JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Amanda Testa is a trusted healer, coach, and guide who’s served hundreds of clients over the years with masterful skills in coaching, pleasure embodiment, and somatic trauma resolution.

Her clients tenderly heal their relationship with their sexuality, shamelessly embrace pleasure, own their sexy confidence, and cultivate deeply connected relationships with her fiercely loving support.

When she’s not leading transformative sessions, you can find her snuggling her spunky 10 year old, flirting with her sexy hubs, playing in nature, enjoying live music, and having epic conversations about sex with fellow experts on her Find Your Feminine Fire podcast.

Want more support? Schedule a confidential 1-1 call with Amanda here.

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If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

EPISODE 239: Holiday Libido

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

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Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. Today, we’re gonna be diving into how to keep your libido ho-ho-humming over the holidays. Can we just, first of all, talk about how normal it is for our libidos, our desire to fluctuate. It is normal for it to change throughout the day, throughout the month, throughout the year. So, as we deal with all the things that are going on this time of year, I wanted to share some strategies that you can use to keep your pleasure, your desire alive and humming.

So, first of all, I want to talk a little bit about why it’s so hard this time of year.

1:02

Well, first of all, all the stress that we go through during this time of year compounds, right? There are the holidays, extended family, travel, hectic schedules, kids home from school. I mean, even as I say all that I feel like my chest is constricting a little bit and feeling tight. So, I’ll just invite you, no matter what you're feeling around that, maybe just taking a few breaths. Let’s just take three breaths together.

[Three Deep Breaths]

Ah, a nice sigh. Even something that simple can really help to just get your nervous system a little more relaxed, but that is a lot, right? We have a lot going on, a lot on our plates this time of year. Whether or not you have kids, whether or not you work or not, there’s just a lot of stress going on and a lot of expectation.

2:01

I was posting about this the other day because I feel like there are just so many unrealistic expectations that have been portrayed in our conditioning and the advertising and the marketing of the world out there (what we’re supposed to do, what we’re supposed to offer for our families, for ourselves, for whatever it may be), and it’s a lot to live up to, and I think that we can give ourselves permission to say no to that and digest it in a way that feels right to you.

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Hey, if you're enjoying the pod and you know you are ready to find your feminine fire again, to feel turned on in your body, in your life, and you want that deeper support, then head on over to amandatesta.com/thegoods and check out ways you can work with me to get that desire back, to reclaim your medicine, your magic, step back into your sexy confidence and pleasure and authentically share your gifts ‘cause you know it’s all connected. Again, that’s amandatesta.com/thegoods. Now, back to the episode.

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3:04

So, I want to share a little bit, too, around kind of how our normal cycles work, right? When you're thinking about how we, here in the US, are in the winter. I live in Denver, Colorado, and we are in the winter. This time of year is a time of letting go, right? If we think about our natural tendencies, this is a time of shedding, releasing rest, of renewal. If you think about the trees outside, they might look like all the leaves have fallen off, but all their energy is going inward and down so they can rest and renew. There’s so much going on under the surface. So, during this time of year, oftentimes, there might be a call for more rest and more time being cozy inside, more hermiting up. It’s dark at, like, 4:00 PM. Let’s be honest, who wants to get dolled up and go out? I mean, hello. I used to, but now I feel like my ideal evening, I’m in bed at, like, 8:00 PM reading and snuggling with my loves which I adore.

4:01

So, anyway, I just want to reiterate this to say that, cyclically, it is that time of year to rest and replenish. So, as much as you can, just try to give yourself what you need. Make yourself space and time for downtime and just saying no to the things that aren't a real full-bodied yes, which is easier said than done, but that’s a big part of it is we can feel so pressured to do all the things like this Christmas party and that Christmas party and this thing and this thing and that holiday shindig and this, that, and the other, right? No matter what you’re celebrating over the holidays, there are a lot of invitations, and so, maybe that’s just a time, too, to just look at everything coming in and really feeling in. What’s realistic? Is it really realistic that we’re gonna go to three parties this weekend, right? And if it’s not, then you can kindly say no. You don't even have to give an excuse. You can RSVP no, right? Everybody has a lot going on right now, and the kind thing to do is just RSVP versus saying yes and showing up resentful or irritated or, worse, not show up after you’ve RSVPed “yes,” right?

5:07

I’m from the South, and I’m a big fan of manners and RSVPing, so I do feel like that’s a kind gesture for your host or hostess or whoever’s inviting you to the thing, to let them know whether or not you’ll be there.

I saw a funny meme the other day. It said something like, “It’s much easier to change a no to a yes than a yes to a no,” which is true. So, that’s something to think about when you're looking at this normal cycle that we have in the wintertime and what that means.

Also, understanding that, as I mentioned earlier, our libido, our desire is cyclical, right? It fluctuates throughout the month. It fluctuates hormonally. Even if you're in menopause, we still have natural ebbs and flows. So, this time of year, too, everyone’s different with what their desire level is. We know that all the stress is a killer for our sex drive, for our desire.

6:05

And so, what we can do when we think about, really, what helps us to have more pleasure, to have more desire, there are a few things around that. So, now that we know what’s standing in the way, now, we can kind of work a little bit around what are some strategies that we can use to cope? What are some strategies that we can use to keep our desire alive and to keep our connection with our partners alive?

So, the first thing is, when you think about our desire, there are a couple of things happening. I love this. Emily Nagoski talks about this in her book Come As You Are, and, by the way, she has a new podcast which is awesome. So I just want to shout her out. But when we think about what’s going on, there are usually a couple things at play, right? We have the part of our brain that’s the accelerator (the part that is leaning towards the turn on) and we have the part that is the brake (now, that is the part that is slowing things down).

So, we have, often, a lot of things going on at the same time in our brains, right? There’s a lot happening up there.

7:04

So, with our sexual accelerator, this kind of notices what are all the sexually related things in the environment, right? Things that involve your five senses, maybe any of your beliefs, any of your preconceived notions, and all of the things that kind of need you, more often than not, to feel turned on, right? And so, a lot of the times we get a lot of advice around what we can do to feed that turn on which is important. At the same time, we also have our brake going on, and here’s the thing with the brakes. The brakes are often going on at the same time as the accelerator, and a lot of different things can come up that hit the brakes, right? It could be our body issue. Number one on the list is usually stress, right? Stress is such a drain because it really puts our bodies into more of a state of survival so we’re not moving into those different states that can more easily access pleasure.

8:03

Also thinking negative thoughts to ourselves (things that we are thinking about, what we need to do, maybe any kind of relationship issues going on, any kind of history of trauma or anything of that), these brakes are gonna be keeping you from feeling the turn on. Some of the things are easier to fix than others because some of them require more tending, but sometimes what needs to happen is if we kind of look at the things that have led to a good experience in the past and what led to a bad experience in the past and maybe noticing -- not the best experience you've ever had, but a good experience you’ve had, and maybe what are some of the things that were going on there. What was your physical environment like? What was your personal mood like? What was your partner like? What was going on in the environment? Taking into those things and checking into the context of what was going on because the more you can kind of understand the context of what leads you to be turned on, the more likely you can connect to that in the future.

9:04

I was thinking of an example for myself today. Okay, so, a few weeks ago, my husband and I had an amazing night away. It was epic. Here are some of the reasons why. I was in a clean space that I was able to walk into. I didn't have to clean. I didn't have to do anything. Here’s the beautiful bed. Everything’s clean. There was plenty of time. It was right before the holiday week, so I didn't have a lot on my plate. There was not a lot of stress hanging over my head. I knew my kid was well cared for with a loving guide, a loving caregiver. And so, I was able to really relax. That was huge, right? We don't always have those same kinds of things going on. So, what are the little things I can look at in that example that I can try to recreate?

Number one is that my kid wasn't around. That’s an important thing. It can be sometimes very hard especially for moms and caregivers to relax when there are kids nearby. So, what I say around this is, is there a way that you can maybe take turns taking care of the kids with neighbors? Could you hire a babysitter? Could you get someone to take your kid on an adventure so that you can have some time alone?

10:09

Oftentimes, one of the benefits of the extended family in town is they can take on some of that caregiving role to get it off your plate, right? So, that’s a solution around that.

Number two is not having so much on my plate. Now that, again, is a rarity. [Laughs] But what I can do is realize what are the things that are truly urgent and what are not ‘cause what can often happen is that we are in such an environment and culture of productivity that it really encourages “everything is important.” Oftentimes, that’s not truly the case, right? Is it truly urgent or is this just something that I am feeling is urgent? Because, oftentimes, when you can kind of look at everything on your plate and really prioritize what’s truly most important, it can take some of that stress off of your plate.

So, the reason I’m sharing this is because I’m kind of breaking down what it really takes to digest and think about, okay, here’s the context that invites turn on, and what can I do to recreate that again?

11:07

Same thing that can happen is what are the things that cause turn offs? Well, okay, if I notice there’s a bunch of laundry in my room, then I’m totally not gonna feel turned on because I keep thinking, “Oh, my god. I’ve got to fold that laundry.” So, take the laundry basket and put it somewhere else, right? Shove all the toys under the bed. Hide the stuff that is a turn off. Now, that’s more easier said than done. [Laughs] So, you can do that. That’s an easy thing to do.

Maybe there’s a noise that is irritating in the house, so maybe you put on some nice music so you don't have to hear it, right? There are simple things that you can do to turn the accelerator on. Maybe it’s the holidays and you're not feeling like yourself because maybe you're just eating and drinking too much and you're not taking care of your body the way you usually do. What are some things that you can do to maybe take better care of your body, and then maybe this is an opportunity. Is there a lovely nightgown that I want to put on or a slip or something sexy where I can kind of feel covered up but also have some skin showing which can be fun and tantalizing and then I feel a little more covered up which makes me feel more relaxed, right? There are so many ways to work with it.

12:11

So, that being said, if you want more about this, I really truly love Emily Nagoski’s book, Come As You Are. She goes into a lot more detail. But, really, just kind of noticing, okay, this is normal that all these things are coming up. What can I do to reduce the stress on my plate? What can I say no to? How can I create time and space for the things that are important for me, especially when things seem busy?

All right, so we’ve talked a little bit about why this is hard. We’ve talked a little about honoring our natural rhythms and cycles. We’ve talked a little bit about understanding the accelerators and the brakes, and now I’m gonna talk a little bit more about some of the tips that you can use just on a stress reduction, sensual self-care type of thing because I really truly believe this is so important. We talk about it a lot, but I think some of the things are so simple that they can just seem overrated but they're really not.

13:05

Now, when I’m talking about sensual self-care, these are the things that you do, and it’s not just taking a bath. It’s not all that kind of thing. That can be part of it, but it’s finding the support that helps you to feel grounded, to feel neutral, to give your body this sense of a full-body exhale. I talk about this a lot because these things are really foundational.

I like to break it down into when you're thinking about the physical supports. What are the things, physically, that make you feel good? And so, maybe you can just make a list of those things, right? Well, I love, for example, taking a walk with my dog, maybe putting on some music and listening to a song I like, maybe going to hug my partner for a few minutes, right? These are kind of some of those physical things. What are some things you can do? Connect to those things more often than you think you need to, especially over the holidays and in times of stress, in times when you know there are gonna be things happening that are outside of your usual routine because this can kind of help give you that sense of foundational strength, that groundedness so that if things hit the fan, which they very may will, that you have more patience and resilience to deal with it.

14:13

Secondly, you can think about what are the emotional things that support me? Is there a friend I love to talk to? Do I like to journal? Is there some way I can process my emotion that feels good? Maybe it’s getting on the Zoom with someone that you love or maybe one of these invitations that you’ve gotten that’s a full-bodied yes, you go and have an amazing time connecting with your friends, right? I think that is one of the benefits when we are able to spend time with our community and that connectivity because we are not meant to be alone. We’re not meant to be so siloed. And so, when we can allow ourselves to fully receive that community support and show up as your authentic self, you don't have to pretend you're any other way than you are. I think that’s one of the great things about really good friends and good communities where you can show up, and whatever’s real for you is accepted.

15:04

You don't have to put on a show. You don’t have to act a different way. You don't have to put a bow in, as I always joke. My mom always used to tell me that growing up. I was not a bow type of girl, and she always wanted me to put a bow in. So, every time I would leave the house, she would be like, “Put a bow in!” Like, that’s not who I am. I’m not gonna make you put a bow on, and no one who’s coming in through my house needs to put a bow on unless they, of course, enjoy wearing bows, then by all means wear all the bows that you would like to wear.

Then, finally, too, what are the spiritual supports that support you here? When you're thinking of these sensual self-care things, what are the things that support you spiritually and connecting to those because, again, the more we connect to these things that support us, the more we’re gonna build a strong foundation. You think of a tree that’s like a huge 200-year-old oak tree, a big storm is gonna come through. It’s gonna remain steady. It might move around a little bit, but it’s not gonna fall over. If there is a little, teeny sapling that’s maybe only a year or two old, a big wind might come by and just whip it out from its roots and take it down the lane.

16:07

So, this is what, too, we do when we have a strong foundation. We have roots, we have the ability to sway in the storms and not fall over, and when we have those resources and we’re feeling a little more grounded, then we are not as stressed, and then our nervous system is more apt to default to pleasure when that opportunity arises. See how it’s all connected? It’s always all connected.

So, this brings us back to pleasure. The more that we can feel that resource and that connection to ourselves, that sense of stability, even safety if you can create that for yourself, that is so powerful, and then being able to enjoy the pleasure, right? You can, then, more easily default to those pleasurable states. Once you feel this foundation of stability, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, maybe I do want to give myself a little massage. Maybe I do want to explore a little connectivity with my partner.” So, these are things you can do!

17:06

Then, finally, I want to share a little bit around remaining connected to the people around you because I think this is another big thing. As I mentioned, in relationships, this is another challenging time, especially if, maybe, there’s more strife, if you have extended family and all the things that can come up around that, dealing with kids home if they're usually in school. If you have little ones, then you're used to them being around. So, when they are gone for school and they’ve been in school for ever and then they're finally home for a few weeks, that can feel challenging. So, it’s like what are the strategies that we need to put into place to remain connected when we don't have time like we usually do?

So, again, here’s where I go back to the little things are so powerful. Intentionality is so important. Taking the things that you are already doing and adding a little bit more intention into them. So, for example, when you get up in the morning, instead of just jumping out of the bed and going about your day, can you spend just a minute connecting with your partner, maybe holding their hand, maybe laying your head on their chest, maybe breathing together, maybe just looking at each other and saying, “Hello,” maybe kissing, making love (if that feels doable).

18:14

Really, it’s just finding the ways to connect. That is so important because it can be so easy to not do that, right? This book, The Slight Edge, says, “Easy to do, easy not to do, but the difference in where your destination is gonna be is night and day.” If you wake up every morning and don't touch your partner, imagine how that disconnect grows, and when you have these little connection points throughout the day, these remind you of your connection, of the love you have for one another, of the way it feels to be kind and connected. So, those little simple things, right?

So, when you get up - connecting. Before you go to bed - connecting. Even if you go to bed at different times, you can just make an effort to at least give each other a kiss before bed or hug or some kind of connection. When you go to eat your meals, is it possible that you can eat meals together?

19:00

I think this can be a really grounding ritual for busy families, even when you have extended family in or you're traveling, is, as much as you can, try to create the normal routine of eating together at least one meal a day if it’s possible to. So, because you're already gonna eat, you're already gonna be doing these things, so how can you just create a little more intentionality around what you're doing with eating in enjoying the people around you, enjoying the food you're eating, really slowing down and making sure that you’re enjoying what’s on your plate. You're not just shoving stuff down. What is nourishing, what is sensual, what is delicious about what you're eating? Then, let yourself enjoy. This can go throughout your day. There’s so much.

I always talk about the shower ritual. Can you just take a shower and have that be like your respite? For me, it is one of my favorite ten minutes of the day. I fully immerse myself in the experience. I allow myself to feel the hot water just streaming down my skin and just have gratitude for how luscious and amazing it feels, that hot, warm water, and how it just rinses away everything that’s been on my mind. It rinses away the night.

20:14

It rinses away everything so there’s a clean, fresh start. I enjoy the smell of my products. I have this eucalyptus spray I spray in my shower that I love the smell of. I really enjoy feeling my hands on my skin as I massage my scalp. I enjoy massaging my face. I enjoy washing my body. I just really take time. I even do a breast massage. This takes ten minutes, y’all. It’s not like I’m doing this extravagant thing, but I make my intention around the experience one of connection. Then, when I get out. I put my lotion, my body oil on. I just do a face massage. I make it a ritual of self-adornment, of self-love. And so, I‘ve got a million of these things. This is what I work with clients all the time around.

21:05

So, these are just some ideas for you to ponder because what my wish is for you, what my intention with this episode is, is for you to kind of see, okay, here are the challenges that so many of us face around the holidays, and then here are some strategies of what I can do around it. I can honor my cycles. I can honor the rhythms and the natural calling that this time of year is inviting me towards. I can figure out what’s turning my accelerators on and what’s turning my brakes on and what can I do about that, right? How can I support the things that are making me feel good and try to tone down the things that aren't? How can I look at what’s on my schedule and say no to the things that are overwhelming me, right? How can I encourage myself to enjoy more sensual self-care in those three realms of the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual? How can I have more connection with my partner, when things get crazy, with intentionality?

22:07

So, all this to say, when we move into this time, it’s like remembering what are the important parts that you want to connect to. For me, when I think about it, it is connecting to the people that I love, enjoying seeing friends that I don't often see, enjoying snuggling in and being cozy, letting myself snuggle in and be cozy without guilt. Maybe I might even have a full day or two movie marathon, and I’m gonna enjoy the hell out of it without guilt because that, to me, is a little bit of reclamation of my own time and pleasure for myself. We’re able to do that, right? We’re able to do that. Maybe there’s gonna be a day or two where you let your kid watch way too much TV so you can have a break. We all do it, and it’s okay. We have to do what we have to do. But remembering what’s important and remembering, when it comes to your desire, when it comes to your pleasure, it’s the small things that add up.

23:08

Those foundational things (intentionality, connecting to your senses, being present, noticing what feels good and saying no to what doesn't) are all really important. A lot of these, even though they seem small, there’s a lot of big stories and big experiences that sometimes make it harder to do. That’s okay because we all have those, but it’s just when you can kind of slow it down, realize not everything is an emergency, how can I nourish myself, how can I let go of some of the stressors and really enjoy what I’m here to enjoy? How can I let my pleasure lead me? How can I be curious about what that’s gonna bring me today? And so, I’ll invite you with that. I’ll leave you with that question. As you move through the days, what will bring you the most pleasure today and how can you say yes to that? What will be depleting from your joy, and how can you say no to that? That could be the simplest thing to even start.

24:04

If this is something that you have more questions around, just send me a DM! I love talking about this stuff. You can DM me on Instagram @abtesta, and I would love to connect and hear your feedback or what you're struggling with and what are some of the ideas that you love to implement to stay connected?

So, sending you much love, and we will see you next week! Hope you have a beautiful week ahead. As we close, maybe once again just think what is, maybe, one thing from this episode that you could sit with? Sending you much love. See you next week!

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[Fun, Empowering Music]

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation.

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life.

25:06

You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Women do not always receive the same healthcare as men.

In fact, for too long medicine has not recognized that numerous health conditions — like heart disease, stroke, stress, mental health and more — impact women differently than men.

Orthopedic surgeon Mary I. O’Connor and medical anthropologist Kanwal L. Haq want to change that by empowering women with knowledge about the current landscape of women’s health, and showing them how to actively engage with their healthcare team.
 


In a groundbreaking publication, Taking Care of You: The Empowered Woman’s Guide to Better Health, O’Connor and Haq have enlisted 111 leading women physicians and health experts from all across the country to create a practical resource guide for women to improve their health and obtain better healthcare.
 


Taking Care of You is refreshingly supportive and jargon-free, with colorful illustrations to help the reader better understand what can often be dense medical information.

Its unique approach includes three main sections:

WOMEN AND THE CURRENT HEALTH LANDSCAPE includes topics like:
* What exactly is “women’s health”
* How to find the right healthcare team
* How to use the internet for medical information
* When to go to urgent care versus the emergency department
* And much more


COMMON CLINICAL CONDITIONS IMPACTING WOMEN focuses on 55 non-reproductive clinical conditions that impact women more than men, or differently than men. 

They include:
* Breast, lung, cervical, and ovarian cancer
* High blood pressure, cholesterol, blood clots and stroke
* Anxiety, depression, obesity and metabolic syndrome
* Thyroid disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis
* Painful sex, pelvic inflammatory disease, polycystic ovary syndrome, urinary tract infection and incontinence, uterine fibroids and abnormal vaginal bleeding


Each chapter is divided into subsections that explain: 

* What is the condition?
* Can it be prevented? 
* How is it treated? Why does it matter to women? (Including differences related to sex, race and ethnicity)
* Questions to ask your clinician and healthcare team
* Pearls of wisdom from clinical experts

Taking Care of You focuses on activities women can do everyday — like eating well, sleeping and exercising — and how to effectively engage in these pillars of health to take better care of themselves.


Taking Care of You is an easy-to-use and accessible guide to be shared between mother and daughter, sister, aunt, and grandmother — an essential resource for every woman, and those who love her.

More about Mary O'Connor:

Mary I. O’Connor, MD is an internationally recognized orthopedic surgeon and health equity leader. She is co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Vori Health, a virtual musculoskeletal medical practice delivering an innovative model of patient care to empower humanity to better health. 

In a profession dominated by white males, Dr. O’Connor broke numerous glass ceilings. Her distinguished academic career includes over 200 peer-reviewed publications and 350+ academic presentations. Dr. O’Connor is Professor Emerita at Mayo Clinic, where she served as the Chair of the Orthopedic Department at Mayo Clinic in Florida and was awarded the Distinguished Clinician Award. She is past Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at Yale School of Medicine and directed Yale’s Center for Musculoskeletal Care. 

Dr. O’Connor’s championing of women began as an undergraduate at Yale. In 1976, she and her rowing teammates protested the lack of women’s facilities at the boathouse in what has been heralded as the first stand for gender equality in college athletics.

In 1979, Dr. O’Connor went on to stroke the Yale Women’s Varsity Eight to a national championship and the U.S. National Team Women’s Eight to a bronze medal at the World Rowing Championships. She was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team (Women’s Rowing). 

Having seen the bias that women, people of color, and other marginalized groups experience in healthcare, Dr. O’Connor has fought tirelessly to advocate for quality care for all. She has led Movement is Life, a national non-profit health equity coalition, since its inception in 2010. Next to caring for the patients she has had the privilege to serve, she considers her greatest professional achievements to be advancing health equity and diversity in medicine.

More about Kanwal Haq: 

Kanwal has been an activist long before she knew what the term meant. In kindergarten, she repeatedly threw away her uncle’s hidden cigarettes; when he tried to divert her cause with a visit to SeaWorld, she used the entire trip to protest “Free Willy!” …and then threw away his cigarettes.

Since then Kanwal has learned to use more successful approaches to effect change. She completed her B.S. in biological sciences from the University of Missouri, her M.S. in medical anthropology from Boston University School of Medicine, and worked at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali, Americorps, the United Nations, and Yale School of Medicine. Kanwal currently leads the NYC women’s health programs at Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine’s Arnhold Institute for Global Health.

An applied-research scientist dedicated to education and health equity, Kanwal utilizes community-based participatory research and implementation science to build more effective, efficient, and equitable systems of care. Her desire to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and community resources served as the catalyst for “Taking Care of You”.

Want more support? Schedule a confidential 1-1 call with Amanda here.

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

EPISODE 238: with Mary O’Connor and Kanwal Haq

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Women do not always receive the same healthcare as men. In fact, for far too long, medicine has not recognized that numerous health conditions (such as heart disease, stroke, stress, mental health, and more) impact women differently than me.

So, today, I’m super excited to have on the podcast orthopedic surgeon, Mary O’Connor and medical anthropologist Kanwal Haq to talk about their new book called Taking Care of You and, really, how it can help empower women to advocate for your own health in this environment where the system might not always be set up to support you.

So, welcome! Thank you both so much for being here. I’d love to start off by saying thank you for the work that you're doing and for writing this book.

1:01

Mary O’Connor: Oh, Amanda. That’s so gracious of you, and we are just delighted to be with you on this podcast and hopefully empowering your listeners about the importance of women, in particular, being strong advocates for their own health.

Amanda Testa: Yes, this is something that I learned far too late in life, and actually, my husband is in the medical profession, and so, he is the one that really got me advocating for myself when, in the past, I probably would just go along with whatever my doctor said or not even really search out alternative solutions. So, I think it’s so important, and I’d love if you would share a little bit about what inspired you two to pair up to write this book to begin that.

Kanwal Haq: Sure, so I can start that, and, Amanda, thank you so much for having us and thank you so much for the work that you are doing.

How I got connected with Mary was while I was at Yale. I had just started, and I actually had been following Mary’s work. She’s been in the health equity space for quite some time, and I was a little bit starstruck.

2:05

It took me a while before I reached out, and she always kind of rolls her eyes when I say this, but she has really done some amazing work.

And so, while I was there, I was kind of running into some health issues of my own, and there was just a lot I was learning working within the system, and so, when I reached out to Mary, we kind of started talking about this, and we had a lot to talk about. Mary was like, “We should write a book!” That’s kind of how it started, and it was very organic in the process, and kind of just about what we both care about. Mary, if you want to add to that.

Mary O’Connor: I’d had this idea for a book for a while, mostly because I was just so tired of having women come in to see me as patients and recognize that they really hadn’t received great care, and that communication with their orthopedic surgeon hadn’t been great, and that’s to the detriment of the patient, essentially.

3:03

So, I was like I should really write a book, but I knew that if I had a partner to do it with that one, we’d probably get it done, and it would be a lot more fun to go through this process. And it has been, and now I have this incredible friend, and we’ve created this book that we’re very proud of. And so, now, we’re trying to get it out into the hands of women so that they can use it to have better health.

Amanda Testa: And I’m curious. If you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about what are some of the challenges on our current health landscape that people might not even be aware of. If you could share a little more.

Mary O’Connor: I’ll start with one, and then Kanwal can certainly add others. I think that one of the biggest challenges is that -- this is a general statement, and I know I’m stereotyping here. So there’s always going to be exceptions to these statements but, in general, doctors don't listen to women, and doctors assume that women are exaggerating their symptoms because we are in a society where that is the stereotype, where women say their pain is nine out of ten, and a man says his pain is nine out of ten, and the health provider is more inclined to believe that the man is in miserable pain but the woman is exaggerating, right?

4:25

She’s somehow along the hysteria line, and so, her symptoms are not taken at face value because we minimize, we diminish the voice of the woman as a patient. We discredit the information that she is sharing with us, saying, “Well, it’s really not that bad. She’s exaggerating.” And this harms women.

Amanda Testa: That’s huge. I’m just laughing -- not laughing, but just thinking of one experience in particular that I had with a previous dermatologist that I was like how have you been doing this for 20-something years?

5:00

Anyways! But, yeah, and so, I know that there are a lot of other issues that can come to play around that, but what I'm curious is if you're coming in from the patient’s standpoint and you really want to make sure that you are taken seriously, what is it that you need to do so that you're not being diminished in what you’re sharing and what your symptoms are?

Kanwal Haq: Yeah, and I think, for that, that’s really why, for this book, we wanted to kind of create a tool that was easy to use, that women could pick up. Like they’ve got a doctor’s appointment and they can kind of pick this up right before and flip through it. Let’s say you're experiencing back pain. You can turn to the chapter on back pain, and it’s gonna explain what is this condition, how can it be prevented, how is it treated, why it matters to women. So what are those differences between men and women. A lot of times, we do experience these symptoms differently, and then what we think are really essential questions to ask your healthcare team ‘cause a lot of times we talk into that conversation and we might be prepared to say, “I have back pain, and I’ve been having it for X, Y, and Z,” but that’s it.

6:07

We might not know which questions to ask or how to get the most out of that conversation and, really, when you’ve got 15/20 minutes, you’ve got to get the most out of that conversation so that you can leave with the steps to make sure that once you leave that appointment that you can really take care of yourself and you can do what’s best for you to really make the most of that treatment plan.

But that’s not something a lot of us do. Not a lot of us feel comfortable doing that. For the sake of, like, we don't want to be the disagreeable patient. We don't want to ask too much. We don't want to question too much. I think that section, that’s why we think that’s so important and then after that section there’s also pearls of wisdom from an expert.

So, we have this incredible lineup of over 111 women who are all medical experts (clinicians, and so on) who contributed to this. And so, for that section, you also get -- like, if they could sit down with you individually, and what would they tell you? That guidance is included in every chapter.

7:07

Amanda Testa: I think it’s so important to be sharing this information far and wide, too, which is why I love that you have this book because, so often, we are just taught -- well, I would say for myself, specifically someone who is a cis white woman who has been taught to kind of always default to someone else and not necessarily speak up. And so, I think there can be a lot of fear in speaking up for yourself, right? Especially in a position where you have less power than the doctor in some stations, right?

Mary O’Connor: Yes, and, Amanda, a few years ago, I had a medical student. We did a little study. So, there is an online software program that basically is focused on patient education and people can ask questions. Patients can interact with the program and ask questions, and so, I got permission from the company for us to do an analysis for patients that were having knee replacement surgery (‘cause I’m an orthopedic surgeon. I’ve done thousands of knee replacements in my career) as to the number of and kinds of questions that women asked in this program versus men.

8:13

This probably isn't a big surprise, but women asked more questions, and women asked a lot more questions in the topic areas that were more difficult for the physician to answer specifically. For example, women would ask a lot about pain. “How much pain, Dr. O’Connor, do you think I’m gonna have to have after this knee replacement surgery, and how long will I have the pain?”

My response is, “I can’t answer that, actually. Everybody’s different. Know that we’re gonna do all that we can to manage your pain because we need to manage your pain so you can do your physical therapy so you can have a great result from the surgery, right?” But the kinds of questions that women would ask are often questions that are much harder for the clinician to answer in a very specific way.

9:04

So, not only do women ask for questions which, then, takes more time on the part of the physician to answer, right -- I mean, I’ve experienced this as a patient. There’s that kind of subtle feeling like, “Okay, I’ve used up my question-asking time now, and I should stop asking more questions because…” You just kind of get this sense like that’s it, and that is something that we need to empower women to say, “I have more questions. I mean, if you don't have time right now, we can schedule a follow-up call or another appointment or a video visit or whatever because I need my questions answered.”

Amanda Testa: I think that’s something that is a fair thing to ask, right? If you feel like you're not getting enough time with your provider. Could you make another appointment where you could just have time to just talk and ask questions if they're something they’re available for, right?

10:02

Mary O’Connor: Absolutely. It is the hardest, as a healthcare practitioner -- the biggest challenge on the provider’s side is really having the time to spend with patients like you want to. But, at the same time, different patients need different amounts of time, and so, we still need to be able to meet the needs of the patient and answer their questions because otherwise they can’t make the right decision about what’s best for them and we really should be incorporating more shared decision making in terms of our clinical processes. The point about shared decision making is that’s the concept where, in that conversation, the patient’s values and preferences are identified and recognized and brought into that decision-making process, and a lot of times that doesn't happen. In fact, I would say the majority of the time, that doesn't happen.

10:58

Amanda Testa: You know, another thing, too, that I kinda want to loop back to which I think is important to note is that, for many people, learning more about our health and wellness is not something we’re ever taught, right? If we’re lucky, maybe we got a class or two in high school about it, and, really, that’s about it, and it was probably very basic, right?

And so, I’m curious what you might have to share around just what women can do in general or what people can do in general to kind of take more of an onus of learning about their health and how to empower, for themselves, even before there’s a problem ‘cause I think that a lot of the issues is that our medicine is really based, a lot of time, if there’s a problem and how to fix it. So, yeah.

Kanwal Haq: And I think what that -- in terms of how we laid this out, because that was really one of the things because I’ve seen -- you know, it’s like as I’m aging or going through different changes, I don't really know what to expect. Like, I don't know -- I would hear my friends say, “Oh, I turned 30, and my back started hurting overnight,” right? I thought that was a joke, but it turned out it really wasn't in some ways, but what do I do about that and how can I take better care of myself, and when I’m in my fifties, when I’m in my sixties, what are other challenges I may face?

12:13

And so, kind of with that, we made a list of what are the conditions that are impacting women right now, right? What are those top things? If you look at what are the top ten things killing women in the US, when we talk about women’s health, we’re not talking about those things. We’re not talking about heart disease. We’re not talking about dementia. We’re not talking about diabetes. When we talk about women’s health, we tend to talk about pregnancy and more reproductive health-related issues. While those are very, very important, limiting our education only to those pieces is really detrimental to our health because there are so many other pieces that play a role.

So, we kind of outlined 55 different clinical conditions that might impact you during your lifespan at different points, but in terms of being proactive about your health, we really wanted to incorporate that, and I think someone had a great suggestion in terms of how to use this book.

13:12

Read the first section. They're short chapters. Read the first section like it’s more about what is the landscape of women’s health, how to access care, things like that. Then, read the last section which is called “Taking Care of You.” So, it includes things on nutrition, sleep, exercise, all the things that we quote, unquote learn. “You’re supposed to eat right. You’re supposed to exercise,” but what does that even mean? If you have a certain condition, how can that play a role?

And so, in those chapters, we really try to break it down. Go to sleep at the same time every day, make sure it’s at a cool temperature, and all of these things that we don't tend to just know and we have to learn, but when are we taught that? We’re not, and so, we hope that this book will help us build those strategies, build those good habits in taking care of our self.

14:00

Mary O’Connor: I’ll add that, Amanda, in the common clinical conditions, the templates are very structured, so each chapter is basically templated the same. And so, it is what is the clinical condition? Can it be prevented? How is it treated? Why does it matter to women where we pull in data and research that’s available on disparities for women and women of color if there’s also information available regarding that. Then, questions to ask your healthcare team about the condition and pearls of wisdom.

And so, for example, if you're in seeing your doctor or your nurse practitioner, there’s only so much time, and if they’re spending that time basically educating you on the basics of, for example, why are urinary tract infections more common in women than men? Okay? Whereas what that woman really needs to know is, “Am I at risk of recurrent urinary tract infections,” right? “What happens if I don't get better with this treatment that you're prescribing?” So, there’s time that’s being spent, that precious time in that clinical encounter, that’s being spent on the basic education that that women could get from reading this chapter so that, then, when she’s there with her clinician, she can ask the more important questions for her.

15:17

Amanda Testa: I’m wondering, too, because this is a question. Say you have a loved one who you are trying to encourage to advocate for their health, and maybe they're resistant to that. And so, I’m curious what, maybe, you could offer in that area? So, obviously giving them the book, but what about people that are kind of more resistant to that? What would you say to that?

Mary O’Connor: Well, I’ll comment on this because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard in my career someone come in and say, “I had my surgery with this surgeon because I heard that --,” almost always he, okay, “-- he was a great technical surgeon and his bedside manner was terrible, but I didn't care about that.” If there is one thing I could do, it would be to tell people do not have surgery with a surgeon that doesn't listen to you and that you can't talk to because if you have a problem afterwards, you are going to be extremely dissatisfied and you may not have a successful resolution because there’s not good communication between you and this surgeon.

16:24

So, this concept that surgeons can be different and they don't have to be good communicators and connect with patients and have patients trust them because the patient is selecting this surgeon based on their, quote, “technical expertise reputation” I think is very dangerous, very dangerous, and people should seek clinicians that they're comfortable with because so much of the diagnosis in medicine is based on the patient’s history which means that there has to be listening, communication, and trust.

17:00

Amanda Testa: Listening, communication, and trust. I think that is really powerful, and finding the connection, the ability to communicate your needs.

Mary O’Connor: Right, I mean, if I don't feel like my doctor has my best interest at heart, why would I share information that I might be hesitant to share otherwise?

Amanda Testa: Right, that is very important. I think, too, it’s kind of trusting your gut in a way. When you are with a provider, do you feel like you can openly share, and if not, what might you need to be able to do that, and is it just something that you need to kind of tune in and say, “This is something I really need to share,” or is it that this person is not the right person for me, right?

Mary O’Connor: In my experience I’d say 85% of the time it’s not the right person and it’s not a good match.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Mary O’Connor: And, you know, I’ve experienced that. A short story ‘cause stories are always good.

Amanda Testa: Yes!

Mary O’Connor: So, I had a patient come in and, unfortunately, I was always running late in clinic to see my patients, and it’s not because I was having tea and Bonbons, it’s just because I was spending the time that I needed to spend with the patients, and so, the best thing was to get the first appointment, right?

18:10

Because I wasn't behind at that point in the day, but, anyway, so the patient comes in, and she has been a secretary to a judge, and she’s upset that she’s waited 40 minutes, and do I not know that her time is valuable. I, of course, apologize, and I was very good at apologizing for this because, unfortunately, this was not an uncommon occurrence for me to be running late. So, I apologize, tell her how sorry I am, and then she says, “Well, is this always like it is for you?” And I said, “I’m gonna be honest, yes. I usually run behind because I'm spending the time that I think I need to spend, that my patients think they need with me, and so, I work through lunch, I work late, I don't do my dictations ‘til the end.” I mean, this is how I work. I said, “If that is really a concern for you, then I’m not the right doctor for you. I’m really not because it’s really gonna bother you that I am not on time for your appointment, so I would respectfully suggest that you seen one of my partners because he’s almost always on time, and then you’ll be happy with that, and you're not gonna be happy with me,” and I said, “And we won't charge you for this visit. This will be like we had this little chat, and I’m gonna refer you to my other doctor,” and she says, “Well, why can he be on time and you can't?” I said, “Because I spend more time with my patients. Period.”

19:34

Now, he’s a great surgeon. I think he’s an excellent doctor. I’ve sent my family members to him, but he has -- his style is different than mine. He just doesn't spend the same amount of time with patients as I do.

So, that was an example where, you know what? We didn't click. That patient and I would have been a disaster. We would have never had a positive, trusting relationship because every time I would be late, she would be resentful of it. So, that was a good outcome. Let me send you to my partner who is always on time.

Amanda Testa: I love the honesty. Go ahead, sorry.

20:11

Kanwal Haq: I can share a story as a patient of going into see my rheumatologist, and I had already been waiting probably 20/30 minutes in the room, and so, at that point, I’m thinking, “All right, it’s getting to be a bit,” and then I heard her outside, and I heard her talking to the staff, and the way that she was communicating, I immediately was like, oh, she’s a very gentle person. She’s taking a lot of time. She’s thinking through things. For me, the time wasn't an issue ‘cause I was really looking for someone who was gonna spend that time 'cause I was having these kind of complicated issues that need time, that we have to think through. It’s not gonna be a quick, easy fix. And so, I think, also, kind of understanding what you're gonna get.

21:05

We have a chapter that’s called “Finding The Right Clinician For You.” And so, it’s like what are the things I’m really looking for? And so, there's always gonna be some -- it’s never gonna be a perfect, absolute, what-I-dream-of situation, but, overwhelmingly, what am I looking for? For me, that was so rare because I couldn't find someone who was willing to take that time and really listen and be like, “Okay, here are some groups and here are some other physicians that I need you to see, and I’m gonna work with them as a team.”

I think it depends, from person to person, what we need. Is it Telehealth? Can I make a Telehealth appointment? Can I contact this person on MyChart if I have questions later? Can I have access? There are a lot of different things, and so, we kind of talk through some of those things like what are you looking for -- distance, time, type of visit -- so, really making that choice for yourself.

Amanda Testa: And I know there are so many good nuggets within the book, and I’m also curious just, overall, if there were one or two things that you wish every woman could know -- obviously, there’s a lot, but if you could just say, “Okay, here’s the number one thing or the one and two things that I really want you to know,” what would that be? What would that advice be for them?

22:20

Mary O’Connor: Well, Amanda, that’s a tough question because there are so many things.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Mary O’Connor: But, again, I would say (which relates to my prior comments) I think it’s really important that you find the healthcare team that you’re comfortable with, that you trust, that will listen to you. The second thing would be to recognize that we have a lot more power over our own health than what we might believe because it’s actually our individual behavior that is the strongest factor in determining our health. And so, recognizing our responsibility to step up and take better care of ourselves and to prioritize ourselves as opposed to what we typically do which is I’ve got my husband, I have children, I have my older mother that I basically provide a lot of care for, etcetera. So, I am the lowest one of that ranking, and that, we can't do because we just end up hurting ourselves and then we can’t be helping others.

23:23

So, it’s really giving ourselves permission to say, “Nope, I have to come first right now,” and I know that’s not always the case where different priorities come in, but it’s changing our mindset to, “Nope, I have to take care of myself. I value, I matter, and I can't be of help to those that I love when I’m sick.”

Kanwal Haq: Absolutely, and I think, just like you said, like they tell you on the airplane, “You’ve got to put your mask on before you help anyone else put their mask on,” and, as women, we tend to not do this. We tend to kind of be taking care of everybody else around us, but to do that to the best of our ability, we have to take care of ourselves first. And I think that piece of you need to advocate for yourself, you need to be your own advocate, and that this is really important because, at the end of the day, like you, this is the body that you were given.

24:17

This is the body that you’re gonna live your life through, and so, you’ve got to take care of it, and you’re gonna know how you're feeling more than anybody else. So, you're gonna be able to communicate that, and you have to communicate with your team to get the care that you need.

Mary O’Connor: You know, I’ll just comment because every time I’m on a plane and I hear that announcement, I’m struck with, “I wouldn't do that!” I mean, if my child was sitting next to me, I would make sure their oxygen mask was on first. I mean, that’s honestly what I would do, and I appreciate the message, but it just shows how, as mothers, in particular, we put our children ahead of us which I would, again, still do that, right?

25:00

But, at least, if I have a little more recognition about how important it is that I also have to be taking care of me and understanding that I have needs and I need to be empowered to, for example, tell my husband that I need him to go do this, “Yes, I could do it, but, honey, you can do it too, and I need you to go do this.” That we just need to be more, I say, protective of our needs and not be doing everything for everyone all the time.

Amanda Testa: Yes, to that! I talk about that a lot on the podcast because when it comes to finding your feminine fire, so to speak, or just putting yourself first, I see that happen so much with, a lot of times, caregivers, mothers, because of that, our cultural conditioning that we are to just take care of everyone else and kind of martyr ourselves in a way which, in the end, does not help anyone.

26:01

I had someone on the podcast once, and they were talking about just the big instances of middle-aged women who have neglected themselves and just how the health issues start to pile on, you know? Also, cancer and a lot of things because they have neglected to care for themselves and, like you say, it’s not always easy but it’s finding the little ways that you can do it because, like you said, if you're sick, you can't help anyone. And, even a lot of times, with busy caregivers that have not a lot of resource or support, then they don't really get to take care of themselves as easily.

So, I think that is a real challenge.

Mary O’Connor: I’ll share another example. So, a friend of ours is basically caring for both her parents at the moment, and it’s a huge burden, and her father has dementia, and the mother broke her hip a couple months ago. She has siblings, but the siblings don't live close by, and she is just basically sucking it up and doing all this work, and I have said repeatedly, “What about your siblings?” to which the response is, “Well, they don't want to come. They don't want to help.”

27:10

I said, “No, no, no! That’s not the message! The message is you call them up, and you say, ‘You need to come here for a week. I need a break.’ Okay? This is not a request on your part. This is an expectation. ‘These are our parents. I’m here doing 100% of the load right now. My health is suffering, okay? And I need support. I’m not asking you to come and do all of it. It’s not an ask.’ Get out there and set this expectation, otherwise, guess what? they're not gonna do it. They're just gonna let you do it all, and that’s what you're doing right now, and look at what it’s doing to you! You’re not sleeping. You're losing weight. You have no time for exercise. I see the physical and mental toll on you, and you are afraid to demand of them that they come and help.” But she won't do it. See, this is how this psychology affects us and hurts us.

28:13

Amanda Testa: I can share a personal experience around there where I feel like I kind of learned this at an early age because, in my twenties, my dad had early onset Alzheimer’s. My mom was his main caregiver, and then she got breast cancer, and so, I just remember coming home -- I would come home a lot. Since I was in Colorado and they were in Georgia, I would go back a lot to help, and I just remember once when my mom was having surgery and I was taking care of my mom and taking care of my dad, and I was in my twenties, and I was like this is intense. And you’ve got to take care of yourself.

Then, I started doing a lot of research on caregiving and how to nourish yourself as a caregiver, and there’s actually a lot of good resources out there and groups and places where you can get support. So, I think that’s just important to note, too, that if you are a caregiver feeling overwhelmed, just reach out. You can DM us. I’ll share everybody’s information. I can share resources, but you can find those in your community too, because I think that is one of the things that I really feel is so key is just kind of getting more back to community support, community care, and really helping each other.

29:16

Mary O’Connor: So, Amanda, I’ve been in the health equity space for quite a while, and I chair a national group that is now a nonprofit called Movement Is Life, and we created a community-based program called Operation Change, and we have focused this on middle-age and older women with knee pain and some other comorbidity like obesity, diabetes. So, these are not healthy women, and they're all overweight or obese, and they have knee pain.

So, it’s an 18-week program. It’s three hours a week. The first hour is in some type of educational session where we talk about nutrition or depression or what arthritis is, things like that, and then there’s an hour of movement, different things. It could be some form of yoga or any kind of movement activity, and the third hour we break them into smaller groups for motivational interviewing where they can really explore what are the barriers in their personal lives to making healthy behavior change.

30:16

Okay, this program has been amazing, and we’re talking they don't see doctors, nurses. They're not getting any drugs or injections. Eighteen percent improvement in their walking speed over those 18 weeks. A 69% improvement in their sense of hopelessness because they're all depressed. These women are lower socio-economic status. They have knee pain. They're overweight. They’ve got a lot of stuff going on, but what I learned from them was the reason why the program worked. It wasn't that our education was better (‘cause they could get education in a lot of places), and it wasn't necessarily the movement or even the motivational interviewing which I thought it would be. It was that we created a community. We brought them together, they formed a community, and they provided each other with the emotional support to make the behavior change.

31:10

That was, like, a lightbulb moment for me for which I actually did a TEDx Talk because the lightbulb moment for me was we can all be health promoters. Each of us in our own space, our own sphere, can help promote healthier behaviors in others. I can bring fresh fruit and vegetables in for a snack at work. I can say, “Hey, instead of having this meeting face-to-face, let’s go for a walk and meet while we’re walking,” right? I mean, Kanwal and I writing this book is us being health promoters to other women. And so, it’s recognizing that each of us has this power to help promote health and the power of that community to provide you the support that you need to make the change because changing behavior is really hard.

32:05

The hardest thing, probably that we do. We have a chapter on that that talks about that in the book. But it’s really the emotional support that we need from others to help us make the behavior change that’s key.

Amanda Testa: Ah, I love that. That’s so important.

Kanwal Haq: And I think even with Mary and I working together over this, sometimes we’d have our weekly meetings and then Mary’s like, “Oh, I was on the elliptical,” or as we were talking to other women, and I’ve noticed two things in myself over the writing process. One, I’ve become a better advocate for myself in terms of working with my clinicians, asking for the things that I need, and, two, I’m building healthier habits because I feel like now I have this community of women who are really supporting this method.

33:01

We really wanted to support each other to get that care, and even though we didn't set out to create this community, it naturally happened, and I've just seen, oh, wow, three years ago, I was not working out three to four times a week. Now, I am! I am eating healthier. I’m a lot more cognizant just by talking about this a lot more and writing about it. I think the power of that is just incredible because it’s like what we were talking about earlier. We have a really hard time putting ourselves first. We put everyone else in front of us, but having this community of women who are like, “No, you’ve gotta do that,” we all kind of encourage each other to do that, to take care, to rest when we need to, and that, I don't really know how to put it into words, but this works because I’ve seen it, just in the process of writing this book, on my own health.

34:01

So, I hope that this is going to create more communities in our local community, in our work community, in our friends, and get that conversation started. And so, that we are having these conversations and we end the book with what Mary said, that we all can be a health promoter and kind of changing that shift from being a patient to being an agent of change, and really we have the power to do that, and it’s incredible. It takes some time to see it, but once you see it come to life, you're like, “Oh, wow! I don't even know how I progressed this much.” It’s really incredible.

Mary O’Connor: Amanda, you know, there’s one other thing that surprised me when we were writing the book, and that is how common it is for there to be sex differences in clinical conditions. Now, I’d known this in the orthopedic space because I’ve researched this, and this has been my clinical area, but it is so amazing that across so many different clinical conditions, women present with symptoms that are different than men or they may respond to treatment differently, and so, I really enjoyed learning about that as Kanwal and I were reading the chapters that the expert contributors would send into us.

35:25

So, that’s another thing that we tend to forget. Every cell has a sex. Every person has a gender. And so, there’s a lot of physiology and medical illness that is driven by sex or influenced by sex, is a better phrase. If your healthcare team is not paying attention to that or knowledgeable regarding that, then that could be to your detriment, and heart disease is the easiest example for that. Women present with different symptoms than men. Why?

36:01

Because they actually have heart disease that’s different than men. Women tend to have heart disease that involves the smaller vessels in the heart. Men tend to have disease that involves the larger vessels. And this makes all the difference in terms of how that woman presents with symptoms and if the doctor isn't thinking about that, that woman is being sent home from the emergency department with diagnoses of indigestion as opposed to, “Oh, my. Maybe she’s actually having a heart attack.”

Amanda Testa: And I've heard that. ‘Cause you hear when you are -- some of the things to look out for, right, if you feel like you're having a heart attack and how it can present differently for women and men, and I’m wondering, too, what else is there to look out for with those discrepancies, would you say?

Mary O’Connor: Well, what I would say to women is if you’re going in and you think you're having chest pain or tightness, right -- because women will not necessarily feel pain. It’s a tightness like there’s something that’s not right. So when you're going in to be evaluated, ask the question, “How do you know this isn't my heart? Women have heart disease that’s different than men. I need you to test me and evaluate me and then reassure me that it’s not my heart if, in fact, it’s not my heart,” right?

37:23

Because, otherwise, our symptoms can just basically be poo-pooed.

Amanda Testa: I think, as you say that, too, it’s also really listening to yourself, and if something’s not right, keep asking the questions until you get the answer that satisfies you, and if not, find someone who will give you the answer, right?

Mary O’Connor: Absolutely because I don't know how many times -- we’re conditioned at a certain point to, then, say, “Well, it’s in my head.” I mean, we don't condition men to say, “Oh, your symptoms are in your head,” but we condition women to say, “That’s in your head. That’s not real.” That’s just craziness, but that is our culture, and the medical profession -- again, my opinion, stereotyping, but I believe it’s all true, and I’m sure I could find data to support this -- we are far more likely to say that the symptoms of an individual are in their head if that person is a woman as opposed to if that person is a man.

38:22

Amanda Testa: It’s so important to advocate for yourself. This is why this book is such a great tool, so if you can learn -- and here are the questions you need to be asking, here’s what you need to be advocating for. This is kind of a jokey story, but it’s so true. It’s like if you can kind of speak the language of the world that you're in, it does help.

So, for example, a couple of years ago, our air conditioner broke, and my husband had a friend who does stuff in that field, and he was like, “It sounds like it might be this. Ask them if it’s this,” and it’s a word that you wouldn't normally know, especially as a woman, I’m saying, “I think it might be this.”

39:00

He was like, “Oh,” you know? He got it, and it was much more of a supportive environment versus me not knowing the right words or knowing what to say, right? It could be easier to be taken advantage of or -- I shouldn't say taken advantage of -- or just miscommunicated. There’s more of a route for miscommunication, right?

Mary O’Connor: Absolutely.

Amanda Testa: And I know in the book you do share about that. Yeah, go ahead, Kanwal.

Kanwal Haq: Yeah, we just tried to address that because in kind of finding the balance of sometimes it can just be medical jargon and they're spitting all this terminology at you, and you're like, “What does this mean? I don't have time to pull out a dictionary and look up all of these words.” But, at the same time, if you have a meniscus tear and you want to know what kind of tear it is, we kind of put it in layman’s terms and then we put the medical term in parenthesis so that you have both, right? Right there you could understand what does this mean. “Oh, a bucket tear. Here, it looks like a bucket. Here’s also illustrations that kind of help in the understanding of all of these things ‘cause sometimes we really need that visual representation, and it can stick with us a lot longer, too.

40:08

So, you digest this information in multiple ways, and hopefully it will stay with you by the time you get to the doctor’s office and afterwards.

Amanda Testa: Well, I just really want to thank you both so much, and I want to just have everyone who’s out there to make sure to get a couple copies of this and share it with their loved ones because it is so helpful just to have this handbook. You're like, “Oh, okay!” It is so well organized where you can easily search through and be like, “Okay, this seems to be what I’m feeling. It’s my knee. Let’s look up and see what’s going on there.” So, I think that’s such an easy way for every person out there that maybe doesn't have a lot of medical knowledge to get better care and get better support, yeah.

Mary O’Connor: This book can actually be used by men and women, right?

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Mary O’Connor: Although, we specifically focused some of the sections of the chapters on women to say how does it differ for women, right, compared to men. But this book is a very useful tool for anyone with any kind of medical condition, aside from, as Kanwal said earlier, we avoided pregnancy-related chapters because there are already plenty of excellent books out there related to fertility and pregnancy, but anybody would benefit from this book. Although, again, we specifically wrote it to empower women.

41:31

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I think it would be great if, just for all genders and expressions to understand more about all the bodies because it’s just very helpful because, at many times in our lives, we probably have people we love that have bodies different than ours, and to be able to support those people and understand what’s going on, that can be very supportive. I watched a funny thing today. It was a reel on asking men on the street questions about women’s bodies, and just the answers and the lack of education is really distressing to me. It’s distressing that we don’t know the basic things about anatomy or well-educated people don't know a lot even, right? So, this is why this work is so needed, and I am so grateful for you for doing this. So, thank you!

42:14

Mary O’Connor: Our pleasure.

Amanda Testa: I’m wondering, too, if there are any last words you want to share or if there was a question that you really wished that I would have asked that I didn't or maybe a point you really want to make sure to cover?

Kanwal Haq: I think I just really want to hear feedback, and I want to hear from the women what they like about this book, what they want to be included in the next edition because I’ve been already getting some feedback, and I really, really welcome more feedback of, hey, what was useful? I think it was really awesome -- I heard a story of a women the other day who told me she’d bought the book, and she said, “I’ve been dealing with migraines for years, and so, actually, I read the first couple chapters and then I read the migraine chapter, and I’ve been on this medication for a long time that I really didn't like, but I never even knew that I could ask my doctor to be on a different medication.” She said, “After I read this book, I did ask! I was like, ‘Can we try something else?’ and he said, ‘Yeah,’” and she did, and she was like, I’m doing so much better.”

43:13

But I think just that lightbulb going off and, like, I don't have to deal with this, I don't have to just take it. I can get better care. And I was like, “Well, how do you feel?” She was like, “I feel great!” and then she was like, “I didn't know I could do that!” I was so proud of her, and it was also this is a woman who’s always advocating for other women. She takes care of so many women in our community, and so, for me, I was so happy that she was taking the time to take care of herself. I hope this book does that for our sisters, for our moms, for our grandmothers, for all the women in our lives because we want to see them thrive.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Mary O’Connor: I would just add that I agree completely with my incredible co-author, Kanwal, that we would love feedback from the people that use the book.

44:04

Maybe there will be a second edition down the road at some point, and so, getting some feedback from people about what they liked or what they would like to see more of or less of would be very helpful because the whole purpose of this book is to help individuals (women, in particular) be better advocates for their own health.

Kanwal Haq: The last thing is we really hope right now you buy this book, and I hope it helps you today. I mean, I hope it helps you later down the line, you can pull it off the shelf. But, also, the proceeds of this book are invested into education and research at Mayo Clinic, so we hope that’s gonna further better care for women.

Mary O’Connor: Absolutely.

Amanda Testa: And, if you wouldn’t mind sharing (I’ll let each of you go), where is the best place the listeners can connect with you and learn more about you and get the book? I’ll also share all this in the show notes, but I want to share it here as well.

Kanwal Haq: Sure, so, our website is www.takingcareofyoubook.com, and there, we’ve got links to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, a couple of other retail sellers. You can also ask your local library to order the book, and your local bookstore, if you don't see it on the shelf, you can ask them. They’ll order it for you, but it is available on multiple different platforms so you can pick the one that you like best. We’ve got a Kindle version. We’ve got an audiobook version. So, based on how you learn best, as well, you can pick.

45:25

Mary O’Connor: And we have our email addresses right there in the book so people can reach out to us and connect with us. Again, we’re happy to hear feedback, and I ‘m just constantly amazed at some of the really basic questions that I get from just my family and friends that will reach out to me with medical questions, and those that are non-orthopedic related, right, because they just don't know what to ask. And so, hopefully, this book will give them the knowledge of basic questions and fundamental things that they should understand, and then, as they have questions, ask.

46:03

Amanda Testa: Well, thank you both so much for being here and for all of this work that you're doing, and also, too, for the listeners, I would love for you to just maybe take a minute and digest. What is one of the main nuggets that you’ve received from this episode? Please, shoot me a DM @abtesta or reach out to Dr. O’Connor or Kanwal, and we will answer your questions because, obviously, they are excited for you to get the book and give your feedback, and also know that no question is too small or silly, and feedback is always important and encouraged. So, thank you all for listening, and thank you so much again to Mary and Kanwal for being here, and we will see you all next week!

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation.

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Susan Bratton’s insightful wisdom blends the three interlocking circles of passionate lovemaking techniques, bedroom communication skills, and sexual regenerative healing.

People around the world, of all ages, and across the gender spectrum follow Susan’s straight-talking, fearless advice to experience the kind of intimacy that appreciates over time.

Intimacy expert to millions, Susan Bratton is a champion and advocate for all those who desire intimacy and passion their whole life long. She is co-founder and CEO of two corporations: Personal Life Media, Inc., a publisher of heart-connected lovemaking techniques and bedroom communication skills, and The20, LLC., a manufacturer of organic and botanical supplements that enhance sexual vitality.

Susan is the best-selling author and publisher of 34 books and programs including “Sexual Soulmates,” “Relationship Magic,” “Revive Her Drive,” Ravish Him,” “Steamy Sex Ed™,” “The Passion Patch,” “Hormone Balancing,” and “Hot To Trot.”

She has been featured in the New York Times and on CNBC and the TODAY show as well as frequent appearances on ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox, and NBC.

You can find The Susan Bratton Show® at BetterLover.com, her personal shares on Instagram @susanbratton, and her lust-for-life supplements, FLOW and DESIRE at The20store.com.

Susan holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, where she graduated with honors. She also completed post-graduate studies at Stanford University Business School.

Susan is a member of Vintage TED (the original group of TEDsters), Women of Sex Tech, Mindshare Collaborative, and FlightClub Mastermind. A coral chaser, she earned her scuba certification and has done over 50 dives.

As a Barbizon-trained model, Susan did mannequin modeling in department stores to put herself through college. She became a multi-millionaire by age 37, lost everything, then went on to rebuild her business with incredible success.

Her core expertise lies in the intersection between passionate lovemaking techniques and bedroom communication skills. She has studied extensively what makes intimacy truly passionate, surrendered, and connected, and she boils down those skills to simple practices anyone can use to achieve profoundly pleasurable results.

Learn more at SusanBratton.com and The20Store.com.

Want more support? Schedule a confidential 1-1 call with Amanda here.

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

EPISODE 237: with Susan Bratton

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

If you are looking for fun ways to make your sex life more passionate, more connected, and more satisfying, you are gonna love today’s episode ‘cause I am talking with one of my friends, and just the most amazing human, Susan Bratton. She’s an intimacy expert for millions, and she has just really spent her career on cultivating ways for people to have these tools, to have better connection, to have this amazing sex, and she is just a bundle of joy to be around, too. So welcome, welcome. I’m so happy to be talking with you again today, Susan.

Susan Bratton: I woke up like, “I get to talk to Amanda!” I was all excited this morning. I put my bright red top on. I’m feeling so good ‘cause I just love to spend time with you!

1:00

Every moment I spend with you is just joy for me. I just love you so much and your gorgeous husband. You’re just the best.

Amanda Testa: Thank you so much. I feel the same about you!

Susan Bratton: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: And I always love how you are so good at keeping things playful and fun and exciting as we move through life, and I love, love, love that you're always innovating and coming up with something new because it can be so easy to get stuck in the same ole same ole in all areas of your life, right?

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Whether it’s work or sex or your relationship, whatever. And you're always keepin’ it fresh, and I’m so inspired by you.

Susan Bratton: I am having the best sex of my life right now. Holy shit, I’m having such a good sex life right now. I’m 61! I turned 61 -- well, I invited you to my birthday party. I know you couldn't come. It was no problem at all. I know you were traveling, but 61 and I am crushing it! [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yes! Okay, so let’s talk more about this because, tell me, what are some of the things you think that are helping you have such awesome sex right now?

Susan Bratton: Mm, well, I think a lot of it is the experimentation that I’m doing that helps me write the techniques that I write.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

2:06

Susan Bratton: So, I think a bit part of the reason why I keep saying, “I’m having the best sex of my life,” every year is a combination of two things. Number one, it’s constant trying new stuff, noticing what’s working, turning it into ideas for my fans to try themselves, little insights into, “Oh, hey, we did this thing. I have some techniques I want to tell you about.”

One of the things I’ve been working on is something I call “Makin’ Whoopee 2.0,” and it’s really intercourse techniques. I’ve really been focused on how to get a woman to cum from intercourse. And, you know, you had Dr. Laurie Mintz on recently, and she was the one that came up with the whole orgasm gap, right? And I like to help people cross the “gasm chasm”. I want to close the gap because what really chaps my ass big time, Amanda, is all the sexperts out there saying, “Women struggle to have orgasms from intercourse, and you need to make sure you touch the clit (like the tip of the clit, the glands, you know?), and you can’t expect her to have orgasms --,” and I’m like, that’s so wrong! What the hell are you saying?

3:22

All women can have orgasms from intercourse. It is a learned skill. Nobody was born knowing how to do it. Some people it comes to more naturally than others for various reasons, but when a woman thinks, “Oh, I guess I’m just not the kinda woman who can have orgasms from intercourse,” and then her male-bodied partner is like, “Well, I guess she’s not. I mean, if she doesn't think she can, she can’t, I guess.” And then they give up on it, and then they're having quote, unquote “sex,” and sex in his mind is intercourse, right? In her mind it’s like the patriarchal view of sex is sex is intercourse.

3:58

So, here you go. You’ve got a couple that thinks she can’t have orgasms from intercourse and that sex is intercourse. Well, how the hell long is she gonna want to have intercourse? What stories is she gonna make up in her mind being sexually dissatisfied at the core of her being ‘cause her yoni knows it ain’t no good. And so, she’s gotta do all this propping-up of her mind frame to keep having intercourse with a guy who doesn't even think she can have orgasms. She doesn't think she can have them. And it just makes me crazy because I want every sexpert in the world to be like, “Girl, let’s show you how to learn how to do it.”

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Susan Bratton: Let’s close that gap! Let’s cross that gasm chasm! And that’s what I spend a lot of time doing is -- people don't know how to have intercourse.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Susan Bratton: People know how to make a baby, but literally he does not know what to do with that penis besides [Rocking Sounds] in-and-out, in-and-out like it’s a piston. We don't like that kind of friction, right?

5:06

Especially in older women, we don't like that constant chafing of the introital sphincter, and, sure, of course, every girl likes a good pounding when she’s super warmed up and really turned on. I’m not saying that’s not one thing, but there’s, like, a dozen techniques for intercourse - things she can do, things he can do, things they can do. So I’ve been writing a lot about that. So that’s what one thing is. I’m constantly experimenting, noticing, trying, and writing things.

Then the second piece for me is this whole sexual biohacking which is revering the atrophy, loss of lubrication, etcetera of aging so that I have the most incredible, fluffy, velvety, soft, lubricated, responsive, activated, delicious, sensitive, orgasmic yoni (as in vulva, as in our whole genital system).

6:07

Honestly, my vulva is more delicious, more activated, more everything then it was when I was 30 years old (half my age). I’m having better orgasms. I know how to orgasm better. I know how to take care of my vagina and my vulva. I spent tons of time trying the 20 different kinds of orgasms. That’s another thing I’ve been working on is documenting every single type of orgasm the body can have: locations to touch, specific orgasmic techniques (almost like yoga moves, yoga asanas or jujitsu forms or what have you, like how do you trigger orgasms in the body through specific techniques), and objects of desire. And objects of desire led me to how can a woman orgasmically cross train, how could a man orgasmically cross train so that they take the orgasm they have and turn it into a whole bunch of ways to orgasm so that when they're with a partner, they're not worried about orgasming at all because they’ve done a lot of the work to teach their body, to activate their body to have orgasms.

7:12

So this is the stuff that’s going on in my world right now.

Amanda Testa: Well, I know when you were on the podcast last time, we talked about the sexual cross training. So everyone will have to go back and listen. I’ll put the link to that in the show notes as well.

Susan Bratton: Okay, great.

Amanda Testa: This is maybe the fifth time you’ve been on? You are always like a treasure trove so I’m always happy when you want to come back.

Susan Bratton: I always want to be on your show! [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: One of the things that I think is important to talk about, because you and I know the benefits of exploring and learning and teaching your body how to really magnify its pleasure potential, because most people don't know that. And so, when you were talking about really opening your mind about what’s possible, because I think most people are just scratching the surface on what kind of pleasure they could actually really be having.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And so, I’m curious, for you, what keeps you inspired to keep trying? ‘Cause I think that is something that I hear a lot from my clients and people listening is that they want that but it feels like such work and they're already exhausted. So what do you say to those people?

8:07

Susan Bratton: Yeah. Well, there’s this threshold that you kind of crossover where you have a relationship with your partner that is so mutually supportive and easy, sexually, that the two of you just keep coming up with new things you want to try together. And so, you are sharing fantasies, and you're seeing things that trigger ideas or you’re just noticing something you did last time or a fantasy just comes up from within you that sounds really sexy. And so, it’s once you get to be the type of couple that wants to play together in the bedroom, wants to learn together, and knows that there’s an infinite amount of things you can learn together, that it never stops getting -- it’s funny.

9:02

When I first started doing my Expanded Orgasm practice (almost 20 years ago, now) -- Expanded Orgasm is one of those second kinds of orgasms, the technique that triggers a specific type of orgasm. I was doing it, and I was cumming so much that I was literally afraid that I was, I don't know, gonna not be able to work the next day. I was cumming for like an hour. I was seeing how long I could cum (like, for an hour at a time) and things like that.

I called my mentor, Dr. Patti Taylor, who taught my Expanded Orgasm practice and wrote expandherorgasmtonight.com which is our Expanded Orgasm practice for couples which, by the way, I don't know if you heard, but there’s a new documentary coming out about OneTaste, the orgasmic meditation sex cult, and the woman who started that cult, basically, what she taught was expanded orgasm. She just called it orgasmic meditation, but she comes from that same lineage that my expandherorgasmtonight program comes from.

10:03

Amanda Testa: Ooh, I can't wait to see that one.

Susan Bratton: It’s tomorrow night, and I can’t wait!

Amanda Testa: Ooh, okay! I love those.

Susan Bratton: They were under FBI investigation. Half my friends are like, “Oh, fuck. I hope I’m not in that video.” My friends are literally all sitting on pins and needles going, “Oh, man, if I’m in that…,” and I’m like I don't think that they would have you in the documentary. I literally rescued my best friend out of that sex cult. I literally went and got her out of that sex cult, so it’s so interesting how addictive great orgasms can be.

But when I was talking to my mentor, and I was doing this Expanded Orgasm practice with Tim, my husband, I called her one day, and I’m like, “I’m scared, Patti. I’m scared. I’m so far out in orgasmic outer space that I’m worried I’ll come untethered. I’m gonna get lost out there. I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff, and if I step off, I step off into nothingness,” and she’s like, “Yeah, step off. Go. You’ll be fine. Yeah, it might take you a little while to recover from it, but go.”

11:05

And she taught me that, in sex, there’s always something more, and I have been joking lately that if sex were a brand, sex’s tagline would be, “Sex, there’s always something more.” [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I love that! That’s so good.

Susan Bratton: Sex has a new tagline! [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Oh, yes. There is always something more.

Susan Bratton: So when couples are like, “I’m so bored. I don't have the energy for this,” you don't have the energy for it because it’s not satisfying to you, because you're not having fun, ‘cause it’s work, because, frankly, your husband is horny everyday because men have three distinct competitive advantages in sex.

Number one: they get a massive bath of testosterone a couple times a day that makes them horndogs.

Number two: they’re biologically wired to masturbate everyday or so to keep their sperm fresh so they can pass on their species, and so, they're always masturbating and playing with their dicks and thinking about sexy stuff. We’re not.

12:02

We’re moon cycle girls, and there’s nothing wrong if you do masturbate everyday. I want people to masturbate everyday, but generally, women don't masturbate as much as men.

Number three: he’s got the benefits of fast-acting hemodynamics. If you really study orgasm, what you understand is that a big, big part of it is blood flow, engorgement, the clit -- which, by the way, if you took the clit out of your body and put it in your hand, it would fill up your palm. Your clit is not the tip. It’s this giant piece of meat inside your vulva, and that’s only one of your three erectile tissues since you’ve got the perineal sponge, you’ve got the urethral sponge, and you’ve got the clitoral body (which is the arms, the legs, the clit, the shaft) we need to have a clitoral erection. Guys get an erection like boop and they're ready to go, and they want intercourse. We want -- and they like this too, they just need to understand what we need -- we need 20 or 30 minutes to get that thing that looks like a little piece of liver, right? It’s like a little body thing, that has to fill with blood, and their penis fills so fast, and they're already horny, and they're always turned on.

13:08

They're ready to go, and we’re just slower. So the matriarchal view of sex is slow the fuck down. Sex isn’t intercourse. Sex is full-body massage. yoni massage. (I’ve got to tell you about yoni massage.) Stroke my hair, kiss my lips, kiss my cheeks, kiss my eyelids, rub my belly, rub my feet, give me a yoni massage, go down on me, let’s play with some toys to get the blood flow going. And I’ll play with your dick and stroke your cock and suck your cock, and then we’ll have some intercourse, but that’s all sex.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Susan Bratton: Sex isn’t intercourse. Sex is connecting and cocreating body joy and intimacy together. And so, I just want to get out of that masculine, patriarchal view of sex and move us into the matriarchal way of making love because, ultimately, it’s more satisfying for men, too. It’s more satisfying for men when we’re satisfied, and it’s more fun to do all that stuff.

14:15

So I have no idea what your question was. Oh, yeah, so your question was how do you get excited to have sex, how do you keep it interesting, how do you have the energy for it?

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Susan Bratton: You start learning new things so you get better in bed together so you want to have sex as much as possible. Like, I’m constantly scheming about when I can have sex again. I’m always thinking, “Okay, there’s a window. Let’s have sex right then. Okay, there’s a window. We can have a daybreak then.” I’m always looking at the ways to incorporate more intimacy into my schedule because I have so many things I love to do and, in any given moment, I might want to learn something new or I might just want to do whatever my body feels like it wants in that very moment because I listen to my yoni and she tells me the mood she’s in, what kind of pressure, how much warmup she needs, does she want to be in charge, does she want to surrender. She is my GPS so I just tune into her and she’s talking to me all the time.

15:20

So, for couples, I‘ve put together this new thing called The Sex Life Bucket List. You mentioned it, that you thought that was a neat idea. What I’ve realized is that people like techniques but what they want are fun ideas of sexy things to do together. They want experiences. So I came up with 48 experiences, and I put them on a downloadable PDF at sexlifebucketlist.com. You download it, and if you are lucky enough to have a partner, even if you’re having shitty sex with them right now, [Laughs] you make yourself two copies, and you go through this and you rank each one of the 48 things. If it’s a A, for you, it’s definitely going on your bucket list. If it’s a B, it wouldn't be on your bucket list, but if your partner wanted to do it, you’d do it, and C, it’s not for me right now (never say never) because you mature, sexually.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

16:06

Susan Bratton: Then you compare your A lists, and there’s your fun things you want to learn together. “Oh, I would like to learn female ejaculation.” “I’d like to do G-spot awakening.” “I’d like to have a prostate orgasm.” “Oh, I want to try this cock ring.” “Oh, I want to dress up and do role play. I’ve always wanted to be a naughty nurse!” You know, whatever it is, “Let’s do mutual masturbation.” There’s 48 things that get you guys aligned, and if you're single, you can make your own bucket list. “Oh, I want to have that orgasm. Oh, I want to have that. Oh, I want to try a threesome. I’m gonna go find a couple,” whatever it might be.

So that has been so much fun because I love hearing what’s on the top of people’s bucket lists. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I love that so much ‘cause it’s so fun! I don't know. I personally really, obviously, believe in the power of great sex, and I love how you said body joy. I think that’s freaking epic because it’s so true.

17:00

I think when you find the pleasure of it and the freakin’ ecstasy that you can have, then it’s real motivating, right? And so, what I also know, sometimes -- and I would love for you to speak to this because I know we talk about this a lot, but it comes up a lot -- is say, for example, I have clients a lot of times or students that they’re very great and orgasmic on their own, but then when it comes to bringing the partner in, maybe they're not open or they're not willing. And so, that can be really frustrating. And so, I’m wondering maybe what ideas that you can have to take someone who seems very unwilling to kind of soften them to new ideas and to be more open.

Susan Bratton: How does the unwillingness express in your clients’ experience?

Amanda Testa: So, just literally they’re throwing the ideas, they're being creative, they're trying to invite them, and they just are not really making it a priority. Like, if they have to do it or if there’s an accountability, they’ll do it. But there’s not a lot of enthusiasm around it, and I personally believe it’s because, oftentimes, there’s a lot of shame that comes up for a lot of people around sex, and it can come up as fear of performance issues or fear of change.

18:07

All the things are just like I’m tired, and I don't really have the energy for that or whatever it is. Whatever silly thing might come up, but in the moment those things feel like big things.

Susan Bratton: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Everything’s all figure-out-able, but, yeah, what would you say to that?

Susan Bratton: It’s rejection. It’s rejection when you come up with an idea and your partner doesn't want to do it. Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and that rejection, over time, can really build resentment.

Susan Bratton: Oh, over time? Like, immediately! You want to piss off a yoni? I mean, men suffer from feeling rejected all the time for sex so it goes both ways.

Amanda Testa: That’s true. Exactly.

Susan Bratton: When women want to try new things, what kinds of things are they asking their partners to do?

Amanda Testa: I guess it varies. It varies.

Susan Bratton: What are some examples?

Amanda Testa: I would say most of the time it’s like, “Here are some things I want to try of new ways of --,” even like you say, “Here are some ideas. Is there anything you’d be interested in? If it’s a yes, let’s try it,” and then upon being presented the information they are just like, “Yeah, that sounds good,” but then there’s just never the action. The ideas are there, it’s good, but taking the step to actually do the thing is a lot of times where it comes up.

19:17

Susan Bratton: Yeah, okay, I think that’s mostly fear driven from lack of understanding. I would say that most of the time, when you’re asking for something, and you’re even asking for it over and over and it’s not happening, it’s because, generally -- I’m gonna make some gross, what’s the word I want?

Amanda Testa: Generalizations?

Susan Bratton: Yeah, I’m gonna make some generalizations because I think that the genders are different, and sex is a big bell curve, and most people are in the middle of it, and this is pretty typical. Your mileage may vary.

Let’s just say the construct is a woman wants to do something. Let’s say G-spot awakening.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, that’s a great idea.

Susan Bratton: Let’s say female ejaculation. Let’s say yoni massage. Let’s say she wants to try using a sex toy during intercourse. Those are probably good ones.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

20:11

Susan Bratton: I think those are very common ones based on what women are telling me for their Sex Life Bucket List. Those are kind of the ones that women are most interested in right now.

Okay, he wants to make you happy, but he has no friggin’ clue what a yoni massage is. He does not really know where the G-spot is. He watches porn. He watches squirting porn, but he thinks that that is just some magic thing that women do or it’s fake or whatever. He doesn't even know. He doesn't know how to touch you. He’s ham-handed. He’s not really sure how to approach it. With sex toys he’s like, “Oh, well I’m not good enough,” right? “Oh, you have to use a vibrator while I’m having sex with you? Well, what’s wrong with my dick?” You know? “So I’m already feeling like you're making me feel less than. Oh, you don't think what I’m doing is good?”

21:03

This is what happens with men because men are testosterone-dominant rather than estrogen-dominant, and it makes them overly confident in their skills, but what they're driven to do is to be respected and to know they're doing a good job.

So they already think they're better than they are. They think sex is better than you do. And they are triggered by the suggestion that they should do something because they feel like they’ve already got it all organized. You should be fine with it because, remember, penetration feels so good for them that they think, “Oh, well, you can’t cum, but this is sex. We’re having sex.” So it’s kind of like complacency, fear, ignorance, and this over-confidence, and that they feel disrespected if you're asking for something.

And so, this is all just how a dude operating system works, and this is why women hate to ask for what they want because they don't want to deal with his pouting and his all like [Whining Noises] and he gets all pissy, and they're like, “Oh, screw it. I’ll just suck it up and deal with it and use my vibrator later,” and then their sex life goes to hell, right? I mean, this is what happens.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

22:19

Susan Bratton: So, here’s what I found with dudes that works really well because, honestly, my fan-base (which is vast), they are 60% men, 40% women. I help dudes even more than I help women because I have just unlocked the dude mentality, and the reason why I like to work with men is because they're actually super simple, and I know mostly women listen to your show so I really feel like I can say stuff in a direct way where I don't have to worry so much about their ego because probably so many more women are listening.

I love men. I love men, and I understand them, and I adore them, and I know that they really would give up their pleasure for our pleasure. I really know they want to do a good job, but all that stuff, that testosterone-y bullshit just makes it so hard for them.

23:08

So, the best thing to do is the answer is give him a checklist. He doesn't know what to do! He’s not doing it, not ‘cause he doesn't want to, but because he doesn't know how. He literally doesn't know what you want. He has no understanding of what this is. It’s interesting because I recently started -- and I’m gonna give you more specifics on this, but I’m gonna give you an example. I recently started an OnlyFans. I wanted to tell you about it, Amanda, because I am so sick of not being able to express all of my gifts on social media.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I hear you.

Susan Bratton: I’m just, like, constantly worried about getting shut down. I can’t post anything interesting.

Amanda Testa: Right. I hear you. It’s PG.

Susan Bratton: Super PG! And so, okay, Meta doesn't want my content. I get that. (Meta being Instagram, Facebook.)

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes.

Susan Bratton: So I started an OnlyFans. I’ll tell you something.

24:00

My creative freedom, it has just blossomed my thinking to be able to write whatever I want. There are a couple keywords you can't write, like you can't write blood. I write about blood all the time - blood flow. I’m constantly writing about blood flow, and I was like, “You can’t write blood?” [Laughs] It’s so funny, but I recently did a post on OnlyFans where I took a picture of my vulva spread open -- not the inner labia open, but just my legs spread. My partner took a picture, and then I put arrow to this, arrow to this, arrow to this. I said, “Here’s all the parts,” and then the post was, “Here’s how to touch each part. This is the kind of touch that this particular tissue likes,” and then overarching instructions for guys which are simple things like, “You have to rub all the oil all over all of your hands. You have to use the organic oil liberally. You have to put her on a towel. You have to stroke across the mons, but not the skin underneath the skin you're touching the tissue.

25:09

You're manipulating the tissue. The labia like to be kneaded. They're these little plumpy bags that puff up. The inner labia like long, soft up and down strokes. When you go inside the channel between the inner and outer labia, put pressure in there and feel the clitoral shaft up inside there. What you want to do is you want to get blood to the shaft and stroke it like it’s gonna be a mini penis. You actually can kind of jerk off the little penis. You want to stroke over the hood, not just go right to the clit. You’ve got to start from the outside and work your way in. You don’t want to stick your fingers in until she invites you.” Like, a million little tips.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

26:00

Susan Bratton: When I posted a little thing on Instagram, I put that picture all blurred out with an orchid over the vulva, and then question marks all around the orchid. So I posted that and I said, “Hey! If you want my yoni massage techniques, you have to go to my OnlyFans site. DM me for the link,” because I can’t post the link on Instagram or they’ll shut my account down. So, “DM me for the link.” I’m still worried I’ll get shut down over that.

So I literally had to have my husband go get a technology called ManyChat, I think it’s called, which I had to hookup to my Instagram, and now when people put, “Link for yoni massage.” “Give me the link for yoni massage.” “Yoni massage.” “Link for massage,” it fires off the link because I was spending hours a day sending the link. My hands are sore from sending the link out about yoni massage.

26:54

So, guys just don't know what to do. They need to be told what to do, and then you're like, “But, wait. If I tell him what to do, he’s gonna get all janked out.” He isn’t if you take him through the scenario verbally and you describe what to do and say, “Here’s where I thought we could start. I’d love you to give me a yoni massage,” or, “I’d love you to find and awaken my G-spot, and this is what I’ve heard is the strategy. So I was thinking we can have an erotic playdate.” That’s what I call them. I call them erotic playdates. It’s one of the six essentials for connected sex is having erotic playdates where you're not having sex, you're learning something new together, and you call it a playdate - an erotic playdate. It reframes the whole thing into a learning experience where he’s not gonna feel like he has to know all the answers, and you are, then, verbally giving him feedback.

The other things guys write to me all the time is -- one guy wrote to me, “I would love to give my wife a yoni massage but she is literally totally silent during sex. I won't get any feedback. I don't know if I could even do it. I could try it but how do I get her to give me feedback?”

28:00

So I answered that on my OnlyFans: here’s how to give feedback. By the way, my OnlyFans is onlyfans.com/susanbratton, my name. So if you want to go there and get the yoni massage and what to do to get people to talk and all this stuff that I’m finally getting to write, it’s there.

But I think what guys really want is step-by-step instructions and checklists. They want a framework within which they can do and experience trial and error, and they need a lot of positive feedback. “Yes, babe. That feels good. Okay, go a little higher. More deep. Softer. Not the top of the skin. Do underneath, the tissue under. Okay, you're going against my pubic hair. Go like a kitty, from the top down. Yeah, that feels good. Oh, babe, that’s so great. Keep doing that until I say stop. I’m just gonna totally go dead right now and relax and take that in and ride that exquisite sensation. Okay, go.” Right? [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I love it.

Susan Bratton: So I think that’s really the answer is make a playdate, tell him what to do, give him tons of feedback, and tell him what you really want ‘cause they do not know what you need.

29:06

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think the simpler -- and I love the checklist idea. I actually do that for a lot of things, and it works really well. I have a folder that I put all kinds of things I want in, and it’s on my husband’s desk so if there’s anything coming up or if he just wants to be sweet, I’m like, “Here’s a bunch of ideas of things I want so if you're thinking, here’s what I’d really love,” and I just tell him exactly what it is because how do you get exactly what you want? Ask for exactly what you want, right?

Susan Bratton: Yeah, people love when you ask for exactly what you want because then they know that you’re happy, that they're making you happy. So many of us come from experiences where we didn't feel safe to ask for what we wanted and our boundaries are constantly getting trampled on because we’re afraid you won't love us if we tell you what we need, and we’ve got to get over that. I’ll tell you, being 60, I just say the things, and people love it.

Amanda Testa: Right.

30:02

Susan Bratton: They're like, “Oh, okay! Thanks! Great, I can do that!” I’m like, “You know what I really want from you? Can I tell you what I really want?” They're like, “Yeah!” [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Yes, I love that. Speaking of which, because that’s the beauty -- I don't know, at least in my experience. I feel like the older I get, the less fucks I give which I really love.

Susan Bratton: Yes, exactly.

Amanda Testa: I’m like, man, if it could have been like this years ago that would have been amazing.

Susan Bratton: I know.

Amanda Testa: But that’s okay. I am now, and it’s so fun! One of the things I know that you're really passionate about is the vaginal rejuvenation. I think we’ve touched on this a little bit, but I would love to talk more about that because, yes, I know you know so much about it, and you've tried all the things. So what would you distill as your favorite tips around that?

Susan Bratton: Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward at this point. There’s finally been some new inventions that were what we women needed. We went through some stone-age bullshit with vaginal rejuvenation that was painful and damaging, and I was like, “Oh, my god! This is horrible!” And now, I am here to tell you there’s a couple of things I totally love that make a huge difference. These are the needle-movers, and they're super easy.

31:06

Number one: everybody’s vagina and vulva is atrophying, and here’s where you're going. You're going to thinning tissue, vaginalaxity, loss of lubrication, diminished orgasmic intensity, even struggling to orgasm, incontinence. Oh, I hate that. I hate pissing in my pants. The minute it starts up again, I'm like I’ve got to nip that shit in the bud. Basically, what’s happening is -- is there anything I missed? Painful sex (it hurts to be penetrated or even to be touched), and more urinary tract infections, more vaginal dysbiosis of the microbiome of the vagina, and saggy labia. This one really pisses me off.

As a matter of fact, somebody recently told me that Joan Rivers did a joke about it. I frickin’ love that Joan Rivers. She was a female comedian that was popular in probably the ‘80s and ‘90s.

32:05

And when she was getting older -- and she would make a lot of jokes about herself -- and she said that when she looked down at her crotch she was like, “Holy shit, there’s bunny slippers down there. It looked like this saggy --,” because your outer labia, they start to sag and they start to look like balls! That’s just the worst, man. I mean, aging is shitty, right? But when your vagina’s getting thin and then it’s getting more open, his penis is atrophying and getting smaller and shrinking, and you can’t get a grip on that thing. “Is it in yet?” You’ve got to fix that stuff, and you do have to nip it in the bud because you are going to age, and you’re aging constantly.

So you're basically just trying to hold back against the aging. You can reverse, you can regenerate your tissue. You can reverse incontinence. You can plump those labia up (I’m gonna tell you how to do it). You can get rid of vaginal pain. You can fix your microbiome. You can increase your orgasmic intensity.

33:09

You can reverse every single thing that is happening but you have to keep working on it because it’s just like wrinkles. You start to everything wrinkles and you're like, “Oh, god, I’ve got to get a better face cream.” Then, you're like, “Oh, god, now I’ve gotta get some lasering done.” “Oh, god, now I’ve gotta get a facelift.” You do have to stay on stuff if that’s what you care about.

For me, I care about those things. I want to stay super young and super sexy for my age and for how I look. That’s what I want to do. So, there’s this very short list of things that I currently love that work great and they work together. They're a synergistic stack of modalities. Here they are:

33:54

Number one is take a nitric oxide supplement. You know I have a sexual vitality supplement company. I think I’ve sent these to you, and if you ever need more, just let me know. This is called Flow, and it is a nitric-oxide booster made from organic fruit and vegetables, and it’s citrulline based which is better for women over 40 -- men and women. What this does is it keeps the blood flow going to your pelvis so the muscles, the tissues are continuing to get the healing effects of your blood and the engorgement that you need to get your clitoral erection so you feel pleasure 'cause the bigger and more plump everything is, the more signals go to the brain (which is the primary sex organ). That’s what Laurie Mintz was just talking about recently, right? Sex organ is the brain. The more plump everything is, the more engorged, the more foreplay you have -- and I don't think foreplay’s even a word. I think that’s all sex for us. We want stroking, rubbing, touching, licking before we have intercourse.

35:00

When we get that and we get all plumped up, we have many more signals of pleasure to the brain. This also helps with lubrication because the vagina is not a gland, it’s a muscle (a strong muscle if you keep it in good tone), and it can’t wet itself. It needs blood plasma coming to the pelvic bowl, and then the plasma seeps the fluid down through the layers of the vaginal mucosal lining, and that’s what lubricates us.

So if we’re not taken up our arousal ladder in the speed that we need, and we can’t get the blood flow to our genitals, we can't get the lubrication that we need and we can't get the orgasmic pleasure that we need, and by the time we’re 50, we have half the nitric oxide production we had when we were 20. So when woman say, “Oh, it’s my hormones,” I’m like, “You know, maybe not because that’s just really estrogen. You actually have a higher ratio of testosterone to estrogen after menopause. You should actually be hornier. It’s probably really, in large part, the fact that you're not getting the blood flow to your pelvis.”

36:04

So, Flow -- the link for that -- the cheapest way you can buy it (which I always use on a podcast is buyflownow). That’s my special podcast rate. So I really like nitric acid. That’s, like, the foundation.

The second thing -- and there’s only four things, and one of them is an elective cherry-on-top kind of thing. The second thing is something called the vFit Gold which is an intravaginal device that uses vibration, warmth, and redlight therapy. It helps stimulate mitochondrial growth in the vagina. It helps tighten and tone the vagina. It helps reverse incontinence. It improves lubrication. I like to use it the day I’m gonna have intercourse with my husband because it gets everything up inside engorged because so much of our clitoral tissue and urethral and perineal tissue is up inside. It’s buried, and so, it’s really hard to get from the outside.

36:59

So the vFit Gold (and I have a special for that, too, because I am constantly telling people about it, so they made me a package with a whole bunch of bonus gifts in it) is at joylux.com/susan. I use it pretty much every morning. I put it into my vagina (it’s a ten-minute thing) while I’m scrolling Instagram and answering all the yoni massage -- giving everyone their yoni massage links.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Susan Bratton: [Laughs] Drinking my latte. I’ve got my redlight hat on to grow my hair from COVID 'cause I lost so much from COVID, and I wear two redlight sleeves around my arms where my biceps are because when I lost 30 pounds from working out everyday I got super creepy skin on my arms above my elbows, and I’m tightening it up with redlight. So I love redlight.

Amanda Testa: I’m gonna check that out. I love the redlight too. I have one of those little ones that you put on your face, right? I put it on my neck, and I put it on my vulva, but I would like the internal on that.

Susan Bratton: Right up inside.

Amanda Testa: Love it!

Susan Bratton: The vFit Gold.

Amanda Testa: Okay.

38:02

Susan Bratton: Then, the next thing is, okay, so now you're doing inside the vagina. That’s good, but you've got incontinence, tissue atrophy, [Laughs] saggy labia, your clit’s not getting as hard as it used to, you're losing all this tissue, so I like FemiWave. FemiWave is like GAINSWave for men. It’s an acoustic wave technology. You go to a place, and they run this little wand on the outside of your body. They put it on your mons, they put it on your labia, and they put it on your perineum, and they put it over your clitoral structure. It sends these waves into the tissue that stimulates new tissue growth and brings healing and growth factors to the whole vulva and all the erectile tissue inside there, including helping with the urethral canal, the bladder, the incontinence, etcetera. It stimulates lubrication, it stimulates pleasure, your orgasms get better, it tightens and tones everything.

39:03

It’s like the two things work perfectly together. The vFit for inside and then the FemiWave on the outside, all around the tissue, not too deep in. I love that because what I used to have to tell women to do was go burn their vaginas with a CO2 laser or an RF device and have pain and weeping just to get the tone and all the stuff, and it didn't do anything for the clitoral structure. It didn't do anything for the outer labia. Now, I’m like do not even do that stuff unless you’re chronic and you’ve tried everything else first.

So I love the vFit, I love the FemiWave, and then the last thing which is the cherry on top is the O-Shot or Orgasm Shot which is the PRP. It comes from your own blood. They take your blood. They put it into a centrifuge. They pull off the white and red blood cells. They take the fibrin-rich matrix of healing and growth factors and stem cells from your own body, and they inject it right into that spongy tissue of the clitoris and the G-spot, and that stimulates even more new tissue growth, reversing more atrophy, increasing more orgasmic pleasure, supporting all that musculature basket that’s keeping you from having prolapsed organs and incontinence and all that stuff.

40:20

So if you can afford that, that’s usually about $1,500. If you can afford that, I mean, the vFit is cheap, and the FemiWave is super effective, but if you’ve got the extra cash -- ‘cause I always like to do budget, medium, and luxury. And so, the O-Shot, just adding that on top, it is the cherry on top of everything else. I wouldn't do an O-Shot before I did the FemiWave. I wouldn't do the FemiWave before I tried the vFit. Unless you don't have any intervaginal problems but you just want to plump everything up, get more sensation, etcetera, then I would start with the FemiWave if you don't have any vaginal laxity or loss of lubrication in that way.

41:05

So, those are the four things that are easy, work, keep atrophy at bay, and give you that velvety vulva.

Amanda Testa: Mm, I love it. [Laughs]

Susan Bratton: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: The other thing -- and I know we’re coming up on our time -- but I just want to mention it because I know the relative to the FemiWave is the GAINSWave for erectile dysfunction. Will you speak to that too? Because I know, oftentimes, people are like, “Tell me some resources for erectile dysfunction.” So if you could share just a brief little bit about that too.

Susan Bratton: Yeah, as you're aging, your male-bodied partner is aging. His penis is getting less firm. It’s not as veiny as it used to be. It’s not as solid as it used to be. It doesn't stay hard as long as it used to. He’s got a longer refractory period. He might even have trouble maintaining an erection. It’s just not as good as it used to be - shrinking, etcetera. And so, what GAINSWave does, and what I recommend is, take nitric oxide. Take the Flow for him too. Every night is best.

42:05

Take it during the day if that’s when you take your supplements, and then take it 20 minutes before sex because, for a lot of men, they're taking Viagra to get their hard-on when, really, they're just low in nitric oxide, and they're taking 60 milligrams of Viagra. They're getting headaches, stuffy noses, flushing, migraines later in the next day. Even some guys are having vision issues, and they’re still taking these giant doses of Viagra because sex is so important to them when, literally, they could just be topping up their nitric oxide and maybe even drop down to a microdose of Viagra if they even need it.

So, the blood flow is number one. Number two is using a vacuum erection device which is a penis pump, and if you normalize that for your guy, and you're’ like, “Hey, I’ll use my vFit while you use your penis pump,” it’s going to increase the blood-carrying capacity of his penis, revascularize it, stimulate new tissue growth. It’s like $200. It costs nothing, and it feels good for him, he gets to play with his dick (which he loves), and he gets a much firmer erection, and it reverses atrophy.

43:08

Add to that the GAINSWave device or treatments (which you go to a treatment center and get), six GAINSWave sessions will reverse his atrophy and restore function (dial back the clock by decades for him). He’ll be so happy, and for some men who have atherosclerosis, diabetes, they’ve been very ill for a long time, you might have to do a couple rounds of that to really restore function, but it is amazing what GAINSWave does for the penis, and the pumping and the penis together, you want to stack ‘em. They're synergistic and they help each other work even better, and then you can do a P-Shot (or a Priapus shot) which is the PRP into the penis, and it doesn’t hurt. They numb it, and that just accelerates everything. It’s just like a turbo charger for all that healing and growth of new tissue.

44:03

So, really, what you're doing, it’s called sexual regenerative therapies, and you're reversing the atrophy of aging by stimulating new tissue growth using these synergistic modalities.

Amanda Testa: I appreciate that information ‘cause if people want that, it’s something hard to find where to go and what to do. So I love how you just make it simple. Also, how do people find that kind of treatment if they're looking?

Susan Bratton: Yeah, you just go to GAINSWave.com, you go to FemiWave.com, then you can also google P-Shot Directory, O-Shot Directory, and you’ll find it. What I would do is I would go to a practitioner in your area who does both things. Don’t go to one person for a P-Shot and one person for the GAINSWave. Go to the GAINSWave doctor that’s doing P-Shots and have it all done at one time because then they’re monitoring your progress, and they're looking at how you're doing with the synergistic treatments. Also, don't forget to get your guy’s testosterone checked. It’s very, very important to keep his testosterone high. You can do a lot with generating more endogenous testosterone, but you can also do testosterone replacement therapy.

45:09

I take testosterone, and I love it. I don't take it. I put it on my clitoral structure. I rub it on my labia and my clitoral structure every morning along with the estrogens in my estrogen cream. So, that also really keeps the vulva very young and nice and much more sensitive for orgasm, responsive to orgasm and touch, and it also gives us balls as women. It gives us confidence. We don’t turn into scaredy little old ladies when we do our testosterone replacement. So, if you’re interested in bioidentical hormone replacement, it’s very good to balance the estrogens (estriol and estradiol) with some testosterone and progesterone. And getting good blood tests is very good.

The place that I recommend people go to get the right tests and get the information they need translated to them in a simple way is at marekhealth.com/susan.

46:09

This link has the two tests and a special discount for people because I’ve sent them there ‘cause so many people are like, “What test do I get? How do I know how to read it?” So I set up a relationship with Marek because they’ll help you get the test, and then they’ll translate it for you and give you your options for hormone replacement because most people are just struggling with their regular healthcare, but it’s so important to have good hormonal profile that this is the gift you give yourself above and beyond what you’re already paying for healthcare.

The last thing I would give up in the world would be my hormones. It’s like literally the last thing. You can take my wigs. You can take my friggin’ makeup. You can take all my yoga pants, but you cannot have my bioidentical hormone replacement. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I love it.

Susan Bratton: You could even take my vibrators, if you want to! That’d be my second-to-last thing. [Laughs]

47:00

Amanda Testa: Oh, my goodness, I love it. I so appreciate you, and I just love you to death, Susan. Thank you so much. You are such a kind human. I just have to share when you were talking about the penis pump, this just reminded me that my very first interview out of college when I was 22 was for Osbon Medical selling penis pumps. I didn't get the job, but that was my very first interview!

Susan Bratton: Yay!

Amanda Testa: Too bad, but it all worked out in the end. I still am [Laughs] where I’m meant to be, but it just makes me laugh.

Susan Bratton: You are. You are so where you're meant to be, and thank you so much for asking me such great questions. I love being with you. I miss you so much. This pandemic has been the shits, and I can’t wait ‘til I can hug you in person.

Amanda Testa: I know, me too. Well, thank you so much again, and I’ll make sure to put all of this juicy info in the show notes but, also, this is a great episode to bookmark, share with your friends, listen back to. And, please, shoot us a DM. Susan, share a little about where people can connect with you so they can connect and if they have more questions or want the yoni massage link!

Susan Bratton: Yeah! [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: What’s the best way to connect with you?

48:02

Susan Bratton: You can slide into my DMs @susanbratton on Instagram. On OnlyFans, I’m onlyfans.com/susanbratton. My main website is personallifemedia.com. If you want all those intercourse techniques you can just look up Makin’ Whoopee. You can find all of my videos, including my yoni massage videos and how to have penetration orgasms from intercourse, on betterlover.com. Gosh, you can always email me back if you're on my email newsletter. I answer all my emails.

Amanda Testa: Yes, you're such an amazing human. I just keep saying that ‘cause it’s so true, and I just remember the first time we met. You're just -- ah! I just appreciate you so much, so thank you for being you and for all this amazing work that you're doing in the world. I’ll be in touch with you soon! Hopefully we can be together in person. Yay! Thank you so much again for being here, and thank you all for listening, and we will see you next week!

[Fun, Empowering Music]

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation.

49:07

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Learn more about Dr. Catherine Roach via her website HERE.

Catherine M. Roach is Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies in New College.   She has over twenty-five years of research and teaching experience on gender and sexuality studies in American popular culture. A two-time Fulbright Award winner, she has held visiting fellowships and delivered invited lectures at universities in Australia, Canada, Scotland, England, and Greece.

She is the author of Mother/Nature: Popular Culture and Environmental Ethics (Indiana Univ. Press, 2003) and Stripping, Sex, and Popular Culture (Berg, 2007).  Her academic book Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture (Indiana Univ. Press, 2016) won Silver Medal in the 2017 Independent Publisher Book Awards and earned mention in the New York Times Book Review.  As part of that book’s study of the “Find Your One True Love” narrative, Roach undertook a companion project of writing two historical romance novels as Catherine LaRoche (Simon & Schuster, 2012, 2014).

Her newest book is a general-audience book of public scholarship, Good Sex: Transforming America through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution (Indiana University Press, 2022).  Read the companion essay, “Making Good Sex: The Story of the Book.”

Her current collaborative research involves gender and sexuality studies and art history about the famous 19th-century American statue The Greek Slave (original version at Raby Castle, UK, and two later versions at the University of Alabama).  The project tells a gripping tale about today’s most pressing issues of bilateral social justice: the US and UK’s ongoing reckoning with racial and sexual justice movements.  It’s a lost story of transatlantic art and slavery that ties the two countries together from the 19th century to the present day.

At the University of Alabama, she has won the school’s top research and teaching awards: the Burnum Distinguished Faculty Award (2016) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC) UA Faculty Achievement Award (2021), including UA nomination as SEC Professor of the Year.  She is a Fellow in the Collaborative Arts Research Initiative, working to bring research alive through the arts for a broad public audience.  Every semester, she teaches the popular cross-university course “Sexuality and Society” that addresses cultural change in America and campus sexual wellbeing.

She enjoys hiking, paddling, cooking, and spending time with family and friends— especially summers escaping the sultry Alabama heat back in her native Canada.

• • Purchase Good Sex on Indiana University Press: https://iupress.org/9780253064691/good-sex/

  • Jamie McCartney - The Great Wall of Vagina: https://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/

    Sophia Wallace’s Work - The Cliteracy Project: https://www.sophiawallace.art/cliteracy-100-natura
    

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If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

EPISODE 235: with Catherine Roach

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. We are going to be diving into Good Sex, the new gender and sexual revolution, and the Manisexto (if you will) that will help start the standards for ethical and pleasurable sex in 2022. I am super thrilled today because I am going to be talking with legendary Catherine M. Roach. She’s a professor of gender and cultural studies at New College - The University of Alabama, and she has over 25 years of research and teaching experience on gender and sexual studies and popular culture. She’s a two-time Fulbright award winner with lots of amazing accolades. So I feel very grateful to have you here, and I’m really excited to dive into this topic. So, welcome. Thank you so much.

1:03

Catherine Roach: Well, thank you, Amanda. That’s a very [Laughs] grand introduction, thank you. I never think of myself as legendary, but I’m delighted to be here chatting with you.

Amanda Testa: Yes, well, I think we often don’t always celebrate ourselves enough so I’m gonna celebrate you and all your accomplishments. And, also, we’re gonna be talking, too, about your new book. It’s called Good Sex: Transforming America Through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution, and I really love the structure of how you outlined everything here in the book. We’re gonna get into that in a minute.

But before we do, I’d love if you wouldn't mind just sharing a little bit more about why you’re so passionate about this topic. What led you to write this book?

Catherine Roach: Yes! Thank you. That’s actually one of my favorite questions about this book 'cause it very much came from my students. So I’m a professor at The University of Alabama, and I teach Gender, Sexuality, and Pop Culture topics here. I published several other books, but this one, more than anything else I’ve written, comes really from the students.

2:01

It was driven by a sense of student need here on campus, and I don't think our campus -- I’m in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, it’s this college town -- I don't think it’s particularly different from other places around the country in this regard. We’re a large public state university. We have what’s called a core curriculum where students have to take a little bit of social science, a little bit of humanities, a little bit of natural science.

So, this course I developed about seven years ago as one of the social science courses in the core in order to reach a broad mix of students from all across the campus. And this was because, in my smaller seminars that I had been teaching for 20 years on these topics of gender and sexuality and popular culture, I was hearing from students this need for a bigger, curricular, safe space where they could think and learn and engage academically with issues about positive sexuality, things like consent, hook-up culture on campus, and the #MeToo movement that was sort of exploding at the time, and the growing openness for gender and sexual diversity in the country but that still came with a lot of backlash and risks.

3:17

There are places where you can sort of talk about that on college campuses, like frat parties and bars, but to talk about it academically in a safe space where they can learn and think and write and reflect and hear from guest lectures, that didn’t really exist in a way it seemed that it needed to.

So I created this bigger lecture course. We have 75 students, usually, every semester, and I’ve been teaching the course every single semester for seven years now except last year when I was on a sabbatical and somebody else took it over for me, and so much great material started emerging from the class. The students write weekly response papers, and I saw that if you create a safe space and give them an opportunity to think and write and reflect, amazing material came out.

4:04

And so, this research project grew directly out of the course. I wanted to take this material that we’d been talking about, workshopping together in this larger lecture course, and turn it into a book.

So the book very much emerges from the class, and it’s just chock full of responses from the students and, obviously, anonymous. I asked students if they wanted to participate in this research project once the book started getting going, and those students who did consent, I gathered responses from them confidentially (respecting student privacy) and included those in the book. So I feel it’s very much a collaborative effort in that sense, and it very much reflects the students’ engagement with these issues about gender and sexual diversity and positive sexuality. So it’s sort of a snapshot of young people around the country today who are here on campus in the class. So I’m very grateful to the students. They made this book possible.

5:06

Amanda Testa: I think that’s so powerful, and I think, too, that’s the beautiful thing about being in an academic environment (a college campus). I feel like it is such a -- there’s people from everywhere, and so, no matter, kind of, what the regional area is, the college campus is usually kind of a little breath of diversity, of forward-thinking, and I think this is so important to talk about.

First, let us dive in a little bit more to around when you talk about the new gender and sexual revolution, can you talk a little bit more about that tipping point, that shift that you are speaking to?

Catherine Roach: Mm-hmm, yeah. Well, by using this term new sexual and gender revelation, I’m trying to take a positive view, engage in an optimistic, positive sense of where the culture is going. There’s evidence to indicate that we’re at a tipping point or a turning point, a shift in the culture exemplified by some very fundamental changes in the last decade in America.

6:05

Things like same-sex marriage becoming legal across the country since 2015. The #MeToo movement exploding, making a hard line against sexual assault, creating a conversation about the bedrock importance of consent, and also making it less shameful to talk about issues of sexual assault and it’s less of a taboo topic than before.

The body positivity movement, body acceptance is becoming really important. Seeing a lot in social media, a lot of companies have come to embrace it within the last decade. Then, also, issues like transgender becoming much more mainstream; gender nonbinary, gender diversity becoming much more mainstream and visible than before. So all of these changes in the culture can be seen as part of a fundamental shift toward more equity, inclusion, acceptance of diversity around gender and sexual diversity.

7:03

It’s not to say that there’s any sort of paradise here for gender equity and inclusion or positive sexuality. There’s also an often virulent backlash provoked by this sense of change and greater openness. But, nevertheless, it seems to be here and particularly among younger people, the Gen-Z, the college-aged demographic of young adults 18 to 23. That’s what really gives me hope, what I think is the grounds for optimism about change in this direction of greater openness and equity.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think that’s so powerful to have that hope, especially in the greater scheme of the political climate right now and overturning of Roe v. Wade and just all the things on the docket they want to get passed around like limiting contraceptive accessibility and just all the things. Sometimes it can be easy to get really frustrated because when you talk about pleasure and equality and bringing in all of the juicy aspects of it, there’s also the complex side effects and all the parts.

8:06

And so, they're all very important, and I think what is beautiful is that all of these ways of expressing, there are names for them, there are ways that it’s more talked about, less shame which is so key and important. Also, just a lot of the keys that you talk about in your book are just in general good things to think about, right? [Laughs]

Catherine Roach: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Like when you want to have better sex, these are just important for any person no matter what.

Catherine Roach: Yeah, I think that because, as I was saying earlier, so much of the book is driven by the students, I found that the students respond to (that flipping the script is one way to think about it) focusing on positive aspects and more optimistic developments in the culture like on the question of the #MeToo movement or sexual assault, nobody wants to spend an hour and a half class period talking about rape, for example. It’s depressing. It’s scary. It can be retraumatizing for students who’ve experienced sexual assault which is a big demographic. It can be demonizing towards sexuality.

9:09

So I find if one flips the script and asks instead, “What does positive sexuality look like? What are the Hallmarks of a healthy, pleasurable, sexual experience? What do we need to get there? What does it look like? What needs to change in society as a whole to enable and support healthy, intimate relationship,” students respond much more enthusiastically to those sort of questions. They engage more. It feels like a powerful forward-moving beneficial conversion.

So I try to flip the script in those ways in the classroom and then in the book without being overly naive or simplistically optimistic, that would, I guess, be the risk or the downside.

Amanda Testa: Right, right.

Catherine Roach: But to focus on the positive.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I’m wondering if you would feel open just talking about what some of those Hallmarks are. I like how you refer to it as the Manisexto manifesto, if you will.

10:07

Catherine Roach: [Laughs] Yes!

Amanda Testa: Can you share some more about that?

Catherine Roach: I got that from my husband, actually. I was muttering at home about this. “I want to write a new book. I want to write a book. It’s some sort of manifesto about sexuality,” and he said, “You mean a Manisexto?” He’s very good with puns and word play. They sort of fall like acorns from a tree, I’d say. So he came up with this word play of the Manisexto - a manifesto about sexuality. So that’s another way that I describe in the book this sense of a new gender and sexual revolution or this turning point, this tipping point in the culture. You can think about it as a Manisexto, a manifesto about positive sexualities that are working its way through the culture.

So, yeah, I talk about that there’s five central commitments I see to it. A commitment to positive sexuality. That sexuality is a normal, healthy, pleasurable aspect of being human. That people have the right to their sexual choices as long as those choices are consensual and hold people’s best interests, and so, positive sexuality.

11:14

A commitment to equity and inclusion or to normalizing diversity. That sexual and gender identities take many forms and because diversity is the norm, equity and inclusion need to be central values for any strong, democratic society.

The third commitment would be to body positivity or body acceptance. It’s termed sometimes body neutrality ‘cause there are different ways that that works out. But no more shaming or bullying for not having the perfect body. We’re opening up this definition that society’s had of what constitutes the good body, the sexy body, the beautiful body, to thinking much more broadly. It’s another way of thinking about diversity, actually, about the diversity of bodies, themselves, and minimizing shaming around that.

12:00

The fourth commitment of the Manisexto is to consent. Full consent is fundamental for all sexual activity, and meaningful consent arises out of egalitarian gender norms based in new and broader scripts about masculinity and femininity. so that’s part of this Manisexto also, so decreasing slut shaming, double standards, tight man-box rules that are boy shaming also.

Then, the fifth commitment of the Manisexto, as I’m envisioning it, is to share pleasure. That good sex is mutually respectful and pleasurable. So I talk about ideas of closing the heterosexual orgasm gap, especially in the campus culture hook-up culture. It’s time to learn about cliteracy as a notion of literacy about the clitoris which is not my own. I didn't coin that. Porn literacy is part of that also. So this essential commitment to equitable pleasure for all partners involved.

13:05

The title of the book Good Sex is meant to be a play there on good as in ethical, moral, and consensual, respectful, but good also as in pleasurable, equitably satisfying of desire, not necessarily orgasm-centric only ‘cause pleasure is broader than just that. Although, there’s nothing wrong with orgasm. But good as in whatever good means to you in body pleasure.

So that’s the Manisexto.

Amanda Testa: I am just in love with all of those tenants! I think this is so beautiful. It’s interesting, too, ‘cause one of the things that you mention around the porn literacy, too. I’m sure with college-aged kids things are way different, especially with just access for younger and younger kids.

I actually am curious about this ‘cause one of my clients recently was asking me around, you know, for younger kids, when they have all this exposure to non-realistic things happening, kind of trying to educate them but then also what other options can they have that can support them to be more positive in the way they view? So I’m wondering how you might speak to that if you feel you can answer that.

14:12

Catherine Roach: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s a great question. And actually the conclusion that my book works towards is comprehensive sex education.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Catherine Roach: So I think that’s a big part of the answer there in terms of this question about pornography. Porn is hugely accessible. Much more so than when I was a young gal. It has to do with the internet, right? The explosion of the internet and access to the internet, the web at a young age. I’m not entirely against pornography. I think there’s a role pornography plays. There’s queer porn. There’s feminist porn. There’s ethical porn, slow porn, artistic porn. But the one thing porn is not designed or meant to do is to function as comprehensive sex ed. It’s like a fantasy factory, and, in its more negative forms, porn is often -- there’s violence, there’s demeaning aspects to women, to sexual minorities.

15:11

But even when that’s not there, its primary function is not comprehensive sex ed, and our culture as a whole often doesn't have great sex ed. I hear this from the students all the time, no matter where they're from --

Amanda Testa: Oh, my gosh. Yes.

Catherine Roach: -- in the US or outside the country. They’ve had hugely-varying experiences of sex ed from incredibly bad, damaging, or absent sex ed to, if they're lucky, pretty good comprehensive sex ed. But in the default of high quality, consistent sexuality and relationship education accessible to everyone, a lot of young people turn to porn to figure out what is sex or what am I supposed to be doing in bed or what does it mean to be a good lover. And so, we get these sexual scripts rom pornography (like, we get a lot of gender scripts from the culture as a whole), and then that’s what young people have.

16:03

They often talk, also, about how their parents are too embarrassed to talk with them in an open or ongoing way about sexuality. And so, they're sort of left to muddle through, figure it out on their own, and porn is often what they turn to as a default, even knowing this isn’t enough.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Catherine Roach: This isn’t supposed to be a realistic depiction of healthy, satisfying relationships, but that’s what they’ve got.

Amanda Testa: Right. It’s hard because there’s such -- I’ve had friends that have wanted to kind of create an online type of educational platform for kids (older kids, right?) but there’s a lot of red tape involved, let’s just say.

Catherine Roach: Yes, yes.

Amanda Testa: So I think the best thing to do is, like, yeah, if we’re parents, I’m always like good for reaching out. That’s the number one thing you can do. What is it in your own experience that you would have loved to see differently and what is it that you still hold a lot around that might need some extra exploring and curiosity so that you can be more open to whatever might cross your path with your kids, right?

17:07

Catherine Roach: Right. Yeah, so openness and communication. Maintaining open lines of communication is super important. In many realms of life, communication is the answer.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I like that you talk about this, too, because it is so important, and I know I talk about this a lot on the podcast, but it always comes up. It’s, like, wanting to have these conversations around having better sex or bringing up these conversations around, like, what consent looks like or how can we do this and how can we talk about supporting my pleasure and not have it be divisive or all the things around that, right? [Laughs]

Catherine Roach: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Amanda Testa: So, what would you share around that?

Catherine Roach: Around the question of consent in particular?

Amanda Testa: Or just about having those discussions without getting people upset. How might you suggest that? I always like to get different people’s perspectives on this question.

18:03

Catherine Roach: So it depends. So there’s the conversion of parents and kids in the home conversation. In the realm that I work in is the classroom with students and myself and then the guest speakers that I bring in, so there’s an element of verticality there, power difference. But then there’s the peer-to-peer conversations. And then in intimate relationships themselves (romantic or sexual relationships themselves). I think, in all cases, emphasis on open communication is super important. It needs to be ongoing. A sense of respect for the other and acknowledgement that we come from different backgrounds, different sets of values or fundamental commitments, it can be different religious backgrounds, socioeconomic, racial; differences of ability, disability. Ideally, difference is fun and engaging and stimulating and interesting, but it can also be a source of anxiety and concern or just, sort of, mystification.

19:11

It can create barriers. So working through all of those differences with an open mind and a sense of the other partner in the conversion, their best interests. So respect, openness, diversity, commitment to the good. There’s something about the long term I think is important. There’s the immediate goals but then the longer-term vision of a relationship, where you want that to grow into. I think that’s important, too.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Catherine Roach: That open communication is very difficult. As you’re communicating and trying to keep openness to the other, it requires a communication with one’s self and knowledge of one’s self, and in some ways, that’s maybe the most difficult. It requires you to be open and honest with yourself about where you're coming from, what it is you want, what are the sources of your pleasure, your own goals, your values and being able to articulate all of that, that’s difficult. It changes for all of us as we go through life.

20:13

Amanda Testa: And you're right. It’s very different based on what you learned, what your experience is. Everyone’s unique in that. It is inspiring to me to hear the young college kids (the Gen-Z people) they're all having these conversations at such an early age like, “What do I like? What do I enjoy? What’s in this for me? How can I enjoy this experience?” which is very different from the education I got. I went to college in the early nineties, so that was a while ago. [Laughs]

Catherine Roach: Yeah. Yeah, I am interested in these demographic shifts. I think this cultural shift that I was talking about is very much tied to a demographic shift. In recent polls, now, one out of five (around 20%) of our Gen-Z youth 18-to-23-year-olds are identifying as LGBTQ, embracing a sense of gender and sexual diversity and claiming that as part of their own identity.

21:08

And it’s different that one out of five is a higher proportion now than even just a few years ago when the poll was finding one out of six. And I don't think that there’s a bigger queer community now, necessarily, but it’s that people feel more empowered to be out about that, to be open and honest with them self and then with others in the culture. I think that’s very encouraging.

So this sense, for a lot of young people, that diversity is not a source of anxiety. It’s the world that they increasingly seeing and growing up with and surrounded by all the time, and they're just fine with it. They don't have a problem with people who are gender nonbinary or guys who dress in traditionally-feminine clothing or a sense of hosting slut walks on campus and women who can embrace their sexuality and aren’t afraid of slut-shaming labels.

22:05

That’s just not cool anymore, slut shaming. Not to say it doesn't happen, but there is a stronger voice and positionality that creates space or all of that among young people.

Amanda Testa: I think that’s so --

Catherine Roach: On a good day! On a good day, that’s what I’m feeling, and I’m like, “Yes! You go young people! You’re leading the way!” 

Amanda Testa: Yes! We want to encourage that! I think that’s so important because the hope in there is that as they rise into the world and offer their gifts, and that perspective will gratefully open up a lot more in the world.

Catherine Roach: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s right. And then, it’s like a ripple effect. I was just talking to one of my students. She’s a young engineering student, and there are more and more women in engineering here on campus, and she’s going to work for a company that is embracing gender and sexual diversity in the workplace and making that a central part of their workplace culture.

23:06

And so, if companies want to succeed and attract the best workers -- one wants to be sort of, not cynical, but realistic or pragmatic about bottom-line value and issues and cultural competence around gender and sexual diversity. Companies can take that perspective. You want to attract the best workers nowadays? You can make sure that your company culture is competent and inclusive on these issues.

Amanda Testa: Yes. I think that the other thing, too, around that I’m curious about is when you’re talking with your students, when you're polling them or when they send in their reports, what are the things that they most are excited about? I’m curious from your research. What are the things that excite them most around sexuality, around sex, around the future? What are the things? Do they share about that?

24:01

Catherine Roach: A variety of things. I think this openness to more gender and sexual diversity, that’s a positive point that comes up a lot. A sense that, on this issue, consent, for example, that’s been in the culture a lot and gets addressed on college campuses all the time. The way that that can be very empowering for women. It gives women a more gender, egalitarian, dating culture, campus, hook-up culture. That’s something that comes up a lot. To what extent is that changing here on campuses now? The flip side of that, that I hear from the students, is about new gender codes around masculinity. 

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Catherine Roach: That’s a hard one for guys, but I do hear this from them. Some of them talk about how the haze around the guy code (the man-box rules) is lifting, and they find that so liberating.

25:00

It’s a lot for guys to break through 'cause there’s so much restriction around the gender norms for men, more so than women, even. There’s been more openness from the women’s movement and feminism. A gal can be an engineer (like I was just saying) or a doctor nowadays. But it’s actually harder for a guy who wants to be a nurse or an elementary school teacher.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Catherine Roach: Or a guy who has experienced unwanted sexual contact or sexual assault himself to be able to come out and say that. There’s even more taboo and shame, in a way. So there is a lot of, I would say, excitement (to answer your question) around the sense of new masculinity, inclusive masculinity, the possibilities of that are finally allowing a certain freedom from these very tight structures of man-box, tough guy, rules for masculinity in the culture.

Amanda Testa: Right.

Catherine Roach: I think that’s sort of a next wave that’s coming that I’m very interested in 'cause there’s a lot of costs for guys, too.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

26:02

Catherine Roach: I like to buck those rules to try to break free of the man box. There’s still a lot of shaming and, “Be a man.” That rhetoric has not gone away at all. But for guys who see through it who can break free of the man box, there’s a great sense of empowerment coming from that.

Amanda Testa: Right. I just think, too, it’s interesting. I feel for a lot of men in that category because there isn't a lot of healthy right of passage kind of things for a lot of men or that coming of age, those rituals, those things that are more of a healthy way of coming of age versus hazing or shaving your head, or whatever it might be, that happens when peers do the initiating of something that used to be done by elders or community. I’m curious your thoughts around that if you notice that or what your thoughts are.

Catherine Roach: Yeah, yeah, and I think it relates to what we were saying about pornography earlier also, ‘cause if you're talking about a lack of narratives in the culture for positive sexuality, positive relationship instruction for guys, I think that’s true.

27:10

One thing that they get is porn - porn telling them how to be a real man. What does a sexual stud look like, and it fuels huge anxiety. And so, I do hear that from the guys. We just did a unit on genital anxiety which is actually true for women and men.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Catherine Roach: But your penis is likely never to be as big as that of a porn star. Your vulva is not going to be as, sort of, clam-shell shaped and groomed as that of a female porn star. So those narratives of the manly stud guy, the sexy gal that come out of porn, play in the minds of young people. I hear that from their responses in class, and it makes them feel bad. Like, I’m a bad lover or they're just like a confused lover, and so, there’s a lot of rough-sex tropes that they enact with each other because they think that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

28:06

Catherine Roach: Like hair-pulling or spanking or choking, and not to shame that if that’s your consensual kink that you work through with good communication, that that’s what gives all partners involved in such pleasure, but that doesn't seem to be happening in a lot of these narratives that I’m hearing from students that just -- the tropes that they're fed by the culture, and so, as they’re trying to figure things out without great communication, what they end up enacting with each other.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Catherine Roach: So, yes, we could have more and better role models or sources of insight and compassionate leadership on these issues as we’re all trying to figure out healthy, intimate relationship.

Amanda Testa: I do feel like that’s an upcoming trend, though, that’s gonna hopefully expand is around the -- I don't know the term. I’m probably gonna mess it up. I’m just gonna say this one. It’s probably wrong, but, you know, the conscious masculinity or really different ways of being a man and there’s more groups and there’s more men’s groups about it and there’s more things I see with youth-guided things.

29:05

Catherine Roach: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amanda Testa: So that’s a positive thing. And I think, too, also, it also is a lot around where you live and that kind of thing, what you have access to. So there’s that.

Catherine Roach: Yeah. Yeah. I think inclusive masculinity or the new masculinity or --

Amanda Testa: Yes, thank you.

Catherine Roach: -- or to use the plural to talk about masculinities. There’s more than one way to be a good man. There’s lots of ways to be a man. Being traditionally feminine could be one or being nonbinary could be one, and being gay and being playful with gender expression, that there’s lots of ways to be a good man, and certainly being sensitive and inclusive is an essential part of it.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and I want to go back just a minute to the genital anxiety course, ‘cause I just want to celebrate that so much. If only that could have happened back when I was in college. I think about, too, all the people that I work with, and this is such a huge thing because they never got the awareness that, oh, okay.

I remember reading Sheri Winston’s Women’s Anatomy of Arousal, and I was in my thirties when I read that, and I was like, you know, I’m college educated, I’m very smart. How do I not know these things about my own body?

30:09

Because, like you say, we’re not taught. And so, I’m curious what are some of the things that you talk about in that course, if you're open to sharing or if that’s okay to do so?

Catherine Roach: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I think…

Amanda Testa: For the adults listening, I think a lot of the people that are listening to the podcast probably are women who are past the college age or maybe they have kids in college, or maybe they're young still, but just, yeah, let’s talk more about that.

Catherine Roach: So, yes, genital anxiety or genital positivity (where we’re flipping the script) -- diversity is the norm. As part of a commitment to diversity, to inclusion, and in body positivity or body acceptance, we would talk about the way that genitals are diverse in all sorts of ways. Symmetry is not the norm. Asymmetry is actually the norm that, in terms of women’s vulvas, the inner labia are actually usually bigger than the outer labia.

31:07

And so, sometimes, they do these labiaplasty surgeries now, and there’s increase in this as a form of plastic surgery or cosmetic surgery. There’s been a big increase in it. Women are worried that their inner labia are too long and they're protruding out of the vulva or that their vulva isn’t symmetrical, is not like a Barbie clamshell vulva. And that’s all perfectly normal.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Catherine Roach: It’s perfectly normal for the labia to be different and to be big and to be doing their thing, and it’s all good. There are some great artists who work in this area. We bring this work into the classroom. Jamie McCartney is a British artist who has The Great Wall of Vagina he’s made from 400 different plastered casts of actual women’s vulvas (women who volunteered to participate in his art project). So to show the huge diversity, it’s all vulvas are beautiful in that sense.

Amanda Testa: Yes!

32:00

Catherine Roach: He works with men also to show the diversity. There’s a lot of anxiety of, “My penis isn't big enough.” This actually comes up in class. Well, not quite so boldly.

Amanda Testa: Yeah. 

Catherine Roach: But it emerges, anxieties about the penis, and so, to show the diversity of penises, also, size, shape, whether there’s foreskin (whether it’s circumcised or not circumcised which can also be a source of shaming).

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm.

Catherine Roach: Another artist whose work I really like is Sophia Wallace who has worked with this term cliteracy or literacy about the clitoris. She’s a New York City-based conceptual artist who has this project, The Cliteracy Project, and she uses 100 natural laws about the clitoris (or more broadly about women’s sexuality). Her whole point is that there’s this massive sexualization of women’s bodies used all the time in the media and in the culture, that women’s bodies are sexualized and then consumed or the sexualization of women’s bodies is used by companies for consumer intent, advertising and such.

33:03

But, underneath all of that, there’s this massive illiteracy about women’s sexuality, about women’s sexual pleasure which is centered on the clitoris. So the whole notion of penis-in-vagina sex as sort of a standard trope of what constitutes sex is one that leads much more reliably to male orgasm than to female orgasm, that women’s sexual pleasure generally involves engaging the clitoris, centered on the clitoris, if we’re talking heterosexual sex. The penis-in-vagina male-orgasm vision of sex is one but not the only, and it works for some women but not for many women.

So this whole notion of genital anxiety and genital diversity and genital positivity is linked, then, to women’s sexual pleasure, to men’s sexual pleasure, too, ‘cause if you're anxious about your genitals, if you think you don't look good down there, you're probably gonna be anxious about your sexuality and not enjoy intimate encounters as much as you could.

Amanda Testa: Yes. Yeah.

34:01

Catherine Roach: So they're related, all bodies. Inhabit your body with joy. All genitals are lovely genitals and capable of the pleasure that your body can give you.

Amanda Testa: I love that. I’m so glad. That makes me so happy. [Laughs] I just love it. I just could keep talking to you ‘cause I love these conversions. I would love to know just maybe if there was any question that you really wished that I would have asked that I didn't or if there is something that you want to make sure to share?

Catherine Roach: Huh. Oh, that’s a lot of pressure now. [Laughs] I don't know!

Amanda Testa: Or what closing words you might like to share?

Catherine Roach: Good sex involves equitable sexual pleasure, egalitarian gender norms. Good sex is sex that is mutually pleasurable and respectful. It is entirely possible, I think it’s increasingly within our cultural reach, and I’m hoping that with an emphasis on open conversation, inclusion, and comprehensive sex ed it’s somewhere that we can get.

35:13

Part of what gives me hope is the sense that younger people are less concerned about shame and taboo --

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Catherine Roach: -- and are helping us get there --

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Catherine Roach: -- to this vision of sexual justice.

Amanda Testa: I love that. Oh, that’s so important. Thank you so much for being here, Catherine.

Catherine Roach: Oh, my pleasure. 

Amanda Testa: And I want you to share, too, where everyone can learn more about how to connect with you, how to get all your books, all that good stuff, if you don't mind sharing that.

Catherine Roach: Well, thank you. Yes, thank you, Amanda, for inviting me onto your podcast. I said that this was my first ever podcast, and it’s sort of fun! [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: Ah, I’m so, so glad.

Catherine Roach: The book Good Sex just came out. Indiana University Press is my publisher, and I’ve been delighted to work with them. The book is available where one buys books. You can go to Amazon. Certainly, you can go to the website of Indiana University Press to get it.

36:08

Amanda Testa: I’ll put in the show notes, too, just the links to where you can find it and also if you have an independent bookseller you love, (I always love to support those) just sharing that, too. [Laughs]

Catherine Roach: Exactly. Yes.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and then I’m wondering, too, for people listening that are just taking this all in, digesting these Manisexto commandments, if you will, the tenants and the beauty of these, what would be, you’d say, the easiest step forward? If there was one first step you’d offer people, what would you say that would be?

Catherine Roach: Well, I guess, too, we were talking about open communication and how that begins with one’s self. So, I guess, to think about your own body, your own pleasure, your own desire, to know that there is nothing shameful about one’s desires and sexual pleasure. And then, to be able to communicate that with partners as one wishes.

37:04

In whatever partnership feels respectful and open and empowering and affectionate and rewarding, to find the space to share with your partner, to know that our bodies are supposed to make us feel good, and sexuality is supposed to be a source of pleasure and joy and connection and intimacy, of positive growth. I guess there’s the Manisexto.

Amanda Testa: I love it! This is so beautiful. Thank you so much, again, for being here. Again, I’ll put in the show notes where everyone can connect with you and with the book and, again, we’ve been having a delight talking with Dr. Catherine Roach, and thank you, again, for all the amazing work that you're doing in the world. I’m so grateful that you’re out there doing this and all the people that you’re touching and how that ripple effect will bring a lot of openness and much-needed education.

Catherine Roach: [Laughs] Thank you very much, Amanda. It’s been a pleasure.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] Yes, thank you!

38:02

Catherine Roach: Take care!

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation.

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

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EPISODE 235: Microdosing On Your Own Medicine

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

I believe that pleasure is foundational. It is a powerful tool to cultivate embodiment, nervous system regulation, and joy. And so, in today’s podcast episode, I’m gonna be talking about how to microdose on pleasure. Yes, how you can use your own medicine (microdose on your own medicine) to feel better in your body, in your sexuality, and overall in your life. And so, I love this topic because something that I find -- as you know, I’ve been talking about this for years -- that we can make little, small shifts and have big results, right?

Oftentimes, in our culture, we think it’s an all or nothing thing, right? We have to be all in on something or all out.

0:01:02

I’m either eating really healthy or I’m gorging on ice cream and chips. I’m either working out all the time or I am never doing anything. I’m either all in on my relationship or I’m busy and disconnected. And this is just not realistic, A, because we aren't meant to be all or nothing, right? We are multidimensional beings, and the more we can accept that, the more we can also accept what’s happening outside of us as well. And so, even just sometimes hearing the word pleasure can bring up so much.

So I’m curious, even as you feel into that word, pleasure, what do you notice? What might you notice happening in your body, in your being? Maybe any sensations you notice. Maybe any thoughts. What happens? Not judging what’s happening, but just being curious. What do I think about pleasure? What does that word mean to me? It’s just a curious thing to explore, right?

0:02:02

For me, pleasure means it feels good. It’s something that’s nourishing. It’s something that’s helpful and inspires feelings of warmth, of coziness, of joy, of ecstasy even, right? Being in my body, focusing on my sensations means focusing on my five senses, really dropping into presence. It means connecting with others. It can mean enjoying a good meal. It means laughing. It means cuddling with my kid. It means petting my dog and just luxuriating in his fur. It means enjoying the sun on my skin. It means walking through the cold snowy days and feeling that cold on my skin. It means watching a weed’s determination as it pushes through concrete, right? It means so many things but, mostly, it means presence - full presence in the moment that we’re in and this, to me, means a place of acceptance, of curiosity, and of acknowledgement of whatever is here, right? Even if it feels uncomfortable, especially when it feels uncomfortable because, so often, we can judge our experiences, judge how we’re supposed to be.

0:03:08

Oftentimes, when you see, like, “Oh, I want to be an embodied goddess and feel all the pleasure,” and you see all these images of these skinny, white women in flowing dresses. And, believe you me, I’ve been complicit in that as well, but then I realize it’s more than that, right? It’s not that, and that is just one way of being, right? That’s just what our culture has taught us is the norm, and that’s not true, right? That’s very unrealistic.

And so, what my invitation is is to kind of feel into the openness of what it could look like to have more pleasure in your life, to have these little micro hits of pleasure throughout your day. I like to call these pleasure pops or microdoses of pleasure or whatever it is for you. Really, what that term means is little, teeny, minute, almost non-noticeable doses of a medicine so that you can feel the effect.

0:04:02

The reason I think that pleasure is such a beautiful way to do this is because this is just something that’s natural in our own bodies. This is just something that we can cultivate connecting to, and, yes, there are tools and techniques in how you can do it, right? There are so many ways you can connect to these kind of expanded states of presence. You could do it through psychedelics. You could do it through breath work. You could do it through pleasure. You could do it through so many different ways, right?

But one of the things that can be so simple is, again, sometimes we look at things, like they have to be all or nothing, but what about just embracing? What could be little ways that I could dip my toe into adding more presence and pleasure into my life? And if it ever feels too much, guess what? You don't have to keep doing it. You can tune into what you need, right? I truly feel like that’s what pleasure means to me. It’s tuning into what you need in the moment and offering it to yourself as much as possible, and if you can’t offer it to yourself, can you ask for it? Can you receive it, right? These are three big things that can be really challenging.

0:05:02

Often, so often, what happens is in our lives, too, we feel rejected or we doubt ourselves or we don’t trust ourselves. This is another thing I hear a lot is that feeling of I’m not enough, that feeling of what I have isn't good enough, what I’m doing isn’t good enough, my body isn't good enough, my relationship isn't good enough, what I’m doing to take care of myself isn't good enough, how I am as a parent isn't good enough, how I am showing up at my work isn't good enough, right? Does any of that sound familiar? Well, it’s not your fault because it is our patriarchal culture that we live in, right? The supremacist culture of oppression, of extraction, of producing for someone else’s gain, often, right? I like to think about how can you take some of that and give it to yourself? How can you nourish your own self? How can you take some of that energy and put it to your own use so that you can better take care of yourself, so that you can better take care of your family (your loved ones), so that you can show up in your community in a way that makes a difference in a good way, right?

0:06:12

Because, really, what I think we all want deep down is just that feeling of what I’m doing is enough. I’m good. I’m good inside, right?

There’s a parenting expert that I follow, Dr. Becky, and she’s amazing. She just wrote a book called Good Inside, and what I love about this book and just her philosophy is that we are good inside. We are born good, and whenever someone is experiencing a hard time (like your kids or any relationship, really, you can look at this in any experience) this is a good person having a hard time which, oftentimes, is true, right? And that’s not to discount your own experience based on someone’s bad behavior because your own experience is important and needs validation and witnessing too. And so, I think what most of us want is that feeling of, like, yes, I’m enough, I’m creative, I’m original, I’m unique, I’m fun, I’m me, right? How we can find that is tapping into our own medicine more and more. I think doing that through little daily doses of pleasure is such a great way to do it.

0:07:15

Why is this important? Because, number one, it really helps you move through self-doubt. We have so much coming in, oftentimes, from external sources - social media, the news, people around you, going to the grocery store and seeing the magazines. There’s constant bombardment of this external narrative, and so, when you’re constantly feeling our culture’s messaging of, “You’re not right. The way you are isn't acceptable. This isn’t enough,” of course you’re gonna feel that way, right? And so, sometimes turning off that outside influence can be such a huge way to trust yourself more, to believe in yourself more. What is it that you truly want? What is it that you truly believe? Not what our culture’s telling us, not what you’ve been conditioned, but what is it, right?

0:08:01

Then, also, why else is it important? Number two, it helps you hold yourself with love and kindness, right? The more that you can be present to what’s happening in your own experience and find a way to connect to it, find a way to move through it and to come back to a place that feels stable, that feels good, that feels resourced, that’s so key because the more we can accept who we are and all the parts of us, the more we can accept others, right? It helps you stay resilient, as I talk about a lot when we are working on finding more pleasure, embodying our sexuality more, finding more connection in our relationships, a lot of it has to do with taking care of our own selves and our own nervous system so that we can be in a place of resilience more often than not versus a place of overwhelm and stress and anxiety or shutdown and disconnection. And so, when we can find ways to take care of ourselves, nourish ourselves in pleasure, we are more able to stay in that range of resilience. We can enhance our capacity for joy and pleasure. We can be more present in our lives in the moments that matter.

0:09:04

Also, too, like I said, to be able to look towards difficulty with compassion, whether that’s in yourself or others because, again, it can be hard, right? There’s so much that we are constantly bombarded with, but sometimes it is important to look towards that difficulty. I think it’s very important to look towards that difficulty and just see if you can remain in your heart while you witness it. It doesn't mean you necessarily have to do anything about it to start but just witnessing even in yourself. Because, again, the more we can have acceptance for our self, the more we can for our whole selves in the whole collective.

And so, again, this is why I like to call it microdoses of pleasure ‘cause you can start small, and I think those are the ways we make change over time is little small things over time. I know I talk about this, but BJ Fogg is a behavioral researcher at Stanford, and he created a program called Tiny Habits, and he also has a book about this.

0:10:00

Really, what it is, is finding ways to make change by doing the little tiny things, adding them to things you're already doing (rituals you already do), and adding these other little tiny things along the way because, truthfully, the more that you can make a really super small change, celebrate the hell out of yourself for doing it, the more likely you are to continue doing those things. Again, this is why all or nothing fails, right?

If you want to drink more water, for example, and then you go buy yourself three gallons of water and sit them on your desk, that might be overwhelming, right? But if you’re like, “You know what? Every time I get up to go to the bathroom, I’m gonna refill my water, and I’m gonna make an intention to drink it,” you're more likely to do it, right? If you are wanting to start working out, you're not gonna immediately go run a marathon, right? That’s not realistic. The same thing is with pleasure and with enjoying your body more and being in your body more and enjoying your sensations more and cultivating that sensuality. There are little teeny ways that you could do it.

0:11:00

One of the smallest ways I love to share with people is to create a pleasure journal. This is something I always do with my clients ‘cause I think it’s so key and it’s simple, right? So what this looks like is every day, at the end of the day, you're gonna write down something that brought you pleasure. Ideally, it’s a sensational pleasure, but it could just be anything like, “I got a beautiful, warm hug from my kid today,” or, “My partner walked by on his way out the door and gave me a kiss and it felt really connecting,” or, “I was walking the dog this morning and, oh, my god, the leaves (the colors, the brilliance) were gorgeous.” “Today, I had the most delicious pumpkin muffin I’ve ever eaten in my life,” right? Whatever it is, but something sensational like what was something that brought me pleasure today, something that I saw that was beautiful, something that I heard that was beautiful, something that I tasted that was delicious or yummy, something that I felt on my skin that felt good. Tuning into those five senses. What was it?

0:12:06

Just start making little notes of that at the end of the day because the more that you can drop into those sensations and just feelings of what you're experiencing (your sensations in your body) that is what embodiment is. It’s being in your body, noticing what’s happening, being aware of the sensations, being curious. This is a language that you have to learn, right? Not all of us know this language, and the more you can learn this language, the easier it is to expand on that - the easier it is to expand on that when you are in the bedroom or having sex with your partner or yourself or whatever it is. So starting small is so key. Then, when you start to think about, “What are the things that are bringing me pleasure everyday?” it kind of helps your brain default more to that.

I love these things so much so this is why I truly desire to create more opportunities for women and gender-expansive humans to create more pleasure in their lives, to be able to find these ways (these little pleasure pops, these little microdoses of pleasure) that you can do throughout the day so that you can reconnect to your own medicine and to remember that you are medicine, right?

0:13:16

What you are offering in this world is unique. It is different, it is important, and it is so needed. I really want that remembrance to come alive in every person that’s listening to this podcast, every person that wants to feel that tingle in places you’ve not felt in a while, to feel that feeling of a warm delicious hug. That’s what I love. I like warm hugs. Like Olaf, I like warm hugs. But, yes, creating the secret, maybe it’s like a sensual love affair with yourself, maybe it’s a way to just connect more deeply to the things that matter to you.

Again, it’s not our fault, right? This is our culture that we live in, and so, it is so amazing to be able to take these little, slow things and add in more joy, add in more connection, add in more presence to everything that you do because this is such a huge capacity builder for more sensation, for more pleasure, and it’s all so connected.

0:14:22

People sometimes struggle with this. So one of the things that I do with clients is really help to create these new pathways of pleasure in your bodies and beings, and there are ways to do it, right? There are proven processes to do it. And so, if this is something that you’re interested in learning more about, I’m going to be launching a new group program that is gonna be starting in January of 2023. Really, the intention is to connect to your own medicine, to use pleasure as your own medicine and connecting to that on a daily basis so you can remember: “I am medicine. I matter, and what I am doing in this world is important. My pleasure is important,” and centering that.

0:15:07

People always ask, “Well, why is this important? With everything going on in the world, why is this important?” And I have to say that it’s probably one of the most important things because, really, when you think about those stories of human resilience, of what inspires people in the midst of dark times is the human spirit. The thing is, it’s not just that. It’s the action that you take because the more that you can take action, the more things actually change. We can have the mindset. That’s a big part of it. Have the thoughts and have the experiences, but then it’s the doing. How do you continue to do this day after day? How do you continue to do this in a way that you can show up for yourself, that you can show up for your family, that you can show up for your relationship, that you can show up for your community? How can you do this day over day? That’s the work, right? That’s why it’s practice, and that’s why it can be so important to be in a community, held in a supportive community with other people doing supportive things because, truly, healing happens in community.

0:16:13

As I’ve served hundreds of clients over the years with my skills and coaching and pleasure embodiment and somatic trauma resolution, what I see time and time again is that we all have this ability to return to our blueprint of health, and we need a pathway sometimes, right? Once we can open that door, we remember. We have that within us. We don't need anyone else; we just need to find that path back to ourselves. And sometimes that’s hard, right? Sometimes you do need, “How do I do it?” And you need the help, but once you learn, then you have that treasure trove of resources for yourself to return to again and again and again. You can find your desire again. You can find your pleasure again. You can find safety and bliss in your body and know and remember that you are just enough exactly as you are without having to make drastic changes. Something that is challenging is thinking in that all or nothing, right? We don't have to do it all or nothing. We can make it gentle, we can make it doable, and, really, with the work that I do, I find that is the most sustainable way to make change is to do it in small increments over time. Otherwise, it could be too much and you shut down and you're like, “All right, well, that’s not for me.”

0:17:25

And so, I know that if you're listening to this podcast you are probably one who is on a path of growth, is on a path of devotion to yourself, to your expansion, to finding more ways to have more pleasure in your life and in your families and in your relationships or however it may be, but just know it is possible to tenderly heal your relationship to your sexuality, to shamelessly embrace your pleasure and you can cultivate deeper-connected relationships because of this, because when we’re more connected to our own medicine ourselves, when we take that time to marinate in that everyday, it changes how we show up in the world. It changes how we show up to our work. It changes how we show up to our families.

0:18:07

It reminds you of who you are because, in this crazy busy world with so much outside stuff constantly infiltrating us, it can be so challenging to remember what that even is, right? And so, by making these daily doses of pleasure and connection to yourself, you can remember that. You can find space for you and who you are to take root and blossom. It’s so, so key.

If this is something that you’re interested in learning more about, I’ll invite you to shoot me an email. Send me an email: amanda@amandatesta.com and in the subject line I want you to put “I am medicine,” and I can add you to the list to learn more. It’s gonna be very, very limited in space because I really want it to be an intimate experience, and know that even just doing these small things -- I’ll encourage you to get a journal, make it your pleasure journal.

0:19:05

I’ll even put in the show notes a page out of a pleasure journal that I’ve created. It’s a PDF and you can download it and just print it out or you can save it on your computer and write in it every day. Whatever way works for you. Use it as a journal prompt, and at the end of the day, check in, like, what were the things that brought me pleasure today?” Make it be that simple. That could be your first step.

So, know that there are numerous ways to go about this. It can be easy. It can be fun. Most importantly, it really helps you to connect to the wonderful magic that you are. That reminds me of one of the archetypes that I work with in my coaching that is from the Rebloom Coaching Methodology from one of my mentors, Rachael Maddox. I just adore this methodology because it does give such a beautiful map of reblooming. This part of connecting to your own medicine is all connected to the expressionista.

0:20:01

This ability to be who you are in the world and, again, we just need to remember that. The expressionista is all around whole-self expression, sharing who you are with authenticity and passion and confidence. I’m excited to help support you in that!

So, if you're interested, then I invite you to reach out. Again, you can shoot me an email: amanda@amandatesta.com and put in the subject “I Am Medicine,” and know that if the timing that you’re listening to this podcast is not exactly in 2022 or 2023 that there are still ways to tap into this so reach out if this is calling to you, if you’re feeling that urge to reconnect to your own medicine, to your own magic, to your own pleasure, and how that can expand in so many areas of your life, then I invite you to reach out. I’m sending you so much love. I’ll put the pleasure journal in our show notes. Wishing you a beautiful rest of your day or evening (whenever you’re listening to this in the world), and we will see you next week!

[Fun, Empowering Music]

0:21:07

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation.

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

• Resources:
  

  • Dr. Laurie’s Website: https://www.drlauriemintz.com/

  • Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters and How to Get It: https://www.drlauriemintz.com/becoming-cliterate

  • A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex: Reclaim Your Desire and Reignite Your Relationship: 

  • 32:26 in the transcript: Dr. Laurie’s Best Practices Sex Communication Script

  • https://www.drlauriemintz.com/a-tired-womans-guide-to-passionate-

  • Follow Dr. Laurie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drlauriemintz/

  • Follow Dr. Laurie on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrLaurieMintz/

  • Follow Dr. Laurie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drlauriemintz?lang=enneagram

  • Follow Dr. Laurie on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/drlauriemintzcom/

  
  

Want more support? Schedule a confidential 1-1 call with Amanda here.

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

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EPISODE 234: with Dr. Laurie Mintz

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Are you aware of the orgasm gap? If you’re looking to find more pleasure and fulfilment in your sex life, then listen in for some enlightening facts to change your sex life for the better today. On the podcast this week, you're gonna learn why, statistically, only about 39% of women orgasm during heterosexual encounters and what we can do to change this cultural problem.

I’m Amanda Testa. Welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am so thrilled today to introduce you to Dr. Laurie Mintz. She is a feminist author, therapist, professor, and speaker whose life work has really been dedicated and committed to helping people live more authentic, meaningful, joyful, and sexually-satisfying lives through the art and science of psychology.

0:01:00

So she’s a tenured professor at The University of Florida. She has amazing research under her belt as well as has written two popular books which I highly recommend - Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters and How to Get It (such a great book), and also A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex: Reclaim Your Desire and Reignite Your Relationship.

So I’m so, so thrilled to be talking with you today, Dr. Laurie. Thank you for being here!

Dr. Laurie Mintz: I’m so thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

Amanda Testa: Yes, you know, over the years, I know you've done so much research in really helping female-identifying people to have better sex lives. And so, people out there who have listened to the podcast might be familiar a little bit around orgasm inequality and all the things that that goes into, but I’d love to know a little bit more about your passion for this and what that means for those listening who might not be familiar with what that term is.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: So, yeah, I would love to share that. So the orgasm gap, as you said, is the really strong and consistent finding in the scientific literature that, when cisgender women get it on with cisgender men, the women are having substantially fewer orgasms than the men are.

0:02:04

You used one study which found that 39% of women (versus 91% of men) said they always (or usually always) orgasm during an encounter. That’s a huge gap. Now, that particular study didn't ask the context of the sex. Was it relationship sex? Was it hookup sex? Other research has found that the gap is biggest in hookup sex, it gets smaller in friends with benefits, but it never closes altogether. Even in relationship sex women are having substantially fewer orgasms, and one thing I want to say is a lot of people say, “Oh, it’s 'cause women’s’ bodies are difficult or elusive,” but other research makes it abundantly clear that that’s not the case. Women have more orgasms when having sex with other women, and they are pretty consistently orgasmic when alone. So that tells us the problem is not out bodies, it’s the way we do heterosexual sex.

0:03:00

My passion for this topic comes from my students. I teach the Psychology of Human Sexuality at The University of Florida to hundreds of students a year, and their stories around the orgasm gap really are painful. Many of them felt broken, like something was wrong with them. So I started teaching to them to close the orgasm gap and really focus on the clitoris. That’s the best way to close it, right? I would get notes from my students like, “Thanks to your class, I’m orgasmic.” “Thanks to your class, my girlfriend’s orgasmic,” and that really inspired me to get out beyond my classroom and make this a passion issue to close the gap culturally and in individual bedrooms.

Amanda Testa: I love it. This is so important. I’m curious, too, how you feel like it expands outside of just intimacy, outside of just in relationship. How does the orgasm gap affect everything, really?

0:04:01

Dr. Laurie Mintz: You know, it both reflects everything and it perpetuates everything. So, basically, this is not an isolated problem. It is really part of a bigger oppressive patriarchal system, and a lot of times we’re aware of some of the sexism and the oppression of women, but this is one area that it’s so deeply ingrained in the fabric of our culture that sometimes we don't even notice it. Like, for example, in Becoming Cliterite, I have a chapter on linguistic analysis that really -- we use the words sex and intercourse as if they're one in the same, and that’s very heteronormative and it also values male pleasure ‘cause that’s the act that men orgasm in most often, not women. We use foreplay as not important, just a lead up to the main event, even though that’s where women mostly orgasm. We call our entire genitals a vagina. We name our genitals for the part that’s most sexually useful for men versus ourselves.

0:05:07

So the orgasm gap is due to a much deeper cultural problem of the over-valuing of male sexual pleasure and the devaluing and fear of women’s sexuality, but closing it also has really powerful effects. Honestly, when I started this, I really did know it was reflective of a broader cultural problem, but what really took me by surprise is all the notes I’ve gotten from women readers saying, “Once I became empowered in the bedroom, it had amazing ripple effects outside of the bedroom. If I could be strong and empowered enough to speak up about my needs in the bedroom, it empowered me in the boardroom as well,” if you will, “or with my friends, with my children, everywhere.” So I think it has big-time ripple effects.

0:06:05

Amanda Testa: I think that is so interesting and huge because I see that, too, just so many times when I talk with clients or couples and women that are constantly saying, “You know, well, we can talk about everything, but one of the things we don't talk about is sex,” right? It’s such an intimate, vulnerable place, and that is where a lot of our conditioned behaviors can show up, right? We want to be pleasing or quiet or make sure the other person -- you know, typically, a lot of times female-identifying beings are very care-oriented and they want to make sure that everyone else is okay first.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Absolutely.

Amanda Testa: Taking that initiative to put your needs first can be such a challenging thing at times.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: That’s so important. It really is going against the grain of I’m gonna take care of other people outside the bedroom and in the bedroom, like, oh, if it’s good for him, it’s good for me mentality. Letting go of that and saying, “You know, my needs are just equally as important as everybody else's in and out of the bedroom,” is very essential for female-bodied people.

0:07:11

Amanda Testa: So key. So I’d love to know what are some of the ways that we can go about closing the orgasm gap?

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Would you like me to talk about culturally or in individual bedrooms? They’re a little different.

Amanda Testa: Well, how about we go into a little of both ‘cause I think it all is important.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: And it’s all connected, right?

Amanda Testa: It is, really, so much.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: So, culturally, it’s conversations like these.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: It’s changing our language, no more: “sex is intercourse; foreplay just a leadup,” naming our vulvas, sex education. I mean, I’m sad to say I don't think we’ll get there in our country in my lifetime, but I hope we do eventually. They are there in other countries educating about pleasure, consent, the clitoris. Poor literacy - showing people this is make believe (yes, it’s not reality). Using the word clitoris loud and proud, calling out false images on TV, in movies, with your friends.

0:08:13

There are so, so many ways, but a lot of it is bringing female pleasure and the clitoris into the limelight, and why the clitoris? Because, as you said earlier, very few women orgasm from penetration alone.

The old stats used to say 75% don't. Now, later stats, those questions were like, “Can you orgasm from intercourse?” There’s such a pressure to do that, and people will say yes if it happened once. And so, later studies asked women, “Can you orgasm from just a thrusting penis?” Only 15% say yes, and in research I’ve conducted when I ask, “What’s your most reliable route to orgasm,” only 4% say penetration alone, and we know that when women pleasuring themselves less than 2% do so exclusively with penetration, the rest need clitoral stimulation alone or combined. So that’s why getting the clitoris in the limelight is very important.

0:09:12

Then, in terms of individual bedrooms, my book is a combination of feminist analysis to close it culturally and prescriptive self-help, and I’ll just tell you what the four self-help chapters are, and then if you want, dive into any of those deeper.

The first is get to know your own anatomy. You can't use it well or teach others to if you don't know it so really educating yourself and taking a look, that’s the first step.

The second step is working with the sex organ between your mind. We are subject to so many sex-negative thoughts that they become part of us, and making those conscious and changing them. Like, “Sex is for me,” instead of, “If it’s good for him, it’s good for me.”

Then, learning mindfulness because so many of us during sex and in life, right, our body’s doing something and our mind’s doing something else. We could be receiving oral sex and thinking, “Do I look okay? Do I smell okay? Oops, I forgot to return that email,” and all of those things are super normal and super common, and nobody’s in their body all the time, but learning to notice when your mind leaves your body and bring it back.

0:10:20

Then, masturbation. Self-pleasure is essential. Touch yourself, use a vibrator, use your hands, figure out what you like ‘cause everybody’s vulva needs something a little different. Don't stop there. Then, there are chapters on transferring that to partner sex. How? First, with good sexual communication in and out of the bedroom and, second, by changing the way we do scripts. No more foreplay just to get her ready for intercourse: intercourse, male orgasm, sex over. Change the scripts to turn-taking scripts. She cums first or she cums second or if you both want to orgasm during intercourse, use a position where you can get the clitoris stimulated. Use your hand or use a vibrator.

0:11:07

So that’s kind of an overview of both cultural and individual change.

Amanda Testa: I think, too, oftentimes when we work on the individual level, it does spread out (like you just mentioned earlier) around being able to know what you need and speak that in the bedroom. It expands everywhere, and I think, too, the more -- I’ve been doing this work for a while, too, and it gets me so fired up. It gets me so fired up, and I love it so much because I feel like there’s such potential and there’s such possibility and it does sometimes feel like will things change in my lifetime? Probably not, but I also have a ten-year-old, and I want them to know what’s possible and how, hopefully, they can have a different experience. I do feel like, in some ways, things are changing or maybe I just surround myself with things so it looks a little different, but I know in the big picture, oftentimes, we just don't even have that understanding of our own anatomy because of the lack of sex education. The lack even of -- you know, for professionals to have adequate education of our anatomy. Oftentimes the anatomy books don't even fully break down the anatomy of the vulva-bodied genitals. So I think that is something to note.

0:12:10

And so, I always find it so fascinating. I have a 3D model of the clitoris, and when I show it to people, often their minds are like, “What?!” I’m sure you probably notice that, too. Maybe even just talking a little bit more about the anatomy or your thoughts on that and how we can help educate about that.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Yeah, well, we know in sex ed we don't cover anatomy. We put the boys in one room and they talk about wet dreams, and then they put the girls in others and talk about menstruation. That’s not the same. The girls learn about their uterus, basically. They don't learn -- and maybe their vagina’s mentioned, but that’s it. The vulva is what the real name is for the external anatomy, and it includes the outer lips, right, which is -- I’m gonna use a penis comparison, here, just ‘cause people know more about penises if that’s okay?

Amanda Testa: Sure.

0:13:04

Dr. Laurie Mintz: So the outer lips are sort of like the same thing that covers the balls - the sack. They just enclose what’s in to protect them. Then, there’s the inner lips. While they're called the inner lips, many stick out beyond the outer lips. That’s completely normal. One is bigger than the other, often. Those are made of the same embryonic tissue as the shaft of the penis. They’re hairless, they're full of touch-sensitive nerve endings and erectile tissue. You follow them up, it forms the clitoral hood which is made of the same embryonic tissue as the foreskin. Obviously, that’s what’s often removed in circumcision. You pull the head up and there’s the glands of the clitoris, and there are more nerve endings packed in a small space than anywhere on a human body, so intense that most can’t touch it directly, that’s painful.

0:14:00

They have to do it more indirectly through the hood or even through underwear or different types of touch. Above the clitoris is called the mons pubis, and that, you can describe it as a mound of fatty tissue, but what’s essential is it has the internal clitoris running through there so you can actually -- that’s why a lot of times if women push the palm of their hand there while they're stimulating the rest of themselves, it’ll feel really nice. I’m gonna come back to the internal clitoris in a moment. There’s also the vaginal opening, the anal opening. The anal opening isn't officially on the vulva, but I’m gonna mention it. Both openings have a lot of nerve endings surrounding them, and the inner third of the vaginal canal (which is the inside part) has touch-sensitive nerve endings. The upper part has pressure-sensitive nerve endings. So the bottom line is that for the vast majority of us, all of the pleasure-sensitive nerve endings we need to orgasm are on the outside, not the inside.

0:15:04

But the internal clitoris which was only discovered for the first time in about 1997, although it was written about in the sixties by a group of feminist women and that’s often over-looked, but it was not in the scientific journals ‘til later. Helen O’Connell is responsible for that - a wonderful urologist. Bottom line is the clitoris is massive. It is a massive internal organ. It has legs. It has bulbs. The bulbs surround the vaginal canal, and it’s chock full of erectile tissue.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I always think that’s such a beautiful thing to note is that vulva-bodied people have as much erectile tissue as penis-bodied people, it’s just in different spots.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Exactly. One of my favorite urologists says that the -- I love the way she says this, Rachel Rubin. It flips everything around. She says that the penis is just a big external clitoris.

0:16:00

Amanda Testa: Yeah. [Laughs] I love that, and I think it’s so important to talk about this because so often we don't know what we don't know, and so, even as well-educated people we still don't know what we don't know. I know when I first started learning more about this, I was in my thirties, and I was blown away at what I didn't know about my own body, and I have a college education. So it’s just we don't know these things.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: We’re never taught!

Dr. Laurie Mintz: They don't teach it. I mean, I teach it in my class, but it’s not a required class, and it’s brand new information to most of my students.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm. And so, I think sharing this information far and wide for all people so that we can work to understand our anatomy so we can better work with it --

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Absolutely.

Amanda Testa: -- and better learn how to pleasure it.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Exactly. Exactly. 

Amanda Testa: Another thing you mentioned that I want to go back to, also, is the mindset piece because there is so much that can come up around everything that has come on top of you since you came into the world around sex and how it affects your ability to be present, to enjoy your experience, to let yourself surrender to the experience versus feeling too busy or, oftentimes, I know a lot of people that want to be in control, they don’t like that feeling of losing control or letting go or leaning into the pleasure and letting it take over. So I’m curious what you might say about that.

0:17:16

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Yeah. The mindfulness piece is so big. I once told a client that her biggest sex organ was between her ears, and she looked down at herself and said, “I guess I’ve been looking in the wrong place all these years,” but the truth is that the brain is essential in so many ways, and that the way you think about sex, the shame that you carry, the negative feelings - you have to get rid of those. Again, being able to be present in your body, which is so hard. I mean, I can say it like, “Oh, be present in your body,” but it takes so much time and practice, and the one thing that I love to share with people to underscore that is that the latest brain research shows that the mind state right before an orgasm is almost identical to the brain state of deep mindfulness, meditation.

0:18:09

So that tells us that turning off that thinking, judging of oneself, constantly self-monitoring part of oneself is not optional. It is a requirement for orgasm.

Amanda Testa: I’m curious, too, when you share this with people, what are some of the tips that you advise to kind of allowing them to be more present?

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Well, you know, a lot of times we’ll talk about do you meditate, but a lot of times I’m dealing with really busy people, and if I say, “Have a meditation practice?” They're like, “Nuh-uh, not happening,” or they can't quiet their mind enough for meditation. So I do encourage people to even try six to ten minutes a day. I’ll share my own unique meditation practice.

Every morning I get my coffee (which I love, right?) and I sit down in front of my candles that I light, and I put in my earbuds, and I put in meditation music, and I drink my first cup of coffee that way.

0:19:11

It literally takes six minutes, but I try to fully focus. The candles, the vision, the smell of the candles, the feeling of the warmth on my hands, the music, and really try to focus on those senses just for six minutes, and I’ll tell you, in those six minutes, my mind can wander anywhere from one to one hundred times, and that’s not a failure. That’s the practice is noticing and going, “Oops, there she goes again,” and bringing it back, but for people who don't even want to do a meditation practice, there is another way. You can learn this in daily life. Like, the next time you brush your teeth, how many times are we just mindlessly brushing our teeth or washing our hands or washing the dishes or even going to the bathroom? Anything that involves physical sensations, practice it during those times.

0:20:04

Practice really honing in on the physical sensations, noticing when your mind wanders, and then bringing it back when you notice it.

Amanda Testa: I love that so much, and I find that so -- I mean, it’s easy to do and easy not to do, right?

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Right.

Amanda Testa: I am always teaching just take a minute and drop into your senses or whatever you're experiencing, no matter what it is ‘cause, like you say, oftentimes people put a lot of pressure on themselves of what a mindfulness practice needs to look like. “Oh, I have to get up an hour earlier, and I have to do all this and that.” I’m like, “No, you don't. You can just live your life,” and depending on my days, it’s always different. Like today, I didn't feel like getting up, and then when I did, I just sat there and petted the dog for ten minutes. I was so tired, and that was it, right? We were just cuddling, and I was petting the dog and just feeling. His fur is so soft. He just got a bath, you know, and letting that be it! I was like this is a good one.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: That’s mindfulness. You were immersed in the sensations of petting your lovely dog who just had a bath, and you could really focus. That’s mindfulness in daily life. That’s such a beautiful example.

0:21:09

Amanda Testa: And how exactly does that translate to better sex? I’d like if you would share a little more about that in more detail.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Yes, okay, so you cannot have an orgasm when you're thinking, “Do I look okay? Do I smell okay? Oh, m gosh, I forgot to do that email.” Having an orgasm, having pleasure requires an ability to focus on your sensations and get out of your head. So once you start getting good at it in your daily life, then you can practice, then you can apply it to the bedroom. I always have my clients try a couple weeks in their daily life and figure out what works. For some, it’s just focusing on a sensation. For others, it’s the breath. Then, once you learn to be in your body and to notice when your mind wanders and bring it back, then you can do that in bed, and that is a building block, an essential foundation for pleasure and orgasm, to focus on your body.

0:22:08

Amanda Testa: Ah, so important. I would love, too, if you would share a little bit -- ‘cause I know a lot of your research and work is also around low libido or finding the passion again in long-term relationships. I know a lot of the listeners fall into that camp. And so, I’d love to change gears a little bit and kind of dive in a little more to some of the challenges around the busy-ness of life that gets in the way of the sexual connection and what people can do to kind of get that desire back.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Yeah, so before we do that, what I want to do is divine desire ‘cause the definition of desire is key to this situation. So when we think about desire in our culture, we think about it as feeling horny which is actually the beginning of arousal. It is not just desire. When you're horny, your genitals are throbbing, you might be a little wet, tingly.

0:23:03

That’s what people say they’re meaning when they're horny, but that’s actually the beginning of arousal, and what happens -- and this is so important. It’s just so unknown, though, in the popular culture. The older you get (for most people) and (most important) the longer a relationship goes on, the less horniness you feel. That’s just natural, and then people go, “Oh, no, what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my relationship?” without realizing this is normative, and so what do you do about it? You use a different type of desire.

There’s a very important type of desire that is not in the popular press. If it was, if people knew about this, they wouldn't feel so abnormal. Some people call it responsive desire, some people call it receptive desire, but what is it? It’s the idea I am open to the idea of sex for reasons other than being horny.

0:24:00

In fact, someone did a study (I love this) and there were 237 reasons that people have sex. Being horny was only one of them and it wasn't even the top reason. It might be because you know it’ll be good when it gets going. It might be because you’ll feel closer with your partner after. You might get better sleep. Whatever.

So, a lot of times people do that, and then they call it duty sex, like, “Oh, this is duty sex ‘cause it started without horniness,” and I say, “No, no, no. If it was fun when it got going, congratulations! You're using a sex therapy technique. That’s not duty sex! It’s only duty sex if it’s not good when it gets going which is a different problem.” If people haven't been doing it, they’ve stopped having sex because they don't feel horny, I say don't wait to be horny to have sex. Reverse the equation, and have sex to get horny. In this model (and it’s based in science) horniness comes after touch, and it’s much more circular. So that’s the most important thing.

0:25:10

The other important thing for people struggling with this is scheduling sex. Now, that doesn't sound sexy, right, but I don't like to use the word “scheduled sex.” I like to use the word “tryst.” What’s a tryst? A planned meeting between lovers. Nothing happens in our adult life, really, without scheduling it. I mean, here we are on this podcast today, right? ‘Cause we both put it in our calendar, we got ready for it, we made space for it, we got in the headspace to talk to each other, and here we are having a nice conversation, and the same is true of sex. It doesn't just happen when you’ve got a job and kids and pets and aging parents and whatever else you’ve got going on in your life so you need to create the space for it. Decide your ideal frequency and schedule it and make time for it.

A lot of times people are like, “No, no, that’s so unromantic. Sex has to be spontaneous!”

0:26:05

I say, “I don't think it ever was. Think about when you were dating. You took a shower, you got dressed, you put on your nice underwear, you put on perfume, you flirted all night, and [Gasp] wow! The night ended in sex. That wasn't spontaneous; it was well-orchestrated. It was planned even then.” So letting go of that myth that it has to be spontaneous.

Amanda Testa: I think that’s such a good point because people do forget that, and it can be really easy -- you know, especially after these past few years of being homebound and being in sweats and stuck with the people in your house for extended periods, and you're like, okay, we need to shake things up a bit. Put a little effort in on both parts, right? Or however your relationship combinations come together, but it’s the effort sometimes that feels good, right? It’s even kind of like that ritual, and every time you do these repetitive things, it’s kind of signaling to different parts of your brain, like, oh, something special’s gonna happen here! 

0:27:02

Whether it is just taking a shower or lighting a candle or whatever it might be, right?

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Absolutely. Exactly. You know, saving energy and time and making sure to schedule your tryst, if you can, not right before bed ‘cause so many times what happens is we’re exhausted, we get into bed, and it’s like, “Oh, I just want to sleep.” A lot of our circulating hormones responsible for good sex are lower at night. So making sure that you're engaging in an encounter when you're really physically able and ready to do so.

Amanda Testa: Yeah. I know you mentioned, too, the other camp where, say someone used to have a lot of excitement and used to enjoy sex (whether or not it was when it got started or after the responsive desire kicked in or whatever), but then now it’s where they're like, “Well, I don't feel anything,” or, “I don't have the pleasure I once had.” I think that’s a lot of frustration for a lot of women that I talk to as they age is sometimes feeling like, “I don't have that same sensation that I once had.” I’m curious if you could speak to that a little bit.

0:28:10

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Yeah, well, first of all, that is a really important issue, and it’s not psychological. This is a biological issue, and people often don't know this and feel like something’s wrong with them. As we age, when we get to perimenopause, our estrogen decreases, and with decreased estrogen comes a lot of things - sleeplessness, hot flashes, moodiness, vaginal dryness. Then, penetrative activities can become painful, but what people don't know is there are solutions to this. See your gynecologist. See a sexual medicine physician. They can prescribe you all kinds of things - vaginal moisturizers. There are some over the counter, but they can also prescribe vaginally-inserted estrogen or Systemic Hormone Therapy which has gotten a bad rap, but recently, the American Menopause Association endorsed it for everyone except a very small percentage of the population. So see your physician.

0:29:09

Also, lube is your friend no matter your age. But as we get older, especially, even with vaginal moisturizers, or even young people, sometimes what we feel in our head is not reflected in our body and vice versa. Using a lube, putting it on your vulva, putting it a little bit inside your vagina, you’ve got to have that moisture to get going, and it’ll help create more moisture.

Also, as we get older, we often need much more intense or specific pinpointed stimulation, and figuring out what that is and getting it, alone and with a partner. Often, I’m a huge proponent of vibrators, and the research shows that women who use them have easier and more frequent orgasms, they have better sexual health, etcetera. I can get into all the details, but here’s something really interesting.

0:30:03

Our clitorises, and actually the head of the penis, have special cells that are found nowhere else in the body that are responsive to vibration. People have been using vibration for years, and that can help get over the lack of arousal. Mindfulness has been shown in studies to help with that.

So try all those things, and if none of that works or if none of any of this works, that’s a really good time to see a sex therapist who can help you with figuring out what’s going on and why, but start with your physician, start with a vibrator, start with lube, start with mindfulness.

Amanda Testa: And it can be such a fun exploration. There’s such a huge variety of sex toys available now. There are really great companies that are making all kinds of fun toys. So it can be just a fun exploration, and that can be another way to potentially add in some novelty. [Laughs]

0:31:06

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Absolutely. Absolutely, and that’s the other thing. Sometimes people aren’t too tired for sex or too stressed for sex, they're tired of the sex they're having. So adding in some novelty, trying new things -- I always encourage my clients don't ever do anything that sounds aversive ever, but do stretch your boundaries to try new things.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, I think, too, that’s something around the sexual communication piece which you spoke to earlier that even just maybe you could share a tip or two around bringing things up with your partner that you want to maybe expand your sexual repertoire or you don't want to go right up to them and be like, “Our sex is no good. I’m not enjoying it,” no. Like, what’s the right way to do it? [Laughs]

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Well, first of all, start outside the bedroom.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: And use good general communication skills. What you just said is really bad, right? “You're bad. I don't like this.” Nobody’s gonna respond well to this.

0:32:04

Own it. Own it and use “I” statements (sentences that start with I). Don't ask questions that aren’t questions. We’re socialized to do that. You know, like, “Do you want to have sex?” That’s never a question. It either means I do, and I hope you do or I really don't, and I hope you don't. Use what I call meta communication - communicating about communicating. So you might say something like, “I want to talk to you about something, and I’m really nervous to do this ‘cause I’m afraid you're gonna feel defensive, but I’m not talking to you to criticize you. I’m talking to you because I really love our sex life and I want it to be the best it can be. And I was listening to this podcast, and I learned that when we schedule sex and use vibrators and really experiment and take the time to build arousal, most women have many more orgasms.

0:33:00

I know my pleasure’s important to you, and it’s important to me too just like yours is. So I’d really like to try those things. What are your reactions?” That’s the real question at the end. That’s the only real question. So that’s kind of a script you can use. Start with meta communication, be loving, non-critical, and own it. “I” statements. 

Amanda Testa: I think that is such a beautiful script. I was just gonna say, too, for all of those listening, I always put the transcript in the show notes page. So make sure, if you want a word-for-word script, you can go back to the transcript and get it ‘cause I think that’s such a great way. Sometimes we’re just like, “Give me the script!” Obviously, you can digest it in your own words, but I love that meta communication concept and just making sure it’s a what is the reaction not like -- that’s not a question.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Exactly, and you can use meta communication in the middle of a conversation too. Like, “I feel like things are going downhill and we’re getting tense with each other. I don't want that to happen. I want us to talk and be on the same page.”

0:34:02

It’s communicating about communication. At the end, too: “How do you feel that talk went? I’d like us to talk more about sex. How did that go for you?”

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and, like you mentioned earlier too, when it feels like you're stuck or there’s maybe not the willingness that you’re hoping for or whatever it might be, you can always seek professional help because sometimes we do need that.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, and I’d love to know, too -- I know we’ve covered so much good information, and I feel like there’s so much more, but I’m wondering if there are any other important concepts or anything else that you feel is really important to share that you’d like to talk about.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: That is such a good question. I think we’ve actually covered very much everything that I would really want people to know except that I just want to give listeners: your pleasure is important, and there are techniques out there to enhance it, and you're fine the way you are.

0:34:59

There’s so much concern about am I normal - “Are my inner lips normal?” “Is the way I masturbate normal?” You are fine. Stop using the word normal and just figure out what works for you. That would be my only message that we haven't covered.

Amanda Testa: I love that. Right, there is so much that’s common but not normal, and then there is no normal sometimes, right, when it comes to everyone’s body is different. Everyone’s innervated a little differently. Everyone’s body looks different. Everyone's genitals look different. That’s the beauty of it, right?

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Absolutely.

Amanda Testa: The diversity of the way we are.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Exactly. Yes, exactly.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Yes.

Amanda Testa: Ah, well, I have so, so enjoyed talking with you, Dr. Laurie. I’d love to know, as well, if you could share with everyone listening what are the best ways to stay connected with you and all of that good stuff.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Sure, and I’ve enjoyed talking to you. Thank you for having me on.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: You can find me on my website, www.drlauriemintz.com. So that’s D-R-L-A-U-R-I-E-M-I-N-T-Z, and, there, you’ll find links to my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, all of that, but on all of those social medias, I have the same handle. It’s all @drlauriemintz so you can find me there as well.

0:36:13

Amanda Testa: She’s always got such amazing info that’s shared there and such great tips. I also encourage you to check out her books as well. Becoming Cliterate, I so recommend. 

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Thank you! Thank you so much, I appreciate that, and those are available anywhere books are sold.

Amanda Testa: I think that’s the beauty of books, right? We can do so much to educate ourselves if we’re just open.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: Absolutely, yes.

Amanda Testa: Just having the openness and curiosity is just such a beautiful way to approach these subjects, I think.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: I could not agree more.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs] Well, thank you so much again for being here.

Dr. Laurie Mintz: It has been my pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and thank you so much, too, to everyone listening. I’ll make sure to add all of Dr. Laurie’s contact information in the show notes as well as the transcript. So thank you again for being here, and thank you all for listening!

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

0:37:03

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation.

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

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EPISODE 233: Pleasure in Movement with Mark Testa

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. If you are curious to find more ways to have more energy and even feel like you're in the mood, feel desire, today, I want to talk about finding pleasure in movement because I truly believe that pleasure is foundational in so many ways, and when we are looking at our overall holistic wellbeing, there are a lot of things that come into play when it comes to feeling good and having desire and feeling empowered in our sexuality. I love how we can actually cultivate energy from within. I love doing this with sexual energy but also just the importance of movement in general.

0:01:01

My husband and I were actually riding back from a trip away this weekend, and we were talking about this because when it comes to feeling good in our bodies, there are so many things that we can do, and a lot of the time it’s easy to do and easy not to do, right?

So, actually, I’m bringing my lovely husband, Mark Testa, on the podcast again today. Welcome, Mark.

Mark Testa: Hi, Amanda, nice to see you again.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Mark Testa: [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I’m gonna be talking about finding pleasure in movement because we were talking about this yesterday and just how much better you can feel with minimal -- it doesn't have to be things that are overwhelming, but let’s just chat for a minute about this, Mark, because I know we had such a good discussion in the car yesterday, and I was like this would make such a good episode.

So tell me. Why are you passionate about this topic?

Mark Testa: Well, really, I mean, we have this vessel (our body) that, you know, we want to get pleasure out of, but if it’s not healthy, if you're sick, if you can’t move, if you have aches and pains, there’s not much pleasure associated with that.

0:02:08

There are ways to get our vessel (our body) healthier. We were talking about this yesterday. I think the number one thing that most people don't want to do, and (you know, I’ve taken care of patients for 30 years) most people don't do that is the main needle that will move everything else is exercise. Like you said, it’s easy to do, it’s easy not to do, and I’m not talking about doing a triathlon or a marathon or spending hours a day in the gym. I’m just talking about very simple, basic things. I don't want to sound like the profit of doom, but I think it’s important to talk about why this is so important for our physical health, our vessel, for it to be healthy. I’m gonna start with some stats.

0:03:06

I know we talk a lot about nutrition and supplements and which diet’s right for us, but this exercise reduces all-cause mortality by 50%. Anything that can kill you, short of a trauma, this will reduce by 50%. No diet has ever shown that. No supplement has ever shown that. So, to me, if you're gonna start somewhere, we just start by moving our body.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, and I think what’s so interesting, too, is ‘cause I feel like so often people just want an easy button. They want a pill or something that’s easy, and, honestly, there are ways to do things that can add up to be a lot of things in easy ways, but there is no magic pill, right? There’s no magical way to get your desire back or there’s no -- even Viagra. That serves a purpose, but there’s also downsides to it. I’m just saying because we have to look at our whole selves.

0:04:04

The reason why I want to talk about movement is because, not only is it so powerful in just keeping you healthy, but also as we look at being overwhelmed, one of the main issues I see with clients and a lot of the research out there around why women have so much trouble around desire and sexuality, there are numerous parts to it, but one is overwhelm. One is just being burned out, and I love how, actually, Emily Nagoski and her sister address this in their book, Burnout. But the beautiful thing about even just 20 minutes of exercise is it gives your body that feeling of completing a stress cycle because it’s like you're trying to escape from the lion. Granted, we aren’t in a world where we’re being chased by lions, but our biology still thinks that we are, often, and so, when we have a lot of stress, we can feel like that, right? And so, when you give your body an experience like it has survived, it outran the lion, that can really help reduce your overall stress. There are numerous ways to do that (which I’ll talk about in a minute) that can be really easy.

0:05:07

But I’m curious, Mark, when it comes to some of those other health benefits, what were you going to share around that?

Mark Testa: Well, I was gonna start somewhere else, but let me just start where you talked about stress. So exercise definitely has been studied to reduce stress through the autonomic nervous system and improve the vagal tone (the vagus nerve) which a lot of people talk about. You can do it with breathing exercises and maybe exercise, because it stimulates breath, stimulates and improves vagal tone, and if you wear an Apple watch or you wear an Ōura ring or you wear a WHOOP, you can measure that through your heart rate variability. I mean, it’s a measurable metric.

But I think, equally as important, exercise addresses the leading cause of death in America which is cardiovascular disease. Again, better than diet, better than supplements, and women catch up to men in cardiovascular disease after menopause, and so, it is the leading cause of death.

0:06:09

So if we can start to exercise (again, 20 minutes a day) it really makes an impact on that. We’re starting to see arrhythmias like A-fib or ventricular fibrillations start to increase, too, in America. This has a really bad downstream effect of causing strokes. And so, exercise can really address the strength of the heart through getting it to work. It is a muscle.

Then, when you talk about Viagra or you talk about -- what’s the female libido?

Amanda Testa: Well, it’s called Addyi, but actually it’s not -- I had a Urogynecologist on talking about that drug, and it actually has not had a lot of positive reviews. Mostly, it has a lot of bad side effects and there’s a lot of contraindications. So it’s something to be very wary of. Again, if you want an easy pill, that might be a placebo which if that helps, great, but there are also a lot of downsides to that so I don't recommend that medication at all.

0:07:09

Mark Testa: But exercise, then, will increase nitric oxide flow which is what Viagra does. You cannot short-circuit the brain to get the result. There is no easy button, whether it’s male genitals or female genitals, you want blood flow.

Amanda Testa: Right, or non-binary, gender-expansive humans, however you want to refer to your genitals, I want to respect and name that too. But, honestly, there are so many things at play, often, with these kind of sexual, quote unquote, “dysfunctions,” and there are things -- sometimes you do have a medical need for something, and that is understandable, but oftentimes, there’s a lot of emotional things behind it, there are a lot of layers to it, and so, that’s why when we approach anything we’ve got to look at the whole body. I think one of the reasons I want to talk about exercise as foundation is because even just, like I was saying, making it easy, I would like to talk a little bit about finding pleasure in movement because, I know for myself, I was an athlete for many years.

0:08:06

I did triathlons. I ran long distances. I did a lot of things that I really enjoyed at the time, and, honestly, I feel like there is a fine line there, right? I also struggled with eating disorders and so many body image issues for so many years, and I feel like one of the things that got me over that was to have a different mindset around how I viewed what I take in, what I do, and it’s from a place of being aware and noticing what feels good versus berating myself and beating myself up. I want to name this because I think a lot of time with exercise, I know for myself, I used to be someone who would be like, “Oh, well, I ate a bag of chips, so now I’m bad, and I’m just gonna eat crappy all day, and I’m just gonna go down this rabbit hole, and, oh, I better work out and beat myself up,” and I did it as a punishment versus as something that felt good. I just want to name that because I feel like it’s one of those things where if we approach it from a pleasure-based mindset, it can be so much different.

0:09:10

Like, what are the ways that you enjoy moving? What are the ways that feel good? How can you bring in pleasure to your whole experience? I’ll talk more about that in a minute, but I know Mark has got something to say because he’s over here excited to share.

Mark Testa: [Laughs] No, you know, again, back to some of the physical things, too. I mean, I say these to help incentivize, mostly, people’s health, right? Diabetes is another thing that can easily be addressed. It’s not gonna reverse it, but, you know, when we exercise, it redistributes our body composition, right? You may lose weight. You may lose belly fat. These are things that are involved in diabetes and fatty liver (which is now almost an epidemic in America), and so, again, just more reasons to start moving.

0:10:01

Again, easy things which we’ll talk about here in a second. As we all age, we lose muscle. It happens after 40 years old. People start to lose muscle, and what does it get converted to? It doesn't even get converted. It gets replaced by fat.

And so, for men, fat breaks down into estrogen, and so, if there’s a loss of libido after midlife in males, it could be related to excess fat (belly fat, in particular). Fat is inflammatory. Inflammation, we know, feeds diabetes, dementia, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis. So if there’s pain in the body, it could be overstimulated in ways that are modifiable by our behavior, but also the last point about losing muscle, if we fall (especially after 65) and break a limb (usually it’s the hip or the femur), there’s a 50% mortality in the first year.

0:11:12

So that means the chances of someone dying after a hip fracture in the first year is 50%. Not to mention, how poor the quality of life will become, generally, for the people who survive that first year.

So movement like this is far-reaching into our health, but when we talk about it around pleasure, it’s, again, our body. We want to be able to use our body for pleasurable things, whether that’s in relationship with our partners or enjoying our environment or enjoying the people who we love being around (children, grandchildren) or traveling. You know, in my career, I saw so many people who were gonna wait until they retire to do something and then couldn't do it because they had pain, and so, their life went from work to the ability to excess zero pleasure after they retired. We want to access things now because we don't ever know what we’re gonna have later.

0:12:16

Amanda Testa: Right. I mean, and the reason, again, why I am talking about this is because I feel like it’s such -- when I think about the foundations that we need for thriving, right, there are a lot of base-level things. A lot of times I work with women who are so overwhelmed and tired that they really have a hard time finding what feels good, finding ways to find pleasure, and so little things that we can tweak into our daily routines -- I love talking about the groundskeeper archetype. You know I talk about this a lot with weeding and watering, adding in what is good, and taking away what’s not, and I think by just adding in more pleasurable movement in a day, that can feel good. And so, what are some ways you can do that?

Honestly, I love making things easy so when I think about making moving my body feel pleasurable, what are the things that feel good to me, and listening and turning into what that is day by day.

0:13:07

I think I learned this a lot through my own self-pleasure practice, honestly, because it’s like listening and tuning into what you need each day, in all the ways, right? So when I broke my ankle last year (it’s been like a year now, and I’m finally feeling better) I couldn't do a lot of movement, and so, that was really hard, I noticed, because, for me, I kind of went into a depression after that. Finding new ways to move -- obviously, based on your ability there are modifications that you can make. And so, I still modify, but what I like is ease, right? That’s one of the things I like is ease. So I just workout at home. I used to be a personal trainer so I’ve got all of the accoutrements. Even just like an inexpensive resistance band you can get a lot out of.

And so, I love just getting up and rolling downstairs in my PJs and working out. Half the time, Mark will poke in laughing ‘cause I’m in my nightgown, like, I don't even have a jogger on, whatever. I just do it.

0:14:02

The zero barrier to entry for me is enjoyable. I know some people love going to the gym or have a workout class or whatever it is that they love - the community aspect of that. I used to love when I used to run and (again, that’s one of the things is listening to your body) my body doesn't like that anymore. I love to run but my body does not. It hurts, and, at this age, I just have to honor what my body’s telling me, and so, even then just finding that community. I used to meet up with these running groups and all this and that, and it was so fun because I feel like that’s one of the things that we often -- I think a lot of the mindset I see out there is punishment, right? It’s a punishing thing. Even when we go to certain workout classes, and they’re yelling, and they're like, “Come on! You can do this!” and yelling at you, “It hurts! Feel the pain!” I hate that so much because that, to me, is the antithesis of what I’m going for. I used to be all about that, right? I used to be an endurance athlete, so I know what it’s like to feel pain and push through it, but there’s a difference between doing it in a way that’s punishing and doing it in a way that’s loving and encouraging. So I want to talk about that for a moment, and I’m curious, Mark, your thoughts there.

0:15:09

Mark Testa: Yeah, I agree, right? Low barriers to entry so we can move our body. You know, if you're not used to exercising, get a decent pair of shoes on and you could go for a walk. Walking is definitely very beneficial for cardiovascular health, respiratory health, movement-of-your-joints health. Thirty minutes or twenty minutes if it’s too much. I have an exercise bike in the house so I get my cardio on that, generally. While I’m doing that, I am reading a blog, I am listening to a podcast,  I am catching up on some other things. So maybe it’s not the best way, but for me, that’s what I need to do. I multitask, and I find that pleasurable because people always ask me, “How do you listen to so many books?” It’s when I exercise or when I’m walking the dog when I do that, and so, that’s an easy way.

0:16:07

Then like Amanda with her ankle, we all have aches and pains. I’ve got mine, and so, I want to continue to build muscle. I don't want to lose muscle ‘cause I am over 40, and so, I still lift heavy weights, but instead of just going to the gym and lifting heavy barbells, I’ve had to modify a lot of those things and use dumbbells now, and I use a lot of machines that guide the motion so that I can restrict or limit the painful ranges that I do have but still get the benefits out of it. Again, I’m usually getting something additional out of it that is pleasurable to me like listening to a book or a podcast and doing other things while I’m working out. Then, we walk together. We walk the dog a lot. We get out into our neighborhood. We walk up to the square together and get coffee. That’s always a great thing. That’s a mile-round trip, and it serves a lot of purposes.

0:17:06

Amanda Testa: Right. I think the other thing, too, that’s fun is what are the fun things that you enjoy, right? Dancing - it can be that simple. Can you put on a song and dance to it? Can you go outside and feel the sun on your skin or the elements, whatever they may be? I love when it’s snowing or if it’s raining and I’m out with the dog because no one’s out, and I love that so much. It’s like the quiet that comes with that, and so, for me, being in nature is a big resource for me. It’s something that rejuvenates me. So I love going hiking or just even walking in the woods or even if we have some kind of issue where we can’t, even just going and sitting in nature and letting that be good. Even just squeezing all the muscles in your body and holding it really tight for 20 seconds. Squeezing every muscle in your body, clenching hard, squeezing, and then [Sighs] relaxing. Even that is going to give you that effect of moving your body.

0:18:03

So there are ways that you can be creative in finding the movement, and so, I always feel like, yeah, what’s the pleasurable way? For tuning in again to what your body wants is, like, is it more gentle? Is it just yoga? Mark and I, we used to love to do Yoga with Adriene on YouTube. It’s free, and it was, like, 25 minutes, and it was such a great thing to do especially as I started moving again after I could walk after my ankle injury and just being able to do something gentle felt so good for my body. So even if it’s just gentle stretching, it’s like really just giving your body some love I feel like, at the end of the day, is what’s so important.

Mark Testa: In coming back to your ankle, I think there’s a lot to talk about there because, you know, it did hurt you, it did impact you physically, but it impacted us as a family and as a couple ‘cause we couldn't do things together. You were laid up, literally, non-weight-bearing for six weeks. That was difficult.

0:19:00

So if our partner, our significant other has got health things that are limiting them, that really does spill over into the ecosystem of your home and your relationship. And so, this idea of finding pleasure in movement goes beyond just you as the person and more into you as the couple, you as the ecosystem of your family and things like that.

Amanda Testa: I think that’s so true because, I mean, even as we’re talking now, I think I’ve shared with you before, Mark has had some issues, and he had to have another heart procedure last week, and, thankfully, he’s doing amazing, obviously, here as we’re talking about this, but how it is really challenging when you are at the age where people are injured or have health issues and how to navigate that as a couple. It can be very common for depression to set in if someone has an injury.

0:20:00

And so, being empathetic and understanding if that is the case and always knowing you can reach out for additional support if you need. Oftentimes, you can find resources through your doctor or if you want additional support in that area then, definitely, I urge reaching out because that’s very important.

Mark Testa: You know, let me just address, real quick, depression. It reminds me of a patient I saw in the late ‘90s who would come to me for acupuncture, and it helped her depression. But it was a cost for her every time to see me, and it wasn't really getting to any root causes. It reminded me of numerous articles between the ‘90s and today that show that exercise can relieve mild to moderate depression better than medications, really, without the side effects either. With mostly upside effects. And so, when it comes to mood, again, there’s just no shortcut to changing some of that because some of these medications come with really adverse side effects that people don't want, but exercise can be a really good solution to mild to moderate depression, among other things.

0:21:13

Amanda Testa: Right? Also, I think that mental health piece, that’s why when we’re looking at our sexual function and our pleasure and our ability to enjoy that connection, there are so many aspects to it, and even if you're just doing 150 minutes a week -- isn't that what you said?

Mark Testa: That’s about it, yeah.

Amanda Testa: A hundred and fifty minutes a week of some kind of exercise can be a huge change-maker. That’s why I do 20-minute workouts ‘cause I’m like 20 minutes? I can do that. It’s easy for me because 20 minutes I know I can do.

What’s the story you had about the minute?

Mark Testa: The minute?

Amanda Testa: With your music teacher?

Mark Testa: Oh, yeah. Right, when I started playing percussion, he would tell us, “Look, go home and practice. All I want you to do is one minute a day,” and we were all very puzzled by that.

0:22:02

Like, one minute a day? How am I gonna get better with one minute a day? But what that was, was a very simple, “Well, I can do that.” But then one minute turns into five, turns into fifteen, turns into twenty, and it was like the next thing you know, because you're enjoying yourself and you didn't have any preconceived notion of, “Oh, I’ve got to crank out 30 minutes of this,” which sounds like drudgery sometimes when you're starting ‘cause you're no good at it, one minute, you could do, and it turned more and more into more and more time which also kind of leads to the next analogy.

Really, a farmer doesn't plant a seed and expect to see it crop the next day, so, again, this also takes time to develop, but I bet most people will see a benefit to exercising within seven days (really quickly). You know, you’re not gonna see a change in your body composition, but you're gonna notice, “Hey, maybe I’m sleeping better. Maybe it’s easier for me to move my body. I’m getting up with less morning stiffness.”

0:23:08

And then there’s the whole idea (similar to the drumming) of momentum, right? So once you do it three times a week or four times a week, now, all of a sudden, you've got momentum behind it, that sort of flywheel approach where now it’s going, and it’s really easy to do. You’ve built it into your routine, and you just show up every day and the next thing you know you’ve enjoyed it, you feel good, you're seeing the benefits, and it’s easy to continue to do.

Amanda Testa: Yes, I think finding that momentum around feeling good, it does spread out. Like Mark said, even just after a couple weeks you’ll notice you feel better, and I notice for me, I can tell you I go through periods when I really, really have a good ritual and routine around moving my body and other times where it’s harder. And so, when I get back into the regular rhythm of moving my body in ways that feel good, I do notice I have more energy and I do notice I feel better, and, honestly, there’s a lot of benefit to how you show up in the bedroom, right?

0:24:17

Often, when we have better cardiovascular health and mood there’s a more positive body image. I’m not talking about trying to force yourself into some, as Audre Lorde says, the -- oh, my gosh, I’m having a mental block right now because we just spilled chocolate on the floor, and I’m like, “It’s staining the rug!” These are the things my mind thinks about. Side note.

Yes, so back to the topic at hand. Oh, yes, The Mythical Norm, and just how much pain and misery that causes people to try to look like some unrealistic norm. Thank goodness that’s changing a little bit where there’s more diversity in the images you see in magazines and here, that, and the other.

0:25:01

I, personally, really highly recommend diversifying your feed, diversifying what you take in, looking at lots of different bodies and sexual orientations, and ways people are together so that you can open your mind to what is normal because what we have been conditioned to be normal is not, right? it’s very not normal, and so, I see so many women that struggle with body image and, because of that, don't want to have sex or don't want to be seen naked and just how much it causes pain and suffering and how we can really change that. We can change that.

And so, when you feel better, then, you know, you want to be intimate, and also, it makes it more comfortable to move your body into different positions, right? Sex is a physical act, let’s be honest, and when you're in pain, you can always find ways to adjust things and modify things so, again, if you need help in those areas you can always reach out. But how fun it can be to have more energy and when you have more energy, it creates more energy. I know that cultivating your sexual energy is another thing I talk about a lot because it is part of our overall wellbeing, right? If we have a lot of stagnancy, a lot of things that aren’t moving, then it’s harder to connect to that energy in us.

0:26:16

Mark Testa: And so, not that I’m a physics wiz, I just remember this from physics class. One of the laws of thermodynamics is that energy can neither be created or destroyed. It just can be transferred, and so, you can transfer energy into your body with drugs and stimulants, but that has a short-lived life cycle. You can transfer energy from movement and food and, now, all of a sudden, you have more energy. So when it comes to what you just said, I think you can cultivate it by transferring it from one region to another.

0:27:00

Amanda Testa: That is true. I mean, and actually I was just looking at a study on physiological sexual arousal following acute exercise, and there’s some that it pointed out like it’s driven by increases in sympathetic nervous system activity and endocrine factors. Chronic exercise lightly enhances sexual satisfaction indirectly by preserving autonomic flexibility which benefits cardiovascular health and mood. Positive body image due to chronic exercise also increases sexual wellbeing. I think that’s interesting to note because, a lot of times, what happens with arousal is we have to also be able to hold, not only -- our nervous system needs to function in a way where we’re not constantly in either a sympathetic or a parasympathetic tone. It bounces back and forth all the time, and that’s normal, right? We want to be in that range of resilience which is where we can easily ride the waves of our lives without falling into extreme overwhelm or depression and shutdown, and so, when we exercise, too, it enhances our capacity for arousal which means, again, we can hold more of that good feeling, too.

0:28:12

Mark Testa: Which I’m snickering over here remembering my anatomy class. We always used little stories to remember things, but parasympathetic in the sacrum, right, which affects men and women, but we remembered is, “S234 keeps the dingdong off the floor.” [Laughs] We had all kinds of silly things like that.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Mark Testa: Right? A male cannot have an erection or stimulation in any general region (male, female, or nonbinary) without some sort of parasympathetic tone which we already learned earlier that exercise stimulates the vagus nerve in ways like that. And so, to get parasympathetic-tone healthy, there are beautiful effects on that.

0:29:03

Amanda Testa: Yes, and so, all this to say is I really feel like what are the foundations that you could look at to make some easy changes because there are easy things to do so maybe looking at what are the easy things if I’m going through my day and I’m thinking what needs to be weeded and watered? Where could I add in more movement that feels good? Where could I add in more care for myself in a loving way? Again, I think that’s the big key is looking at it in a way that can add more pleasure to your life versus this is something I have to do, this is something that’s annoying, this is something that’s painful, this is something that I don't enjoy. It’s finding a way to make it enjoyable and pleasurable because there are ways to do that. If you need help in that area, obviously, you know that we’re available and we’re here for you. But I would just encourage you to maybe look at those things. What are some ways that I can easily find some more movement? Maybe if it’s even just like I’m sitting all day (which we all are in this epidemic of sitting all day in this day and age) is how can I make little reminders to myself like I’m gonna do some full body squeezes.

0:30:04

I’m gonna squeeze my butt as hard as I can. Maybe I’m going to just have some things at my desk that I can just remind myself with. Maybe every hour I’m gonna stretch, I’m gonna get up. Maybe I’m gonna invest in a standing desk, all of these things. How can I be more loving to my vessel that is so important to enjoy pleasure in all the ways. Like Mark said, it’s not just sex in the bedroom; it’s how can I enjoy my life and be present to the things around me with less pain, with less overwhelm?

So that’s why I wanted to share that today, and thank you, Mark, for all your wisdom in this area.

Mark Testa: Thank you for having me on your show.

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Mark Testa: I always enjoy it, and if anyone would like to reach out to me, I’ll offer it as well. If you’d like some exercise ideas or feedback, reach out to Amanda, and I’d be glad to give you any support I can.

Amanda Testa: Mark’s been in healthcare for 25+ years so he knows a thing or two which is what I always love when we talk about these things ‘cause we both get very passionate and fired up.

0:31:04

I, around doing things in a trauma-informed way and doing things in a way that is realistic and pleasurable and he, too, right, because he treats patients all the time, and he’s like, you know, people don't implement. Oftentimes, it’s because of the mindset that we’ve learned around all-or-nothing thinking, right? It’s either all or nothing. I’m good or bad. I see that so much. I see it so much. We have to realize that we can have multiple things happening at the same time, right? You can eat a bag of cookies and still be a good person. You can eat a bag of cookies and still love yourself. You don't have to beat yourself up, and we do. We shame the shit out of ourselves, and there are ways that you can evolve beyond that. You know what, it’s because of, unfortunately, our conditioning, right? We are just in this culture that we’re in, and so, it’s understandable that we would treat this all ourselves the way that we do, but there are techniques and there are methods to move through that, and I do feel like a lot of times, when I’m working with people around their sexuality, body image is a big part of it.

0:32:09

So this is a lot of what I talk about. Oftentimes, too, I think I mentioned before I was a personal trainer and I taught Stroller Strides (workouts for moms) for a long time, and that’s kind of one of the things that got me into this work around sexuality is because I would hear all of the complaints and all the struggles that moms face, and so, I get it. I also, too, lived that myself, and so, I know what you can do to feel better, and so, that’s why I like to also look at all the different holistic ways we can have more pleasure as a foundation in our lives.

I appreciate you listening, and I would love to hear any nuggets that you’re taking away. Again, thinking about what can I do to make this experience a little more pleasurable, whatever that is. All right? Sending you lots of love, and we will see you next week.

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation.

0:33:11

I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]

JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION ON THIS EPISODE AND MORE IN MY FREE FACEBOOK GROUP, FIND YOUR FEMININE FIRE HERE.

Sasha Ostara is a Mexican multicultural woman, she's a Somatic Feminist,
Somatic Trauma Healer and Pleasure Coach Specializing in Female Sexuality, and Jade Egg.
She believes Vulva Love is a Feminist revolution, and pleasure as medicine and liberation.

Important links

               Follow Sasha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sasha_ostara/

• • Feeling Safe In Your Body: https://www.sasha-ostara.com/safebody

  • Work with Sasha in her one-on-one coaching program, Unbroken: https://www.sasha-ostara.com/unbrokencoaching

  •   Work with Sasha in her group program, Untamed: https://www.sasha-ostara.com/untamed

  
  
  
  

Have a topic or question you'd like Amanda to address on a future episode? Submit it on this anonymous form.

If you liked this episode, please consider giving me a 5 Star Review on Apple Podcasts! It truly does help the podcast grow. 

EPISODE 232: Sasha Ostara

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

Amanda Testa: Hello, and welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex, love, and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex, love, and relationships, and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome!

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Today, I am so thrilled and honored to be welcoming an amazing guest. We are going to be diving into somatic feminism. We are going to be diving into honoring our bodies and our vulvas as a way of connecting to our power and really using this to decolonize ourselves from the systems of oppression. I am so, so thrilled to welcome the incredible Sasha Ostara. Welcome, Sasha. She is a Somatic Feminist, and I love this term that she coined. We’re gonna talk more about that. She’s a Mexican-Lebanese multicultural mother. She’s a witch, a goddess, an amazing human, a powerful, powerful space holder, and I just am so thrilled to be talking with you today. Thank you so much for being here, Sasha.

0:01:09

Sasha Ostara: I’m so honored for this invitation. Thank you so much for allowing me the chance to be here with you, with your audience, and just to share this space with you. It means so much to me.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes. Well, I’m so excited to share more about you and your wisdom because I really feel like -- we were just talking about this before we started recording because we got to spend time together a few months ago in Costa Rica where we were space holding for our retreat and just talking about how when we can get together in those types of spaces, it really just brings out the best in us. It brings out that empowerment, the support (feeling that support), and, in this day and age, oftentimes, we are very siloed in a way because we’re still recovering from COVID, and just with the way it is, is we don't have that in person connection as much so it feels really good to be remembering that and also to connect energetically with you over the waves of the Zoom land. [Laughs]

0:02:05

Sasha Ostara: Yes, it’s so amazing how when, particularly, people that have been working on their own embodiment, their healing, these powerful witches get together, magic happens, and it’s exponential healing and an exponential empowering experience. I feel like that’s maybe my favorite part of sharing space with other powerful witches. It just feels like we grow exponentially in a couple of weeks.

Amanda Testa: It’s so true, and because we don't -- I feel like, we need more spaces like that where we can be celebrated and encouraged in that way versus most of our cultural experiences that are the exact opposite where we are not able to fully express that.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: So it’s so important, Yeah.

Sasha Ostara: And to be nourished. I feel like it’s just the same with sharing this, it’s like maybe the thing that makes magic be so evident is the fact that we get to be nourished by one another instead of being the sole providers of nourishment in our communities, in our environments.

0:03:15

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: It’s just usually the role that so many people with pussies crave.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: So many women just start becoming the immediate nourisher of our environments, our families. It’s so exhausting to be dealing with our kids, our husbands, our mothers, our families and friends. We need the spaces to just sit and receive. Oddly enough, we are also giving, but it’s such an energy exchange that it feels nourishing at the end of the day.

Amanda Testa: Yes, and for everyone out there listening, I’ll just invite you to try that on even for just now. How about you just sit back and relax and receive and let yourself be nourished through Sasha’s wisdom and our conversation.

0:04:03

Sasha Ostara: Yeah. Yeah, we all need a little bit more of receiving. We are so used to just giving. Let’s just receive for a change.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes to receiving. I’m wondering, too, because I know all of our stories are a very long web, but I’m wondering if maybe there’s one aspect that you might want to share about, really, what led you into your passion for this work.

Sasha Ostara: Ooh, that’s such a fascinating story because what led me to this work was that I needed it to survive because I was just about to give up on my dreams, my hopes, not my life, of course, but there was, at some point, a sense of “there’s nothing else for me. I guess, this was it. I guess this is as far as I will ever get in life.” I just felt that gloomy energy growing everyday in my life.

0:05:04

I had lost my joy, my humor, my desires, my ambition, my vision. I was feeling really lost in my own little world journey, and the thing with the journey into the underworld is that we risk hanging there for so long that we forget that we can actually start climbing back up.

So I was in that moment in which I was hanging in the underworld for too long, and I was just starting to give up and feeling like there was nothing else for me, and then my grandmother died. She was like my mom. She’s the person that raised me and is closest to me. When she died, I was hit by this force, by this arch of leaving, of thinking, okay, I don’t want to get to that point in my life and think that I didn't do anything with my life, that I just raised my kids and then was left empty with my emptiness and emptiness as well.

0:06:15

So I was pushed towards looking for more. That search led me back to my body. I had been looking for that in mythology, in meditation, in spiritual practices, but the one place I hadn’t looked for it was in my own body, in my own pleasure, and when that moment happened, in which I was just about to give up, about to just let life happen to me without really trying to make anything out of it, it was like a force inside of me woke up and said, “I’m not giving up on you. We need to make something with our lives. We need to experience pleasure again.”

0:07:04

For me, it was really an energy of Aphrodite. I usually share that it was Aphrodite, who I felt that had died, but then she came back and said, “Oh, no, I’m not dying. [Laughs] I’m reclaiming you. I am taking you back, and we are living life at our fullest.”

Amanda Testa: That is so powerful, and that you were able to listen to that call.

Sasha Ostara: Ah.

Amanda Testa: Which is not an easy thing to do either, right?

Sasha Ostara: Yeah, I am so grateful that I had the chance to listen. I am grateful for my grandmother because I feel like that was her biggest farewell gift, and, for me, she had to give me that because she was the woman that lived fully until she gave up on her pleasure. So it’s like healing that trauma.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: I have always focused on healing my family trauma, but I didn’t realize that that was a piece that needed healing as well, the piece of reclaiming my Aphrodite, my pleasure, my desire to live fully.

0:08:08

Amanda Testa: Ah, I love that so much. I’m wondering, too -- you know, I love how you mentioned you had searched everywhere for your own body. I’m wondering how you came upon that. What was the invitation into exploring that?

Sasha Ostara: Hmm, so I found that -- I had a spontaneous Kundalini awakening during a meditation. I could go on long, long meditations. At some point, I started meditating three or four hours a day, and my spirituality, up to that moment, was a spirituality of detachment from the body.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, yes.

Sasha Ostara: It was about leaving my body and moving to the higher spheres of consciousness. Then, I had this experience in which I felt my body pull me back, pull this consciousness back, and I started having waves of orgasms. It was like what’s going on? Is the universe having sex with me? What is happening? [Laughs]

0:09:14

Amanda Testa: [Laughs]

Sasha Ostara: I was having orgasm after orgasm in ways that I hadn’t experienced before. I feel like that was the moment in which something shifted when it came to connecting to my body because I realized that this energy was craving for something more. It was literally the Kundalini asking for experiencing more for experiencing more like this. After that, things started to shift and change, and I heard from Layla Martin, and I heard from -- I started flirting around with a friend that I had talked to many years ago. Just having that conversation, it was like I started to feel alive again, and that started showing in many different areas, and one thing led to another which was finding my picture that allowed me to connect to pussy again, to connect to her power again.

0:10:13

What started as a search for more orgasms, like the one I had just experienced, ended up becoming a search for myself, for my deepest power.

Amanda Testa: Yes. Mm, I love that so much. I love the term that you coined - The Somatic Feminist. So I’d love if you might share a little bit more about what that means for the listeners.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah, so, precisely, in that journey (in the journey of finding my pleasure) I found that there was an internalized sexism that I didn't realize I had. There was a sense of an urge of giving my power away to my partner or to whoever might take it. I realized that the whole experience of many of the people I was surrounded by was similar.

0:11:05

There was a desire to become the perfect concubine, to please the partner, to be sexy and desirable. At the end of the day, it was not what my soul was craving. My soul was craving for something deeper, and I started exploring the wound that was lying underneath that desire. I found that the wound was one of misogyny. How, after all, cultures of oppression have caused the deep harm regarding how people (specifically people with pussies) have embraced our sexuality for a long time, how we kept learning that our sexuality belongs to somebody else, how we are sexual to please somebody else. That has been something that I literally heard from some of my earliest clients. 

0:12:05

They would tell me things like, “I feel guilty about self-pleasuring because I feel like I am cheating on my partner.” There is even a phrase in Mexico that says that women are produce for gentlemen. So I have a client telling me, “This is what they used to say in my family,” and then I heard it somewhere else, and I said, whoa, this is precisely the wound that so many of us have been carrying about our sexuality. It’s a wound of having had our sexuality and our pleasure being taken away from us and used to pleasure others, to get other people to be nourished by this powerful source of energy, and then we are left empty, tired, and feeling like giving up like I was these years ago.

0:13:00

So I discovered that it was a struggle that didn't start with me. It’s a struggle that so many other women have studied about, worked on, and I recognize that it is a path that is deeply connected to both the body (our somatic experience, how we live these experiences in our body) and feminism as a fight for justice and equality and for bringing a sense of understanding of how to find freedom from the systems of oppression through our pleasure, through (like Audre Lorde said) our erotic nature, our erotic force. So it was this recognition of those giants on which shoulders we are standing - their fights, their achievements, and to continue that lineage. I was always craving for a lineage.

0:14:01

When I was very young, I joined the sanctuary. I was craving for a lineage, and now I found that lineage is the lineage of those thinkers and revolutionaries that have been craving to bring equality and justice to, not just women, but to everybody because I believe in the kind of feminism that integrates everybody (that integrates people of color, that integrates people with different gender expressions, and people of different social statuses). So, for me, that is the lineage that I am to follow.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, and I just want to hold a minute for that reverence. Yes. Ah, so good, and so important to recognize. I think, like you mentioned, too, it can feel so big but yet there’s so much we can do, right? And so, when it comes to that, it’s like when I am kind of reclaiming my pleasure and using it as a way to take back freedom, how do I go about that, right? If someone’s listening and is like, “That sounds amazing! I want that! What can I do?”

0:15:15

Sasha Ostara: [Laughs] Yeah! Yeah, that sounds magnificent, but, yeah, then, the implementation of that is what takes the work and understanding.

Amanda Testa: Yes.

Sasha Ostara: The good news is that it’s actually very specific. The thing with the feminist approach is that it has very specific steps that we can follow, and then we can follow the somatic and pleasure approach, and it creates magic, but one of the things that I love is that it’s simple. It’s about connecting in sisterhood or siblinghood. It’s about putting other women up and listening to those that came before us and bringing them to the front and center and saying, “Hey.”

0:16:09

Just quoting the people that inspire us that a feminist trait, recognizing the struggle and the system around us. That’s another way to do it, and that’s maybe one of the most important ones because when we recognize that we are not by ourselves, dealing with our struggles, but that it is the system that has kept us in this way for a long time, all of a sudden it’s not a personal problem. It’s not that I feel unlovable, unlikable, undesirable. It’s that it’s actually a system and understanding that this system of oppression is thriving by keeping us disempowered and small, allows us to rebel against it, to name it. Once we name it, we get to actually do something about it. We stop thinking that it’s something wrong with us, and we recognize that it has a name.

0:17:12

I was listening to a teacher that I deeply admire called Kelly Diels, and she was speaking about how, before she knew about the term mansplaining, she actually thought that there must be something wrong with her and with her way of explaining things because people didn't seem to get it, and they think that maybe she wasn’t smart enough. Maybe people were not understanding what she was saying properly so she needed to elaborate better. Then, she read from Rebecca Solnit in her book, Men Explain Things To Me, about the term mansplaining and how men have tried to explain her books to her, and she got it. She said, “Okay, it is not me. It is a system trait. It is called mansplaining, and it’s not about me or my experience. It’s about the system and how it works to keep me feeling that I am not fitting enough, that I am not smart enough.”

0:18:15

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Sasha Ostara: So once you name it, you get to actually do something about it because it’s not about you anymore. That is deeply powerful.

Amanda Testa: Mm, you mention that, too, that sometimes it takes being in community to realize that, right?

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Because so often when there’s the community you're like, “Wait a minute. I thought that was just me!” and you realize, oh, wait, it is cultural. Like you were saying, it’s not a problem that’s just affecting me.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: And then it takes this huge weight off of, like, oh, it makes so much sense now.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah. Yeah, and it allows you to focus on other things instead of focusing on the thing that we thought was our sole experience. We get to understand how other people go through it, but, more than anything, we get to feel validated in our experience which is one of the hardest things for women to feel validated in our experience because, for a long time, we have been gaslit into thinking that whatever we are feeling must be just our hysteria and our weird way of understanding the world because who understands women, you know?

0:19:27

We get to be validated in our experience of the world, and that empowers us deeply.

Amanda Testa: Mm-hmm, yes. That validation piece is just, ah, so huge. I think, too, like you say, there are things that we can do and things that we can focus on that can kind of change our experience and make a difference.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Right? I’m wondering what are some of the most profound things that are coming to mind for you that have been so supportive or that you love to teach or to invite people into?

0:20:09

Sasha Ostara: For me, if I could just teach one thing to people or be satisfied after I have coached somebody because they loved that one thing it could be self-compassion. For me, that piece has changed everything. When people get to understand that they are worthy of love and compassion, that they are doing the best they can with the things they have at hand, that we are made of different parts, different pieces, and that all of them deserve to be seen and validated with love and compassion, we get to just change drastically the way which we experience the world. That is the one thing I keep teaching again and again and again.

0:21:02

Whenever somebody comes with a sense of rage, sorrow, or whatever piece that they have been denying, being just pleasure or being even just disgust about their own bodies. Whenever they come with whatever is necessary for them to work on, the magic that changes everything is learning to see these parts of themselves with love and compassion, slowing down and loving yourself can really change the way in which we experience the world.

Amanda Testa: I’m wondering, too, if people may be struggling with self-compassion because it is not an easy skill to embody and learn. So if someone’s starting to realize, okay, I need to be more kind to myself, I need to honor my experience more, what might you offer around that?

Sasha Ostara: That is true for so many people, and with good reason. It’s hard to deal with self-compassion.

0:22:01

It’s hard to slow down because that’s the first thing is slowing down. It’s hard to actually love anything about them, especially the parts that we have been unlovable for a long time. That feels so easy, but it’s the hardest thing that so many people can aim to get to do. There is always a way to achieve that. For me, that has always been very personal, depending on the person I’m dealing with, but pretty much the magic trick is finding that person or that creature that they love the most and picturing that thing that they are saying to themselves, that thing they are punishing themselves for, that thing that they are having a hard time loving about themself, is something that that one person or creature they love is bringing to the table.

0:23:01

For example, their kids. Would you talk to your kid this way you're talking to yourself? What would you tell your child if your child came to you telling you that she’s horrible and that she has the worst body in the world and that she’s unworthy of love and appreciation? That’s the moment in which they tear up and realize that they would never speak to their kids the way they are speaking to themselves -- or to their dog or to their mom or to their best friend. Very slowly, somebody that we are gentle and kind and loving to, and so, constantly the invitation is to play a little bit with that relationship and recognize that that way in which we love that person can be applied to ourselves and that we can show ourselves that same tenderness and compassion that we show others.

0:23:58

Amanda Testa: Mm, such a beautiful way to describe that. Thank you. I also have a daughter. She’s ten, so I always think about that as well, and also, noticing when we have kids (as a side note) often that can bring up a lot in ourselves, especially if they're certain ages where certain things might have happened in your own life. It’s just also to honor and just appreciate that it’s not easy [Laughs]

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Compassion is the best thing you can do. Like you say, we’re all doing our best with the tools that we have, and the more that you can see that, I think you have more empathy for everyone and how they are 'cause they're doing their best. Honestly, I think most people really are doing their best.

Anyways, so I want to switch gears a little bit because I also want to talk a little bit more because you are the creatrix of Vulvalchemy -- and let me know if I mispronounced that, but I love that term, and I think it’s so delicious. If you don't mind sharing a little bit more about that for everyone.

Sasha Ostara: [Laughs] Thank you. Yeah, I love the term.

0:25:00

I was playing around with everything that I wanted to bring to the table, and that term just came magically to me. For me, it’s the mixture of the things that I am the most passionate about. What is definitely the recognition of these systems around which we grow because we are traumatized in community and we heal in community. So understanding how our family systems, cultural systems work is a fundamental part.

Then, understanding how magic happens when we learn to relate to our vulva in a way in which we would relate to our best friend. If we start connecting with her (chatting, exploring her, asking her questions), then we recognize that those same things that could be ideal for her, like compassion, again, like consent, like a constant conversation about her boundaries and desires, those same things are the things that we want as women.

0:26:07

They’re the very same things we crave to receive. So, like, okay, yeah, you want to offer consent to your vulva? Are you being clear about your boundaries when it comes to your connection with other people? Are you clear about your desires? So I realize it’s a microcosmos of the bigger cosmos that we are. So it’s this reflection of who we are.

Then, the magic of the Jade Egg practices incorporated with my own flavor that brings storytelling and going deep into the journey of the goddesses and their own mythology and their own mythological journey around healing. So it’s this blended mixture of all of these pieces together which, at the end of the day, are just about loving our vulva madly so that we love ourselves that same way, so that we learn to listen to our bodies in that same way, and to demand the same level of deep love and compassion from our environment because the thing is, is that when we learn to love our self deeply and shamelessly, we also want that from the people around us, and we bring that to the table as well (to the people that we love). We bring that sense of compassion and consent and tenderness to everybody around us so it becomes, again, a systemic thing in which everybody starts getting something from just loving these parts of ourselves.

Amanda Testa: Mm, so good. If you think about it -- because it makes me realize when we think about people with vulvas, for many of us, that’s been conditioned as something that’s not good, right?

0:28:02

It’s dirty, wrong, whatever, all the things that we hear. By loving that part of ourselves, it’s just life-changing.

Sasha Ostara: Yeah, yeah! Specifically loving them in whatever way it means to love them for us.

Amanda Testa: Yes, yes, yes.

Sasha Ostara: Because that is also very important. I realize that what was very simple for some -- I would ask them to look at their pussies, to do some pussy gazing, to just talk to them -- for some people, that was already too much. It was already too much to ask for, and for those people, I learned that I needed to reach them where they were at, to teach them that love didn’t need to be the same thing that meant to love their pussies to other women. So, for other people with pussies, it was about self-pleasure and dearmoring and taking photos or painting, and for others, love just meant being compassionate enough to understand that their pussy was afraid of being seen, that was afraid of being touched, and to love her in that moment just like that.

0:29:18

There was no need to do anything else. Just like that. Just the way they are right now.

Amanda Testa: Yeah, pondering exactly what is and letting that be enough because it is enough, right?

Sasha Ostara: Yeah.

Amanda Testa: Yeah.

Sasha Ostara: Ah, that’s the beauty of it. It is enough. We don't need to show up with an agenda when it comes to loving ourselves, and I think that that is the thing that gets many people confused about what loving ourselves means. Some people think that self love means the big things that we see some people do on Instagram, you know? Posting and being super open about their sexuality. It means that for them, but it means a quiet stillness for others.

0:30:04

It means allowing yourself to cry when you haven't cried for others. It means laughing hysterically for others. It means whatever there is. There is no agenda. There is no right or wrong way to love ourselves. it’s just loving what is.

Amanda Testa: Yes. I love this conversation so much. I feel like I could keep talking to you for hours because I could.

Sasha Ostara: Mm-hmm. [Laughs]

Amanda Testa: I’d love to know if there’s maybe any question that you wished I would have asked that I didn't ask or anything else you really want to make sure to share?

Sasha Ostara: Ah, thank you. What I feel is very important that we bring into the conversation is how -- a friend of mine was calling it a beautiful way. She said, “We are divergent people. Not just neurodivergent, but divergent people, people from different ethnicities, body shapes, narrow ways of thinking, and how all of us are invited to the party as well.

0:31:09

I feel like sometimes it’s easy to think that vulva love, sexual liberation, sexual expression, pleasure is a privilege. We forget that we are all invited to join into this celebration of our bodies. The differences that we all bring into the table, our cultures, our beautiful body sizes, and our beautiful ethnicities, our beautiful ways of perceiving the world, even though our own journey and things, they are all part of this amazing symphony. This is a celebration for all of us. Our body is a freaking party. Let’s live it. There’s no need to look a certain way in order to be worthy of love and appreciation, and that is something that I really want everybody to remember.

0:32:01

We don't need to wait until we have lost those pounds or we have the partner that we wish we had. We don't need to wait to actually start connecting to our pleasure. It’s there, literally, at the tip of our fingers to just start connecting. It’s literally about connecting -- even that, for some people, it feels sexual, and for others, it will never be sexual or it will just be a sensual experience. It will just be about connecting to eating the freaking pie and enjoying the freaking pie and not worrying about enjoying it too much, and not discussing the idea of the guilty pleasure, and just enjoying our pleasures for what they are - a roadmap to our soul calling. So, for me, that is the thing that I really want everybody to remember.

0:33:01

We are all welcome in the celebration of our bodies. No need to wait to look a certain way. It’s not just for young people, it’s not just for skinny people, it’s not just for a certain ethnicity. We are all invited.

Amanda Testa: Thank you so much for that. I’m just so excited for you to share more about where people can connect with you and work with you and all the amazing offerings that you have. So if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about how everyone can connect with you and learn more about you.

Sasha Ostara: Oh, thank you. So I am on Instagram @sasha_ostara, and I have a web page www.sasha-ostara.com. I have a free program. It’s a free mini program that I created for people during COVID. It’s called Feeling Safe In Your Body. That is a beautiful, delightful amount of tiny practices for everybody to just connect real quick to this sense of safety back in their bodies. It was created in times of distress, and I think that it’s very present and very useful still to this day.

0:34:17

I am working one-on-one with my coaching program, Unbroken, which is, for me, the biggest realization. We are not broken. We are whole. We are perfect just as we are. So Unbroken is my one-on-one coaching program, and I have a group program called Untamed which is all about this reclamation of our sexuality from the clause of patriarchy.

Amanda Testa: Well, I just cannot say enough amazing things about Sasha. She is incredible, and so, I highly urge you to check her out and connect with her. I’m just wondering if there’s anything else that feels important to share as we close today? Thank you so much, again. I really appreciate your time and being here and sharing your wisdom. It’s so beautiful and powerful, yes, thank you, Sasha.

0:35:10

Sasha Ostara: Thank you so much, Amanda. I’m so, so, so honored to be able to share this space with you. Thank you for all the gentleness and kindness and deep, wild, loving wisdom that you always bring with this blanket of love and compassion. Thank you for everything that you do, and, yeah, for me, I feel like it’s just about reminding people that we are worthy of love, that this is all about remembering that the greatest craving that we all, as humans, have is to be seen, validated, and loved. Let’s offer that to ourselves and to those around us.

Amanda Testa: Thank you so very much. Again, I’ll put in the show notes where you can find more about Sasha Ostara and how you can connect with her. So thank you so much, again, for being here, Sasha. Thank you all for listening. Wishing you a beautiful week ahead.

[Fun, Empowering Music] 

0:36:06 

Thank you so much for listening to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. This is your host, Amanda Testa, and if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. I invite you to reach out.

You can contact me at amandatesta.com/activate, and we can have a heart-to-heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook in the Find Your Feminine Fire group, and if you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends. Go to iTunes and give me a five-star rating and a raving review so I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself.

Thank you so much for being a part of the community.

[Fun, Empowering Music]