Pleasure, Power, and Becoming, Abroad with Jessica Stahl of Vanilla Cool Dance | Ep 069

Listener discretion is advised for this episode.


Jessica Stahl is here for a candid tour through her cartoons under her moniker Vanilla Cool Dance where she  addresses shame, pleasure and becoming with humor and sophistication and a whole lot of humor and sass.  After a breakup in New York, Jessica bought a one-way ticket to Amsterdam—with no plan beyond a brave question: What do I actually want? A year of communal living and a daily drawing practice unraveled old stories and sparked a movement: playful, disarming cartoons that make taboo topics feel less so.


They trace the arc from anger to invitation—why “calling people in” builds real change—and revisit Jessica’s iconic King’s Day street art: a cheeky royal tableau that turned the orgasm gap into a citywide conversation. We dig into how kink and tantra sharpen communication, consent, and boundaries (yes, “Are you still where you want to be?” can change everything). And we talk creative courage as an expat—making public art with sensitivity, humor, and a steady moral compass.


In the Episode:

• One-way ticket intuition: choosing Amsterdam and choosing herself
• Daily drawings to alchemize shame into power
• The King’s Day campaign that made pleasure public—and positive
• From calling out to calling in: anger, then bold accountability
• Consent as sexy specificity; ongoing check-ins as care
• Jessica shares her rule about creating from a “scab,” not a bleeding wound—

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Guest: Jessica Stahl, Vanilla Cool Dance — IG: @vanillacooldance (  / vanillacooldance  )


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