0:03

Early in a relationship, you're often like

0:06

going to visit each other's gardens and

0:08

explore and find out what's there, but

0:11

at a certain point in a long-term

0:13

relationship, when your sexual connection lasts over

0:15

years, eventually you start to cultivate a

0:18

shared garden. You bring over

0:20

your favorite things from your garden and they bring over

0:22

their favorite things from their garden. You

0:24

hope to heck, those things are compatible. They're not going

0:26

to strangulate each other. You

0:29

know, as time passes, there are certain seasons

0:31

in life when the garden gets neglected and

0:35

also the garden is still there and you can go

0:37

back and untangle all the weeds

0:39

that have grown. So,

0:41

it's not just about your individual garden.

0:43

It's about like, here's this shared

0:46

plot that you and I are cultivating

0:48

together. What do we love? Like,

0:51

what do we want to have in this garden?

0:53

The way Peggy Kleinplatz asks her clients is, what

0:55

kind of sex is worth wanting?

0:59

Welcome to the Multiamory podcast.

1:02

I'm Jace. I'm Emily. And

1:04

I'm Dedeker. We believe in looking

1:06

to the future of relationships, not

1:09

maintaining the status quo of the past.

1:11

Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous,

1:14

swinging, casually dating, or

1:16

if you just do relationships differently, we

1:18

see you and we're here for you. I'm

1:29

forcing me to

1:31

form myself to

1:34

fit. On

1:36

this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're

1:38

talking about the science and art of

1:41

creating lasting sexual connections with Dr.

1:44

Emily Nagoski. Emily Nagoski is the

1:46

award-winning author of The New York

1:48

Times bestselling book Come As You

1:51

Are and co-author with

1:53

her sister, Amelia, of the New

1:55

York Times bestseller Burnout, the secret

1:57

to unlocking the stress cycle. We've

2:00

talked about both of those books before

2:02

on this show, but today we're very

2:04

excited to be talking about her next

2:06

book, Come Together, the Science and Art

2:09

of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections, which just

2:11

came out today and we're so excited

2:13

to be talking about it. Emily

2:16

earned Masters of Social

2:18

Work in Counseling and a PhD

2:20

in Health Behavior, both from Indiana

2:22

University with clinical and research training

2:24

at the Kinsey Institute. Now

2:26

she combines sex education and stress

2:28

education to teach women to live

2:30

with confidence and joy inside their

2:33

bodies. She currently lives in Massachusetts

2:35

with two dogs, a cat and

2:37

a cartoonist. Emily, thank you

2:39

so much for joining us today. Thank

2:41

you. I'm so excited to talk. Yeah,

2:43

this is a really exciting time for us.

2:46

We've been wanting to get you on the

2:48

pod for a really long time. I know our

2:50

audience really loves your work. They reference your

2:53

work all the time in our Patreon communities.

2:55

I'm referencing your work all the time with

2:57

our clients. So I don't even

2:59

know, should I tease our listeners ahead of time to

3:01

let them know that we're going to have you on?

3:03

Is it going to be a surprise? Just drop it. I don't

3:05

know. I still got to chew on that one. But

3:07

let's dive in in talking

3:09

about your most recent book.

3:11

So your book focuses on

3:14

maintaining a healthy sexual connection while in

3:16

a long-term relationship. And now this is

3:18

a topic that people have been trying

3:20

to figure out, I feel like since the dawn

3:22

of time. And I was wondering,

3:24

is there a particular

3:26

piece of bad advice

3:29

out there that gets under your

3:31

skin? Oh my God,

3:33

yes. And maybe it's the worst

3:35

one because it's the one that

3:37

I hear all the time. And

3:40

it's the thing I get asked

3:42

about. And it turns out to

3:44

be the most irrelevant thing. And

3:47

that advice is keep

3:49

the spark alive. What does that

3:51

even mean? That's so amorphous. What

3:56

does it even mean? And so what

3:59

is it? What do you What do you imagine

4:01

when you hear the spark? What is spark? I

4:04

guess I imagine a little novelty.

4:06

Yeah, I imagine some sort of

4:09

little fireworks sparkler that's simultaneously

4:11

both in my heart and in my genitals that I

4:13

somehow have to blow on it like fire, like

4:16

I'm building a campfire, like embers. But even then,

4:19

I don't even know what that actually means in

4:21

real life. Sure. So

4:23

there's novelty. There's

4:26

still adventure and really wild things. There's

4:28

a spark in your heart and a

4:30

spark in your genitals. So

4:32

what it actually, I think,

4:34

is referring to is I think

4:37

it's talking about motherfucking spontaneous

4:39

desire, which is my

4:43

nemesis. I mean, spontaneous desire is

4:45

great. So spontaneous desire, as many

4:47

people will already know, hooray, is

4:49

this sort of idea that desire emerges in

4:52

anticipation of pleasure. You can just be walking

4:54

down the street. You can be having your

4:56

lunch and have a stray sexy thought. And

5:00

Erica Moen, the cartoonist, illustrates it as

5:02

a lightning bolt to the genitals. And

5:04

so you go home to a certain

5:06

special someone, and you're like, hey, certain

5:08

special someone, I have the kaboom, right?

5:11

And so that's spontaneous desire. It emerges

5:13

in anticipation of pleasure. And it

5:15

is one of the normal healthy

5:17

ways to experience desire. And I

5:19

think when people say, keep the

5:22

spark alive, they mean continue experiencing

5:24

spontaneous desire, regardless of

5:26

any contextual changes.

5:30

So one of the most important ideas

5:32

in Come As You Are is a

5:35

responsive desire, which emerges not in anticipation

5:37

of pleasure, but in response to

5:40

pleasure. So instead of just being walking down the street or

5:42

eating your lunch, it's date night. You've

5:44

scheduled tonight is the night that you're

5:46

with this person. You had a

5:48

really long and difficult week. But you know

5:51

what? You hired the child care, and you

5:53

put on your party clothes, and you show

5:55

up, you put your body in the bed.

5:58

You let your skin touch your partner. skin

6:00

and your body goes, I really

6:03

like this. I really like this

6:05

person. We should do this again

6:08

sometime. That's responsive desire and it is

6:10

one of the normal healthy ways to

6:12

experience sexual desire and most

6:14

people when they hear spark they

6:17

hear spontaneous desire like I should

6:19

want my partner out of the

6:21

blue regardless of what else

6:23

is going on in my life and if I have

6:25

to kind of you know drag

6:27

myself to date night

6:30

if it takes some time for me to preheat

6:32

the oven then there's something wrong and

6:35

I don't want my partner enough.

6:37

In the book I call it the desire imperative

6:40

that there's this sparky thing you feel

6:42

at the beginning of a relationship and

6:44

that lasts for a while

6:46

and eventually it goes away and either

6:48

you can sort of accept that it

6:51

has gone away and and

6:53

as your hormones fade you hold

6:55

hands together at sunset drifting on

6:57

a sea of sexlessness

7:00

I guess or you can

7:02

fight hard you

7:05

can invest time, energy, money

7:08

in trying to keep the spark

7:10

alive and when you look at

7:12

the actual research on people who

7:14

do sustain strong sexual connections over

7:17

the long term they do not

7:19

talk about desire they

7:21

do not talk about spark you

7:23

know what they talk about? Pleasure. They

7:26

like the sex that they have and

7:29

here is like if I had just one thing

7:31

that people could remember I would have

7:34

them remember this it is not dysfunctional

7:36

or in any way problematic not to

7:38

want sex you do not

7:40

like. It sounds so simple, but yeah

7:43

important. Going along those

7:45

lines a piece of advice

7:47

that I've often heard on a lot

7:50

of podcasts with long-term relationship partners on

7:52

them is That you

7:54

should rally when your partner wants

7:56

you to have sex with them.

7:58

You should just. The way you

8:00

should just fine that spark or whatever

8:03

it is with their new and just

8:05

say yes regardless of how you feel

8:07

and I've always struggled with bad idea,

8:10

I feel like maybe that's not the

8:12

best advice out there and I was

8:14

curious what you thought of that. I.

8:17

Think that is the kind his advice

8:20

that only works in their specific circumstances.

8:22

Because. Again, if you are rallying yourself

8:24

to dell ahead and have sex you

8:27

do not like. Young. You.

8:29

Are reinforcing all those pathways that tell

8:32

you that when your partner approaches you

8:34

for sex and you capitulate, you can

8:36

sense to have the sex that you

8:39

do not enjoy. It's.

8:41

Real. Every time your partner approaches you,

8:43

you are learning. That's the thing that

8:45

happens next is something that is gonna

8:47

be unpleasant for you. And

8:49

so you're to read. It just

8:51

grows and grows and your brakes

8:53

are. Sexual breaks get hit more

8:55

and more. It becomes more and

8:57

more difficult actually to enjoy the

8:59

sex. The if you if you

9:01

when you saw pulling your leg

9:03

yeah you're right. It's been a

9:06

while. I know that if we

9:08

got started I would really enjoy

9:10

it. I have four chapters devoted

9:12

to that. That we can talk

9:14

about a forever. Of like yeah yeah

9:16

I you would like to have sex. I

9:18

in principle would like to have a son

9:20

who suffer and like I don't know how

9:22

to get there from where I am right

9:24

now. There. Are ways to if you

9:26

like if you're like. I know that if I

9:28

could just get there. We. Would have

9:30

so much fun! I. Would be so

9:33

glad we did it then. Yeah, yeah,

9:35

it's it's. funny. That. That

9:37

that specific thing you're talking about?

9:39

And. Injured Ted Talk from Twenty Nineteen You

9:41

talk about it going to a party as

9:44

the metaphor for this. I. Think

9:46

that. One metaphor comes up probably

9:48

every week in that occur in my

9:50

from each other about having sex with.

9:52

That kind of play in a good

9:55

way in a positive Id ah Israel,

9:57

analyze the party. Such a silver daughter

9:59

works. Ready for it and I address to

10:01

go to assess but he never got some at

10:03

a floor from. A sex therapist Sistine

10:06

Hide in New Jersey actually as

10:08

see Ah Romance Writers Association Conference

10:10

in New York City into another

10:12

for and what was normalizing about

10:14

A for me I was like

10:16

other people. To. Read parties before

10:18

they go. Oh yeah, yeah,

10:20

not suffice if I'm new. Yeah, Yeah,

10:23

that's my that metaphors land on me So

10:25

powerful of I'm also an introvert who doesn't

10:27

like parties but will sometimes go to them

10:29

and. Enjoy myself afterwards, right? So like

10:31

I really, really feel that it's such

10:33

a great metaphor. So I

10:35

set that. I extend that metaphor in

10:37

the new book. So for me it's

10:39

spontaneous. desire is like waking up in

10:41

the more than I do remember that

10:43

is left overtaken different. From the party. And

10:46

your interest in that case has nothing

10:48

to do with you being hungry. You're

10:50

not hungry as the middle of a

10:52

neighbor man you love cake, something has

10:54

taken the fridge. That spontaneous desire responses

10:56

desire is when you're like I said

10:58

ever go to this party and had

11:00

a long week but I said I

11:02

would go so we arrange the child

11:05

care about what of I party close

11:07

never gonna go through all the traffic

11:09

and then I show up at i

11:11

have a good time at a party

11:13

apps Responsive desire. Then there's a

11:15

third thing that I call Magnificent Desire

11:17

named after Piggy Klein plots and Data

11:19

Menard that magnificent sex which is wonderful

11:21

and if any been hasn't read it

11:23

yet, uses read it. So good. So

11:26

magnificent. Desire! These are people who

11:28

don't just have fun of the

11:30

party they love to entertain. So

11:32

even when they're at the frickin'

11:34

fracking grocery store, they are getting

11:36

the Mortadella. To. Because they're

11:38

imagining piling it up and little

11:40

beautiful keeps on the search who

11:43

to reboard? They get a little

11:45

skinny bread sticks to lay at

11:47

an angle just so. Why would

11:49

we spend. Time. And.

11:51

imagination preparing for a party

11:54

that might not even happen

11:56

why put invest so much

11:58

efforts in to making it

12:01

beautiful, making tiny little hot

12:03

dogs wrapped in croissant. Why?

12:05

Why would we take time to do all that? Because

12:09

we love sharing pleasure with

12:11

the people we care about. And we put in

12:14

time in advance because we know that when we

12:16

show up to the party, we're going to share

12:18

this pleasure together. Couples who

12:20

are most successful at sustaining a sexual connection

12:22

over the long term are these couples who

12:24

love to entertain. The other metaphor that I

12:26

use in Come As You Are is the

12:28

garden metaphor. On the day

12:31

you're born is this little plot of rich and fertile soil,

12:33

and your family and your culture start to

12:36

plant ideas about sex

12:38

and love and bodies and

12:40

relationships and safety and gender.

12:43

And by the time you get to

12:46

adulthood, you have this garden. And

12:48

they have taught you how to tend it. And

12:50

some of us get lucky and have nothing but

12:52

beautiful things that we want to cultivate. But a

12:55

lot of us get stuck with some very toxic

12:57

shit in our gardens and

12:59

have to go row by row and weed

13:01

to choose which things we want to keep

13:03

and cultivate and which things we want to

13:05

pull and throw in the compost heap to

13:08

rot and become fertilizer for other things. And

13:11

early in a relationship, you're often like

13:13

going to visit each other's gardens and

13:16

like explore and find out what's there. But

13:18

at a certain point in a long term

13:20

relationship, when your sexual connection lasts

13:22

over years, eventually you start

13:24

to cultivate a shared garden. You

13:27

bring over your favorite things from your garden and they

13:29

bring over their favorite things from their garden. You

13:31

hope to heck those things are compatible. They're not going

13:34

to strangulate each other. And

13:37

as time passes, there are certain seasons

13:39

in life when the garden gets neglected.

13:42

And also the garden is still

13:45

there and you can go back and untangle

13:47

all the weeds that have grown. So

13:50

it's not just about your individual garden. It's

13:52

about like, here's this shared

13:54

plot that you and I are

13:57

cultivating together. What do we love? Like What

13:59

do we want to? Have enough Garden the

14:01

way ticket. Klein thoughts as sir clients

14:03

is what kind of sex is worse

14:05

wanting. Move. I

14:07

love our question of beautiful. Yeah.

14:11

Or. On that topic we want ask

14:13

you about pleasure. So in the book

14:15

you talk about how pleasure is the

14:18

measure. In encouraging people to

14:20

focus on using the amount of

14:22

pleasure as the thing to measure

14:24

rather than frequency or length or

14:27

athleticism or whatever other things people

14:29

might look to. For. Evaluating

14:31

their in. Nevada orgasms.

14:33

Yeah yeah yeah and so were usually

14:35

conditions to judge it based on all

14:38

of those other thing say those are.

14:40

I guess some of those plants that

14:42

were put in our garden? they're. Not.

14:45

What does? What? Does

14:47

it actually look like in practice to try

14:49

focusing on pleasure? So I think that's sounds

14:51

great in theory, but it's kinda hard to

14:53

imagine what had he had he do that.

14:55

What does that look like in real life?

14:57

Yeah. This is leonard really

15:00

tricky questions cause what does it

15:02

look like tense me to tell

15:04

a story about what it looks

15:06

like for some specific people in

15:09

their specific relationship and the deal

15:11

is what it looks like for

15:13

some people in their specific relationship

15:15

truly has nothing to do with

15:18

what it's gonna look like for

15:20

you and your specific relationship because

15:22

people very and also people teams

15:24

across times. That I can tell

15:27

you that. Pleasure is not to

15:29

be simple Things that I remember being

15:31

at the Woodhall Conference back in Twenty

15:33

Twelve or Twenty Thirteen and talk after

15:36

talks and I went to was like

15:38

pleasure is the most important thing. As

15:40

Nina Hartley said, you had experience pleasure

15:42

when you can't breathe below your third

15:45

read: the which is one hundred percent

15:47

accurate. People kept talking about how players

15:49

really important and pleasure needs to be

15:51

the center of the conversations, and nobody

15:54

was talking about what pleasure is and

15:56

why it's difficult sometimes. So can I

15:58

talk a little nerdy? Breathe. It's about what

16:00

pleasure. Oh yeah, yeah, you're among

16:02

friends here. So one

16:05

of my favorite characteristics of

16:07

the Million Brain is the

16:09

as active keyboard of the

16:11

Nucleus Accumbens cells which depending

16:13

on your state of mind

16:16

depending and technically on the

16:18

state of your Vegas nerve

16:20

probably will change how it

16:22

responds to a particular stimulus.

16:24

So when you are in

16:27

a calm, relaxed, happy, trusting,

16:29

connected playful state serious, your

16:31

brain will respond to almost

16:33

any stimulation. As something to

16:36

be explored with curiosity, Something.

16:38

They can be a potential game,

16:40

which is why something that would

16:42

be painful under a lot of

16:44

circumstances can feel sexy under sexy

16:47

circumstances. Insert foot ball torture

16:49

here and certain nipple clips here.

16:51

Spanking quip slick. All the pain

16:54

stuff can feel pleasurable because your

16:56

brain is in the right state

16:58

and your aspect of keyboard has

17:01

turned itself to a positive Zealand's

17:03

But when you're in a stressed

17:05

out says of mind when you're

17:08

feeling threatened, was overwhelmed, exhausted when

17:10

you're from physically on. Well, You're.

17:13

Aspect of Keyboard tunes itself

17:15

to interpret almost any stimulation

17:17

as being something to avoid

17:19

it as a potential threat,

17:21

even stimuli that in a

17:23

different context and might have

17:25

moved toward with curiosity. something

17:27

you would ordinarily think of

17:29

as pleasurable like a caress

17:31

from someone you really love

17:33

under. General. Circumstances that

17:35

may feel positive, but if you

17:38

are currently pissed off at

17:40

that beloved partner and they progress

17:42

you Varied certainly is. Here. are

17:44

what some say so the worst feelings

17:46

or us i think that comes up

17:48

even not if i'm upset with a

17:50

partner but if i'm just like annoyed

17:52

and frustrated at work or something and

17:54

the have a partner comes up and

17:56

tries to be loving and light touches

17:58

and like earth No, I'm

18:00

in the middle of being mad and focused right

18:02

now. Yeah, and there's

18:05

now a whole bunch of

18:07

neuroscience about how reliably our

18:09

brains will interpret as

18:11

threatening any kind of social

18:13

approach. When we're in a

18:15

fight or flight state, we're in a dorsal shutdown

18:17

state. And when we're in

18:20

a ventral, socially engaged, connected, safe

18:22

state, our brains are very ready

18:24

to experience all kinds of sensations.

18:27

So it's that kind of thing where I know

18:29

there's so many people, I think the aphorism that

18:32

gets tossed around is like how the brain is

18:34

like the biggest, what is it, like erogenous

18:36

zone of the body.

18:38

It's the most important erogenous zone. Your largest

18:40

erogenous zone is your skin. Your

18:42

skin, yeah. Yeah, that's what I would imagine if

18:44

we're getting technical there. I

18:47

correct it because I had a really terrible

18:50

copy editor for Come As You Are. I

18:53

have the sentence that your brain is your

18:55

most important sex organ and she changed it

18:57

to largest. I see. And I

18:59

was like, oh, no. So

19:03

like it matters to me. You

19:07

can have an orgasm. You can remove

19:09

almost any part of your body except

19:13

your brain and still be able to

19:15

have an orgasm. You don't need genitals to

19:17

have an orgasm. You don't need

19:19

feet to have an orgasm. Don't

19:21

need hands to have an orgasm. You need a

19:23

brain. Like it really puts

19:25

the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz in a

19:27

different perspective for me but maybe that's why

19:29

he really wanted a brain all along. Talking

19:31

about having an orgasm, yeah. Lack

19:34

of being able to have one. Nothing, my

19:36

head will fall off in my heart will pull off

19:38

pain. Oh,

19:41

he was on. That's very sad.

19:44

Oh, that's good. I want to

19:46

talk about something that you said

19:48

in the book and quote, partners

19:50

in a sexual connection can treat

19:52

context as a third thing, a

19:54

site of mutual curiosity and exploration

19:57

and then couples who sustain a strong

19:59

sexual. connection co-create a context

20:01

that makes pleasure easier to

20:04

access. So that's really

20:06

interesting. Can you give examples? Yeah,

20:08

exactly. Just like what are some

20:10

examples of what that kind

20:12

of context can look like, kind of

20:14

in a practical sense? The

20:17

third thing comes from an essay

20:19

written by a poet about his

20:21

marriage to another poet where

20:23

he talks about that they didn't spend

20:25

their days gazing into each other's eyes.

20:27

They spent their days with their gaze

20:29

on shared third things, which every relationship,

20:32

the last any amount of time, requires

20:34

third things. It can be your favorite

20:36

artist. It can be your kids. It

20:38

can be the sports team that you

20:40

follow. It can be your garden. It

20:42

can be your special needs cat. You

20:45

have third things that your

20:47

relationship focuses on. And

20:51

I 100% believe that your shared erotic

20:53

connection, if that's a component of your

20:55

relationship, it deserves to be a third

20:57

thing toward which you

20:59

turn your shared gaze with

21:02

focus, with pleasure,

21:04

with play. Many

21:08

people say that sustaining a sexual

21:10

connection, a long term relationship is hard work.

21:12

I say it's a hobby because

21:14

it's not necessary

21:16

for almost

21:19

anything or almost anyone.

21:22

But it is like, if

21:24

it's worth doing, you're going

21:27

to have to put some effort into it, cultivating

21:29

a garden, take some effort.

21:32

And you do that by creating a context

21:34

that makes it easy to get to the

21:36

pleasure. So I can just

21:38

talk about my so the origin story of the

21:41

book is that writing comes, you are actually like

21:43

ruined my own sex life. Oh,

21:45

yes, funny how books can do that sometimes writing

21:47

a book is terrible, as Amy says. So

21:52

I mean, you might think that writing and talking and

21:54

thinking about sex all the time would like increase your

21:56

interest in sex. No, I was so stressed out

21:58

that I have like zero interest. interest in

22:00

actually having any sex. So like for

22:02

months, nothing. And

22:04

then I went a book tour and I

22:06

was even more stressed. So there

22:09

were more months of nothing.

22:11

And I went

22:13

to the research, because

22:16

that's what I do, to be like, what

22:18

do people do? Because there's all this stupid,

22:21

keep the spark alive. What? And so I

22:24

found there's three

22:26

characteristics of couples who sustain a strong sexual connection

22:28

over the long term. One, they have

22:31

a good relationship. They are friends who

22:33

admire and trust each other, for

22:35

crying out loud. I hope that's not controversial. No,

22:38

it's not. It's not. We talk about

22:40

that all the time. Two,

22:43

sex matters to them. They decide that it

22:45

is important for their relationship for whatever reason.

22:47

And all of chapter one is, what is

22:49

it that you want when you want sex?

22:52

What is it that you don't want when you

22:54

don't want sex? Finding out

22:57

why and whether sex

22:59

matters to you as

23:02

an individual and to this specific

23:04

relationship is one of the essential

23:06

things you have to do repeatedly. Like, why

23:10

would we spend our time? Like, we've got, maybe

23:12

we've got kids to take care of. Maybe we've got

23:14

jobs to go to. Maybe we've got school to attend.

23:16

Other family members to pay attention to. Other friends you

23:18

want to spend time with. God forbid we just want

23:20

to watch a little YouTube and take on that, right?

23:22

Like, we're busy. Why

23:26

would we close the door on all these other things? So

23:28

there has to be something that matters. So the

23:30

second characteristic is they decide that it matters for

23:32

their relationship. And it does not always

23:35

matter. Sometimes it drops to the bottom

23:37

of the priority list and that's fine. The couples

23:39

who sustain a strong connection are not the ones

23:41

who never lose track of each other. They're the

23:43

ones who find their way back because

23:46

it matters. And then the

23:48

third characteristic is these are couples who

23:52

recognize that all the culturally constructed

23:54

narratives about who they're supposed to be a

23:57

sexual people are fictional.

24:00

bullshit that only

24:02

get in the way. And

24:04

they invest a whole bunch of energy

24:07

rejecting that stuff and co-creating

24:10

sexual identities that truly work

24:12

for them. And they

24:14

allow those to evolve over time.

24:17

In particular, I'm talking about the

24:20

patriarchy broadly and the gender binary

24:22

more specifically. Being trapped in those

24:24

roles is very dangerous. And so

24:27

there's two chapters about the

24:29

gender binary. So creating a

24:31

context, context is made of two

24:33

things, internal state and external circumstances.

24:36

External circumstances is made of

24:39

time and whatever's

24:43

going on in your life at

24:45

that particular moment. The political world

24:47

and your work life. Your

24:49

internal state is like

24:52

I was talking about your affective keyboard

24:54

being tuned based on whether you're stressed

24:56

or feeling connected. And the way I

24:59

talk about internal state in the

25:01

book is with this thing I call the emotional

25:03

floor plan, which is based

25:05

in Yacapeng Sepp's seven primary process

25:08

emotions. One of those primary

25:10

process emotions is lust, right? So let's

25:12

imagine that the lust space in your

25:14

brain is like a room on the

25:16

floor plan of a house. If you want

25:18

to get into the lust space, what

25:21

space do you come in from?

25:24

What mental space were you in

25:26

before you got to the lust space? For

25:28

a lot of people, it's

25:30

play. Why is

25:33

vacation sex so

25:35

reliable for so many people? For

25:37

various people that I talk to, it's

25:40

because when they're on vacation, they transition

25:42

out of all the like stress and

25:44

worry and planning and all

25:46

that stuff and into a play

25:48

state with their partner. Play is

25:50

the mammalian motivation state of friendship

25:54

where there's nothing at stake.

25:56

You got nothing to lose. I don't know if

25:58

y'all are dog people, But when

26:00

a dog goes, and lets see it

26:02

with her mouth open and soft and their ears

26:05

perked up and their eyes bright, they're inviting

26:07

you in a play bow to say, nothing

26:10

I do is serious, I just wanna play. Right.

26:13

And that play state for a lot of people

26:15

leads directly into the lust room. For

26:18

some people it's the care space, the

26:20

ventral, I'm using all these polyvagal terms,

26:22

I don't mean to be like technical,

26:24

but like the like open,

26:26

warm, connected, caring for like

26:28

lying on the couch together

26:30

in front of a fire,

26:33

cuddling, feeling held, cared for,

26:35

warm, that care space, as

26:38

opposed to the taking care

26:40

of frantic, responsible,

26:44

care is a very big space in

26:47

the mammalian brain, especially the human brain.

26:49

But there is this area of caring

26:51

for each other that often just like

26:54

slides right into the last space for

26:56

a lot of people. Seeking

26:58

is another space in our

27:01

emotional floor plan, this is

27:03

curiosity, exploration. My favorite, this

27:05

for me, this was a really big one until

27:07

I got out of school, all the people I

27:09

dated when I was in grad school were also

27:11

grad students, and talking about

27:14

each other's research was

27:16

like, it was like basically a

27:18

water slide directly from talking about

27:20

the other person's research into the

27:22

left space, just like surreptitiously, just

27:24

easily. For other people,

27:26

the Seeking Space adventure exploration takes

27:28

the form of traveling

27:31

the world together. I know people who

27:34

like sold all their possessions and traveled

27:36

around the world together, which sounds like

27:38

a nightmare to me personally, but

27:41

they loved it. I

27:44

mean, things went wrong all the time,

27:46

but because they were together and like

27:48

dealing with it together, it was this

27:50

like bonding adventure and they now have

27:53

the babies to prove it. Like, so

27:56

for a lot of people, these three in

27:58

particular, play, care, and care. seeking

28:01

usually have a doorway like right into the left space

28:03

and so the question if you so for all the

28:05

people who were like I know that if I could

28:07

just get there I would have a good time but

28:10

how do I get there the question

28:12

is how do I get to care how

28:14

do I get to the play space in

28:16

my brain how do I get to the

28:18

seeking space in my brain because chances are

28:20

you like me this is

28:23

exactly the situation I know if we

28:25

could if I could just get myself

28:27

there I know it would be good

28:29

but the last time I tried I

28:31

just cried and fell asleep so

28:34

and I was stuck in

28:37

one of the pleasure adverse spaces

28:40

like fear and rage

28:42

and panic grief which is a

28:44

loneliness I felt stuck and

28:47

trapped and I couldn't get out and

28:50

so a combination of learning to

28:53

access play with my partner and a

28:55

whole bunch of therapy to help me recognize

28:57

yeah like when am I in how do

28:59

I know in my body that I'm in

29:01

the fear space what puts me there and

29:04

how do I get myself out how do

29:06

I know when I'm in the rage space

29:08

how do I what gets me there and

29:10

how do I get myself out learning how

29:12

to navigate my emotional floor plan was for

29:14

me the key so creating

29:16

a context is yes about your

29:18

external circumstances about creating windows of

29:20

time the reason I'm a

29:22

fan of scheduled sex is

29:25

because I feel like I want to live

29:27

at that people complained about scheduled

29:29

sexes they feel like if they have to put

29:31

in the calendar if they have to plan ahead

29:33

they don't really want

29:35

me enough hmm if they

29:38

don't want me spontaneously there's

29:40

something wrong like if

29:42

that's your life cool and also

29:45

I think a lot of people

29:47

are busier than that yes

29:49

on the calendar like my

29:51

partner cordoned off time on

29:59

the calendar just

30:02

to spend with me. And it's

30:04

not just enough time for

30:06

the sexities. It's enough time

30:08

to transition out of wherever we were

30:10

in our emotional floor plans into, and

30:13

I have found, you don't try to transition into

30:15

the lust space because the ironic process will take

30:17

over and you'll never get there. Don't think about

30:19

a white bear. Don't think about a white bear.

30:21

Get an erection. Get an erection. Get an erection.

30:23

It's never going to happen. Don't try to go

30:26

to the lust space. Go to the room next

30:28

door to the room where it

30:30

happens. Just get

30:33

to the play space, get to care, get to

30:35

seeking, and from there you

30:38

will water slide, you will open the

30:40

door, you will get into the lust

30:43

space from there. So

30:45

much of this is making so much sense. I

30:47

mean, a couple things. I know for Jace and

30:49

I, the times when we have put sex on

30:51

the calendar or if we've decided we want to

30:53

put actually a big chunk of

30:55

time towards sex on the calendar, often

30:57

the first hour of that is playing video games

30:59

together. Because we're both people

31:02

who very much get in

31:04

our heads and get very work obsessed, right?

31:06

And I do think that something that has

31:08

helped us is that we

31:10

do know we need a transition time, but

31:13

I never put it together that the video

31:15

games count as that play time. And I

31:17

so appreciate you talking about this because I

31:19

think our cultural narrative usually is, oh,

31:22

if you can't get there, do more foreplay.

31:25

You know, that's what you need. Just do more foreplay. Well,

31:27

and to be quite frank, if you're a woman and you

31:29

feel like you can't get there, oh, do more foreplay. And

31:31

then we just kind of assume men are always up for

31:33

it, right? And don't need to transition or anything like that.

31:36

And then I also think about the fact that our

31:39

models for making that

31:41

transition, I mean, when we look

31:43

at pop culture and in the way sex

31:46

is depicted either in film or TV or

31:48

in porn, I mean, in film

31:50

and TV, it's like we go from action sequence to having sex

31:52

with each other or we go from having a

31:54

passionate debate with each other to having sex

31:56

with each other. I'm just like, that's not really

31:58

the way I think most of us actually... actually transition, right? Or

32:00

if it's porn, there's no transition, right? We're just boom,

32:03

we're just right there, right? And so

32:05

I so appreciate normalizing

32:08

the on-ramp and that it's not just about you need

32:10

more foreplay. Yes. So

32:13

here's my specific neuroscience reason

32:15

of like why it's not just

32:17

more foreplay. The deal is when

32:19

your brain is not in the

32:21

correct state, it's not going to

32:23

interpret your foreplay behaviors as sexy

32:25

because your brain is not in a state

32:27

to interpret it. It doesn't matter that you're

32:30

doing sexy things like you can be making

32:32

out with your favorite person. And if your

32:34

brain is still stuck on like the dishes

32:36

in the sink and the laundry and the

32:38

washer and the toys on the floor and

32:40

your homework that didn't get done and the

32:42

seven others and the conflict you had like

32:44

three days ago that never quite got resolved,

32:46

it doesn't matter how much you usually enjoy

32:49

making out with this person. You're

32:51

just you're not going to it's not going

32:53

to arouse you because your

32:55

brain isn't even perceiving the

32:57

pleasure of it. I

32:59

want to talk about the difference between

33:01

multiple people in relationships and

33:03

their sexual desire, just sexual

33:05

differences in general. I think

33:07

that comes up a lot

33:09

in many relationships, even

33:12

ones that are monogamous, but in

33:14

the context of non-monogamy, which we

33:16

talk about on this show, there's

33:18

the possibility that the way that

33:20

they choose to engage in sex

33:22

with other people might be very

33:24

different than how you choose to

33:26

do that. And so how do

33:29

you recommend that people work through those

33:31

sexual differences, maybe desire differences in how

33:34

much a person wants sex or not?

33:36

I think that that's a thing like

33:38

some people say, oh, well, I'm just

33:41

a really sexual person and you are

33:43

less sexual than I am. And so

33:45

in terms of those differences, whether it

33:47

be desire, whether it just be the

33:50

amount of sex that a person wants

33:52

versus another person, I think

33:54

that that becomes even more challenging

33:56

in a non-monogamous context when you

33:58

add more people. So I guess just the

34:01

question is how do you deal with all that?

34:03

Everything gets more challenging when you add more people.

34:05

Yes, of course. People

34:08

in open relationships, polyamorous folks are

34:10

represented in the book. My one

34:13

commentary about like, could polyamory be

34:15

right for you? It

34:17

is multiplicatively more

34:19

complex and it

34:21

can be amazing. I

34:24

have seen open relationships,

34:27

polyamorous relationships that are

34:29

models for all relationships.

34:32

And those people, they

34:34

have the time to talk

34:38

about all this stuff. So

34:40

if you have the time and

34:42

the emotional articulateness and

34:44

clarity for, it can be

34:47

like amazing. But everything is more complex

34:49

when you add extra people. Other

34:52

people's brings more ni- ad

35:33

way less interest in sex with other

35:36

seasons in their love because their context

35:38

has changed, they're more stressed, they're

35:40

physically ill, they're just overwhelmed

35:42

with other priorities, things just

35:45

change. So staying attuned

35:47

to what your internal state is,

35:50

how your external circumstances are

35:52

changing, being really aware of

35:54

what feels good for you,

35:57

staying really honest with people

35:59

about feels good for you versus

36:02

what doesn't feel great for you, which

36:04

is a complicated conversation when it's

36:06

not the same thing that the other person

36:08

thinks feels good. Those are the

36:10

things that matter and those are

36:13

not five-minute conversations. We're

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going to take a brief pause for a

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This show is sponsored by

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36:48

how important they are to your

36:50

life, how beneficial they can be,

36:52

and also how challenging they can be

36:55

sometimes. I think one of

36:57

my relationships that I am proudest

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of is my relationship with Jason

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Dedeker. I think we have all

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really worked on our relationship over

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the years. It's not always the

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multiamory. The link and promo code

43:15

are in this episode's description. Well,

43:18

something you mentioned in the book is about how

43:20

when there's any kind of

43:22

sexual difference between two people that

43:25

sometimes that's something that can really

43:27

activate a sense of judgment. Sure,

43:30

if you decide that one person is right and the other one is

43:32

wrong. Exactly right, or if

43:34

I think the way that you think

43:36

about sex or your sexual interests are

43:38

maybe like gross to me or

43:41

vice versa or if you think I'm too

43:43

prudish in my sexual or whatever. And so

43:45

I guess I'm kind of wondering about couples being

43:47

able to bridge those gaps where they can acknowledge

43:49

the places that they're different. So

43:53

we're now in chapter

43:55

three, I think maybe four.

43:57

Six. There's a chapter about the

44:00

characteristics of a sex-positive context.

44:03

So it turns out the person who first said,

44:05

comparison is the thief of joy was

44:08

Teddy Roosevelt. He was wrong. People compare,

44:11

kids compare body parts all the time and it's

44:13

just like you have this and I have that.

44:16

This is one way that's another. The thief

44:18

of joy is judgment. Judgment is the thief

44:20

of joy. Deciding that things are different, this

44:23

one is right and that one is wrong.

44:25

These are different. This one is good and

44:27

this one is bad. It's the judgment that

44:30

is the thief of joy and of course I think I

44:32

say over and over. Y'all have probably heard me say it

44:34

12 million times. Confidence isn't

44:37

confidence and joy are the keys to a

44:39

great sex life. Confidence is knowing what is

44:41

true. Joy is the hard part.

44:43

Joy is loving what is true and judgment

44:45

is the thief of joy. So

44:48

you can know like everything

44:50

there is to know about your partner

44:52

but if a part of you recoils

44:55

from a part of their sexuality,

44:57

that's not a part of their sexuality that you

44:59

should engage with currently and also

45:03

recognize that that judgment is about you. That's the

45:06

thing that lives inside you and when you're going

45:08

to have a conversation about it, which conversations

45:11

about this stuff are great, know

45:13

that you have that judgment living inside you.

45:16

Imagine what it would feel like for you if

45:19

your partner responded to something that's true

45:21

about your sexuality with the kind of

45:23

judgment you feel inside you about

45:26

this aspect of their sexuality and do

45:28

everything you can to respond to them

45:30

the way you would want them to

45:33

respond to you with

45:35

kindness and open

45:37

warmth and just I said a thing that's

45:39

really big and difficult there. Can we pause

45:41

and take a moment or before I say

45:43

this thing I want to acknowledge that like

45:45

this might be big for you and

45:48

I'm gonna ask you to do everything you can just

45:50

like take deep breaths keep your face real neutral and

45:52

then we'll take five minutes and you can go have

45:54

whatever reaction you need to have but first

45:57

reaction I'm going to ask for

45:59

neutrality. those kinds of conversations need

46:02

all kinds of buffering and padding around

46:04

them. John Gottman talks about the

46:06

gentle startup and those are even more important when

46:08

you feel like you're going to get a discussed

46:10

response from a partner about something really

46:13

important to you. So it's the

46:15

judgment is the problem in

46:17

that situation. It's not that you are different, it's

46:19

that you have a internal

46:22

experience and about... and

46:24

that's the thing is it's their sexuality. It's not

46:26

you and

46:28

you always get to choose whether

46:31

or not to do anything. Does that make sense?

46:34

Yeah, I mean I feel like I'm getting this admittedly

46:37

I think difficult process of being

46:39

able to have

46:41

that acceptance and warmth, not give

46:44

the knee-jerk judgmental reaction to your

46:46

partner while also recognizing where that

46:48

judgment lives in you and what it means

46:51

about you, while also recognizing like okay it

46:53

doesn't mean that I have to engage with

46:55

this part of my partner's sexuality. Like that's okay, I can

46:57

have some boundaries, I can choose what it is that I

46:59

want to engage with and what I don't want while

47:01

also trying to hold not personalizing

47:04

that necessarily, you know, not

47:06

necessarily making it about you. So

47:10

it's important and also seems like a lot of balls

47:12

to have in the air as juggling

47:14

is what I mean. And a hundred percent is

47:16

I really love the emotional floor plan as a

47:18

tool for that. Like where does this take you

47:20

in your emotional floor plan? Did you go to

47:22

fear? Are you

47:24

afraid of it? Are

47:27

you like angry and resentful

47:29

or defensive? Is

47:31

it a gross out response because a

47:33

lot of us get taught that a

47:35

lot of things about sex are disgusting,

47:37

like repulsive to us and that's

47:40

some things remain repulsive and some things

47:42

we were just taught are repulsive and

47:44

can learn oh actually toes are delicious

47:47

when they're clean or whatever it is.

47:49

Like we can just like unlearn the things

47:52

that we have learned but all of these

47:54

reactions are learned and can

47:56

be unlearned a

47:58

lot of the time. If we

48:01

decide to, if we decide to

48:03

explore that reaction from a place of

48:05

curiosity and play, which we

48:07

can only do when we feel safe enough in the connection. And

48:11

you also, you kind of present confidence

48:13

and joy also being connected

48:15

with sex as this ongoing cycle of

48:18

woundedness and healing. And I know, I

48:20

don't think we tend to associate confidence

48:22

and joy with woundedness and healing. So

48:24

like, how do you see all those

48:26

things interplaying? Yeah, so this

48:28

is, y'all have not asked me this question

48:30

for which I am so grateful. I can

48:32

tell y'all about people, but people ask me

48:35

what's normal sex, like how often is it

48:37

normal to have sex? And

48:39

even like what is perfect sex, because they have, we

48:41

all have this, I think we get raised with this

48:43

idea that there's broken

48:46

sexuality, there's normal sexuality, which

48:48

is the transition point you have to go

48:50

through to get to perfect sexuality.

48:52

Like we all, you don't read

48:55

a hundred thousand word book about

48:57

sex because you want

48:59

to be just okay, just normal,

49:01

just average. Oh, honey, thanks.

49:03

That was a really normal sex. That's not

49:05

what you're going for. Yeah. You want it

49:07

to be like, you want to be the

49:09

best your partner has ever had, which I

49:11

get. And the deal

49:14

is that that thing from broken

49:16

to normal to perfect

49:18

is not a thing that exists.

49:21

Normal sex, I invented the definition because people

49:23

wanted a definition and I didn't like any

49:26

of the ones that were available. So

49:28

my definition of normal sex is

49:30

sex among consenting peers, which

49:32

is to say everyone involved is glad to

49:34

be there and free

49:36

to leave at any time with

49:38

no unwanted consequences. And that includes

49:41

emotional consequences. No. Oh, come

49:43

on. Oh, but if you loved me, no. OK,

49:45

but that means next time I won't. So

49:48

no unwanted consequences and no unwanted pain.

49:51

I just felt so yucky hearing, hearing, even

49:53

hearing that. It's great. It's

49:56

great to reiterate and point out how

49:58

it can sound really. extreme when

50:00

you're saying it right now, but will

50:02

sometimes do that same thing, but in

50:04

these kind of subtle passive aggressive ways.

50:07

Yeah. The people who are on the like,

50:09

my partner has decided to stop doing something

50:11

because they don't want you anymore. And you're

50:13

the one who's like, but I really want

50:15

to keep going. Like you get, like you

50:18

got an unwanted pain when a person withdraws

50:20

their sexual attention from you. Like,

50:22

Hey, what about, what about my thing? And

50:25

that's normal and okay. And that is

50:27

why we learned how to stay over

50:29

our own emotional center of gravity, because

50:31

isn't it so much better that our

50:33

partner stops a thing and we feel

50:35

like, Oh, oh,

50:37

and then we can talk about it later. Then

50:40

that they went ahead and did something

50:42

they didn't feel good doing like it's,

50:45

and then, and then they tell you

50:47

later that they did a thing that

50:49

they didn't feel good doing or they

50:53

didn't feel good doing and they never

50:56

told you about it. Like

50:59

I realized that it's like a cost benefit

51:01

thing, but like it's, this is definitely the best

51:03

one. So perfect sex, perfect sex

51:05

is where everyone is glad to be there.

51:08

So again, not hot and horny, heavy, all

51:10

the things glad to be there, free

51:13

to leave with no unwanted consequences and

51:16

no unwanted pain. Plus everyone

51:18

turns toward whatever is happening with

51:21

kindness, compassion, curiosity, if you can

51:23

a sense of play. So if

51:25

somebody wants an erection and an

51:27

erection is not happening, you turn

51:29

toward that non erection with kindness,

51:32

compassion, and a sense of play. There's so

51:34

many fun things you can do without an

51:37

erection. You can even, you

51:39

can play with the non erection. There's

51:41

like things you can do without an erection that

51:43

you cannot do with an erection. And this is

51:45

an amazing opportunity to do those things, but also

51:47

you can do things that have nothing to do

51:50

with whether or not there's an erection. That

51:53

is perfect sex. Somebody's

51:55

trying to have an orgasm, orgasm isn't happening. You

51:57

turn toward the lack of orgasm with compassion. passion,

52:00

kindness, and sense of play. Actually

52:03

this is sort of a great opportunity because I love

52:05

when you get to a high level arousal. And

52:07

like if you could just stay at a high level

52:09

arousal and not have an orgasm for a

52:11

while. I think that's the best.

52:14

That would be, that's perfect. That's

52:16

perfect sex. Judgment

52:18

is the thief of joy. Well, I

52:21

want to jump on that though to reiterate

52:23

that, yeah, I think of course when it

52:25

comes to our partners, like if, you know, I think in the

52:27

ethical flood they call it like the tyranny of hydraulics, right?

52:29

Where it's like if bodies are not performing the

52:31

way that we think that they should be performing,

52:33

but like that's okay, it doesn't mean there's, anyone's

52:35

broken or anything's wrong with them. I

52:38

feel like what I see in people though is,

52:40

is I feel like people have a much easier

52:42

time offering that playfulness and compassion and gentleness to

52:44

their partners and not so much to themselves.

52:47

You know, I think it's a lot easier for us to be

52:50

like, oh yeah, honey, it's totally fine that you didn't have

52:52

an erection, like no problem, but I couldn't have

52:54

an orgasm and that means there's something wrong with

52:56

me. Yeah. Emotional floor

52:58

plan. What's made you in when you're self-critical? Oh,

53:01

you're in the rage space. The

53:04

biology of rage is it is the

53:06

motivation of destruction. When

53:08

you hate some part of yourself, some

53:10

part of you is motivated to destroy

53:12

this part of you,

53:14

which no wonder that shuts everything down.

53:17

When you hate yourself because orgasm

53:19

isn't happening, for example, when you feel self-critical because

53:22

of that, does that make it easier to have

53:24

an orgasm? No. Definitely

53:26

not. It's not. It's

53:28

a just

54:00

as you said, toward other people than toward ourselves. And

54:03

we can rely on our partners

54:05

because they find it so much easier to

54:07

be compassionate toward us than we do toward

54:09

ourselves. They can like interrupt your spin of

54:12

like, ugh, and be like, everything

54:15

that's happening right now is joyful

54:17

and delicious and thrilling.

54:20

And there is no script, there is

54:22

no right or wrong, there is no

54:24

doing it right and performing correctly or

54:27

being a disappointment. There is no

54:29

being a disappointment. I get to

54:31

be here with your erotic self.

54:34

I'm all set. This is

54:36

great. I don't hate any part

54:38

of you. No part

54:40

of me is frustrated with any part of

54:42

you. So we've been talking

54:44

a lot about erections, which makes me

54:47

think about people with penises and how

54:49

you talk a lot about the gender

54:51

binary and this gender mirage, all of

54:53

those things. But also I'm

54:55

really interested in how you talk about that the

54:58

world in general just refuses

55:00

to teach men about how to be

55:02

good partners and about how to be

55:04

there and sit with difficult feelings and

55:07

stuff along those lines. I think it's

55:09

hard to be in relationships in general.

55:11

It's hard to be a sexual

55:13

being and want to be good in

55:16

that way. But can you just

55:18

talk about like how difficult that must be

55:20

for men if those things are

55:22

true that the world is just like

55:24

not teaching them how to show up

55:27

in these situations? There's

55:30

a chapter specifically for

55:32

people in heterosexual type

55:35

relationships because of

55:37

the gender dynamic created by one

55:39

person being raised according to the

55:41

it's a girl set of rules

55:43

and regulations that you get based

55:45

on nothing more informative

55:47

than the organization of your genitals, right? And

55:49

then the other person gets the it's a

55:52

boy set of rules and regulations based on

55:54

nothing more than the shape of their genitals.

55:56

And they get raised with all

55:58

of these rules about which. emotions you're

56:01

allowed to experience, not just emotions

56:03

you're allowed to express, which

56:05

ones you're allowed to experience. And

56:08

boy, if you get raised with the it's a

56:10

boy set of rules and regulations, you

56:12

get winning, you get

56:15

angry, and you

56:17

get horny. And

56:19

if your little mammalian body is like,

56:22

but I feel sad, no, no,

56:25

no, no, no, you're not allowed to feel sad.

56:27

Sad is not a thing that exists for you.

56:29

You feel angry, right? You feel angry. No,

56:32

you're not sad. You're angry. And like, these are

56:34

different spaces in your emotional floor plan. What you

56:36

do when you're in the rage space is different

56:38

from what you need to do when you're in

56:41

the panic grief space. And so you never learn

56:43

what to do when you're in the panic

56:46

grief space. Oh, you feel lonely? No, no,

56:48

no, lonely. Lonely is for girls. You do

56:50

not feel lonely. You feel horny.

56:54

And you never get taught

56:56

that like, what loneliness feels

56:59

like and what you do when you

57:01

feel lonely and the it's a

57:03

girl script has plenty of others

57:05

says, but you asked about

57:07

dudes. Yeah, it

57:09

also does this appalling

57:12

thing of tying sexuality

57:14

to identity and worth

57:17

as a human being that your value

57:20

walking around on earth can be measured

57:22

by whether or not other people let

57:24

you put your penis inside their bodies.

57:27

Your value as a

57:30

human can be measured that way.

57:33

And so also because when you

57:35

raise a boy person, you're taught

57:37

that it's boy people are, let's

57:39

face it, a little better than

57:42

girl people. And so if your

57:44

penis goes into girl people, then

57:46

the person who is the gatekeeper

57:48

for your value as a person

57:50

is less than you. You're

57:53

letting someone who is less than you

57:55

control whether or not you are a

57:58

worthwhile human being. is

58:01

very dangerous and bad for everyone's

58:03

mental health as well as their

58:05

physical safety. Well, it seems like

58:07

the formula for creating an incel

58:10

culture, right? Yeah. Yeah,

58:12

you just described it right there. Yeah, it is.

58:14

Yeah. It is not a

58:16

coincidence. And it has existed for hundreds of years.

58:19

One of the things that my training requires me

58:21

to do is expose myself to,

58:23

like, porn from different centuries and to

58:26

sex manuals from different centuries and this

58:28

idea of men proving

58:31

that their worthiness through sexual

58:33

domination of women is very

58:35

old. And it's

58:38

quite recent, actually, that people have

58:40

begun to question it. Do

58:42

you know when, I'm going to say a

58:44

very dark thing. Feel free to skip ahead.

58:47

Listen, hers, this is a very dark thing.

58:49

Do you know when marital rape finally became

58:51

mostly illegal in all 50 states? Was

58:54

that, like, the 70s? It was the mid-90s. Oh,

58:56

good. Well, okay. So it's very new.

59:01

Why? Because

59:03

when she got married, that was

59:05

essentially the moment that she was giving consent for the

59:08

rest of her life. Legally,

59:10

for a very long time, her

59:12

body was his actual property. It

59:15

doesn't make any sense that you would let your cow decide

59:17

whether or not to let you milk her. Mm-hmm.

59:20

Mm-hmm. That was gross. Sorry.

59:23

Yeah. The thing is, it's bad for

59:25

everyone. It is so

59:27

toxic that these mammals

59:30

are born with the capacity,

59:32

with the necessity of experiencing

59:34

all of these different emotional

59:36

states. And we do not

59:38

let them learn what to

59:40

do when they're feeling some

59:42

of the most vulnerable. Loneliness,

59:45

in particular, is really loneliness,

59:47

is dangerous. Loneliness is as

59:50

toxic to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes

59:53

a day. So I talk all the time

59:55

about how sex is not a drive, sex

59:57

is not a biological need, no one experiences

1:00:00

no one's going to die if they don't get laid,

1:00:02

no one experiences physical injury or illness of any kind

1:00:04

if they do not get sex. People

1:00:07

do experience physical illness

1:00:09

when they are lonely. Love

1:00:12

connection is a biological drive.

1:00:14

We sicken and die without

1:00:16

it. And we live in

1:00:18

a culture that has taught approximately half

1:00:20

of the people that

1:00:23

their primary, if not their

1:00:25

only way to meet their

1:00:27

need for social connection is through

1:00:30

competition and sex. Oh

1:00:32

my god. Oh god. Yeah. Yeah,

1:00:37

that's what he fucked up. I feel torn because I'm

1:00:39

like, are men my job? Like

1:00:42

because are men even going to listen

1:00:44

to me, say these things? But

1:00:46

I'm, ooh, I also know that

1:00:48

like women who are, and I'm

1:00:51

married to a dude, cis, that

1:00:53

white dude married to one. And

1:00:57

he has had to escape this stuff.

1:01:00

And it's not easy for any, but he had an

1:01:02

easier time than some people because he's

1:01:05

neurodivergent in ways that protected him.

1:01:07

He was raised in a family full, he

1:01:09

has two sisters and a very strong mother,

1:01:12

which protected him some. And then

1:01:14

he met me and he was

1:01:16

like, oh, all of it. Oh,

1:01:18

all of it is bullshit. Oh,

1:01:22

okay, good. And women

1:01:24

find themselves in this position of having to

1:01:26

do the emotional labor of helping their dude,

1:01:29

deep patriarchy and self, which is

1:01:31

not fair. Sort of the point of

1:01:34

deep patriarchy is like, I shouldn't have to do all

1:01:36

of this emotional work for both of us. And

1:01:38

so you feel like, why am I still having

1:01:40

to do all this emotional work? Why can't you take care of yourself

1:01:42

when you're all vulnerable? The

1:01:44

whole point is like you wanted this vulnerable shit to

1:01:47

be like brought forward and it's going to take

1:01:49

a lot of work. One of

1:01:51

the metaphors I use in the book is

1:01:53

like carrying furniture upstairs. He

1:01:55

needs help carrying his heavy furniture upstairs and

1:01:57

you're trying to carry your heavy furniture upstairs.

1:02:00

upstairs, sometimes

1:02:03

the most efficient thing to do is for you

1:02:05

to put down your thing and help him with

1:02:07

his stuff so that he can get it even

1:02:09

if that helping is like he absolutely is capable

1:02:11

of carrying that heavy furniture by which I mean

1:02:13

large emotions up the stairs

1:02:15

on his own but he really does need

1:02:18

a spotter to be like you

1:02:20

can do it yep just a

1:02:22

little more up that way you could like you're doing

1:02:24

great you can be there with the

1:02:26

difficult feelings and then he comes and helps you

1:02:28

with your piece of furniture and that that's the

1:02:30

necessary part of the process and

1:02:33

it's awkward and uncomfortable and

1:02:35

man when you get free of this

1:02:37

stuff you're no longer following the

1:02:40

rules about like who has to

1:02:42

be the sexual initiator and who's

1:02:44

allowed to be sexually dominant and

1:02:47

like what kinds of sex are the right

1:02:49

kinds of sex the path

1:02:51

to so many kinds of

1:02:54

pleasure opens up wide

1:02:56

is that is that a good motivation for

1:02:58

like trying to be binary each of you

1:03:00

as an individual and your relationship as a

1:03:03

whole is like our access

1:03:05

to ecstasy is gonna

1:03:07

bust wide open well

1:03:10

it's actually about the perfect segue into

1:03:12

the last question that we wanted to

1:03:14

dive into here because yeah

1:03:16

I think in you know the later chapters

1:03:18

of your book you talk about practicing

1:03:20

ecstasy and connecting to ecstasy

1:03:23

and I want to know more about

1:03:25

that and especially I want to know more about

1:03:28

this context of like how do we practice ecstasy

1:03:30

while living in a very dark and troubled

1:03:32

world yeah yeah I'm gonna

1:03:34

say the shortcut answer is go read

1:03:36

pleasure activism by Adrian Marie Brown that's

1:03:40

the real answer because

1:03:43

that's where you find like

1:03:45

so many different ways of

1:03:48

seeking for and accessing from Adrian Marie Brown

1:03:50

I learned the practice of pleasure gratitude where

1:03:52

every day instead of like just a generic

1:03:54

I'm grateful for whatever you're grateful

1:03:57

for a specific pleasure that you

1:03:59

experienced during that day. I

1:04:01

like that. It means that you're

1:04:03

constantly looking for the pleasures. And

1:04:06

as you look for them, it's like looking for four-leaf

1:04:08

clovers. If you look, you will find them. And

1:04:11

that increases your sensitivity to it,

1:04:13

which tunes your nervous system not

1:04:16

to stay in a state of

1:04:18

being able to experience pleasure, but

1:04:20

it means you're training your nervous

1:04:22

system to have fluid access to

1:04:25

a pleasure-experiencing state, even though we

1:04:27

live in a world where like

1:04:29

we spend a lot of time

1:04:31

stressed out or numbed out.

1:04:33

That is the nature of the

1:04:35

very fucked up world we live in. Even

1:04:38

though that's true, we can still,

1:04:40

with practice, by noticing pleasure, by

1:04:42

spending time, and it requires prioritizing

1:04:44

it, which means you have to

1:04:47

decide that it matters for you.

1:04:50

The more you practice noticing

1:04:52

the sensations in your body,

1:04:54

noticing the stimuli, again,

1:04:56

its internal state and external circumstances,

1:04:58

what is bringing in access to

1:05:01

pleasure right now. I

1:05:04

firmly believe one of the things I talk about in

1:05:06

the chapter is meeting your internal guide.

1:05:09

You have a part of you that is

1:05:11

wise that you can access as like little meditation

1:05:14

and everything. I have P.A.B. Get the

1:05:16

audiobook. It's going to be so

1:05:18

great. And I'll be able to read

1:05:20

this part as an actual meditation where

1:05:22

you go and meet your internal guide

1:05:24

who has the wisdom that you need.

1:05:28

I love science for

1:05:31

all its limitations and

1:05:33

for the wisdom of how to

1:05:36

integrate practice and access to the

1:05:38

erotic into your daily life. That

1:05:40

answer dwells not in any scientific

1:05:42

paper you can read. And it's not even in

1:05:45

my book. It's not even, God forbid,

1:05:47

in Adrienne Marie Brown's book. It

1:05:50

is inside you by turning in

1:05:52

toward yourself and

1:05:54

believing that it

1:05:57

is worth a practice that

1:06:00

will heighten your awareness

1:06:02

of the fact that you are alive

1:06:05

today and your partner

1:06:07

is alive today. And

1:06:10

you can share this moment today. As I was writing

1:06:12

the book, the book was two weeks from Drew, when

1:06:15

a friend of mine died. Fuck cancer.

1:06:19

That is to say, fuck cancer. She

1:06:21

was right around my age. She'd gotten married at right about

1:06:24

the same time I had. And

1:06:26

I was literally writing the

1:06:28

Ecstasy chapter. And I was like, well,

1:06:30

this is a different context for

1:06:33

writing this chapter. And it

1:06:35

became about, I mean, it

1:06:37

was about expansive, ecstatic pleasure.

1:06:40

And that it is your aliveness

1:06:42

all along. I was quoting Audre

1:06:44

Lorde about the erotic. But then

1:06:46

I realized that, like, even if

1:06:48

I can't access big giant orgasms,

1:06:51

there is an ecstasy in like,

1:06:53

I am alive in this moment. My partner

1:06:55

is alive in this moment.

1:06:57

And we can look into each other's eyes and

1:07:00

we are alive right now. And

1:07:03

holy moly, none

1:07:05

of us are promised abundant time.

1:07:08

But we are promised right

1:07:10

now. And I feel

1:07:12

there is value in

1:07:16

framing that as erotic. Wonderful.

1:07:18

I think that's a wonderful place to close.

1:07:20

Very well said. So where

1:07:23

can our listeners find more of you, more

1:07:25

of your work, and of course, getting your

1:07:27

book? The books are

1:07:30

available wherever books are sold. Come

1:07:32

Together is about relationships. Come As You Are is

1:07:34

about women. It's based on science.

1:07:36

So it's very heavy emphasis on cisgender women.

1:07:38

That is the nature of the science for

1:07:40

which I apologize. There's a Come As You

1:07:42

Are workbook for those who do not want

1:07:45

to read A Hundred Thousand Words

1:07:47

of Affective Neuroscience. And there's a Burnout workbook,

1:07:49

which my sister mostly wrote. And it's very

1:07:51

good. Burnout is the

1:07:53

one that's about stress. So if you're

1:07:56

like, I can't get to sex. I

1:07:58

am too overwhelmed and excited.

1:08:00

Exhausted start with burnout. I'm gonna

1:08:02

say emily negoski.com is my website

1:08:04

My newsletter is the most consistent

1:08:07

way to find out to

1:08:09

like hear from me and learn

1:08:11

what's happening And I am gonna

1:08:13

be traveling there are events happening

1:08:16

all over the country throughout

1:08:18

the late winter early spring

1:08:21

Excellent. So those of

1:08:23

you who are listening we want to hear

1:08:25

from you if you check out our Instagram

1:08:27

stories this week These are the two questions

1:08:29

we're gonna post on there. Maybe we'll post

1:08:31

them separately Maybe if we can cram them

1:08:33

both into one text box, we'll post them together We'll

1:08:35

see but we want to hear from you What

1:08:38

is it that you want when you're

1:08:40

wanting sex? And what is

1:08:43

it that you don't want when you

1:08:45

don't want sex? Really excited to

1:08:47

hear what your responses are Also

1:08:49

the best place to share your thoughts about this

1:08:51

episode with other listeners is in our episode discussion

1:08:53

channel in our discord server Or you can also

1:08:55

post about it in our private Facebook group You

1:08:58

can get access to these groups and

1:09:00

join our exclusive community by going to

1:09:03

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1:09:05

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1:09:07

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1:09:09

emery is created and produced by Jace

1:09:11

Lindgren Emily Matlack and me Dediker Winston

1:09:13

Our production assistants are Rachel Shenowork and

1:09:16

Carson Collins. Our theme song is forms

1:09:18

I know I did by Josh and

1:09:20

Anand from the fractal cave ET The

1:09:22

full transcript is available on this episode's

1:09:24

page on multi emery calm