Episode Transcript
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0:03
We're really here to be in these bodies
0:05
and to have these experiences and to
0:07
have deep pleasure. There
0:10
is something incredibly sacred
0:12
about pleasure. Women
0:14
do not need to have an orgasm to have
0:17
procreative sex and get pregnant
0:19
and have a baby, right? Then
0:21
why do we have this capacity to
0:24
really go deep
0:27
into ourselves?
0:29
You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm
0:31
Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize
0:34
your pleasure and liberate the conversation
0:36
around sex. Author Elise Lunen
0:39
has thought a lot about women and
0:41
desire. In her new book, Honor
0:43
Best Behavior, The Seven Deadly Sins
0:46
and the Price Women Pay to be Good, she
0:48
breaks down the cultural forces
0:50
that teach women to be desirable
0:53
rather than desiring and the
0:55
shame attached to a woman wanting something.
0:57
Whether it's sex, success, or
1:00
a damn slice of pizza, whether
1:02
it's lust and the way we encourage
1:04
women to police each other's sexuality
1:06
or sloth and the way women are encouraged
1:09
to be their husband's caregivers, these invisible
1:12
expectations serve none
1:14
of us. Instead, Elise talks about
1:16
ways we can liberate ourselves in ways that
1:18
improve our sex lives and beyond, how
1:20
to balance masculine and feminine energies
1:22
in relationships, how to shed sexual shame
1:25
and so much more. As Elise
1:27
says, our bodies are portals
1:30
and lust is the invitation
1:32
to enter. Intentions with Emily.
1:34
For each episode, join me in setting an intention for the show. My
1:37
intention is to help you understand the way culture constrains
1:39
desire, particularly for women. No
1:42
matter who you are, I guarantee you'll get something
1:44
out of this revealing and personal conversation
1:46
with Elise Lunen and how we can all experience
1:49
healthier, more honest, and more liberated
1:51
sexual connections. Please rate
1:53
and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to
1:55
the show. My new articles, four
1:58
penis problems and four
1:59
ways to solve
1:59
them and what is the sexual state of
2:02
the union and why should you and your partner have
2:04
one are up on sexwithemily.com. Check
2:06
out my YouTube channel, social media, and
2:08
TikTok. It's all at sexwithemily
2:10
for more sex tips and advice. If
2:13
you want to ask me questions, leave me your questions or
2:15
message me at sexwithemily.com slash askemily
2:18
or call my hotline 559-TALK-SEX or 559-825-5739. Always
2:24
include your name, your age, where you live, and how
2:26
you listen to the show. All right. So
2:29
I know
2:29
you're going to love this episode with Lise and I hope that you
2:32
will click the link and you will buy her book because
2:34
it's going to change your life. And I actually
2:36
became connected with Lise for a
2:39
few reasons, but my book is also coming
2:41
out June 13th. And I got to be honest,
2:44
it's hard to want for things. Like
2:46
I want this book to be successful. I
2:48
want you to buy this book and change your life. I have
2:51
a hard time asking for it. I feel like I'm here
2:53
in service of you and I want you to listen to this show
2:55
and I want to help you, but I'm really, really proud
2:57
of my book, Smart Sex. It comes
3:00
into your hat little hands on June 13th. It will
3:02
be released, but you can pre-order it
3:04
now. Pre-order is the whole jam
3:06
for helping a book become a bestseller, which is
3:08
something I really, really want. Can
3:11
you imagine sex being on the bestseller
3:13
list? Lise
3:14
and I talk about how difficult it is for
3:16
women to ask for what they want. Well, that's me practicing
3:19
asking you for what I really want.
3:22
And I'm hoping you can help me. I know you're going to love
3:24
it. It's your new sex bible. Other exciting
3:26
thing where I want you to join me. Okay, I'm just going to pile
3:28
it on right now. I am doing a book tour, something
3:30
I've never done before. I'm going to be
3:33
in your city. This is just a partial list of what we
3:35
have upcoming so far, but they're
3:37
on sale now. I'm going to be doing a live
3:40
event in New York on June 13th. So
3:42
please get tickets and come see me there. We've never
3:45
met. I want to meet you in person. I'll be doing a
3:47
virtual book event, which is going to be really great, which
3:49
means you can join from anywhere on June
3:51
15th. And then San Francisco Bay
3:54
Area, come meet me in person on
3:56
June 17th. I'm so excited to
3:58
meet you face to face. It's like... Why
4:00
I do what I do is to help you and we can
4:02
also connect. I can answer your questions live
4:05
while doing photo ops. It's going to be a good time. And
4:07
also when you buy a ticket, you'll automatically get a
4:09
copy of my new book, Smart Sex, but
4:11
not to worry, we have an article live on our site
4:14
right now with all this info, which you can
4:16
also find in the show notes. Lastly,
4:19
this episode is brought to you by Yarlap.
4:21
You all know the importance of doing your kegels and
4:23
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4:25
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4:28
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4:32
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4:37
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5:41
Elise Lunen is a writer, editor, and podcast
5:43
host, most known for her weekly podcast with
5:45
Cadence 13, Pulling the Thread, where
5:47
she has interviewed various cultural luminaries.
5:50
She has previously worked as the chief content
5:52
officer of Goop. And while at Goop,
5:54
Elise co-hosted the Goop podcast and
5:57
the Goop Lab on Netflix. Her first book
5:59
under her own.
5:59
the Seven Deadly Sins and the Price
6:02
Women Pay to Be Good is out now.
6:04
Lastly, I just want to notify you all that
6:07
Elise shares some of her sexual traumas in this
6:09
episode and we will put timestamps in
6:11
the show notes of that section for any of you who want to
6:13
skip ahead. And I want to thank Elise again for being
6:15
so vulnerable and sharing her story, which I
6:17
know is going to resonate with a lot of
6:20
you. She was vulnerable and just thank
6:22
you again, Elise, for coming on Sex with Emily. And
6:24
I have such admiration and respect
6:27
for Elise. Her book is truly
6:29
smart and stunning. And I think you're going
6:31
to realize in listening to this episode and
6:33
hopefully getting her book, you're going to recognize
6:35
your own behavior through the lens
6:38
of control. You'll see that there's
6:40
ways that you can maybe give
6:42
yourself permission for the first time ever to
6:45
truly experience your desire to slow
6:47
down and to live a life that
6:49
starts to work for you and not necessarily
6:52
society and those around you.
6:54
I really hope you enjoy this episode.
6:57
I'm really, really proud of you and your
6:59
book.
7:00
Your book is titled, On Our Best Behavior,
7:02
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price
7:05
Women Hate to Be Good. And
7:08
I love that your book sheds
7:10
light on the common often hidden struggles
7:13
that women have
7:14
and all the ways that women are contorting our
7:17
lives to be good and how
7:19
it's not very, it's not
7:21
okay for us to have desires
7:23
really in any way.
7:25
We don't have permission for that. We're
7:27
not granting it to ourselves. We don't give
7:29
it to ourselves, exactly. We shame
7:31
ourselves. Other people shame us for wanting
7:33
desires, desire to rest,
7:36
to be sexual, to be sensual, to
7:39
take time for ourselves. In
7:41
your book, you use the
7:43
says in Deadly Sins as a way to demonstrate
7:46
this. So can you just run down the
7:48
Deadly Sins and how they show up in our
7:50
lives? Yes, and to make
7:52
it clear to anyone who's listening, I'm sure some people
7:55
are part of a religion
7:56
or grew up in a religious household. I did not.
8:00
So that's what makes the superstructure
8:02
of my book and the revelation of how
8:04
they all live in me so
8:07
much more eye-opening because
8:09
they're
8:10
so invisible. They
8:12
are part of culture. So they are, to remind
8:15
you, sloth, pride,
8:17
envy, greed, gluttony,
8:22
lust, and anger. And
8:25
Emily, as you know, they weren't
8:27
actually in the Bible. They
8:30
are, to quote my friend Nora, Bible fanfic.
8:33
And when I thought about
8:35
them in the context of my own life, I could
8:37
see how they had become a punch card
8:40
for what it is to be a good woman and
8:42
to deny ourselves all
8:45
of these very human instincts,
8:47
the way we slut shame ourselves
8:50
and each other, the way that
8:52
we moralize around what
8:54
we're eating. I was bad last night. I'm
8:56
gonna be good tonight. The way we prioritize
8:59
thinness, smallness,
9:01
all of these qualities of culture.
9:03
And these things show up as voices in our heads,
9:06
ways that we control and patrol
9:10
our own behavior
9:11
and think that this is just who
9:14
we are rather than who we've
9:16
been told to be. It's so clear
9:18
when you're reading your book that how programmed
9:20
we are are, we don't even see it. Because I didn't
9:22
grow up in a religious home either. And these
9:24
days we find out, you know, aren't even been in the Bible,
9:27
but you realize that they are so
9:30
pervasive and it's almost like I can't unsee
9:32
them now. And even though your book isn't necessarily
9:35
prescriptive, you sort of can't
9:37
unsee the way we
9:39
are definitely controlled and programmed.
9:41
Let's just start without
9:44
even the foreplay here. I wanna talk
9:46
about lust because I feel
9:48
more questions from people. People
9:51
trying to break their feelings of shame
9:53
and how the shame they feel around sex and
9:55
being sexual, being sensual. But you point
9:58
out first, I think you'd be kind of said this, but.
9:59
I want to hammer this home that the Bible has very
10:02
little to say about the sin of sexual pleasure
10:04
in and of itself. The idea
10:06
that sex is sinful or lust is sinful,
10:09
where does that actually even begin? Because
10:11
that might even help us deprogram it a little bit.
10:13
So we also all know the story of Adam and
10:16
Eve and the fall from paradise, which is
10:18
actually
10:19
based on an earlier Sumerian
10:22
myth about a goddess in a garden. There's
10:24
no fall. There's a snake, but
10:26
the snake is really sort of like the creative
10:29
sexual energy of
10:30
the goddess. That's typically what the snake
10:32
represents. If you look back at Genesis,
10:36
it's really about the way
10:38
I would read it is a decision on the part
10:41
of Adam and Eve to enter
10:43
the world and leave
10:46
sort of this duality, leave and come and
10:48
be mortal and learn, right?
10:50
It's about knowledge. Well, Constantine
10:53
says that it's about lust and
10:55
he specifically writes about
10:58
how there was an uncovering of
11:00
genitals and a stirring and
11:03
that that was why
11:05
Eve inspired Adam's
11:08
lust and that's why they were evicted. And
11:11
that's where we start to see sin so
11:13
wrapped up. And then there are all these
11:15
interesting translation errors, not to get all dorky
11:18
around. There's a word for sin
11:20
in Greek and word for sexual sin. And
11:22
it's like there's one letter distinction.
11:25
And so it was mistranslated many times.
11:27
It's like porneus or porous
11:30
or something like that. So we see
11:32
it start to enter consciousness
11:34
and this idea of celibacy and
11:36
this idea of virginity, which is another
11:38
translation error
11:41
where Bula
11:42
in the original Hebrew just means
11:45
young woman.
11:46
And when it was translated into Greek as
11:48
parthenos, that's when it became
11:50
virgin. But Bula had nothing
11:53
to do with sexual status, married
11:55
status. It was just a young woman.
11:58
And so as this. sort
12:00
of starts to build in
12:02
the culture, we start getting all
12:04
of this programming about our virginity
12:06
and all of it. So
12:09
basically it's all these mistranslations
12:11
and misunderstandings. And I think you say in your book,
12:13
it's like a game of telephone, essentially,
12:16
which I love. That through time,
12:18
all these mistranslations and whoever was saying
12:21
who, and it wasn't even in the Bible, but as
12:23
a result of that, women in particular
12:26
have struggled the most and had the repercussions
12:28
of feeling shame
12:31
and feeling
12:32
like it's not okay to have
12:34
desiring. So like women
12:36
are taught to be desirable, but
12:39
not desiring. Yes. Can
12:41
we talk more about that? I mean, like we
12:43
don't know what we want really either because
12:46
of this. Yeah. And
12:49
it's exactly what you said, this
12:51
idea of being desirable,
12:54
not desiring, not ever showing
12:56
our wanting, waiting to be chosen,
12:59
waiting to be picked, wait
13:01
until he calls you. And
13:04
the way that we're also taught to be sexy,
13:08
but not sexual. So the performance
13:10
of this, and we're picking up all of
13:12
these cues from culture, right? That's what
13:14
tells us how to
13:17
be quote unquote sexy.
13:19
Long before we're ever actually really
13:21
in our own bodies, understanding
13:24
how they work, figuring
13:27
out what feels good, figuring out what
13:29
we even want. All of this is a cultural
13:31
projection
13:33
that we pick up from the media, we
13:35
pick up from our friends,
13:37
we are constantly studying
13:40
and seeing what boys, men, et
13:42
cetera, women are responding to.
13:45
And then so many of us are trying it
13:47
on,
13:48
which is fine, but it becomes entirely
13:50
about a projection of sexuality
13:53
rather than being sexual.
13:54
And I was talking about this yesterday,
13:58
not to pick on, this isn't.
13:59
but I look at someone like Kim
14:02
Kardashian,
14:03
who is very sexy.
14:05
She doesn't strike me as being very
14:08
sexual. And
14:10
you think about someone like Rihanna, who
14:12
seems so sexual, like
14:14
Lizzo, so in their bodies. I
14:17
don't know, that to me is the difference, like how
14:20
embodied we are. And I, for one, have
14:22
struggled with
14:23
that for my whole life.
14:26
Again, not growing
14:28
up in a very patriarchal, shaming
14:30
family. It doesn't matter. It's
14:33
like in us. It's what we
14:35
learn from the culture. It's informed
14:37
by our own traumas.
14:39
Because that's another big component
14:42
for girls and women, which
14:46
is that
14:47
besides this horrible
14:49
idea that you need to be desirable
14:52
and not desiring,
14:55
and be passive to
14:58
the male gaze, typically, also,
15:02
you are responsible for inspiring
15:04
that male gaze and whatever it might
15:06
bring your way, right? So
15:09
we are charged as we go out into
15:11
the world
15:12
with being the babysitters
15:15
to the sexual appetite of men. And
15:17
if we inspire too much lust, Emily,
15:20
if he loses control, then
15:22
that's on us. We
15:25
are at best complicit,
15:27
at worst, to blame for
15:29
whatever is done to us because
15:31
of appearing in any way like we wanted
15:34
it or we're dressed for it or didn't
15:37
fight
15:38
it hard enough.
15:39
It's not good. It is not good.
15:43
Let's just say that. And this is where all the performative
15:45
sex comes in and people acting as
15:47
if and sort of thinking like this is what men
15:50
want or what society wants because we don't really know. And
15:52
you mentioned embodiment. You mentioned how hard
15:54
it is. But something that we both talk a lot about
15:56
is how do you actually be in your
15:59
body during sex? when so many of us, I
16:01
mean, I field questions all the time for people to
16:03
say, I'm having sex and I'm there,
16:05
but I'm not really not there. And you actually
16:07
do get really personal in your book
16:09
with something that I don't think you had ever shared
16:11
before about your disassociating
16:14
during sex, which is again, a pretty common
16:16
experience for women. And I think it was just really
16:18
brave of you to bring this up in the
16:20
book and what much have been a cathartic,
16:23
but also really difficult thing to do. And
16:25
it's a common experience for women. So maybe you can kind of share
16:28
your own, your own journey, your own story with being
16:29
embodied. No, I'd love to, particularly
16:32
if it helps people because I'm in my
16:34
early forties.
16:35
And it really wasn't
16:38
until my very late thirties
16:41
that I realized that I was
16:43
disassociating
16:44
during sex. I didn't do it all the time,
16:47
but most of the time I was kind of somewhere
16:49
else. And I was explaining
16:51
to my therapist how I'll just
16:54
sort of be spinning and spinning
16:56
and he was like, do you understand
16:59
that
16:59
that's dissociation? And
17:02
I didn't, I had no idea that that
17:04
wasn't a completely normal event.
17:08
And
17:09
can you explain more about that spinning though? Do you mean in your
17:11
head, you were sort of like, like I have
17:13
the sensation, it's like sort of a woozy
17:17
spinning. And
17:18
so you're not in the room really
17:20
kind of no, I'm not completely
17:22
like it's not like I'm hovering on the ceiling,
17:25
looking down at myself, but I am not
17:27
like having a sensorial experience.
17:30
I am, I can feel things
17:33
ish, but it's not, I'm
17:35
sort of
17:35
other, other somewhere
17:37
else. And I had
17:40
just sort of assumed I
17:42
liked having sex with my husband, it felt
17:44
intimate or tender in some ways, but
17:46
it wasn't like it wasn't what he wanted
17:49
for me. But I didn't know what that meant.
17:51
And I didn't know how to access it or what
17:54
was happening in my body. And
17:55
I knew it had a bad experience in high
17:57
school, but I didn't even know, which I'll tell you. about
18:00
in a minute. I didn't quite know how to think about that. For
18:02
my old job, we were covering psychedelics.
18:06
And so I did an MDMA
18:08
session with the therapist, actually did
18:10
three, but the first one was the most dramatic.
18:13
I didn't know what I expected. I did not actually
18:16
expect to have a therapeutic experience.
18:18
I was approaching it like a journalist
18:21
where I was figuring that that
18:23
way I could explain it or talk
18:25
about it.
18:26
And
18:28
you take two doses of MDMA
18:30
quite close together in time, although your
18:33
whole sense of time is very strange
18:35
while you're in the middle of this experience. It feels
18:37
like an hour and it's a whole day. And
18:40
you're wearing an eye shade and you're
18:42
listening to music
18:44
and
18:45
you are just deeply in yourself
18:48
and that therapist is there. They're taking notes,
18:50
but they're specifically not leading you or
18:52
guiding you at best. They're sort of asking
18:55
you to stay where you are and
18:57
observe, but they're not planting
18:59
anything. You're very mentally competent
19:02
too, I should add. So my
19:04
first sensation was this warmth
19:07
moving down my body.
19:09
And I was saying,
19:12
Oh my God,
19:13
I don't think I've ever been in my body
19:16
before. I'm like in my body.
19:18
I really feel like I'm in my body.
19:21
And that
19:23
might sound like not a big deal,
19:25
but it was the biggest, it was such
19:28
an insight for me to have this deeply
19:31
embodied experience where I could feel
19:34
everything. And
19:37
then I was sort of having experiences,
19:40
memories in this process. It took
19:42
me back to a basement of a friend of a
19:44
friend's
19:45
house. I spent a lot of time there
19:47
as a child. These were my best friends growing
19:50
up. I just had this revelation that I
19:52
had been molested by
19:54
a friend of a family friend.
19:56
And I very well remember
19:59
one incident. with this
20:01
man in public where he was inner
20:03
tubing with me at a party at the lake
20:05
and just kept getting on the inner tube with me even
20:08
though he weighed 120 pounds more than me
20:10
maybe. And the inner tube would
20:12
flip, like my body weight would fall on him and
20:15
I was just waiting for someone to say something.
20:18
I remember him from my childhood like that.
20:20
But then in this basement I was with this guy
20:22
and
20:23
I don't really know what happened Emily. Like
20:26
I don't think it was, I don't think he raped me. I
20:28
don't think it was anything that violent
20:31
or invasive.
20:33
But he made me feel,
20:35
and
20:36
this is what I've been working with in
20:38
therapy,
20:39
that I was making him lose control of himself
20:41
and that I was so intoxicating to
20:43
him that he was in love with me, that
20:47
he wanted to sort of be with me
20:50
and just having this feeling as a small
20:52
child eight or nine years old of like,
20:54
how do I make this stop?
20:56
Please make this stop. And
20:59
I realized in this re-experiencing
21:02
it, and I think he maybe like
21:05
would make me like look at him I think is what
21:07
happened. And you hadn't remembered this experience
21:09
in the past. You hadn't, it all was coming to you
21:11
through this therapeutic. Yeah. Okay. Yeah
21:14
and I don't really know. Like all the doors didn't open and I don't
21:17
feel like it's important. I didn't feel re-traumatized by
21:19
it but it was like what I got from it was enough
21:21
for me to understand
21:23
the ways in which
21:25
I have spent my life feeling like my
21:28
sexual power
21:29
or light or energy
21:32
is dangerous to me and that whatever
21:35
happens
21:35
to me is my fault. Flash
21:38
forward to high school, I
21:40
had this experience which I write about in the
21:42
book that I hadn't really allowed
21:45
myself to call a rape because
21:47
I went to a boarding school. We were away
21:49
from the school in Boston for a long weekend.
21:52
I was a new kid at the school and
21:54
this former student he had been kicked out
21:57
was stalking me throughout the day and I
21:59
kept trying to...
21:59
him and I was very
22:02
mature. I was convinced I could take care of myself
22:04
but I kept sort of looking for relief
22:07
anywhere I could find it and
22:09
long story short I go back to my hotel
22:12
room that I'm sharing with my girlfriends
22:14
and he's in that room
22:16
and everyone else is passed out and I
22:19
sort of have
22:21
this can
22:22
I make out with him and make him leave
22:25
will that be enough for him to leave me alone like what
22:27
do I do here I was a virgin so that
22:30
I don't wake up in the middle of the night and
22:32
I didn't want to be raped
22:35
and so I
22:39
sort of to make a lot a longer story short
22:41
was like okay I'll kiss him and then
22:43
he was a wrestler he's pinned
22:45
me down went down on me
22:47
and I had an orgasm and like 15 seconds
22:50
I mean I don't know 20 seconds I had
22:52
sort of a fear response orgasm and
22:54
then he left me alone
22:56
and told everyone wow
22:58
and
22:59
for a long time I took responsibility
23:02
for that encounter
23:04
and for my
23:06
own shame and that I my
23:09
body betrayed me and
23:11
that showed pleasure at a point when I was feeling
23:14
the opposite
23:15
and it took me a long time and research
23:18
once I had this revelation about
23:20
what happened to me as a child it sort
23:22
of allowed me to go back to this
23:24
and really address this core trauma
23:27
and
23:29
come to the recognition through reading
23:31
researchers that a lot of women in this situation
23:34
orgasm it's a common response it's
23:36
a common response to show arousal
23:39
they think to prevent me from getting
23:41
torn
23:45
and that I wasn't
23:48
complicit that I could call it something that it
23:50
was that something I really didn't
23:52
want
23:52
and a long process
23:55
unfortunately it's long and slow
23:58
but of re-embodying
23:59
of, you
24:02
know, I realized that it was so hard
24:04
for me, for all the reasons it's hard for any
24:06
woman to have an orgasm during sex, but
24:09
that part of it was this like, I
24:11
want to take this back. I want to take this back.
24:13
And this constant revoking of
24:16
an orgasm that he didn't deserve.
24:19
And it's funny, these things happen. And then you're
24:22
like, wow, it's been 25 years, almost 30
24:25
years. And yet I haven't dealt with
24:27
this. First off, thank you for sharing
24:29
that story because of why I think it's so important to tell.
24:32
And to share is because it's so common. It's
24:34
like one in three women have some kind of sexual
24:36
assault in their life or rape. And,
24:39
and we sometimes maybe we
24:41
repress it or we might not even remember
24:43
it. But something happened early
24:46
on where women are often like
24:48
either were shamed for touching ourselves
24:50
or something happens. You've had some extreme you have two
24:53
examples of that, two experiences
24:55
of that, that as a result of that,
24:57
now you are grown woman. And
24:59
it's having implications in
25:02
the bedroom that were not really explainable.
25:04
But as a result, you weren't able to fully
25:06
be in your desire, fully be
25:09
in your body. Of course,
25:11
that's going to lead to some shame and some disassociation.
25:14
Maybe you could talk about from there, like what
25:16
have you been able to do to kind of reengage
25:19
with
25:20
yourself and your body? Kind of work?
25:22
What does that look like? Yeah, and so
25:24
much of it,
25:25
you know, I love in your book
25:27
that you explore the masculine and the feminine
25:30
and how essential these energies are. And
25:32
they're not attached to our gender. And,
25:34
you know, the masculine is the directing
25:37
truth, order, structure, you describe
25:39
it in that
25:40
direction, but, but sort of that
25:42
general vicinity, we I write about
25:44
this too. And then the feminine
25:47
is sort of the
25:48
receptive, creative, nurturing,
25:51
caring. And I think too,
25:53
for me, so much of this has
25:56
been my response is probably
25:58
already sort of how I naturally work. But
26:01
I am so comfortable in
26:03
my masculine and structuring
26:06
things, telling people what to do, making
26:09
sure everyone gets everywhere they need to go on time,
26:11
etc. And
26:13
controlling my world, let's be
26:15
clear, tamping down and
26:17
controlling my world and
26:19
keeping myself
26:21
in a clench, which I
26:23
feel in
26:24
my pelvic floor. And that's been a big
26:27
place where I've had to really reconnect
26:30
and learn how to relax it and understand
26:32
it as a filter. Do I feel safe around
26:35
someone? Am I clenching?
26:37
Or do I feel calm,
26:39
open, receptive? So
26:41
for me, it's been this process of
26:45
trying to soften and get back
26:47
into my feminine and to let people
26:49
do things for me, including my husband,
26:52
and to receive without hyper
26:54
self-consciousness and I
26:56
love to talk about you. Well,
26:59
people will enjoy this because they've been listening to you forever,
27:02
but we're friends in real life. And
27:04
I love being with you in
27:06
public because besides being,
27:09
obviously, you're
27:10
a beautiful woman, but I have
27:12
a lot of very beautiful
27:14
female friends. And
27:17
you exude, I call it your magical vagina,
27:19
but you have just this ability
27:22
to run energy in
27:25
your body. And it's very
27:27
attractive and magnetic to the point that
27:30
80-year-old women are crossing the street to talk
27:32
to you and 20-year-old men are
27:34
running up to bring
27:37
you a coffee. No, but it transcends
27:40
sexual attraction really, but it's just
27:42
this energy that you have. And
27:45
I
27:46
think we all have that.
27:48
Some of us are better at letting it rip.
27:50
And so for me, it's also been
27:53
being conscious of that and how much I'm tamping
27:56
down and holding it at bay
27:58
and then what would happen?
27:59
if I let it up and let it go.
28:06
What does it look like? Yeah, what does that look like
28:08
in your relationships? What does it look in your life? It's
28:11
so relatable that we clench, we tamp
28:13
down, we on our pelvic floor. That's
28:15
why women also have pain or vaginismus
28:17
or they experience all this stuff because it's in this unknowingly,
28:21
when anything comes up around sexuality
28:23
or attraction or femininity, we like really have
28:25
to, we are so trained, so many
28:27
of us to lead, to do, to do, and
28:29
to get shit done and to have this purpose,
28:32
but yet at what expense, right?
28:34
And I think that's what your whole book is about. It's sort of at the expense
28:36
of us
28:39
truly leaning into our desire
28:41
and our knowing and in our intuition. Yeah,
28:46
so much of being a woman is being
28:48
told to subject your wants
28:51
to other people's needs.
28:52
And so, so much of the take back, I think
28:55
of our sexuality is reversing
28:58
it
28:58
and letting our wants come
29:01
up and articulating them and saying,
29:03
this is what I want and letting our
29:05
partners serve our needs. It's a
29:08
reverse in a way of
29:10
how we have all been conditioned
29:13
by society.
29:15
It's so hard exactly. And how do we
29:17
do that when women for so long have been like,
29:19
but I gotta take care of it, if I don't take care of all of his
29:21
needs and he's not gonna be there for me. Can
29:23
you talk about how this has sort of changed maybe? And you
29:25
do kind of write about this in your book a little bit about how
29:28
you've kind of had to learn to reframe that
29:30
in your relationship or change it up in your relationship.
29:33
Cause you are the doer. You are the one of the family
29:35
who's making the sandwiches and getting things done and getting
29:37
the kids out the door. But then
29:39
what does that do for your sexuality and
29:41
how does that, or how could anyone, even if it's you or anybody,
29:44
what's the, how do we rework
29:45
that? So one of the main
29:47
sort of,
29:49
not even a thesis statement of the book, but
29:51
like one of the things that I was grappling with
29:53
was we can look out into
29:55
culture, Emily, and see
29:58
all of the ways in which they... things
30:00
are not equitable for women, right?
30:03
And yes, we desperately need
30:05
social change. We need paid
30:08
family leave and affordable daycare,
30:11
and we need equity in boardrooms
30:13
and in government, et cetera.
30:15
And
30:17
we recognize that, and
30:19
yet we haven't made as much progress
30:21
as I think many of us feel like we
30:23
should have been able to make. And
30:26
when I was writing the book and sort of surveying
30:28
the people in my life, we love
30:30
binaries, right? We love to say, oh, it's
30:33
the men, it's men.
30:35
And then when I looked at the men in my life, I'm
30:37
like, I have two sons,
30:39
I'm married to a lovely man, I've had
30:41
many male bosses. I'm like, yes,
30:44
there are the Harvey Weinstein's in
30:46
the world, there are horrible men,
30:49
there are horrible women as well. This isn't
30:51
to say that all of this inequity isn't
30:53
real and doesn't need to be addressed. But
30:55
what I realized as I was writing this
30:58
is
30:59
that this is about our psychology,
31:02
and this is about where
31:04
we are continuing
31:06
sort of our own internalized patriarchy
31:09
or misogyny, I wanna say, which is sounds
31:12
heady, but an easy example of enforcing
31:14
this in each other is the way that women in
31:16
all the social science are as hard
31:18
on other women as men, if not harder.
31:21
You see women
31:23
policing girls about
31:26
their sexual activity as well.
31:28
Somewhat, it's hard because you're like, yes, society
31:31
is not safe, so be careful out there
31:33
without intending to sort of be like, you
31:36
look like a slut. But
31:39
in my own relationship, for
31:41
example, living with a pretty feminist
31:43
man and
31:45
feeling so upset,
31:46
I'm
31:48
the primary breadwinner, I
31:51
am a workaholic, I do more childcare,
31:54
all of this stuff. And sort
31:57
of being upset about it and slightly
31:59
resentful.
31:59
My husband might say like very
32:02
resentful. And what I realized,
32:04
what I realized
32:08
is that a
32:09
lot of it is because of
32:11
my own rush to competence and
32:14
my inability to
32:16
stop myself
32:18
from doing all the things.
32:20
So for example, I
32:22
fell off a horse last summer
32:25
and I broke my neck
32:27
and I was completely fine ultimately,
32:30
but I didn't even know that my neck was broken
32:32
for a week. I didn't go to the doctor,
32:35
which I would not recommend. If you fall off
32:37
a horse and lose consciousness and are in a
32:39
lot of pain, go to the doctor.
32:42
So you had stuff to do. You didn't have time
32:44
to get to the doctor, right? Yeah, exactly.
32:48
I was like, I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah,
32:51
yeah. Yeah. Just my
32:53
neck. Just my neck.
32:54
We were there for a few more days. I
32:57
like continued. I packed my whole family.
33:00
We go to the airport. My
33:02
husband won't let me carry anything. I'm in
33:04
a lot of pain.
33:05
We get home.
33:07
He puts all the bags in the living room. Normally
33:09
I would rush to sort of, I hate
33:12
being packed. So I like to unpack,
33:14
do laundry, put everything away.
33:17
This is like how I like everything.
33:19
And
33:21
I was in so much pain. I just sat on the couch,
33:23
which I don't normally do. I sat on
33:25
the couch next to my kids and I just stared
33:27
at the bags
33:29
and internally was berating
33:31
myself for not doing
33:33
the laundry and getting everything unpacked.
33:36
And guess what?
33:37
I don't think it was the day we landed, but the
33:40
next day
33:41
my husband unpacked,
33:43
did all the laundry
33:45
and put everything away. I didn't ask
33:47
him. I didn't say anything. I didn't share
33:50
my own
33:51
anxiety about not having done
33:53
this myself,
33:55
but I couldn't do it. And
33:57
guess what? He did it.
33:59
This is a pattern that I've observed now
34:02
again and again that I'm conscious of it.
34:05
Instead of rushing to
34:06
do the thing in the first 10 minutes
34:09
when the teacher emails for a permission slip
34:11
for a field trip, I normally am on
34:13
it, Emily. I just get that done. You're
34:16
very on it, right? You return the text, you get on the
34:18
things. And
34:21
now if I just wait a day, my
34:23
good chance my husband has done
34:25
it.
34:27
So that's how I'm starting to...
34:30
I'm just watching myself now.
34:32
Okay. And this isn't about me saying,
34:35
sometimes I'll say, I need you to do these things.
34:38
But often I find that when I leave
34:41
a little bit of room, when I pull and
34:43
hold back my energy, it allows
34:46
him to
34:47
fill the space in ways
34:49
that it's like, oh, you do know how
34:51
to do that. And you're perfectly capable and
34:53
happy to do it.
34:54
But when I do it first and fast,
34:58
you never have the chance.
35:00
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's like
35:02
actually giving them the permission to jump
35:04
in when you're highly competent getting it all done
35:06
in your masculine. I think this is such
35:08
a great way to explain it. That it wasn't that
35:11
you necessarily, like you just kind of lean back. You're
35:13
not just rushing to fix and he
35:15
is competent. You probably enjoyed doing that
35:17
and taking care of it for the family. You gave him the
35:20
space and time to do it. And
35:22
how else do we slow down? I know you cover this
35:24
a lot in Sloth, which was so
35:27
relatable about how this productivity
35:29
culture to get shit done. I think we're
35:32
both, so many of us are like this, that
35:34
there's so much to be said to slowing down
35:38
to not going so fast too. But we just
35:40
don't feel okay with it because it's not demonstrated.
35:42
You talk about your mother in the book. I've never seen
35:44
my mother slow down. She's 80. She's
35:47
still hiking mountains. She's still doing things. She's never
35:49
sit still. Yes. And what is the cost
35:51
of that? What is the cost of the going
35:53
and the doing and the checking things off the list? And that's
35:56
how we define our worth. And I think for so
35:58
many women.
35:59
Yes, there might be an abundance of energy,
36:02
but so much of it is driven by this
36:05
invisible cattle prod, you know,
36:07
just sort of this like electrified
36:10
whip at our butts
36:12
pushing us
36:13
in ways that we don't always identify.
36:15
We just sort of have it as an internal voice
36:17
saying like, I need to do more. I'm not doing
36:19
enough. I'm not being enough to everyone.
36:23
And this, you know, I think
36:25
too, when you think about where we're at culturally
36:27
with working moms who work outside
36:30
the house as well, and this idea
36:32
of work-life balance, which
36:35
is such a fallacy
36:37
and so elusive. But our response
36:40
to that, or at least I've noticed this in myself,
36:42
and I think we promote
36:43
this behavior amongst each other because
36:46
we all feel so bad, is
36:48
that if I were really
36:50
like for example, we both have
36:53
books coming out around the same time, I'm incredibly
36:55
busy. And the more
36:57
that I'm doing for my book, the
37:00
more I feel like I should be doing
37:02
in contrast for my kids
37:04
is also ramping up
37:07
the two in my mind, like they
37:09
should be equal. So if you're going to be really
37:11
spend long hours at the office, then you better spend
37:13
extra time with your kids
37:16
instead of saying, oh, right now I'm
37:19
not that available to my kids.
37:22
And it's fine. I feel
37:24
so bad,
37:25
right? But I also love in your book that you debunk
37:27
all of these myths, like women are the most capable
37:30
ones, the kids need
37:32
the mom around. That's because like what we're
37:34
saying here, we just really haven't allowed the fathers,
37:37
the men to step up in ways. Like they're just
37:39
as capable of packing a lunchbox. They're
37:41
just as capable as being there and fulfilling the emotional
37:43
needs. But we take all of this on.
37:46
They have just as much feminine energy
37:49
as we do. I think women understand
37:51
intimately what it is to be in your masculine
37:54
and your feminine at various
37:55
times throughout the day. Men have the same
37:57
energies and yet their cultural condition.
38:00
You know, I write about how women
38:02
are conditioned for goodness and
38:04
to pursue goodness, and
38:06
men are conditioned for
38:08
power. And that's
38:11
a terrible legacy too. It requires
38:13
that you're always in your masculine, dominating,
38:16
oppressing,
38:18
ordering people around.
38:20
And I think that men
38:23
desperately need to let their
38:25
feminine come up. All dads
38:27
I know really want to be present for their kids.
38:30
It's more than just weekend sports
38:32
games.
38:33
When we're back, Elise talks about
38:35
feeling truly liberated in the bedroom
38:37
and helps me answer a listener's question about anger
38:39
affecting her dating
38:40
life. I
38:44
don't know about you, but I do not have time
38:46
to book doctor's appointments the traditional way. Don't
38:49
get me wrong, my health is important to me, but okay, I
38:51
just moved to a new part of town and
38:53
let's just say I need to go to the gyno, calling my insurance,
38:56
finding out who's in network, calling each provider's
38:59
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and make sure there aren't any horror stories. That's
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39:54
And you said here, well, there's a few things I want to go back
39:56
to, but another quote from your book was, the
39:58
reality is, I think that...
39:59
straight women don't know what they want because
40:02
they've been told that they shouldn't have any
40:04
sexual wants at all. So
40:07
basically our desire is off the chart simply
40:09
because we haven't been taught to map it. And
40:11
then you talk about Meredith Chivers famous
40:14
experiment about women being showed
40:16
these videos of primates,
40:19
men and men, women and women and how we were aroused
40:21
by everything. Can we talk about that? Meredith
40:23
Chivers did this experiment. And
40:26
I think she's run various iterations
40:28
of this,
40:30
but she took people
40:32
put them in these lazy boys with plesmographs,
40:35
which are they connect it to your genitalia
40:37
to measure arousal.
40:39
And she took all different types
40:42
of people of all different persuasions
40:44
and
40:45
showed bonobos humping,
40:48
people exercising, straight
40:50
sex, gay sex, like all of it. And
40:53
people have had sort of a field day trying
40:55
to understand and parse this research.
40:58
Everyone's desire map
41:00
to their arousal, like men weren't turned
41:02
on by the bonobos. They weren't turned on
41:05
straight men weren't turned on by gay male
41:07
sex, etc. Everyone aligned
41:10
except for straight women
41:12
who were just aroused.
41:15
And we're just aroused.
41:17
And so I guess some of the,
41:20
you know, people were like, women are just
41:22
so sexual. They're so
41:25
highly aroused at everything. And I read
41:27
that as almost
41:29
the opposite, not that we're not so sexual, but that we
41:32
have never clearly articulated
41:34
what we want in the way that I think lesbians
41:38
and non-binary people have. Like
41:40
they've really had to do the work of being like, no,
41:42
I don't want that. I actually want this. And
41:45
they're pushing against a culture that would insist
41:47
that they don't want that. And I
41:50
feel like straight women haven't
41:53
done that process of really
41:55
articulating and going there and saying,
41:58
I like that.
42:00
Not that.
42:01
I like that. Not that. And
42:05
so I read it more as like an
42:08
expression of our confusion.
42:11
And rather than an
42:13
expression of just thinking everything
42:15
is hot.
42:17
That's what I loved about this because what you
42:19
hear like with Kinsey like all women are like a
42:21
three or four like we are hot for everything
42:24
that turns us on that women are more likely to be with other
42:26
women and find other things hot. And I love
42:28
that your interpretation of is no, we just
42:30
been told that we shouldn't have any sexual
42:32
wants or desires. And so therefore we don't
42:35
really know. We're kind of open for the store
42:37
to open because we have been policed
42:39
so much. Yeah. And I
42:41
think that so much, particularly with
42:43
straight women, there's so much projection on us
42:45
of being the
42:47
subjects like anything that
42:49
happens to us again is our fault
42:51
because we wanted it in some way.
42:53
And to be raped,
42:56
particularly in the way that rape happens,
42:58
which is not sort of on a law
43:01
and order fantasy level, but in
43:03
like, it's scary. You
43:05
feel like you're going to die. You it's
43:07
not particularly arousing,
43:09
but that's very different than
43:12
this feeling of ravishment that
43:14
someone is just like, so blown
43:16
away by you. They can't, they just have to
43:18
have you not. It's, it's very
43:20
close, but it's not the same thing.
43:23
And so I think a lot of women when they struggle
43:25
or when they have those fantasies, think
43:28
like, what is wrong with me? Do I actually
43:31
want this? And
43:34
yeah, the reality is
43:36
no,
43:37
some cousin, but it's very different.
43:39
There's consent.
43:41
Yeah, I love this distinction because I think
43:43
that a lot of women also feel shame around
43:45
that, that they have this fantasy or we call it the forced
43:47
sex fantasy or the rape fantasy. But really,
43:50
it's more about ravishment about being taken
43:52
in a way that's like this person wants me so
43:55
badly. They can't help but take me because
43:57
we also for many reasons, it feels great to be
43:59
adored. and loved and worshiped
44:01
and we sort of become absolved
44:03
of any desire because we don't have
44:06
to feel the shame around it. And I also love this
44:08
insight you have in your book about like, let's create a new paradigm
44:11
for expressing that desire, that
44:13
a desire that is untethered to shame.
44:16
Right? I also write about shame and talk about
44:18
shame in my book too, because I think that shame is such
44:20
a heady stew. Like shame is
44:22
really when you think about what's keeping so
44:25
many of women from feeling
44:27
desire sexually, but otherwise, or
44:29
just for wanting, right? Is the shame
44:31
that it's not okay. Or what do you think about
44:33
naming desires out loud is so
44:36
shameful for women?
44:37
Because
44:38
we don't have forums for talking
44:41
about our lives. And I
44:43
think that so much
44:45
of the conversation about sex is so
44:48
dominated by men, male
44:50
gaze pornography, pleasing
44:53
men. So much of our early
44:55
programming is about like, how
44:58
do you be good in bed? I mean, think about cosmopolitan
45:01
for most of our adult lives. It was like,
45:03
how do you give an amazing blow
45:05
job? Like how do you,
45:07
it was all performance for his
45:10
pleasure.
45:11
And so much of our culture is
45:13
about, again, being
45:15
desirable, being in a desirable body,
45:19
making him feel like the man,
45:22
there's very little in the margins. I mean,
45:24
you're creating these conversations, but
45:26
it's still far too rare. And
45:29
we need to be having these conversations with
45:31
each other, because I think the more that you tell
45:33
your story,
45:34
the more you hear me too.
45:37
We know this. We know that then
45:38
other women are like, oh my God, I thought that
45:40
was just me. And now I feel less
45:43
alone. That's what I see your book
45:45
doing. I really do see your book
45:47
becoming part of women's groups of people.
45:49
If you have a book club, this is the
45:51
book
45:53
on our best behavior that you want to have
45:55
in your book club. Each chapter is so chock
45:57
full of all of the conditioning and strength.
48:00
They call it mate guarding.
48:02
And I don't know if any of this is even
48:04
real. It's just so
48:06
conditioned in us as how we
48:09
think about these things and talk about these things
48:11
that were threats to each other and that
48:14
will invariably, again, we assign so much
48:17
of the responsibility to
48:19
the woman. Like I was listening
48:21
to someone talk about sort of being
48:24
cheated on by her boyfriend, who
48:26
sounded like a real psychopath.
48:28
But most of her rage
48:31
was directed at this other woman who
48:33
she had found on Instagram.
48:35
She was just projecting everything onto
48:37
this like slutty whore. Most of
48:39
her rage
48:40
was directed at the other woman
48:43
instead of directing it
48:46
at the appropriate source, which is her philandering
48:49
boyfriend, her trust violating
48:51
boyfriend. And yet this
48:54
is like the cycle that we get into, which I find
48:56
really interesting, which is, you
48:58
challenge women about this
49:00
and they'll say things like, I have higher standards
49:02
for women. Like they sort of go to
49:04
that. And
49:05
it's like, no, you're just being kind
49:07
of misogynistic.
49:09
And yeah,
49:11
we'll do anything to protect the men.
49:14
Right. But still, and we don't think this is
49:16
the internalized patriarchy. And this also brings me to
49:19
envy, which I think is one of your chapters
49:21
that I've thought so much about. And
49:23
I remember hearing you talk about it
49:25
when you're on a walk and you're like, well, envy. And I was
49:27
like, yeah, you know, I'm not really a jealous
49:29
person. I don't really have a lot of envy.
49:32
I celebrate women. I love all my friends. Like
49:34
I want them to succeed. Like I can't wait for
49:36
your book to be a bestseller and change all these women's lives.
49:38
Like I really am very passionate about
49:40
Elise and her work, all the things, all the ways I do it. But
49:42
then I could just see you listening to me and that in your head, like
49:45
I knew I'm like, oh, I bet you a lot of women are saying this
49:47
to her. And then I went home and I thought about it. And then I read
49:49
your book.
49:50
And I think, could you speak more
49:52
to what that message, because I think this is just
49:54
going to bunk hit so many women, and
49:56
even people over the head, if men are willing to go there
49:59
with us.
49:59
What is this teacher that envy is
50:02
for us? We learn from our envy. My
50:04
god Envy is so essential and envy
50:06
slightly different than jealousy Jealousy
50:08
requires a third so that's when
50:10
you would say you might be in a love triangle
50:13
or someone's trying to steal your
50:15
Partner, etc. That's jealousy envy
50:18
is one-to-one. It's very intimate. It's
50:20
when someone has something that you want
50:23
for yourself and
50:24
It feels really
50:26
gross and slimy and bad
50:29
in a culture where we want to feel good but
50:32
envy
50:33
is the most Essential
50:35
information from your soul because
50:37
it again it's pointing the
50:39
light on what you want
50:42
and so I believe strongly
50:44
and
50:45
It goes to sort of women not having
50:47
a lot of practice or encouragement To examine
50:50
what they want and needing to subjugate
50:52
our wants to other people's needs
50:55
But I feel so strongly that
50:57
what's happening
50:58
in this culture I think we can all sadly recognize
51:01
of women being so hard on other women
51:04
That we suppress our envy when it comes up.
51:06
We feel so gross. We don't let it come
51:08
up so we can diagnose it we just project
51:11
it onto the the person who is
51:13
making us feel bad and
51:15
so this is when you'll hear things
51:17
like I
51:18
Just don't like her. She rubs me the wrong
51:20
way Who does
51:22
she think she is? She thinks
51:24
she's all that
51:26
and if you can interrupt that with yourself
51:29
and with your friends and say wait, wait, wait Okay,
51:32
pause.
51:33
What's she doing? Like what's the bay? What's
51:35
happening here? What is she doing?
51:38
That
51:39
is pushing on you that's pushing
51:42
on a dream that maybe you have for yourself. Is
51:44
it that her? she's so
51:48
Her career is on fire.
51:50
Is it that she's
51:53
been married to the same person for 30 years? That
51:56
her kids read on command.
51:58
Like what is it? And you'll get so
52:01
much information. And what's really,
52:04
I've done this now with so many women, like
52:07
you on that walk, where
52:09
it immediately, we immediately go to like, I love
52:11
women, hashtag women supporting women,
52:14
hashtag
52:16
where are my girls?
52:18
And we just hate it. And invariably,
52:21
I'll have this conversation with a friend, like
52:23
I was having this conversation with my friend Kate. Oh
52:26
yeah, I'm way past that. Maybe when I was
52:28
a kid and her mom, who's older
52:30
was like, yeah, you grew out of that guys. And then the
52:32
next morning, I
52:34
was at coffee and I had 17
52:37
unread text messages from my friend,
52:39
who was like, oh, this person,
52:42
they were all Westside
52:44
mothers who had their own brands
52:47
and businesses were creatively expressed.
52:49
She was like, this person drives me nuts. I
52:51
hate this person on Instagram. And I mean, it was
52:53
really funny. She was very funny, but it was
52:55
clear. She was like, I get it. I
52:58
need to do my clothing label.
53:00
I need to acknowledge
53:02
that all I want is to be a creatively
53:05
expressed mother. I get it.
53:07
It's so empowering, really, when you flip
53:09
it, when you're flipping this script. I think that that's been
53:11
a really powerful message. It's
53:14
just a way that we can all learn
53:16
from each other. And you also talk about the expanders and
53:18
how we don't have to get into that, but about how we can kind of look
53:21
at people as another teacher for us,
53:23
that all of this, that women can be a teacher. This is Lacey
53:25
Phillips. You take people who
53:27
are doing something that's like touching you,
53:29
where you're sort of
53:30
a little triggered in
53:32
a good way.
53:33
And you use them. You study them.
53:36
You support them.
53:38
Ideally, you try to engage with them. You
53:40
don't have to use, it might not be their whole life,
53:42
but you use the part of them that is doing
53:45
what you want
53:46
as a guide. And as an example of,
53:49
if she can do that, I can do that too.
53:52
And pushing against all of the scarcity
53:54
program that we have, that there's really
53:57
only room for one. There will only
53:59
be one woman.
53:59
since she has it, I can't
54:02
have it too. So pushing against
54:04
that and saying, all right,
54:06
she is modeling what's possible for
54:08
me and showing me what
54:11
I want. And maybe I don't want that part and
54:13
I don't want that part, but this part,
54:15
this is my deepest desire. Each
54:18
one of the sins, the way you break down the book, there is
54:20
just so many lessons that I hope that
54:22
people who read this will take with them and
54:24
learn to kind of undo
54:27
and rethink and kind of reprogram their
54:30
thinking around a lot of these things. So
54:32
in one part, you tell a really, really hopeful
54:34
story in your book about being in a college
54:37
dorm room with your boyfriend who loved you
54:39
and you were in a good relationship and you were able
54:42
to actually let go and feel truly
54:44
free during sex. And
54:47
you have a great line in the book.
54:49
I would love you to read the sign because I think it's
54:52
such,
54:53
there's a lot to say in this one. It's a really beautiful moving
54:55
line. Thank you. The pleasure
54:57
of women is a vortex, a
55:00
gate to a deeper experience of
55:02
surrender and awe.
55:04
This is the space I visited
55:06
back in that college dorm,
55:08
a realm I felt and saw,
55:10
a place I went.
55:13
This space has been described
55:15
as the maternal matrix, a
55:17
way to touch the divine and
55:19
the deepest impulses of life.
55:22
It is accessible to all of us.
55:26
That's just a beautiful roadmap and guide to pleasure
55:29
that I think that so many of us could
55:31
really kind of try to understand. And
55:33
can you maybe talk about sexual liberation
55:36
as a spiritual experience? Can you
55:38
elaborate maybe a bit more on that? So
55:40
it's my belief and it's
55:43
interesting when you have an experience of,
55:45
I'm sure many people who are listening have
55:47
had maybe one or two deeply
55:50
felt
55:51
spiritual experiences. I don't know if spiritual
55:53
might be a weird word, but where
55:56
you feel like you're in touch with something beyond
55:58
yourself, something unsealable.
55:59
And
56:02
I believe despite the way
56:04
that Augustine has
56:06
recast sexuality
56:08
as this base sin,
56:10
as the body, you know, we live in a culture
56:13
that is insistent that if we could just escape
56:15
this world and get to the next,
56:17
we'll be saved, right? The body is base
56:20
and gross and particularly
56:22
the bodies of women. And you can take this out to the
56:24
planet, right? We're just constantly
56:27
trying to control our mother
56:29
earth, et cetera, and just bring it all
56:32
under dominion.
56:33
And not that the reverse is true, but
56:36
that it is both that should be a transcendent
56:38
and descendant experience and that we're
56:40
really here to be in these bodies
56:43
and to have these experiences and to
56:45
have
56:46
deep pleasure. There is something
56:48
incredibly sacred about
56:50
pleasure. Women do
56:52
not need to have an orgasm to have procreative
56:55
sex and get pregnant and have a baby, right?
56:58
Then why do we have this capacity
57:00
to
57:01
really
57:03
go deep into ourselves? What
57:06
is that about? It's because we're here
57:08
to experience life
57:10
and that includes food, that
57:13
includes each other, that means
57:15
listening to our appetites and all of these
57:17
human urges and really letting
57:20
ourselves
57:21
feel.
57:23
And I think so many of us
57:25
are in such a constant state of self-denial
57:28
and always trying to control those impulses
57:31
that we're missing that miracle.
57:34
And
57:35
it's like we're walking up to a door and never
57:37
going through it. I believe in
57:39
sacred sexuality. I believe
57:42
that there is something
57:44
magical that can happen, some place
57:46
that we can go partnered or
57:48
not partnered
57:50
and that that is part of what
57:52
it is to be human, the deepest part of it. I
57:55
totally agree. And I love the way that in your
57:57
book you go through all of the ways, whether
57:59
whether it's pride or gluttony or greed,
58:02
lust, greed, anger, sloth. If
58:05
we could learn to kind of loosen the
58:07
grip, I suppose we have on all of
58:09
these areas of our life, even just little ways, like this
58:11
is going to heal all of us, but just to have the awareness
58:14
that we would much more likely to
58:16
have pleasure. Like all the ways that women
58:19
are restricting ourselves by what
58:21
we eat, by what we feel good about, by
58:23
how fast we're going in life and not slowing down,
58:25
all of those things are sort of inhibiting
58:28
our ability to have more pleasure and
58:30
to have sex like you described here,
58:32
to have that freedom like you had in that dorm room.
58:34
And I think if you make it realize
58:36
that we are sort of policing ourselves and
58:39
we kind of learn to loosen that grip, we could have so
58:41
much more of this accessible to us in
58:43
our life. So much more joy.
58:45
Yeah.
58:46
Mm. We really, we really
58:48
need that, Elise.
58:50
Thank you for expressing this. We always
58:52
have our guests help us answer a question
58:54
on the show. This is from Nina 29 in
58:56
Illinois. Hey, Dr. Emily, for the longest
58:59
time, it was my deepest shame that
59:01
I had never had any kind of intimate relationship
59:03
until last year. Since I was a kid,
59:06
I felt a kind of angry feminist aggression
59:08
towards men that put up a wall between me and
59:10
any guy I interact with socially. I was
59:13
sure that if he showed any interest in me, it was because
59:15
he thought I was a quick screw and if he
59:17
showed no interest in me, it was because he didn't
59:19
want to have sex with me. I recently met a guy online
59:21
who I liked, wanted to have sex with and
59:24
be friends with. For the last stretch of
59:26
the relationship, he was only asking me
59:28
out for booty calls where I would give him a blow job
59:30
or a hand job. I had unknowingly become
59:32
an object myself and I broke
59:34
up with this guy after about seven months. It
59:37
was my first intimate relationship, first breakup,
59:39
and I'm getting angrier and angrier. I
59:41
tried online dating again and every profile
59:44
I viewed brought up anger and sadness.
59:46
I consistently wondered if these guys were just looking
59:48
to hook up, if they had good relationships with
59:50
their mothers, if they had female friends, or
59:53
if they could ever be my friend. I fail
59:55
as a casual hookup, but it feels like that's
59:57
all there is because of this perception. I
1:00:00
can't imagine ever trusting a guy. How
1:00:02
can I begin a friendship with a guy that could evolve
1:00:05
into something more? If I'm constantly
1:00:07
thinking he only values me for sex
1:00:09
and is manipulating me, how do you set
1:00:12
aside anger or suspicion
1:00:14
that all guys only value women
1:00:16
for sex? Yeah.
1:00:19
Ooh, do you wanna go first or do you want me to go
1:00:21
first? First off, I wanna say that
1:00:24
Nina, amazing that she has this knowing,
1:00:26
like what a journey she's gone on, right?
1:00:29
That she's had this aggression since she
1:00:31
was a kid. She met a guy in line and I think that
1:00:33
she's got some anger and some stuff that
1:00:35
she has to work through. I think reading the book could really
1:00:37
help her have more compassion with herself.
1:00:40
And a result of that maybe have more compassion
1:00:43
towards men. But also I
1:00:45
think from my recommendation is also having these conversations
1:00:48
early on with guys.
1:00:49
Like there should be no pressure to give blow jobs or hand
1:00:51
jobs, but get to know somebody. Give the
1:00:53
next guy you go out with the permission and
1:00:55
the opportunity to show you maybe who he is. Maybe
1:00:58
women hasn't really talked to him about it in a way that he
1:01:00
could really express what he wants and desires
1:01:02
before making it sexual. Yeah, that's
1:01:04
what I feel. What do you think Elise? I mean, I
1:01:07
think there's so much going on in that that's really
1:01:09
beautiful. It's obviously heavy
1:01:11
baggage that she's carrying. And
1:01:14
we wanna try and address all of our unprocessed
1:01:16
emotional
1:01:20
baggage as much as possible before we bring
1:01:22
it into any relationship. So I feel
1:01:25
like
1:01:26
there's work she needs to do with herself before
1:01:29
she's going to feel safe,
1:01:31
comfortable and open. Sort of going to what
1:01:33
we were talking about, like running that energy
1:01:36
of openness and magnetism where
1:01:39
I feel like she is in
1:01:42
her body. So there's work that needs to be done. And
1:01:44
she mentioned her anger. And anger
1:01:46
is so important
1:01:49
because anger,
1:01:52
which is, and she also mentioned
1:01:54
aggression. And so this is where girls
1:01:57
just get such a raw.
1:01:59
bargain. So aggression is
1:02:02
very human. It's present
1:02:04
in boys and girls. And
1:02:07
yet we condition our children
1:02:09
differently around this. So for boys,
1:02:12
it's definitely considered
1:02:14
natural and normal and we allow
1:02:16
them to express it physically, verbally
1:02:18
on the playground, right? They punch, they yell,
1:02:21
boys will be boys.
1:02:23
This is
1:02:24
unacceptable behavior for girls. We expect
1:02:26
more from them. We don't think
1:02:28
that they should be aggressive. We think
1:02:30
that they should be docile.
1:02:32
And again, these are cultural conditions
1:02:35
that we
1:02:35
then show each other how girls should be,
1:02:38
right? This is what we're modeling for each other as well.
1:02:40
And so girls aggression
1:02:42
goes covert and underground.
1:02:45
And that's why we see whispering,
1:02:47
bullying, whisper
1:02:50
networks, social exclusion,
1:02:53
etc. None of us have been taught
1:02:55
how to have proper conflict, healthy
1:02:58
conflict. And conflict is
1:03:00
so essential for a healthy
1:03:03
relationship. And so what I
1:03:05
hear her expressing in her unprocessed,
1:03:08
unmet anger is that she has needs
1:03:11
and she feels
1:03:13
like very clear even if she can't articulate
1:03:15
it, what her needs are and what her boundaries
1:03:18
are.
1:03:19
And she needs to begin
1:03:21
by actually defining that to herself
1:03:23
and then articulating it to potential
1:03:26
partners. And we don't do
1:03:28
this
1:03:29
because of fear of relationship loss.
1:03:32
We worry if I say
1:03:34
to my husband, babe,
1:03:36
this is what I need. This
1:03:38
is a deal breaker.
1:03:39
You need to meet this. I'm angry
1:03:42
because I'm needing this thing from you that
1:03:44
he'll say, oh, well then I'll just find someone
1:03:47
easier. I don't
1:03:48
need this,
1:03:50
right? That's our greatest fear often.
1:03:53
And so being unlovable
1:03:55
and abandoned, unlovable and abandoned. And
1:03:57
so I think for her,
1:03:59
into a relationship and saying,
1:04:02
yeah,
1:04:03
I don't do this. This is what I need to feel safe.
1:04:06
This is what I need to do. I would need
1:04:08
companionship and comfort and
1:04:11
I'm not your booty call. It's hard,
1:04:14
but it's like, it's so hard.
1:04:16
Someone will meet her there.
1:04:17
It might take a while. I was single for most
1:04:20
of my twenties, but it's so much better to
1:04:22
be in no relationship than in the wrong
1:04:24
relationship. Exactly. And if we learn
1:04:26
to express this and to learn how to have healthy
1:04:29
conflict, I mean, I read the chapter on anger too. I don't
1:04:31
have a lot of experience with anger, at least consciously.
1:04:33
I know my mother always had that too. She's like, I don't get angry.
1:04:36
It's like, that is just so dangerous
1:04:38
towards women. She even told me she went
1:04:40
back into therapy. I remember she's like in like air 50s.
1:04:43
I remember telling me this, I didn't really get it because
1:04:46
she doesn't feel anger. And I realized, oh, guess
1:04:47
what, mom, I don't really experience a lot of anger either.
1:04:50
So it's something I'm still working on.
1:04:52
Yeah. We have
1:04:54
five quickie questions. We ask all of our guests,
1:04:57
don't overthink it, this is the first thing that comes to your head. It
1:04:59
could be like one word answers here. And then we're gonna get
1:05:01
into how people can find you and follow you
1:05:04
and love you. Okay. What's your biggest
1:05:06
turn on?
1:05:07
Oh my God. Look at this. I've written
1:05:09
a book and I'm still stuck. Let me think for one
1:05:11
second. My biggest turn on.
1:05:14
Could be like eyes, compliments or. Yeah,
1:05:16
I think it's like a flirtatious
1:05:18
touch in the presence of other people
1:05:21
that they might not know about.
1:05:23
Ooh, what's your biggest turn off?
1:05:25
Being humped on the leg, dry humped on the leg.
1:05:29
Just follow me throughout high school and college.
1:05:31
Exactly.
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