Sex With Emily - Sexual Power: From Bedroom to Boardroom with Kasia Urbaniak

Episode Date: June 30, 2018

On today’s show, Emily is joined by Kasia Urbaniak – former dominatrix and founder of The University – a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. The two talk about how men and women are so confused about how to relate – in and out of the bedroom, why silence is our biggest enemy (not men), and how to level the playing field of power dynamics. Plus, they discuss what we need to move on sexually as well as getting past sexual guilt. Thank you for supporting our sponsors who help keep the show FREE: JO Jellies, Promescent, UVee Follow Emily on social: @sexwithemily Follow Kasia on Insta: @RealKasiaUrbaniak Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. On today's show, I'm hosting Kasha Urbaniac, former Dominatrix and founder of the University, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. I really admire the work she's doing as it's so crucial in this time right now. Men and women are just so confused about how to relate to each other in and out of the bedroom. We talk about how silence is our biggest enemy, not men, power dynamics and how to level the playing field so we can actually play and stay together. What we need to do to move forward sexually and moving past sexual guilt. All this and more, thanks for listening. Guys of a man obsessed by sex. Eyes that mock our sacred institutions.

Bit-roof eyes, they call them in a bag on day. Hey, Evelyn, you got a boyfriend? Because my man E here, he just got his heart broken. He thinks you're kind of cute. The girls got every stand. It's so nice. The women know about shrinkage. Isn't it common, but only?

What do you mean, like laundry? It's shrink? Can we not talk about sex so much? Are you kidding me? Oh my god, I want to, so, so, so. Being bad feels pretty good. But you know, Emily's not the kind of girl you just play with. You're listening to Sex with Emily.

We're talking about sex, relationships, and everything in between for more information. Go to sexwithelmie.com. Check out our podcast, subscribe to the podcast. I love when you do that. It makes our lives easier, and also makes your life easier because you'll get every podcast We do two a week sometimes three lately and you can also subscribe and write us a review and iTunes That also helps us to continue to do shows. So thanks for that and also follow me on social media

It's all at sex with Emily and Facebook Instagram Twitter Snapchat kind of mostly Facebook Instagram Twitter. It's at sex with Emily on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, kinda, mostly Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. It's at sex with Emily. And also a newsletter. Check that out. You can subscribe to all of it on our website. I'm really excited to welcome my guest, Kasha Urbanaak. She's here. She's the founder and CEO of the Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. And I'm just going to give you a little brief info here so you know what you're getting to, but I You know, the Academy, a school that teaches women the foundations of power and influence. And I'm just going to give you a little brief info here so you know what you're getting into.

But I just, I promise you, this is going to be a really powerful interview that's really going to shift the way that you think about men and women and how we relate in the world. I am so excited to talk to her. So her perspective on power is really unique. And she's made a living as one of the world's most successful dominatrix while studying power dynamics with teachers all over the world. She practiced daoist alchemy, one of the oldest female and monasteries I have so many questions about that and since finding the Academy

in 2013 she's done hundreds of women practical tools to step into leadership positions in the relationships families workplaces at Marta communities. She speaks at conferences and she's speaking to us today. Welcome to the show. Kasha, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Well, it's interesting.

We just met and I've been prepping and reading all of our stuff this week. I'm like, oh my God, this woman is God. She's got her finger on the pulse of what's happening right now. When we first talked about having a guest, it was like, I was reading that you're a dominatrix and you've done all this work. And now was reading that you're a dominatrix and you've done all this work. And now I was like, okay, dominatrix, I haven't had someone on the show in a while who teaches that.

And then I'm like reading about everything else and doing them. And I'm like, that's sort of a sidebar that prepared you for the leadership role that you're in today with everything going on in the world right now with me too and with men and women walking around really, really confused about how we relate. So first, maybe you could just give me some background here, a little bit of how you got to where you are today. You mean like how the school got started? Yeah, how the school got started.

That would be a great start. Well, initially, I was working as a dominatrix. And I was also studying davist practices, a lot of which have to do with body reading, martial arts, healing. And I found myself being really influenced by those practices and how I approached clients. That made me very, very good at what I did.

And so I was asked to train other dominatrixes. And once I started training other women to do this very specific thing, I started seeing patterns and where they had difficulty in having actual power and influence over their clients. Rather than just performing, you've been such a bad boy, right? I also watched how, as I was doing this quite young, so I watched how my non-dominatrix friends related to men, all of the assumptions, the superstitions, the losses of power, and this sort of progressed for a while, and then five years ago, I met my business partner, who Ruben Flores,

who worked for Doctors Without Borders, we had the most fascinating six-month conversation. He was coming from Africa in really high conflict areas. And what he was talking about was situations where you're at like a border checkpoint and you have a piece of paper that says you have authority, but you also have five groups of people who don't speak the same language, 14 year olds on drugs with machine guns, and you have to build this field hospital in the middle of all of this. So he started talking

about the ways that people can communicate beyond language, this primal communication, how you establish authority and how you surrender it when it's appropriate. And I could not believe that what he discovered on the fringes of death and war was so close to what I discovered on the fringes of human sexuality. So we started seeing that there are these structures at play. Primarily, we referred to them as power dynamics. And these have not only such a huge impact on any conversation despite what's said, despite

the language that's spoken, but also they play really differently with men and women, because men and women are raised to play differently in this particular paradigm. Yeah, absolutely. So it was like, you're like, click, like, this would be a great partnership. So you started this underground school in New York five years ago, which was before me too, because now this is like everyone I feel like I want to go take your course. I want to think that a lot of people need some kind of version of this to learn how to relate. But when you started this five years ago, it was more like, tell me about that, like the first class.

Oh, it was so romantic. We were like, we were like, we have a secret society full of powerful women who are teaching to be even more powerful. And it was very theatrical and erotic and private and, you know, we were like, we weren't really thinking about changing the world. We were thinking about getting these women who already had access to power to be able to use their, let's say, their more inherent feminine connection to the somatic, to the visceral, to the feeling, the things that women learn through the patriarchy that can be seen as negative, how to harmonize a group, how to be aware of group dynamics, what people call

empathy. How do you get those actual assets at play in a way that doesn't make her a nice girl, a good girl. So it was really, really exciting. It was such an exciting time. We were, you know, all the subjects ranging from their romantic relationships to how to convince the CEO or how to like, you know, it was remarkable. How to get a raise or how to get your partner to like take you on a date or

how do you get your CEO to get into aerospace or how do you your partner to like take you on a date or how do you get your CEO to get into Aero space or how do you get the politics of your environment to change like big thing like it was really exciting because I started seeing a huge impact out in the world through the small group of women so we really felt like a secret society right we got to play and do these outrageous things and then a huge shift happened so uh And a huge shift happened. So this is going to sound weird, but dog training had a huge influence on how I was working as a dominatrix. I started seeing how the structures of attention create hierarchy. And this predisposition women have to put attention inward when there's conflict.

And the predisposition men have to put their attention out when there's conflict and the predisposition men have to put their attention out when there's conflict. So the election happened. Basically what happened was during the debates, our students, debate number one, debate number two, debate number three. Do I want debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton? Exactly.

Yeah. They were analyzing every single power move made. They were analyzing, I was blown away how much they got of what we taught. They were like, okay, this is what's happening here. This is what's happening here. And there was this fervor growing, this frustration, because they saw what was happening.

They saw that she didn't stand a fucking chance. Like I understand the electoral college and the popular vote, but that should have been hard in slide. Right. And it wasn't. They were watching and explaining to me, you have to do something. Give me an example, because I feel like what you're saying is that Hillary didn't, we all know that she's really strong and smart. And probably in many way, it means people hate Hillary Clinton. We don't often tie up politics on the show because people get, you guys get so mad. So just don't take this as a Democrat or a Republican thing right now when you're listening.

Let's take it as a woman who probably was told to kind of wipe away all of your strength as a woman and bring in some, but don't be too feminine and don't write a million things so she kind of showed up as kind of blank or kind of erased a lot of the edges, right? Yeah, yeah, that's what we have to do. And they have gourded this too when he ran

for president against George Bush. Okay, so I circumvent politics for this. So I just remember they were like, what happened to Gore? Like he was this person, but he showed up. Maybe I always feel like he had too much coaching or something. I can't be and they're like, what happened to your personality? Why didn't you show this Al Gore when you were running and you lost? So it's kind of like this.

She probably had too many people, so don't be here. So in the language of the school, like in ex-convenient happens. Yes, please, that's what I would do. So again, to all the listeners, I get how controversial this is, because if you lever if you hate her, you're gonna hate me for saying anything.

Right, so just take away politics, and just look at the body. Just look at the body. This is just about the body. This actually happens to women quite early. Your first longing, your first desire, that's personal to you, right, as you're growing up, is erotic. If you're a kid and you want a cookie and you don't get it, you cry out your eyes out. When you find somebody attractive and you want

them to love you back, and you're not getting it, right, that desire is so much more personal. It means so much more about you. It's a high stakes desire. And the tendency in women and men, boys and girls growing up, is that once somebody notices that a girl is sexually interested, her entire world gets slammed into two. She's either a slut or a prude, and oftentimes she's both. And the way that this ends up manifesting further along is, you know, her breasts are too small until they're too big. She's too quiet until she's too loud. She's too studious until she's not studious enough.

And it continues until she's too concerned with career or not with family, too concerned with family, not career. And the space in between those two things is almost, I mean, it's like walking a fucking tightrope for the entire life. Whereas when a boy expresses it, it's just like, oh, look, isn't he cute? Look, he's going after it.

He's going tough, he's strong. It's unidirectional. It's not that split. So there's this idea that all humanity is equal and that's a really beautiful spiritual principle. But at play, like in interaction, what happens usually is there's a top and a bottom, there's a really beautiful spiritual principle. But at play, like in interaction, what happens usually is there's a top and a bottom, there's a DOM and a sub. And they switch in the best instances

in like a ripe, beautiful conversation. I'm on top when I'm speaking. I'm watching to see if the words land in your body. I'm paying attention to you. You're the sub. So I'm putting my attention on you, right? Something gets triggered and you inspired. And you start to speak. Now you're the sub, so I'm putting my attention on you, right? Something gets triggered and you inspired. And you start to speak.

Now you're the top. And you're watching me to see if I'm getting it. I'm in my own experience seeing if it triggers something. So that is like the ideal fluids switching dynamic. So women have a tendency to be afraid of both looking like they're on top and on the bottom. So the language translates into bossy and bitchy if they're on top because they're on top but they're not comfortable with it and that transmits and they're kind of smaller.

Yeah, or angry, right? Right, like, with too much effort. And then on the bottom when it's time for us to receive and surrender, we don't want to feel needy and desperate so that there's discomfort there. So there's a tendency for women to limit that range and be in this submission, this compression. Not too much this, not too much that. So so often in those debates, what you saw is Hillary, not being too much, not being too little, not being too dumb, not being too sub, not being too much of a mother, not being too much of a daughter, not being too much of a sl- not being too much of anything. Now here's the problem. As animals,

we listen to a signal. So if you turn down the volume on Obama and watch him, and you turn down the volume on Trump and watch him, and you turn down the volume on Hillary and watch her, and you imagine you're an alien, you have no idea about politics. Right. You get a signal from Obama. You get a signal from Trump. Right. And you get nothing from Hillary.

So no matter what she says. It's kind of standing there and no matter. Her body could not transmit a signal. So no matter what she says, feels like a lie to a body. Right. Not necessarily to a mind, but to a body. There feels like a lie to a body. Right. Not necessarily to a mind, but to a body. There's no signal to back it up. Right.

So the students went into an uproar and like we had to do our first big public event the day after the election. Like, we had to start teaching. So our first class was how to have a political conversation using power dynamics. Okay. Because this was the fall. Right. And people were like, I'm not going to Thanksgiving dinner.

Right. Exactly. You can't talk to my family like right right right so we started doing that and that was like the first Moment where our website was not password protected Okay, you're like people leave me right now that you need to help and you're your password Let me just tell if you're listening like wait. I got to check out. I got to see what I'm least talking about it is It's Kasi a KASIA Robotiac that's you are B-A-N-I-A-K dot com. It's easier to go to weteachpower.com.

We teach power dot com. It's so much easier. Okay, great. It'll redirect to that. We teach power. You can all spell that. Okay. I've done a lot of research I'm reading about.

You said that the dog training. Explain that a little bit more about how that was the book about how to teach your dog whisper. The dog whisper. Yeah. So, but it's more like we want the dog, we want someone to be the dog, because they can kind of read, there was a people, they want an alpha male, they want an alpha personality, any dog.

Like whenever I had a dog for a little, my friends were like, oh, he needs a man, I was probably just too passive with the dog. It's not even about masculine and feminine, it's more about the energy. Yeah, what I got from it, what I got from it in the context that I was looking. Yeah, from, was that, so the, you know, the dog is always looking

to see who's on top. And when there's nobody on top, the dog thinks that he's on top, and the dog isn't equipped to be on top, because in an apartment, doesn't know how to hunt food in my body. It's fun, right? So there's little nuts and neurotic.

Right, so the dog needs to know somebody's on top. How does the dog recognize that? And what was incredible was, it was just, you know, a glimpse of an idea, but where I took it changed my relations with human beings and definitely my work, which was, it was very clear that from a stable place, the alpha needed to put full attention on the animal in a way that the animal could fully feel and surrender into and relax and go, oh, right. The pack leader has got me. Like, I'm safe. Right. The attention is on me. I will follow now. And even in the earliest days of training

dominatrixes, when they were going into the room with their clients, one thing that was missing, no matter what they were doing or saying or whips they were pulling out, their attention was on themselves and their performance. And they were missing the weight of attention that the client needed, especially an alpha male, spending his day being boss, like the incredible weight of attention he needed in order to shift his brain chemistry into a submissive state where he could relax and receive was enormous. And women were afraid to invade the space of a man, even when they were paid for it and directed to. Right.

Because what do you do with that and how do you show about that? To grab the just reading words or whatever, you have to really be there and listen and be in that power place, which that's tough. So teaching women how to be dominates, now teaching women how to be in their bodies and be powerful. Yeah. It's basically been your journey. I teach them to switch because a lot of very powerful women have trouble surrendering.

Yeah. And it's impossible to contribute. I'm going to raise my hand. It's not only impossible to contribute to a woman who can't surrender. It's impossible to know what she needs without her explicitly saying so. So like if somebody's in a surrendered state, you look at them, you can kind of feel like what they want, what they need, like whether it's a hug or whether it's, you know, a compliment or whether it's a smack. Like when you can feel it.

But when a person's in a very dominant state, they're impenetrable. Their attention's going out. So it's like swimming upstream to even feel them. So I mean, this is so interesting because what you're teaching now is all about these power dynamics that have become really, really like confused lately. So, especially with what's happening in the world with me too, I think there's so many places

I want to go right now. So, I want to start out with your workshop, which is clearly a fairly new one, but you have a cornering Harvey workshop, which is about Harvey Weinstein. Can you talk about that workshop? Yeah. So, it started as cornering Harvey because we were using the script. That was recorded of him and teaching women how all the different ways.

Like literally the script. Yeah, no, we had a bad hotel around. We had a guy in a bathroom, had been a pot of plant next to him. Like, it was really hilarious. Oh my God, amazing. Get the whole set, okay. So in a sexual harassment scenario,

what's oftentimes happening is the sexual harer is putting a woman on the spot Right, he's being dominant putting all his attention on her and There's this thing that happens and I'm sure many female listeners maybe even some male listeners can relate to this where when you're Put on the spot in a really aggressive way And you already have a tendency to turn your attention inward, you freeze. And in that freeze, a woman loses access to language. Her make-the-leg gets hijacked, her brain chemistry changes. Access to language and agency becomes incredibly difficult.

So she's much more likely to comply or her silence reads as consent. And this is a huge problem. Because in that state, when she's in more likely to comply or her silence reads as consent. And this is a huge problem because in that state, when she's in the freeze, she's much less likely to leave the room. She might not even think to leave the room. Right. Cause it's like the fight or flight. Like it's so basic, right? It's so easy.

Because we can't use language, which makes so much sense. Cause that's what makes us different than animals. Okay. Yeah. So when all of the me two steps started coming out and the Harvey stories and all the other stories like the thing I wanted most was to give as many women, women possible the simplest tool to break the freeze. And you know, since then it's turned into a verbal self defense course that's online, but the basic principle is that when

she's frozen, her attention is stuck inward. She's having 10,000 thoughts. She's saying, I'm going to say something now. I'm going to say something now. The moment keeps passing. She's running around inside her own head, wanting to say something, wanting to say something, but she's frozen. So the way to break the freeze, first,

put your attention out and follow it with language, asking a question. So if they practice, if they practice, and follow it with language, asking a question. So if they practice, if they practice, very specific questions, even in a language frozen state, putting attention out and asking that prepared question is enough to flip the power dynamic. Why a question? Because the person hearing the question automatically turns their attention inward, which means there's less pressure on her. So not only has she broken the freeze, she slipped the power dynamic, and now the person who's heard the question,

whether it's like, do you realize this statement like that make, might make a woman really uncomfortable? Right, simple, simple, not even good at the conversation. Right, you literally just flip it, okay? Even for a second, if the person goes inward, it's enough to give her access to more language, agency. And from that moment, she's 10 times more likely to be able to just stand up and leave the room.

Right. So powerful. It was super, super, super exciting to experiment with that over and over and over again and have these workshops and show women who consider themselves to be the shyest field of the masses. that over and over and over again, and have these workshops and show women who consider themselves to be the shyest field of the masses. Actually, not only deliver the first question,

but then a second one and a third one and a fourth one that's even harsher. Do you like women, do you like making women feel small? Is this what you need and where to get it up? Do you like, yeah, and I'm just watching them, watching them just there. Get off of them, really? I didn't think what I love about this, because I think about this too in reading, and to be just watching them, watching them just there. Get off of them. Really? And then the thing is, what I love about this,

is because I think about this too in reading, and to be obviously to be honest, but when I was reading all of your stuff, and I've been going through it, it's like, I see myself, like I am a powerful woman with a business, and I'm all these things, but I do, I freeze with language ironically, because I have a show, but I also feel like

incinars that are tricky, like even if it's a work thing or negotiating or with a friend, I freeze a lot. And I had never thought about it that it was this fight or flight because I get anxious and then I get on my head and I'm over. But just to be able to say, even if it's not a Harvey Weinstein and Bathurst or it's someone saying, like, if I'm hiring a new lawyer and he's like, so we're going to take 10% is that okay? I might be thinking, just I'm giving you this.

Perfect example. And I'm thinking, oh my God, I want it to work with me, and I'm just thinking, okay, like I'll just say, yeah, even if it's a right thing, I get with money, I'll get shut down. But I'm hearing now all these times that I've done it, and there's been a lot of problems because of that, because I don't want to confront, I'm from the midway, whatever the woman, I'll just say it's from my upbringing,

but also just, I feel like my default is just being really nice. I want everyone to like me, I don't want anyone to be, even on the show, I'm like, I'm not talking, I want to help people a better sex, that is my mission. I want people to be able to ask where they want to bed, to communicate it, to be in their bodies. I want a lot of things, but I don't want to, I also want people to like me. So, or I want, and so I shut down and I might not say the right things, but to now have this tool and I haven't taken one of your courses and I want to hear more about the questions, it's so powerful to

think. Even if it's a reporter, I get interviewed all the time, ask me a question, rather just rambling sometimes as I do, I can be like, Clare, even asking a clarifying question in the moment when you're not feeling safe or you're not feeling like, you know, it's a huge freedom. It's a huge freedom and it gives you that space, that space that you might need and it takes back your power. The reasons why people freeze, you know, the default that women have to keep their attention in, what you described, I want to be the good girl. That's just what happens when your attention's inward. If you put your attention out and completely saturate the other person with your attention,

you're not thinking about whether you're good or bad. You're thinking about where they are and how to move them either forward, backward, or out of your fucking way. Right. Exactly. It just becomes natural. Give me some more of the tools. I thought it would be fun to do it.

Well, the verbal self-defense stuff. I love you, verbal self-defense, what a great, and you've a course that you teach on this. Yeah, which also has to do with the string of ambiguous sentences that somebody can sometimes give you to put pressure on you and how to deal with those. Like what can you make an example? Well, oftentimes compromising situations aren't created with one statement, like, if you fuck me, I'll give you a role in a movie, right?

It sounds a little bit more like, I got lots of friends in this town, and I could be very helpful to you for friends and come to my hotel room and be like, like, a lot of ambiguous, right? So the tool that we use for that is called Location, and it's a really simple sentence. It's just a clarifying sentence. That goes, it seems that fill in the blank, is that true? It seems that you want to get me into bed, is that true?

Right. It seems that you're promising me a very successful movie career if I sleep with you, is that true? It seems that you're very used to getting your way, is that true? Like, whatever it is, it has the same function of putting attention out, but before, it's easier to hit back.

So if I say that it's someone, but let's say I'm younger, I'm feeling that, and I'm, it's scary, because if he goes, fuck you, I can't believe that you'd say that, and then it's anger, like I could see the next step. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the next step? Well, I mean, that's why we have an entire training course

about it, but also, but also, but also this, this is just one tiny tool and this is like, I know. We've never, we've never put forward one tiny piece of one basically tool out of a whole course. True. Forward. And the reason for that was because I felt

this emergency happening. You know, it isn't emergency. So because you're thinking, let me just answer my own question. Every guy says that to me, well, I can't believe you're saying that or you get angry. Clearly, that's what he wants. And do I want to sleep with someone to get a little bit of a movie? You do another statement.

Yeah. It seems like you're really angry now. Is that true? It seems like it really angered you to think that you weren't going to get your way. Is that true? And then it could be a penetrating question, like in round one, which is do you realize how uncomfortable you make women when you act this way? Is that something you want?

Is that the impact you want to have? Right. Is that your intention? Yeah. And really, the only goal of all of these in verbal self-defense is just to buy enough time to get out of the fucking room. Right, right. It's not a conflict resolution.

It's not the complete thing. In our courses, we teach women to ask anyone for anything. Anything. Any literally a raise, changed by tire, could you move? Can I have your parking spot? By me a castle. Like ask anyone for anything anytime and have it feel good. And then teaching them how to play with resistance and know.

Like, that's the arc of the curriculum, that's the meaty part. Like, if a woman can freely express herself from a place of desire, whether it's financial professional, if she can, from the deepest part of her, feel completely unafraid to express what it is that's moving her soul and speak it cleanly, clearly, with total body congruence, feeling great about it, and the hundred percent of it, not 95 percent of it, not diminishing it, not thinking, this is what I want, this is what I think I can get. What's the spot in between that's going to be my ask? No, the whole fucking thing. Right. Don't even think about the mental part. Just

ask for it. Yeah. People want people want that clarity. Like people want to know what you want. Yes, they do. Yeah. I mean, they really, I can only see this just propelling women to so many more places of authentic power. Yeah. Like internally and externally where it matches up. I also have this feeling and maybe it's the exposure I've had to men. Maybe it's the men I've known. But like I have this really deep love for the men that I've known because I feel like what they want more than anything else is a chance to win. Like heterosexual men want a chance to win with women. Right. And when a woman asks for less than what she wants and he goes to the

trouble of delivering it and he can't feel her light up, she's like, thank you so much. This is so nice. But he knows somewhere deep down inside. He hasn't hit the fucking spot. Hmm. Literally and figuratively, right? Yeah.

Yeah. He feels it and it diminishes his not only sense of self, but his desire to try again. I feel like men are very oftentimes in no in situations. They are. Well, so that's what I love about this too, because with everything with me too happening, I think it's obviously this isn't just like a blip on the right. This is truly is a movement. I liken this to like Rosa Parks and the bus. I feel like what's happening now is such a change that when I keep getting questions or speaking about or

writing about it, even talking about my show, I don't think, like, what do we do now? I'm like, well, it's really not just talking. It's sort of this full body somatic, like somatic, like an experience of what's happening in the moment with our body and our breath and body language, it's everything, body language and words. And I'm like, we need to teach men. We don't need to keep men down, but and women because men are not the culprits here at all.

Like, my heart is even wider for for men open for men because I feel like Everyone's just walking I'm really confused right now and how do we teach men and women together? And I feel like that's the work that you're doing that it's sort of like It's been horrible what's happened, but now that the lights open the light has shown on this and everybody's like now What now and now and they're craving to know what to do there isn't and I've been kind of sitting here for a few months My team knows it when it's first happened, I was like, I can't even do shows. I can't sit here and talk about how to get the oral sex you want,

or how to get the orgasms, or how to ask for what you want. When there's a crisis going on, and I feel like I've been doing this for so long, how can I go help change the world in this way? I don't even know. That's all I really need to talk about. And the result, I haven't been talking about it as much, because I feel like anything I say would be, it helps, but it's smaller, because it's just, I haven't been talking about it as much because I feel like anything I say would be, it helps, but it's smaller because it's just, I don't know, there has to be a behavioral

change and there has to be people's willingness. And I think right now that there's just a lot of fear and confusion and that every day there's someone coming, the stories are coming out that another man is wrong that's keeping men quiet or I think many men. I think the men who are asking aren't necessarily the men that we're reading about. Most men, I think, want to please women and they're like women and they're probably doing things right. But what I'm saying is it's just how do you go to a place where in using a language that

no one's ever used or thought about before when it's our base level is masculinity, feminine energy, how do you unpack all of that? And I've been reading your stuff and seeing your courses, I think it's such a great step. It's a great approach with me too. Thanks. They say there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come, right?

And ideas are great, ideas are great. But there's no substitute for a fully felt visceral experience. And one of the reasons that the work that I do is design the way that it is. And also, I think, why a lot of corporations are now trying to have me do their sexual harassment training is because the best human beings are social learners. We are especially when it comes to social skills, we are social learners. If I give you a list of things that you are to do and not to do that will make you more powerful, right? Don't use up speak. Don't say, um, mind your posture. If

I give you a list, you will forget 90% of that list within two hours, right? And that's what, that's how we're trying to train people. Don't do this. This is bad. This is good. However, if you train women to speak in the moment, they feel something. You have an instantaneous, well calibrated biofeedback learning loop, right? A lot of a lot of guys don't know the impact they're having on women.

They're socially awkward and devastating them, or they're monsters or not monsters, but they don't know. And hearing about it in some vague terms 20 years later does not educate them. But if they feel it, they do something and they get instant feedback in the moment. Do you realize that that kind of statement may make a woman feel uncomfortable? Right. They learn then they're like, oh, this is what that felt like.

Right. Even if they get defensive. It's okay, because they might. No one's ever called them out of it, but this is the work that women can do in the moment. And me. And me. And me.

And doing so, they're training themselves to be fully self expressed and training men to see impact. And this goes beyond gender because the same power dynamics happen in any status differential, whether it's financial or racial, right? It happens all the time. So when you have people educated in training each other, then sometimes ideas are enough for people to create their own fully felt visceral experiences.

What I want is for women and people to learn how to speak and see each other in a way where they're constantly training each other, therefore creating culture and recreating culture with every human conversation and interaction. And that way we become an organically organized society that uses empathy as an incredible skill, not, you know, that that empath complaint. I feel too much I'm overwhelmed. I know. It makes me, we know, that empath complaint. I feel too much, I'm overwhelmed. I know, it makes me, we have to all feel more. If we use power dynamics, right? Like if we're feeling something

but then putting our attention out and leading people, then it's not an entirely internal experience, that energy, that instruction has a place to go, and we're constantly informing, re-informing, educating each other about who we are. This is the thing that's I think missing in our, in our world is that we're very isolated and we're not accustomed to telling each other the true, true, and the mod from a valley felt place.

Right. So it's also, because here's the thing. So let's say the workplace and, okay, so back up, the thing I've been thinking is, it was the patriarchy that built the system more and now, right? So even in the work, and when you're saying these things in the workplace, I've always heard like leave emotions out of it. It's a business. Don't bring your emotions in, but like we talk about everything here.

I know that I've only had to work for myself because I feel like I don't know how I could work in other areas, but for a lot of people, they think, how could you do that in a workplace or our family? We don't discuss emotions, but it's kind of like we've sort of ripped apart this whole very base way of communicating of being empathic and sharing feelings and real time feedback to people or even parents where we think we can never speak up and we hold on and it becomes resentment and it builds up. So how do you even change the way, like that's where I get overwhelmed, but it's in the

moment is what you're saying of practicing and learning just basic skills. So in the moment when things are uncomfortable, just speak up to not wait anymore. And not to sit with something that's uncomfortable. But do you still believe that there are rules around that? Like, well, you shouldn't do it. Look, 20 years ago, you know, the author of Thinking Fast Thinking Slow, Daniel Kandeman, what I think is his name. 20 years ago, he introduced the idea that emotions play an impact in negotiations. And everybody went, no way, emotions have nothing to do with the idea.

No, they don't. And it took 20 years. And people are like, oh, yeah, emotions. Now it's the entire synatic experience. The entire, like, it's not, like, if words communicate information, then how you are being about it tells the other how to interpret it. So I can ask you for something three different ways,

and it can be the same exact words. Can I have some ice cream? Can I have some ice cream? Go get me some ice cream. I could even use the same exact sense, but we have such an overvaliance on the words spoken and the intellectual information that we forget that we're constantly informing each other on a sub-language level, how the

other is supposed to feel about it. And that is, I think, beyond body language. We're going to give a shout-out to our sponsors. When I come back, we're talking to Kasha Arbaniak more about the academy. How do women safely then use their sexuality? Do you think that some of this stuff is going to be obsolete? Aren't there ways to be sexual? How do we use this in sexuality that say, or even in the bedroom if you're just a couple who wants to have healthier sex and healthier communication around sex,

because what I find from women a lot, and including myself, I was one of these girls that was very passive, I had a lot of sex education, and I was very much like, when I started having sex, in my late teens, up to my early 20s, I was like, the man's gonna show up, and he's gonna know what to do because I don't know my body, I don't know what feels good, it was very deferential, and that if I did speak up, I was probably afraid the man's gonna show up, and he's gonna know what to do because I don't know my body. I don't know what feels good.

It was very deferential. And that if I did speak up, I was probably afraid of being a slut. And I wanted to be the good girl and not have too many partners and all these things. And then you cut to like, I'm even related people who are in committed relationships. How do you still have that dynamic of getting people

to open up and to feel comfortable asking for they want in sexually and in a relationship using what we know, using this like, using somatics. I think there are two parts to this. And the first part is more hidden and insidious. The first part, I had to begin addressing more sexuality in my classes, even though my classes are not about sexuality or BDSM. This first part was so important to address, because I found that without it, women could not find, quote unquote,

their voices or stand in their power. So I like to tell the story of sleeping beauty, not the original, the one we grew up with. Right, exactly. And it paints this picture of a woman who's in a coma, basically, who has no desire, has no feeling, is not even conscious. And it isn't until the right, white, heterosexual, wealthy,

well-status chosen, prince comes along and kisses the life into her, and kisses the sex into her. And so unconsciously, a lot of time there's this pattern of belief that a woman's sexuality comes from the outside. It's awakened from the outside. And it's not true. Exactly. We give life. We give life. We give life. We have more orgasmic potential than men do.

We are voracious and alive. And having a woman begin to see herself as her own pleasure center. And she's generating the energy too. She's bringing the energy. She is the reason sex happens. Everything. Women, we are the reason that sex, we bring it to the table. I want women to understand this. And then it starts becoming a lot easier to see how men are actually responding to women.

We're talking in the heterosexual paradigm right now, right? But like in the animal kingdom, it's almost all across the board the same. A woman experiences her own, a female animal experiences her own erotic energy, and then the men come. Then the males of this species come and they're responding. And this really turns the patriarchal lie on its head that we are responding to men. They are responding to us constantly. They are constantly.

So having that perception, perception will shift, does so much for my students in terms of understanding how to could and could use their sexuality because the fucked up part is that nobody ever accuses a man of using sexuality. What does a man look like when he's being sexy? He's standing up straight like a cock with a tie on top. Exactly. And nobody goes like, oh my god, he's being so sexual. Right. No, he's just turning.

A woman with integrated sexuality is turned on. She's turned on by success. She's turned on by flowers. She's turned on by... She's turned on. She's just turned on.. She's turned on by flowers. She's turned on by... She's turned on. She's just turned on. We're not supposed to think that way. But as our own erotic pleasure centers, the center of the universe, to which others respond to, that shift is really, really important, powerful. The second part has to do with asking, and has to do with knowing how to ask from a dominant place and a submissive place wherever it's appropriate. So like telling people

what you want in sex can be incredibly hot or an incredible buzzkill. So learning how to ask in a congruent full body felt way is a really powerful tool in the bedroom. Because you're in your body and you're right, talk a lot about just breathing before sex and in the moment when we're in our heads because that's one of the big complaint with people I've done this to in the past I try not to do this anymore we're in our heads and we're thinking is it going to be accepted do I want this? I did I leave the oven, you know, that I leave the door open what's going to happen that we're not truly in our bodies we're not breathing into it

from a place of even knowing what we want. If a student told me that, I'd say in that moment, stop, get a notepad, right? Ten requests on a piece of paper and hand it to your lover. Just like you get the intellect. Get it out. So how do you so asking for it would even be if it feels shaky at first just ask? Like don't overthink it. There's a lot of overthinking over analyzing.

Right, but you can't tell somebody to not overthink something because the first thing they're going to do is overthink it. You can't overthink it. And then punish themselves for thinking for overthinking our entire lives. Right, so there's different ways of bypassing it depending on what level of communication you're at. Sometimes it's something as simple as setting up

oral sex in such a way where the giver and the receiver are holding hands and when the receiver likes it more, he or she squeezes harder. You doesn't have to be all words. No, but it needs to be communication, it needs to be explicitly stated. Right. So true.

I mean, we just... The container is sacred, you know. So how you have started bringing sexuality into your classes more so you have to. So the curriculum is the curriculum, but the content or the substance of it is what women want. So if they want better sex, that class is about better sex.

If they want, you know, world domination, that's the subject of the class. And I'm gonna say that a lot of it does start with sexuality, that when a woman is feeling, and she's in her body, not just like showing up, like being the boss, or having it ticked off all day, she's a great mom, or she's a great, you know, wife,

or she's a, you know, Olympic skier, or it doesn't, none of that really matters in the sense of if she's still not, but she's going home and having bad sex or she's a rendering thing. Because I feel like it all starts with sex disaster. Sex disaster. For so many, and they're like, well, I'm too busy to even think about my own sex. So I feel like once women anchor into that, the power, and we're talking about which might seem so esoteric saying, like, we're the center of the universe, and we bring energy, but

we do. And I've talked a lot about energy dynamics and- Well you can I give you a really simple example? This is really simple because when I went to study with the Taoist nuns, they're celibate but their sexuality, they're all of their reproductive system energetically is integrated. They're constantly doing practices to alchemy sexual energy and to include it. These women are terrifying in how powerful they are. Because when you look at one of these well-practiced

Taoist nuns, you get the sensation that her body is the tip of the iceberg, and the other 95% of her is deep in the earth, and she's unshakable and immovable. And there's this great story about the head, Abbot, the female Abbot, when the communists came to demolish the monastery. All she did is she stood on the mountain top and looked at them and they all ran away.

I can imagine that. And these are the women that taught you. So you studied with the, you studied journalism. Yeah, and so this is an example of a woman whose sexuality is integrated and yet she's celibate and she is the opinion about her. No masturbation either, huh? Maybe? You can't. It's healthy for women orgasm.

Yes, it is. But now you're talking about a whole set of esoteric practices that have that function, but don't necessarily look like what we think they would look like. If you open certain gates through breath and move them in and you know. I know. Right. Orgasm is not just one going over the ledge and having the orgasm. I got it. It's a full body. And this is achievable. I think it's a great place for women to start too by realizing that when you're just in your body without the goal of anything of what it looks like, but just your in your power and your sexuality that everything else sort of can will come fall into place. Well, that's also the thing is that men have a tendency to breathe lower than women in our culture,

because every woman who's cut off from the waist down or suppressed sexually, her voice is higher, her center of gravity is higher, she's literally easier to knock over. She broadcasts as an animal that's compromised, a weaker animal, not because she's smaller, but because only half of her is like, she's easier to tackle.

A man has a tendency to be, I'm not saying Mendo and experience sexual shame, but a man has a tendency to have his cock and his balls better integrated into a body. Breathe lower, have a lower center of gravity and be harder to knock over and therefore transmits more powerfully. So excluding that from say, how does a woman negotiate or raise more powerfully. So excluding that from say, how does a woman negotiate or raise more powerfully? It's pointless. It has to be in there somewhere.

How do you do talk about breathwork in your courses? Do you teach it? Because I know that there was a quote, you're like, I don't care if you love yourself, like I don't fucking even care about that, but here's I asked for it. Like you start with the words and the rest comes. No, so how does it, I only teach with attention.

So when you put your attention in fully, you naturally relax, start breathing lower. When you put your attention out, you enter a flow state. And the other person is the only person that exists, the only other thing that exists is the instructions are giving them to move them and to see the impact of your movements on them. And when the attention is complete, right?

The attention out is complete. The flow state relaxes your body has you do all of the right power poses without any instruction. All of the breathing, all of the facial expression that it all comes together because not truly in a higher archie as an animal. If you had your attention out and you'd be the alpha, you'd be behaving that way anyway. And conversely, you put all of your attention in, you begin to glow in a different way. You're the person to be contributed to, the person to be led, the person to be cared for, you attract attention as you put attention on yourself.

And also your body does that matching thing where your softer, your breath is softer. And you don't have to receive instructions on how to be more vulnerable or a quote unquote feminine because it all happened with attention. Because you're discous so many what is your reasoning or what do you believe that so many women walk around disconnected? That's a huge theme on the show that we are so disconnected from I mean from our bodies. From our breath we don't think about it. I mean I hear from women every single day,

whether it's friends on the people in the street, friends, emails to the show, I don't want sex. I have low desire. All these things, I have to encourage them to masturbate, encourage them to get into practices where they're like, I haven't even thought about it. How do you, I know it has always been this way, but we've asked Step into Mail Rolls,

what do you think it is now? And then? I mean, I think it's the same thing. It's always been really. I mean, first thing, first question I ask in a lot of my classes, even if there's 200 people present, is I ask everyone to close their eyes and raise your hand if you've had unwanted sex, which transmits

to the body like rape or like trauma. All the hands go up. Then I ask who's been raped, who's been abused. And it's just like, we've been fucked with so hard so many ways. And without the tools that I'm trying to bring into the world, so that happens less, that there's a lot to overcome.

But this is also why I teach these tools, because in the moment, it doesn't matter if you have trauma, if you can put your attention out and give a few simple instructions, or if you can put your attention in. Like it's just such a good cultural bypass. You know, eventually we all have the traumas we want healed healed.

But until then, I don't wanna wait until everybody feels psychologically whole and past their trauma before they start. We can't wait. No. That's why you call it like a process too. That's why it's a practice. Like everything's like you get to a place and you're done.

Like you're done with therapy or yoga or meditation and for me that gets all into lifelong practice. But the things that I teach are not a lifelong practice. This is the thing. This is the differentiation. You go to therapy for a reason. You come to the academy so that you don't have to wait 10 years before you can kick ass at a negotiation

or have your lover give you the sex you want. Like the world can't wait for that. Right. And it starts with in the academy. So with people, so if you want to sign up for the academy, your course is you're probably like totally sold out right now, but they could take it in person or online. Yeah.

And if they can't take your course though, there's a lot on your website. Yeah, and also we're planning to have some summer games. Oh, okay. Bad girl Olympics. So anybody who wants to can sign up for free to be part of this grand mission every week getting missions to do everywhere in the world they can implement love it. Yeah, yeah, so you can go to your website, which is we teach powered we teach power.com and sign up and check out more about kasha to say thank you for being here Kasha will you stay and answer some emails for me? Sure Okay, love answer your questions. It's why I exist on the planet if you want me to answer this show You can text ask Emily all one word to seven nine seven nine seven nine

Felt the forum or good my website sector the Emily dot com click on the ask Emily tab Always include your name your age where you live and how you listen to the show. Okay, this is from Bethany 24, Indiana. Emily, I'm married to the most amazing man on the face of the planet. Growing up, my parents were ultra-religious and conservative. They didn't have the sex talk with us about premarital sex as if it was the worst thing you could ever do and just had a really unhealthy view on sex by surrounding it with guilt. Well my husband and I of course had sex before we were married but as soon as we got married

my parents talked about how important it was and that we should be doing it all the time. My brain doesn't flip that easy. I grew up feeling that sex was terrible that I should feel guilty about having sexual thoughts and sometimes even feel guilty after having sex with my husband. I adore my husband. We have a great sex life and I advise how to leave that out of the bedroom and just enjoy my sexuality. Thanks for the help. I love this question. I love that your hair costure because I think that a lot of us suffer from guilt, trauma, you know, a lot of it around religion or what our parents told us the messaging from early childhood. So how in the moment do we wear our brains

to kind of show up and like, how can she, how can Beth and you show up and be present without hearing these messages in her brain with her husband to have healthy sex? Our parents were always here in the voices. Well, her and her husband played a really fun game together. They could do a very sexy written exercise where they both write down everything they're ashamed of about sex.

And they use the form, I am ashamed that I like your balls. I am ashamed that I want sex sometimes when I don't think you want it. I am ashamed that we're disappointing God. And then they read it to each other one sentence at a time. And the response from the other person is, Oh, that's hot. Whether they feel it or not. Right.

Just to get the idea that shame is hot. And I'd love that. I love that. I'm always saying like right down buckle list of what you want to try. And that's a great reverse to kind of untangle. Well, this is a thing. And then you'll be wired. Like, oh, that's hot. Shame.

And I am. Shame is so sexy. That's the way to liberate shame. The way to liberate shame is to connect it to the erotic. I mean, I don't know, 80% of the hottest things I found in the dungeon as a dominatrix were things that the client was ashamed of. And going, oh, you like that.

You like that perverted thing, don't you? That's so hot. And in that space of approval, so much energy and erotic power was liberated, that suddenly it became hotter and hotter. For you, I'm afraid. For them. The whole room. The whole room was for you.

You can't separate it. Because you were really engaged. Yeah, I can see that. That is a very powerful exercise. I love that idea. It also creates a lot of intimacy between them. It does. It's intimacy is hot.

And I think that people are very confused sometimes by what intimacy means. And that words can be intimacy, touch can be intimacy. And they're worried that it's not just about the sex, like couples who email, they're like, we just don't enough sex anymore. If you, when you're vulnerable and really open and you say the things that you think you could never, ever say to anybody, and you take away the power that they hold over you, which is so many things, you just realize that you are released. And when someone stands there and you realize they're not going to leave you, and they love you even more for it, it is some of the hottest, hottest sex and the hottest connections, even

with friends. I know my friends I've had for years when I, and that's how we are best friends, but it keeps getting deeper when I say things. I'm like, this is what I'm thinking. My best friend was here this weekend. We've been friends for 30 years and she was visiting me and I realized there was some things I was afraid to say, we're not afraid, but in the moment I was like, okay, usually I'd be afraid that you're going to get angry because you did an angry thing, but I'm not afraid. I know you're not going to be friends for 30 years. I'm going to tell you this. And it was like, I didn't think we could even get closer, but it is a girlfriend. And she was like, oh my God, first of all, you're never that

direct, you're not worth it. I'm like, I'm not afraid of your it is a girlfriend. And she was like, oh my God, first of all, you're never that direct, you're not hurt. Like, I'm not afraid of your fear and your anger. And it's like, we talked about all weekend because she broke through her bullshitting girl that she has about things. And it was like amazing. So especially when you feel safe, now, I'm not going to do it every day with someone I just met, but when you're in a relationship or with somebody and you say it, and they don't, and you realize they're not going to leave you.

It just, it's everything. It is freedom. It's great advice. Thank you, Kasha. This has been a great show. I appreciate it. Everyone can find you everywhere at an Instagram, but your Instagram.

Real Kasha, Rebaniac. Rebaniac, Facebook.com, the real Kasha, Rebaniac, and your website. We teach power.com. We teach power. I hope everyone checks out your courses and your website. It's really powerful. Thanks for all the work you're doing and things you're being here today.

Thanks to my amazing team. I love you all. Thanks to Ken, volunteer Sarah, producer Jamie and Michael. Was it good for you? Email me. FeedbackItSexWithEmily.com. you