How to Explore Your Sexual Fantasies Without Shame | ft. Sexologist Carol Queen

Because it's self care if we don't think in terms of masturbation as self care. Already, I bet a bunch of people have had their minds changed or blown or opened up this year because there's stress everywhere.

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. Today I'm talking with the incredible Carol Queen, author, sexologist, and co founder of the center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco. Carol's been speaking publicly about sexuality for 50 years and has been the staff sexologist at good vibration since 1990. She was actually on one of my very first podcasts. So having her back feels like coming full circle. We're covering everything from spicing up your sex life when things get routine to navigating physical challenges in the bedroom. Carol and I take calls about dating older women, making oral sex exciting again, and dealing with recurring utis. We also dive deep into exhibitionist fantasies, sex parties, and finding your people in consensual spaces. My intention is to bring you wisdom from someone who's been liberating sexual conversations for decades, reminding you that there's no such thing as a normal sex life you have to follow. Variety and difference are what make sexuality beautiful. All right, let's dive in. Let's talk to just in California.

Emily. How are you?

Hi, I'm good. How are you? What's up?

My name is Jess. Actually, I talk kind of fast sometimes. I'm a gay male.

Okay.

And during this Covid. And actually before the COVID I had this thing where I like to, like, suck dick, you know, put in my leaf.

Okay. On brand.

The guys like it. And so I have like. But I'm getting kind of carried away lately with COVID because I'm like, I have a house by myself now. I'm in a gay man have a house and a car and a job. And so I need some help because they come over like two or three times and I. I start to get bored. I gotta, like, spice it up a little bit. I need some input. What can I do?

Wow. What are you saying? You want to spice up your blowjobs?

Well, yeah, I have these guys. There's like, probably two or three that come over all the time, like consistently. We have sex, we hook up, and it gets bored. I get bored easy.

Okay, well, I've got some. I mean, you've come to the right place. Let's make them interesting. Let's make sex interesting. I Mean, here's the thing. We all know how to give a blowjob. Not all of us, but many of us know how to give blowjobs. But you're right, why we keep doing the same things over and over again. So have you ever done anything with like, temperature play? Have you ever, like, used a blindfold on one of them? They come in, you blindfold them. Because when you take away one sense with a blindfold, everything else becomes more heightened. And then you can have like a bowl of ice by the bed. You could have an ice cube in your mouth. And then you could take the ice cube and like, drip it over their body. And you know, when you put penis in your mouth, you could. Your mouth will be cold. Then there's some incredible warming lubes that we have. There's one by Xsens. They make some great. It's like temperate. What I'm talking about is like, temperature play. Playing with, like, warming or cooling products. You could also do teasing. You could use a toy. Have you ever used a toy or a ring?

I love rings, girl. We love those.

Yes. I love cock rings.

Is it wrong? Yeah, they're the best. The vibrating ones are spectacular.

Yes.

Is it wrong to ask someone, like, say a guy comes over and I feel bad, but if I tell, you know, there's some guys have a little aroma. I'm not gonna lie. You know, women do too, but it gets here. I mean, for the first time, I'm like, hey, buddy, jump in the shower. Is that rude?

Well, okay. Hygiene is such an interesting question, because this is something that. How do you do it? We all. It's awkward. We all know it is. But I think that we all know what it means, right? You're like, hey, buddy, jump in the shower. I'll be like, oh, shit. But I think you would say, want to shower? You could say, hey, I haven't showered yet. Want to shower together? Because then you guarantee that it's. That you're both clean going into it. But it is a little bit awkward. But I think you also have to be honest. I mean, I think that especially now with COVID you could use a Covid excuse. Say, I think you need you to shower. But yeah, but. But I do think that that's just sort of, you know, one of the best ways I found is like, maybe we should shower first or let's shower together. Or I think it's the way you say it. You could even like, kind of like, instead of like, duh, take a shower. You know, you could just say, like, how about that?

My profile is that okay? I put up my profile online.

Yes, yes. You could say, let's shower together and have a cocktail. Like let's shower together and hang out. Hey, do you have a great shower in your, in your bit in your fancy house? I mean, you could say like, let's shower. You could even after the shower, what would be fun is if you shower together, you got the candles going and then you could use some like, of this war, like warming oil. And then you could like lie them down, you could give them a massage, put it all over their body. You know, you could make that part of the ritual because extend it's E X S E N S. And they have this. Oh my God, they have this raspberry flavored lube that is going to blow your mind. And I never thought I need raspberry lube, but they sent to me, I'm like, oh, raspberry. It is frigging delicious. They also have eight different, I think it's eight or nine different flavor because I kept pulling them out of the box. I was like, they have coconut oil, they have avocado flavor, they have pina colada. But they smell amazing and they warm. So here's a cool thing. They're not really oils. I don't know, I'm just sort of obsessed with that. So you, you. They smell great. And then you put them in your hands and so you could also use them as a lube, but they turn into a oily substance, but they don't stain your sheets. You know what I mean? Like it's an oil, but not an oil. All I'm telling you is massage is so underrated. And then if you get something that could kind of make it fun, like oil up his body and then use a vibrator, right? Teasing them. You don't. And a vibrating cock ring doesn't just have to be on the, the cock, if you will. You could use it all body, right? You could tease them, you could kiss them. It's just play with them while you're wearing it.

While you're wearing it?

Yeah, while you're wearing. Or just holding it in your hand. No. Well, yes, you can tease it while you're wearing it as well. You could. But you could also just use it in your hand and like use it on down their back. Use it all over. Like literally tease them with it in your hand and just drag it all over their body with the oil with a blindfold. You could do prostate play. Do you ever do any prostate play?

Absolutely.

Yeah, there you go. Fingers and hands free. Yeah. I mean, do. Listen, you. You know, all the things. I think a lot of this stuff about spicing it up or keeping it interesting is atmosphere and just doing one thing different, and that could be showering together. It could be a new toy. It could be just something smelling amazing when they come into the room, the bed's made. It's a different location.

I love the Vector by Leva Horizons. Up. There's a knock on my door right now, believe it or not.

Oh, my God.

Go. Let me know how it goes. Do you think it's them? Have fun now. You're.

Yeah, yeah. You got it, girl. Thank you.

Okay. Of course I'm here for you, Jeff. Amazing. All right. I think we all have to spice it up right now. Am I right? Listen, he's just seeing someone three times a week, Jeff. Seeing someone, and it gets a little dull. How is the sex in your relationship right now? We'll be right back. Okay. We have a question from Tommy, 32, in Michigan. I would like to have sex with older women, but don't know how to go about talking with them. So much easier these days. Just start talking to them. That's how all great relationships start. Tommy, if you find someone that you're interested in, I think you strike up a conversation. What's your intent for wanting to have sex with an older woman? Is it to get experience? Are you looking for a relationship? A lot of us just. We are not clear on what we actually want from relationships. And I don't think that finding someone to have sex with or to date is any different than if she was your age or she wasn't your age. It's the practice of communicating. I think a lot of us think it's like this whole secret, like, what do I do, what do I say? And I think the more planned we are, we try to think about, like, what. What's my pickup line? And what am I going to say? It's like, be yourself and just strike up a conversation. See where someone's at. And if you've never done this before, and I have this sense that people, you know, who kind of grew up with cell phones and kind of being on their phones and being on laptops, it's less comfortable perhaps, to actually approach someone and to initiate a conversation. But it is a practice. And the more you practice it, the easier it'll get. And my suggestion for everybody who is looking to date someone right now who's sing is to. It is national singles day is to practice Just talking to people when you're out, even people you don't want to sleep with. Just conversation, having it. I mean, the people really good at conversations typically had a life where they were. Maybe they were in a family where they're always talking, or they were in a job where they always had to communicate and they had practice. Right. We don't come out of the womb being excellent communicators, but it sort of takes some of the fear out of it when you just kind of practice talking to people that you don't even find attractive. You just kind of work there to say, notice something. And a great. A great tip for talking to people. Observe something in the room. That's commonality, and then ask questions. So if you're, like, standing at the coffee shop, Tommy, you see a woman that you're interested in, or, you know, you could just say, oh, wow, look, they got the pumpkin spice back lattes here. I love them. Have you had the pumpkin spice latte? I mean, that's just kind of like, observe something going on in the room. Ask a question. You could even observe and say, I love them. I've been counting down the days. Are you into. What are you gonna get? I mean, it's really just that, like, that's your commonality. You're in line, you're waiting to have coffee, and you ask a question and you engage. It's all practice, and it's all, like, letting go of fears. And you know how you get rid of fears is you just kind of move through it. Try the things that you think you can't do. Because if we're not growing in life, if we're not, like, challenging ourselves and growing and trying new things, we're dying. It's true. Can't think of a better way to say it. We got a few questions. You know, I love trends and questions and emails. We got a few of these today, so I'm just gonna cover it all. Madison says. Hey, Dr. Emily, I seem to get a lot of UTIs, urinary tract infections. Any tips on how to prevent from getting them? So this is a really common question and a common recurrence for so many women who just. We get UTIs over and over again, and we just don't know why. There are a few things that you can do to avoid this, because really, it's essentially when bacteria finds their way into the urinary tract. That's how you get a uti. And then once the bacteria gets into the urethra, it travels up the tract, and then it can multiply, and then you get this, like, inflammatory response in your body. It can go into your kidneys. The higher that it moves up, the more severe the infection becomes. I can tell you. Once. This happened to me, and I ended up in the hospital when I was, like, 20, and I was an intern in D.C. for the summer. And I stupidly. I don't remember what I did that was. I probably didn't. I probably didn't, like, pee after sex or it was, like, with a new partner. And I kept, like, I got to work, I got to work. And then what happens if they're untreated? If you don't treat a uti, you can actually get an infection and end up in the hospital. This happens to women all the time. So making sure that you get checked, you know, that you get checked out by your gynecologist, you know, get a Pap smear twice a year is very, very helpful. But if they keep happening, there's this really cool company that I've recently heard of that actually would be awesome for you, and that is Eucora. And I was like, why didn't I think of this? So Eucort is. So check this out. You should. Oh, another thing. This is another stupid. Okay, this happened to me twice. I'll admit it. This happened to me with another guy I was dating. And he was like, you know, I don't think you should take. Because you also. The other thing that happens is you have to go on antibiotics. But when you go on antibiotics, it's like, then your immune system's down. You gotta keep taking antibiotics. And he was like, I don't. He was like, super healthy. He was like a. I don't remember. Like a vegan, didn't believe in. He was Eastern medicine. He's like, you should just drink a lot of cranberry juice, Emily. Drink a ton of cranberry juice. And I was like, oh, okay. And it got worse. You can't just drink cranberry juice to get rid of a uti, but it helps to regularly drink cranberry juice. So this company, Uqora, check this out. It's U, Q, O, R, A. And they have products and supplements that you could take daily or as needed to essentially help flush out your urinary tract. And each of their products, they support you in different ways. So there's one that's like. And it tastes. It tastes really good. It's like, this one tastes like pink lemonade. And you could drink it every day. There's other ones that they have like supplements that are really good for probiotics. There's one that they have, you can promote your vaginal microbiome. So they have you on this like, regimen and they send it to you. You can just order it online. Because I know that there's so many of us who, who kind of worry about our vaginal health, but we're like, oh God, I wanna go to the doctor and I don't wanna take time. And so remember this, even if you empty your bladder before sex or after sex shower, before and after, you can still keep getting UTIs. So if you take supplements like Uqora, I mean, check it out. I think it'll help you out. You can find more@uqora.com u q o r A. All right, we're going to take a quick break and we come back. I'll be talking to Carol Queen, so stick around. After 20 years of helping people have better sex, I realized something. The real magic happens when you feel safe, informed and confident in your own body. That's why I created Smart sx, a private sex positive community where we explore desires, build confidence and feel more connected in our bodies and relationships. Whether you're single, partnered or just curious, SmartSX is like your VIP clubhouse. You'll get live workshops with me and other experts, full access to our event library, and a safe space to ask the questions you've never felt comfortable asking anywhere else. And trust me, amazing sex isn't just about technique. It's about feeling empowered, informed and truly connected. Inside SmartSX, you'll learn to communicate like a pro, discover what really turns you on, and even score exclusive perks and giveaways. Yes, from books and toys to some of my favorite games for couples, your pleasure is worth prioritizing. Join us at sexwithemily.com smartsx that's sexwithemily.com smart the letter S, the letter X. I'll see you inside. Hello, Carol Queen. Thanks for joining me, Emily.

We were at your kitchen table all the way back then or your dining room table or whatever table it was.

I only have one table. We were actually just going through because we had our 15 year anniversary thinking about those early shows and I was thinking about the last time I saw you was at the Vibrator Museum at the Good Vibes in San Francisco. You took us on a tour.

That's fun. And isn't that a wonderful room full of antique vibrators. What could be better?

You can't believe the vibrators in there. You're like, it looks like a mixer, like a mixing bowl. I just remember that the big. Anyway, that was the last time I saw you. Carol. How are you doing? How have you been doing?

I am doing okay. Instead of running around the world and talking about sex wherever I can, I hop on Zoom relatively frequently to talk about sex in various contexts. Contexts and mostly stay in my apartment working from home. And I thought, oh, I'm gonna have so much free time. I'll start my memoir. I'm taking some notes. That's about all I have found time for. What on earth is going on here? I thought I was gonna have hours and hours of extra time. I don't.

I know. Same. Why is it especially now, people need more information about sex and communication and relationships. We know that sex toy sales have been on the rise. I can't stop. See about that. We're all home. Might as well be masturbating.

Thank goodness for those of us who need the relaxation, who need to keep their jobs selling people sex toys and all of the other people who are going to benefit from people being a little more relaxed, a little more at least because it's self care. If we don't think in terms of masturbation as self care already, I bet a bunch of people have had their minds changed or blown or opened up this year because there's stress everywhere. Even if people feel pretty safe, it's still stressy.

It's still stressful. People who have never experienced anxiety before are now experiencing it. So it's just like they don't know what. And they've never had any mental health challenges. So not saying masturbation is a cure for everything, but you can get that little serotonin dopamine, you know, oxytocin rush, which is a good cocktail.

It's not a bad idea to find out what are the things in your life that give you pleasure and relaxation and masturbation happens to put both of those things together for most people, so Exactly.

They really do. Carol, you've been talking about this for 45 years, but in some ways I've found that things haven't changed that much. I don't know, Carol, like as far as people still shameful about masturbation and that we still can't talk about it in certain places. But what do you see as a some changes? What's been the most remarkable to you or interesting to you right now since you've started? I know that's a long journey, but I'm curious.

It's a long journey and let Me, just clarify for people who may not know much about my history that tell them everything. I started out as a young person trying to figure out about sexuality as one does, unless one waits until they're old to do that, which also happens whenever you do. It's a good time to start, I guess. I started my first year of college, I guess, or second, one of the first gay youth groups in the nation, along with a couple of my young gay male friends. So I started doing LGBT panels and things when I was very young and doing various kinds of organizing. So the really huge difference is that it is mainstream news now. It is part of what we're talking about all the time in almost all venues. Even the venues that are cranky about these things are talking about them. And it took, it came out of the subcultural self published feminist rag that you had to get at the feminist cafe situation into the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Atlantic and all of the, you know, all the media names that we've known for our whole lives.

Right.

That's the biggest, biggest difference.

So the biggest difference is that we're more open now culturally to all the changes that are happening and people are more willing to talk about these things. Yeah.

And I think I'm also saying we know as a culture now that this is not sort of side material. This isn't underground. I mean, many people still have to live underground. I don't mean that. But the discourse is, oh, this has been going on for decades. This is part of what we have to grapple with as a culture. And that's one of the things that brings these various reckonings together in my mind. Right. Because they're not the same thing. But the fact that we have to.

Have reckonings, that's how we wake up. Right. I guess that's how we wake up and how we make change. Now. What about in the sex space? I mean, I. Or maybe it's just the shaming, the embarrassment that we're not still not teaching sex ed in schools. People aren't as comfortable talking about it. I mean, I think there are more resources now, but the information isn't accurate. And then there's more porn. So then that gets confusing.

There's more porn. Certainly the availability and sort of mainstreaming of porn, that's. That's made a jump too. Although for a minute in the 70s, it looked like it was going to be that moment. Right. And then it wasn't. But now it sort of is. Only there's still plenty of anti porn people and I mean, I think the fact that porn has stepped up this way is fascinating, but I always want to remind people that it's not documentary film. We're not watching Richard Attenborough Byrd movies here. We're not watching sex ed here. We're watching constructed, designed, directed, scripted entertainment, even if it doesn't really look like it is.

Wait, you just made me think about something because there are. You've done so many things. I was gonna name all your books here and things, but I just had to flash and tell me if I'm correct when we talked about educational. No, porn is not where people should be learning how to have sex play by play. But didn't you create Bend Over Boyfriend?

Yes. I wanna differentiate between porn and explicit sex education material. And there's an overlap, of course.

Right.

And I call that Ex Ed for short. I think I invented that.

Carol's invented a lot of things.

But speaking of a word that didn't exist when we made Bend Over Boyfriend, which was an educational, explicit movie about women giving men anal pleasure with strap ons, some of the people there will go, that's kind of binary in the way that you're talking. And yes, we did this in the 90s and the non binary discourse had not stepped up to the point that it isn't now. And I'm so glad that. So glad we don't only have two to choose from. That's not very many, honestly.

Exactly.

But the word that I'm thinking of here is pegging. So it was a movie about pegging, but the term pegging didn't exist yet in the 90s.

Right?

That's right. Because Dan Savage, his team of people who read his column did this. He did this. Let's make a name for this sex act. Here's a sex act. It doesn't have a name. You have to describe it in a phrase. Can't have that. Let's make a name. And pegging was what they came up with.

So now we didn't realize that was Dan Savage.

Dan and his merry readers, who were very creative in terms of the language. So that came directly out of our experience at Good vibrations in the 90s.

Can we still see Bend Over Boyfriend? Because I still sometimes was recommending it up until recently, but I mean, that was so advanced that you at the time were like, and this is how you wear a strap on them.

And because we people would come into Good Vibrations and say that they were interested in doing this and many of them thought they had invented the idea and others were like, My boyfriend is bi and he wants to do this. Not that all the bi boyfriends want to do this, but some might. And some of the heterosexual and, you know, sexual orientation and the sex acts you desire are not. There's not a straight line between them necessarily, Right. So we would describe and talk and so talk all around. And the idea was that watching the sex acts as we talked about them and gave information would be a way for people to really wrap their brain around how to do it themselves. And we could get into all of the specific sex ed stuff. You've got to have lube, you've got to relax. Here's how to clean, here's how to choose the right size, all of the things, right? Because there are a lot of moving parts to doing any new sex thing, especially something like pegging. I know I just said don't watch porn for sex ed, but the point is, porn might cut some corners. Porn is performed by professional athletes of sex who know or mostly or often who know the way to do what they need to depict to make it hot and exciting. And we actually mostly used amateurs in Bend Over Boyfriend, but they were people who really wanted to learn and enlighten other people. One couple had never done it before, and another one wasn't even a couple, but they were pretty frisky and they knew that they could make it happen, and so they did. And so it was a way to take a kind of sexuality that wasn't much discussed, that there wasn't a book about. There wasn't a whole lot of information about it anywhere. So that if somebody wanted to do it, they had a bit of a climb, they had a hunt that they had to go on to figure out how to find a person who wanted to do it with them, how to talk about it, how to do it, how to do it safely, how to do it pleasurably. All the things that, you know, many of your listeners have had their own, you know, sexual mountains to climb, even if it wasn't that one, right?

But that is a mountain. A change I've seen. Carol, have you seen this, too? That I feel like it used to be that men who identified as straight, like it was a hurdle. We'd have, like, maybe try your prostate, try it out. But then they were like, nope. But I have felt a shift in the last five years where I think that straight men are more open to it. Cisgender men are, like, saying, yes, I want to try it. They're coming to me. It's not like their girlfriend's coming or whoever they actually are, I get it. And I want to try it. So that kind of delights me that they're like, okay, I get it.

It's very delightful for a couple of reasons. One, if somebody's got a pleasure part on their body, it makes sense that they would want to figure out whether it's fun. I mean, they don't have to.

If it's not, you'll do it again.

And someone's sexual orientation doesn't equal the kind of sex acts that they will want to do. I think our culture has done a little growing as far as understanding that in the last, say, 10 to 20 years. There's. There's a real sense that I notice of people understanding. And maybe partly it's sort of the challenges of non binary communities helping people think outside the box. Maybe it's just much greater discourse that more people can hear about sexual orientation issues and marriage equality. And there's so many different things that have gotten more high profile and acceptable to talk about and think about. In the old days at Good Vibes, when we talk to people about this, sometimes it was men who knew about prostate pleasure who were hoping that they could convince girlfriends to go there with them. Sometimes it was women who were like, they need to know what it's like to be penetrated. And I know who can argue with that. It's interesting to know what it's like to have that kind of experience of someone sliding into your body and know whether it's always awesome, whether it's sometimes challenging, whether. No, I don't want anybody coming in here. I mean, because that's part of the assumptions that we've had to overcome too. Right. Is these gendered ideas about what is normal, what is the way that all men are, all women are. You can't make those kinds of judgments. And anybody who thinks you can is not living in the 21st century.

Right, exactly. It's exactly right. Carol. You know, we've got some calls coming in and I want to answer because I love that you're here because you don't have one. You have two sexologists here to help you. And this next question, I would love to get your take on this. Let's talk to Jake, 25, in Ohio. Hi, Jake, thanks for calling.

I just want to call because I have this fetish or fantasy. I'm just. I'm in the. Masturbating in public, and I'm just wanting a safe spot to maybe do it.

In, even though it's illegal. But we can. Carol, what would be A safe spot for him to master. I don't know why I thought Carol would be good at this. I mean, not that we can say because it is illegal. But like I say, I mean in your car, maybe with the light.

Well, let's brainstorm. So. So there's. So there's two. There's two real challenges and one is where will you not get caught? Because public showing yourself off is pretty much illegal almost everywhere. And where can you do this? Where the people who might get a glimpse of you consent to do that. So my initial thought is swingers, parties, sex clubs, sort of sexualized environments. I don't know if there are still any glory hole type sex shops around where you are.

Yeah, Jake's in Ohio.

Yeah, but I don't know if they are still open because it's been a minute since I've been to Ohio. But I. I might have committed a sexual crime in Ohio. Everyone there wanted to see the demonstration. I don't want to give the wrong impression.

Some sexual deviance in your day. How did I. Or had some sexual.

You know, I think it probably wasn't legal to do. And so we jumped in the rental car and just floored it.

Is there like a sex toy shop in your area? I mean, nothing's open. I would find like a meetup or go on like what are the sites right now? Like Fetlife. Or try to find a local party where you can go with other like minded people. Because I can't really.

My biggest thing is I like to, you know, have. It might sound weird. I like to have people watch and.

Not weird at all.

As long as the people want to watch. It's just. It's a fabulous form of exhibitionism. I wrote a whole book about it.

You did tell. What book is that?

Exhibitionism for the shy. And it's us to be watched. Right. So there's the two kinds of exhibitionists. The kind that everybody thinks like, oh, we gotta lock them up. Are the ones who want to shock and freak other people out. Make them scared, make them. I don't want to look at that thing and I don't want to see anybody's hand moving on it either. That's non consensual. Right. And then there's the people who sort of sit with their chin on their hand like we used to watch tv, right? And go, you know, go a little slower, go a little faster. And who like to watch and they're the Voyers. So Jake, what you've got to find is voyeurs and Again, I think that in the swinger sex club world, if you can find any of those kinds of venues. Do you still find swingers via the lifestyle. Org? I think you do.

Maybe. Lifestyle.org there's like Cassidy's another one, there's FetLife. I would try to find some parties on there, Jake, that you could go to meet with like minded people. Open actually is a free app. Hashtag Open is all genders. You just use the hashtag of what you're looking for. So you could go there, Jake, and say publicmasturbation.

Good luck finding the right people because it's really a delightful kind of sexual play. It's especially relevant right now in the era of COVID when we're not supposed to be right on top of each other, breathing each other's air. Right. But if you're across the room from each other, that's a little different and could be safer if you find a safe place to do it outside all the more. So I do wish you the best because yes, it's true that this is not the sort of thing that you want to get busted doing, but if you can find the right way to find the right people and you can have a lot of fun.

Yeah, find your people, Jake. I think you can find them. And it just takes one party where you meet people and you like. Then you'll be invited to other parties. Every town has their people. So you just got to find your people. And I think that would be very satisfying to you, you know?

Yeah, I just. I've been to jail once over it already. I just don't want to go again.

That's why you got to find your people in a consensual atmosphere. Okay? Okay. Jake, check out those sites that I talked about. Go to my website. We've got a lot of different sites on there that you could find. We can put in the show notes. I think we have a blog about how to find a third and that has all the websites in it. But you can find your people. I don't want you to go to jail either. Thanks, Jake. I appreciate you. Thanks for calling. Carol, you want to hang out for a second? We're going to take a quick break. There'll be more sex with Emily. Thanks everyone for supporting our sponsors. You know, we only work with sponsors that we enjoy ourselves and I hope you do too. Let's talk to John 54 in Virginia.

Hi, Dr. Emily.

Hello.

My wife can't no longer get on top because of issues with their knees and arthritis. And that was the position she always was in that she could have an orgasm with, and now she, you know, can't do that. And just trying to figure out other positions besides missionary that we could do.

Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm trying to think. So her knees, she just can't be on her knees at all?

No, not at all.

I'm trying to think if she was on top. I'm thinking about like a sex swing or something she could do. Or like she could maybe use some sex swing furniture.

Yeah. Face to face in a sturdy chair maybe. I mean, if you're going to do any kind of furniture situation, you got to really make sure it's not rickety. You got to make sure that you're not going to tumble down on her.

You're not small, you're not break the.

Old chair or anything.

Yeah.

But if the reason that she gets off that way is that she's able to move her body. Because sometimes that's the reason specifically. Sometimes it's somebody can't concentrate and focus with someone's weight on them, but sometimes it's because it's easier for her to move her pelvis. And I wonder if there are maybe clitoral stimulation. Yeah. I wonder if there are any side to side positions that you two could try. There's a position where you sit on the bed and then she sits on your lap facing you so that you can get inside of her. But she doesn't have to bend her knees. She can just sort of wrap them around the spine of your back. That might work.

Yep.

Okay.

And you can move her back and forth too, if she can't really move as much in that position.

Right.

Or grab the headboard of the bed. As long as it's sturdy again, the furniture has to be sturdy.

I've broken so many beds in my life in San Francisco. I remember having this like a Kia bed and it would break. I love the positions where one partner's on the bed and one partner standing. Those are great positions.

Or see, the other thing is we finally don't have kids in the house. So it's kind of nice to be able to be somewhat spontaneous.

Okay, great. So let's think of what else. I mean, I said sex swing just because. I don't know, I was thinking about elevation, but I wonder if she'd still get the leverage from that. And then even like something like the Liberator, that would still hurt her knee. I'm thinking about like elevation sex furniture. So I like the idea of on the bed or using a chair. Because then she could also. If you're on, like a big comfy chair or the couch, even the edge of the couch, she could use leverage. She could put her hands on the armrest and then behind it and kind of move herself back and forth. But her legs could still be out, like if she's long ways on the couch. Modified spooning position or the modified spoon position. Carol, we were saying the laying something where she's laying down, but that wouldn't really hit her clitoris.

Modified spoon. Lying on your spoon sides facing each other. And one of you has your leg over the other. And that way you can sort of use your leg to thrust together. But she would also have some of her own ability to thrust her pelvis, as would you. You might try that, too. Sometimes it's a little hard to stay on your sides. And it's a. You know, you tend to fall one way or the other. But you could give it a try. Could be fun.

Give it the old Collins try. Yeah, I would recommend that as well. And there are some great position books. My friend Elle Chase wrote a book called Curvy Girl Sex, and she's got some really interesting sex positions in that book for people who have just different challenges around positions. And they're incredible. I've recommended it to so many people and they really enjoy it. So check that out, John, see how those work.

I'll let you know. You're my go to podcast when I drive because I drive a lot with work sometimes.

I'm so glad. Thank you, John. So good to hear from you. And thanks for listening and for calling. So appreciate you, Carol. Looking at your face, like, trying to figure it out like a mathematician. Like, her brain's going to all the positions. And like, what does she know? She's got lots of knowledge in that brain. Carol, you've done so much, written so many books. You've been speaking, you've been really. You've made such a huge difference in the landslide. You paved the way for me to be able to do what I do. Thank you for that. I'm grateful for you, really and truly. So let's talk about. So since you've. Amazingly, you've been at good vibrations for 30 years. You're still. I don't know what you do. You're staff sexologist.

You do act sexologist, company historian and curator of the Antique Vibrator Museum.

That's it. Okay. Company historian. Sorry, I didn't mean to. I just feel like Carol is good to me. When I think of Good Vibrations, I think of Carolina. So it's hard to sort of delineate that. But I'm curious about is there anything new you got, you know, or anything fun with toys right now? You know, we have our subscription box from Good Vibrations. You can find it on our website sexwithemily.com, which has been a really fun thing to kind of curate that box every month for people to get it four times a year. And you just get like, it's like sex shows up in a box, like sex ideas. And it's kind of fun to curate that. Is there anything that you're into right now? Something new that's sort of fun? They're like, oh wow, they think of it. I never thought they'd think of this.

What do they think of next? I know that's one of the wonderful things about being in a place like this for 30 years is you see some shifts in technology and so forth. So what I'm excited about right now, these are just new in the last month or so is a little three item line called Cute Little Fuckers. And Cute Little Fuckers are designed by non binary and queer people, but they're designed for everyone. And anyone who wants to get a vibrating gizmo that's cute and put it on their body somewhere and see how they like it. So that, that includes most people except the people who don't like vibration, right. Of whom there are some.

And.

Or maybe they haven't found the right vibrator yet, I don't know. And no pressure to vibrate, but Cute Little Fuckers has three different ones. One looks like they're so cute. So a lot of non binary ish toys that have been designed so far have been a little austere and they're, you know, like they're gray or they're taupe colored. Sometimes they want to avoid the pink and blue business of boy and girl and all of that. Well, cute little suckers just picked some different colors than that. And they made them cute and bright. They're adorable. One of them looks like a little starfish and you can put it on the clariscent vulva, you could stroke a penis with it or whatever you've got whatever you call it. Basically it doesn't matter if you've got the parts, the body parts that we have gendered names for or maybe you do. So that's a cute one. And then there's one that looks like three little sea monsters stuck together that I'm pretty sure could be used as a dildo if somebody wanted to do that, Multi use. Cute little sea monsters.

Yeah. I love this. Okay, see, this is what's so cool that I love toys that are dust. You don't even have to name the body part. Just vibrations. Feel. Can feel great everywhere. And so why do we decide that this is for any gender? Then you get one toy. You can share it, get a bunch, play around with it. I think this is great. That's great innovation. So, Carol, essentially, you were there when the talks happened about creating Masturbation Month. I wish we had social media. Then we could have documented that moment, because that was a big moment.

We were trying to make sure that Clinton firing Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for saying one tiny, sensible thing about masturbation did not go unchallenged. We were like, this is outrageous. So that's what made us create it in the first place.

That's right. Something to the effect of. Yeah, masturbation should be taught in schools. And then he did not appoint her. It was something to that effect. And good for good vibrations for doing that.

And you didn't mean we should teach them to masturbate. She meant we should teach them. There is a thing called yeah, we.

Should teach them about. We should give them sex education. That's accurate. So, okay, so, Carol, let's talk about these CDC guidelines right now for Covid. You know, wear masks. You know, avoid exchanging, you know, kissing and glory holes.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic, everybody in the US Got a surgeon general's brochure from C. Everett Coop that said all kinds of things. So this is actually not all that new. When the CDC and the health departments have to step up and talk about sex, they will do so as we see this time. Yeah, glory holes. Some people may not even know what glory holes are. Glory holes. That is a wall with a hole in it. And you can put your body part through the hole. Often it will be a penis, but you could put a hand through there and reach for somebody else's genitals, whatever they might be. And you can do all kinds of things through a glory hole. And there's a wall in the way so you're not breathing each other's air. And that's what makes it a safe thing for Covid. Now, of course, people can mask up real well. And if people are like, I could never have sex with a mask. Just pretend you're being kinky. Pretend you're doing it on purpose. Plenty of people do wild things when they have sex. This is really unusual. Let's try it. It might be fun. So you don't want to get face to face and breathe in, you know, the exhale. Even though it's such a sexy, intimate thing to do right now, it's not safe. So we either put a wall in the way or we mask up real good. Of course, making sure we wash up when we're done. It's a not a normal time in.

Our haven't tried so much about sex is variety and trying something new. So why not try that if you want to have safe sex? Carol, we're coming to the end here. I gotta ask you our five quickie questions we ask all of our guests. What is your biggest turn on brains?

I'm one of those sapiosexuals biggest turnoff. People being really pushy about assuming they know what the right thing to do is and knowing what I want, which they might not know.

What makes good sex?

Wanting to be there in communication.

Something you would tell your younger self about sex.

It gets better.

What's the number one thing you wish everyone knew about sex?

That there is no such thing as a normal sex life that you have to follow or you're abnormal. There is variety and difference.

I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Carol Queen, for being here. That's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to Sex with Emily. And if you love the show, please like subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. And hey, share this with a friend or a partner. It might just spark something. It usually does. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X. It's all sexwithemily. Oh, and I've been told I give really good email, so sign up@sexwithemily.com for free guides and articles and more ways to prioritize your pleasure.