June 4, 2025 • 51 mins
Can you be a mom and a sexual being?
Our culture loves moms—as long as they’re selfless, sleepless, and silent about their desire. But what happens when a mother wants to reclaim her seductress energy?
In this raw and radically honest episode, I’m joined by licensed therapist Emma Shandy Anway to take a wrecking ball to the Madonna/Whore complex and everything it’s done to women’s sex lives.
We talk about:
- Why birth trauma and invisible labor silently sabotage libido
- The myth of “bouncing back”—and why it shouldn’t mean bouncing away from sex
- What partners get wrong about postpartum intimacy (and how to show up right)
- How moms can start feeling sexy again—even if their body feels like a stranger
- And how reclaiming pleasure can actually make you a better parent
Whether you’re a mom, a partner, or just sick of purity politics hijacking pleasure, this episode is your permission slip to get turned on—and stay that way.
Because sexy isn’t something you lose after motherhood. It’s something you fight to reclaim.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Do the sex pleasure and desire Around here.
Nothing's off limits.
These are the kinds ofconversations we save for our
boldest group chats, our mosttrusted friends and, of course,
the women's locker room.
Think raw, honest and sometimesunapologetically raunchy.
If you've been here from thebeginning, thank you, and if
(00:40):
you're new, welcome to mypodcast.
Where desire meets disruptionand pleasure becomes power.
Now let's talk about sex Cheers.
Today's Talk Sex with Annettetopic is Madonna meet whore From
diapers to desire.
How moms get their sex driveback.
(01:02):
Motherhood doesn't always killsex drive, but the way we talk
about it, that just might.
You're supposed to be a walkingmilk bar, a glowing domestic
goddess and somehow, if you'relucky, still a turned on woman.
But between leaking nipples,pelvic floor flashbacks and a
(01:23):
culture that treats sexy momslike scandals, most women are
left feeling more invisible thanirresistible.
This episode is aboutreclaiming your seductress
energy and burning down the myththat good moms aren't allowed
to be hot and have fun, kinky,adventurous sex.
(01:43):
I'm joined by Emma Shandy Anway,a licensed marriage and family
therapist based in Washingtonand California, who works at the
healing edge of perinatalmental health and sexuality.
She's not just a therapist,she's a longboarding potluck,
hosting motherhood redefiningbadass who's helping moms
(02:03):
everywhere get their bodies andtheir pleasure back.
But before we dive in and Iintroduce you to her, I want to
remind you all I am over onOnlyFans where I am sharing my
intimacy, coaching, how-tos,demonstrations and audio-guided
self pleasure meditations and somuch more to help you get your
pleasure journey and sex lifeback on track.
(02:25):
So you can find me there or substack under the handle at talk
sex with Annette.
Also, you can scroll down tothe notes section below and find
me wherever you want to find mein the links below.
But for now let's dive in and,emma, will you take a moment to
tell my listeners a little bitmore about you?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let's dive in and, emma, will you take a moment to
tell my listeners a little bitmore about you.
Yeah, thank you, annette.
I'm so happy to be here andgrateful for you hosting this
space.
It's so needed.
Like Annette said, I'm amarriage and family therapist.
I'm based in person in NorthernCalifornia, but I'm also
licensed in Washington, so Ihold some virtual sessions as
well, and I'm really passionateabout working with women,
(03:07):
especially women who identify asmothers, tap into their erotic
selves.
We live in a culture and a timewhere that is continuously
being shut down and judged andothered, and so to find a way to
do this embodied work isincredibly liberating.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I am so excited to have you here as a mother of
three.
This is an importantconversation and folks, of
course you're going to want tostay to the end, whether you are
a mother or you are a partnerof someone who's a mother who's
hoping to help her get herlibido back.
This is going to be animportant conversation for you
(03:44):
and by the end of this podcast,you are going to get a little
care package, if you will, likethe one that she hopefully got
when she was headed home fromthe birth center or the hospital
to help her start her journeyback to her body, her pleasure
and her sexiness.
So I'm ready.
Are you ready to dive in andtalk about motherhood?
(04:06):
So, ready, let's do it.
Cheers, cheers.
I'm ready for this conversation, having gone through this
myself as a mom of three, so Iwant to know your thoughts on
why does our culture treatpostpartum women like sacred
vessels until they want sexagain and suddenly they're
selfish, slutty or too much?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, it's a great question and I think you know,
in a way, that kind of starts assoon as you have the baby.
When you think about thosefollow-up visits, instead of it
being about the mom, it's aboutthe baby, right?
The mom gets one checkup sixweeks postpartum and that's it.
And then we're told okay, youcan have sex now, and that's
literally it.
(04:49):
So basically, after you, if youbiologically have a child,
after you have this child fromthe get-go, you are basically
being told you don't matter asmuch.
I mean, okay, your body is usedto keep this baby alive, right?
We've got the whole biologicalaspect of that.
And then we have the wholeconcept of the mental load that
(05:11):
comes in right.
So motherhood also means now Iam shouldering these
expectations of the patriarchyto do this, to do all of this,
to carry this, even if I'mworking full time, right.
And so if a woman dares tobreak out of that and dares to
say actually, like my breastsare allowed to be sexualized and
are allowed to feed my child,it's going against this both
(05:35):
kind of subconscious andhonestly overt cultural norm of
you.
Better just be quiet, youbetter keep your role as the
kind of giver right.
God forbid you have any sort oferotic identity outside of this
role of the selfless mother.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
When I started this podcast, one of the first things
said to me about being a momspeaking about sex was what will
your kids think?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
your kids think Totally, it's bonkers.
It's so interesting we have.
We have this concept that momscan't be a certain thing right,
like I, I like to longboardright, and one thing my friends
and I always joke about is theamount of cat calls and like
disbelief that I get from peoplelike whoa cool mom, whoa this,
where it's like at first it'sfunny but then you kind of go
down this rabbit hole of likethis is not okay, right, you're
(06:30):
saying this because it is soshocking to you to see a mother
do something outside of your boxof normative motherhood.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
To see a mother be a woman and a hot woman, right,
yeah, woman and a hot womanright.
I want to go back to the traumafor women at birth.
Can the trauma of birth live ina woman's body and silently
sabotage her sex life long afterthe stitches, if she has gotten
(07:00):
any?
Not all the skits I did, thoughhave healed has gotten any.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Not all of us get some.
I did, though, have healed Ahundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Birth trauma is incrediblycommon and so wildly unaddressed
, and it lingers for years.
So, even if you, technically,are healed, what birth trauma
does is it communicates to yourbrain that your body is not a
safe place, right?
Whether you lost a child,whether you had a pelvic floor
(07:30):
prolapse, right?
Whether you had some sort oftraumatic C-section, all of a
sudden this is not a safe spaceanymore, right?
And when we are in a chronicstate of anxiety, even if it's
not obvious, the thing thatdrops is our libido, right?
Even if it's not obvious, thething that drops is our libido,
right.
So am I going to want to besexy and engage in something if
I'm not feeling safe in thisvessel?
(07:50):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, and can we talk about some of the things that
your body actually does when itdoesn't feel safe?
From like a sensationstandpoint, from a ability to
get turned on standpoint, to anorgasm standpoint?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Absolutely so.
When you think about whatallows us to have an orgasm,
right, physiologically, there'san increase in blood flow, right
.
When we're stressed, whathappens is we constrict, right,
we have a short of breath, right, our heart goes pumping really
fast, we kind of cut off fromareas of our body, so it makes
it a lot harder to have anenjoyable orgasm.
(08:30):
Some women, too right, havesomething called vaginismus,
which is where your vaginalmuscles if this is like a pelvic
floor bowl they contract.
And what happens is whensomething enters the vagina, it
contracts.
And what does that do?
Ouch causes pain.
And then what do we do inresponse?
We tighten up even more, whichcauses more pain.
(08:52):
So it's just kind of thisendless cycle of pain, anxiety,
pain, anxiety.
And what is that all doing,taking us as far away from
feeling like a sexual person aspossible?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
After you've had birth, if you experienced pain
pushing out the child, or evenif you had an epidural, let's
say, and were numb down there,but afterwards, look, it wears
off, folks right and stuff isnot the same down there for a
while.
But if you've experienced thatpain down there after birth, it
(09:30):
would reason it would seem toreason that you'd be hesitant to
want to have someone touching,and much less going to pound
town down there 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's like a don't touch me.
This is off limits.
You know, some people are sotraumatized by what's happened
they can't even look atthemselves, right?
So if you ask like, have youtaken a hand mirror to look?
No, no, no, right.
So if I can't even do that, howon earth am I going to be able
to have a partner do that?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
It's pretty shocking.
I did look afterwards, have apartner do that.
It's pretty shocking.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I did look afterwards and it's pretty shocking right
afterwards and that can betraumatizing, right yeah yeah,
so yeah, and we don't normalizethat right, because, like, of
course it's going to be shockingbecause your body literally
performed a physical trauma,right, that's not a bad thing,
where you just have to find away to re-relate to it right, to
kind of normalize like, yeah,this looks different.
(10:30):
It's not always going to lookthis different, but right now it
makes sense that it does andthat's okay.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So can we go ahead and acknowledge something that
you never hear people say, whichis giving birth is traumatic to
women.
It's trauma Giving birth istrauma folks, Whether you are
doing it vaginally or a child isbeing cut out of your body, we
really act like it's just thiseveryday thing that happens, and
so I think there's this silencearound this, and especially for
(10:59):
mothers after birth, becausewe're supposed to say it's
beautiful.
Yes, we're supposed to say it'sbeautiful.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yes, we're supposed to say not only it was beautiful
and I loved every second, butthen also be able to get up the
next day and cook everyonedinner.
Right, like there's just liketop job, okay, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Right, and then can you speak to the trauma after
giving birth.
So, for example, a lot of womenwhen they try to breastfeed it
can be excruciatingly painfuland it is someone else living
off your body, but just sort ofthe trauma you're still
experiencing after pushing achild out, absolutely so you I
(11:38):
mean you named that onebreastfeeding.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
More often than not in my office, I'll hear I didn't
think this would happen, right,we have this expectation that
something like breastfeeding isjust going to come quote,
unquote, naturally, most likely,it's not, most likely, it's
going to take work and maybeyour baby won't latch.
And so not only is that sopainful, right, your nipples are
getting calloused, oh right, asthey adjust, it's also the
(12:02):
mental loss of.
I thought I would be able to dothis, right.
And that's a really goodexample, again, of a woman
feeling like my body is failingme.
My body is not safe, it's notable to do what I need it to do.
Other things that we see, rightpelvic floor prolapse, brutal.
Right, something that does notget enough airtime and can take
(12:23):
years to heal, with PT Peoplerecovering from C-section scars.
A lot of times there's painwith epidural that can linger
for decades if you're notgetting it treated right.
So things can go on and on.
And then you add on by the way,we're probably not sleeping
more than three hours a night,right.
And so what does our body do?
It goes into thathypervigilance.
(12:44):
We're usually pretty likeanxious, which makes it even
harder to heal on a whole.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And let's point out that anxiousness and stress and
fatigue are not libido builders.
Not quite.
I mean not a not at all.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
No, they are literally.
We're going to blow this up.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
A few weeks to a month or two after giving birth,
there's becomes thisexpectation from your husband,
you know, for sex to relieve hisneeds on top of taking care of
the baby's needs.
So can you talk a little bitabout that, how the partner
(13:29):
plays into the crushing of thewoman's sexual self.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Using your example, there's kind of this two-parter
right.
There is this feeling of mypartner has no idea what's
actually happening to me,because if they did, they would
not be asking.
So that instantly is isolatingright.
That instantly causes the senseof I am alone in this, you
don't understand me.
And then there's the other partof it, which is the sense of
(13:58):
now I have this obligation to dothis for my partner.
Okay, obligatory to sex, takeit off the table, right, worst,
never Right.
But as postpartum women, that'salmost default, right.
I can't tell you how often Ihear people being like oh, I'll
just get it over with and he'llstop bugging me, I'll just do
this.
So we just put sex into thiscamp of something I have to do.
(14:21):
That I'm not enjoying right,that I'm only doing because I
don't want to be bugged about it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And I want to speak to that because this year this
has come up already in severalof my episodes with experts.
When you grit your teeththrough sex with someone, it's
like adding another trauma toyour body.
It's you know, one expert saidit's like a small T in trauma.
(14:48):
There's the big T's, the S-Aand rape, but these small T's
happen.
I don't like to rank trauma.
Trauma is trauma, and bygritting your teeth and letting
someone inside of your body andgoing to pound town when you
don't want to be there, you'rethen compiling trauma.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Exactly, exactly Right.
And what we know about traumais it's the nervous system
firing off and you cannot getout of that stress cycle right.
Like I'm literally stuck, Idon't have an option.
And then you add in this pieceof you're not going to desire
sex if the sex that you'rehaving sucks.
And so if I continue to justhave obligatory, maybe painful,
(15:30):
sex, my brain is now going tostart having an association with
sex.
As this thing is terrible, Ineed to avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Right, and then you're stuck there until you fix
it.
And I would argue that.
I think a lot of couples neverfix it and so you are forever
stuck in that obligatory,painful, unwanted sex place and
that's you look at your partnerand that's what you associate
them with.
So the final physical piece Iwant to focus on so right now,
(15:58):
the approach to losing thatlibido because of the physical
aspects, that's what I'mfocusing on, but there's more to
it than that.
But the final physical aspectis then there's, of course, this
massive hormonal fluctuationand hormones control libido,
right.
So can you talk?
A little bit about how thehormonal fluctuation after
(16:21):
childbirth affects libido.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Absolutely so.
There are very few things inlife that cause such an insane
drop in hormones, like givingbirth.
It's almost like we're here andthen we go off this cliff and
it's just this like, well, likeyou, are absolutely flooded, and
what tends to happen just onthe physiological side when our
(16:44):
estrogen drops is our vaginalwalls thin out a little bit,
right, so we kind of get somevaginal dryness, and so what can
happen with that is pain.
That's not necessarily themuscle spasming, but that's
almost like if you can kind ofthink of like sandpapery feeling
.
Right, that's not going to beforever, but it's, as your
hormones are kind ofre-regulating.
You're having thisphysiological response, so
(17:06):
you're not necessarily wantingthat.
Another physical response tothat is also night sweats, right
.
So waking up in the middle ofthe night, heart pounding,
you're just totally drenched,right.
All of these experiences arejust not adding up to making you
feel like an embodied person,let alone a sexy embodied person
, right?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
We should definitely touch on if, when this happens,
it can also result in womenexperiencing postpartum
depression.
But it doesn't stop there.
I not only had that experience,I had what is loosely called
sort of a experience withpostpartum.
I don't like the word psychosis, but it was fair.
(17:50):
It was beyond postpartumdepression because my experience
with that shift, with my lastbirth hormonal shift afterwards,
was literally it felt like Iwas falling off a ledge, like
that feeling, and I couldn'tstop, like nothing could stop me
, and it's really hard to wantto have sex when you feel that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, absolutely, you literally feel like you are
dying right, like it is hell.
I appreciate you sharing thatand that like it's.
It's not an easy place at alland it's really normalizing
right To hear people like youkind of go hey, I've been there
too.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Right and women in that place needs help and a lot
of help, and it's not easy tofind the help.
But so if you are someonelistening to this and you're
feeling that at all like you'regoing insane and you can't
handle anything like, get somehelp.
If you're a partner and you'reseeing that in your partner wife
, mother get them some help anddrop the sex topic.
But so now we've covered thephysical right.
(18:55):
But I also want to talk about ontop of it, even once our bodies
kind of come back to us or arestarting to I want to focus on.
Then we've got the social andcultural.
So you know, society praiseswomen for bouncing back
physically.
Waist size boob size gettingthe pre-pregnancy body back,
(19:17):
which is a lie.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
That's a lie.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
But when women start to bounce back and want sex
again and want to feel sexyagain and want to you know strut
it like they did prior tohaving babies.
There's this shame.
There's this like you're goingto do that after you have kids.
You know when a mom and a momwants to go out and hit the club
(19:41):
one night with her girls, well,the baby stays with dad or
whatever it is.
Can you talk about how thatthen affects the ability for a
woman to get her sexy back.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, so it's so shaming, right, it's so like oh
right, you're a bad mom.
That's the underlying messagethere, and being a bad mom I
would say 95% of women iseverything we're trying to avoid
, right?
That's where you see the wholething of mom guilt and
perfectionism and whatever.
So if I'm getting both, likeobvious and maybe a little bit
(20:17):
more covert messaging, that I'ma bad mom because I wear
lipstick or because I'm goingout on a date on a school night
unless I have kind of done mywork, self-empower, zip up, find
my sturdy self, I'm gonna belike oh my God, I am a bad mom.
Okay, okay, I won't, right, I'mgonna make myself small again.
And so we do that.
(20:40):
We make ourselves small, we cutourselves off, we keep putting
our heads down and doing thething, and then you're just kind
of on the hamster wheel, right,you're not really living your
life in a way.
That's emboldened and embodied,right.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Which is typically what attracted our partners to
us beforehand, and now we're nolonger able to reclaim those
parts of ourselves without beingtold that we're doing something
wrong.
Right, it's, it's, it isliterally the Madonna horror
(21:13):
complex right.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Totally, totally.
There's no in between.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Right, which of course we know is is not true,
but so we've talked about um.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But so we've, talked about.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
There are physical factors that play into the loss
of not only the libido but thewant to be sexy or even the
mental ability to think abouthaving sex.
We've talked about the societalshame.
It's shame.
We're talking about shame.
There's shame when it comes towomen and sex after having kids,
like 100%.
And then, of course, there'sthe mental load and the workload
that you have with having apartner now a child and just
(22:01):
trying to survive.
It's crushing, totally crushingRight.
Trying to survive, it'scrushing, totally crushing Right
.
Are there any other factorsthat I have missed in you or
we've missed in thisconversation that play into what
stands in the way of womengetting their libido back after
birth?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I would say.
The last thing I'd throw in isjust this concept of matrescence
that's becoming a little bitmore popularized and it's a term
that kind of captures theabsolute cellular identity level
change that a woman goesthrough after having a child,
and so it's like almost thislike I don't know who I am
anymore, right, I've completelylost who I am.
(22:41):
Who I was is no longer therebecause now I'm in this new role
.
And so the good news is we'rekind of normalizing.
It makes sense to feel lost, itmakes sense to kind of have
lost your identity and all ofthat things, and we're getting
people the help they need tokind of reground themselves
right, embolden, find that newidentity.
But if you're kind of in themidst of this, almost just like
(23:04):
kind of existential, I don'tknow who I am, I don't know how
to do this Again, this idea ofmy erotic self is just going to
be far, far in the background,right, because I'm just having
the system change in my facefirst that I'm trying to get a
handle on before I can evenconceptualize, right, being a
sexy human again.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Can you repeat what the term is?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
for that.
Yeah, yeah, it's matrescenceM-A-T-R-E-S-C-E-N-E, I think.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I hadn't heard of it, but that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, it's really, it's really beautiful If you
look it up.
There's a lot of kind of greatarticles and podcasts that are
starting to throw it out there,which I think is really
normalizing for a lot of women.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And it's true.
just like we don't get our prepregnancy body back, you don't
guys you don't you don't my ribcage expanded, but my feet never
came back to the science likethe things you don't think are
gonna happen and and, butsimilarly, your persona changes,
(24:11):
not only because now you have achild to take care of, but just
, we evolve with everyexperience.
We have, yep, every and.
And you are experiencing thisinsane thing.
Right, you grew a body in yourbody and again gave birth.
There's the trauma aspect of it.
(24:32):
There's the sci-fi, slash,horror movie aspect of it.
There's a beautiful love storythat takes place.
But then it is true, I guess Ihadn't thought about that how
long it took me to like regroupand figure out who I was going
to be and who I was and who.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I wanted to be Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, so now you've given birth and your libido
seems to be nowhere around.
Your partner is clearlyfrustrated with the lack of
intimacy you don't know what thefuture is supposed to and their
(25:25):
partners, hopefully, who arehelping, hopefully, to start to
become more of an embodied, sexysexual person again.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yeah, yeah, gladly.
The first thing right off thebat that I want to say and
emphasize is if you are havingany pain with sex or any pelvic
pain at all, you deserve help.
Painful sex is not good sex,and I think a lot of times we
don't even know about resourceslike pelvic floor physical
therapy.
So right off the bat, before weget into anything else, that is
(25:57):
a thing I really want to honein on.
I also just think, even ifyou're feeling fine, going to
pelvic floor PT just for a fewsessions, so you feel a sense of
understanding about what yourbody is now, can be really,
really helpful.
So that's my first like that'sour baseline, okay.
Next thing is I really thinkthis is the opportunity where we
(26:17):
get to blow up our sex livesfor the better, right.
So in American culture, most ofus did not grow up getting a
good or accurate sex educationright.
Either sex wasn't talked about,so it was very shame-based, or
we learned about it throughreligion or porn, and none of
those are accurate right.
So, pre-kids, maybe you'rehaving good sex, maybe some of
(26:40):
it is great, but if we're justgoing off of that blueprint, we
don't know how to communicate,we're not really focusing on
pleasure, right, it may just bekind of a quickie to penis,
vagina intercourse and thenthat's it.
Okay, okay, now post kids, wecan't do that anymore.
Okay, because if sex is not sopleasurable that you're like,
(27:00):
yep, I will stay up till 8 PM todo this, you're not going to do
it.
So the first thing I always tellpeople, whether you are solo or
in a partnership, is to definesex as a place for pleasure and
connection.
So if we are almost to kind ofthink about it as an umbrella
pleasure and connection you getto fill in under that umbrella
everything you can putintercourse, but that doesn't
(27:24):
have to be the only thing.
It can be a naked shower, itcan be.
Well, you brush my hair for me,right?
It can be.
Let's just lie down next toeach other and masturbate
together, right?
Pleasure and connection okay,none of that is obligatory and
none of that is in the sense ofI am serving my partner's need,
right, okay, so that is mybaseline and this is something
(27:48):
people are always like.
What, what if we don't orgasm?
That is okay, right, becausethe point of sex is not to
orgasm.
The point of sex is toexperience pleasure and have a
sense of connection both toyourself and to your partner or
your partners.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I want you to repeat the part about.
I want you to repeat the partabout who the connection is
supposed to be to Partner andyourself.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So in your body, does this feel good?
To me, yes, great.
No, stop doing it.
Okay, again, that disconnect isso tempting.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Oh, just get it over with you deserve more than that,
and I think when you starthaving and I know this because
I'm going to be honest with you,I really didn't start having
fully embodied sex until my 40ssad story, but don't worry, I'm
making up for it, folks um, whenyou start experiencing that,
it's just a whole differentexperience.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You want a lot of it.
There you go.
Right, you want it.
That's the kicker.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
A lot, a lot of it.
I love.
I love that you pointed thatout.
I also love that you'rebringing up taking the
obligatory sort of sex P and Vsex off the table.
Absolutely.
(29:25):
Post having children.
That can feel like a lot ofwork, especially if your vagina
has experienced any pain.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Totally, and the reality is, is more women do not
orgasm from PV intercourse thannot right.
Most women tend to orgasm fromliteral stimulation and unless
you're using a vibrator or beingreally mindful about that with
PV intercourse, it's not aguarantee.
Right Tends to be moremale-centric.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Right, and you know you can always leave the
invitation on the table to like,if you get in the mood, while
we're, let's say, mutuallymasturbating and you're like I
want to hop on that, you arewelcome to.
Right Totally, Invitation thatthey can turn down is is, I
(30:22):
think, a turn on right.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Like you're not pushing for it.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But and when you don't feel obligated to do
something, oftentimes you getmore curious about it or you get
that FOMO right.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
A hundred percent, yeah.
And the other thing that youjust demonstrated, and that is
communication.
Right, like, crank up thecommunication, you can hop on
right, oh, I do like this, domore of this.
No, I don't like this, you know.
Can hop on right, oh, I do likethis, do more of this.
No, I don't like this.
You know, a lot of people, Ithink, maybe feel almost
self-conscious talking duringsex.
We talk more, the sex getsbetter and sexier.
(30:57):
Right, it's prettystraightforward.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I think one of the things that I've learned and
that has shocked me the most ishow many people are not
comfortable talking to theirlife partners about sex.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
like cannot have those conversations, yeah
absolutely Right, but I wouldsay more common than not.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Right.
So what is a good startingpoint?
Let's say, let's just startwith the women who are listening
to this and they're just like Idon't feel sexy anymore.
And maybe in their mind becauseI know a lot of new moms or
moms who even, like, have madeit through like six months to a
year of not having to have thatmuch sex they're just like I,
just I'm kind of done with it, Idon't want to do it.
(31:41):
What can we say to them?
First of all, why should theywork on their libido?
What's in it for them?
Like, if they're just like, I'mfine, I'm fine like not doing
this anymore.
What's in it for them?
Why should they work on it?
And then, how do we start thatpath?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, sexual health is health, okay.
So we are taking care of oursexual health, we are taking
care of our health in general.
You deserve to feel pleasure.
You deserve to feel pleasure,you deserve to feel embodied,
you deserve to feel safe in yourbody.
There's so many benefits right,both physically and
psychologically, to having ahealthy sex life.
(32:21):
And I am not just speakingabout a healthy sex life with a
partner, right, healthy sex lifewith a partner.
Direct correlation to higherlevels of relational
satisfaction overall.
Right, healthy sex life with apartner.
Direct correlation to higherlevels of relational
satisfaction overall.
Right.
Again, that broad umbrella ofhealth.
So, yes, would you live withoutsex?
Sure, right.
But I like to think EstherPerel has this great definition
(32:42):
of eros, erotic, as your lifeforce, your vitality, right?
So if we don't have that, it'salmost like we're a little bit
dimmer.
You know, when we're able totap into a really authentic,
full sexual self, that Eroscomes back.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
I love hearing other women say this.
I've been like shouting it fromthe mountaintops it is vital to
your life force and it changeswho you are.
I like that.
You also pointed out thatsexual relationship, but I'm
telling you I have right nowabout 75% of my sex life is with
myself and I am like my bestlover.
(33:23):
I give myself the mostincredible orgasms before care
and after care.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And it's great, but I want to have you also speak to
what can be the health drawbacksor the potential physical
issues that can arise when youdon't have any sex life at all.
Or pleasure sexual pleasure yes, there are other kinds of
(33:53):
pleasure, but I want to talkabout the complete lack of
sexual pleasure.
What's the detriment to thehealth?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Totally so.
If we're speaking relationally,right, it's going to decrease
relational satisfaction.
There is going to be a decreasein intimacy.
I don't just mean sexualintimacy, I mean that
connectiveness and thatcloseness, right.
So if I'm in a partnership andwe have no sex life or sex life,
that's not a good sex life.
There's going to it's like moreof a chasm form, right, we get
(34:25):
lonely, we can feel depressed,kind of a snowball effect, you
know.
You know there's this greatline.
One of my favorite movies isit's complicated.
It's a Nancy Meyers movie whereMeryl Streep's like chatting
with her girlfriends about howlong it's been since she's had
sex and one of them's like I'veheard, your vagina just closes
up.
That's not going to happen,okay.
(34:47):
So like there's stuff out therethat's like if you don't do
this, this will happen.
That won't happen.
But there are psychologicalside effects, right.
So, speaking more to the soloside of things, if I'm not
partnered and I'm also notmasturbating or exploring any of
that, it's like you become alittle bit disembodied, right?
(35:08):
So again, you know, we'respeaking broadly here If I'm not
allowing myself to feelpleasure, it's I'm a little bit
more of a husk of a person.
It's not life-threatening,right Again.
Nothing very severe is going tohappen, but it's kind of like
you know.
It's almost like your lightgets dimmer, just to kind of
(35:28):
keep up with that metaphor.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I would like to point out that as you age, especially
as you get into perimenopause,when you don't have any internal
stimulation, you can experiencevaginal atrophy.
So that is another good reasonto continue to have sex with
yourself, because thatstimulation creates salary
growth and helps keep thosetissues like moist and like pump
(35:54):
, just like we want our faces tobe.
So, but yeah, mental health,emotional health, it can take a
toll on those.
So all right, we've given youthe motivation.
So all right, we've given youthe motivation to work on this
part of your life.
Now let's give them some tools.
So the starting point right now, you're just like oh, intimacy,
(36:20):
sex, yeah, what are some thingsthat they can start doing right
now to start feeling more inthe mood or to start getting
that libido, that sexual energy,to return to their body?
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, yeah, I love this question.
So it starts with you, not withyour partner, okay.
And it starts even from adesexualized place.
You want to make sure you aredoing things to help you feel
like your human self, okay.
So again, this idea of Eroslife force if I'm just working,
feeding the kids, feeding mybaby, la, la, la, la, la, right,
(36:55):
it's not going to cut it.
So I need to make sure, once ortwice a week, I'm doing
something for me.
I'm going to my yoga class justbecause I am going to be at
work late, because I'm going togo get my favorite cappuccino,
right, we are stepping intopleasure again as a sensation.
Okay, that is the first step.
The second step, right, is toget a little bit more sexualized
(37:19):
.
I think postpartum is such agreat time if you don't already
to find a vibrator that reallyworks for you, right, if you had
any sort of kind of internaltrauma, just kind of an exterior
vibrator that does clitoralstimulation is really helpful.
So maybe there's an evening,your partner's gone, or you can
(37:40):
just go take a tub alone and youtry your new vibrator and you
just let your body experiencesome pleasure.
I know I'm kind of a brokenrecord here, but this is just
for you, and what this is goingto do is let your brain see that
your body is still capable ofexperiencing pleasure.
Right, you may have gonethrough this huge change and yet
(38:01):
here you are right, keeping upyour life force, still allowing
yourself to feel good.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Then, right after we've kind of started playing
around with this, if you are ina partnership, communicating
with your partner, hey, I dowant to figure this out, but to
be honest, I don't even knowwhere to start.
I don't want to go back to theway things were.
I also don't want to have sexjust to feel like I have to.
So can we work together tofigure this out?
(38:30):
This is a great time to startcouples therapy If you are
feeling really out of yourleague.
There's a lot of great books.
I always I wish it was likerequired reading for every human
.
But Come as you Are by EmilyNagowski, prolific book all
about female anatomy, femalepleasure, and if you want to say
, would you like to read thiswith me and maybe we can start
(38:52):
here?
Right, my body feels different,I don't feel like my sexual
self and I want to figure thisout together.
That's such a beautifulconnecting invitation that
doesn't make your partner feellike you're shutting them away,
but it's also holding theboundary of we're not just going
to do this terrible sex becauseyou have a need.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Right, right.
Setting up those boundaries isimportant, but also for the
partner.
Okay, so the woman doing herpart is set aside.
Masturbation time I lovemasturbation time.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
It's like my favorite time of the day, it's such my
favorite time of the day, suchgood healthcare.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I really learned how to how to get myself off.
And once I really learned Idon't know if you know this, but
in 2022, I had 365 orgasms wellmore than that one every day
for a year Amazing, every dayfor a year, so I learned.
I learned a lot.
So much time and and yeah, Istarted having orgasms at a
(39:55):
level I didn't even know washumanly possible.
So I get excited aboutmasturbation time, but I think
that it's important, right Liketo, to have that container of
self love and knowledge too.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Right, like I understand my body.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I'm rubbing my boots.
So you relearn your bodybecause you're touching it and
you're exploring it in its newform, right.
So prioritize that.
I think that's fantastic advice.
Now for the partner.
Let's talk about the partnerbecause, dear partners, I know
(40:30):
you want to get laid.
I know six months is a longtime, I get it.
But what can they do to startapproaching sex differently, in
a way that is going to make itseem more pleasurable for her,
but also, in the end, it's goingto be better for them?
Speaker 1 (40:46):
her, but also in the end.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
It's going to be better for them.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Totally, totally so.
One of my old supervisors usedto always say you have a hand
for a reason, go take a shower,right, like, if I am just like I
need you to, you know, get meoff.
No, you can do that yourself.
Okay, that is not the pointhere.
(41:09):
So, partners of mamas, I wantyou to hear that, right?
Yes, sex is pleasurable, butit's also about connecting, and
if you are looking at yourpartner and she is tired and she
is doing chores and you arehorny, that is not the time to
ask for sex.
Right, you can go masturbateand then come back and have this
conversation.
This is something I am obviouslyvery passionate about, but it
is such a good opportunity,especially for men, to lean into
(41:34):
other ways of receiving love.
A lot of men are socialized inthis country to only equate
physical touch with love becausethere was no emotional
intelligence, kind of emotionalsecurity taught as a child,
taught as a child.
And so for a male partner I'mspeaking just if there's a
hetero relationship to start tounderstand that my wife not
having sex with me does not meanshe doesn't love me is a huge
(41:57):
thing, okay.
So men, rely on masturbation.
Understand that your wiferejecting you does not mean she
doesn't love you and then leanin with curiosity, lean into
that bid, for I'd like to figurethis out together and start to
again going back to that idea ofpleasure and connection, start
to get creative, right.
(42:18):
The other thing I want toquickly add is take the pressure
off.
So if your partner says I'dlike to cuddle naked, great, let
that be it, okay.
Unless you and your partnerhave explicitly said and then
we're going to have intercourse.
Don't put that on them, becauseI have a lot of people I know a
lot of my clients will saysomething like I don't even want
(42:39):
to cuddle because there's goingto be this expectation, right.
So that's where this overtcommunication comes in, unless
it is said don't silently,assume is super key.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
It's a great time to also leave an open invitation.
You can say I just want you toknow that anytime I ask you to
cuddle with me or take a showerwith me or whatever, lay naked
and watch a movie with me,there's no expectation for sex.
However, if you feel the spark,please know there's an open
(43:10):
invitation to initiate.
You know I won't initiatebecause I don't want you to feel
pressure.
I just want that physicalintimacy.
But just know, here it is.
If you want it, let me know.
Otherwise we're going to justenjoy that and I think that that
would feel so amazing to havesomeone just set that up for you
(43:31):
100%.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
That's beautiful caretaking.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, and another thing you brought up just like
we said, the women should startprioritizing some self-pleasure
and masturbation time.
This is a great opportunity formen to do the same, and there
are great toys out there thatyou can oh my god so many you
want to up it, up it, and youcould then, like both of you
(43:56):
could, talk to each other andsay, hey, we're gonna have our
separate masturbation time, andif you're ever curious and want
to come in and check it out,I'll show you my toys, if you
show me yours.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Totally.
Yeah, I love it.
Right, we get to be playful,playful.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, I love the idea of creating a playground for
adults who otherwise are in thepits of working and raising.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Anything else Before we wrap this up, can you put
together just a little packagefor my listeners right now, A go
bag if you will, of tools thatthey can start using tonight to
get their groove back or supporttheir partner getting her group
?
Speaker 1 (44:44):
back Totally.
Yeah, I love that, the littletoolkit package.
So just to the mamas I wouldsay remember, you deserve
pleasure.
Starting with that, I deservepleasure, my body deserves
pleasure, right?
Okay, what does that mean forme?
Can you do one thing tonightthat is pleasurable and it
(45:05):
doesn't have to be sexual?
Maybe it is right.
Maybe you do go home andmasturbate that's lovely, maybe
it's?
I'm going to make myself abeautiful chocolate chip cookie
and not share it with anybody,right?
Like I really want you to leaninto the idea that you deserve
pleasure, because it's true.
Okay, that is your assignmentfor tonight.
(45:25):
Partners of mothers, your littletoolkit is to remember the
season of life is not forever.
But while you are in, to useyour word, annette the pits,
your job is to be a teammate.
Okay, we are not pressuring ourpartner, we are leaning in with
curiosity and if there issomething that is feeling
lacking, we are going about it,knowing that their partner is
(45:48):
there for us, right?
And knowing that we do havethis invitation, us right, and
knowing that we do have thisinvitation to redefine our whole
sex life in a way that actuallymakes it better than it ever
was before.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, absolutely, that little silver lining is out
there, because I'm telling youright now I have three kids and
my sex life is banging.
Yeah, 100% Right, so wonderful.
Can you tell my listeners wherethey can find you, if they're
in the area that you're in, toreach out for help or just to
(46:16):
find out more about yourexpertise?
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Totally so.
I have an office in Midtown,sacramento where I'm seeing
clients and then I can seepeople virtually, like I said,
throughout the states ofCalifornia and Washington.
If you are somebody that justmore enjoys playful therapeutic
Instagram stuff, you can find meat any board psych.
Just a reminder Instagram isnot therapy, but it is a fun
(46:42):
place to learn.
And even if you're notinterested in therapy, if you
just want some more resources,on my website I have books,
podcasts.
I recommend you can find thatat esacounselingcom.
That is one thing I'll quicklyadd on.
Like just empowering yourselfto learn more.
Reading books, listening topodcasts.
(47:02):
Understanding you're not alone,understanding what you're going
through, is incrediblyempowering too.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, you are not alone folks.
Most importantly because I knowit can.
Postpartum can be a really darktime for everybody involved.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
It's so hard.
You're not alone, and you aredoing a beautiful job.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining me and
listeners.
If you are watching this on myYouTube channel at Talk
SexexWithAnnette, and you haveany questions or comments, you
know you can scroll down, leavea comment or a question in the
comment section.
You can always reach out to meat Annette, at
TalkSexWithAnnette, or you canscroll down and there's a speak
(47:42):
pipe link below and you can sendme a voice message.
If there's a question I can'tanswer, I will reach out to Emma
.
I will get you the answers,however I can, so shoot them my
way.
Thank you again for joining meand to my listeners, I'll see
you in the locker room.
Cheers.
Do the sex pleasure and desire Around here.
Nothing's off limits.
These are the kinds ofconversations we save for our
boldest group chats, our mosttrusted friends and, of course,
the women's locker room.
Think raw, honest and sometimesunapologetically raunchy.
If you've been here from thebeginning, thank you, and if
(00:40):
you're new, welcome to mypodcast.
Where desire meets disruptionand pleasure becomes power.
Now let's talk about sex Cheers.
Today's Talk Sex with Annettetopic is Madonna meet whore From
diapers to desire.
How moms get their sex driveback.
(01:02):
Motherhood doesn't always killsex drive, but the way we talk
about it, that just might.
You're supposed to be a walkingmilk bar, a glowing domestic
goddess and somehow, if you'relucky, still a turned on woman.
But between leaking nipples,pelvic floor flashbacks and a
(01:23):
culture that treats sexy momslike scandals, most women are
left feeling more invisible thanirresistible.
This episode is aboutreclaiming your seductress
energy and burning down the myththat good moms aren't allowed
to be hot and have fun, kinky,adventurous sex.
(01:43):
I'm joined by Emma Shandy Anway,a licensed marriage and family
therapist based in Washingtonand California, who works at the
healing edge of perinatalmental health and sexuality.
She's not just a therapist,she's a longboarding potluck,
hosting motherhood redefiningbadass who's helping moms
(02:03):
everywhere get their bodies andtheir pleasure back.
But before we dive in and Iintroduce you to her, I want to
remind you all I am over onOnlyFans where I am sharing my
intimacy, coaching, how-tos,demonstrations and audio-guided
self pleasure meditations and somuch more to help you get your
pleasure journey and sex lifeback on track.
(02:25):
So you can find me there or substack under the handle at talk
sex with Annette.
Also, you can scroll down tothe notes section below and find
me wherever you want to find mein the links below.
But for now let's dive in and,emma, will you take a moment to
tell my listeners a little bitmore about you?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let's dive in and, emma, will you take a moment to
tell my listeners a little bitmore about you.
Yeah, thank you, annette.
I'm so happy to be here andgrateful for you hosting this
space.
It's so needed.
Like Annette said, I'm amarriage and family therapist.
I'm based in person in NorthernCalifornia, but I'm also
licensed in Washington, so Ihold some virtual sessions as
well, and I'm really passionateabout working with women,
(03:07):
especially women who identify asmothers, tap into their erotic
selves.
We live in a culture and a timewhere that is continuously
being shut down and judged andothered, and so to find a way to
do this embodied work isincredibly liberating.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I am so excited to have you here as a mother of
three.
This is an importantconversation and folks, of
course you're going to want tostay to the end, whether you are
a mother or you are a partnerof someone who's a mother who's
hoping to help her get herlibido back.
This is going to be animportant conversation for you
(03:44):
and by the end of this podcast,you are going to get a little
care package, if you will, likethe one that she hopefully got
when she was headed home fromthe birth center or the hospital
to help her start her journeyback to her body, her pleasure
and her sexiness.
So I'm ready.
Are you ready to dive in andtalk about motherhood?
(04:06):
So, ready, let's do it.
Cheers, cheers.
I'm ready for this conversation, having gone through this
myself as a mom of three, so Iwant to know your thoughts on
why does our culture treatpostpartum women like sacred
vessels until they want sexagain and suddenly they're
selfish, slutty or too much?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, it's a great question and I think you know,
in a way, that kind of starts assoon as you have the baby.
When you think about thosefollow-up visits, instead of it
being about the mom, it's aboutthe baby, right?
The mom gets one checkup sixweeks postpartum and that's it.
And then we're told okay, youcan have sex now, and that's
literally it.
(04:49):
So basically, after you, if youbiologically have a child,
after you have this child fromthe get-go, you are basically
being told you don't matter asmuch.
I mean, okay, your body is usedto keep this baby alive, right?
We've got the whole biologicalaspect of that.
And then we have the wholeconcept of the mental load that
(05:11):
comes in right.
So motherhood also means now Iam shouldering these
expectations of the patriarchyto do this, to do all of this,
to carry this, even if I'mworking full time, right.
And so if a woman dares tobreak out of that and dares to
say actually, like my breastsare allowed to be sexualized and
are allowed to feed my child,it's going against this both
(05:35):
kind of subconscious andhonestly overt cultural norm of
you.
Better just be quiet, youbetter keep your role as the
kind of giver right.
God forbid you have any sort oferotic identity outside of this
role of the selfless mother.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
When I started this podcast, one of the first things
said to me about being a momspeaking about sex was what will
your kids think?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
your kids think Totally, it's bonkers.
It's so interesting we have.
We have this concept that momscan't be a certain thing right,
like I, I like to longboardright, and one thing my friends
and I always joke about is theamount of cat calls and like
disbelief that I get from peoplelike whoa cool mom, whoa this,
where it's like at first it'sfunny but then you kind of go
down this rabbit hole of likethis is not okay, right, you're
(06:30):
saying this because it is soshocking to you to see a mother
do something outside of your boxof normative motherhood.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
To see a mother be a woman and a hot woman, right,
yeah, woman and a hot womanright.
I want to go back to the traumafor women at birth.
Can the trauma of birth live ina woman's body and silently
sabotage her sex life long afterthe stitches, if she has gotten
(07:00):
any?
Not all the skits I did, thoughhave healed has gotten any.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Not all of us get some.
I did, though, have healed Ahundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Birth trauma is incrediblycommon and so wildly unaddressed
, and it lingers for years.
So, even if you, technically,are healed, what birth trauma
does is it communicates to yourbrain that your body is not a
safe place, right?
Whether you lost a child,whether you had a pelvic floor
(07:30):
prolapse, right?
Whether you had some sort oftraumatic C-section, all of a
sudden this is not a safe spaceanymore, right?
And when we are in a chronicstate of anxiety, even if it's
not obvious, the thing thatdrops is our libido, right?
Even if it's not obvious, thething that drops is our libido,
right.
So am I going to want to besexy and engage in something if
I'm not feeling safe in thisvessel?
(07:50):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, and can we talk about some of the things that
your body actually does when itdoesn't feel safe?
From like a sensationstandpoint, from a ability to
get turned on standpoint, to anorgasm standpoint?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Absolutely so.
When you think about whatallows us to have an orgasm,
right, physiologically, there'san increase in blood flow, right
.
When we're stressed, whathappens is we constrict, right,
we have a short of breath, right, our heart goes pumping really
fast, we kind of cut off fromareas of our body, so it makes
it a lot harder to have anenjoyable orgasm.
(08:30):
Some women, too right, havesomething called vaginismus,
which is where your vaginalmuscles if this is like a pelvic
floor bowl they contract.
And what happens is whensomething enters the vagina, it
contracts.
And what does that do?
Ouch causes pain.
And then what do we do inresponse?
We tighten up even more, whichcauses more pain.
(08:52):
So it's just kind of thisendless cycle of pain, anxiety,
pain, anxiety.
And what is that all doing,taking us as far away from
feeling like a sexual person aspossible?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
After you've had birth, if you experienced pain
pushing out the child, or evenif you had an epidural, let's
say, and were numb down there,but afterwards, look, it wears
off, folks right and stuff isnot the same down there for a
while.
But if you've experienced thatpain down there after birth, it
(09:30):
would reason it would seem toreason that you'd be hesitant to
want to have someone touching,and much less going to pound
town down there 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's like a don't touch me.
This is off limits.
You know, some people are sotraumatized by what's happened
they can't even look atthemselves, right?
So if you ask like, have youtaken a hand mirror to look?
No, no, no, right.
So if I can't even do that, howon earth am I going to be able
to have a partner do that?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
It's pretty shocking.
I did look afterwards, have apartner do that.
It's pretty shocking.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I did look afterwards and it's pretty shocking right
afterwards and that can betraumatizing, right yeah yeah,
so yeah, and we don't normalizethat right, because, like, of
course it's going to be shockingbecause your body literally
performed a physical trauma,right, that's not a bad thing,
where you just have to find away to re-relate to it right, to
kind of normalize like, yeah,this looks different.
(10:30):
It's not always going to lookthis different, but right now it
makes sense that it does andthat's okay.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So can we go ahead and acknowledge something that
you never hear people say, whichis giving birth is traumatic to
women.
It's trauma Giving birth istrauma folks, Whether you are
doing it vaginally or a child isbeing cut out of your body, we
really act like it's just thiseveryday thing that happens, and
so I think there's this silencearound this, and especially for
(10:59):
mothers after birth, becausewe're supposed to say it's
beautiful.
Yes, we're supposed to say it'sbeautiful.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yes, we're supposed to say not only it was beautiful
and I loved every second, butthen also be able to get up the
next day and cook everyonedinner.
Right, like there's just liketop job, okay, right.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Right, and then can you speak to the trauma after
giving birth.
So, for example, a lot of womenwhen they try to breastfeed it
can be excruciatingly painfuland it is someone else living
off your body, but just sort ofthe trauma you're still
experiencing after pushing achild out, absolutely so you I
(11:38):
mean you named that onebreastfeeding.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
More often than not in my office, I'll hear I didn't
think this would happen, right,we have this expectation that
something like breastfeeding isjust going to come quote,
unquote, naturally, most likely,it's not, most likely, it's
going to take work and maybeyour baby won't latch.
And so not only is that sopainful, right, your nipples are
getting calloused, oh right, asthey adjust, it's also the
(12:02):
mental loss of.
I thought I would be able to dothis, right.
And that's a really goodexample, again, of a woman
feeling like my body is failingme.
My body is not safe, it's notable to do what I need it to do.
Other things that we see, rightpelvic floor prolapse, brutal.
Right, something that does notget enough airtime and can take
(12:23):
years to heal, with PT Peoplerecovering from C-section scars.
A lot of times there's painwith epidural that can linger
for decades if you're notgetting it treated right.
So things can go on and on.
And then you add on by the way,we're probably not sleeping
more than three hours a night,right.
And so what does our body do?
It goes into thathypervigilance.
(12:44):
We're usually pretty likeanxious, which makes it even
harder to heal on a whole.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And let's point out that anxiousness and stress and
fatigue are not libido builders.
Not quite.
I mean not a not at all.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
No, they are literally.
We're going to blow this up.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
A few weeks to a month or two after giving birth,
there's becomes thisexpectation from your husband,
you know, for sex to relieve hisneeds on top of taking care of
the baby's needs.
So can you talk a little bitabout that, how the partner
(13:29):
plays into the crushing of thewoman's sexual self.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Using your example, there's kind of this two-parter
right.
There is this feeling of mypartner has no idea what's
actually happening to me,because if they did, they would
not be asking.
So that instantly is isolatingright.
That instantly causes the senseof I am alone in this, you
don't understand me.
And then there's the other partof it, which is the sense of
(13:58):
now I have this obligation to dothis for my partner.
Okay, obligatory to sex, takeit off the table, right, worst,
never Right.
But as postpartum women, that'salmost default, right.
I can't tell you how often Ihear people being like oh, I'll
just get it over with and he'llstop bugging me, I'll just do
this.
So we just put sex into thiscamp of something I have to do.
(14:21):
That I'm not enjoying right,that I'm only doing because I
don't want to be bugged about it.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And I want to speak to that because this year this
has come up already in severalof my episodes with experts.
When you grit your teeththrough sex with someone, it's
like adding another trauma toyour body.
It's you know, one expert saidit's like a small T in trauma.
(14:48):
There's the big T's, the S-Aand rape, but these small T's
happen.
I don't like to rank trauma.
Trauma is trauma, and bygritting your teeth and letting
someone inside of your body andgoing to pound town when you
don't want to be there, you'rethen compiling trauma.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Exactly, exactly Right.
And what we know about traumais it's the nervous system
firing off and you cannot getout of that stress cycle right.
Like I'm literally stuck, Idon't have an option.
And then you add in this pieceof you're not going to desire
sex if the sex that you'rehaving sucks.
And so if I continue to justhave obligatory, maybe painful,
(15:30):
sex, my brain is now going tostart having an association with
sex.
As this thing is terrible, Ineed to avoid it at all costs.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Right, and then you're stuck there until you fix
it.
And I would argue that.
I think a lot of couples neverfix it and so you are forever
stuck in that obligatory,painful, unwanted sex place and
that's you look at your partnerand that's what you associate
them with.
So the final physical piece Iwant to focus on so right now,
(15:58):
the approach to losing thatlibido because of the physical
aspects, that's what I'mfocusing on, but there's more to
it than that.
But the final physical aspectis then there's, of course, this
massive hormonal fluctuationand hormones control libido,
right.
So can you talk?
A little bit about how thehormonal fluctuation after
(16:21):
childbirth affects libido.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Absolutely so.
There are very few things inlife that cause such an insane
drop in hormones, like givingbirth.
It's almost like we're here andthen we go off this cliff and
it's just this like, well, likeyou, are absolutely flooded, and
what tends to happen just onthe physiological side when our
(16:44):
estrogen drops is our vaginalwalls thin out a little bit,
right, so we kind of get somevaginal dryness, and so what can
happen with that is pain.
That's not necessarily themuscle spasming, but that's
almost like if you can kind ofthink of like sandpapery feeling
.
Right, that's not going to beforever, but it's, as your
hormones are kind ofre-regulating.
You're having thisphysiological response, so
(17:06):
you're not necessarily wantingthat.
Another physical response tothat is also night sweats, right
.
So waking up in the middle ofthe night, heart pounding,
you're just totally drenched,right.
All of these experiences arejust not adding up to making you
feel like an embodied person,let alone a sexy embodied person
, right?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
We should definitely touch on if, when this happens,
it can also result in womenexperiencing postpartum
depression.
But it doesn't stop there.
I not only had that experience,I had what is loosely called
sort of a experience withpostpartum.
I don't like the word psychosis, but it was fair.
(17:50):
It was beyond postpartumdepression because my experience
with that shift, with my lastbirth hormonal shift afterwards,
was literally it felt like Iwas falling off a ledge, like
that feeling, and I couldn'tstop, like nothing could stop me
, and it's really hard to wantto have sex when you feel that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, absolutely, you literally feel like you are
dying right, like it is hell.
I appreciate you sharing thatand that like it's.
It's not an easy place at alland it's really normalizing
right To hear people like youkind of go hey, I've been there
too.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Right and women in that place needs help and a lot
of help, and it's not easy tofind the help.
But so if you are someonelistening to this and you're
feeling that at all like you'regoing insane and you can't
handle anything like, get somehelp.
If you're a partner and you'reseeing that in your partner wife
, mother get them some help anddrop the sex topic.
But so now we've covered thephysical right.
(18:55):
But I also want to talk about ontop of it, even once our bodies
kind of come back to us or arestarting to I want to focus on.
Then we've got the social andcultural.
So you know, society praiseswomen for bouncing back
physically.
Waist size boob size gettingthe pre-pregnancy body back,
(19:17):
which is a lie.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
That's a lie.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
But when women start to bounce back and want sex
again and want to feel sexyagain and want to you know strut
it like they did prior tohaving babies.
There's this shame.
There's this like you're goingto do that after you have kids.
You know when a mom and a momwants to go out and hit the club
(19:41):
one night with her girls, well,the baby stays with dad or
whatever it is.
Can you talk about how thatthen affects the ability for a
woman to get her sexy back.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, so it's so shaming, right, it's so like oh
right, you're a bad mom.
That's the underlying messagethere, and being a bad mom I
would say 95% of women iseverything we're trying to avoid
, right?
That's where you see the wholething of mom guilt and
perfectionism and whatever.
So if I'm getting both, likeobvious and maybe a little bit
(20:17):
more covert messaging, that I'ma bad mom because I wear
lipstick or because I'm goingout on a date on a school night
unless I have kind of done mywork, self-empower, zip up, find
my sturdy self, I'm gonna belike oh my God, I am a bad mom.
Okay, okay, I won't, right, I'mgonna make myself small again.
And so we do that.
(20:40):
We make ourselves small, we cutourselves off, we keep putting
our heads down and doing thething, and then you're just kind
of on the hamster wheel, right,you're not really living your
life in a way.
That's emboldened and embodied,right.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Which is typically what attracted our partners to
us beforehand, and now we're nolonger able to reclaim those
parts of ourselves without beingtold that we're doing something
wrong.
Right, it's, it's, it isliterally the Madonna horror
(21:13):
complex right.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Totally, totally.
There's no in between.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Right, which of course we know is is not true,
but so we've talked about um.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But so we've, talked about.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
There are physical factors that play into the loss
of not only the libido but thewant to be sexy or even the
mental ability to think abouthaving sex.
We've talked about the societalshame.
It's shame.
We're talking about shame.
There's shame when it comes towomen and sex after having kids,
like 100%.
And then, of course, there'sthe mental load and the workload
that you have with having apartner now a child and just
(22:01):
trying to survive.
It's crushing, totally crushingRight.
Trying to survive, it'scrushing, totally crushing Right
.
Are there any other factorsthat I have missed in you or
we've missed in thisconversation that play into what
stands in the way of womengetting their libido back after
birth?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I would say.
The last thing I'd throw in isjust this concept of matrescence
that's becoming a little bitmore popularized and it's a term
that kind of captures theabsolute cellular identity level
change that a woman goesthrough after having a child,
and so it's like almost thislike I don't know who I am
anymore, right, I've completelylost who I am.
(22:41):
Who I was is no longer therebecause now I'm in this new role
.
And so the good news is we'rekind of normalizing.
It makes sense to feel lost, itmakes sense to kind of have
lost your identity and all ofthat things, and we're getting
people the help they need tokind of reground themselves
right, embolden, find that newidentity.
But if you're kind of in themidst of this, almost just like
(23:04):
kind of existential, I don'tknow who I am, I don't know how
to do this Again, this idea ofmy erotic self is just going to
be far, far in the background,right, because I'm just having
the system change in my facefirst that I'm trying to get a
handle on before I can evenconceptualize, right, being a
sexy human again.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Can you repeat what the term is?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
for that.
Yeah, yeah, it's matrescenceM-A-T-R-E-S-C-E-N-E, I think.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I hadn't heard of it, but that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, it's really, it's really beautiful If you
look it up.
There's a lot of kind of greatarticles and podcasts that are
starting to throw it out there,which I think is really
normalizing for a lot of women.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And it's true.
just like we don't get our prepregnancy body back, you don't
guys you don't you don't my ribcage expanded, but my feet never
came back to the science likethe things you don't think are
gonna happen and and, butsimilarly, your persona changes,
(24:11):
not only because now you have achild to take care of, but just
, we evolve with everyexperience.
We have, yep, every and.
And you are experiencing thisinsane thing.
Right, you grew a body in yourbody and again gave birth.
There's the trauma aspect of it.
(24:32):
There's the sci-fi, slash,horror movie aspect of it.
There's a beautiful love storythat takes place.
But then it is true, I guess Ihadn't thought about that how
long it took me to like regroupand figure out who I was going
to be and who I was and who.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I wanted to be Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Yeah, so now you've given birth and your libido
seems to be nowhere around.
Your partner is clearlyfrustrated with the lack of
intimacy you don't know what thefuture is supposed to and their
(25:25):
partners, hopefully, who arehelping, hopefully, to start to
become more of an embodied, sexysexual person again.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yeah, yeah, gladly.
The first thing right off thebat that I want to say and
emphasize is if you are havingany pain with sex or any pelvic
pain at all, you deserve help.
Painful sex is not good sex,and I think a lot of times we
don't even know about resourceslike pelvic floor physical
therapy.
So right off the bat, before weget into anything else, that is
(25:57):
a thing I really want to honein on.
I also just think, even ifyou're feeling fine, going to
pelvic floor PT just for a fewsessions, so you feel a sense of
understanding about what yourbody is now, can be really,
really helpful.
So that's my first like that'sour baseline, okay.
Next thing is I really thinkthis is the opportunity where we
(26:17):
get to blow up our sex livesfor the better, right.
So in American culture, most ofus did not grow up getting a
good or accurate sex educationright.
Either sex wasn't talked about,so it was very shame-based, or
we learned about it throughreligion or porn, and none of
those are accurate right.
So, pre-kids, maybe you'rehaving good sex, maybe some of
(26:40):
it is great, but if we're justgoing off of that blueprint, we
don't know how to communicate,we're not really focusing on
pleasure, right, it may just bekind of a quickie to penis,
vagina intercourse and thenthat's it.
Okay, okay, now post kids, wecan't do that anymore.
Okay, because if sex is not sopleasurable that you're like,
(27:00):
yep, I will stay up till 8 PM todo this, you're not going to do
it.
So the first thing I always tellpeople, whether you are solo or
in a partnership, is to definesex as a place for pleasure and
connection.
So if we are almost to kind ofthink about it as an umbrella
pleasure and connection you getto fill in under that umbrella
everything you can putintercourse, but that doesn't
(27:24):
have to be the only thing.
It can be a naked shower, itcan be.
Well, you brush my hair for me,right?
It can be.
Let's just lie down next toeach other and masturbate
together, right?
Pleasure and connection okay,none of that is obligatory and
none of that is in the sense ofI am serving my partner's need,
right, okay, so that is mybaseline and this is something
(27:48):
people are always like.
What, what if we don't orgasm?
That is okay, right, becausethe point of sex is not to
orgasm.
The point of sex is toexperience pleasure and have a
sense of connection both toyourself and to your partner or
your partners.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I want you to repeat the part about.
I want you to repeat the partabout who the connection is
supposed to be to Partner andyourself.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So in your body, does this feel good?
To me, yes, great.
No, stop doing it.
Okay, again, that disconnect isso tempting.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Oh, just get it over with you deserve more than that,
and I think when you starthaving and I know this because
I'm going to be honest with you,I really didn't start having
fully embodied sex until my 40ssad story, but don't worry, I'm
making up for it, folks um, whenyou start experiencing that,
it's just a whole differentexperience.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You want a lot of it.
There you go.
Right, you want it.
That's the kicker.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
A lot, a lot of it.
I love.
I love that you pointed thatout.
I also love that you'rebringing up taking the
obligatory sort of sex P and Vsex off the table.
Absolutely.
(29:25):
Post having children.
That can feel like a lot ofwork, especially if your vagina
has experienced any pain.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Totally, and the reality is, is more women do not
orgasm from PV intercourse thannot right.
Most women tend to orgasm fromliteral stimulation and unless
you're using a vibrator or beingreally mindful about that with
PV intercourse, it's not aguarantee.
Right Tends to be moremale-centric.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Right, and you know you can always leave the
invitation on the table to like,if you get in the mood, while
we're, let's say, mutuallymasturbating and you're like I
want to hop on that, you arewelcome to.
Right Totally, Invitation thatthey can turn down is is, I
(30:22):
think, a turn on right.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Like you're not pushing for it.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But and when you don't feel obligated to do
something, oftentimes you getmore curious about it or you get
that FOMO right.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
A hundred percent, yeah.
And the other thing that youjust demonstrated, and that is
communication.
Right, like, crank up thecommunication, you can hop on
right, oh, I do like this, domore of this.
No, I don't like this, you know.
Can hop on right, oh, I do likethis, do more of this.
No, I don't like this.
You know, a lot of people, Ithink, maybe feel almost
self-conscious talking duringsex.
We talk more, the sex getsbetter and sexier.
(30:57):
Right, it's prettystraightforward.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I think one of the things that I've learned and
that has shocked me the most ishow many people are not
comfortable talking to theirlife partners about sex.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
like cannot have those conversations, yeah
absolutely Right, but I wouldsay more common than not.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Right.
So what is a good startingpoint?
Let's say, let's just startwith the women who are listening
to this and they're just like Idon't feel sexy anymore.
And maybe in their mind becauseI know a lot of new moms or
moms who even, like, have madeit through like six months to a
year of not having to have thatmuch sex they're just like I,
just I'm kind of done with it, Idon't want to do it.
(31:41):
What can we say to them?
First of all, why should theywork on their libido?
What's in it for them?
Like, if they're just like, I'mfine, I'm fine like not doing
this anymore.
What's in it for them?
Why should they work on it?
And then, how do we start thatpath?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, sexual health is health, okay.
So we are taking care of oursexual health, we are taking
care of our health in general.
You deserve to feel pleasure.
You deserve to feel pleasure,you deserve to feel embodied,
you deserve to feel safe in yourbody.
There's so many benefits right,both physically and
psychologically, to having ahealthy sex life.
(32:21):
And I am not just speakingabout a healthy sex life with a
partner, right, healthy sex lifewith a partner.
Direct correlation to higherlevels of relational
satisfaction overall.
Right, healthy sex life with apartner.
Direct correlation to higherlevels of relational
satisfaction overall.
Right.
Again, that broad umbrella ofhealth.
So, yes, would you live withoutsex?
Sure, right.
But I like to think EstherPerel has this great definition
(32:42):
of eros, erotic, as your lifeforce, your vitality, right?
So if we don't have that, it'salmost like we're a little bit
dimmer.
You know, when we're able totap into a really authentic,
full sexual self, that Eroscomes back.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
I love hearing other women say this.
I've been like shouting it fromthe mountaintops it is vital to
your life force and it changeswho you are.
I like that.
You also pointed out thatsexual relationship, but I'm
telling you I have right nowabout 75% of my sex life is with
myself and I am like my bestlover.
(33:23):
I give myself the mostincredible orgasms before care
and after care.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And it's great, but I want to have you also speak to
what can be the health drawbacksor the potential physical
issues that can arise when youdon't have any sex life at all.
Or pleasure sexual pleasure yes, there are other kinds of
(33:53):
pleasure, but I want to talkabout the complete lack of
sexual pleasure.
What's the detriment to thehealth?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Totally so.
If we're speaking relationally,right, it's going to decrease
relational satisfaction.
There is going to be a decreasein intimacy.
I don't just mean sexualintimacy, I mean that
connectiveness and thatcloseness, right.
So if I'm in a partnership andwe have no sex life or sex life,
that's not a good sex life.
There's going to it's like moreof a chasm form, right, we get
(34:25):
lonely, we can feel depressed,kind of a snowball effect, you
know.
You know there's this greatline.
One of my favorite movies isit's complicated.
It's a Nancy Meyers movie whereMeryl Streep's like chatting
with her girlfriends about howlong it's been since she's had
sex and one of them's like I'veheard, your vagina just closes
up.
That's not going to happen,okay.
(34:47):
So like there's stuff out therethat's like if you don't do
this, this will happen.
That won't happen.
But there are psychologicalside effects, right.
So, speaking more to the soloside of things, if I'm not
partnered and I'm also notmasturbating or exploring any of
that, it's like you become alittle bit disembodied, right?
(35:08):
So again, you know, we'respeaking broadly here If I'm not
allowing myself to feelpleasure, it's I'm a little bit
more of a husk of a person.
It's not life-threatening,right Again.
Nothing very severe is going tohappen, but it's kind of like
you know.
It's almost like your lightgets dimmer, just to kind of
(35:28):
keep up with that metaphor.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I would like to point out that as you age, especially
as you get into perimenopause,when you don't have any internal
stimulation, you can experiencevaginal atrophy.
So that is another good reasonto continue to have sex with
yourself, because thatstimulation creates salary
growth and helps keep thosetissues like moist and like pump
(35:54):
, just like we want our faces tobe.
So, but yeah, mental health,emotional health, it can take a
toll on those.
So all right, we've given youthe motivation.
So all right, we've given youthe motivation to work on this
part of your life.
Now let's give them some tools.
So the starting point right now, you're just like oh, intimacy,
(36:20):
sex, yeah, what are some thingsthat they can start doing right
now to start feeling more inthe mood or to start getting
that libido, that sexual energy,to return to their body?
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, yeah, I love this question.
So it starts with you, not withyour partner, okay.
And it starts even from adesexualized place.
You want to make sure you aredoing things to help you feel
like your human self, okay.
So again, this idea of Eroslife force if I'm just working,
feeding the kids, feeding mybaby, la, la, la, la, la, right,
(36:55):
it's not going to cut it.
So I need to make sure, once ortwice a week, I'm doing
something for me.
I'm going to my yoga class justbecause I am going to be at
work late, because I'm going togo get my favorite cappuccino,
right, we are stepping intopleasure again as a sensation.
Okay, that is the first step.
The second step, right, is toget a little bit more sexualized
(37:19):
.
I think postpartum is such agreat time if you don't already
to find a vibrator that reallyworks for you, right, if you had
any sort of kind of internaltrauma, just kind of an exterior
vibrator that does clitoralstimulation is really helpful.
So maybe there's an evening,your partner's gone, or you can
(37:40):
just go take a tub alone and youtry your new vibrator and you
just let your body experiencesome pleasure.
I know I'm kind of a brokenrecord here, but this is just
for you, and what this is goingto do is let your brain see that
your body is still capable ofexperiencing pleasure.
Right, you may have gonethrough this huge change and yet
(38:01):
here you are right, keeping upyour life force, still allowing
yourself to feel good.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Then, right after we've kind of started playing
around with this, if you are ina partnership, communicating
with your partner, hey, I dowant to figure this out, but to
be honest, I don't even knowwhere to start.
I don't want to go back to theway things were.
I also don't want to have sexjust to feel like I have to.
So can we work together tofigure this out?
(38:30):
This is a great time to startcouples therapy If you are
feeling really out of yourleague.
There's a lot of great books.
I always I wish it was likerequired reading for every human
.
But Come as you Are by EmilyNagowski, prolific book all
about female anatomy, femalepleasure, and if you want to say
, would you like to read thiswith me and maybe we can start
(38:52):
here?
Right, my body feels different,I don't feel like my sexual
self and I want to figure thisout together.
That's such a beautifulconnecting invitation that
doesn't make your partner feellike you're shutting them away,
but it's also holding theboundary of we're not just going
to do this terrible sex becauseyou have a need.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Right, right.
Setting up those boundaries isimportant, but also for the
partner.
Okay, so the woman doing herpart is set aside.
Masturbation time I lovemasturbation time.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
It's like my favorite time of the day, it's such my
favorite time of the day, suchgood healthcare.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I really learned how to how to get myself off.
And once I really learned Idon't know if you know this, but
in 2022, I had 365 orgasms wellmore than that one every day
for a year Amazing, every dayfor a year, so I learned.
I learned a lot.
So much time and and yeah, Istarted having orgasms at a
(39:55):
level I didn't even know washumanly possible.
So I get excited aboutmasturbation time, but I think
that it's important, right Liketo, to have that container of
self love and knowledge too.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Right, like I understand my body.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I'm rubbing my boots.
So you relearn your bodybecause you're touching it and
you're exploring it in its newform, right.
So prioritize that.
I think that's fantastic advice.
Now for the partner.
Let's talk about the partnerbecause, dear partners, I know
(40:30):
you want to get laid.
I know six months is a longtime, I get it.
But what can they do to startapproaching sex differently, in
a way that is going to make itseem more pleasurable for her,
but also, in the end, it's goingto be better for them?
Speaker 1 (40:46):
her, but also in the end.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
It's going to be better for them.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Totally, totally so.
One of my old supervisors usedto always say you have a hand
for a reason, go take a shower,right, like, if I am just like I
need you to, you know, get meoff.
No, you can do that yourself.
Okay, that is not the pointhere.
(41:09):
So, partners of mamas, I wantyou to hear that, right?
Yes, sex is pleasurable, butit's also about connecting, and
if you are looking at yourpartner and she is tired and she
is doing chores and you arehorny, that is not the time to
ask for sex.
Right, you can go masturbateand then come back and have this
conversation.
This is something I am obviouslyvery passionate about, but it
is such a good opportunity,especially for men, to lean into
(41:34):
other ways of receiving love.
A lot of men are socialized inthis country to only equate
physical touch with love becausethere was no emotional
intelligence, kind of emotionalsecurity taught as a child,
taught as a child.
And so for a male partner I'mspeaking just if there's a
hetero relationship to start tounderstand that my wife not
having sex with me does not meanshe doesn't love me is a huge
(41:57):
thing, okay.
So men, rely on masturbation.
Understand that your wiferejecting you does not mean she
doesn't love you and then leanin with curiosity, lean into
that bid, for I'd like to figurethis out together and start to
again going back to that idea ofpleasure and connection, start
to get creative, right.
(42:18):
The other thing I want toquickly add is take the pressure
off.
So if your partner says I'dlike to cuddle naked, great, let
that be it, okay.
Unless you and your partnerhave explicitly said and then
we're going to have intercourse.
Don't put that on them, becauseI have a lot of people I know a
lot of my clients will saysomething like I don't even want
(42:39):
to cuddle because there's goingto be this expectation, right.
So that's where this overtcommunication comes in, unless
it is said don't silently,assume is super key.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
It's a great time to also leave an open invitation.
You can say I just want you toknow that anytime I ask you to
cuddle with me or take a showerwith me or whatever, lay naked
and watch a movie with me,there's no expectation for sex.
However, if you feel the spark,please know there's an open
(43:10):
invitation to initiate.
You know I won't initiatebecause I don't want you to feel
pressure.
I just want that physicalintimacy.
But just know, here it is.
If you want it, let me know.
Otherwise we're going to justenjoy that and I think that that
would feel so amazing to havesomeone just set that up for you
(43:31):
100%.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
That's beautiful caretaking.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, and another thing you brought up just like
we said, the women should startprioritizing some self-pleasure
and masturbation time.
This is a great opportunity formen to do the same, and there
are great toys out there thatyou can oh my god so many you
want to up it, up it, and youcould then, like both of you
(43:56):
could, talk to each other andsay, hey, we're gonna have our
separate masturbation time, andif you're ever curious and want
to come in and check it out,I'll show you my toys, if you
show me yours.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Totally.
Yeah, I love it.
Right, we get to be playful,playful.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, I love the idea of creating a playground for
adults who otherwise are in thepits of working and raising.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Anything else Before we wrap this up, can you put
together just a little packagefor my listeners right now, A go
bag if you will, of tools thatthey can start using tonight to
get their groove back or supporttheir partner getting her group
?
Speaker 1 (44:44):
back Totally.
Yeah, I love that, the littletoolkit package.
So just to the mamas I wouldsay remember, you deserve
pleasure.
Starting with that, I deservepleasure, my body deserves
pleasure, right?
Okay, what does that mean forme?
Can you do one thing tonightthat is pleasurable and it
(45:05):
doesn't have to be sexual?
Maybe it is right.
Maybe you do go home andmasturbate that's lovely, maybe
it's?
I'm going to make myself abeautiful chocolate chip cookie
and not share it with anybody,right?
Like I really want you to leaninto the idea that you deserve
pleasure, because it's true.
Okay, that is your assignmentfor tonight.
(45:25):
Partners of mothers, your littletoolkit is to remember the
season of life is not forever.
But while you are in, to useyour word, annette the pits,
your job is to be a teammate.
Okay, we are not pressuring ourpartner, we are leaning in with
curiosity and if there issomething that is feeling
lacking, we are going about it,knowing that their partner is
(45:48):
there for us, right?
And knowing that we do havethis invitation, us right, and
knowing that we do have thisinvitation to redefine our whole
sex life in a way that actuallymakes it better than it ever
was before.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, absolutely, that little silver lining is out
there, because I'm telling youright now I have three kids and
my sex life is banging.
Yeah, 100% Right, so wonderful.
Can you tell my listeners wherethey can find you, if they're
in the area that you're in, toreach out for help or just to
(46:16):
find out more about yourexpertise?
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Totally so.
I have an office in Midtown,sacramento where I'm seeing
clients and then I can seepeople virtually, like I said,
throughout the states ofCalifornia and Washington.
If you are somebody that justmore enjoys playful therapeutic
Instagram stuff, you can find meat any board psych.
Just a reminder Instagram isnot therapy, but it is a fun
(46:42):
place to learn.
And even if you're notinterested in therapy, if you
just want some more resources,on my website I have books,
podcasts.
I recommend you can find thatat esacounselingcom.
That is one thing I'll quicklyadd on.
Like just empowering yourselfto learn more.
Reading books, listening topodcasts.
(47:02):
Understanding you're not alone,understanding what you're going
through, is incrediblyempowering too.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, you are not alone folks.
Most importantly because I knowit can.
Postpartum can be a really darktime for everybody involved.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
It's so hard.
You're not alone, and you aredoing a beautiful job.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining me and
listeners.
If you are watching this on myYouTube channel at Talk
SexexWithAnnette, and you haveany questions or comments, you
know you can scroll down, leavea comment or a question in the
comment section.
You can always reach out to meat Annette, at
TalkSexWithAnnette, or you canscroll down and there's a speak
(47:42):
pipe link below and you can sendme a voice message.
If there's a question I can'tanswer, I will reach out to Emma
.
I will get you the answers,however I can, so shoot them my
way.
Thank you again for joining meand to my listeners, I'll see
you in the locker room.
Cheers.
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