Healing + Human Potential
How to Break Sexual Shame & Reclaim Your Desire with Sex with Emily | EP 85
Tue, 22 Apr 2025
Is it possible that shame—not desire—is what’s really blocking your pleasure? In this episode, we talk about sex as a somatic healing practice—how it can regulate the nervous system, release stored emotion, and support a deeper sense of safety. This isn’t about quick fixes—it’s about learning to listen to your body, understand your needs, and create space for real connection. We look at what keeps many of us disconnected from our bodies, and how tuning into self-awareness and embodiment can shift our relationship with pleasure. You'll also hear how communication, curiosity, and timing can change the way we connect—with ourselves and others. To help unpack all of this, I’m joined by Dr. Emily Morse, host of Sex with Emily and a leading voice in sexual wellness. She shares her 5 Pillars of Sexual Intelligence and practical tools to reframe shame, rebuild intimacy, and bring more presence into your sex life. Whether you're just starting to explore your relationship with sex or have been on this path for a while, this conversation offers real tools you can use today. === Want one of the most Powerful Tools to Support you in Awakening & Manifesting Your Dream Life from the Inside Out (for Free)? Learn how to live to your full potential without letting fear get in the way of your dreams. ✨ Here's How to Get Your Gift: ✨ Step 1: Just head over to Apple Podcast or Spotify + leave a review now Step 2: Take a screenshot before hitting submit Step 3: Then go to alyssanobriga.com/podcast to upload it! === EPISODE TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Intro 00:30 Exploring Sexual Shame and Cultural Conditioning 00:57 Navigating Sexual Attraction and Compatibility 01:16 Episode Overview and Guest Introduction 02:01 Understanding Female Pleasure and Breaking Taboos 04:17 The Five Pillars of Sexual Intelligence 12:01 Sex as a Healing Practice 16:29 Reigniting Chemistry in Long-Term Relationships 27:56 The Role of Foreplay and Building Sexual Connection 30:53 Reigniting the Spark in Long-Term Relationships 32:03 Exploring New Sexual Experiences Together 33:25 The Importance of Healthy Conversations About Sex 36:02 Navigating Sexual Desires in Dating 38:41 Practical Tips for Deeper Sexual Conversations 41:44 The Role of Therapy in Maintaining Intimacy 45:55 Debunking Common Misconceptions About Sex 52:08 Embracing Your Own Pleasure and Sexual Power 57:44 Staying Connected and Continuing the Journey === GUEST LINKS IG, X, TikTok, Facebook: @sexwithemily https://www.youtube.com/user/SexWithEmily Website: http://www.sexwithemily.com === Have you watched our previous episode titled Exploring Sexual Wellness, Tantra, & Erotic Empowerment - with Layla Martin Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sGOw2wo-e9Y?si=vDR774dTUcF7tAon ==== Alyssa Nobriga International, LLC - Disclaimer This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional. We shall in no event be held liable to any party for any reason arising directly or indirectly for the use or interpretation of the information presented in this video. Copyright 2023, Alyssa Nobriga International, LLC - All rights reserved. === Want 3 Life-Changing Tools you can use on yourself (or your clients) from inside our Accredited Coaching Certification? Click here to get them for Free: https://www.alyssanobriga.com/tools 🎉 === Website: alyssanobriga.com Instagram: @alyssanobriga TikTok - @alyssanobriga Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6b5s2xbA2d3pETSvYBZ9YR Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healing-human-potential/id1705626495
Chapter 1: What is sexual shame and how does cultural conditioning affect it?
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.
I don't think enough people talk about the power of sex as a somatic practice.
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.
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.
Another big question that I know people have, everything's great in terms of the relationship, but they're not sexually attracted to them. Can you build that chemistry or does that mean that you're not compatible? Yeah. Wow. This is a conundrum. I mean, what if sex wasn't just something that we do, but it's a vital part of our healing and wellness?
In today's episode, we're diving into sex, pleasure, and embodiment. We'll specifically explore how to shift from performative sex to empowered connected pleasure, how to navigate desire in long-term relationships, and why so many couples struggle to really openly talk about what it is they want.
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Chapter 2: Who is Dr. Emily Morse and what is Sexual Intelligence?
Our guest today is the incredible Dr. Emily Morris, a sex therapist, author, and host of the number one sexuality podcast, Sex with Emily. She's known for breaking taboos with heart, humor, and clarity, and she's here to help us bring more confidence, curiosity, and compassion into our sex lives. This is a fun one. Hey, Lily. I'm so happy that you're here. I'm so excited to be here.
Oh, my goodness. I just want to start off by acknowledging you because you talk about sex so boldly and transparently and authentically online. I think it's so important. And I'm curious about why you think female pleasure is misunderstood. There's so much shame about it, especially with women watching porn. or using vibrators. Can you talk to us about all of this? Yes.
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...
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.
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.
It's a lot of shame. Yeah. And I feel like the more we talk about it, the less we have that shame.
Yeah, exactly.
That's why I keep showing up.
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.
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Chapter 3: What are the Five Pillars of Sexual Intelligence?
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?
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?
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?
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?
Are we accepting it so we can fully be present with our pleasure?
That's beautiful. And it's really helpful to see and hear the pillars because then we can kind of do an assessment around where are we out of alignment? I think sexual shame is big. I think also through religious conditioning, or is there anything specific around that that you found helpful for people?
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.
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?
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.
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Chapter 4: How can sex be used as a somatic healing practice?
I'm even thinking about reading books, listening to podcasts, like, because for me being in a community of women who are fully sexually expressed and feel safe and celebrated, and there's not this like women competing with each other. It was extremely healing for me.
And also just having men say in a conscious community saying, if I were to say no to anything, people saying, thank you for taking care of yourself. It's so counter to conditioning. So community really can support that.
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.
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.
And I want people to know that that is accessible for you too.
We don't have to live in that shame. Yeah. Cause you can get into communities through your community, through other communities that are being created online and also offline.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 5: Why do people sometimes cry after sex and what does it mean?
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
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
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.
Yeah. And can you speak to just to help normalize people crying after sex? So sometimes there's just no story, but there's just that release. And I think some people have shame about that or they're confused about it. Can you talk to us a little bit about this?
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...
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.
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.
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Chapter 6: How can couples reignite chemistry despite busy lives and desire dips?
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.
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.
Mm-hmm.
And part of somatic healing is to allow the sensations that come up and not create so much story about them, just to have a place that's safe to accept it fully. And so trust the body. If people are listening, trust the body, the sound, the movements, the tears, the laughter, anything that wants to come up, let it come up and out and get out of the mind thinking about it.
Because the moment we start thinking about it, we interrupt the natural flow of it wanting to just find its own homeostasis and harmony. So I'm a big fan of using sexuality and sex as a way to help somatically heal. Yes. And I know that libido changes are real.
Sometimes people just going through stressful life experiences, having kids, long-term relationships, talk to us about how we can be aware and kind of reignite the chemistry and the connection with our partners with their desired dips, especially with busy schedules or
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
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.
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
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Chapter 7: What role does foreplay play in building sexual connection?
And then also we thrive with,
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
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.
Yeah. And I also think about, cause I keep hearing you say not necessarily having the goal to have sex, but maybe even doing some kind of a ritual that something that would all, turn you on if you know about yourself, like having scent or candles, things like that, like really creating the environment to have some type of connection and practice. That's a huge part of it. Yeah.
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.
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,
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.
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.
Yeah. And you could also, I know people set up scenes for healing experiences through sex, right? So if they've had a challenging experience in the past, maybe then they become a different character in the scene and they like take their power back over sexual role play and things like that. So you can get, there's a lot of different variety with it.
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Chapter 8: Why can't some people orgasm with their partners and how to overcome it?
Taking their power back from it.
Yeah. That's it. Having agency and power.
Yeah. And I love that the self-knowledge piece, because as we know ourselves, then we, like you're saying, communicate to our partner and set ourselves up for success, which is really beautiful. Imagine having a fulfilling career, doing what you love, working from anywhere in the world, setting your own hours while making good money, and a big impact.
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