"I have a personal question to ask you. How many orgasms have you had in the last month? Think of times with yourself and fun with others. Now I want you to double that number," she started, much to the delight of the cheering audience.
"I challenge you to double the amount of orgasms you have in the next month, and I guarantee you will be a happier person."
See also: The story behind BeforePlay.org and its sex-positive meme campaign
"Just in case it was a dry month, let's make it a minimum of two, though," she added.
Denver loves sex. In fact, it is the sexiest city in America, according to the website Quality Health, which produced a survey a few years ago that ranked numerous American cities based on birth rates, contraceptive sales, erotica-shop sales and Amazon's sales of books about sex.
"Visitors flock to the mile-high city for its breathtaking natural beauty. But the gateway to the Rockies may offer something more: copious amounts of sex. In addition to impressive birth rates per capita, contraceptive sales are 189 percent higher within the city limits than the national average (sales of female contraceptives are a whopping 278 percent higher)," the report read.
Which is why Tate thinks the city is ready for Lust & Co., an endeavor she just started that offers sex-ed classes for adults. "I have a passion for sex," says Tate, who worked in the corporate marketing world for a decade before taking clients on an independent basis. "Everyone on this planet is here because of sex, so why are we so shy about talking about it?"
Tate recently spoke to Metro State University of Denver students during the school's annual Sex Week, which was created by the Women's Studies department to educate students and teachers about human sexuality. And she's looking to expand her reach elsewhere in town as well.
For now, though, she is offering her small classes in a room she rents from 3090 Eden, a recently opened bar that targets swingers (3090 eventually hopes to become a full-on swingers club), and although she's not associated with the bar, there are certainly some overlapping interest circles.
Her next class, which takes place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 22, is called "Just the Facts Ma'am," and here is the synopsis: "How old were you when you first had sex? When was the first time you reached an orgasm? How many sex partners have you had? Where's the craziest place you have ever had sex? When Alfred Kinsey interviewed thousands of people across America on their sex histories, he said the most common question people asked was 'am I normal.' What he of course found out was we all have our very own unique story to tell, with a pattern of similarities overlayed [sic]. In this class we'll cover dozens of stats on sex. Every student will also get to start filling out their own sex histories and have an open discussion on various questions."
But Tate also offers classes called "30 Days of Pleasure," based on her Ignite presentation, and "Your Sex Bucket List," which delves into "a discussion on fantasies, and then everyone will get the chance to work on their own bucket list."
Although Tate -- a "good Mormon girl" from Denver who went to Brigham Young University in Utah -- doesn't have any formal training in psychology or human sexuality, she says she got her education from life experiences. (Those experiences will be shared in detail when Tate publishes a book she just finished called Oral Sex and BYU Changed My Life.)
And she might just be on to something. "Orgasms are amazingly good for you. Sex itself makes us happy. If you can be happy on a personal level, we can be happy across the entire globe," she noted in her speech. "So let's save the world, one orgasm as a time, shall we?"
