Ologies with Alie Ward - Sexology (SEX) with Shan Boody aka Shannon Boodram

Episode Date: February 13, 2018

Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Also sex. Buckle up, Ologites, because clinical sexologist and author Shannon Boodram (known for her sex educational YouTube channel ShanBoody) chats with Alie about sexual identity, how a friggin' vagina works, how to get over slumps, love languages, monogamy vs. open relationships, dating in the wake of #metoo, some fun with prostate orgasms, foot fetishes and why relationships can be like pizza. Then at the very very end Alie talks about the weirdest sex dream she's ever had SORRY.Shanboody on Twitter and InstagramShan's YouTube channelMore episode sources and linksSupport Ologies on Patreon for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramEditing by Steven Ray MorrisMusic by Nick Thorburn

Hey. Hello. Hi. It's your old friend, old dad, Allie Ward. You guys, sexology, it's coming. Hey, mom, dad, I know you listen sometimes. I'm here to tell you don't. Bye. Bye-bye now. Bye. Okay. Oh my god, okay. Fuckin' you guys. Woo! Naked people. Psychology. Let's do this. Okay, so sexology, it's a topic we can all relate to, given that we were all created by horniness. So I'm keeping this intro short as fuck because you guys, you don't want my intro. You know the good stuff. Now, let's get creepy. Let's read some of your reviews. When you rate and review on iTunes, it keeps allergies up in the charts. It really does. It helps so much. We hit 18 in science this week. Pretty cool. And your reviews really count. So I read all of them, every single

one of them. And then each week, I like to share one with you. This week, the Doodle Fox said that this is the catamari effects. I love listening to this podcast while I draw because my eyes and hands can work. That sweet, sweet pencil and my ears and brain are absorbing information like a catamari effects rolling right into my head. Definitely the best science podcast I've ever listened to. This left me with the question of what the fuck is catamari? And I had to Google it and then I watched some YouTube videos and I realized that catamari is a thing like a ball that picks up stuff as it rolls based on a video game. So thank you, the Doodle Fox A for the review and B for letting me into the splendor of catamari because now that's going to be a thing that I'm

going to think about. Okay, back to boning. So there are a lot of places to get info on sexology. I didn't want an episode that was essentially like a long audio ad for different vibrators. And if I read one more sex tip that tells me to run a feather over someone, like no, I don't want to do that. That tip is helpful maybe once for one instance when like you and your partner are bored and you find half a weed cookie in the freezer or something and you're like, oh, I have a feather. I saw some magazine. So while this episode addresses like straight up anatomy, some of which I will be honest, shocked me, things I did not know, plus myths and butt stuff. We also talk about the underlying psychology that can really make sex healthy,

like gender identity and getting over slumps and love languages and consent and open relationships versus monogamy and pizza. So this sexologist specializes, I think, in the communication aspect of the field, which is if you ask me, the most important part of sex is usually connection and communication. So she's an accomplished journalist. She's an author of the book Laid. She has this huge YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. She talks about sex and she is like a stunning presence. I emailed her just on a lark to see if she might consider being on. And I was shocked to get a quick reply being like, sure. A few days later, at 10 a.m. on a weekday, I was headed up to her bright sunny apartment where she answered the door in sweat

pants and a sports bra. No makeup. She has this like curly mermaid hair and a top knot. I liked her immediately. She's honest. She's hilarious. She's serious. She's so cool. She is a sexologist. Shan Booty, aka Shannon Boudram. And Shannon Boudram. Yes. But you go by Shan Booty. You can go. Yeah, you can do Shan Booty or Shan Boudram. Okay. They're all, I mean, people hate that. I'm like, it's Shannon, Shannon, Shan Boudram. Like, which one do you want, bitch? We don't care. I'm like, I don't know. So, Carla, whatever you like. Okay, so you are a certified sexologist. Yes. What is the certification process like? I did it, I guess, everyone has a unique way I suppose to do it by state by state.

But I started out in Canada. Shan's from Toronto originally and she studied journalism and later sex education. She eventually spent over 300 hours getting certified as a clinical sexologist at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, which also offers a program in erotology. Got to get up in that. She also wrote a book called Laid, Young People's Experiences with Sex in an Easy Access Culture, which came out in 2009. So she knows what's up, or what's down. I don't know. So by the time that that had come out, I had been into the sex ed space for like 10 years. When it came to sex ed and like grammar school, what was your reaction to it? I remember there was like a period of like no pun intended, but fifth grade,

where they're like, we're going to take the girls over here, the boys over here, we're going to talk to you about your crotches. Like, do you remember that experience when you're, yeah, I think mine was fourth grade. Yours was how old? I think it was fourth or fifth grade. But dude, I was too nervous about it and I faked a stomach ache and I sat in the nurse's office. So I didn't know what a boner was. Did we swear? Oh, yes. Okay, you beat a bitch then. Okay, fine. You're like, I'm not doing it, mom. I don't want to hear it. I was too scared. And I didn't know what a boner was to like eighth grade. I was like, wait, they change. So wait, yours was in fourth grade? Yes. We had this woman come in who I just remember being like a shadowy figure with a very long pleated skirt. And she

was not our teacher. So we had some older weird person come into our class and just, I remember vividly her saying like, sex happens when a man and a woman who love each other very much embrace for a long period of time and then withdraw from such an embrace. And I was like, it left more questions than it answered. And I don't think at the time I don't know if I had the facts. But I was like, this definitely is not it, bitch. Like that's not, I'm not a hundred percent starting the facts, but I know for a fact you don't know what you're talking about. And I don't remember a word that she said after that. Because I think I just tuned her out as like, oh, this woman is oblivious. I think that happens a lot when it comes to that relationship between authority

and the youth. The second that you lie and even parents, if you tell your kids, storks, or you make up any other lie, you become an incredible source for them. So I would suggest for anybody, never lie, never, no matter what the question is, find a way to answer it honestly. And if you want to do just very biologically, so it doesn't come across maybe salatiously or fun, heaven forbid, but answer it honestly. With a lot of your outreach, do you work with adults or do you do sex education for 20 somethings for youth? Like what's what's your favorite space to work in? I tend to attract 18 to 24, 18 to 35. When I wrote my first book in 2009, which is friggin' a long time ago now to think about it, my target audience was 15-year-olds, 14-year-olds.

Because for me, that was the time that I started to look for any literature, any movies, any porn that I possibly could to describe why I had this urge, what it was about, and what I was supposed to do with it. How did you recover from your fourth grade pleaded skirt nightmare? Did you go look things up online or did you go get an encyclopedia? I think I looked up the word coitus in the dictionary. And what did you find? I think I was like intercourse and I was like, fuck, what's intercourse? I gotta go look that up. But how did you correct it and at what point did you decide, oh, I think that this is going to be a career path? Now I kind of got into this. I honestly believe how some children have a natural affinity for the piano or just really good at art. I was

always very physical. I was always very physically touchy. I was very affectionate and that was suppressed a lot. I remember my first sexual experience when I was five years old. It was with myself and my friend in our pillows. We didn't touch each other. But I remember being really positive and me enjoying it and me instructing her to do something with her pillow. And then she told on me, I got in so much trouble and I was like, bitch. But then after that, my Barbies were banned from being naked because they were naked all the time. But I just felt like there's nowhere for me to go. So I had to find secret ways, which ended up being fiction novels and pornography, which I watched a lot of. And that's where I answered questions, which never

leads well. So I had a really shitty teen sex life. So like a lot of 19 year olds, she was like, okay, so like the sex happened, but was that supposed to be good? So she'd only had one good partner by the time she went away to college in Baltimore. And it was there that she realized that there was a lot she didn't know. And now I was surrounded by women constantly because we were on the same track team. And I started to hear stories of experiences like mine, people who had never orgasm, people who felt emotionally unfulfilled, people who had tried anal and thought it was great, people who had same sex experiences. And I was introduced this entire world where I was like, okay, hang on, whatever I've learned in the books and in porn that I've

been trying to apply hasn't been working. There's clearly more out there. And that's when I went to the library and got myself a card and I got every sex book possible. And over that summer, I just like drowned myself with information when I was 19 years old. And number one, like porn as a documentary, not a thing. Like if you're learning from porn, chances are you're maybe getting a little bit of a skewed version of it. If you're learning from free accessible under the table porn, because when you're in your teens, you're not getting your pick up the litter, you're not getting a subscription service anywhere. You're just like, how do I have 10 minutes when my parents come back from grocery shopping? Go. And I think that's the problem. There's a lot of great porn

out there. I just think that as a young person, especially a young person who's discouraged from finding sexual information, you're not going to know where to look. How much do you think shame plays a role in sexual dysfunction? Because I think in a lot of these stories, there's a layer of shame over sexuality. And that seems to be a big barrier to intimacy and pleasure. Do you think that's a modern day thing? Do you think it's an American thing? Was it a Canadian thing? Where is that coming from? It's absolutely a cultural thing. And one of the cool things that we did when we were studying in school is we studied the attitudes of sex in different cultures. And it found that the

more accepting the culture was of sex, the closer their pornography was to actual reality. So in Thailand, for example, where they celebrate coming into your sexual awakening and there's a lot of conversation around and you might see people on the street not completely clothed and it's not sexualized to see a boob, for example, their pornography looks really similar to how people experience sex. But because in America, we're so suppressed, we're so shunned, we're told constantly that it's a bad urge that we should not dive into it. We don't want our porn to look like us. We want to look cartoonish. So massive breasts, huge penises over the top scenes. Because if we saw ourselves in that role, we would experience shame. So the only way to experience pleasure when

thinking about sex as a fantasy is to have it as far removed as from reality as possible. So I think it is cultural in many ways. And of course, household to household, there's probably a different experience per person. Wow, that's so fascinating. I never thought about the cartoonish aspects of it. Because it really is in big makeup. Right, yeah. Massive lashes over the top, lipstick, it's just all of it. I don't know where the bad tribal tattoos and New Jersey necklaces come from. Not into it. PS, she's wearing one right now. Don't let her shame you. She got it on. Just an homage. It's very normal to adopt things that you think look cool.

I think everybody agrees that everyone's main question is, am I normal? And that comes from a society where there's little discussion, there's little discourse, and representation is very narrow. So we don't see a broad spectrum of what sexuality is. And so if you don't fit inside that box that you see at 8pm on ABC, you're like, oh, I'm not normal. Are there any books she really likes? I read Mama Gina's School for Womanly Arts. But that was really just about like, as a person, enjoy your body. Enjoy the sensations that you have. If you're bored, stroke your arm, if you're in the DMV lineup, massage the back of your own head. Like delight in the pleasure of your body. Don't run away from it. And of course,

if you're in a private space, go to town. And so I think that that book really just allowed me to look at my body as a tool for pleasure and something that I got to play with and that it wasn't like those napkins that you can only use on Christmas. It's mine for whatever I want. And so I think that was a book for me that was nice and transformative, especially at that age. But especially in the 18 to 30 range, do you get a lot of questions about monogamy at that age or about experimentation or gender? What do you feel like the conversation is heavy with? A lot of pleasure or pleasure-based conversation of why don't I experience it or how can I? I get that a lot too of like, how can I orgasm with my partner during sex and like,

maybe you can't and that's okay. So I always think that's an awesome one to get to interest or somebody whenever someone comes to me and says, you know, as a woman, I don't orgasm during penetration. How do I fix that? And I said, okay, ask your partner to duct tape his penis the side of his leg and then you try to stimulate him somewhere else, get him to orgasm. And if he doesn't put the pressure on him, no, we wouldn't do that because we acknowledge the fact that the penis is enough for many people and they don't have to force a prostate orgasm or like a perineum orgasm if they can't achieve that. And so for women, you have the clitoris, which is the anatomical twin to the penis. So if you can orgasm that way, that should be enough for you and you don't have

to try the other. You can find sensations and joy and pleasure like how we would in scratching our back, but it doesn't have to lead to the big O. Now, what is an orgasm? That's a good question. I asked Cosmo Magazine and someone who identified herself as Molly, wink, wink, that's her festival nickname, laid it down saying the best explanation I can think of is the feeling of pleasure builds up like filling a glass of water until it overflows. It could really be a glass of anything like kombucha or yahoo, but you get the point. Now, I think that's pretty poetic malls. Now let's ask a scientist like Dr. Adam Saffron, who writes about it for medical journals, like in this article, for example, quote, what is orgasm? A model of sexual trance and climax via rhythmic entrainment.

That is sexy words. Essentially, they say that given that reproduction is the bottom line of evolutionary fitness, it's unsurprising that orgasm would be a source of intense pleasure, says his doctor. They say that the neuropsychopharmacology of sexual trance most closely mimics the effects of cocaine. Cocaine with orgasm itself mimicking the addition of heroin, which I'm going to have to say, I feel like cocaine and heroin are mimicking sex maybe? Either way, maybe that's why you're so thirsty. I thought this was interesting. There was this whole passage in this article about the adaptive significance of rhythmic ability in terms of wanting to have good rhythmic motion with someone and that telling us that if someone has rhythm,

they'd be a good parent, like the whole paragraph about the frequency of ongoing oscillations of boning. So I'll translate it. If you fuck good, you're probably not a dummy. Also, just a side note in terms of rhythmic entrainment. So Eclitoris isn't just that one spot at the top of a lady's labes. It's actually almost as big as a dude's dick and it runs underground, so you can't see all of it. So you can Google this. I think that there's a common misconception that it's like one of Jackie O's pillbox hats, but it's really more like the whole Chanel suit, motherfuckers. And when I call you that, I'm saying that in a non-insulting literal sense, because many of you listeners may enjoy quotas with women who have born your children,

in which case, treat her Chanel suit with respect. While we're having this one-on-one, if you're a dude, prostate stimulation or prostate milking, as it's called, which is very juicy, or a peace spot orgasm, as it's also called, is a thing. And apparently, according to Reddit, you should try it. There's no shame in ordering a vibrating butt plug or just, I don't know, playing around down there or up there. And to quote a high school friend, who made this his motto even though he was a virgin? If you love it, lube it. Same goes for you ladies. In fact, one way scientists can even measure orgasms is that spontaneous 8-13 hertz rectal contractions are a reliable signal of orgasm taking place in humans, and presumably

some non-human animals, the paper states. Okay, so that was just a passage for you guys about all kinds of nitty gritty. I hope you enjoyed it. Back to your relationship dynamics, which are really the first ingredient when it comes to finally getting new to the person. Am I right? That question I get asked a lot, and I think a lot of relationship-based defining the relationship, as you said, monogamy, how do I navigate this world where I'm sexually intimate with somebody whom I maybe don't see in that light, doesn't see me in that light? How do I reconcile those two things together, which is another favorite question of mine? Yeah, how do you do that? I mean, my long answer for this, I'm trying to shorten it up, but I think what was

really fascinating that happened in nutrition 10 years ago, because when we grew up, I'm putting this in the same category right now. You might be way younger, but bear with me. Yeah, no. Okay. When we grew up, remember the food group systems? Oh, yeah. It was like cheese and milk, and like eggos are part of a balanced breakfast. Yeah, it was like wheat was the base layer. Yes. You put gluten, a little hamburger meat, some cheese, and a little vegetable. Yeah, I get some milk for a little, you know, nice balanced meal. And then now we were like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, just because I want pizza, it doesn't mean that me and pizza are destined to be together. Just because I have a drive to eat a lot of cheese, doesn't mean that it's a part of a healthy balanced diet.

I think romantically, we have a lot of outdated, and that's the problem. Our society advanced really quickly. And so romantically, we have a lot of outdated drives and urges or instincts that no longer work in our modern society. And so even the idea went to this conference at Sundance last week, and there was this woman talking about sex is so sacred. Why do you think that after a woman orgasms, she releases oxytocin because she's meant to bond with that man. It's like, no, like you don't release pleasure hormones when biting pizza because you're meant to eat it daily. There is a system or reason that that was in place. It doesn't apply anymore. These things don't happen because you're, you know, if you have sex with this guy that you know is not the best

or a woman that you know, that was just a fling for you. And then the next day you feel a draw towards them. It's not because you're destined to be together. So you still have to imply or impose your logical mind in there the same way you still have to be judicious about your diet. You can't just go with what feels good. And I think the go with what feels good attitude we have towards love and sex has to change within the traditional one did. So what do you think the steps out of that? Do you think it's evaluating partners in terms of like their long term potential, their short term potential? Like how do you apply that kind of objectivity to your life? I think it's you understand the same thing nutritionally. You kind of understand the system,

what's good for you. And everybody has something different whenever someone comes to me actually and says, you know, I'm 26 years old. I've never had a good relationship. I've never had a good sexual relationship. I have a hard time orgasming by myself. And I just don't know where to start. And I'm like, here's the good and bad news. The good news is you're not abnormal. The bad news is you have to get to know yourself, get all the information possible, see what feels right for you, find out your attachment style, your love language, your sex language, your monogamy style, your relationship attachment style. And then you start to piece together, okay, well, who would fit well inside of that? And it can take a while in the same way that anything finding out your

skincare system takes a while. Yeah, I still haven't really done that. Right. So what is the sexology professional scene like? What are conventions like? Are a lot of sexologist friends sharing research or are some people like sex surrogacy, for example, is way off limits? And there's a divide there. What does that seem like? I would hope not. I think sex surrogacy should be even the Batman to someone's Robin. I'm not even sure. Maybe it's the Robin to someone's Batman. Sexologists work in criminology. They work in the school system. They work for pharmaceuticals. They work for match.com. And they help with the algorithms there. They write books. They write curriculum. They write private curriculum. Of course, they have private practices. Sometimes

they're surrogates. And so there's a lot of different areas. I am very definitively clear where I sit. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a certified therapist. I do not diagnose. I do not prescribe. I don't want to be that. I never envisioned myself as being a brick and mortar pencil pushing sexologist. I always envision I'd be doing it in this way through mass media, through exposure, and hopefully encouraging people to enter into this space to say, well, maybe if I increase my knowledge on my intimate life, my entire life could improve. So I liken myself to being the Walmart greeter of sex ed. So I'm right in the beginning. I'm not in the butt plug aisle. I'm not in BDSM. I'm not at LGBTQTIA, where to go and how to define

yourself. I'm right at the front. And I will tell you what aisle I think would be great. I'll direct you and I'll make the experience awesome. So I think taking that approach, I've had a really good experience with people because I'm not trying to be more than I am. And I'm always hungry for new information. And so I think we all work conclusively together. I refer people constantly to someone else. If I have somebody who comes to me because I have a counseling service on Sundays who approaches me with an issue that I know I'm not a specialist at, and I refer them to somebody else who I think is great in the fields. I have a dumb question. LGBTQIA? Yeah, it's intersex and asexuality. Oh, okay. But it's, you know, it's just LGBTQT plus.

You can just say LGBT plus. Okay. I think people get like, you know, because like, I saw this article, like they're adding K to the thing. It's just too much. Just say plus. It's all, it's fine. What's the, is the K actually? Well, no, I don't think it's K stands for kink. Oh, not a sexual orientation. And that's specific way. I mean, in some ways, because a fetish is linked with your sexual identity in the same way that maybe boobs or legs would be. It's a part of your arousal cycle. So what is an arousal cycle? Well, it's not just a setting on your laundry machine. Walker, walk up. Apparently people like that. So the sexual response cycle has four phases. Excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution. Both men and women experience the

phases, although the timing usually is different. So it is unlikely that both partners are gonna at the same time. So don't go feeling bad about that. Your buddies, Shannon Alley, tell you it's okay. It's normal. Do people, do friends come to you for advice? A lot? Like too much? The right amount? How often do you get texts and emails and snapchats being like, Hey, it's me. What do I do? And do you love that or hate it? I have particular friends that do and some that don't. Honestly, it probably be 50 50 splits. It's not that frequently that I've bombarded. And I definitely had to draw a line socially, because I was getting bombarded from that regard. And the reason I opened up the Sunday counseling services is because someone would

pour their heart out to me in an email that was just pages long. And I would just not respond because there was too many, because I've charged a dollar a minute, which is a nominal fee that you would never find any licensed professionals charging that. The goal of that is to say, well, look, and it's a minimum of an hour. If you're going to invest this amount of time in it, then it must mean something to you. And then we can go from there to see if you need your best fit with a psychologist or your best fit with a specialist. Or for you, this is a good opportunity for you to open the floodgates and start your own education process. But I definitely went through a massive period of guilt of just getting so many messages from every platform possible that were

all so intimate. And I think things that people had never said allowed. And to say that to someone and get no response back, I think probably would have been pretty shitty. Right. Yeah, that's a little crushing. Everything for me, which is why I'm in a bra right now, in a way has to have a sense of like casualness to it. I think that's kind of refreshing for sexuality because there is so much pressure and weirdness on it already that I don't want to make it this formal clinical thing. I think there's a lot of spaces for that to happen. I think the space that I want to take up is where it's informal. Right. And for the record, I am in a bra also. Thank you. I'm like, are you not going to join in? You got the necklace on.

I'm just wearing a shirt over it. I took a hike in a sports bra yesterday and I felt very liberated. Oh, nice. I normally don't do that. Why not? My skin is like... Do you burn easy? No, it just it looks like a pickled fish and it's not, it doesn't see, my abdomen doesn't see sunlight very often. So when it does, it's alarming for people. And so, but I was hot and I took it off and I was like, look at me. You're living. I know, I'm living. Have you noticed a change in your personal life? I mean, definitely your sex life. Since you became certified in this, do you approach relationships differently? Are you like, if I'm not into you in the first six weeks, I'm out of here. Or do you give people more time? Like, how has this changed the way you

approach? Oh, girl, I am a robot. Really? Yes. I am a robot. I approach things very systematically. And I think I just chose an awesome part of this time around. And then I went on a hunt and I just, I got really robot-y. Like I wrote down almost like I was HR, like a job description that I was looking for, like requirements, skills of interest, minimum amount of experience you had to have had. And I, you know, I think I was able to select somebody who allows me to be that because we overanalyze all the time. If I'm experiencing new feelings, I'm excited. I'm like, oh, anger, like let's talk about this and work it through. And so I think it definitely does impact my intimate life, but I chose somebody who I think accepts the fact that I love analyzing this side

of my life. And I'm in an open relationship, because I want to continue to experience and see and bring that back. Like I look at myself as a source of research. And so I don't want to close myself off in a way that wouldn't feel honoring to me. But how is the open relationship breaking out? How, how, what do you, I was going to ask about this anyway, because I feel like I've talked to a lot of friends recently who are like, I love my partner, but I don't know if this is the only person I want to sleep with for the rest of my life. But well, that what if I fall in love with someone when I'm in an open thing? And then how, how do you recommend people approach that? You have to do it the for me approach, not because of you. So I think a lot of times people think

of open relationships of, oh, because my partner is not enough, because my partner comes too quickly, or because my partner doesn't come at all, who cares? They have a because my partner, I want it to be open. That's never the right approach. It's probably the wrong person to have a committed relationship with. You do it because for you, it feels really validating to be able to flirt with others without the guilt. For you, you are the best sexual partner when you're able to take information from new people. You know, for me in the past, I gotten a lot of troubles the wrong word, but I was in a monogamous relationship with that person. She did constantly one. But number two, I was always being accused of not doing things right for things that felt

innocent to me, like flirting or communicating my feelings to somebody else or it's what you want to be open to. Shan says it's a question of who you are when you're single. What's your general deal when you're single? And how do you want to behave in a relationship as someone who technically still has those options? If your answer is, I want to bed down as many people as possible, for one person, the other person's is, I just want to go to Starbucks and be able to flirt with the barista. You guys may not be compatible for open in that regard. And I think me and my partner were both like, look like even when we were not in a relationship, we were not having sex with others. But maybe we do slide in someone's DMs, you know, maybe we do go out, you know,

drinking and like dance with somebody else. What happens if you're in an open relationship and it starts to go off the rails? I mean, you've got to, it's anything in the monogamy or anything else. I think nothing should feel like it's set in stone. You know, we are the only thing constant in this world is change. To me, really what open says more than anything else, it's we're always open to conversations. And I love conversations like that. If I was to go on a date with someone else, we come back, I come back to my partner and I talk about it with them. Nothing that I experience or that I feel is perceived as bad. We'll talk about it first and figure out how we feel about it as a unit. Do you think that that's the direction that relationships will go? I mean,

if you look at how relationships were, even like the 70s, women couldn't get credit cards without their husband's consent. Like it's changed a lot in the last few decades. So side note, in the 1960s, a bank could refuse to issue a credit card to an unmarried woman. Even if she was married, her husband was required to cosign. It wasn't until 1974 that it became illegal to refuse a credit card to a woman based on her gender. That's crazy. Okay, so in fact, checking this, I also learned that most Ivy League schools wouldn't accept women until the late 60s or early 1970s. President Kennedy once said on television, we want to be sure that women are used as effectively as they can to provide a better life for our people, in addition to meeting their primary

responsibility, which is in the home. This was as woke as it got in 1962. What? So this is just an aside to say that everything is bullshit. Everything is garbage, no matter how you are told you don't belong somewhere, no matter what your gender, no matter what the circumstance, fuck that very hard. Swive that old school bullshit. Forge ahead, kick down doors because this is the only way things change. Social mores have historically proven to be bullshit. So if something feels oppressive, challenge it because rules are broken every day. Now, I'm climbing off my soapbox, returning to learning about primate anuses and face masks and volcanoes for my career. Do you think that we're going to go further and further from this

weird nuclear family of a woman stays home and they get married and get married as virgins? For example, even no sex before marriage in the Bible speaks to a time that there was no contraception, that venereal diseases ran wild. And that women on top of that, to your point, couldn't go to school. Without a man, without a husband, they didn't have a path to survival. And so they had to withhold the one thing that they have to get married quicker so they can ensure that they have money coming in, that they have a livelihood. You think about it in terms of that. Someone created monogamy based on a set of principles that at the time made for the most logical life. As time goes on, we're not really monogamists in a lot of things. Career-wise,

we're not in unions or signing formal jobs, working somewhere for 40 years. Even our cell phone contracts now is no longer three years. That's so true. I'm trying to think my longest commitment to anything. It's been like... Yeah. Look, I've been with T-Mobile for four years, but I've never been in a con... I'm always pay-as-you-go. I know I've been with AT&T since 2009. I don't have to be, but I choose to be. I choose to be. It makes sense. And so I think that this idea of closing people's options off, it's just like, do what makes sense for you for as long as it makes sense for you. I think monogamy is beautiful and wonderful and works for many people. And it's a very affirming and

safe place. And obviously, if done right, the best way to ensure that we're not spreading diseases and we're keeping ourselves healthy sexually, but on the flip side, I think we'll have a more flexible attitude, as we do with other areas in life, towards what it means when two people are in love and how they're supposed to behave. We have a really powerful movement right now, women using their voices to speak out against a lot of horrible shit that's been going on. Ah, the Me Too movement. The Me Too movement. Do you find that a lot of guys are questioning their innate maleness? I don't know how to divorce myself from my weird testosterone.

What is the best way for men to handle their sexuality in a way that isn't being an asshole to women? I think, and I had this conversation frequently, which I'm very fortunate, I think, to have a lot of men who trust me to ask politically incorrect questions. And to me, it's a loving approach. For example, if someone comes into your home, you came into my home today, and I say, make yourself at home, I would understand and you would understand that doesn't mean use my toothbrush. It doesn't mean climb into my bed. We have created a social encyclopedia of how to behave after years of practice and of etiquette and walking into someone's house as a kid and your parents stopping you and saying, don't run around, don't touch that. And we're not doing

that for adults when it comes to sexual interactions. They just get into the situation and they don't have any prior knowledge or information on how do I behave. So I think we should give each other more credit and explain things more as much as it sounds like common sense. If someone came in your house and started doing crazy stuff, you may have to explain to them, like, hey, this is how we behave in a home. The same thing, violence kind of took a long time to come out of our society. Violence began of like, well, you can punch someone to make you angry, and then it's like, well, you can't do that. It's like, well, you can punch your wife still if she makes you angry. And now, like, okay, you can't do that either. And we're like, okay, well, when

can we punch? We're like, actually, never. There's never an appropriate time. It took a while legally for us to get there. And of course, society first all to agree that violence is never the answer and never even children. That probably is the last thing to go because I grew up with the generation of it's okay to hit your kids. And now it's not anymore. So I think we have to have a patient attitude towards this and persistent attitude, but one that's like, empathetic in a way, not judgmental, like not why don't you know this and oh, you didn't know this. So let's have this discussion now. And so every woman, I think who's friends with a male have an opportunity to talk with them and talk it out. So I think dumbing it down, walking through those things with people,

as much as it seems like why should I have to do this? Why not? How do you counsel people who have been triggered or who have had bad sexual experiences that have difficulty trusting again or giving themselves intimately or are pissed? Because I think there's a lot of us that have had situations where, yeah, you've maybe been in a situation you didn't want to be in. What's the best way to move forward from that? It's weird as it sounds like with phobias. Like if you and I, if you had a phobia of spiders, and we just sat down and talked about it and described spiders in details and went through the different kinds of spiders and we watched documentary, as much as that's your biggest fear, it would help to subside and give you relief

because you feel like you have more control or understanding. I love spiders, by the way. Do you? Yeah, I do. I literally love bugs. Are you joking? No, we're sort of. That's so weird. Yeah, no, I love bugs. Oh, I'd love this, but I see where you're going. Right. But you're like, no bitch, I love spiders. But I'm like, that sounds like the best day ever. It's like Shark Week for you. Pretty much. Yeah, so I mean, even with sharks, right? It's more knowledge, understanding, the more that we fear and anger and those extreme emotions come out of a lack of understanding. And so I think if you take the time to talk about your experiences, talk about it with others, talk about it with people who you perceive as the aggressors,

find a trusted male friend that you can talk it through with. And I think when you take away that veil of uncertainty and of cloudiness, and you really look that thing in the eye and understand it, it becomes easy to understand how to interact. So I think that, you know, for me, I had a sexual assault, like many people did in their college years. And nothing was better for me than doing the book late afterwards. And hearing so many other people's stories and connecting with them and talking about sex constantly and incessantly. And I'm a beneficiary of the system. And then there's actually a study that says that if you do talk about something more, it's like the most surefire way to get over that fear. Okay, so at least don't bury it. Don't bury the experience

in your subconscious. Does anyone think you should do that? I don't know. I was raised Catholic too, so we're like... That is true. Catholics are like, talk about it once to your... Yeah, to your east and then go chant a bunch of shit and you'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. But if you don't, you will go to hell. No big deal. Catholicism is fun. Okay, I have a bunch of questions from listeners. And can I rapid-fire them? Oh, yes, please. So just... I'm going to try to keep the answers short, Allie. No, I mean, it's a rapid-fire round, but I mean, we don't always keep it quick. Just no pressure to elaborate if you don't want to. But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors,

why sponsors? You know what they do? They help us give money to different charities every week. So if you want to know where oligies gives our money, you can go to alleyword.com and look for the tab, oligies gives back. There's like 150 different charities that we've given to already with more every single week. So if you need a place to go donate a little bit of money, but you're not sure where to go, those are all picked by oligists who work in those fields. And this ad break allows us to give a ton of money to them. So thanks for listening and thanks sponsors. Okay, your questions. Greg kind of... Greg asks this question. I kind of asked it, but how can men unlearn social stereotypes about sexuality? What would you teach the

disease and sorries of the world to get them to refocus on their partner's needs instead of their own? Also, why am I alone? What a great question. I mean, the last one, I mean, we can't go there, but the rest of it. I mean, well, you can go there, Greg. The reason why you're alone is you haven't learned to sell your strengths and minimize your weaknesses, which is a basic marketing tactic for everybody. I think applying a lot of marketing tips to why we can't correctly partner with someone else may be helpful because you're awesome. You're great. I don't have to know you to know that you have incredible things about you, but you're just failing to bring those things to the forefront and find an environment

where those attributes really count. The disease that's sorry one, I think it's just again, having trusted conversations and asking those awkward questions beforehand. Maybe not even of the partner, which might be of your date. Maybe it's even calling your mom or calling whoever it is, a woman that you know and asking them to walk you through it. But the great thing now is you can go online as well too. There's a plethora of places you can go to have this discussion, but find a trusted safe space to ask the stupid questions. I had this girl coming over. I'm really not sure she's feeling me or not. I want to have sex. Do I put the lube out or do I keep it in the drawer and see? Those are great things just to

talk through. It sounds silly saying it out loud, but I think that could be really helpful. Dudes, if someone's not feeling it, don't try to keep making her feel it. That's the thing. I was saying this too. I'm like, yo, because a friend of mine was like, but you know what it is like, Shan, that guys that when women pull back, it's because they want you to pursue more. I was like, yo, that has been true twice in history. The other times it's not been true. Like you guys had this rumor spread that like when women say, no, that actually, and it's been true, I think, and I think maybe historically more because there's so much shame

associated with sexual expression that the reason why many women have rape fantasies, for example, is because they want someone to do it to them and it wasn't their will. So then they can't feel shame for it because they didn't ask for it even though they had wanted it. But I think as we become more liberated, that becomes so much less true and true. Like, you know when your girlfriend is like, this dude's not texting me back and I haven't heard from him and then that one friend of the group will be like, it's because he likes you too much. What girl? No, that's been true twice too. Like that's not true often. So getting that out of your head that like no really means yes, I think is a massive universal first step towards

us ending this problem. Yeah. Yeah, you'll know when we want to fuck you. You guys, you'll know. Yeah, because we'll be fucking you. So no means no as always, but more importantly is obtaining an enthusiastic yes. Yes means yes. Michael asks, it's often said that porn negatively affects men and women's views on sex, creating an unrealistic set of expectations, but is there anything positive someone can learn from porn? Yeah, I don't look at many things as negative or positive. It's all neutral. It's how you interact with it or what you choose to interact with based on who you are. So for example, if you're somebody who's well aware of what the realities of sex are, you can watch porn for entertainment, like we can watch wrestling for entertainment without

being like, this is how we fight or this is how humans interact when they don't get the right sandwich or subway, whatever it is, but you don't have to, the more it's you that's that assigns a characteristic to it. Porn is not good or bad. How you interact with porn may determine if it's good or bad. There's a lot of great Erica Lust is a director who makes cinematic porn that is based on people's fantasies that she brings to life. And it's beautiful and it's great. It has story arcs and it's sexual and it's raw and it's hot as fuck all of the above. It's porn. And I think that that might be a great educational tool for people. Porn have introduced a sex education tab or section on their site. I'm not sure if it's visited

often, but that information is there. Oh, that's nice. Right. Also, if they don't call it section with two X's, what are they doing? And if Erica Lust, God, I hope that's her given name. No, it's not. No. But sometimes you'll meet a baker who's like actually does make cakes. You know, I read this book about influence right now and it was saying that like denises are more likely to become dentists. No, because people associate Dennis life. Right. The brain is such a weird mushy thing. BK wants to know, is it normal or odd that a woman can feel absolutely no sensation during sex for penetration? I mean, none. She knows asking for a friend. You know, okay, so take your hand and put it up right now and put it backwards. If you stroke the

back of your hand, that is the amount of nerve endings that are along the vaginal wall. Wow. So it's somewhere in that range. There's not a lot going on inside of the actual vaginal walls. But if you apply pressure towards the belly button, which is where the clitoris is, which is shaped like a wishbone, which is where the bladder is, which there is for some people, a skeins gland. I'm sorry. What is a skeins gland? I literally thought I misheard her. What was this word she was saying? Okay, y'all, there's a thing called a skeins gland. I'm shook. It was named after a Scottish gino from the 1800s, whose surname could have easily been prober or vagina mechanic. And in 2002, it was renamed the female prostate, which still seems weird.

That's not calling a dick a male clit, whatever. Skeins glands are near the end of the vagine. Now they drain into the urethra, and they may be near or part of the G spot. And I love how even Wikipedia is like maybe, I don't know, man. Also, they may be a source of female ejaculate, which is still hotly debated. And somehow there's a sports car floating in the asteroid belt right now blasting David Bowie. But no one knows definitively like if there's this whole other orgasm situation. By the by, learning about this was almost as thrilling as the time I found out that my Prius has an extra secret compartment underneath the cup holders. It's the perfect size to stash like a gun or really realistically, a small loaf of zucchini bread. Okay, back to

vaginal stimulation and why it works for some people, but isn't enough for others. For some people, even just that friction pulls the clitoris up and down, which can be pleasurable. So that's the part of sexual penetration. It's good. It's not the actual grazing along the sides of the walls. So you're not abnormal if you find because no one's putting in a tampon and being like, Oh, we're all just getting it done. Right. Can you imagine the bathroom at work? Right. Oh, Wendy's on the rag. Yeah. But so that pressure toward the front is what's doing it. Yeah. I mean, that's where you're so there's so many, you know, it's one of those things. Now, I'm reading this book right now. It's called come as you are. And how I used to understand the G spot

is that the skin's gland, which is the anatomical twin to the prostate. And for example, like nipples on a man are an evolutionary unnecessary. They have them. There's no point to them. And so we sometimes have characteristics from each other. Some humans are born with tails, for example, that we don't really need. And nipples are one of those. And the skin's gland is one of those that's like, we don't need a prostate, but some women develop them. But it's pleasurable to touch in the same way. And if you have a large one for you penetration can be really pleasurable, and you can have that deep orgasm, how a man may have a deep anal orgasm, or if you know, by making a lot of pressure on the Gooch, for example. Hello, my name is Ali Ward. And I just

had to Google Gooch. And it's just what you think it is. It's a taint. It's a grundle, a bungus, a danger zone, a bars. And if you're talking to a doctor, a premium. Okay, back to boning. So if you have that, and I've also heard that the distance between your clitoris and your vaginal opening, that also determines a lot of how you might feel. So all the actions towards the front, you have the clit, you have the Mons pubis, you've got the uterine line, and then as well too, like when a woman comes aroused or erectile tissue to protect the bladder the same way a man's does, protects the uterine lining. So that's the spongy tissue that's pleasurable to touch. So all the actions towards the front. And of course, the top where the cervix meets,

that's where you get that painful feeling. That's like the neck of the uterus. Some people really enjoy that feeling of pleasure pain. I like it in ratios like maybe 10 to one. Like I don't like constant pounding at that. But some people enjoy it. So I think people's experience with it isn't the sliding up and down of the walls, how I think porn might make it appear. Right. Good point. VPS, where is the line between normal slumps in the sex life during a long term relationships and slumps you should be concerned about? Also any tips for breaking a slump that are more casual than the over the top like cheesy Cosmo style tips. So slumps. That's a part of, you know, a life partnership. I think he's accepting that those things happen

that people go through peaks and valleys and can't necessarily explain why I'm a big fan. So sex languages is something that I talk about a lot. And you know, love languages. Yeah, it's kind of like that where it's a direct mental negotiator cat. Cat is one cat is when you don't like to be pursued, you have to come to the person first. So direct is when you just want the language and that feels really, it can just be like, I want to take your top off right now, I want you. And that sends a sudden burst through you and sensual is like, you got to clean the house, do the laundry, like the person is unable to focus if there's so much around and the smell isn't there. Like it has to be a complete sensory experience. Mental is like, we have to have a

connection here before I would even consider opening up to you. Negotiator is a person who's like, they don't really have a pleasure from sex, a preferred activity for them. But if they know in return, you're going to take the car in to get, you know, the oil changed or take the kids to ballet, whatever it is, they may be more inclined. So like learning why somebody wants to have sex and what encourages them to do it. That's how you get over slumps. I don't think it's a tip that anyone can like issue out as a universal one. And it's also having a lot of intimacy that doesn't have the precursor of sexuality attached to it. I think that breaks trust. If every time you get a hug and a kiss and a rub, you then go right in and make someone feel one cheap sometimes and two,

it puts a lot of like distance. Like I don't want to touch it all then because I may not want to go there. So I think it's a process of getting over a slump is like accepting that sometimes you'll just kiss and make out and then it will stop there and you may go back to where you were before when you first dated and knowing your partner what they like and seducing them in a way that's particular to them, not the way that you think you'd want to be seduced or that you read somewhere else and buying them lingerie, even though that may feel like a good idea for you could actually be very traumatic for them because perhaps the reason why they're not wanting to have sex is they have bodily changes that they're not comfortable with and being put on display in that way visually

is like horrific. So you can make assumptions, you have to ask and maybe just have this conversation with them of like what is your way of getting turned on? How much of reluctance to have sex is to you feel like is usually self-directed? Like it's not that I'm not attracted to you, it's just right now I don't feel attractive. Like and what's the best way to get over that? Esther Perel who I didn't talk about who's incredible, you probably heard of her before? No, I don't think so. Esther Perel. She's like kind of become known for the cheating sexologist. So she talks a lot about infidelity, why people do it. She says in her books, mating and captivity that a woman's greatest turn on is herself. So men tend to be and people are

sometimes uncomfortable about the men and women distinctions. I'm like of the school of thought like Dr. Helen Fisher and she's a lot of brain scans and find that there is a drastic difference. Of course, as the lines blend for some people who are intersex or people who have more testosterone, these don't ring true and there's no ring true of all women, all men, so please don't feel I'm saying that. But for a lot of men, they're very visual. So which is why porn for them is a higher service. It's a billion dollar industry for them and for women, it's not equivalent. And for women, it's not a visual like a massive penis or the best boobs that always turns them on. It can be themselves when they feel sexy, when they feel high, when they feel like I'm the

shit, that's when they're most inclined to want to engage in sexuality. So I think that's an interesting kind of thing to Jedi mind trick to make sure that you're making your woman feel amazing. And I think it is very true, the sexier that you feel, the more inclined you will feel to have sex. Yeah, I totally feel that. I dated someone who was like, wasn't very generous in that respect, like didn't make me feel very like sexy or beautiful. And I feel like I just totally shut down. It wasn't because he wasn't like nice to look at or anything. But I do think that like making someone feel wanted and attractive is kind of a good way to get over maybe a slump. I don't know. I think so. I also think it's weird how you're like, oh, I don't feel like having sex,

I'm too tired. But then if you start having sex one second into it, you're like, oh, this is great. Yes. What the fuck is that? No, you know what? That's actually Dr. Ian Kerner, whom I love as well too. He wrote, she comes first talked about that that for a lot of women, their sexual response cycle doesn't begin until they're like maybe second phase in. So you may not feel inclined to have sex. But once you start, it's like working out, you don't want to do it. But once you're doing it, you're like, I'm enjoying this, I don't mind it. But then the next day you forget that you liked it, and you're like, I don't want to work out. So I feel like it's similar in that vein, but it's not abnormal

to feel that way at all. Please note, there's a really big difference between feeling tired and lazy and being like, yeah, okay, why not? And not wanting to have sex but feeling pressured. Big difference. This is a decision you make for yourself, like going for a jog that feels really good versus running away from something. This all comes down to whether or not you want to do something. And I think a lot of people in general, in all genders, put too much pressure on themselves that every time they have sex, it has to be the best sex. And it has to be, you have to look the hottest, it has to be the most memorable. And if you feel like you can't achieve that, then you're like, I don't, I don't feel like having sex because I feel like it's going to be lame.

And then, but it doesn't have to, you know what I mean? I think a big part of great sex is working through it. Sometimes it's so shitty. It's so awkward. And you got to be like, no, we're committing like last night. Sorry, Jared, but you're a bit just being about to be put out there. Last night, I was just like on the balcony and I was just really, really like, this is going to this sexual part of the podcast. No, really around. It's just really wet. I think I'm ovulating though, but it's just really wet. I'm like, oh, this must mean that I'm turned on. And so we started and I'm like, I'm actually not really turned on right now. I'm like, I'm my vibrator. So I got my vibrator and then we were like on the bed positioning to make this

possible. And I couldn't really figure it out. And I was like, this isn't working for me. Keep the coconut oil. Then he goes, gets the coconut oil and comes back. And then like we figured it out. And it was like, by the time that we actually made it, it was like 10 minutes of like, this sucks. And then I just pictured myself like on top of this mountain of flowers, like it just became this really beautiful experience of like, and it felt really affirming that I had a partner who was willing to go through that ugliness with me to get to this place of like, a really great experience. But I don't think great sex starts out that way all the time. Right. But I think that it's good that that it can start messy and with some hiccups and it's still fine. It does never

be perfect. And it could end terrible too. And then be okay. I don't know. I just think that like I'm going to answer this question for this KY brand deal I'm doing. But the best and worst sex I've had with my partner. And we're like, the worst sex, like this one time I tied him up and it was on a really heavy metal chair. And after orgasming, I didn't like back off right away. And like he's very sensitive. And so he was like rocking. And so he fell on his arm and like severely hurt his arm. And it was this awkward experience of me like trying to help him like trying to get cleaned up. And then like he was yelling, I couldn't get the cuffs off is a lot. But it was actually a really, it's a bad experience. And we like had to go to the hospital,

whatever. But it was fine. He was just like freaked out. His arm like wasn't functioning. But it came back to life. Everything is fine. But nonetheless, I think it's just like, it's bad, but it was great. It kind of in its own way. Yeah, I think that remembering that you're a human being and not like an object of like sexual perfection is something that's important. The world may be ready now for a bumper sticker that says queefs happen. It's like after a good meal. It's like a burp. In some cultures, I'm sure that that's very like, that's a compliment to the chef. Lily Masa wants to know, what's the biggest misconception you have come across when it comes to sexuality?

That it's linear. Okay. Linear how? One size fits all. This is how you do it. This is what's good and bad. If you do this, you're weird or abnormal. I've just learned through talking to enough people that 80% don't fit in the this is normal box. Right. So whatever we've determined is like the linear like, this is what most people like. I don't think it really applies to reality. That's so that's so liberating. Chances are you're a lot less weird than you think you are. Yeah. EK wants to know, why do I make horrible decisions? JK, real question. How linked is emotional to sexual experience with a person? How much does lust affect love and vice versa? I think the answer to this is like scientific and hormonal. So if you look at

yourself as like, you're like a robot on two levels, there's your nervous system, which is like the electrical current that like tells you what to do in like the synapses that fire. And then there is the endocrine system, which is the hormones pumping through you, which say be happy, be sad, go to sleep, etc. So a lot of our sexual response is based on those two systems that are puppeting you. Just if you understood those a bit more, then you could differentiate between like, Oh, here's my natural body response. And here's the logical response. So I think the best way to describe that again is food where it's like, I naturally am drawn to this cake, but I'm not going to eat it because it isn't the best cake or the most logical one,

or I'm going to have this cake and let that be enough for today, knowing that this cake isn't healthy for me going in the future. A massive thing that is important to build is a muscle that determines the difference between healthy and comfortable. And that's for everything in life. And that directly applies to intimacy. There's a lot of very comfortable relationships or comfortable activities that aren't healthy for us, like comfort foods or fatty, sugary, you know, very heavy foods, but we can't choose those every day. But we can have them in moderation if we're really aware what function they serve. Okay, so just try to do what's best for you. Keep that in mind. I think like learn the science, honestly, that really helped to affirm me. So even if you like

look up like what is love in the brain, what is sex, how does the brain behave on sex? When you understand what's happening in the puppeting system of your body, it's easier to make decisions not based on what you feel, but what's reality. And that has helped me a lot. So hopefully it will help this question. One of my favorite books is the science of happily ever after is by Ty Tashiro who's a PhD and he talks about how everyone should make a list of three non negotiables. I think you live in a big city, you can have five because your options are bigger, but three to five non negotiable things that you have to have in a partner. And outside of that, you're going to have to be flexible. And so if children is not in your three to five, if sex frequently is not in your

three to five, you may find yourself in a position where you're going to have to be flexible. But if it isn't your three to five, don't. That's a good point. I should probably make a list. Yeah, hadn't really thought about that. Yes, says first of all, Shann's one of the coolest people ever. So I'm so excited for this episode. Secondly, why do some straight by lesbian women get turned on by a male gay porn? Lesbian porn I can understand because boobs are universally appreciated. True. But overall, dicks can be pretty weird to look at. I don't have a scientific response to this, but I do have anecdotal people that I've talked to, that they've said the reason why they like male gay porn is because they know that the men are

actually gay and enjoying it. And when they watch girl on girl porn, they're aware there's probably straight women who are being directed by a straight man to touch each other. And it doesn't make them feel as good. But when you watch gay male porn, you're like, these are men who enjoy having sex more than likely enjoy having sex with men. So there's less guilt with it and more just like enjoyment of watching people enjoy themselves. You can't fake a boner too, too well. Right. Yeah, I'm sure some could some professionals, but I'm you know, there's there's enough head of a sexual porn out there that I'm sure that you wouldn't dip into gay unless that was you were on the spectrum and that felt like it would be a good idea for you. Where a lot of women,

I'm sure, who would never else wise be with a woman found themselves on girl on girl scenes. I think consent is kind of sexy in that term. I think that should be a 2018 consent is sexy. Daniel wants to know, is there a solution for sexual dysfunction due to taking SSRIs? There are solutions like the Center for Healthy Sex, which is in California, but they have a great program. There's specialists who do specifically talk about that. It's a lot of mental blocks. I think if I was to give a base tip to somebody, it's that you cannot engage a lot of times women tie their attractiveness scale towards their erection. So if a man is erect, they feel desired. And so you have to break out of that system with your partner. So it's like they can't reach for your

penis in the first three minutes because it creates that panic mode. Like, there's this going back to nervous system, there's fight or flight, there's common connect. And when you're in fight or flight mode and panic mode, it's very difficult to get aroused. And so you've got to find a way with your partner to make sure that you're calm and connected. And the second somebody reaches for your penis and it isn't erect and you know that supposed to be and they know it's supposed to be, that might put the person into panic and take some further away from their goal. So the first and foremost thing is talking about it with your partner, creating a safe system of intimacy that isn't hinged on the erection. It's a bonus, not like a prerequisite or necessity for

us to feel like we can do this. That's actually also a good point with people who suffer from anxiety in general, on all sides, that if you're having an anxious day, like one of the best things your partner can probably do is help calm you down before they try to hit it. You know what I mean? That's so true. This girl, actually, I work with this couple whom the man had a really difficult time maintaining an erection or achieving one. And she was like, you know, I just get so upset, like I've just cried about it for so many nights, I don't understand why and like, what is it about me? I'm like, why are you personalizing it? That's probably the biggest issue is that you're making it about you. And now your partner has this guilt and this need to

please you on top of the fact they have their own issue to deal with. Like, don't, I think that's probably the wrong approach. But there are specialists who have techniques. I did do a little research for you. Once again, I am no doctor. So please talk to yours. But some folks say that taking their SSRI after sex is better for them. So the medication isn't at peak levels in their bloodstream when they're trying to get it on. Others augment treatment with a different type of antidepressant, like the addition of Wellbutrin, which isn't an SSRI. Did I mention that you should talk to your doctor about it? Because I am not a doctor. Okay, good. JK wants to know why do fetishes exist? I see some validity in the connection between being breastfed and digging big tatas

and control play with ropes. But why feet or why smushing your face into bread? Why dressing up like a giant plush toy? It's just an arousal pattern that you've created that for whatever reason, whether it's manifested through, I think fantasy in general, is an exaggeration of a base sexual desire we can all relate to. So for example, the fantasy of non consensual sex exists for a lot of people. One, it could be because of the shame they want someone to take over and take responsibility. Two, it can be because we all kind of have this relationship with dominance and submissiveness. And so that's an exaggerated expression of that. I think a lot of times kink can come out of an exaggerated expression, but it's a base drive that maybe we all have, maybe we associate plushies

with safety, with caretaking, with intimacy. It's our first cuddle toy and seeing and having that experience with that just feels very nurturing. So it's an expression that like, and feet, you know, the same way, maybe there's a taboo or you find them very attractive. And who knows, we all create different arousal patterns based on exposure and experience. And if it comes up frequently enough, we can't act like it's a weird thing. It's obviously very normal for a lot of people to be extremely aroused by feet. And there's a great cause for that. Just an aside on foot fetishes. So Freud claimed that people were horny for feet because they resembled X. Okay. People are like, no, Freud, that's not it. Recently, a neuroscientist in

San Diego was studying phantom limb syndrome and amputees and found that feet and genitals are naves right next to each other in the brain's body image map. So foot fetishes could possibly be just from some cross-wiring next door in the brain. As for plushophilia fetish, furry stuff, if you ever want to see him in the know, just be like, yeah, man, nothing wrong with a little yiffen. It's called yiffen. I just learned that. I hope I said that right. Two anonymous questions. These are from you, obviously. Obviously, Ally, these are from you. What happens if you're red-headed and you only like three feet long dicks? Just kidding. That sounds literally awful. Okay. So a few anonymous questions for real. PS, if I ever

do another sexology episode, let me know if you want one. It's just all questions. I'll make an anonymous form for question submissions, a non-a question. Okay. What if you want to want to swallow cum, but you don't want to? You don't want to and you feel bad about it? You shouldn't feel bad about it. I don't swallow. Okay. That's the thing is the refractory period for men is such a sharp curve where it's like the building of ecstasy, which like if you look at biology, men are incentivized all along the way to continue to have sex. Well, women have a very empathetic experience that maybe we're getting nothing out of it, but we're there because we know it's for the good of not just the man, but also for procreation.

Right. Because if we stopped having sex, we stopped feeling pleasure, there'd be no babies. No babies. But men, they're like, well, make sure it feels better and better for you until you ejaculate. Because if you orgasmed and then you stopped feeling something and ejaculation was 10 minutes after, we'd have a birth rate of like decimal two. So it's for them as soon as they orgasm, they go through a very sharp curve of like, there's no longer that need for dopamine. So I don't know if swallowing is going to really enhance the experience. And even if they admit they think that it will, I think by and large, they've already hit that spike and anything afterwards is probably fine. They're probably more concerned with the sandwich

than what you do with their cum. Anonymous question. Why are we sometimes sexually attracted to people we don't find physically appealing and vice versa? So why sometimes is someone who isn't classically attractive, someone that you want to bone, but someone that you should want to bone, someone you don't want to bone. Does that make sense? Yeah, kind of. I think your subconscious frames a lot of your feelings towards the life and world based on familiarity. And so for example, if you watch porn with a certain kind of face that would feel maybe there would be an association of arousal there, maybe it even could be like a parental thing or like a teacher thing. Someone reminds you of someone in your life that gave you positive

feelings made you feel safe. And so you, when you're faced with that person, you don't know why, but you feel very drawn to them. It's because you've created an archetype for that kind of person's look or personality that opens up a schema of safety or of arousal, whatever it is. So sometimes it's not that that person may not register for us as traditionally what we define as X, but along the way somewhere we have identified that this person makes us feel good. And when we're around them, we may feel a sense of attraction. So I don't know if I answered that question for that. So it could be association. It's so girl, listen, that's the one word answer I was looking for. Yeah, it's association. One more that I feel like probably a lot of people have that didn't

want to ask, but what if you're in a relationship, but you feel like you missed out on a period of your life where you could experiment with same sex partners or kinks or fetishes, and now you're in a relationship and you feel like you can't, but you don't want to give up that relationship. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, we can't always get passes. But that's why I think, you know, playing with the parameters of monogamy, like there's a term that Dr. Jess, who's a Canadian as well too, and a sexologist, she calls monogamish. It's actually Dan Savages, but I think she adopted it in her own way. But essentially it's that like, okay, like maybe as partners, we watch webcam porn together. And so I get the experience of having a live if my ex fantasy is to have a woman, for

example, I have experience having a live woman, my partner shares it with me, or we make a effort to go out to a strip club together, where my partner pays for a lap dance, they get to be there to experience this. So I'm still getting to act it out while within the parameters of the two partner system. So it's an experience outside of the relationship. So that might be a good way to negotiate that to find a way to include them. And to make it so it's not like I'm not of replacing you with this, I want you to engage in this with me in a way that still honors our formal agreement of monogamy. That seems that's a good answer. That's a good compromise. That's a good diplomatic should go into politics after this. There we go. Done. Okay, least favorite thing about your job.

least favorite thing about my God, my answer is terrible. No, there's no terrible answers. Honestly, my least favorite thing is counseling on Sundays. I could not. It's terrible. It's so terrible. But I could not do that as a nine to five job. Bless people who do it. What's your favorite thing about sexology? Oh, learning, applying it to my own life, which is the selfish I'm a narcissistic piece of shit. It really is it's applying it to my own life. It's taking that information seeing how it can improve my relationships or my interactions with people. It's just fun. I think it's like, it's a space that applies to everything when I learn about seduction, I use at the grocery store and 711 when I learned about good sexual practices,

like I actually apply to my job as well. So I think it's just becoming the best version of me and getting to get paid to do that. I think passion is important both in your career and in nudity. You want to you want to want to be there, right? Yes. So where can people find you? Shambhuti, just look it up. I always would say that's kind of a weird question, because it's like, it's not me that I want you to be peaked by. I want you to be peaked by that a topic that while we were having this discussion, you were like, I actually really like X. I've never felt empowered to discover that more. So I think don't worry about me. I'm there. But whatever it is that for you would be like, what's the next step to me intimately manifesting my greatest self?

That's what you should be googling right now. Get to it. You can also, of course, find Shambhuti, aka Shana Boudre, at her YouTube channel, Shambhuti, which is so great. She's on all the social media. I suggest following her because she's amazing. I love seeing her face in my feed. Alegis is on Twitter and Instagram as Alegis, and you can join the Alegis Podcast Facebook group, which is great. There's so many amazingly hilarious people in there. Thank you, Erin and Hannah, for being admins. I'm at Ally Ward, Ally with 1.0 on Twitter and Instagram and all that. Do say hello. I hope this episode answered a few questions or at least prompted you to do some exploring of your own. I hope you connect with your partners or yourselves or a photo of a foot

or whatever model of sexual trance and climax via rhythmic entrainment you prefer. Thank you to Stephen Ray Morris for editing this episode, especially since I fucked up a little bit and boned us on the turnaround time. Thank you for scrambling on a Sunday to edit this. Thank you as always to every single person who donates on Patreon. You guys are patrons. Thank you so much for supporting this podcast. It literally would not exist without you. I wouldn't be able to pay anyone, and this wouldn't exist. Thank you so much. You can become a patron for as little as a dollar a month, 25 cents an episode gets you in the club, and then your questions are submitted to the oligists. Patreon.com. Thanks to Shannon Feltis and Bonnie Dutch for their amazing

awesome help with oligiesmerch.com. There's so much stuff you can get there. Shirts, hats, t-shirts, pins. By the way, I'll be in Portland, Oregon in America, February 22nd at an Eat Feastly Dinner with Thanatologist Cole and Perry from a few episodes back. In case you want to join, there are dinner ticket links. I'll put the link in the show notes. It's gonna be fun. I'll be in Portland. The Music Prologies is by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands, and just make sure to ask more people some sensual, sensual dumb questions all you want. That's, I think, how we make the planet a better place to be on is by indulging curiosity and hearing what other people think about things. So, and now for your secret of the day, because

you're like, sexology episode, what's your secret gonna be? Imagine if it was just like, ah, sometimes I eat popcorn with chopsticks, which I did do today. No, I'm gonna give you guys a good one. Okay, the weirdest, the weirdest sex dream I ever had, the most memorable, really, was a very out of the blue, vivid, vivid one, like a hot good one about 15 years ago about Andy Richter, on the love seat of the Conan O'Brien set. Do not know where this came from at all. And later in the dream, I realized I'd stuffed my bra between the cushions of the love seat on Conan. And whenever I watched Conan, I'd see that and I was thinking, what if I saw like a bra from Target peeking out from beneath the pillows, and life was just like

a surreal multiverse. What if that happened? I always have kind of a weird reaction to pictures of Andy Richter like, hey, hey, so. Stop, Andy. Okay, bye.