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How much attention do you bring to your masturbation? How much creativity do you allow yourself in the time you spend with solo touch?

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In this episode we explore Mindful Masturbation – or as our mentor Annie Sprinkle calls it “medibation!” What happens when we treat masturbation as an important experience to pay more attention to – and perhaps even treat it as a meditation practice?

What happens when we bring the qualities of non-judgment and non-striving to masturbation, instead of rushing our way to orgasm?

This episodes pays homage to International Masturbation Month, created by the good folks at Good Vibrations over 20 years ago, and opens our theme for the month, Mindful Sex May.

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Podcast Transcription for Mindful Masturbation Episode

Podcast transcripts are generated with love by humans, and thus may not be 100% accurate. Time stamps are included so you can cross reference or jump to any point in the podcast episode above. THANKS to the members of our Pleasure Pod for helping make transcripts and the rest of our free offerings happen! If you love what we offer, find ways to show your love and dive deeper with us here: SHOW SOME LOVE

Chris Rose: 00:00 Hi, welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 00:04 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 00:05 We are the Pleasure Mechanics, and on this podcast, we have explicit and soulful conversations about every facet of human sexuality. Come on over to PleasureMechanics.com, where you will find our complete podcast archive, as well as a tremendous wealth of resources just waiting for you to enjoy. Go to PleasureMechanics.com/Free, and enroll for our free online course to get started. That’s PleasueMechanics.com/Free.

Chris Rose: 00:38 All right. On today’s show, we are kicking off a new theme for the month of May. The month of May is traditionally International Masturbation Month. International Masturbation Month was started like, over 20 years ago by the good folks at Good Vibrations, and if today you’re kind of rolling your eyes, that why do we need a masturbation month, it kind of shows how much sex culture has changed over the past 20 years, because Good Vibrations started masturbation month and the masturbatathon as a promotion for the idea of masturbation, to de-stigmatize masturbation as a reason to talk about masturbation in the press. Because back then, there weren’t news articles about masturbation and normalizing, especially female masturbation, and things like vibrators. Good Vibrations, 20 years ago, was on the cutting edge of changing sex culture, and opening up the dialogue about masturbation.

Chris Rose: 01:44 And now, you can find vibrators in Walmart, and drug stores, and you can find lubricant at these places, and the conversation about masturbation is changed. So, thank you to Good Vibrations, and it just shows the power of dialogue and conversation in changing sex culture, and in changing how we feel about these acts like masturbation.

Chris Rose: 02:17 For us here at Pleasure Mechanics, we really want to celebrate May as Mindful Sex May. We want to spend this month highlighting some of the applications of mindful sex, some of the benefits of mindful sex, and invite you in to the practice of mindful sex with us. Because as much as we can talk about this, and you can listen about it, what really will start to change things in your life is practice, and we are going to share with you what we mean by practice and mindful sex practices. But we really want you to do it with us, we want these skills to develop in your body, in your life, and to do that, you need to practice with us, and we are very much in this practice with you.

Chris Rose: 03:06 So, Masturbation May and Mindful Sex May are coming together in this episode, and we’re going to talk about mindful masturbation. Yes?

Charlotte Rose: 03:19 Yes. So, what does mindful masturbation mean? What are we talking about? This is the act of paying attention to the sensations in our body as we are getting aroused, as we are naked, as we are touching our body, we are really paying full attention to the experience and the sensations within our body.

Chris Rose: 03:41 And when you hear that, paying attention as you build arousal during masturbation, take a moment to think about how much you actually do that. Where are you placing your attention during masturbation? How are you treating masturbation? Are you rushing through it? Is it a functional act? Is it just to set to a goal of an orgasm, a release and ejaculation, or is it an experience you are really giving to yourself and paying attention to?

Chris Rose: 04:10 And all of a sudden, when we look at it through this lens, we notice that we are not giving ourselves the kind of experience that we are capable of. We are not being the lover that we can be for ourselves, and we’re all in this. When we talk about mindful sex, when we talk about mindful masturbation, these are practices that we can all bring to our sex life in order to explore, and experience and experiment.

Charlotte Rose: 04:40 And expand our orgasms and the strength of them.

Chris Rose: 04:44 Explore, experience, experiment.

Charlotte Rose: 04:47 Expand.

Chris Rose: 04:48 Expand.

Charlotte Rose: 04:48 Because that is a side effect, as well as experiencing it more fully, that many people will experience stronger orgasms, as well, which is a fun side effect, though that isn’t entirely why we’re going for it.

Chris Rose: 05:02 So, I just want to say if this feels really far away from your experience, that is where most of us are at. We are not taught to pay attention to our sexuality. We are not taught to pay attention to our arousal, and to really drop in to our sensations, and savor all of those sensations, and focus exclusively on arousal building into our body to the point of orgasm and release. We’re not taught how to do that, so we have to learn and we have to practice together. And when we think about mindfulness, so Charlotte named the act of paying attention. So, paying attention. The other piece of mindfulness is paying attention without judgment.

Chris Rose: 05:45 So, paying attention, but then paying attention without judgment is the real invitation here, and we all carry so much judgment about our sexualities, about how we masturbate, about what we think about when we masturbate, about how little or how much sensation we’re feeling, about our orgasms. All of these things, right. So much judgment, so much shame, and so mindful masturbation is not only the invitation to pay more exquisite attention to your sensations, it’s also the invitation to pay attention to your thoughts, to your judgements, and to try to come to a more neutral place so that you open up all of that space to pay attention to the pleasure, to give yourself permission to feel more pleasure, and relaxation and release from your self touch.

Chris Rose: 06:39 So, the practice of mindful sex is the practice of paying attention without judgment during states of high arousal. So, this is in application of mindfulness mediation, which invites you to pay attention without judgment while doing a sitting meditation, or a walking meditation, or a body scan. How do we apply those skills to the heightened states of arousal, of desire, of sexual connection, of the vulnerability of being intimate with other people? So, this is kind of an arena we get to practice our mindfulness, and reap the befits of mindfulness, but also then expand our erotic experience.

Chris Rose: 07:24 And in the whole category of mindful sex, mindful masturbation, for a lot of people, is a good place to start. And so, we’re going to invite you in to some of the practices of mindful masturbation, paint the picture of what that might look like, and invite you just to experiment a little, get curious a little about what might happen for you if you change up how you masturbate.

Charlotte Rose: 07:49 And as you were saying, it makes so much sense to practice all of these skills solo, because you can pay attention to your own experience, you can pay attention to all the nuances that are going on in your mind, that are going on in your body, and try and tame your thoughts, and be present to the experiences in your body, and practice, and deepen in feeling, and being kind to yourself, and not being judgemental, and not stopping your pleasure because of the thoughts that are going on. It is just the most wonderful place to begin and practice these skills.

Chris Rose: 08:30 Well, certainly there are fewer distractions when you’re solo. It’s a smaller arena. It’s a one person arena, instead of a two or three, or more person arena. And so, there’s less to pay attention to, but it’s not simple. And for a lot of people, one of the reasons we speed through masturbation, and we make it so functional, is so we don’t have to be alone with ourselves. And so, we don’t have to confront our thoughts, so we don’t have to confront our own judgements. A lot of people short circuit themselves with porn, or erotica, or fantasy to get through it as fast as possible.

Chris Rose: 09:11 And so, you’re painting this picture of this wonderful laboratory where we get to savor and experiment with our arousal. But for many people, that feels really far away, or inaccessible. So, what are the first steps here? The first steps are to really inventory how you masturbate now. What is the level of attention and intention you’re bringing to your masturbation? And again, for most of us, if we’re honest about this, it is purely functional.

Chris Rose: 09:41 We reach for our vibrator, we reach for our favorite lube, we jerk off, we wack off, we clench a vibrator to our clit, and we cum. That is just the truth of it. Most people do not make an art out of masturbation, because they have not been invited to do so, they have not been given permission to do so, and when we slow this process down, we have to then confront all of the stuff that is in our way of savoring our self touch, and treating ourselves like the lover we know we deserve.

Chris Rose: 10:15 Right? And so, as you do an honest compassionate inventory of your current masturbation practices, start to notice where you learned how to masturbate. Did you learn how to masturbate under duress? Were you always rushing, were you always quiet? Were you worried or scared about getting caught? What would the repercussions be if you were caught in your masturbation? And know that, that is your programming around masturbation. You have been taught a specific set of things about masturbation, and you might be listening to this and never even masturbate. I hear all the time from people, or from partners of people who don’t masturbate. That is a practice, right, the absence of masturbation is also a practice.

Chris Rose: 11:02 So, notice for yourself how frequently, how much time do you give yourself, how much permission to play. Do you always do the same thing? Okay, and so, for most of us when we do that inventory, it’s kind of like, oh shit, we’re a lousy lover to ourselves. We are. We don’t give ourselves the kind of like, loving attention and time we would give to a new beloved. Right? That spaciousness, and the like, I’ll do anything for you, and how do you want to be please. Oh, you want your neck licked for 10 minutes, I’ll lick that neck like a lollipop. That attitude that we bring to a beloved of generosity and of giving, what piece of that can we bring to ourselves?

Chris Rose: 11:53 And so, mindful masturbation starts by treating masturbation as something that is worth taking the time for, and then setting some sort of intention. And this doesn’t have to get super woo-woo, right. The intention can just be like, every so often as I’m watching porn, I’m going to close my eyes, and focus on the sensations inside for a few minutes. Just every once in a while, I’m going to close my eyes, and focus elsewhere. And that is honoring the fact that your attention is mostly focused on the visual field of watching porn, and you’re going to experiment with dropping into your body and noticing how your hand feels on your penis, noticing how your pelvic muscles are feeling, noticing where your breath is. So, taking that focus of attention, and dropping it within. It can start that simply.

Charlotte Rose: 12:46 Dr. Laurie Mintz talks about mindfulness as the experience of your head and your body being in the same place, and I really love that because it’s so simple, and we have that visual of, oh, right, yeah, sometimes my mind is off all over the place, or as you’re saying, I’m paying attention to the visual of something on a screen, or words if you’re listening to erotica.

Chris Rose: 13:11 Well, this is where it gets interesting, because some people would say that if you’re watching porn or listening to erotica, or even fantasizing, you’re not practicing mindful sex. Some people would say fantasy is taking you out of your body. But for me, fantasy, like your brain is part of your body, and arousal that starts in your brain, there’s a very sexy word for it, psychogenic arousal. Fuck yeah. Psychogenic arousal creates very real arousal in the body. So, for me, if you’re masturbating, and you’re fantasizing, or you’re watching porn, you are using specific tools to create arousal, and it becomes mindful masturbation when you are doing that on purpose.

Charlotte Rose: 13:57 And with your full self.

Chris Rose: 13:59 Yeah, and you’re not just on autopilot.

Charlotte Rose: 14:01 Yeah.

Chris Rose: 14:01 And so, you’re saying, all right, I’m going to use the visual porn, but I’m also going to pay attention to how my body feels, and I’m going to notice how much I’m paying attention to the screen versus my body, and then maybe over time that field of attention starts to drift, because you noticed that paying attention to your body feels really good.

Chris Rose: 14:21 One of the skills, one of the practices we really want to invite you into is breathing, and mindful sex, the mindful sex course is where all of our erotic breathwork practices are hosted. And I’ve said so many times on this podcast, and I really want you to try it for yourself, the next time you are masturbating, start a deep relaxed breathwork. We teach you how to do that, we guide you through it. There’s audio guide, so you can practice it a few times, so that then when you’re masturbating, you can try it, and this is one of those things like, if I had a farm to bet, I would bet the farm on the premise that if you start taking deep relaxed breaths next time you masturbate, your experience will change.

Chris Rose: 15:11 And it will change for the more pleasurable. So much will change. I could go on right now about all of the things that will change, but just do it. Just do it. Notice what happens when next time you’re masturbating, you put your attention on taking deep relaxing breaths. Get as much oxygen in your body, and then pay attention to what happens to your arousal. What happens? What is your body capable of feeling? And this is the invitation we can just step into over and over again.

Chris Rose: 15:43 I was masturbating the other day, and I had like, all of this tension in my body. I was feeling really stressed out. And I got to the point where I was like, at this place, like I had already had an orgasm, but my sensation was just so big, and it felt stuck, and I felt like I couldn’t possibly go on, but I couldn’t possibly stop now, and so I heard my own voice in my head, and I was like, just breathe, baby, and I went into this big deep breathwork, and I not only got to have like, thunderous wonderful orgasms, but the space that it created for me was such a relief to all of that tension. And it just felt like the most cathartic orgasms of my … like, it just felt so right, and I got there because I focused my attention instead of in my head, in the like, oh my god, what am I feeling, how am I ever going to get out of this stuckness? This is scary. That anxiety that can come with arousal that is so familiar to so many of us. You’re aroused, you’re getting excited, and then anxiety kicks in. Fear. Worry. Panic. It’s right there. And what brings us back to excitement and arousal, is often the breath.

Chris Rose: 17:02 So, learn this with us. Practice this with us. And masturbation is the perfect place to start breathing and experimenting with that, and collecting data for yourself, so that next time with your partner, and anxiety kicks in, you’re like, oh, I know what to do. I have a tool. I have a strategy.

Chris Rose: 17:21 So, so much of this, when we talk about mindful masturbation, we can get into this like, use it as a laboratory so you can have better partnered sex, and that is true. But it is also just for you, and in and of itself is a full experience that doesn’t need to be justified.

Chris Rose: 17:40 And again, if I had another farm to bet, I would bet that farm on the premise that if you start masturbating with more attention and focus on giving yourself pleasure and joy, that your life will be nourished by that practice, that it will feel beneficial to the rest of your life, that those will be minutes well spent. There’s only one way to prove me wrong.

Charlotte Rose: 18:06 Part of what you can be paying attention to during mindful masturbation is really paying attention to the sensations, and not being concerned or striving for orgasm. Let it be a place where you’re not that concerned if you get there or not, but you’re really, really, honestly exploring the sensations as the arousal, ebbs and flows. As you try different techniques to create arousal, as you explore and experiment with different moves as it were than you would normally do, so that this can be a time and a space where you’re not trying to head straight for orgasm and doing what you know works for you, but you’re really playing and being curious about what new sensations you can physically create with your body, as well as what you are paying attention to internally. Does that make sense? That externally, you’re trying different things physically, and then you’re also internally paying attention to that really deeply with a spirit of curiosity, not worrying where it goes.

Chris Rose: 19:10 Right, and to highlight this, if we’re really goal oriented towards orgasm, we all have those strokes in those places that will get us there fastest. You know those strokes, you know those places. Your love might know those strokes and those places, and we can use those strokes and those places. We do not give up that knowledge when we open up a space to say I’m going to see what happens when I touch here, when I pinch here, when I push there. You can explore your genitals with, as Charlotte said, a spirit of curiosity, and discover new strokes and new places that also feel good, that unlock different kinds of sensations.

Chris Rose: 19:55 And it’s kind of amazing how much time we can spend touching our own genitals, but how limiting those routines can be. And so, one of the invitations of mindful sex is when we give up that goal orientation, and instead explore with this non-striving attitude, what knowledge, what wisdom becomes accessible to us?

Charlotte Rose: 20:21 I’m thinking of it as instead of taking the highway, you’re taking all of the side routes, and you’re exploring and checking it out, and looking at the view, and you know it’s going slower, and that’s fine, that’s part of that experience for the day.

Chris Rose: 20:34 You can turn off the GPS that will get you to the orgasm as fast as you can. The destination is turned off. What then becomes of the journey?

Charlotte Rose: 20:45 I think it’s a solid, solid, solid way to-

Chris Rose: 20:47 Solid metaphor.

Charlotte Rose: 20:54 So, we’re going to talk more about different attitudes we can hold in our mind as we are exploring masturbation and sex in another episode. But for now, it’s more than enough to start thinking about not judging ourselves, not striving, and trying to explore one’s body with what they call a beginners mind.

Chris Rose: 21:18 And that beginners mind, as a concept, is so powerful, but here in masturbation, let’s play with it and think about the joy and glee children have when they first discover masturbation, the kind of wonder and awe of being able to give yourself such pleasure. If we let go of all of the societal shaming and judgment about masturbation, and all of those messages, and we just get to this core truth of there are these ways I can stimulate my body that gives me tremendous pleasure and can lead to a really phenomenal experience called orgasm. Huh, that’s really cool. Like, what else can we do with our bodies? That’s a really neat super power we have. Let’s use it, and let’s use it with this spirit of glee.

Chris Rose: 22:15 When’s the last time you masturbated with a spirit of glee, and joy and wonder? So, trying bringing a little of that into your masturbation. And again, just notice, notice what happens when you change your attitude, and you change your intention. I’m going to spend 15 minutes just exploring how I can give my body pleasure. What then? It’s a different way of spending time with yourself than just rushing to give yourself a functional orgasm.

Charlotte Rose: 22:46 Which has merit, again, we will say. It is always a great thing to explore your pleasure, but this is a different thing, and worth doing, and worth giving yourself the chance to see what it’s like.

Chris Rose: 22:58 So, Charlotte, I want to kick this over to you, and I want to hear a little bit about your mindful masturbation practice, because I think part of what you do is you start before you ever get to your genitals, and you have kind of a whole ritual routine. Can you just walk people through that, and talk about why you do each part of it?

Charlotte Rose: 23:22 Sure. I normally start with a warm shower, and then-

Chris Rose: 23:27 Why?

Charlotte Rose: 23:27 Because it calms my body down. It tells me this is time to relax. That is a main tool I use for relaxation and for endings and beginnings, like you’ve completed the day, or now we’re moving into time that’s just for you.

Chris Rose: 23:43 Okay.

Charlotte Rose: 23:44 So, it’s an opening, it’s the beginning. I like to also have a clean body for any kind of sex stuff, because it takes a certain amount of my own anxiety away, so that’s a way of navigating things that distract me. I then massage my whole body, or as much of it as I feel like, because that helps my body relax, and calm, and brings all my attention into my muscles.

Chris Rose: 24:09 And at that point, are you putting on music, are you lighting candles? Do you do anything situationally?

Charlotte Rose: 24:15 I can do all of those things, and I can do none of them.

Chris Rose: 24:17 Okay.

Charlotte Rose: 24:18 It depends how much time I have, how much energy, what the space is like. I love to do all of that. The candles, the essential oils, the music. But getting the right music is always so mood dependent, so I definitely do, and sometimes if I’m just like, let’s get on with this, I can do it all without that.

Chris Rose: 24:36 Okay.

Charlotte Rose: 24:37 So, it depends how luxurious the event is. And then, I will dance. Sometimes I’ll reverse those two, and dance, and then massage myself. But I just will do some dancing, and there’s a lot of like, hip circles and thrusting, and just moving my body, and getting fluid in my bones and my muscles. It just feels good to me. It feels like I’m waking up my body, I am remember it’s there. I’m bringing attention to it. And then, I’ll move in to self touch that is all of my skin, my body before I get to breasts or genitals.

Charlotte Rose: 25:17 It’s about waking up everything, waking up the sensation, waking up the awareness, paying attention to the skin. The sensations, I just, I love it. And then, moving into genital touch, and breath, and clenching, and going through this whole process. It doesn’t actually have to take that much time. It might sound quite elaborate, and it can take ages, or it can be sort of more functional, and take less time. But I do really, really, really notice the difference in the amount of sensation I feel in my body. There are a few times where I’ve tried watching porn, or watching any kind of visual stuff, and it does feel like a short circuit for me, like I get turned on, but the amount I can feel in my genitals is so much less, and it’s quite dramatic.

Charlotte Rose: 26:08 And so, that’s been a really helpful thing to compare, and so I feel like I do end up having really lovely orgasms. I know that’s a long process.

Chris Rose: 26:17 Well, it’s your process.

Charlotte Rose: 26:19 It’s my process, yeah. It’s what I discovered over the years.

Chris Rose: 26:21 This is not a prescription. And in being your process, I want to highlight a few of the strategies you deploy, and then invite other people to find their strategies. So, you have found things like a preparatory shower, movement, dance, self touch, ritualizing it in some way with sensual details. All of these things contribute to a deeper experience of solo pleasure. Is that accurate?

Charlotte Rose: 26:51 Yeah, totally.

Chris Rose: 26:52 And so, for me, I can masturbate watching porn with a Hitachi Magic Wand and have big huge orgasms. No problem. Wonderful. Or I can devote more time, and in that devotion, there are things you discover, and I think that’s one of the points I want to make, is there’s nothing wrong with functional quick masturbation, and that too can be mindful. Like, jerking off to porn, using a vibrator, getting there quickly can be full of mindfulness, and you’re paying attention to sensations, and you’re countering any judgements that come up along the way, so we can honor the role of functional masturbation.

Chris Rose: 27:38 I feel like it’s often like, a sneeze, it just has to happen. But we can also honor the space, and give ourself permission to try other things too, to take this act of masturbation, and be like, you know what, I’m going to spend a little more time this evening. I’m going to devote a little bit more effort and attention into it, and see what opens up for me. Just see what you’re capable of, what your capacity is, what emotions want to be expressed. What does your body want to feel? Because sometimes I feel like masturbation is this time you’re giving to your body to feel what it needs to feel, to move what it needs to move, to express what it wants to express, but we need to open up that space for it. And that space involves these things, like relaxation, movement, stimulation. These ingredients.

Chris Rose: 28:35 So, for someone that might be a yoga class, a walk, then a shower, then masturbation. For someone else, lifting weights, and then masturbating. For someone else, going on a long run. Like, we all have our different ways of moving, we all have our different ways of relaxing, but if we think of this as kind of a template of relaxed transition out of your daily life, move your body a little bit, even if that means just wiggling in bed, and clenching your muscles, and un-clenching, or shaking your hips a little bit. Whatever level of movement is accessible, and joyful and pleasurable. And then, start layering in arousing sensation.

Chris Rose: 29:18 Notice what happens as you explore this template, as you bring your attention and your focus to the art of masturbation. What can you make possible for yourself? And then, start noticing the judgment and the shame that comes up. Because as soon as you say to yourself, I’m going to take more time to masturbate, I’m going to feel more feelings, I’m going to feel more of what my body is capable of, the voices will come. Like, who do you think you are? What do you … like, you think you’re some sex goddess? Like, who’s going to … Like, there’s going to be little judgey annoying voices that come up for you. What are they saying? What limiting factors are they putting on you, and what do you have to say to them?

Chris Rose: 30:01 Like, not today, Satan. Like, what do you respond to, and people, when these voices, when you’re programming tells you this is selfish, it’s hedonistic, it’s a waste of time? You’ll be insatiable, you’ll never be able to be pleased again. If you start using vibrators, you’ll get addicted. Your dick’s too small for you to feel anything anyway, no one’s going to want to ever be with you. Like, what do the judging voices say?

Charlotte Rose: 30:29 Those are so intense to hear out loud, but I know that so many of us say those things to ourselves often, and without even realizing that they are an external voice, they are how we talk to ourselves, and recognizing and seeing what we are communicating to ourself is so important, and then we can decide if we agree or not.

Chris Rose: 30:49 Right. Even the thing of like, dancing alone in your room. We can do that mindfully, so paying attention. What does it feel like to dance? But also, what judgments are coming up about that dancing? When you just do something as simple as put on a song you love, and try to move alone through space.

Charlotte Rose: 31:08 I love to do this with my eyes closed, and really focus just on how it feels, because it’s such a great moment to practice this, because there’s no one to perform for, there’s no one looking at you. You can’t even see yourself. It is literally just about how it feels to move in a way that feels good to you. That is the only intention.

Chris Rose: 31:28 And notice, another theme that we’ll just talk about more in depth on another episode, is this transition from going from sexual performance to being sexual. Huge, and that is a huge, huge intention of the mindful sex practices, of the mindful sex community, is how do we transition from performing sex, doing sex as we think it should be done, what we’re supposed to do? How do we transition from performing sex to being sexual beings on our own terms, in all of our glorious diversity, in all of the seasons of sexuality? How do we be sexual beings, and enjoy that more fully as we get out of the performativity?

Chris Rose: 32:15 All right, so mindful masturbation, I think we’ve covered a lot here. There’s way more to cover. It is in the course. One of the terms for this that I will just plant in your brain space, is medibation. Medibation, and medibation was coined by Annie Sprinkle, another one of our great mentors and friends, and she talked about medibation as the art of masturbating as meditation. And that’s so much about mindful sex, is what happens when we treat sex as a meditation? Something worth paying attention to and focusing on with our full being, and exploring what is there.

Chris Rose: 32:58 What wisdom? What benefits? What states can we open up when we start paying attention more fully to sexuality and during sexual arousal? If you’d like to join us in these practices, come on over to PleasureMechanics.com/Mindful. We have preloaded that with a listener only discount for the course. As always, if you need more financial assistance to make the course happen for you, just drop me an email. We are always happy to work with you. We want these practices to be available to everyone who is ready to experience them, and be in our community. Come on over to PleasureMechanics.com/Mindful to get started. We would love to have you, and if you love this show and want to support what we’re doing, Patreon.com/PleasureMechanics. That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N, Patreon.com/PleasureMechanics. The URL is in the show notes page, and join us with a sustaining monthly pledge.

Chris Rose: 34:01 I also just want to remind you that when you join the free course at PleasureMechanics.com/Free, you’ll also start getting our weekly newsletter, and this week in the newsletter, we are asking folks to let us know if you want to meet us in Los Angeles.

Charlotte Rose: 34:22 In August of 2019.

Chris Rose: 34:24 So, we have an opportunity to be in Los Angeles in August in 2019, and we discovered that there’s the opportunity to offer you an in person weekend experience. But we need to know if enough folks are interested in this, that we should move forward with planning it. I have been looking at taking over like, a beautiful Hollywood venue, so we can get together, do some mindful sex practices in person. We can guide you in some really wonderful experiential experiences. You can meet each other, and we can share a phenomenal weekend. Are you in to it? Are you interested? Is this something you can make happen? Got to PleasureMechanics.com/Live, L-I-V-E. PleasureMechanics.com/Live, and take the quick survey, and let us know if you are interested and could realistically join us in Los Angeles in August of this year.

Chris Rose: 35:27 And there will be a place to tell us if you can’t make it to Los Angeles, what city would work for you? We are starting to put feelers out and think about offering the in person experiences you are all asking for, and we will start gathering this data finding out where you are, what cities you would like to travel to, to join us for an incredible weekend.

Chris Rose: 35:50 Yeah? Come on over to PleasureMechanics.com/Live, and let us know if you can meet us in Los Angeles, or do we have to come to Australia? I mean, we will. All right. PleasureMechanics.com/Live, let us know if we can meet up with you in person. Yes? Cool.

Charlotte Rose: 36:11 Love it. Love it.

Chris Rose: 36:12 I am Chris.

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Are you ready? Wet and ready? In this podcast episode we debunk the myths about vaginal wetness, arousal and female engorgement. Get ready to pull apart wetness, arousal, sexual excitation and other important facets of female sexuality (and other vulva owners and those who love them!)

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Transcript of Podcast Episode on Wet and Ready: Debunking Myths About Vaginal Wetness and Arousal

Chris Rose: 00:01 Hi welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 00:06 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 00:07 We are the pleasure mechanics. And on this podcast we have soulful yet explicit conversations about every facet of human sexuality. Come on over to PleasureMechanics.com where you will find our complete podcast archive. And while you are there, go to PleasureMechanics.com/free and sign up for our free online course to get started implementing our proven strategies into your erotic landscape. That’s PleasureMechanics.com/free. On today’s episode we are going to be talking about vaginal wetness, wet and ready myths, all of the myths around vaginal lubrication, and what arousal means in terms of wetness. We are going to dive into the pools of vulva waters. Before we do I want to thank our sponsor for this episode, LubeLife. LubeLife offers Amazon.com’s best selling lubricants. Go to Amazon.com and search #LubeLife to find a great value on a great new bottle of lube for your bedside table. Use the code 20mechanics for 20% off your order, or use the links provided in the show notes page.

Chris Rose: 01:28 All right, we are going to be talking about the myths of wet and ready. Wet and ready meaning all of the ideas and myths surrounding the idea of female arousal. Female meaning people with vulvas right. So we’re going to be talking about vulvas and vaginas, and the people that have them. And one shortcut for that is females or women. So the myths around female arousal and wetness. This idea that if she is turned on the pussy will be wet and that is somehow a barometer or an indicator of arousal let alone consent. So this kind of is the parallel myth to the he’s erect, therefore must be aroused myth. And we’ve talked about that in other episodes, we’ll continue to talk about that one. These kind of very false myths about what arousal looks like in different bodies. So we’re going to be talking about vaginal wetness, lubrication, the kind of more anatomical biological truths about the different fluids that come out of vulvas, vaginas, and urethras. And what we need to know about that, how to kind of manage it with a little bit more honesty and passion. And yeah, kind of debunk some myths, install some new knowledge and dive into the wonderful gushing waters of the vulva, and pussy, and yoni, and vage, vagayjay.

Charlotte Rose: 03:16 Whatever you call it.

Chris Rose: 03:19 What do you call it? What’s your favorite word?

Charlotte Rose: 03:21 I really struggle with this sadly. I feel like I don’t have a word any longer that I really love. Which feels like a big gap obviously in linguistic joys of talking about …

Chris Rose: 03:38 Isn’t that sad that we have so many beautiful words for so many beautiful things but so many of us don’t have a word we love for our genitals? Do you like pussy?

Charlotte Rose: 03:48 I don’t.

Chris Rose: 03:49 Yoni?

Charlotte Rose: 03:50 No.

Chris Rose: 03:50 No. Vulva?

Charlotte Rose: 03:53 Yeah I mean …

Chris Rose: 03:55 That’s so funny you’re struggling. We’ve done 320 some episodes of this podcast. What is the word you use for what’s between your legs?

Charlotte Rose: 04:04 I know. I mean I use vulva most often because I feel like I like the letter V and I like how it sounds, and I like that it is truth telling.

Chris Rose: 04:17 I feel like in this conversation we tend to use very specific words. So we use vulva, labia, vagina, clitoris, clitoral hood. Like we tend use more specific words rather than one word for the whole thing.

Charlotte Rose: 04:30 Right. And I also feel like I want to name the specific anatomy so that it’s also more inclusive of bodies that may not identify as women or female, but do have the parts that we’re talking about. So I feel happy with vulva. I understand some people find that too technical, but I think the technicality’s are kind of hard.

Chris Rose: 04:50 Yeah. So in this conversation we’ll try to be as specific as possible with the anatomy we’re talking about, and know that that anatomy can be found on different ranges of bodies. And a lot of people use vagina as the shorthand, which is actually super limiting because vagina is just the muscular sheath that runs from the outside of the body up to the cervix. That’s all it refers to, is this one entry point from the vaginal opening to the cervix. And that’s like defining a car by one of its doors or something. We like to think of the entire sexual system, and the entire sexual system of course being the whole human body and the social system we live in and the universe itself. But when we talk about the sexual system mostly we’re talking about the pelvis and the interlocking web of the pelvic muscles, the pelvic blood flow, the nerves, the nerves that then go up to the spinal cord and the brain, the anatomy of fleshy bits. So the penis or the clitoris, the perineum, all of the muscles there. The anus is included in our idea of the sexual system. So really all of the sexual anatomy and reproductive anatomy if you’re including reproduction in this definition. And all of the bits that connect to it. So this is the perspective we’re looking at this with.

Chris Rose: 06:23 So let’s talk about the fluids of one presentation of the sexual system in humans, which is the vulva, the vagina, the clitoris. So when we talk about getting wet, what does that mean when we say she’s wet? And I could reach over in the office now and pull some erotica off the shelf and find passage after passage that references wetness and, oh when I saw his throbbing member I got wet. So why do we have this vision of wetness as this shorthand for arousal, and what do we mean by that?

Charlotte Rose: 07:03 And why do we talk about members? Why do we … But we won’t get sidetracked by that. We got to stay focused.

Chris Rose: 07:09 You know I have a whole list. I have a whole file of the other podcasts I want to produce some time, and one of them is deconstructing erotica and pulling apart some of this language. In another lifetime. All right so, wetness. When we talk about that, usually what we’re talking about is vaginal lubrication. An idea of a gushing forth of slick slippery wetness from the vagina as part of the arousal process in people with vulvas and vaginas. So that turns out to be just one kind of fluid that comes from the vaginal and vulva area. So I want to first just knock a few others off the table so we know what we’re not talking about, and then talk about this process of vaginal lubrication and fluids when aroused. Does that make sense?

Charlotte Rose: 08:07 Sounds good.

Chris Rose: 08:08 Cool. So there’s like vaginal sweating.

Charlotte Rose: 08:11 Which is something I don’t think we think about much.

Chris Rose: 08:13 No. Right, like there’s tit sweat, and underarm sweat, and foot sweat. And different human bodies have different numbers of sweat glands. We all have this idea there’s really sweaty human beings, and there’s human beings that barley glisten. And a lot of that is just genetics and just like personal stuff. So different people have different amounts of vaginal sweat and genital sweat in general, and butt sweat if we’re in the area. So just identify that as a thing. And sometimes that presents like in the creases of the thighs, sometimes it’s really like just … We all have different presentations of genital sweat.

Charlotte Rose: 08:55 Yeah but if you’ve never thought about that, just as a curiosity and a fascination next time you workout go to the bathroom afterwords and just feel, because it’s interesting just to learn more about your body. And just sort of notice like oh, is that what vaginal sweat feels like? Just for your own information.

Chris Rose: 09:10 Well it can be part of a full body sweat. Again, like at a gym or sauna, or a hot day. But it can also be kind of different sweats can be specific. Like different people have different anxiety sweats. Or sweats related to different emotions. And there’s angry sweats that present in different sweat glands. Maybe we’ll do a whole episode about sweat some time.

Charlotte Rose: 09:35 It’s fascinating.

Chris Rose: 09:35 Totally. I kind of like saying it again and again. So how wet do you get from sweat? And again this conversation we’re going to focus on vulvas and vaginas, but a lot of this information is very relevant to all genital members. Because again, we all have more in common than different when we’re talking about sweat glands, and blood flow, and musculature, and nerves, and all of these things. The more we talk about genitals on this podcast and the more you can look at images, we all have way more in common than different. It’s just kind of different in the architecture of the same elements. All right, so sweat glands. And as I’m talking again, my mouth is getting a little dry, because I’m talking about it. So that’s another kind of wetness, is the mucus membranes of the vulva and vagina. So just like your mouth gets more or less wet with saliva, our vulvas get more or less wet with their native lubrications. And there’s a lot of factors here. The main one that I’m experiencing right now is hydration and use. I am using my mouth and so it is getting a little dry, because air is flowing in and out. I should drink more water.

Chris Rose: 10:53 If the vulva itself is just kind of dry, a lot of this is just full body hydration cues. And the vaginal lubrication is a self generating lubrication like saliva. Like our mucus membranes take care of themselves by generating different fluids with different amino acids, and different electrolytes, and we could like also geek out on our mouth and vaginal fluids in that category. We have whole ecosystems here. And for the most part the vagina and the vulva are a self maintaining ecosystem when provided the environment they are meant to thrive in. Right, like any other ecosystem. Our body as it turns out has all these amazing micro ecosystems, and you can really geek out on this. Like our left hand and our right hand have different kinds of bacteria that thrive there based on what we do with them all day.

Charlotte Rose: 11:58 So astounding.

Chris Rose: 12:00 How cool is that? Our eyelashes and our eyelids have a whole range of ecosystems. If you were to zoom in on the body like we do with terrains … If you think about the ecosystem on the top of a mountain versus the valley below and the whole range in between, so that’s kind of how the human body is. But we also do all these things that mess with those terrains.

Chris Rose: 12:24 What a metaphor we are spinning here. So the vagina thrives when it can have access to air and clean water, and proper nutrition and blood flow, and all of that stuff. So the vaginal discharge … So we’re now moving, we’ve talked about sweat, we’ve talked about the self lubrication like saliva that happens in the vulva, and then around the labia, but also into the vagina itself, and the anus if you want to get technical about it. There’s all these different regions that keep themselves moist. And there’s a word. A lot of people hate the word moist, and there’s whole studies about this word. So if you’re one of those people, hello moist.

Charlotte Rose: 13:09 You might not want to listen to this episode.

Chris Rose: 13:11 Well I’ll try to pivot from moist. But these areas for the most part are trying to keep themselves at a healthy level of moistness just like your mouth. So then we have a category called vaginal discharge. And this is the one that tends to make people go … because discharge feels more of like a medical word, but it doesn’t have to be. There’s a whole range of discharge that can happen from the vagina. Meaning that tube that goes up to the cervix. And this discharge can be just normal and healthy. Normal meaning part of your ecosystem that ranges along your hormonal and menstrual cycles. And it can be like a white odorless kind of range from like waxy greasy, to then your cervical fluid, which is that really stringy, egg white like texture cervical fluid that really emerges around ovulation. So these are some of the fluids and the discharges that come just in and around the vulva and vagina just as part of like they’re daily business and their monthly cycles. And we get more or less intimate with these fluids as we have different relationships with our vulva and vagina.

Chris Rose: 14:32 When we were trying to get pregnant we would call it cervical spelunking. And I would put a speculum in you my dear love and check your cervical discharge for cues about your ovulation.

Charlotte Rose: 14:45 And a head lamp people. For reals.

Chris Rose: 14:47 Full visual. And you know I name that both because in a lot of cultures and a lot of times this is how women self knew their own fertile cycles, by tracking their cervical fluid. And sometimes you can’t help it. You’re wiping your vulva and you get a huge beautiful handful of cervical fluid. And you can stretch it between your fingers and it can be elastic for inches. I remember as a kid, when this was coming and being fascinated by this fluid. Because it seems like as magical as it turns out to be. This is like a slip and slide that the body puts out to usher sperm and semen up into the cervix. It’s like a corridor that emerges out of the cervix when your cervix is nice and open, and I got to see your cervix at different stages. Some couples find themselves in these funny rituals when they’re trying to get pregnant. More and more I think we’re in a more deliberate relationship to our fertility. Some by choice and some by distress. And in those stages you become very aware of things like cervical fluid. But we can all choose to be more aware of this.

Chris Rose: 16:08 So we’re going to move into the sexual fluids realm now. But we wanted to kind of paint the terrain of like all of the different fluids. And then of course there’s pee that comes out of the urethra. So we have the vagina, the hole that goes up to the cervix. Above that is the urethra, a smaller hole that the pee comes out of. We’ll talk later about squirting and female ejaculation, but the urethra is also where the ejaculate comes out of on all bodies. And then above that is the clitoris and the clitoral hood. This is all ensconced, enfolded in the labia. And below that all is the anus and the perineum. Okay so do we have our visual picture of our holes and the fluids coming out of them? And I should have said this before, but maybe notice for yourself like what emotions and sensations and feelings are you having in your body as we’re having this conversation around the vulva and vagina, and it’s fluids and discharges?

Charlotte Rose: 17:12 I think it’s very common for a lot of people to feel grossed out and a bit revolted by these fluids.

Chris Rose: 17:22 Those are strong fighting words.

Charlotte Rose: 17:23 Yeah. Unfortunately I think in this culture and I think there’s value in just paying attention-

Chris Rose: 17:30 Grossed out and revolted.

Charlotte Rose: 17:32 Don’t you think?

Chris Rose: 17:32 I was going for like uncomfortable or uneasy, but okay. Yeah, yeah.

Charlotte Rose: 17:36 I think there’s a spectrum. I think there’s a spectrum that some people … And I think that it’s really valuable that we pay attention to them or just begin to notice them and get to know them. Because they truly are magical, exquisite fluids that allow for this whole system to work and exist, and self clean, and it is extraordinary. And I think that … I don’t know. I really want to sort of just begin to engage more fully with our fluids in order to honor the bodies that we have.

Chris Rose: 18:10 Well it’s to honor it, but it’s also to know what your normal is.

Charlotte Rose: 18:14 Totally.

Chris Rose: 18:14 When you know what your body’s kind of ever changing normal baseline is then you notice when something is starting to change or go wrong or need attention. If you know that your monthly cycles of discharge look a certain way, so at a certain level when your hormones are doing this, you have a whitish discharge that smells kind of neutral and that at a different point of your cycle you have that handful of cervical fluid I was talking about. And at this point in your cycle you get really horny and that’s when your pussy feels like this. If you can articulate that for yourself then you know when for six months you haven’t seen cervical fluid. And you start to be like huh, that’s something different. Or if a different kind of discharge that smells a different way, you can then the next time you go to your doctor or make a doctor’s appointment to start saying things like, my vaginal discharge changed and it starts smelling like this at this point in my cycle. And being able to say that to a practitioner give you such a big head start on things like infections and God forbid cancers and conditions that can really affect your life.

Chris Rose: 19:29 And so we all … And this is embodied wisdom. This is what I would put in that category of knowing your body and living in and with your body rather than despite your body. And for so many of us this sexual wisdom is totally cut off. Because when we’re coming of age … Like think of it as vulva owners. When we’re coming of age we don’t get pulled aside and taught about our magical cycles of release and renewal and how to manage those cycles and what they mean for our cycles of energy. And hormones and what our body might need, and then how to track that with our cervical fluid and our blood. And yeah, and how that aligns up with the moon, God forbid. Right, like we’re not taught any of that knowledge. Most people have no idea where they are in their menstrual cycle. They couldn’t tell you how many days away from ovulation they are. A lot of us are more and more using apps. A lot of us are on hormonal birth control that totally hijack the cycle anyway and have crazy side effects that we’re only beginning to talk about.

Chris Rose: 20:33 Anyway, so there’s a lot of reasons that in hearing this you might A, feel cut off from this knowledge, like never have even thought about your vaginal environment. Never have looked or touched, or engaged, or smelled the things that have come out of your genitals. We’re not encouraged to do that. But then also as Charlotte said the revolt and the disgust around this area is cultural. And yet of course there’s this obsession and all of us really like, there’s this desire for vulvas and vaginas and what they offer us and the experience of being with and in them parallel to this disgust and refusal to talk about them. So let’s just take that in for a moment. And now let’s shift to this conversation of sexual fluids. Sexual arousal. How that influences wetness. And we will do so after a shout out to our sponsor, LubeLife. So we will talk about sexual lubricant in the second half of the show for sure. For now let’s give a thanks to #LubeLife.

Chris Rose: 21:43 LubeLife is the best selling lube on Amazon. I think everyone should have a bottle of sexual lubricant in their house. Even if you are practicing chastity, even If you never have sex, even if you are super active, sexual, whatever your sexual style, have a bottle of lube in the house, because it will come in handy. Go to Amazon, search for LubeLife and find your bottle. Use the code 20mechanics for 20% off the lube of your choice. They have great silicon lube and organic water based lube at a great value. 20mechanics for 20% off, or use the links in the show notes page. Thanks to LubeLife for helping to make this podcast episode possible.

Chris Rose: 22:29 So let’s talk about sexual arousal and fluids and wetness. Because when I say it’s a myth, that doesn’t mean there is no correlation. When I say it’s a myth that means it is not a one to one that when a vulva bodied person, a human with a vulva, gets sexual aroused, that the vulva and the vagina get wet. That is not a one to one correlation. There is a relationship there. Sometimes, not all the time. As so this is one of those areas like so many of the areas we topic, that it’s complicated. There’s a lot of factors that influence this correlation. And so we need to dismantle the myth and get to know our reality with the bodies of us and those we love, and then also hold the fuller range of what’s possible and normalize the range of what’s possible. So sexual arousal in vulva bodied people does sometimes create tremendous wetness. A wetness that can flow from in and around the vulva and vagina, through the vagina, through the urethra, and also through all those sweat glands we were talking about and create a wet, slick, lubricant that ranges from a trickle … Ranges from a dewiness I should say. Sometimes it is just like a moistness. Sorry I won’t use that word. A moistness, a dewiness, a readiness, a flush. Sometimes it is a tidal wave.

Chris Rose: 24:19 It can be copious amounts of fluid that has to be managed with a towel on the bedside table. And I’m not yet talking about ejaculation, which is another phenomenon. That squirting that can be that ejaculate, that propellant of fluid out of the urethra at a height of climax. I’m talking about just the swell of fluids that can sometimes happen with arousal. So Charlotte we have been witness to, we’ve been privileged to be witness to thousands of bodies. Have you in the bodies you have and you’ve made love to witnessed this range of dewiness to tidal wave?

Charlotte Rose: 25:02 Yeah. Yes absolutely. Such a huge range of what you’re feeling with your hands, with your body. But it’s all good. I really want people to separate the idea that more wetness is better and that our bodies aren’t working correctly if they are not as wet as we imagine they should be or they could be, or they have been in the past. Our bodies will change as the seasons change, and in different stage of our life. And it’s so important to honor and let it be where it is at this moment.

Chris Rose: 25:48 And pay attention. So among those factors that can change your ecosystem, prescription drugs, dehydration, times of the month, levels of stress, levels of sleep.

Charlotte Rose: 25:59 Menopause, pregnancy.

Chris Rose: 26:01 Weather. How dehydrated are you from the hike you took that day. All of those factors. Your diet, what you’re eating recently. All those factors are going to influence all of your systems in your body including your genitals. And again we can just pay attention to these things and know these things. But to not shame at any point of that spectrum and know it will change for you. I remember the days where it was so copious I felt like I needed a bucket. Or like I would scoop it out after a hot eventing and play with handful of wetness. And I remember points of being sick where it was like the Sahara. These are hormonal things, these are health things, but these are also just like, I also smoke pot sometimes and the more a smoke pot, dry mouth, dry eyes. Different allergies can trigger dry vaginal environments. So it’s just not as you said, a more wet is better sexual arousal thing. Or like more sexually enlightened thing. And I also get emails from people all the time who feel like they’re two wet and want to learn how to shut it down. Because they find it messy and embarrassing and squelchy.

Chris Rose: 27:20 And then I get emails all the time from people who are like I’m not wet enough, or more often I get emails from partners who are like, I feel like I’m doing all the right moves, I feel like my partner is turned on, but she is never wet. What am I doing wrong?

Charlotte Rose: 27:37 Nothing.

Chris Rose: 27:37 And that’s the equivalent of I feel sexy, I’m trying to turn my husband, boyfriend on, and he’s not getting hard, what am I doing wrong? Right, we’re looking for these cues of arousal, but it could mean any number of things. So pay attention for yourself, get to know your range, and know that it will change. We should all drink more water. The only should I will do on this show … Like there’s a very few shoulds. Drink more water, feel hydrated, a healthy diet. All of those things will help, but also things like blood flow to the genitals. Also things like strengthening and relaxing the pelvic muscles. These things help with vaginal and genital lubrication and engorgement too. Lots of factors, lot of outcomes, explore your system. But the other thing to really take in here is what Emily Nagoski and other brilliant thinkers talk about is, arousal non-concordance. Because the other part of this dismantling the myth is that you can be really wet and engorged, and your genitals can be throbbing, and you might not be sexual turned on at all.

Chris Rose: 28:53 And same with guys. Guys can have a hard penis and a lubricated penis, which for men mean a pre-cum. We can have aroused genitals and not be sexually aroused at all. And that’s also really important to know.

Charlotte Rose: 29:13 We’ve been talking about this so much, but I don’t think … Have we said specifically that wetness isn’t related to how turned on you are.

Chris Rose: 29:21 But this is what we’re dismantling. So I just named if you’re wet you’re not aroused, and you can be very aroused and not wet. I think we’re covering it.

Charlotte Rose: 29:30 Yeah.

Chris Rose: 29:30 Yeah.

Charlotte Rose: 29:31 And very aroused and very wet.

Chris Rose: 29:34 Right.

Charlotte Rose: 29:34 It’s just that the aroused-ness the turned-on-ness in your brain, in your body, doesn’t necessarily represent through wetness. And so just know that for yourself, and for your partner. That that is not a … It is something that can represent turned-on-ness, but isn’t the only.

Chris Rose: 29:54 This is what we’re going for. So correlation, but not direct relationship. And it can be a confusing relationship sometimes. Like I feel really aroused and I’m so into this, why aren’t I wet? Because I used to get wet when I got aroused, and we can problematize this. We can be like maybe I’m not as aroused as I think. Like we can make all sorts of … Or I’m really aroused, but he’s just my coworker and I’m not actually turned on, but why is my pussy so wet when I go to the bathroom? Well you might not be aroused, you might be angry. And angry is a different kind of excitation and arousal of the system. And so if you’re yelling at your coworker and feeling fired up, but you have to be socially polite, and your body’s getting fired up. And you might go to the bathroom after that meeting and reach down and find that you’re all wet. That’s not maybe sexual excitation, that’s just arousal. And just knowing that in your head and being able to check in. And maybe you are sexually aroused and that’s a confusing dynamic. But maybe not.

Chris Rose: 31:00 We need to have deeper knowledge of these systems so we can map these experiences for ourselves and start to have more of a consensual relationship with these systems and how we embody them. So sexual arousal non-concordant with wetness. This is important to know in all sorts of contexts like we just talked about. You can watch an action movie. I often get very wet, and my genitals start thrumming during an action movie. That’s fun for me to know. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m sexually turned on.

Charlotte Rose: 31:39 But your body is excited.

Chris Rose: 31:41 Right.

Charlotte Rose: 31:41 Another system is feeling activated and you’re alert. And there’s so many different ways of being aroused in the body.

Chris Rose: 31:49 Right. And so notice for yourself, like just notice for yourself when do you get … And also I’m pulling apart here erection and engorgement. So for a penis owner that is more visual and visible. But I will put the podcast link in the show notes page, again we’ve done an episode on female erections, on clitoral erections. And so as a vulva owner, getting to know what that feels like. What does engorgement feel like? For some it feels like a throbbing or a thrumming, or it literally feels like your pussy is bigger, and it’s like at attention. And if you’re in a seat you can kind of like feel it filling out your seat a little bit. What does a clitoral erection feel like to you? And pulling apart kind of engorgement and throbbing sensation in and around your vulva, versus wetness. Because you might have a lot that sensation and the throbbing without wetness. You might have wetness without throbbing. Start to get to know that. And then I’m going to just … One more layer babes, you can do it. For me there’s also another sensation that’s more internal, like around my cervix and my uterus. And that is a different set of sensations. Like if that is contracting, uterine contractions.

Chris Rose: 33:18 And remember that uterine and pelvic contractions are part of the orgasm response. So sometimes when I’m really excited about an idea for an example, or a piece of art I’m looking at, I feel the contractions of the uterus and of the pelvic floor start to flutter. And for me that’s kind of another set of an orgasmic response or a set of responses that I can track and make sense of, have a relationship to. Again, these are all parts of interoception, that art of paying attention to the body and to the inside of the body. And when we have this data it just gives us more information and it becomes less confusing.

Charlotte Rose: 34:03 Yeah. All of this information is so important for us to know. I just was thinking about how we were talking about all the other discharges earlier, and wondering how many people are buying those vaginal cleaning products that they see, thinking that they are needing to clean all of that out, when it’s actually just part of our system that is working perfectly, and we don’t need to purchase other things to cleanse our bodies. But I feel like capitalism has-

Chris Rose: 34:32 It’s almost as if you’re saying there’s an industry creating anxiety about female bodies to sell products.

Charlotte Rose: 34:40 Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean it’s just amazing-

Chris Rose: 34:45 Don’t be a wacky socialist Charlotte. Do you really think they’d create a problem that didn’t exist to sell us something? Okay moving on. Yes, and I was just looking at some of our textbooks and references for this show and one of the groups I trust on this is OBGYN’s and midwives. People who deal with vaginas and vaginal discharge all day. One, my sister is a home birth midwife. Little fun fact of the Pleasure Mechanics. And so we talk, we geek out on vaginas a lot. We have latex gloves in equal numbers, but use them for different things. But I love talking to midwives and looking at texts about vaginas. I love textbooks about vaginas. And one of the things they all tend to agree on is that … So another category of discharge we didn’t talk about is when things like bacterial vaginosis kick in. Right, so when these ecosystems get disrupted through disease or stress, or conditions. Like you did a week of scuba diving in the tropics and your genitals never dried off. Like conditions that create things. Things like bacterial vaginosis are often caused by the products designed to clean vaginas.

Chris Rose: 36:09 One of our previous sponsors, Good Clean Love is doing a lot of work of creating products designed to be healthy vulva washes, if you do feel like you need a little extra wash there. Like a Ph balanced bio matched wash for things like bacterial vaginosis. They are not a sponsor of this episode, but shout out to our friends at Good Clean Love. Yeah, I think it’s … This is a whole area that there’s a lot of shame, a lot of secrecy. And we used to see things like Summer’s Eve douches on the shelf, which were vinegar rinses. And then transitioned from vinegar rinses to super harsh chemical cleaners. We’re using menstrual products with bleached cotton and all sorts of fragrances in them. There’s all sorts of things we are doing to our vulvas and vaginas that are causing unsound conditions. Not to mention, lubes … So let’s get to lube. Lube is super important for a lot of sex acts. You can’t have anal sex or anal play without lube. Stroking the external genitals feels great with a little extra lube sometimes. And penetration of the vagina sometimes is much more comfortable with a little bit of lube.

Chris Rose: 37:32 But what lube you use matters. Just like think of all of the thought we put into what we put on and around our face. You know and especially a lot of woman and more and more men, we have eye creams, and night creams, and day creams, and sunscreens, and lip balms, and ear … What do you put in your ears? I don’t even know, but we think and we put a lot of attention into what we put on our face, and that’s skin. We’re talking about our genitals and a lot of us don’t even know what we’re putting in our genitals, what our genitals like, because we’ve been talking about these things like yeast infections and bacterial vaginosis, and discharge, but everyone has different kind of vulnerabilities in this area. Just like different food allergies, some people are really sensitive to sugars, so a lubricant with glycerine in it, to make it taste a little sweeter and smell a little better, glycerine is a sugar and to some people a lube with a glycerine in it will give them chronic yeast infections for a month. Other people use edible candy underwear and never get a yeast infection in their life.

Chris Rose: 38:44 So we can’t tell you what to do or not to do, you need to be aware of your body and of this kind of information and knowledge, and then be able to make better choices for your ecosystem.

Charlotte Rose: 38:58 Yeah, experiment with things and then see how it feels. And try other ones if they don’t feel good. Like you do with your face. Try different products, find what you like, throw out things that don’t work for you. It’s a process to discover what works best for you.

Chris Rose: 39:14 Mm-hmm (affirmative). And paying attention to right, like what are the ingredients that trigger kind of flairs for you. Ultimately going for what lube feels good going on. A good lubricant when you apply it, should feel yummy.

Charlotte Rose: 39:29 Like you’re doing something that’s good for your body.

Chris Rose: 39:31 Right, because your system is … Just like your face. When you put a good face oil on, you know you have that moment of like ah. It feels good, it smells good, and it feels good on your skin. It’s soaks in well. You feel better having used it. Set that bar for your lubricant and all of the products going into your genitals, and just notice. And sometimes it does mean throwing out a bottle of lube that you don’t love. And that happens with other products too and that’s annoying, but it happens. A lot of online sex toy stores, and again I’ll try to link some up, sell sampler kits. Or you can collect samples from different brands so you can try like a silicon lube, and a water based lube, and an organic really clean lube that’s free of a bunch of stuff, and see what works best for you. And this again is a factor of are you using latex condoms for your sex life? Do you use silicon toys a lot? These factors will influence what kind lube you use. I will link to some lubricant resources on the show notes page of this episode. But again, de-stigmatizing lube. Never feel embarrassed to reach for extra lube, because it means you’re not aroused enough.

Chris Rose: 40:48 I’m so ready to stop getting that email that correlates, oh we had to use lube and that is some failure of arousal. Bullshit. It could just mean you didn’t drink enough water that day, or you’re on a new prescription, or you ate too many pistachios, or that’s just the way your body is working right now at 55 years old, but you’re having the best sex of your life. It could be anything.

Charlotte Rose: 41:12 Or it could just feel more pleasurable to add a little bit of lube so that the sex acts feel more comfortable and pleasurable. Anything that adds to your pleasure is valuable and worthy, and it is not problematic.

Chris Rose: 41:23 And doesn’t need to be apologized for.

Charlotte Rose: 41:25 Yeah. It’s just you’re bringing your tools to the game.

Chris Rose: 41:29 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Charlotte Rose: 41:30 That was good.

Chris Rose: 41:35 I just remembered our first night together and I had a toolbox with me.

Charlotte Rose: 41:38 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chris Rose: 41:39 Here we are as the Pleasure Mechanics.

Charlotte Rose: 41:40 Yeah that’s true. You came down into my bedroom with this whole little toolbox and like came and put it by the side of the bed. I’m like hello, someone’s prepared.

Chris Rose: 41:48 Hey I have an idea. All right we’re going to cut here, we’ll be with you next week. So next week is actually a really important episode. Let me give you a little preview of what’s coming here on Speaking of Sex. So go now, I will put a link in the show notes page. Get yourself a copy of Emily Nagoski’s new book Burnout. Emily Nagoski is the author of Come As You Are. I have gotten hundreds of emails from you guys over the years saying this book changed your life. She’s a brilliant writer who weaves science and sociology and she’s brilliant. Her new book is about burnout. About ending stress cycles so we can live better together. Next week we have an amazing interview with Emily. We had such a good time talking about this book. I’ve been reading the book. Get yourself a book on pre-order. We will be launching with an interview next week, and then the whole month of April is dedicated to preventing and ending sexual burnout. Because the themes in this book, the themes of stress and burnout are so much of what we see getting in the way of your sexual pleasure and happiness. And so we’re going to really be talking about ending sexual burnout and what do we need to do so we don’t bring our stress to bed? So stress isn’t the enemy number one of our sex life.

Chris Rose: 43:07 That’s what we’re going to be talking about in April. In May we’re going to be sliding into a whole new exciting-

Charlotte Rose: 43:15 Theme.

Charlotte Rose: 44:02 I thought you were saying my dears to the people, to our listeners.

Chris Rose: 43:15 Theme. Join us on our Patreon at patreon.com/pleasuremechanics. P-A-T-R-E-O-N, patreon.com/pleasuremechanics and we will be talking about all these themes, planning our monthly episodes together, having community discussions and more. And show us some love or the work we do in the world. Thank you so much to our patrons who help make this work possible. We send you so much love. We will be back with you next week with Emily Nagoski’s interview on Burnout. And we are so excited about what is coming this spring and summer from Pleasure Mechanics. We’ve got some good projects my dear.

Chris Rose: 44:05 You my dear.

Charlotte Rose: 44:06 Yes, yes, we do. It’s so exciting.

Chris Rose: 44:08 Are you feeling good?

Charlotte Rose: 44:09 Yeah.

Chris Rose: 44:10 Our kid is at school more. We have so much more time to work and play together.

Charlotte Rose: 44:16 An entire three and a half hours a day. It feels very luxurious.

Chris Rose: 44:21 I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 44:22 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 44:23 We are the Pleasure Mechanics.

Charlotte Rose: 44:24 Wishing you a lifetime of pleasure.

Chris Rose: 44:27 Cheers.

Join us for our Speaking of Sex mini series (and group erotic experiment!) on Sexual Burnout! April 2019 we will be hosting a month long exploration of how the stress cycle gets in the way of our sex lives, and what we can do about it. 

1. Order your copy of Emily Nagoski’s new book Burnout.
2. Tune in to the podcast for our mini series on Burnout & Sexual Burnout
3. Join The Pleasure Pod to unlock our Pleasure Practices library and other member-only resources!

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Your Sexual Self Care Pleasure Tools

• One you don’t want to wait to get started with are these INCREDIBLE rolling balls. TRUST us on this one – the minute you feel it, you’ll “get it” The TuneUp Roll Model Kit* will get you started with one of the BEST self care practices we have found recently.  

Creating Your Bedroom As A Haven

Part of sexual self care is creating spaces you lovingly curate to be erotic refuge for yourself. We’ll talk more about this on the podcast. For now, look around and start noticing what you enjoy about your bedroom and what you might want to upgrade when you have the chance! Is there laundry in the corner? Piles of junk you’ve been meaning to give away?

Now might be a good time to “Kondo” your sex life.

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