Nicole McNichols

Yeah.

So.

It is, so the act itself involves like literal, you know, sexual strangulation is what we call it in the literature.

And, you know, again, this is so hard for me because on the one hand, I want them to enjoy what they enjoy, but cutting off air, you know, to the brain, generally not a good idea.

And then many of them think that even if they're just squeezing the sides of the neck, but allowing the trachea to breathe, that somehow that's safer.

But when you're cutting off blood supply from

to the brain, we now have longitudinal data showing that with sexual choking, when you take women that say they engaged in that, that later you put them in an fMRI and their brain changes.

So I just want people to have information and data.

And if you're gonna be engaging in choking, I don't wanna ruin choking for anyone, but you need to be aware of the risks, right?

So, I mean, that's a very sort of specific concrete thing, but it's more just generally,

I feel like students' experiences, and many of older people's sexual experiences too, as I write about in my book, they're not connected, meaning they're not authentic, right?

And so in my book, I write about this goal that we should have of connected sex, which is saying, look, you can have connected sex in a variety of different contexts, right?

It can be what we would term vanilla sex in a long-term relationship, but it can also be one night of casual sex with a person that you connect with,

Or it might be a sex dungeon.

But if it's not authentic, if it's not a place where you're showing up with presence and the sexual activity isn't being guided by what actually turns you on, what actually feels good, but just the script, I think that's leading to a lot of disconnection that's leaving a lot of people feeling unsatisfied.

Yes.

Exactly.

Yes.

Well, I wrote my book as a hope to find a landing place.

Yeah, I mean, that's really what we're seeing because what's really fascinating, Max, is that that shame that's making so many people feel like they can't talk about sex or that it's shameful, like you said, through the sheets or soaking, the different types of techniques that don't really acknowledge or hide behind this idea that you shouldn't be having sex.