Sexual Eu(Foria)

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Look into his eyes. They're the eyes of a man obsessed by sex.

Eyes that mock our sacred institutions.

Bedroom eyes, they call them in a bygone day. Hey Emily, you got a boyfriend? Cuz my man E here, he just got his heart broken. He thinks you're kind of cute.

A girl's gotta have her standards.

Oh my.

The women know about shrinkage.

Isn't it common knowledge?

What do you mean?

Like laundry? It shrinks. Can we not talk about sex so much? Are you kidding me? Oh my God, I feel so good.

Being bad feels pretty good. You know, Emily's not the kind of girl you just play with.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. We're talking about sex Relationships and everything in between. For more information, go to sex withelmi.com check out our website. You can easily subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter, which is on our site. We update, we update it almost every day with new blogs and posts that will help you have better sex and relationships. I also love when you subscribe on itunes and as long as you're there, you review our show. Comment, give us five stars. If you like it, you can do four. I'm okay with that too. But we do read all of your comments and that really helps us in the whole podcast game. Also social media, it's all sex with Emily across the board. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, we love hearing from you. Okay, I'm gonna get into my guests here because I'm so excited for. We have Matthew Gerson and Keanu Reeves. They're from Foreia, which is a sexual health and wellness company with products designed using cannabis. And we're gonna break that down today because there's been so much about it. Right now we live in California and so there's a lot more about it here, but there's so many healing properties and there's just a lot to learn and they're gonna unpack it for us. They've really been pioneers in this industry. Matthew is actually an old friend that I've known for a while from this industry. Matthew was the founder of Sir Richard's, which was so cool because you had your buy one, give one model, like everyone you buy a condom and you gave one to, was it Haiti or Africa? Right. And like I was like, oh, I want to know this guy. And I think I reached out to you on Facebook and we started like share. Is that how we met with sharing, like your social media? It was just. You've always been such an innovator and that was such a cool, like, let me just not help people better sex and save sex, but let me change the world. And you've always been changing the world. And now with Forea, you are as well. And you've just been a socially minded entrepreneur and friend.

Oh, thank you so much.

And so thank you for being here. And Kandaris, who's a new friend, she's a director of communications at Forea and she does so many other things. I'm not even sure how she holds down the job, but she kicks ass at. But also she's a doula. She works with pregnancy, postpartum, miscarriage, and abortion. You also stream practitioner. Yeah, so that's scar tissue remediation, education, management, and just you help women understand their vulvas with scar tissue in so many different ways. So I'm glad you're both here. And you're also studying sexological body work and you can find them all@foreawellness.com that's f o r I a wellness.com Oria Wellness, Instagram, ForIAPleasure, Twitter, Facebook.com Foreia and we'll have this all in the show notes as well. Got that out of the way. Hello.

Hi.

Hi.

What's up?

So first, can you guys tell me a bit about your backgrounds And I know I just covered a little bit and how you actually got into this industry. Cause like I said, Matthew, we met years ago, but then when were starting foyer was about five, six years ago. And I was like, whoa.

Yeah, it's a, it's a good question. And thank you so much for having us here and it's amazing to see you doing so well and doing such great work in this space. It's been over a decade of watching you grow. So I'm so glad to be on the other side of the table.

Thank you.

Talking with you and Kiana. I don't know, I think the plants made me do it.

What exactly is foria?

Well, the word foria comes from euphoria. Makes sense. We want. It's like a more feminine version of euphoria, just F O R I A. And the reason that word is so important, euphoria, which is because the anandamide, which is this crazy neurotransmitter that makes you feel really great, like bliss, blissful. It triggers euphoric states which I think all of us are running after as much as we can, whenever we can, whether we know it or not. So Fourier is basically grounded in the sort of an aspiration to help increase pleasurable states and diminish states of discomfort using cannabis based plant chemicals. And the first product we developed was around five years ago. We made what is known as the first weed lube.

Right.

Which is catchy. It's more of a pre lube which we'll talk about later on in the show. But it was. We basically reinvented the use of cannabis as a topical to be applied vaginally for sexual enhancement. And I say reinvented because women have actually been using it to that end for a long, long time. And we sort of just re emerged now. And it's, it's been really phenomenal watching how women have responded, how their partners have responded to using cannabis in the bedroom to light things up. And not only Is it helping in the bedroom? But it's helping to enhance pleasure and diminish pain when pain might be present. And so that got us thinking about how we might be able to use cannabis for pain reduction specifically to address a really unmet issue for our species, which is menstrual pain. And it turns out the cannabis also has a very long and stored history of use for women to diminish menstrual cramping and the pain associated with menstruation. So we made what is known colloquially as the weed tampon, which is nothing more than a cocoa butter suppository with THC and CBD that's inserted vaginally and then dissolves and then goes right into the pelvic region, where there's a whole bunch of cannabinoid receptors, a lot of gobbledygook. But basically, you're taking the essence of this plant and you're inserting it into your vagina. And it can help diminish menstruation, not just menstrual pain, but pcos, endometriosis, other pelvic conditions.

I love that you're paying attention to this. All the pain that women have been having for forever, since the beginning of time.

We feel honored to be in a position to be doing.

I love you, continue. Like, you're innovating on it. Like, it's not even the weed. It's the pre. Weed loop. No, the prelude. The pre loop.

I mean, I wake up often in the middle of the night going, why me? I mean, I feel like I'm a. I'm a sex worker to the plants. And we can talk about that a little bit more in terms of the sexual nature of these plants and what they have to offer us and what we're offering them.

I don't think people understand the sexual nature of the plants. I'm not even sure I do. I mean, I do sure intellectually, how plants are life. And.

Yeah, I mean, we're. None of us are botanists, but I think we can go for a walk in the woods or we can go lay in a garden, and we can quickly realize that, you know, our understanding of sex pales in comparison to the progenitors of sexual reproduction, which are plants. So they've been doing it for a lot longer than we have. So we like to think about, you know, things emerging out of the garden that might never emerge out of the laboratory. And, you know, it's funny, just thinking about our story with Fouria, it's like we. We rediscovered something that has been known for a really long time and we rediscovered in, I think a pretty critical time to rediscover this use of this plant. Yeah, because, you know, as a balm, it's not just a balm for some of our sexual needs, but it really spreads out so far and wide through so many other aspects of relationship and culture. This, this one specific species of plant particularly.

Right.

So from my own personal journey, you know, I, I ended up in the condom space, just happenstance, just trying to address condoms.

Were speaking to you, the condoms, the latex, latex plants.

No, it was more from a social orientation, social impact, you know, looking where, where are the places where we can leverage our unique skills or the efforts that we all put forward, you know, put to work in our respective livelihoods and try to have some real impact in the world. And sex is a great space to do that in. Yes, you only get to talk about these great things, sex and drugs. Yeah. And it's like real time response, like people, the changes happen in real time and it telescopes throughout their whole life into their families, communities and whatnot.

Well, here's my question for you guys, because this is nothing new like cannabis being used as an aphrodisiac. Right. Or being used as a plant to heal. And so many, not just sex, but also just, you know, CBD is powerful, can be used to like for your muscles, can be used for healing pain, like basically all over your body back to like the seventh century or something. So how come now is cannabis having. Is it? Yeah, it's moment. It's like.

Yeah, I mean, it's trying to have its moments so many times, so many kind of false pregnancies of like the cannabis was going to emerge out of the shadows and onto the scene. And oddly enough, I mean, if you look at it, I kind of say unfortunately. But it, it is what it is. But I think cannabis emerged because it hit the jackpot with the consumer market. It's like, oh, wait a minute, like the states all of a sudden started shaking their heads saying, hey, this is okay, because the states need money. So that is what got us here. But I think what the underlying root structure was mostly empathogenic. It was empathy. It was people having direct experience of how cannabis was helping with disease, with pain, with suffering, with cancer, with so many, so many disparate issues that might or might not have pharmaceutical methodologies that helped. And so people love this plant because the plant's been loving them for a really long time.

So true. Well, let's, I thought would be Interesting for you guys to help me talk about and explain this because again, this is like, I haven't talked about it a lot on the show. I mean, anecdotally, like, when you get high can help people get in the mood for sex, but also that not all cannabis gets you stoned. And I think you'll think, oh, I can't use drugs, or it's a drug or I'm anti drug. But let's. Can we kind of talk about the difference between, like, the healing properties of the plant and like the difference between THC and CBD or however you want to break that down into simplest form?

I think you can break it down into one how you ingest. And there's different pathways in the body that when you don't ingest orally or you use it topically and in different ways, that it has an incredibly different reaction with your system. So that's one way. But then also, cannabis itself is classified into two different plants. So there's hemp, sort of hemp are.

The same species and same genus.

I know, it's very confusing, right?

It's very confusing. But you know what? It's a great. The analog to what you talk about. I think talking about plants is very much like talking about sex. Like, we want to put everything in a discreet little individual place and say, stay there. And we break up the human experience, the sexual experience, and say, this is libido, this is sex drive, this is intimacy, this is eroticism. And nothing stays put. Everything's moving around. And so with cannabis, too, it's like we're constantly learning. We're listening to our clients. We've learned so much in the five years since we put this product out. There are so many benefits that we had no idea that these things were going to come back, that women and their partners were going to respond the way they did. So it's very much more call and response and iterative than it is. Like, we got it on, we got this. This is what it's like.

Because it also does.

Yeah, Well, I think to clarify for people who may not be familiar, though, it's important. Like, there's. There. They are the same plant, but there's hemp, which has no active THC in it or very, very, very, very low levels of it. Right. So it's legal to ship around the world to use in those states.

Most states. Okay.

Exactly. And then there's.

Thank you, Mitch McConnell, if you're listening, we wanted to thank you for that bipartisan support of that new AG bill that Just came to the senate floor, got passed which legalized hemp to be grown throughout America as an industrial crop. Because the hemp farmers are missing out.

Tough to farmers, which is tough to.

People, which people have been fighting for that for a really long time. It's going to go to law hopefully in the next couple weeks.

Exactly. But that's important to know, right. Is that hemp is an aspect of the cannabis family and it is medicinal and it doesn't have psychoactive effects and therefore it can be used medicinally in a number of different ways. And I think it's really important to clarify that.

Yeah. And I think to the point around psychoactivity, what we've discovered is, you know, we've been making cannabis based products for five years and if you use them as directed, and we don't actually expect anyone to use a sex product as directed, but that's why we make everything edible. But if you use it as directed, meaning you don't ingest it orally, you, you use it as a topical or you insert it into other parts of your body, such as your anus or into your vagina, which we can talk about later.

Yeah.

You actually don't get fully high. I say fully high with a caveat. For the most part, you really don't get the same psychoactive experience because of the way your body's metabolizing it. So not to get too geeky with the science, but it turns out that our bodies create the metabolite that gets us super high.

Right.

So it's kind of wild if you think about it. You can take high doses of cannabis into your body in a suppository, get all these relaxation, topical, localized benefits and not get high.

Right.

And you could eat that same amount and probably pretty uncomfortable, be stoned.

Right. Interesting. Because when we first met, you were starting, when you started for you like your first product was really amazing. Let's talk about it, because I'm sitting here, I try the new the waken product. Foria has an awakened product, which is massage oil. It's coconut oil. It has different ingredients, eight plants, all.

Of which in different cultures were revered for having quote, aphrodisiac type properties, which is a pretty broad term. But each of those plants individually were known and beloved in the bedroom. So we took the benefits of all those plants, put them together synergistically with the wonderful master herbalists, and added the cannabinoid, the cbd, and then we get this remarkable result.

So let's talk about. Because this is what you were Most known for now you guys are branching out and so many things. But let's talk about this four year awaken. So I sprayed into like my clitoris, my vulva. I followed the directions, at least initially. I'm like, I need a starting point. And then you spray it and then you wait a few minutes. When I'm testing something, it's not. It's for me. But I'm thinking, well, how would someone else be experiencing this too? And how will I explain it? What I loved is that it just got me to like, not rush into sex. I was just for masturbation, but to like lean back and be like, okay. And I just did a little meditation and I really just started to like, breathe into my body, which is what I know I tell you all to do, but I'm gonna be honest, I don't always do it. Sometimes I'm rushed. But just the fact that it was the process of like putting it on and like touching myself and laying back. And then I started to feel like a tingling and like a really like warm sensation. And it smells really good, like minty.

There's minty?

Yeah. Cacao. It's all healthy and I love that. And then it just like felt warm and it was like I. And I didn't need to apply anything else, like a lube. I. For me it was like it was enough. And then it just kind of felt like I was able to like, put my attention there were in the sense of. I loved it because I'm thinking about my listeners. So many women we hear from every single day who are like, I. I'm never in the mood for sex or how do I get my. How do I get on board with it? I don't want sex with my partner does. I don't think about masturbation. And I'm always like, you know, so many of us, we've talked about this too. Can. How we're so. Women are so distracted. We're so disconnected from our bodies. And like so much of the work that you're doing too, like all your work, sexological body work and all the things are like getting women to connect. We just walk around with this part of us. We're like, I don't know what's going down in there. So I love that it even for a few minutes to be like, I'm going to send all my energy, I'm going to breathe into my pelvic floor. And it just kind of gave a more purposeful intention and more to my. To my masturbation session. Which was amazing, by the way. So let's talk about, if we can, about what, like what have you been hearing? Or.

I get amazing feedback. I'm a lot of the customer interaction in terms of particularly this product because it's spreading itself because it's having such an amazing reach and people are having such amazing response to it. So one thing I think is important and you touched on is this idea of like a marination time and slowing down and how important that is. Because we culturally have this model of arousal that's very oriented towards how men or people with penises have arousal, which is very quick and fast. And women, people with vulvas have a much different buildup for arousal. The circumstances are different. It's a whole neural connected network that you really have to be not just in your body space, you have to be in your mind space and your emotional space. And so syncing those up is sometimes really difficult for people to do. And the distraction too that comes into our minds, all the things we need to do. So the nice thing with Awaken that I keep hearing as feedback over and over is one is the marination time. So slowing down and touching our bodies or having our partner touch our bodies in a way that builds arousal. But that's not just building up immediately to penetration and orgasm. It's not goal oriented. And so we've really been talking about this as something called a pre lube. It's something you do even before you engage in what we know as sex, which is usually like heterosexual penetrative sex. And that has really, really, really changed a lot of people's experience and understanding. The other thing that I think is really, really wonderful about this, that I get feedback again all the time, is it helps your body's natural arousal systems. So that arousal network and self lubrication, for example, some people will put this on and go, I really can't tell if this is me or if this is the awaken. And what we think is it's a combination of both. And of course all of the feedback is from our customers at this point. And so there's no scientific data behind any of it. But so many people saying like this is helping me with lubrication, this is helping me actually not experience pain. Sometimes I experience pain.

Well, let's. I wanted to ask that part of it too is that yeah, 80% of women experience pain at some point during sex and they just normalize it. So I loved seeing all the comments and the reviews. It actually helps women. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, this is One of those organic things that's happening with the people. You know, we'll make a post on social media about, you know, 80% of women experience painful intercourse at some point during their lifetime. And then the back end of our messages are all like, that's me, that's me. People raising their hands saying, I didn't know that this was normal. I didn't know that other people experienced this. And it's something we don't talk about. And there's not a lot of solutions. There's some people doing some really interesting things on the forefront, like pelvic floor, physical therapy and things like that. But in terms of products, there's none. And there's almost no research and no resource for people who are having that experience. Something we're finding with this over and over again are people who have not been able to have penetrative intercourse for sometimes even years. I'll get messages that are like, the first time in five years I've been able to make love of my husband and I had two orgasms and I never, ever, ever thought that was going to be possible again.

That is amazing. Can you explain to me then what it is? So people listening are like, what, how did that happen with this spray you put on your sauce? It's the cbd. It's all the products.

There's kava is in there. And kava is a really amazing analgesic and it also works with the nervous system. So you both have this topical absorbent quality of the kava that works with the tissues and then it's also working within the nervous system to help relax. So you're working physically and with the, the nervous system, which is huge. And then the CBD of course, is anti inflammatory, one of the most well known medical anti inflammatories on the market. And we think that's really helping with any tissue irritation, muscular irritation, deep, like pelvic floor stuff.

It's a miracle. It really is. Like, I just love, when I was reading through it, I'm like, I love that you're helping so many women.

And the CBD is showing signs of really offering benefit for social and sexual anxiety, which is what Flibanserin was trying to address. You know, the rebranding of the antidepressants.

That massive failure of a drug, the female Viagra.

The female Viagra that wasn't really an arousal, was about anxiety. And so CBD is known to really help with generalized social anxiety and sexual anxiety, which is really, really common. And no one understands exactly what it's doing. So we're kind of at the vanguard right now putting product out there that has a 10,000 plus year use amongst humans dated back in the literature 10,000 years. It's Indo, European into the Indus Valley, into China, into like old ancient medical textbooks. And so it's like, well, maybe some of these entrenched issues that we haven't been able to solve for in the laboratory. We're kind of seeing some early signs of really profound benefits that are just coming back from a small number because we're just a small company of clients. But they're consistent and they're, they're really strong and we're not, we're. They want to share this with us because they want other women to also have that experience and share it so we can share it with them.

So it's helping women get more turned on, get more aroused, Is that what you're saying? Like yeah, I think it's different than the full band. Whatever is full bland saran or whatever it was trying to.

This product specifically, I wasn't designed as to address anxiety. So we are, we are creating CBD products which have a stronger amount of.

CBD specifically just help with anxiety in general. Like everyone's goddamn anxious. Literally. Who is anxious if you're not anxious, I'm shocked. I want to put those people in a lab. Like who doesn't have anxiety right now? In a lot of ways, some people more absolutely intense than others. But.

Well, I think that gets back to your earlier question about why now? And I talk briefly about, oh well, maybe it's the consumer market. Maybe that's, that was sort of the how it got normalized. How are we here where 20 odd states are now legalize in a medical or recreational capacity. But why now I think is more interesting. And so the why being we are so disjointed, we are extraordinarily anxious. We are perhaps seeing some of the stresses that are coming from an overuse of our mental acumen. You know, we're really bright species in some way, but we're perhaps building really sharp saws and cutting off the branches that we're standing on and we're really high up in the air and then we're all kind of anxious that we're doing that really. And yeah, so maybe like climbing down out of the trees, so to speak and coming into our bodies, relaxing, having more direct experience of pleasure. That's not a consumer based activity. That's just emergent out of your own body or with a partner or not. This is Deeply healing, and it will have reverberations. I think, culturally, that we need to swing back. You know, I think everyone would admit that we're. Whoa. Like, we're moving so fast. Nobody can keep up.

I just. I was. My cell phone in traffic, but that's a much better way. My branches are being cut down. I'm like that, too, but my cell phone won't stop. All weekend is, like, going crazy.

You know, it's hard not to wax philosophical with. When you're dealing with this in it.

It's.

Yeah. Because you're just in it. And it speaks to us, and it's speaking to all of our clients in very unique and meaningful ways.

Well, I just know a lot about CBD because of how it helps with, like. With, like, cancer and arthritis and I mean, just so many, like, just chronic pain in general, like the balms and the. You can also inhale it. The vapes and stuff, so. And then cramps. I know it can help with cramps.

Yeah.

You guys have the.

We do. We have a product called Relief, which has, again, been this incredible, revolutionary product for so many people who have pelvic pain, menstrual cramps, endometriosis, so many different experiences that are very common, and there hasn't been a lot of progression in terms of pharmaceutical or scientific research on how or any natural alternatives for those pains. So we've had a lot of really incredible firsthand feedback from particularly endometriosis community, which are people who are experiencing this, like, on a very regular, very intense basis and often on the heaviest dose of pharmaceutical painkillers. People have written to me and said, I've completely gotten off of my painkillers just by using your product. And it's absolutely changed.

Using which.

Using non awakened. The relief. The suppository.

Yeah. So let's back up. We should talk about. About relief, because Relief, also known as the weed tampon. It's not a tampon. And we can talk more about why that is, but it's an important thing to talk about in and of itself because.

I think, as a species, we've radically failed women to address this monthly phenomenon, which is throughout the world, still a source of tremendous amount of shame. And even here in our culture, it's just not accepted. And women have to suffer through this silently. And the only thing on the market right now, to our knowledge, is like, a rebranded hiccup drug.

Yeah, might. All right, exactly. Like, take another pill or take another pill, which.

It's on the bottle. It's like, might have Long term negative consequences. Well, menstrual cramps happen for a long period of a woman's life. It's been interesting for us to see how this plant that was originally we were utilizing for the sake of a pleasure enhancement in the bedroom. The reason we developed relief was that we kept hearing from users that it was also dampening pain and allowing pleasure signaling to go through. So normally if you have a pain condition in the pelvic region, you're going to go to a pain specialist and they're going to prescribe you an opiate. And that might be okay for you if you have severe pain. I mean, opiates can be phenomenal allies to help humans have less pain. But if you're trying to experience pleasure and you turn off the receptor, you have no pleasure.

I feel like this whole, I mean, we women spend, I always say like a quarter of my life I will spend like either PMSing or have my period. And then during that time a lot goes on. Like I might get really angry and then I spend the next three.

Kind of blow things off. I used to feel like this way. I remember in college, I'm like, if one week of the month I'm spending like in this crazy. And then I got to spend the next two weeks cleaning it up. But no one talks about that. So if there's a way to just help women with, with this pain and stuff, I just think now it is becoming a thing that women were actually like looking at different ways to help women with this monthly thing. Now what about men? I feel like we talk a lot.

About men with their cramps, but I'm just.

Now men don't have cramps. But what about any of your products? Or sexual.

Yeah, it's interesting.

We all have anxiety. Sexual anxiety.

Sexual. Well, I think that would be a good use for a CBD product for men that have sexual anxiety, a higher dose of CBD to deal with anxiety in terms of like physiological response. Trust me, we've been trying. You know, our people have been asking us for five years, you know, why do you all this stuff for women, it just turns out that this plant, specifically, which, remember this is harvested from the female of this plant. It creates the flower. It has all these compounds, you know, concentrated in its flowers. And it's a female, you know, it's not the male. And it happens to have all these benefits to the females of our species. So what about the men? We're still working on it. And we do have some things that might not be fully normalized across the Board for everyone. But we found that introducing cannabis similar to introducing it vaginally through suppository, which is what relief is. We do that with a rectal suppository.

Okay, well, I wanted you guys. There was an article that came out a few weeks ago as a study and I saved it because I knew you guys were going to come on. I was so excited about does marijuana increase sex sexual drive. So it was kind of printed everywhere. It was a new study and I wanted to kind of go through it with you and see what you thought about it.

So they found that men and women who use marijuana daily had about 20% more sex during the previous four weeks than their peers who abstained from the drug and then asked. This was a version of on CNN written by Ian Carter, who's a colleague and a well known sexologist sex doctor as well. What's the connection between sex and marijuana? So it talks about how marijuana affects the libido. People who use, you know, here's just some, here's just some thoughts around it that people use marijuana may have more sex because they put less pressure on themselves when they're high. So they don't have the same performance anxiety as those who are sober. That was one sex therapist. Another one said a small amount may help increase your ability to communicate your preferences to your partner. You just kind of like that anxiety. I mean, I think so much of what we're talking about is your anxiety goes down, you can have a little more relaxation. You can actually say what you want and what you need. They're talking specifically about thc and this part of it targets a part of our brain associated with sexual arousal, at least in females. So what would you have to say? What do you say about this? Are you like finally or did you already see this or.

Well, I would ask you, how does. You're defining sexual drive and sexual desire, right?

Yeah, that's.

I think that's important to we, we.

Gloss over the terms we do and they're often misused. Like what it's arousal, desire.

And even with cannabis, like there's a vast difference between a micro dose and a dab.

Yeah.

Right. So you can, you could onboard a thousand milligrams of THC into your body and be okay if you have a super high tolerance because the body does.

THC is the more psycho.

Right.

Tropic, psychoactive.

Or you could take like me two and a half milligrams and this, that just enough turning like a glass of wine that you.

It is like a glass of Wine. And it's better. I have to say this though, because I feel like alcohol is. Alcoholism is, is really a problem in our everywhere. But I feel like some people are like, oh, I need that glass of wine at night. I just feel like for some people.

I think cannabis is the new Chardonnay. Yeah. I think it's being written about us in such a way.

I could see that.

I think it's interesting. And I'm guessing that this article was about people who are ingesting it through smoking it and inhaling it. I don't think it was specifically like topical or other ways, but it really wasn't. It's saying that they're having more regular sex. And the thing that, that says to me is it's, you know, because, because I have smoked before in my experience and other people that I know is that you immediately get brought into the present moment and you really are out of your head most of the time and really in your body and really able to feel things really in your senses. And there's nothing that works more with arousal than being in your senses and in your body and being able to like, feel.

Maybe I would, I would caveat that if you're comfortable in that place, but someone who's just in their head, working, stressing kids, all of a sudden, they're super present. They're not going to automatically be like, I feel sexy.

Present. I don't know what to do.

You got to look at your own emotions and what you've been blocking and you've been numb your whole life.

So the people who are long term users, I think they've gotten comfortable with coming into presence, coming into their body, so then they could engage, intimate. Because I've certainly noticed some periods of my life have like alter my consciousness and it's too much too fast. I couldn't imagine trying to interact with another person and their needs and their being. It's like, whoa, it's too much. So a lot of this is like, it's all new to us, but maybe we're so we want to throw the throttle. It says, yes, cannabis is good for sex, or no, it's not. And we're like, we don't know.

It's just like everything. We don't know when it's all about doses and different kinds. That's the thing. I'm not saying everyone just to jump into this, but it might be something else to look at.

Well, everyone's so unique too. And for me, arousal and desire and even wanting to have sex so much relates to our nervous system and our stress levels. So anything that's working with stress levels in the body I would say is going to help orient us towards pleasure in our lives.

Exactly. The more you breathe into your body and the more we just kind of deal with our stress and anxiety through breath, through yoga, through whatever it is, even just five, 10 minutes, I feel like it's huge. Will you guys stay and help me answer some emails from the people? Okay, great, thank you. Okay, we're gonna give a shout out to our sponsors. Thank you everyone for supporting them. I love you. We'll be right back.

Emily, wouldn't you say stress is probably one of the number one inhibitors of.

Stress is the biggest killer of our. Yeah. Of desire. People are like don't wanna sex because they're so stressed. They get up from work and we're going, we're on the computer, we're connected, we're in traffic, we get home. How do we want to have sex? It's the last thing on our mind. And just say and I know what even I get. I'm like, oh God, I know what it takes. I gotta turn off my phone, I gotta sit and meditate and breathe. But sometimes you just, you're like, no, like you, you rail against it. But yes, I would say that it is definitely anxiety and stress and that's all head based.

Yes.

But if you can somehow drop it into your body. So what I like about this about talking just cannabis more openly. I'm so glad that it is more open now. People can see that there are some solutions perhaps for them if it works that they could kind of relax into their body maybe not have wine and beer or as well as, I don't know, conjunction.

We had great feedback a little while ago from a customer of ours who talked about how she actually has been using awaken quite a bit and she was experiencing like regularly very painful intercourse and she was like, I don't have to drink that glass of wine now every time because I do get really relaxed. I, I can not have this fear of like pain during penetration. But I can trust my body and I can really orient towards like the pleasure part of it. So I found that really powerful because.

With the four year wickedness, I just love this because I've never been able to tell women I could say, see a pelvic floor specialist. This is amazing that you're hearing from that from so many women.

Like I definitely a tool to keep in your toolkit.

Yeah, for sure.

And as a guy who uses Awakening frequently, you Know, even though I don't get a direct physiological benefit or like more pleasure directly, the smell.

So how do you use it?

I mean, I'll use it for self pleasure. I'll use oral with my wife. I'll use it for intercourse. Like we'll use it and it's always, it's always there. It's in every room in the house. Just in case. It's our go to.

It is your go to.

But what happens now is like I sprayed some on before the show and like I turned around, like I thought my wife was in the room because now I so associate smell. And so like if you think about the word sensual, like scent. So we're really fascinated with like how does scent and, and pheromones and smell play into the mechanisms of arousal and how we store erotic memories. So what's been really fascinating for me is like using this product, having deeply pleasurable experiences of intimacy and then it stores that memory in that smell. So I can smell this on the way home from work and it unpacks that memory and it starts getting my body turned on it and it gets me out of my head. It gets me out of the stress response from being at work and being in traffic and it gets me back into the juiciness of the body.

I love that.

So like for arousal sake, for guys like using this, the essential oil piece, like, oh, we poo poo. Essential oils.

Essential oils. What? Yeah.

Oh, it's smell. It's like our deepest memories.

It is our deepest memories through smell.

And the smell of our lovers.

Yeah. And I was going to say that I think scientifically proven that the closest sense that we have that's tied into memory is sense. It's like the most accessible way for us to access things that maybe are a little bit subconscious.

It's so true. One thing to combat stress or to get yourself in the mood for sex is to think about all the senses. So I say like, go into your bedroom, light a candle, play music. You know, this would be great for taste. It tastes so good. But like the touch, what are you feeling? Hearing, smelling, tasting. Because when we're in our head so much, that's. And then you immediately drop into the experience. So I love that this can kind of do all of it. So it's interesting about people locking in certain scents because I noticed that too in my life. I'll drive past something or smell something, like, oh, that reminds me of whatever the gas smells. Indonesia. I was driving somewhere, I was like 20 years ago, I smelled like petrol or something.

It's true. I have memories from petroleum.

But you're like, remember where you're at. But I think that's a really interesting.

Or wet asphalt. You know when you're a kid and it rains and you're outside. I don't know.

I know. No, it's true. We don't pay much attention to it. So. I love that you lock this in with your wife. That's sweet.

The thing I like about it too is it'll bring up parts of memory that aren't like your visual or known memory. It's really like the subconscious feel and like the feel at memory and it'll bring up emotion as opposed to just like the visual. Kind of like remembrance of something powerful.

Right. It gets us out of our head really to think. I love that it brings up a different part of it. Now, what about this is an aphrodisiac, like how they say, like cannabis has been used as an aphrodisiac in so many cultures and stuff. What do you guys think about aphrodisiacs?

It's a ongoing.

It's a funny word. It's like pheromones.

It's a fun conversation because you know all. There's an encyclopedia of aphrodisiacs, which is a really phenomenal book. And it looks at a couple hundred plants that humans have figured out over the few millennia that we've been figuring these things out how. How these plants work with the human body in the bedroom. So we've been at this for a while. I mean, we've been trying to use plants to get off for a really long time.

Like a long. Like a long.

A lot. Much longer than. Than Viagra has been around for. We've been sniffing plants and getting roots out of the ground and being like, I wonder what this is going to do for me. This kind of looks like a phallus. I wonder if it's going to make me hard. I mean, that's where it began. So we're still in there in that same place, like wondering what is to turn on and how is this going to function for me. And we'll do it for everyone. We always want everything to do it for everyone. Every time.

Exactly.

But unfortunately with sex it's not going to work every time. You can't reproduce great sex by just reproducing the activity.

Exactly what happened last time, step by step. That's true. Well, you guys are making good dent in it. I love what for is doing and how much you're helping people you guys are wonderful too, to know and to work with and to know you, Matt. And just to see this grow. And everyone's like, talks about forgiven. I'm like, I know, Matt. I'm a born to start and you're kicking ass.

This is exciting. I mean, we think there's so much more to come that's going to be revealed from this relationship that's happening right now between people using this plan, all these unique and really intimate ways and then sharing it with each other on social and like communicating. It's just all ground up.

Yeah. People want to know more. Yeah. It's a great time. So you guys can all check it out. Your website's great. They can get on your website.

They can. We are able to sell Awaken and future CBD products that are coming from industrial hemp globally so we can ship worldwide our THC products. You have to visit California, Colorado, come visit.

We have a good time here. We have a good time here. But I think just starting with this, it's great. So emails, we have Matthew and Kiana here from fior. They're going to help me. Okay. So I love answering your questions on the show. It's why I exist on the planet. So if you have a question you want me to answer, you can text ask Emily all one word to 797979. You get a quick form, you fill that out and as always, include your name, your age, where you live and how you listen to the show. Okay. This is actually about endometriosis, so I thought this would be very helpful. You guys can answer this. Help me answer this. This is from Madeline 20 in London, and it's about endometriosis. So I thought, how perfect you guys are here to help. Hi, Emily. I'm a bisexual woman and I've been experiencing pain during penile intercourse. I was diagnosed with endometriosis earlier this year and have had an operation to try to help. But it's been five months and I still can't have penile intercourse without excruciating pain. This makes it really difficult to casually hook up with guys as I feel like there's a lot of disappointment. And not to mention it's a real mood killer. This is leading me to think I should start exclusively sleeping with women. These experiences have been less painful and more pleasurable. Please let me know what you think. The doctors don't seem to regard this as a serious problem with these doctors. Oh, my God, so much. I mean, I was thinking definitely she could see a physical therapist, a pelvic floor therapist. We recently had Heather Jeffcoat on the show. Do you know she is. She's a pelvic floor specialist and she talked just a lot about helping women with pain. How we have this. Not only are we disconnected from our vaginas, but our whole pelvic, the entire region is just so confusing to us. And doctors are not really trained in this area that much. So I think that I'm not sure which doctors aren't regarding it as a serious problem. But I would tell everyone listening that if you go to a doctor and they're saying you don't really have a problem, luckily there's a lot of other kinds of doctors you can go to, especially when it comes to pelvic floor pain, endometriosis, all this pain that women are suffering from. So I'm so glad she wrote. And now that we were just talking about this. Kiana, what do you think?

A couple thoughts. So my first is what's happening when you're with women versus when you're with men that's making it not painful. Because if there's insertion there, I mean.

There sounds like it's insert. She says it's with penile insertion, but.

You can have insertion with women. So is there something that's happening differently emotionally or if there's more warm up or there's more something happening in the nervous system and her response to men versus being with women, a feeling of safety. So those are all things I would consider. I also think endometriosis is really linked into hormonal health. And there's been some great benefits from modifying your diet. There's an endometriosis diet that you can look up.

Great.

There's other things that you can do that can help detoxify the system to really balance out to make some of the effects of endometriosis less painful. The other thing I would say is experiment with topicals that can be pain relieving. Like awaken, like we were talking about.

Awaken sounds like. I mean, because you already mentioned it.

Exactly.

You've heard some.

Quite a few women with endometriosis.

She's in London.

Yeah.

Can she get this?

She can get it.

Okay, cool. I think try this. Try see a pelvic floor specialist if you can in London because they can also give you. Right. Would you think that would be helpful for her? Like, I'm not. Different exercises, different ways to move it, to understand it.

Pelvic pain, it's a complex thing. It can be neural, it can be psychological, it can be Emotional, it can be obviously physical with the imbalance of the endometrioma is growing outside of the uterus.

So good advice. Okay, thank you, Madeline, for emailing us. Leslie. Know how it goes. Okay, this is from Emily, 28, in New York. My current boyfriend of two years was the first male to give me an orgasm through oral sex. Lucky for me, it's his favorite. I was always able to orgasm by myself. He's been wanting me to orgasm with him inside me. I've told him that only, like 30% of women can reach climax through penetration alone. But here's the problem. When he uses clitoral stimulation, when he's inside me, I'm distracted. It's as if I can either focus on his penis inside me or on clitoral stimulation, not both. Why can't I feel both at the same time? And yes, I can orgasm when I use a toy that's both internal and external. I've been tried slowing down and breathing, but it's almost like my brain can only process one sensation at a time. Is this typical? How can I combat this, if at all? Thanks so much. Love your show and all that you do for the world. Sounds like Emily and I can relate to this too. I kind of used to. To feel this way about 69, that position, because I'm like, either I'm giving or receiving. I can't do both. You're going down on me. I'm taking it. Or I'm gonna give you a killer blowjob. But I just. They're the boat. I don't know what to do here. So I totally understand this. So I think, like, for Emily, like, she's probably still in her head a lot because obviously she's orgasmic and she can experience a lot of pleasure. And so I was thinking maybe she could try having a clitoral orgasm first when he's inside of her, but doesn't have to focus on his penis necessarily. She could also be stimulating her own clitoris and not have him do it so she can control when it's happening. And I'm wondering, you know, what different types of toys she's using with both stimulations. Because a lot of times what I tell women, if they can have something on their own using a toy, their hands transfer that to a partner. So how can you be sitting or moving and use his penis in that same way so you can have those same kind of sensations and orgasm? And I also just like people to take the pressure off of how this is going to be. Like, she's so in her head with it that maybe just kind of take intercourse off the table or just focus on one at a time?

One at a time?

Yeah. What would you think?

You wanted to say something?

Yeah. You.

You, like, jumped on the defer to you. Well, I did want to encourage Emily to think about your orgasm being yours and your boyfriend didn't give it to me.

I was going to say that too. Thank you. When I read that, I didn't because sometimes I cut myself off and I was like, I don't want to do that. But yes, when I hear women say, he gave it to me, it's like.

I'm carrying around a bunch of orgasms in a bag, and I'm gonna hand them out to women. It's not the way.

It's not that way. Like you. Right, exactly. Like we are responsible for our own orgasms. Thank you for that clarification.

I would take the focus on orgasm off the table, even if there is penile intercourse. And I. For me, I would say something working with building sensation. So working with G spot stimulation and then working with clitoral and then moving back to G spot and then back to clitoris and really, like, easing out of this typical idea of what we have. Like, once we start having sex, like, that's the thing. We keep going with that pause in the middle of it. Increase your clitoral stimulation for a little while, and then go back towards G spot. Because the thing is, the way that engorgement works, sometimes the G crest, the urethral tissue, is the last to get totally engorged. And so depending on your level of arousal, it's something that gets sensitized more and more and more as your arousal heightens. So if you experience, experiment with that, then it might allow you to feel.

I love hearing that as a guy, because it's. You know, guys have performance anxiety, and we're like, oh, is this working? Is that working? The minute we think something's working, we go for it. It's like, oh, it's working. It's working. And, you know, it's interesting to hear you say that. It's beautiful the way you put it. But allowing for oscillation, you know, allowing for there to be, like, pulling back even when something feels really good, like edging, pulling back, and then going back to it and then pulling back and creating some space and some breath so you can actually start to feel what's happening, not just be overwhelmed with sensation like oscillation. That's a nice one.

That's good. It's A good one. And it's just a way of saying, like, I. I really would love people to stop thinking about. Sex is so linear. Like you were saying earlier. It just goes from foreplay. You know, we make out, then foreplay, then orgasm, then sex, then orgasm. And then we roll over and watch Netflix. I feel like it could be so many different things. Like, it can be, you start with your G spot and then go back or start with anything kissing and just different sensations and not be attached to what you think it should look like. And kind of tricking her how she's gotten used to this. So this has become her problem, you know?

Emily, be cool. Like, break it up. Like, just stop in the middle and, like, say, hey, I'm gonna go make some eggs. I'll be right back. And then come back and, like, you're. You caught up with the sensation. Like the sensation parade. It'd, like, run ahead and you're like. And so go make some eggs and come back and then get back down again.

Yeah. Learn to keep your arousal going. Keep that pilot light lit.

Yeah.

Okay, Great advice. We've got one more. I thought this was funny. Okay. Because it just. This is from Lee, 21 in California. Hello, Emily. Have you heard of herbs just such as long jack maca root or horny goat weed, which can all be used to boost libido? If so, would you recommend these, or do you have any advice on taking these herbs now? Let me go. What do you think, guys? I wouldn't take any of those.

I would talk to an herbalist, and I'm here up in San Francisco.

He's in California.

In California, I'm sure you can find your local herbalist and talk to them directly about these different herbs, because a lot of these herbs are known to help with arousal in men. But a lot of the stuff on late night TV turns out that they're grinding up other pharmaceuticals and putting them into these drugs, and there's amphetamines in them. There's a whole lot of risk associated with just jumping on the bandwagon for. For the next super herb in the bedroom. So I would talk to an herbalist and find out the history of these herbs and how they're used and how maybe they're used alongside other herbs to increase their efficacy. And then experiment slowly and obviously make sure you talk to a doctor if you've got a heart condition, if any other things are going on that you want to be concerned about, because sometimes when you increase vasodilation for erection, you're also Going to increase the risk of heart attack.

Right.

So these are, you know, because they're. They're working. Right. We're often thinking, oh, it's a plant. So I don't to worry about it. Well, perhaps there's less risk, but there's certainly still risk if it's active. It's active.

Yeah. It's not actual goat. He's a horny goat. What they do with this goat and he's eating weed. I don't know. It's not legit. Right. So, yeah, I guess they're tough for all these. This is what's advertised on TV you get at 7 11. Like the color those pills. Like, you guys don't buy that stuff.

Yeah. And I mean, maca's really well known, but it's an adaptogenic, so it's again, working with the nervous system to help mitigate stress. And adaptogen means it helps your body do what it needs to do. So if you're stressed, it'll bring your stress levels down. But if you need more energy, it'll give you more energy. And sex hormones play such a big role in libido. And I would say, along with talking with an herbalist, get your hormones checked out. Because thyroid, testosterone, things that really feed into what we call libido are really sometimes biochemical.

Yeah, exactly. I feel like hormones are not discussed enough either, and we don't understand enough about them because it's harder to test hormones. And so I just think that a lot of the things that we attribute to, I don't know, even like depression, anxiety, whatever we're experiencing, a lot of it is hormones.

You can go to a functional medicine doctor and then do a hormone panel.

Exactly.

That's. Yeah, I've been all over that. I just started doing that. I have like, pee on a stick like five times a day or something. I'd like set my. Have you ever done that? I'd like set. Set my clock. But I feel like I'll let you know, everyone, if you want me to read my panels. I'll read it in a really like, deep, sexy voice. I'd be like, dim the lights. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, hello, I got my feedback. My estrogen levels are peaking. Okay. So that's all we have time for. But I have a quick question for you guys. Since we sort of are like at the kind of the forefront of how the cannabis industry now, like, I feel like it is a little bit still like the wild west. Where do you guys see the cannabis industry going in the next five to 10 years.

I'd like to talk about where it's going in the next 500 years, but we'll have to come back on another episode.

You will come back. I love you. I've been wanting you on the show for so long. This is such a treat.

What's happening with the cannabis industry? I think just looking at our experience over the past five years, which in the cannabis industry is like cat years, it's like literally feels like 50.

Literally. Right.

I think we're going to see a lot of people adopting cannabis that. Otherwise, like my mom, who said no.

Right?

No, I know that's not okay.

My grandma, too.

Yeah.

And, you know, they. They've already heard the stories. It's getting more normalized, and it's really going to hit when they have the direct experience for themselves. But right now, it's like, people need to keep an open mind. The heart's open. They're hearing all these beneficial stories. So I think if you looked at the trajectory and you look at the trend, it's a plant that's here to stay. It perhaps has more to offer our species than many other plants that we've discovered. And it's like saying, hey, I'm right here, and I grow really fast and, like, and I. I love you.

Right?

So I think that's. It's a silly hippie thing to say.

No, it is, but it's really true. I mean, it's true.

People don't, like, you know, someone that loves you, they care about you. They offer you ways to, like, be happier and be healthier and have more pleasure and less pain. Like, this plant does that in every instance. So I don't know, every 10 years from now. I don't know. A plant in every bedroom.

Right. Like I said, we don't have, I would say, like, a lube on every nightstand and plants in every bedroom. Because I do feel like a lot with the. We hear so much about the pharmaceutical industries, and I wonder, I think that. That now might be the plant's time to shine and people can start to really kind of look at it, because right now I'm expecting everyone to go out and whatever they want to do today, it might be the first time they've heard it talked about in a really intelligent way and kind of crossing all. You know, you guys know a lot about it and to kind of just kind of. Maybe I'll look into that. I think there's new options. There's more options.

It's been taboo and hidden in a lot of ways. For a long time. So I think bringing it out into the open allows us to do medical studies, allows us to normalize it in our culture a bit so that people who really were brought up in an era where cannabis was the gateway drug and it was marijuana and wheat, you know, is this like, not a good thing? That's really changing.

That's what I like to see too. It is changing and it's healing.

Yeah. And so we're not just basically things on anecdotal evidence from our clients. Like, so we believe that we have to pursue the scientific method and go through the ring, so to speak, for proving out efficacy as a medicine. And so we actually have the first of its kind observational study of around 500 women using our vaginal suppository for menstrual pain that we'll be talking about in the next month or two. So we do want to see that move along in tandem. You know, the medical science is usually five to 10 years behind where the. The knowledge.

True. If that's even more. Right.

Yeah.

It's a slow train.

So we don't want people to wait to get the benefits because we know this is such a safe plant because we've been using it for so, so long. So everyone can get the benefits now and the doctors will catch up and say we told. I mean, everyone confirmed.

We already know.

Right. Exactly. Well, thanks for doing all the work for all of us. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. I know. Oh, well. Sex and drug. Sex and we now, it's tough work, sex and drugs, but we have good. You know, at the end of the.

Day, it's, well, when you're ready for your next week, we can start a band. Then we can say we did it. We got sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Exactly. Oh, my God, I love it. I'm in. I'm in.

You got a great voice, Emily.

We can do it. I don't know if I can sing yet, but, you know, we're gonna leave.

You guys tonight with a little song that Emily wrote.

Oh, the pressure. The pressure. Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

This has been awesome, you guys. Everyone check out foria for your wellness. Everyone check out for your wellness dot com. More information on the website in the show notes. Thank you both and thanks everyone for listening. Was it good for you? Email me feedbackexwithemily.com.

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