A collection of our most popular episodes about female orgasm and arousal. These episodes focus on the erotic experience of people with vulvas who have been socialized as women. We honor and cherish all human bodies, and strive to create inclusive affirming resources for all.

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Sex Therapist Vanessa Marin joins us to continue our conversation about female orgasm. This episode continues our conversation about female orgasm with Vanessa Marin, started on Episode 303, The Path To Female Orgasm.

The struggle for female orgasm is a cultural issue, not a personal failure. It is essential to locate the conversation about female orgasm in a historical context and recognize that we are just getting started. Just starting to undo the misinformation, myths and violence that have kept people disconnected from their bodies and orgasmic potential. Just starting to map our true erotic potential. Just starting to create a culture that honors and celebrates ALL bodies.

In the mean time, many of us have a lot of learning – and unlearning – to do in order to learn how to orgasm, enjoy orgasms more and explore what our bodies are capable of!

Go to VMTherapy.com/PleasureMechanics and sign up to receive Vanessa’s upcoming video series about female orgasm – if this is an area of struggle in your sex life, join Vanessa to clear up the myths and get set on the path to enjoying your orgasmic abilities.

Vanessa Marin’s Finishing School is a comprehensive online course designed for women who are struggling to have their first orgasm or to have orgasms consistently. If you are ready to explore your relationship to pleasure and orgasm, we highly recommend this course. Check it out to see if it feels right for you.

The men in our community have also had great success with Vanessa’s course for men: The Modern Man’s Guide To Ending Performance Pressure

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Transcript for Podcast Episode: Learning Orgasm with Vanessa Marin

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 Welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris from pleasuremechanics.com and on today’s episode I am thrilled to welcome back Vanessa Marin. Vanessa is a licensed psychotherapist out of Los Angeles, California and she runs some of the best online trainings in sexuality. I have found. Her Finishing School is a comprehensive course about female orgasm and she also offers an amazing course for men about performance pressure, so we are thrilled to welcome Vanessa back. She is getting ready to open up her Finishing School live experience once more for 2019 and we want to invite you on board to that. If female orgasm is something you struggle with, this might be a great course for you right now. For everyone else, this conversation about orgasm and our struggles with orgasm is going to be useful because this is a conversation we are all in. The topic of female orgasm is really a microcosm of so many of the issues of sexual culture and sexual norms and gender and bodies that we are untangling together on this show.

Chris Rose: 01:20 So no matter what your relationship to female orgasm is, there will be something for you here in this episode as I dive in with Vanessa about the hows and whys of female orgasm and we talk about pleasure and orgasm as a learned skill. This metaphor of learning pleasure like we would learn an instrument or a sport or a game or a language is so important for us all to embrace and get behind, and stop talking about sex as something that should just be coming naturally. And if we’re struggling then we’re broken. That’s simply not true. It is a set of skills we can all practice together and that’s why we are all here on this podcast, in this community, in this conversation, globally about how we can do better with our sexuality and our relationship to pleasure, and Vanessa is a true ally in this conversation.

Chris Rose: 02:23 She is such a kindred spirit. I look forward to receiving her emails every week. And once you are introduced to her warmth and wisdom, you will love her too. So here is the continuation of my conversation with Vanessa Marin about female orgasm. In the show notes page, you’ll find a link to the first part of our conversation about female orgasm, our other conversations with Vanessa, and all of her courses and online work so you can embrace Vanessa as one of your erotic educators. Yes. Here we go with my conversation with Vanessa about learning how to orgasm and what we can all discover there. Enjoy and I’ll be back with you next week with another episode of Speaking of Sex. Cheers.

Chris Rose: 03:13 Vanessa Marin, thank you so much for joining us again.

Vanessa Marin: 03:16 Thank you so much for having me. I always have such a great time whenever I come on and speak with you, so it’s always a pleasure.

Chris Rose: 03:23 We’re definitely going to treat this as part two of our conversation about orgasm, and having your first orgasm or orgasming more reliably, because we talked a few months ago and I will put that interview right in the show notes page so folks can start with that and then continue the conversation with us.

Vanessa Marin: 03:41 Awesome. Yeah, that was a super fun interview. So I’m glad to be doing part two.

Chris Rose: 03:47 So, speaking of conversation, one of the things you talk about is how important it is for women to start talking about orgasm. What truths, what is emerging as this conversation about female orgasm is really heating up over the past few years?

Vanessa Marin: 04:03 It sounds so simple, this idea of just having conversations about it, but it’s been this recurring theme that I keep seeing my clients, that every woman that I’ve ever worked with has really untruly felt like she is the one woman in the entire world that is struggling with her orgasm and just can’t figure this out. So I mean, you know, rationally we understand. Yeah, I can’t be the only person in the entire world that the emotional experience is really feeling so deeply alone in this. And I’ve started sharing a lot more about my own personal orgasms struggles and the fact that I really understand what that felt, like to feel like, you know, everyone else must have this figured out. Everyone else must be, you know, just having these amazing, great orgasms and what’s wrong with me?

Vanessa Marin: 04:49 So that was what we really wanted to focus on is to just help people start having more of these conversations, more honesty and openness about female orgasm so that we can recognize that we really are not alone in this. That it’s something that so many women are struggling with. That it’s a much bigger conversation about the ways that we treat female pleasure and female orgasm, and female bodies and just, yeah, help women recognize that they are definitely not alone.

Chris Rose: 05:19 It’s so interesting to me because it’s such a cultural issue that then needs this deeply personal intervention, body by body. How do you bring people into this? I was thinking the other day of the emotional baggage we bring to this conversation about orgasm and how broken women feel when they’re unable to have an orgasm or have an orgasm consistently and that emotional brokenness and yet we’re not taught the skills of pleasure and so we don’t like pick up an instrument and then curse ourselves for not being able to make music right away.

Vanessa Marin: 05:58 Oh, exactly. It’s one of my favorite comparisons.

Chris Rose: 06:02 Awesome, our minds are in the same. Okay. So where is this dialogue between the physical skills and the emotional context and the social context?

Vanessa Marin: 06:12 Oh yeah, it’s such a great, interesting question and there’s so many different layers of it. So I think that it can be really useful to, you know, to kind of examine that broader context of it. Because again, I think the experience for so many women is that we feel like we’re alone and it’s just something that’s wrong with us. And so if we can recognize that this is part of a much, much bigger issue that can, I think free up a lot of space inside of us to develop more curiosity about our own bodies. So rather than approaching our body as if it’s something that’s broken, approaching our body with the sense of curiosity and you know, “oh, okay, I wonder what I, my body can experience, what can bring my body pleasure?” And so, you know, especially I really encourage women to kind of think about the ways that we treat female bodies and pleasure on this larger global scale, because I think it’s really important for us to get fired up about it.

Vanessa Marin: 07:09 Sometimes it can be very easy for us to be cruel to ourselves and to our own bodies. But if we take ourselves outside of ourselves and think about what are the lessons that my friends have been taught, what are the lessons that my mom was taught? What are the lessons that my daughter or this next generation of women or women who aren’t even on this planet yet, what are they going to be taught about their body is in their pleasure? And sometimes if we step outside of ourselves like that, we can get really fired up and recognize, oh, you know, this is, this goes so much bigger, so much further beyond myself.

Chris Rose: 07:43 Yeah. Yeah. And I just want a name that even with a trauma in your past or even with violence in your past, more than likely you are not broken. Right? Like our bodies have capacity for pleasure, kind of no matter what. But it’s finding the ability to access it and then focus on it and receive it.

Vanessa Marin: 08:05 Yeah. I, I deeply and truly believes that no body is broken. We all of course have our own, you know, stories and histories and challenges that we go through. But especially when it comes to pleasure, there really is no such thing as your body being broken. Our bodies are hardwired to experience pleasure and even people who have had really intense traumas, injuries, illnesses, the brain can still rewire itself to experience pleasure in new ways. So there is no reason why your body would be incapable of experiencing pleasure.

Chris Rose: 08:39 So if we approach the idea of our bodies being capable of pleasure, and yet so many of us feel stuck in not being able to have an orgasm and an orgasm then become symbolic of kind of the ultimate pleasure or surrendering into pleasure or releasing or trusting. We tend to layer all these metaphors into orgasm itself. Do you start women with focusing on pleasure and then bring them into orgasm or what is this relationship between pleasure as a whole and kind of the crown of orgasm?

Vanessa Marin: 09:18 That’s a great question and I think it’s definitely one that gets lost a lot of the times. So when you are struggling to orgasm, it is very easy to get fixated on the orgasm itself. And I can definitely say this from tons of personal experiences as well, is that you really start to focus on just the orgasm. You really want it to happen. You’re very anxious and afraid and upset about it not happening and you kind of get this tunnel vision around it. And the really important thing for all of us to recognize is that pleasure is the pathway to orgasm. You’re not going to have an orgasm just out of nowhere. It’s going to totally surprise you and catch you off guard. You’re going to have an orgasm because you are feeling pleasure and you are building up to that orgasm.

Vanessa Marin: 10:06 So I know that it kind of sounds like lip service to say, you know, “just focus on the pleasure.” A lot of women say, “okay, yeah, but I want the orgasm.” So, I don’t mean it in this dismissive way, but it is really important to recognize that pleasure is the way that you get to the orgasm. So if we can focus on that first, and I like to combat that by also being really specific and nitty gritty about different techniques to explore. So it’s not just this big, you know, feel pleasure, explore pleasure. Like there are actual specific techniques that go along with it. But yes, recognizing that that is the pathway that you need to go down to reach the orgasm.

Chris Rose: 10:46 And I love that because it’s not just handing someone the violin and saying, “okay, figure out how to make music. You can do it.”

Vanessa Marin: 10:52 Exactly.

Chris Rose: 10:54 Yeah. We learn how to make the music, we learn by doing the scales, by relaxing into it, by feeling the finger over and over again. The muscle memory of that.

Vanessa Marin: 11:05 Yeah. I think I see this advice so often online and in magazines, this idea of, you know, just explore your body, and the idea of it is great, but when that’s all that you’re giving it’s very frustrating and it’s not particularly useful advice. So, yeah, just like you’re saying with an instrument. Another example that I was thinking about is, you know, if you were to go to Yosemite and you see a ranger at the beginning and they say, “just go explore the park”, like that’s not really very helpful when there’s so much there. So instead, what if you could get, you know, “hey, here’s a map to some of the best trails, or here’s where you should start.” And then, you know, “here are a bunch of different pathways that you can go down there.” So just giving more of a framework rather than this really broad and vague and unhelpful advice.

Chris Rose: 11:53 So a few months ago, I should say, I did this Finishing School course and I entered it as a woman who is very, I know how to orgasm. I’ve always had a lifetime of orgasm, even through other sexual struggles, and so I was curious what I would learn with you, and I learned so much. It was such a pleasure.

Vanessa Marin: 12:14 Oh no, that’s great.

Chris Rose: 12:15 One of the things that really resonated for me that I had kind of forgotten, was that orgasms don’t necessarily feel amazing and overwhelming and breathtaking right away.

Vanessa Marin: 12:30 Yes. Yeah.

Chris Rose: 12:31 That was really important. Can you talk about some of those first orgasms and what to do if you’re kind of like, is that it?

Vanessa Marin: 12:40 Yeah. Let me just first say, I’m so glad that you went through the course. I’m really excited and honored to learn that it taught you new things as well. You know, me personally, I go through the course myself all the time and it’s just sort of a way for me to refresh myself and have new experiences and keep updating it. But I think it’s so important for us to recognize that orgasm is something that we are, you know, can constantly be learning new things about our bodies. It’s not something that we just learned once and that’s it. There’s this whole lifetime of exploration.

Vanessa Marin: 13:13 Yeah. Going back to that idea of initial orgasms. So one of the huge things that comes up for women is that we have this idea that orgasms are just crazily explosive and intense. And so overwhelming and it can sound, sometimes it sounds really good and sometimes it’s actually sounds scary. Like a lot of women will tell me, “I’m really afraid of what’s going to happen when I orgasm. Will I completely lose control? And you know, something embarrassing or crazy is going to happen in the moment.” And so I like to be really clear that when you’re first learning how to orgasm, your first orgasms are going to be pretty small and probably not that much more pleasurable than what you were experiencing leading up to that.

Vanessa Marin: 13:58 So I sort of think of orgasm as two stages. It’s like learning how to orgasm and then learning how to make the orgasms pleasurable. So this is such an important thing when you’re first exploring because you know, not only is it important, just reset your expectations, but it can also help bring some anxiety down. So if you’ve been really afraid of, “Oh God, what’s going to happen when I have an orgasm?” Reminding yourself that it’s not going to be a super crazy wild experience initially can relieve a lot of that anxiety. And then even going forward from there, orgasms really are like snowflakes. I know that sounds cheesy, but you know, the experience is just so different from orgasm. Don’t work. Ask Them. So I, you know, I can speak for myself sometimes I have orgasms that are crazy explosive and intense and amazing and sometimes I have orgasms that are like, “okay, it got the job done.” So yeah, it can just be a very different experience from orgasm to orgasm. And that’s part of what makes them fun.

Chris Rose: 14:58 And somewhat mysterious.

Vanessa Marin: 14:59 Yes.

Chris Rose: 15:02 I’m really obsessed right now with this idea of sexual practice and bringing the mentality of practice into our erotic life, both as a motivation to carve out time for it and to prioritize it, but also to recognize that there’s all these layers of skills, physical skills, relational skills, spiritual skills, some might say, to navigating our erotic lives. So you said you go back through your course. You’ve been focusing on orgasm now for many years. What are some of the ways you work with orgasm and masturbation as practice, as something you do, repetitively in order to build specific skills? Do you engage with it in that way?

Vanessa Marin: 15:47 Yeah, that’s such a great question too and I love that idea because I think we take so many different aspects of our sexuality for granted. You know, one of my least favorite words is this word, natural. You know, I think a lot of us think sex is just supposed to be natural, an orgasm’s supposed to be natural, which is sort of a code word for saying “I shouldn’t have to put any effort into it.” And I just believed the exact opposite. That it’s something that if it’s important to us, that it’s something that we should be willing to carve the time out for, to practice different things, explore new techniques, try things out, you know, just really, yeah, create that space for it and to engage in it regularly. And it is, that it the example of the instrument that you gave earlier, it’s just, you know, so perfect here as well.

Vanessa Marin: 16:32 It’s not like we just expect that we should be able to play the violin perfectly and then we never have to practice it ever again. We’ll always maintain that level of skill. I’m actually thinking about, I’m a classically trained pianist, but I haven’t touched the piano in about 15 years. And so, you know, I wouldn’t go expect to sit down at a piano and be able to play all of the stuff that I used to play when I was really devoted to it and that was years ago. So yeah, with my own experience around orgasm, I play a lot with how I show up around masturbation.

Vanessa Marin: 17:07 So I use masturbation in a lot of different ways. Sometimes I just want to be able to experience quick pleasure, you know, and I can kind of be a little bit of a lazy masturbator like I know what my body needs at this point. I can get the job done pretty quickly. And sometimes it’s nice just to have a physical release. Sometimes if I want to get to sleep faster or I’m feeling a little bit stressed, I kind of use it as a tool in that way.

Vanessa Marin: 17:30 But I also challenged myself to try to show up in other ways around masturbation and particularly to treat it as a form of self care and as a way that I can really like treat my body and take care of my body. So there will be times where I try to get myself to slow and turn it more into an experience rather than, you know, just going for the goal really quickly. I love exploring different techniques. So I do a lot of surveys of the women in Finishing School and I’m always trying to figure out what are the ways that they are able to bring themselves pleasure, and then I try and post techniques out myself as well.

Vanessa Marin: 18:09 So it’s sort of a fun way to see, you know, how many different ways can I bring my pleasure, how does my body respond to those particular techniques? And like playing with different toys as well. Both of the vibrating and non vibrating kind. And just seeing, you know, what it’s like to explore bringing some sort of object into the bedroom with myself. But yeah, just trying to create different experiences, showing up with myself in different ways and trying to make it feel like a kind of luxurious self care type of experience.

Chris Rose: 18:39 Mm-hmm, and creating this time it can feel really luxurious. It can feel really expansive, and then sometimes it can also bring up unexpected emotions. Even things like anger or grief can show up in masturbation and that can really surprise some people. What do you think the role of emotional expression during masturbation is and how do we create more space to allow that or normalize it?

Vanessa Marin: 19:08 Yeah, I think that we definitely can have a lot of different experiences emerge through masturbation. And I think particularly if we don’t have other forms of self care. So this is something that comes up a lot with the women in Finishing School and they’ll say, “you know, Oh, I’m doing these exercises and so much is coming up for me and I’m realizing, you know, I don’t create this kind of space for myself in any other way. Like I’m doing it because I’m in this course. I’ve made this commitment to myself and I’m creating it because they want to, you know, achieve this goal. But I’m realizing that I don’t do this for myself in any other way.” So yeah, it can definitely struck a lot in that way. And I’ve had a lot of, of women who have realized through the Finishing School process, “oh, you know, this is something that I want to create more space for myself, so I want to do, you know, just have other forms of self care, self expression.”

Vanessa Marin: 20:02 So that can be really useful. But yeah, I think anytime that you take the time to slow down and connect with your body, your body is gonna bring different things to your attention. It’s sort of, you know, your body sees that you’re paying attention to it. And it’s kind of like, oh well I’ve got, I’ve got this thing too, to take a look at, or this thing is needing a little bit of love and attention as well. So for me, I think it really all boils down to curiosity and openness. You know, can we be curious with ourselves about what wants to emerge in this moment and can we be open to whatever does happen to emerge even if it is something that surprises us or is something that is maybe a little bit challenging.

Chris Rose: 20:43 And do you bring that same mentality to fantasy and what pops up in our heads? How do we kind of stay with the fantasy, the mental images that are bringing us more arousal during masturbation rather than judge them or shut them down or we respond with fear or sometimes we get afraid of our own fantasies.

Vanessa Marin: 21:05 Yeah. Fantasy is such an interesting, interesting topic. I think a lot of us struggle with our own fantasies and I think that the area where we tend to get in trouble with, with this is when we try to make meaning of our fantasies. So I think a lot of us can really judge ourselves or, you know, why am I turned on by this thing and what does it say about me? What does it mean? We don’t need to go into that place of self judgment around them.

Vanessa Marin: 21:29 So sometimes we might have fantasies because of clear and specific reasons. So maybe, you know, it was something that you stumbled upon as a child and it, you know, it was something that was erotic even from an early age. But we often have fantasies that are really quite random and there isn’t really any particular meaning behind them. So I think it’s important for us to be open to all of our fantasies and, and not, you know, not quick to judge them. It’s definitely something that you can be curious about and explore, what is this? What turns me on about it? What is the effect that it’s having on me? Is it something that I enjoy fantasizing about? But to try to create that same atmosphere of curiosity rather than judgment.

Chris Rose: 22:15 I’m thinking about some of the why’s, because enrolling in any online course is a commitment. We both offer online courses. We both get emails from people who have had major breakthroughs with these courses, but I also know that staying with online courses can be challenging, they take time and attention. So what are the why’s that can motivate us to really give ourselves the gift of this time and attention to our own pleasure and bodies?

Vanessa Marin: 22:46 Yeah, that’s a question that I ask women to consider right in the very first week of Finishing School because I know that it is a challenge for a lot of us. It can be such a great first step to sign up for an online course and you can feel very excited and motivated and then time goes on and it can be hard sometimes to keep that motivation going. And I think it’s important to recognize that it’s the same with any skill. So you know, there might be times where you’re having to play the violin, it’s really such a good example for everything we’re talking about, where you really don’t want to practice or times when you’re learning Spanish, where you just don’t want to go to your class or you don’t want to have your tutor come over. So it just is something that’s inherent to any new skill that we learn.

Vanessa Marin: 23:29 It’s not particular to, you know, improving our sexual skills. So the why is so personal for each of us. And I think it’s important for us to really dig deep into it. So when I ask women in Finishing School, you know “why you sign up for Finishing School?” The obvious and past answer is, “well, I want to learn how to orgasm. Duh.”

Vanessa Marin: 23:52 But, then I’ll say, “okay, but what else? What else is there for you?” And I think if we take that time to really try to dig deeper and uncover other reasons, other motivation, that can actually be much more powerful than just wanting to learn how to orgasm. So for you, it might be something like, “I want to have a better relationship with my body so I can touch my body with love and appreciation, or rather than criticism or even hatred”, it might be, “I want to finally understand and know that I’m worthy of my own time and energy and attention.” It may be “I want to explore all the pleasure that I’m capable of feeling and have fun with my sex life and be playful and exploratory.” So it can have completely different reasons, completely different tones for every woman. But that process of, of exploring what that answer is for you is so important.

Chris Rose: 24:46 And what do you say if we dig in and play that game? I kind of think of it as the three year old game. Why, why, why?

Vanessa Marin: 24:54 Yes, yes.

Chris Rose: 24:57 When we dig in, we realize that one of our why’s, perhaps our biggest why is the performative aspect of it. We want to feel like the sexy woman who can come. What do we do with that? Because we know that performativity isn’t a great motivator and yet there’s something really honest and true about wanting to embody that. You know?

Vanessa Marin: 25:21 Yeah. I think any woman in really any situation, you know, you’re going to have some why’s that are maybe not the greatest things. You know, some reasons why you want to do some things that it, you know, it doesn’t really feel super great for you. But so I think, part of that’s just normalizing. “Yes, that’s totally understandable. It is hard to grow up in this society and not feel a performance pressure because it’s being blasted on an almost daily basis.” And at the same time I think we can also keep playing the why game and dig a little bit deeper than that and see, might there be any personal reasons around that. So yes, you have this idea that you are supposed to be this woman who loves sex and is wildly orgasmic and you know, just so into it. So, okay.

Vanessa Marin: 26:10 Why? What else might that mean to you? What else could it be like for you to be that woman? So if you keep digging a little bit deeper, you know, maybe you do realize, yeah, some of that is performative, but some of that is also, man, that would be so cool to just, you know, really enjoy sex and to go into an experience and just know that I can get what I want out of it. I can experience all of the pleasure that I want to experience. You know? So there might be some little nugget of a better you, more positive kind of motivation that you can find for yourself there.

Chris Rose: 26:47 Hmm. I love that. You’re so positive.

Vanessa Marin: 26:52 Yeah. This is just one of my favorite, favorite topics to work with. And again, like I know from personal experience what a challenge it can be.

Chris Rose: 26:59 Yeah.

Vanessa Marin: 26:59 There was a very long time where it was one of my least favorite topics ever. But now that I’ve gone through my own personal challenges around it and I’ve recognized the ways that it’s changed so many aspects of my life, I’m just, I’m so enthusiastic about helping other women go through their own journey around it.

Chris Rose: 27:19 So after focusing on orgasm and working with so many women on the skills of orgasm, what do you think is the function of orgasm for us humans? And you can answer this either kind of biologically or philosophically. How do you think of like the why, we have orgasms as humans?

Vanessa Marin: 27:36 Oh my goodness. My brain is going in about a thousand different directions all at the same time right now. Oh Man. I think yeah, orgasms serve so many different purposes and I think that, that’s what makes them so awesome and amazing. That sometimes they can be just a pure physical release, that sometimes they can help other parts of our body or our experience like you know, helping us get to sleep faster, helping decrease menstrual pain, they can be very useful in that sense. I think they can be great with helping us tap into our emotions and our own inner experiences or helping us explore new things. Helping us connect with our partners, there are just so many different reasons to have them. And maybe that’s part of why it’s a topic that’s been so fascinating to me for so long because there’s always some new layer to uncover and explore.

Chris Rose: 28:32 An instrument worth learning.

Vanessa Marin: 28:34 Oh my God. Right? This is really was the perfect example.

Chris Rose: 28:40 Can you tell us a little bit about Finishing School and the unique opportunity of Finishing School live that is kicking off right now?

Vanessa Marin: 28:49 Yes. I’m so excited to tell you about it. So Finishing School is my online course that teaches women to have their very first orgasms on their own and with their partners. So it’s a really comprehensive and detailed step by step course because I know how frustrating it is to keep getting all of that really vague and unhelpful advice. I really wanted to make it super structured and instructional. And then what we do about once a year is I run a special version of Finishing School called Finishing School live. So we have a community of women who all start the course at the same time. We go through it together and then we meet every other week for coaching calls. So these calls are your opportunity to ask questions and get personalized answers and to really feel like you’re part of a community of other women who are going through the same journey with you.

Vanessa Marin: 29:42 So those calls are just great at really keeping you accountable and motivated. So I know we talked earlier about the fact that sometimes online courses can be a little bit challenging to keep yourself motivated and going through it. So I have found that doing these live versions of the course really helps women feel more engaged in it and keep your progress and your momentum going. So we are going to be kicking off our next live version of Finishing School and this will be the last one for all of 2019 and we’ll be kicking it off, registration opens on June 5th and closes on June 9th and then the course starts the very next day on the 10th

Chris Rose: 30:20 So spend your summer in Finishing School. What a beautiful way to spend your summer holiday.

Vanessa Marin: 30:27 I know, you know, I’m a huge nerd. I loved school, I loved learning. So to me that sounds amazing. But if the idea of school in the summer, has you sounding a little bit, you know, worry, don’t worry. This is the most fun school ever. You’re gonna have so much fun. It’s a total blast, I promise.

Chris Rose: 30:44 I want to say this course is designed for women who are struggling to have their first orgasm or orgasm consistently, but if you really want to embrace orgasm as a practice, if you really want to deepen your relationship with orgasms, there may be things for you here too. I just did this course with you last year after a lifetime of being an orgasmic woman and I got so much out of it. Both the accountability of showing up for this time with myself and also benefiting from your particular perspective and wisdom and as you said, the comprehensive nature of it. Really inviting yourself into studying your own relationship to pleasure and orgasm this intimately. I think no matter what the outcome is, it’s a really beautiful invitation for people. And when you hear this, you’ll know I think in your body. If this feels right for you right now.

Chris Rose: 31:41 And if you’re curious, use the links in the show notes page and Vanessa, you offer also these free video series, that is a great way to feel even further in your body, is this the right moment? And are you the right teacher? Cause that’s-

Vanessa Marin: 31:57 Yes, yes.

Chris Rose: 31:57 Different personalities and I love learning from you. That’s one of the reasons we recommend you. But it’s really interesting to like be with different online teachers and feel in in your body, can I learn with this person? And Vanessa, you are so warm and wise that I think you’re a great person to for a lot of people to learn with. So sign up for this.

Vanessa Marin: 32:03 Oh, thank you so much.

Chris Rose: 32:03 I’m fan girling out a bit, I guess.

Vanessa Marin: 32:25 Oh, thank you. I’m blushing over here too, no, I really appreciate it. Yeah, and I think that you’re so right. I really believe that every woman will have an intuitive sense of whether or not this feels like a journey that she is ready and excited for. And I definitely agree with you that you know, we are all so individual. One approach, one teacher does not work for everyone. So I am definitely not the right fit for everyone and that’s perfectly okay, but if you want to get a better sense of just who I am and what I’m like as a teacher and what that experience is like, then I am releasing this free video series called The Female Orgasm Revolution because everything you’ve been taught about orgasm is wrong. So it’s a free video series that goes through a ton of amazing stuff. Actually, I pulled a lot of the content directly from Finishing School itself because it was really my mission in this video series to kind of pull back the curtains and give women the accurate information and details and methods and processes that they really need to learn how to orgasm.

Vanessa Marin: 33:30 So it’s just a great sneak peek at what it’s like to be in Finishing School. Again, so much of the material is just taken directly from the course, so we’ll go over the truth about how female orgasm really works. The key to mastering orgasmic control and the four-step female orgasm method that I’ve developed over the course of about 15 years of working with this and having my own orgasm struggles as well and that’s taken directly from Finishing School. So we set up a special link just for your listeners because we just love your community so much. We seem to have really great overlap and people who are into pleasure mechanics seem to work really well with me so we created a special link at VMtherapy.com/pleasure mechanics. If you want to check that out.

Chris Rose: 34:14 we will have all of the information about your courses in the show notes page. Vanessa Marin, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and for your work in this world.

Vanessa Marin: 34:24 Thank you so much. It’s always such a joy to be here.

Chris Rose: 34:28 All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode. All of the links are in the show notes page. You will find links to her online courses and to the free video series that is coming up at the beginning of June, 2019, but there are evergreen links there as well. If you find yourself listening to this episode down the line. We will be back with you next week with another episode of Speaking of Sex. Thank you so much for listening. If you love this show and want to support our work, please come over to patreon.com/pleasuremechanics. That’s patreon.com/pleasuremechanics, where you can show your support with a monthly pledge and join our inner circle community on Patreon. We’d love to have you onboard. Thank you so much for listening. I am Chris from pleasuremechanics.com wishing you a lifetime of pleasure. Cheers.

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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?

Join us in exploring Mindful Sex – enroll in the Mindful Sex Online Course

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.

Charlotte Rose: 36:13 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 36:14 We are the Pleasure Mechanics.

Charlotte Rose: 36:16 Wishing you a lifetime of pleasure.