Girls Gotta Eat - The Science of Orgasms (and What's Blocking Yours) feat. Author and Educator Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

We are honored to be joined by a highly requested guest, Emily Nagoski, Ph.D. The author of the best-selling, life-changing book Come As You Are educates us about the female brain and body when it comes to desire and orgasms, why we run into challenges with these things, and what we can do to improve our sexual pleasure and fulfillment. We're chatting about everything from body insecurities to vacation sex to introducing your partner to your pussy, plus discussing dry spells in a relationship and how to come back from them. Before Emily joins us, we chat about new prospects for Ashley, and Rayna reveals a deep, dark secret. Enjoy! Check out Emily's books Come As You Are and Burnout, and visit her website here. Follow us on Instagram @GirlsGottaEatPodcast, Rayna @Rayna.Greenberg, and Ashley @AshHess. Visit our website for show tickets, merchandise, and more! Thank you to our partners this week: Allform: To find your perfect sofa and get 20% off all orders, go to allform.com/gge. Calm: For a limited time, get 40% off a premium subscription at calm.com/gge. Nutrafol: Get $15 off your first order + free shipping with code GGE20 at nutrafol.com. Rory: For a free online visit + free 2-day shipping, visit hellorory.com/gge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two-thirds to 75% of women are only sometimes rarely or never orgasmic from vaginal stimulation alone. Most of them need additional clitoral stimulation because the clitoris is the hokey-pokey. It's what it's all about. So step number one. Welcome back to another episode of Girls Gotta Eat. Welcome back. Nailed it this week. You're killing it.

We have two dogs in the studio today. We are really living the dream. I tried to put them on our Instagram and they ran under the table every single time. You didn't pay them. Like they knew. They're influencers. Azul's trying to get that money. George is so cute.

George. Our assistant's dog is a king Charles. Cavalier. He's so cute. Like sex in the city. Like Elizabeth Taylor. I never thought I love having all these dogs in the office, but these two dogs I love having in the office. I just had a flashback of my dream last night.

What was it? And it was that I got confirmed to go watch a taping of the new sex in the episode. but in the confirmation, it said Samantha is back. I just, this just came to me as I said sex in the city. And we did dreams last week. And this, like, just popped in my head. I remember getting an email confirmation.

And, like, there was a big picture of Kim Katrown. And it was like, she's back. That is the dream. You're confirmed for the taping. Yeah, that is a dream. They're like, no, just kidding. It's just this toxic relationship that everybody thought was like a good idea. I can't wait to hate to watch it.

Oh, we love it. If you guys don't know, I troll every single post on the internet about Carrie and big every time somebody's like, and just like that. I'm like, normalized thinking big was a fuck boy. You are a troll. Sometimes I'll see you. And I'm like, it's like a top comment. I'm like, I don't even know you.

I was trolling Tom Girardi last night too. I'm all over page six. So it was like Tom Girardi is in a retirement home and I wrote lock them up. Oh, my God. Rain is secret life of trolls. Secret life of verified trolls. So if you guys want to see me out on these streets, I'm on the page six Instagram a lot. You know what I just thought about?

I just referenced sexicity. Like everyone has seen every episode multiple times and should know all those references. Like, that's not everybody's truth. It should be. But like sometimes I'll get tagged in an Instagram story that's like, just started this show because I heard about it on girls got to eat, which is fine. These girls are young.

Like I started watching Sex and the City like in college. You know what I mean? Not high school? College? I mean, it was out probably when I was in high school. I'm just saying I started watching it. I wasn't current. when I started watching it.

We were like watching DVDs, like in dorm rooms. Yeah. And then like got current while when the like finale or when the final seasons came out. But it's funny because I'm like, oh my God, how could you not know the show? And I'm like, because it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago. Yeah. Also, I feel like I don't remember things that far back.

Like you and I, well, I specifically, I rewatched the entire show right before we did our episode, our fuck you, Carrie Bradshaw episode. Yeah. So every episode. I watched every episode every season. so I am like super current. Like I, it's ingrained in my brain forever. Like, of course, I'm just like, yeah, Elizabeth Taylor.

Like, it just is the name of Charlotte's dog. Like, everything is like, I don't even have to think of anything. It's all just in there. Actually, everybody knows. Every week you reference the show. But I mean, it's sex in the city. It's like this thing. I just, I want to be better about like people like listening and be like, what the

fuck is she talking about? You know what I mean? Every week. It's every week. Every week you mentioned sex in the city. The listeners like, yeah. You're right. I do.

Okay. Well, listen. percent of weeks. If you don't. know those references, you need to watch every episode so you can get with it. There's nobody's supposed to me this podcast. This is a Sexistee Stan podcast? I'm like an anti-stand though.

I hate Carrie. But she taught us a lot of valuable life lessons of how not to land. She was the original. He was the original fuck boy. Also, I have like a special love for it because Greg Barron, who's one of the writers, is hi, hi, Matt Kane. So I have a special love for it. Of course.

So, yeah, I'm having a great week. We're having a great week. Tell us about it. Well, let's get some stuff out of the way. We have a big announcement. Listen, guys. We're coming to Boston. We're announcing a third show.

It's going to be Friday night, holiday weekend. Raina! Halloween weekend. Friday night, 945. We've had a third show at the Wilburne. Listen, guys, you have to buy tickets because I forced Ashley to do this. me and our agents conspired. And I made her do it.

We're going to have a huge fight. If this show doesn't sell out, the podcast is over. So just everybody get those tickets. Okay, here's the thing about Raina. Raina uses the term holiday weekend very loosely. She, so she keeps saying like, I'm like, I don't know. Can we like sell out a third show, whatever? Here's a little behind the scenes about us.

And Raina's like, Ashley, it's a holiday weekend. I'm like, Halloween is not a holiday weekend, Rayna. A holiday weekend means you get a day off of work. It's not a holiday weekend. And I remember back to the one time we missed a flight, which was when we were going off on our final train. We were going to on Valentine's Day of 2019 to start our last tour before COVID and the first step was San Diego. So we were flying in San Diego. We missed our flight. Only time we've ever missed a flight, we had to get on a later flight that day. And we did underestimate the time it would take us to get to JFK. But Raina kept saying because it was, It was Valentine's weekend. I was like, that's not a thing. I think people travel for Valentine's weekend. Yes, they do. They might do like a stake. There's not more traffic on the road.

It's Valentine's Day. Okay, that's fair. I'm sitting there so stressed. Actually, I wasn't that stress because, remember, I did have sex that day. And I was just sitting there like, we're going to miss this flight. And Ray just kept being like, it's Valentine's weekend, you know. I'm like, this bitch. So anyway, little known fact about Rayna.

It's not like I said Flag Day is a holiday weekend. It's just funny to me. You just kept yesterday. It was like, Rayna had said like, Ashley, it's a holiday weekend.

It's in the college town. And I turned to our assistant. I was like, did you know that weekend is a holiday weekend and a college town? Rana said it five times in the last hour.

I just really people are looking for plans. It's Friday night. It's Halloween. You guys can get your rest up. Come to the shows. It'll be really fun. Yeah, you guys come. No,

really seriously. Like Boston. I mean, when we did Boston last, we were, like, shocked at just the total experience. The Wilbur is probably the best venue in the world. I mean, I feel comfortable saying that. I feel like a lot of comedians have made that claim. We love it. The energy is so fire.

Of course, we'll have insane opening acts, and it's just going to be incredible. Like, those shows are just their second time. I mean, all our shows are incredible. But there's something really special at Boston in the Wilbur Theater in particular. A woman runs the show over there. So everything's always on point. there's a dog. It's a whole thing.

Yeah, really one of my favorite shows. Our whole hype video on our website is just that Boston show with the Celtics dancers. Yeah, and that'll be the last show of like Boston, late night, Friday night, start your weekend on an amazing note and grab those tickets. Girls Got Eapodcast.com. You can get them right now, probably right? Yeah, you definitely can.

And grab tickets for Charlotte, Atlanta, Charleston, Raleigh is sold out. But we have a couple left for the other cities. These shows are going to be so fucking wild. I'm so excited. It is just like the best girls out in the entire world. Bring her boyfriend. Bring her husband. We don't care.

We'll talk to you. We're more likely to talk to you if you bring a significant other. Oh, yeah. But we'll bring you guys up on stage. The live shows are so awesome. So grab tickets. We'll see you guys there. And merch, girls' gutty podcast. Dot shop and sign up for the newsletter.

We send out some news updates, especially regarding the live shows there first. So just sign up for our newsletter. Oh, yeah. All right. Raina, what do you have to tell me? Because you told me that you have a secret to share. I... Oh, God.

If I've told you this before, you're the only person I've ever told. And I will be so upset if I got drunk and told you this and I don't remember. Oh, my God. It's my like, deepest, you're going to tell everybody. And also I was thinking about it because the real reason

we missed that flight about his day is because you were getting pedicure. So not true because the pedicure happened in the airport. So anyway. I've never gotten to pedicure

with you before. And we were like finishing up work here the other day and I was going to go get my nails done. Rob, who's your friend, my friend. More my friend? He's really more your friend.

He's probably more my friend. He's probably more your friend. I just want to make clear. He likes me more than you. been friends them for decades. He looks so ridiculous to be walking out of the street. No, you guys are really developing your own friendship. You went to our salon to get your nails done.

Yeah. So I invited you. I tried to have a family trip to the salon, the three of us, but you had already gotten a manicure and a pedicure. So Rob, and I walked over there, and I got a manicure and he got a pedicure. And he was like, why don't you sit for a pedicure with me? And I was like, I'm all set.

And I realized, I've never told anything like this. What? I've never gotten a pedicure. No. Not once. What? What? What?

This is like my deepest darkest secret. I have never had a pedicure. The Bella is shot. The dogs are freaking out. I've never, not once. I've never had a pedicure. Every time I've gotten ready for people's weddings, it's so awkward because everybody gets one of the items.

Raina, because you're self-conscious about your feet. Because my self-consid and ugly my feet are. It's a joke in pedicure. You've never gone one. I feel like I'm going to cry. Everyone's jaws are dropped. Including Azul.

Zool's got a pedicure. But he came from the streets. He can't even look at me. He can't even. Raina, that is so sad. But it's not sad. I don't care. Is it sad?

Well, you should experience that. You shouldn't be not experiencing that self-care because you're self-conscious about your feet. Also, like, my feet are like not the worst feet in the world. They're like, if I talk about this so often, they're not like that bad. But yeah, I give myself my own. pedicures. I've never had a pedicure before. What would even happen if you got one? You'd probably come on the spot. It feels so good.

I feel like they'd talk about me in a different language behind my back. That's not true. Like, they see the guys in there with like the nastiest feet. That's true. Also, who cares if they talk about your head on your back? I'll tell you one time, I went and got a pedicure and I hadn't been in a minute.

I went with my friend Travis, this is back in Atlanta. And I just, they did the callous treatment and they my feet just have a lot of, I have dry skin, and they just scraped off so much. The woman goes, you're going to be an inch shorter because of how much they scraped off my heels. Like, yeah, feet are gross. Like, you shouldn't be self-conscious.

This is crazy. I cannot even believe this. For you guys, first time ever, I never told anybody. I've never told Ashley. I feel like this is our last secret. Also, you're so short. You have to just like when I go in, they, they reach over me, me and Rob. They get on the like massage chair remote control and push the button that pushes the seat.

all the way back because our legs are so long. Like for you, they'd have to scoot it forward. Like, when you get into a car, you just have to like... It's so funny when Ashley and I both share driving responsibilities. To watch Ashley put the seat back to where she needs it. I can't even get in the car. I have to move the seat before I can even get in.

100%. I have to slide it and I'm like all up on the steering wheel. I feel like somebody's going to reach out and be like, I do nails. I feel like you can't live like this anymore. You should come in. You should, I mean, just for like the like exfoliation, the massage. I know, the hot stone.

I know. I've never done it before. I know. This is our last secret. This is that you guys heard it on the podcast. I can't even believe this. It's crazy. I know. It looks so nice when Rob was doing it. I was like, I should just do this. My feet are so ugly. You know what I'm going to do is I'm going to find like a small town where no one knows me. That is so funny. If you're like gone for the day, you're like, I just took a day trip. You come back with like this nice fresh petty. I'm going to go to like the Catskills wear sunglasses like where no one knows me in a small town. And just like, I can't like risk anybody seeing this. No, I feel so bad for you. I don't. It's fine. I do my own toenails.

But Raina jets off to like South Dakota. Yeah, that's where we're here for a petty. That's where I'm going to get a time. So that's my secret. That's my big secret, guys. Now you guys know everything about me. I can't ride a bike and I've never gotten a pedicure. I feel like that should be your goal for the year.

Get a pedicure? I still haven't done my ass eaten. So we're still on this path of fulfilling these goals. I'm just still going to be out here and you get. I'm ready. Getting my salad toss and you'll get a pedicure. Yeah, I'll get a pedicure. You should go with Kane.

Um, has he ever got a pedicure? Oh my God. What if this is like your couple moment? You've both never gotten one. You go together. Oh my God. I don't see him as a pedicure getting kind of man. He proposes at the salon.

But like, I feel like every man loves a pedicure once you, like there's some men that are like, oh, no, and then they go once and they're like, oh, yeah, obviously I want to get this all the time. My brother has never gotten one. and it's not like a self-conscious thing. My brother is like pretty good feet for being a size 15 or whatever. But I think he just feels bad to walk in there with a foot that big. You know what I mean? Like they're typically smaller women that are doing pedicures.

Like I think he's always felt like, A, he's so tall for the chair too. But I think he's like, I just feel bad to like put these two feet long feet in someone's face. I don't know. This little woman. Yeah. They're not to get like a third hand or like a second person. Yeah. But I was like you should, I mean, he's on his feet all day.

I know. He should get one. But I don't even know if they could get in there. You know what I mean? Like he should just go to like a foot massage salon, which is also an amazing thing to do. Do you think that they have like underground foot massage salons that just for people with big feet and ugly feet? Like the regular people. That's your new business idea.

I have an idea for massage parlor. A safe haven for ugly feet. Yes. Also, I don't have dry feet. I have soft feet. So I don't have to worry about calluses. They're going to love your feet because they're small. Oh, that's true.

Less like surfing. area to work on. Yeah. Okay. All right. Fine. I'll go. Okay.

Great. All right. So it's settled. That was our secret for the day. I'm trying to think I had a few things to chat about. I wanted to say, I want to be better about like giving updates on like stuff I talk about with like dating or whatever. I had said a couple weeks ago I did was wondering. I'd asked you if you thought this guy that we used to casually date, hook up.

If we could be friends. Mm-hmm. Then we are. Yeah. I feel like we hung out a couple times. You are friends now. I guess. I mean, it's fine.

It's great. I'm trying to have you guys have sex. Whatever. It's worked out. You know, like, I kind of put, I threw it out there of like, do you want to come, you want to hang, whatever? Like one night when I was at the stand. And since then, we've just like hung out a couple times.

Super casual. It's good. So I just wanted to like give an update on that. Okay. I have maybe a low key new crush who was someone who I thought was married. and last night I saw him, we chatted for a minute. I know him very, like very, don't really know. We know who each other are.

We chatted at a show last night. And I was like, wait a minute. Could he be single? Like I just was like, wait, he wasn't wearing a ring. So now I'm on this mission to find out. I feel like I like this guy for you. I like what he does for a living for you. I like his height for you.

I like his age for you. I just think he's, I mean, he's so funny. So I like this for you. I don't know. He still could have a girlfriend. Like he probably has some like hot model girlfriend. I don't know. I'm looking into it. We're going to research this. We're going to figure this out. I've sent a few texts out this morning.

All right. Well, if that doesn't work out, I do have a guy for you. He's my doctor. Yes. And I haven't. I didn't tell you this. He said this thing to me. It was very, so I, um, you guys have high blood pressure. I've been promising Ashley. I was going to go to the doctor. And I finally got shamed into it by the city MD people and Ashley and Kane. Um, so Ashley's been insisting that I go. And, um, yeah, I've like super high blood pressure and now I'm on meds to make it better. But I was in there and this like really cute, like tall Indian guy with a great hair, doctor walked in. And I was like, he's such a smoke. But he was talking to. He was running through this list of questions. And it was like so funny. It's just like a little thing. I just didn't tell you. And he was

like, do you sleep well? Do you exercise? I'm like, yes, I exercise. He's like, do you drink a lot? I was like, you know, here and there. He was like, do you drugs? No. Do you smoke cigarettes? No. And he asked me with your questions. And he was like, are you active? I was like, yes. He was like, do you a boyfriend? And I was like, I'm sorry. What? And I like, pause and I was like, are you hitting on me? And he goes, no, I'm. Oh, my God. And he was like, I met like, do you sleep next to a person frequently who like can tell you if you wake up a lot in the middle of the night or if you're breathing heavily in the middle of the night?

That sounds fake. That sounds like. No, it's not you. I don't think so. That sounds like he was like tried to sneak that in there in a series of questions. And then he had to try to come up with an excuse. He was like, oh, I mean, do you sleep with someone that might tell you if you? you wake up.

Here's why I don't think he was hitting on me. There was a resident and a nurse in the room with him. So there was three people in the room. And it was a legitimate question because he was asking me about my breathing when I sleep. And if there's somebody in a room with me frequently that can like give me information about that. Okay. So it just, it was a very, it was like, and it was sandwiched in between like, do you work out?

Do you drink? Do you do drugs? Do you active? Like, it just, it really hit me. And it was like the funniest thing a doctor has ever said to me. Do you have a boyfriend? Do you have a boyfriend? I was like, what?

That is so funny. You said the funniest thing about that trip. When you were there, you were like, I'm like the youngest person here. You know, there's all these like older men. And then you said, we're all here for the same reason. And I was like, what's that? You were like, our wives made us come. That is why.

It was like 40 old men with their old wives and me there alone. And like all of our wives made us go. That's funny. But I like this doctor for you. My follow up visit, I think, is next Thursday at 4 o'clock. So you can come. Yeah. We like thought maybe one of our other doctor friends who's,

the cardiologist might know him. So I was like texting her. I was like, do you know this guy? And she was like, I do. But then it was the wrong guy because he's a very common last name. So we're still on it. So yeah, guys, prospects for me. Listen, I had one more thing. So Rob, who is like my very best friends, more my friend. More your friend. He came back to, he's been away from New York for a while. He's been back and forth. But his wife has not been back since before the pandemic. And they came back and they brought their baby. And I am obsessed with this baby. Like, I feel like I have legitimate baby fever to be an aunt. Like, I really do. Like, I was like, I saw the baby hanging out with some other friends. I was like,

what's she doing? I'm upset. I have seen you hold two babies in the last couple weeks. And I'm sad I haven't started a series called Ashley holding babies. Because like, I feel like I wash, I watch this thing wash over you and your body and your face when you hold a baby where you're like, oh, I do like this. But I've always said that. Like, I don't hate babies naked. I'm like dying for Matt to have kids. But, I mean, I don't know. It's kind of a fucked up world to bring a kid into. But I still support it.

But like also she was so cute. Azole was so cute with her. And she's the perfect age because I do get like when I help Corey's infant, I just, it stresses me out. Like they can hold their head up. I mean, I can still do it. I'm not like I do it. I'm happy to do it.

And then I start to feel a little more comfortable like as time goes on. But like a six month old baby, it's like perfect because they can hold their head up. We took her to Ozatar. We had like this night out at OZatar. It was so great. I'm just like, want a baby in my life. I just want to be an aunt.

I know, I do too. I do, too. I feel like I have ant fever too. I want somebody else to have kids. Well, you know, Kaine is a nephew too. And I just like, I know, so cute. And they like FaceTime you.

FaceTime you and they can talk a little. He does, nothing he says makes sense. He just goes on these long strings of gibberish. And I keep going, and then what happened? I love it. It is so cute. But anyway, so yeah, we were putting the pressure on my brother when we were in Dewey. Which is fine.

Like, you know, they want, children and they want them like for sure, for sure. It's not like we're like harassing them. Yeah, they talk about it all the time. Yeah, but we kind of are harassing them. I'm ready. I'm ready for my kids. I'm ready. She ready. So anyway, baby, like I had posted that I posted on my Instagram like baby fever, but for a niece and then randomly that day this meme came out that copied me. And it said like baby fever, but in an aunt way and a bunch of people sent it to me. You know, I had this like realization of this other reason why I don't want kids. I was watching, I'm rewatching real house. I'm rewatching real house. So I was in New Jersey for

from 2012. There's a scene where Teresa has to go get all four of her daughters up for school. It's six o'clock in the morning. She's waking every single one of them up. She's making sure they all get their hair. They brush their teeth. If they get to the school, but she's making them breakfast. They're all running around. One of them's cooking an egg. She's like four, she's cooking her own egg. And Teresa's like, please don't burn the house down. And I was like, I don't, I can't handle this. That is a chaos level at six o'clock in the morning that I could never handle. Like, if you are a mom, you are a superhero that you can handle that. I could never handle that. Yeah. And more than one child.

kid, it's crazy. Six o'clock in the morning. Nope, can't do it. I mean, respect. I wasn't built for this. No, I wasn't. I'm not for tough. All right, well, speaking to shows,

I have a bone to pick with you. What? Okay, I watched the one, which if you guys remember, this is a show about DNA matching, and I thought it was real. We posted a clip, but when was this?

This is like in the early, early, being in the year, I think. It was a long time ago. It was like in February, maybe. So you can go back and watch this. It was like really such an insane moment on the show because Raina was talking to me about this fictional show and I thought it was real and I thought that people were really being matched based on their DNA. I mean, imagine you and you're like your perfect

match throughout the entire world. Everybody's in this database. You could pay to like be in the database and everybody does it. And I got through this whole thing and you thought it was a reality show. Yeah. And it was you couldn't watch the moment happen where I realized it's not real on video. It's on our answer. So I watched it. I had been wanting to watch it. I caught up on a lot of TV over the weekend. I didn't have any shows and I felt so good about it. I watched a lot of TV. It rained. We had like the hurricane weather. It was perfect. I had a great time.

I'd leave the house for two and a half days. You know that's my truth. And it's on Netflix. Again, Raina did it fully explained it. But Rada, I feel like you did not describe how much of like a dark drama this show is. I was thinking it was going to feel

a little more not like a sitcom, but like not what it was. It is dark. Yeah, it's dark. It's like SVU. There's like a murder. It's like a murder mystery. It's really dark and heavy and like a lot of emotions. Well, it's like I, so I don't watch a ton of fiction. You guys know I don't read fiction. I'll watch ton of fiction. I thought it was like a pretty dead on ringer for like what would really happen if this stuff happened. I loved it. You know, it is really dark and it is a dark concept when you think about it because like people existed in the world and they were married. and they had kids and then this technology existed and it's like, you know, if you have a spouse, would you still take the test? You know? Yeah, it's dark.

I mean, I loved it. You guys, I can't, we're recommending this second time, like, just really watch it. I felt like pretty hooked from the first moment. Like, I'm at first 10 minutes in. I was like, do I want to go down this road? And then I just got like so, like, locked in.

I mean, it's like a female villain, pretty much, you know? And it's just, there's so much to it. And I will say, I guess, is this sort of a spoiler. So you can skip ahead if you don't want any spoilers. But the thing that just stuck with me the most and has still stuck with me is the couple that she found his match. Yeah. I can't stop thinking about it. Like I felt so many emotions

throughout that whole ride and he was like torn. And then it ends with like that girl, she's going to try to get back at her and find her a match. Anyway, this married couple who they really painted them as like the perfect, wonderful couple. And then she was just so obsessed with thinking that he had a perfect match out there. So she like found his match and then met her and like, befriended her. It was fucking nuts. Anyway, that was like the craziest thing. And then, you know, when we did the show before, I was like, I don't think I would do this. And I have, I'm going to walk it back. Okay. You would. I don't, I don't think I wouldn't, I don't think I would do it if I was happily married

or in a really happy relationship. Because I would be like, well, you know, like, we can have more than one person that we're going to match with. But if I was single, I would like want to find that person. Like, just the way they made it seem in the show, again, fictional show, but like, that intense love. Also, it's, that can't happen. Right. That's fake. Right. there's not just like two people in the world that had the same like genetic mutation or whatever. Like it's a totally fake concept, right? As a scientist, I feel like, no, I don't fucking know. Or you could match people based on their DNA, but there would be a lot of people.

Right. I think there's so much about nature versus nurture. Like some of these people, they like, they matched like an American scientist who grew up in America with this like woman from like a Nigerian village. And it's like those people, I think on a baseline level can have similar intelligence levels, similar humor levels, but their backgrounds are so different. I think it does sort of like, it makes the probability they would connect in any way, almost impossible.

Like there is so much nature, you know? And there's plenty of, like, nurture. Yeah, nurture, sorry. So, I mean, I don't know that that really is real because like plenty of people can have a similar DNA match, but like you grew up in totally, like, one person could have gone like through like Nazi training camp and you could have grown up in like a Jewish temple. There's no reason that you would ever be together. So, yeah, it was, it's totally fictional.

And that just, that doesn't even track. Like, if it's based on these, like, DNA, like, a mutation or whatever. There's not two people in the world that have that. Like, whatever. But it was such a fun watch. But I was like, if this was real, like, I would try to find that person. Because they make it seem like you meet this person and you feel like you've known them your whole life. And, like, it was just, it's intense.

If I was single, I would do it. But also if I was in a relationship, like, if I, if this existed tomorrow, like, I would live in fear that the person that I was dating currently and in love with would want to do it. Would want to do it. I mean, that's what happened to that girl in the show. I would live in fear that they would do it. He didn't want to. But also, and there's this other thing of, like, you know, is there any substitute for history with somebody?

You know, like, that couple had such a history that, like, he didn't want to go be with that woman because he was like, no one else will ever know me like this person will. Yeah. I also don't believe in soulmates. I believe that there are, like, a lot of people that can make you really happy throughout your life. And I think that we change and we evolve. And we talked about us on the time on the show, like, the person I was engaged to

that I would have married at the age of 28. Like, I would meet that person at a bar day and think, like, he's a really nice person. but I wouldn't have anything to talk to that person about. You know, he wouldn't get past go with me. And so I think we can have a lot of loves of our lives that are super different. And I just, I don't believe there's one person for everybody. I think that there's dozens of people that could make you happy in the world. 100%. I totally agree.

So anyway, recommending that again. And then I, we were off track, but I just have to like secondly endorse hacks. I watched hacks. Raina just said it was great. I, like, I feel like you didn't like love, like you loved White Lotus more than me. and I love tax more than you. Yes. But I was obsessed with it.

I love it. I get very, like, anxious about how female comedians are going to be depicted. You know what I mean? And they're just to be, like, sad and lonely and, like, whatever. Like, and I just feel like it, I felt like it might, it was kind of going in that direction. Then it kind of took a turn. Whatever. I was, I was pleased with it the way it all turned out.

And, like, of course, there's going to be a second season. I like the cliffhanger also. The cliffhanger makes me feel crazy. I feel sick about it. Yeah. But I guess we're going to see what happens with that. But anyway, I just have to secondly endorse that. So maybe you guys watched it because you heard Raina talk about it last week, but I like love, love it.

And we're going to post a rec slide. Yeah. You'll see all these on Instagram. That I think I got through all the things I wanted to discuss. All right. Well, I don't have any wrecks to this week. I'm actually rereading Kitchen Confidential. I like fired it back up after I watched the Anthony Bordane doc.

But I have like, I'm rewatching Real House of New Jersey from 2013. And that's it. That's all I'm doing. Yeah. I feel like I just had this really solid weekend where I, or a few days over a few days of like finishing White Lotus doing hacks in full and doing the one in full. And those were like kind of at the top of my list. So I feel better. I was having anxiety about my TV. Yeah, I know you were and I was glad that you, because Ashley's a full-time comedian also outside of this. I'm living my dream and I

do nothing. But actually, we'll give you guys an update next week. But tomorrow I leave for Pittsburgh. I'm introducing Kane to my entire family, mom, dad, stepdad, brother, my brother's wife, my sister-in-law, probably my brother's in-laws, he'll meet them. All of my friends I grew up, We have so many plans for four days. Oh my gosh. Okay, this is just such a nice teaser. Next week we're going to talk about Kane meeting the entire family. I have never been more secure in bringing somebody home for two reasons.

First of all, I feel secure with him. I feel like he's a nice person. I get along with everybody. But I also feel secure in my life. And I think that this is like a good sort of piece of advice to everybody. It's like you should feel secure going home and introduce somebody to your family and saying, you know, you guys should trust me that I would pick a good person. And so no matter who I introduced to you, I trust that you guys will behave correctly.

I trust that you guys will be nice and open-minded and have an open heart about this and embrace them the way that I would. And my parents trust me to make good decisions. They know anybody I bring home is a great person. But I'm excited and I feel I feel super confident. It'll be great. Yeah, that's how it should feel. Excited, not like anxious.

Yes. Like that's something bad's going to happen or, you know what I mean. But again, everybody is a different type of family. We did this whole episode a couple weeks ago. So not everybody has some like, you know, people have justified reasons for having anxiety. surrounding it. But I'm just glad that you are like nothing but like excitement and ease. Yeah, we'll be great. It'll be great. We're going to a bar mitzvah. My cousin, Casey's son, is having a bar mitzvah. She listens to the show. So I can't

go out to see her and get dressed up and all that. So it'll be great. We'll give you guys an update next week. Okay. Okay, guys, the moment we've been waiting for. We are so excited to have a very requested guest on the show today. She is an award-winning writer, speaker, researcher, educator. She has multiple phenomenal TED Talks, including one that Ashley was just watching last night, the key to a happier, healthier sex life. She is a New York Times bestselling author of Come as You Are, the surprising new science that will transform your sex life and the co-author of burnout, The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Please welcome to the show, Emily Nagoski. Yay! Yay! Hi! Hello. Welcome to the show. The cheer brings out the Muppet in me.

Yay. And you're from Delaware, which is just so exciting. And I feel like I've known you forever. Yes, we have so much in common with you. We were just saying, I went to school to Indiana University, and you taught at the Kinsey Institute, which is my favorite class I ever took in the college. Who is your instructor? I don't remember.

I barely remember college. And you now teach at Smith College, and I spent so much time at Amherst. I don't. I left Smith a couple of years ago. I'm absolutely here. This permanent nose. I'm like that. So like I live in Western Massachusetts.

I worked at Smith for eight years. Okay. I collaborated with the folks at Amherst College all the time. Wow. It's been a lot of, yeah. The people who work there are really amazing. Yeah, it seems like you're busy with all this other stuff. The books and the TED Talks and everything.

It became clear at a certain point that I could either like travel to all the places that wanted me to come and give talks like training therapists and medical providers or I could have a job job. And it was a really tough choice because I loved my job. But it felt like really important. Absolutely. You know, I want your doctor to have read Come as You are to understand how sexual arousal and desire work so that they don't tell you wrong shit. It's funny. You said that we have a very good girlfriend.

We are describing an upcoming episode and what the topics were. And she said, this sounds like a book that I recommend to my patients all the time. And it was your book. Yeah. She's dealing with women and their reproductive systems. She gets a lot of women. They're probably asking those questions. Like, I feel like I'm broken, which, you know, I'm sure you get all the time.

Where do my sexual desire go? How come I can have orgasms from intercourse? And she's like, whoa, I'm out of my league. Read this book. Yeah. Those are not questions that can be answered in a 15-minute doctor's visit. Well, we would love to hear a little bit about your history and how you got into this type of work

and how you started researching this because you wrote this phenomenal book based on a lot of research and data. So how did you get into this? Yeah. So I was a big nerd in high. High School back at Wilmington, Delaware. Which high school did you go to? Do you mind me asking? Brandywine High School.

Okay. I just, I just wanted to know. Go Bulldogs. Yeah. I know. We all. It's a small state. Let it be for the record. Yes, Jill Biden was my 10th grade English teacher. Delaware is a very small state. Brandywine. Right. And then I became, you know, multiple New York Times bestselling author. So thanks, Joe. Aww. I love it.

But all Jill. So big nerd got to college university of Delaware. didn't know what I wanted to do, but knew that I'd be going to grad school for something. So I needed some volunteer work on my resume to make me look a good grad school candidate. And a guy on my floor was pre-med. And he said, come be a peer health educator with me. And I was just like, I like health. Why not?

So I did. I got trained to go into residence halls and talk to my fellow undergraduates about all kinds of health things, like stress and sleep and massage. communication skills, but also sex, condoms, contraception, and consent. And my degree is in psychology with minors at cognitive science and philosophy. And I had this idea that I was going to be a clinical neuropsychologist. I loved brain stuff. I wanted to work with people with traumatic brain injury and stroke.

But the work I was doing as a sex educator and then eventually as a sexual violence prevention educator and then as a sexual assault crisis responder going with survivors to the hospital. That work made me like who I am as a person in a way that none of the brain nerd stuff could. And so that's the path I chose. I ended up at Indiana University where I got a master degree in counseling psychology thinking I was going to be a sex therapist, realized about halfway through that I do not have the special magical thing that it takes to sit in the room with people and go, Because you want to interject?

Tell me how you feel about that. Yeah, I am a teacher by temperament. I want to tell you the thing and then have you go, like, use the thing in your life and we're done. You're right. You're not responsible. Like, yeah, I don't know. I love therapists. I have a therapist.

She's been my therapist for like 12 years. I've known her longer than I've known my husband. It's a magical skill that I do not have. I am a teacher. But I'm also a woman who likes to be in charge of things, so I needed a terminal degree. So I stayed at IU and got a PhD in health behavior from what is now the School of Public Health with a concentration in human sexuality. Working all the while as an educator at the Kinsey Institute. My dissertation was advised by a senior researcher at the Kinsey Institute.

And then there I was with this degree. And I got a job at Smith College. I was the director of wellness education. I was a lecturer in health. And I taught this class called Women's Sexuality. And so Smith College is a small liberal arts women's college in Western Massachusetts. Among its most prominent alumni are Gloria Steinem. Oh my gosh.

Betty Friedan. Oh, Julia Child. Right? So imagine, I had 187 future Gloria Steinem. Betty Friedans, Juliet Childs, it was an intense semester. That first semester I was teaching and figuring out what it was like to teach there. And so at the end of the semester, my last question on the final exam was just, out of all the things you have learned, what is one important thing that you're going to take away from this?

And I thought they were going to say stuff like specifically like attachment theory or arousal non-concordance or the evolutionary stuff. But no, out of my 187 Gloria Stein and Betty Friedans, more than half of them wrote something like, I'm normal. I learned I'm normal. Just because I'm different from other women doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me. I can trust my body because I am normal. I don't know how often you've graded final exams, but it is not usually like this. I was sitting in my office grading with tears in my eyes,

feeling like something very important had happened in that class, and I wanted to do it again. And I wanted to do it at a scale that. would be accessible to people who were not just enrolled at Smith College. And that's the day I decided to write, come as you are. A mere four and a half years later, there's the book. And so that's how I got here. Well, I think that Ashley and I can really relate to this because we don't grade final exams, but we read a lot of messages from listeners every single day. And so many of them say, am I normal? And these things that I'm feeling normal, and so many women expressed as that they

have trouble with desire, with anything in the bedroom, with orgasm, with feeling desirable, with wanting to initiate sex. And everybody at the end of the day, I think, wants to feel like they are normal. People are like them. And that's what I take from some of the emails. Because every email I read, I'm like, oh, I just read 10 emails just like yours. You know, everybody is, there's so many people exactly going through exactly what you are going through.

Right. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. That was really beautiful. And I love to hear how you got to where you are today. and just so much of it resonated. And so I'm so excited to talk more about this with you. I mean, let's just get right into that.

I mean, probably the overwhelming question that you get that, you know, anyone in your field gets that we get is, I'm having trouble with sex. You know, it's not like you see in the movies. It's not, I'm not orgasming. I feel broken. Can we just kind of start there, like general basics? Also, you can start wherever you want. We'll just give you the floor.

But that seems kind of like a good place to start and just kind of the actual logistics of it all. Like how we're built. Yeah. And why isn't it like men? You know, it's not like blood goes into the penis, penis goes up, penis goes in, penis throws up. And that it's very different. Except that it is. It is exactly like that.

It is precisely the same in many, many ways because we are all made of the same parts. It's just those parts are organized in a slightly different way. So like there is a biological term is a homologue. There is like an equivalent body part for every body part. You see on like the it's a boy kind of body. There's an equivalent. on the it's a girl kind of body. So the place we're going to start and the place everybody will end up is literally everything

you were taught about sex for the first. I don't know, roughly two decades of your life was fundamentally wrong. Misguided, factually incorrect, and often morally bankrupt. Because somebody had an agenda and wanted to control your body and how you related to it. They wanted to make sure that you hated yourself because people who feel like shit, buy more shit, or they wanted you to feel like you're, especially if you're in the, it's a girl kind of body, like the user's manual, you get handed on the day you're born includes a lot of stuff about how like your body doesn't actually belong to you. Pleasure is not meaningful.

What matters is everybody else's pleasure and making sure you're meeting their needs and they feel comfortable. And you can just like put a big black curtain around the place where you're your genitals go. So, and like if that might sound really extreme before you learn all the things, but like you're going to have to recognize that you're going to have the experience over and over being like, but that's not what I was told. No, it's now you're told you were lied to over and over again. And you were told that you were a failure or broken or diseased if you didn't match what

everybody told you. And so over and over, you're going to be like, but that's not. what I was told, no, it's not. So you're saying I'm not broken or a failure or diseased? That is correct. You are normal and healthy and excellent and beautiful and worthy of all the ecstatic pleasure that your body is capable of experiencing. Should we start with a brain?

Yeah, please. I love great stuff. So here's the mechanism. In your brain, it's called the dual control model. So how many parts is a dual control model have? Two. It has two. Ashley's a great student.

It's really impressive. If the first part is the accelerator or the gas pedal, then the second part is going to be the breaks. The brakes. Exactly right. So we have a sexual accelerator that notices all the sex-related information in the environment. Everything that you see here, smell, imagine the sexy smells, taste, touch, or crucially think, believe, or imagine. And this brain mechanism is called the sexual excitation system, notices that information and sends the turn-on signal that many of us are familiar with. It's functioning

all the time subconsciously, including right now. Here we are. You're like thinking through, like, what's a sexy sight, sexy smell, sexy taste, sexy touch. And so there's a little bit of turn-on signal happening right now. Fortunately, at the same time and in parallel, your brakes are noticing all the good reasons not to be turned on right now. Everything that you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, think, believe, or imagine that your brain codes as a potential threat. And it sends a turn off signal. So your level of arousal is a balance of how much the ons are turned on and how much the offs are turned off. And even though most of the like mainstream advice for people who are struggling around sexuality, whether it's desire, arousal, orgasm, pleasure, initiation, all that stuff, usually the advice is to like add stimulation to the accelerator with lingerie and candles and roleplay and porn and those things are great if you like them. Go for it.

But the reality is when people are struggling, it's rarely because there's not enough stimulation to the accelerator. it's very much more common for it to be because there is too much stimulation to the brakes. Because like the list of things that can be hitting a person's break at any given moment is like 20 miles long. And you can probably think of some off the top of your head, like people you know, what are things that hit their brakes? I mean, oh my gosh. Well, if you could be insecure about your body, you could be, you ate too much pasta. you're stressed about work, you're stressed about something going on with your family.

You don't really know the person so you don't trust them or feel comfortable. Yeah, the actual relationship, right. You could be low-key mad at them. Yeah. I mean, you could be physically uncomfortable. I mean, I don't know. Like, I can think of all the reasons. Like, there are so many things.

Your feet could be cold. You could be still distracted and worrying about- saying that, Emily, because I do have sex with socks on and people call me a psychopath. No. And am I a bad circulation in my feet? And there's a literal research that shows that putting on socks improves people's orgasms. Thank you. That's the clip, the intro clip.

My validation. Okay. All right. This is going to be Ashley's March that she starts. Yeah. Sex with socks. I told this to a friend and she went, really? Like, my feet are cold and it distracts me and I could just put on socks to solve this problem.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to like struggle and tell yourself it shouldn't bother you. But what she went a step further, she got thigh high wool socks. So her partner got like the sexy look. And she got, it was both hot and warm. Her feet were comfortable.

And her partner got to see the sights. Okay. I love that. So it was both turning off the off sand, turning on the ons. I love it. I never even thought about it. It's sometimes not like about scheduling sex or turning on a porn or like pulling out a new sex toy, which again, if that is exciting to you, great.

But sometimes I just had a bad week at work and I don't want to have sex. Yeah, I love this. Like before you add in the all the accelerators, we got to clear the space from the stuff that's pushing the break. And one of the deep ironies of the break is that if you notice something is hitting your break and you judge yourself, oh, it shouldn't, like, I should be able to have sex with the lights on. It shouldn't bother me.

I should be able to have orgasms from vaginal stimulation. It shouldn't be such a struggle. I should want sex easily out of the blue, and I just don't. And, oh, there must be something wrong with me. Does that judgment of yourself? Does that hit the accelerator? No, it's just an extra level of breaks.

So one of the first, and most important things people can do, like figure out some of the things that hit your breaks and then grant yourself permission to let that stuff hit the brakes. I was just talking to someone like about specifically having the lights on that it was a revelation for her, for her partner to be like, I want to turn on the light, I want to see you. And she just be like, nope, click. And like she was allowed to do that. Her confidence came not from having the lights off, but from knowing that she was allowed to keep the lights off if that's what felt good for her. Yeah, not everybody has to have middle of the day, bright light, you know, doggy style sex in the living room.

And you know, if you want to go for it. I mean, I want to. We've been there. Yeah. I have also been there. But like, it's not for everyone. And the whole point is it's not supposed to be for everyone. Other people's sex lives have nothing to do with you.

What works for me has enough. Like if you're like, why do people wear socks? That's cool. Don't wear socks. And like, good for her that she found something that works for her putting on socks. So can we talk about some of those main things and how to combat them? Oh, yeah. Okay.

So maybe we talk about body and security. Because I had a friend who said to me that she has never had an orgasm of a partner ever. Yeah. And the first thing I said to her was, have you had an orgasm by yourself? Yes. I said, okay, well, maybe are you insecure about your body? Do you feel insecure, like, when you take your clothes off? So I think one of the piece of advice you gave was to keep the lights off, which I think is a great piece of advice, but is there anything else you might say? Technically, the advice is, if the lights on

hits your brakes, you do not have to have the lights on. Right. That way your break is loosened up and your accelerator is free to do its job. You could, like, if you're like, this is a frontier that I want to cross, I want to get to a place where I'm comfortable with the lights on. You can do that. Step one, Put candles in the room, leave them unlit. In the darkness. Do that for a week. Second week, light one candle. Third week, light two candles.

You gradually, very gradually, increase the light and you experience what it's like to have that much light. But also, you could just have sex in the dark. Like you are never under any obligation to turn those lights on. I do think it's a great idea, regardless of its impact on your sex life to develop a compassionate, affectionate relationship with your body. Because, like, it's the only thing you have with you from the moment of your birth to the

moment of your death. You only get one. And it's going to change a lot over the course of your life. Like, I put a whole bunch of work into loving my body in my 20s. And it changed. I turned 30 and, like, change. and like I put a lot of work into loving that body and then I turned 40.

It changed again and I was like, oh, I've used this again. I'd love this body now. Awesome. Like diagnosed with chronic illness. Hooray. So that's fun. Pary menopause. Cool.

So one of the concrete exercises I recommend for people to enhance their relationship with their body so that like when you're in a sexual situation, thinking about sensations in your body does not result in self-critical thoughts about your body because those self-critical thoughts inevitably just hit the brakes. So you stand in front of a mirror naked and you write down everything you see that you like, which like what's the first thing that happens in your head when you go to look for the things that you like? You have this thunderstorm in your head of all the things you have been told to hate, right? So, cool. You're just going to set those aside? You can think of it. You can have those self-critical thoughts any other time. Right now, what you're going to do is,

if it is your eyelashes, you write that down. If it is like your philtrum, the bow of your lip, great, write that down. If it's your ankle bones, if it's your spirit, because you can see it in your eyes, write that down. And then you do it again the next day. You do it again the next day. You do it again the next day. And it will inoculate you. against the self-critical cultural messages that are telling you that it's your job to hate yourself and fix yourself so that you can deserve to experience pleasure. My thing is you deserve it now. Your body does not have to conform to the culturally constructed aspirational beauty ideal

in order to deserve pleasure and love and affection and joy. You deserve it right now. My sister and I, so I co-wrote burnout with my identical twin sister. And in that book, we call it the bikini industrial complex, which is this like multi-billion dollar machine that profits only when we hate ourselves. Yeah. Did you know that women's magazines are used as a stimulus when psychologists want to research depression?

All you have to do is sit a woman in a waiting. room with some women's magazines to induce a low enough mood to see how it impacts their cognition. Oh. I mean, it tracks. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

I read that and I was like, oh, yeah. So second, second concrete strategy, begin to notice as you consume magazines and television and Instagram and all the other social media is, if there's something you see that makes you feel worse about yourself, more critical of yourself, consider not looking at it. And I know, like there is something sort of satisfying the way like chewing on a cold sore can be satisfying discomfort. Like we have been taught that it is good for us to criticize ourselves and hate our bodies. That's wrong. It's yet another way that you've been lied to while you're life. In the same way that you were told, it's about like hitting the brake, hitting the accelerator, and there's not even a break. There shouldn't be any, if anything hits your break, that's something wrong with you. No, your breaks are really important. You're also both allowed to love your body and not to listen to anyone who says that you're supposed to hate it or change it. You're already fine. So what if somebody says, I like my body? I feel confident. I feel like I dress well. I'm proud of myself. I look good, but like I just can't.

seem to really feel like a sex drive towards my partner or towards anybody. Are there some other factors that you would say, let's address those? Oh, there are so many. So my first question, is it a difficulty with not enough stimulation to the accelerator or too much stimulation to the brake? And also, some people have like really not sensitive accelerators or have very, very sensitive breaks where like the least thing a stray thought a stray fingernail a stray sound outside the door can just shut everything down those are the folks who are going to struggle the most but they're not necessarily the folks who are going to be like i just have no interest in any kind of sex um the folks with really not sensitive accelerators are the folks who are most likely to identify as asexual

and to have desire differential in their relationships, unsurprisingly. And the question I would ask to a person who's like, I just have, like, if I never had sex again, I would be totally satisfied. My question would be, actually, I learned this from the sex therapist and researcher Peggy Klein Plots, who just wrote a wonderful book. It's called Magnificent Sex. Okay. Best title in the world.

And she would say to that client, so tell me more about this sex you do not want. Because chances are, it is, in Peggy's words, dismal and disappointing. Oh, so you're saying the people that, like, have a sometimes associate with a lower sex drive have not had really fulfilling sex. They have not had sex worth wanting. Okay. Yeah, I can relate to that. Here's, like, the big revelation from Peggy's research. It is normal not to want sex you do not like.

Right? Right. Yeah, absolutely. So, and like the next step. So if you're like, yeah, and, you know, so let's like think about the kind of sexual experiences a person might have had where they're like, I have no interest in this thing called sex. All the sex I had until I was 25. It was for his pleasure and I took care of myself later. Yes, right.

It was not about connection. You were performing what Amelia and I in burnout call human giver syndrome, which is the idea that you have a moral obligation to be pretty, happy, calm, generous. and unfailingly attentive to the needs of others. His pleasure matters so much more than yours does. So your job is to perform as an excellent sexual creature, meet your partner's needs, make sure they feel satisfied, and then the rest of it is like, well, that's your problem. And we get rewarded when we do this and punished when we don't. If we don't have orgasms, the way our partner believes we're supposed to have orgasms, or don't have them in the amount of time

that our partner believes our orgasms supposed to happen in, which, how long do partners think orgasms are supposed to take? 10 minutes? Oh, God, yeah, eight minutes, I don't know. I don't know that I related to that at that age, because I don't know that in my brain,

I thought I had to be submissive and give him pleasure. I think I just didn't even know what good sex was, and I wasn't having sex with men that knew what good sex was. You know, you grow up and you learn. I don't think it's about feeling submissive because I was like that too. The thing for me is that I learned how to have sex out of romance novels and women's magazines, all of which taught me that men really like it when women seem to enjoy sex.

And so I learned that I'm supposed to make noise. I learned I'm supposed to touch my own breasts and touch my own body. Men really like it when you touch your own body and make noise. And so I did those things because I wanted him to be satisfied. and the experience I was having, I was like, well, this must be what sexual pleasure feels like, I guess, because I'm following the rules. I am doing what I was told to do, being a good girl. And I thought I was being very sexually liberated when actual liberation is not following anybody's rules, except for what your own internal experience is telling you truly feels good.

That was my experience. And I think a lot of this is shifting. changing for the better. That's kind of what we're able to do. I mean, I think if you listen to this podcast and you read books like yours and you consume the right type of content, those kind of old ideals are a little bit out the window of like, it's for his pleasure. And you know what I mean?

So hopefully, I just, I feel like we're moving in the direction. I literally didn't interview with a Cosmo journalist who's like, we're writing an article about the role Cosmo played in facilitating the idea that the G-Spot is really important. And I was like, Cosmo is being self-reflective. Cosmo and Esquire. We've interviewed both of those editors in chief,

and we love that they are taking responsibility for some of maybe like damage they've done, quote-unquote. Yeah. You know. So anyway. Okay. Well, let's like, let's really move into, you know, what is another common thing?

Is it lack of trust, lack of feeling safe and comfortable with your partner? Is that a huge part of it? Trust is so important. Like when you're having sex with someone, else. So there's a researcher and therapist who developed emotionally focused therapy, who defines trust as, are you there for me? And R stands for emotionally attuned. No, sorry, it's emotionally available, emotionally responsive, and emotionally engaged. So when I come to you

with a vulnerability, you are not distracted by your phone and just going, uh, huh? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, mm-hmm. You are actually, like, tuned in to what I am saying. The reason that are you there for me is so important with sex is, like, you might be, like, taken off clothes and showing this person parts of your body, almost no one will see. They might be touching parts of your body. Almost no one will see.

Putting parts of their body inside parts of your body, or you might put a part of your body inside their body. So you take off your clothes and you're like, here it is. if their response is, okay, is that a person who is there for you? The break is pushing so hard. Right. So you have to trust that your partner is going to be 100% there for you, especially in those slightly risky situations where you feel like you've taken a step into vulnerability. If your partner's response is, wow, and yay, and thanks, that's a partner who's there for you.

And you can, like, get into the bed with no clothes on and be like, they are glad I am here. But I never even thought about backing up way before sex. Just feeling like on a day-to-day basis that your partner. We were watching White Lotus, which is on HBO, and there's a couple on it. And she keeps trying to tell him all these things that are happening in her day and her life. And he just sort of like breezes past it,

talks about what he wants. That's human giver syndrome. I think that some women can relate to that or they say, like, well, my partner isn't day-to-day there for me. So, like, yeah, I'm supposed to just turn this on. in the ban for you. Yes, exactly. Fair.

Yeah. It's too. Yeah, exactly. That's so true. Like, I mean, that's, I'm sure that that's not like a hot take that like so much else of what contributes to what's happening. Your brain in the bedroom is happening every other moment of the day. You know, there was a controversy around this actually with the development of the fun term

chore play. Okay. And so there was a, there was a calendar published of like, mostly undressed men doing the dishes, vacuuming the rug. folding the laundry. It's chore play. Like what could be sexier than like, finally, I am being supported in my household.

And there was kind of a backlash. Like, no. You know what women want? They want sex. And I was like, actually what they want is to be, they're in a partnership where their partner is there for them, recognizes like what their needs are and helps. Emily, we cannot tell you enough.

We asked for people's like, we said non-sexual turn-ons, but like it was also stuff that we met you were turned on by it. It was loading the dishwasher. It was the dishes, the laundry. Like, it's so true. Like, there's nothing that's more of a turnoff than not feeling supported in your relationship. And it doesn't seem to be a long-term relationship. Like, you can be dating someone for a couple months.

It's like, you just put the glasses in the dishwasher when you finish, you know, your cereal bowl. So, yeah, that's crazy that people tried to debunk that. We can tell you otherwise, all of us. Yeah. Yeah. Who wants to sexually satisfy a part. that doesn't give a shit about your satisfaction in the rest of your life. It's like I got to do everything and I got to make you come and sacrifice how I feel.

Who wants that? And it's not that we don't also want our pussies licked. Like some of us really enjoy that. But in order to get to a place where I'm interested in allowing this person to put their face anywhere near my genitals, like I got to feel a kind of way about that person. I'm one of the ways I know this is a person I can trust with my body is if this is a person I can trust in my life. Dishes are a part of life. Laundry is a part of life. And like, it's not like I'm expecting my partner to enjoy doing them, but to do some of it without me having to ask every time.

It's like, this is somebody who recognizes that we share a life together. And the sex part is a part of our life. And that means the dishes part is also a part of our sex life. And, We can feel the intimacy of, like, eating food, someone cooked for us as, like, there was so much care and attention to this person who, like, is so there. Like, so the way this was arranged is that my husband, like, did all the emailing, because I'm at, like, writing a book proposal now and doing a bunch of other stuff. And I'm like, can you just do all of my email for me? And he does. Yeah, he's great. so turned on by that. He's good at it.

And it's just like, yeah. So when y'all are like, by the way, your husband was really easy to work with, he was great. I'm like, yeah. You're like, oh, tell me more. I have a question for you and we've talked about this quite a bit on the podcast. I like asking different guests. So if you have a student or somebody who's reading your book, say,

like, well, I always fake orgasms during sex because I can't have orgasm storing sex. I guess I'd like to talk about like the danger in doing that and the danger in communicating to your partner, that they are providing pleasure that they are not. Yeah. And I both understand why people do it. I did it in my 20s.

And I understand the sort of complicated dynamics that emerges. First of all, when we say during sex, a lot of people mean during penal vaginal intercourse. And only a quarter, maybe a third, but like a quarter of women are reliably orgasmic from penis and vagina sex, alone. In the research, it's called unassisted intercourse, which is one of my favorite nerd terms. So only a minority of women, and they're normal. That's great for them. But the remaining

two-thirds to 75% of women are only sometimes rarely or never orgasmic from vaginal stimulation alone. Most of them need additional clitoral stimulation because the clitoris is the hokey-pokey. It's what it's all about. So step number one. Do not judge yourself for not having orgasms in the way. I don't know. I guess pop culture and porn say women are supposed to have orgasms. If you don't have them that way, you don't have them that way. That's fine.

And you can stop pretending that you do and simply explain to your partner. I learned this thing. Of course, if you've been in a relationship of any duration and you've been faking it the whole time, there is the difficult conversation of I've been faking it this whole time. Right. So don't even start. You know, if you can avoid it. Yeah, if you can not begin with faking it, that would be so much better,

which is why learning about how your orgasms actually work is so helpful, because then your partner can be like, what's taken so long? And you can be like, you know what, only about a quarter of women are reliably orgasmic from this kind of stimulation. And I am not one of them. But, oh, I can tell you some other things that really work for me. Uh-huh. And I don't know if it can change because I wasn't, I mean, I...

It does change. I get off almost every time. I have vaginal intercourse with my current partner, but I haven't always been like that. And so I've had to bring in toys and other things. It's changed throughout my life. Had to. Got to bring in toys. Right.

Yeah. I mean, if you want to have an orgasm during vaginal penetration and you are not one of those people, add stimulation to the clitoris, whether it's your hand, your partner's hand, a toy that you hold, a toy that your partner holds, a toy that you brace between your two pubic bones. You can just ride your partner and grind your pubic bone against their pubic bone. There's so many different ways to like have it happen. But also it doesn't matter because you can just have orgasm from clitoral stimulation. But different people's body parts fit together in

different ways. The Kama Sutra kind of tries to talk about this. But it is actually true that like different people's bodies fit together in different ways. There's a couple of hypotheses about why anybody actually would have an orgasm from vaginal stimulation. Because neuroanatomically, it doesn't make a lot of sense. There's not a lot of nerve endings in the vagina. So what we think is happening is like a newer hypothesis is that, so you've probably seen like the larger clitoris structure with the legs. There's like the little out external part and these big legs on the inside that straddle the erythra and the vagina. And the idea is those swell up when you're aroused, just like a penis swells up when it's aroused. And for something, for something,

people with some kinds of stimulation, they can actually stimulate those internal parts of the clitoris through the walls of the vagina. So it's not even vaginal orgasms. It's still clitoral orgasms. Clitoris stimulated through the walls of the vagina. I 100% love that and totally agree. I mean, I had a partner where I had an orgasm most of the time when I was on top, our bodies just fit together. We're like puzzle pieces. And it was like, it was vaginal, but I knew that it was coming from the clitoral stimulation of the way that our pubic bones, yeah, like touched and like fit together, you know, and it was just like, it was a perfect fit. And I was like, this isn't just because it's like penetration. It's, it's just really probably and probably also

hitting those legs. It's the whole thing. And it's like the next guy I had sex with after that, you know, try to get on top and do the same thing. It just didn't work. And it was just, our bodies weren't fitting together in the right way. So you just got to find a different thing that works for your particular partnership. And there's a another hypothesis, the original G spot hypothesis. So when, never going to forget this. So if you imagine that the vulva is a face and your mouth is the vagina, the nose is the erythra, and then I have, I have a widow's peak.

The widow's peak is where the clitoris is, right in the line of your forehead. You're never going to, like, I, there's a thing called a clownometer for educators, like how much of a fool are you willing to make of yourself in order to get a point across? All the way. Yeah. Far as it can go. So the idea is that the urethra, which is your nose, deep inside where your sinuses are,

the equivalent is a thing called the urethral sponge, which also swells up around the urethra. And you can actually stimulate that urethral sponge through the upper wall of the vagina. And that can result in orgasm. So it's not direct clitoral stimulation. It's actually the female homilogue in the way the clitoris is the homilogue of the penis.

This is the homilogue of the prostate. And like not every person with a prostate has orgasms from prostate simulation. But we don't like judge or shame people who don't have orgasms from prostate stimulation, right? Right, right. Right. Like it's not a failing. It's just like if they can do it, that's cool, that's fun.

That's a different path of pleasure for them. Congratulations. And so there are some people with, the urethral sponge who have orgasms from that kind of stimulation. For some people, that kind of stimulation just makes them feel like they need to pee. For some people, it can actively hurt. For some people, it doesn't feel like anything in particular people. Very.

But some people might find that they experience orgasm some of the time from pressure against the urethral sponge where it swells against the wall of the vagina. I think this is just such a good example of how we're all like so completely different. Like can be complete opposites, you know. So, but this is also probably where, I don't want to say it's hard for men, but like the men that want to pleasure a woman, right? Like they're like, but you guys are all so different, you know, like, how am I supposed to know?

You know, my girlfriend before this, she had this. And like, that's where you kind of have to come in as the person to tell them what your body needs. Because they. I want to live in a world where a man who has like been in a relationship with one person for a long time and is really like mastered that person's genitals can like that relationship ends and they grieve and they move into a phase where they can start interacting with other people's genitals where they know ahead of time like I mastered those genitals because I paid really close attention and I listened to my partner and that does not mean I am now an expert in every

pussy. It means I'm an expert in that pussy and I know how to become an expert in every other pussy I may have the privilege to encounter. Wouldn't it be great if like the first time you're with somebody, they're like, so like we're meeting for the first time, your genitals and I. And like I want us to have a get to know you. I want to take her out to dinner. I want to find out all about her. I want you to tell me the things you like. And I'm not here to give you an orgas. right now. I'm just here to like explore what pleasure looks like for you. Now I know there are people who actually would feel like deeply self-conscious. They feel more comfortable just having the sex than they do talking about the sex even with the same person. And that's, that's just people vary. But man,

when you can get to a place where you're like, hello, me, my pussy. Right. And it doesn't be so like explicit and awkward, you know, like, and it doesn't have to happen. Like, I've had sex with guys in first dates and like maybe that wasn't the time but like the next, you know, now the next date, it's like, hey, so tell me like what you're into. It could be sexier than like, meet my vagina. Ask her questions. You know, you're doing like an interview. So I think that is sexy. I think it's so. People vary tremendously in what they like and I'm not saying that anybody needs to have like my style of doing it. Because if your style is like, pussy has something she wants to say to you. Like whatever. Like I don't do whatever you want to. But.

But for me, play and laughter and like a lightheartedness, not taking it too seriously, like people get very stuck in making sure they're doing it right. And making sure they are following the script that they were taught is like the order of operations and like things are happening the way they have been told it is supposed to work. And if things fall short, it feels like there's so much at stake. There's literally nothing at stake. Yeah. It's just like the people choosing to play a game together.

There's nothing at stake in the way there's nothing at stake when you play Scrapple. A hundred percent. And I'm the first to say like have a one night stand, have sex on a first day, do whatever you want. Ashley and I've done that plenty of times in our lives and that's great. Do it. It feels right to you. But one of the things we actually talked about with the editor-in-chief of Cosmo in conjunction with a study they did with the Kinsey Institute was people waiting a little bit longer to have sex.

And how nice is it when you have sex with somebody and you trust them a little bit more? and you've talked to them and you feel safe. And so the first time you do have sex, it isn't so weird to start having those conversations. The first time I had sex with my boyfriend, it was bad. It was like really bad. I remember in the middle of it, I was like, do you want to keep doing this?

That's amazing. I love that. But we stopped and we also were already comfortable with each other. We had talked for a long time for weeks on end before we had sex with each other. And so the second time around, which was that night, I was able to say, okay, I don't like this thing. this thing. And I felt comfortable because I knew him, you know? And I think that that's the great thing about sleeping with somebody that you know a little bit better. How amazing that it only took

like a few hours for you to get to a point where you could be like, this thing you're doing, I don't love it. And he was interested enough in your pleasure to be like, I will try something else. Let's try something else. What man wants to hear like, do you want to keep doing this? Many, many moons ago. I had a partner who had, he was one of those like I mastered my last partner's pussy and so now I am the master of the pussy. And apparently his last partner's pussy liked exactly the opposite kind of things than mine does. And so he would like do the things that worked for her. And I'd be like, cool, no.

Yeah. Here's what I like. And then the next time he'd do the same thing again, cool, no. I know that's what worked before. And I'm going to need you to remember that it took half a dozen times and ultimately me crying and saying, when you do it that way, it makes me feel like you're wishing you were with her instead of me. And like, it was genuine.

But, like, it took crying for me to get the point across that it's not just that you're doing it in a way that doesn't work for me. You're doing it in a way that indicates to me that you are stuck in a script you spoke with someone else. She's not here now. There's a reason for that. Right. So, welcome. So is there anything like we kind of talked on a big picture things you can do of like improving your feelings about your body and like it within the the chore play things like that. But do you, is there anything you suggest that's kind of not like a quick fix, but like self talk or anything when you're just like I've got to try to remove some of these factors that are pushing on the break?

Yeah. I'm going to avoid saying mindfulness as much as I possibly can because I know it's a very annoying answer. Even though mindfulness is super good for you. And if you're a person for whom mindfulness feels like a good fit, there's a great book called Better Sex Through Mindfulness by Lori Brato, L-O-R-R-O-T-O. It's really wonderful. And it can be great. But I would say, so first get you like a basic list of things that activate your accelerator and things that hit your brakes. And then consider the context because it is a reality that the way our brains interpret a sensation depends on the situation in which that sensation is happening. Like I have literally this story told to me. My partner swatted me on the ass and said, hey, do you want to have sex tonight when I was wrist deep in baby poop trying to get the kid ready to go to daycare so that I could go to this conference where I'm having this conversation with you, Emily Nagoski. Could you please tell my husband that how my brain interprets a sensation depends on the

context and wrist deep and baby poop is not a context where I'm going to say yes to sex? So think about like what are the context where I've had like amazing sex. And there are worksheets. You can find them on my website. They're in the book. They're adapted in the new edition of Come As You Are to be gender inclusive. So there's no mention of like hormones or anything like that. And when you have a sense of like what's the context where my accelerator is like on full blast and my break is freed up?

Hotel sex. Yeah. Or like vacation sex. Because like all the things that are hitting your breaks, you are physically removed from the dishes and the laundry and whatever kids there might be. And just, I mean, even just the room of your bedroom where all those old memories live, you just extract yourself from that. You go to a strange place and you're freed up. I talked to a woman who took a Mediterranean vacation every year. She, her husband, and her three kids.

and they would stay at this ancient house in the Mediterranean and husband and wife, great vacation sex. And then one year they went to the same town, but that particular house wasn't available, so they just rented a different house. Different house, same town, not so great vacation sex. And they did this really thoughtful thing. They're like, okay, so what was the difference between this year

and all the other years in that house? And they realized that in that ancient, Mediterranean house, the bed was literally built into the wall. Like it was a stone platform built into the wall down to the floor, which means there was no noise, no bouncing, no banging. Thus, no worry about waking up the kids, being interrupted, don't have to worry about being quiet. And like that little difference was all it took to free up their breaks so that they could enjoy the sex that they were having. And so literally when it came time for them to build a house for themselves, they built a bed into the wall. I love that. So are you saying kind of taking the

guy with the kids? So are you saying to kind of figure out what these things are and try to bring them into daily life? Because you can't always just be like, we're going on vacation because we've got got a fuck, you know. But also sometimes you usually be like, we're going to have to wait until we go on vacation because there is nothing I can get away from. Like I look at the things that are hitting my breaks right now, we cannot get away from this shit until we get away from our lives. Like, that's normal too. But sort of a typical mindfulness teacher or like sex therapist might say, well, in the moment when the sex is not going great, like can you just notice sort of what's happening and let go of the breaks? It's very much that like you should be able to not be

distracted by the sound. You should be able to notice in the moment what's going. wrong. Sometimes you cannot notice in the moment what's going wrong. It's actually remarkable and admirable that you could be in the middle of some like sex and be like, can we, let's pause. Try something else.

Yeah. And sometimes is it just I mean, listen, this is an easier thing said than done, but sometimes is the break, the partner that you're with. Like some people, and I had this with somebody who I was engaged to, we just never had sex. I didn't like it. And it wasn't because I was suddenly an asexual person. It was that I didn't, he

wasn't the right partner for me. So it was time to not be with that person, you know, and I think that it's a hard thing to accept. But, you know, sometimes it just is that like the relationship has gone past its expiration date and you're not going to ever feel that for that person. Not so hard pill to swallow, but I never would have felt sexually desirable towards that person ever again. Yeah. And so that was the answer. That was not the right person for you. And it's also the case that sometimes sex can be great for a while and then like kind of go away. I have had this experience where, like, I mean, with his partner who is so great, the irony of writing a book about sex is you're thinking and talking about sex all day, every day. And you're so stressed that you have no interest in actually having any sex.

So, like, sex went away for me for a while there. And, like, I know all the things. I know how to fix it. And I would do, I would follow my own advice, you know, like, set of times. schedule it, show up, put your body in the bed, let your skin touch your partner's skin. And your bodies will go, oh right, I like this. I like this person. I would try that. I would get in the bed. I would let my skin touch my partner's skin and I was so exhausted and stressed out. I would just cry and fall asleep. Like sometimes it is just not there. And like feelings built up over the course of this dry spell. And there was a time when I worried, like, are we ever going to be able to get back to it? And yeah, we definitely were, and that's what my next book is about, is how we did that, including a whole lot of brain science that I'm very excited finally to be able to share.

But if you just freaking love your partner and you're like, this is the right partner for me, but just our sex life is me. Like you can find your way back to each other. The couples who sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term are not the ones who constantly can't wait to put their tongues in each other's mouths. they're the ones who even though like distance grows between them, they can always find their way back to each other eventually. How does that usually happen? I mean, is it, is it, is it, is time some of it? Like is, I know there's no secret weapon.

Time, patience, non-judgment. And there's a difference between solving the actual sex stuff and managing all the feelings that have built up around the sex stuff. Like each of us was starting to feel lonely and isolated and worried about our compatibility. and like little pieces of like resentful and abandoned and like all these difficult feelings. And I use this very ridiculous metaphor in come as you are of difficult feelings as sleepy hedgehogs. So if you have this difficult feeling in your relationship, imagine it that it's like a little sleepy hedgehog curled up in the middle of your bed. And how are you supposed to get into bed with your certain special someone if there's a sleepy hedgehog in the middle of it?

So you have to like deal with each one one at a time. And ours was like crowded. A little sleepy hedgehogs who all needed to be dealt with. Like we would get to the like, you show up, you put your body in the bed. And there's all these difficult feelings. And so we'd have to process those. And gradually, as we like addressed those difficult feelings, we cleared more and more space for us to be able to connect with each other.

Which it takes skill to have that communication, non-judgment, the ability to accept what's true. of the other person and free your idea of how sex is supposed to work and just notice how it actually does work for this particular set of people. And is that, this doesn't be too personal a question you don't have to answer, but are we talking like months or like years? It depends how you count, but we would go months at a time with no sex. Okay. Which I think is. Multiple sets of months at a time. We hear that all the time. Yeah. You know, you also hear about people. We're like, we haven't had sex in three years. It's like, yeah. Is there a future there? I don't know. Yeah. There are.

absolutely is. There are couples who seek sex therapy finally, who were like, we haven't had sex for five years. We haven't had sex for 10 years. Like we haven't had sex since the kids were born. Is there coming back from that? Yeah. There's great effective therapy. Yes. And the only reason we didn't do therapy is because I am who I am and know the things I know. And have a partner who's like, so what do you know about this? What do we need to be doing? And he is like, I'm the therapist. Great communication skills.

Great. And yeah, he was very present. And he's like a lovely human being who doesn't assume he is entitled to anything he wants. He doesn't take it personally when sex doesn't happen when and how he expects it to, which is super important. I have an extra good dude. That's awesome. Yeah. We love to hear.

Of course you do. We love him. We love him. We've been talking to work with. I love that you said, I think you talked about in your TED talk of like knowing what's true. Did we cover that? Yeah, so confidence and joy. I say that these are the two keys to having a great sex life.

Confidence and joy. Confidence is knowing what is true, knowing about your breaks and accelerator, knowing how arousal works, arousal is chapter six, desires chapter seven, knowing what's true about your relationship, knowing what's true about your relationship with your own body, your history of trauma, neglect or abuse,

knowing that the lights hate your breaks. And so confidence is just being like, nope, let's not turn on the lights because I know that's true for me. And joy is the hard part. Joy is loving what is true. Even when it's not what you were taught to expect to be true, even when it's not what you wish were true, knowing what's true about your arousal, your desire, your orgasms. Like if you're a person who's just not going to have orgasms from vaginal stimulation, even though like everybody has always told you, that's how you're supposed to. to do it, like really embracing your body as it is and being like, my clitoris is two turn tables and a microphone. It's where it's at. Like my clitoris is the best. I love my clitoris.

And if you're not super into the idea of us creating orgasms together with my clitoris and not through my vagina, then I don't know that you can joyfully celebrate my body with me. Right. Joy is the hard part because it means letting go of the possibility that your body will ever be the body. Everyone has been telling you it's supposed to be. Well, Joy is my middle name. So I have a, I have a neat name. It comes naturally. I'm kidding. It is my middle name, though. I have a cousin named Joy. Okay. I love that. Confidence and Joy. I'm glad we've got to end on that because I loved it from your TED Talk. So I'm glad we wrapped up with that. Yeah. I am sure everybody's going to want to find you. And obviously, your books are everywhere books are sold. But please tell me where they can find you on

Instagram, your website. You mentioned the workbooks that you have on your website, so everywhere that people can find you. So, Emily Nagoski.com is my website. There is very soon going to be like a big newsletter situation happening. So you can sign up and be ready for that. Go to the website and sign up there. I'm on Instagram at E. Nagaski, but that's mostly pictures of my dogs. We like that. Yeah. And then do you have a upcoming book? Or is that not like something So there's come as you are, which is new and update. To get the one with the red banners at the top and the bottom, red, not yellow. The come as you are workbook, there's worksheets available on the website,

but there's a whole workbook of like 60 plus where if you're like, I don't care about the affective neuroscience, just tell me what to do. Workbook is for you. There's burnout, which is about stress. So if you're finding that stress is a significant thing getting the way of your access to ecstasy, maybe think about burnout. And then I am working on a new book, but it is too early for me to tell you about. Okay.

Well, at least we got a little teaser. Man's head scoop. Yeah. Well, thank you for this. This was really insightful and wonderful. Our listeners have wanted to hear from you for quite some time. So we're excited that we finally linked up. Me too.

It was so much fun. Thank you for everything. Bye. And you guys know where to find us. Girls Gotta Eat Podcast.com for all the things. Get tickets to our shows. We have tickets left in Atlanta. Charlotte and Charleston.

Those shows are coming up soon. So grab those tickets, grab our merchandise, and sign up for the newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram at Girls Gotta Eat Podcast. I am Ash Hess on Instagram. Raina is reina.

dot Greenberg, Girls underscore got to eat on Twitter and YouTube.com slash Girls Gotta Eat. And that's it for us. We'll see you guys on the road. Have a good week, guys. Bye.