One woman spoke about how she went from aspiring nun to a sex-positive entrepreneur committed to helping people achieve powerful and frequent orgasms.
Katie Enright is the founder and CEO of cannabis lube company Lavinia, a surprising career choice for a devout Catholic who once contemplated celibacy in the church.
After falling in love with a man, she abandoned her plan to become a nun and prayed to God for guidance, but to this day considers herself a Christian.
“I actually believe I’m doing God’s work now more than ever,” she told of the community she nurtured through Lavinia.
Katie Enright went from aspiring nun to founder and CEO of cannabis lube company Lavinia
“I actually believe I’m doing God’s work now more than ever,” she told of helping people achieve their best orgasms
Enright grew up in a large Catholic household in the western suburbs of Chicago, the sixth of seven children. Her parents were open and loving, which made her religious upbringing a positive experience filled with “lots of light and lots of love.”
“It was sort of the most ideal situation for growing up in a religious household,” she explained.
Enright planned to remain a virgin until her marriage, and her mother would bring up the “excitement of the wedding night” with her during her sex talks.
Her commitment to her faith only deepened in college, where she played an active role in the school’s spiritual groups. She also acted as her sorority’s chairwoman, although she neither drank alcohol nor had sex.
“I was really embarrassed telling people how religious I was … It was just so unthinkable that anyone would actually become a nun,” she said.
Enright wanted privacy when she considered joining a convent and decided to study abroad in Ireland in her early 20s.
She was assigned to live in a dorm with four girls and four boys from six different countries, including a Frenchman whom she called “Francois”.
Enright said she and Francois wouldn’t have been friends “under normal circumstances,” but they ended up falling in love.
Enright grew up in a Catholic household in Chicago’s western suburbs and considered becoming a nun when she left for Ireland in her twenties to study abroad
He woke her up with breakfast in bed and wrote her love letters while they lived together, but he respected her boundaries and kept their romance innocent.
“It was just such a wild experience because this is where I go from deciding whether to become a nun to the most romantic situation I’ve ever heard of,” she said.
After leaving Ireland, she flew to Rome to make her final decision to become a nun.
Enright fell in love with a French man she called “Francois” before traveling to Rome to make her decision to become a nun
Confused and unsure of what to do, she went to the Sistine Chapel to pray for guidance.
She knew she wanted to be a wife and mother, but she felt compelled to devote her life to her faith until she had what she described as “conversation with God.”
“I prayed and God said, ‘What do you want for your life?’ And I said, ‘Well, I really want to be a wife and a mother,'” she recalled. “He said, ‘You should.’ Do that.” And I thought, “But what if no one becomes a priest or a nun?” And he said, “That’s not your burden.” “That’s not your problem, what you have to worry about.”
Enright said she finally felt free to move forward with her life, knowing that God had helped her in her decision.
Francois drove to Rome from Belgium to pick her up, and they traveled across Italy together before going their separate ways.
She was on a new path but was still very afraid of sex and embarrassed that she had less sexual experience than her younger friends.
“I literally started attending all these webinars and classes, and before I knew it, I became sort of a sex expert,” she said.
After praying to God, she abandoned her plans to lead a celibate life and focused on learning everything she could about sex — including making her own cannabis lube
Enright’s homemade lube was so popular with her friends that she hired a graduate student. She helped her find the “perfect ratio of THC and CBD” with a chemist and started her company
But despite all of her new knowledge, she never imagined that she would eventually sell cannabis-infused sex products.
Enright was training for her second marathon when she tried a cannabis balm to treat her pain.
Lavinia’s Oh.Hi is a silicone-based cannabis lube designed to increase sexual pleasure
“Within three minutes of putting it on, my back pain was completely gone, and so was my knee,” she said. “I thought, ‘Holy cow, this really works.'”
Researching the health benefits of cannabis further, she came across a blog post on how to make a weed-infused lube that “makes babies feel good.”
There is research showing that THC – the main psychoactive compound in cannabis – can increase sexual pleasure and improve the ability to have an orgasm.
dr Kristina Collins, a board-certified dermatologist, explained on the Lavinia website that THC, placed directly in the vagina or anus, can increase vasodilatation and blood flow.
This can lead to “increased sexual arousal, enhanced touch perception, and improved orgasm.”
Enright was excited to put cannabis lube to the test, but couldn’t find a recipe or product that wasn’t made with coconut oil, which attacks latex condoms and can cause vaginal infections.
Enright is also working on a sex education platform to combat the abstinence-only messages associated with religious education
“Just having a place that people can come by and have someone talk about sex without feeling so alone and not feeling uneducated or ill-equipped is what I think is really important,” she said
She began experimenting in her kitchen, mixing cannabis with a silicone lube to create her own batch.
“Then I tried it and I was like, ‘Holy shit, this is amazing,'” she said. “I was working as a bartender at a really hip bar in West Hollywood at the time and I was giving it to my regulars.” [and] “My colleagues just as an act of love without thinking about it.”
Enright was starting his shift one day when a man walked in and asked, “Hey, are you the weed lube girl?” and offered to buy some.
“As soon as he said, ‘I’m going to buy it wholeheartedly,’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s a company. That’s something I need to pursue,” she said.
Enright hired a graduate student. chemist, going through 25 different formulas before finding one that featured the “perfect ratio of THC and CBD.”
After launching Lavinia, she was surprised to learn “how many women haven’t had an orgasm.” She recalled a conversation with a woman who was in her fifties and had never climaxed with herself or a partner.
The company plans to expand its product line to include gummies for before and after sex and “anal shooters for more pleasure in anal sex.”
She is also working on a sex education platform to combat the messages associated with religious upbringing that only refer to abstinence.
“Just having a place that people can come by and have someone talk about sex without feeling so alone and not feeling uneducated or ill-equipped I think is really important,” she said.