Ashley Manta, the Cannasexual: Helping Others by Living Out Loud
Ashley Manta is a survivor of sexual assault and a cannabis-friendly sex expert with years of experience in trauma healing and sexual violence prevention. She is The Cannasexual, a term she coined meaning “anyone who mindfully and deliberately combines sex and cannabis to deepen intimacy and enhance pleasure.” Besides educating people on pleasure, Ashley also speaks openly about how cannabis helps her cope with PTSD from sexual trauma. Here we spoke about why the topic is still so taboo in the cannabis community, what it’s been like to turn her passion into her career, and I also asked her for some personal advice. In her own words:
What is it like to have made a career out of cannabis and sexuailty?
For a long time, cannabis was a trigger for me, because my rapist was using cannabis and I just assumed that using cannabis meant getting sexually assaulted. It turns out that’s not actually the case, and now I’ve made this career out of cannabis and sexuality, which is such a cool mindfuck.
It’s so empowering to be living my life on my own terms. I fuck who I wanna fuck, I do the jobs I wanna do, I get paid doing things that I love, I travel, I have this incredible tribe of humans who are loving and supportive and accept me exactly for who I am. I don’t hide anything about myself and it’s so fucking liberating in ways that I never imagined it could be.
And people are responding. By living out loud, by just being me, I’m helping people. And that makes me wanna do it more. I’m so unbelievably grateful for all the ways people have supported me over the years, and given me opportunities that allowed me to build and reach more opportunities. I just taught at Coachella, I just got interviewed for Rolling Stone, I’m going to be on Playboy TV, I got nominated for Influencer of the Year for the California Cannabis Awards – and I’m not taking just one date, I’m taking two sexy dates – because fuck it, I’m gonna be walking down the red carpet in a smoking hot dress like yeah, this is who I am!
My constant meditation is, what else is possible and how can life get any better than this? How else can I feel alive and empowered and electrified in what I’m doing? That’s how I map the trajectory of my day, my week, my year. And I want that for everyone. I want every single person to feel this emboldened by their passion.
It’s amazing what you’ve turned into something so positive and powerful.
It’s taken a long time, and there are hard days. It’s not all rainbows and sunshine but that’s okay, and that’s why it’s so important to have people who care about you and support you when it’s really fucking hard. It’s important to have someone, or a group of someones, who can remind you why you’re fighting and to help keep you motivated… or just to bring you a fucking cup of tea, because sometimes you really just need to stay in bed all day and take care of yourself and that’s okay too.
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The reason that I got my infinity heart symbol tattooed, with ‘survivor’ – I didn’t realize it was a non-monogamy symbol at the time – but I chose this because infinite love, patience and kindness is how survivors survive. Whether it’s from strangers, a support group online, through RAINN or through a therapist, survivors thrive in community and with support. It’s really hard to heal and work along your healing journey when you’re in complete isolation. That’s why I talk so openly about it, because I want somebody, even if they’ve never met me, to think, ‘Okay, she’s doing this, too. I’m not alone. I can do this.’
That’s how I felt when I found you! Why do you think sexual trauma is still so taboo in the cannabis community [even in women-centered discussions]?
This isn’t a sexy topic. Trauma is kind of a drag. It’s never been my most popular workshop because people think – yeah, if I’m gonna spend $30 bucks on a workshop, I wanna learn about blowjobs, I don’t wanna learn about shit that’s gonna make me cry.
There’s also a scarcity of people who are really informed about trauma – at least in the cannabis space. There’s a couple people taking about PTSD but that’s mostly concerning soldiers or traumatic brain injuries in athletes. There’s not a whole lot of people talking about cannabis and sexual violence survivors.
And I don’t want anybody who doesn’t understand trauma to be talking about trauma. If an organization doesn’t really get it, I don’t want them to be giving uninformed, problematic advice like, ‘oh, just use cannabis and that’s gonna heal all your shit!’ No, let’s not get carried away here. It’s a great tool, but it’s not a miracle drug.
So, there’s people who aren’t talking about it because they don’t know enough about it, and that’s cool – and then there’s people who don’t know enough about it, but think they do, and that’s dangerous.
And trauma isn’t just a skinny, pretty, white people problem. That’s the other piece of it – you see such little representation of people of color in these conversations. And they’ve most likely experienced not just individual trauma, but also cultural trauma. That’s another thing we have to deal with – so many people don’t understand that’s a thing that happens, and that horrifies me.
So there's all of those factors.
Can you give me some advice on how to talk to a sexual partner about my issues with touch? Intimate touch is a major trigger for me.
If you need a certain kind of touch to feel comfortable, you need to actually show that to your partner.
One of the things I do early on in a relationship is let my partner know that I am a trauma survivor and because of that, I need certain accommodations in my relationship. If they want to be with me, they need to be down with that, within reason – they also have their experience and their boundaries. But I’m gonna say: these are the things that I need and if you can give me those, great, and if you can’t, that’s also fine, but you’re gonna need to stay away.
So, if you're getting into a relationship, at some point you’ll need to tell the person, because of my trauma, this is what my body needs right now – and you can model it: this kind of touch doesn’t feel good to me – and this kind of touch feels way better and helps me feel more grounded in my body. And you can model that and show, I need more of this touch.
When you give them this data, partners who respect and care about you have an opportunity to be like – wow, thank you for giving me cheat codes to you as a human and how to make your life better, more joyful and enriching and respectful. Ideally, a partner hearing this will be grateful that you are taking the time to give them what they need to be successful with you – as opposed to that, ‘oh my god, I’m so high maintenance, I’m sorry that I’m making you do this.’ No, fuck that shit. All you’re doing is asking for what you need, and that’s okay. It’s something you’re allowed to do.
Pro tip: Track the way different cannabis strains affect your sense of touch.
Ashley is available over Skype to answer all those sex + weed questions you can't ask your therapist.
