Dr. Emily Morse
Appearances
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Everything's great and we're married but we don't have great sex. The sex is not a but. Sex is not an afterthought. Sex is wellness and your pleasure is important and you have to prioritize it from the jump.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
yeah you know the day-to-day i mean let's normalize the fact that i would say that the majority of relationships are going to go through the dip it's going to happen because you know you know postpartum perimenopause menopause certain foods we eat if we exercise don't exercise i mean so many things impact our libido like i said medications mental health physical health and so just first off normalizing that it doesn't mean that you're broken it doesn't mean that there's like this huge
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
problem. It just means like accepting like this is an understanding that your libido is going to fluctuate over time. And when you're in a relationship, also acknowledging the fact that in every relationship, there's usually a high desire partner and a low desire partner.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And the low desire partner actually sort of controls the sex life because they're the ones who are deciding when the sex happens, when the sex doesn't happen. And
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And it's just a note to say that this is something just couples are going to have to have to learn to communicate about and recognize and first saying like, hey, I'm noticing that our, you know, our sex life is sort of changing and like, what can we, you know, what can we do together? But here's some very specific tips.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
The first thing is not expecting that your desire is going to be spontaneous like it was in the beginning of the relationship. So there's different kinds of desire. There's spontaneous and there is responsive. And so we, most of us are stuck in this, like I should be hit over my head.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I should want to rip my partner's clothes off or they see me in the room and they want it all the time and I don't. So I'm, therefore I'm broken, but I want to normalize responsive desire. So spontaneous, we all know. I see my partner, I'm turned on. I get a certain touch. I see something.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Again, a lot of us live in the state of when we are the honeymoon phase of our relationship, when we do have that spontaneous all the time, it's on. That is a state of time, a limited period of time. That's usually about six months, to two years. And that's because all those feel good hormones, you know, it's like any drug, what comes up is going to come down and we might not have that anymore.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So then we have to know the responsive desire is more about knowing when I talked about the self-knowledge pillar, what is going to stoke your desire? It could be so many different things. It could be I had a great date night with my partner. We had a wonderful conversation. The house is clean. I exercised today. I was able to manage my stress. I did some breath work. Or I'm on my cycle.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah, I'm on my cycle. I ate certain foods. I'm in a mood. I mean, really just kind of normalizing. Like there are certain knowing your body and knowing when you're going to be more in the mood and when you're not. I mean, there have been studies that show that women actually are more aroused in late afternoon. a lot of times sex isn't happening that way.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And then there's a lot of pressure, especially on women to have sex. And this, again, I don't even, I try not to use genders that much, even when my work, because I found that it's just, it's just like men, women, we all, whatever your gender is, we all experience all these different things. But if, if, For a lot of women, there's like a pressure that I got to be turned on at night.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And even my last partner, I was like, babe, Monday night's 10 o'clock. Like it's never, if it's after 10 o'clock, it's probably not going to happen on most nights of the week. I want to get in bed at nine. Like, let's find the times that it does work.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So the first thing is normalizing desire and understanding that you, so we might respond to, again, conversations, date night connections, certain things with our partners. The other thing is knowing that like you can schedule sex. People think that is the least sexy thing ever. Like you don't want to look at your calendar and be like, pick up the kids, go to, you know, go to work, have sex.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But when we don't schedule it, it's a way of saying like sex is important to us. We're going to prioritize it. And this way, you know, okay. Saturday night is our sex night. And so I don't have to actually be thinking about it on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, but when it's Saturday, then I have self-knowledge that I'm gonna be thinking about it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So I'm gonna have that kind of like, sometimes when our brain gets on board for sex, our body's more likely to follow. So on these other times, maybe we're not on board, but if we know, like I have to respond to it. So I'm thinking about sex. I'm setting up the environment that's gonna be most conducive to me wanting to have sex. That's another way that couples can stoke it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And then also we thrive with,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
curiosity and with spontaneity and with variety change and so what can we do that's different what is there a different position a different location is there again this is not the only solutions but like a new lubricant a toy a conversation and for so long again I talked earlier about the techniques that people like give me a quick technique and I'm not going to tell you like buy this vibrator your sex life is going to change however when we're talking about this one part of it
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
it might help you be more aroused. If there's something new, it could be anything like just, and even it could just be like a really sexy conversation about it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It's a huge part of it is, is creating a space that is conducive to sex. So, I love thinking about the senses. Like I always have this vanilla candle that I light. I have a lot of soft, fuzzy things in my room. I have great lighting. I have my favorite playlist.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And so anytime you think about all the senses that are like signaling sex or making you feel, you know, more turned on, it's so important. Even with a partner having a ritual, like again, I found that for so many women, sometimes sex gets going and it moves a lot faster than they want. And so it's like, I,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
We, you know, I always talk about foreplay and I don't even love the word foreplay because it centers sex on penetration and penetration is not the magic for the majority of women. But even that, like, it's not just like a light suggestion. It's actually a requirement. So for couples to have like a ritual to have like with, you know, partners, I think like let's breathe together for a minute.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Let's hold hands. Let's look into each other's eyes. Let's make sure the room is set up. So it's all of that. It's, it's really engaging the senses and being intentional and, and setting yourself up so you're actually ready rather than feeling like you sort of fell into the sex and you weren't ready for it and it doesn't feel, yeah, intentional.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It's such a good question because if you think about it, there's so much judgment around women standing up for their own pleasure. Like women want to watch porn or buy a vibrator or even talk about sex. We have immediate judgment. And it's because of all this, like we'd have to undo like...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Absolutely. That's the thing. Like a lot of women who have been assaulted can actually like have fantasies that are working that into it. Role playing out something that might've been such a traumatic event in their life and then flipping it into, you know, more of erotic sensual play.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah. That's it. Having agency and power.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
decades of cultural conditioning that tells women it's not okay to be sexual, that their sexuality is something to be shamed of, to be hidden, to be for somebody else's pleasure, and to be sort of a side thought or an afterthought. And so it's really comes back to like religion and society and not having a lot of information. I really think that's, that's what it's all about.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah. I would say first, you're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. And again, we center sex so much on penetration. This goes back to like cultural conditioning and religion and all the things. We should only be having sex to make a baby. However, the majority of women are not going to have an orgasm through penetration.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
They're going to have an orgasm through like fingers, a mouth, a toy, words, energy, like so many other ways. And so first figuring out what is actually getting you the most turned on, aroused, and connected. And so really it's about figuring that out for yourself.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It could be through some solo work or having a partner that's really open to collaborating with you and finding out what is gonna allow you to orgasm. But sometimes again, when our goal is based on sensuality and connection, you might find that the orgasm happens Because you're releasing this notion that it should come out in a certain way.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But I think, again, it's really about just exploring your own body, being with a partner who's open to figuring that out with you, why it's going to happen, how it's going to happen, and what you require for orgasm. A lot of us just are expecting, again, that was kind of the start of my work was when I realized that I was tired of faking orgasms. You know, this was like 25 years ago.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I was like, this doesn't seem right. That my partner is always finishing. They're always having an orgasm and I am all about equality for women in all areas. Why is this the case? I don't, this doesn't seem right. And so I decided that wasn't going to happen again. I did everything I could. I really figured out my path to orgasm and that is available to every single woman.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And if you haven't had an orgasm with your partner, it's not because you can't, you're not broken, there's nothing wrong with you. It just because, you know, now, now you get to explore and find your path to pleasure.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
If I used to get your off and rebrand everything, I would.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah. I mean, it's actually like if you think about it. We need to be warmed up. If you're defining sex in a certain way, like genitals touching, rubbing against each other, you know, then we require it. But even just in general, foreplay can be anything. It could be a kiss, a glance, you know, sending your partner a sexy text. It can be just touch, massage. I'm such a fan of massage as foreplay.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I think that sex can be so healing for so many people. There is so much release that can happen when you feel safe because You actually can't fully access pleasure if you're living in an activated trauma state. There's so much judgment around women standing up for their own pleasure. And it's because we'd have to undo decades of cultural conditioning that tells women it's not okay.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I mean, I can't tell you how many times you might think you don't want sex and then you get like a foot massage for 15 minutes.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
One of the best things I ever did was buy a massage table.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Me too. Same. Yes. I'm telling you, it is worth your investment. You can buy them on the second, whatever, buy a massage table. It doesn't Amazon. Yep. Because first off, I love that you do this. It's like, okay, because also think about it. You, we talked about libido is waning. We're busy life.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You're exhausted, but here you are expected to perform and receive and have orgasms, do all these things. What if one night it's just about you are receiving and, And then next time your partner's receiving and then you're giving.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And there's just something about that active massage and touch where you can breathe together and really receive and use your favorite body oil, use a massage candle, like make that the practice. I mean, that to me is the ultimate foreplay.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It's about the cultural conditioning and judgments around women being sexual. I think that's, that's really, that's really what it is.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
That was like our favorite way. Like, yeah, I probably be like, okay, well, hi, my name is Joe. You know, we have so much fun with it every time and it's okay to laugh. It's okay to joke. And you would say in full character, but it was like always the best massage I ever had.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So let's like normalize that.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I love it. That is a great prank.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah. Wow. This is it, right? This is the conundrum. I mean... Well, first, I always ask to have couples like, usually they had it in the beginning, I hope. If you've had it, that's a great start. Usually a lot of other stuff has gotten in the way and you can build her up. But yes, you absolutely, it just means that you've gotten really comfortable.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You're connected all these other ways, maybe emotionally and spiritually. But it just means that, again, it's time to get really curious about your connection. What could you guys explore together that you're both into? I have this like yes, no, maybe list on my website. It is the most, it's probably been downloaded about a million times. It's a free guide at sexwithemily.com.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It has about a hundred sex acts on it. And it's just, I have a lot of different tools like these that just help people have the conversations or get curious. It has like a hundred different sex acts, like and you each take it separately. So kissing, is it a yes, no, or maybe? You know, dirty talk, yes, no, maybe. Toys, yes, no, maybe.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah, exactly.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And then you come together and I can't tell you how many couples are like, I had no idea my partner wanted to be spanked and I want to spank. It's just a great place to think like, Where have we not explored? Like what rock have we not turned over yet? Where are we stuck in patterns? You know, taking ourselves out of our conditioning of what we expect sex to be.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I think the more we talk about people like I was speaking this week somewhere and people said, how did you get so comfortable? I was like, I did not come out of the womb being like, did you know the clitoris has 12,000 nerve endings? You know, it's like I didn't grow up in an environment where I was comfortable talking about sex.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And another thing is to, for these couples, is to give yourselves permission to take sex, if you define it as penetration or orgasm, off the table. And then for a week or a month, say, we're just going to start to explore again. And today's just going to be about kissing. And the next week, we're going to be about exploring each other's hands or bodies or torso.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And we are just going to learn to find different ways to please each other and open up different receptors. And just, I mean, there's so much to explore. So I would say that... Again, the way it just couples can can get it back if they're both willing. Now, if there's one partner and here's you probably have found this as a couples therapist. And it's really, really in all the work you've done.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It's so challenging. And I found this a lot. Oftentimes there's one in the relationship who is pushing that sex boulder up the hill. They're like, let's have the conversations. Let's mix it up. Let's talk about it. Let's go to therapy. And there might be one partner going back to cultural conditioning and sexual shame and they don't want to talk about it. They don't want to discuss it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And they deeply believe that if they talk about sex and they have to work on it, then their relationship is over or it's broken or sex shouldn't be talked about. Again, I can't tell you how many people like still believe that sex should actually not, not only should that be talked about like on Instagram or anywhere, but it shouldn't even be talked about in a relationship. Right.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I would say, and I would love to know your take on this, I believe that 99.9% of couples have not yet had a healthy conversation about sex that has helped them truly connect and have more pleasure and have the sex that they want. Most of the conversations around sex are, when are we having it? We haven't had it a lot. How come you never do this or that?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I found that what we're talking about is these really healthy conversations are not as common.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But I think one of the magics and why I'll keep coming back, you know, my 20th year is because it is the kind of thing when you hang out with sex positive people or you listen to sex positive voices, whether you listen to sex with Emily or you. look at things online or read books, the more you talk about it, you realize like, oh yeah, it really just is wellness. Like sex is wellness.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I love that you said that. That is truly where I would say the majority of sex conversations are living. They're living up here in the numbers and the techniques and all these other things. But when we learn to be vulnerable and say the things that we think we cannot say, that's when the whole world of sensuality and sexuality truly opens up.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
That's greater intimacy.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I love that sex is a reflection of the fact that you are opening up and releasing whatever shame is around it. Because when we you know, when we speak the words, like the shame can't live that, right? Shame can no longer live where we are speaking our, you know, our, our truths.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Absolutely. And just know that your sex life can start today. Like just listen to this podcast. Like today could be the first day of the rest of your sex life. Let go of the past. Let go of how it was. You know, we don't want the same food sometimes we wanted five years ago. We don't do the same exercise.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
We don't even have the same, maybe sometimes the same friends or the same arrangement, same job. But for some reason, we keep having sex and thinking about sex in the same exact way. So I just want to release everybody from wherever it was in the past.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But if you have a partner who's willing to be like, let's start today, like let's start really exploring, getting curious and, you know, being honest and unpacking this and rebuilding or building it for the first time, perhaps into a way that feels good for both of us.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You know, that's harder with dating. I mean, is that harder? It's a different kind of challenge because, again, finding somebody that you want to explore with, like... Because here you are, you're like, I have all this great connection, I'm attracted to them. Then I would ask people, have a sexual conversation with them and open up and say, would you be willing to explore with me?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Can we explore some touch? Can we explore some massage together and see if it builds from there? But it can also be tricky because, again, because of the way our society is set up, that person might never have had a conversation like this. Like what we're talking about now is not as commonplace.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So I feel like you could just sort of be vulnerable with somebody you're dating and say, like, I don't know if I feel the spark, but would you be open to like exploring with me, going to a play party, doing something different and seeing if you can kind of find that with somebody? Yeah. But also we just might not have it. Somebody might just come into your life to be a really good friend.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Like I don't, there's a lot of factors that have to fall into place. But if you, but you were asking if everything's great, yeah, they're great on paper or all that stuff, but it's not there. Sometimes it's just not there. Yeah. Like that's just the magic.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And women can talk about all these other things that they're doing for their wellness. They're taking these supplements, these vitamins, a skincare routine, they're exercising, they're doing all these things. And we're like following them and we're following along. Meanwhile, I'm on Instagram talking about women, empowering things for women to really take charge of their own pleasure.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And I have to say that people have to, I love that you said non-negotiable because it's I can't tell you how many people are like, everything's great and we're married, but we don't have great sex. We're married and have never been attracted. We have six kids.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And it's like, that's really tough when you've already like walked on the aisle and committed to somebody, but you're like, everything was great. But the sex, the sex is not a but. Sex is not an afterthought. Like that is what we're talking about. That sex is wellness. Sex is important. Your pleasure is important. And you have to prioritize it from the jump.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So again, if you're dating somebody and it's only been a few times you've gone out or it's been a few months and it just, you've tried, like I, someone recently reached out, they're like, I'm dating this person. And, and it's really like, they've tried to have conversations with them about a few things that weren't working. They weren't receptive.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
They're like, but I really like, I'm like, listen, it's been three months. This is the honeymoon phase. If the sex isn't great right now, like, cut your losses. This is still, it's like, they're not open. They're showing you who they are right now. You know, you have enough information at this point.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Oh my God. I love this question because it's so true. Like you nailed it. The reason why we don't have these conversations with our partners is exactly that. We're afraid we're going to offend them. We're going to hurt their feelings. And we're like, I know it's not great, but I actually don't know what I want. So I think I'm just going to stay mute about it and hope it gets better.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
it doesn't get better.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Like, let me just tell you when you put the sex on the back burner, it's going to be staying on the back burner. And it's just, I just see so many people waiting for it. So my first thing is, is, is actually saying to your partner, you know, I always talk about timing, tone, and turf. It's my three T's for any conversation, especially a sex conversation.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
This is a starting point, is if you haven't talked about sex yet, find the right time when you're not halt, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. You know when you're hanging out, it's a good environment. The tone is curious and compassionate and chill. And the turf is outside the bedroom. I actually think we should leave our bedrooms for sleeping and for sex.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And let's not make it to have like our really deep, heavy conversations around sex, especially if it's like you're already in a state of arousal and you feel rejected again. And then you're like, how come you never initiate or you don't want sex? Let's find a time when we are, yeah, just hanging out on a road trip, you know, hiking, walking. And then you could say, you know what?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And I get shadow bound. Yeah. Like we can't talk about it still. And so again, that's happening today. Like I'm saying we have to undo cultures of it, but it's really, I still have to face it every single day of my life that I'm talking about something that is still taboo and shameful.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I just, and I always have people blame me. Like, I was in sex with Emily and she said that most couples don't actually have productive, healthy conversations that move the needle about our sex lives. And she also cited a statistic that couples who do talk about their sex lives often have healthier, more satisfied sex lives. So I don't want to be that statistic. I want to be the couple that is.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So would you be open? Would you be willing to go on a sexual journey with me where we can have honest and open conversations about our sex life, about our desires, about our wants, about our likes or dislikes. Like, are you even open to that? And you know, you see what your partner says, hopefully they say yes. And then you get to start to explore. You can go into therapy together.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You could just think about what you've liked in the past. A great starting point is, okay, let's talk about the three most memorable times you've had sex together. And then from there, you'd be like, what was it about that time? Where were we? What was happening? It's sort of like your sexual DNA of your relationship.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So, I mean, there's a lot of other techniques and modalities, but I would say first, just start having a conversation. And again, remember that it's not a one-time conversation. You know, I've found that once couples get over that hump and the awkwardness, they actually learn to love these conversations. They actually can't live without them. It becomes...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
the fuel and the life force of their relationship.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I love that. It's so, so important. I mean, I think that so many couples would benefit from that and I know it might not be accessible to everybody, but think of all the other things that we're doing in our life. And if you're like sharing that, how much it moves the needle and
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
We invest in so many other things in our relationship, but even just saying once a month, we're going to have a therapist that we check in with. It's really hard to do the work on your own. Like you will get into patterns that are going to get disruptive. Your libidos will suffer. You will have setbacks. You will have hard things happen.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And if you have a trusted coach or therapist that you can go to again, even once a month, once a quarter, it could be life-saving and life-giving for your relationship.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I love that you shared that. We all need it. We're never done.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Therapists of therapists. We all like, it's like, I don't think you ever, you don't arrive to a place. It's always evolving. And it's like, we hire coaches and we hire experts for every other area of our life, right? You know, heartbreaks down or toothpicks or like everything. But for some reason with these like, relationship issues or sex issues, we just feel like we have to suffer alone.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And you don't. There's so many great resources out there.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Well, I think part of it is, I hear this mostly from women. They say to me, I can't have casual sex because when I do, I catch feelings. And I would say that's another part of our cultural conditioning.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You can actually learn, train your body to be receiving pleasure fully and know that it's about your pleasure and be connected to somebody and feel safe with somebody and you don't have to fall in love with them. So I think that's a little bit of rewiring that we can do if we're open to it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Now, that's a little bit of work, but I think that we could learn to with great boundaries and great communication skills, you can probably have great sex with somebody and make it more casual if they're open to it, be more open, say that you're dating other people. or have that, be honest about it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I think today is like, I mean, honestly, in the last 20 years, I think that we're at such a good time right now. There's like apps for this. People are more open. They're talking about being open. But if you just want it to be casual, you know, mention that, be honest that you just want casual. What you're saying, I think what you asked was.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But did you like, what are the, so again, checking the feelings and saying, am I just prescribing the feelings to this person that's making me feel a certain way? Because it might not really be about them. It's that you feel safe with this person. They're willing to collaborate with you. They're willing to, they're holding space for you. They're making you feel safe.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And, you know, there's something about this connection. And I think that there's a lot of learning in there. Like, what is it? About this sexual connection that feels so good. Pay attention. You're going to put that in your self-knowledge bucket. And then when you are searching for a partner, again, that has all the other things that you're looking for, you can be like, this was the thing.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So sexual intelligence or sex IQ is really something that came to me when I was, I was writing my last book, smart sex, and it's called smart sex, how to boost your sex IQ and own your pleasure. But it was only when I was writing it that it occurred to me that, listen, you know, people talk about their writing or they're thinking they have a download. I was always sort of envious of those people.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Because a lot of times we don't even remember. We don't even dissect it or think about it. But take this as a note. Like, wow, this person does these things that are allowing me to feel safe and fully expressive. Yeah. I would say it's not about their penis. It's not about their moves. It's not about the way they smell. Like it might be part of it, but usually it's about us.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So how they're making us feel and that's transferable.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
There's so many. I would say most, I think that we should always be aroused and turned on all the time. I mean, we covered that, but like we should always be having orgasms. We should be having sex certain, yeah, a certain number of times a week. Yeah.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
That was just my conditioning. That's a really big one. I would say that that was the first misconception when I started this career that I was shocked. I thought that, again, it goes back to societal conditioning. Men are...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
ready to go they should have erection 24 7 and women are just like frigid and don't really want it like so not true there's so many women who want sex all the time they're super turned on aroused in their bodies and they want sex more than their their male partners and I'm telling you my heart goes out to men like men
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
have to have that we are expecting, like they have this pressure that they should always know what they're doing. Again, be aroused, turn on, ready to go. And that's just not the case for many men. They don't, they too might not want sex all the time. I think that the other misconceptions are that fantasies aren't normal. You shouldn't have fantasies or porn is bad.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I think porn and, and use it a healthy way can be great. Or that maybe using sex toys means that it's somehow lesser of an orgasm or not really,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
you know i don't know people judge them gosh if you have to use lube there's a problem just so many narratives yeah we get to debunk all of that right here and now it's done whatever your truth is gets to be your except your truth that's what watch the shame fall away once you
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I was like, you had to download your whole book, just download it. And you wrote it like from the universe.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
This makes me insane. This has just been around forever and you will go on TikTok and you will find so many tropes like this. Like, well, she slept with me on the first date and I didn't want to date her. We make them beg for it or wait till the third date or wait till you're committed or relationships won't last. I mean...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
people will say that they'll continue to say that I don't believe in any rules around this I think that listen if you are truly feeling connected with somebody and you're feeling safe with somebody and you're not too drunk you weren't coerced I mean that's the thing like a lot of times we get really drunk or liquid courage and we had sex and regret it I'm talking about fully embodied sex where you wanted to have it you met somebody it felt great and you actually had a good time and you're glad that you did it it doesn't really matter what happens after that if you if
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Well, this actually happens to me with the five pillars because I was thinking that after all these years, when it comes to sex, because it's still shameful, taboo, and shrouded mystery, and it's the kind of thing where people think about sex, they're like, give me the quick tip, trick, or technique, and then I'll be on my way. Mm. Like I want a quick fix for whatever's wrong.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
full on were there for the sex because you wanted it. You might be with a partner who had a judgment that, well, I would have made you my wife, but you had sex with me. So now it didn't work. I would say you dodge a bullet. That's not your person. They're legitimately judging you on this one thing that you did because you both wanted to in the moment.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Like to me, these are just like, seriously, not your people. I just think that. And you'll hear from just as many coppers like we had sex in the first day. We've been together 30 years. So I just don't believe in the rules and the conditions around this. I will say that sex is such like so many things. It's intimacy, it's connections, it's kissing, it's touching.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
If you know that you're somebody that once you do have sex, you get really attached or you connect all these emotions to it, then maybe... You could wait to have sex, like maybe wait to have penetrative sex. Maybe you just slow it down and say, God, can we go back to just the making out? That felt really, really good. We're allowed to stop sex. We're allowed to say, you know what?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
This is moving too fast. It's not what I want right now. And like change the moment. I have to say that I used to think I couldn't stop sex, that there was like... Once I got going with sex, I had to continue because it would like hurt my partner's feelings. They would get blue balls. Like I was afraid they'd call 911. Like that was a thing. It's not a thing.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I mean, yes, they might be uncomfortable for a minute, but like no one's going to die because you. So I just think, again, knowing yourself, knowing that like it actually is really hot to wait too. Like it's really hard to be like, let me see if I actually like this person and I trust them and I feel safe with them. Hard to feel super safe on a first date. Yeah. Yeah.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Like truly, like true safety comes from, you know, consistency and knowing someone. So again, like okay to wait, but also no judgment around if you decide to a full body.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But it's so truly the drinking opens us up. Like So yeah, just permission to have your own experience and then like know yourself and be like, well, maybe on this date that I'm not going to drink or I will drink and I'll be okay with what I decided. Like there's no, again, this goes back to the shaming around, you know, sexuality. It's just like, really? What if you just had a really good night?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah. It was a good time. And then you went home.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
so much easier once you're clear about your boundaries and your values and like, yeah, let those people fall away who has all these judgments around sex, who has all these like rules and strict, like, you know. It's fear. Yeah.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I can't have an orgasm. I'm no longer turned on by my partner. Something's wrong with my penis. Give me one tip and then I'm out. But the truth is that sex is wellness. Pleasure is wellness. And so the five pillars of sexual IQ or sexual intelligence really came to me because it really is a multilayered approach. You have to think about it. your overall health and wellness and self-confidence.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So for me, I realized that my sex was all performant, pretty not all. I mean, I love the making out and the kissing, but once it came to like penetration and usually the penetration came too fast and I was doing all the things. And once I started realizing like, Oh, I, I actually am deserving of pleasure. I can have pleasure. My experience was just learning my own body.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I mean, honestly, I spent so much time with like really like ramping up my masturbation practice and without shame and learning to touch my body, make the sounds, figure out what felt good to me. And for anyone who wants to kind of
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
overcome their performance is I would say you got to spend time alone and you have to like practice some like, you know, cultivating your eroticism and your sensuality and really making that pleasure date with yourself of exploring all the nerve endings on your body and what really feels good to you and like your inner elbow, the nape of your neck, like what are all the different ways you can experience pleasure?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
practice making sounds, look at yourself in the mirror, really do these kind of exercises, like make this your practice, take the baths, do the things, put time into it. That is how we're gonna like grow our erotic energy and learn to accept ourselves. And learn to really like that's because then we gain more confidence. We're like, oh, I can have pleasure.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I just didn't know how to show a partner that I didn't know how to ask for it. And so once you do this work, you will no longer be able to fall into those performative spaces because you've actually taken the time to learn yourself. So. But it's a practice and it's probably the most important work we can do.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And for many people I hear about masturbation, you know, we can't even say the word a lot of times or, you know, you'll get, you know, whatever, it's part of the shadow bed and part of whatever and it's dirty and whatever. But it really is part of like taking your power back again, too, is like you might not have discovered all those places in your body where you can have pleasure.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And it's okay to masturbate if you're in a relationship. A lot of people say, oh, I don't need to have a partner now. And it's like, no, like it really is a part of self-care. People are going to masturbate in a relationship, out of a relationship, and even share it with your partner. Mutual masturbation is such a beautiful, sexy act where you're both actually masturbating.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
you know, pleasing yourselves while your other partner's watching. So they're actually getting turned on because you're truly in your pleasure, but then they're also learning what you, how you touch yourself. So a great way is like, I've learned these things. Like, do you want to see what I do? Or let me show you how I please myself.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You know, I often get questions about what do you do if your partner's threatened by a vibrator? They don't want to use it. You bring it into the bedroom and show them like, I've got this really cool toy, let me show it on you first. So like, I'll take the vibrator and I'll like rub it on their their body. And I'll be like, that's not feel good. And like, they love it. They love the loop.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So the pillars break down this way. The first one is embodiment. And that's, are we in our bodies during sex? Or are we disassociating, thinking about the laundry, thinking about our bodies, thinking about our kids, thinking if we're pleasing our partner enough. And so that's really, we know what it's like to be in embodied is his presence. Am I in my body? I'm actually feeling it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
They love the vibe. They don't know it. Like, I think that there's a lot of guys that are thinking to themselves like you've got this like 16 foot vibrator. That's going to replace me. And it's going to, you know, and it's like, usually they're like little like pebble shaped toys that like really just stimulate our clitoris.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
They can be shaped like a phallic object, but once you like show them and you experience it together, it becomes part of your play and you can show them how you please yourself. So I think that those are some ways to get over that performative part of it.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
That is a problem. First of that, the mirror actually is the most powerful one. I too had to do that in school and grad school. We had to look at it and we had to write, we had to draw it. We had like all these crafts. You had to like write, yeah, write a letter to it. All of that is like so, so important. I think that's a great practice.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I think practicing like your sound, like humming, moaning, making noises. learning to fully express your sexuality, maybe reading erotically. If you just feel, some people are just so shut down from things. So like finding your sources of spark, like what actually is turning you on? Can you think about moments, erotic moments?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Like I love like ethical porn, which is porn that's made like usually by women for women. You're seeing like real bodies, like performers are paid well. There, you know, there's more plots, like just finding stuff that is really like
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
stoking your sensuality and eroticism is is another really like helpful way to find what really what your turn-ons really are and again it's never too late to start I mean I would say that I hear from women all ages 60s 70s 40s 20s never had an orgasm never expressed herself so again it's because of the way our society's been set up so just you know get curious and and and
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Start exploring and looking for sensual inspiration.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I wish that women knew that their sexual power... was in their hands, that they were responsible for their own power and their own pleasure. And it's not based on anyone else. And I would also say that it's infinite and it's expansive and it's ever changing. It's waiting for you.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Am I connected to my partner? And so that's the first thing we got to check. And, you know, I give a lot of tips for that, as does your entire podcast, but that's just a big part of it and your body of work. The second one is health, and that is our mental health and our physical health. And so we have to look at, are we taking any medications that might be impacting our sexuality?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You can find me everywhere at Sex With Emily. So it's, my website is sexwithemily.com. All social media, Sex With Emily.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Join my membership, Smart SX. It's an app where we can connect once a month. I do live workshops. And yeah, I have a store if you want to go shopping. I've like curated it to be like my favorite sex accessories. Ooh, fun. All of it is Sex With Emily. Amazing.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
That's wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
People are often surprised to hear that the birth control pill, antidepressants, blood thinners, All these things impact our ability to orgasm, arousal, not to mention, I call them the pleasure thieves, but stress, trauma, and shame. These things are very heady and heady stew, especially shame. Those get in the way. Our physical health, blood flow. Are we exercising? Are we moving our bodies?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
If we are not, that's going to impact our arousal. Our ability to get erections, have blood flow, to have orgasms. The foods we're eating, hormones, those are all the second pillar of health. The third pillar is collaboration. And this is a big one. This is all about like, okay, so I want to be having better sex, but have I actually talked to my partner about it? How well am I collaborating?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
paid to be sexual, that their sexuality is something to be shamed of, to be hidden. Sex is messy. If we can take our tears or our so-called mess and celebrate that as like, wow, this is like true sexual expression, that's another way to really reverse the shame and turn it into pleasure.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
How well do I understand polarity, sexual polarities, right? The masculine and the feminine. How well am I just even, I always say communication is a lubrication. Do I feel comfortable asking for what I want? So am I collaborating with my partner? That's the third pillar. And then we get into self-knowledge. How well do I know myself as a sexual being?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Do I actually know what I like, what my turn-ons are, and what my requirement is to be aroused? And if so, am I speaking that? Am I talking about that? Am I sharing that? And then the final one is self-acceptance. And that's all about... you know, our confidence and accepting our bodies and our experience as it is today in this moment?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Are we accepting it so we can fully be present with our pleasure?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Yeah, absolutely. I would say that of the pleasure thieves, that shame is probably the most destructive, but also the most insidious. We don't really see all the ways that shame is sort of creeping into our lives. And a lot of it is cultural conditioning. And I think for shame, first, we have to think when we hear that voice in our head and shame kind of sounds like you shouldn't be doing this.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
You know, my body, you know, I shouldn't be sexual anymore. I'm not sexy. I don't feel good in my body. What's my partner thinking? Am I actually pleasing them? Is my sex more performative? You know, it's all those judgments. It's the negative self-talk. And then we can look at that voice and say, where's that coming from? Is that actually my thoughts?
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Has that been implanted in my brain by somebody else somewhere else at another time? And if so, can I replace that voice with a more positive sex, positive message or affirmation? You know, my body is deserving of pleasure. Pleasure is my birthright. And so, I mean, that's one way to undo the shame, notice where it's coming from and then like replace it. And again, we don't rid ourselves of shame.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
We manage our shame. I don't know that you ever fully release it because voices come into our head a lot. I mean, maybe I, I guess I always want to, I guess it's a process.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So I think another way is to, is to surround yourself, like I said, with sex positive voices and people that support you and that aren't judging you and that people who, you know, find partners who also have a growth mindset around sex and who are on the sexual journey with you. Sex is an exploration. It is a journey, not a destination. Yeah.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And so that's another way is when you're with somebody who is supporting you and going along with you. And then also just, yeah, I mean, those are some, some ways to do it. Just rewiring your conditioning.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It's a big part of it. Surrounding yourself with the community, the voices, the following sex, positive voices, the podcast, all of that. And yes, I mean, we were so lucky that we are in a positive community where we are in the world and where we live. And we're so grateful. I am so grateful, but we still have a long way to go.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So when I say like, we probably don't, I don't have a lot of sexual shame. I've shamed maybe about other things sometimes, but, but yeah, I mean, that's, it is such a beautiful community. It's like, thank you to be with, to fully be with partners who support us in our sexuality and who want us to have pleasure and we are so lucky for that.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And I want people to know that that is accessible for you too.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Absolutely. Yeah. I have a community I started last year. It's called Smart SX and it's, it's this from the sex without me community and it's people all over the world that we come together, you know, once a week I bring in like coaches and other sex positive voices just to help people realize like you are in community and it's amazing that people open up and support each other.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And right now we are working through all the pillars so people can really kind of get a handle on of manage them. And one more thing I want to say about sexual intelligence, which is why it's tricky. It's more of like the pillars are created so we can become our own sex experts and we can troubleshoot. You might have a week where you're really high in embodiment.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Like I was feeling really embodied, but actually I've been holding the scrudge against my partner and I haven't been a great collaborator. So really, it's more like I don't think you ever get to 100% on all five in every day of your life, just like health, like you have some weeks you work out more, but you haven't been hydrated enough.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
So that's the thing about the pillars is just a way to look at them. So you can kind of navigate yourself through whatever your sexual challenges are in your goals.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that sex can be so healing for so many people. When you think about it, it's a release. It's connection. It's intimacy. It's touch. It's learning to feel safe in your body with a trusted partner or partners. And so there is so much release that can happen when you actually feel safe and you're able to advocate for yourself, ask for what you want, really, like,
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
be present with your pleasure. And that's when the amazing release happens because so much of that's holding us back from pleasure. Like we, you actually can't fully access pleasure if you're living in an activated trauma state, or if your nervous system is highly dysregulated, it really, they just, they don't, you know, they cancel each other out. It can't coexist.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
And so healing when you're with someone or even with yourself, I mean, I've done so much healing on my own through my own like solo sex practices.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
When I was first like starting out, I realized like I had a lot of these things that I talk about and just through my own power of touch and having sensual touch without the goal of orgasm, but the goal of exploration was so healing and, you know, things come up and, you know, memories and, you know, it's so great to work through it with a coach or a practitioner or a trauma therapist.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But when we do that work, sex can be incredibly, incredibly healing and it's accessible for everybody. Even people who have had sexual trauma, you know, people who have had sexual trauma, sometimes they think like sex is just, isn't accessible for them. But even, you know, sometimes they've even
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
with a trusted practitioner they've been able to make it sort of work for them even if they've had horrific traumas in their life they can actually even work it into their erotic stories or you know there's just it's endless and that's the thing when people talk about their sex lives getting boring or stale or you know and that happens to everybody I'm going to tell you that I would say that I don't like saying everybody I would say the majority of people are going to experience that
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But when you think of sex as really a healing practice and an embodiment practice, it's endless because every day you're starting anew. Every time you sit down, it's a new practice.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
It's another way that women are like, I'm sorry, I'm crying, I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's because everything lives in our body, every emotion, every experience, every trauma, everything. And so sometimes it's really not your body saying, like, I am sad, I am happy. It's just an actual release because when...
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
we are having a release of an orgasm or we're having all this like spiking cortisol, oxytocin, testosterone, you know, there's so much happening with our hormones at any time that when we are in the state of connection with somebody, we might cry, we might moan, we might. And so it's a completely normal experience.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I think, I mean, actually like there's been a lot of times I've cried after sex and I've learned to like love it. Like I'm like, Oh God, I'm fully in the moment and experience of love. of, of connection and healing. So I think for so much of these things that we, about sex that we judge and we shame and we feel bad about that, if we can just say, wow, this is part of the experience.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
I like, I celebrate it. I celebrate it all. Like sex is messy and it's loud and it can be dirty and it can be so many things, but Again, because it's not normalized, because we don't see a lot of examples in the media or anywhere of what a healthy, normal sexual expression is, we immediately go to judgment. We immediately think something's wrong and I am broken.
Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
But if we can take our tears or our so-called mess or our feelings of brokenness and celebrate that as like, wow, this is like true sexual expression, I mean, then I think that that's another way to really reverse the shame and turn it into pleasure.