Life Uncut - Sex isn't a stage show, so drop the act. Talking better sex with Tara O

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Joining the podcast today is sex coach, author and presenter Tara O! Tara was living what seemed to be her best Carrie Bradshaw life. She was writing a column and having a lot of 'wild' sexual experiences. But she wasn't having good sex.Like SO many of us, it was a performance (has the peacock entered the chat?). We speak about: 'Performing' during sex Why we all need to stop faking orgasms with one night stands or long term lovers Learning what actually turns us on and gets us off How to communicate with a partner about what you like and don't like You can find all of Tara's stuff like her workshops, coaching, book etc here! And her Instagram here You can join the Instagram party here Join us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Wollongong land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. And this is coming to you while Britt is currently in Bali, floating around, soaking up the vitamin D.

Well, I'm soaking up a lot of D, yeah. I am not in Bali right now, but in your ears I'm in Bali. So we are recording this just before we fly out on our little vacay. Didn't want to leave you hanging. Well, that's because normally, so like come July, and if you've been an OG listener, you would know, normally we take a great big chunky ass holiday in July. But we decided this year, no, we're not going to do that.

I mean, we're still going to take the holiday, but we're going to continue to put out content. So over the next couple of weeks, even though we both have these little trips planned, we have some truly amazing episodes. One of my favorites is this one, a very sexy episode. We cover it from top to bottom, from toe to tip. We have the author from The Better Sex Project, Tara O. She's a sex coach. She's definitely put in the due diligence.

She's done the research physically and spiritually, mentally. She's seen Sex Wizard. She's done a lot. she's covered a lot of ground. Tara has honestly so I mean the thing I loved about this interview is Tara went on her own sexual exploration and sexual journey. She tells the story brilliantly but I'll kind of give you a little bit of a summary. She was at the time writing a sex column but wasn't herself having the type of sex that she felt empowered by or that was bringing her pleasure. She felt like sex for her was very performative and I think that that's something

especially in my 20s that I can very much relate to. Oh 100%. Yeah having sex and the main reason about it or the main thing was that I wanted the other person to think I'd done a good job. I wanted the other person to be pleased. I'm more like was wanting them to think that they were killing it, even though they weren't. I think for a lot of people, we have sex and we worry so much about what the other person is thinking and feeling and experiencing and whether they're having the most amazing time possible and whether we're pleasing them. But are we worrying or thinking about how we're having the most amazing time? And are we receiving the type of pleasure that makes us happy and I guess one of the reasons why I loved this conversation is

because it made me reflect on sex in my 20s and how I would and have done things that I didn't enjoy doing at the time I didn't do them for me but I did them because I felt like I needed to do that to make my partner happy I just think about how many times I used to fake it oh god it's never gonna happen I'll just let this guy think he's winning a Logie award or something I was like I'll go hard I should have won the Logie award if anyone oh the performance I put on like all the acting experience oh yeah you guys think I haven't done anything yet I've been working for years under the covers we also talk about how it's important to talk to your kids about sex but doing it in a way that's age appropriate and what does that look like you cannot shield them from

conversations around sex but how do you approach those conversations with them and I loved that part of this episode yeah and the idea is the book is called the better sex project because she wants everyone to have better sex like yes it started because she wanted better sex but then she's like everyone should be experiencing this everyone should have this pleasure not all heroes wear capes i'll go do the work and i'll deliver the goods to you guys and that's what she's done well that is all coming up but before we get into that i mean like we said today's a very a very sexy episode and if you follow us on life uncut on instagram i put up a poll recently and i told you it was for scientific research. It was very scientific. She always says that. It was very

important. I wanted to know how often y'all masturbate, but not you. I didn't want to know about female pleasure. We're talking about enough of that on the episode today. I wanted to find out if you have a husband, a boyfriend, if you are a guy listening to this podcast. If there's a penis in your life. If you own a prostate, if you've prostated yourself, I want to know how many times you ejaculate a week or like no not even a week i just want to know how often it is and i put a poll up and holy dick literally this was now let's just preface this with this wasn't just because she's a sicko and wants to know how many times people jack off like this i'm getting to the reason there's a real good reason but i did a poll and there was literally over 5 000 people

who answered this so we conduct quite i think a data-driven research study when whenever we do these polls. Very extensive, very well researched. Yeah. People don't even realize it is a wide net that we throw this out to. Okay. But the reason why I asked this question is because there was an article that came out recently. Now this was a study that was done by Harvard university and it was published by the European urology and medical science, real science, not life on cut Instagram science. And the research study exposed that if you are a man and you climax 21 times or more per month that you then may decrease your chances of getting prostate cancer by up to a third there has been previous studies that have suggested that people who orgasm like men who

orgasm more have a lower and decreased risk of prostate cancer but there has never been a study an extensive study that's been done on how many times basically say it's to flush out cancer determining toxins that build up in the prostate imagine the men for this study i volunteer as tribute like like if there's a study you want to put your hands up for it's like i want to jack off every two days i will do that for the name of science well 21 times a month is a lot and when when we polled it people got very confused because i didn't consider and i should have it look rogue of me if you're having sex it probably impacts the amount of times that you're then masturbating because if you're having sex every two days you're obviously not going to masturbate every two days

totally but sex is still an ejaculation 100 so we encompassed it i redid the poll and i asked how many times are your partners ejaculating in a week including sex but also including you know pleasuring themselves you all went and asked some of you i mean we do have some male followers so some of you guys actually answered but you know you went and asked your husband you asked your boyfriends you asked the men in your life i hope you didn't ask your dad because that's fucking weird but like i definitely did not ask my dad i said whoever you have access too and i would love to tell you how many times the man in your life is masturbating i'm sure we're all on the edge of our seat coming in number one the puns just don't stop coming in

coming in hot sorry i felt like you missed that coming hard okay so every three to four days was the most common answer so yeah every three to four days okay i would have assumed if you had if i had to like guess for a million dollars i would have probably said a once a week in second place it was once a week so like once a week that's enough and then in third place it was every second day then it was every day so some people you know fourth in the rank I actually thought more people would be doing it every day no people don't have time or energy yeah but you know there's a lot of horny people out there and a lot of people do it before going to sleep yeah but I think people are horny but they still don't have the energy like sometimes people like you get into

bed and you're like just calm so tired I've got to get up in five hours and they just like sleep it out you know for me I'm tired thinking about it I am tired thinking about having to masturbate every single day it's not from it's not in my calendar it's not going in my google calendar I would love to do the stats on how many times women are doing it now because I know that sexual empowerment like female sexual empowerment has had its real moment in the sun but I would love to know well it has like we see it on Instagram it's really come back into the limelight I don't know if I was ever in the limelight but it's had a renaissance I would love to know how often women are doing it and if it is actually comparable to men. The reason why I actually love this and I

loved how more than 5,000 of you went and asked your partners and honestly polled this on Instagram is that I think that there is still a bit of a taboo around male masturbation. Like the fact that you can go and ask your partners and you can get an honest answer from them and you're able to pop this into a poll. Because I think that sometimes when you find out that your partner is masturbating, there can be this almost like feeling of like, oh, well, why are you doing that? Why do you need to do that without me? That some people feel it can make you feel a little bit inferior in your relationship. But the reality is, is that it is completely normal. And you know what? If we're going to go by Harvard University, it is totally advised. I couldn't care less if my

pastor masturbated. If your pastor masturbated. You couldn't care if your pastor was masturbating? If my pastor wants to get, I could not care if my partner masturbated. I genuinely couldn't. The only time I would care is if they were then saying, I don't feel like having sex. If they masturbating every day and being like babe i'm tired i don't have sex it's a problem but if i was still getting the sex that i needed go healthful later do what you want if it's going to help you out it's going to relax you it's going to make you feel good if it's not affecting any other performance in the bedroom genuinely could not care less i like that you say that though because i was surprised by the amount of messages we received from people who had said

that they don't like their partner masturbating or they prefer their partner to wait for them which i i find really strange again i mean like each to their own it's your individual relationship but again only if it was affecting me like if he didn't want to do anything with me and didn't want me to be a part of anything and i wasn't getting what i needed then yes it's a problem but if i'm still getting all that i don't care if he does it in the shower before work or whatever it doesn't bother me but you think okay let's like put the shoe on the other foot for a second as a woman right if sometimes you might want to get off yourself and you don't want to have sex you don't want to be with your partner you want to do it quickly you want to do what you want you

don't want all the hoo-ha sometimes they feel the same way like sometimes and it doesn't mean it's not personal sometimes they're like oh I just I just want a quick one right now I don't want to think about it don't want the hustle and bustle I don't want it to go forever it's the same thing we feel the same thing as they do it's only if it starts to affect the relationship I don't think that we can control our partners and I don't think that we should be dictating when people do or don't pleasure themselves whether that's a female doing it or a male doing it or literally anyone yeah i would love to know i mean i wish we could i'd love to know the reason behind the people that wrote in and said i don't like my partner masturbating i'd love to know the why because

i think that that's really important thing is it because it's affecting their relationship is it because of the way they're doing it are they watching hardcore porn is it control is it a jealousy is it because it makes you feel not confident like they don't want to be doing it with you? Are you feeling less than because of it? I think there's a whole bunch of reasons and I do find it really interesting. I would love, I don't know how I would find out. There's too many people and there's too many polls. I don't think we can poll all that. I guess one instance of this that we haven't covered, which is probably really important to mention is that if you're somebody who's going through fertility issues or you're going through IVF, whatever your fertility journey

is, it is often advised for men not to masturbate in order to be able to have the appropriate sperm can or whatever is needed in order to create a baby. And so I guess that there are some actual medical reasons or different circumstances in couples' relationships and lives where they may not want their partner to masturbate. And so I guess we can't just blanket rule it and say that you shouldn't be controlling anyone's body. But I guess at the same time, if you're both on the same page with what you want out of life, there may be some other alternate reasons as to why it's off the table. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we all want the men in our lives to be healthy. And if they're given it a stroke at least once every two and a half days,

and that may decrease their chances of getting prostate cancer. And that is pretty incredible when you think about it. Tara O is a sex coach for women and couples and author of the Better Sex Project, speaker and sexual empowerment entrepreneur. Tara, you are also a mom of two kids. And today we're going to be talking about the why behind wanting to have sex, finding actual pleasure in sex and breaking down a lot of the narratives that we have been taught about sex throughout our lives. Welcome. Welcome. It is so good to be here. We did try and do this, but the internet did not like us and we tried to do it by Riverside. And so instead we thought come into our little studio den and we would do it face to face. Much sexier this way. It's an

episode that we're super excited about, mainly because we get super excited about all things sex. We love talking sex. And from what we read about you, you definitely love talking about sex to you and you've done quite a lot of it, but we do kickstart every episode with Accidentally Unfiltered, the most embarrassing story. And for some reason, I think you'll have a pretty decent one. I have so, so many that it would be, I could fill a whole show with just my Accidentally Unfiltered, but I think, I think I'll just tell you the most recent one. So to kind of set the scene, I have just moved house and it's a kind of like a townhouse situation. So there's like a kind a communal driveway and I do these workshops around Australia called Great Sex Matters right

so it's women only workshops and I teach what's called a lingam massage so it's essentially like a tantric penis massage but I use like this big pink rubber dick right it's huge I'm talking enormous so I'm like gathering it up and I chuck it into the boot of the car and my little girl goes she's four hey mummy what's that and I go oh it's just one of mummy's toys and she's like oh okay and I run back inside to grab a few more things and when I'm coming out I can hear her talking to the neighbors and the closer I get to the car I can see she's holding the big pink dick on her forehead and she's going yay yay I'm a unicorn I'm a unicorn look at me I'm a unicorn and the man who I don't know goes oh hello honey what have you got there and she goes oh it's just

one of mummy's toys she needs for her job yeah she needs for her job and I die like I'm red I'm sweating and instead of just like walking over and being like oh you know I'm a sex coach this is what I do I like dive into the car and I'm like pretending to look for stuff and Tilly walks with it because it's got like a suction cap and she just slams it onto the car and it sticks so now I've got this big big cock on the side of my car she goes off inside and I'm just left there like burning in your car with a cock on the side and I haven't been over there to like explain the situation because I just don't know what to say no I think you just leave it I don't think you have to move you also don't need to explain yourself every woman should have a cock on

the side of their car and one on their head it's like welcome to the neighborhood here we are that's so funny if anything I think it's going to make you more loved right I'm hoping so I'm hoping the word gets out that you know we're very pro you know sex lib and I think they got the message. No one's coming over for dinner, that's for sure. Or maybe they are with very different ideas of what's going on in your house. How do you navigate this sort of, I mean, when you work in a very sex positive industry, but you also have little kids in the house and you have to have like age appropriate conversations. I ask this as a mom, when your kid has found your big phallic dildo that you've got to use for work and she understands it's for work, how do you find

where that appropriate age appropriate conversation is to have with your kids? So I always just keep but light and airy and just kind of off the cuff. So anything that she, and obviously I have quite a few different toys, not only because of my profession, but I'm a sexual woman, right? She's going to come across the lube in the top drawer or my jade egg or something like that. So there's always this thing of her coming across something and it happens in like in a flash. She goes, mom, what's that? And I go, oh, that's what mommy does to make her body feel good. Or that's a daddy and mommy toy. And it never normally goes beyond that because she's like, oh yeah, cool. I get it. it's something that you guys play with together. Well, I guess kids have toys. So it makes sense

if you tell a kid that like we have them as well. We have toys as well. And I never want to shame it. I don't want to shut it down. Give that to me, you know, get away because it just spurs that kind of curiosity of being like, oh, what is that? That must be dirty or naughty. And I'm going to kind of, you know, play with it when mum's not looking. And, you know, my four year old watching her explore her body and her own pleasure has been such a great gift. Like that kid knows what feels good on her body. You know, she's always asking for back tickles. She's like runs off. I've got like a Theragun, you know, when you've got a sore. It is flat 90% of the time that I go and use it. She's run it out of battery. My four-year-old has run my neck massager out of

battery. Yeah. And you don't mean actually where you're like, it's watching her explore her body. You mean just like how great it feels to get a head scratch and like just the nerve endings on your skin in general. Definitely. Like her exploring her own sensuality is probably, I should have been more accurate with explaining it but the way she kind of yeah gets to know the different sensations in her body and and it's not shut down yet it's not conditioned she doesn't know it's shameful she's like I've got this beautiful body of mine and it gives me so much joy in all these different places and I actually like she asks for it she's like mummy every night when I get to bed she's like tickle my back and draw a rainbow and and can you just press here

and can you tickle here and I'm like man you are like you know your pathway to pleasure girl and I just I really want to encourage that because it's so important that she knows that it's her body you know she gets to use that and explore it and pleasure and you know finding her own bodily gifts is just it's going to serve her so well growing up yeah and I do think I mean it's conditioned from so young like talking about shame in children and I think we've taken a bit of tangent but I find it really interesting and I say this because like little boys will play with themselves pretty, like it's pretty normal, right? You think like, and I guess I always grew up thinking, oh yeah, little boys, they've got something to play with. They're always going to

be like, you know, having a little exploration down there. But something that I think I wasn't aware of before becoming a mom of little girls is that they do it exactly the same amount. Like little girls are just as like, hey, what's going on downstairs as little boys up. But I think often we can be far quicker to say, get your hands out of there or don't do this. And it's stuff that happens from when they're literally two years old or 15 months old. And it's that conditioning of like that that's naughty or that's dirty or that's not something you should be doing. And it's those reinforcements that also form our want to when we are older, we do become sexual to explore ourselves or to have connection with our body. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, when I'm

working with my coaching clients, the amount of shame that women feel about touching and exploring their own bodies is huge, you know, and it starts right from that first slap on the hand of don't touch yourself there, you'll go blind or that's dirty or go to your bedroom and, you know, cover it up. We internalize all of that messaging. Then we wonder why we can't find safety in our own body when we're told it's not safe to touch our own body. So we have to be really careful the way we talk to our girls and our boys about pleasure and about their bodies. You know, it's okay to do it, but maybe do it in your bedroom. You know, mummy doesn't have to watch you, you know, having a fiddle while I'm trying to watch Desperate Housewives. Yeah, you could do that in your own

time in your own space so let's step it back a second to to you how did you end up becoming a sex coach what was life like before you entered this world so to take you all the way back about 12 years ago I was writing a column called an online column called Tara Tries and basically I would try anything and everything in the dating and relating sphere you know I would go to a nudist colony or I would go to a I don't know an anal yoga workshop or whatever it was is that a thing It is a thing. An anal yoga workshop. Oh, my God.

That's a whole other segment. I mean, my downward dog's not very good as it is. I don't think anyone needs to be doing an anal yoga workshop. I don't think my butt's got that much flexibility. But anyway, keep going. So it was like weird and wacky and I would write about it and I was kind of living what I thought was everything that I kind of dreamed about.

I had the dream job. I was talking about sex a lot. I was going out. I was trying to have sexy sex with sexy men and sort of living the dream of like that kind of Carrie Bradshaw persona but even though everything on the outside of my life looked like I was like crushing it inside I was just dying I was so sad I was miserable I was so concerned about my external kind of world looking a certain way that I had no real kind of connection to anything and I was just yeah it was really bad and I had kind of found myself in

this cycle of just really shitty one night stands so I would cross my own boundaries and I would you know never get very much pleasure or connection from it and I always kind of just felt used after sex so it was a really really kind of dark period of my life but on the outside it looked amazing but inside it was another story did you find as well because you had this column Tara tries did you feel like you had to keep it up like you had to try things that maybe were outside of what you would normally go and feel comfortable exploring or doing things that pushed your own boundaries because you felt like from a work perspective that you needed to keep on exposing yourself to new experiences? No I think I have always been a really super curious person like

and especially when it comes to anything like sex and relationships I want to know how things work and which is kind of what spurred on my better sex project but the things that I was doing was actually leading me down to a different path so it was more kind of performance based and kind of trying, you know, 10 tips of better shower sex standing on your head or vibrating alarm clocks or, you know, striptease class. And there's nothing wrong with all of that. But I felt the pressure then to be Tara Tries in the bedroom. You know, I didn't want to sleep with somebody and then say, oh, I slept with that girl from Tara Tries and actually she's a bit shit between the sheets. Well, because you know what I mean, known as like Tara doesn't try.

Tara doesn't try. You feel like you need to, Tara put in 110%. That's what Tara did. sleep that's a really interesting point because I think a lot of people channel that idea of trying really hard in the bedroom and they're not even writing about it they don't have a column they don't have anyone to impress but I think there's this idea of performance-based athleticism that needs to go down inside the bedroom even when maybe you're not literally feeling that you're not feeling like it's mind-blowing but you performance of a lifetime oh 100% and I was like can i tell you a funny story about how far i will take faking it so i was so good like olympic gold medalist i wish there was a category at the olympics like i would win i'm not athletic at all

but i can fake a mean orgasm and i was in like france or italy and i was having sex with this italian or french guy anyway he's coming and he's going i'm arriving i'm arriving and i'm going see see I'm arriving I'm arriving oh my god stop it I was like zoomed out of myself I'm like what the actual fuck not only am I faking my orgasm I'm speaking another language I'm faking my nationality what's actually happening right now like it was all these things that I would do that I would be like in the moment trying to be and fill this persona of this sexy up for anything porno kind of star and then afterwards I walk away going the hell did I just do that for like what did I it's funny because he's saying arriving oh yeah it's funny

45 minutes ago like who've been fucking this whole time yeah exactly how did you did you feel like you were looking for validation in sex at that time or did you feel as though the sex you were having wasn't meeting your expectations like what was it as much as you're having these one-night stands and you were kind of in this cycle of sex that wasn't fulfilling what was it about this that wasn't fulfilling or meeting the expectations that you had for yourself yeah I think the thing why it wasn't fulfilling was because it didn't feel like it was really me in the bedroom to begin with you know I had this kind of sexual avatar that this kind of sexual routine that I'd perform and I couldn't connect to my partner like it just

didn't make me feel like we were doing something that was true and authentic and coming from a place of like truthfulness, really. And when you give yourself that kind of separation or distance from your partner, everything feels disconnected and disjointed. And you start to feel like I could be anybody right now. You know, I'm just playing a role. I'm a vessel, right? I'm a masturbatory tool or whatever it is. And I think I also had those kind of messages that it was more important what I look like rather than what I felt like. It was more important what I did rather than how I felt, you know, so I'd spent all my energy trying to look a certain way. And then you kind of get up into your head and you're kind of thinking too much and you're not feeling rather than actually

being in the moment and really kind of getting any joy out of it for yourself. I think it's a really common thing that women experience. And I was just trying to think back to myself and I think a lot of my friends, but when you may, I'm going to say younger, not necessarily, but I think when you start having sex and you're not that confident in yourself yet, and you haven't experienced a lot, all you think about the whole time like you're so concerned about what you look like literally they flip you over and you're like oh my god are they just seeing like my butt wobble are they saying like you get so out of your head and wondering about what they are thinking what they are seeing what they're feeling and you don't give any thought to yourself and I think

it's a very cliche thing for a woman to do is to worry more about you know the other person in the situation yeah were you like that at the start is that what you were saying when you were saying I was in my own head in one night stands. Definitely. I would judge myself on everything. I would judge myself on, was I sexy enough? Why am I not feeling anything? Is he going to call me the next day? Why am I doing this? You know, all of those kinds of things. And you just get trapped in your mind and you lose any sensation in your body. Like it becomes an almost stress response where you literally shut down any kind of capacity of feeling. And when you can't feel anything. The only thing that's available is for you to fake it, right? Or you kind of cross a

boundary when you're doing it and then there's pain. And when there's pain, the next thing you do as well, you fake it and you put on a show and it just kind of turns into this kind of vicious cycle of it just being one big fat performance. I think one of the things as well is when you're treating sex as though the most important outcome is pleasing the other person and it is performative, you also then run the risk of doing things that you actually don't really want to do. and saying things that you don't really want to say because you're doing it for that other person and for their gratification and you can walk away

from it feeling really dirty. And I know in the instances that I've had where my priority in sex has been the other person and not myself, there have been the instances where I've been left feeling degraded and not feeling proud of myself or not feeling sexually empowered but feeling really sexually belittled. And it wasn't that I was made to do stuff. I willingly did it but I did it because I wanted to be liked.

Well, you thought that's what you had to do in that situation. And I think a lot of women have experienced that at different periods of time. And it's not that you, you know, you haven't been forced into doing something that you don't want to do, but you have been so wanting to perform for that other person that you're willing to lower prioritize or down prioritize yourself over their sexual gratification. A hundred percent. And we're bombarded with messages that reinforce that idea that women have to be a certain way or look a certain way or do a certain thing in the bedroom by movies and porn and magazines. We learn the very imprint of our sexuality from people's job who it is to

literally fake theirs. You know, if you think about that, like it's wild. We look at our sexual education from people who fake their own sexual pleasure. So it doesn't make me wonder why so many women go into the bedroom and push their pleasure aside to kind of put on this performance and this role and it feeds this monster because the less pleasure you feel the less sex you actually kind of want or the less enjoyment you get out of it so then you just keep resorting back to performing to get it over with you know totally so when you were writing this column and you were having these one night stands and these experiences were you a sex coach yet or were these the experiences that made you realize you wanted to be one yeah so no I wasn't I hadn't done my

big journey and my sexual awakening or my reclamation or however you want to call it but it's what led me to that point so I had a you know how some people talk about like a dark night of the soul like I had a dark night of the soul but like next to a toilet bowl with somebody urinating on me it's a whole thing you can read about it in the book yikes but it really kind of shook me up and I was like I just don't want to feel like this I don't want to feel used I don't want to feel like I can just be discarded after one night. I want to feel turned on like by my own sensual and sexual power. I want to feel ecstasy and transcendence.

And it really kind of drew a line in the sand and I was like, okay, from now on I'm going to learn everything that I can about how to have really, truly good sex. And I'm not going to go to the magazines or I'm not going to Google like five tips to blow his mind. I'm going to go to the gurus, the shamans, the sex therapists, wherever I can go looking that I had never searched before and really kind of get a holistic view of what it takes to be really fulfilled in your sexuality, what sexual empowerment really does look like. And it

took me around the world, like from Iceland to LA to India to Thailand. Like when people say I fucked around the world, you're like, no, I actually fucked around the world. Literally. Have you massaged five prostates in Iceland? Well, I have. I need to know in detail when you say this took you around the world and you did all these different courses like was this a tantric sex course was it many different courses like and what does that look like for someone who's never done a sex course yes I mean five anuses in Iceland is what it looks like no I need to know and understand like how do these things exist and where do they exist so and how do I sign up so there's like a whole world out there so

sacred sexuality, conscious sexuality. And it's these sort of week-long retreats or workshops or teachers offering these workshops. And it basically just gives you a different kind of education around sex than what we would normally get in sort of our mainstream society. So in Iceland, for example, it was a week of looking at our fears, desires, and our boundaries. And yeah, we would like strip naked in a room and there was like group masturbation and that kind of stuff, but it was really kind of finding and unlocking your own power, like your own sexual and sensual power. So yeah, there was a lot of things that were like weird and wacky and a lot of things that I probably wouldn't do again. Do you go to these things as a single person

or do you go to these things with people? Or have you gone just to learn? So you can go by yourself. There's some for solos, there's some for couples. It's completely up to you. There's some that are women only, some that are men only. What would be the most crazy, wild, outlandish sexual situation you've had, whether that is of your learning when you traveled to literally learn, whether it's teaching or whether it was a private experience? I think my favorite one, can I tell you my favorite one? Absolutely. So my favorite one would still be with the sex wizard that I write about in the book because it changed my outlook of what sex is and it really was a catalyst of so much transformation

in my life and so much change. And I just thank my lucky stars that he literally came into my life. Oh, my God, I hate details. Stop at the bottom and tell me how this unfolded. What's a sex wizard? Can you get them from a vending machine? Where do we get them? So I was at sex camp, which in and of itself probably needs

a little bit explaining, right? This one time at sex camp? This one time at sex camp. Similar to bed camp. And you've got to like to set the scene for this is that I was like your kind of cosmo girl. Like I was not woo-woo. I still don't really kind of classify myself as very woo-woo, but I was like very Bondi kind of, you know, when I was packing for sex camp, I was like, well, I'm going to need my Peter Alexander pajamas. I'm going to need, you know,

that kind of stuff. And I rock up at sex camp and purely because this was the beginning of my better sex project. And I was like, what better way to kickstart my journey than to really immerse myself into the conscious sexuality scene no idea what was going to kind of come at me or you know what kind of events that I'd be participating in but I just had this willingness and I knew to really change my life I had to kind of do things that kind of pushed my comfort zone a little bit and expanded my idea of sex so the three days was great I did lots of different workshops there was orgasmic breathing there was lots of really beautiful things for women for men it was amazing but during the workshop there was this man there one particular workshop there was

a man there he did his own kind of workshops and he was like a self-proclaimed sex wizard so he was probably about 60 like if you could imagine like a dumbledore and a galdof the crazy thing was he was sexy like really fucking sexy so he had this like really deep voice and when he talked to you like he would look at you and I was like sliding off my seat. Look at how easy it is for us to be impressed by men. Like he looked at me and I just knew he made eye contact. He actually looked me in the eyeballs. Totally.

Yeah, but I had this sense of safety with him. Anyway, on the last night there's a sleepover. So all these people are like in corners and they're spanking and they're doing all their things because that's what you do at a sleepover at a sex camp. You're not sitting there braiding each other's hair. You're like doing kinky shit. But I was like still very on the edge, you know, even though I'm

in this world I'm probably a little bit like less sexually, you know, adventurous than most people probably think I am. So I'm on the edge and he's got his back against the wall and I walk up to him and I'm like just I have no idea why, like I'm just the worst fucking pick-up line I could ever think and I kick his foot. So you look like a koala and he's like opens one eye and I'm like, holy shit, Tara, you know, like just what the fuck, Tara,

why was that your intro? and he goes thanks and I was like I really enjoyed your workshop but you know when you talked about women feeling their sexuality and their spirituality and having these transcendent orgasms I don't believe that they can you know my orgasms like last for a second and he goes well show me your orgasm face and I was like uh looks like this and he goes well there's your problem and I was like my orgasm face like I had trained myself to like perfect the perfect orgasm face and I said what do you mean? He goes, you need to be open. Stop contracting. Just let that pleasure flow through your body. And then he goes, you need to start to have better sex. And I go, oh yeah,

you're right. I do. He goes, yeah, you need a better partner. And I go, well, you, will you have sex with me tonight? And the words flew. They flew out of my mouth before I could even think about what I was saying. And he looked at me and goes, are you asking me to make love to you, Tara? In my mind, I'm going, abort mission, abort mission. And I go, I think I am, Peter. I think I want you to make love to me. I think I am koala. You sexy koala Gandalf wizard man. Come here and climb me.

Climb my tree. Eat my eucalyptus. Eat my leash. I feel like I'm in this room with you right now. Yeah, I am. I'm on the edge of my seat in this story. I need to know more. So then we're walking and we're like, where do we do it?

Because it's held. And here's the weird thing. The whole sex camp is held at a brownies camp. Oh, fuck. Those poor kids. Like the kids that sell brownies for charity. The kids aren't there. The kids are not there.

Obviously not, but they're going to be slipping on those. They're going to be children. Can you slip it on those wooden floors when they come in next Sunday? There's like a lot of dirty mattresses. So we're like walking trying to find the hall, like a hall. And I have only had sexual stage fright twice in my life. Once when I was like driving to have sex with the ex-fiancee of a Victoria's Secret model.

Like I was like, what the fuck am I doing? This is going to end very badly. Volcano, who are you? That was a – Tell me off air. Oh, I will. It turned into drunken Jenga because I was like I can't compete with her so I'll just I would Jenga my way out because I'm really good at Jenga so I was like let's just get

drunk and play Jenga wait I'm gonna get him hard by showing him my Jenga skills look it was a disaster and the second time was walking through a forest at like 12 a.m with a sex wizard whose actual job it was was to like make love to women and I was like oh what am I doing and I was like just get out of there blame like a poo like a tummy cramp whatever it is but something inside of me as woo as it sounds was like just keep going and so we got into the the building and we ended up having this night together that was extraordinary like I typically you know went into my very sexually rehearsed routine of like like thinking I'm gonna out sex the sex wizard because I was like I was feeling very vulnerable and I was like okay this is where I'm really put the

performance on oh 100 which is also a place of safety for you when you've done it time and time I was feeling so vulnerable. And so I started this kind of like dance, like this mating dance. I know, I know, I know. Think of poor Tara. So I'm like doing this mating dance and he was sort of looking at me and he's like, just grabs my hand. He goes, you don't have to perform for me, Tara.

And I was like, oh, okay. And at that moment the penny kind of dropped of like I've just been waiting for somebody to tell me that for so long, to give me the permission to drop the show, to be real, to be in the room and just be in the moment. But what happened was I didn't know who I was without the show. I was like, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? What is sex if I don't do what, you know, I have this kind of routine of they do this, I do that, then I come and it spurs their orgasm on

and then we're finished, you know. I didn't know what to do if I was supposed to kind of just intuently find my way through this. But it ended up being just this extraordinary night where it wasn't, you know, I didn't have magical orgasms or it wasn't this kind of wizardly crazy experience but it was so soft and so tender. And the way he kind of used my body like an instrument, you know,

like the way he sort of played it but also was encouraging me to breathe and when I would kind of clamp up a little bit he would say, okay, now breathe through that kind of contraction. When you start to pull away, let yourself open. You're safe, you're right here, I'm with you. and he would like just like almost breathe on me it was insane did you have an amazing orgasm so I didn't actually orgasm at all but it was still you still classified as like as the best sex of my life because we also I and you know I was guilty of this for so long we classify sex as

like it has to be sex if there's an orgasm right yeah or it's not complete it's not the big finale but this was like a journey into my senses it was like and it was also like an unraveling I felt all of the tension that I had held in my body just kind of dissipate. And I felt open and I could finally start to feel, you know, subtleties of a lick against a skin or the breath on my neck or something. And it just, it was like, fuck, this is what people say is really, you know, this is what they mean when people say they can have really, really good sex. And it kind of spurred on my thirst to learn more because I was like, if this is what I'm experiencing with no practice, imagine what it will be like when I learn more and I can do more and I can kind of open myself

up to more so it was really kind of that springboard into my journey of that the better sex journey and which propelled me to go around the world like a mad woman kind of absorbing everything I could around pleasure and female sexuality and empowerment I'm like I think it's amazing that you have taken this route in your life and you have I cannot sorry you saw that too there are so many puns that was so funny when you didn't even know this route in your life Everything that you guys are saying I want to be into a joke and I'm like, I can't. No, but I mean because I think for so long so many of us

and as society and something we touched on early on, like sex, not that it's just shameful, like speaking about female sexuality, speaking about sexuality in general is not a taboo topic anymore. But I think it's really interesting that for someone who has come from a world where they would write about it, where they were living it as part of their day-to-day, that even you were still injured in that shame.

Like there was still that level of, okay, I'm speaking about sex and I'm being very liberal with this but not actually living it and feeling it. And I think that that's something that people still experience. As in on social media people are very much like, oh, here's a photo of me and my sex toy now. We're all meant to be very like rah, rah, rah, female empowerment. But I wonder how many people, even though they're doing it

from an outward perspective, are actually feeling that from an inward perspective and are having the type of sex that would truly bring them pleasure. Yeah, definitely. And I think sometimes when we are so focused on showing everybody that we are, you know, very sex positive and we have all this great sex, we still have that kind of control mechanism, right? And to have really great sex, we need to have a lot of trust and a lot of surrender. And when we're kind of controlling what people think of us, or we're still kind of controlled by some shame or some kind of past history or some trauma and things like that, we lose the ability to truly trust our bodies, to trust our partner,

to trust the moment, to trust that there is no expectation, there is nothing to kind of prove you're safe in your body and in this moment so that you can let go so that pleasure can cultivate in your body and then expand. So I think it's one thing to say, you know, I'm very sex positive, but another thing to practice the tools that allow you to actually experience profoundly good sex. And that's why I think it's having its renaissance in the wellness space because it's so heavily linked to your wellbeing. You know, like Gwyneth Paltrow talks about it a lot and, you know, Will Smith, and there's been so many studies now where actually a woman has gone into an MRI and had an orgasm and parts of her brain light up that are responsible

for transcendent experiences and like sort of spiritual awakenings, but also lots of blood flow and pain reduces and stress reductions like we know the health benefit of sex but I think for women there's something more we are living a life now we're kind of getting very pleasure deprived you know we're very distracted we're on our phones we're doing a million things we've got kids we've got businesses we've got all of these things that we're outputting but what fills us up so when we can use sex in a way of as a wellness tool not just to have the orgasm or to you know fuck our partner but when we use it to fill ourselves up with pleasure with tapping into sensations and our creativity and our just our actual body coming out of our heads I think that is where the real

magic comes from when we can kind of connect to ourselves because connection to ourselves to our partners it's disappearing you know there's so much push and shove in the world that when we really take time to connect to our body and to our partner, it makes everything better. I think this is a really good way to link to the idea of faking orgasms. I think it's really important what you just said is that you had the best sex of your life without orgasming. Why is it so important that we stop doing that and stop putting so much pressure on getting to the finale for not just ourselves, but for our partners as well? When we fake an orgasm, we are kind of faking ourselves as well. So we're self-abandoning. We're saying, you know, my pleasure doesn't matter.

My needs, my desires, my boundaries are second to my partner's. And that's not a great place to have sex from. You know, we want to have equal opportunity in the bedroom. You know, we want everybody to have a really good time. So dropping the show really allows a woman to kind of step back and go, well, what is it that I actually like? What is it that turns me on? What is it that I don't like. You know, I was having a conversation with a coaching client the other day and I asked her, what do you like in the bedroom? You know, what really tickles your pickle? What makes your skin light up? And it was just like a blank face. She didn't know. And I felt so much compassion for that because I didn't know. And I write about it in the book where I did

this list of my things that I like and the things that I don't and the non-negotiables when it comes to sex and for a long time I looked at my blank page and I was like I have never asked myself what do I actually like what do I don't like and when I started to do the exercise of putting those things into each box the yes and the no and the non-negotiables I felt more empowered like I was taking my power back because the things that were you know quote unquote things you should do as a sexy girl in the bedroom you know I didn't like them you know how important do you think it is I mean, you speak a lot about this idea of almost trusting yourself in the bedroom and being able to let go.

How important do you think it is, though, to also in order to have great sex, one, the trust in yourself and the ability to lean into your own sensuality and experiences and pleasures, but also have a partner who you feel that you can do all those things with? Because I think often people feel like they need to perform because they don't fully feel trusting with the partner that they're doing it with. Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's so important that you feel safe with the person that you're going to show your most vulnerable parts to.

You know, sex is incredibly intimate and especially female sexuality. We can have moments where it's like oceanic bliss, but then we kind of get a bit ragey or it can be primal, it can be animalistic, it could be lusty, it could be hoary, it can be, you know, all of these things. You can cry. And when we don't feel safe enough to show our partner those parts of ourselves, we cock block our own pleasure, but we also stop showing them all of that beautiful, all of the elements of our sexuality and who we truly are. So safety without a doubt is so important. And I think a lot

of the work, you know, that's coming out now around consent and communication is helping to provide containers for safety. You know, a long time, you know, when we were growing up, you just didn't talk about sex, you know, you would do it and then you would be like, you know, you'd talk about it with your girlfriends and you'd laugh about it and stuff like that, but you would never have a conversation before you went in about consent or you know stuff like that you would just well you're never going to detail it because it wasn't the dinner time conversation we brought up to have going back for a second and I'm sorry I'm going back but I'm going back to sitting on this orgasm being the be all and end all I know my past and I know a lot of women if you're having

sex maybe it's a one-night stand maybe it's someone new maybe it's a relationship whatever it is if you're having sex and I'm going to say a heterosexual couple he says I don't think I'm gonna come I'm not gonna come we'll call it quit and we know women can do that too I've done it many times where I'm like look bro like it's not gonna happen for me tonight but there's this sense of oh you're not attracted to me yeah oh am I not good enough am I not trying hard enough you automatically yes there's a sense of and I know for women it's oh my god he's not attracted to me how embarrassing but I think it's really important that you just reiterated that it doesn't always have to be the end goal and a lot of people do have sex without coming just for that

pleasure in the interim because we always put it back on ourselves like oh my god we're such a failure he's never going to want to see me again our self-worth is so tied up to sex as well you know if somebody has and then again i write about this a lot in my book because like untangling the messages that you know our culture gave us was you are as worthy as a man says you are how sexy you are if you're fuckable you know if a man wants to have sex with you then you're doing okay you You know, you're worthy, you're worthy of love, you're worthy of attention and validation. So kind of intertwining sex with that validation and that kind of need for approval and that using that marker of orgasm as like, okay, he came, I'm good in bed, you know, I'm sexy

enough. It's a very ingrained message that so many women carry. You know, even now, like I had to do a 30 day challenge because again, I still feel guilt for just taking my own pleasure without it being kind of returned you know so if I was getting a yoni massage or I'm getting oral or something and my partner's like I will always jump in and say okay now I'll do it for you you know but it's very hard just to accept sexual pleasure and attention just for your own pleasure sake so one of my mentors gave me a 30-day challenge of only focusing on yourself like you can sell pleasure you know you can have sex

they don't orgasm it's always only going to be focused on your pleasure and it was so hard how did they feel about that i was gonna say yeah did they subscribe to that or were they like fucking how did i get pulled into this my husband has done some wild things like he was like oh that's the only thing i have to do is not come like i have put him through some very interesting kind of situation so how many people jump on board that that'd be like what do i get out of this 30 day deal but it's mind-blowing right like it's such a big kind of like even just the thought of it it's like oh what like that doesn't mean that he didn't sacrifice his pleasure he could go and masturbate and do what he wanted but the focus had to be on me receiving not this output

all the time giving giving giving giving but actually receiving and it's wild how much discomfort i felt with that and how you felt like you needed to return so return it yeah you're like oh, you've done your bit. Roll over, buddy. When you met your partner and somebody who has had so many sexual experiences in terms of, and when I say experiences, I mean like you have experienced the variety of what brings you pleasure. That could be really intimidating to somebody. What was his response? How did he come into this world? Was this something he already had his own experiences with? I mean, obviously he had to be pretty open-minded in terms of meeting you sexually so you would think I would be with this like white wearing tantric

god right that I met in Thailand yeah like a wizard but he is like a corporate banker from Bondi no I will see I almost thought you wouldn't be but I think what I mean is is maybe it would be intimidating to someone yeah being like how am I going to level up when you are so clear on what you want in your sexual experiences when you're so clear on what brings you pleasure I think as a man who maybe didn't have that same awakening, I would feel super intimidated. Yeah. That I wouldn't be able to pleasure you. I think at the beginning, we didn't have too many conversations around my job. So we met on Tinder and at the time I was still kind of writing my column, but I was also creating my business as well. So I had now been in the kind of the work of my better sex

project for like two and a half years and I was still really deep into it. So I was still kind of disappearing doing all these workshops and stuff like that but I was still very much in the thick of I knew I wanted to start dating again I knew I wanted to have a partnership but I was still in the thick of figuring out how to have better sex now with a partner so he essentially came along on the ride with me so I remember one time he pulled out this move called the whirlybird that he self-named which he self-named okay what does that look like what does that feel like show you yeah there's a lot of like helicopter movements there's a lot of like hip circles it's like imagine the wiggles doing like come on the whirlybird oh my god i mean like that's

not hitting the spot yeah so but this is the thing right he was very proud of this maneuver like you could tell it was his go-to kind of thing like this had worked on you know i don't know how many other girls or maybe it hadn't and they had been performing as well and And then we've been reinforcing bad behaviour. So thank you to the girl who didn't, you know. Well, I don't think, I've been whirly birded before. Have you met my husband? From Bondi.

Oh, my God. No, I've been whirly birded before. I think that that is exactly right. I think we are setting people up for failure. Any men out there, the whirly bird doesn't hit home. No, there's a jackhammer. It's not sexy. No, there's a jackhammer.

Sisters, do your sisters are like, the next girls who come in, do them a solid. The next guy that comes at you whirlybirding, stop him in his whirlybirding tracks and let him know that it's not a vibe. I like to leave men better than I found them. Like if someone's doing something wrong, I like to let them know. Well, is that what you're talking about when you – because you first described, you know, your husband when you met him.

I read that you first said that, you know, the first sexual encounters were okay, not bad, not great, nothing to write home about even though you wrote about them. Just told the world about him. I won't write home, but I'll write in my book. What do you think about the idea of having these first sexual encounters with someone? It's not mind-blowing. It's not brilliant because I think a lot of people,

we get questions all the time being like, it wasn't great. I don't think I'll go back there. But what do you have to say about that? Because you married him, so his whirlybirding went somewhere. It definitely did, yeah. I think for me it's like Christmas, right? So I love Christmas. I get like very excited with putting up the tree,

getting the decorations out like for a month leading up to it. I'm like, it's fucking Christmas. It's going to be the best day ever. the same with sex so leading up to I knew I really liked him we didn't bang on the first night I was like taking it slow actually he was taking it slow and then the night that came around that I thought okay this is going to be the night there was so much expectation there was so much pressure what if it wasn't good I really like this guy you know am I going to ruin it is it going to be like you know has he got lizard skin under there what is going to happen and so I built this picture in my

mind of how it should go. And it just, it didn't go that way. And I was kind of stuck in this control state of mind and out of flow and out of sync and trying really hard to make it happen. And then there was pressure and then it was just, you know, it was great. We connected, but it wasn't natural and organic and kind of this kind of spontaneous overflow of passion and pleasure that we're kind of shown in the movies. Everybody orgasms together and smokes a cigarette after it wasn't looking deep into each other's eyes and there's background music yeah exactly so I was really like holy shit you know I really like this guy and there was a part of me that was like well maybe we just we're not vibing maybe this is this is how it is you know stuff that

makes a good relationship maybe it doesn't make for a good sex relationship and I spoke to a friend afterwards and I was like oh god it was you know it was good it was great but it just didn't go how I wanted it to go and she was actually the one that talked some sense into me she's like because it takes time you know just you're really kind of getting in your head about it and I was like yeah it's like Christmas you know you think it's going to be really great and then it's you know it's an okay day but it's nothing special you fight with the family or you do it's clean up in the kitchen yeah but then you have these amazing days and you know you didn't have that month lead up to it did you tell him on the spot in terms of the whirlybird you know on a serious note did you

say this don't do that again this move's not working because I think that's what people struggle with right when something's not hitting home we struggle in maybe in the moment or even after we struggle with going to someone and saying i didn't like that so much because then you have this idea of letting them down or they thought they were doing so well that you don't want to be the one that knocks them off down a peg yeah did you tell him straight away that this whirly bird maneuver needs to end no i faked it i know he's still whirly birding isn't he yeah so now both kids were made from the whirly bird one's called whirly and the other one's called no so I didn't and you know what I kicked myself afterwards and I was like fuck and I think I

was like in the moment I was like what is this what's happening and I was just like oh like you know just make it stop so I just had it and then afterwards I was really like why didn't I just say something so what happened the next time we had sex guess what came out the whirlybird fucking whirlybird comes out and he's whirling and birding and then I was like hey I gotta be honest it's not really working for me and he's like oh and just he's he was like amazed and he's like oh it's worked for everyone it's worked for everyone you're the first person fucking jenny loved it last night and he was like oh really what what do you like and those words what do you like it's just music to my ears and i was like well here i'll show you and then what happened afterwards

was this like really beautiful lovemaking session because i could show him you know i showed him way to kiss me I moved my hips in a way that I could reach the spot that I like and I you know I just it was this kind of much more of a collaborative dance rather than just laying there copying something that wasn't doing anything for me and especially what he thought was his go-to move and what it was like how would you say for somebody who's had this experience because I think even for you to say that you've been through everything you've been through and then you still faked it with someone who you liked because you didn't want to disappoint them because the stakes were high yeah it's almost harder to be honest with the people that we really dig

because you're like I don't want to offend you once again we can slip back into that performance mode how would you say that someone should approach that conversation if they feel like they're not having the sex that they want but they find it uncomfortable to communicate the why with their partners so I think don't over think it don't kind of get stuck in your head and be like oh what am I supposed to say you know I'm gonna offend them just in the moment like if they're tonguing your ear and you don't like it or whatever they're doing just be like hey oh that tickles I like it better when you kiss my neck and just redirect them just easy breezy redirect the action if they go back there and go oh no it's that's not for me just down here and just kind of

guide it back down into the thing that women have got to understand is that our partners want to please us they want to know they want to know how our bodies work you know they're just as eager and trying to find ways to kind of you know they're essentially putting on their show as well they're trying to you know make love like a stud or whatever it is well they want you to go talk about it with everyone how great they were not really spread totally and it's interesting because if you put the shoe on the other foot if i had been doing a maneuver let's call it the spiky bird if i've been doing the spiky bird for six months in a relationship or something like that and then after six months yeah they've been faking it after six months they say do you know

what like i can't get off like that and i actually don't like it yeah i'd be angry they didn't tell me I would be mortified I was like you've let me do that I thought so if you put the shoe on the other foot yeah you want to know the sooner I think the sooner the better and also it cuts less when it's soon because I haven't been doing the performance of a lifetime totally you also feel less embarrassed I think that's the thing right like people are already vulnerable like they're already you know you're already naked with your partner you're doing something people already feel vulnerable so to be doing something and then be told that you're not doing it right especially after a period of time like if you've been faking it for a long enough period that your

partner thinks that you're doing things that they like it's embarrassing you feel embarrassed you feel like well how did i not like i've been tricked almost you tricked me and you did essentially it is it is untruthful when we fake we're essentially teaching our partner the things we don't like we're telling them to go the opposite direction when they really want to go in the right direction well then you feel like they've been lying to you too because you'd be like why have you lied to me for six months like why don't you tell me this i've been doing this performance thinking that I was rocking your world. And you're almost like robbing everyone because you're robbing your partner. I think as well, like it makes them quite confused because

then they're like, well, I've been doing this for X amount of time and now I don't know how to pleasure you because I don't know what you want. Whereas the earlier that you can kind of exactly what you said, redirect or have those conversations, the less of a big deal they become. Yeah. And people put a lot of pressure around sex. It's essentially just play, you know, it's about feeling good it's about pleasure so helping each other find those pathways is what it's all about you know and there's nothing more sexier than somebody saying I really want to learn your body you know show me what you like or I can't wait to find all the I was going to say ins and outs but that's probably not as sexy but you know I can't find literally literally I can't

wait to discover your body and you know how you experience pleasure those kind of other conversations we should be having. And the good old fashioned show and tell, you know, I haven't heard of anybody, you know, even in my coaching clients and things, the man doesn't sit there and go, oh, that, you know, I hate it when she tells me how to pleasure her. I hate giving my partner pleasure. Like they love it. They just want the information. They want to set their woman on fire. They want to be that, that king in the bedroom with a woman is just like, fuck, this is so good. and this works i mean this is not just for heterosexual relationships no every relationship you know no one wants to be having sex with someone and not having them feel the amount

of pleasure that they are and if someone is if you're in a relationship where your partner doesn't care about your pleasure get the fuck out of that get the fuck out of that relationship there's also something that's genuinely so thoroughly pleasing when you see that you have pleased your partner honestly it's like when you know they're really truly in their core enjoying that moment you feel good about it so you both parties want to reach that place and I think it comes back to the thing we always say and it's not groundbreaking it's communication just talk to each other yeah what do you think from everything that you've learned and from writing your book what do you think have been the key or the most important parts to having better sex I think there's two things I think one

of them would be learning to drop the show a hundred percent to to step back and say you know what am I doing this for am I having sex to play a role or am I having sex because I want to feel deep connection and pleasure and I want to celebrate my body and my partner so really kind of learning to be true to what I'm feeling and to ask for the things that I want and to kind of express my boundaries and my desires and also my fears you know like I like anybody worries that I'm a little bit wobbly here or, you know, that I'm different now after giving birth to children and things like that. So really kind of saying, these are my vulnerabilities, please handle them with care so that I can feel safe with you to go to the places that I want to go during sex so that

I'm not clinging on to going, oh God, I'm worried about this or what does he think or what does she think and those kinds of things. The second one is really paying attention to resensitizing the body. So in our, again, and I touched on this before, is this, we live in such a fast paced world that we're becoming very unfeeling. You know, we're becoming essentially like heads on sticks where we're thinking and thinking and thinking, and we're so mental. And then we get into the bed and we think our body is just going to show up and just deliver us these amazing bliss bombs when we haven't paid any attention to our feeling for days or for weeks, you know, we've been cut off. So really learning how to tap into just remembering that we have a body and the

sensations and paying attention to sort of what our body is trying to tell us you know I think that's really really important and often really kind of shifts the mark for women who feel numb or feel checked out or disassociated from themselves or their pleasure you know when I set like a self-pleasure practice and the women touch their bodies and they say I don't feel anything I completely understand it because for a long time I didn't feel anything either I was so busy thinking thinking thinking that if somebody said to me what do you feel right now I'd be like, I don't know. I don't know what I feel right now. But now when I kind of integrate sort of, and it's not big, but you don't have to go out in the bush and dance naked under the sun to

become a sex goddess. You just need to do little tiny bite-sized things each day and little swap a few priorities around and your body, like bodies have a hard time actually turning on, you know, your body will come back into full feeling. I've not met a woman who doesn't have a really full and vibrant sexuality inside her or doesn't have a body capacity of really truly incredible pleasure. You know, it's there. It's just learning how to tap into it and giving yourself space to. In saying this, and I think speaking for people who are in long-term relationships where desire can dwindle over time. And I think we've all kind of been told that, well, over time desire drops and you're not going to have sex as much. And that's just something

that happens in long-term relationships for people who are not happy with that being said to you as though that that's like the, just the namesake that that house is how it has to be. How do you suggest people reignite that desire in their long-term relationships? How do they get back to being in a place where they feel like they're connected with their partner sexually, but also connected with their body? Yeah. And I love this question. It's like, it really, it informs so much of my work and my passion at the moment because being a mum of two it would be okay if I was like oh gosh you just need to have great sex all the time and I didn't have kids and I didn't have a business and I didn't have you know in-laws and things to do but when you are in like

this kind of full living and you're in a long-term relationship and all those things that you had time for when you started dating, the flirting, the long dates, the kind of the sexting, all of those things start to dwindle away. You kind of wonder why you're not connecting. And a lot of women think, oh, well, we've lost our passion or we've lost our connection. But really, that's not how desire works. So knowing that there's two types of desire is really important. There's spontaneous desire. So this is the kind of the desire that pops up, say you're walking down the street and suddenly you feel horny, right? I don't know if that ever happens to you.

It doesn't really happen to me unless I'm ovulating and the bin man goes by. Bro, the ovulation, that's a thing. Oh, isn't it? I'm like, the bin man? I'm like, hmm. The bin man. I know, it's crazy. There's nothing less sexy to me than someone hauling garbage.

Right? For me, I don't know what it is. You're like, I'll do it. It's dirty. You're like, how deadly. Like the manly with the bin. Anyway. Do you know what?

I hope your bin man's not listening to this. Well, I hope you are. Bin man, I'm due on the 3rd of June if you want to come around. I relate to this because I think as a mum as well with two little kids running businesses, like it's so easy to be tired and be checked out. And I think I feel tired and checked out a lot of the time. So responsive desire, this is like our saving grace and what a lot of women and some men have as their kind of like system of desire. And that means that something needs to happen for desire to kick in. Your body needs to respond. There also means that there needs to

be space so that your body can respond. You know, like if you're stressed out all the time and you're tired, there ain't no space for pleasure because you're just surviving, right? Your body's not thinking, how can I feel good? Your body's thinking, how can I just get through the fucking day? You know, but responsive desire gives us a really good idea of going, well, what are the things that I need that sparks my desire? You know, if I know that I'm not just going to wait around till I suddenly feel horny or want to have sex with my partner, what are the things that I can do to kind of activate that desire inside of me. It might be, I'm going to go take a bath and I'm going to spend some time putting some nice massage oil on myself. You know, they can deal

with the kids, put the kids to bed. I'll light some candles, put on some sensual music, lay in bed with a glass of wine or, you know, get out the good bubbles or something. Laura's like, I'm going to be asleep. Yeah. If I'm in bed with a glass of wine and the kids are asleep, I'm out cold, I'm not touching myself. I was like, it does sound pretty good. She's like, I want to have sex with you, Tara, because you sound like... I'll be asleep though, Tara. That's the horniest I've seen Laura in a long time is listening to you talk. That was dirty talk to her.

You're like, the kids are gone, you're in bed with her wine alone. Fucking hell, wouldn't that be nice? She's sliding off the seat. No, but I understand this and I know exactly what you mean. It's like often we fill our lives so full to the brim and you're so tired and you're so stressed and you're still doing work after you've got the kids in bed that it's like how can you just expect to then be horny? It's like you get into bed at 11 o'clock at night and be like, cool, time to fuck.

Like there's nothing about that that allows for the spontaneity of desire. Like, yeah, you can do the deed, fine. But like you then almost have to be doing it to be like, okay, now I'm aroused. But you almost have to get yourself there in the first place. Yeah, you've got to force yourself to get to there and then it kicks in. Yeah, and I think also sometimes it's just making a little bit of space. You know, whether it's on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday morning, if the kids can go out to the park for an hour and you can just have an hour

to yourself, to have a shower, to enjoy that cup of coffee and then, I don't know, chuck a movie on for the kids and just have some time together to connect. Priorities. Priorities or just finding ways to bring your bodies together. You know, I find for me, it's really helpful to just lie nude with my partner in bed and just talk about our day and kind of almost mentally vent all the things that I've kind of been carrying. And then once that's kind of out, I'm like, oh, I feel kind of more soft. You know, I feel seen because he's heard about my day. We've checked in with each other. We're connecting, we're naked, we're sort of touching each other. And from then it's just kind of like slow kissing, no promises. You know, I don't know if I'm going to feel like,

you know, don't even think reverse cowgirls going, you know, but it's like just starting it and just seeing if it goes in that direction, it goes in that direction, but just giving opportunity for desire to ignite, you know, and we can do that through our whole days when we, when we want to have better sex or have more frequent sex. I like to say like, bring more sex into your life. That doesn't mean more like humping and stuff like that but how can you make your life more pleasurable how can you take moments of delight in cups of tea or moments with your body or you know in the shower of just feeling your body for the first time of the day and letting it all run down the shower or kissing your partner when you come home and really looking in their eyes and be like fuck

we're in this together we are in the thick of it right now but I'm in it for you you're in it with me we love each other it's gonna get easier but I just want to cuddle and I just want to you know make out for a little while and that's okay. We had Esther Perel on who's a sex relationship specialist. We had her on not long ago. One thing she said really stayed with me and I truly believe it is that foreplay starts when the last sex ends. A hundred percent. And by that we mean it's not like you go back to back to back, although hats off to you if you're doing that, but it's the little things throughout the 24 hours. If you're only seeing each other at nighttime and you're having sex at nighttime, it's from the moment it finishes to, it could be the little neck rub in

the morning and the kiss then the text throughout the day that you're thinking of them then making you the dinner and a brush past the butt in the kitchen on the way it's all the little things over the 24 hours that subconsciously build this up and Laura we've talked about this before you get exhausted sometimes and you can't be bothered to do it and you don't think about it and you're like I've got a lot on my mind why are you kissing my neck whereas they probably don't want the sex in that minute they're probably just trying to slowly build the desire but those little things if you're in a relationship and you're like we get to the end of the day and we don't want to have sex maybe you're not doing those little things throughout the 24 hours especially

in long and I really mean this in like long-term relationships where you see your partner and when you're doing the same thing every day and you've got kids in the mix and it's like there becomes this almost like monotony I don't remember who said it but something that I really like try to remember is that often our partners will have these lean-in moments where they will lean maybe they'll ask a question or they'll lean into trying to make contact with you and it could be anything from like, babe, do you want a cup of tea or holding your hand or giving you a kiss in the morning, whatever those small moments are. And you either have an opportunity to lean back into that moment or to be like, oh babe, sorry. I, you know, like, which we all do it. We're busy. We, you know,

your partner tries to give you a hug and you're like, oh babe, I'm washing, you know? And it's those constant moments of rejection that also erode desire because somebody is reaching out to you for a moment, not for it to be sex, but for a moment of touch, for a moment of validation that you recognize that they're there and then it's the leaning away that can erode desire but also erode relationships yeah and it is really hard i mean you know especially when you're a mother and you you feel like you you're filling so many different roles at all the same time that you don't want that to be an extra role or an extra duty you know oh well now i have to have sex with my husband because keep him happy yeah keep him happy so what i like to think about it

is something that I encourage like the clients that I work with and myself is I do it for me, you know, I do it because I want to come out of that stressy mode. I want to feel like a desirable, sexy woman and kind of film up my cup with pleasure. And the funny thing is, is that sex when you have it in a particular way can be really energizing. You know, I think I do some of my best writing after I've had really good sex, you know, like I feel like fucking Shakespeare sometimes, like I've had like this, I've ridden this sort of like wave of kind of sexual delight. And then I'm like, got to go, babe. I'm like, right, right, right, right, right. You know, like bang out a couple of blog posts or something, because when we look at sex as

something that we just have to do, that we give away from us, of course, it doesn't really kind of lead to wanting to do it often. But when we can see it as a way of, of what does it give us? It gives us that connection. It reminds us of, you know, that we're a couple that I've got, you know, beautiful feminine body that can, whatever it is, you know, it just gives you so much magic in return. I mean, speaking about desire, this last hour and a half of sex talk, I need to get home to my boyfriend, Ben. He is waiting for me at home to get some desire.

No, I've got it. It's here. I'm ready to go. He doesn't even know what's going to hit him. I mean, I'm going to hit him with a run-up when I get home. Tara, thank you so much for coming on today. Where can people find out more? So you can find me on Instagram.

It's Tara O Sex Coach with two Xs because Instagram loves to like ban all my stuff. So it's taraosexcoach or www.tarao.com.au. Yeah, you can get all the info there and you can get my book where books are sold. The Better Sex Project. The Better Sex Project, which I mean everyone could do with a read of The Better Sex Project because we can all have better sex. We can all have better sex.

Thanks so much, Tara. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. All right, guys, well, you know we never finish our episodes without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our low light of each and every week. but the problem is is that this week hasn't actually happened yet yeah we are in the past because we are in the future in the past no we're in the future no we're in the past now from this

episode yeah if this episode is playing to you guys we're in the past who am i where am i i'm in a box of my own feelings we pre-recorded this one by a week or two so we could go away on our little vacay so we didn't want to fake a suck in a suite because this time of our life hasn't happened okay i'm gonna tell you that your suite is the fact that you went to bali and my suite is the fact that I'm going to Fiji. Yeah, but we don't know that. No, something terrible could happen. Laura, don't put that out. What is wrong with you? Well, then that would be our suck. So we'll be back with our suck and our sweet when we're back from our little vacay. And hopefully nothing does happen, Laura. Hopefully it's just wonderful. And we're like, we don't have a suck.

That is very true. But also, I mean, like we said, guys, the episodes are not going to be changed. We still have a Thursday episode coming out. It's actually brilliant. It is with Ben. And we interviewed an Ask Uncut with him before Brit and Ben headed off. He's answering more questions about himself because we had so many questions about him and his life. But he's also answering some listener questions that you guys sent in as well to answer all your deep, your dark and burning questions. It's a very cute little episode.

I'm excited to hear it myself. And I was there. Oh, so that's this Thursday. Please don't forget to write in all your Ask Uncuts, your confessionals, your accidentally unfiltered, anything you want. Please, you'll ask Uncut Aftermaths as well. If we've ever answered a question that you've written in or one of your friends has written in, remind us what the question was.

Give us the update because we want to put one of those episodes out soon. Yeah, and also if you would like to leave us a review, if you loved Tara's episode, I loved this chat and I felt like I learnt so much about sexual pleasure and about being empowered in your own sexuality. You can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Share it with a friend if you feel like it's something that they may benefit from and also, you know, the drill.

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