TONTS. - Matrescence Festival with Tamica Wilder

Episode Date: October 12, 2025

Welcome to the sixth episode of TONTS Season 5 Matrescence Festival edition, join us as we look back through our Melbourne festival from March 2025.In this episode you'll hear from the amazing Tamica Wilder, Tamica is a somatic sex coach and multi-qualified therapist with a deep passion for teaching humans to re-attune to the wisdom of our bodies, while giving full permission to shamelessly prioritise pleasure and play. She believes that our current cultural narratives around sex, intimacy, pleasure and relationships need to change and that begins with helping to create sex-positive families and help parents build the confidence to have ‘those chats’ with their kids and other family members.For more from Tamica you can find her book 'Wild Honey' or follow her on instagram @themomsexologistFor more from Claire you can head to: https://www.clairetonti.com/ or her instagram @clairetontiFor more from Lizzy you can head to: https://www.lizzyhumber.com/ or her instagram @lizzyhumberAnd to keep up to date with past and upcoming Matrescence festivals you can follow @matrescencefestival on instagram or go to https://www.matrescencefestival.co.ukOriginal theme music: Free by Claire TontiEditing: Maisie JGSocial Media: Surabhi Pradhan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak and write today. There are wondry people of the Kulin Nation and pay my respect to their elders past, present and merging, acknowledging that the sovereignty of this land has never been seeded. I want to acknowledge the people who have given birth on this land, raised children on this land for generations connected to country and spirit. Welcome back to a special edition of Tontz. I'm Claire Tonti. And I'm Lizzie Humber. We are the co-founders of Matressens Festival. Listen along with us as we share live episodes from the Metressens Festival Australia that took

place across two days in March 2025. We're really delighted to be able to share this next speaker with you. Tamika Wilder is a Melbourne-based somatic sex coach and therapist with over 18 years of experience, guiding people to reconnect with their bodies and embrace their fullest, most authentic selves. Tamika is on a mission to shake up cultural narratives around sex, intimacy, pleasure and relationships. We couldn't be more excited to have her lead this important conversation at the festival. As a mother of two, Tamika also empowers parents to build confidence in having sex positive discussions with their families, creating lasting and meaningful change, both personally and relationally. Before we share

Tamika's talk, I would love to just ask you, Claire, about Tamika's workshop that happened in the afternoon on day one. Oh gosh, it was so incredible. Well, I'll just like rewind a little bit even further. So the reason that Tamika was at the festival is that I was invited by a

friend of mine who's a poet to go to her revolutionary woman day. That was a full day workshop with 70 women from 16 to 85. And by, I had no idea what I was going to. the end we were all dancing to like ecstatic r and b and singing and embodying our emotion and expressing ourselves and i was so in awe of the way that tamika held the space for women in that room she began that day by bringing the elder women into the inner circle and washing their feet

and then asking to hear from them and their voices and i learned immediately from her the power of raising our elders, and particularly our elder women who often are not listened to and what that really meant for them. So that blew me away. And then the ability she had to challenge women to step into their most authentic truth.

And that's what happened in the workshop. So she uses her body, she uses sound and movement to emboldened and encourage women to move in a way that feels good to them. them to vocalize in a way that feels good to them. So women were literally like yelling and screaming, but also more beautifully even, I think they were vulnerably sharing about the lack of sex they were having and having really honest discussions about how they just feel

exhausted and tapped out that motherhood caused them to lose that sense of fire that they had within them. And it was just such a beautiful thing to witness to make us slowly hold that space and then drawing out in these women their own inner goddess, essentially. It was just so beautiful. And by the end of it, we were all dancing to I'm Every Woman, Shaka Khan, and we opened up the big doors and then everyone kind of flooded in and we're all dancing together. And yeah, it's also interesting, as I was saying to you, that I was so nervous about including, you know, the erotic mother as a topic within a motherhood festival.

It just felt really, really radical. And I think, I remember you saying to me, of course we have to do it, but that it is radical. And that we were nervous about whether the workshop would sell. And it was the one that sold out first, which I think really goes to show something, doesn't it? Yeah, people needed it so much. It was 50 women. And I remember Tamika afterwards, like offering to give debriefs to every single person that attended the workshop.

I do think that speaks so much to the open-hearted. of Tamika. In this sharing that you're about to hear, she talks about connecting to what you want and what you need, what you desire, choosing sex and listening to your natural eroticism. Just to give you some content warning, especially if you've got children in the room or if any of these issues may have affected you, Tamika does reference her own experience to child sexual abuse. And there's references throughout towards sex and eroticism and there's even some swearing, although she sets out at the beginning as you're here trying not to swear, but inevitably, it's such a powerful sharing, swearing has to come into it. So without further ado,

here is the amazing Tamika Wilder. I could maybe do this and not swear. I maybe could, but I can't guarantee it. That's why I thought I'd put the warning there, you know, because sometimes I just black out. Really, though, like concentrating on all of the words that have been said this morning has in some moment's been quite difficult for me. And to be honest with you, at certain times in my life, I've really gotten skillful at prioritizing the inarticulate, non-rational, nonsensical wilderness of us, of me. Yeah? And when it comes to our erotic nature, that is one thing that we absolutely must do if we are to reclaim it and to fully inhabit our naturalness in our body. We accidentally sometimes read too many books about the thing or listen to too many podcasts

about the thing and don't end up in the body. Anyone kind of guilty of that? Right. So one thing I do want to say, actually there's heaps of things I want to say. One thing. No, no. Many, I think, so we'll see how this goes. I've been charging through heaps of emotion this morning, like just letting each of us really into my core. And honestly, it's one of the ways that I do what I do best. It's one of my superpowers to take it in, metabolize it, feel it all, and hopefully spit it back out in a way that lands somewhere with you, with us.

And I don't mind crying in front of you. I don't mind sweating, swearing, spitting, fucking dancing, opening, getting dirty, being filthy, being cracked, being broken. don't mind because I know each and every time I allow that through me another layer of artistry

arrives in us another layer of our poetry our majesty the magic that we're here to bring through arrives in us so I do that in my body in the hope that you feel me more than hear me

you might not hear a word I say and I really don't mind. But something about the way that I intend to move the current of life through my body, through my heart out of this throat, even when my voice shakes, the way I intend to do that from now until the day I die. I just want you to feel that. Another noticing I've had this morning. is all of us in our roles.

The women that have brought this weekend together, all of the different archetypes, all of the different experts, some gentle and considered and friendly and soft and available, others a bit more stoic and upright and organizing and everything in between. Has everyone else noticed that? It's like we are all, like, everything is here.

Everything is here in this space in us. And I love us. I love us for that. So I just, I want to articulate a thanks and like a focus to you and to you. And to everyone who has, everyone who's here. Yeah. So, I think. I think I'm going to tell you a little bit about how I got to be this type of educator,

a little bit about my life and some of my births. And hopefully I'll leave you with a few pillars around some of the things that maybe you would like to consider doing or some of the ways you might like to consider being if you want to embody your wild, erotic nature. if you want to be someone who gets to own her wanting. Yeah, so I'll go like that. I grew up in Melbourne, a single-parent home, my mum, four kids on her own. Yeah, she did great. She did really great.

And I was always someone obsessed with what was happening under the surface of a person. So I would meet people and I would weirdly like just stare at them or say awkward things or I remember I was trying to make a friend in grade three and I was sitting behind her. Her name was Christina and I was like, I don't know how to talk to this girl but I want to be her friend. So what I did was I pinched her. I pinched her on the bum and then I got into trouble and then I was sat in the corner like facing the corner like oh Tamika you did not nail that. That was pretty weird. And that kind of way of being in myself was a gift, and it also got me into a fair bit of trouble at times as I grew up through life. So at 12 and 13, I was sexually abused by my brother's basketball coach for about two years. And he infiltrated our family, and, you know, it's a single parent home. We needed help getting to basketball training, et cetera.

It was pretty easy for him to do. And through that experience, I learned a lot about how you give and receive love, right? Oh, this is how I have to be in my body in order to be loved and accepted. This is what I have to do to make sure that this person is, you know, around for my family. There's not a scaric of me that would change that experience for what then kind of happened next in my life. I went through this tumultuous kind of years in my teen life just absolutely crashing up against everything I could find, right? The most beautiful life experiences,

the most dangerous life experiences and all the poetry that comes with that, right? I learnt about building rapport and being with people in some of the most immaculate ways. So I'm very, very grateful for that. And then I met my partner. some say that oh whatever i won't bore you with that bit actually he's not my partner now i'll just fast forward all that stuff that was him no it is not but we have two beautiful boys together eight

and eleven sol lema and kali wonder when i was birthing soul oh my god and i lost it earlier because the woman who was there with me when i was giving birth to soul is here I haven't seen her in so long. Yeah, it killed me. When I was birthing soul, it was pretty normal, you know, just a bit of shoulder-distosia, if I remember correctly, a little, and out he came. The real drama came with my second son.

So I was 42 and 5, 42 and 6, something like that. I'm going like that because I was gigantic. He just didn't want to progress. It ended up in an emergency caesarian, and afterwards my bladder didn't work. It didn't work for about 13 weeks. So I was at home with a cesarean scar, with a toddler, and a catheter for 12 weeks. Two re-hospitalizations. I remember being on the operating table and then starting the incision, and I could actually feel it.

And I was like, I don't think I should feel this. And they were like, oh, yep, let me fix that by completely, you know, making sure you don't feel anything. I'm telling you this because after that experience I had a choice. I could either go, you know what, I'm so happy and grateful that I've got my sons, I'm safe, I'm healthy, we're provided for, why on earth would I worry about then wanting to make sure I could have internal orgasms? Who cares about feeling pleasure in my base? You've got your kids.

You could have died giving birth. Get over it, Tamika. It's not what life's about. Tuck it away. Anyone had sentiments like that in here? Yep. But what I actually did is I made a choice that I was going to learn so much about how my pleasure behaved in my body. So much about every single detail of my vulva, my anatomy.

So much about my blood flow, my breath, the way I wanted to move. and breathe and sound and open to ensure that everything I felt was better than ever before in my life. So that's what I did. I'm telling you my birth story because if I can do what I've done to my pleasure body, then everybody here can.

Everyone here can. But the one thing I needed more than anything was to make a decision to put that at the forefront of my desires to actually choose it. And that took a radical amount of self-responsibility and also a radical amount of rebellion in some way. Can you see how our eroticism, our sex, our pleasure, our play, our poetry, our artistry, our emotionality, our movement, our joy,

the way we undulate through life? Can you see how that is a rebellion? Yeah. So that is the first pillar. If anyone who wants to feel more, to experience more pleasure, to reclaim their sexual sovereignty, first you need to black out and lose your mind a little bit,

literally, yeah? I will never ever tell you to prioritize pleasure. I will never tell you to go out and buy a new pink vibrator I will never tell you to go buy new lingerie I will never claim to know exactly how your body needs to move or breathe or sound in order for you to feel alive and anyone who claims to know that

they're probably lying to you but what I will do is ask the right questions and create the right space so you can find out for yourself so you can be safe in your opening so you can have the time to breathe and move and allow. Yeah. So the second pillar, the second kind of thing I focused on

was having presence in my body and activating my parasympathetic nervous system. So most people here know what that is. It's the part of our nervous system responsible for relaxation. Yeah? If that is not engaged, it is pretty much impossible for our bodies to arrive in a state of openness and expanse and pleasure. Yeah?

So it means that we need to deal with stress. Now I hear what you're saying, well, Tamika, that's all well and good, deal with stress, be less stressed, but you know my life. And I do, but it's connected to the same thing that I said before. it is radical self-love, radical self-responsibility, and a little bit rebellious to say no. Or to say, your turn. Or to say, oh, I can't go to that today. I can't be her today.

I'm going actually into my bedroom to moisturise my entire body and listen to two of my favorite songs and deep breathe into my womb. right so these types of practices right it's like yes i might be stressed that thing does not fit into my life and no it doesn't until you make it so just like um having sex when you're in a partnership and it's like oh but the kids are in the house who's ever used the excuse but the kids are here so we can't put your hand up high if that is you the kids might hear us or the kids might know what's going on, yeah. So this is why I love sex-positive parenting

as one of the things I teach, because we absolutely must integrate a healthy and positive and revolutionary way of educating our children about what it means to actually be in our bodies, what it means to be in connection, in partnership, in love, in pleasure. It is a travesty. I just stopped myself from swearing. Be proud.

that pleasure is not included in sex education. How is that? So, it gets totally missed out. Fuck sake. And so that starts in the home. The same reason where you won't go and make love is the same reason why you won't do the exercise I said before, which is close your door, say no, two songs,

moisturize your body and deep breathe. The most simple things are the most profound and they're often the hardest things to choose. And you won't choose them until you make the decision to own your wanting. And you can't choose them without presence and parasympathetic dominance. It's funny, I talk to women all the time about this.

This is like my absolute joy and passion, and I get them to do this thing where I'm like, all right, what do you want? Like, if you could have anything, what does it look like? What does it feel like? and some of the things start off so gentle. Oh, I just want, obviously, space to myself.

I'd love for my partner to stroke my brow as I'm lying there in his lap. Oh, I'd love for my partner to slam me up against the wall and put his hands like on my tits and rip me apart, right? And it goes on and on and on and on like this. We all have these deep, yeah, desires, these things that make. make us human, that make us woman, that bring us into the truth of our erotic aliveness. We have these things which we want the most, and a little bit of ownership of that goes such a long way. It could be just journaling a little bit. If I could have anything at all,

I want this. No one ever needs to see. You never need to articulate it, unless you work with me, and then we'll just be talking about it all the time. it's just giving that a little bit of space a little bit of breath yeah and in um vicky your your poem earlier when you were like about the the um thank you no saying no or the soft like sorry oh oh oh oh oh oh That is like, you did so much work for me because usually I stand here and I do that first, right? I watched my sister birth and blood and just running down her leg

and she looked at me and said, sorry, R out. I lost the plot. Obviously not in the moment. I didn't. I was like, you're right. Come on. Keep pushing. But so much of that,

sorry, I can't. I'm small. I don't know how. I'm just a little woman. I'm really lovely person. Oh, and my husband's so great. He's so patient. I know he wants to have more sex, but he's so lovely. He never puts pressure on me, but I'd really like to be able to get back to it because, you know, I know that he needs that. And I'm like, it's lovely, but This is not for him. This is all about you, like every scaric of it, is about you. Becoming your own muse, looking at yourself in the mirror, moving, breathing, opening, being with yourself in a way that brings tenderness and presence

and nourishment and adoration to you and the naturalness of your eroticism and your aliveness. that is a powerful and worthy focus. And you know what? For those of us that have daughters, I mean, sons as well, like I teach my boys so much about themselves through the way that I am with myself. Yeah. And that's just not a sentiment that's like, oh, yeah, no, that makes sense.

That's lovely. It is honestly, ah, so true and so powerful when I remember that when I say no to something that one of them need and they take time for me, they're going, oh, mum's having some time on our own. It's powerful. When he has a girlfriend, what's he going to do? Oh, yeah, my girlfriend needs to go and tend to herself. Don't even get me started on things like self-responsibility for your own pleasure,

for your own orgasm. Imagine if little boys knew that them getting off had nothing to do with their girlfriends. Imagine if little girls knew that them experiencing pleasure and joy and worthiness in their bodies had nothing to do with their boyfriends. I'm spelling this out because it's important. It gives us a new way of being with ourselves because we are forever teachers.

And it's never too late, you're never too closed, you're not broken, it's not all over, anything you're experiencing in your body you can interrupt it, you can repatten it, you can re-pleasure it and you can ask Winnie about the neuroplasticity around that and I know

it's true for my body because that's exactly what I did to my sex and my pleasure and the abundance of the feelings of joy in my body after everything I went through and now I twist my hip a certain way I breathe down into my base with a certain type of breath, let go of the shoulders, drop the jaw, open my chest.

Oh, and guess what? Blood can flow down into my vulva, because I learnt how to do it for my body. So this is my invitation to you to learn how to do it for your body. Presence, practice, parasympathetic, and owning the wanting. I'm doing a workshop after lunch and we will go deeper on all of these things

if you're coming into that space I also have my book over there it's called Wild Honey I go into heaps of practices and principles around everything that I've just said and a bit more of my personal story in there I've only got 18 their $10 come and grab one at lunch

if you would like one thank you I fucking love this I love you all thank you for the space Thank you. Oh my God. How incredible. Tamika Wilder.

I'm so grateful that she was a part of our festival. Okay, that brings us to the end of episode six. For more from me, you can head to at Claire Tonti on Instagram. For more from Lizzie, head to at Lizzie Humber. And follow us at Matresson's Festival for more updates and new episodes. And as always, thank you to Maisie for doing such a beautiful job with the edit. Okay, stay tuned for more.

Time to check on the skies. It's another sunny day in Calgary. Forecast calls for high levels of economic activity. Late afternoon, we've got a burst of potential in a place ranked North America's most livable city. Tomorrow, blue sky thinking in the blue sky city should hold steady, and the outlook remains optimistic throughout the week. So come grab your dreams and enjoy watching them take hold. It's possible in Calgary, the Blue Sky City. For the full economic forecast, visit calgaryconomic development.com.