild, you are looked at to perform, to breed the herd, to continue the race. And that’s your role. That is your sole role. You are here to breed the strongest, of our race to continue, until your no longer, can perform, and then you’re out, and the next bigger, baddest bull is gonna take over. I watch this shit on National Geographic, and I’m like, Damn! Am I the young bull or the old bull comin’ in, you know what I mean? And I’m over here butting heads with bulls. 

[34:59]  The mental hangup of being watched by a man

[36:57]  Lila on how heteronormativity hurts all of us

[37:53]  How the cuckolding lifestyle can affect a conventional relationship

Dallas:  I think when it’s like a one-off or a couple times, you know what I mean, it’s one thing, but when you start getting into some consistency, with this cuckold lifestyle where you’re the bull, and you’re constantly being asked to please another, another man’s girl, when you walk into a conventional relationship with someone, of a lover, on a level like that, it becomes not the norm. The norm is like, this is not the dynamic. So what I found is that— […] I, actually get turned on knowing that I am being sought after — talk about no strings attached! You know your rule— your role. Your role is to not love her, fall in love with her, steal her away, or any of that bullshit. Your role is to please. That’s it! You’re there, for one thing. Now, that’s singular. There’s a spectrum, of course. Some people want other things. I’ve been asked, Oh, take her out on dates, you know what I mean, Go on vacation with her. Come to Vegas. Take her to Vegas. Fly over here with her. Actually be the, basically the side boyfriend, that they don’t have time to be. You know what I mean, I’ve been in those situations. So— but in its singular form, you’re there to provide a good time, in the bedroom, behind closed doors, in an intimate sensual and sexual fashion.

Lila:  So what turns you on about that?

Dallas:  It’s so raw. It’s just so raw. That, in more cases than not […] the guys that are asking me to sleep with their wife or girlfriend, are not pushovers. These guys are CEO’s. They own businesses of a hundred people, employees. They don’t have any money problems. They go on vacation, more than they fuckin’ live their life. They’re fuckin’, they’re top of their pyramid. These guys have no problem getting a woman, or anything like that. To be asked, by another alpha male, to do something that he can no longer do? It’s pretty amazing.

Lila:  Is that the case, he can no longer do it? Most of these scenarios? 

Dallas:  […] Oh man, there’s such a spectrum. It could be: I’m tired of fucking my wife. It could be: My wife is tired of fucking me. It could be that: You know what, I only get off on watching porn, not my wife anymore. But I’ve met couples where they’re in their first year of marriage, so no one’s tired of fucking anyone, at that point! Then it’s just something different. No, I get turned on by watching. By voyeurism. Not only that! I get turned on by watching somebody please somebody that I love. I get turned on by watching somebody turn on somebody that I love, cumming all over their face, so that, when you leave, I can kiss her all night. These are the different spectrums. I mean there’s so many different variations, but it comes down to one variation where, it is in its simplest form: another man, is in one way or the other, getting turned on, by letting another man sleep with the wife. Now, here’s a funny— here’s a interesting, not a funny one: I’ve known guys, that want this from me … just for the outcome of causing conflict […] and issues and drama and conflict and anger, with their wife or girlfriend. Just for that.

Lila:  Yeah! Because! Jealousy is an age-old aphrodisiac. 

[42:05]  What happens when couples in long-distance relationships enlist Dallas?

[43:13]  What does humiliation do for the cuckold?

Dallas:  It’s such a interesting paradigm, that a man […] it’s amazing that a relationship between a husband and wife can exist, where the man has literally been — what’s that great word that you call? Emasculated? […] He’s literally, you know metaphorically, had his balls cut off, in front of the wife. And what amazes me — and this is why this dynamic is so fucking interesting to me — is that they can go on after this experience, to continue their happily marriage, and, it even gets stronger. Blows my mind.

Lila:  Do you think that emasculation, can only happen, because there’s still a notion of women as property, and wives as property? Because otherwise, somebody having sex with your partner, means nothing about you! Unless you have a— an ownership, a sense of ownership over her.

Dallas:  Well you, you bring up a great point. ‘Cause now we’re talking about humiliation. So in some cases, I am asked to verbally humiliate the cuck. In some cases, I’m asked to verbally and physically humiliate the cuck.

Lila:  Like coming on him?

Dallas:  And in some cases, I’m asked to verbally and physically humiliate both parties. You know what I mean.

Lila:  OHHhh.

Dallas:  So, there’s many different dynamics here. 

[44:49]  The questions Dallas asks when he goes in to a cuckold situation

Dallas:  But so when I go into any cuckold situation, communication is key. So I’ve gotten used to asking the most standard of questions, like, “What are you expecting? In an ideal world, what are you wanting?” Okay? “What are your boundaries? What is gonna turn you on the most? Verbally, physically. And I’m very specific of asking: “Are you expecting to be humiliated?” Half the time it’s “Yeah, can you do that?” You know, they’re like, “Oh my God, somebody’s not— freaked out by doing that!” And then the other cases are like, “No! No humiliation bro!” You know what I mean? “None of that shit!” […] And there’s even variations. There’s guys that are called stags. And that’s not necessarily a cuckold relationship when you’re a stag, but sometimes it is. A stag is a guy who’s— he’s an alpha. A stag is an alpha. But he’s just okay with allowing another man to sleep with his wife. But he also will get involved sexually. Into the threesome. […] But it’s less of a threesome, and still more of a, I want you to fuck her brains out, and I will join in maybe. And if I do, there’s no humiliation, it’s both of us tag-teaming, and it’s all good.

Lila:  Less of a voyeur, and not really a cuck, because cuck implies this humiliation piece.

Dallas:  Right. I rarely have ever seen a stag sit on a chair, drinking his whisky, jacking off while I fuck his wife.

[46:20]  Why would a stag go in the other room?

[47:24]  How do people know their boundaries? And the story of what happened the first time Dallas accidentally overstepped one… 

[51:29]  Dallas on cuckolding, expectations, and his ethos

Dallas:  Just do not come in with expectations. I come in with negative expectations, and come out with amaazing surprises. In so many ways.

Lila:  How do you keep yourself from having expectations? I think that’s something very difficult for people, particularly sexually.

Dallas:  Uch, I mean gosh, I’ve just practiced that so many fucking times that I go into any situation with: This is gonna be the fucking best night of my life! And I’m like, even if something doesn’t happen, it’s still gonna be great! I mean, I’m— maybe I’m just too philosophical, where I believe everything happens for a reason and shit like that, right? And I get it. I’m too fuckin’ cliché. I’m a fuckin’ walking, like haiku and all that shit. (Lila giggles) But whatever! But I really don’t come in with expectations; I can’t even tell you that enough. And I can’t tell you how many times, when situations that didn’t work, it was applauded that I didn’t have expectations. I wasn’t mad, I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t frustrated; I was cool, calm, collected, no worries. I’ve fuckin’ driven two hours away! Driven! Two hours! That’s a four-hour return trip! There and back. Things did not work out… within five minutes, and I had to get back in my car and drive back. Was I mad? Was I upset? No. This is the price of the game. It is the game. And if you wanna— if you want to get into this; this is what’s gonna happen. I knew what I was setting myself up for. There’s no reason to be frustrated or mad. And I think back to all the times that it did fuckin’ work. Glorious! I’m not here collecting fuckin’ trophies; it’s not about that, but I think back to some of the most amazing, mythical, mystical, magical fuckin’ nights that I’ve had, with amazing fuckin’ people in amazing scenarios, that have ended in hot glorious bukkake come fashion, that will forever be implanted in my mind, that if I ever get locked up in some prison in the Maldives, (which I hope there is where I go!) I could live out all these fantasies that I’ve lived out truthfully, in my mind! You know? And I’m okay with that.

Lila:  To me, “This is gonna be the best night of my life” sounds like a big fat expectation! But!

Dallas:  (chuckling) Yeah, right!

Lila:  But! I think what you’re saying is: That’s more like your ethos. And it’s sort of like— 

Dallas:  Sure. Oh yeah.

Lila:  No matter what. Whether, I come, whether I don’t. Whether she’s into it, whether I leave. Whether he’s into it, whether he pulls the parachute. I am going to make greatness for myself, and enjoyment for myself, wherever I go.

Dallas:  I’m for the experience.

[54:51]  Dallas on his forthcoming book, GASM

[55:34]  Has Dallas ever played any of the other roles in the cuckolding scenario?

[56:25]  Dallas on cuckqueens

Dallas:  My book is going to try to highlight something that is very very less known, which is something called, I would say a cuckqueen. […] It’s not like, oh well, they’re all over the place; they’re definitely not, but it would definitely be a woman that has orchestrated, organized, their fantasy of a cuckold situation, for the benefit of their pleasure. So they’re just taking the place of the husband. So they basically want to find another woman, a bull, to please, the man.

Lila horizontal, pre-Dallas recording. Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia

Lila:  (big breath) So I want to be a female bull. A lot of my fantasies— I would say 90… 98.9% of my fantasy life, centers around threesomes. And 75% of those fantasies are myself and a man and a woman.

Dallas:  Yeah, but the woman doing what?

Lila:  So the woman is usually, watching; I’ve ordered her to not touch herself or I’ve ordered her to… whatever. Like she has to be across the room, or she, she can’t do this, she can’t do that. So I’m dominating her—  

Dallas:  Right.

Lila:  And I’m enjoying him.

Dallas:  Whether you’re submissive or not, right?

Lila:  Whether or not.

Dallas:  Right, yeah. Well there you go.

Lila:  But I’m in a position of control and power over her.

Dallas:  Right.

Lila:  That is what turns me on.

Dallas:  That’s great! I’ve seen it in action.

Lila:  (thirsty) You have?

[57:58]  Dallas’s words of caution for those of us who want to be female bulls

Dallas:  And the most, I think important thing for, let’s just say, a female bull, is to understand, you need to check in with that woman. Because women, operate differently, when it comes to the emotional cord, and the mental cord. You can cross the line, when you are emotionally intimate with a man. […] Versus just strictly pleasure.

[59:22]  Dallas’s advice for future female bulls

126. you spilled your hot come on my hot girlfriend: horizontal with the king of cuckolding [1 of 2]

Hello my horizontal lovers, my intimacy investigators, my horizontalists! horizontal is the podcast about intimacy of all kinds, recorded while lying down (and usually, while wearing robes).  With few exceptions, our conversations are languorous, meandering, and long-form, as though post-coital, or stargazing, or staring out onto the open road in the wee hours of a very long road trip.

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127. they’re expecting a bull: horizontal with the king of cuckolding [2 of 2] »

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Lila Donnolo is an Intimacy Specialist. Tell Me More…

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Lila
See that resting frown face on my mom as she slept See that resting frown face on my mom as she slept?

I’ve started to make that same face. I wake from a dream or a doze to find that I’m frowning. I touch my lips to make it stop. After a few moments, I discover that they are making the frown shape again. I can’t make it stop because I’m sleeping when I do it. I’ve started doing it when I’m not sleeping too. When I’m awake, I think it’s a cross between a grimace and a frown. A frimace? (I mean, it can’t be a grown. Or can it?)

I don’t really have that much to frown about anymore, except, I suppose, for the onslaught of fresh horrors perpetrated by the country I live in on the daily, the greed of the few and desperation of the many, the natural disasters that are frequenter and hotter and wetter and gnarlier as the earth continues its job of beginning to shake us off its back… yeah I guess there’s not much to frown about, really. 

I took Mom to FloridaRAMA because she had been complaining for months that she didn’t do anything anymore. She mentioned concerts, plays, ballets. But by the time the sun went down, she would be sundowning and wouldn’t want to go anywhere anyway. So that afternoon I decided to pick her up and take her on an outing — which was always a pain in the ass, and especially a pain in the ass to do solo. It involved going to her room and making sure she was dressed, convincing her to get dressed if she wasn’t, which was a laborious process, insisting that we needed to take the wheelchair which of course we did because she was falling all the time and brachiating (holding onto walls and less sturdy things like chairs, tables — at least, some nurse told me that this is what it’s called but the internet seems to only relate it to apes swinging from their arms to get from place to place) […]

Continued on horizontalwithlila dot substack dot com (the link is in my bio)
In the bathroom of the Italian restaurant after Da In the bathroom of the Italian restaurant after Dad’s cold rainy rural upstate funeral looking like a sad British clown / Nowhere, NY / April 12th, 2025

Right after my father died, there were Anthonys and Tonys everywhere. 

Suddenly everyone was called Tony and everybody else was talking about their Dad or playing songs about death. 

* Passing a girl on the street talking to her friend, and the only words you catch are “My dad had…” 
* Walking into your favorite gluten-free café, and they’re playing the Flaming Lips song “Do You Realize?”

Do you realize / that everyone you know / someday / will die?

* Realizing that the second title for Billy Joel’s song “Movin’ Out” is “Anthony’s Song.” I never truly registered this until I was trying to write one morning in a blessed cacao shop (yes, for real) and I paused to listen to the opener:

Anthony works in the grocery store
Savin’ his pennies for someday

* Ordering fries from the surfer guy at the beach shack on my pilgrimage to the ocean, when his co-worker shouts, “Hey Anthony!”

If you put this stuff in your feature film script, your screenwriting teacher would tell you it’s too pat, too predictable, “don’t put a hat on a hat.” (The Writer!)

It’s like that old quarters experiment on attention… you start looking for quarters on the ground, and suddenly, you see them everywhere.

The drugstores full of Father’s Day crap. Marketing emails about “Dads and grads.” Only one company sent an email that said, Hey, we know that Father’s Day time is tough for some people, so click this to opt out of all Father’s Day related emails.

Click. CLICK!

I wish I could click that link for the universe. No father stuff, please. No Dad shit. But there were quarters everywhere, of course, because the back of my mind was attuned to all things Dad.

{You can read the rest of the essay on Substack. Link in my bio, bb.}
Love Letter to New York, whom I miss so much 1. S Love Letter to New York, whom I miss so much

1. Straight out of a fitting for “The Deuce”?

2. Free Friday at @whitneymuseum 

3. Basquiat makes me feel like home

4. Madison Square Park photo op (irresistible)

5. Candid

6. Got to see the lovely @josescaro & @benbecherny ply their craft at @bricktheater 

7. Charming marquee!

8. Closing night vibes (not pictured: the succulent plant I brought in lieu of flowersof)

9. Chuck Close in the subway!

10. More subway Chuck Close!

11. Man Ray retrospective at the Met

12. Love a good silhouette

13. A rare VERTICAL bathroom portrait in one of the finest bathrooms of them all, at the lovely New Mexican food joint with the rainbow cookies Of My Dreams, @ursula_brooklyn 

14. My man is a photographer too. 🤩

15. Cannot. Resist. Photo Booth.
I wrote a list in 2020 titled “How to love me wh I wrote a list in 2020 titled “How to love me when I’m ... depressed”... and in this essay, I encourage you to write your own version (How to love me when I’m... anxious, How to love me when I’m... burned out, How to love me when I’m... in despair)...

And if you write one, how I would love to read it. (Or even learn about one of the items on your list, here in the comments).

Here’s an excerpt:

 “One of the characteristics of my depression (and most of my other tizzies, such as but not limited to anxiety, severe procrastination, adulting paralysis, etc.) is that while I’m in it I have no idea what — if anything — will help me get out of it.

It’s more like I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET OUT SO I’LL JUST HIDE UNDER THE COVERS UNTIL I WANT TO DO SOMETHING AGAIN CALL ME IN 6 MONTHS.

Ergo, therefore, if I’m in a state, and you ask me what I need, or what you can do, I may or may not have the wherewithal to tell you. Emphasis on the not. I may not even have the wherewithal to know.

And if I don’t know, how can I tell you?

I can’tdon’t, then.

If I’m not in a state I probably have plenty of things I could say but that’s when I don’t need the help so badly. (A lá it’s not the worst while you can still say the worst.)

As I mentioned in the subtitle: You don’t come with an operator’s manual. Your model came out of the fleshbox with zero instructions. And since no one possesses your operator’s manual, no matter how much they love you, you are going to be the supreme author, the expert on you, since you’ve been studying you your whole life. Please for the love of Pete & Ashleigh, do your people the great good turn of writing them some instructions. Triage options, if you will. Trust me when I say that they (nearly all of them) need it.

If you write it for them, they will have it when you need it.

This little list could, quite without exaggeration, save your life.”

The link to the whole essay is in my bio. (Join me on Substack darling!)

#substack #substackwriter #depressionandanxiety #communityiseverything
Love Letter to St. Pete @stpetefl Where we met, Love Letter to St. Pete @stpetefl 

Where we met, where we re-met ❤️‍🔥

1. An afternoon at @grandcentralbrewhouse with my handsome gentleman in @warbyparker 

2. Bb’s first @nineinchnails concert (okay, technically in Tampa) in @selkie & @viveylife . It was stellar. Trent sounds just like he used to and the projections were gorgeous!

3. Matching denim jumpsuits ( but his is a @onepiece )

4. The finest pizza in all the land (even with my dietary restrictions!) from @noblecrust (OMNOMNOMNOM)

5. He even makes doctor’s appointments fun.

6. I love matching him sooooo muchmuch. 

7. Just us and a zebra, nbd.

8. Theme Park joy

9. At the art show @wadastpete that my gentleman curated for his students. 🪐☄️🛸👽🚀✨
When I was a kid, I used to read myself to sleep. When I was a kid, I used to read myself to sleep. 

Actually, I don’t know when I stopped.

I read myself to sleep in my childhood bedroom, with a flashlight under the covers of a trundle bed (drawers filled to the brim with dress-up clothes) when my mom said it was too late to be awake. I checked out 25 books from the Freeport library at a time, filling the trunk of my parent’s car, and devoured them in weeks, partly from my perch in the flowering dogwood tree in our backyard (were the blooms ivory? or cherry blossom pink?), partly while curled up on an orange-and-yellow-ticked seat cushion I dragged down to the crawlspace in the basement — my “secret hiding spot,” which was neither secret nor hidden and so can only be termed a spot, armed with Oreos and flashlight, and the remainder under the covers before bed.

I suspect I knew more words then than I know now. There are still words like “vehement” that I’m only about 70% sure I know how to pronounce. I learned them in context. I can spell them. I can use them in a sentence! But am I saying them correctly? 

Unsure.

I read myself to sleep in high school, even though I had to get up unconscionably early to get bussed in to my magnet program — Pinellas County Center for the Arts — 35 minutes away from our sad little apartment. Like a magnet, @pcca_gibbs PCCA grabbed young artists from the whole county.

I had a major in high school, which is more usual now, from what I hear, but wasn’t so usual then, and what I majored in was called Performance Theatre (as opposed to Musical Theatre, the love of my life I never thought I was good enough for). 

I really wanted to go to the Fame school in New York — LaGuardia — but when I was 12 my Mom divorced my Dad and forced me to move to Flah-rida. So I went to PCCA instead. (To be honest, she probably wouldn’t have let me commute into the city to go to Fame even if we had stayed on Long Island.) 

Read the whole essay (link to Substack in my bio)!

#booknerdlife #readingforpleasure #readingrainbow
My man and I got our nerd on at @nerdnitestpete ! My man and I got our nerd on at @nerdnitestpete ! 

We had the opportunity to support my lovely, engaging, and compassionate Happiness Ambassador friend Adam Peters aka @mindmaprenovations as he changed some lives by teaching us how to begin developing a preference for positivity. I’ve seen him give this presentation a few times before, and this was the best one yet — and to the biggest crowd, over 300 human nerds!

I love us.

I consider it my sacred duty to paparazzi my friends when they do marvelous things, as I hope to have done unto me!

P.S. Applied to give a Nerd Nite presentation myself … fingers crossed bb’s! 

1. My gentleman is so handsome. (Also, I got this stellar skirt in excellent condition from my favorite thrift store with a cause @casapinellas !)

2. Toasties supporting Toasties! @dtsptoastmasters members: me, Steve Diasio, Dawn Cecil (two-time Nerd Nite Speaker alumni!), & Rick! (Not pictured here — but later in the carousel) Christian Carrasco.

3. Fit check baybeeee.

4. Caryn, Nerd Nite boss extraordinaire, introducing the evening.

5. Caryn introducing my friend Adam (did I yell “THAT’S MY FRIEND!” at the end? WHY YES I DID.)

6-10. Adam rocking the casbah.

11. Fellow Toastmaster Christian.

12. I love mein mann!

#nerdnite #nerdnitestpete
A woman approached me. We collaborated once, a yea A woman approached me. We collaborated once, a year prior, I think. Time is weird. She reached out both her hands.

“What a beautiful mourner you are,” she said.

I took her hands.

I think I said thank you.

She was referring, I suppose, to the gloves, the dress, the shoes, the lipstick, the earrings. 

But what does it mean, to be a beautiful mourner? 
What does it mean to mourn beautifully? 
To have good grief?

“My dad dropped dead,” I said, to get myself used to the shock of it. 

“My mother is dying,” I said, to reconcile myself to the fact of it. 

I don’t wear mascara anymore, because I cry every day.

People hugged me in airports, at rental car counters, in line for a sandwich. They hugged me in the TSA line. At the chiropractor. The grocery store. My father dropped dead, I told them. My mother is dying. I told them and they hugged me. I was glad I did. I was glad they did.

Sometimes, when people were truly asking, if I had the time, and I had the spoons, I repeated my litany of 2025. So they’d understand: it has been this kind of year. It seems that everyone has this kind of year at some point, or, devastatingly, at several points in a life — a maelstrom, a dervish, a crucible, a nexus, a whammy, a time — an Alexander’s-no-good-very-bad-terrible kind of year. 

There were so many months in February. So many years in April. So many decades in the first half of 2025. I didn’t want to become an adult, but 2024 made me, and 2025 sealed the deal. 

It’s amazing I managed to get this far without growing up.

READ the whole essay on Substack
SUBSCRIBE through the link in my bio and make my day, darling 

💋 

#substackwriters #goodgrief
Love in La La Land 1. “So this is where they ke Love in La La Land

1. “So this is where they keep the LIGHT!” -SATC … At our first @lacma member preview, enjoying the majestically empty Geffen galleries before the permanent collections moves in.

2. Urban Light, and me (installation by Chris Burden)

3. A historic view at LACMA, never again to be seen!

4 - 13. Art, mostly part of the Digital Witness exhibit

14. Love at the @gettymuseum 

15. Queer exhibits! 

16. Sunset at the Getty with my love

#museumnerd #lacma #lacmamember #digitalwellness #thegetty #loveinlalaland
For you, when you need it, and for the people in y For you, when you need it, and for the people in your life, when they need it.

Here’s an excerpt from the essay:

[To read the whole thing, follow the link in my bio to my Substack (and subscribe there, darling)!]

My chiropractor called me out a few weeks back. 
He said, with his characteristic smile (he has nice little teeth), “I read your essay.”

“You did? Thank you for reading,” I began, genuinely surprised and moved.

“But I still don’t know what to say!” he admonished. “You only told us what not to say!” 

Then he gave me an enormous cashmere-scented candle in a plastic bag. 

This was not apropos of nothing. I mentioned that scent in the essay. 

That giant cashmere candle, so big it has not one but FOUR wicks, means something. And then he had to go and ruin it. (jk, jk, Dr. Brian!)

“Hang in there,” he said, at the end of our session.

I cringed a liddle. (That’s not a little, not a lot, it’s right in the middle, a liddle.)

But you see, he was completely right! I told him I’d give him a list! I hadn’t given him a list! So I began compiling. Every time someone said a thing that made me wince, it went on the list, which lead to Part 1: What NOT to say when someone dies.

Each time someone said a thing that felt like love, made me farklempt, I took a screenshot, and it went on the list. 

This is the farklempt list.

As I wrote in “what NOT to say,” the useful things people say are fairly varied (and tailored to the griever), while the un-useful things tend to be generic variations on a tired theme.
“what TO say” will be a living document, updated whenever I have something useful, or supremely un-useful, to add. Here we go.
Love in Louisville. 1. Photo credit to my love, Love in Louisville.

1.  Photo credit to my love, Zachary

2.  Selfie with Street Art by the windy, windy river

3.  Horsies! Street Art! (Do you know how much I love murals?!)

4.  Looking like an award-winning art teacher at the art teacher conference (ahem, he is the award-winning art teacher!), wearing a @riskgalleryboutique necklace & big fcking bow!)

5.  A Wizard interlude! What a delight to witness my friend @personisawake absolutely Rock @cm_louisville & inspire a roomful of humans

6.  When your love matches the art. 🖼️ *chef’s kiss*

7 & 8. Major interior design maxi inspo for my ADU reno from @21clouisville by @fallen_fruit 🌺🌷🌸🌻🌼💐🪷

9.  The crayon shirt, bow, and soft rainbow chiclet necklace style brought to you by my inner 6-year old!

#ilovelouisville #wizardry #creativemornings #21clouisville #21c
The video clip of me in the yellow dress and anthr The video clip of me in the yellow dress and anthropology-professor blazer is an excerpt from second iteration of my talk, “The Intimacy Equation,” which I first gave as part of the @bof VOICES conference, outside London in 2021. 

This rendition had a test-drive at my Toastmasters meeting last week. Imperfect, unrehearsed, delivered from bullet points with a slim little notebook in my hand… and yet, I have shared it with my paid subscribers over on Substack (link in bio) because I want to be a person who shares process, not just product.

(This is a bit of a coup for my recovering inner perfectionist, and I have to say, I’m a wee bit proud.)

I kept my fancy equation. 

But now I have a simple one, too. 

#toastmasters #publicspeaking #intimacycoach
More Chiro Office Portraits: 1. NY vibes in the 6 More Chiro Office Portraits:

1. NY vibes in the 6th borough

2. Googly eyes in @selkie 

3. Bossbitch even when she doesn’t get the grant

4. Started practicing yoga again did I tell you?

5. Big mad (but not at that yellow two-piece thrift score from @casapinellas !)

6. Sporty Spice (obsessed with that @tottobrand bag)

7. Grumpy girl, big bow

8. Resort style bb!

9. Sad girl lemonade

10. @selkie ballerina

11. Bridgerton on a no-makeup day (also @selkie )

12. The day I picked up my mother’s ashes (still haven’t opened them)

13. @temperleylondon & mourning
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Funeral ( A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Funeral (excerpt)

It was the night before Craig’s memorial, and I had an audition due. 

It was a feature film audition, due at 11am Pacific / 2pm Eastern. This happened to be squarely during the memorial. I was playing an elementary school teacher, and so when I packed in a whirl for New York, I grabbed my crayon shirt and a giant hair bow and figured surely I’d be able to wangle a human into helping me with my self-tape. New York is my hometown! So many potential wangles! Right?

Two nights prior, out with my friend @kristianndances , no stranger to auditions herself, I had an invitation to her Brooklyn apartment to get’er’done, but, you see, I didn’t have the shirt with me. And friend, if you pack your crayon shirt to audition for Miss Kelly the elementary school teacher then frankly, no other shirt will do.

Since I was staying with another friend, I asked him to help me, but he wasn’t available until the morning. 

The morning of the memorial. 

{ continued on horizontalwithlila.substack.com }
Just out here looking like the Pride Statue of Lib Just out here looking like the Pride Statue of Liberty.

Remember, I promised the good people of @stpetefl that if they gave me another limited edition Pride flag, I would wear it as a dress. @stpetepride 

AND SO I HAVE.

The Pride Market at Grand Central today was full of rainbows and swag and glitter, just the way I like it.

I love us all.

And I look forward to the day when all any of us need, is love. Because we’ve got plenty of that to go around.

#stpetepride #stpetefl
POV: When your friend is one of the great young ja POV: When your friend is one of the great young jazz guitarists, but you haven’t seen him play in a decade (except for that time last month when he accompanied you to sing at your mother’s funeral). What a mensch. What a band!

#natenajar
I’m just gonna leave this here. My fave sign at I’m just gonna leave this here.

My fave sign at @blackcrowcoffeeco 

Apropos of Everything.

#stpetepride 
#transrightsarehumanrights 
#blacklivesmatter 
#notinourname
Excerpt: You can even make a difference through sm Excerpt: You can even make a difference through small acts of resistance, ones that annoy or befuddle the evildoers, like witty and nonsensical emails to awful government agencies, clowns showing up outside imm!gration hearings, giant group dances in front of vile businesses. We can find a thousand little ways to gum up the works. Bonus to you if it makes you laugh. Bonus to everyone if it makes others laugh. The Resistance doesn’t have to be stodgy. 

We, like the Dark Side, can have cookies. 
We, unlike the Dark Side, can have joy.
But we MUST PROTEST in some fashion.

When I protest, I don’t want to do so by:

- Shaming the physical appearance of the evildoer
- Slut-shaming the evildoer
- Shaming their nationality, sexuality, identity, profession
- Talking about what they smell like
- Threatening murder or castration or people’s families

I completely understand why we do this, or at least, I think I understand why we are tempted to do this. We want to bully the bully, thinking that’s the only way he’ll understand. But the truth is that he’s probably not going to understand, whether or not we stoop to the low ground. He’s not going to understand because he is likely a sociopath. 

But we’re not doing it for him. We’re not pr0testing for him. 
We are pr0testing for Ian in Iowa who is a bit messed up and kind of confused and doesn’t really get the impact that this is having on, say, WOMEN, who opens up his news app and sees thousands upon thousands of, let’s just say women, pr0testing with signs, and maybe he goes, hm, why might they be pr0testing when they could be home having pancakes? Why might that be? And maybe Ian gets a little more informed that day about the plight of, hell, let’s say, women, and maybe just maybe he starts to act a wee bit differently, and then the whole butterfly effect thing is possible.

When pr0testing evildoing in its many many oppressive forms, I want to focus on their harmful ACTIONS, and CHOICES. 

I want them to rot for being rotten.

I’m interested in dismantling their ARGUMENTS
Proving false their IDEOLOGIES
Laying bare their HYPOCRISIES
Exploiting their INCONSISTENCIES
Disproving their FALSEHOODS

Cont’d on Substack
I want to share with you something in the famous @ I want to share with you something in the famous @elizabeth_gilbert_writer speech on creativity. It’s one of the most famous @ted talks in the world, and she talks about how ideas come to people. 

The way that I, that ideas come to me, is I will get a line of something and then I will get another line, and then I get nervous because I, if I get a third line, I might be okay, but the fourth line is gonna push the first line completely out. And it’s gone. 

So I have to, I have to get my, to my paper. I have to get to my paper and I have to write it down or, or, or whatever it is, my notes app in my phone, anything. I have to get it down or I’ll lose it. 

She talks about @tomwaits the famoso musician, driving in his car and a bit of melody comes to him. And he goes, “Can’t you see I’m driving? If you wanna exist, go bother somebody else. Go bother Leonard Cohen or somebody.” 

I don’t suggest you talk to your creativity that way, because as Elizabeth Gilbert likes to say, it is like a cat and it doesn’t understand you and your face looks funny when you do that. 

[4 of 5] 

The speech is available in bits here, or in its entirety on my horizontal with lila Substack — link in my bio. Love you. Go make art.
These are a few of my notebooks from over the year These are a few of my notebooks from over the years. Here are a few more. You’re invited to flip through them. These are my (not so private anymore) ideas, thoughts, classes, poems. I have no idea what you’re looking at. I don’t even remember most of what’s in these notebooks. But they’re there, because I captured them.

Anybody have a date in theirs? There should be dates. Can you call it out? 

[people call out dates]

So this is my work! Beginning in 2009 was the, the earliest date. There is so much that comes out of a creative brain, and I know that your brain is not dissimilar. I know that you are all creative beings.

One of my favorite books on creativity, and I don’t know if it’s been mentioned tonight because sadly I missed the first part, but it is a book called “bird by bird.” 

Oh, I didn’t mention it, but I love that book. 

By Anne Lamott. Are you the only one who’s read it? Has anybody else read this book? “bird by bird” It is one of only two books on creativity I would actually recommend. Otherwise, I would recommend you just go out and make stuff. 

In this book, she says, and I have carried this quote with me because I have been this way throughout... I mean, it must be... it’s, it’s my entire remembered life, it could be as young as 5 years old, a perfectionist. She says, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. It will keep you cramped and insane your entire life.” 

The voice of the oppressor. 

I think about that all the time. I do not want to be oppressed. No! Viva la revolución! You know, I don’t want that for myself. And so I have been internally oppressing myself. Most of what you see in these books, and that’s not all of them, right? And that’s only from 2009. Most of what you’ve seen in these books has not seen the light of day. 

[3 of 5] Full “Are you an artist, tho?” video & transcript on Substack

Subscribe there and make a Lila happy! Link in my bio, bb.

#toastmasters #publicspeaker
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