Building Community Through Fitness and Adventure: Naughty Gym’s Journey

This Podcast In Summary

Scott and April launched Naughty Gym during the pandemic as an online fitness platform for the sex-positive community. It soon grew into intimate retreats where participants, typically in their 40s and 50s, come together for connection, adventure, and relaxation. These retreats create safe, empowering spaces where societal boundaries fall away, fostering authenticity and deep bonds. With workshops on sensual touch and a mix of activities, attendees leave feeling refreshed and more connected to themselves and others. Through online platforms, Scott and April keep this vibrant community thriving year-round.

Transcript

Rosalia (00:01.159)

Hello everyone, welcome to the Antiresort Resort Podcast. My name is Rosalia, the Director of Retreats here at Mizata, and I am so excited to welcome Scott and April onto the podcast today.

Scott & April (00:15.424)

Hi, thanks for having us. Yeah, we’re excited to be here.

Rosalia (00:19.164)

So can you guys share a little bit about Naughty Gym and the community that you guys have built?

Scott & April (00:26.158)

Yeah, so we started Naughty Gym in 2020, actually during COVID. We owned two commercial gyms and had to shut those down because of COVID. And we learned very quickly how to coach people online. And so we started Naughty Gym, an online coaching and fitness platform, but we marketed it towards a niche market. It was to the sex positive community and specifically non-monogamous polyamory, kink, BDSM, LGBTQ, and really we were targeting a demographic that likes to go to nudist resorts, likes to be clothing optional, and wants to look better naked. So that kind of just took off. We’ve since sold our brick and mortar gyms, and we do this full time. But part of offering the coaching and fitness in the community. We’re big travelers. And when we travel, when we travel by ourselves, we always wish we had friends with us. And so we were actually on a trip to Memphis by ourselves. And on the way home, we were like, wouldn’t it be fun if we had all of our friends here? And so that’s kind of how our trips and retreats started was we would pick a location that we both wanted to go to.

Rosalia (01:44.87)

Mmhmm.

Rosalia (01:48.998)

Ha ha ha ha.

Rosalia (01:56.07)

Right.

Scott & April (02:05.174)

And then we would invite all of our friends and we would kind of act as the travel agents and concierge and we’d arrange everything for them. And then they would just show up and we’d have their whole vacation planned. And that’s how we started. We started that with our brick and mortar gyms first, but then it spilled over once we started Naughty Gym. We actually had some of our very earliest members.

Rosalia (02:20.05)

Amazing!

Scott & April (02:33.166)

Travel and events were not part of our business model when we first started. It was just an online coaching, fitness, you come on, log on, get your workout for the day and, you know, maybe you interact and message people on the platform talking about the workout. Well, people got to know each other and they’re spread out all over the country. We have about 300 members now and they wanted to know if, hey, we should have a meeting somewhere or get, you know, where we can meet face to face.

Rosalia (02:53.628)

Well.

Scott & April (03:00.11)

One of our earliest members suggested that we all go do a Spartan race. And so we bought out a Lodge in Glacier National Park in Montana and sold it out in like four days and took 15 couples up there and we hiked Glacier National Park, ran a Spartan race together and then we’ve been traveling and doing events ever since. So I wish we would have had the forethought.

Rosalia (03:04.262)

Hmm.

Scott & April (03:26.594)

For that to have been a genius part of our plan from the beginning. But it was actually something that just sort of happened organically by the request of our.

Rosalia (03:36.665)

Right, well sounds like, I mean there’s so much beauty in the journey right, and the physical place is really what built the community. Because I think that’s something that we all struggled with transitioning from the physical experience into a virtual experience and even transitioning back out of it. I mean, we still live in a highly virtual world. You and I have great relationships and we are miles and even thousands of miles apart at any given time. So the virtual world has provided us a lot of technology, but it of course has separated us even more while it also has given us kind of a stronger desire to…want to be together so that’s actually how I myself started my retreat concept too was I knew that people who were behind the virtual screen wanted to be together and how can I sort of activate my own background and experiences in traveling and bringing people to these special places. So how did you, was it also very natural to bringing this naughty gym concept into the retreat space or did you experience other concepts like this that inspired you or was it just kind of a natural transition of your friend group?

Scott & April (04:48.076)

Yeah, it was kind of a natural thing. to speak on what you were kind of talking about, the community aspect of it, when we started Naughty Gym, that was our big pain point. How do we create this online community where people feel connected like they do in our brick and mortar gym? And so connection has been such a big focus on what we do in Naughty Gym and making people feel like they have a place to go where they’re seen, where they’re celebrated, where somebody is waiting for them and misses them when they’re not there. And so that transferred beautifully over to our retreats where people are like, they already feel like they know the other community members online. And so when they arrive at the retreats, it’s like, seeing an old friend, they’ve already connected, they’ve already shared stories and suffered together through workouts virtually, and they’ve done all of this stuff online in the community that has fostered these really deep and meaningful connections before they even arrive at the retreat.

Rosalia (05:36.128)

My gosh!

Rosalia (05:42.246)

Mm -hmm.

Rosalia (05:52.659)

Wow, so you would say, I’m so sorry Scott, but you would say it’s almost like a rolling referral. So like one group is like, absolutely we’re in, and then the other 20 people that they love traveling with, they’re like, we’re also in, we’re there.

Scott & April (06:05.484)

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of referrals. And because of the nature of our business, we market to the sex positive community. We don’t do paid advertising because we’re not able to. And so we refer heavily on word of mouth. You know, for the El Salvador trip, probably half of those people that are joining us were referred by other people that had been on our previous retreats. Yeah.

Rosalia (06:31.827)

Easy.

Scott & April (06:32.91)

And the other half are people that we already know. It’s very close, and that’s why we, you know, we can’t wait to get there for you guys to meet them because it’s a very close knit fun group that will not take two days to kind of get to know each other and let loose and have fun. They’ll be energetic and ready to go the minute they get there. So yeah, we look forward to bringing that energy to Mazada.

Rosalia (06:36.614)

Yeah.

Rosalia (06:44.838)

Right.

Rosalia (07:00.883)

I’m so, so, so excited to meet them. It sounds like your community is equally as fun as you guys when you guys were coming to visit. We had so much fun together. Now, how is it comparable in size to the other retreats? I know you have one in Jamaica. Is it much larger or smaller in El Salvador?

Scott & April (07:20.398)

So the one in Jamaica is actually 220 rooms? 250 rooms. It’ll be a little over 500 people at that event. So that’s our biggest event that we do. Yeah, and that’s an annual event every January. Then Mizata is probably the second largest. And then our smaller ones are typically between 15 and 17 couples.

Rosalia (07:31.662)

Mad.

Rosalia (07:43.398)

Got it. How many do you run per year on average?

Scott & April (07:47.502)

The goal next year is we’re probably gonna have, depending on how you classify, we’re gonna have three or four. So we’ll have the Jamaica event, the biggest one. Then we’ll be at you guys next, which there’ll be, I think, 64 of us at that. And then there should be one in Costa Rica in the fall, and then one in Tampa, the Tampa area, like in November.

Rosalia (08:12.451)

my gosh, that’s insane. So then what is your percentage? I don’t know if you know this number off the top of your head and just kinda like from a data -oriented perspective, what is the percentage of people who return, like would you say it’s about 80 % of people come back to as many retreats as they can?

Scott & April (08:28.494)

no, I would say probably 60%. I would say 80% of the people that are going, well, yeah, I would, I would say 60% on the El Salvador trip have been to something of ours before. Almost 100% of them would, if you added the additional layer of they’ve either been to our event or they were referred to us by somebody that probably gets everybody. Yeah. but, yeah.

Rosalia (08:33.564)

Okay.

Rosalia (08:41.926)

Got it.

Rosalia (08:53.968)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Scott & April (08:57.346)

You know, not everybody goes to every event, but there’s a huge number of people that are just repeat offenders.

Rosalia (08:59.686)

Sure, yeah.

Rosalia (09:04.211)

I love it. It’s like why did you come back? Because I love you. no.

Scott & April (09:08.082)

Well, and they’ll message, you know, we get messages from people when they’re picking their vacation time at work. We need the, you know, next year’s retreat dates because we want to take off of work and make sure that we don’t over schedule. So yeah, it’s pretty, it’s pretty fun.

Rosalia (09:21.768)

Mm So I’d like to talk about one of two things. The first is how are you guys able to maintain these communities? Because I maintained a community, this was before I joined Mizata, Rosalia Dawn Yoga as my brand, it was like 30 to 50 people in Mexico City. But you know, it is a lot of time and energy that you have to dedicate to each person to build a really powerful rapport. So how are you guys managing each of these communities and sort of like what are your communication channels with them? And let’s start there because the other question is also another little can of worms.

Scott & April (09:56.494)

Yeah. So we have our online platform that kind of functions almost like a Facebook group where they have their workouts, but they can also interact. Everybody sets up their profiles and we have daily interactions. We’re posting in there every day. We have group chats in there. But then once we have a retreat, like we just sold out Mizata already for next May, we’ll start a telegram group for.

Rosalia (10:05.865)

Cool.

Rosalia (10:22.29)

Crazy. Okay, cool.

Scott & April (10:25.238)

All of the attendees. So we do things like all of the couples send us their picture and a little bio, and then we put together kind of like a virtual book so everybody can see everybody who’s coming, a little bit about them, get to know them. And then we do like weekly engagement in the Telegram group. So we’re constantly asking people questions, like we do prize giveaways and to drive up engagement in the Telegram group.  We had a vote on the theme nights that we’re going to have while we’re there at Mizata..

Rosalia (10:58.473)

My gosh, tell me some of the things that one, if you can. I don’t know if it even was a surprise

Scott & April (11:01.206)

Yeah, so we’re going to do one night is going to be a tribal glow night. So it’s going to be kind of like a rave, EDM festival. And then the other one is shipwrecked. So that’s our groups love dressing up like in theme costumes and stuff. So that’ll leave a lot up to the imagination shipwrecked.

Rosalia (11:05.563)

Yeah.

Rosalia (11:12.196)

Cool. Yeah.

Rosalia (11:20.891)

I love that. So the second question I had was about who is your demographic because you know there are a lot of sex positive communities. You and I come from smaller towns so the sex positive communities in Miami, New York and LA look a lot different than the ones in the smaller towns. Sounds like you guys are national if not international. What does your demographic look like?

Scott & April (11:46.03)

I would say that the average person, if you just tried to find the sweet spot of our community, it’s probably 40 to 50 year olds. And they’re probably a little more well off than the average person to be able to afford to travel and that sort of stuff. But yeah, it’s probably in that 40 to 50 range, very open minded, you know, open to new experiences, that sort of thing.

Rosalia (11:55.942)

Mm -hmm. Love that.

Scott & April (12:16.302)

Now there are younger people for sure in our group and there are older people, but probably 75% of them would fall into that 40 to 50 year old range, would be my guess. And as far as the sex positive part, there’s probably more people that would fall under the umbrella of consensual non-monogamists than anything else, but we have a large LGBTQ following.

Rosalia (12:38.418)

Mmm

Scott & April (12:45.058)

Different types of non -monogamy, whether that’s polyamory or just open relationships, any of sorts of things.

Rosalia (12:48.978)

Right.

Rosalia (12:52.91)

Right. Are there singles who travel to your retreats?

Scott & April (12:57.312)

Not to El Salvador. So our Jamaica one is open to singles, single females or males. We’ve even had some throuples. But a lot of times the smaller retreats, we just can’t accommodate singles unless they are sharing a room with somebody, you know, another single. And it’s tricky in an environment like this, a single person in a small enough group runs the risk of being slightly problematic if they’re not well behaved.

Rosalia (13:14.459)

Right.

Rosalia (13:24.046)

Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Scott & April (13:26.126)

Because they don’t have a… or feel like they’re isolated a little bit because they don’t have a partner to… We do a lot of couples yoga and different couples workshops and stuff. And so it could feel a little isolating for them if they don’t have a partner with them. It’s just a better fit to be a couple at the retreat we’re doing in El Salvador.

Rosalia (13:41.198)

Absolutely.

Rosalia (13:47.717)

Like the kind of smaller, more intimate compared to Jamaica. So I wanna reel it back just a little bit. We kind of got super sidetracked. I’m so excited for you guys to come to Misata also because we also have a little bit of learnings of how we would execute on our side a sex positive retreat from the last one that we did. And it sounds like because you guys have just…

Scott & April (13:51.778)

Right, right.

Rosalia (14:09.615)

Been able to do this so successfully. There’s so much to the pot but I would love to know a little bit about you know kind of that journey transitioning from gym, and I’m not sure, it sounds like your gym was originally sex positive, but becoming a brand around sex positivity. It almost feels like, I could be wrong, so correct me please if I am, but your brand is much more centered around that safety as opposed to the fitness. The fitness is a nice to have, but who you are that Scott and April call into their communities is about that comfort with individuality and expression.

Scott & April (14:48.236)

Well, so let’s, I’ll backtrack a little bit as far as our commercial gyms that we had, they’re in, you know, small town or medium sized town, Alabama. So this is the deep south of the United States. And what we do and support isn’t always supported by the community around us. So when we first initially got outed as having this business called Naughty Gym from ironically, from another podcast we were on.

Rosalia (14:56.496)

Mmm. Right.

Scott & April (15:15.636)

Over the course of about two months, we lost half of our membership once that started getting out. So while we were supportive of any type of sexuality or relationship structure, we didn’t make it a point to make that part of our DNA of our gym publicly. Like we didn’t, we didn’t hang rainbow flags off of the building.

Rosalia (15:19.364)

Hmm.

Rosalia (15:37.107)

Alright.

Scott & April (15:41.336)

No, but we hosted events. But we did host events. we tried to walk the line in a way that wouldn’t, you know, that would send the message that we’re open, but wouldn’t get us, you know, get the building burned down at night. Which has been a nice transition when we sold those to be able to kind of lean into it and embrace the community as much as we want to out in the open. And I think that is what makes people feel safe, that they have a voice that isn’t afraid.

Rosalia (15:47.408)

Yes, absolutely.

Scott & April (16:10.798)

They have somebody to advocate for them in the community.

Rosalia (16:16.791)

Now I am personally very interested in what you guys are doing because So my sort of concept my mission when I was doing retreats back in Mexico Was to create safe spaces for the survivors of domestic violence and I say this because not a lot of women have that power that safety to Speak out and that’s kind of what I thought was leading me to teach yoga was this taught me a level of power within myself that I could stand on my own two feet and not rely on my partner, whoever it was that I depended on who ultimately ended up hurting me. And so I think, you know, as you’re speaking April about, you know, we could hold our communities much tighter. We can be more out in the open about it. Cause I received a lot of feedback as well from other nonprofits, other advocates for the community that were like, you know, if you talk to the wrong person you could get hurt. And so this like real fear I think also can be translated into a version that exists for the sex positive community. Of course for the LGBTQ community. Like I said to you guys before I’m from Memphis, Tennessee and pride really wasn’t a thing until a few years ago and so now like seeing this beautiful parade walking down Beale Street of all places it’s like such an amazing realization of how far we have come but even still that know, violence, whether through spoken word or energy, is so heavily present in these towns that we live in.

Scott & April (17:45.666)

Yeah, there’s still a lot of work to be done. A lot of work has been done, but there’s still we still have a lot of work to be done to make people feel safe in every space. And so I mean, we’re doing I feel like just such a small part of that. But even I love the work that you do working with survivors of domestic violence. We do some things at our retreats where

Rosalia (17:48.422)

Mmm.

Scott & April (18:14.806)

We work with the women, Scott works with the men, and we bring in therapists to our retreats that can help women use their voice, learning the power of know, people who are maybe recovering people pleasers, but it’s about empowering the individual. not just, it’s not necessarily when we look at it like a couples retreat, they are going to connect better with their partners.

Rosalia (18:19.986)

Cool.

Rosalia (18:27.292)

Right.

Scott & April (18:42.956)

But they’re going to grow themselves personally so that they can be a better partner, they can be, you know, show up for themselves stronger and learn to support themselves in a way that maybe they hadn’t before.

Rosalia (18:46.098)

Hmm.

Rosalia (18:58.72)

Learn to advocate for themselves as much as for the partner that they’re with. Wow, that is so powerful.

Scott & April (19:00.79)

Yeah. Which is, which is a, which is a beautiful part of what we do. And I know I’m speaking as a man here, so you guys can shut me up if you want, but, you, you, it, it isn’t easy to just pursue your passions to, poot, to pursue the things that you really want. Cause a lot of times you’re always concerned about the other people in the room, you know, like

Rosalia (19:13.148)

Shut up, Scott. Just kidding.

Rosalia (19:24.443)

Mmm.

Scott & April (19:29.422)

Like for instance, if you’re talking about an open relationship situation where maybe she finds somebody else attractive in a, maybe in a lot of standard monogamous relationships, you’re not going to feel comfortable to express that to your partner. Hey, that person over there, I find really attractive. So you, we live in this monogamy normal world where you repress a lot of your thoughts.

Rosalia (19:41.906)

Absolutely.

Rosalia (19:47.985)

Yeah.

Scott & April (19:56.214)

for fear of actually expressing them to your partner because you don’t know how they’re going to handle it. When you get into a lifestyle like We Lead,

Rosalia (20:00.913)

Absolutely.

Scott & April (20:04.652)

You can’t do that. You’re not going to be successful if you do that. You learn to be completely transparent about your feelings and emotions and you start to realize how not transparent you’ve actually been in your life leading up to that. We hide so much of ourselves, even from the people we’re closest to, for fear of how they will respond.

Rosalia (20:20.614)

Mmm.

Rosalia (20:30.205)

Yeah. And playing small, ultimately, that’s what it sounds like, is when you play small in your relationship and in your life and your work and anything that you do, you almost leave money on the table for your experiences. You’re not able to really fully experience everything that’s provided for you. So I think this is a perfect opportunity to segue into this, which is something that I’m so curious about. So I myself am a female, solo female traveler. I moved on to Mizzou in December of last year. When you guys came to visit, us a few months ago. April, I saw you just like move through a crazy amount of emotions when you were with us and I say this because we have so many women who are not sure how they feel about El Salvador because it is considered a dangerous country and in previous years it always has been. One that you know a lot of immigrants, have refugees here from El Salvador. So I’d like to talk about this because I hadn’t actually thought about it where there is a world where playing small also in how you travel can keep yourself from experiences like this.

Scott & April (21:32.846)

Yeah.

Scott & April (21:36.736)

Absolutely. I wouldn’t think twice about traveling by myself to El Salvador. After being there, was… I mean, almost as soon as our plane landed, it was like, could take a deep breath. We actually mourn a little bit when we leave places like that have to come back to the States. We’re like, But I felt so connected and so grounded when I was in El Salvador. It was, and I’m not…

Rosalia (21:41.503)

Ha ha ha!

Scott & April (22:04.302)

Typically an emotional person, but the first morning, like I was weeping like joyfully and I couldn’t stop. I’m like, I don’t know why I’m crying, but I just feel so joyful and so connected to this place. And that’s exactly when we left. I’m like this right here. This is exactly what I want the attendees of our retreat to feel when they come here. But yeah, we felt just as safe there as we do traveling to the town.

Scott & April (22:31.916)

Next to us here. And it’s important to say too, that that’s very different than this one is going to be different than our other retreats. Our other treats have been a little more action party packed. but we wanted this one and there’s going to be elements of that. mean, we’ve got a waterfall hike and volcano hike and we’re to have parties, but we didn’t want people to leave without experiencing some of those deep relaxation. Connected moments that we felt while we were there. And so we’ve built instant things into this retreat, and you guys, of course, have helped us do that, that will help our attendees experience some of the same things we did while we were there.

Rosalia (23:11.921)

That’s so beautiful. mean, what would you say or some of those elements if you could use like adjectives that you’re looking to replicate from your experience with us the first time and then in this retreat as you’re starting to put pieces together?

Scott & April (23:27.628)

Yeah, so we want, you know, typically when people go on vacation, they leave and they feel like when they get home, they need a vacation to recoup. So we want people to feel like they were poured into, like the refreshed, revitalized, energized, connected. We want them to feel that peacefulness that comes from within. If I can make all of them cry, I’m going to be happy.

Rosalia (23:51.09)

Everybody get your tissues ready. You’re gonna make me cry.

Scott & April (23:54.51)

Well, it’s, you know, and we’ve had this happen at some of our other retreats where, the last day, all of our attendees are crying because they’re having to leave each other and they’ve connected in such an authentic and deep way with people that now are flying home to different countries and you know, they won’t see again for possibly another year or so. So yeah, just connected. That’s our main theme of this retreat is we want everyone to feel connected with themselves, with the beauty around them, with their partner and with the other attendees that are going to be there. it’s not just about a big part of those feelings that we have over there were really there were two things. were the resort itself. It’s isolated. It’s in a different type. Like we’ve been to beach resorts all over the world.And this is very different. It’s black sand. It’s rustic, but still luxurious at the same time. And you feel like you’re kind of in this paradise that nobody else is around. There’s no resorts on either side of you. And it’s just a different feeling. And the staff there, you guys did such an incredible job. Everybody’s so kind and nice. And given what we do, you know, where we are in this sex positive space, you don’t always receive that kind of positive feedback. Sometimes people are nervous or hesitant to talk to you and you guys just embrace it with open arms. so we know that our attendees are going to be taken really good care of while they’re there. It’s not just going to be on us that we, we trust that the staff and, you know, retreat managers and stuff there will, we’ll do the same type of.

Rosalia (25:26.588)

Yeah. Right.

Scott & April (25:42.122)

Loving on our people that we do.

Rosalia (25:44.439)

Mmm. Well equally we have so much to learn from you both right? I mean the sex positive space is one niche of the future of where retreats are going I think it’s definitely a place where people can feel safe I think you know outside of yoga and meditation what like the sexy Instagram world will tell us is Retreats are really about people being able to come let their hair down be able to say as you mentioned like a deep exhale I’m here and I think that that gets developed over time that bond gets really built when they’re able to shed some of the layers or as one of my dear friends from my training in Costa Rica once said, said, I want to be a place where others can take their armor off. So we are able to arrive into this space and be our authentic, vulnerable, broken versions of ourselves and then realize, but actually how beautiful is it? And as much as it’s the yoga and meditation and other concepts, it’s also about looking somebody in the eye and saying, I see you and then equally saying that to you.

Rosalia (26:46.529)

To us.

Scott & April (26:47.63)

Yeah, yeah, 100%. That’s so beautiful. Yeah, I like the removing or the getting rid of the armor kind of thing. That’s exactly what it feels like when we get into a place like this where we know we’re going to be accepted. We set the luggage down and you just feel a lot of that heavy weight that you carry with you in your regular workday and back at home just disappears. Okay, now I can relax. And that’s what we want our guests to feel.

Rosalia (26:54.182)

Mm-hmm.

Rosalia (27:11.546)

Yeah. Right, I’m here. I’ve arrived, you know? I can be myself again. Like you kind of like meet a version of you that you don’t get to see from day to day. And especially for this space where also people can actually literally take their clothes off, where they can actually literally connect with others in ways that they can’t on the street. Talk to me about, a little bit about what the day to day looks like. So what does like an average day at a naughty gym  retreat?

Scott & April (27:46.476)

Well, it’s hard to say what an average day is because they’re not all the same. But yes, most of our retreats have an element of clothing optionalness to them. There’s never a nude mandatory portion of any of our. Yeah, that’s never. Every day does look different because we also love to adventure.

Rosalia (28:01.668)

Everyone has to take their clothes off, okay? I have a bye-bye with that.

Scott & April (28:11.978)

And so when we travel to a location, we don’t want to just stay on the resort and never leave. We like to go see the country that we’re in. And so like at Masada, we’ll do two of the excursions. We’ll go to the waterfall and the volcano. We do that at all of our retreats. We try to get off property. But also, the group bonds when they’re doing those type of adventure trips, when they’re hiking or, you we call it bonding through suffering, but it’s not really suffering when you’re… But it’s like a team building. You know, they’re getting to know each other in a different environment than just sitting around the pool, having a drink, you know, kind of environment. But…

Rosalia (28:41.799)

Yeah, digging the ditch. -huh.

Scott & April (28:57.984)

Most of our retreat days start with some type of workout. Yoga, we’ll do possibly a workout on the beach. Obviously those are not mandatory. Everything’s optional. And then we usually have some element of education built in. Some events are.

Rosalia (29:09.33)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Scott & April (29:16.128)

Some events are very focused on that. Like our January event in Jamaica, you know, there’s sessions all day long from educators from all over the world. But we are bringing an educator with us and we probably consider ourselves that too. And so we’ll have little small taste of that while we’re there. But this one is more about this in El Salvador, we’re focused on El Salvador and that Mazada resort and the feeling that we had while we’re there. probably more so than any of our other retreats in the past. You know, it’s really about that little plot of land and the energy we felt while we were there. And so we’re going to spend a lot of time, you know, focusing on that. But yeah, we’ll have a, we’ll have a party in the afternoon sometimes around the pool and we’ll have parties at night and you know, people can be as mild or as wild as they want at those parties.

Rosalia (29:51.804)

Well.

Rosalia (29:57.488)

So what?

Rosalia (30:07.394)

Right, at that point it’s like, whatever you want to do, this place is yours. I love that, so your educator that you’re bringing to El Salvador, what is their thing that they’re able to share?

Scott & April (30:10.7)

Yeah.

Scott & April (30:17.046)

So she is a somatic sexologist. So she does workshops for couples. One’s called Ignite His Flame, one’s called Ignite Her Flame. And she’s taught these all over the world, her and her husband. So it’s basically like the art of sensual touch with your partner. She creates a very safe space. And I it lasts about an hour and a half to two hours. So she’ll do several of those workshops throughout the week. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re very, those sessions are just very pleasure focused. mean, on one of the sessions, the women will be learning different ways to sensually touch their, assuming they have a male partner. They may not all, but, and then the next day it’ll reverse and the men will be doing the same thing for the women.

Rosalia (30:47.783)

And then water.

Rosalia (31:08.113)

That’s so cool. And then what are the workshops that each of you will be leading? Or are they separate? Are they together?

Scott & April (31:13.646)

Yeah. So we do, we’re going to do, well, we call it mimosas with April shots with Scott. It’s a connection focus. So the women come with me, the men go with Scott. We’re changing that name. Well, started that because people don’t want to drink. They don’t have to. We started this at our very first retreat. And we had 15 couples and the last day of the retreat kind of organically, all of the women gathered around the fireplace and all the men were outside on the back deck.

Rosalia (31:26.448)

Hahaha. Okay.

Scott & April (31:44.26)

And we were drinking mimosas and all of the women started talking about how sad they were to leave because it had just taken, it took the first few days for them to kind of get to know each other and they were super nervous when they started and they were talking about all of the things that they were anxious about, some of their vulnerabilities and I realized, I’m like how wonderful would it have been to have this conversation on day one.

Rosalia (32:12.365)

Mm -hmm.

Scott & April (32:13.048)

to get it all out in the open instead of waiting until the last day. And so we started doing that at our retreat since then on day one. And we just sit and we talk, kind of form a sisterhood with the women. Like, what are you afraid of? What are your vulnerabilities? Especially in the sex positive space, what are you carrying with you that you wanna lay down?

Rosalia (32:17.596)

Mmm.

Scott & April (32:35.98)

That you don’t want to bring with you this week? Are you working through something? How can we support you as your sisters? And the guys do the same thing. And it’s been really beautiful for the men. mean, at the last one we did, half of the men were crying and they really feel like they’re, they have a place where they’re not being judged. And this has been, has catapulted our events to a whole nother level.

Rosalia (33:02.887)

Wow.

Scott & April (33:03.126)

because they get authentic so fast and they are forging friendships, deep friendships so much quicker than they were previously. Yeah. And it’s, we’ve actually been asked to do this at other people’s events too. It works so well at getting people to open up because, you know, and the women tend to flock to this and the guys, have to pull them into it because they’re like, man, you know, I’ll just, I’m going to hang out here. I’m going to hang out here and drink a beer. but I think the guys have been more.

Rosalia (33:26.384)

Yeah. Right.

Scott & April (33:32.992)

Emotional than the women once we get them in there. Just a bunch of babies. All of them.

Rosalia (33:35.313)

Mm-hmm you know men are babies. No, I think that’s that’s actually so amazing So one thing that we’d like to do at anty resort is try to figure out Try to hack the system for couples retreats and and I say that because of course you guys you guys have a chance to meet Josh Right our owner Yeah, he so he you know, like represents this archetype of

Scott & April (33:55.522)

Yeah.

Rosalia (34:01.158)

This very like strong, powerful man and I think he holds a lot of that Shiva destroyer, that masculine energy and so, you in a perfect world there is that balance of the yin to the yang and the shakti energy, the feminine and I think a part of that and so he and I have been talking a lot about how do we create this space for people to activate that version of themselves and he made this hilarious joke, this is why I’m mentioning it, where it’s like no guy is going to be thrilled about going to a couple’s retreat, right? In the sense of like outside of this like extra fun part of your retreats, but it’s like…

What so they’re gonna like have a give us couples therapy and then we’re gonna have to cry together in journal Like I’m super not into that it’s like a place where like the masculine is Really? Complimented by the feminine and how can you find that and it’s by breaking those barriers down and really allowing both women and men to find a place where again they can take their armor off and arrive as their authentic self and so it Sounds like it’s so crazy to me when I see couple hosts It sounds like that balance has been balanced so well, whether it’s shifting, right? Like at one moment, especially over the course of a lifetime, right? The feminine takes on the masculine role and in one moment the masculine takes on the feminine role and then they switch back and forth or one has a really strong feminine and that’s their role the entire way of a relationship but…

It sounds like you guys have really figured out how to master this. It’s like as much as it’s time together and time with everyone else, it’s also time separate and to have conversations that are safe. Again, back to that safety piece.

Scott & April (35:35.128)

Thanks.

Scott & April (35:40.398)

Well, you guys will be welcome to come sit in on those sessions and just watch how we do it because we’re going to be doing those. I think the men are going to be at the beach club and the women are going to be at the lobby. By the check in desk. Yeah, the check in desk there. So you guys are, yeah, you’re welcome to sit in there and listen. And I mean, you can, you can participate even if you wanted to.

Rosalia (35:55.506)

Amazing, I’ll be there.

Yeah. I think that that’s, I mean, it’s just so powerful because it’s also, what I hear, and again, as always correct me I’m wrong, what I hear is that it’s not like, there’s not an objective, right? Like when people feel like, okay, I’m supposed to do something here, then that’s a lot of pressure, right? You don’t have to take a shot and talk about your emotions. You really are just, this is a space for you to talk. And if you want to, it’s not like, “Hi, my name is Rosalia and I’m a sex addict.” You know, it’s just like, hey, why am I here? What is my intention rather? And I find that intention setting is like the best way to open the door. And then what about at the end? Is there a way that you guys close that door or how do you kind of close that loop moving on to back home?

Scott & April (36:31.798)

Right.

Scott & April (36:50.36)

Well, so this year at Mizata, we’re going to do the last night of the full moon ceremony where we’re going to set intentions going forward from the retreat. So we typically try to do something on the last day that is connection focused again, where like, where do we go from here? What’s coming next to help kind of set expectations and for the future.

Rosalia (36:58.801)

Cool.

Rosalia (37:19.11)

Yeah, right.

Scott & April (37:20.076)

Yeah, we don’t have a signature event to end the way we do a beginning of our retreats because they’re all so different and you never know exactly what the end product is going to look like. But yeah, we usually do have some sort of gathering of everybody together at the end to have a final talk, say our at least official goodbyes.

Scott & April (37:44.766)

And thank yous because I’m telling you I know a lot of people probably say this but the people that will be coming with us are just some of the world’s best people and they’re so easy to love. And they’ll be kind to the staff and they’ll be helpful to us and they’ve paid money to come to this resort and we have to fight them to keep them from trying to help us move chairs and they’re just the best. And so it’s always great to gather everybody together for one final kind of emotional goodbye at the end. Yeah, these are people who in their everyday lives can’t live out authentically who they are.

Scott & April (38:24.394)

If they’re in a non -monogamous relationship, they can’t go to work and talk about that because we still live in a world where they could get fired because of a code of ethics. And so they’re coming to this place, this safe space, and they’re able to be whoever they want to be. And then they’re getting ready to leave and have to tuck it all back in when they get home.

Rosalia (38:28.635)

Right. Absolutely. Right.

Scott & April (38:46.218)

And so we just try to make sure that every aspect of the time that they’re with us, every touch point is so special and so authentic and so open so that they can leave it all there and feel like, okay, I’m good. I’m ready to go back to the daily grind of my real life. Yeah. Because one of the things we try to make sure we do as an organization, we do not throw sex parties.

Rosalia (39:05.903)

Absolutely.

Scott & April (39:14.926)

Okay, sometimes people that live in this world that we, you know, is our community, that’s what they do. They like to go to these things that look basically like a sex party. That’s not what we’re trying to put together. We’re trying to create an environment where a lot of the day -to -day boundaries that people have in their life and how they relate to the people around them dissipate.

Rosalia (39:25.04)

Right.

Scott & April (39:38.902)

We can foster those connections. Sometimes that results if people are open -minded and they get close enough to other people, then they allow that to become an intimate thing. But it’s not the purpose of what we do. The purpose is just provide a place where people can lose all of those boundaries and walls that are put up between us and anybody that’s not our primary partner. And sometimes that results in magic.

Rosalia (40:07.61)

Wow, I love that! Well, and I also love that distinction because it is so easy to use terminology, words that we might have seen on the internet or just in any previous experience that we may have outside of that straight and narrow, you know, box that we understand that…a marriage or an exclusive or a long -term relationship or partnership should look like, right? And of course, you know, with the magic of the internet and social media, we’re starting to learn a little bit more. Now, is that a reflection of the entire community and the intention of everyone within it? Absolutely not, right? It’s an entire spectrum and it exists of people of all different shapes, sizes and colors and backgrounds. And as much as it can be people who look like you and me, it can be people who look like, you know, the person walking down the street.

Or the person that you never would have expected you went to school with so I think It’s just so important that when they arrive there they also know this they well, okay I’m thinking about this a lot because it’s a place where they can come and feel that same thing that they had felt before. Right? That same magic, that same safety, that same electricity that they don’t get to receive in their day -to -day lives. Because I have a friend who is currently talking to me about her dating life as a freshly single woman. And as you were mentioning that, April, I was like, wow, I’m sure there are so many people who don’t get to just call up their friend or their mom or their sister and say, my gosh, I got to tell you about this person I just met. And that is so needed, isn’t it?

Scott & April (41:43.842)

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and because we’re open, we sometimes forget what it’s like. And it’s not been that long. It’s been two or three years that we’ve been open. Our family knows, everybody in our life knows. But because we live it every day, we forget how closed off and how caged people can feel in their day -to -day life, in their work life, in their home life. They can’t tell their parents for fear of being disowned, or they can’t tell their best friend, because they’re afraid their best friend won’t be friends with them anymore. And so that’s exactly it. They cage themselves when they’re at home, and so we want them to feel free.

Rosalia (42:27.219)

Right?

And so the distinction, right, is like, you’re not coming to Naughty Gym to strictly have a sexy time. put on lingerie and you get to do whatever, like no rules on this evening. It’s actually come, have that comfort, have that safety, have that community. And then also have an amazing time, you know, be in a beautiful place where you’re with a bunch of people who you may or may not already know, but you know, instantly you feel, even with the Telegram group, right, just to bring you back to that, they already have seen these names and faces, they’ve kind of built an energetic relationship with each of these people. I think that that is such a key part to this feeling of safety is like, these people look like you and me. like this will be really fun if we go in and like plan this thing with this person or you know just sharing little conversations. It could be side chats or side chats in the main group of like you get there and it’s like you’ve known each other forever. Well I’m sure I can only assume.

Scott & April (43:24.526)

No. No, yeah, that’s true. That’s true. We had, sorry, tangent quick note, but back in 2021, my parents got sick with COVID and they were hospitalized for three months. And we had people in this community that we had never met, sending my parents cards in the hospital.

Rosalia (43:40.23)

Three months. 

Scott & April (43:48.692)

The sex positive, non-monogamous community. And so every day they were getting cards sent to the hospital. And these were people who I had never met in person, my parents never knew, but just cared about other people. It’s such a caring and kind and loving community. And that’s one of our catalysts, that moment in our timeline that really

Rosalia (44:05.286)

Yeah, right.

Scott & April (44:18.402)

Propelled us to just kind of lean in and dig in. We want everyone to feel that love and that community.

Rosalia (44:25.587)

Because that’s love. It’s just unconditional. Show up when you can. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s like the southern bits and bobs inside of our hearts. It’s equally as much like an overwhelming amount of like, what can I do to help? As much as it’s, you know, trying to kind of break the confines of what we understand a romantic love should look like. That is love. Compassion is love.

Scott & April (44:30.946)

Yeah.

Rosalia (44:52.496)

Well, it has been such a beautiful chat with you guys. I am just feeling so inspired as well. It’s been so long, almost like since I saw you guys last, where I’ve been able to have one of these conversations too. from the bottom of my heart, I deeply thank the both of you for sharing your story. Obviously for whatever magic it was out in the ether that brought you to us. I know you are such a blessing for the Mazada family and we cannot wait to host you guys.

Scott & April (45:22.05)

Thank you. We cannot wait to get back. We’re excited. It’s too far away, but other than that, you know, we can’t wait. Thank you so much.

Rosalia (45:29.156)

All right, beautiful.