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Wet and Ready: Debunking Myths About Vaginal Wetness and Arousal

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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!)

Want to get started implementing our proven strategies for more pleasure and arousal? Get started for free with The Erotic Essentials free online course: PleasureMechanics.com/free

More Sex Podcast Episodes You’ll Love:

The (Still Unknown) Facts About Female Ejaculation

Expanding Orgasmic Capacity

Women Get Erections Too!

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

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.

Sexual Burnout: Exploring The Antidote, Together

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.

Order your copy of Emily Nagoski’s new book Burnout.
Tune in to the podcast for our mini series on Burnout & Sexual Burnout
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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Your Constellation of Pleasures

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You have a unique constellation of pleasures, desires and interests that make you who you are. How well do you know your own pleasure constellations? What are the brightest stars that are easy to go after and express, and what pleasures might be dimmed by shame or fear?

This episode was inspired by the responses to our talk in the Explore More Summit. We will continue next week with a conversation about what to do with desires that can not be fulfilled right now – or ever!

Pleasure Constellations Worksheet Download

Transcription of Podcast Episode: Pleasure Constellations

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

Charlotte Rose: 00:05 I am Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 00:06 We are the Pleasure Mechanics, and on this podcast we give soulful yet explicit sex advice about every facet of human sexuality. Come on over to pleasuremechanics.com, where you will find a complete podcast archive, and while you are there, go to pleasuremechanics.com/free, and sign up for our free online course, The Erotic Essentials, so you can get started implementing our best strategies and techniques to start building a happier and more pleasurable sex life on your own terms. That’s pleasuremechanics.com/free. Welcome to our new listeners. Last week, we were on the Explore More Summit. It is 10 days of brilliant talks and idea sharing with some amazing, amazing folks. We were honored to be a part of it, and if you were introduced to us through the Explore Sore summit, we are so glad you found us, and welcome to the community and we look forward to serving you over time.

Chris Rose: 01:16 Definitely check out the podcast archive, over at pleasuremechanics.com. There’s 325 episodes waiting for you, and they are all sorted by topic in our index on the site, and be in touch. Send us email. Let us know what ideas sparked for you in the talk, and what you are looking to explore with us. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the Explore More Summit is happening right now as you’re listening to this podcast, perhaps, or it is archived so that we will put a link in the show notes page, and you can get a copy of all of those talks, I think ongoing into the future, if you missed the live free event. All right, so today, we are going to start a little two part series, sparked by our Explore More talk. In the talk, we were talking about power, and pleasure, and touch, and intimacy. It was a very …

Charlotte Rose: 02:15 We covered a lot of topics.

Chris Rose: 02:17 We certainly did. We covered a lot of topics, and covered a lot of ground, and one of the ideas that sparked some conversation in the Facebook community, and in some emails we received, is this idea, of we all have pleasure constellations. We all have things we are drawn to. We all have desires, and fantasies, and parts of our sexuality that are being revealed to us at all times, right? We are living, breathing sexual organisms, and so first, how do we learn to explore those pleasure constellations? What does that mean to map those out and come to know ourselves as pleasure beings? Then what we do with desires unfulfilled? I made a little statement about, there is maturity in recognizing that there are some of your desires will never be met, and that seemed to spark some feelings for a lot of people. We’re going to talk in the second part of this, next week, about desires unfulfilled and how to come into a ease-filled relationship with those desires.

Charlotte Rose: 03:24 Great. I was going to say right relationship with our unfulfilled desires. What do we do with them? How do we hold them?

Chris Rose: 03:30 But first, how do we get to know ourselves? How do we know our pleasure constellations? What does this idea mean, in terms of getting to, getting in touch with what those desires are in the first place? Right? Before we know if desires can be fulfilled or not, we need to be able to name and articulate those desires.

Charlotte Rose: 03:54 Sorry, I was just going off into really wanting to paint pleasure. I want to do a painting about pleasure constellations, and I was painting it in my head.

Chris Rose: 04:02 Okay, so that’s really …

Charlotte Rose: 04:03 Now I’m back. Now I’m back.

Chris Rose: 04:04 That’s actually a really good clue. Okay, so how do we know who we are as human beings? How does our individual interests, and pleasures, and desires give us a map to who we are, and our purpose on this planet, and who we might be wanting to be in community with? There’s this idea embedded in this idea that we are all unique individuals within this beautiful human community, and that knowing yourself as an individual is important. If we just start there, that knowing who you are is important, and this includes your sexuality, right? This conversation can be about all pleasures, about what kind of food do you like, what kind of music you like, what kind of art attracts you? What do you want to do on your holiday? Do you want to go camping or do you want to go to the big city?

Chris Rose: 04:57 Right? We can think about this in these very broad terms of pleasure, and then we can also think about it in terms of the most intimate terrain of our sexuality, our core desires, what we want to do when we are naked and sweaty with another human being, even if that is only in our minds. We will try to straddle both of those things, talking about pleasure broadly, because that broad category of pleasure is actually super important, and we all need to know ourselves better there, but also our sexual core pleasures and desires.

Charlotte Rose: 05:34 Yeah. What we do with our time really influences and impacts our entire life. The choices we make about how we spend three hours of time on a Saturday or a Sunday influences how we feel in our body, the level of connection we have with ourself, with our family, with our community, and we are all making different choices all the time, and shaping our lives with the places we go, the food we eat, the communities we’re touching. It’s just really powerful to reflect on sometimes of, is it what you want it to be? What would you desire more of? What would you desire less off,and to sort of do an inventory of your life, and of the amount of pleasures you’re experiencing outside of the bedroom. Then we can think about it also in the bedroom. Sometimes it’s easier to think about in a nonsexual way. We have less …

Chris Rose: 06:28 Baggage.

Charlotte Rose: 06:29 Yeah, we have less emotional like feelings about it, so it’s sort of an easier place to practice.

Chris Rose: 06:35 When you think about your constellations of pleasures, think broadly, and try to pinpoint those stars in your sky that might start shaping who you are, if you are thinking about who you are through the lens of your core pleasures. Forget your identities, your profession, your family. Just think about you as an organism, as a being, and think about what gives you as a being the most pleasure. Is it the ocean? Is it golf? Is it food? Try to get really both broad and then specific, and we will provide you in the show notes page, a PDF, where you can print it out and actually do this on paper, and I think that can be really helpful to start making it graphic, really writing it out, or visualize it, if you’re more of a visual person, but think of who you are as a being, as a constellation of pleasures. Charlotte mentioned in the beginning of this conversation, oh, my mind went to painting this conversation. That is because one of Charlotte’s core pleasures is art, broadly, more specifically, painting, and even more specifically than that, bright, beautiful colors. Is that accurate?

Charlotte Rose: 08:02 Yes, and-

Chris Rose: 08:03 How would you name that?

Charlotte Rose: 08:05 Yeah, I have loved painting and making art, but it is something that I’ve had so much resistance around and I … It’s taken a lot of courage and support to really create, and I think this is true for a lot of people, like trying to make space for something that you feel deeply in you, in your internal landscape that you want to do but are not doing, is a whole relationship that is worth looking at, I think, for a lot of us.

Chris Rose: 08:39 Okay. Let’s transition there in a second. Let’s talk about, what is one pleasure for you that you have not had resistance around, then you’ve had full social permission to just embrace, and go for? What’s an easy pleasure for you?

Charlotte Rose: 08:52 For me, movement, like dance. In my own home, not in like any kind of professional or organized way. I literally mean like dancing in my bedroom, dancing and other big room stretching, all of those kind. That is so joyful for me, and is such an important part of my vitality and wellbeing, and changes my life when I do it, and I love it, and I’m so clear that it is important to me.

Chris Rose: 09:17 These are the good things to look at, so what are the pleasures that have felt easy for you to go for in your life that you’ve felt social permission around, that you have felt social support? Naybe your parents put you in a class when you were a kid, or you got encouragement from other adults in your life. What pleasures and interests of yours have been socially supported and easy to embrace?

Charlotte Rose: 09:41 What about you, honey?

Chris Rose: 09:43 My intellect. That was always my primary thing that people applauded and supported, and so the pleasure of being a student, and getting good grades, and weaving ideas together, and writing. Those were all things that we’re really encouraged for me, and so as an organism, when things are encouraged for you, and you have the adults, your caretakers around you saying, “Good job. Yay, that’s great. You’re so good at that,” it’s natural for us to gravitate towards those pleasures. Right? Because we are confirmed, we are affirmed from the outside, like, those are good things. Go for it. We are getting to sex here, people. Don’t worry. Then think about what are the pleasures that you might feel inside you that were not socially supported, so things like painting, or dancing, things that are outside of your gender box. If you’re a macho boy that loves football and cupcakes, like the football might’ve been applauded, and you were put on teams, and bought uniforms, but when you went to bake with your grandmother, maybe your father came to pick you up and said like, “Take off that sissy apron,” or something. Right? What pleasures were you drawn to as a kid and throughout your life that you were restricted or shamed about?

Chris Rose: 11:02 What are the ones that are just a little more tender and vulnerable? I think the arts, for a lot of people, it’s like, oh, you want to be an artist? Ha ha ha, that’s not realistic. Capitalism and all of these things, like the social pressure of performing and getting a good job, also start interrupting our pleasures. What are the pleasures we would do if we didn’t have to grind it out at our job every day, is also a great lens here. What pleasures do not give your space, time, or permission for? What we’re painting here is this landscape of, we all have these pleasures within us, but over our lifetimes, and within our social conditioning, some pleasures are amplified, and given a lot of space and encouragement around, and other pleasures start to be dimmed, and maybe even quashed, constricted, silenced, shamed.

Chris Rose: 11:56 When we start zooming into our pleasure constellations, and then thinking about our sexual pleasure constellations, this is where these two forces of what has been given social permission, what has been encouraged, and what has been dimmed, silenced or squashed becomes really obvious.

Charlotte Rose: 12:16 Totally.

Chris Rose: 12:17 As you think about your sexual pleasures, your sexual desires, just notice, and be really compassionate and easy with yourself, because we’re all going to have desires that are really easy to express out loud, and desires that feel terrifying to even acknowledge to yourself, and this is because we live in a very narrow window of sexual permission in our culture. It is totally okay for a man to say out loud over a couple beers that he is a boob man, right? For a guy to like be like, oh she’s got nice boobs. I l,ove tits. Not going to really disrupt a lot of social circles, but for that same guy to be like I love feet and sucking on toes. That is not as socially acceptable in that conversation. Right?

Chris Rose: 13:13 This social gaze on our desires matters. It matters what we see representation of, what we see permission around, and then how we hear other people talk about the things that might be lighting us up inside. If you’ve known you’ve always been drawn to feet, and want to suck on toes, and you hear one of your friends or a girlfriend kind of talk about, ugh, those guys with fetishes are so gross. Like, what do they get out of it? Like, what pervs. That causes your inner light to flicker, that causes you to doubt yourself, and it certainly causes you to say to yourself, “Do not reveal this, because if you do, you will be judged.” This is just the reality. And then all of us live within like micro cultures within our relationships, and sub cultures within our communities, and cultures of race, and clas,s and education that have different barometers of what is okay and what’s not okay, what is permissible, what is forbidden.

Chris Rose: 14:13 All of that affects our internal gauge of what is okay to express and go for in life, and what is okay to seek out within our relationships, and integrate as like part of your sexuality versus what has to stay in your shame, and in your most private landscape, and not even be acknowledged to yourself. Then the range between those. Can you masturbate to something but not ask your partner for it? This is all a lot of self reflection. I get that, but it’s also really important in the process of knowing who you are as a sexual being. When we, or your partner, turns to you and say, ‘What do you want to explore next? What do you want to play with? What do you want to experience? What kind of sex do you even want to be having,” that we can have a more specific response to that, we can name our longings more clearly, and know that those longings, just like you’re longing for art or cello music, those longings are part of who you are. They’re part of you as a unique and beautiful individual, and part of what you have to offer this human community. Reel me in, Char. I’m going broad.

Charlotte Rose: 15:33 I love it. I think it’s really valuable, so we can understand all of those as big ideas, and then what does that look like in the body? What are we listening for? What are we observing within ourselves that then we want to notice, so there can be slight flickering of interest.

Chris Rose: 15:53 Wait, just a sec. What are we noticing within ourselves to feel like what are desires? How do we feel a yes? Is that what you’re saying?

Charlotte Rose: 16:00 Yeah. Yeah, because I think that so many of us don’t allow ourselves to really notice what we love, because of that social conditioning, and we have to get into the practice of listening internally in our own flesh, in the landscape of our body, for information, for cues, for twinklings, I want to say, but I have to go keep going on this [inaudible 00:00:16:27], but of information that is telling us actually, you were a little bit interested in this thing over here, that maybe you have some feelings, and judgment, and shame about, but if you maybe explore a little bit more, and give yourself a little bit of kindness and compassion just to explore it. Let’s see what you discover, because that is one of the first pieces to really discovering our constellation, is giving ourselves a space of not so much judgment to explore.

Chris Rose: 16:57 I think that’s a really good question, of how do we notice a yes in our body? How do we pay attention to pleasure in our body, and we’ve been talking more and more about interoception on this podcast, which is that really sexy super power of feeling the feelings inside your body. Not the sensations coming from the outside, but the sensations internally, and paying attention to your yes is a process of interoception, so think of it this way. Let’s just do an exercise right now, so think of one of your favorite places in the world, a place where you feel happy, and secure, and safe, and also maybe even a little sexy or pleasured, and just go there in your mind, and notice how it feels in your body, and pay a specific attention to those sensual details that you love.

Chris Rose: 17:56 Is it the way the light hits the water? Is it the fabric of that couch at your favorite home? Anchor this fantasy in a few sensual details that you know with your body, and start paying attention to how your body feels. Can you feel warmth flowing, buzzing, a streaming sensation? What language can you bring to those sensations around something that feels good to you, or think about one of your favorite sexual experiences, and take this into the arousal realm. We’ve talked about peak erotic experiences on this podcast before, so take yourself into the memory of a peak erotic experience, and really pay attention to how your body feels.

Chris Rose: 18:46 Then take a few deep breaths, notice that in your body, and then we can start summoning a no. Think about a person you don’t like. Think about a situation you don’t want to be in. Think about a worst case scenario, and start noticing, I just felt that shift in my body right away. Just saying the words, notice the constriction, the tension, the tightness, the catching of your breath. This is a process of getting to know what your body is telling you about things based on sensation. It is a super power. It takes time to hone, but you can’t do this without noticing, so next time you’re thinking about going to a restaurant, you’re investing your time, and your money, and what you’re putting in your mouth based on that restaurant choice, so summon up a few choices. Visualize yourself sitting in that restaurant, and figure out where your yes is. Right. Does that?

Charlotte Rose: 19:46 Yeah, totally. I was just wondering if we could take them back to like a pleasant experience so we can like …

Chris Rose: 19:50 All right, so let’s go back to a really pleasurable experience. Let’s go to that peak erotic experience, because that’s one of the best ways to feel a yes, is to make it big. Thinking about a subtle yes between, do I want to join that PTA committee? That might be harder, so go to your big yeses, or go to the everyday yeses, but go into a peak erotic experience and again, locate the sensual anchors. What are the feelings you felt? What are the smells, the sights, the tastes, and then also how did that other person treat you in a peak erotic experience? What are the social cues of that feeling good?

Chris Rose: 20:36 This is complicated in the fact that there are ways we want to be treated, in high states of arousal and eroticism that, that’s not a yes in everyday life, but the process of feeling your yes and no in your body, and people have been talking about this more and more with our talks of consent, and boundaries. How do we know what we want? We have to go inside and give ourselves space and time to feel, and sometimes that means taking time, giving yourself the time for a few moments, pause before making a decision, before making a reaction, and really feeling the landscape of what’s going on. Let’s bring this back to sex, so when you’re mapping your sexual pleasure constellation, there will be those bright stars that you know you like. You love fucking your wife. Awesome. Locate that, and then kind of zoom in and like, what else is within that node in your pleasure constellation?

Chris Rose: 21:36 What do you like about fucking your wife? What are the micro pleasures within that, and then zoom out and it’s like, without social conditioning, without the limitations of real world, what would be in your pleasure constellation? Next week we’re going to talk about, how do we navigate naming and being authentic with the broadest sense of who we are, the most true sense of who we are as sexual beings, and also acknowledging we do live in real world, with real world limitations and conditions, and even something like being interested in more than one gender, or more than one person at a time, that might be a desire you have to live with not fulfilling, if you are in a monogamous relationship. Or things like sucking on toes. If your partner doesn’t like their toes sucked on, what do you do with that? What do we do with a parts of our desire maps, our constellations, that we will not reach in this lifetime?

Chris Rose: 22:38 How do we be in integrity with that? I think that’s a really tender conversation. We will go there next week, but for now, and with the resources in the show notes page, I really invite you to start mapping your pleasure constellations, and then your sexual constellations, and get to know yourself as a sexual being. If I wanted to know who you were as a sexual being, how would you explain that to me through what you enjoy? As we define ourselves, think less about your identities and more about what you enjoy, what pleasures you enjoy giving and receiving, what pleasures excite you, and entice you, and arouse you, and light you up. Let’s go back to that Audre Lorde definition of eroticism. What gives you life? What excites you and sparks your flow of life energy. Start there. Marie Kondo recently is been hitting all the news. What sparks joy, and we need to figure out how do we feel joym and then notice what sparks joy. What creates pleasure in your life. That is the inquiry of this week.

Charlotte Rose: 23:50 Yeah, so this is a lifelong inquiry that is always changing, always evolving, but any time, and attention, and effort you put into exploring this right now can be really valuable, no motto where your partner, if you have a partner, or if they’re interested in exploring this with you, it’s a really valuable personal inquiry that is worth returning to as you discover new interests, and as you’re out in the world, notice and feel for sparks of interest, of warmth, of excitement, about anything, and just let that be information for yourself, that that is a part of yourself that you are noticing.

Chris Rose: 24:31 As you map these pleasures, again, a reminder for self compassion here. As you recognize pleasures that you have longing for, there may be steps to start recalibrating your life, to allow more of those pleasures in. When you recognize, oh, I love swimming and I haven’t been swimming in two years, finding a local pool for a weekly swim might be accessible to you, and there might be pleasures that feel really far away, and there can be a sense of longing, and grief, and mourning that opens up there. This is really what we want to dive into next week, is how do we make friends with desires that feel further away? How do we excavate desires from underneath the shame and secrecy, and even if they stay private, honor our desires a little more? But this is all about getting to know yourself, and feeling a little bit more permission about being who you are, instead of being on the script, the social script that tells us who we should be, and who we ought to be, and start really re-centering into this, the radical diversity of the human family.

Chris Rose: 25:43 We all have so much in common, but we all are really interesting, unique individuals, and as soon as I started going to dinner parties and asking instead of like, oh, what do you do for a living, and we start asking, what excites you? What are you excited about right now? You get into such better conversations, because instead of knowing that someone’s an accountant, I know that they’re really into Greek tragedy opera. I don’t even know if that’s a thing. They’re really into something, and when they told me what they’re into, I see who they are, and we can start there. Tell me about your obsession with opera. When did that begin for you? This is such a better way to get to know each other as human beings, and so let’s all do the work of mapping a little bit, who we are through our pleasures, through our interests, and our excitements, and including our sexual pleasures within that.

Chris Rose: 26:38 Even that process is honoring that sexuality as part of who we are, and our unique sexual pleasures matter. Not only setting you on the path for fulfilling those desires, but even just knowing who you are as a unique sexual being is incredibly powerful. Let’s start doing that a little bit more together. Yeah?

Charlotte Rose: 27:01 Sounds good. Let’s do it.

Chris Rose: 27:03 Thank you for listening to this podcast. If you are a new listener who found us through Explore More, welcome. There is a huge podcast archive to be discovered at pleasuremechanics.com. While you’re there, sign up for our free online course at pleasuremechanics.com/free, and if you have been listening to this podcast for a while, and love what we do, and are delighted by the idea of an influx of new listeners, and more people being exposed to the heart and soul we bring to this topic, then please support us on Patreon. Go to patreon.com/pleasuremechanics, and throw in a monthly donation of a few bucks a month to help us do this work in the world, and continue to reach new people, and spark new conversations and ideas for folks. We are so thrilled to be doing this work. Thank you for your support. We love you. We are so happy to be in these conversations with you, and next week we will be back with you, with continuing this conversation about desires, fulfilled and unfulfilled. Yes? I’m Chris.

Charlotte Rose: 28:16 I’m Charlotte.

Chris Rose: 28:17 We are the Pleasure Mechanics.

Charlotte Rose: 28:18 Wishing you a lifetime of pleasure.

Chris Rose: 28:21 Cheers.

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