LadyGang - Dr. Jolene Brighten

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Naturopathic endocrinologist, clinical sexologist, and prominent leader in women’s medicine, Dr. Jolene Brigthen is helping the ladies understand what's normal when it comes to their bodies from period changes, birth control and hormonal changes. Plus, find out her advice when it comes to taking control of your body.  Check out our amazing sponsors!!! SKIMS: Get free shipping on orders over $75 at SKIMS.com - Select "podcast" in the survey and select LADYGANG in the dropdown menu! Nutrafol: Get $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and use code "LGPOD" Angi: Download the free Angi mobile app today or visit Angi.com to get professional help on your next project! Poise: Help prevent bladder leaks with Poise® Ultra Thins! Learn more at Poise.com  Progressive: Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust Progressive!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Poise Ultrathins are here to save the day. Poise Ultrathins are designed for leaks to help keep you clean, dry, and fresh. Enjoy life without compromise. It takes Poise. Learn more at poise.com. Well, what is this? Welcome to the Lady Gang. That's amazing.

Say that again. The Lady Gang. Things are about to change around here. Each week, we catch up with Hollywood's hottest girl posse, Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin, and Jack Vanek. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Lady Gang. I'm Becca Tobin here with Jack Vanek and Kelty Knight. Hello. Hi. There's nothing I love more than complaining.

Okay. And I want to fucking complain right now. About what? No, when you're ready. During Good Week, Bad Week? Yeah, when you're ready. Oh, oh. Jump right in, I guess.

I'm ready. Okay. It's time for... Good week. Yes, it is. Bad week. Oh, no. Let me tell you something, Earth. Oh. Okay?

Earth. Okay. If you are on this planet. If Earth is on this planet? No. Everyone on Earth, listen to me right now. If you live on planet Earth, and you have a phone, and you watch things on your phone in public places and you are not wearing an ear phone yeah you need to re-look at your life

i'm telling you something i'm on the plane okay i'm on the plane you always have this happen i'm on in coach because i'm a highly sensitive person so i really hear this shit i'm telling you i've never witnessed anybody do this two rows behind me we are locked and loaded ready for takeoff This man is watching something on his phone, holding it up like this, full volume, to where the person sitting with me three things ahead is looking. We're looking behind each other. We're like, does this guy know his phone's on? Is he asleep? Maybe he doesn't realize it's on.

No, he knows it's on. He thinks he's the only mother on this planet. I don't want to listen to this. To the fact that the friend, the guy that was sitting beside me, his friend across the aisle, tried to get up to be like, yo, man, turn your phone off. Because it was, like, 7 o'clock in the morning, okay? That's insane. And the guy started to take his seatbelt off and got in trouble from the flight attendant. And the flight attendant was like, sir, please sit down.

He's like, I was just trying to, and he sat back down. And I was like, who's going to tell him? First of all, it's, number one, your responsibility. Don't do that. Number two, if you're the seatmate of that person, like, if you're in the aisle and this dude was in the window, it's your responsibility now, 21F. I disagree. No, I knew she didn't want to say anything. I saw her eyes.

You have to sit with that person the entirety of the flight. Yeah, then you're going to make it awkward or they're going to get pissed. You know what I did on the train? Fart on you. You know what I did on the train when someone was doing that? I reached into my bag and I took out my headphones and I said, do you need these? That's gross. It was disgusting.

But it's better than listening to your shitty sports show at 7 a.m. So what happened? Did he watch it the whole flight? Well, we got in the air. We listened to it the entire takeoff. And then the flight attendant went by and said, do you need headphones? Did he take them? He's like, no, I'd actually prefer to listen to this on full volume.

Well, my worst nightmare is when I have my AirPods in. And you can hear a little bit. No, and I'm like, sometimes I can't tell if they're connected. Or, like, my worst nightmare is to be watching something that I think is through my AirPods, but it's really just coming out my phone, but it's so loud. And you can tell the difference, Becca. No, I know what you're saying. I don't know, but did this guy have AirPods in?

I have no idea. I couldn't see him. He was sitting behind me. It was very annoying. check your technology before you get on the plane yeah okay at six in the morning seven in the morning okay my that was my bad week i have a double bad week that's why i felt like complaining okay well it's a good week bad week because i think i'm about to learn something but my bad week is no you guys are going to help me learn what this thing is okay i'm so confused about

i'll ping you it's like i'll hit you up or like yeah but is it an actual thing no is a ping something why are you why don't you say i'll message you no there is a ping like it's a ping it's that you i think happened in the past but like i'll ping you as an adjective i missed it i was one of the first bloggers one of the first i think i remember it on like the blackberry i could ping people on the blackberry you could ping them i've never seen a ping in my life i don't know what it is and people are using it they're like hey when i get there i'll ping you what does this mean help me i'm elder yeah pinging is like i'll i'll hit you up i'll text you i'll email you i'll ping you later ping you but it's communicate with you yeah did you find it according

the the word dates back to early naval battles when submarines first located enemy ships using sonar oh yeah oh well but like blackberry ping modern pinging it's like i'll get to you yeah i'll get to you you'll contact the origin is from Naval ships. The meaning of ping me is to send a quick, short message over a texting platform. That's what that now means. No, listen. You need to check in.

Okay, I'm happy that this is happening because I thought there was some sort of emoji app. I felt like there was a Google Messenger that I've never been on that was called ping, and everyone was having all these business talks. No, no, no. That's not happening. It's just you're going on your normal platforms and sending a message. Yes. But people saying, I'll ping you later, I'm not into that.

I'll ping you. That type of person. I like it because it's vague because then you're like you don't have to commit to anything you don't know if it's an email I'll send a carrier pigeon it's like I'll ping you I'll be in touch

it is very non-committal I'll ping you thank you for teaching me because I've been so stressed out nobody's pinging me I mean I could have but it's more fun to bring it to the lady gang who's next? I don't know if I've talked about this before because this happens to me every couple months

and it is like the best thing in the entire world. And it's when I order an oat milk latte and they make it with real milk. And I never realized how gross oat milk is or any other alternative milk is until you get a latte with real milk. It is a different experience. It is so delicious. It's why I'm so happy in Europe. Yes. Because you can't be the person who asks for anything other than like how something comes there. No, you can't. I tried to do it with my Aperol spritz and it really did not work out for me. My nutritionist said that we shouldn't be doing oat milk. No, oat milk is like very bad. Well, and also it's mostly water. And then also like oat is a grain and grain is one. Listen, I'm doing whatever I feel good in my body,

but like they, she said that grain is, has inflammatory, it has stuff on it because it doesn't want animals to eat it out in the wild. So it has like all these things that go in your system and they're like, I'm going to upset you. I'm going to upset you because they don't want the animals to eat it. So really oat milk is, you should just have the regular milk. It's so much better. It's delicious. Unless you shit yourself like me and I can't necessarily do that. Take a Beano, you know? Almond milk is the better option. Yeah. Just letting you know. Okay. So when I was having one of my delicious, well actually shitty oat milk lattes, I work at this cafe called Zinke. They have a couple of them all over LA. You know that I just found out that that's the correct

pronunciation of it. You call it zinc? Yeah. For years it was zinc. And then you see it it's got the accent. The little zincay. Zincay. Now that she's getting married in France, she's like, let me tell you about French. No. I love zincay. It's just like my spot to go to in Venice. And when I was there, so I recently

got a social deal with Trojan. I have two social posts with them and they let me be very sassy with my posts which I was excited about because I'm like, I can't just post like... Safe sex. Yeah. They let me be very sassy with it. So one of the the pictures that I did is we recreated a Tom's one hour photo shoot picture

where I had a cloud background and I did like the hazy and we're just like me and Jared are like holding up the, the lube. That's hilarious. And it's really funny and really cheeky and cute. So I'm at Zinke and I'm working and I go to airdrop the pictures from my phone to my computer. But you know,

when you do that, all the phones start moving around, like all of the phone icons of all the different people that are there. And I accidentally airdropped them to some guy named Mike and I don't know if he saw it or not. Me and Jared, like, just, like, sitting up, like, smiling, holding some lube. Wow. So that's what happened to me.

Weird. Yeah. Sorry, Mike. Oof. So I, my good week is I, actually, this goes in the theme with my yearly resolution, our overall year resolution, which is, like, moderation and, you know, whatever. And I was like, I just need to be less of a garbage human. So I think I'm going to come up with this thing for myself where it's, like, a 10-minute

challenge every day. Okay. And I can choose of three things, something I have to do for 10 minutes. It's read, meditate, or just go for a walk. Okay. 10 minutes. That's all. Yeah.

I think it's pretty genius. And I was doing really well because it's like, usually those minutes turn into a little bit longer unless it's meditating and I can't go any longer than that. But it's like a nice way to just be like baby steps, you know? Yeah. My bad week is that I'm already off. I already can't do it. And I am a person with no self-motivation, work ethic, or any good trait when it comes to getting things done that are productive.

How long did you last? A couple days. Okay. You got to take meditation out. Take that out. You should do stretching. No. No?

One step below meditating for me would be stretching. I love a good stretch. I love to stretch. I hate to stretch. It reminds me of like ballet. I have to tell you something. Yeah. And I'm not a psychiatrist.

Okay. I believe that you're actually talking yourself out of this because you have an incredible work ethic. You have- When she's forced to, she does. In your later- I need a boss. Yeah.

You can't be your- Yeah. No. I get it. I'm not self-motivated. I need my own boss. That's how Jared is. I need a boss.

Yeah. Because you do work hard. You will work hard. If I have to. Right. If you have to. And if there's a dollar sign behind it. Correct.

There's no dollar sign to meditate. But one might say there is. Yeah, metaphorical or like emotional. I think it's very important to give your brain time away from your life. Yeah. I take Callie for a walk probably five days a week. Yeah, it's great. For an hour.

It's great. And I will not let myself work during that time unless an emergency is happening. Yeah. But it's great because you look up at the sky and then that's when your good ideas come. you know what i mean and and i love and i like to read i'm healed thank you psychiatrist i'm so glad you should definitely do actually we have a real doctor coming up which is great news wow great news you're welcome everyone we're gonna ping i'll ping you on that later i'll ping you i'll send you a telegram send me a carry your pigeon bye here at the lady gang you know that

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most women use period pads to protect against bladder leaks but they aren't made for it so they don't work as well poise ultra thins are specifically designed for bladder leaks and they keep you 10 times drier than the leading period pad get rid of it come on let's move on up to poise ultra thins they're designed for leaks to help keep you clean dry and fresh and offer with and without wings which helps them stay in place all day poise is here to make sure that moms can enjoy life without compromise. It takes poise. Learn more at poise.com. Stay dry out there. Now back to the Lady Gang. Our guest today is the pioneer in women's medicine and an award-winning and board-certified

naturopathic endocrinologist and certified sex counselor. She changed our lives with her books Beyond the Pill and Healing Your Body Naturally After Childbirth and is now blowing our minds with her new book, Is This Normal? Judgment-Free Straight Talk About Your Body. She's dedicated to uncovering the root causes of hormonal imbalances, and we're so thrilled to have her with us today. Please welcome to the podcast, Dr. Jolene Brighton. Woo, welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me. There's so much in this book. Let me just tell everyone that when you, this is not, this is like a Bible. This is so thick. You know when you buy a self-help book or like some sort of book and people are like oh you should read this book like this is a thick and every page has something so

how long did it take for you to put this next bible for us women together from start to finish was about three years yeah i believe so yeah it was the proposal during the pandemic and then taking even people who write books they understand it is a long process to go through it and as you were saying it is thick it is designed though so you can get in and get out you don't have to read it front to back. So don't be intimidated. And unlike most health books, it's not just half filled with recipes. I think this is really like game changing. And because what has life been like since beyond the pill? Like that was when you really took over and everyone went to see you as like the expert and now to have this follow-up third follow-up. What

is that like? In a lot of ways, Beyond the Pill was like the sequel to Is This Normal, which is kind of weird, like Star Wars did, where it's like, why are you coming out with the prequels now? But what I realized is that I talk about in Beyond the Pill how we all get on birth control because that's all we're offered. And yet how we even find ourselves in that situation and feeling like it's our only hope, our only option, is that we don't have really a grasp on how our body works or an understanding of what could be causing these symptoms and what's another way. And so I really took it back to like, what do we need to know about our body? What should we have known before we got our period?

And what do we need to know as we transition through different phases of our life? So this book really is like, if you get your period or you're starting to lose your period from perimenopause, like that whole spectrum of your life, there's answers in there for you of understanding all of the hormonal changes, but also just life changes that can happen as you're on this journey of being a woman. I think this is really interesting. And we've had this conversation so many times on Lady Gang, but even yesterday I was at work and one of my work friends was like, oh no, I don't get a period. And I never have, like, maybe I'll get my period once a year. And she's like, you know, the doctors are just like, that's just what

happens. And I feel like Jack had a similar situation. She has like incredibly heavy periods And like, we're kind of just told like, oh, by this regular doctors, like they don't even know what they're talking about. I hate to say it, but it's like, you know, what is normal? I guess is my first question. Like, is this normal? Like, how do you know if you are normal? Yeah. Well, this is the thing about when you go to the doctor, you go to the doctor because you have problems. So who does the doctor see day in day out? They see people who have issues. And unless it's like emergency, you're going to die or extreme. And even in that instance, I mean, endometriosis, for example, we know goes overlooked, misdiagnosed, not diagnosed whatsoever

because women are told things like period pain is normal. But you're like, wait a minute, I'm vomiting from my period pain. That's not normal. You're living in your body and you're like, I have a hunch this is not normal. But then this expert in a white coat that has a stethoscope, right? They fit the way an expert should look. It's telling you, no, it is in fact normal. And we know that medical gaslighting, it is well documented at this point in women's medicine, is a big reason why we struggle with pain. We struggle with medical conditions going undiagnosed. You know, I talk about in the book, in the chapter that's called Sex of All Kinds, it starts with pain with sex. I talk about the ways that we are dismissed and gaslit.

And one of the studies showed us that women going in with abdominal pain, men go in with abdominal pain, women go in with abdominal pain, but there's all these other things it could be. So it could be endometriosis. It could be an ectopic pregnancy. It could be pelvic inflammatory disease. It could be something even more serious that men can't experience, but they're 30% more likely to be left just to wait, just in the waiting room as if their pain is not real,

as if their pain isn't regarded as as serious as men and that comes from the place of doctors and society telling us women are just hysterical they don't know their bodies and that is a big reason for this book is that when you ask me is this normal normal as a spectrum we can get into the nuance of the different aspects of things but as you were saying going a year without your period that's not normal having extremely heavy periods to where you're bleeding more than seven days, you have to get up in the middle of the night to change your pad or tampon, or you're doubling up on like a super tampon and a pad and you're still bleeding through. These things are not normal yet. We're left to struggle and believe

that they are. It's crazy. So I put together the girls, I had everyone asked, I want everyone to ask Dr. Brighton, there is this normal question. Who wants to go first? Jack go. Um, so I, I have really heavy periods, but I've, I've talked about this so many times on the podcast, but my question is I have very normal periods, like 28 days on the dot. They have always been like this forever. And I, uh, was on a round of antibiotics last year. And while on the round, like, I think I just had like an allergic reaction, many different symptoms happened. But one of the symptoms I think from that was I started my period in two weeks. So I had a period and then I went on the antibiotics and then I got another period two weeks later. And then after that, I got another period two

weeks after that. And then after that, they went back to normal. And a few months later, I had a period that was like a week late. So for me, when my period is every like 28 days on the dot, like even a day or two, I'm like, what's going on? So for me, that was crazy that I had three periods in a month, basically, and then a super, super late period. So is that normal? Well, it's not normal in the sense of like, we shouldn't bleed that often. That's also just annoying. So I'm so sorry you had to deal with that. That's the thing we don't talk about either. We talk about all these problems. We don't talk about how annoying it is and how much it disrupts our life. Anytime we have this immune system dysregulation or upregulation because it has

to fight something, that is a stressor. That is a stressor on the body that can affect our cycle. So it can affect how we ovulate, when we ovulate, how long that progesterone lasts after we ovulate, and also our uterine health. And this is something that I think really gave us an opportunity during the pandemic to have this conversation that the uterus is involved with your immune system in some way. like to what extent we don't know because it's just a baby container right and if you don't need it we just take it out if you're having any kind of period problems this is a lot of how science and medicine have approached women but it's important for everyone to understand as i talk about in the book your immune system is tied not only to your uterus but also to your ovarian function and if anything is going on with your immune system your body being really smart is going to shift and make changes. So when it comes to fertility, it's all about the safety of the

environment. And as I've said for like well over a decade now, mom is both the seed and the soil. So it's both the egg, but also the soil and the uterine health and the immune system is very much tied to that as well. So we can see period changes and we can also see fertility issues. I have a question. I have never been, I was on the pill for like, I don't know, five seconds in college. And then my sister had a pulmonary embolism and my mom's like, you're getting the off that. Um, so we never touched it again. No, not a single woman in the family, but obviously I didn't want an unwanted pregnancy. So I did the pullout method for and condoms and condoms quote, pull and pray, baby, pull and pray for a long time.

And then I was like, you need to be more responsible. And so, um, I hate that I am a lover of my Skyla IUD. And I feel like it's like this dirty little secret, but like I had it years ago, really loved the way I felt on it, loved the way that my cycle was on it. It's like localized progesterone. Is that correct? Like the wording or terminology they use for it? First of all, okay. What does that mean? Okay. So it's a progestin based IUD. Once upon a time when the progestin IUDs came out, they said, oh, it's localized. It doesn't go anywhere in the body. And then women were like, no, I'm having mood symptoms. I'm having all these other issues. And what we know about the uterus, it is not like vagus. What happens there doesn't just stay there.

So that progestin does go systemic. The other thing is that we still don't have robust studies to date showing us how it's metabolized, how it interacts with our microbiome, like any of this information we don't have this data because they're like does it prevent pregnancy check we're done and that's pretty much what we get in women's health so yeah it is progestin not progesterone the only way to progesterone is via ovulation um cool fun little thing about progestin it was actually developed in mexico and the development of progestin in mexico is one of the biggest things that save their economy and it actually helped fund all of these uh education like and grants and all kinds of things that made science more accessible so more phds were being uh

were being schooled i should say not given out i mean they were kind of you know in that sense but they were paid for so it's just to say like that's the other layer i i never got into that and beyond the pill they were kind of like this is boring fact stuff i'm like but it is one more thing about birth control that did have societal benefits beyond just the, you know, ability to prevent pregnancy. It's always, um, you know, people are always like, aren't you anti birth control? I'm like the idea that I'm anti any medication. I'm, you know, there's definitely some that have been pulled from the market and have been bad. Uh, but in terms of birth control, everybody deserves the right to not only control their reproductive health, especially in this

current political climate, like you definitely deserve the right to have access to that. And in addition to have all the information around it, so that you do feel like it's the best for you and not have a doctor gaslight you into staying on it because they think that's what's best for you and you're having symptoms, but they're like, yeah, no, no, no, we don't, we don't want this rumor to go around that birth control has any kind of side effects. Like we want to downplay it all so that we keep access to it. Is there anything that I need to worry about that I am on this type of birth control? So the thing, do you ever want to have a baby in the future is always a consideration. And if you

do, it's important for people to understand that when we get put on birth control at a young age, we are often told you can get pregnant right away. And then we stay on it. So we're like 38 and we know fertility declines as we age. Our egg quality declines. And it's not the myth that we've been told at like age 35, you just like fall off a cliff and you're infertile now at that point. But it is important to consider for anybody listening, if you're on hormonal birth control or even a copper IUD, you want to remove that and prepare your body for pregnancy and be thinking ahead for that. The other thing about the progestin IUD is why some people are like, my cycles are lovely, is because it doesn't necessarily block ovulation the way the pill does

or like the NuvaRing, things like that. So some people are still ovulating and they're getting the benefits of their own progesterone. And then that progestin is thinning the uterine lining and that is making the period even easier. And so you're like, I'm getting the best of both worlds. Some people do stop ovulating with it. And in that case, sometimes mood symptoms can come up.

Certainly with progestin, it doesn't have the same benefits for brain health in the same way that our progesterone does. And there are people who've reported and then subsequent studies that have backed up the reports of individuals living in their body that there can be anxiety, there can be depression, there can be suicidal ideation. And so these mood symptoms are always worth tracking anytime we're messing with hormones. And so whether that's hormonal birth control, whether that's fertility treatments, whether that is, you know, taking like an antibiotic and we've now messed with hormones, inadvertently wasn't the goal, but that's happened. We should always keep an eye on women's mood symptoms. Got it.

I think that means you can stay on it, Becca. Thank God, because I'm actually a much more pleasant person when I'm on it and I don't get like the I just got it put back in. And I'm like, oh, right. This is why I had it before. Cause that's like the other thing. I think that for so long, it's like, and I think that I appreciate this about you cause you're not anti anything. It's just know what you're doing and what you're putting in your body. I think that for a little bit, myself and all the women in my life, we went into this direction of nothing, nothing, nothing. Don't touch it. Don't do it. Like just cold Turkey. We're going to just see what happens. But the reality of it is, is like, I, I like a little assistance in my hormonal

balance. And this is like what I found works for me. So yeah, I appreciate you, like your openness about it. Yeah. And you know, what's interesting. So one, like it's another big question mark in the ether. Like we don't have research to really understand why is it some women will get an IUD or start the pill and their mood is wrecked. They are wrecked. And yet even within the same family, another individual will, and they feel amazing. And they're like, this is the best I've ever felt. So, okay. Is this normal? And I have like five. So if you don't like this question, I, I will ask a different one. No, that's for sure. So I've just been doing a deep dive into my health And, um, and I found out through my blood work that I have chlamydia, which is not the chlamydia

of like the sex chlamydia. I have like the other chlamydia. So there's, I guess there's two, there's like one that's an STD and then there's another one. Do you know anything about that? Anything I should be like worried about? Or like, it kind of freaked me out when the doctor was like, Oh, and you also have chlamydia. And I was like, excuse me, what I've been like sleeping with the same person for 10 years. Like what is happening? And he was like, no, no, no, not the sex one, the other one. And I was like, okay. And then he didn't really go into it. There were other things that were like a little bit more pressing thoughts, emotions about that. Yeah. Well, I'm not an infectious disease expert. Like that's like not my arena. What I will say though, is that

there's a lot of things that we can contract that are within the same family. You know, when we talk about herpes virus people are always like oh herpes the sti and it's like actually this is big family like there's a lot of them going around here um and so with that definitely understanding like if it's currently infectious like are you actually having issues with this or via blood work do you have antibodies to it like an igg which is showing a past infection which is immunity and that's something that people so for people listening um there's immunoglobulins if we test IgG and that's coming up positive, that is memory. That is your body being like, I know you, I see you. And if you ever come back, I'm going to beat your ass right out of my house.

Like that is what's going to happen here. So it's important to know what immunoglobulins you're testing. If you've got like IgA, IgM, like those are, we're currently fighting an infection. As like a woman, do you need to worry about like all of the versions of herpes, all these versions of chlamydia like if like did I don't really understand like if if you're in an attack of like herpes like I know you'll get a cold sore or like sores or whatever like for the the sex one and like chlamydia like same thing there'll be a sign but if you're having one of the other things and I know you just said like you're not an expert in this but like do you need to worry about what it's doing to your body or is it just a good thing to know like is it with

your system in the way like an immune, you know, like problem like Jack had would be? Or is it just kind of like a dormant thing because it's the antibodies that you have? You fought it already and you're just like laying low. So if you have IgG antibodies to a bacteria, you fought that. It's presumably not there. So you've got the memory of it. When you're talking about herpes virus, herpes is similar to Epstein-Barr virus in that they're with you for life and they can lie dormant and then they can reactivate and become problematic you know it's interesting there are some estimates that say our dna is one percent viral because viruses literally hijack your machinery so that they can replicate um i got a lot of respect for viruses like they're

they're amazing in that they really try to live with us resilient bitch a real resilient bitch Yes. Yeah. It's like, man, if there's anything, like if you're, you're trying to channel like resiliency, like be the herpes virus, be Epstein-Barr virus. So with herpes virus, you know, it depends. So we've got the one that causes cold sores. You know, there are others that can be problematic during pregnancy. um there it's not necessarily something that you have to be concerned about you know all the time if you've got um genital you know issues so whether you know and other viruses like hpv right that's another virus um which sometimes causes warts but sometimes causes cervical cancer so we screen for that i talk about all these stis in the book by the way so that you can identify and understand with these you do need to communicate with your partner if you do have any of these, you know, with you for life kind of conditions because you don't necessarily have

an outbreak, but can still be shedding and sharing that with somebody else. So that's definitely important to be aware of. The other thing that you had said is you're like, oh, well, if you have chlamydia, don't you have symptoms? No. So chlamydia, you don't always have symptoms. This is why when you go in for a yearly exam or you go in for a pap smear, they might want to screen you for chlamydia, gonorrhea, they should screen you, honestly, in my opinion. And you might be like, I don't understand. I'm a monogamous relationship. And like, let's hope that you definitely are and that you know that, right? But the thing about it is it could be a silent infection. It could lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, or it could cause issues with your fertility. So we always

want to be on the lookout for those things. Amazing. All right. When we come back, I have some questions on things that I've never heard of in my entire life that are in this book. Angie's list is now Angie. And I'm so glad that they are partners with us on this podcast because you need Angie and I need Angie. And they've made it easier than ever to get all of your home projects done right. So if you're anything like me, you've probably bitten off more than you can chew. And if maybe your dad is not in town or your husband is not handy and you need some say for me right now, wallpaper hung in your powder room and you really want to get that project done, but you don't know anyone that hangs wallpaper. You can just use Angie and find all

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remodel, Angie is here to make it easy. So get your next project done with the help of a pro from Angie. Download the free Angie mobile app today or visit Angie.com. That's A-N-G-I.com. this episode of lady gang is brought to you by progressive insurance most of you listening right now are probably multitasking just like me while you're listening to lady gang you're probably driving cleaning exercising grocery shopping painting your nails whatever but if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle there's also something you can do right now getting an auto quote from progressive insurance it's easy and it could save you money by doing it right from your phone drivers who save by switching to progressive save nearly seven hundred dollars on average and

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sell me something on instagram i buy it whoever markets to me does a fabulous job she talks about the economy we used to joke that'll be the thing to send them to therapy okay we're creating jobs can we look at it that way she talks about parenting these kids want to come home they don't want to leave they don't want to drive they want to stay in the womb let's talk with heather debrow every thursday on podcast one or wherever you get your podcasts you're listening to the lady gang all right we're back with dr brighton and the first thing that i highlighted when we got our copies was outer course i am so concerned with the inner course is that like dry humping i don't know

exactly outer course okay so break us down because i'm familiar with inner course the outer course what is happening yeah outer just like people call it dry humping right so it's having you know a sexual experience without there being penetration and sometimes you're keeping your clothes on and then when i bring this up like this is something that likely at some point maybe in your teenage life maybe in your early 20s life like you have participated in outer course and people often think like oh this is just this juvenile thing it doesn't count as sex and why it's important to recognize that only you get to define what sex is and isn't. But why it's important to recognize this as a form of sex is that it can be pleasurable, it can be satisfying,

and it can be very necessary. So let's say your partner, you were like, hey, new partner, we want to get down. But first, we're going to get STI screening. Whoops, turns out one of us has it. But we still want to be sexual. We still want to be intimate in some way. This is an alternative. It's also an alternative if you've had like a baby or pelvic floor surgery, or you have something else going on where you can't have penetration. And for most of us, I would actually love to hear from you all. I'm going to finish this thought, but I want to hear what sex ed was like for you. So let me finish.

You think on that. I want to finish this thought. But for many of us, we're just taught sex is a penis and vagina, but not everybody has a penis or not everybody has a vagina and they're having a sexual experience and it doesn't always have to be penetration but when it's framed you know there's foreplay which I kind of hate because yeah there's foreplay if the intention is penetration but foreplay itself is sex and can be highly highly pleasurable but people will get it in their mind that something's wrong with them they're not normal if they're satisfied by that and they actually don't want to get to like you

know, the, the final stage of completion, which is penetration. So let's hear it. What do you remember from sex ed? What was it like for you? Oh my God. I mean, I feel like it was just basically trying to prevent pregnancy. Yeah. I just remember it was like abstinence, abstinence, here's a condom and STDs are terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. It was like really, and then like things like herpes were like, really, it was like, don't touch anybody until you're married or you're going to get herpes. And if you get herpes, your life's over this like huge stigma, which is like, I'm sorry, I know 17 people with herpes who are happily married and living life to the fullest. So it's like these weird, like spooky, um, scare tactics. And there was no, like,

it's going to feel good or no talk of an orgasm. It's just ejaculations. The closest thing that came to the orgasm conversation um I mean but when you just said the thing about the foreplay and the whatever and all that like I remember it was all foreplay until you started having sex and that was the most exciting thing ever I feel like I really became less sexual as soon as I started the penetration part of sex because like then it was the attention was going completely away from like the fingering and the touching and the dry humping and all this and then it was just straight like penis penetrating and like the fun was gone like i'm a big fan of outer course yeah and i think like i'm doing this um a sponsored thing with trojan so i know a very

random fact that 86.1 of women do not orgasm during sex so it's like we all like i think women in general probably prefer foreplay when it comes to pleasure and all that kind of stuff but it's funny because we've just been literally taught the complete opposite or like, it doesn't even matter. It's an afterthought. Yeah. It's something I talk about in the book that some estimates, they say 18% of women can actually orgasm with vaginal penetration. The last thing is something that I think actually in the history of the eight, seven years, I don't know how many other years we've been doing this. We've talked about literally everything. Um, is that is something that I don't think we've ever talked about. I saved it to the end on purpose. There's,

there's something in the book that you talk about that says a woman's tight is like a guy's soft. And it's talking, you're talking about vagina hole size. And I feel like we have not talked about vagina hole size and the misconceptions and the stigma of like, you're a loosey goosey or you're a tight, tight girl. And like, if you have a big vagina, then you like have a soft penis. like what is going on is this normal can we change it do we need to change it help we need to change the narrative around the way that we speak about and talk about women's bodies and approach women body women's bodies so a flaccid penis is a penis that's not ready to go right like we can all and like there's i talk about arousal non-concordance in the book that is where the brain is ready to

go, but the genitals are just not there yet. Like this can happen. But I think it's not hard for men to understand, pun intended. It's not hard for them to understand that if it's not hard, then it's not ready. If a vagina is tight, that's not a good thing. If a vagina is tight, that is a scared vagina. That is a vagina that is not ready for penetration. So maybe there is vaginismus. Maybe there is a history of trauma. Maybe this person's not feeling safe, or maybe we just need more foreplay. And the idea that a tight vagina is like the Holy grail, it's really comes back out of that like purity conversation, right? I've been asked so many times about, well, what about like, you know, men say, if you've had a lot of partners, then you have a, you know, you're going to have

a loose vagina and like oh she's so loose and i just laugh because i'm it's this idea that their penis is so powerful that it is able to like transform and change your vagina forever and it's like you know we have babies right nobody has this conversation around having babies unless you're like a single mom then they start that rhetoric so what is all of this this is all just a way to shame women to really try to get women to behave in a certain way by making up these narratives. And so the part that you're talking about, that's the first section of the book. So following that section is all of the hormone stuff, like the period stuff we were talking about. But I wanted to start with just understanding your anatomy, your body parts,

understanding that if you have a baby, that doesn't ruin your vagina forever either. Maybe your doctor putting in a husband's stitch does, but we've got a lot of myths about our body and things that sometimes even doctors are perpetuating like like the concept that like if sex hurts the doctors are like you just need to relax have some wine and just relax and get some lube and that's it like no sex should never hurt sometimes it does right because like maybe you've been drinking alcohol will uh dry things up down there by the way so bad recommendation but maybe you've been drinking and things are drier and like friction burns. Okay. Yes. Like that happens. But if you're having sex and it's painful, that is a stop everything we need to investigate

because sometimes it's benign and we just need lube. And other times it's very serious and we need to investigate that. But it also is another place where we talk about tight vagina, pain with sex, like all of these things. What do they tell us? They tell us that women's pleasure is secondary to a man i mean even the fact that you're like in sex that they talked to us about ejaculation but not female orgasm right because it's not necessary for having a baby is the narrative that gets spun to me i'm like it is because that's why she wants to cohabitate with you and stay with you like all of these hormones come up and i talk about them in the orgasm chapter that naked so that like she wants to be in this partnership with you like it's so much more of beyond just like

does it, does sperm meet egg and is there implantation? I love it. Well, there's so much more. Like I said, it's a, she's a, she's a big girl, but, uh, very easy to go in and be like orgasms, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like a really like a little dictionary. Please pick up. Is this normal judgment-free straight talk about your body? It is Gorgini and you can follow Dr. Brighton at Dr. Jolene Brighton on Instagram. She's amazing. She's got all kinds of videos, all kinds of questions and answer. And thank you for coming. You're so smart and wonderful. And we just adore you. And we will see you next Tuesday. Thanks for listening. The Lady Gang is produced by Alex Ingber, Steve Delameter, and Jared Monaco. Make sure you

subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. And if you love it, share it with your friends on social media. Like, oh my God, I just listened to Lady Gang. This episode's so great. Swipe up to listen. And if you really want to, which we know you do, please follow us on social at Kelty, at Becca, at Jack Vanek, and at The Lady Gang. Sign up for our newsletter at theladygang.com and join our secret Facebook group. It's super fun. See you next Tuesday.

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