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Speaker 1: Pushkin. I want you to think about your day so far.

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Speaker 1: You woke up and then what Maybe you took a

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Speaker 1: shower and paused for a moment to savor the sensation

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Speaker 1: of warm water on your shoulders. Maybe you bit into

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Speaker 1: a carrot and it was like you had never tasted

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Speaker 1: a carrot before, an astonishment of crunch and sweet and

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Speaker 1: earth and rain. Maybe you were writing in line somewhere

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Speaker 1: and a song came on that just happened to be

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Speaker 1: exactly the song that captured your current mood, and in

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Speaker 1: that moment you felt like the whole universe had your back.

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Speaker 1: This is pleasure, Oh my god, I mean so many

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Speaker 1: things are pleasurable, Honestly, just laying down with my boyfriend

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Speaker 1: in bed, listening to music I love asmr at the beach,

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Speaker 1: at the park, reading a book, just being in nature,

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Speaker 1: making ceramics or cooking, or painting my nails and doing

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Speaker 1: face masks, like pampering myself. What if every choice you

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Speaker 1: made about your sexuality was about following that feeling, that

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Speaker 1: feeling of yes. I'm Emmilinagaski. I've been a sex educator

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Speaker 1: for over twenty five years. I'm the author of two

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Speaker 1: best selling books. Come as you are and burnout, and

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Speaker 1: my purpose in life is to help people live with

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Speaker 1: confidence and joy in their bodies. And this is that

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Speaker 1: Come as you Are podcast where I answer your questions

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Speaker 1: about sex with science. Hi there, I am. I have

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Speaker 1: a question for you. I have a question regarding six

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Speaker 1: draws orgasm. How can I increase my spontaneous desire again?

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Speaker 1: So I'm just a little confused on that, and I

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Speaker 1: kind of point your advice. I would love some, hope.

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Speaker 1: I get questions every day from people all around the world,

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Speaker 1: and they're amazing, important questions that deserve great evidence based answers.

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Speaker 1: So that is what I'm going to be doing on

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Every episode, I'll answer your questions and bust

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Speaker 1: myths and misconceptions about sex. But before we even get

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Speaker 1: into talking about sex, we first need to talk about pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Whether you're having sex with yourself, with partners, or not

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Speaker 1: having any sex at all. Finding your genuine pleasure is

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Speaker 1: the bedrock of everything I'll be talking about on this show,

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Speaker 1: and it's relevant to everybody. In my quarter century as

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Speaker 1: a sex educator, everything I've learned can be summarized in

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Speaker 1: one statement. Pleasure is the measure Pleasure is the measure

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Speaker 1: of sexual well being. It's not about how much you

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Speaker 1: crave sex, how often you have it, or who you

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Speaker 1: do it with, or where or in what position, or

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Speaker 1: even how many orgasms you have. It's whether or not

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Speaker 1: you like the sex you are having, whether it's genuinely

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Speaker 1: pleasurable to you. And you can only get to pleasure

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Speaker 1: if you know what pleasure feels like for you in

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Speaker 1: many different contexts, and if you practice accessing it. And

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Speaker 1: you may be saying, Emily, how am I supposed to

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Speaker 1: remember what pleasure feels like in this post row capitalist

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Speaker 1: healthscape where our democracy is failing and we're teetering on

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Speaker 1: the edge of climate crisis and totalitarianism. Good question. It's

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Speaker 1: a question I've been asking myself over the past few years,

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Speaker 1: no surprise, and to answer it, I've had to get

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Speaker 1: really specific about what pleasure is and how to practice it.

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Speaker 1: I've had to relearn my own pleasure pathways and reconnect

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Speaker 1: to pleasures small and large in my own life. To

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Speaker 1: help introduce the life changing exercise of pleasure, I've asked

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Speaker 1: for help from a pleasure activist, writer and organizer, Adrian

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Speaker 1: Marie Brown. Pleasure it's not something that just happens to

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Speaker 1: you in the same way, like no one's ever just

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Speaker 1: going to ride in on a white horse and scoop

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Speaker 1: you up and take you off to Loveland. You know,

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Speaker 1: pleasure is a practice. Adrian's written half a dozen books,

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Speaker 1: including this gorgeous m dream of a book called Pleasure Activism.

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Speaker 1: My copy is highlighted, written all over, and filled with

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Speaker 1: page markers. It is a practical and poetic guide to

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Speaker 1: accessing greater pleasure. You ask in Pleasure Activism for readers

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Speaker 1: to consider who taught you to feel good? Yes, what

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Speaker 1: pleasure activism really is is reclaiming our right to have

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Speaker 1: pleasure and contentment from the myths of supremacy and oppression.

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Speaker 1: And for pleasure activism, the lineage is really Audrey Lord,

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Speaker 1: who as a black feminist poet and organizer. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, she published this essay called the Uses of

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Speaker 1: the Eroticus Power and same thing she really talked about

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Speaker 1: what it means to be satisfiable and satisfied. Audrey Lord

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Speaker 1: is the origin story of understanding the connection between pleasure

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Speaker 1: and social revolution. I could spend hours talking about her work,

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Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna say if you haven't read it,

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Speaker 1: or honestly, even if you have. The uses of the

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Speaker 1: erotic is on YouTube, read by Audrey Lord herself. After

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Speaker 1: you listen to this episode, take a break and give

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Speaker 1: yourself a gift. Sit outside or lay in bed with

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Speaker 1: your eyes closed, and listen to Audrey's powerful message. She

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Speaker 1: has the best definition of erotic I've ever heard. The

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Speaker 1: erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense

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Speaker 1: of self and the chaos and power of our deepest feelings.

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Speaker 1: It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once

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Speaker 1: we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. Once

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Speaker 1: we actually experience true erotic awakening to yes, to living

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Speaker 1: our lives, to a full yes, it becomes impossible to

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Speaker 1: settle for suffering. In touch with the erotic, I become

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Speaker 1: less willing to accept powerlessness, all those other supplied states

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Speaker 1: of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair,

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Speaker 1: self effacement, depression, self denial. It feels like she gave

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Speaker 1: us this key. It's like, Oh, if you have experienced oppression,

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Speaker 1: or if you're experiencing oppression, part of what's been taken

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Speaker 1: from you is the idea that you could be satisfied

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Speaker 1: in this lifetime and that you could have contentment and

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Speaker 1: small pleasures. There's so much about being a body in

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Speaker 1: this world that trauma happens, and life happens, and oppression happens,

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Speaker 1: and then you reclaim yourself And what does that mean?

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Speaker 1: That I say, of course, is extremely important to anybody

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Speaker 1: who does this kind of work, including me. I quote

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Speaker 1: it extensively. And one of the most powerful things for

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Speaker 1: me is the idea that erotic is not sexual. Erotic

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Speaker 1: isn't even necessarily pleasure itself. It is aliveness. It's aliveness

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Speaker 1: as someone who is in the process of menopause, aging

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Speaker 1: and disability and chronic pain. Recognizing that the discomforts of

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Speaker 1: my body when I can turn towards those with kindness

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Speaker 1: and compassion, patience and a welcoming that acknowledges their passage

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Speaker 1: through me, it increases my sense of like, I'm alive,

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Speaker 1: That sensation is there because I am alive, which is

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Speaker 1: really good practice for me to recognize pleasure when it

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Speaker 1: comes to recognize its passage through me. It's my aliveness.

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Speaker 1: More after the break, I'm Emilinagosky and this is the

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Speaker 1: very first episode of the Come as You Are podcast.

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Speaker 1: It's a prelude an introduction to the most important concept

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Speaker 1: of all pleasure. I know a lot about the science

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Speaker 1: of sexual well being, but science has its limits. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the science of pleasure is very limited. Sometimes the thing

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Speaker 1: that really helps us to connect to our sexuality our

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Speaker 1: aliveness is not science. It's poetry, and that's Adrian's specialty.

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Speaker 1: I believe in the power of science. I think it's

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Speaker 1: going to be a necessary part of how we make

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Speaker 1: the world a better place. And also the distance science

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Speaker 1: has gotten me as a sex educator is pleasure is

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Speaker 1: the measure of sexual well being. It's not how often

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Speaker 1: you do it, or who we're with, or even how

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Speaker 1: many orgasms you have. It's whether or not you enjoy

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Speaker 1: the sex you are having. But you get all the

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Speaker 1: way to pleasure is freedom. Yes, pleasure is the measure

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Speaker 1: of freedom. That's right. Was such a more expansive vision. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's related, right, It's all related. So freedom

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Speaker 1: is what my orientation is as a black liberation oriented person.

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Speaker 1: Right that I'm like, I was born into a context

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Speaker 1: in which my freedom was curtailed. My freedom was like

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Speaker 1: I knew that I should be freer than I was

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Speaker 1: allowed to be, and both in race, but also in sexuality,

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Speaker 1: in gender, and all these other ways. You know, Like

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Speaker 1: I was like hold up, I can feel inside myself

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Speaker 1: a different reality than what the world is telling me.

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Speaker 1: Even though my job is teaching people how to find

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Speaker 1: pleasure themselves, I sometimes struggle to practice pleasure myself. Too

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Speaker 1: often I fall into the trap of centering my life

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Speaker 1: around productivity, or what Audrey Lord refers to in uses

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Speaker 1: of the erotic as a travesty of necessities. The principal

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Speaker 1: horror of any system which defines the good in terms

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Speaker 1: of profit rather than in terms of human need, or

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Speaker 1: which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic

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Speaker 1: and emotional components of that need. The principal horror of

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Speaker 1: any such system is that it robs our work of

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Speaker 1: its erotic value, its erotic power, its erotic life appeal

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Speaker 1: and fulfillment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty

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Speaker 1: of necessities. My producer Moan taught me the term chorgasm.

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Speaker 1: It apparently describes the feeling you get when you cross

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Speaker 1: the last thing off your to do list. Ach orgasm

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Speaker 1: can admittedly feel great, and we live in a world

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Speaker 1: that defines the good as making a profit instead of

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Speaker 1: meeting human needs. So it rewards us for being productive

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Speaker 1: and punishes us for our aliveness. So I, like everyone,

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Speaker 1: have fallen into the trap of focusing on my productivity

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Speaker 1: and forgetting to notice my aliveness. I know a ton

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Speaker 1: about the brain mechanisms underlying access to pleasure, and that

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean I always have access to pleasure. What happens? So, like, I'm,

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Speaker 1: you know, writing a book. Yeah, and it's a book

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Speaker 1: about sexual pleasure. Yes, But I'm like so focused and

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Speaker 1: so stressed and so busy that I can't let go.

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Speaker 1: And there is a certain pleasure and joy in disappearing

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Speaker 1: into a work project God knows. But like, I have

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Speaker 1: a relationship, but a person I would like to feel

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Speaker 1: glad is with me. Yeah, that's right. I think there's

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Speaker 1: this piece, this journey from understanding stuff theoretically into the

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Speaker 1: being in the practices of it. There's this quote from

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Speaker 1: Octavia Butler in the Parables where she says, belief initiates

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Speaker 1: and guide's action, or it does nothing. And many of

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Speaker 1: us are socialized to be in states of obligation with

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Speaker 1: each other, states of polite lying. We are trained to

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Speaker 1: overdo everything in the spirit of capitalism, and we're trained

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Speaker 1: that our value is only about what we can produce,

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Speaker 1: which is very unsatisfying, you know, because you can never

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Speaker 1: produce enough. I say that as someone who's like I'm

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Speaker 1: like producing as much as I can, and I promise

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Speaker 1: you there's no like clique. Yes, that was enough, That's

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Speaker 1: not where satisfaction comes from. We will all be tempted

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Speaker 1: by the transient reward of being productive. And that's exactly

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Speaker 1: why Adrian is reminding me that we all need an

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Speaker 1: intentional practice of pleasure. Pleasure will take our hand. It

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Speaker 1: will show us how good it is to be alive

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Speaker 1: right now. It will remind us that we are already

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Speaker 1: enough and unlike the fleeting, fickle, shallow rush of productivity.

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Speaker 1: Once we start practicing pleasure in our everyday lives, then,

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Speaker 1: and really only then, can we find our sexual liberation.

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Speaker 1: It's not enough for me to just believe that I'm

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Speaker 1: sexually liberated and to build a whole system of beliefs

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Speaker 1: around how I should be, but it has to initiate

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Speaker 1: and guide my action. So at various points in my

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Speaker 1: life that has meant different things, right, but one of

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Speaker 1: them is I have a consistent practice of orgasm, for instance,

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Speaker 1: and not just orgasm. It's really broadened to just self pleasure,

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Speaker 1: because sometimes I'll find that the most healthy thing for

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Speaker 1: my day is actually to masturbate, but not to have

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Speaker 1: an orgasm, right to masturbate and just feel the pleasure

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Speaker 1: and feel connected to myself and deepen my breath and

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Speaker 1: notice what is generating desiring me in that day. And

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's a poem is pounding at the door of

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Speaker 1: my mind or the door of my heart, and I

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Speaker 1: could try to hold it off, or I could release

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Speaker 1: it and really feel the satisfaction of like, fuck, I

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Speaker 1: got it onto the page, Like that's so good. I'm

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Speaker 1: always asking myself how to make justice and liberation the

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Speaker 1: most pleasurable things we can do, the most pleasurable experiences

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Speaker 1: we can have as humans. So how do we bring

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Speaker 1: our attention back to like this gorgeous planet we've been given,

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Speaker 1: that it's facunned, and like we can just go lay

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Speaker 1: in the grass and receive sunline on us, and like

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Speaker 1: that is an orgasmic experience. One reason I wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk to Adrian is because I wanted her advice. During

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, I was working from home day every day,

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Speaker 1: so I spend the entire day writing in my office,

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Speaker 1: and then I emerge at six pm feeling productive but

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Speaker 1: drained and disconnected from my body. I find myself struggling

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Speaker 1: to get out of the headspace of productivity and planning

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Speaker 1: and into the headspace of pleasure, aliveness, and connection. Adrian

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Speaker 1: had a suggestion for helping me get into that different headspace.

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Speaker 1: You also might want to give yourself like a transition window,

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Speaker 1: you know, because I think sometimes that's the thing for me,

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Speaker 1: is like when I finish a piece of writing, or

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Speaker 1: if I do a big event, right if I'm doing

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Speaker 1: like a big event, and especially now in the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: it's like you might do like a massive event, but

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Speaker 1: you're still sitting in your house, in your potamia. But

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Speaker 1: I'm still like okay, but my whole system is flooded

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Speaker 1: with the energy of what I was just doing, and

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Speaker 1: so I need to take five minutes to you know,

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Speaker 1: for me my energy, It's like sometimes I'll go and

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Speaker 1: just put my feet on the dirt outside if it's warm,

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Speaker 1: and just like run that energy down into the earth

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Speaker 1: before I try to interact with anyone. Sometimes I need

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Speaker 1: a full like I need to take a bath, and

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Speaker 1: then I'll be a good human for other humans. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: thanks for solving that problem for me. I got it,

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Speaker 1: I got you. Anything else we need to attend to?

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Speaker 1: I mean that is like the fundamental circling question of

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Speaker 1: my life is how do I both do a job

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Speaker 1: I love and be a person around people I love? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: every day, at the end of the day, I do

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Speaker 1: a gratitude practice. And what I'm offering gratitude for is

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Speaker 1: what pleasure was I able to experience in this day.

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Speaker 1: Gratitude is a major theme in Adrian's work. One of

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Speaker 1: my favorite passages in Pleasure Activism is a poem titled

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Speaker 1: Radical Gratitude Spell. Radical Gratitude Spell a spell to cast

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Speaker 1: upon meeting a stranger, comrade, or friend working for social

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Speaker 1: and or environmental justice and liberation. You are a miracle walking.

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Speaker 1: I greet you with wonder in a world which seeks

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Speaker 1: to own your joy and your imagination. You have chosen

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Speaker 1: to be free every day as a practice. I can

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Speaker 1: never know the struggles you went through to get here,

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Speaker 1: but I know you have swum upstream and at times

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Speaker 1: it has been lonely. I want you to know I

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Speaker 1: honor the choices you made in solitude, and I honor

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Speaker 1: the work you have done to belong. I honor your

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Speaker 1: commitment to that which is larger than yourself, and your

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Speaker 1: journey to love the particular container of life that is you.

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Speaker 1: You are enough, your work is enough, you are needed,

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Speaker 1: your work is sacred. You are here, and I am grateful.

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Speaker 1: It's always radical to me that even on the worst days,

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Speaker 1: and even in the days where I'm like, I don't

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Speaker 1: understand this world and it's filling me with grief and despair,

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Speaker 1: but even on those days, there are small pleasures. And

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Speaker 1: even in my deepest grief, sometimes the only pleasure I

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Speaker 1: have is thank you for giving me something I loved

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Speaker 1: so much that I grieve it. But even on those days,

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Speaker 1: there's something I can notice. And that's the practice. It's

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Speaker 1: so simple, right, You think of one experience of pleasure

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Speaker 1: you had today, and you say it out loud, you

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Speaker 1: express gratitude for that experience of pleasure. But I've been

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Speaker 1: doing this or months now, and it has kind of

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Speaker 1: changed everything. It's not just that it makes me more

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Speaker 1: aware of the pleasure in my life. It makes it

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Speaker 1: so that it is so much easier for me to

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Speaker 1: get to pleasure so that in that moment at six

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Speaker 1: o'clock when I blearily step out of my office, I

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Speaker 1: transition into my aliveness so readily, and the world seems

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Speaker 1: so much more vivid to me. I walk past the

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Speaker 1: window where the aglianema is growing, and I see the

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Speaker 1: new leaf that is starting to unfurl. I see my

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Speaker 1: husband in the kitchen, cooking dinner for us, and literally

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Speaker 1: he looks more beautiful to me now because I am

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Speaker 1: training my brain to find pleasure more easily, to dwell

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Speaker 1: in a state of pleasure, beauty, joy, and love. Highly

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Speaker 1: recommend it. In the rest of the series, I'll be

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Speaker 1: answering your questions. Are you supposed to have six when

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Speaker 1: you get that old? What I'm saying, if you want it,

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Speaker 1: I do want it? How can I increase my spontaneous

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Speaker 1: desire again? On the podcast, I'd love to hear your

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Speaker 1: thoughts about sex after divorce, and as always, I'll be

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Speaker 1: joined by my producer, mo Hi mo Hi. Emily, you

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Speaker 1: want to plug the hotline before we go, do I?

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Speaker 1: If you have a question for me, call my hotline

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Speaker 1: six four six three nine seven eight five five seven,

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00:21:54,316 --> 00:21:58,836
Speaker 1: or send a voice memo to Emily at Pushkin dot Fm.

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00:21:58,836 --> 00:22:02,116
Speaker 1: Tell me your pronouns and name. Take a name, any name.

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Speaker 1: Your question might be answered on the show Commas You

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00:22:10,556 --> 00:22:13,716
Speaker 1: Are is a production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells.

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Speaker 1: It's hosted by Emily Nagosky. You can find Emily on

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Speaker 1: Instagram at e Nagosky and on Twitter at Emily Nagosky.

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00:22:22,276 --> 00:22:24,796
Speaker 1: You can also sign up for her newsletter at Emily

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00:22:24,876 --> 00:22:28,636
Speaker 1: Nagosky dot com, where she writes about everything from the

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Speaker 1: clitterest in your mind to orgasm after having hysterectomy. It's

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Speaker 1: an incredible newsletter, Highly recommended. This show is co hosted

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Speaker 1: and lead produced by me Mola Board. You can find

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Speaker 1: me online at Mola Board and on TikTok at podcast

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Speaker 1: dot slut, Sorry mom My. Co producer on this show

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Speaker 1: is the fabulous Brittany Brown. Our editor is Kate Parkinson Morgan.

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Speaker 1: Sound design and mix by Anne Pope. Executive producers are

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Speaker 1: Mia LaBelle and leetal Malade at Pushkin. Thanks to Heather Fane,

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Speaker 1: Carly Migliori, Sophie Crane, Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton,

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Speaker 1: John Schnar, and Jacob Weisberg at Madison Wells thanks to

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Speaker 1: Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein and Gg Pritzker. Additional thanks to

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Speaker 1: Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe Frolic Media, and Peter Acker at

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Speaker 1: Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series was composed

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00:23:28,756 --> 00:23:35,116
Speaker 1: by Ameliagosky and arranged and recorded by Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional

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Speaker 1: music from Epidemic Sound. You can find Pushkin on all

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Speaker 1: social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you can sign up

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen