Weekly Seeds | January 05, 2025 | Funck Around And Find Out

Happy 2025!

I’m wrapping up a couple of weeks of juggling family travels, work, dancing, and parenting. Hope you welcomed the year with a mix of down-time and play-time as well.

Choosing to belong. A reflection.

NYE 2019 was the first time I made an active step towards finding my place in the Bay Area sex-positive community. I have been part of the community for multiple years leading up to that NYE, but I didn’t feel like I belonged in the community; almost no one knew my name, noticed if I was at the events, or cared to hang out with me. 

I walked into that NYE party with a commitment to move towards belonging with that community, and actively pushed in that direction: I volunteered for party set-up, introduced myself to others, and offered connection in whatever capacity I was available for (mostly asking people very uncomfortable vulnerable questions). 

I remember waking up on 1/1/2019 with 3 new FB friend requests in my inbox, my first 3 community friends! This week, 6 years later, I still consider this community "my people" and am so happy I took that scary first step. PS- you can listen to my story in deeper length on the Normalizing Non-Monogamy podcast.

Thinking about the impact communities have had on my own wellbeing, creative expression, and social system inspires me to continue building Plura into a platform that facilitates connection and belonging for millions of people. We know that we already do this for tens of thousands of people and we're excited to continue building this system further.

Let it unfold

Jeremey, Plura’s Head of Engineering, and I have been wrapping up 2025 planning this week. One BIG challenge we’ve decided to take on in 2025 is building more organic and context-rich opportunities to connect within the app.

We believe that organic and context-rich environments are the best platforms for connection because they allow for a deeper exploration of desire, interest, and fit. Events are a great example of such environments- we become close by sharing experiences, by seeing each other engaging with other people, by interacting again and again. Our data supports this- attending events leads to more success in making connections than out-of-context budding. 

But what about context-rich opportunities to connect beyond the events framework? We see some good signs of connection happening in our Topic Chats and Question of Today, and we're excited to start experimenting with more ways of creating organic connection in the app. PS- I wish we could experiment with bigger cultural shifts like moving to 4-day work-week.

In the meantime, if you’re still playing the swiping game, don’t miss our workshop “Mindful Swiping” where Dr. Marie Thouin shares her framework for humanizing online dating.

Emotional labor for all (women)

On my plane trip back I watched the documentary “I slept with 100 men in 1 day”, which follows Only Fans star Lily Phillips as she executes her content stunt and “sleeps” (aka has sex) with 100 men in 1 day. I was both charmed and horrified by Lily’s carefree attitude as she walked into an Airbnb in Notting Hill with a very loose plan on how to get through 100 x 5-minute sex engagements. I was disappointed to see the shitshow that followed, including very weak STI testing requirements and safer sex protocols. 

But the thing that broke my heart was witnessing the emotional labor that Lily Phillips took on while executing this 24-hour experience. In her reflections she seemed most deeply impacted by the pressure and stress of not meeting the participants' needs “... the interactions when I’d have to stop, stand on business and be like ‘I’m so sorry you got to go’ and the awkward interaction of you feeling pressure to have to make them come.. and feeling like you didn’t give them a good time… it’s hard to let them down…”

Doing exactly what I want

My therapist recommended that I read the book “Too Much” (as in “doing too much”) which is about high functioning codependent people. After I reminded her that I am no longer codependent, she smiled and recommended that I at least listen to the podcast episode with the author. After listening to the podcast I got the book and am deep in the worksheets. It's not fun to admit this, but this is the first “personal growth” book that is painful for me to go through, not because it accurately represents my behaviors, but because it accurately represents behaviors I am proud of- “too much is just enough” and “happily overcommitted” are tag lines that I put on past business cards! Now what?

Here’s to another year of more growth, alignment, and truth in my life. 

and one more thing..

Note: This newsletter represents my (Noa's) personal opinions and thoughts. I understand I may have unexamined views and I appreciate when people point them out so that I am made aware and can start thinking about them. When I make mistakes I am committed to learning about my impact on others and repairing. 

Contact me anytime: noa@heyplura.com