Barbara Carrellas
is an author, artist, innovator, instigator and thought leader in the fields of sex, gender and spirit.
She is also a sex/life coach, sex educator, workshop facilitator, university lecturer, motivational speaker and theater artist. She is the author of Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century, Ecstasy is Necessary: A Practical Guide to Sex, Relationships and Oh So Much More, and Luxurious Loving: Tantric Inspirations for Passion and Pleasure.
Barbara is the founder of Urban Tantra® an approach to sacred sexuality that adapts and blends a wide variety of conscious sexuality practices from Tantra to BDSM—and the Urban Tantra® Professional Training Program—a comprehensive training program in the practice and application of conscious sexuality. She is also the co-founder of Erotic Awakening, a groundbreaking series of workshops which toured the United States and Australia. Barbara’s pioneering Urban Tantra® workshops were named best in New York City by TimeOut/New York magazine. In 2016 she was awarded a Sexual Freedom Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Barbara currently offers inspiring and life-changing workshops, lectures, and keynotes on a variety of topics to individuals, schools, conferences, businesses, and the arts.
Barbara is also a Sex/Life coach, offering her clients sex information and education, emotional and mental rebalancing, intuitive readings, resources and referrals. The essence of her work is the inseparable connection between your sex life and the rest of your life, and the happy integration of body, mind, and spirit.
Barbara brings a holistic, metaphysical, practical, humorous, entertaining and gender-fluid approach to conscious sexuality and to all her work. She began her work in metaphysics and conscious sexuality during the AIDS crisis in the late 1980’s—a time when the connections between sex, spirit and healing were at their most strained. Barbara has facilitated countless healing circles and support groups for women, men, trans and non-binary people, artists, people with life-threatening illnesses and people with HIV/AIDS. For four years she was a facilitator for and on the Board of Directors of the New York Healing Circle, which was founded in response to the AIDS crisis and incorporated the principles of Louise Hay’s work. As her workshops grew in popularity and in attendance, her work expanded to include people from all walks of life and in all stages of sexual evolution.
The more Barbara explored sex and consciousness, the more she saw the possibilities for healing and expanded consciousness in all forms of “sacred” practices, including Tantra, Tao, Quodoushka, Reiki, breathwork, metaphysics, performance, ritual, herbal medicine, bodywork, erotic massage, commercial sex work and BDSM. Her books and her workshops are an eclectic mix of sexual and spiritual practices designed to encourage readers and participants of all sexual preferences and genders to expand their capacity for both pleasure and spiritual fulfillment.
Barbara taught Caitlyn Jenner and her friends how to have gender-free orgasms on the E! reality series I Am Cait and was featured in the Learning Channel’s Unusual Orgasms segment of the series Strange Sex. She has also appeared in numerous episodes of the HBO television series Real Sex, Australian television’s Sex/Life and on Britain’s Sky Channel as part of the documentary, Sex in America. She has been featured in the videos Selfloving, The Sluts & Goddesses Video Workshop, Annie Sprinkle’s Amazing World of Orgasm, Betty Dodson’s Selfloving, Zen Pussy, and in the film Sacred Sex. She collaborated with Annie Sprinkle to present a new/ancient vision of female sexuality in theatrical form in MetamorphoSex, a week-long workshop for women culminating in ritual-performances. She also directed the Australian premiere of Annie’s renowned one-woman show, Post Porn Modernist. Barbara is proud to have enjoyed a lifelong theatrical career as a general manager, producer and theatre manager on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in alternative theatre in New York. She is still active as a performance artist and director.
Barbara wrote, directed and produced the award-winning film “Transcendent Bodies: Erotic Awakening Massage for Trans and Gender Non-Confirming Bodies.” She has also written and produced The Pleasure Principle, an educational audio series. She has written numerous articles about sex, including a wildly popular series of feature articles for the sex magazine Over 40, highlighting the lives and wisdom of the stars of the “golden age” of porn.
Barbara has lectured at many educational institutions, including Harvard University, Brown University, Vassar College, Barnard College, Sara Lawrence College, Wesleyan University, the Chicago Art Institute and Yale University. She frequently collaborates with her partner, Kate Bornstein, with whom she performs and tours their sex positive, gender-bending lecture/performance piece There And Back Again: An Epic Tale of Sex, Death, and Gender.
Barbara is a certified sexologist (ASC, American College of Sexologists) and a member of AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists).
Barbara is a proud graduate of the Coney Island Sideshow School with a double major in fire eating and snake handling.
