Chapter 60: The Pleasure Plan Review

I have a bunch of life updates in regards to my endometriosis journey, so I am going to make a conscious effort to update this more frequently. While I’m still composing my thoughts about the personal stuff, I wanted to share a review of a book that my fellow endo warriors should read- The Pleasure Plan: One Woman's Search for Sexual Healing by Laura Zam.

Summary from the publisher: Based on popular essays in New York Times’ Modern Love and Salon, as well as an Off-Broadway one-person play, The Pleasure Plan is a sexual healing odyssey, a manifesto for women to claim pleasure as a priority, and a love story all at once.

Fifty percent of adult women have some form of sexual dysfunction at some point of their lives, preventing them from enjoying vibrant, soul-satisfying sex. Such was the case with Laura Zam, who suffered the blame, shame, and embarrassment of feeling bedroom broken.

For her, delving between the sheets meant physical pain, zero desire, and emotional scars from being molested in her early years. However, in her late forties, after meeting and marrying the love of her life, Zam was determined to finally fix her sensual self.

The Pleasure Plan is what happened when she decided to challenge her hopelessness. In partnership with her initially reluctant husband, she visited 15 healers and tried 30 pleasure-enhancing methods: from dilators and dildos, to hypnosis and hosting a sex brunch, to cleansing chakras, to making love to her husband in front of a geriatric Tantric goddess.

Packed with humor, heart, and a healthy dose of prescriptive advice, this book chronicles Zam’s insights as she confronts many issues—from mismatched libidos to female erection enlightenment. Throughout this journey, she and her husband grow as individuals and as a couple, both in and out of the bedroom.

Fearlessly honest and full of inspiration, Zam peels back the layers—or covers—and exposes her foibles, insecurities, and eventual wisdom as she excavates past traumas, accepts and embraces her worth, and claims her right to be completely alive.

Today, Laura works as a sexuality educator, wellness coach, and speaker helping other women who suffer from sexual dysfunction, the effects of trauma, or those who would simply like more pleasure (of all kinds) in their lives. She also consults with health care providers so they may better assist their clients in achieving sexual well-being.

While The Pleasure Plan is Zam’s personal narrative, it demystifies pervasive taboos, encouraging women to make pleasure a priority, while teaching them how to claim (or reclaim) the power of their sexual selves. It also shows men how they can support their partners in this #Metoo era.

Healthy, sultry intimacy is a right; it is time for women to learn—through glorious trial and error—how to embrace the sensual side of themselves. . . exuberantly and unabashedly.

While Zam doesn’t have endometriosis or mention it at all in her book, I think this is an important read for my fellow endo warriors. One of the most common symptoms of endometriosis is pain with intercourse (or any kind of penetration- tampons, speculums, etc.), and Zam is very, very open about her pain. I think that most of us in the endo community could definitely read this book and relate to her struggles and take solace in the fact that it is common and there are things we can do to minimize our pain.

Zam writes in a way that is so open and honest. Considering the subject matter, I am in awe of her willingness to discuss this kind of pain so candidly. It’s something I’ve been unable to bring myself to do here, so it was an inspiration. Zam’s focus was twofold: find ways to ease the pain of sex and find ways to enjoy sex and connect with her partner. This woman tried literally everything to achieve these goals. However, it boggled my mind that her first stop wasn’t to a pelvic floor physical therapist. A good OBGYN or a simple Google search should have sent her to PT first, not toward the end of her journey. As someone who knows more about women’s sexual dysfunction and sexual health than most, it frustrated me to no end. At one point when she was doing chakra healing, I literally called my bestie and yelled “THE WOMAN IN MY BOOK IS SO FRUSTRATING. SHE NEEDS A PELVIC FLOOR PT AND SHE NEEDS ONE NOW!!” Being the millennial that I am, I follow several on tiktok and spent a lot of time imagining what they’d say to the author if she was in their clinics. This is for sure a me problem, but it disrupted the flow of the book because it was so… nonsensical. Just think about it, most pain injuries require physical therapy. The muscles around your vagina are just another body part, after all. I was so happy when she finally went.

I digress. A part of this book I really liked was Zam’s willingness to share what she learned with other women in her life. She hosted brunches with other women, and they featured frank and honest conversations that we should all be having with our girlfriends. In fact, these inspired me to share and listen more openly when discussing sex with my friends. How are we supposed to know what pains and pinches are normal if we don’t know what others are experiencing?

Another really helpful part of this book were the bullet points and discussion questions at the end. While I felt kind of ridiculous doing them, I did think that they were really helpful if taken seriously. I am very lucky that my pain isn’t nearly as bad as Zam’s, but the questions and discussion points were pretty universal and worth taking seriously and doing.

Overall, this is a great tool to add to your endometriosis book library. Mine is slowly growing and it makes me so happy that this terrible condition is finally getting some attention.