When a journey begins with squirting and anal licking, you know you’re in for quite the adventure. That has certainly proved to be the case for adult brand executives and sex educators April Lampert and Amy Baldwin, whose winding, interwoven pleasure industry paths have now culminated with the debut of their first book, “Shameless Sex: Choose Your Own Pleasure Path to Unlock the Sex Life You’ve Been Waiting For.”
Sharing its title with the co-hosting pair’s popular “Shameless Sex” podcast, the book represents the next phase of this dynamic duo’s mission to bring brazen self-love and discovery to all — a mission they have long pursued both separately and together.
Our book is different from other books in so many ways, and one is that it is written in the past, present and future, where the reader is in control of their final destination.
On the trade show circuit, Lampert is known as the leading lady and certified sex educator at Hot Octopuss, a role in which she excels as the company’s chief sales and partnerships officer. Baldwin is usually manning the booth for Uberlube, a company she regularly represents at industry events and sexuality conferences as a certified, holistic sex and relationships coach. Both are forces of nature with successful careers in the pleasure industry, whose natural business acumen and mutual curiosity about holistic sexuality brought them together in a perfect storm of sex-ed synergy.
“The concept behind the ‘Shameless Sex’ podcast originated in early 2017 when we both appeared on Dr. Emily Morse’s show, ‘Sex With Emily,’” Baldwin remembers. “The title of the podcast was ‘Orgasms, Squirting and the Year of Anal Licking.’ It was one of Emily’s favorite episodes that year!”
With encouragement from Morse, Baldwin and Lampert launched the “Shameless Sex” podcast six months later. After a few months of chatting about sex amongst themselves, they began including noted sex educator guests like “Come as You Are” author Dr. Emily Nagoski and versatile educator and events host Reid Mihalko.
Even as the podcast’s impact and reach were just beginning to take off, the co-hosts were already planning the next stage of “Shameless Sex.”
“We always knew we would write a book at some point in our lives,” says Lampert. “After a year of hosting our podcast, we began to see common themes in the sex questions we received. So in 2018, we came up with an idea.”
An email from a book agent in 2020 was the final catalyst. The creators dove in, working on the project until “two long, grueling, wonderful, challenging, mind-bending years later, ‘Shameless Sex,’ the book, was born.”
“It’s largely inspired by ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books,” explains Baldwin. “Our podcast is all about helping people discover who they are as unique sexual beings, as opposed to telling them who they should be or what they should do. So it just felt fitting.”
The book’s “Choose Your Own Pleasure Path” concept means that most readers do not find themselves beginning on page 1 and reading straight through to the final chapter. Instead, they flip back and forth, allowing their current knowledge, experience and interests to guide them to the next step in their personalized sex-ed lesson.
“Our book is different from other books in so many ways, and one is that it is written in the past, present and future, where the reader is in control of their final destination,” says Lampert. “Trust us, this is not an easy thing to write, and our publishers would agree!”
The authors explain the layout as a series of questions and answers: “Is your desired outcome to learn how to have orgasms from penetrative sex because you want this for you? Then continue to read on. Is your ultimate outcome to learn how to have orgasms from penetrative sex to please your partner? If so, we have another page for that. Do you want to learn to have orgasms from penetrative sex, but also learn how to talk to your partner about having non-goal-oriented sex? Then go to page X.”
“Some pages will ask you to read on to move towards the outcome you desire, while others will guide you to past or future chapters of the book,” Lampert elaborates. “This is because ‘Shameless Sex’ was written to address a common order of operations for sexual and relational self-work. Many people need to start with the heavier, less joyful hurdles such as shame, trauma and refining communication skills before they can get to the fun, shiny parts.”
The authors emphasize that each and every outcome of a reader’s “Shameless Sex” journey was painstakingly designed to dispel feelings of shame or inadequacy. While writing it, Baldwin and Lampert focused on making sure that no matter how a particular reader progressed through the book, reading it would help them get past ideas about being abnormal or broken.
“Everyone is so different and there is not a one-size-fits-all approach,” emphasizes Baldwin. “We want to help people understand that they are not ‘damaged goods,’ especially since that belief is something both of us have experienced at different points in our lives, which was debilitating and sad.”
“Most of the things that hold people back from experiencing the pleasure they deserve come from conditioning, shame, trauma and bullshit,” laments Lampert. “The fact that this book allowed us to provide people with the tools they need to help them move through these challenging facets of life is beyond gratifying. It’s tear-jerking joy for us.”
“Shameless Sex” is clearly a labor of love, but selling any book requires business acumen as well. Activating theirs, Baldwin and Lampert have launched a book-signing tour that will take the duo throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. In proper pleasure industry pro fashion, they will appear in sex shops and engage with their audiences in sex-ed Q&A sessions. In San Francisco, the public debut of “Shameless Sex” saw both go topless and don pasties while reciting some of their favorite passages.
Business and marketing aside, Lampert and Baldwin remain most passionate about touching the lives of as many sexual seekers as possible. For them, the new book is one more way to continue spreading the gospel of sex education and shame-free exploration. They are currently planning TV appearances, more mainstream media coverage and sensual, holistic retreats in Bali, Mexico and Costa Rica.
“There is no ceiling to what ‘Shameless Sex’ will continue to do and we have no plan on stopping anytime soon,” say the soul sisters of sexuality. “The sky's the limit, and we keep dreaming big because we know that the world deserves more shameless sex!”
