The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Uplevel Every Part Of Your Sex Life With Dr. Emily Morse

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Sex expert Dr. Emily Morse shares her best tips for sexting, dirty talk, oral sex, foreplay, & more so you can have the best sex of your life.  how to reignite the spark in a long-term relationship what to do if medications like birth control or SSRIs are impacting your libido  all of the surprising things you do every day that negatively impact your sex drive daily practices to amp up your ability to feel pleasure what pleasure thieves are & how to squash them for a better sex life the sex position that will transform your relationship the best way to uplevel your sexting game, dirty talk, masturbation sessions, oral sex, foreplay, & more Emily’s three T’s of communication for FINALLY talking about sex with your partner what to do if you’ve been faking orgasms & want to stop and so much more!  For more from Emily, find her @sexwithemily on social media, head to sexwithemily.com and check out her brand new book Smart Sex: How To Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure.   To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. This episode is sponsored by: Osea: get 10% off your first order at oseamalibu.com with code LIZMOODY10. RocketMoney: sign up for Rocket Money today by going to RocketMoney.com/lizmoody. Seed: go to seed.com/lizmoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. Paleovalley: go to paleovalley.com/lizmoody for 15% off your order. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest- happiest life, whether we're learning the science of pain and how to manage it, discovering blood sugar balance hacks for better metabolic health, or moving through grief using research-back strategies. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, I am so excited to welcome Dr. Emily Morse to the podcast.

Emily is the host of the award-winning number one sexuality podcast, Sex with Emily, which has been on the air for nearly two decades. She is a masterclass instructor on sex and communication, was previously a radio host and executive producer on SiriusXM, and has a doctorate in human sexuality. She's been featured by The New York Times, Forbes, Men's Health, The Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, Glammer, Cosmopolitan, and so many more. Her brand new book just came out this week and is called Smart Sex, how to boost your sex IQ and own your pleasure. It is such a great read. I absolutely devoured it and I highly, highly recommend.

Today we're going to be getting into a ton of ways to up-level our sex lives so we can get the pleasure that we all so deeply deserve, including how to reignite the spark in a long-term relationship. What to do with medications like birth control or SSRIs are impacting your libido? all of the surprising things that you do every single day that are negatively impacting your sex drive. There are so many things on this list that I do every single day that I was not connecting to my sex life. It is so eye-opening. Daily practices to amp up your ability to feel pleasure, what pleasure thieves are and how to squash them for a better sex life. The sex position

that will transform your relationship. The best way to uplevel your sexting game, dirty talk, masturbation sessions, oral sex, foreplay, and more. Emily's three T's of communication for finally talking about sex with your partner. What to do if you've been faking orgasms and you want to stop and so much more. We would love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening to the episode. So definitely screenshot and tag Emily. She is at Sex With Emily and me.

I am at Liz Moody on Instagram. Also, we have an amazing giveaway that you will love at the end of this episode. So be sure to stay tuned for that. Okay, let's get right into it with Dr. Emily Morse. Emily, I was just telling you off air that I'm such a fan. I loved your book. I love how you kicked off your book with this personal story of discovering how to have amazing sex after that initial spark in a relationship has worn off.

That is a huge struggle that I hear about all of the time from members of my community. So I would love to hear a little bit about your journey just to kick off the episode with a little bit of hope. Like many of you, I would get into relationships here as me. I was in my 20s, my early 30s. I'd get into a relationship with a wonderful guy. Sex was amazing for six months to a year and half. And then it wasn't. And then it didn't really want sex anymore. It was less interesting. Then problems arise because once the honeymoon phase is over and let me remind people, it's a biological condition where when we are falling in lust with somebody, you have all those feel-good hormones, like the most delicious cocktail in the the world. And when they study people's brainwave patterns of falling in love and in lust, it's analogous to people on cocaine. So it is a drug. And like any good drug, you're going to come back down again. But what I didn't know through all these relationships was that you could actually work on your sex life. Like we're talking 20 some of years ago. So there wasn't a lot of information about sex. I thought something was wrong with me. And clearly I thought something was wrong with my partner.

I'm like, well, clearly they're not my person. And this relationship must end. And then I would turn and there'd be another one. And then we'd have the best sex ever for a year, year and a half. And then that went on. I didn't have the understanding that we could work on it and go through it. And also, I've always been sort of a student of relationships. I've always just found fascinating how people meet and how they stay together. And then I realized that a lot of times they weren't having sex or sex with the culprit, the biggest problem in the relationship. So I actually made it my mission. I was 35 years old and I was living in San Francisco. So this is my journey. I wasn't working in podcasting or sex. and I made a pivot. And I thought, I want to understand how to be a great lover, how to enjoy sex more.

I felt like all of my male partners were always having a good time. It always ended in a great pleasure for them and not for me. So I started this podcast. I was no way the expert. I was more like, you know, learning along with everybody else. I would say research is research. I would just interview people about their sex life, their relationships. And I found out after that very first episode that a lot of people were looking for this information. A lot of friends of men were faking orgasms or faking pleasure. And then the men, too, were like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I kept looking and digging and there just wasn't. And it was like Dr. Ruth. And it weren't really podcasts, obviously. So I started in 2005. And after that, it became, you know, really popular right away. And I got tons of questions and

people wanted to dialogue about it. And I thought, first, well, this has to happen. We need this information. And then I went back to grad school and got my doctor in homosexuality. And that's been my story. My journey started from a place of like, what is wrong with me, how do you make sex last? That's it. That was a journey. Now I've got some answers here, but that's how it started. Do you think that you can get to that cocaine level high again, or is it almost like a different type of drug later? It's a different type of drug. I don't think that you can get that exact feeling again. I mean, maybe if you have some distance or you break up and get back together or, you know, something happens, you could. But I don't think that you can get that exact feeling again. I mean, maybe if you have some distance, I mean, maybe if you have some distance,

think there's something very special in like the DNA, if you will, of that newness and the excitement and all the ingredients of like, I've never kissed this person before. I don't know where it's going. It's exciting. It's all the stuff that we crave. It's novelty. It's spontaneous. It's variety. It's all the things that we kind of try to build up in our long-term relationships. We try to find sources of that. So no, I don't think you get back to that, but you can create something that's really hot and just deep. It's like hot depth of sex. But, no. Not so much about that same spark, but it can be really sexy. Is there anything you would say to somebody who's just like, I miss that though?

I want that high, high, I want the not knowing. Even I hear from a lot of my girlfriends and I've experienced this to myself, like the affirmation of somebody falling in love with you is huge. It is huge. I hear this from all my girlfriends too, that they're like, I just want to feel that again. And I'll never have that. And I think there was a certain morning for sure. You're like, okay, I won't have that.

but what else can we have here that could be not just as but a different kind of connection and intimacy. We tend to put things on a pedestal too and thinking it's going to be this incredible thing. When really if you have this partner that you love and maybe your best friends and you share everything, but it's no longer hot, I think that's where I can come in and help people create a new way of connecting around their sexuality and what they do that could make it another level of interesting. and sexy. Once you went on this journey, you're like, I'm going to learn everything about sex. I'm going to change my own sex life. If you had to pinpoint one learning or one conversation that most upleveled your own sex life, what would you say? I started to self-pleasure with a purpose.

I started to masturbate. I started to like take a mirror. I never looked at myself between my legs. I didn't know what was going on. And I find this with a lot of women, we are really disconnected from our bodies and then we wonder why we don't feel arousal, desire turned on for many reasons we're disconnected. So to make that connection and be like, okay, well, here's what my body looks like. And here's what it looks like when I touch myself, when I pleasure myself. Oh, look, my clitoris swells or it becomes more gorge. I literally became a student of my own body and my own pleasure.

And for me, that was a game changer. If somebody is listening and they either haven't masturbated or they masturbate and it's like, it's fine, but they wanted to kind of like take it to the next level, could you give us a few tips? Absolutely. I think a lot of women don't masturbate. And I understand why. There's a lot of reasons. First, it's a habit.

You never did it. You just might not think about it. Maybe people think that will have a partner. I don't need to. Or there could be some leftover shame. They were told it wasn't accepted. So I would just say, it's great to revisit it. We always get to revisit these old things that we carry around with us.

Like, is that still true? Is it still shameful? Could I get curious again? It's really fun to just take some time for yourself and start to explore. And I love the process of mindful masturbation more than masturbation with a goal of orgasm. Because a lot of us, even if we do masturbate, it's like, let's just hit it and quit it and go by our day. And there's nothing wrong with the hidden and acquit it's masturbation. Like, I know what I want.

I'm in about. But there's something to what does turn me on right now. I mean, you have to understand women too. Our bodies change all the time. Like our hormones are fluctuating throughout the month. There could be different things that feel good, things that maybe felt good 10 years ago, don't feel good now and vice versa. Maybe we discover new Abrogensisone.

Just getting curious and taking time to really explore. Buying a vibrator. I mean, listen, we've got so many nerve endings all over our body and finding and using a toy where fingers and penises can't stimulate is really incredible. And I think that there's a lot of learning to do there too. And just get curious, explore, use some loop, think about breathing. I have a book about mindful and smart sex about mindful masturbation. So that's one place I would start and just taking the pressure off of anything other than exploration.

One of the things I loved about your book is that you make the connection that our whole bodies and our whole lives impact our sex life, and our sex life impacts our whole bodies and our whole lives. And I think it's a really interesting bilateral relationship that I haven't heard explored in that way before. I'm glad you brought that up, I mean, because that's really what the book is. We tend to silo sex. It's sort of the thing that we put aside and it's sort of separate from our health and wellness. And we think it's just going to somehow figure it out, like, I'm going to close my eyes and hope for the best. But the truth is, it's a mind-body. action. That's why in smart sex, I write about sexual intelligence. I write about the five

pillars of sexual intelligence. And it's really just holistic. Like your relationship to your body, your overall health, your knowledge around sex, your ability to communicate about sex are all contributing to your sex life. Sex is mental health. Sex is physical health. Sex is your wellness overall. They're all interconnected. I really tried to draw those parallels to people because what I found was most people want a quick fix when it comes to sex. They want to know the right vibrator, the right lube, the right toy. And I can do that. And I've been doing that for almost 20 years.

But there's a certain depth and knowledge it comes from really sinking in and saying, what actually is going on my body? It's not that simple. If I'm taking a certain medication, that's going to impact my sex life. If I don't have a great relationship with my body, well, that's going to impact it. If I'm not comfortable communicating with a partner about my needs, that's going to impact it. it's a multi-layered connection and process to really understand that your sexual health is part of your overall well-being and then how to kind of marry those two.

You gave one of the best explanations I've heard of the impact that hormonal birth control is having on our sex lives. Can you explain a little bit about that? Here's the thing about hormonal birth control pills. Birth control pills and other forms of hormonal birth control have sexual health side effects, more than any other medication they have found. So because these birth control pills are made with synthetic forms of estrogen or progesterone, it interferes with the process of ovulation and menstruation. This is just something that women just kind of pop a pill and they don't know it. So I really just want to give women agency over their bodies and just the information that

they need to know that it's great because it helped us avoid pregnancy, which is why we're taking it. But unfortunately, there's some other things going on. And like birth control pills really wreaks havoc on many women's hormones, like test. It's going to decrease your testosterone, not just for men, and that could also have an impact on your libido. And also, it can have an impact on your neurotransmitter serotonin. And they found that a lot of women on the pill, there's a larger proportion of women on the pill who start taking SSRIs for depression and anxiety to feel better. So what we found is that there's a correlation there. And I have to say that that happened to me as well in my 20s.

And I realized it was a lot of my friends. We went on the birth condoble and I had never felt depressed or anxious before. And I went to my gynecologist and I said, I'm feeling anxiety depression. And she's like, take this. And at the time, there was a pill that you took. I can't remember where the name of it was. It was like purple. And it was sort of like a Prozac, but you took it like, we're only during your period.

And it was really, really helpful. But what I'm saying is I feel like I wish that I had understood the correlation. So we're still at the forefront of learning about hormones. Here's the other thing. There has been so much misinformation, if not an absolute information, about hormones. And there's a lot of research now that's showing that estrogen plays a big role, not only in our desire and arousal, but in so many parts of our life. So if you're taking this pill and it's impacting your estrogen and your testosterone and

your progesterone, I just want women to know that it is impacting your sexual desire, your arousal, and possibly your moods. So what you should do is definitely talk to your doctor about it. And, you know, I remember switching pills when I was on it. I went to like a lower dose method that really helped. There's also non-hormonal birth control pills that you could take, like the copper IUD. So just getting curious and thinking, huh, yeah, you know what? I just want people to think.

Like, just more information. Oh, yeah, I realized I did get a little bit more depressed or I am feeling that lately. Now, there's some women I meet her like, oh, my God, I went on the pill and I have never felt better. And that's amazing, right? I love that, but I just want people to, like, be aware of the impact because your doctor might not have told you. Is there anything that somebody could do if they are on the pill and they love it except for their low libido? Or you also mentioned SSRIs. And I have a number of friends who love their SSRIs.

They swear by them, but it affects their libido. And they just, like, don't want to trade the rest of their mood for their libido. Yeah, exactly. Isn't that a bummer? Like, here I am, feeling happy again, but I don't want to have sex. The last thing I want to do is have sex, right? You're like, great, serotonin. No sex drive. So yes, absolutely. The first thing you do, you talk to your doctor. The amazing thing is, if you're with a great doctor, you feel good with, they know what to do. They can either lower your dose. They can add in some other medications that don't have the sexual side effects. That's the first thing to do. But the second thing to do is to realize that, yeah, maybe you have lower libido. But here's a thing about low libido. And there's a lot of people in my field are like, yeah, a little libido is kind of bullshit anyway. That a lot of us don't desire sex like we used to. We're busy, we're stressed, we're anxious, there's stuff going on. Because low libido just means that you're not like feeling it. You're not like having this

strong urge to have sex. I'm not thinking about my partner all day, but you know what? We're busy. We got stuff on our mind. So the good news here is our brain is the largest sex organ. And if we realize that we are actually responsible for stoking that flame, keeping our pilot light lit. This is not anyone else's job. So if you're on an SSRI and you're not feeling it, then we got think about ways that can turn us on. And this is what my whole book is actually about the pillars of sexual intelligence or sex IQ is understanding that there's a holistic approach to understanding your desire and your arousal and what turned you on. And once you look at all of those factors, you'll be able to hack it and figure out what is actually requirement for you to be you in the mood,

to raise your libido, to feel turned on, to get the pleasure that you need. There's a lot of factors that are contributing to it beyond the pill that you're taking. taking. When you get your brain, you can do all these other things that can help kind of counteract the impact of the pills. I love that. One of the other outside connections that I had never thought about impacting our sex lives that you made in the book was between numbing activities like social media and then that having a negative effect on our sex lives. Can you explain that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. Numbing is one of the pleasure thieves that I talk about and pleasure is presence, right? But when we're numbing ourselves, we are not in big.

very present. When we are feeling truly like embodied and present and with somebody, we are not thinking about anything else. We are present. We are connected. But when you numb with social media with anything, you're just sitting there and you're completely out of body. Whether it's like scrolling or shopping or anything we're doing is taking us away from ourselves. And one of the pillars of sexual intelligence is being embodied. How in my body am I? Do I feel my feet on the floor or my brain and body connected, especially when I'm in the bedroom, so we can numb out social media. We can even numb out when we're having sex. We can disassociate. I think it's really important to think about what in our life is taking us away from experiencing more pleasure. Numbing with social media,

I think that I'm not the first person to say that we have all of these ways that we think we don't have time for things, but it's like, how long have you just spent scrolling social media? And it frames it. It contextualizes it so differently for me to be like, oh, this time that I'm just kind of like, quote unquote, zoning out. I've had a busy day. I'm tired. I'm zoning out. Is decreasing my ability to be in my body and experience pleasure sexually later. Exactly. Because you get this dopamine high. That's the other thing is that when you're numbing or when you're like scrolling, you get this chemical message in our brain, the reward sentence. You get that quick high, but it's like a fast burn. Then we go back to baseline. And so we're

tricked into thinking what pleasure feels like is scrolling, social media, shopping, eating, whatever your things are. But dopamine also plays a role in our motivation. So we keep going and going going and we are doing this habit that we're tricking ourselves in thinking that's pleasure. You click the buy now button on Amazon and then you're clicking it again and again. And so it's not totally satisfying. And so numbing sort of dampens our sex IQ, keeping us from being embodied, attuned, and present. Other than taking out the things that are numbing and taking away our ability to be in our bodies? Are there favorite practices that you have that we could maybe add in on a daily basis to connect with our body and get in our body? Absolutely. Breath work, game changer. However

you intentionally breathe throughout the day, whether it's like five deep breaths, I actually do it during sex when I'm getting distracted or with my partner. I think that a lot of us get distracted during sex or we're not connected to our partner. Breathing for me is so powerful because we know all the benefits. I'm not the first person to say it. But when it comes to sex, What I love about breathing is that it immediately ground you in the present moment. You really can't be anywhere else when you're taking an intentional breath, but also the practice of really, really like taking it a deep breath. You breathe in for four.

You hold it. You breathe in and then you hold it for like six or seven breaths. When you're breathing it, you're taking that deep breath and inhaling. Imagine it going down to your pelvic floor. And when it's going down to there, do a little keggle, do that little squeeze. and that's going to awake your pleasure centers because the pelvic floor is the area that's responsible for our pleasure and our orgasms. So if you're feeling disconnected from yourself, that's a great way to kind of wake it up and stay connected. Whenever I do that, that just helps me

like, oh yeah, I'm alive. I'm a sexual being. I'm here. And it helps clear energy blocks. So that is just big one for me. Meditation is really important. I do meditate every day. But when I added breathwork, that was a game changer. I also think that movement is really important. Again, exercise, blood flow, but here's why movement is important for sex. Okay. If you want to talk about the biology of it, right? When we get aroused and turned on, we have more blood flow. So if blood encoreses to your penis or your vulva, the healthier we are and the more we move, the more likely we're going to have more blood flow, hence more erections, more orgasms. So I bring this all up in the book because it's really not that obvious or intuitive for many people because sex has been so silent.

So I'm saying, wait a minute, all the things that you're doing to keep you to numb or to distract are also impacting your sex life. So let's bring it into their sex life, frothwork, masturbation, movement. All of those things are going to help us. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years. And I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it. so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first.

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That is birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. And you're going to get 20% off birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. Are there any other common specific things like scrolls in social media that we might not be aware or having a negative impact on our sex life. Yes. In smart sex, I identified the pleasure thieves. And these are the things that are keeping us from pleasure on a daily basis that we don't even realize. And I think it's really important to slay these dragons. And one of them is stress and anxiety. I say STS. Stress, trauma, and shame, if you want to remember what they are. But stress is one of the biggest killers of our sex

drive. We're raising our cortisol levels. We're not embodied. We're not present. And so day to day, like overworking, not making time for your relationship, shoeing date night so you could work, not connecting with your partner or having check-ins. You know, I think it's so important for couples to have check-ins, to have like a date, even beyond date night. I call it the sexual state of the union. Even if you have it once a month with a partner, like once a quarter, what's going on in our sex life?

How are we feeling? Are we connected? What else do we need? What else turns us on? What keeps us is stress, more stress and anxiety. that is in plain sight working all the time. Even having kids, it's so hard. When you've kids, you're responsible for another human now, and you're exhausted.

And then you're supposed to like make dinner, be sexy, all the things. And for so many women, I have so much empathy and compassion for them. And I want their partners to do as well and realize that like she might not snap right back. That doesn't happen, right? So take the time to like realize and acknowledge, like right now is not going to be the time where I'm going to be turned on. Those are some of the culprits. And I think shame is also a huge one.

I mean, shame is so insidious. I actually learned a lot more about my own shame in writing this because intellectually understand shame. Bray Brown, as we know, did such incredible work around shame. But guilt is that we did something bad and shame is that we are bad. And so just like people who have sex, perhaps they grew up in an environment where sex wasn't encouraged. In fact, it was discouraged and people were told to save it for marriage.

It's only for procreation or being sexual means that. something's wrong with you, that those messages still live out in our head. And so every time we go to have sex, we're hearing like, I am bad, I am wrong. Or, you know, we have body shame. We have experience shame. Those are some of the main things that's keeping us from having the sex life that we desperately crave. What did you learn about your own shame writing the book? It's funny. This is, I haven't even really talked about this out loud yet. But it wasn't really about my sex life per se. I have a lot of like shame around like certain ways I move through the world. I wish I could get better executive functioning and follow up and get back to people and all the

things that I worry about. I have shame around who I am. I don't ever want to let people down. I'm a people pleaser. I want to be a really good friend, a really good whatever. All the energy I spend trying to be a perfectionist and try to get things done in the right way because I didn't grow up in an environment where I shame around sex or my body. But my shame and my life, I realized when I was studying, this is so pervasive in other areas

that the spiritual and psychological weight of shame of like I'm not enough. or I'm not doing enough does impact my life in ways. It takes up a lot of space in ways that I hadn't realized because I was really getting into shame. So that's just sort of a personal thing. If I'm worried and I'm overworking or I'm trying to make up for things that aren't necessary because I'm fine because I am. I'm doing enough. We're all doing enough, right? So in some ways, that's it. So I've been much more aware of places where shame is showing up. I think it's so important to recognize that your shame doesn't have to be directly sexual in nature. It doesn't have to be about your body.

It doesn't have to be about a past sexual experience. It doesn't have to be directly related to that to be directly impacting your sex life. That's exactly it. Thank you for that. That's what I realized. But for many people, it's shame around their body. Our bodies are going to change. And your partner is with you because they want to be with you and they love your body.

I would do this for almost 20 years. I've talked to thousands of people. and never ever gotten to call or, like, oh, I love my partner until she gained five pounds or like her left boob was bigger than a right boob or like all the things that we worry about about our bodies is just not a thing. And if they are, if you're with a partner who's like, yeah, I loved her until she gained weight or until I saw her thighs, like not your person. Easier said than done or shame about your history. I have a lot in the book about kind of working through shame that comes from like cultural stuff too. But there's a lot of different

kinds of shame. This is a little bit of a weird question, but you mentioned that we'll be stressed about work. And so then we won't have sex or sex won't be at our mind or whatever. And I do think that it's interesting, that all of us could recognize like when we have sex, it's great. It feels great. We're more relaxed. We're more connected to our partner, et cetera. But so many of us put sex on the very bottom of our priority list. Why do we do that? I love this question. I think that we do that. I used to say, like, oh, it's more women than men, but I realize that everyone does this, but I would say I hear this more from women. This is one area where if they're like, take it or leave it, had enough sex in my life. There's a few reasons. The first one is that

there's evidence and proof and scientific research that shows that women are having less pleasure than men in every sexual situation. There's something called the orgasm gap, and it means that in 99% situations, all men are going to have an orgasm, and straight women do not. It's only about like 60% or 50%. Okay. So that's one thing. Like literally in every situation. Now women in same sex relationships with other women, they have orgasms most of time. So that's just another point. I know I'm speaking more about heterosexual relationships. But men are likely to orgasm between six and 12 minutes and women between 20 and 40 minutes. So number one, we are not having pleasure. Number two, we don't have this information. So I don't know about you, my faking orgasms

And my people pleasing performing sex came from the fact that I'm like, he's already got there. But there's no time. Or is he really going to keep going down to me? Is he going to keep pleasing me? Like, I'm just going to fake it or hope it's over with. So that's the other part of it, that there just hasn't been great sex education. I mean, I'd like to call it pleasure education, too, because neither one exists. Honestly, we don't have a great relationship with it.

It's become kind of a pain in the ass. It's not as pleasurable. We're not getting as many rewards. And then I think the third thing is because of all of this, we don't actually really know what kind of sex feels good to us. We don't know how to connect with our partners or with ourselves. The way that sex goes down in most of our culture is very much based on penetration. And it's centered on penetration. In fact, we call penetration sex.

But with so many studies around women's pleasure, we have found that the majority of pleasure does not come from a penis. It comes from a mouth, our fingers, or toys, or a massage and connection and intimacy in other ways. We expand our definition of sex to include intimacy and touch and communication, all these other things that women could, with a willing partner, reestablish or redefine their relationship to sex and start from where you're at. Your sex is not a fixed state. So if I'm teaching is a skill set. Like, I was not born like this. And I'm still learning all the time.

I'm never done tweaking and learning and figuring out what's going on. So it's like, if I'm saying that for 20 years of me being my life, like, it's okay. you can learn to have a new relationship to sex to your body. And so I want to give people the tools to do that. What was the most recent thing that you like tweaked or learned? I learned that my partner, he makes a lot of great efforts sexually. Like he listens to my shows and we live together. He knows what I do. We have a massage table. And that's one of my top tips for couples. If you can get one. My friend is a sex logical body worker. She recommended it. She gave me one. I love it because there's like the art of one-way touch where you can take the pressure off of having to give and just receive. So some

nights he'll set up the room and we'll have a massage table and I'll massage oil out and just about me that night, right? And then another night it's for him. So I realized that I wasn't doing it. I wasn't giving back. There was several nights in a row over a period of like a month or two where it was all about me. And I realized it like I hadn't really make the time for him to do it. And I really didn't realize it. I hadn't thought about it. I needed to have that feedback. And really, the feedback came to that I wasn't initiating at all, really enough. And that's something I, that lesson has been taught to me before. I am not an initiator. When I get into the sex, I think this is what you're asking. Like, why don't we like it? But once we do it, we love it, we're fine. I respond to things.

I have something called responsive desire, which is what many women have instead of spontaneous. We respond to stimuli. So I need my partner to make the move to start to kiss. And then I'm like, okay, I'm there. But I'm not. So now I realize that I am definitely beyond just the massage thing. I'm being more conscious of thinking about ahead of time. Like, we're going to have sex tonight or tomorrow. I want to also be participating in the sex in that way.

And then the other thing was I realized when he does make these efforts, not just the massage table, but other things. He loves when I'm like, like last night he was running out the door. This is another thing that happened. He was going out to yoga. And I was like, oh, babe, last night I remember he did this thing that was really hot. And he's like, he stopped. He's like, tell me more.

What did you love about it? He came back inside. He's like, walk me to the car. I loved it. You did this thing. So I realized that he wants the affirmation as well. Like he had tried to do something that was cool. And I brought it up.

And he loved it. And he was like in another world, has the AirPods out, like turned around, took him off, said, what did you like about her sex last night? So yeah. Oh my God. That was one of my biggest lessons is that my husband, like, loves what I just like say, it's like if you see something and say something. Like if you like something, say that you like it or like make a little comment on it later or something and it costs me nothing.

And I'm not lying. It's real thoughts that I'm having. But for some reason I was so withholding with them for so long. Yeah, exactly. Right? We withhold it. That's exactly it. It's just important to, you know, now that we should open dialogue around sex, right, talk about it.

But it's true. Combalments are huge. Are men intimidated by dating you? Maybe. Maybe at the beginning they are because men are socialized. You believe. culture builds them up to be the greatest lovers ever that they are supposed to know everything, right? They're like, I am the king of the universe. And this woman knows more than me. So, oh my God. So maybe

they're intimidated. Maybe you're like, let me show her some moves. When I've pulled the men I've been with, they're like, yeah, I was a little bit nervous. But, you know, I'm like a typical woman who wants to be courted and desired. And I like foreplay. I happen to know a little bit more. It all works out. I find the right people. One of my favorite tips in the book was the opposite of the phone and the numbing is negatively impacting your sex life, which was the idea that these little bits of pleasure outside of the bedroom are leading to us having more pleasure in the bedroom. So can you talk about that and the whole concept of a pleasure percent? I love the pleasure percent. I was at a conference a few years ago. It was like an embodiment conference and they were

said, I want everyone to write down, and this is the formula that's in here. This is your pleasure percent. Everything that you do in a week that gives you pleasure. And then you put different points by it. And then you divide it by minutes in the week or hours in the week. And then you come with what percentage of your time you are doing something pleasurable. And by pleasure, I mean gardening, seeing your friends, going for a hike, shopping, whatever it is. And it was like a paltry like 6% or 4%. It was insanity. I was like, oh my God. I do not prioritize pleasure at all. And I'm telling everyone to put, like, what am I doing? And then I really made a concerted effort to be like, I need to schedule just like scheduling sex, which I think is important. I'm like, how many

friends am I seeing this week? Because that gives me the most pleasure. Like, am I going to go on walks with this friend? Am I going to get a massage? Am I going to go hiking? I plan it. I prioritize it like everything else because I know that when I have more pleasure, pleasure begets pleasure. And it's fueling everything else that I'm doing. It's a really important consideration for many to think, what am I doing that's pleasurable? Take this pleasure percentage and think about it because now my number's gone up and I think I say in the book, let's aim for 25%. I don't know who can do that. That's hard, 25%. I mean, I think that's a goal. I don't know who can do that regularly. Maybe on the weekends, you can even say, I'm going to have a really pleasurable weekend.

I just think about all the hours in the day I spend doing things that aren't pleasurable and I start to think, am I the one that has to do this? Or if you're on social media or whatever, like I have timers on my phone to get off social media. So I try to put things in place to make sure that my life is more geared towards pleasure. I think it is such a huge unlock that pleasure begets pleasure. I have a saying that I always say, which is like objects in motion, I mean, Isaac Newton said it, but I say it in a different context than him. Objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest, stay at rest. So I say if you're having one of those like lazy days and you're laying on the couch and yelling at yourself, figure out the tiniest way that you can get in motion to kickstart the

motion. So like make a cup of tea and then that will lead to you sending the emails and doing the projects and like all the stuff you want to do. And I think that you could almost apply the same thing to pleasure in the way that you're talking about. Like, can you figure out these tiny little bits of pleasure that you can put in your life and then begin to infuse your life with pleasure? And then all of the sudden your whole life will be these opportunities for larger pleasures. Yes, exactly. It's the same exact thing. It is true. The more that you are just conscious of it and prioritize it will happen to get out of pleasure. And I love that like getting off the couch. It's true. Just take the next right move, right? Get yourself moving. Do the

next thing is important and to think about. And also knowing that we deserve it, like a lot of people think, well, I don't really deserve pleasure or we put conditions on pleasure. Once I finish all my work or get to the end of my to-do list, then I can do this. Or once I work out, then I can have the cake. We don't think we deserve it. So really, it's just kind of like a reframe. I'm like, yes, you deserve it. Here's how you can get it. And here's why it's actually good for your overall mental health and wellness. Can you give me a pitch for mutual masturbation? because I have already screenshoted this part of your book and I've sent it to like all of my girlfriends. And I'm like, guys, we all need to be masturbating with our partners.

It's true. It's my favorite thing. We do mutual masturbation all the time. Number one, well, do you want me to explain what it is? You really are just lying back together. You're both masturbating. Either you're masturbating each other, your hands on their body parts or you're doing it to yourself. But the number one thing is it's the sure thing.

So you're both going to get off. You know what you're doing. Number two, it's still intimacy. It's an very intimate act to sit there with your partner. I think a lot of times I'm going to say this again that I think we think we're craving sex, but we're just craving intimacy. So this can kind of be a solve for the intimacy. And number three, it's educational.

You're learning. How does my partner actually touch themselves? Oh, okay, I didn't realize that he puts his hands up and over the tip where he's using this motion on his penis. I didn't realize she puts her fingers inside of her. Maybe next time I'll do that. So you're learning. And then number four, it's hot. It's sexy to see your partner in the throes of ecstasy and to see them pleasing

themselves. And it's easier. It's a lot easier than being like, oh, I've got to work about you and you got to worry about me. We've got to get out the loom and other kids listening, like all the things. And then you fall asleep. It's fun and it's exploring. I'm a huge fan and people do love it. I've been talking about it for years. It is a game changer for many. Sometimes even my partner would be like, should we just do like, and he'll like hand me my toy. You know, I'm like, great, let's go. Like this is what's happening. We have our periods. We have cramps. We're on the move, but we can still sometimes masturbate. What would you say to somebody who would say, I find it horrifically embarrassing, the idea of masturbated in front of my partner.

Like, I don't want them to see me in that moment of vulnerability. I think that that's really, really common. And I think that vulnerability is really what breeds more intimacy and connection. I hope it's something that we can eventually look at. Like, where does that come from? Like, this is a partner that you're, like, naked with every day and sharing the most intimate parts of yourself. What part of it is it that you think maybe you'll be judged? your partner's going to feel that like your orgasm face. Do you think that the way that you masturbate is wrong quote? Is there some voice in your head that says it's still shameful?

Like, I shouldn't have to masturbate in a relationship. Do you beliefs around masturbation? Come to light if you actually do it. Do you think your partner's going to judge you and think, oh, God, I can't believe that you masturbate like that? I talk to a lot of women who say, oh, I don't need to. I'm in a relationship. And I just want to say that masturbation is important no matter what kind of relationship you're in, because it's the relationship with yourself.

So I guess I would say challenge it, and I understand it because it's really common, and I love all the questions you're asking because that is a huge roadblock. Like people are like, oh, no way. But what I love about what I do is there's a lot of hell no less. There's a lot like, that's insane. I would never do that. And then it sinks in. They hear me say enough.

And then I get emails like, oh my God, Dr. Emily, we love mutual masturbation. We bought this toy. We did the role playing. We did the thing. So I think we have to remember that when sex conversations come up and something new that we even thought about. A lot of us go into fight or flight, like, oh, God, danger, danger, no one's talking about it. And we say no. But if we can kind of sit with that and maybe revisit it and say, oh, where do I know come from and investigate it, get curious about it? We realize

it's like, oh, actually, maybe it would be gay for us. Person on with. Let's, why not try it? I love that. Okay. Now we're going to play just one tip. I'm going to give you a subject matter. And if you can give us just one tip for up leveling, whatever that thing is. Okay. So let's start with sexting. What is one way we can either start sexting or uplevel our sexting game? Be really descriptive and an easy way to be descriptive and talk about something that's happened in the past or something you want to happen in the future. That's a great way to start because you're like, what do I say? Talk about how hot it was last time I saw you when your hands did this thing and you were wearing this thing and my underwear with this color. You know, be specific descriptive and describe something. I'd say describe something you want to happen in the future because for many people, it's hard to ask for what they want. So if you do it in a text, a sex, they might be a little bit easier.

This is a little bit nuanced. But once you start sexting, I never quite know how to end it. Like, oh, can you pick up eggs on your way home? Like, I don't know, like, how to stop that part. And so I feel like it stops me from starting. Oh, okay. I think just not take it too seriously. Okay. So it's like peppering the conversation with this sort of. You know, peppering the conversation or like, I do this my partner. He's like, that was so hot last night, babe. Like, oh, my God. And then he'll be like, did you get the PDF? Like, because we also work together. So I'm like, yeah.

And then we try to be like, hey, babe, that was hot. So I think you just pepper it in and you don't overthink it. But I'm telling you, the most important thing is it feels so good for your partner to, like, think of all the shitty boring texts like the other day. And then you send like a really hot moment, a flicker of something happened last night. It could just be that standalone, but I promise you it was the highlight of this day. Okay, I love that. What about dirty talk?

One tip for upleveling our dirty talk. Honestly, it would be the same thing. thing, be descriptive, be present. Describe what's happening in the moment, what you want to happen or what is happening. If you don't know what to say, describe something that you've been thinking about that's happening in the moment or that you want to happen. Like, I can't stop thinking about how hot it was last time you had your hand down my pants or last time your face was between my legs. My other tip is to practice in the shower or to listen to audio erotica. There's some great audio oratica sites like Quinn and Dipsy where you hear people like talking about sex. For a lot of people,

they're sort of shy and it's a little bit embarrassing. And so just like everything, sex is a skill set, set, dirty talk is a skill set. So practice. That makes total sense. If you've never heard dirty talk, why would you know how to do dirty talk? Exactly. One tip for up-leveling oral sex for both penis and vulva owners. To go down on a penis, you don't need to just use your mouth that your hands are your best friend during a blowjob. The other thing is always use loop and then use a toy. That your vibrator that you might use on your own vulva can feel great on the shaft or the perineum, which is the taint, the area between the balls and the anus. That area has indirect stimulation to the prostate. So I would kind of get a little vibrator or you could just apply pressure

to that area while you're giving a blowjob. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older. What do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline, and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction, depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here's the thing that nobody

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and urolithine-keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin-A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support yourselves and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitochondrure gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. I'm genuinely confused how Masterclass gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly like the

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15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. And then if we wanted to give a tip for a vulva owner to For a vulva owner, I would say one of my best tips is just to go slow and to not go right for the clitoris. And I'd say to blow on it, to blow and then to kind of pull back and to tease and also use a toy. Wait, wait, wait. Could you tell me, I forget what the name was. It starts with a K though, is in your book. I never heard this. Thank you. Why am I even messing around with I don't even know why I didn't bring up the Kiven Method. So, okay, Liz, the Kiven Method is something that I first talked about on my show 10 years ago.

I have never, in all these years, received so many emails from people and DMs saying like, oh my God, my wife had the best orgasm ever, like crazy. It was insane. Like it was a good joke. Okay. So Kiven Method, and I have pictures in the book and smart sex of how to do this, but essentially you are increasing the surface area of nerves that you were hitting on the clitor. So, let's just say this way. She's lying on her back. And usually when you're giving oral to your

partner, you're lying between her legs, right? Like your head is facing up towards her head. You're parallel, right? You're flat. You're between her legs and the mouth is between her legs. This is perpendicular. Your legs are going out. So your mouth is going back and forth, thigh to thigh. So your tongue is going thigh to thigh, not like head to toe up and down. So when you go thigh to thigh, that's where you're licking right from either side. You're hitting more nerve endings that way. And those nerve endings usually get ignored. But when you talk about the clitoris, I want to remind people that has like 12,000 nerve

eddings and they can be more readily stimulated when you cover more surface area that way rather than the up and down. So you're lying more like on a diagonal and you're covering. more nerve endings. Yeah, I need to try that. I read it in your book. I was like, ooh, this sounds fun. I immediately told my husband. Good. It's awesome. Really. Let me know how it goes. I will. I will. What is one tip to up level four play? For play massage. I'm telling you, when we talked about, one of the biggest pleasure thieves is stress and anxiety, if you take your partner for like 10 minutes and you massage their feet, you massage their back,

without reciprocity, I'm just going to give you a massage. It can totally relax your entire nervous system, you feel more embodied, and more likely than not, you would be more open to sex and can be like a really great turn-up. It is such a genius connection that if stress and anxiety are robbing us of our pleasure and getting in the way of our sex lives, that the best foreplay would be to relieve our stress and anxiety, I've never thought about it that way. That's literally genius. Okay.

What is one way that we can up-level missionary sex? I would say the cat position. So the cat position is coital alignment technique, and that is when the partner on top is sort of pushing themselves up above their partner. This would be more about a man on top would go a little bit further up. And he's more of going in a up and down rather than a rocking motion. Because when he moves up a little bit, it's pubic bone to pubic bone, and you're applying more pressure to the clitoris and the pubic area than you would in just regular missionary. So it's kind of a moving up. So maybe his head's even over her head and it's more of an up and down position.

You're rocking or grinding their pubic bone to create the friction rather than that in and out thrusting. So if you're a vulva owner and you are struggling to reach orgasm during penetration, which is very, very common, it can be a really valuable position for you because you're just sort of rubbing on ear, like applying the pressure that it might really be required for orgasm. So I think that's a great missionary hack. I was going to ask for one tip to be more likely to get to orgasm if you're not used to orgasming from penetrative sex or with a partner.

Would that be that one or do you have another one? That would be a great one. And I would also say just clitoral stimulation. Usually we're not going to orgasm for missionary because we just haven't had enough clitoral stimulation, so a lot of oral sex right before penetration or using a vibrator. Like holding a little handheld vibrator on your clitorist during penetration will certainly help. For some women doing their kegill exercises and strengthening their pelvic floor can also help because the stronger those muscles are the stronger orgasms we're going to have.

I want to ask really quickly about oral sex because we did the tip for giving it, But I think a lot of women particularly have issues with receiving it. Like, they don't relax enough to enjoy it. They're worried about how their vulva's being perceived. They're worried about all these things. Do you have any tip for being less self-conscious and, like, enjoying receiving oral sex more? Yes.

You know, I'm glad you asked this because I realize that, like I said, people always want tips. But when I was writing the oral sex chapter, a lot of questions coming about. receiving. There are so many women that are missing out on oral sex because they have shame around their genitals. Let me just back up to say that oral sex on a man is highly glorified. We talk about blow jobs all the time. Oh, you're good at blow jobs. You get a blow job. It's the thing that we prioritize. We put out a pedestal. It's like really important. How do I give a good book? Oral sex for women, not so much. We don't see the movies as much, although we did during Bridgeton,

which I loved. That was great. That was like, oh, my God, they're showing female pleasure. We don't date our culture. And then when we do hear about it, it's like, oh, women are shamed about their body parts. I think maybe my vulva looks different than other vulvas, which, by the way, we are all like snowflakes and we all look different. There's not like one right vulva. I think we're worried about the taste and the smell. And then we're also worried if our partner really wants to be there doing it. And so I think that once we can realize it, like, our partner wants to be there to please us and that, you know, our vaginas are like self-cleaning ovens.

like they're fine. Like you are perfectly healthy. You don't need to do. She don't do anything else. And I believe if your partner says to you, like, I really want to give you pleasure, it can be a practice. But learn to just practice, lay down and breathe and receive. I also have a tip in the book about when you're masturbating, it's another great time to kind of visualize yourself receiving oral sex. So you can get used to it and get more comfortable with it. So you can feel like, oh, I know what this feels like. Sort of a visualization around it could be really, really hot. And one of the hottest things, like, you can tell your partner this or if there's guys listening, saying to your partner, babe, I love the way you taste, I can't wait to do this, lay back,

we've got it all night. Like, wouldn't that just make you be like, oh, okay, I'm going to really breathe and I'm going to really receive this. But there's a lot of hangups around all the things I just said that really is keeping us from pleasure. I was going to ask, I think, a big fear a lot of people, both sides and both genders, a lot of people are afraid that they're taking too long. Yes.

If somebody's down there giving them oral pleasure that they want to make it snappy for them so it's not to offend, so it's not to tire people out. And then you put this pressure on yourself and then, of course, that makes you take longer. Exactly. I have so many memories of me like being with partners and looking at the clock and being like, okay, it's been six minutes. Now it's been eight minutes. Like looking at the blinking clock thinking like, oh, it's too long.

It's too long. And I think a lot of women do that, right? Again, the orgasm gap, normalizing like, baby. if you're going down to me, like, this is at least 20 minutes. I love that. At least 20 minutes, right? In knowledge, understanding it, that's what it's going to take. So when your partner says, lay back, babe, I'm not going anywhere.

Then we don't have to be worrying so much about the time that it's taking. But again, this all goes to education. I hope people listen to this show with their partners and realize that like, okay, I get it now. I don't have to worry. And I also highly encourage people to talk to their partners and to say, like, you know, I've learned this great thing. I was listening to this show and I learned that actually takes me a little bit long.

and I want to make sure that you're cool with it. Like, there's nothing wrong with saying to a partner, I've had some insecurities about it. And the reason why I pushed your head away is because I think it's taking too long. And then if your partner says, no, I love doing it. I want to do it. How wonderful is that to receive that information and to say, okay, well, now maybe I can finally receive.

I had to go through that. I did the same thing. And then I had to realize that I was partners that were like enthusiastically into pleasing me. And now that is a requirement, right? But I think for many people listening who are in committed relationships or with one partner, what a great time to have that conversation. And just to clarify.

Like, I just want to check a story. Like, I want to make sure that you're cool with this. And then it gives you permission. I love that. And also, I will say for your blowjob tips earlier, like, if you're going down on a vulva, you should probably be using your hands and your mouth too, right? So you're not getting tired with either one. Same thing.

Use your hands in your mouth. I just want to get to a few listener questions. These were really interesting to me. Okay. I have one. I faked my orgasm with my now fiante for years. What do I do now? So really, this is actually common. And what you do is you follow my three teas of communication, which you can find it on my book or on my website, the timing tone and turf, find the right time to have

a conversation with your partner about sex. And then you let them know. You say, I would love to talk about our sex life. And let's talk about some of the best sex we've ever had. Like you've got to warm it up. You don't just lead with like, I've been faking orgasms. This is a perfect time for the compliment sandwich. The compliment sandwich is one of my tools in the book about giving constructive feedback to a partner. You have to already lay the groundwork with your partner and be talking about your sex life. Start with the first thing, which is what you love about your sex life. Like things that you love at God last night was so hot.

I love that you slowly addressed me. I love the way we make out. And, you know, I've been thinking a lot about orgasms. I got to be honest. I was listening to this show. and I realize that I actually don't know how to orgasm with you in the way that I want to. The ways that I've been experiencing pleasure, I think sometimes I do the word fake it, or I'm not really getting there the way that I want to, or maybe she's never really had an

orgasm. It's very common for women never to have had an orgasm and just say that I feel so safe in our relationship that I would love to learn together how to have a better orgasm or how to do it together and nothing to do with you and I love you. And then that's the feedback. And the last one be like, I think if I could really learn how to have an orgasm with you in a way that's like deliberate and slow, that our sex life can go to the next level. That's kind of how you end it with a positive thing. So you start with positive, the feedback, and then like why it's good for both of you. Okay. That's not that scary. Yeah. It's really not. I think just being honest. There's no world in which you shouldn't say it and just keep like experimenting with new stuff until you

have an orgasm or should you definitely be honest. Everyone gets to decide for themselves. I think that there is a world where she could certainly start to masturbate on her own, figure out what makes her feel good, and then start to experiment with some different things and see what happens. But I just feel like if you're with a partner and your fiancé, they're married or they're almost married and they're going to spend their lives together and you want to be with somebody who has a growth mindset around sex, it's not the end of the world. Hopefully he'll be like, oh, my God, babe.

like, let's get on this. Like, orgasm 101. Like, this is our mission. Let's do it, babe. Don't worry. Like, because this again, this is so common. I ask women, nine out of ten women have faked orgasm, not ten out of ten. So it's really, really common.

Just be honest so you guys can work towards orgasm together. We've touched on this a little bit, but I got, I don't know, like over a hundred listener questions that were some version of the same thing, which is how to get out of your own head when you're having sex. I cannot shut off my mom brain, my work brain, whatever, to get into the moment and enjoy it. So I just want to address it directly because it seems to be such a common problem. It's such a common problem. So here's just a quick tip for this.

First, have compassion for yourself. That's okay. Mindfulness is a practice. It's not a state. It's something that we keep crying to go back to all the time. Focus on your five senses. When you're in the room, when you realize you're distracting your thoughts, you're like, did I leave the other than on? Did I text my boss back?

Are the kids crying? Think about your senses. Start with your eyes. In the moment, I'm like, okay, what am I seeing? Okay, I'm seeing my partner's body in front of me. What am I smelling? I'm smelling that beautiful candle that's by my bed. What am I hearing? Okay, I'm hearing this playlist that I'm always playing. What am I touching? Okay, my hands are my partner's body. And so second you do a round of the five senses, you immediately land in the present moment. You cannot live in the past and you cannot live in the future when you are in your senses. The senses are so powerful. I mean, it's a great tool for just being present anywhere of getting to be mindful. But I love doing that in the bedroom. That's one way to do it. And you might have to do it a few times, but it will bring you back to the moment. And the other thing is like letting your partner know saying, you know, baby, can we slow down for a minute? Let's take a few deep breaths together. I do that with my partner all the time. If you just walked in, we'll sit, we'll take some deep breaths and we'll reconnect and we'll start again. So I think that breath is just an anchor to ourselves and to our arousal

and just not to be too hard ourselves. We all get distracted doing things that even things that we think we shouldn't get distracted in. So having a few of these tools, I think will help. I love that. Can you just leave us with one homework assignment, one actionable thing that we can all do as soon as we turn off this podcast to up-level our sex lives today? If you're in a relationship, the very first thing you have to do is commit that on your next date night, you're going to have a conversation about your sex life in a very positive, life-affirming way.

and you're going to share something about it that you've never shared. If you're not in a relationship, I would give you the exercise of thinking about when you are in your next relationship, what kind of sex you want to have. I want you to think about it when you're masturbating. I want you to think about your ideal sex life, right down what the three things are. That would be an ideal sex life for you. And then next time you're with a partner, you're going to be able to bring those things in and make sure they happen. Love. We've been talking about your book throughout, but I'd love to hear in your own words about why it's so amazing, why everybody should buy it, and then also where to find you on the internet.

So I wrote smart sex, how to boost your sex IQ and own your pleasure. Because what I realized is that after the last two decades of helping millions of people feeling less shame around sex and prioritizing their pleasure, I was giving people quick tips. And there's great tips. I can give people tips. I can give them a vibrator. I can give them a position. But I knew that you could only have great sex with self-love, self-awareness, understanding your body. And so I really wrote smart sex to teach people about themselves. Sort of like the joy of you. And understanding yourself as a sexual being will bring better sex, better relationships, and better pleasure. At the end of the day, it's conscious, intentional sex. And there's also so many little, like, genius nuggets. You have the

list of, like, different role play options so that you don't have to think of something out of your own brain. There's just so much actionable advice in there that you can take into your life today. I really love that. Exactly. Right. I mean, I think this is like the one sex book that you need. To be honest, I think you'll have it forever. And wherever you go, you're going to have these tips. Literally, it's broken down until like anal sex tip, oral sex tip, missionary positions. If you've ever had a question about sex, it will be answering this book. And then I'm sure everybody's familiar with your amazing podcast. But if you want to take a second to talk about it. It's called Sex with Emily, it releases two times a week. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. And I love

hearing from you. You can send me your questions. Social media is all sex with Emily. And please buy my book, smart sex, wherever you buy books, I would so appreciate it, review it. And also the sex IQ quiz at sex with Emily.com. We just launched a new marketplace store with like some of my favorite products and toys that you can buy there. Oh, so fun. All right, sex with Emily.com. Thank you so much, Emily. This was absolutely wonderful. I loved it. Thanks for having me. I love this episode and I love Emily and I just want everyone in the world to have this

information. So please share it with all of your friends and definitely if you have a partner, share it with them or listen together. I've found that listening to stuff like this together can be so helpful in opening up conversations in a way that's not at all uncomfy or embarrassing. You can just be like, oh, that was interesting when Emily said, what do you think of that? Sharing the podcast is hands down the best way to support it. It is so, so appreciated.

If you did love this episode, I would be so grateful if you would write a quick rating and review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It's hugely helpful for other people deciding whether to listen to the podcast, and I appreciate it so, so much. Okay, let's talk giveaway. Emily has so generously agreed to give three winners free copies of her brand new book, SmartSex, How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure, which is jam-packed with everything that you need to up-level your sex life.

It is truly such a good book and you need it on your shelves. All you need to do to enter is to follow me. I am at Liz Moody and Emily. She is at Sex with Emily on Instagram. And then comment something that you loved or learned from the episode on any of my recent posts. The post doesn't need to be about this episode. Just mention the episode or Emily in the comment so that I know that you're entering. If you're new here, first of all, welcome.

I am so happy that you're here. Make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. You're just going to go to the main podcast. page. It's the one that lists all of the healthier together episodes. And you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify. And then there's a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple podcast. That way, all of our new episodes will show up right in your feed so you will never miss out on one. And we have some incredible episodes coming up, including a highly requested one about how to know if you have ADHD and what to do if you do

have it. And another one about the new type of therapy that is transforming people's lives. So make sure that you are following so you do not miss out. Okay, I love you and I will see you next Wednesday on the next episode of the healthier together podcast. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing like stuff in the same arena is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in. So if you want them to send you

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