Family Tree S2: Pleasure Peaks
448: We’re here with Antoinette Gomez. She is the CEO and founder of Pleasure Peaks, a cannabis sexual health company. I think that’s really interesting. I think that’s something along with mental health, sexual health, that’s becoming more prominent.
People are taking it a little bit more seriously and putting a little bit more emphasis on it. So I love your take on the industry and I love what you’re doing. So we’re excited to hear what you have to say.
Q: What led you into cannabis?
448: First of all, I think it is very important to get that little backstory. It helps people conceptualize what shaped you and how you entered the lane that you’re in.
Antuanette: Most definitely. I started in the cannabis industry about nine years ago now. Via a holistic nutritionist at a chronic pain clinic. It was just really eye opening to see so many different walks of life, using cannabis to have an optimal life.
Depending on whatever ailment they’re dealing with, but it was a huge demographic that were using it for sexual health ailments like, fibroids, endometriosis, dyspareunia, painful intercourse, and things of that nature . I thought that it was really exciting to see natural alternatives for those, because there aren’t many on the market today, even traditional kinds of alternatives for them regardless.
So, yeah, that’s why I really have a huge passion for helping people learn how to use cannabis safely in the most effective way. Because when it comes to sexual health, it’s so personalized that when we’re talking about what our goals really are in the bedroom, and I love that cannabis can come in so many different applications, which is why we have so many different products to play around with, which is really fun and exciting.
448: Yeah. I think you open up a whole different can of worm when you start talking about cannabis & sexual health. Or when you start talking about helping with endometriosis and things like that. I think there are a lot of ailments that females are susceptible to, or women rather, sorry.
I need to get out of the habit of saying females. Somebody told me that that’s more associated with animals, so I need to get out of the habit. But women are open to, or susceptible to a lot more health ailments. So I think that’s very interesting with what you guys can do with that.
Q: So tell us what you look to convey from an educational standpoint, with pleasure peaks?
448: What is the message you guys want to put out there? What information do you want your consumers and other consumers to grasp?
Antuanette: Here at pleasure peaks. We want everyone to understand that pleasure is their birthright for all genders and all races. We feel that after doing this for so long, sexual health and cannabis, you really realize that there’s a lot of people that don’t believe that they deserve pleasure or that they deserve orgasms or that they deserve intimacy.
Or romance or just an optimal sexual health. Right? So many people are just feeling, “oh, well this is sex for me, I guess that’s it. And I guess that’s all I get” So I feel that in sharing stories, which is why we’re so huge on our community at pleasure peaks, not only do we have monthly events, we also have our Pleasure Talks Podcast, where we allow our members to share their own stories when it comes to their sexual health ailments, because we realize we’re all really similar.
We’re a lot more close than we think we are when it comes to our sex. And when it comes to our pleasures and kinks, and pains that we go through as well. So if we can have these conversations, share what works for each other, then we can really empower each other to have the best sex lives.
And that’s what we’re all about is empowering people that they can have the best sexual experience that they’re looking for with different products or different conversations. And that’s what we’re all about. So it’s all about creating access for patients. And that’s because of my background in holistic nutrition working with patients. I know that patients need to have and deserve access to medicine, which is why we do a lot of in-house research through our Pleasure Labs and the Pleasure Labs, we give out free CBD suppositories, lubricants, & topicals for people with different ailments. Just so we can get our own data to create those medical formulations eventually. So we can have that access known globally. So that’s what it’s all about, but we’re so much more than just a product line.
We are heavily invested in medical research. We’re heavily invested in the community and it’s destigmatizing sex as a whole, and cannabis of course.
448: Yeah. That’s amazing. You guys have so much, and I feel like you guys are on the brink of something huge and you guys have been established for a good bit of time but the industry is in its infancy. So I think as the industry starts to grow more, you guys have that much more room to expand. And you said something that kind of stood out to me. Destigmatizing, sex.
I think people, when it comes to sex, people are like “Oh, I don’t wanna talk about that.” Or, “Oh no.” People are just kind of shut off to the conversation around sex. I mean, everybody does it. I mean, that’s how we got here. (Laughs) So, I mean I think it should be more of an open topic.
Q: Also you said you guys put out these kits, to collect the data. So in what way are you guys getting that data back? Like, once you administer the kits, what action is the consumer taking for you guys to collect that data?
Antuanette: Yeah, so we could collect the data usually through surveys, but the patients also get access to one-on-one conversations with the doctors. Just to make sure that we’re getting as much data as possible.
448: Mm, okay. That’s awesome!
448 (Raz): The connection with the doctors. Are those doctors that you have business relationships with already, or are they like their own doctors that they’re having conversations with and then you’re getting feedback from them?
Antuanette: No, we have our own in-house doctors. We have an amazing chief medical officer, Dr. John Tanslor. He used to be one of the medical leads that brought Viagra to market through Pfizer. So we have top of the line sexual health doctors that have been doing this forever and at it in a cannabis standpoint, in terms of natural alternatives.
448 (Raz): That’s actually like a great feat. Did you find that, these doctors actually wanted to talk about sexual health through cannabis? Were they eager to talk about it? Or did you feel like you kind of were bringing the ideas to them and had to get them to understand, like, this is also a very important part of sexual health?
Antuanette: Yeah, I was so surprised the doctors actually found me. Doctors are really eager to get involved in the cannabis industry. But doctors aren’t business people at all. So I feel like it’s really up to entrepreneurs to see the many gaps that are available within medical cannabis and form the businesses, form the culture, form the community, and then lean on doctors to push forward on product development and research.
I think that’s why we’ve done so well. And I think that’s why Pleasure Peaks is seen, really, as the leader in medical cannabis for sexual health ailments.
448 (Raz): That’s awesome.
448: Amazing. I just got all excited all over again. When I met you and found out about Pleasure Peaks.. This just conceptualized it much further for me.
Q: So what was your first product idea that really pushed the initiative to build this brand?
Antuanette: The lubricants. Most definitely. We were finding lots of women with endometriosis that were saying they were smoking cannabis and it was so helpful for their ailments. Which I think was just so cool in itself, it was effective. So they were all smoking pot, but I was like, if you’re smoking it, there has to be a way more effective product.
There should be a topical, that is directly applied to the area product. And that’s when we looked into topicals and then we came up with our lubricant and after testing that we found great results and even more painful periods of that experience of endometriosis. It’s a lot more painful during your menstrual time of the month.
So we created a suppository for that aspect to combat that. And that has been the best thing since sliced bread really. (Laughs)
448 (Raz): Now for the men that probably don’t know. Because, I have no idea what it is. Can you explain what endometriosis is?
Antuanette: Yeah, so endometriosis affects 1 out of 10 women. And if you think of that statistic 1 out of 10, people have cancer, and there’s not a single person on this planet who doesn’t know about cancer.
So I think it’s important that we talk about endometriosis because it affects a huge market of the demographic. So with that being said, endometriosis is the endometrial tissue. So it’s the tissue that is found in the vaginal lining that sheds during your period. But we’re finding those tissues in other areas in the body, like the lungs or the intestines or the leg.
And that could be incredibly painful as those areas shouldn’t be shedding. So that causes an intense amount of pain within that aspect. It’s also a lot of pain in the nerve endings of the vagina lining, meaning that sometimes it’s really painful to have sex. The one thing that’s really cool and interesting about endometriosis is that it looks so different from person to person.
So people can have great sex and never realize it, but have trouble bearing children or getting pregnant. And there’s some people that can’t touch their vagina, but like everything else is fine. So there’s so many different ways that it shows up, but it didn’t take rocket science to know that endometriosis has potential.
It’s the chronic inflammation of the nerve endings, which is what we use for epilepsy, what we use for MS. So it’s these things that could be transferred if we get the right doctors, if we can get the right research and studies to move forward, which is what we love to do.
448: Alright. Thank you. Wow. I just feel like I just finished a class. (Laughs)
