#AD This episode is sponsored by Daré Bioscience. DARE to PLAY™ Sildenafil Cream is a compounded drug. It is not FDA-approved. This product has not been reviewed by FDA for safety or efficacy. It is manufactured in a 503B outsourcing facility under pharmaceutical Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).

Shan sits down with four women to talk about the low libido nobody prepares you for: the 26-year-old who kept saying "I'm supposed to be in my prime" and quietly decided she was broken, the married woman delighting in her season of stillness, and Shan's own reframe that low libido is only a dysfunction if it comes with an F word (frustrating). Then Sabrina Martucci Johnson, founder and CEO of Daré Bioscience,  explains what actually happens in the body when desire and arousal stop cooperating, and why women were told for almost 30 years it was all in their heads.

Follow Sabrina Martucci Johnson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-martucci-johnson/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sabrinadareceo 

Follow Daré Bioscience

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dare-bioscience 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darebioscience/ 

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Learn more about DARE to PLAY™

https://daretoplaybio.com/

Unlock deeper pleasure with a roadmap designed for you — all it takes is 5 minutes. Go to https://beduc.at/bg2631-boody to learn more! 

Follow Indigo MateoInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/indigomateoMusic: http://www.indigomateo.com/

Follow Jamille McClendonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thahealingfactor 

Follow Saraijah BarnesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/Rai.destinei Follow Brittany Johnsonhttp://instagram.com/brittbekountry  

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Naomi Sharon is an R&B singer-songwriter, the first woman signed to Drake's OVO Sound label, and the voice behind Obsidian — an album she wrote, she says, while stuck in a loop she didn't yet have a name for. Her new single is "No Sleep in Paradise," and it turns out to be a more accurate self-portrait than she realized when she wrote it.

This conversation starts with that song title and follows it somewhere much harder. Naomi opens up about ROCD (Relationship OCD) — a form of OCD rooted, for her, in her parents' divorce at 12, the lie she found out about, and the trust that cracked in a way that never fully sealed. She describes what it actually does inside a relationship: the reassurance-seeking that exhausts even a loving partner, the rumination that colonizes every quiet moment, the specific experience of standing onstage mid-performance and suddenly being flooded with thoughts about whether he still loves her. And then the harder question underneath all of it — whether what she's feeling is her intuition or her fear, and what it costs not to be able to tell the difference.

This one is for anyone who has ever been told to just let it go and discovered that wasn't something they could do.

Want to learn more about OCD?

International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) →⁠ https://iocdf.org/⁠

Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) →⁠ https://adaa.org/⁠

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) →⁠ https://www.nami.org/⁠

Mental Health America (MHA) →⁠ https://mhanational.org/⁠

Follow Naomi Sharon

Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/naomisharon⁠

YouTube:⁠ https://www.youtube.com/@naomisharonmusic⁠

TikTok:⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@naomisharon⁠

No Sleep in Paradise:⁠ https://ovo-naomisharon.ffm.to/nsip⁠

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram →⁠ http://instagram.com/shanboodram⁠

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan →⁠ http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter⁠

Join the Lovers Community →⁠ https://www.loversbyshan.com/community⁠

Explore free quizzes + worksheets →⁠ http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes⁠

Advertising & Other Inquiries: [email protected]

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Tanerélle is a singer-songwriter whose voice sits somewhere between neo-soul and quiet revelation, with singles like feels like love and Nothing Without You building a devoted audience around the specific ache of loving someone more than they love you back. In this episode, she and Shan trace the song feels like love from its origin — a late-night phone call with an ex that felt like home until Tanerélle realized she was the only one feeling it — through the larger question of what it means to be someone's muse instead of their person, and why those two things can feel identical from the inside until they don't.

They also talk about what OCD and rumination actually do inside a relationship when safety isn't there, the slow way gender roles and social conditioning closed the door on the free version of herself she showed up as early on, and the specific kind of loneliness that comes from being the one who always reaches out first. This one is for anyone who has ever loved out loud in a situation that didn't love them back the same way and wondered whether that still counted as real.

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Thanks to Stasis for sponsoring this video. Hold your stimulant to a higher standard — go to ⁠https://yt.link/K1ZEZNN⁠ and use code LOVERS for 15% off your first order.

I'm sharing this in my personal capacity. Always speak with your own healthcare provider about what's right for you. #ad #StasisPartner

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. 

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Follow Tanerélle

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanerelle

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxqYnbQ6uCZhsanm43Jk6zA

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tanerelle

Feels like love: https://open.spotify.com/track/6N5i4aUjLphRd77qlkpqdO

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Advertising & Other Inquiries: [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are three forms of intimacy every relationship runs on — and most couples only know two of them. Emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, and the one nobody has named yet: social intimacy, which is the degree to which your partner actively represents, claims, and advocates for you in the rooms and relationships that matter. Not just privately, when it's easy, but publicly, when it costs something.

This episode is Shan and Jared Brady sitting down to have that conversation for real — because as a public-figure couple in an open relationship where the woman is the financial lead, social intimacy isn't abstract for them, it's load-bearing. They work through what it actually looks like when your partner stops bringing you up, why that quietly erodes a relationship from the outside in, and what the research says about how much your partner's behavior in public spaces shapes your career, your network, and your sense of self.

If you've ever felt invisible in someone else's life while being completely loved in theirs, this one is for you.

Access our interactive social intimacy worksheet: https://www.loversbyshan.com/resource/social-intimacy-check-in-relationship-worksheet

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Want More Jared https://www.instagram.com/enjoyjaredbrady https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClhYIBYFJZpdth_C8hOoy5Q

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Ericka Hart (she/they) is a sex educator, author, and breast cancer survivor who has spent their career arguing that pleasure isn't a luxury — it's a right that's been systematically withheld from Black, brown, queer, and disabled bodies.

In this conversation, Erica and Shan trace the throughline from childhood activism that was never a choice, to being expelled from Peace Corps for loving who they loved, to the night they disclosed a double mastectomy mid-hookup and got the response that became their whole love story: "titties, I don't care." They talk about going topless at Afropunk and getting turned into "inspiration porn" instead of being seen as desirable, and about the gap between the two: being praised for surviving versus being wanted for who you actually are.

Erica shares what it actually means to write a book,  Nasty Work, for the most marginalized people, because when you center the people the world has held least, everybody gets to see themselves.

This is a conversation about reclaiming a body the world has always tried to act on instead of let you inhabit, and what it costs, and what it feels like, to do that work on your own terms, even when it's still in progress.

Follow Ericka Hart

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ihartericka/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ihartericka1Website: https://ihartericka.com/

Book: Nasty Work: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/238226976-nasty-work

Listen to Hoodrat to Headwrap (with Ebony Donnley): https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/hoodrat-to-headwrap-a-decolonized-podcast/id1279429651 

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thanks to Stasis for sponsoring this video. Hold your stimulant to a higher standard — go to https://yt.link/iD6LFRL and use code LOVERS for 15% off your first order. I'm sharing this in my personal capacity. Always speak with your own healthcare provider about what's right for you. #ad #StasisPartner

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Ezee (also known as Young Ezee) is an Atlanta-based comedian, actor, and content creator with over 6.6 million followers across platforms, known for her signature stud energy, her queer-centric digital shows, and her upcoming stand-up special Another Little Lesbian.

This conversation goes somewhere most relationship content doesn't: the specific weight of being the one who always has to hold it together — not because you're a man, but because you look like one. Ezee talks about what it cost her to suppress her emotions to fit a role her partners assigned based on how she presents, the moment she realized she'd been leaking that suppression as rage instead of tears, and how her relationship with her fiancée Natalie became the first place she felt genuinely safe to be a full woman. Woven through all of it is a double-proposal story that ends up being the most precise illustration possible of what it looks like when someone refuses to let the person they love go unseen.

This one is for anyone who has ever been handed a script they didn't write and loved someone hard enough to finally put it down.

Follow Ezee

https://www.instagram.com/ezee

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@youngezee

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ezee

Follow Andrea Lewis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrealewis/?hl=en

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrealewischannel

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@missandrealewis?lang=en 

Want more LOVERS?

Follow Shan on Instagram → http://instagram.com/shanboodram

Get a free weekly Love Letter from Shan → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jared Brady and Jonathan Singletary sit down to talk about fatherhood, inheritance, and the difference between intention and what's already in the body.

Jonathan Singletary is a Los Angeles-based musician, songwriter, and founder of Piano & Prayer, a musical meditation and community gathering practice featured in the LA Times that has grown into a meaningful spiritual presence for thousands of people. Jared Brady is a creative director, actor, and co-founder of Shared Entertainment.

Both men are in the middle of the work. Jonathan reaches for his daughter on instinct before the decision clears his mind. Jared watches his father's disappointment move across his own face and recognizes it. Neither of them is reporting from a solved place — they're two fathers who love their kids, who came from fathers they love, and who are sitting with the uncomfortable truth that some of what they're trying not to repeat is already running underneath everything.

What holds this conversation together is a question Jared names explicitly: when you strip away the edited version of yourself, what voice are you actually parenting from? This episode earns its warmth by being honest first — about cost, about inheritance, and about the grace it takes to extend that same grace back to your own father.

This one is for anyone who is actively trying to parent differently than they were parented, and discovering that the work is less about what you know and more about what you notice.

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Show some love on Daddy Day with our sponsor Arya! Go to http://arya.fyi/shan and use code DADDY10 ;)

LOVERS! Get 15% off OneSkin with the code LOVERSBYSHAN at https://www.oneskin.co/LOVERSBYSHAN  #oneskinpod

Showing love to our sponsor Biologica. Take their Quick Hormonal Life Stage Quiz to find the formula that’s right for you, and get up to 32% on your purchase: https://biologica.com/lovers

Lots of love to our sponsor, Quince. Go to quince.com/lovers for FREE shipping and 365-day returns.

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Follow Jonathan Singletary

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansingletary

Website: https://www.jonathansingletary.com

Piano & Prayer: https://www.jonathansingletary.com/piano-and-prayer/patreon

Follow Jared Brady

→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/enjoyjaredbrady

Want more LOVERS?

Get a free weekly Love Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://yt.link/quMC2B9 → thank you for the sponsor of this episode hers. Learn more about hers. 

Inayah on what it actually takes to stop being someone who's always ready to leave.

Inayah is a Houston-born R&B singer and songwriter who first broke through with her viral cover of Ella Mai's "Boo'd Up" in 2018 (a moment that grew her following by over a million people overnight) and has since built a catalog — and a public identity — around emotional honesty, female independence, and not needing a man. Her forthcoming album is called Therapy Wasn't Enough, which is also the most accurate description of where this conversation begins.

In this episode, Inayah gets specific about what it means to be a leaver (someone who, at any given moment, is already scanning for the reason to go) and what it has actually cost her to try to become something different inside a relationship with a partner whose traditional Jamaican values regularly collide with her experience as a modern American woman building her own life on her own terms. Neither of them has figured it out yet (they're not reporting from the finish line here), and that honesty is exactly what makes this conversation worth sitting with.

This one is for anyone who loves someone and still can't quite make themselves put both feet in.

Big love to the sponsor of this episode, Masterclass. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any MasterClass annual membership at masterclass.com/lovers. 

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Follow Inayah

Instagram: http://instagram.com/inayah/

Stream Therapy Wasn't Enough: https://inayahofficial.com/

Want more Lover?

Get a free weekly Love Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter 

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community 

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sex Is a Skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Join Beducated today at https://beducate.me/loversbyshan. 

Big love to the sponsor of this episode, CozyEarth! Head to https://cozyearth.com/LOVERS and use my code LOVERS for an exclusive 20% off.

Head to www.penguinrandomhouse.com to get your copy of Caro Claire Burke’s new book Yesteryear, a gripping, darkly funny thriller about an influencer trapped in a nightmare version of the past.

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Dondré Whitfield on why men cheat — and what nobody taught them about love.

Dondré Whitfield is an actor best known for his roles in Guiding Light, Queen Sugar, and The Game, and the author of Male vs. Man (a book about what it actually means to be a man in the context of family, fatherhood, and love). In this conversation, he traces the origin of his infidelity not to a moment of weakness but to a moment of watching his father lust after other women in plain sight (that was the day, he says, the cheater in him was born — not because he wanted to be that man, but because he didn't yet know he had a choice).

What follows is one of the most specific and honest conversations we've had on this show about what it looks like when a man finally decides to understand himself and then builds an entire framework so his children don't have to start from zero. His concept, "we date as a family" (where the whole family meets not just the person a child is dating but their father too, so everyone can help scaffold the relationship toward something healthy), is practical, radical, and worth hearing in full.

Follow Dondré Whitfield

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/alldondre/ Website → https://www.dondrewhitfield.com/ Get Dondré's book Male vs. Man → https://a.co/d/0het8rPc

Want more Lover?

Shan’s AI trained to give you her advice → http://loversbyshan.com 

Get a free weekly Love Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter 

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community 
Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few weeks ago I put out the Melissa Ford episode, and the comments told me something I already knew before I hit publish: I crossed a line I claim to stand against. This is me sitting with that.

Chaos is a ladder. I've climbed it for twenty years. The only other ladder I know is love, and it's so much harder, because you have to actually feel your way up it.

I also owe a more honest version of something I said before about my life, my relationship, the joy I keep telling from the outside in instead of the inside out. So I'm saying the true thing plainly: I have an amazing love life. This is the year I stop building from fear.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Showing some love of the sponsor of this episode #BEDucated. Join Beducated today at https://beducate.me/loversapril. 

Shout out to the sponsor of this episode #Quince. Go to Quince.com/LOVERS for free shipping and 365-day returns.

LOVERS! Right now, you can receive up to 32% off your purchase by heading to Biologica.com/LOVERS!

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Melyssa Ford has heard every version of the argument. She's seen the comments. She knows what people think about a woman her age with no husband and no kids who says she's genuinely happy. 

And she's back to say it again,  louder. In this episode, Shan and Melyssa get into the real reason so many women are quietly stepping back from traditional relationship structures, not out of bitterness, not out of trauma, but out of a clear-eyed look at what they were actually being offered. 

If you've ever felt like the options on the table weren't worth the cost, this one is for you.

Follow Melyssa Ford

→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melyssaford
→ Watch Hot & Bothered with Melyssa Ford (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgI18pIo71rZWq6upn_QxMg
Listen to Hot & Bothered Podcast: available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & all major platforms
→ Get her book Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself: 13 Lessons for a Life Well Lived: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58631608-allow-me-to-reintroduce-myself?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=n6x35X4UoC&rank=1

Want more Lover?

Shan’s AI trained to give you her advice → http://loversbyshan.com 

Get a free weekly Love Letter → http://loversbyshan.com/newsletter 

Join the Lovers Community → https://www.loversbyshan.com/community 

Explore free quizzes + worksheets → http://loversbyshan.com/quizzes

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices