At the St. Regis Punta Mita, an Eye-Opening Sexual Wellness Retreat Is the Latest Draw

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Bibi Brzozka is lying on the carpeted floor of a ballroom at the St. Regis Punta Mita, moaning. Her eyes are closed. Her hips are gyrating. And I, like the small handful of spectators sitting cross-legged in a semi-circle around her, am waiting to watch her bring herself to orgasm.

Punta Mita is a lush tropical peninsula on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, where indigenous birds, tranquil palms, and perpetual sun turn the calendar into one breezy, ocean-kissed blur. Groundhog’s Day, but make it bliss. But I’ve come there to spend most of my time in a windowless room—and Brzozka, a Polish-born, Tulum-based sex educator and tantric guide, is the reason.

The global wellness market is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the travel industry, with analysts estimating that its current value—$1.5 trillion—could jump by as much as 10 percent in the next year. Two years after the coronavirus pandemic upended our lives, erased boundaries between work and home, and sent our anxiety levels skyrocketing, demand for wellness vacations—with offerings running the gamut from health screenings to fitness classes to spiritual guides—are at an all-time high. Sexual wellness is increasingly part of the discussion.

Sensing an opportunity for profit, the hotel industry is leaning into this new demand. The W Brisbane has added a sexologist concierge. Six Senses Ibiza is set to launch its first-ever sexual wellness conference, for women only, later this year. But in its more than 100 years of history, the St. Regis—a luxury brand where guests are assigned a private butler and spas are hushed bastions of rarefied service—has never held a sexual-themed retreat. Until now.

Before the pandemic, it’s fair to say that my ideal vacation didn’t involve leaving my husband and daughters behind for a three-day sexual wellness retreat on the Mexican coast. But more than two years into COVID-19, my perspective has shifted. At some point during lockdown I looked down at the map I’d drawn for my life—one that involves two kids and a busy career as I push closer to 40—and realized that my sexual identity has been increasingly put on the backburner. Sitting in that ballroom, I’m hoping Brzozka can help get me back on track.

Brzozka is lithe and long-haired, with a flower-child vibe, but she wasn’t always like this. She grew up in Poland under communism, dreaming that money would offer her happiness, she tells me. As an adult, she chased that dream via a career in corporate banking, only to find in her 30s that she was burnt out and unfulfilled. She began exploring her sexuality, and says that at 35, she had a full-body orgasm that sent both her brain and body afire. Now she’s made it her gospel to teach others how to tap into the same feeling.

“The pelvis holds your masculine, sexual energy,” Brzozka tells our small group. “The brain holds the feminine, thinking energy. The key to liberating your orgasm is to unite them.” 

Unite them, I repeat to myself. This feels important, so I take notes.

The St. Regis has taken pains to make the staid ballroom feel feminine and intimate: there are white couches and piles of scattered pillows, as well as an easel which Brzozka uses to draw a diagram of breasts and the touch points that partners can use to ignite their nerve areas. But most of our work is done on the floor, seated criss-cross applesauce like eager kindergartners while Brzozka lectures, effortlessly toggling between English and Spanish.

Bring the pelvis and brain together, I scribble on the St. Regis-branded notepad that awaited me at my seat in the ballroom that morning, next to the tasteful vase of flowers and the miniature canapés. But how?

Brzozka wastes no time showing us. She lays down on the floor and breathes, first deep and then more shallow. Leaning back on her elbows, she lifts her pelvis—as if to take that trapped masculine energy and gently tip it over a ledge, sending it right through her abdomen to her cerebrum—and then wriggles to give it all a good nudge. She doesn’t touch herself. She just inhales, exhales, and writhes.

My fellow retreat-goers are awestruck. One of them wipes a tear from her eye as Brzozka, her breaths growing more urgent and short, allegedly climaxes. But I have my doubts as to the authenticity of what’s unfolding. I can’t help but think that if we traded our swim coverups for corsets and the tasteful St. Regis carpet for a candlelit table from the Victorian era, we could easily be mistaken for a seance, all of us convincing ourselves that someone before us has summoned a ghost.

Aside from me, the group is made up of four Mexican couples. Two of them, I’m told, are quite famous—so much so that I’m asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement before any teaching kicks off on the first day. Brzozka works primarily with women, and although her retreat at the St. Regis, dubbed the Pause and Feel retreat, is designed for pairs, I attended it alone. My partner stayed back with our kids and I didn’t mind. We’re happy but well past the seven-year-itch and now approaching the ten-year irritation, and I’ve learned that I can’t help him with his oxygen mask, so to speak, until I figure out how to put on my own.

“A lot of women aren’t even aware that we are all orgasmic, and these types of orgasms are available to us,” Brzozka tells me over breakfast on day three of the retreat. “Sexual energy is super powerful, and once you reclaim your sexual energy, it’s going to influence so many different areas of your life.”

It’s a promise that threads the needle between relationship counseling and bodily wellness. Have better orgasms, and in the process, feel closer and more secure in your relationship. When that’s what you’re selling, who wouldn’t want to buy?

Before I left for Punta Mita, I wasn’t sure what exactly awaited me at the retreat. But while there were moments a more traditional breed of St. Regis guest might have dropped their jaw at, like when Brzozka whipped a pink quartz dildo from her bag to demonstrate stroking methods or when she discussed the value of—and I quote—“a 20-minute pussy massage,” the majority of our time remained G-rated. Much of the material felt similar to lessons I’ve picked up in couple’s therapy: honoring the other person, taking time to make them feel seen, considering their perspective in order to facilitate a feeling of closeness.

And yet, perhaps just from allowing myself the time to think of sexual wellness, and focus on my own body, something shifted. It wasn’t about getting re-centered on the map of my life, though, as I had thought. It was actually about giving myself permission to put the plan entirely out of view, if only for a weekend.