Redefining Pleasure as Power.
Meet Rachel Strevens — Sexologist, Intimacy & Sexual Confidence Coach, Auckland.
The Passion Project helps women, men, and couples reclaim intimacy, awaken desire, and live passionately.
AS FEATURED IN:
ABOUT
The Passion Project
The Passion Project is an Auckland-based sex education, coaching and intimacy practice for women, men and couples in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s+ — across New Zealand and beyond.
It exists to do one specific thing. Give grown adults the real education, tools and honest conversation we should have been offered the whole way along, so we can finally experience the passion, intimacy and pleasure we actually deserve.
The work spans 1:1 coaching, group workshops, couples retreats and keynote speaking. Clients work with The Passion Project online from anywhere in NZ, or in person in Auckland. The audience is the same across every product: smart, capable, mid-life adults who are done waiting for things to get better on their own.
Not therapy. Not spiritual practice. Not somatic bodywork. Just real adult sex education, delivered the way it should always have been. Frankly, warmly, and without apology.
I started The Passion Project because I was tired of watching powerful women shrink. Tired of couples settling for 'fine'. Tired of intimacy feeling awkward, pressured, or quietly disconnected.
Pleasure is powerful. And the right information changes everything.
MEET RACHEL STREVENS
The story behind the work.
Hi, I'm Rachel — a sexologist, sex coach and educator based in Auckland, and the founder of The Passion Project.
People ask me all the time how I got into this work. The honest answer is that I came to it the long way round. So let me start at the beginning.
I spent twenty years in financial services. Investments. FinTech. Banking. Married, two kids, mortgage, mid-career success. From the outside, everything looked exactly as it should.
Quietly, there was a part of my life I didn't understand at all.
My own pleasure. My own desire. What my body was actually capable of. Nobody had ever really taught me any of it, and like a lot of the women I work with now, I'd quietly started to wonder whether there was something wrong with me.
It wasn't until I was 40 that I finally figured out there wasn't anything wrong with me.
It wasn't until I was 40 that I finally figured out there was nothing wrong with me. There was just an enormous gap between what I'd been taught about sex and pleasure, and what was actually true. I'd never been given the proper information, and hadn't felt confident enough to seek it out.
So I retrained. Properly. Through the Sexual Health Alliance in the US, and accreditation with ANZCAL. Then I built The Passion Project, so other women, men and couples wouldn't have to wait the way I did to get the information that's powerful enough to change your life. And your relationship along with it.
I've written a memoir about the year I discovered myself, sexually and personally. Today, most of my work happens up close: one-to-one coaching with women, men and couples, and the workshops and events where I get to bring this education to a whole room at once. I also deliver keynotes at conferences and corporate events, and regularly write articles for the likes of the NZ Herald, Capsule, and Woman's Day. I'm based in Auckland and work with clients right across New Zealand.
Because none of us were ever taught this. And every one of us deserves to know.
xx Rachel
THE WORK, AND THE APPROACH
How I work, and what to expect.
Twenty years in business first
01
Bachelor of Business. NZX Diploma. Two decades of corporate work in financial services before I retrained. I know how a boardroom thinks, and I bring that fluency into every conversation.
Lived the story I now help others with
02
I am not coming at this purely from textbooks. I'm coming at it from twenty years of thinking I was broken, five years of figuring it out, and a complete career rebuild from inside the gap. I have been where you are.
03
Mainstream and accessible
No tantra. No somatic bodywork. No new-age framing. No spiritual prerequisites. Just real, evidence-based education & coaching for capable adults who want real information.
Three auidiences, all welcome
04
Women, men and couples. The work is built around all three, because real intimacy involves all three — and the conversation has to happen for everyone in the room.
Education-led, not therapy-led
05
The fundamental issue most clients face is not dysfunction — it is a genuine information gap. I treat people as capable adults who need real information, not patients who need fixing.
Built for "fine, but want more"
06
Not crisis therapy. Not last resort. Most clients come to me from already-good lives that they want to be even better. Aspiration-led work, by design.
WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
Where to start.
There's more than one way in. Some people want something private and one-to-one. Some want the energy of a room full of people. Some want to get away from it all for a few days. And some want me on a stage to talk at their event. Wherever you're starting from, here's how we can work together.
1:1 COACHING
Private, personal, built around you
Honest, one-to-one coaching for women, men and couples. Whether you're rebuilding your own confidence, learning to show up better for a partner, or doing the work together, this is the deepest, most personal version of everything I do.
THE PLEASURE LAB
Real education, in a group workshop setting
Group workshops and events that bring real sex education to a roomful of people asking the same questions you are. Lower-pressure, often a lot of fun, and the easiest way to dip a toe in. Curiosity, with a room of its own.
COUPLES RETREATS
A few days to reset, together
An immersive few days for couples who already love each other and want to feel that electricity again. Not crisis therapy. A proper reset, away from real life, with the time and space to reconnect properly.
SPEAKING
The talk that changes the conversation
Keynotes and talks for conferences, corporate events and women's networks. My signature talk, Reclaimed, isn't really about sex — it's about what happens when a woman finally decides she matters. The thing nobody else on the programme will say.
Qualifications
Sexologist and
Sex Coach
Sexual Health Alliance
U.S.A.
Certificate in Breakthrough Life Coaching
New Zealand Life Coaching
Certificate in Abundance Coaching
New Zealand Life Coaching
ANZCAL Associate
Coach
Australia
New Zealand
Coaching Alliance
Bachelor of Business
Auckland University of Technology
NZX Diploma
KAPLAN Education
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