Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm your host, Elise Hu. For a more fulfilling sex life, Gina Gutierrez says we've got to take charge, but not necessarily physically. The sexual wellness storyteller's TED 2022 archive talk reminds us that the most powerful sexual organ is the brain, which means that activating our agency and imagination can completely transform our pleasure.
A guide for thoughts, senses, and sounds as ways to get there after the break. I'm not in the mood.
Chapter 2: What role does imagination play in sexual wellness?
Who here has ever told a partner that before? We've all done this. And if you haven't said it, then you've probably heard it. Intuitively, we understand that our minds matter when it comes to sex. But we're quick to focus on bodies, touch and sensation as the most crucial elements. We're less likely to consider the role of our imaginations.
In many parts of our life, we are really great at imagining things like vacations or dream homes or career moves.
Chapter 3: How can we activate our sexual agency and imagination?
These exercises in imagination help us define what it is we want. They allow us to flirt with what's possible before having to make any decisions. And they're also innately pleasurable, even if those fantasies never actually materialize. Imagination is such a powerful tool, so when it comes to sex, why isn't it one of the first ones that we reach for?
When I first started doing research on arousal and desire, I learned that for women, cognition is as important to arousal as the presence of sexual stimuli. In other words, using their memories, fantasies and some focus, women can turn themselves on with their thoughts. This particular study focused on women, and much of my own work is also focused on people who are female-identifying.
But this much is clear regardless of gender identity. The brain is the biggest sex organ, and everyone can benefit from expanding their sexual imagination. I first started thinking about this connection between sex and imagination while I was in college. Back then, among my friends, the definition of sex was extremely narrow. It essentially meant penetrative sex between a guy and a girl.
And masturbation wasn't a topic of conversation. Frankly, I think that solo sex was seen as a last resort, a desperate or lonely act, instead of a fundamentally empowering exploration. One morning, a friend of mine was telling me about her latest unsatisfying hookup. and I asked her what she had been thinking about during sex. Hmm, she said. I don't know. Something about that really struck me.
Her entire memory of the experience was what had happened physically. So many of us think that good sex is something that should happen to us, that it's in someone else's hands, quite literally. We expect a partner, current or future, to be the magical unlock, maybe because we feel especially safe with them or attracted to them or because they have more experience than we do.
But in doing so, we forget our own agency in the matter. We write ourselves and our imaginations out of the pleasure equation. I had this hunch that my friend, that many of us, were experiencing a crisis of inspiration. In the years after college, my fascination with the role of imagination and sexuality only grew.
Eventually, I left the career I'd built to start a company called Dipsy, which creates stories, audio stories, designed to turn women on. I decided to focus on audio because it's so immersive and so evocative and so personal. Here's what I mean. Feel free to close your eyes and consider where these sounds take you. Okay, open your eyes. Were those not the sounds you were imagining I'd play?
Here's what comes to my mind. I'm in the mountains. I can feel the sunshine on my face. I can feel the cool chill coming up off the alpine water. I can see the tiny flecks of sparkle in the granite. I bet that every person in this room is imagining something a little different, but filled with all sorts of distinct details about the surroundings, about the circumstances.
Audio is incredible that way. Erotic audio stories have characters and plot, but like the sounds you just heard, create a blueprint for your mind to then fill in the blanks. They allow you to develop your own vision of what's appealing in a way that can get lost when you see something specific or explicit on screen.
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Chapter 4: What insights can we gain from the connection between sex and cognition?
And you will feel it walking down the street, entering any conversation, navigating any relationship. Put that way, none of us can afford not to prioritize sex. It isn't a nice-to-have or an if-I-get-to-it dead last on our list right after picking up the dry cleaning.
So the next time you notice that you haven't been in the mood for a while, carve some time out for yourself and let your imagination tell you a sexy story. Thank you. Genomics pioneer Robert Green says many parents want their healthy newborn's DNA screened for diseases that may or may not show up later in life.
There is an argument that knowledge is power, and many families would like to know everything, whether it's treatable or not. The debate over revealing the secrets in babies' DNA. That's next time on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. Subscribe or listen to the TED Radio Hour wherever you get your podcasts.