CC: Smart Sex with Emily Morse

Hi, everybody, and welcome to Coach's Corner. I think you're going to enjoy today's episode because we talk about sex. And I have Dr. Emily Morse joining me today, who I've listened to for many, many years. You might have heard of her brand and podcast called Sex with Emily. She was one of the first people that I heard really talking so candidly about sex. And I also love that she had a call in show. And as you know from the format of this show, I love call shows. So it's such a joy to be able to talk to her about sex, about intimacy, about shame, about our sex iq. Our sex life is part of our overall health. It's a huge part of the human experience. And when we're disconnected from our sexuality, when our sex life isn't pleasurable, when we're coming more from obligation and fear than from our actual desire, that can really impact our physical, emotional, mental, spiritual health. And one thing we didn't talk about.

But I will say, and I've talked.

About it in other interviews with other people, is when we are really tapped into our own sexuality, we can access a whole new level of power. Sometimes we're so in our head and we're not in our body and pleasure and sex are two of the key ways that we can get back into our body. But of course, some of us have trauma around sex and shame around sex and it isn't pleasurable. And I really hope this conversation with Emily sheds some light and gives you some insight and hope and inspires you to make your pleasure, your desire, your sex life more of a priority in your life. I'll tell you a little bit more about Emily. She is the host of Sex with Emily, the number one podcast on sex and relationships. She received a doctorate in human sexuality from the Institute for the Advancement of Human Sexuality. She is a regular guest on the Today show, the Doctors and the go to source on sexuality for Cosmo and so many other magazines. She's been profiled, New York Times, Forbes and Men's Health. We talk about her new book, book Smart sex, How to boost your sex IQ and own your pleasure. And it is out now. You can get it from anywhere that you purchase books. I want to thank my sponsor for this week. You know them, you love them just as much as I do. Organifi. Now, organifi is great for me, especially when I'm traveling. I'm always sure to pack some green juice packets, some red juice packets, immunity packets and some pure packets because it keeps me healthy when I'm on the road, it's hard to be in a place where you can make your own smoothie and get all your own food, especially on planes and things like that. That's why I always carry organifi with me. And what I love about organifi is their green juice, red juice, pure immunity all comes in those self serve packets, so they're easy to pack. You can get all your Organifi products at 20 off@organifi.com overit that's O R G A N I F I.com overit or use promo code over it at checkout. Remember, you get 20 off any order, not just first order Organifi.com over it. And now on to my conversation with Dr. Emily.

Emily, welcome to the show. I'm thrilled to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me.

And as I was sharing before we started recording, I started listening to your show. I think, let's see, my first book came out in 2005 and that was around when I started listening to your show. So I think. Yeah, so it was like way. The beginning.

Yeah, 2005.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And before people knew what podcasts really were. And I learned so much from you. And I always loved how you really took the shame out of talking about sex. So I want to start there. I want to start with how do we. Because we can all come up with why there's so much shame around sex from the way we're parented to religion, to society. Like, we know a lot of reasons why it's there and we can expand upon that if you want. But the deeper question I want to ask is how do we start to, like, look at particularly what our specific shame is and release that so that we can talk about sex openly? Because I think a lot of people suffer with their sex lives because they just are scared to talk about it either with their partner or with a professional or with a friend and kind of pretend that they have a great sex life when they really don't.

So true. Yeah, I mean, in my book, I call it the. The pleasure thieves and that stress, trauma, and shame are the three things that's keeping us from having the sex life that we all want and deserve. And yeah, absolutely. The most. The most. I think the probably the most damaging or the most troubling is. Is shame. That's the really hard one. And yeah, I guess we can all talk about where it comes from, but what do we do about it?

Right?

How do we get rid of the shame? How do we handle the shame? So we can move on with our lives because it is insidious and there's so many air. So I think the first thing is really understanding shame and what shame is, because we kind of throw it around. But I think that even until I started doing this and I started really looking at it, I didn't realize how pervasive it was and how. How much. How we see it everywhere in our lives. And what I think is fantastic, like, we all know, like, Brene Brown did such great work for shame. And, you know, she talked about how the difference between shame and guilt, you know, guilt is I did something bad, and shame is I am bad, which is sort of all of our. I think a lot of our deepest. Our deepest worries are that we are unlovable, right? And that we've done something wrong. And so if we can look at the shame first, we have to identify, you know, where the shame is coming from. And so we've already said it could come from religion or culture or maybe our partner has made us feel bad about some. Some shame that, you know, something that we've said. And we just are carrying around sh. That's really keeping us from having, you know, sex and having any pleasure. And so the first thing I think, like I said, is recognizing that you have the shame. And I actually, in my book, I break it down. My new book, Smart Sex, I break it down into four types of shame that trigger common fears. If you want to talk about the different kinds of shame. But also we can get into that. But I also talk about how to get rid of the shame. If you want to just jump right there, well, then let's talk about the.

Four types, because I think it's important to dissect it because we can. We can throw the word shame out just like we can throw the word trauma out. And it's like, well, what. What exactly are we talking about?

Right. That's why I love to kind of break this down here. So to root out any shame that might be stealing your pleasure, I want people to identify the type they might be experiencing. And one of them, the first one, is rejection shame. And that is the fear that deep down we are fundamentally unlovable. And so it must mean that, you know, our partners are going to leave us. So we typically try to preempt this worried by doing everything we can to make them stay. So in the bedroom, what that might look faking orgasms, performing sex acts you don't really want to do because your partner wants you to, and generally acting out of fear, being Turned away and you're not acting from a place of desire. So this can come from many areas in our life, like having a critical or absent parent as a child or our own experience with critical partners. But that's one kind of shame that we see and how it plays out in the bedroom. The next one is exposure shame and expose. Our shame is the fear being found out, someone discovering that we've done something horrible and wrong. Now exposer shame could stem from a humiliating experience like maybe we got caught masturbating, you know, and the other person reacted with shock and horror, you know, or we got up caught, you know, we got caught up in a sexual moment and maybe somebody, you know, made a withering comment that made us feel really bad about ourselves. And so what we do here is, you know, for example, there's a lot of people with. There's a lot of women, for example, that refuse to receive oral sex because maybe once upon a time they heard that vulva smelled bad or vaginas were unsanitary or unattractive. And so now every time a partner tries to please them in that way, they pull away thinking that, you know, there's something wrong with their body. And so this type of shame can limit us from having pleasure because it just leaves us feeling like we have a secret that we have to. A secret we have to keep. Like something that's like really secretive about us. So we really tried to sort of, you know, shame, hide a lot of different parts of ourselves. And then, you know, the other part is self blame shame. And that's where we take on responsibility for other people's thoughts and feelings and actions. And so, you know, the self blame is just. We tend to take responsibility for everything. And we. And how it might manifest in sex is like we have like low self esteem, self sabotage, codependent relationships. And maybe we get into unsatisfying or unhealthy relationships because we believe it's the best thing that we deserve. And sort of, you know, also in the bedroom it can manifest like maybe we feel like if our partner can't maintain erection or have an orgasm, we blame ourselves. We automatically go to the fact that it's like, or I'm not attractive enough or I did something wrong. And then we have internalized judgment shame. So this is one of the most common flavors of shame I see when it comes to sex. And this is basically it keeps us, you know, this internalized judgment. You know, it's like it could kind of show itself up with body insecurity or Messaging from society that tells us only certain types of people looking a certain way deserve pleasure. You know, young, thin, mostly white bodies. And so if we assume we don't look like those people, we think we don't deserve pleasure, we should be ashamed of the way we look, you know, which is all a lie. And we all deserve pleasure. And so those are all the different ways that we are keeping ourselves from having pleasure and having sex. And before we get into how to reframe shame, I just want to say that the good news here, for anyone listening who has had struggled sexually for whatever reason, it is maybe they don't know how to connect to a partner or communicate about sex or allow themselves to receive or have the pleasure they want. The good news here is a lot of it comes from our mind. It's our brain, our mind, our limiting beliefs that's keeping us from having the sex life that we actually want. And once we start to identify these things, well, then it gets fun. Then we can be like, wow, it has nothing to do with my body or the size of any part of my body or my experience level. It really has to do with me holding myself back. So, yeah, I love that there was.

So much in there, and I love that we're going to get to reframing it. And one thing I really wanted to highlight was, are we coming from fear or desire? And I think that's an important question for all of us to reflect on. And obligation can be a form of fear, you know, like, oh, I'm just having sex, or I'm doing this because I feel obligated. And so I just invite everybody listening to reflect on that, like, how many times. Just using an example, I can think of myself having sex with someone that I really either didn't want to or no, I probably shouldn't, because I would want to, like, have them be my boyfriend, and they probably weren't in that space. And having sex with them would just make it harder for me to not have them be my boyfriend. I can and. But I did it out of fear of, like, well, if I don't, then there's no chance. Or if I don't, then I'm seen as a prude. Or if I don't, then fill in the blank. And I find with a lot of the clients and people on the show and just friends I've talked to over the years, just humans. That happens a lot. And it's so important. I know this is one of the things you're fabulous at, teaching us to really connect to Our desire. And so I want to bookmark that because I do want to get to reframing shame. But can we talk later about.

Yeah.

How do we actually know what our desire is? So we don't come from fear.

Oh, gosh, I love that you brought that up. It's such a big point, Christine. It's like we just. So many of us, especially women, we have sex out of fear, out of obligation. We have.

We.

I used to think. I write about this in the book. I share a lot of my own personal stories. I used to think that it wasn't okay to say no to sex. Like, I used to think that if I started having sex and if I didn't want to, that, like, it wasn't right. Like it was going to offend the partner. It was going to make me more lovable. I just thought I had to go along with it, that there was no choice, in a way. So I love that you're saying that because really, fear versus desire. Fears cancel out all of our desire. Right? So if we really lean in desire, we'll definitely have more of it. So we'll be able to kind of figure out what we actually like. I think that's such a huge point, and I'm excited to. To get into that as well. So did you want. So we should put a pin in that, though, and just get into reframing the shame?

Yeah.

Okay. I love it. So first is just reframing. Okay. I love. I love reframing a lot of things that we have to do, like reframing our, you know, our beliefs around sex, but just reframing shame. Think about this way. Like, the very language that we use around shame is a problem. The word shameless is. Means being immoral, brazen, or selfish. So if you're shameless, you're told, like, basically, you're a terrible person. Does that mean if you're full of shame, you're, like, a good person? Right. Like, goodness should not be synonymous with having shame. Shame. But our language tells us differently. So if we can get down to this nasty pleasure thief and look at, like, the past shame, first look at the root. Where, you know, where did it come from? How did the shame get into our head? Our hard drive of our head of our mind who installed it? Our society reinforces shame in so much of the content we see of, you know, sex and movies on tv, social media. And then if you grew up in a house in which sex was seen as shameful, our culture constantly, you know, our constant, like, sort of reinforces this, you know, shame spiral around sex. So you have to look at where did I grow up? What were the messaging, right? So first noticing that and then notice how shame is affecting you. You know, what happens in our mind and our body, allowing this pleasure thief essentially to steal your pleasure. Like, what was I thinking and doing right before I felt it? Was I, was I actually having sex, but was I talking to my mother? Was I thinking about something like ex said in my past? Was I feeling angry or lonely? Was I upset with someone? So, you know, if you can just move into the moment of the shame and identifying it and this is a practice. And actually for me, like writing the book and doing so much of this, even after almost 20 years, has really allowed me to really pinpoint shame and where it's coming up. I call it all the time. I'm like, oh, sorry, that was a shameful comment. You know, it's like, it's like really great to realize it. So when I do, when I do feel the shame coming up, I can shift the feelings by using movement and breath, you know, getting out, walking, you know, taking a walk around the block. Deep breaths to reset. I think that really helps. Social interaction helps, like sharing my feelings of shame with my partner or a trusted friend or a therapist, I think allows us to feel more connected, less alone and not broken. So first just identifying it, feeling it in your body. Another way to get out of shame so we're less in shame and more in our desire is to focus on what actually feels good, exploring our body. You know, people who have been shut down to pleasure, sexual pleasure, are unable to often feel good about anything. So take steps towards, you know, even baby steps towards accepting our pleasure and know that you're not going to go from shame filled to shame free overnight. But with practice, you'll start to fight off these feelings of shame and, you know, reclaim basically the pleasure that you deserve. And one exercise that I have in my book, Smart Self Sex is flipping the script. And so, you know, every type of shame I talked about comes from a specific narrative that belongs to someone else. Okay? That narrative, we never get to write our own shame story until we flip the script. So what you do here is you just think about, you know, what, what, what was the message? So the next time you're feeling ashamed of something, just write down, what am I feeling? Like, what narrative goes with that feeling? And if I was told, you know, this is sinful, like, you know, write down what it is. I feel like oral sex is sinful and like that's the mental script written for you by somebody else. And then I want you to write the opposite of it. Right? So flip the script by writing the opposite with an and intention. For example, I felt like oral sex is virtuous, and now I feel like oral sex is virtuous, and now I'm prioritizing pleasure, joy, and self care because they are important to me. Right. Or if you feel ashamed that you don't make time for pleasure, you can write down, I don't deserve pleasure and joy, but write the opposite. I deserve pleasure. And that means taking daily walks with friends, taking daily walks, spending time with friends, masturbating a few times a week to get more connected to our sexuality. I find that writing down these notes, having me in our phone and being able to access them allows us to read words that we have written time and time again. We could read it back to us and feeling like that, you know, we are deserving of pleasure and why. So that's kind of how we reprogram. That's one way to do it.

I love it. And for me, especially in relationships, talking about it has been the hardest but most effective thing to do anything that I'm ashamed about because I always feel like when we bring shame into the light, when it's not just in our mind, when we can share about it and we're received with love and with acceptance, it's so, so healing. And I can think of so many times I've had conversations about things I'm ashamed about and to have it heard. Luckily I've done it with people that were good people to do it with, you know, I, I chose wisely. But to have it heard and have it received and, and have, you know, someone, and I would say the most healing has happened with my, my husband. And to have someone say, I don't even see that, or I don't even think about that, or you're so beautiful, or you're so sexy to me. And it's again, like, it's our job to heal things. However, I don't live in the universe alone. You don't live in the universe alone. We're interdependent beings and it can be such a deeply healing thing to be able to speak openly about it in relationship or like you said, with a trusted friend or counselor. And so just for anyone listening, Emily gave some just amazing tips. And if we can just both gently nudge you into whatever you're ashamed about, bringing it into the light, talking about it and reframing it, because it is one of the ways it impacts your desire and your ability to have. Because like, for example, if we just use the example of like you're ashamed of a part of your body and you don't want to ever have sex with lights on during sex, you're going to be thinking about, oh, what's this person thinking? Can they see this? Are they satisfied? You're going to be in your head and like you say, our mind is our biggest sex organ. And if the shame is there, making us think, we're not going to feel pleasure and we're not really going to enjoy it because we're going to be so consumed with whatever it is that we're ashamed about.

Exactly. Yes, yes, all of that. It's true. Our, when our brain is elsewhere and we're in our head during sex, like, just think about that way, like when we are in our head, we are not in our bodies. When we have all of that worry. And I love what you said about sharing with your partner. Hopefully this is a great limbs test for people to think about. Like, do if that, feel if that sounds horrible to you and you can't imagine how your partner is going to receive it. It's a time to sort of look at your relationship because it's definitely, we definitely want to be with people who can hold space for us and help us process, you know, shame and everything else that's, that's coming up and I'm glad that's, you know, worked in your relationship.

Yeah.

How do you. So for people listening that might think, oh, I have a great sex life. How do you determine what a great sex life is? Like, what's a, you just mentioned litmus test. I love that. What's a litmus test for us in terms of like, like how great our sex life actually is?

That's a really great question. You know, unfortunately I'm not going to give people like, you should be having sex three times a week, which is what people literally are dying to hear so they can compare themselves to it. But, but, but what a great sex life really looks like is up to the individual. It's up to the couple. I would say that a healthy sex life, what a satisfying sex life would look something like both partners have consensual sex. They talk about sex often. They prioritize their own pleasure, including their partners. They, they, they are explorative, they're open, they're non judgmental, they have talks about what they're into. They find sex positive messages. You know, a lot of people listen to my podcast Sex with Emily together. A lot of couples have found it very useful just to keep listening to it. Like I always have couples that you say, like we were on a road trip and listened to 12 episodes in a row and I'd be like, that's a lot of epis. But what I realize is because you don't, you don't hear people talking about sex the way I do. Really. I'm just saying this is what I've been doing is normalizing it. So I think just sort of hearing other sex positive voices, talking about it often and making sure that you're both having pleasure and continuing to talk about your sex life. I call the sexual state of the union. And I think it's really important for couples to prioritize, you know, once a month or once a quarter. You know, I don't, I don't mean people like, I think most couples, to be honest, Christine have never talked about their sex life in the way that I'm referring to. And that means really not just like are we gonna have sex? Or we haven't had sex in a while, but this is really like what's been feeling good for us? What do we love doing? What's your most memorable time we've had sex? How do we do more of that? What do we want to try? Let's go to sex with emily.com and download her yes no maybe list will which will allow us to explore our sex life together. Like there's all these great tools I have or that people can find that help facilitate these conversations so they can continue to, to grow together. So that's really how I, my marking of great sex is really excellent communication and exploration.

Do you see that a lot of people that are in relationships, once they're in relationships, stop self pleasuring?

Yes, I think they do. I think a lot of people stop pleasuring. I think that there's this other, you know, belief that once you get into a relationship you should cease masturbation, that it's only for when you're single. But. And so that also can cause a lot of problems in relationships when couples don't talk about it. And then they feel like they have to secretly hide their masturbation practice and they feel shame around it. It's another shame thing. So I think it's important for me to point out that masturbation is really healthy practice to do whether you're in a relationship or out of a relationship into case too. It's really just about stress relief and connection and, and, and you know, a lot of really cool things that are important beyond your relationship, beyond everything else. Like, don't put the pressure on your partner, don't shame your partner. I love, and I guess that this is again, this is, this might be the first time many people are hearing about the health benefits of masturbation because we're staying connected to our bodies, we're understanding what feels good. But also I highly encourage couples to explore mutual masturbation. Like, mutual masturbation is a really cool way for people to learn what feels good to their partner. And it's also really hot because you're looking at what your partner to turn themselves on, plus you're learning what they do. So for some couples, that's like, oh my God, I can't imagine even masturbating, let alone that. But really it's a step that a lot of people after I've recommended, I just know that's been a very popular recommendation.

And again, it's, it's taking the shame out because I would say the biggest reason that people wouldn't do that is just discomfort, self consciousness, shame. So that's another way to heal shame.

I love that.

Well, you know, this show is all about self awareness. So I'd loved us to dive into the link between self awareness and sex. Like, how can doing personal development work and being more self aware improve our sex life?

Thanks for this question too. So this goes back to self awareness is a huge part of, in fact, I would say it's one of the most important things that we need to look at. So when I was writing this book, it's called, you know, smart sex how to boost your sex iq. I came up with five pillars that I call sexual intelligence. And it's more of a holistic approach to our sexual intelligence, to our, to our sex iq, if you will. And one of the big ones is self awareness or really self acceptance or self awareness is really understanding. Self awareness is knowing, like what, what do I, what turns me on, what makes me feel good, what do I actually like sexually, what don't I like sexually? And I think for a lot of people, they just sort of close their eyes and get naked with someone and hope for the best, best. But self awareness is really about knowing your sexual history, paying attention to what feels good and then being able to communicate that to a partner. But why it's also going to help us with our sex life is because then we're going to know what time of day sex feels good, what sex positions feel good. We're going to be able to like Again, communicate all this and being and we will learn. Like we all have a lot of information about, about what we like and what we don't like. But I don't think we often spend time thinking about it. So really just being self aware and knowing that you know, what we like, that we, that we have a lot to learn or that we have some work to do or even like what feels good are all important parts about understanding our desire and arousal process.

And I think this is a good part to go back to that conversation we pinned from earlier because about like how we can, how fear gets in the way of really knowing our, what our desires are. And I know for me the self awareness around my own insecurities, the self awareness about trauma I've experienced, especially sexual trauma, all of that awareness has helped me.

Not come from so much fear because sometimes that fear can just come from a self protective place of just like not wanting to get hurt hurt. And so I'd love for you to unpack a little bit more about how we can not be ruled by our fear, by our past trauma, by our programming, and actually really feel into what we truly desire.

Yeah, I mean that's a great one. I mean I think one of, one of the pillars of becoming more of sexual intelligence is health, for example. And health is understanding how we, our mental health and our physical health. So do we have a history of trauma? For example? Do we have things, do we have things in our body that allow us, you know, the first pillar is embodiment. So are there things that are keeping us out of the moment that's not allowing us to connect to our bodies during sex, during intimacy at all? So that's one of the first pillars is noticing like do I even know what I'm feeling in my body or am I numb to it? Have I paid attention to it? And then that moves into well, why, why am I numb? Why am I shut down? Well, we can look at, you know, our health history. You know, obviously it's important to exercise and e well and do all those things, that's part of health. But the other part is mental health. So again, untreated trauma doesn't just dissipate no matter what kind of trauma we have. And it lives in our body, whether it's a big T trauma, a little T trauma, you know, sexual trauma, or we just lived in a very chaotic home with a lot of uncertainty that still lives in our body. And we are in fight or flight a lot and maybe those same things happen. We still get gets and then we go into fight or flight even when we're having sex with somebody. So, so it's important to unders, you know, to just kind of look at that and say what is happening in my body during sex? Have I looked at my traumas, understand my body, you know. And I. And so that, that's, that's another way to do that is, is to look at it. To look at your. How connected to your body are to look at your health. Another way to do that is to learn is to look at also like our sexual, our sexual communication. How well are we communicating to our partners what we actually like? Do we know what I like, do what we like? Do we feel safe asking for what we want or do we just, just kind of lie there mute, hoping that our partner figures it out? You know, So I just think that all of these things are connected to our own desire and our pleasure and a lot of them are blocking us from, from having it. Another thing, if you go back to health for a minute is like just understanding our hormones right after childbirth or during perimenopause, menopause, certain medic, you know, it's going to change your hormones. Certain medications we're taking are also going to impact our desire. We have to look at the entire picture of our sex and our health and wellness to look at what is impacting our ability to be turned on, aroused and present during sex. So we have to look at things like our gut too. Right? So you know, that's. These are all factors that people often with sex, they just sort of want a quick fix. I have found. They just want to something like they want the position, they want the toy. And you know, you've been listening for 20 years. I almost 20 years probably. I've been doing that for a long time. I can help people take the next step. I can tell you the right sex move. I can give you the script of what to say to a partner. I can, you know, help you pick a toy or a lube. And I love doing that. That's really helpful. But that's just quick. There's an underlying thing, underlying fundamental pillars that are, that are really responsible for a lot of it. And one of them also is self, self knowledge, right? And that's also self, self awareness, really a self knowledge which is very related. That's another pillar. But it's like how do we, you know, desire, you know, how desire manifests, you know, physically through arousal. Like desire is really the wanting to want to have sex. So do I know my arousal pattern? Like what Do I need to feel aroused and turned on? Do I need to have a conversation with my partner? Do I need to feel safe? Does the house have to be clean? Does the baby have to be in bed? Do I need to have a babysitter? Do I need to be outside the house? Like, I know that when it's really cold in the house, like, when I go to my boyfriend's house and it was like, the air conditioning was on and it was freezing, I would just shut down. I'm not feeling sexy. You know, a lot of people, like. Like, the temperature matters, the big meal. Is there a TV playing? You know, just. Am I still thinking about work? Do I have unfinished business? All of these factors are contributing to our ability to be aroused, turned on, and ready for sex. Yeah.

Yeah.

And to give ourselves some grace and not have this expectation that we're supposed to, like, be these sexual machines all the. And you mentioned childbirth, and that's probably been my biggest change and transformation in my life. I have my babies nearly 16 months now, and it was. And I also had her in my 40s, so I, like, got the childbirth and probably perimenopause.

And I'm still breastfeeding. So, you know, in terms of desire, it's been something. My husband and I have had to find other ways. Ways to connect and be intimate. And he's been so patient with me, too, because. Because of childbirth, because of the hormonal drop, and because. And I think this is a really. Especially in heterosexual relationships, when the woman has the baby and the man isn't breastfeeding or the other partner isn't breastfeeding, there's an intimacy and an oxytocin that I get from breastfeeding that he doesn't get, you know, and so it's especially right after childbirth. I mean, we've since reconnected, but especially right after childbirth. Like, I had that.

That.

And he really had nothing because I was not available for sex for a while. I was like, oh, my God. I'm just trying to keep this baby alive and figure out what the hell just happened to my life. So I love. And I know there's a lot of women listening who, you know, are new mothers or, you know, are. Want to be mothers. What have you found helpful for women who have made this big transition, especially with the first baby? Because I know, for me, like, my body's different. Different. It was just such a big change. And especially with a newer, younger child, you. Well, to speak for myself, I didn't really. I see myself as More like the mother, not this, like, sexy diva, you know, in the bedroom. So it's a big identity shift. So I'd love to hear any tips you have for women in that stage of life.

Yeah, it's a great question. And it sounds like you've been navigating it beautifully with your partner by just being able to talk about it. That's the first step. And you even said about kind of redefining what intimacy is. And so just really recognizing that at this time in our life, we're going to need a different kind of intimacy. Intimacy isn't just penetration sex isn't just penetrative sex. It's not just this quick thing that we do, like we've seen in the movies and all this stuff. You know, I think that there's so much misinformation also about women after childbirth. The doctor's like, you should be ready to go in a month. Right? Like, that's just so not. I know. Exactly. So just. I just. Even us having this conversation hopefully is going to make a lot of women understand that it might be six months, it might be a year. You get to take as much time as you need to for your entire body to heal and to feel better. But what I'm also going to say is it's important to still connect intimately with your partner. That could be massage. It could be a back rub. It could be mutual masturbation without penetration, where you're both touching yourselves and not each other. It could be date night, where you go out and not talk about your. Your. Your baby and you get a babysitter. You know, it's just. It's finding. You know, maybe it's more houseware. It's your partner helping more around the house.

Oh, that's so sexy to me. It's so sexy.

Really? Yeah. Like, you come home and he's washed, clean the house, and, you know, change diapers. You're like, oh, my God, let's get it on. But how great to be able to communicate that. Right? So I think that's. That's the thing is just saying, like, okay, now we've had a baby, like, let's redefine what intimacy means and just not feeling. Not shaming ourselves, not feeling bad about it, but just saying, like, we. We really do need to connect. Because the truth is, it really does help partners when they have intimacy and they have a release through orgasm or just touch. Because like you said, you had all that oxytocin from your. From your baby and your partner wasn't getting that. So how else can he get it right? Maybe he go get some. He gets a massage. Right. Or he goes to, you know, not just a regular massage where he can have hands on his body. That feels good. Like we also have to take care of ourselves. But I think that like, you know, a lot of the things are, you know, like date night and just again, again, really prioritizing your relationship, but also giving yourself grace.

Yeah.

Like you said, and making sure that like it's just not going to be the same right now, but knowing you're going to go back to it. And as far as bodies changing, it's so hard for women, it does change after childbirth and realizing, like, you know, just. I think also the more we do practice self love, self pleasure and have orgasm and give ourself love, that does help a little bit. You know, it does help. And seeing that our partners are still with us and attracted to us, which they really are, you know, a lot of times we're just our own worst critic. We're so hard on ourselves, you know, And I guess we could give ourselves, you know, more love and grace around the fact that it changes over chest for childbirth. It changes different times a month, you know.

Yeah.

Bodies. Welcome to being a woman.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's quite. It is quite the choppy waters at times with. With hormones and just life, you know. And I think that anytime we're going through a big change, not just childbirth, but any big change, sometimes. Sometimes sex becomes like low on the priority list. You know, I think of parents who are farther in their parenting journey that are just busy with kids or busy with a career. And that importance of prioritizing intimacy, not just sex, not just penetrative sex, like you're saying. But intimacy and connection is important. And I'll be honest, like really for the first. Until. Until Athena started sleeping better, like date night to me, I was like, no, can I just go to sleep? Sleep? Like I don't even. I don't even have the energy to do that. And so I'm lucky that I have a very supportive partner. We communicate well and he just kind of understood like where. Where we were and it's a season. And I think as we're talking about desire and awareness and. And really boosting our. Our sex iq as you talk about in the book, just knowing where we are and removing the expectations. Because once we go into expectations, then we're back into shame and we're setting ourselves back. Back.

Exactly. Yeah, good point. Really. Just really talking about this often too. Like I know. How's it going? Check in with your partner. Like, how's it feeling? I know we're not able to have sex right now. Is there anything else I can do? What do you need? I mean, just, like, really normalizing it. Like, you talk about everything else, you know, so. And I love that you're sharing your own examples, because it's possible. I want people to know that it's possible. You don't have to secretly pretend that you want to have sex or performative sex if it doesn't feel right. You know, you literally just had a baby come out of your body. You just get. Like, a human just came out of you. Like, you are doing. Like, things have changed a little bit, and we got to just have, you know, patience.

Yeah.

And communication.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for that. I want to. I want to shift gears to orgasms. I've had so many clients, like, preface by saying, this is so hard for me to say, and I'm probably the only person in the world who's ever told you this, and I'm so embarrassed, but I've never had an orgasm. I'm like, no, you're like, the 30th person who's told me that. And it's women. It's women saying this. I haven't had any men say that to me.

Exactly. Yeah. I've never had a man say it either.

Yeah. So let's talk about orgasms. And, you know, because in the movie, it's like a man throws a woman against a wall, and in two seconds, she's having this orgasm. And I think a lot of women think that it should be that easy for their bodies, and everybody's different. So can you just. Can you, like, just go through some of the myths about orgasms and tell us the truth about them?

Absolutely. I'm so glad that you brought this up. I have an entire chapter of my book that is devoted to orgasm because it is just probably one of the most common questions I get asked, too. And I love that we're normalizing this because there are so many women who feel like they are so alone. I mean, honestly, I got started in my career because I thought something was wrong with me that I wasn't having an orgasm during penetrative sex. And it was until I was 35 that I realized that I was. Which is like, almost 20 years ago, right? Right. Yeah. Or something like that. 18 years. I was like. When I first started the show, basically, I was like, what is wrong with me? Why am I broken? Why can't I have an orgasm. Why is anyone talking about this? Well, sure enough, like you said, I went out there, a lot of people weren't having this experience. They weren't having orgasms. And so, so I just want to normalize it like we just did that. Yes. In the movies, you know, man, woman have sex, they fall down onto the bed, they roll over, you know, he, they have simultaneous orgasms and they fall asleep and it happens all within under five minutes. Right. So the myths around orgasm are that it's supposed to happen every single time that you have sex, that women should be able to have it just as easily as men, that it should happen during penetration, that there's only one way to orgasm. If we've never had an orgasm, we'll never have one. The great news is that if you haven't had an orgasm, most women are just pre orgasmic. It's just that they, it's, they're not an orgasmic. It just means that they haven't really taking the time. That's why masturbation is so important. Taking the time to figure out their own bodies and what makes them have an orgasm. So then they could explain that to a partner. A lot of times there's just so much pressure. Right. Especially if we're only having penetrative sex. We think something's wrong with us. So for many women, the reason why we're not having penetrative sex is because we're not having enough clitoral stimulation. If you think about the penis just goes inside, it's completely misting the clitoris. So it's. For many of us it's just not going to work. Now that's why women on top position during penetration might work for some women because they're actually grinding their clitoris on top of their partner. So it's not because they're hitting the spot necessarily, it's because we're able to grind and move and know our part. So that's really, that's really what it is.

I also think that, and talking to some of my clients, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, women have had orgasms and didn't know they did because I think again, if we go back to the movies, which is what a lot of people see and compare themselves to, it's like this mind blowing, earth shattering. So can you talk about the variety of orgasms and the scale of orgasms and maybe, maybe some people listening can be relieved that they probably have had one and maybe not realize that it.

Was that absolutely should we talk about female orgasms first. Like female first.

Yes, that'd be great.

Yeah. So I think that for female orgasms, clitoral orgasms are the most common orgasm. And the clitoris is that, you know, famous pleasure button that's visible outside the body, but it's actually connected deeply to the. And it has clitoral legs that reach up inside the body called the crew us. So they're like a V shaped wishbone that surrounds your vaginal canal and can even extend back into the anus. And this structure is packed with a lot of nerve endings that can prompt orgasm when it's stimulated. But just a reminder that our clitoral orgasms are probably the most common. They're the ones that we might have had when we were riding a bike when we were little or we were using the shower head or something like that. But those are the ones that are a little bit more easier for us to access. That's the one that gets the most press. There's also the G spot orgasm, or G area as I call it, because I think the G spot is. Is still sort of this elusive thing. It's not just one spot, it's an area. And my belief, it's really internal clitoral nerves rather than a spot, but neither here nor there. How you put. But either way, it's about an inch up the vaginal wall, about an inch or two up the vaginal wall, and it sits just below your skene's glands, which is a familiar function as a prostate gland in a. In a penis owner in a male. And so when you apply pressure to this area, like repeated pressure for many women, they can have an orgasm that way, but a lot of times it's a blended orgasm too, because they're already having clitor. Let me just say this. It can really help women to already have a cl. Literal orgasm, because then that entire area becomes engorged and the blood flow is on. It becomes inflamed. It becomes. Yeah, it becomes engorged, essentially. And so it can be a lot easier to access all the other nerve endings and have those G area. You could have a blended orgasm too, where you're having both of them at the same time. There's also nipple gasms, nipple orgasm. You know, with women, nipple stimulation activates the same, same region of the brain as the clitoris and the vagina. It's the genital sensory cortex. And because the nipples are filled with nerve endings, continuous play might lead to.

An orgasm also for women or for men too.

For women, not for Men as much, but for women. But it can also just enhance arousal all over your body. So I wouldn't ignore nipple play at all. What, what else? There's, There's a lot of different ones I talk about in the book, but I, I think those are the basic ones that people are mostly interested in.

Yeah, I think it's. Again, what you said is you've got to know your own body and how it works and also really celebrate. And this was, this was a big thing for me, so I'll just share it. Like, really celebrate just those little moments of like, oh, like, that felt good. And not expecting this toe curling, you know, flying off the bed, screaming, head arching back type of orgasm, because for me, I would. If I was expecting that, I'd be working so hard to get it. I'd miss those little mini ones that were all lead ups, that were all buildups and.

Oh, yeah. So, so glad you're saying that.

Right.

Because that was the question. Like, yeah, sometimes they're just like a little like, like, like. Yeah, they're just like little, like spurts, like little feeling. Not little, but they're just like something that feels really, really good and it's sort of. It escalates and then it drops and it might only last a few seconds, but that could be an orgasm. It's not all toe curling, screaming, swinging from the rafters. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because that was your question of how you're.

Oh, no, no, that's okay. That's great. That's great. I loved, I loved everything you went through. Oh my gosh, this hour is going by so fast. Okay, let's see. What else do I really want to dive into with you right now? I mentioned sex iq. It's a term you use. Would you explain a little bit more about what that is and why it matters?

Yes. Okay, so sex IQ is really about or sexual intelligence. It's much like, remember, like emotional intelligence. When first came out, everyone was like, oh, I thought that just my IQ store, like how well I did on test meant that I was intelligent. Well, sex IQ is sort of the same thing. It's thinking about all the other areas in our life that are going to make us more sexually intelligent and aware. And so I identified five pillars to sexual intelligence that are all factors that are going to contribute to, to us being able to manage our sex lives and have more pleasure. And those pillars are something that we. It's not like you get to a place where you finally reach this high sex IQ and you're done. It just. It's more like. It's informational. It's informational pillars that are important. Like, for example, if you were trying to get in shape, you're trying to lose weight, for example, perhaps you would, you know, kind of look at the food you're eating and just kind of reliance healthier foods and cut back on other ones. But you'd also want to exercise and you'd also want to get some blood work done, and you'd also want to, you know, look at a lot of different factors to be healthy. So to be good at sex or good in bed. It's not about the size of a certain body part. It's not about your certain moves. It's really about knowing yourself and knowing who you are as a sexual being. So these pillars, the first one is embodiment. How connected to my body am I? The second one, like we said, is health. Do I move my body? Do I eat foods that make me feel good? You know, have I been in therapy? How's my mental health? Mental health. And then there's self knowledge. How well do I know my desires and my pleasure? Then there's cell. And the fourth one is self acceptance. And that's really the confidence piece. Do I accept myself in my body today, where I am my experience, you know, so I can go on and have, you know, better sex in this moment? And then the fifth one is collaboration, and that's really communication. How well do I communicate with my partner what my needs and desires, or do I shame around it? Do I fear around it? And all of those things are going to contribute to you having a sex life that you. That you want, because you might be really great, you know, at one area, but you realize that you've never once talked to your partner about sex. So that's the area that you want to put your attention in. So really thinking about sexual intelligence. And I write all about this in Smart Sex and understanding. All these pillars, I think, are really going to help people kind of become their own sex coach and to kind of understand. And a lot of couples are finding that reading the book together has helped them. It's only been out. Wow, it's been out for a month. About a month right now. But people are really realizing that, like, wow, I loved sharing it with my partner and doing some of these exercises together so they can kind of help each other. Because what I've also found, Christine, is that there's always, it seems like there's typically one person in the relationship who wants to work on the sex life. And someone else is like, we're fine. What do we talk about? Or you know, and for many reasons, because they might have shame around it or think you don't talk about sex. But when you do it together and it becomes a project or becomes something fun, like actually I want to remind people, people that this. Or want people to know that this actually becomes really fun and it becomes another part of your life that you look forward to enhancing together. Like planning your summer vacation, like let's plan our sex life. So I want everybody to get to that place. But that's really what sexual intelligence in this book is about.

And how is sex and active self care sex or. And even. And self pleasure or pleasure in any way? How is it a form of self care? Because self care is something we talk a lot about on the show show. And I'd love for you to really help people understand that. It is like a pillar of health.

Yeah, absolutely. It is a pillar of health. So our pleasure, I often say that pleasure is productive because the more pleasure we bring into our life and we prioritize our pleasure. And I'm not even just talking about sex. I'm talking about making a list of all the things that give you pleasure. It could be hanging out with brunch with friends, going for a hotel hike, you know, going window shopping, crafts, your hobbies, whatever you're into. How much of your life are you prioritizing those things that make you feel good? Because we often have all these conditions on pleasure. We think we don't deserve it until something happens or we put these carrots in front of it. But the more that we look at our life and we say, okay, if I have more pleasure, I'm more productive, I'm a better mom, I'm a better boss, I'm a better sister, a better friend, because we just feel better. So pleasure is a part of self care because also pleasure makes us feel good. You stimulate all those feel good hormones, oxytoci and endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, they all get elevated by orgasm and by touch. And so self pleasure is a huge form of self care because we are just really loving on our bodies and giving ourselves a lot of nourishment that only we can give ourselves. And it also helps us feel more comfortable in our bodies, know what we want, and then being able to sort of explain that to a partner as.

Well, it really is just to form. And again, I think it's something that we don't prioritize enough. I know, because life can get so busy and especially if you have kids and work and, and it can be maybe just a quickie here or there, which is which, you know, is better than nothing. But what I'm also hearing you say between the lines is not just prioritizing sex, but prioritizing good sex. Like, not just like, I'm tired at the end of the day, I've had a couple glasses of wine and like, let's just have sex because it's been a while. Like, to me, that's not the most nourishing sex. I guess it's better than nothing, but I don't know, sometimes nothing sounds better than. Than that.

Yeah. Good quality sex where you've communicating and you're both getting your needs met and you're, you're talking about it, you're exploring, you're trying new things. All of that's really important.

Yeah.

Well, this has been so helpful. It's been such a treat to have you all to myself and to get an hour of being able to ask you questions after listening to your show for, for so many years. People can go to your website, which is Dr. Emily.com. correct.

It's sex with Sex With Emily.

I'm sorry, sex with emily.com. your new book, Smart Sex is out. People get that, I imagine, at Amazon and all the places where books are sold. Sex with Emily is your Instagram handle. Your podcast is also Sex With Emily. Anything else that we can share with people?

I mean, I release my podcast twice a week, so just, you know, wherever you find podcasts. And the other thing is, is we just launched a new store on our website, and that's our Shop With Emily. And it's really exciting because all these years I've literally tried every sex toy, sex accessory on the planet, and now I have a store that's curated into just my favorite top products. If people are looking for anything, vibes, toys, lubes, it's all there. So that just launched this week.

Amazing. Well, I always acknowledge people that turn their own roadblocks into their passion and profession, which. Which you did. And I feel like it always makes us way more passionate when it's. And it's been something that we've had to overcome in our own life. So thank you for your work. Thank you for your contribution. Thank you for being one of the pioneers of this generation and really help people take the shame out of sex and have better sex and realize that smart, healthy, pleasurable sex is a really important part of our, our overall health.

Thank you so much. Christine for having me. I really appreciate this thoughtful interview. Thank you.

Sam.