The Liz Moody Podcast - Your Trickiest & Most Embarrassing Sex Qs, Answered

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Not sure what’s missing from your sex life? Sex educator Emily Nagoski talks about her research on sex and connection, covering everything from common myths about intimacy to why we’re so uncomfortable talking about sex. Learn how to figure out what you want from sex and how to bring it up with your partner.  There are so many societal expectations around sex and relationships. We’re going to get into the reasons we tend to like sex, how to determine exactly what you like, and Emily answers your toughest questions about sex submitted directly to me by lovely listeners. 0:33 How Men Are Deprived of Feelings 5:31 How Do We Know What We Like? 10:30 How To Talk About Sex 26:14 Turning Off Your Brain 29:40 Sex During Political Collapse  31:30 Why Don’t We Talk About Sex? 40:15 Practicing Ecstasy  44:14 Masturbation 56:35 Sex While Managing Disabilities 1:01:51 Sex & SSRIs Listen to Disability After Dark. Find a sex therapist at AASECT. For more from Emily, find her on Instagram @enagoski or online at www.emilynagoski.com.  Order her newest book Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. This episode is sponsored by: LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/LizMoody to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 315. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It only takes one or two or three sessions with a sex therapist to build a base level of skill. Of course you feel weird doing it. You've never learned how. One of my favorite concepts that you shared is the idea of practicing ecstasy. Can you share how we can do that in our daily lives? I think about the times when it's been easy for me to want and like a sexual experience, what was activating the accelerator, in the times when it was difficult, what was hitting the brakes is a great starting point. Discovering this genuine truth of our own sexual.

is one of the three aspects of happy, connected, long-term relationships. Can you share the other two? Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Look, sex can be tricky. And, and we all deserve pleasure and joy and connection. So today we are having Dr. Emily Nagoski on to help solve our trickiest sex issues. Emily has a PhD in health behavior with a concentration in human sexuality, and her TED Talk has been viewed by over a million people.

She is the New York Times bestselling author of the books Come As You Are and Come Together, both of which will completely transform your sex life. There's a lot of information in this episode. So if you want some key takeaways when you are done listening, head over to lizmoody.com and sign up for our brand new newsletter, which has action steps for each episode, as well as meal plans, workout plans, and bonus interviews. Emily, welcome to the podcast. I'm such a fan and it is such an absolute honor to be talking to you today. It is totally my pleasure. Amazing. Well, today we are going to get into, I had listeners send in a number of their trickiest sex situation. So we're going to see how many of those that we can solve today.

But first, I want to dive into a few personal questions that I have after diving deep into all of your work. One, this stood out to me in your most recent book. You say that the world tries to prevent men from being good partners. What did you mean by that? Oh, I'm talking about the patriarchy, my friend. Yeah, talking about the ways that if you're born into a body where on the day you're born, all the adults around you go, it's a boy.

What they're declaring is that there are some emotions that you're allowed to feel. And there are other emotions that you are not allowed to feel. The emotions you're allowed to feel are horny, angry, and winning. Yeah. And if you feel anything else, no, you don't. Lonely? No. Sad? No. You're not sad. You're angry. You're not lonely. You're horny. And if you cannot come to your partner with a capacity to recognize what emotion you are experiencing, then there is no way for your partner adequately to respond to your emotional need because you have been deprived of the vocabulary to describe your internal experience. And if you cannot describe your own internal experience, of course your partner is just going to be guessing at what they can do to help you with your needs. And they have also been taught that it is their job to be the provider, to be strong, and to be winners, always to win.

So if they bring home the bacon, that is their one and only job. and if they dare to express tender, compassionate emotion with their partner who is literally asking them to express tender, compassionate emotion. They are failing as a man. What are you? Pussy, there's literally nothing worse, according to the patriarchy that a man can be than a pussy. They have trained him. they have literally punished him all his life for exhibiting the characteristics and practicing

the skills that if they're in a heterosexual relationship, their partner would really love if they could put to use in their relationship. I think this is so important to talk about because I think it's at the root of not only a lot of the problems people are facing in their sex lives, but also in their larger relationships and also in society at large. Oh, yeah. So what can men do about that and how can women help? Let's specify that I'm talking about cisgender heterosexual dudes. So the last 30 years of sex research has been pretty darn clear that people in non-heterosexual type relationships have higher quality sex, higher quality

communication in their relationships. They have more orgasms. They say, I love you more. They enjoy the sex they have more compared to heterosexual couples who have sex more frequently, but enjoy it, less. I am worried about the straits. So when we're talking specifically about cisgender, heterosexual couples, the deal is you have to recognize that each partner has been brainwashed, literally from the day you were born, sometimes even earlier, into a straight jacket definition of who you're supposed to be as a person and who your partner is supposed to be as a person. And one of the three characteristics of couples who sustain strong sexual connections over the long term, this is actually the third characteristic, and it is the most difficult characteristics,

but wow, if you can recognize that you've been following somebody else's rules for who you're supposed to be as a sexual person and who your partner is supposed to be and how you're supposed to do a sexual relationship and decide you're not going to do that anymore. You're not going to follow somebody else's rules about who you're supposed to be. You're going to figure out what's genuinely true for you underneath all those years of brainwashing and punishment for falling short of some culturally constructed aspirational ideal. You're going to listen really carefully to your partner to find out what's genuinely true for them. And you're going to explore what's right for you and your relationship in this season of your connection. And I am not saying it's easy.

I am not saying it's easy. But this, like we have started with the most difficult thing. If you can go through even just a little bit of this process, this is what puts you on the path to accessing the kind of sexual experience that turns the universe into rainbows. Okay, I have a lot of questions about that. Let's start with how do we know or discover what's true? What's genuinely true about us, about our sexuality? What about people who are like,

I have been subject to so much societal messaging that I'm not even sure I know what I like? Yeah, so there's two ways to that, right? There's listening to what's going on inside and there's getting help listening to what's going on inside by asking someone externally. Some people are really good at hearing the signals their body is telling them. And those are likely to be people who are listening to me, say this and being like, you know, some part of me has known for a long time that what the world has told me is

supposed to be true just is not true about me. And all I needed was permission to agree with my body. that what's true is something worth being, that the sexual person I am is a person worth being. This is that permission and it's just a matter of practicing awareness of what's going on in your body and saying yes to what your body is saying to you. Those are for the people who are like, I am good at hearing my body saying, and then there's other people who are like, body, what? Who's she? Never heard. What?

And those are folks for whom having some external support in recognizing their internal experience can be really valuable. Of course, that can be a therapist. It can be friends if you have friends with whom you can be really honest and explicit about your experiences. People all the time are like, don't compare. Comparison is fine. It's judgment that doesn't work. elementary school kids compare, you know, body parts all the time. But they're like, you're like that.

I'm like this. Bodies are all different. If you and your best friends can all get together and be like, this is my experience, that's your experience, and people are all different and not be like, well, you're the one who's doing it right. And I'm doing it wrong. Like, no, people are all just different.

Do you have people in your life with whom you can be honest about what's happening for you who will be just as honest about what's happening for them, and you can listen in a neutral, non-judgmental way. Or therapist. Always recommend a therapist. We are living in a golden age of books about the science of sexuality. There are so many books that you can be reading for any age group. And if you're an adult, like, but you didn't get sex education when you were 12,

read one of the awesome sex ed books for 12-year-olds right now. because then you can get access to the sex ed you should have had however long ago that was. I'm like catch up developmentally. Do you have any favorites? For middle grade, for the sort of like 12 year old kind of age, there's a wonderful one written by Heather Karina and illustrated by Isabella Rotman. It's called, wait, what? Which is the perfect title.

There's a high school age book called Let's Talk About It by Erica Moen. Matthew Nolan, that these are both comics. They're illustrated. They're developmentally appropriate. And they are so much better than the kind of sex education I got in the late 80s and early 90s. That was just diseases and contraception. Oh, my gosh. So many diseases. As opposed to talking about like sexual communications. How to tell what pleasure feels like in your body. Sexual identity and communications. Oh, there's so. so much better stuff happening in sexuality education books available now. Which all circles around this idea. I think a lot of people have the idea that sex is something

we should just be innately good at and that there's something almost embarrassing or shameful about needing to learn it, needing to study it, needing to read books about it. For sure, one of the most common myths that I've encountered is people believe that if you're in a long-term sexual relationship, if you have to talk about it, that's sort of almost automatically implies that there must be something wrong. And the opposite is true. Couples who sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term talk about sex all the time the same way the couples will talk about any hobby, like their favorite musician, their favorite sports team. Like you don't just talk about it when you're at the game or when you're at the concert. You

talk about the memories you have of that like amazing concert you went to and that game where can you believe that happened and oh, what you're really hoping is going to happen for the next time, right? You talk about it all the time because it's a shared hobby that you both love. Something that I hear from a lot of women is that they don't necessarily want to bring sex up or kiss or touch or things like that because their partners view it as an invitation that they did not mean to extend. So they stop completely, even though that might be something they'd be interested in. Right. That's so heartbreaking. It is. incredibly common. And here's a quick and easy solution that nobody wants to hear. Take sex, sex,

sex, sex intercourse type sex completely off the table for a month. We're not going to do any genital touching. The trade-off is that we're going to kiss and hug and cuddle and touch and caress and experience closeness. You can have an orgasm by yourself whenever you want or need to. Let's create a bubble, just like a little window of time, where I feel like I have permission to touch you in all the ways that I long to touch you and be touched by you without having that expectation or that sense of obligation that it's necessarily going to escalate into penetration or genital touching, because I just want to be close to you. And until I know that I can touch you without creating an expectation that doesn't work for me. Like, I'm not going to feel

like I can even hug you. Going back to what you said earlier, you said that knowing what's genuinely true, discovering this genuine truth of our own sexuality is one of the three aspects of happy, connected, long-term relationships. Can you share the other two? Oh, yes, please. The first one, which before Come Together was published, I thought this was the least controversial, but here it is. One, the couples who sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term are really good friends who admire and trust each other. I thought this was totally non-controversial. It turns out there are people who have genuinely bought into the narrative that being friends

with someone is antithetical to being horny for them or having a great sexual connection. It is more important. It turns out. The reality is when you look at the research, when you talk to people who have great sexual connections over the long term, it is way more important that they really like each other than it is that they really want each other. Like why would you want to have sex with someone if you don't respect them, you don't admire them?

If they don't respect you, if they don't admire you, why would you want to let that person see your body and touch it? Two, second characteristic of couples who sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term. They prioritize sex. They figure out that sex contributes something unique and valuable to their relationship. And I'm not saying that it always does. Sex is going to come and go in long-term relationships because our priorities shift over the course of a long-term relationship. But because they have figured out that sex contributes something important in their relationship,

They're always motivated to find their way back to each other. The thing about prioritizing sex is it means that you have to decide that there is something that uses up your time and energy that matters less than sex. So what are you willing to stop allowing to take up space in your calendar and energy from your day so that you have enough time and energy to be able to be able to engage erotically with your favorite person. Well, and one of the things that I love in your book is that you actually share that there's four reasons that most of us do want to have sex, four benefits of having sex.

I just had never thought about that before. Like, why are we doing this thing? You know, like it feels. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy to me. Can you share those? It seems so strange to take the time to like sit and consider this question. But what is it that you want when you want sex?

people's sort of off-the-cuff, like, laughing answer is, well, an orgasm, but 95% of people can have an orgasm by themselves. And if you're not among that 95%, that's fine. You're totally normal. And there's whole books and workshops just for that issue. But if you're among the 95%, well, even if you're among the 5%, it's probably going to be easy for your first orgasm by yourself than with another person. That's not always true, but it's often true. But for the people who can have an orgasm by themselves, what is it that you want? when you want sex with this other person. Between my in-person workshops and doing online surveys, I've asked a couple thousand people this question, and there are four broad themes.

The number one most common answer by far is connection. I don't want to just like eyes closed, rub my body against something until an orgasm happens. We want to be connected to each other, and that's connection, even though sex is not a biological drive, we do not need it to live. Connection is human beings sicken and die of loneliness. And sex is one, only one of a variety of ways that humans experience connection.

But for some people, sex is a really important way that they experience connection. For other people, it's more of a peripheral way that they experience connection. But for some people, it's just really important to how they feel connected to another person. Number two most common answer is shared pleasure. So like I don't want to just like rub my body against my partner and feel how nice it feels to rub my body against another body. I want it to feel good for them too, right? And I want them to see, witness, experience my pleasure. And I want to witness and experience my partner's pleasure.

It is that shared pleasure that is a very specific and valuable thing. and the second most common thing that people are looking for. When they want sex, the thing that they want is to share pleasure. A third is the experience of being or feeling wanted. And because I'm mostly teaching in like the Western world, mostly in the United States, where almost all of us are raised in a culture that teaches us that the sexual and erotic aspects of ourselves are,

disgusting, dirty, and dangerous. Like, no wonder we're looking for some experience where those parts of ourselves are not merely tolerated, but actively longed for and desired. Yeah, of course that's the thing that people want. And then the fourth most common answer is that people are looking for a variable that I'm calling freedom, which really means, like, you can close the door

on all your other identities and obligations and social roles and just disappear into the pleasure that is happening in the here and now. There are lots of other things that people say that they want when they want sex. Those are just four of the most common. Can you use those to like reverse engineer your sex life? Like if you're having sex and it's... Please don't. Please don't. Please. Please. Start with the questions. Okay. Ask yourself. Ask your body, what is it that I want? Okay. There are a lot of ways to go about answering the question.

One, you can have a conversation with your therapist. You can go to your therapist with a list of the four questions, right? What is it that I want when I want sex? Crucially, what is it that I don't want when I don't want sex? What is it that I like when I like sex? Which is not the same question as what I want. And crucially, what is it that I don't like? when I don't like sex. Talk with your therapist about the answers to these four questions. Talk

if you dare with your partner about the answers to these four questions because you might think you know the answers and you are almost certainly filling in blanks. Like it's, what's the thing? The kids on a bus. Mad libs. Like it's mad lips. You are filling it in with guesses that if you compare it to what's actually true, it will just sound bananas. And I will say, wild. And I would also encourage people to, I don't know, think laterally, think outside the box. You have the example in your book of the couple who had great sex when they were in a specific vacation home and they didn't know why the sex was so great in that vacation home. And then they realized it was because the bed was nailed to the wall. So they didn't have to worry about the bed

banging into the wall. And that was like the kind of thing that impacts our sex lives. But I think we think very different things impact our sex lives. Yeah. We're always thinking about the things that show up in porn. We think the things we want to are like, are like, I want this whole to be penetrated. I want that body part to be exposed. I want this other body part. Not to be touched. I want to wear this kind of clothing and not that kind of clothing. And it's usually stuff like, I want to know for sure that we are not going to be interrupted. I want to know for sure that nobody's going to hear the thump, thump, thump of the bed, which is the couple. They're a European couple of kids. And they would go on vacation at this very old.

old Mediterranean home where the bed is built into the wall. So one year, this, this vacation home that they had been renting for years, it was no longer available. And they're like, that's fine. We'll just rent another vacation home on the Mediterranean. Like, it's fine. And they went from having, like, amazing vacation sex to having just okay. Vacation sex. And the beautiful thing they did was they didn't say, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with our relationship? they went, what changed? What was different? And what they realized was that in this new vacation home,

it was a bed with a headboard that banged against the walls and they were worried about the kids hearing it and waking up and coming to interrupt them. And that was enough of a difference to make the change from like, amazing vacation sex to like just okay vacation sex. And this is not like a real,

realistic sex life intervention for most people, but when they built their own home, they built their bed into the wall. Oh, cool. Of their own home. Like that was, that was, not everybody can do that. Yeah, not everybody can do that. But I do love that you say this because I think sometimes we're like, my sex life is mid. I should try this crazy position. I should go get all of these toys. I should bring in somebody new as a third or all these different things. And it's like, well, maybe you just need a babysitter who takes the kids out of the house in some uninterrupted time. Maybe you need to have the kitchen feel clean. So your mind isn't being distracted by that. You need a full week of uninterrupted sleep. Yeah. Where the dishes are done when you wake up in the morning, the kitchen is

clean and you didn't have to do it. Yeah. And the laundry gets done and the, you know that if the sheets are dirty the next morning, they're going to get washed and you are not going to have to do it. Sometimes the sexiest thing you can do is the laundry. Well, and it just, it shows that like sex is entangled with our lives. Sex is not this separate thing that lives separately and has a bunch of separate tools. It's entangled with every single part of our days and weeks and years. Especially in the context of a long-term relationship, especially when that relationship involves a lot of other roles. Like if you are sharing and co-managing a household, if you are co-parenting children, my goodness, the,

The way you manage all those other things is going to impact how sex plays out in your relationship because it's part of how you feel connected to this other human being. And if you feel not supported by this person, of course that's going to influence whether or not you're interested in taking off your clothes and licking that person's body. If you are angry for the 87th time about the fact that they were over half an hour late to pick up the kids or whatever, Is that a person's body you're going to want to lick? 100%. So the action step for people listening there would be really ask yourself, what is happening

when I'm having great sex and what is happening when I'm not having great sex? And think broadly about those questions. In the same with it, there's these sort of four questions that you can ask, what do I want when I want sex? What do I not want when I don't want sex? What do I like when I like sex? And what do I not like when I don't like sex? You can just think about the actual mechanism in your brain that controls how sexual

response happens, the dual control mechanism of the sexual accelerator and the sexual breaks. So the accelerator notices all the potentially sexy things in your environment, everything that you see, hear, smell, touch, or taste, everything that you think, believe, or imagine, and all of the internal sensations of your body. And if it finds something that sex-related, it sends that turn-on signal that many of us are familiar with. But all Also, at the same time that that's happening, which it's happening all the time at a subconscious level. So here we are talking about sex.

That's a tiny little bit of sexy information. So you have a tiny little bit of turn on signal happening in your brain. But also you have the breaks, which are noticing all the good reasons not to be turned on right now. Everything from your external sentences, everything you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, all of your thoughts, beliefs, and imagination, and all of your internal body sensations that your brain codes as a potential threat. And that threat, those breaks, send a turn-off signal. So the process of becoming a rouse is actually a dual process of turning on the ons and also turning off the offs. When I was growing up, it was all women's magazines. Try handcuffs. Try roleplay. Try porn.

Try lingerie, try sex toys. Those are all great if you like them. Go for it if you want to. But it turns out when people are struggling, it is only rarely that it's because there's not enough stimulation to the accelerator and all that stuff is just adding stimulation to the accelerator. Usually when people are struggling, it's because there's too much stimulation to the brakes and so many kinds of things,

not just stuff that's immediately happening in a sexy context. Like, it's not just like I like my partner's body to be a certain way. And if it's not a certain way, it hits the brakes. It's I'm stressed, depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted, literally sleep deprived. I am touched out from my children. I am feeling demeaned and demoralized at my job. I have a sexual trauma history. I have an overall trauma history.

I'm pissed off at my partner because for the 87th time, they were more than half an hour late picking up the kids, right? All of these relationship factors. If you don't trust your partner enough, if you don't feel connected enough, all of these things. So even just starting with like, I think about the times when it's been easy for me to want and like a sexual experience,

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is always racing with a million different things and then I feel guilty that I'm not being present enough in those intimate moments with him. Oh, boy. Yes. The dual control model is absolutely the answer to this question. People do vary in the sensitivity of their accelerators and brakes, and it sounds like this might be a person with a particularly sensitive brakes.

The least kind of thing will slam their brakes on. A stray thought, a stray sensation. And oh, we've got the extra special bonus feature that they're experiencing this thing. I don't actually know this person's gender. They're experiencing this, like, difficulty with staying present in the moment, and then they're judging themselves. And does judging yourself feeling guilty for your inability to be present in the moment?

Is that at the accelerator? No. Or does that hit the brakes? It hits the brakes. Right? So step number one, hopefully people are like, Oh, yeah. Stop judging yourself. Just because it takes you longer to get your brain settled into a sexy state of mind doesn't mean it takes your brain a wrong amount of time. I know we are taught to believe it's supposed to just be instantaneous. I take off my clothes and I'm immediately horny. That is not actually how our brains work. We have to transition from one state of mind into, this other state of mind, which requires shedding a whole lot of our identities and our roles

and our obligations. And that's easy for some people. And it is really not easy for a lot of people. That transition is really important. And a lot of us have been raised with the idea that we shouldn't need time or ritual to transition. So a thing that sex educators like me say all the time is stop shudding on yourself. So stop shooting on yourself. There is no amount of time it is supposed to take your brain to transition. And two, in the same way that you're thinking about, okay, so when it's easy for me to want and like sex, what's happening, when it's difficult for me to want and like sex, what's happening, what are some of the things that I know can help my brain to let go of the stuff that I don't want to bring with me into an erotic experience?

What helps me to transition? For me, a bath is like so, so helpful. I don't have to take a bath, but oh boy, is it helpful for me to like spend some time just in like 106 degree water. Up to my boobs and hot water helps so much to like just shed all the stuff from the rest of my life so that I can just bring my sexual self into an erotic experience. I think acute issues are easier. Maybe local issues is the better way. Like there's a dish in the sink. Let's wash the dish.

One question that I got from a number of people, though, is how do you get in the mood when you're consumed by anxiety about the state of the world? I can sometimes compartmentalize and diffuse my feelings long enough to make it happen. But my partner has a harder time. He is often too bogged down by fear of the impending collapse of society to get. I know that this is actually a difficult one. And part of it is a kind of like, we've been raised in this puritanical, rabidly exploitative late capitalist culture that teaches us, how dare we waste our time on something as frivolous as shared erotic pleasure. And what I want to say

is that our connections with each other, especially with the people with whom we share the closest connection is an essential element of how we're going to make it through. We need each other more now than we have in recent decades. And so sustaining those connections, whatever contributes to that sense of connection is essential. And also, your experience of pleasure is inherently a rejection of that puritanical, rabidly exploitative late capitalistic culture that is sort of the foundation of the things that are going wrong right now.

So for you to clear space in your calendar and to protect energy in your body, even if sex is not the thing that happens in the window of time that you protect, even if it's just like naked time holding each other, crying about your fear for the world that your children are going to inherit. I would rather you spend that time naked and holding each other than staring at a TV numbing out.

Does that make sense? It does. Pleasure is sort of revolutionary in the context that you're talking about it. Joy is an act of resistance. Our exhaustion and the... sense of helplessness is what they're looking for from us. They're doing it that way on purpose, so that we feel like we're trapped and isolated. Trapped and isolated are two of the most dangerous things for a human brain to experience. And I want everyone listening to know that we are not

trapped and we are not isolated. We have people who want to be in connection and community with us. and sometimes that connection in the community happens naked. I fucking love that. Okay. So I think a lot of people feel embarrassed even by the conversations about sex with their partner. They just kind of do sex. They do the same sex over and over. And whenever they try to bring it up, it feels kind of awkward and weird.

How do they get over that hurdle? A lot of people feel more comfortable having sex with someone than they do talking about sex with that same someone. And no wonder, even with the generally very appalling quality of sex ed that most of us have had, we have had even worse education about how to talk to each other about sex. Last year when I was on book tour, I did an event with Ian Kerner, a sex therapist in New York. And he was like, yeah, a lot of young couples in particular come to me. And it only takes one or two or three sessions with a sex therapist to build a base level of skill. in this thing you have never like of course you don't know how to do it of course you feel weird doing it you've never learned how so like a couple sessions with a sex therapist asex a a a ct dot org the american association of sex educators counselors and therapists dot org find a provider in my area and you can find someone in north america who's a sex therapist who can just like help you out with like getting started with the basic skills say the words out

loud. Say the genital words out loud to each other. Yeah, giggle about it. It's going to be uncomfortable at first, but the more you do it, the more comfortable it will become. Recognize that, like, look, if you're allowed to lick that person's body part, you're allowed to talk about that body part with that person. There's sex therapist named Lex Brown James, Dr. Lex, who suggests for her clients all the time, get together in the bedroom. take off your clothes and talk to each other about parts of your partner's body that you really appreciate. What do you really appreciate about that body part, whether it's a genital body part or not? And then express affection physically or otherwise for that body part.

Alternate. This is not like a sexy experience you're having. You're just breaking down those walls of shame and embarrassment and being like you're allowed to talk to other about your bodies. Okay, I know there is somebody out there listening who's saying, yeah, I'm down for this. I've got the action plan. My partner is never, never going to go for it. Yeah. So there's a whole chapter and come together that is specifically about how do I talk to my partner about change either that has been foisted upon us by the changes that are inevitable with the passage of time. Welcome to living in a mammalian body. And the changes that we want to create together, maybe I'm more ready than my partner is.

and there are specific conversation prompts depending on the level of readiness that your partner is currently experiencing because a lot of us bring to this kind of conversation like maybe it has taken us months or even years to get to the point of being ready to talk about it. But we are now ready to talk about it. And so our expectation is I am now ready,

therefore my partner should be ready. So I'm going to explain what it has taken me months or even years to come to realize And as soon as I explain it, my partner's going to meet me where I am and everything's going to be fine. And if they have any resistance to what I have to say, then there's something wrong with them. Not with me who had took me months or years to get to the point of talking about it. Sometimes we bring on realistic expectations to the conversation. Okay, so there's some prompts and things like that in the book.

Could you maybe share one of your favorites just to get people's brain going in that direction? I will actually tell you my own spouse's favorite one. If anybody has a master's degree in public health, this is going to sound very familiar to you because this is the trans-theoretical model or the stages of change theory, which suggests that people are in different places around their relationship with change.

And the first stage is pre-contemplation. Pre-contemplation, most of us are in this stage about almost every health behavior. We are not even thinking about quitting, smoking. We are not even thinking about starting to run. We are not even thinking about whatever the health behavior is. Most of us are pre-contemplation when it comes to creating change in our sex life, even if we feel dissatisfied, we are not even thinking about what it might take. Assuming like you, once upon a time we're in a pre-contemplation stage, you got to contemplation. You started thinking about

it. And you started like reading some books and listening to podcasts like this one and learning new things and following Candice Hargons, whose new book Good Sex is amazing and everyone should read it. You're in this place. You got through contemplation and now you're in preparation. You would like to create change and you're getting ready to create change. And part of the way you're getting ready to create change is by finally introducing the topic to your partner. They, understandably are in pre-contemplation. So what you want to do in order to just introduce the idea is begin highlighting by asking them, what are some of the good things about where we are sexually right now?

Is there anything that's maybe not so good? Ask these questions really gently. Make sure you talk about your favorite things about your sexual connection and make them genuine. Like there are things that you like about your sexual connection. What are those things? If you could wave a magic wand, I love this one, if you could wave a magic wand and have our sex life be everything that you wanted to be, what would it look like? Hmm. What kind of things might be worth trying to get it that way? Just hypothetically,

I'm not putting you on the spot. I'm not saying let's do something. We're just fantasizing right now. We're just imagining hypothetically. If we were going to create change. And by asking that hypothetical question in a really gentle, supportive, loving, emphasizing strengths, making sure we never bring an energy of criticizing. And oh, boy, am I asking for a lot of emotional labor with this? Yes, I am. But like, you're looking for change. And change comes with emotional labor. You ask them, like, what sorts of imaginary hypothetical things might happen that could create change? Oh, we could sell our children to the circus. Oh, yep. That is an imaginary thing that we could do that sure would make it easier

for us to want and like the sex in our relationship. Does that make sense? It makes complete sense. And I know that there's somebody listening to this bit. They're probably driving and they're probably like, but I am so angry and frustrated and annoyed and rejected and I feel so isolated and alone. And my partner isn't like no matter how much emotional labor I do. They're still never going to want to talk to me about it. And for that person, therapy. This episode is brought to you by therapy. The reality is that if you're in a tough situation, it's going to take tough work to get out of it. And if you put that tough work in, again, that's how you get from we're in a tough situation to we have the kind of sex life that is the envy of our friends. Not that the point is envy of your

friends. The point is joy and connection and pleasure and play. Speaking of joy and connection and pleasure and play, one of my favorite concepts that you shared is the idea of practicing ecstasy. Can you share how we can do that in our daily lives? Yeah. So the first thing you have to do is consider the possibility that ecstasy is worthwhile. And I'm not saying you have to, but in the same way that like exercising a little bit or practicing a little bit of yoga, we all know that's good for you, right? Some people, want to train for a marathon. Good for them. Ecstasy is the marathon of sex. Like if you want to access the kind of pleasure that actually like alters your brain chemistry permanently, that is a thing

that you can do that I have step-by-step instructions for in the last chapter of the book. And it mostly has to do with learning to recognize pleasure in your body, and then setting aside time on a regular basis at least once a week, at least, but really more than once a week, setting aside at least 20 minutes, but really more than 20 minutes each time of like exploring what pleasure feels like in your body and letting the pleasure grow a little bit more each time

and letting it grow some more. Don't have an orgasm. Orgasm is kind of the opposite of ecstasy, especially if you have a fast orgasm, a lot of us, especially if you grow up in, it's a boy kind of body. You learn how to have an orgasm in like 20 seconds in the shower, fast and silent. That's not ecstasy. That's an orgasm. That's ejaculation.

So this is about letting pleasure, like expand and grow way beyond just your genitals, letting it spread, like relaxing your body. because the process of arousal is an actual physical tightening of the muscles in your body. So noticing that as pleasure grows, your body has gotten tighter. And you notice that and you take a deep breath and you soften all those muscles that have gotten tighter. And that creates this space in your body for more pleasure than it was capable of before. Because, like, you know, it's a rung out sponge or is it a big soft, relaxed, sopping wet, heavy sponge. You want your body to be a sopping wet, heavy sponge, saturated and

dripping with pleasure so that it cannot hold anymore. And you're lying in bed, soaking the metaphorically, I mean, maybe literally soaking the sheets and the pleasure that is just oozing out of every poor. And what's actually happening is all of the cells of your body are vibrating at the same wavelength because you have given them enough time. The technical term board is entrainment. You have given all of the cells in your body enough time to begin vibrating at the shared wavelength. So your whole body has the orgasm. It takes practice. It is totally unnecessary for basic health. Just like running a marathon is totally unnecessary for basic health. But some people like a challenge. And I don't know about you, but if I had to choose between spending my time

training for a marathon or spending my time training to have an hour-long orgasm, I know which one I would pick. And does this always need to be in bed touching your body? How does pleasure derive from outside of bed experiences fit into the concept of practicing ecstasy? Yeah. So one of the questions I get asked a lot, especially by young women. There's a woman. There's a woman. who came up to me after a talk. She was in her 20s, so she was out of high school less than 10 years for sure.

Like in high school, somebody told me, she said, somebody told me that if you masturbate, that means you won't be able to have an orgasm with a partner. And I was like, no, that is the opposite of true, my friend. Because when you masturbate

and you learn how to give yourself an orgasm, you are learning how to tell your partner what you like. You are learning to recognize, pleasure in your body, but a lot of us have grown up, not only being told that pleasure is frivolous and a waste and selfish and how dare we? And especially if you got raised and it's a girl kind of body, then you got taught that your pleasure matters less than almost anything in the world, your partner's comfort and convenience. You're meeting your partner's expectations

matters more than even an intense degree of discomfort for you. You should be willing to suffer to meet your partner's expectations. And people who were raised with those kinds of messages may not even know what pleasure feels like in their bodies. And sexual or erotic pleasure is not the place to start in recognizing pleasure. That's going to start with recognizing literally your breath. there's a reason why mindfulness practices often begin with the breath is because you can't not do it. And it is a potential source of pleasure if you're willing to recognize it and honor it as the gift that it is.

Is it possible to experience the flavor of a food as a pleasure? Not for everybody. But if it is, the pleasure of food is a great place to start. If the pleasure of shower water running over your body is available to you, start with that sort of like more neutral sense of pleasure. If the pleasure of looking at a sunrise, of searching the branches of a tree, it is March of Massachusetts right now for me. And I get pleasure searching the branches of the tree outside our house every day, looking

for the first bud. When I find that first bud, it's going to be. so exciting and joyful because that is a sign that like life continues in the cycle. And as scary as life is, this tree is still alive and growing. There are loads of ways to experience pleasure. And like, I love a list. Write a list of like all the different ways that you have experienced pleasure and joy. Notice that voice in your head that says that pleasure is frivolous and selfish and all those things. and just be like, hello, voice that's telling me pleasure is privilege and selfish. I can have those thoughts any other time right now.

I'm just going to pay attention to the memories of things that have been pleasurable ever in my life. I love this so much because I do think that we are so busy, we're so overwhelmed with our lives, so many of us. So we rush through all of these micro moments for pleasure that do exist throughout our day. I love that nothing you said was like an hour of your time. It was you're already showering to keep your body clean. How can we lean into this and enjoy this? You're looking outside at a butt on a tree. One of my favorite books that I read as part of my research for Come Together is a book

called Off the Clock. And it is this brilliant book that has really nothing to do with anything specifically that we're talking about. But it's about savoring. It's about recognizing pleasurable. moments as they happen, planning to create pleasurable moments? What I love in particular about her approach to looking at the research is that when we plan for, create, and take time to notice and share pleasure in our lives, it's not just that we experience our lives as more worth living.

We experience our lives in retrospect as having been longer. Because if we're just like, Like the same commute each way, day after day, year after year, that collapses in our memory as just the one commute. All those hours and hours of our lives, in our memory, it is 40 minutes total because they just all collapsed together. And you remember that one commute where you saw that chihuahua in a passenger's lap and in like major day. There's that one moment that stands out. But if you have just an enormous collection of spotlights in your memory of like this beautiful moment that happened, that joyful thing, and making sure you say it out loud to someone you're sharing it with, there's the first butt on the tree. There's the new leaf on the aglionema finally budding. When you share it with someone else, it expands in your brain and takes up more space.

And when you do that, you're literally rewiring your brain so that you have greater and greater access to pleasure, which not only means that you have more access to pleasure in the future. It makes you resistant. It's like an immunity to anxiety and depression. I don't know if you can see this. I have a shirt on this says the novelty rule. It's sort of a different way into a similar concept, which is that when we do novel things, our brain slows down how it perceives time. because I have to write these new pages in the book. But novelty is a matter of perception. Every day is new. Oh, I love that. I love that. I love that. I think that's such an important perspective shift.

I have to say that because as a sex educator, people ask me about novelty all the time. I really love novelty. Cool. But like every time you have sex with someone, even if it's the same someone, that someone is different, and this time of having sex is different.

Novelty doesn't have to be just about, like, I want to try a new sex toy, I want to try a new roleplay, I want to watch new porn. it can be what's new about my partner this time. What new thing can I do? Like if you've been with your partner for 20 years, I bet there's a part of your body that they haven't licked yet. Is there a reason why they haven't licked that part of your body yet? Is there a part of your partner's body that you haven't licked yet? Is there a reason you haven't licked that part?

Or if not licked bitten, rubbed with your feet, rubbed with any other part of your body, brushed the hair on your head over? Like, that is... an intense sensation on a whole lot of different body parts. If you have not brushed the hair on your head against the souls of your partner's feet, is there a reason you haven't done that? Maybe your partner doesn't have feet. That is a good reason not to have done that, not to have tried that. But if you have hair and your partner has feet,

and if that's not the case, then maybe the other way around is the case. Novelty is a matter of perception. I love that. 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.

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systems. And they're running around on their little paws and then they're licking them. So I'm protecting them too. Brand basics is now available at Target.com, Amazon, and branchbasics.com. So it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is at branchbasics.com and use code Liz Moody. I know that you've dealt with chronic illness at your own life. I heard from a lot of listeners who were dealing with chronic illness, whether it was genital.

specific like vaginismis or vulva dinia or painful sex or something like long COVID, which I believe is what you've dealt with. And that was really impacting their sex life. Can you share some advice for that type of situation? Yeah. More people are disabled now in America than have ever been disabled largely because COVID as a virus causes more chronic illness than a typical virus does. It's a struggle when you have long COVID and when you have a lot of chronic illnesses to find a doctor who will take your experience seriously and finally give you a diagnosis that's real and a treatment pen that has any evidence behind it. There is a lot of stress that goes into having a chronic illness that goes way beyond the experience of the illness itself. I fully get it. And just because

I live in a body with chronic illness and oh, I'm also paramedopausal. which is just a delight. It's a project. So with the changes that have happened in my body over the last several years, like my relationship with my body has changed, my relationship with my sexuality has changed, my relationship with my partner has changed, and I feel extraordinarily blessed to already have done a whole bunch of work in knowing how to communicate with my, because if I got to this point of having these struggles, and I didn't already know how to talk to my partner about sex in general. Like, no, I need to talk about not just sex, but like the ways that I feel like

ashamed of changes that I had no control over, no choice about, and that I wish weren't happening and that the internalized ableism in me is judging myself for. It is difficult. and also my frame is that the ones who get old are the lucky ones. I'm going to have feelings right now. And a trigger warning for cancer. This is the first book I've ever turned in late. And it's because right as the book was due, a friend of mine died of cancer.

She was right around my age, mid-40s at the time. I'd known her for a really long time. And it was unexpected. even though she had cancer, it was not like that was not the situation as we understood it. And fuck cancer. And she had gotten married just a couple of months after I did. So we'd been married for just about the same amount of time. But here I was still married.

And she and her wife had already reached there till death do us part. So I rewrote the whole second half of the book. from the perspective that, you know, I'm writing a book about sex in long-term relationships. And the reality is we don't have any idea how long that long-term is going to be when we decide to be in a relationship with somebody. And so, yeah, my body has changed a lot. And yeah, I struggle with energy. And oh, yeah, there's also, like, the depression and the perimenopause. And, like, it's rough. And, like, every single day that I, get to be alive with this human who's my favorite person. That is something I am grateful for,

and it is motivating for me to stay connected, even on the days when sex isn't there for me. And the reality is that given my illness, there are a lot of days when I don't have the energy for sex like I used to. Like I used to be like a very bouncing up and down kind of gal. And that is not always available to me now. So whatever is available to me, I am so grateful still to be here with this other person who is still here and like whatever our bodies can do, I want to rub my naked skin against his naked skin and whatever that is, it can just be like giggling with laughter. We can be sad today because we are sad about the things that have changed. And it can be hot as hell. I've already talked about my definition of normal sex.

Normal sex is everybody's glad to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences, plus no unwanted pain. Perfect sex, which is this weird thing I'm describing of just like, our skins touch and whatever happens today is what happens today. Perfect sex is everybody's glad to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences and everybody involved turns toward whatever's happening in this moment with kindness, compassion, and a sense of play. Somebody wants an erection, an erection isn't happening. You turn toward that reality with kindness and compassion and a sense of play. And maybe that means like, we're going to do stuff that doesn't involve an erection.

Or it means, oh, no erection? There are so many fun things you can do with this body part when it's not erect that you can't do when it's erect. Let's do those fun things with this opportunity we've been gifted of not having an erection. That sounds like fun to me. So nobody's worried. There's no judgment. There's no performance demand or expectation.

There is no like, are we doing it right? It's just what's happening right now. And each person's body is a gift regardless of what's happening with it today. I'm really sorry about your friend. Thanks. Her name was Anna. She was a librarian. I'm glad that we could talk about her for all of these people. And I appreciate you sharing her with all of us. I like one of the things that you said in the context of chronic illness. You have alluded to it and kind of said it around it here. And you said it directly in the book, which is that limitations create context to try new things and explore more. And I do think that's part of the, there's no way sex should look. It is not this specific thing. These limitations can lead to. Like you said,

the soft penis can lead to putting the penis in places that it might not be able to go if it's hard. The limitations create almost anyone can put a whole soft penis right in their mouth. And like, that is, that is a fun, new entertaining experience for everyone involved. I just think it's such a beautiful way to think about it. I love the gratitude component because I heard from a lot of people too who felt uncomfortable in their bodies, felt uncomfortable with weight gain or aging or things like that. And I do think that the story of Anna speaks to that so, so strongly as well. Like you have a body. It is aging. It might be whatever size, but you have it and you can rub it up on somebody else. And I think that the limitations create context to explore

more is just a really helpful frame. I want to make sure we say out loud that I am not saying the disability is a gift. Yes. It's a hassle. Sort of at its basic level, it is a patina the patoot. It is irritating. And it does create this context where, like, if you are willing to think creatively about what's possible with this body, wow, you can find, like, all kinds of new things

that you would not otherwise do. So disability creates a motivation. There's a wonderful podcast. if anybody's experiencing disability, and they're like, can I have a whole podcast? Does just about sex and disability? Disability After Dark, hosted by Andrew Gerza, is a great resource. It is a model for the ways that disabled people are leading a conversation about how physically abled people can transform their own sexual experiences. if they're willing to think with the kind of creativity that disabled people must think with.

That actually, I mean, that makes me think of you said at the top of the episode that queer couples tend to have much happier sex lives. And I kind of think of that in a similar light where they were forced to be creative, to be communicative, all of these different things. And they're reaping the results of that. Yeah, it's really very much about having developed a skill and now applying it to a new context.

So a person who they grew up in a heterocentric world, and it turns out they're a lesbian, they have had to go through a process of recognizing that who they are is different from who they were taught. They were heavy air quotes here supposed to be. And once you've done that, you can do it again in a different context. And so you get into a sexual relationship with someone, and things don't go the way you were taught. They were supposed to based on some script you got from who knows. where, but you've already had practice being like, oh, yeah, sometimes you don't end up being the person or having the experience that you're taught you're supposed to have, and so you just

figure out how to do it differently. Heterosexual couples may never before have confronted the ways they're not what they were supposed to be. And so they've never developed that skill. And 15 years deep into a relationship is the first time it's ever. gotten so bad that they've been required to have a conversation about it. Unlike a queer couple where their first ever sex conversation was already, here are the things that I know that I like that I've had to find out because like I, there was no script available for me. Would the same kind of like use these limitations to create contexts to try new things apply for somebody who's on antidepressants and is really struggling with their sex drive as a result of that? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes, so SSRIs in particular, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are known to reduce interest in sex and delay orgasm in particular. I was on SSRIs briefly and I had to train my psychiatrist and how to talk to me about the sexual side effects I was going to experience. I was like, what I need you to say to me as an expert is I may experience changes to my interest in sex. I may experience changes in my experience of orgasm, not that it's going to be a loss. Because it truly was a change. So I can tell you, like, of course, I'm going to tell you what my own personal experience of orgasm unnecessarize was. The kind of stimulation and the duration of stimulation that I needed to get to orgasm really transformed while I was unnecessary eyes. And if I hadn't known that it was going to happen, I would have been like, what is going on? And if I didn't know

the stuff I know, if I had framed it as, oh, no, this is a lot. loss. This is a problem. I would have done that thing. The very first question we talked about, I judge my, I feel guilty about it. The train would have started on the self-criticism. But because, like, I have this decades of training, I was like, nope, this is just a change. Just because it takes longer, just because it requires a different kind of stimulation. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong. It just means that it is a difference. And I will gladly welcome this difference if it means that I'm not so depressed. I can't get off the couch. Yay. I'm having sex. Yay. That's so much better than being so depressed that I can't move. I love that for me.

How did you know what to do differently? If somebody's listening and they're like, I'm on SSRIs. I'm just not even like remotely interested in this thing, but I feel like it's missing from my life. Like how do they even know where to start? Yeah. So if it's about just total loss of interest, then I'm like going to do a thing. I am actually going to say, please read the first three chapters of come. together because I spent a lot of time talking about the difference between sexual desire and sexual pleasure and emphasizing that I know we all got raised with the idea that like being horny, wanting sex is the measure of your sexual well-being. It is not. Pleasure is the measure of sexual well-being. It's not about how horny you are. It's not about how often you do it or where or how many orgasms you have. It's whether or not you enjoy the sex that's available to you. And just like novelty, enjoyment is often matter of point of view. Do you like the sex that's available in

your relationship? Do you like the person you're in a relationship with? Put it on your calendar. And even if you're not like super horn dogs when you get in the bed, you know, you show up. You put your body in the bed. You let your skin touch your partner's skin. You allow your body to experience pleasure, which, oh boy, when you are depressed, that is a neurological context where it is so difficult even to begin to experience pleasure. So if you're in a place where your brain has access to pleasure, that's the SSRIs doing their good work. The deal with SSRIs is that they're like being full.

You feel satisfied rather than like activated and joyful. You just feel like I can stop eating now. I'm done. I'm good. I don't need anything. I can just sit here with like, you know, a blanket over me, cuddled up and feel fine. That was my experience of SSRIs.

And that's what serotonin really is for is satisfied. If you can actually get to pleasure, you're doing it right. And when you are so depressed that you require medication, and you can get to a place where you're like, I enjoy touching my body. If you're even just in a place where you're like, I am really having a lot of fun watching my partner, jerk off. Like, oh, it's so adorable. Like, I love, I love the faces you make and I love the way your

body twitches and I love the noises. Like, I just, oh, that's so fun. Like, you're already in a really good place that is so much better than the experience of depression so intense you require medication. Yeah. And it also goes with so much of what we already talked about in this episode, the practicing pleasure wherever you can find it in your life and all of the different reasons that we have sex that are not have an orgasm, that are connection and freedom and all of these different things. So I think a lot of that comes in there. Plus, it's the revolution. It's the revolution, which is so important. For the painful sex, are there any people for whom sex will just be painful, or should we always be seeking out medical help there? Or I believe the future of the treatment of

sexual pain disorders is in pelvic floor therapy, physical therapy. Not everyone has a wonderful experience with pelvic floor physical therapy. Just like not all doctors are great, not all pelvic floor physical therapists are great, but there's a lot of great pelvic floor physical therapists because of complicated science reasons that it's nobody cares except me. I love this science is so, so cool. We love the science too. We love the science too. It's okay. You know how when you're in a sexy, flirty, playful state of mind and you're already kind of turned on and maybe you're a certain special somebody tickles you. Even if you don't love tickling, that can feel like playful and good and lead to other things. But if you're in the middle, like, you know, your wrist-deep in baby poop

changing a diaper and your partner tickles you, how's that going to feel? Not great, right? So that's the context dependence of our perception of a sensation. So when people are experiencing genital pain. Often the origin of pain is a physical trauma. Maybe it's birth. Maybe it's sexual trauma. Maybe there's all kinds of reasons why people can experience. Maybe your first ever sexual experience is incredibly painful. Like there's all kinds of reasons. But then, like your tissues heal. But there's a whole sort of chain of connections between your body tissues and your brain. And your brain is where all sensations are perceived, all pleasure and all pleasure and all All pain happen in the brain.

All pleasure and all pain are real, and they all happen in the brain. And just like tickling can feel good or very irritating, depending on the context. A genital sensation can feel good or very irritating depending on the neurological context. And in particular, like if you've experienced a trauma, like childbirth, for example, your brain is doing an evolutionarily adaptive thing by learning that any sensation that comes from that part of your body, whoa, Nelly, look out, no way, don't go near that. So a lot of pelvic floor physical therapy is about teaching your brain

to recognize genital sensations, sensations from anywhere in that area, as being neutral at first. They are not dangerous. You can experience those sensations and you are not unsafe. And gradually, as your brain learns not to literally like slam the brakes on as soon as it notices anything genital related,

it's like, oh, I can experience a genital sensation and I'm safe. When you get to that baseline of genital sensations and I'm still safe, you can start to get to genital sensations and actually good, actually pleasure. That's why, like, physical therapy, like actual sensations in your genitals is such an important part of healing from sexual trauma, from pelvic floor disorders. Vagenismus in particular, for example, is usually going to use dilators to stretch because, I mean, a vagina is,

built to be able to have a baby head go through it, right? There is no penis on earth that is too big for a vagina. Like, look, even a newborn head. No penis is that big. Yeah. I apologize for that visual. A vagina is absolutely capable of that. And some people need to practice, experience in the sensation, of feeling that stretch and having their brain, not panic, having their brain be like the stretching sensation, you know, if you have a yoga practice, you might have an instructor who says, so we're going to practice pigeon pose, you're feeling a lot of sensation right in your pelvis area, you're feeling a lot of stretch, you're feeling a lot of sensation. They're not saying, you're experiencing pain here, no, it's just, it's intense, it's a lot of sensation. That stretch

is a lot of sensation. Does it feel good or bad? It depends on whether your brain perceives you as being safe enough while you experience that sensation. Does that make sense? It does. And I think so many people probably breathe a sigh of relief, just even hearing, like, there's nothing wrong with me. My brain is actually trying to protect me. I just need to teach my brain when I am safe. It takes practice and it takes a partner who is happy to. be really patient and be like, yeah, you are safe enough. You're safe enough with me. You're so safe with me that I am not going to push you to do anything that feels remotely uncomfortable. Because it's so easy to lose all the experience that you've had and your brain just will slip

right back into pain if you push it too far. Your partner being like, we're going to take a real freaking slow and your pleasure and the absence of pain matters more to me than you. anything I might want to experience myself. Yeah. We are all going to run and get our own copies of your incredible book come together. But can you just leave us with one homework assignment, something that anybody can do as soon as they turn off this podcast to begin to feel better or experience better sex in their lives? I will give you the homework assignment that was given to me by the glorious and wonderful Adrian Marie Brown, author of Pleasure Activism. If you haven't read pleasure activism, please read pleasure activism. It is more important now than ever. I was like,

I have difficulty transitioning out of work brain mode into being a human being with other people mode. What should I do? And Adrian Maria Brown told me about a specific gratitude for pleasure practice, where as I emerge from my work brain mode, my job was to notice at least five things, five as a magic number that were pleasurable to me. So this is where I notice like, oh, there's a new leaf on this house plant. Oh, I smell the food cooking in the kitchen because my spouse made dinner. Oh, it's delicious and I didn't have to cook it myself. Oh, this is wonderful. Oh, look at that glorious, the colors, the stripes of pink with the sunset. Notice five things that are pleasurable. and again, you're building up these pathways in your brain so that pleasure gets easier and easier to access.

And that transition out of work mode into being a human being mode becomes easier every day. I love that so much. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your phenomenal book, Come Together? Come Together is a book I wrote because my first book, Come As You Are, you might think that like reading and writing and thinking, talking about sex all the time can be super sex. see, it turns out the writing, come as you are, was so stressful, I lost all interest in actually having any sex with my at the time newlywed husband. And then, so I finished the book and things got better. And then I went on book tour and things got much worse. So I would do what I say to do, which is put your body in the bed, you show up, you, let your skin touch your partner's skin. And usually what happens is your body goes, oh, right, I really like this. I really like this

person. And instead, what would happen to me is I'd let my skin touch my partner's skin and I would cry and fall asleep. And I was like, oh, I need more information than I give in my own book. And I went on a journey. I did what any good sex nerd does. I went to Google Scholar. And I looked at the peer-reviewed science on how couples sustain a strong sexual connection. And this book is the result of what I learned to repair my own sex life. I love it. Emily, you are an absolute delight. And I so appreciate you taking the time today. Unfortunately, that is all for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you were ever going to share an episode, share this one. Let's take the shame out of sex. Let's reclaim our joy. This is all so, so important. It's revolutionary like we talked about

in the episode. Make sure that you're following the Liz Moody podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on YouTube, because we've got one of my most highly requested episodes ever coming up, and following the podcast means that episodes will show up right in your feet. feed and you will never have to miss out on one or have to go searching for it or anything like that. And you can now watch full video episodes on YouTube and on Spotify too. Also, we are able to bring you this show completely free because of the brands that you heard in this episode. You can save money on amazing products while supporting the show by using the discount codes that we share. There's a full list of all of our active ones at Liz Moody.com slash codes. And remember to head over

to Liz Moody.substack.com to sign up for our newsletter, the takeaway, where you will get key action steps for each episode plus tons of bonus content. You can also come hang out on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody. I share tons of inspiring and always very, very real content and exactly how I am using everything that we learn on the podcast in my real life. Okay, I love you. I'm very excited for you to take all of the information that we learned today and transform your sex life, your pleasure life, your life as a whole. And I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician,

a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.