Charla’s Blog

Viewing the Nudes Nude: Stripping for Art

How often do you get an invitation to strip in public and call it art? So when my local nudist club suggested to artist George Krause that we attend the wine and cheese opening of his life-size nude photographs and strip naked while we do it, he jumped at the chance. Performance art. We were making history, people stripping at a public art opening!  Well, NYC and LA eat your heart out, come to Austin if you want weird. (more…)

10 Sex Mistakes Men and Women Make

Good sex is changing bad habits that don’t get us what we want.  Most men and women do these 10 things that kill good loving, or cancel out good touching and kissing. Avoid these pitfalls and turn your sex life into timeless and treasured moments!  Charla Hathaway

10 Sex Mistakes Men Make (more…)

Phoenix Goddess Temple Raid; a call to legalize prostitution

Several of my colleagues were arrested and jailed last week in a police raid of the Phoenix Goddess Temple. This event begs us to face the fear, misconceptions and judgments we have against  sex workers in our country. All sex workers–be they erotic educators, tantrikas, shamans, prostitutes or anything in between–need legal status in order to better serve the consenting adult population who seek their revolutionary services. Hundreds of my sex educator colleagues stand in solidarity against our country’s laws that criminalize prostitution.

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Adult Summer Camp: It Takes a Village

For most of human history, we lived in rather small tribes gathering the bounty of an abundant, relatively uninhabited planet. Our ancestors spent most of their day playing, grooming, cuddling, napping, conversing…and having casual sex.  For safety and perseverance, human groups thrived on sharing and bonding.  Touch was the social glue.

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Kissing is a Lover’s Signature

No matter how well you kiss or not, you can take your kissing skill to the next level.  If you don’t get kissing right, things will not progress. Kissing is the testing ground for going deeper.  You can learn to navigate juicy kissing territory with greater confidence, success and passion.  Great kissers are not born, they are made. (more…)

Are we talking about Improv Acting or Good Sex?

I showed up for my first improv acting class feeling like a fish out of water.  What was I doing with all these brave, hip youngsters who ‘stream consciousness’ from iPhones and now, the theatre stage?

I feared I didn’t share the same TV shows, movies, music, or pop idols–how would that work for improvising together?  Our two improv teachers (not yet thirty, I guessed) were enthusiastically sharing the rules for theatre sports at our first class. (more…)

Strangers in a sauna talk about sex, love and porn

I sought out the sauna at my local gym wanting to get warm after three solid weeks of hard Austin winter.  After saying ‘hi’ to a woman on the lower bench we started talking about her philosophy class.  She said the men in her philosophy class didn’t want to ‘hear‘ her feminine perspective.  I told her the men who come to see me as a sex and intimacy coach–really want to hear my perspective.

I shared how men often look me in the eye and say, without a doubt, they are clueless when it comes to pleasing a woman in bed. Men offer me more vulnerability and honesty in a few minutes of talk than they’ve probably shared with their partners in decades of marriage.  My new sauna friend was intrigued. She’d never heard of an intimacy coach.  “Sex is always so hush, hush,” she said, “We grope in the dark guessing and hoping we’ll get it right.” (more…)

What is a Sacred Intimate?

A Sacred Intimate is a teacher who uses touch, including erotic touch, to teach you how to feel more comfort, connection and pleasure in your body.  S/he guides you back to a state of recognizing,  experiencing and enjoying your body sensations.   We have been told to disregard and distrust the information percolating up from the gut, genitals, heart, and skin. Instead, we are told to trust only our head or intellect.

This is an unbalanced and dangerous way to live, as the mind is quick to play many tricks. (more…)

Skinny dipping together

I quickly shed my clothes on the sun-baked rocks and slid bare-bodied under a mini water fall at Sculptured Falls along the Barton Springs Greenbelt.  Hiking with new friends from Austin’s Hill Country Nudist Club gave me the courage to swim the way I wanted to. (more…)