Have you ever pondered the mysteries of female arousal, or wished for a deeper understanding of how to navigate the intricate dance of sexual pleasure?
Sheri Winston, the author of "Women's Anatomy of Arousal", a holistic sexuality educator with a background as a nurse and midwife, joins us as our guide through the often uncharted territories of erotic education.
Sheri's story is an invitation to consider arousal not just as a mere physical reaction, but as a transformative state of consciousness that can enhance our lives.
When it comes to the nuances of desire and the ebb and flow of libido, especially in the wake of life changes, Sheri offers a compassionate and practical perspective.
She shares her wisdom on how to purposely rekindle passion in long-term relationships and make conscious choices that lead to sexual joy and health benefits.
Our conversation transcends the boundaries of a mere discussion on sex, touching on the cultural myths that hinder us, the importance of self-awareness, and how nurturing curiosity can breathe new life into the dynamics of intimate relating.
Within the dance of masculine and feminine energies, we uncover the delicate balance that leads to trust and pleasure.
Sheri underscores the significance of creating a space where vulnerability is not only safe but celebrated.
She further enlightens us on the often misunderstood aspects of women's genital anatomy and why accurate knowledge in this area is key to unlocking the door to sexual fulfilment.
For those on the journey of healing from trauma, Sheri imparts strategies for self-care and underlines the power of open communication.
Sheri Winston's website:
www.Intimateartscenter.com
Your host:
Tarisha Tourok is the founder of the Sexually Empowered Radiant Woman movement where women learn how to become radiant, confident and own the power and beauty of their sexuality no matter their size, shape, age or race.
FREE WEBINAR: Women Over 40: Discover 5 Keys to Unlock Your Desire So You Enjoy Heart-Melting Intimacy
This is perfect for women who are in a relationship and feel frustrated with their love life, are single and don't want to repeat past hurtful patterns where they lose themselves and their voice, and women who want to feel confident expressing their longings and desires
Join Free Online where you'll learn 5 obstacles to your desire and 5 actionable strategies to activate your desire so you stop feeling frustrated with your love life www.shedesires.live
Visit our website at www.radiantwoman.co.nz to join the Radiant Woman movement.
Have you ever pondered the mysteries of female arousal, or wished for a deeper understanding of how to navigate the intricate dance of sexual pleasure?
Sheri Winston, the author of "Women's Anatomy of Arousal", a holistic sexuality educator with a background as a nurse and midwife, joins us as our guide through the often uncharted territories of erotic education.
Sheri's story is an invitation to consider arousal not just as a mere physical reaction, but as a transformative state of consciousness that can enhance our lives.
When it comes to the nuances of desire and the ebb and flow of libido, especially in the wake of life changes, Sheri offers a compassionate and practical perspective.
She shares her wisdom on how to purposely rekindle passion in long-term relationships and make conscious choices that lead to sexual joy and health benefits.
Our conversation transcends the boundaries of a mere discussion on sex, touching on the cultural myths that hinder us, the importance of self-awareness, and how nurturing curiosity can breathe new life into the dynamics of intimate relating.
Within the dance of masculine and feminine energies, we uncover the delicate balance that leads to trust and pleasure.
Sheri underscores the significance of creating a space where vulnerability is not only safe but celebrated.
She further enlightens us on the often misunderstood aspects of women's genital anatomy and why accurate knowledge in this area is key to unlocking the door to sexual fulfilment.
For those on the journey of healing from trauma, Sheri imparts strategies for self-care and underlines the power of open communication.
Sheri Winston's website:
www.Intimateartscenter.com
Your host:
Tarisha Tourok is the founder of the Sexually Empowered Radiant Woman movement where women learn how to become radiant, confident and own the power and beauty of their sexuality no matter their size, shape, age or race.
FREE WEBINAR: Women Over 40: Discover 5 Keys to Unlock Your Desire So You Enjoy Heart-Melting Intimacy
This is perfect for women who are in a relationship and feel frustrated with their love life, are single and don't want to repeat past hurtful patterns where they lose themselves and their voice, and women who want to feel confident expressing their longings and desires
Join Free Online where you'll learn 5 obstacles to your desire and 5 actionable strategies to activate your desire so you stop feeling frustrated with your love life www.shedesires.live
Visit our website at www.radiantwoman.co.nz to join the Radiant Woman movement.
Sometimes they say I want to want, but then what's in it for me? Because they haven't experienced the beauty of sexuality, because it comes with pain, oh so many things to say about what you just said.
Speaker 2:Okay, so first let's talk about what's I say. Let's talk about arousal as an altered state of consciousness. Arousal to slap labor is a trans estate.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy today to welcome Sherri Winston. I've been following you and I've been advising my women to read your book Women's Anatomy of Arousal, and I'm so happy to have you here and I just, yeah, welcome Sherri. Thank you for agreeing to be here with us.
Speaker 2:I think having me is a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 1:And I just introduce you because some people might not know you. I expect everyone knows you, but you know the world is big, right, yeah? So Sherri is a groundbreaking, award-winning author and she teaches and empowers erotic education. And you're really focused on female erotic education and how women can experience more pleasure in their bodies. And so Sherri wrote a book Women's Anatomy of Arousal and Succulent Sexcraft I love the name your hands-on guide to erotic play and practice. And she's also the founder of the Intimate Arts Center and she offers Pleasure Center at SexEd for grown-ups, which I really love. We need more pleasure and I know that's what I'm really interested to ask you more about that you're not just a sexuality teacher, but you come from being a nurse and a midwife and a gynecology practitioner, registered nurse, so you have a lot of background education in the area and you put the pleasure on top of it Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean I just. I'll just mention, though also I also teach men too, so it's, although there's a large focus on women, I've got almost as many men who've come to my classes and many of the things I teach are applicable to anyone of any gender. So I definitely have a special place in my heart for teaching women and teaching everybody about women's bodies and how they operate and our equipment and what we actually have and how it works and how to make it happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I wonder, like, because it's such, we don't talk much about sexuality and pleasure, right? So I wonder what was your journey? That actually took you? And because I talk about sexuality and pleasure and sometimes it's a bit on the edge, so I wonder what brought you on this journey?
Speaker 2:And it's funny because I talk about it all the time. So I'm used to talking about all the time and I have to remind myself that most people don't talk about sex all the time. It's funny. I was hanging out with somebody after a class or workshop. She said I love hanging out with you because you talk about sex like it's normal. Yeah, yeah, part of being human, part of being an animal. So yeah, let me tell you a little bit about how I came to be a holistic sexuality teacher.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it became normal, Because I wonder if it was normal all the time or was it the journey?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, you know, for me, I mean, I grew up in a fairly sex positive household, so I didn't grow up with a lot of shame about bodies or sex, so I didn't have to overcome those kind of early childhood prohibitions and ideas that a lot of people do. But I became well. Actually, first I went to art school and then I said, well, that's a silly way to try to make a living. And then I became a massage therapist and I knew I was going to go into some kind of healing art. I was considering becoming a doctor and I was considering becoming a midwife. Those were sort of the two things.
Speaker 2:I also considered going into different kinds of body work, maybe becoming a chiropractor. So those were the paths I was looking at. And then I had a client who was pregnant and loved getting massages for me and she invited me to her home birth. She figured, yeah, that's who you want at your home birth. So I went to my first home birth. I was 19 or 20 and the sky opened up and the goddess looked down at me and said this is the path.
Speaker 1:Wow, I became a chiropractor.
Speaker 2:I became a chiropractor. I became an educator. I apprenticed with a bunch of different home birth midwives and then I decided I wanted to get legal and unfortunately in the United States we're so stupid about these things. In the United States in order to be a legal midwife pretty much. There are some exceptions, but mostly you have to become a nurse. First you have to be a registered nurse with a bachelor's degree, so a four year nursing degree. Then you have to work in the field for a while and then you go to midwifery school for another couple of years of education.
Speaker 2:So it took me a while to decide to do that, because I didn't actually want to be a nurse.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be a midwife.
Speaker 2:But then I decided, all right, I'll do it. So I did that. That's a commitment. It was a commitment yeah, it was about six years altogether.
Speaker 2:So I did all that and at the end I came out and I was a certified nurse, midwife and gynecology practitioner and so the next 20 years or so we're really dedicated to women and birth and women's health and with a holistic perspective, because I had already come from outside the medical system and herbs and alternative healing, things like that. So I did home birth for a number of years, got kind of burned out on the home birth thing because it's a lot of work for the midwife, and then I worked in the birth center for the last five years and then I was kind of burnt out and, along with teaching teaching childbirth classes I had started teaching what I called womencraft classes, which were about things like menstrual health, vaginal ecology. It was basically the things I was teaching women in the exam room with my patients and I was like, instead of saying this 20 times a day to individual women, I'll teach a class and talk to 20 women at the same time Womencraft.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So along with this. So there's the sort of parallel journey. So I was teaching women how to have awesome births. So I was constantly learning and then teaching things like how to use your breath and sound to enhance your birth experience. I learned things like the state of labor the biochemical state is a trance state and how to help women enhance that trance. I learned things about how to use your mind, how to use your pelvic floor muscles. So I was teaching all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Now, meanwhile, what I didn't really sex for me had just gotten better and better. It got easier to get around, rise up, I was easier to have orgasms, I could have more orgasms and then even more orgasms. I just thought that was normal. That's what happened for all women. But as I started teaching these classes and talking to them and I started to realize that's not actually what happens with all women. It isn't just that I had a great husband and we were having great sex I had an epiphany where I realized that I had been training myself to have better sex. In all this teaching I was doing here so I use your pelvic floor muscles and sound and breath, and I was unconsciously utilizing that to have better sex.
Speaker 2:At that point I went wow, well, if I got this far without really trying what happens if I start studying this?
Speaker 2:So I started going to classes about contra classes and Taoist sexuality and studied some Native American sexuality practices and Western sexology studies. It's funny because I thought I was doing that for me. I was just doing that so I would have better sex for my husband, that he would have better sex. But what I realized is I was taking the things I learned in sex world and bringing it into birth world. That the things I was learning there to have better sex were helping me be a better midwife and helping my patients have better births, and I started to realize it's not two separate things at all.
Speaker 1:So connected huh.
Speaker 2:One integral. So when I got burnt out on catching babies, I was around 40, and I thought I was just going to take a break and then I would go back in six months or a year, maybe start a new home birth practice, whatever. And meanwhile I was working in a clinic as a clinician just doing gynecology and prenatal care, but no births. And after about a year I realized I didn't want to go back, that I felt complete and I was thinking, well, what do I want to do now? Do I want to keep doing what I'm doing, because I love taking care of women? But it wasn't. I wasn't like waking up, like, oh great, I go to the clinic today. So meanwhile I'd been teaching all these classes and I added a class for women about how to have orgasms and how to have better orgasms.
Speaker 2:And when I woke up on a day that I was teaching, I was like so juiced up and jazzed that, oh good, I'm getting to teach this class. And then my men friends said they wanted to come. I'm like you can't come, it's just for women. And they're like, yeah, but we want to know, we want to be good partners, we want to help our partners have better sex and I'm like, well, all right, I'll teach a class for guys about female sexuality. And that was so much fun. Oh my gosh, it was like this room full of men listening to every word.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like you know what you're talking about. It's like you fall in your pleasure. Right, you're focused on pleasure and you were falling in your pleasure and you brought so much to the world. It's like wow.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely true. I just I followed my bliss and I had faith and I just kept walking towards it. And then I added another class and another class and another class and each one led to some other class and I started doing professional trainings for healthcare providers and so forth and over the course of about five years I'd expanded my curriculum and I cut down my time in the clinic and I cut it down and I cut it down and after five years I stopped that job, I quit that job and I was a full-time holistic sexuality teacher. I was in the same class. That's how I made that transition. And then, along the way, I wrote a couple of books. And here I am, and then I made up the title holistic sexuality teacher, because there was no good title for what I did.
Speaker 2:You know, if I said I was a sex ed teacher, people assumed I taught in a school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. They assumed I taught you know whatever adolescence or something. And while I do occasionally, you know, have done some programs for younger people, I predominantly teach adults and also I really am coming from a holistic perspective that sex isn't separate from anything. It's part of who we are.
Speaker 1:It's really part of us. Huh, yeah, and I want to see you know you talk about. You talk about that piece and I've got your book here. I love your book and I, you know I'm giving it to women, but you talk about the altered state of consciousness. I wonder if we can talk a little bit about that, because I guess women that come to me right, they, they like sexual desire and they want to want, yeah.
Speaker 1:But, sometimes they say I want to want, but then what's in it for me? Because they haven't experienced the beauty of sexuality, because it comes with pain. It's like so wonderful.
Speaker 2:Oh, so many things to say about what you just said. Okay, so first let's talk about arousal as an altered state of consciousness. Arousal, just like labor, is a trans state. In fact they're almost the same trans state. And when we are in a trans state, an altered state of consciousness, things change. Time changes sensation, changes our awareness, what we're aware of. And once we understand arousal as an altered state of consciousness, then we can learn how to do things to enhance our trance. And humans have been playing with trans states forever right and religious and spiritual things. But you know it can also, you know it can be. It can be dancing, it can be singing, it can be praying or chanting. Those are all altered states of consciousness. Reading a book, watching TV, those are altered states of consciousness. So there are altered states that kind of zone us out, like watching TV. Or there are altered states that make us more intensely aware, like the arousal trance. Okay, so once we realize, oh, I can enhance this trance, I can, I can get myself deeper into the trance, I can, I can get higher in my arousal, then it becomes easier to get turned on, easier to have orgasms, easier to expand your orgasmic capacity. So that's, that's sort of that piece.
Speaker 2:But now desire is a different animal, mm. So there's a number of factors. So we have a lot of women who the libido is depressed, they don't desire. It could be because you just had a baby. It could be because you're postmenopausal. It could be because you're on some kind of medication. It could be that you're depressed. It could be that you're in a relationship that's not really healthy for you and isn't turning you on. It could be that you're just bored. So there's a lot of things that can suppress desire. But we also can have conscious choice about desire. So I'll say for myself, as a postmenopausal woman, my libido is not the same as it was. I heard a menopause and I could well. First I could whine and complain and moan about it. I could just ignore it and go oh, I don't even care if I ever have any sex anymore. My husband wouldn't be very happy about that.
Speaker 2:No, that's what happens, but also arousal and orgasm are good for us, talk to us how, keep us healthy and vital, and juicy and happy Pleasure is really good for us. So I wouldn't be doing myself a service either if I never went down that road. But what I need to do now, and what anyone could do at any point when the desire is not just activated by itself, is I can choose to go there. I can say, hmm, it's been a while. I think I want to go, get turned on and then do the things that turn me on, and once I'm in a state of arousal I'm very happy. I went there. But I had to choose it. I had to make a conscious choice, I was so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now I'll say there's another piece of this puzzle, which is about long term relationship. So when we first meet someone and we fall madly in love and we're madly in lust, like no, but we don't need to work at it, it's there, it's easy, easy, it's so easy, right? What happens over some time? Well, there are actual biochemicals that create the state it's called limerence, love, that word limerence, the state of falling in love, and I think and we get maximum four years for that particular biochemicals. Now, I think of that as the training wheels, because what we can do when we've got that natural juice flowing is we can learn how to be great lovers, great partners and the things we can do to keep the energy happening. Conscious choice again, because what happens when we're with somebody for a long time? They become familiar, they become like family and we are biologically programmed to not want to have sex with our family.
Speaker 1:That makes sense.
Speaker 2:So again, we've got conscious choice around that and you know it's interesting. The work of Esther Perrell on this is really great. She talks about how it's hard to desire what you already have. In fact, one of the things that tends to increase desire is when one of the when you go away from each other for a little while distance yeah, but that's right.
Speaker 2:Come back together and like oh you, oh, I remember you, I really like you, oh, I lost after you. So it's how do we create mystery and excitement in long term relationship, which is also an art form, which is also a set of learnable skills? That's kind of my, my motto it's all learnable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I love it because it's conscious choice, because what women? I guess women come to me and there's a sense of kind of being disempowered. It's all up to you, know, their partner to turn them on somehow. And they saw that conscious choice and they feel like, well, he doesn't do it for me or she doesn't do it for me and that's the end of it, rather than actually I can choose and turn myself on and bring myself to the party.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and in fact, that cultural myth that it's our partner's job to turn us on and give us orgasms is so damaging to everyone.
Speaker 1:It's not fair to them.
Speaker 2:Oh, they don't have a little booklet. No, here's the sherry book, exactly to turn her on. Not only that, most men and women are wired differently when it comes to erotic energy and arousal, and so we need to understand ourselves what works with, what turns me on, what arouses me, what stimulates me, what gets me going, what gets me to orgasm, and we need to know that. And then, ideally, we have a partner that we teach, who learns, and we learn them and they learn us, and we learn from each other, and that we keep learning. That it's an ongoing process, that we're creating a learning relationship together, and I think that's the key to making long-term relationships last and be joyful and pleasurable is we've got to be in this learning mindset. I love it. I mean, it's a change.
Speaker 1:Thanks, chet, and I talk about it as not even a relationship, but intimate, relating as a process. But the learning, the curiosity, because I think that's what happens. We think I know this person and that's the end of it. I know myself as the end of it. But that's never the end, it's like it's always growing.
Speaker 2:Wouldn't it be boring if we just stayed the same?
Speaker 2:I mean look, when I was 20 years old, I was going out dancing all night. I'm not doing that now, at however old I am, and that's okay. I wouldn't want to. First of all, I don't have that much energy, but I wouldn't want to be spending my life going out dancing all night. I'd rather be doing other things. And sure, it's okay if you just want to go out dancing all night. But I think it's important to recognize and not feel bad about the changes. Right, I could feel really terrible, all on the energy, go dancing all night, wha, wha, wha, wha, or I could go well, I still love to dance. I just don't have to go out dancing all night and I don't have to go out at midnight like I used to do. I could go out at eight o'clock at night.
Speaker 1:But it's almost like what you talk about is that pleasure doesn't have to go right. It can take a different form, but the pleasure can always, because that's what women feel like right. Well, now I'm too old and there's no pleasure in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, these are choices you know, often unconscious, but let's make them conscious and and finding ways to have pleasure within the framework of what you're now capable of. Like you know, go out dancing earlier, come on, be be in bed by midnight, and I think the same goes with sex. I mean, it's not like I'm, it's not like I never have marathon sex anymore, but it's less likely Because, honestly, I don't have five hours of energy anymore. Occasionally, you know things are happening and it goes on and that's great. But but I could, I could again, I could be moan that, or I could go. Well, let's make what we have awesome, even if it's only an hour. An hour is a long time. Yeah, it's only 10 minutes, but yeah, we need to take responsibility.
Speaker 1:I love the time making choice and staying kind of on pleasure and connection. Yeah, I wonder. So in your view, why is it? Is this still misconceptions about female anatomy Like? Why is it important for women to know it? How do you see it in like now in the world, in the modern world?
Speaker 2:Well, this is like my big, most heart centered mission. We do not have an accurate map of female genitalia, as you know. You've read my books so you know. But the information that's in my book about the parts that women actually have, where they are, how they're connected, how they work together, is just not out there in the world. You can look at all the other textbooks and textbooks and anatomy books and they're not going to have all those parts and they're not going to have that understanding of how they connect and how they work together.
Speaker 2:And so this is kind of like playing the piano, but you think there are only 22 keys on the piano and suddenly somebody's like oh no, there's 88 keys and there's foot pedals. No wait, it's an organ. There's lots of keys and lots of pedals and lots of buttons. But if we don't know what we have, how are we going to know how to play with it and make it happy? And how are we going to teach our lovers what they need to know to pleasure and make it happy? And also, we don't have a good. So, first of all, the anatomy piece, and we can come back to that if you want, because I could talk about that one for a while. Yeah, I'm sure, but I will also say I don't think we have a good understanding of how most women's sexual energy operates.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about this, because I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but let's get back to the anatomy at some point.
Speaker 2:So here's, here's one of my favorite models, and that is that female sexual energy is pussycat energy and male sexual energy is puppy dog energy. Right, I mean, we call it a pussy for a reason. We say that are dogs for a reason. So when I'm, when I'm talking about us, also in the in the sort of the tantra perspective is yen or the Taoist perspective is yen and yang. Female, feminine, erotic energy, that pussycat energy, it's about opening and receiving. And the puppy dog young energy is about that active doing, putting out, putting in. So let me expand on that a little.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you come over my house and you want to make friends with my pussycat. I've got a couple of them lying around here. Do you just run up to the kitty cat and grab it and try to rub its tummy? No, that's one going over the wound, you're going to be bleeding, the cat's going to run away and you're not going to get close to that cat again.
Speaker 2:How do we make friends with the pussy cat? Well, first we create connection, right, we're like we get their attention, and then we approach them at the right speed. What's the right speed? Their speed? How do we know? We're looking at their body language. Are they opening or are they tensing and withdrawing?
Speaker 2:And if we go at the right speed, at some point we get to pet the pussy cat. Do we go right for the vulnerable tummy? No Right, we need to do the pussy cat. We have to show the cat. I know how to give you pleasure and I'm safe those both. And then what do we do with the kitty cat? We start with the less vulnerable spots. We rub their ears oh, they like that. And then they'll let us rub under their chin. And if we take our time and we go at the right pace, the right pace, the pussy cat's pace, then sooner or later we'll get the purring puddle of pussy that we're after. But if we go a little bit too fast and they tense up a little bit, it's going to take two times as long to get them to relax again. If we go too fast again, it's going to take 10 times as long for them to turn.
Speaker 1:I love the tone. It's such a good metaphor. It's like, yeah, it's beautiful, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:This is how most women's erotic energy is. It starts out here in the story, in the context, in the connection. We need to feel safe and then our erotic energy is watery and it's got to kind of flow past all our other energy centers. It's got to go past our thinking, past our communication and our heart and our power center. It's got to come up past our root chakra, which is our safety chakra, our connection down there, and then it gets to our genitals and for most women, most of the time, that's going to take 30 to 45 minutes, which is longer than most people are having an sexual encounter for Now, conversely, puppy dog energy, okay, so if my husband hops out of the shower naked and I grab a hold of his dick, is he happy?
Speaker 2:His hippie Right. If I hopped out of the shower naked, he grabbed my crotch, would I be happy? My energy doesn't start there, it has to go there. His erotic energy, like most men, starts in his sex centers, in his genitals and the sex centers in his brain, through his eyes, usually, right, that's how men's sexual energy starts. So, but if we're going on our cultural model of arousal and a sexual encounter, unfortunately our culture has mostly shown us a male centered model. That's what we see in porn. They get right to it, right. They haven't actually shown you the 45 minutes that the woman has used the vibrator to get warmed up. They don't show you that part, they just show you that let's get to it, let's get it in, let's do it, let's be quick, let's fast, fast and furious.
Speaker 1:It's a team went kind of really like that achievement, like our culture is so focused on achieving, and it's almost like orgasm is the goal and we get there as fast as we can.
Speaker 2:That's a male centered model. So, instead of enjoying the journey and taking our time and enjoying the whole body and all the wonderful pleasures we can get from everything, we're so genderly focused. Because, again, for most puppy dog people, for most male centered sexual energy people, that's where the energy starts, so that's what they think is the right thing to do, because that's what works for them and unless somebody has taught them, it's not what works for me. We're always going to be missing that connection that comes from when we are really in tune with our partner.
Speaker 1:And do you see women going into the puppy dog energy Like? So it's not just women and men, is it male and female energy more?
Speaker 2:Well, here's what I would say. So most of us have one or the other core erotic energy and for most women it's our in central, is our central energy, that receptive, opening, receptive energy, and our young is our secondary, complimentary energy. It's our, it's our guardian and our warrior Right and it's that active part. And it's in reverse for most men most of the time. But sometimes I am in a puppy dog mood and I'm going to want to take my partner and toss him on the bed and jump on him and be the more aggressive, active partner. But more often, 75% of the time, or 90% of the time, I want him to throw me out of bed. I want him to be that more assertive, aggressive partner. Now, some people are wired opposite of what you would think.
Speaker 2:When I say most women, I mean there are some women who really are puppy dog energy people and there are some men who are much more pussycat people. There are some people who are 50 50, who could literally go either way energetically, and then also this is how we tend to be when it comes to sex, not how we are in the rest of our lives. Right, I've run my own business for years. That takes a lot of young energy. I gotta have initiative and drive and be assertive and get things done. And we also have this sort of cultural stereotypes that when women are like that, we're ballbusters or domineering. But if you're going to run a company, you got to have some of that energy, whether our culture thinks it's appropriate for women or not. So how I am out in the world might be different from how I am in the bedroom.
Speaker 1:I love that, that there's a flexibility around it. Right, it's not just. This is how it is, it's a flexibility and it's all unique to everyone. So there's nothing wrong. It's just. We just run different energies. And when you think different in different circumstances.
Speaker 2:When I'm teaching, I've got to be balanced. I'm putting in information out there, I'm in service, I'm giving, I'm penetrating people with my ideas Love, that word. I'm also receptive. I'm listening, I'm aware of what's going on, I'm paying attention, I'm getting questions and comments. So I have to be receptive, right. So sex is where we tend to be most polarized, and then in other areas of our life maybe we're balanced or maybe we're the opposite, but definitely when it comes to sex, I'm going to say 90% of people. One of those energies is stronger than the other. And the other thing that's important to understand about this model is we need that secondary energy. So if I was all in all the time, I'd be a doormat. This is people who are in abusive relationships too much in energy. They open when there's love, they close when there's violence, but they don't have that secondary young, that warrior that protects them.
Speaker 2:They don't have that get up and go Right.
Speaker 2:And for male people, their core young energy needs to be balanced and mitigated with Yin. So when that happens, when you've got core young and a beautiful balancing Yin, you've got the service dog right, a seeing eye dog. That's the high masculine. Where they are in service. They are penetrating the world with their gifts. They're using their initiative and attention to be in service. What happens when we have young energy not mitigated by Yin? We get rapists. Then I get stopped. We get abusers Right and again. Unfortunately, I think a lot of our cultural male modeling is of that unmitigated Yang energy and what we really want to put out there is now the masculine is beautiful when it's doing its job Right and in the bedroom. What that means is that whoever's holding that more young energy at that moment is really in service to their Yin partner and their partner's pleasure.
Speaker 1:And kind of hold the safety right, Because that's the piece of the safety. When you give that energy, you hold the safety. Yes.
Speaker 2:And keep things moving, give directionality. It's like driving a car. So I got a lot of you just saying my body goes like oh yes.
Speaker 2:Right. So if I wasn't going to let you drive my car, I've got to trust that you're going to do it safely, yeah, otherwise I can't relax, right. And then, if I can relax, if I know you're a good driver and you might take me somewhere I've never been before, but you're not going to drive off the road, you're not going to drive off a cliff, right? That's what we want from the masculine. We want that. But then the masculine people, the young, the puppy dogs, they need to understand how Yin energy operates if they're going to seduce, tease, coax. Take their time, enjoy the journey and get that pussycat to totally surrender, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because that's what ecstasy is.
Speaker 2:It's surrender into bliss, and we can't do that if we don't feel safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's where that safety is and pleasure, just so connected. Yeah, beautiful, you wanted to come back to the anatomy. I do.
Speaker 2:I've got one more question, but okay, let's come back to the anatomy, is the question about the masculine, feminine energy stuff.
Speaker 1:No, it's more about, it's a different. Let's talk about the anatomy. Okay, whatever you want to say, a little anatomy and we'll go to your question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's the thing Women's genital anatomy that you would find in most books is missing important parts. They usually have some things that are just incorrect, that are just wrong, and it's like a bad map. So if I heard about this great swimming hole off in the woods, but I don't have a map, so I just go wandering around and maybe I never find a swimming hole. So then I get a map, oh great, I'm going to find it now and I follow the map and I still don't find it. So what are women thinking? They're thinking there's something wrong with me. They're not thinking this map sucks, this map is wrong.
Speaker 1:So when we I love that this is so important, it's not that something's wrong with me, but it's the member that sucks. And it doesn't mean that just the anatomy, but maybe the whole process or something is not working. But it's not about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because a lot of women feel really broken. They do, yeah, we do, but I think it's still that 10% of women have not yet found their path to orgasm, and I would say most of them feel like there's something wrong with them, instead of saying you just never got a good map. There's some stuff you haven't learned yet. You can learn. You can only learn. Here's the map, here's how to follow the map, here's how it operates, here's what your instrument is made of, here's how you play your instrument, and then they'll find what they're looking for, you know. And then, of course, we've also got a pretty large number of women who have orgasms sometimes, but not all the time. They haven't developed orgasmic proficiency. And then, of course, after proficiency, we can develop orgasmic mastery, right, which is a whole other conversation.
Speaker 2:But that's just the anatomy for a minute. If we don't know what we have, how are we going to play that instrument? So, without going into all of the details and the parts, in summary I would say that what's important for people to know is about erectile tissue. So erectile tissue is a specialized bodily tissue that can become engorged. We know about penises. We know they start out small and soft and under the right circumstances, they get big and hard. That's because they're getting engorged, they're filling up with blood gets trapped in there. Now, what I was taught was that I had a clitoris, and actually the part that most books are talking about when they say the clitoris is just one part of a three-part structure.
Speaker 1:So people are talking about the head of the clitoris.
Speaker 2:Now, this is a great part, it's an awesome thing, it's the tip of the volcano. We've got a network of structures connected, structures that are all made out of erectile tissue. So, pound for pound, inch for inch, female bodies have just as much of that arousal, engorgeable, expandable erectile tissue. But if we don't know where it is and we're not playing with it, and our partners don't know where it is and they're not playing with it, we're not going to get that full engorgement and full arousal. That leads to the biggest, best arousal, the biggest, best orgasms, the easiest access to orgasms and we can get arousal and orgasmic with just part of that network activated.
Speaker 2:Probably for the first 10 years I was having sex it was all about the head of the clitoris. I didn't know there was anything else and I had orgasms. It was a fine thing. There's no bad orgasms, right, they're all good orgasms. But when I started to discover all the rest of the stuff and started playing with it, my partners started playing with it. When I showed them what was there, oh my gosh, my arousal and orgasm expanded so dramatically.
Speaker 1:You know it's like it's like first I was, I was, I was like singing a beautiful song and playing the guitar.
Speaker 2:It was beautiful. Now I've got a whole orchestra right. The music you can make with a whole orchestra is bigger and wider and has more depth and breath and right. So you want your whole orchestra activated when you are pleasuring yourself or playing with partners. So unless you know where all that stuff is, how are you going to play with it? Okay, yeah, I guess what was like how I came to that.
Speaker 1:when I had my second child and I didn't want to have any tears and I really went into massage and all of the inside and opening it and there was like pain and there was like nausea, but I perceived it and then that started to open up. But that's how it was for me through the beginning and then when he came out there was no tears, no, nothing. But that gave me more, you know, the pleasure and I kind of started to know what it is.
Speaker 2:what it is and yeah, Well, back to that sex and breath connection. One of the best ways for women who are in labor to progress is to play with themselves or let their partner play with them. Not intercourse, but you know hands and toys, whatever you know. When I was a midwife I would tell my couples I was like you know, go get naked and get in bed together and nipple stimulation is great. External genital stimulation just just go, just go have fun. Or once I was in the birth center I'd say go get in a shower together.
Speaker 1:I would tell them bring a pair of swim trunks, because we don't want to be walking in on naked men.
Speaker 2:We don't care about walking in on naked women, but bring a pair of swim trunks and then they could get in a shower. And then I was in swimming and then I was instrumental in giving birthing tubs into the birth center. So at first I would have my clients who could rent a tub and set it up, and then they, they did a renovation and they put tubs in, and so I'd be like get in the tub, go play with yourself. And I would always say, like I'll leave the room when I come back in, I will knock and I will wait for you to tell me to come in. I won't, you know, interrupt anything so they feel safe or private. And it's the, it's the best way to enhance labor and get the baby out and have the least amount of pain.
Speaker 2:And someone would have orgasmic births, you know. So it's. I mean, the first time I saw that was at a home birth and I didn't know such a thing was possible. I had no idea. And this one is in labor and sounds like she's having, you know, orgasms in labor and then like this big orgasm when the baby was born, I didn't interrupt, I didn't have sense not to do that. But afterwards I was like, were you, were you having orgasms? And she's like, yeah, I was like right. And then I started like finding out that there's like this thing that happens and while you can't make it happen, I know one woman had six kids and had one orgasmic birth, but she wasn't. The other ones didn't turn orgasmic. So you don't always know, but you can do things to enhance the chance that that will happen. Yeah, beautiful, Like cool things to know, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's what I went for and it didn't happen for me, but it was a beautiful experience. I was very expanded and it was yeah, it was an amazing experience my partner he was just touching my back and that was such an intense pleasure, nice.
Speaker 2:One of the reasons our vaginas can open up enough to let a baby out is because of all that erectile tissue, because it's really stretchy and when it's engorged it gets stretchier. So that's probably why you didn't have any tears, because you were. Yeah.
Speaker 1:No one ever told me like you can actually pleasure yourself or your partner can please. I was like wow, I feel like I have another child.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll have another one, just so I can try. I know I had thought about that at times.
Speaker 1:That's not a good reason. Okay, I can talk and talk to you. You're so amazing to talk to, I love it. I guess maybe, if you can just say this little bit, because some women come right and they come from trauma and they come from that closed state how would would be the first step for them to actually start to open up a bit? Because that's I know, when we come from not from a really difficult background, right, but some people do come from really difficult backgrounds and the whole system is closed and they can't even think of pleasure. What would be the first step?
Speaker 2:The first step.
Speaker 2:So in this day and age we have a lot of information about trauma-informed therapy, trauma-informed body work and so forth, and so I think for people who have had trauma, particularly sexual trauma, it can be very, very useful to work with someone. You don't have to figure out this healing journey on your own. I've known people who've had insane, horrendous trauma, who've come through it and become very sexually empowered and free and just it's such a beautiful thing to see when you know what they've overcome and pretty much I would say universally they've worked with other people to help them get there. So you know, we've got this weird thing like you should do it yourself and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And if you've had trauma, you know, get help, get help. I think the first step is find guides. Find it doesn't have to be a therapist. Trauma-informed body worker can be amazing. In the ideal world we would have therapists who also did somatic work, and there are some who, because it's not just about talking.
Speaker 2:You also have to address the animal body, and you can teach your animal body that you are creating safety for yourself, that other people can help create safety, and so I think what we need to do for ourselves first of all, start with yourself. Don't necessarily expect to heal this with a sexual partner. Your solo sex is your foundational erotic relationship. You are your primary partner. You are the only one that you've been with your whole life and you're going to be with your whole life. So start with your solo sex, and your solo sex is your healing place. It's your sacred temple, it's your rejuvenation spa. It's your rehearsal hall. It's good exercise. It's good for you know depression and anxiety. It's good for everything. So your solo sex is really important. So start by creating. What do you need for your own safety? Do you need a lock on your door? Put a lock on your door, right. Maybe you have kids and you're worried. Your kids are going to. You know, just come in Great. Put a little cock and eye on your door. Like create safety physically, create safety mentally and emotionally. Maybe you need to do some your solo sex practices while your kids are at school, right? Maybe you just can't relax when they're in the house. So think about what it is you need to do.
Speaker 2:We need to reprogram our minds and there's a whole bunch of techniques for doing that. But noticing our negative thoughts and replacing them with three simple positive thoughts. So maybe you know we have a session where we're just like all we can think about is you know, I'm so broken. Maybe that's a thought you have. You know I'm never going to get over. You know those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:So start by kind of noticing those negative thoughts and then you realize that you're going to get those negative thoughts. And then you you can do this separately from your session but think of three positives I'm whole, I am healing, I am and not you don't want to use a no, you don't want to say I'm not broken because your brain just here broken. I'm whole, I'm healing, I'm healthy Could be your three positives If you had that negative thought like I'm never going to get better. I'm getting better every day, moving towards wholeness, every, every time. I love myself, I'm getting better. So you just say those three positives over and over and over again. The best time to do this is when you're in a state of arousal. You can't sleep well.
Speaker 2:Right. Arousal is an altered state of consciousness, so our brain is most suggestible. You don't have to do everything all at once. Start slow. You might want to start by just having a session where you put one hand on your heart and you cup your crotch with your other hand and you just breathe and you send love messages, healing messages, guardian messages, safety messages to yourself, to your genitals. When you feel ready, then start exploring, start self-pleasuring at some point. If you have a partner or partners, you want to bring them in to this. You want to explain things to them. You want to have time to sit down and you talk with your clothes on. This is my history. This is what happens. These kinds of things trigger me. These are the words that I long to hear. These are the words that make me feel safe. Then you create safety. Maybe you ask your partner to hold you while you self-pleasure, but they don't do any sexual touching. Maybe you ask your partner could you always ask me before you touched my crotch or my boobs? Could you always ask before you do everything? Could you have check-ins? Is this okay? Are you ready for this? You have to become a great communicator with a partner about this. Sometimes a partner will see that you've just dissociated One of the things people do when they've had traumas they just leave. I've counseled couples where the partner will say sometimes I can just see she's left. Then it's like what do you do then? Then you stop any sexual activity. This is when it's good to have had check-ins before to know what would be safe. Would it be safe if I just held you? I'm just going to tell you I'm here for you, you're safe, you don't need to do anything else. You can come back into your body, it's safe here.
Speaker 2:I had a woman in labor. When women have trauma histories, they haven't really surfaced that, they're vague, but they've pushed it down. Sometimes it comes up in pregnancy and labor. I had a woman. This is just a great start.
Speaker 2:I'll have to end, probably, with this story, but so I had this woman in labor and she's having her third baby and she came to me and she's very put together, coiffed, nice makeup, just very great. She's having her third baby and she'd had the first two with two other providers in the area. I said, how come you haven't gone back to either of your other providers? She says, oh, they told me I couldn't come back. I'm like, oh, interesting, interesting. She says, yeah, I get violent in labor. I'm like, oh, okay, we talk about that a little, anyway. So we get to her labor and she's doing fine. She gets to the point where it's time to start pushing and for those who haven't had a baby, when a baby's head is moving through your vaginal canal, I think it must feel a lot like a penis would feel to a little girl.
Speaker 1:Like if you'd been less as a child with an adult penis.
Speaker 2:I think that baby's head coming through the vaginal canal probably feels a lot like that. That can be a really triggering place for people who've had trauma that involves penetration like that. So she's totally dilated, ready to push, and she just leaves. I just see her check out. She's gone and first I check all the things you check to make sure she's not going to die. She hasn't had a stroke or something, right. So you do the safety things. But then I thought, okay, this is when she got violent in her other labors, because people tried to touch her and people tried to do vaginal exams and people were telling her to push and freaking out because she wasn't. And I was like, oh, I totally get it now. And so I sat there for two hours and I just said to her you're safe, this is a safe place and I'm a safe person.
Speaker 1:I'm good because of balls.
Speaker 2:You are totally safe. You can come back whenever you're ready. What you're feeling is your baby's head and your vagina. That's your baby's head you're feeling. When you're ready, you can let the baby move down, no rush, we can just stay here until you're ready. The baby was doing fine. You know I would have to check the hyperleg, I need to check the heartbeat now, but you just have to like very gentle little thing, and so I just said that over and over again. You're safe. This is a safe place, the safe place to have your baby. That's your baby. You're feeling your baby's head Two hours. This is in the birth center, so there's nursing staff and I had told them to stay out of the room and they were freaking safe. They were like two hours.
Speaker 2:I'm like we're fine, we're good, just stay away. So two hours goes by and then she just came back into her body. She's just been like she's gone. And then she came back and she looked at me and she said I'm ready to push. That's how, later, we had a baby.
Speaker 1:She didn't get my leg, she didn't throw anything Beautiful, I know?
Speaker 2:And afterwards, a couple of days afterwards, and I was talking to her and I said you know, did you have any, you know in your intake, because I would always ask about that you hadn't indicated any kind of sexual trauma, but has anything surfaced? She's like, no, no, nothing. Okay, if it ever does, you can let me know. And I've got people I can send you to. And I never heard from her again about that. So who knows? But I'm totally, 100% convinced something happened to her, probably when she was a baby, before. Memory really kicks in.
Speaker 2:And that brought that back. I could be wrong, but we had a baby and she didn't throw any bedpans or pillows at me.
Speaker 1:So it's such a beautiful story. That is my head. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:I get goosebumps I get, goosebumps, I get goosebumps I guess you know trauma lives in our body, even if our brain doesn't remember it.
Speaker 1:No, we can't think it through, it just happens. And yeah, oh, beautiful. Thank you so much, sherri. I'd love to talk to you more and more and more. It's such a pleasure to talk.
Speaker 2:We can do another one.
Speaker 1:We can do another one if you want. I can't wait. It's just like oh, I think, I guess because I feel like we need to talk about these things and not many people talk about sexuality. And then it's all hidden. There's so much shame and guilt and the way you talk about it, just so much pleasure and beauty. It's like, oh, love it.
Speaker 2:You know I'm going to say one more thing. So babies that are born in an environment that isn't scary and isn't cold, where there aren't bright lights and people doing rude things to you, babies that are born that way particularly water birds they come out ecstatic, those babies. They're not crying. Babies are crying when they're born because they're scared, because somebody's handling them roughly or taking them away from their mommy and they don't know what's going on. But babies that are born gently and naturally, they don't usually cry, particularly water and water. They come out and they're like. They're like beaming, like a little Buddha's, little Bodhisattva's, just, and of course, everyone's in the same energy field at that point. We're all ecstatic, mom is ecstatic, baby is ecstatic, we're all ecstatic, everybody's in it, and that's our birthright. Most of us didn't get born that way.
Speaker 1:My boy. I gave birth to my boy in a swimming pool at home and just swim out. I was like wow.
Speaker 2:Exactly so that potential for ecstasy is in us. We're hardwired to be ecstatic and have bliss and feel pleasure, and I think that that's important for people to remember. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:So can you tell us how can I'll leave the notes, but how people can find you if they want to learn more about?
Speaker 2:Go to my website intimateartcentercom center spelled the American way and there's tons of blogs that you can read for free. I've got recorded online classes and courses. Of course, there's my books. You showed one, I've got a couple more. Let's see them back there. Yeah, I mean really the first thing just go to the website and read the blogs, because that's free. I really do recommend the book. I mean there is an audio version of the book which I got to narrate, which was so fun, and you can download a PDF of the anatomy images. But I actually recommend the physical book because it's just chock full of this gorgeous kind of vintage erotic art and illustrations. I mean, I'm an artist too, so it's a beautiful thing to book with and, of course, the and your language is so beautiful, you put just that when it's like it's just like ah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So get the book, read the book. I'll say for penis owners, there's a short section in the back of the book, hot tips for guys and little ones scattered throughout. So if you don't even want to read the whole book, just read that part, just to get started. But really, I think anyone who owns the equipment, anyone who loves people who own the equipment, any healthcare providers who work with this equipment, really need this information, because there's so many ways that our healthcare is impacted not just our pleasure certainly our pleasure but also our health is impacted by not having this information. And your doctors don't know it, your midwives don't know it, your sex educators don't know it, and we need to know. So you got to inform yourself.
Speaker 1:Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, you're such a joy to talk to and we'll see you in the next lecture.