I need to tell you about something I have VERY strong feelings about: polarity.

If you’ve been out in the internet wilderness hearing about masculine-feminine energy and how you need to lean into your feminine to create spark in your marriage, you might be getting a weird vibe about it.

Trust that vibe.

A couple years ago, I signed my husband and me up for a virtual retreat on polarity. It was during the pandemic, so everything was virtual. The teacher was well-renowned, very well known in this field.

And I had the most visceral experience of probably disgust I’ve ever had in a teaching setting.

The class description included things like agency, asking for consent—things that sound really good. But the way the class was structured was the opposite of agency and choice.

If you were late, you couldn’t join. If you missed five minutes, you were locked out. If you left early, you couldn’t return.

Everything about the structure that surrounded the class was the opposite of everything the class was teaching.

And the dynamics within the class? I turned to my husband and thought: this is just patriarchy disguised as spirituality.

Ever since then, I’ve been a hard no on teaching polarity in any of my programs or coaching.

But it’s this HUGE trend. And I kept thinking: why do people believe this? Why do people study this? What am I missing?

Then I found Dr. Laura Jurgens.

Finding the Nuance in the Polarity Conversation

I came across Laura out in the internet world. She had a podcast episode on this exact topic and it was like finding a Coca-Cola in the desert.

Finally. Someone talking about this with nuance, with research, with wisdom.

I immediately reached out and said: Laura, PLEASE come talk about this with me on the podcast.

Laura is a dual certified master relationship and intimacy coach. She’s a desire and arousal specialist. She’s the host of the Desire Gap podcast. And she’s a former university professor with a PhD in biological sciences.

When she talks about what is actually science versus what the internet says is science? She actually knows what she’s talking about.

We explored the mix of deep and fun that I love. We talked about when polarity can work without causing harm—and when it’s just repackaged patriarchy.

What Is Polarity?

Laura explains that polarity in the relationship coaching world typically refers to masculine-feminine energy dynamics. The idea is that you need opposite energies to create attraction and spark.

Proponents will say these are just energies—they don’t necessarily relate to actual gender identity. Anyone can embody masculine or feminine energy regardless of their gender.

But here’s what Laura points out: “I almost never see someone who is a cis hetero man embracing the feminine in polarity role play. Because typically, that feels threatening. It seems beneath them, too femme.”

And that should tell you something about the hierarchy that’s embedded here.

If masculine energy is seen as leadership, confidence, dominance, and feminine energy is seen as receptivity, submission, following—and men won’t take on the feminine role because it feels beneath them—we’re not talking about neutral energies.

We’re talking about gender stereotypes with a power hierarchy baked in.

Why Polarity Can Be Harmful

Laura breaks down why this framework can cause real damage to relationships:

For women playing feminine roles:

When you’re already socialized to people-please, over-caretake, and put others’ needs first, leaning into “feminine receptivity” can reinforce all those patterns.

It can lead to:

• Criticizing yourself for not being submissive or receptive enough
• Running over your own boundaries or failing to acknowledge you have them
• Not going at your own pace or listening to your own body
• Emotional overwhelm, resentment, loss of sensation, collapse of libido

Laura says: “If you are reinforcing all those behaviors that are already challenging for women to overcome because of how we’ve been socialized, that’s not gonna bring the sexy in the long run. That’s actually not great.”

For men playing masculine roles:

If it’s already hard for a man to be emotionally open and vulnerable, asking him to always be “in control” and “leading confidently” makes it even harder.

It can lead to:

• Performance anxiety
• Feeling like you can’t ask for comfort or admit when you’re scared
• Blaming others, feeling like a martyr
• Anger issues
• Worsened challenges with vulnerability

Most people aren’t trained in how to actually do dominance the way you would be if you were doing real BDSM. So they’re trying to make up what dominant looks like, and most of the time they’re just relying on socialized stereotypes.

The Guardrails: When Polarity Can Work

Here’s the thing—and this is why I wanted to have this conversation with Laura instead of just saying “polarity bad, never do it.”

There IS a way to play with power dynamics and gender in relationships that can be consensual, fun, and hot.

But it requires specific guardrails.

Laura gives us five criteria for when polarity can work without causing harm:

1. You Both Genuinely Love It

Not because you’re trying to please your partner. Not because you’re trying to fix a relationship problem. But because it sounds spicy and hot to BOTH of you.

Before you even consider this, ask yourself: When I think about a dominant-submissive power play dynamic, does that make my ears perk up? Do I feel sensation in my body? Am I genuinely interested?

If you’re not interested in dom/sub roles at all, you don’t want power play, and you don’t want gender stereotypes involved—then you don’t need to do this. At all. Ever.

2. You Have Explicit Conversations About Limitations

You set aside time OUTSIDE the bedroom to talk about this in advance. That’s what you would always do with any sort of dom/sub role play.

You talk about:

• Which aspects of gender stereotypes do we want to include?
• Which aspects do we NOT want to include?
• What’s okay and what’s not okay?
• Do we want aggression? Under what circumstances and what flavor?
• Do we just want to feel safely contained?

Get specific. Get curious. Get nuanced.

A lot of people don’t know how to have these conversations because we have so little useful sexual education. People are relying on porn or bad movie scripts.

You do not need to be like any other people. However you are is beautiful and amazing.

3. You Decide With Zero Emotional Coercion Who Plays Which Role

Zero emotional coercion means there’s no emotional price to pay if someone says no.

It’s not: “But we HAVE to do it because if not, I’ll be so disappointed.”

It’s not: “If we don’t do it this way, you don’t get it at all.”

It’s not: “Well, my ex would have done it” or “this means you’re boring” or “you’re not working on the relationship.”

It’s an invitation: “Hey, this sounds like it would be fun for me. Would it be fun for you? Do you want to do it?”

If your partner says “I’m not 100% sure, can we talk about it some more?”—that’s a valid response that doesn’t get met with disappointment or pressure.

4. You Keep Your Roles Flexible

You’re not locked into these roles all the time. You can switch. You can stop. You can renegotiate.

5. You Keep It To The Bedroom

This is play. This is fantasy. This is not how you structure your entire relationship or make decisions about who does dishes or manages money.

And you have a sense of humor about it. A little lightness. It’s supposed to be fun.

What High-Achieving Women Actually Want

One thing Laura said that really resonated with me: it’s very normal for high-achieving women to have fantasies about being dominated.

And just because you have a fantasy about being dominated doesn’t mean you want to be forced into some weird Barbie stereotype of feminine receptivity.

What it typically means is: you would like to feel relief from feeling so responsible for everything.

You may crave a benevolent leadership energy from your partner. You want to feel the energy of them being like “babe, I’ve got you. You don’t have to think about anything. You get to just relax and I’m going to take care of everything and I’m going to turn you on.”

That’s different from polarity as it’s typically taught.

Laura explains: “You may want to be dominated. Like, let’s do it in a fun way that really fits exactly with what your core desires are and your emotional and psychological needs for arousal are. But let’s not do it in this sort of shorthand pseudo-spiritual way where it’s actually just sneaky patriarchal gender stereotypes.”

The Missing Infrastructure

One of my favorite parts of our conversation was when we talked about guardrails and infrastructure.

I said: if you’re in a genuine kink dynamic where you’re really going through a profound way of choosing how to live, that dynamic has its own internal logic, its own rules, its own ways of providing for safety (both emotional and physical) for everyone involved.

When you extrapolate polarity and just take one piece of that dynamic without the rest of the infrastructure that supports it—that’s when you get really messy.

It’s like if I told you I’m going to give you cake, but all I give you is flour. Flour, if it’s baked in an oven with other ingredients, can be a very delicious cake. But if I just give you a spoon of flour and tell you it’s cake? This is not going to go well.

And then being told that you’re supposed to like it because of who you are as a woman? That’s where it gets really confusing and harmful.

When “Spiritual” Is Actually Spiritual Bypass

Near the end of our conversation, Laura said something that really captured the whole issue:

“Any time you see spiritual packaging on something that is missing all that nuance, a lot of times it’s an effort at spiritual bypass. Trying to make something spiritual and bypass the nuance and the actual human emotions and real needs and desires under things and package it for mass consumption and for sale.”

That’s it. That’s what’s happening with most polarity teaching.

It’s taking complex human dynamics—desire, power, vulnerability, arousal—and packaging them into a simple masculine-feminine binary that you can sell in a weekend workshop.

But relationships aren’t simple. Desire isn’t simple. And you are not simple.

Your Turn: Trust Your Vibe

If you’ve been hearing about polarity and getting a weird vibe about it, I want you to trust that vibe.

You’re not being close-minded. You’re not missing out on some secret to spark.

You’re sensing that something doesn’t feel aligned. And that sensing is valuable information.

If you ARE genuinely interested in exploring power dynamics with your partner—not because you’re trying to fix something, but because it genuinely sounds fun and hot to both of you—the five criteria Laura taught us as your guide.

Have the explicit conversations. Make sure there’s zero emotional coercion. Keep it flexible. Keep it to the bedroom. And keep a sense of humor about it.

But if that doesn’t resonate with you? You don’t have to do it. There are infinite ways to create connection, spark, and desire in your relationship that have nothing to do with playing with gender stereotypes.

You get to decide what works for you.

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Connect with Dr. Laura Jurgens

Laura Jurgens is a dual certified master relationship and intimacy coach, desire and arousal specialist, and host of the Desire Gap podcast. She helps individuals and couples discover authentic sexual connection, shed relationship anxiety, and release shame around intimacy.

Listen to her podcast: The Desire Gap (available wherever you get podcasts)

Visit her website: laurajuergens.com

Follow her on Instagram: @laura.juergens.coach

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Get access to the workshop for free here

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Work With Me Privately

If you’re a woman in a marriage that’s safe but stuck, mostly good but not nourishing, private coaching might be perfect for you. I work with women who have already decided to stay and want to close the gap between where their marriage is and where they know it can be.

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About Maggie Reyes

Maggie Reyes is a Master Certified Life Coach and feminist marriage coach for high-achieving women who want to strengthen marriages that feel stuck but not broken. She is the host of The Marriage Life Coach Podcast, ranked in the top 2% globally, where she teaches high-achieving women the practical relationship skills they were never taught in school.

Through individual marriage coaching for women, Maggie helps clients improve communication, reconnect emotionally, and create real change in their relationships — even if their partner isn’t interested in couples therapy or coaching. She is the author of the bestselling Questions for Couples Journal and creator of the Soul-Centered Communication framework.

Maggie’s work is rooted in feminist values. While she primarily works with women married to men — navigating the patriarchal programming (and deprogramming) that shapes those relationships — she has also supported women in same-sex marriages. The same kinds of communication patterns, emotional disconnection, conflict loops, and repair skills apply regardless of gender. Her work is inclusive of diverse identities and experiences.

Marriage coaching for women who want to feel connected, not just committed

If you love your husband but feel disconnected, stuck in the same arguments, or exhausted from carrying the emotional load of the relationship, you’re not alone — and your side of the table is where your power lives.

Maggie specializes in individual marriage coaching for high-achieving women who want to feel loved, respected, and deeply connected again. Whether you’re looking for communication tools, emotional clarity, or a new way forward in your marriage, you’ll find support here.

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✨ Transparency Note

This blog post was inspired by The Marriage Life Coach Podcast episode, prepared by my team and helped by AI. IT REALLY TAKES A VILLAGE PEOPLE ;-).

Thank you for reading, it’s an honor to be part of your day.