What Actually Happens at a Sexual Leadership Retreat for Men?

Let’s start with some important context up front.

My name is Taylor, and…

I run a 5-day in-person training for men that’s focused on helping them increase their sexual leadership abilities.

Now you’re probably thinking “that sounds great, but what does sexual leadership actually mean?” You might even have some skepticism… which would be very healthy in my opinion – to question anyone claiming to teach intimacy and/or transformational work.

Rather than asking you to take my word for it, I’ll tell you specifically what we did (the 2026 training already happened), why we did it, and what some of the outcomes were.

(All photos on this page are from the 2026 Sexual Leadership Training that happened in Asheville, NC).

From a top level view, this training combined elements of executive leadership coaching, advanced somatic training and primal/animal movement games with embodied shame/desire work and modern sexual growth practices.

*To be perfectly clear: this was a highly structured, non-sexual educational training. Participants did not engage in sexual activity with each other. The retreat was substance-free, governed by clear agreements around confidentiality, boundaries and participant conduct, and all participants had full invitation to sit out any exercise that didn’t work for them – for any reason.

“I felt very safe, at-will, and lovingly challenged in the way I wanted/needed to be without any lines being crossed or threatened.” – Mikhael

To begin diving in, let’s start with my current working definition of the main training theme:

What is Embodied Sexual Leadership?

Embodied Sexual Leadership is the ability to lead yourself – and then other(s) – into deeply pleasurable, meaningful sexual experiences, without collapsing into shame, self-judgment, fear of rejection, or feeling like your body is working against you.

Sexual Leadership does NOT mean controlling or coercing another person. It means taking responsibility for your own presence, communication, actions, desire, attunement and impact on others – and developing the capacity to lead sexual and relational experiences that genuinely uplift everyone involved.

The term “Embodied” is added in front of “Sexual Leadership” because of the reasons we’ll explore below…

The Embodied Learning Philosophy

The most important thing to know up front is that this retreat focused on EMBODIED learning (in contrast to just intellectually learning concepts).

Consider this: good sex is an embodied experience…

So while intellectually learning sexual concepts is useful on occasion, the best way to improve your sex life in lasting & measurable ways is through embodied practice.

Here’s what that means:

At this retreat, I guided men through a set of non-sexual practices that involved movement, focus, connection, attunement, self-regulation and externally-imposed “performance pressure.”

The only way to be successful in these training practices was to use the same set of foundational skills & abilities necessary to be an exceptional lover (I’ll list those later in this article).

These practices were designed in such a way that men WOULD make mistakes (without the added pressure of sexual arousal or expectations)…

This is important because mistakes (in a supportive learning environment) are where the greatest learning happens. It’s after the mistake – in the refinement of your attempt at the exercise – that you build the skill & “muscle” that directly translates to your improved abilities as a lover & leader of sexual connection.

Specific Training Analogy

Connor McGregor (one of the most well known MMA fighters of all time) studied movement with Ido Portal (one of the best movement teachers in the world).

Ido did not teach Connor direct fighting techniques… He guided Connor through a set of movement practices & games designed to improve Connor’s overall reaction time, flow, creativity and spontaneity of movement.

These aren’t specific “fighting” techniques, but they directly translate to improvements in the fighting domain.

Pivot back to sex…

Being a truly exceptional lover requires attunement, embodied ease (deep nervous system relaxation under pressure), confidence without bracing, sustained presence & attention over time, the ability to lead without collapsing, shameless creativity, and awareness & honoring of what your true desires are – plus how to act on them in a way that turns your lover(s) on.

Online courses and videos are great for learning certain concepts, but…

You cannot fully build these capacities through watching a youtube video, course or podcast.

These are relational capacities. And strengthening relational capacities requires in-person practice with other humans – with pressure added in just the right amounts to help you grow.

What We Actually Did (Retreat Training Example)

One of the exercises we did involved a simple leading & following practice where one man led another through a set of movements, physically connected by a wooden staff. On the outside, it might not look like much… but on the inside, the man leading gets to confront everything in him that shows up when he’s responsible for someone else’s experience.

Here’s why that matters: usually, when you’re leading a sexual experience, there’s so much pressure to perform or be good that you can’t really learn anything from it. When you slow it down (without erotic expectations or sexual interaction), you can actually feel your own patterns of leadership at play. And because you’re practicing with a real human in real time, the learning happens as a felt sense IN your body, not as an idea in your head. That’s a completely different kind of learning.

One of the men at the retreat said this exercise was one of the most important experiences of the whole week for him. In it he realized (felt, in his body) the amount of pressure and impatience he brings into sexual experiences with his wife. And in that same moment, he got to practice/train something new: leading with a relaxed, clear, direct focus that put zero pressure on his practice partner.

When the retreat ended, he went home and initiated one of the most beautifully sexy experiences he’d had with his wife in a loooong time – because he understood in his body, how to do it differently. Not as a concept. As a choice. Connected to a felt sense of what was actually needed.

“This helped me understand what my partner has been asking for through my own direct experience.” – John

The Core Training Areas at the Retreat

The practices at the retreat focused on strengthening a handful of core areas that are foundational to good sexual leadership. You’ll notice that none of these areas involve typical “sexual techniques” – they’re deeper identity-level capacities…

What I’ve learned and observed over studying this work for 17 years – and teaching it full time for over 7 – is that the following core areas are the fundamental building blocks that create exceptional lovers. Exceptional sexual technique falls flat without the core foundation described below.

Each one of these received substantial embodied practice time throughout the week.

Body As Ally

Many men struggle with their body not doing what they want during sex: premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, performance anxiety, etc. Most men respond by “working against” their own body, which only deepens the mistrust.

You can’t lead a sexual experience from a body you don’t trust. Every day at the retreat, we worked on building a felt sense in each man that his body was and is a strong ally, not an obstacle (the ridiculously fun primal movement games played a big role in this).

Contact

Contact is the moment your awareness touches another person’s. Eye contact is the clearest example. It’s vulnerable, and most people break it fast because of how raw, vulnerable and confronting it feels. But good sex requires sustained contact. We trained each other to stay steadfast, grounded and open in contact, even under pressure.

Attention

Most of us are walking around with some form of “attentional injury” – meaning our capacity for sustained attention has been fractured by notifications, social media, sexualized advertising and endless stimulation. Fractured attention makes good sex and good contact nearly impossible. Trained attention is one of the most powerful gifts you can offer a partner (and the world).

Leadership Capacity

Leadership is a muscle. Your ability to guide another person through an experience while staying connected to your own body, your own desire, and your intention, can be trained like anything else. Through practical & embodied exercises, we strengthened specific leadership capacities such as containment, attunement, transmission, evocation, directed attention and the ability to receive.

“The work specific to sex and sexuality was helpful, but the work to build self confidence, containment, and my own grounding was especially beneficial to me.” – Jono

Positive Self-Regard (Self-Love)

Unshakeable confidence is built on positive self-regard (self-love), and self-love is NOT binary – it’s something that can be strengthened with practice. Without it, shame, self-judgement, and fear of rejection quietly run the show.

We trained this directly – not as a cliche concept – but as a practical embodied capacity via shame work, desire work and other relational & movement practices. Strengthened self-love IS what allows a man to confidently go after the experiences and relationships he wants.

Community & Environment

One of the biggest benefits of doing this work in person is the community/team of men. There’s a real “mastermind” element to training with a group of similarly motivated men: we get to lift each other up and challenge each other in ways that just aren’t possible online.

The location (the gorgeous mountains of Asheville, NC) and the food (top-level chefs with top-level ingredients for every meal) mattered too. They gave us the container to actually rest, integrate, and be nourished between the deep work.

Integration: Bringing the Work Home

One of the most important elements of this training (in addition to the embodied learning experiences at the retreat) was to ensure that every man had a concrete plan in place to integrate everything from the retreat back into his normal life.

This plan included practices, action steps, support structures and ways to measure success going into the future (so men could tell if what they’re doing actually works). We developed them throughout the retreat, then shared them with the other men for support, feedback and accountability.

On top of each man’s action plan, everyone learned a set of exercises & relational tools they could take back into their sexual relationships – frameworks to immediately use to lead their partners through meaningful and sexy connections.

Early Results (One Week After the Retreat)

One thing that’s important to me is to measure the effectiveness and impact of the programs I run. I ask men to complete self-assessments before and after all of my major programs, because I want to know if this training actually changed people, or if it was just a fun experience.

*DATA NOTES: The data below was collected from the 15 participants at this retreat. So to be clear and fair, it’s a relatively small sample size, this data relies on a set of 21 question/prompt self-reported metrics, and the “after” data comes from just one week after the retreat ended. I will collect data again in a month – to get what I believe will be a more realistic representation of the lasting impact of this program – and I will publish that data in a followup post.

Three data highlights:

• 100% (15 of 15) of participants said the retreat was worth the investment.
• 100% (15 of 15) said they would recommend the retreat to a close friend.
• 92% (14 of 15) said the experience exceeded their expectations.

But perhaps more importantly…

Below you’ll find 4 sets of visual graphs that show before/after retreat data.

HOW TO READ THE DATA: For each of the following before/after pairs, I will list a category (title), then show you the exact prompt from the self-assessment the men responded to (they were asked to rate how strongly they agreed or disagreed to the prompt), then will show you the before & after data comparison.

Body as Ally: Before the Retreat

“My body feels like an ally during sex, not something I’m managing or fighting against.”

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Confident Desire Expression

“I can bring strong desire and sexual intensity into intimate experiences without collapsing into shame, fear, or excessive self-monitoring.”

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Positive Sexual Self-Regard

“Sex brings out a version of me i feel good about.”

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Presence Over Performance

“During sex, I feel more focused on performance than on what’s actually happening in the moment.” **

**IMPORTANT NOTE: the visuals of this chart are reversed from the first 2 pairings… meaning that less agreement after the retreat is the desired/good outcome.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

*Again, all graph pairs came directly from the pre and post retreat self-assessments. Only 4 out of 21 data points (prompts) are shown here. When the longer-term data comes in, I plan to publish the entire list of data points.

Thinking About Joining the Next Training?

This training is for men who want the next level of depth, pleasure, leadership and aliveness in their sex lives. This is for men who are willing to be challenged (physically and emotionally/mentally), and who want to step in and do the work needed to create the sex lives they truly want.

“This retreat completely changed my beliefs around what it means to be a man and how expansive sex can be.” – Juan Pablo

This training requires respect for women and all sexual orientations. It also requires reflection on the impact your sex life has had on others thus far, and the impact you want it to have going into the future.

This training is NOT for men who: are looking for sexual connection with other participants (this is not allowed at the retreat), who are in an active psychological or logistical life crisis, or who believe women are less than men in terms of intrinsic value.

At this training you will not learn sexual techniques… You will learn and practice THE foundational ways of being an exceptional lover – so you can take this back home to your partner(s)/lover(s).

Learn more here: The Embodied Sexual Leadership Training.

Please share this with any man who you think would benefit.

Thank you.

-Taylor