Best Of: Sex & The Senses

We all have that moan, that sex voice, that sex sound. And it's not artificial. It's not what you see in porn or how you think it should sound. You really have your own unique sexual sounds, like your primate cousins. I want you to find yours, because what I'm saying here is the more you find yours, you authentically it'll help enhance your arousal and your partner's. Okay, but I want it to come from you first. Not doing it for your partner, but doing it for yourself.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. When it comes to sex, a lot of us have a movie in our head about the way it should go down. I should look a certain way, they should kiss me a certain way. We should have epic orgasms at the same time. In other words, it should just be picture perfect. But here's the real, real you're going to have a lot more pleasure, and you're going to orgasm way easier and more intensely if you can get out of your head and into your body. So on today's show, I'm helping you have fully embodied sex using your five senses. Together, we can remove the mental blocks from orgasm if you're not turned on or inspired to have sex. These are sensory tools you can use to seduce yourself or your partner and feel all the electric sensations leading up to the big O. Plus, I take your questions like how to talk dirty without swearing, how to bring back an MIA orgasm, how to stop disassociating during sex, and so much more. Please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. It helps get the show out to more people. We read all of your Reviews. It takes 2 seconds and you can do it right now. You can also find me on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok X and Facebook. It's all Sex with Emily. And don't forget to check out my new articles. Want to improve your sex life? Use these scripts and seven hot threesome sex positions. All of those are up at sex with emily.com if you want to ask me a question, leave me your questions or Message me at sexwithemily.com askemily or call my hotline 559-talk-SEX or 559-825-5739. As always, include your name, your age, where you live, and how you listen to the show. Totally cool to change your name if you want to remain anonymous. All right, everyone. Enjoy this episode.

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Okay, I have some great questions from all of you on sex and senses. But before we get into them, I want to talk a little bit about pleasure and orgasms and how it's going to be a lot easier to achieve either one of those if you've got the right sensory inputs coming in. Because if you're not in the mood to have sex, you can't always think your way there. Maybe you've got some fantasies that are your go to, but what I'm talking about is feeling aroused. So here's some tools to engage your senses to feel more sexy, more sexual, and more like you're about to enter into a hot experience. And not only are you going to learn to feel them, you're going to learn to recognize which ones direct you more towards pleasure and which sensory experiences do not, which ones make you feel not turned on and which ones are like, I'm feeling good in my body. So now I'm going to ask you to get in touch with what pleasure and sex means to you and especially connect to what you want to feel like during sex. So take your focus off all the shoulds, don't should all over yourself and focus on what gives you pleasurable feelings and sensations. And you're going to learn that through your senses. Okay, let's dive in. We all have sensory associations. Okay, good. Or Bad. So what I mean by that is during sex, our bodies are in a constant state of pressing the accelerator or putting on the brakes. Now this sexual arousal system was initially explained by alfred Kinsey in 1947, but Emily Nagoski wrote an excellent book called come as you are. And she populated these concepts of arousal using this analogy. So your turn ons are when you're pressing the accelerator, but when you're turned off, you're putting on the brakes. And Emily calls this the sexual excitation system and the sexual inhibition system. So you're excited when you're accelerated and your brakes are your inhibitions. So arousal consists of these processes. Right? When you're turned on, are you activating the accelerator? Are you seeing something that turns you on? Are you touching something that turns you on or are you pushing on the brakes? And we all have this system and we're constantly scanning the environment for sexually relevant stimuli. And that comes in the way of our senses. Things that you're hearing, things that you're seeing, touching, tasting or smelling. And what's that doing is it's sending signals from the brain to the genitals. Turn on or turn off. So the cool thing is, if you're having trouble with any phase of your sexual response or getting turned on, start asking yourself, is it because the accelerator isn't being stimulated enough or is there something hitting my brakes? So once you know, oh, this is something that's putting the brakes on, then you could stop it and you can figure out how to create the change you want in your sex life. So what am I talking about here? Let's take touch, for example. So maybe you know that a super soft, gentle touch is what turns you on. But when someone grabs you or they pull you or they pinch you, that doesn't turn you on. Okay, so when you think about that your body's going to accelerate when you're touching the way you want to be touched, you're gonna put the brakes on when it's a kind of touch that doesn't make you feel good. Okay, so what I like about this model of understanding what's going to get you going and what's going to turn you off, and what's the most innovative is that rather than this notion that you have to change to have better sex, that you need to do something different, that you need to find what turns you on. And it's a whole complex thing, it encourages you to actually embrace yourself and adapt to your environment and think about, how can I optimize my sex life? By finding what turns me on. Now listen. So you can apply these associations to all your senses. The way someone smells, what you're hearing while sex is happening, the way someone tastes, it's all giving you data, pushing you into the accelerated mode or the brake mode. So again, once you learn to recognize which one of your senses is a turn on, like, oh, I love that smell, I love that touch, and which one turns you off, then you'll be able to kind of create an environment more easily that's gonna get you going in the right direction towards your pleasure. And, and that's why you're gonna be able to turn yourself in direction towards way more pleasure. So my next point, you know why your senses matter during sex. So how can you hack them for arousal and orgasm? How do you do that? The bottom line is arousal is just way more multisensory than we realize. And here's a fun fact from Justin Lehmiller. Attraction is a multi sensory process. Who we're attracted to depends not just on how another person looks, but, but also how they smell, how their mouth tastes, and so on. And what I want to add to that is in addition to who we're attracted to, what I want to focus on today is what we're attracted to in our environment is always experienced through our five senses. So when we pay attention to which sense which sounds really gets us in the right direction and it doesn't have to be sexually turned on, like the ones that make you feel good. Right. If we understand which senses are pleasurable to us, then our sexual desire is going to be understood much better. Like you might think, like, if I hear these five songs in a row from my playlist, I'll be much more close to returning on than these songs. See where I'm going with this? If I smell vanilla, lavender and spice, I'm going to be highly aroused. But if I come home and I smell garlic and patchouli and a bunch of roses, I'll be nowhere near ready to have sex. And in fact, I am turned off. See, we like to think of attraction as something really mysterious that comes right from the heart. But really, our brain is constantly running a complex series of calculations in a matter of seconds. That is what's responsible for determining arousal. But listen, it doesn't mean attraction is in our head. These calculations are happening all over our body at all times, with five senses all ready to vote in or veto any kind of attraction. So now I want to go through each sense and look at how you might hack each one of these to turn yourself on or your partner on, Creating the groundwork not only for sex, but a really awesome orgasm. All right, touch. Now, this is probably the most obvious sense you want to engage during sex. But as long as we're doing this, why not engage it the right way? It can be super helpful to experiment with someone or even yourself to see what type of touch works for you. Think of it this way. Which type of touch is your accelerator or your turn on receiving touch? Are there moments you can remember that really turned you on? Now, sometimes it's hard to answer a general question, so if you break it down, this might be easier. Do you want to be touched lightly? Do you want a soft graze in your cheek? Do you want a teasing kiss in your neck? Or do you want to be held down during sex and spanked? Like, which one gets you going? And it's okay if it's both of them. Think about touch this way. Also, are there times you prefer something more intense being held down during sex? Something a little bit more rougher, more athletic? See, we all have different preferences. So when you think about touch and you play with touch, you can figure out what excites you simply so you'll have more data right when you're thinking about what's gonna get me going during sex. Like, okay, personally, typically, I wouldn't wanna start off really, really rough. That usually comes later if I'm into it. But mostly what I know is a sure thing is to start slow. Touch me slowly, softly, gently graze my neck. Like I'd say that's a sure formula. Now, sex is all about variety. So again, sometimes I might want something else. But typically, if you were to ask me, over time, the touch I want from a lover is a little bit softer, moving into a little bit more harder. Right? So I want you to think about it, play with touch. Just think about, like, what excites you so you'll have more data so you can be your own best advocate. Oh, speaking of touch, you know, there's also toys you can bring into the picture that help us experience touch in a really unique way. You don't just have to rely on fingers or hands. There's feathers, there's vibrators, there's body safe massage candles for temperature play. There's paddles, there's sensation kits. So have fun with this stuff. Go to our shop page on our website and see what you could find that might help you enhance your touch experience. Here's some interesting science on touch. So regularly engaging in physical contact with those you Love or those you like can help increase our oxytocin levels and relax the nervous system. And oxytocin is a cuddle hormone, which is why it can feel so good to cuddle with a partner, to touch a partner on a regular basis. Whereas the opposite of that, if you're somebody who's not getting a lot of touch, you know, we have something called skin hunger, where you're really not touching anybody, could also have a detrimental impact on your mental health. Now, more touch could also make our bodies more resistant to pain, as the more touch we have, it also increases the production of serotonin. Now that's our body's antidepressant and anti pain chemical. So that's why it feels just so good to touch and connect with others. And this is something to keep in mind if you want to engage in a little pain during sex as well. You know, pleasure and pain, opposite ends of this touch spectrum. But both can feel equally good and be equally satisfying.

Okay, sound. So now if you're trying to figure out which sounds get you going, here's some places to look for your inspiration. Now, background music can obviously be a huge part of the experience of having sex. I mean, think about it. Would you rather have sex to your favorite, hottest, most sensual playlist or some elevator music? Elevator music to me is a turn off. But sound isn't only about music. It can also be the way we're breathing, the sounds we make approaching and during orgasms, and of course, dirty talk. That's another way to think about sound. Or maybe you're someone who prefers minimalist sound or environment during sex. So you can hear all that breathing, all that moment. Maybe too much sound pulls you out of the moment. Or maybe silence, complete silence, is distracting to you. You need a playlist to get you in the mood and nothing else is going to get you going. Now, conversely, think about what sound doesn't work for you, what puts on the brakes. Like for me, if the TV is on and I hear people talking about sports, there's no way I'm having sex. Like, if I hear sport talk, like, you know, I've never been with a partner and you start hooking up, I'm like, turn off the tv. But if I turn off the TV and I switch it to like a hot playlist, then I reset and I'm ready to go. So this is what I'm asking you to pay attention to your environment, tweak it. Maybe you should never listen to sports or heavy metal or country music, because why risk not Feeling good. Or maybe there's a time and place. Sunday night cleaning. You want to listen to certain music, but not Saturday night playtime. So the point here is, the more you pay attention to your surroundings, just over the next few weeks, from a sensory perspective, you'll be gathering really important data about your sexual arousal process. And now you'll take the mystery out of what the hell gets you in the mood. Because now you're going to know. Oh, God. There was sports playing. The environment was a disaster. My partner wasn't touching me. There was some weird smells going on. It's like you can look at it and see all these things are impacting your ability to get aroused. It's not just like, I'm turned on, I'm turned off. Do you get what we're doing here? I'm trying to get you to become an expert of your own arousal. And remember, there's no right way here. There's no shoulds. It's all about experimenting to see which sounds, in this case, turned you on. Another sound note here. In every culture, whether you're in Asia or north, up in Finland, down south in the Amazon, all over the globe, women are louder when it comes to sex. Now, I talk about this a lot on the show because I think that women are typically louder, but we tend to mute ourselves. We question, quiet ourselves. But in the primate world, vocalizations communicate a lot about the female in question. So namely, if you hear, like a primate, an animal making lots of noise, it means that her overall health, fertility, and place in the olivatory cycle are cueing partners in male partners and is saying, hey, this is what you're going to get out of this sexual encounter with this female. So essentially, it's advertising. So in the primate world, we use our vocalizations to advertise about who we are as a primate at that moment. So it's saying that I'm fertile, how my overall health is since the beginning of time. It's a strategy females use to bring in new males in order to try and mate with them. So what does that mean now? Well, if you're a vulva owner and you're struggling to get turned on, making your own noise can help facilitate your arousal, not just your partners. So what I'm bringing this up here is because there are very deep evolutionary associations we make with a woman moaning during sex, and it might be just the thing to hack your brain into arousal. Now, I get it. You might not be comfortable making noise during sex. And I think most of that has to do with Societal conditioning. Growing up in a home where it wasn't, you know, maybe you masturbated and you're like, I can't make any noise, so you have to mute yourself. Maybe you just thought it didn't sound right, the noises you were making and, you know, having roommates. Or maybe your partner had roommates and you just learned to be quiet. But once you give yourself permission to actually make noise during sex and find your sex voice. And again, I invite you to practice this in the shower. Practice when you're alone, masturbating. Find that deep, guttural sexual voice, because we all have it. We all have that moan, that sex voice, that sex sound. And it's not artificial. It's not what you see in porn or how you think, think it should sound. You really have your own unique sexual sounds, like your primate cousins. I want you to find yours. Because what I'm saying here is the more you find yours, you authentically. It'll help enhance your arousal and your partner's. Okay, but I want it to come from you first. Not doing it for your partner, but doing it for yourself. I can tell you from practice that I was much quieter in the beginning of my sexual experiences. And then once I realized that, like, how much sound enhanced my sexual experience, like, I'm loud, I make my own noises, and I really don't care what anyone else thinks. It's part of my sexual experience that makes it so satisfying. Sight. So another way to hack your senses for orgasm is to play with sight. So what are you looking at during sex? Obviously, you're probably looking at your partner, especially if you're physically attracted to them. That's going to be like a surefire accelerator. That's great. But what if sex has gotten a little rote? You're staring at your partner a long time. For many, many years. They're not the only accelerator. Right now we'll play with other visual cues. A mirror. I've talked about this before, but looking in the mirror at yourself having sex. Especially for vulva owners, there have been studies that have shown that when vulva owners look at themselves in the mirror during sex, they're much more aroused and turned on. That sink doesn't feel great with penis owners as well, but it's something to think about. Candles rather than just pitch black. Switch up your environment. What you're going to see. Role play is fun, especially if you're playing dress up, wearing something that feels good to you during sex. Maybe there's like, some things you could take off during Sex. Some socks, you know, wear some sexy stockings, some shoes. Just kind of having something else to look at to play with. So you feel different during sex, and your partner's looking at something different during sex. Or you can also take sight away. Blindfolds, for example. This could have a really arousing effect on stimulating your other senses. Because when you put a blindfold on, when you take away one sense like sight, all your other senses become more aroused and engaged. All right, taste now, taste again. It's a more subtle sensory cue during sex, but just don't sleep on this one. You do know how I feel about flavored lube. That's a great option for people who are still acclimating to the natural taste of genitals and sexual fluids. Not to shame them. Not a crutch. It's just a unique additive tasting. Some lube that's really fun, is additive and tastes delicious. You can also incorporate taste as a prelude to sex. Sharing bites over dinner, feeding each other, you know, some finger foods. That's a super sensual way to connect. And let's not forget, you can also lick things off each other's bodies, like chocolate, for example. Body chocolate. Get something that's made for your body. Because remember, missing up sugars, especially if you have a vulva inside of you, can actually cause infection. But just putting on your bodies and some chocolate sauce, that could be really erotic and really yummy. And if you haven't tried this play with giving versus receiving. There's one person doing the licking or the one being licked. You might find that one or both is a huge turn on. Especially if you're a dessert person, like I am, like, bring on the chocolate. Bring on the whipped cream. Okay, finally. Smells or scent? So smell is the most connected to memory. It's the most primal sense that we have. You ever have a smell, something you're like, oh, that reminds me of third grade when I was riding my bike to the store. And, you know, you just have these memories. Like, there's nothing like smell to bring you back to a very particular moment. So this could be one reason why there's so much research on body odor and pheromones and sexual arousal. We have smell cues buried deep inside our brains, letting us know whether someone is optimal, genetic and sexual partner, or they're not. But smell also accelerates or breaks us in other ways. Some people get incredibly aroused by cologne. Other people just get a terrible headache. And this is crazy. In one study, the scent of pumpkin pie mixed with lavender increased blood flow to the penis by 40%. So you know what to do there, don't you? So again, key here. Play with different candles, body lotions, perfumes, colognes. See which one excites you. So my final takeaway. Sex is somatic. Meaning in your body, of the body. Your body is constantly transmitting information back and forth between your nervous system and your brain. So if you want to get turned on, really turned on, and ideally experience orgasm, again, not the goal, but who doesn't love an orgasm? We have to know what attracts us to a sexual experience. And by experimenting with each one of your senses, as I just detailed for you, you're gonna find inroads to arousal that you may not have known ever existed. You're gonna know what's accelerating you and what's turning you on and what's putting on the brakes. Okay? So take some notes, journal about this and experiment with your senses. And if you do this just for the next few weeks, you're gonna have so much information that's gonna not only help you immediately, but gonna help you throughout your lifetime. We'll be right back with some listener questions after a short break from my sponsors. But first I gotta tell you a little bit about Just Thrive. I always say overall health is sexual wealth and you cannot have good sex if your body is suffering. You just can't. And Just Thrive Probiotic isn't just any other ordinary probiotic. I have studied this in depth. I've done interviews with the founders of Just Thrive. It is a clinically proven game changer. 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This is from Sarah, 23 in Australia. Hey Dr. Emily. Your podcast has helped me in more ways than I can ever imagine, but mainly with self love and acceptance. At almost 22, I had my first orgasm solo. And only a few months after that, I was able to, on occasion, orgasm with my partner. Now at 23, I feel I've hit a rock and can't orgasm as much and I feel like something is missing. My partner takes pride in pleasuring me and I can't help but feel bad that he goes through a lot of effort and, well, nothing happens. I hope you have an answer or advice on how I can get to absolutely mind blowing sex. All right, Sarah, well, let me say this. I love that you had your first solo orgasm and congratulations on that. And that's an inspiration, I hope for many of you who haven't yet had an orgasm on your own, I believe that it's important, even if you've had one with a partner, to figure out how you orgasm by yourself. You understand your body, you know how to explain it to a partner. That's awesome. So my question is, are you first, second, still able to orgasm on your own? Sarah, I know you're not able to with a partner right now, but are you on your own? What could be awesome for the both of you is mutual masturbation. Because whenever we get stuck or we're like, I don't really know how to explain what I need and what feels good. When we do some mutual masturbation, which is a twofer, it's like a sexy show and tell. So your partner's looking at you and you're looking at them going, oh, I didn't know that your hand over your penis turned you on or your hand inside of your vagina is what really gets you going. The cool thing about mutual masturbation is it's like a twofer. Okay, here's this. It's sexy to watch your partner touch themselves and ecstasy to see what turns them on. So you both get to watch each other. It's also like a show and tell and it's educational. So you'll actually learn what feels good to your partner. And your partner's gonna learn what feels good to you by watching you. He'll then know how you touch yourself. Like, do you use light circles on your vulva? Do you put a finger inside of you? Do you use a toy? And then he's going to understand your process for arousal and you'll understand his process. The thing is, you have to remember not only are partners not mind readers, but they're not body readers. The fun part here is that you get to explore together what does make you feel turned on. Can you remember what was happening? The times you were the most turned on? You know, we think about the senses. Was there a certain candle scent that smelled really good to you? Was there a playlist in the background? Were you looking at something? Were you in another environment? You know, this is why a lot of us love getting outside our bedrooms and just having like hotel sex or sex in the living room. Sometimes we're so tired of like looking at the same ceiling and like our dirty laundry in the corner that we just want to like mix it up and get outside our regular environment. There's a lot of things to think about. About what might be your turn ons. If your mind is wandering during sex or you're wondering why it's not happening yet, you could think about your five senses to ground you as well. Think about, like, what are you seeing in the moment? What are you hearing? What are you tasting? What are you smelling? When we ever try to think of our five senses at once, it immediately grounds us in the current moment so our mind can't be wandering and worrying about why we're not orgasming. If you do it a few times with a partner, you'll realize it takes practice and eventually you'll just be more grounded and in the moment. I wouldn't worry that it's gone forever. Thanks for your email, Sarah. I appreciate it. This is from Jillian, 29 in London. Hi Dr. Emily. I'm a longtime listener and I love your show. I'm seeing someone new and we've been taking it slow throughout our time. Dating has been very affectionate and generous. He likes to hold my hand, compliment me, cuddling, etc. He was also very understanding that I want to take things slow before we had sex. Unfortunately, first time we had sex, it wasn't great. There was no foreplay, no hand jobs, oral or even sensual touching. He went straight for pee in V sex or penis in vagina sex as we call it. As his usual intimacy and affection seemed to disappear, there was nowhere near enough time for me to get turned on. He came twice and I wasn't close. He didn't ask if it was good for me or if I came and yet after sex, he went straight back to being the affectionate, intimate guy I've known for the rest of the night. And he's 13 years older than me, much more experienced. So I'm confused about what happens here. Does he really have no idea that women usually take more time and intimacy to get turned on? Or did he only care about his pleasure and disregard mine? My question is, how could I bring up the topic and ask to slow things down, to increase my pleasure without offending him by saying that our first time was bad? Any advice? Thanks, Jillian. This is an excellent question. Okay, because you're right. What is it? Doesn't every guy know? Especially if he's 13 years older than you? A guy in his early 40s, you're asking, should know everything about your body, and he should know what turns you on. And he should understand that, you know, it takes a little bit longer for some people with vulvas. Or maybe he does know you're asking and he's just disregarding it. He's like, I don't really care what happens to Jillian as long as I got mine. Let's just go to dinner. Here's my sense, and I know this might be shocking to many, is that unfortunately, there are people of all ages who do not have any of this information when it comes to sex and arousal and desire and what turns their partner on, even what turns themselves on. So I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here and say, you know, he sounds like a lovely guy so far. You have a really good connection. You're having a good time together. He's intimate. I'd recommend a conversation outside the bedroom using my 3T's guide on the website sexwithemily.com guides, timing, tone and turf. It just basically explains to you how to have awkward conversations. But the deal here is, since we're giving him the benefit of the doubt, you just need to say to him, I really enjoyed getting to know you. I love the affection. I love the intimacy that you're showing. I love compliments, and I have cuddling and. And I'm also wanted to share with you that during sex, I really need a lot of foreplay. I really love kissing. I love when we slow down and you slowly undress me and, like, let them know that you've been listening to this podcast. Listen, you guys, I know this is awkward, and a lot of you do say, I've been doing some research lately. I've learned more about my own arousal, about my own orgasm. And you could say I Listen to this podcast, Sex with Emily. She's a sex doctor, and she's encouraged me and all these millions of listeners over the years to start getting curious about our own body so we can explain to a partner. So do you mind? Like, I know this uncomfortable. I love all these things about you, but I actually need some more touch. I need to slow it down. I love that you're having your orgasms, but this is what I need for my orgasm and for my pleasure. And then you could ask if he has any questions and see what happens. Because I'm going to guess that he's gonna be like, oh, okay, thanks for telling me. Because what's the alternative? He says, well, I thought you were having an orgasm, or why didn't you? Or I don't have time for that. Well, then you have some more information. You can decide what you want to do about that. But remember, these conversations are tricky. I understand. Doesn't always go as smoothly as you want. Like, ideally, he'd say to you, oh, babe, I had no idea. I didn't know that. I thought you were really turned out. Well, let me just slowly undress you and kiss your vulva slowly and go down on you and use toys. So I just think that you're probably not going to get that, but you might just get him listening, maybe asking questions, and then the next time trying to do better and trying to pay more attention to your body. So that's what I think it is. And with some time and patience and some curiosity around this and not any blaming or shaming him at all, which you don't sound like you're going to do that, you can allow him to kind of open up to the reality that he still has a lot to learn, like, lot of us, and he'll be willing to do what it takes. So soon you'll be having just as much fun and just as much pleasure as he is. This is from Eddie, 40, in Texas. Hi, Dr. Emily. I've been married for my wife for 10 years. Lately, my wife wants me to talk dirty to her during intercourse. Maybe she just wants to spice things up a bit. How could I talk dirty to her without cussing or using profanity? I don't normally use bad words or cuss. Thanks, Dr. Emily. All right, Eddie, this is a great question, because what do you do here? Right? You feel like dirty talk is all about, you know, using a lot of profanity, but it doesn't have to be. Okay. So I did a great podcast in 2021 called Talk Dirty to be with Joanna angel, where we break down the secret sauce to dirty talk. Telling the story, talking about things that happened in the past, things that you want to happen in the future, things that you want to happen in the moment. And yes, she used a lot of swear words, but you don't have to, because dirty talk doesn't need to rely on swear words at all. It should definitely feel more comfortable. You and your own vocabulary. So again, what you want to focus on is, like, what's happened in the past and what's happened in the future. For example, I really love that time that I went down on you and you were moaning. And I love hearing the sounds that you make or you had that orgasm or I love watching your body move. I love how your hands feel on my body, how my hands feel on your body. I can't wait for you to wear that sexy piece of lingerie. I can't wait for our vacation when we'll be having sex on the beach. Right? So very descriptive and specific details are going to be your key to dirty talk. Without the swear words or anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. Now, Eddie, you could totally practice this. You could write this out on your own and think about, well, what does turn me on? What has happened in the past, what do I want to happen in the future, or what's happening in the moment that I want to say? Like, what do you actually want to say during sex? What are you thinking? Are you thinking how hot she looks? Are you looking at the curve of her thighs? Are you looking at her breasts? Are you looking at her beautiful lips? You know, what are you actually thinking about? And then if you write that down and you even practice it, we actually have some tips in that episode about practicing your dirty talk voice. Listen, we are not born with the ability to talk dirty. It is a whole new skill set, as are many things I talk about on the show. And so practice the shower. Practice looking in the mirror. Understand who you are as a dirty talk warrior. Okay, Eddie, that's what I want you to do. Thanks, Eddie. I appreciate your question. This is from Katie, 32, in Pennsylvania. Hey, Dr. Emily. I love your show and it was recommended to me by a friend who has used it to help her get rid of some of her fears and hang ups and around sex. I grew up in a conservative area and am now married. I've been married for 2.5 years and had sex before marriage and with other partners before I was with my current partner. This all happened despite my strict religious upbringing. I am not religious any longer. But I do feel like I have some old hang ups about sex that I can't quite seem to get rid of. I was wondering if you could help. One of these things I can't quite seem to let go of when having sex is I'm there and I love it and I want to be a part of it, but I feel like I'm still holding back because I'm nervous. How it will look hard to explain, but I feel like I'm too inside my head and don't feel comfortable. I want to be sexy and cool, but I worry they look stupid and awkward and inexperienced. My partner has had more partners than me and I worry about that too, even though we've been together for six years now. Like for example, I was only recently able to open my legs fully when he was doing oral. I know that's progress, but it's slow. I feel like sex with a random person would be easier than with a beloved partner because you worry more about what they think. And I've also got the old hang up from my upbringing about how sex is bad for you and you should enjoy it so much. What do you suggest? Would love to hear your input. Thank you so much for your question. You so articulately laid it all out here and this is a lot. So first I want to say deep breaths. You're putting a lot, a lot of pressure on yourself. And I feel like first, the fact that you even are working on this and you even recognize your progress is amazing. The fact that you've decided that you want to take your sex life and your pleasure into your own hands and to let go of early messaging by religion or childhood is just really super healthy. So go easy on yourself. You have to remember you're 32 years old and so probably for half your life, perhaps you were told something else and then you decided you're going to be a different way. But we don't just snap our fingers and get rid of earlier conditioning. So know that you're on the right path and what's going to really help you because it sounds to me like an underlying thread through all of this is a little bit of like feeling inexperienced because you're upbringing, feeling a little bit of sex is bad and you should enjoy and I think we should start there because if you are still and even if it's just a little, little tiny, tiny voice in your head, but you're still thinking it's I shouldn't be enjoying this, I shouldn't be having pleasure, let's address that first. So the thing I want you to do is start to practice affirmations by writing in your journal your negative belief. Okay? So first write down, I should not enjoy sex. I am not worthy of pleasure. Sex is bad. I shouldn't enjoy. Write two columns, your negative belief, and then I want you to flip it to sex is an important part of being healthy. Overall, I am a sexual being who is deserving of pleasure. Sex is acceptable, enjoyable. Reverse every negative statement. And then I want you to cross out that left hand column and I want you to read those affirmations. You can do it every day. You can read it to your partner. Gosh, I would love if more of us brought our partners into this equation and into the challenges we're having in our sex life. It's so much heavy lifting for one person to feel like they have to just fix everything and fix yourself and show up as this cool, crazy, sexy girl. Like, that's not reality. Right? But what if your partner knew that you were having these thoughts? Well, I'm thinking that a loving partner of six years would want to also help you get over the limiting beliefs and so you don't have to do this alone. But you can start off when I walk before we run here. Totally cool for you just to read those affirmations to yourself. Okay? Then I want you to remember that a lot of these thoughts, too, you creating in your head about your partner's judging you, or they're thinking you're not as experienced, or they're thinking he's wishing that you were more like old partners and that there's some way that we show up to sex when we've done it all and we're just experienced, we check it off. The list is not true. We are constantly learning how to be great lovers to each other, great lovers to ourselves. And in fact, it changes in each relationship. So I think that you are right where you need to be with your current partner every time. With a new partner, we get to create our own sexual reality and what feels good to both of us. So I also highly recommend some deep communication with your partner about your sex life. I haven't heard here if you guys have talked about it now, but it sounds like maybe a lot of this is in your head. And so I would say plan some time when you're outside the bedroom and just say, I realize we haven't talked about our sex life as much, and I would love to start talking about what you turned you on. What turns me on? I want you to know I'm still learning. Did you notice that, like, I love oral sex now I'm able to open my legs more. Like, I, you know, you could bring him into this because if he knew that that was a good progress for you, well, he'd be so happy and he would be surprised. Supportive, right? Also, grounding yourself in your senses, when you find yourself in the moment, getting lost in these thoughts and worrying that you're not doing enough and you're not feeling enough. This is another great way the senses helps us sexually is to think about in the moment. You know, this is a practice to know that your mind's wandering. Because sometimes our mind just goes off and goes off. The next thing we know, we're in this deep shame spiral and minutes have gone by or 10 minutes of 15, we're having sex with our partner. We're like, I have not been present at all because I'm worrying that I look so silly or I don't have enough experience. So if you could practice when that happens, when you're thinking too much, say, what am I feeling right now? And then I want you to drop into your body and just like work your way around your face and go, okay, start with your eyes. What am I seeing? I'm seeing my partner's hands and my body. What am I smelling? I'm smelling my partner's skin. I love the way they smell. What am I hearing? I'm hearing that playlist. I'm hearing. Hearing my partner's breath. I'm here, you know, so why this is such a great thing. It doesn't have to take that long. In just a few seconds, you can immediately start again with your senses engaged, which is telling us information, which is reporting information back to our brain about what we are experiencing. So if you're experiencing arousal or turn on or things that you're attracted to, that's going to feed into itself and it's going to take you out of your head and more into your body. Also, when you mentioned that it might be easier to hook up with a random stranger, I would think more about that because it sounds like, and you even said this, that there's so much more intimacy and fear talking to our partners about what's going on with us that we think, oh, well, a random stranger, you could let go. What I want your goal to be is to completely be able to let go with your partner. And so it sounds like there's something about Roman vulnerability here. And really sharing your real insecurities and worries with your partner is a scary thing. And it is, it is a practice. But once you learn to let go those vulnerabilities and share them with a partner, it doesn't have to be all at once. I'm not saying you're going to talk to and say okay let me tell you all the things I'm worried about. My religious upbringing, my body, no, but maybe start with one thing and say, you know, sometimes I content to compare myself with partners of the past. I know that some silly. So I thought if we talked about our sex life, I could find out your top three turn ons or top three most memorable times you've had sex and I'm going to tell you the top three memorable times we've had sex and then you can start to gather information back and forth about your sex life and what's worked for both of you. You know, so you know again because this whole sexual experience thing, it's not about body count, it's not about how many we slept with. It's really about what makes you a great lover, is about confidence and, and knowing your own body, what turned you on and being able to communicate that to your partner. So finally taking time to understand your body and what feels good to you and your biggest turn ons are gonna be a huge key to unlocking a lot of what is holding you back. All right, thanks for your question. I really appreciate it. Katie, you got this.

That's it for today's episode. See you on Friday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like subscribe and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Sex with Emily. Oh, I've been told I give really good email. So sign up@sexwithemily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sexual life, dating or relationships, call my hotline 559-TALK SEX. That's 559-825-5739. Or go to sexwithemily.com askemily Was it good for you? Email me feedbackexwithemily.com.

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