Brown Girls Do It Too - Sexual Healing with Lohani Noor

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Poppy and Rubina learn about psychosexual therapy with the Sex On the Couch therapist

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The brown one's always scary. If you need some adult chat, never heard a sex podcast before. Gonna give that to ya, baby. If you heard us a bit before, now you want some more. Gonna give that to ya, baby. This is Brown Girls Do It Too. It's a podcast about sex. It's a podcast about sex.

I mean, how many could you fit in? How many syllables could you fit into that? Right. Brown Girls Do It Too. Hello! brown girls do it too hello is that like is that going to be our signature is that going to be our signature I'm trying to say hello together

I mean do you think Ant and Dec say hello at the same time oh my god get fucking over your obsession with Ant and Dec I think they do they say welcome they say together

I don't know what they say together we always say hello I think it's our signature style for series three I'm Poppy and I need sex therapy We always say hello. I think it's our signature style for Series 3. I'm Poppy and I need sex therapy, I think, for my slightly questionable BDSM choices. You know what you mean? Where's the line?

Where's the line? Oh, interesting. I don't think I need therapy for it now, but I'll need therapy for it in exactly seven months and 14 days. Fair enough. Yeah. think I need therapy for it now but I'll need therapy for it in exactly seven months and 14 days fair enough yeah I'm Rabina and I need sex therapy for getting aroused by a jammy dodger are you serious not not a bourbon not a bourbon biscuit it's a jammy dodger for you it's a jammy dodger I just think that the heart shape in there makes me think of sex really it's really weirdly I say like hearts quite i find quite arousing i don't know why when you say hearts no when i see hearts oh really valentine's day is a nightmare just walking around with a semi all day i've got to be honest i'm quite asian about therapy

interesting in the sense that i i struggle when somebody says i'm having therapy or I'm going to therapy. Like, it's taken me a while to be like, oh, that's acceptable, that's all right. Especially the idea of couples therapy. Like, for me, that feels, I'm quite Asian about it. I think I find it quite difficult to talk about my problems with somebody else. And I've never had therapy.

Yeah, so I'm in exactly the same boat as you, weirdly. I have no problems with people getting therapy. In fact, I actively encourage all my friends to get therapy but getting it myself it's only taken a breakup and lots of mum and dad and sibling issues to realize I need therapy but it's taken me a lot I mean it took me a long time I think everyone needs therapy everyone could benefit from talking with a third party but talking about your sex life with a third party and talking about it with somebody else i feel like that's that's the next level i wonder how many people are going to sex

therapy as a couple who have also do therapy as individuals oh probably loads of people but allah forbid if you and your partner started having issues or problems would you not consider therapy we've been together for a long time, so yes, probably. Yeah, probably. But I mean, I wonder, like, I hear of people in like new relationships, you know, six months in and they're like going to therapy like six months in. That's fucked up. Why? See, interesting. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Gronja's going to cut this.

Sorry. You know what? Don't cut this, producer Gronja. I'm going to tell you. And it's probably, okay, I think if in six months you're seeing each other and then you're going to therapy actually the reality is you might be carrying some serious baggage from previous relationships and projecting onto each other and so you you want to make it work and that's why you need to see a therapist because it helps if you deal with it now then it

becomes less of a problem later because all you're doing is prevent is seeing early signs and dealing with it as opposed to pretending everything's fine or not dealing with it. And then you're together for two years. You've got a kid. You're looking at tiles and then poof. But then on the flip side of this is it is slightly red flaggy to me that you could see someone and need therapy so soon in the relationship. So I will redact the it's fucked up comment and say that actually it is entirely dependent on the couple. Personally, myself, if I was meeting someone, if I was seeing someone and we were in couple therapy in six months,

I would not be with that person. Yeah, if I was early in a relationship with somebody and we were having we were arguing we were having a few issues it would have died a long time ago if they had suggested to me let's have some therapy to be honest i think i would be like no no i'd say no no this is clearly not working but but then we we give longevity of relationships so now it's acceptable for me and my partner to go to therapy because we've been together for a long time but that's strange yeah why and so why is that so my ex-partner and i the the the the man of my dreams for 10 years it's interesting none of us it was a mutual breakup neither of you suggested neither of us suggested 10 years of relationship neither because we wanted to save it because we were finished with

it i think and that's really quite hard sometimes to yeah yeah it's the first time i'm sort of saying out loud in my head and we're out loud to you um i've thought about it in my head but we would we were you know it's both of us i wasn't like let's let's go see someone yeah um and he was neither i think we were done with it yeah um but of course if we both felt like that we were in that space but i think he might be a bit like you or me like he doesn't want to tell a stranger his feelings i think it's really hard and especially there's this other thing because it's like a financial contract as well you know you pay somebody to listen to you um and to tell you and to talk to you and there's something about that

money because it's like well I can talk to my friends for free and they'll tell me everything oh god you're such an Asian I mean it's true it's ridiculous it's like my friends aren't like qualified psychotherapists my friends will give me their advice based on their limited, also limited life experience. My friend said to me, you spend so much money on going out and clothes and fashion. Why don't you spend that much money on your mind and your mental health? That is the biggest priority. And that, and they put it way more succinctly than I just did to you, but that really put things into perspective. Oh, yeah.

When people say like, if you go to the gym or if you take an exercise class for your body what are you doing to exercise your mind and it's like i do nothing i i mean yes you're right i have three free therapists you being the fourth you know i have very good friends i can talk to but you know you're not trained and you're not experts and you can give me your and also sometimes your friends do just want to tell you things that you're going to want to hear and make you feel better whereas therapists will actually be like well actually you're a dick well a very good therapist a feel better. Whereas therapists will actually be like, well, actually, you're a dick. Well, a very good friend, a really, really good friend of mine,

one of my best friends, actually, I don't say what she wants to hear. And I don't think, I hope at least, it's not ruining our friendship. Oh no, it's helpful. It's definitely, it's helpful, but it's ruining the friendship in terms of, I think I'm probably a bit too honest with her.

Oh yeah, oh my God, I have a friend like that too who I'm very honest with and I'm like that was on you they'll be like coming to me being like I had a really shit time

this bad thing happened it was awful and then this happened and this happened and I'll be like you came I'm like really honest I'm like you came out bad in that

that was you yeah so I am like you in that sense so I think I need to just be a bit softer and a bit harder what's the worst thing that a therapist

could say to you it's all your fault and you fucked up yeah exactly it is isn't it I think I need to just be a bit softer and a bit harder. What's the worst thing that a therapist could say to you? It's all your fault and you fucked up. Yeah, exactly. It is, isn't it? But sometimes it's not a friend's place to say these things and it should be a therapist. It should be someone strange. But I think Asians like sex. We have the highest rate of mental health.

Asian women of a certain age have the highest rate of mental health than any other ethnic community. I mean, you can quote me on this stat because I know it to be true. And it's another one of those taboos in our communities

where we just don't talk about it. Don't talk about sex. That's in the shadows. Don't talk about our minds. That's in the shadows. Today, we're joined by couples and relationship therapist from the BBC programme Sex on the Couch.

She wrote and narrated the book 12 Steps to Sexual Connection and she's competed nationally and internationally as a bodybuilder and strength athlete. And on top of all this, she's also a mother. Woohoo! It's Lahani Noor! We added the mother thing in there because we had an episode about mothers and so Rubina's a new mum and And we were saying this, the moment you become a mum, it's almost like your identity, the rest of Rubina's gone.

It's like, oh, she's a mum. I mean, you never introduce a man and say, he's also a dad. You just never do. As if that's like a core part of his identity. So we're re-empowering it, but also maybe you shouldn't use it. I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think when you become a mother, your body changes. So it's hard to not be changed. you become a mother your body changes so it's

hard to not be changed you know when your body changes how you experience yourself and how you experience yourself sexually changes so you know we should talk about it because something's happened whereas when you become a father nothing actually changes you wouldn't know you could father 100 children and not know that's so true I didn't think about it like that at all that's so interesting yeah you could father 100 children and not know. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I feel like my body's completely changed.

And my relationship with my body's completely changed. But I also don't want to be known as the mum. Sure. She's also a mum. She's a mum, you know, she's a mum. She's doing all the stuff in there. She's also a mum. Yeah.

I kind of want to hide that. Because mum doesn't sound very sexy. Mum doesn't sound like... I know there's that whole mum's I want to fuck kind of, you know... Porn tab. Milf mum. Yeah, and it's amazing. I kind of want to hide that because mum doesn't sound very sexy. Mum doesn't sound like, I know there's that whole mums I want to fuck kind of, you know, milf thing. But I don't want to fuck loads of mums. Maybe I should want to fuck loads of mums.

We're going off on a time tangent. You're a psychotherapist with a special interest in psychosexual processes, which sounds like a mind fuck. What does that mean? It basically means that I work with anything to do with sex, so that's sexual function, sexual dysfunction, sexuality,

sexual preference, gender dysphoria, sex offenders, a whole lot. Everything, anything to do with sex. Amazing. How did you get involved in that? How did that start for you? Well, for me, I didn't choose to be a psychosexual therapist I was a psychotherapist and what I found is more and more people kept coming into my therapy room and talking about sex and I'd be running back to my supervisor and saying I don't know I don't know and then my supervisor wouldn't know either because they weren't a psychosexual therapist so I just went off and did the masses all roads lead to sex

all that mcdonald's on king's cross i'm just but you obviously found that the more and more you were speaking to your clients you realize actually sex seems to be a common denominator for a lot of their problems and issues sex is really important and it's still an area that we don't really look at unless we're being kind of titillating yes it's got to be sexually arousing right it's got to be like it's got to make you calm it's got to be sexually arousing, right? It's got to be like, it's got to make you calm. It's got to be self-care. It's kind of serves that purpose job because you just make the language accessible you make it accessible but for lots of people it's not that easy and they can talk about what sex means to other people or sex is a process but they can't talk about what it means to them yeah and it's only recently with my really close girlfriends probably because of this podcast maybe because we're getting old that they're saying things to me that they would never have said to me two years ago and even when they say

it it's sort of that laddie locker room banter chat it's not really vulnerable it's not very exposing um do you know what i mean yeah i think it's also because you think about sex as being this kind of darker quieter side of you like the thing you do with the lights off in the bedroom with this partner it's very intimate it's very like it's not your other self but the truth is those little kind of interesting dark parts of yourself that you could that like your fantasies your inner workings like the things that really turn you on that you feel should be secret they're embedded in your persona altogether right well why do they have to be in the dark yeah you know why do they have to be secret we're not talking about our shadow self we're talking about you know sex um well sex can be part of your shadow side in that you can

have all sorts of weird and wonderful yeah kinks and yeah you know that you don't want to manifest in the real world but it's also out in the open as well yeah it should be you know we should embody our sexuality wherever we go but as brown women it's i feel like sex in our community is also the last taboo that no one's that we're not talking about it and indians there is a billion of them they're fucking like bangladesh i saw a map this is so funny but not i saw a map of you know those infographics when they put a population over bangladesh's population is the same size as the united states but the size of bangladesh is texas wow that made me laugh do you know what i mean like that literally blew my mind so everyone is fucking clearly yeah and yet even with our podcast we get like a fair amount

of trolls i haven't actually tapped into the trolls recently i don't know if they've got the message or if they're just bored or taking or attacking someone else but we get so many women coming to us saying where were you when you when we were 16 you know and like you said you know we make it fun and funny i guess and accessible but like there's we sort of take away the shame yeah but you know even for us when we started doing this podcast there was a moment where i always talk about this i sort of self-centered and rubina said if we're going to do this let's do it properly and of course now we've blown the doors down and we can't fucking go back sadly not so sadly but they're they're really even now i meet people and they're like oh must be really awkward i wouldn't let my i mean i met someone the other day and he was like oh must

be awkward in front of a guy i was seeing he thought it was my ex-partner like implying that it was awkward for them for him to be on it because if it was my girl or my wife or my partner i would not let them talk about sex the way you are i had someone the other day say to me um you couldn't pay me to do that wow and i was like i don't know if you get paid to do this actually but i was like i i think that's but i find that really insulting yeah i find that quite offensive and insulting i mean i don't care i can obviously i'm still gonna do my job and carry on but it's um yeah we're still deeply ashamed of it and it's not even like a brown person deeply ashamed like you talk to white people like everyone do you find that your clients are like obviously you probably have like a range of clients but do you find that the brown community

are like coming to you and coming to you in couples and asking yeah like they're a good proportion of the people that want help um i wouldn't say they're a good proportion but i get a probably more than other people i get asian people, Asian men, women, couples who come to me about sex and sexuality. And that's really interesting. I love doing that work. And in many ways, sex is not sex that we should be talking about. It's people and your life stages. So how you have sex now will be different from how you had sex.

You know, 10 years ago or even last week so it's the real challenge i think is finding a balance between who you are now and the sort of sex you want to have now and being really open and transparent about that and finding that connection doing that as opposed to defining sex and saying well i should have this sex or that sex. Sex is just sex. It doesn't matter what it is or what the act is. What matters is who you are and what you need. And what sorts of, I mean, and not just from your Asian patients, but clients, what kinds of things are you seeing now?

Does, like, porn play a part, social media? Like, is there, like there like trends are you seeing trends yeah i think with porn and porn addiction you know or sex it's a behavioral addiction you're not actually addicted to it although you you could argue that the you know oxytocin or the dopamine hit is the thing you're addicted to um i i view porn addiction or sex addiction in the same way as i view any other addiction and to summarize it something that a compulsive behavior which brings you pleasure in the short term but that same thing causes you pain in the long term is an addictive process so in the short term i'm going to i don't pull my

hair out my head and i feel an immediate release but in the long term i'm going bold so it makes me unhappy yeah that is exactly the same as compulsively having sex okay i go and i find i rush out the door i find someone have crazy sex with them and then i feel bad later it's the same process and is that what you're like in terms of people coming to you is it quite varied or are you seeing people come to you sex addiction gone up yeah do you think that's actually happened well i guess i don't know what the stats are right now off the top of my head i'll be transparent i see a lot of it in my practice but of course people come to me for that so yeah it would be easy for me to see yeah okay there's a lot of it well i think the thing that i see that

interests me a lot is uh people who started relationships women who started relationships say and very early on their fate orgasm like on the first second time third they faked orgasm, like on the first, second time, third time, they faked orgasm. And then after that, they get locked into this relationship dynamic where they can't say to the partner, actually, you know what? I never came, I faked it.

What I really need is... They can't say the words. So 20 years later, they don't want to have sex. Well, not even 20 years later, you know. Four or five years later, they don't want to have sex. And the man's trying to figure out why he what's going on it was okay before yeah yeah oh yeah but that's so like weirdly that's quite misleading on the woman's part because what she's trying to do is be like please this guy and be like oh you're so great in bed this is amazing

but the truth is he's done jack all she's got nothing out of it and actually she might think she's doing something good but she's doing something terrible for him and for her faking orgasms when harry met sally we blame you yeah because like why why would you have you ever done that have you ever faked absolutely not look at me are you joking i'll be like get fucking back on it and do it again i think i probably did when i was younger though yeah i'm really impressed actually i've never done i've never faked it. I've never. I'm so demanding.

I don't know if I fake orgasm, but sometimes I fake enjoyment. When I'm like, I'm definitely thinking about something else, but you're quite into it, so I'm just going to be like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You do a bit of that, but I've not faked it. I've definitely had sex where I've just been a cum bucket and I've not orgasmed and I make it well known that I'm here for your pleasure and you don't you don't need to make me cum because I'm I have to get into it mentally and I just don't have time um but I always always usually do cum incidentally I broke up with a partner of mine for 10 of 10 years and when I was dating then I wasn't coming with anyone but that was a I think that was a psychological block whatever whatever that was I just knew I was going to have sex and I knew I wasn't going to come. But that was a, I think that was a psychological block, whatever, whatever that was.

I just knew I was going to have sex and I knew I wasn't going to come. But I think that sometimes, sometimes the reasons that we choose to have sex aren't about like, functionally coming. Yeah.

It's about so many things. Yeah, yeah. Like sometimes it's about like, just feeling desired and being like, I still got it. Yeah. Definitely.

I definitely, I'm going to, you will sleep with me and that's going to prove to me that I am sexy. That was exactly one of the reasons. That I am great. Yeah. It sleep with me and that's going to prove to me that I am sexy, that I am great. Yeah. It's like self affirming. Sometimes you have sex because you're just like, I want the night to continue. You're like, well, all my friends are going home. I'm a bit drunk. That guy is still here. Let's see what happens.

You need someone to stay. Like, I just think all those reasons, like kind of, what kind of interesting choices are people making now? I don't know if that's the right question to ask. Like, when people are talking about the reasons why they have sex, because are people seeing it as a function? Like, what are they and where are their problems coming from? Gosh, I think for women, if we talk about women, it's changed because it's much more of an option now for fun, just for the sake of fun and not for the sake of finding a long term partner. And some of that is because of financial freedom so you know up until very very recently as a woman you know you had to find a man you had or somebody else who had more money than you did more earning potential so that you could

be secure in the world in the long term whereas women we're earning our own money now we don't need to do that so now we're reassessing what is the purpose of sex for me am i seeking a long-term partner am i just having fun yeah because it is an option now for fun and just on that note women's capacity to orgasm has got nothing to do with a reproductive system so a woman's clitoris is on the outside of a vagina it sits independently and kind of runs behind the labia so a woman has tremendous capacity for orgasm and she's designed to be able to have orgasm just for the sake of it. Whereas every single time a man gets hard and ejaculates, he triggers his reproductive system.

So it's a kind of a, it's a different process, isn't it? We are designed just purely. For pleasure? Yeah, to be able to have sex for the sake of, or sexual pleasure. So much of the moment of today, wow. The clip fascinates me because I'm still searching for mine, I'm not going to lie. I think I found it. It's quite a big structure, you know.

It's essentially, if you think of a penis and then split the shaft of the penis, the top of the penis, the penis glands, is your clitoris, your clitoris head. And then the shaft of the penis sits behind your labia and runs down either side of your vagina. You can tell her a hundred times. She never fucking learns. We did a whole course on it. And then she still can't find it. It's like, I literally showed you a diagram.

You could go into a room with her and just point it out to her and she'd still be like, don't know if that's it. I think nothing happens to it. Like when I, and something, you know, and I've got a man down there and I'm like, I'm not really getting anywhere with this. It depends on what kind of position. Oh, I only do penetration. A good old pounding. Well, it's on what kind of position you're in. Oh, I only do penetration.

A good old pounding. Well, it's the position because the clitoris, I mean, you know, you have got behind the labiae, it does sit there, but the main part of the clitoris head is above the vaginal opening. So missionary position sex is really crap for women, for a lot of women.

Yeah, I can't. Because it just completely misses. Yeah, I can't. You could try putting a cushion or a pillow underneath your bum to lift your hips yeah yeah i tried that i mean i only ever come from on top really but um yeah i think you just need more pressure there so penetration plus a hand in the right spot or a vibrating cock ring with a little paddle on the end yeah no i need to try that i've tried a couple of toys but it's just i'm like i'm just useless clip just useless clip just do anything i'm like all right do you find that like i mean because for me when i think about sex or enjoyment especially orgasming i need to be in the right

headspace i need to feel relaxed i need i need lots of things going on and with sex especially i need to feel for me to orgasm during sex i need a lot i need a lot i need a lot of lighting i need the room to be perfect i need the smells i need everything i need everything um and i same if i masturbate i need for me it needs to still feel good what is that what's going on there that my brain is so connected to my clear and it's kind of you know what like what like would you explain that to me well we have really really busy minds and there's lots going on it's a big kind of problem with society at the moment. There's so much stimulation.

If you're in your head, you're not in your body. And if you're not in your body, you're not going to orgasm. So you start to spectator. If you're in your head, you're spectator. You're thinking about shopping the groceries, the kids, you know, those curtains over there, me changing, whatever. I don't know. Oh, my God, that is literally in my mind except the kids bit.

Yeah, all the stimulation is going on up here. So you're not in your body. So it's really hard to orgasm. And in order to orgasm, you need to be really relaxed and really in your body. So the training, if you like, or behavioural programme for people who struggle to orgasm is about teaching them to get into their body, to really notice their body. And there's only three things I ask people to think about, and that's temperature, texture and pressure.

That's it. Three Ts? Well, two Ts and a well two t's and a p two t's and a p what temperature texture pressure pressure sorry it would have been really nice if it was three t's just putting out there you know when you think about the things you just keep coming back to those three things and thinking what is the temperature i'm always a bit chilly so maybe that could just you know put on some socks put the heating on put the heating up wear a jumper don't wear a jumper you need to be naked but i was just thinking but like you know think

about most asian women probably our mother's age or even sort of our age you know when you've got a fucking mother-in-law and like the whole shebang bang family like how you meant to come do you know what i mean it's like and then you can't make the noises it must be hard i think this like idea of like i mentioned before about like wild abandon like suspending your disbelief giving yourself into the moment and being like all i'm doing is this right now you know how like there's restaurants where people like eat in the dark so they can just focus on the taste and focus on that thing and it just enhances your enjoyment of it and i think the only way really i can completely sometimes completely let go and not be thinking of anything is getting really wasted or getting really high and that's when you're like I'm just in this moment because

I'm I'm like blown my senses. Do you only ever have sex when you're high or wasted? No but I'm just like it's hard to get to that point it's really hard to like completely let go. BBC Sounds Audio Lab helps the next generation of creators produce unique podcasts. Here's a sneak peek of a few that are available now. Let us begin. The Museum of Bad Vibes by Hannah Adam. What some of us don't realise is that many of these objects we so casually glance at are inherently spiritual in nature.

Blossom Trees and Burnt Out Cars by Talia Randall. Being in nature can deeply improve the quality of our lives, but it needs to be opened up to everyone. And The Film We Can't See by Adam Smith. These sound recordings are from one of these films that never got made. That would mean they were 80 years old. Listen to all the Audio Lab podcasts on bbc sounds brown girls do it too what have you seen in your work as a as a sex therapist in the asian

community what kind of difference is i mean do you think that we are making progress do you think that we are talking about it do you think we are a little bit more open i think the couples who come to sex therapy or come for therapy are more open. Yeah, they're open anyway, right, because they're seeing you, right? Exactly. But even them, they often struggle to say what they really feel and what they really want. And there is something about the idea of motherhood, you know, the three phases of women. You know, you've got the, what is it, the virgin, the mother, and then the whore.

And that idea that we have to fit into one of those three categories. And it's still quite pronounced in the Asian culture, isn't it? So you do have to ask yourself, if I'm a woman and I'm a mother and I have children, what does that mean about me as a sexual being? Can I still be wanton? Can I still be wild and crazy and have a great time? Or do I have to kind of, I don't know,

toe the cultural norms, the laws of cultural normality? Do I have to become different? Well, there's that struggle. Like, I mean, I've had a baby, culturally the cultural norms the laws of cultural normality do I have to become different well there's that struggle like I mean I have I've had a baby and a bit of me thinks god one day he's gonna be 16 and he's gonna listen to this podcast and he's gonna what is he gonna think of me and it's really strange because there's the other bit of my brain that's like well he's gonna think you're amazing and that you did this like really amazing radical thing and that you did it beyond caring what anyone thought about it because you thought it was important or it was meaningful

and it's hopefully giving him that perspective rather than be embarrassed but there's still that voice in my head being like well I'm his mother what am I teaching him so I've got a 16 year old boy

at home and he's really proud of me oh you've got a good one just remember that yeah and you raise them to be good and you raise them

to think about women like there's nothing honestly he's going to listen to this podcast when he's 16 and he's going to listen to this podcast when he's 16 and he's going to think you're amazing and actually if he doesn't then he's obviously hanging out

with fucking idiots yeah so I won't let him do that don't let him do that good good what are some of the kind of pressing issues for young people now

I think sex positivity is a really big problem it's a problem yeah I think so for a lot of young girls they come into therapy with vaginismus because they're terrified. So imagine...

With what in what? Vaginismus. It's where the vagina's a muscle. It's a muscle like that. And it can be really, really tiny. Most of the time it's really tiny and then it can go really big so the baby's head can come out of it.

Yeah, okay. So it goes really tiny. And vaginismus is when the muscles of the vagina just clamp up and they won't open. You can't get anything in there at all. Wow. And vaginismus is when the muscles of the vagina just clamp up and they won't open. You can't get anything in there at all. Wow. And it's a fear response, often an anticipatory fear response

and anticipation. Of having sex? Yeah. Okay. Or the expectation to have all sorts of crazy wild sex. Imagine you're 16, going to college, and there's all this kind of porn and sex around you and you're being thrust into that world, how terrifying that must be

Oh my god, I didn't realise, so girls have this vaginosis vaginismus issue because they are being thrust into the world of sex which in porn can mean anything between two cocks and an aubergine and god knows what else I think probably every woman's had some element of vaginismus

because I've definitely had sex where it hasn't been able to like go in just straight off the bat and then we've maybe didn't have lube at the time or whatever and i've just been like it's just it's not it's not working like you're gonna have to hurt me to get in there and that does feel like there's some sort of like tension there that like you need it needs to be resolved i've definitely had that but most women have that as you said at some point or other because we're disconnected from our bodies we just go oh well i'll force my way through. Right.

And really what we should say is, no, actually, I'm not ready. I'm not aroused. Yes. Because your body's organic and a woman's body changes when she's aroused. So the vagina elongates. If you're not aroused, the penis will hit the cervix and it will hurt. You know, as a woman, when you are like wet and ready to go and when you're not you know it you like you feel like you're kind of you're kind of warmed to it you could also be dry as

fuck and then be lubed slightly easy yeah that's true because sometimes i'm like i may have got too much work to do and then it's like oh can i say something about lubrication as well this is really important lubrication is not um it is not an arousal response. It's just a reflex. That's it. It has got nothing to do with arousal. And there is science to prove this. In the olden days, a man would rape a woman and he'd go to court and say,

well, she was well wet, she was well lubricated, she must have wanted it. And the woman lubricated because it's a reflex. So if I was to show you know she was well lubricated she must have wanted it and the woman lubricated because it's a reflex so if you if i was to show you pornography horrible pornography of someone being raped and assaulted you would lubricate not because you're aroused because your body's physiological protection like survival that's insane oh my god it's really important everybody knows this especially women who've been assaulted because they feel that their bodies have betrayed them. Oh, wow. So I've often had many women come into therapy and cry at that moment because they felt that their body betrayed them, that they must have wanted it.

It must have been aroused in some way. Oh, women, poor women. Oh, God, I love women. So lubrication has got nothing to do with arousal at all you must have like i can't tell you how sorry i feel for these women coming to you crying saying things like i probably asked for it i probably did like why why am i wet and it's like we literally thought the same thing up until you corrected us that or if you're wet you must be ready but actually it's your body it's a bit like when you're about to eat your mouth produces saliva it's the same thing to break down the

enzymes in the food and so wow yep just a reflex so um it's important to remember that right gosh mind blown how do you recommend how do you advise clients to talk about sex because i think like look poppy and i are gobshies we we obviously have relationships where we feel much more able and this podcast has really helped us but if you're quite a shy personality type and you just started seeing somebody and it's not the way you choose to vocalize what are the other methods you could use to talk about sex or about having sex with your partner that feel like safer areas instead of being like you know what your dick just didn't do it yesterday so it is a really difficult thing to talk about well i say it is but

it isn't actually it's just the same as talking about i didn't like that restaurant can we try different i literally was just gonna say like you go into you go into you look at menu like i don't like that i want to get that on it it should be that easy it should be that easy yeah and actually it's the one area of life where you just don't negotiate beforehand you know i wouldn't go to the fun fair and say yeah just put me on any ride i don't care what it's going to do you just wouldn't do that whatever you know you wouldn't you'd want to know beforehand what are the limits what is it going to do you just wouldn't do it whatever you wouldn't you'd want to know beforehand what are the limits what is it going to do how is it going to feel have i got any expectations and these are my boundaries but with sex we don't do that we just kind of like close our eyes dive in and hope for the best and then and often it's not very good yeah it's often

not very good and then men are not told and then they walk around thinking they're donnie's and it's like no mate you're just shit i love this idea of presenting yourself as a menu to somebody. Yeah. Like, here's my menu. Here are the things that I like, these things I don't like. Give me your menu and then we'll, like, choose. We'll selectively choose the things that we can join. I always do that with men.

I'm like, tell me what you like and then it saves time. And do you know what they always say to me? Blowjob. No, thank God. It's well documented. I don't like giving blowjobs. I'm probably really bad at them but they are like

a lot of them will be like figure it out you do whatever you want let's learn let's learn from each other and I'm like

I don't plan to see you again so just tell me what you want and how you like it and also this is the other thing I've noticed because I've obviously recently started dating a lot of men now

finish themselves off so we'll have sex and then they can't cum in me. I wouldn't know why that is. I've got an idea, shall I tell you? It's porn, right? They keep watching porn. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I've already, as I was having sex, well, as one of them was jacking off. So they don't want to cum inside you either? They can't. They don't want to cramp out? Because what happens, I don't know what you were going to say, but my understanding is that a woman's vagina will never be as tight or as fast as a man's face and that's exactly it that is literally i i asked one and we finished and i said

i'm noticing quite a lot of guys doing this with me and i know it's not me you're number seven this week that's done that so it's obviously not me but it was but it was just obvious as they were lying there and i was sort of kissing them watching just doing whatever I could to kind of help them along the way. Encouraging them together. This little kiss on the cheek. Just like... You can do it! Come on!

Yeah! I can do you! It's like a play. It's like a horse racing commentary. Anyway, and yeah, it's something I've noticed. Obviously, it's weird for me but you asked him sorry you were in the middle

of saying you asked this person yeah I was like I said to it was about two or three it's very noticeable I mean two or three isn't exactly like how Big Survey says

but enough for me and it was just the rate and speed at which they were going I mean there was no way like I'll fucking work out and I'm like I can't get up

I can't be on top of you and go that fast but surely your hands can match their hands. No, but they touch it a certain way. They know their bodies. They know their bodies. Like the foreskin down. It's a whole art.

But me orgasming with my hand feels different to me orgasming with a partner. Yes, totally. Both are good. Both are orgasms. Yeah, sure. They're just different. I suppose it's a behavioural pattern, isn't it, and what you fall into. But equally, conversely, it can go the other way as well.

So if men masturbate a lot with porn, the feeling inside a vagina without a condom is very different. It's warm and stuff, and that can trigger them to early ejaculation as well. So it can go both ways. And as I'm lying there and looking at them, I'm like, I wonder what they're thinking about. Yeah, if someone was fantasising

whilst they were having sex with you, or if you were, would that be OK? Yes. As in, if they were fantasising, they were thinking about someone else, or if you were, would that be okay? Yes. As in, if they were fantasising, they were thinking about someone else or something else. I don't think I'd be okay with that. I think just hearing you talk about being present in my body and feeling it, and if I was doing all of that work to be like,

this is my clit and the texture and my temperature's perfect, I'm really going for it. For them to be thinking about fucking Kirsten Stewart or something. Oh, yeah, I mean, that... My partner really fancies Kirsten Stewart. It's a sort of void.art oh no i i would probably look the reality is i've done it and your mind wanders and sometimes people do and i don't mind the odd time but if it's uh if i was in a long-term relationship and that and they were constantly thinking about other people then no that would not be cool or people that can

only come if they watch porn so then they you put on porn as a partnership like that would not be cool or people that can only come if they watch porn so then they you put on porn as a partnership like that would be quite tricky for me i think that would be hard i mean are those the kind of issues that people are coming with you yeah yeah sure and of course it's behavioral so you can socialize your way out of that but it just takes some effort and a real desire to do it to do it yeah i think sometimes what happens is intensity of an orgasm is different under different circumstances. So people might be less willing to give up a behavioural habit. Because the orgasm is better.

I wanted to ask a question about couples, couples that come to you with issues. Because in my mind, my understanding of that is like one person might be wanting to have a better sex life than the other one. And the other one's got a bit bored. Like, does that feel like a common yeah but normally you know what i was saying earlier about someone starts a sexual dynamic and their fake orgasm and then they struggle to ask for what they want and then a couple years later they're not really interested you know they love the partner they love everything they have but they're not interested in sex because they're not getting what they need and eventually they push down their own sexuality to the point where they just go

well i'm not really interested in sex so then they come so they can become like accidentally asexual almost accidentally yeah yeah yeah interesting those couples but normally what we find in the relationship dynamic is that one person isn't saying what they want and the other person's doing the thing that they've been doing but more of it yeah so it gets worse it's like a vicious cycle it gets worse is there something about sex drives there so me and poppy always talk about we do this podcast because we both have really high sex drives and we're quite into sex and then actually if i met someone who was like i want to have sex once a month i'd be like yeah that's not gonna work is there something is there something is that like a thing it's a problem isn't it so i mean actually i would say everyone's

sex drives different if you don't might if you don't meet someone who matches your sex drive it's going to be a problem yeah that's it it's drive, it's going to be a problem. Yeah. That's it. It's that simple. It's going to be a problem. Sometimes there's nothing we can do. It's just that sex drives are different. Do you think that sex positivity now and all that we consume online, do you think it's just gone too far? I don't think it's gone too far.

In some ways, it's not gone far enough. It's just gone in the wrong direction. I think lots of young people are terrified about sex or being sexual because the demand and the expectation that they're just going to you know you're going to love themselves and just like uh be fabulous exactly that you're somehow just going to manifest in the world as a fully flowed sexual being and really understand like samantha jones from sex in the city yes but if you're brown kids you're going to have all that shame deeply entrenched in your psyche aren aren't you? Yes.

Well, there's something about having your sex be seen because lots of people are sexual in secret or behind closed doors. But what does it mean to really let your sexuality be seen? You need to be a sexual person in the world and to own your body and show it or, you know, allow yourself to say and do sexual things but there's something in a sex positivity that is hugely um imprisoning also not just for brown people but for all people in that the expectation and the bar is too high and the expectation is too high so the expectation that you're going to be really sexually diverse sexually available have lots of sexual partners know exactly what you like and what you want and know exactly uh you know what your partner should or shouldn't be doing and of course we don't talk about it so how should we how would we know there's also just like some neutral points in between i find the whole problem i have with body positivity is that i either have to celebrate

myself and love myself or hate myself and be depressed about myself whereas actually most of the time i'm like yeah i'm all right and there's no like middle ground of this like enjoyment of sex that feels like well there's that but then there's the instruction of sex or the practicalities and you know the bit that what is it that you do so um what is it you know if you're a young person and you're going out into the world and you're looking for your first sexual partner how do you know what to do how do you know what someone else's body looks like or feels like? And the expectation that you're just going to be really confident is too high. I feel like you and I sometimes straddle this slightly surreal world of sex positivity. I don't necessarily think our podcast is sex positivity.

We talk about fanny farts. We talk about all sorts of all the things that we get up to. And I think I'd like to think that we enable women and we share our sort of funny anecdotes but I often have people coming up to me and it's exactly like you said the mind and the body and the vagina are a separate thing like people just think all I do is talk about sex you know and then and then I do this awful thing that I really annoy myself but when I do it I'm like, I also have another serious job. But I'm like, no, this is fucking serious. This is so serious.

No one talks about it. And we let society stigmatize it. And it's like a ridicule. Oh, your job is talking about sex. You know, it's like, it's almost laughable. You're not a teacher. You don't work in a bank. You know what I mean?

But this is so important. Because all fucking roads lead to sex. As we established at the beginning of the podcast about sex every the way you present everything you think about everything like and you like you said at the start is the reason that we're here like that kind of human procreation idea as well but also just it's so our organs it's so the thing that like connects us with each other as well well there's sex and sex is often a drive for attachment so the two are very, very closely linked together. So often when people go out and they're seeking a partner and they see someone they like, the mind starts spinning out of control immediately.

You know, the whole idea that we're going to get married and have children and all that sort of stuff. And it's because what we're doing is we're seeking attachment. So we're all constantly looking to make attachments to other people. And a really good way of making a secure attachment is through sex. I have the opposite problem. I see people and I'm like, I want to fuck you, I want to fuck you, I want to fuck you, I want to fuck you. But I think that's to do with the fact that I've just come out of a 10-year relationship

and I want nothing, I don't want any kind of relationship. You'll be avoiding the pain of attachment then. Yes, probably. That's exactly what I'm doing. I go to parties and I look at people and I'm like it's more like it sounds awful but like notches on a bedpost

kind of the way a typical man might look at women you know so you get to snatch a moment of intimacy and I just want

yeah I want to snatch a moment of intimacy but I don't want any kind of long term anything at the minute at the minute but I am in a weird

intimate thing with this guy but that's a that's a therapy session off the podcast you'll be needing to pay her for it thank you so much for coming on our podcast i really enjoyed it yeah i really enjoyed it thank you so much thank you thank you for having me um so that's all we've got time for in our sex therapy i feel like we've learned a lot. I've learned so much from... I would probably get a sex therapy later down the line.

Lahani. I've learned so much from Lahani. Lahani. Lahani. She's my honey. Would you get sex therapy? I think I probably would, yeah, later down the line. Why not?

I mean, I'm currently feeling all right about sex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if I had some issues issues i'd kind of be and i wonder if if you're in a relationship that you feel is fading instead of suggesting therapy be like what about sex therapy yeah that would be like a really interesting way to take it if you're like look we've got some issues but i can't figure out what they are why don't we just go and see a sex therapist oh i took lahani's number so i'm definitely giving her a call yeah. And if you need sex therapy or you feel like you've got some problems you might want to share with us. Speak to an actual therapist.

All questions. Yeah, speak to an actual therapist. But also just let us know. Keep us in the loop. Maybe CC us in whilst you're emailing your sex therapist. Our email is browngirlsdoit2 at bbc.co.uk. CC us into all your emails. I would be fascinated.

Or be CC us if you really have an issue. Don't, don't, don't do that. Don't copy us into all your emails. But I would love it if someone actually emailed

a sex therapist and then copied us brand new to it. I would love it. I would love it. I would love it. If anyone CC'd us into any email,

I would love it. But also, genuinely, we are doing this podcast for you. It's your experiences as well and we'd love to hear from you. So if you do have any sex therapy questions, email us, get in touch. And if you like us two gobshites talking absolute shit,

then subscribe, like, share on BBC Sounds. You know where to find us. Welcome to my radio cafe. Let me show you some new things on the menu. For example, this. Radio One's All Day Breakfast with Greg James. That is my, hopefully funny, best bits daily podcast, and it's on BBC Sounds.

Morning, you all right? Getting ready to go, thanks. How many bus routes are there in London? 545 daytime ones. He's just put his hands through his hair. I can click my nose and my finger. Radio One's All day breakfast. With Greg James.

Double it up on the BBC Sounds app. Still my favourite.