October 30, 2023 • 47 mins
This week, sex scholar Nadège Collot — a coach, astrologer, and best-selling author — joins the podcast for an enlightening, empowering exploration of sex, history, and spirituality.
In this fascinating and far-reaching conversation, Nadège walks us through her historical research on the fertility goddess Virgo, the true definition of an ancient "virgin," sexual liberation in cultures like ancient Egypt and Rome, and the impact of patriarchal society on goddess worship. She also shares fascinating astrological insights on how sex shows up in our natal charts, including our hidden desires, secret erogenous zones, and the kinkiest signs (you might be surprised).
To learn more about Nadège and her work, find her at pleasurescience.com or follow her on Instagram at @pleasurescience.
Share your thoughts on this episode
Follow The Outerknown on Instagram and Threads at @outerknownpod or visit us on the web at outerknownpod.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I also would want to throw in there that there's an
intuitive understanding that allhumans that I pretty much
talked to have where sex is areally transcending experience.
You know and you can connect insome ways that are quite
psychedelic and out there.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Outer Known, a podcast that shines a
light on the outer edges ofinner knowing.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Just a heads up listeners.
Today's episode contains somespicy language, aka some cuss
words.
Discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Today's episode is one I've wanted to do forever,
and I'm so excited about today'sguest.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You and me both Something I think that you and I
both take for granted abouteach other, but we've never
quite said it aloud.
But this is a sex positivepodcast Aka.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
We are sex positive podcast hosts and I'm really
excited that we actually get toname that and talk about that
with today's guest we're goingto name, especially as a single
lady, I'm really feeling it andI'm so excited to dive into this
topic.
Our guest today, Nadezh, is soknowledgeable she's done so much
research, academic study, aswell as really open about
(01:37):
talking about her ownexperiences.
She's the perfect guest for usto open up the topic of
spiritual sex.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yes, and I love her whole practice and business is
really grounded in a lot ofhistorical research about the
way that societies have talkedabout practice ritualized sex
and we got a really niceopportunity to nerd out about
that.
Nadezh has some reallywonderful recommendations for
resources if you're interestedin learning more history-wise.
(02:06):
What a fulfilling and justjoyful conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Absolutely.
There are so many things thatwe talked about that just were
so cathartic and I was leftspeechless, talking about
everything from the history tohow we process these things in
the modern day, how we approachsex as a culture.
It's just so taboo still in somany ways, and I'm just so glad
that we got the chance to talkabout it and here's to many
(02:30):
future episodes doing so.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, well, let's hear from Nadezh.
Nadezh, welcome to the OuterKnown.
Hello, yay, we're so glad tohave you join us.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Me too.
It's so exciting to be here.
We've already jumped into somefun discussions, so I'm excited
to see what else happens as wego into the Outer Known For sure
, this is kind of a new topic, Ithink, for us.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
We've been going for four seasons and we are really
excited to have you specificallyjoin us, Nadezh.
You are a sex scholar, abest-selling author, coach,
astrologer and founder ofPleasure Science, which is a
mouthful, but a mouthful ofreally cool things.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I know I always have a joke like try saying this
three times fast and then say,like my name and the things I do
, and you know it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So let's jump right into it.
You've said you've started yourjourney because you felt shame
during pleasure.
What's your path been like andwhat have some of your
breakthroughs been along the way?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, well, you know, what really started me on this
path was a personal thing.
I had a really hard timeorgasming with other people.
I didn't have that issue reallyby myself, but with other
people it was just a completelydifferent ballgame.
So I started researching sexbecause I wanted to have orgasms
(03:55):
with other people.
Who doesn't right?
And so it was a very personalthing where I just started
researching and looking upwhatever was sexually accessible
, so porn articles on theinternet, all different types of
things.
At the time I was studyingEnglish literature and I was a
community college student.
I was English lit and I was incommunity college and when I
(04:21):
transferred I got into UCBerkeley still plan to study
English.
But when I got there I quicklydiscovered that I didn't like
the department and I wasstudying all the same people I
had in community college whichwhy am I?
And I was paying for thismyself.
So why am I paying for this?
I've already read these books,I've already learned these
things, and it was all, ofcourse, like we would anticipate
(04:44):
the very same white malestraight curriculum.
And so I got to this universitythat was such a prestigious
university and felt immediatelybummed.
Was I in the right place to doI drop out.
What's the point?
But luckily I took a class onLGBT studies and it was through
the Gender Women's StudiesDepartment and that changed the
(05:05):
game.
I was the only class I likedthat semester I immediately
opted to change my major.
And when I did and of coursethis is so funny because I feel
like when you go on a path youdon't realize you're meant to be
on the path right and so I wentto this department saying I
want to change majors andthey're like well, you're a
transfer student.
Everything you took was to beable to get you to start at a
(05:27):
junior at this level.
So you need all these differentclasses you need.
Like, if you're going to switch, you need an entirely different
background of classes.
But I was always this person,right?
So they look at my transcriptand they realize like wait,
you've studied all of thesesociology, different diversity
studies, like you could actuallyyou totally qualify.
And I was like oh good, I'mglad I decided to study what I
(05:49):
wanted in college and Itransferred my major.
But the other caveat was I hadto start writing a research
paper.
It was going to take severalyears and they were like if you
do this.
You are expected to have thisbody of work by the time you
graduate.
I was like what could I studyfor a couple years and not get
bored?
And that was sex.
And it was incredible.
(06:10):
It just jumpstarted everything.
And actually it was reallyaround that time when I was in
college, studying sex, talkingabout it, that I started having
orgasmic pleasure with otherpeople, and I think the biggest
change was actually just metalking about it, me being in a
position where I could say thesethings without shame.
And it's so fascinating becausewe hold on to the thoughts we
(06:33):
think in our head and our bodyand they can absolutely manifest
in so many different ways thatare really counterintuitive.
And simply talking about sexand learning about it made me
feel much more comfortable and Ialso think it really released a
lot of things I was holding andcarrying because I had started
being sexual, at least kissingwith people when I was at least
(06:55):
a preteen.
I really wanted to have fun anddo things.
So it was a long journey of notreally experiencing pleasure
with other people and by thetime I got to college it was
really nice to finally starthealing that Amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I love that.
In terms of how you workedthrough that shame.
It sounds like there was a lotof sort of almost normalizing.
Oh, this is like a commonexperience that really everyone
works through, and I thinksomething that I personally have
struggled with is how muchinternalized misogyny there is,
even in porn.
(07:30):
And I'll just say it like, whenI look at porn, the first
things I Google are femaleorgasm, because I want to see
something where there's equalpleasure.
Yeah, right, because that is sohard to find and I think it
took me a long time to evenrealize, oh, that's even a thing
that's available.
Yeah, and in my earlyrelationships I didn't even know
(07:53):
how to speak about my ownpleasure, much less not have
shame around it.
So I love how you spoke aboutthat.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, no, it's true.
And you know, when younormalize pleasure and sex, you
can also talk about it with yourlover.
And that's the second biggestway you know to you heal your
body, heal yourself, but alsocommunicate.
Communication is lubrication100%.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
So the name of your business is Pleasure Science.
Yeah, tell us about how youcame up with that and what kind
of philosophy is behind that.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, you know, it was kind of fate.
After I graduated fromuniversity, I started writing
articles.
Writing was really thefoundation of everything and it
still is of what I do.
And about four years ago so I'dbeen writing articles and doing
things and everything was doingwell, but nothing was really in
one place at all and I justsort of had this download I
(08:48):
don't know what better way todescribe it where all of a
sudden I and I think I wasactually in the room I'm sitting
in right now and I thought tomyself you know, pleasure
Science, that would be such agood name for a company whenever
I like feel less of an impostersyndrome and would do that.
And so I had this download ofthis name, pleasure Science.
And then the instant nextthought was well, you're not
(09:11):
credible enough to do that,you're not ready to do that.
And then I was like well, whatthat, what, what?
But when would I be?
You know like I'm doing thisstuff now.
So I had just started workingwith a business development
coach, because I did want totake all the work I was doing
and find some way to reach morepeople and like, do more of this
(09:31):
sex education, and she helpedme look it up on like the
trademark database and on allthe social medias and she's like
this name is completely free.
And it truly felt like fatebecause that is like it's a
pretty good name and I was sosurprised that no one had that
name.
So I decided to trademark itand I started my business and I
(09:52):
put everything under that huband I'm so glad I did, because
Pleasure Science exactlydescribes what I do.
Everything is rooted from afoundation of pleasure and I'm a
scientist, I'm a scholar,that's my background, that's
what I do, what I continue to do, and to me, when people hear
Pleasure Science, I hope it justmakes them feel excited to
learn something and curious,because that's how you should
(10:14):
feel about sex, love, that.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well, I came across your work in a really
interesting way and I'm reallyexcited to talk to you about
this topic.
So I was very curiouslyGoogling, trying to learn about
ancient virgins.
Yes, because I wanted to knowwhat the term like truly meant
is.
I had kind of like heard insome cases that virgins weren't
really virgins in the modern day, like celibate sense, but
(10:39):
rather that they simply didn'tmarry.
Yeah, and I happened to crossan article you'd written about
Virgo as fertility goddess.
Can you tell us more about yourresearch?
And in that historical area, ohmy God.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
This is actually one of my all time favorite topics,
partly because I always becamefriends with Virgos and then
they always hated astrology andI'm over.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Oh yeah, I have Virgo rising for the record.
Pisces Sun but Virgo rising.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Virgo moon oh, that's interesting.
So you're like Yin and Yangright in that identity placement
.
Very much so.
For anyone who doesn't knowwhat that means, every astrology
sign has its cosmic opposite.
It's the Yin to its Yang.
It's the sign that sits 90degrees from your sign in the
sky.
So Virgo and Pisces are Yin andYang signs, which is a very
(11:25):
powerful thing to have in yourchart, but it can create a lot
of personal tension when you'regrowing up and you don't know
how to deal with that.
You don't say yeah, thinking ofVirgo and her as the fertility
goddess.
So a big part of understandingthis is understanding the
creation of patriarchy.
Patriarchy and the dominantcultures that we live in, of
(11:47):
white supremacy and patriarchy,are obviously not inevitable and
not natural.
They were created and they werecreated over the last five to
6,000 years.
Now when we talk about history,we're usually only referencing
the last 2000 years, and so,with the Virgo and her as the
(12:07):
fertility goddess, we haveactual archaeological and
historical proof of peopleworshiping the goddess Virgo as
a goddess of trade and fertilityfor thousands of years.
When you look at her in the sky, her emblem is a woman holding
a sheath of grain.
In ancient times, grain wascurrency.
(12:29):
Grain was extremely important.
Okay, it's one of the reasonswhy the ancient Egyptians were
so powerful for so long, becausethe Nile River grew grain in
abundance more than any otherplace in the ancient times.
So grain was hugely powerfuland people would look to the sky
and see Virgo.
She wasn't always called Virgo.
Other names of hers was Nisaba,isis, demeter.
(12:52):
She was a lot of differentgoddesses through antiquity, but
they were always worshiping herbecause one people associated
grain with pregnancy which funfact.
In 2016, harvard released astudy that proved grain does
help with fertility.
So they were onto something.
How they knew that, I don'tknow, but that's pretty cool.
And then also, grain wasessentially a currency, and so
(13:12):
people would really worship andcall upon the archetype of Virgo
.
Now, for thousands of years, wewere worshiping this archetype
through different communitiesand societies.
However, as polytheisticreligions started to lose gusto
and monotheistic religionsmainly Judaism, islam and
Christianity, started to riseabout 2000 years ago, we saw a
(13:35):
real shift in one the worshipingof goddesses, and how that even
looked.
We used to live in societieswhere people would worship a
male archetypal god and a femalearchetypal goddess.
I think actually, what's moreaccurate is masculine and
feminine, not female and male.
It's more about the energy andthe archetype, because some of
these archetypes were animals,some of these, you know, it
(13:56):
wasn't, and a lot of ancienttraditions really revered
non-binary people, whichobviously is different from what
we do today.
So anyway, virgo sorry I get soon these tangents.
So I hope that's okay and allthe listeners are just as nerdy
as I am and we're all followingalong.
We love that here.
Yeah, sex nerds unite.
(14:16):
So the history of Virgo isreally fascinating because as
monotheistic religions rose,goddess worship became extremely
threatening to the dominantcultures that were rising.
And around the time of the1400s, when the printing press
was invented, this was whenlanguages modern languages as we
(14:36):
know them today got reallysolidified and ancient or
indigenous languages got leftaside and died out in many, many
ways and in many cultures.
And a lot of things happened.
First, the Bible was one of thefirst books, or maybe the first
book ever printed.
Two, the second most popularbook ever printed in the 1400s
was a witch hunting manual thatactually taught people how to go
(14:59):
after female healers andconditioned them to view them
not as a healer but as a witchand as this demonic person and
wipe them out.
Around the time that thathappened, we saw a complete
change and, like you said, theuse of the word virgin.
If you look at the Latin virgin,it does not mean someone who is
celibate.
It in fact I mean it refers toa woman.
(15:21):
That can be argued.
But more than anything, it justmeans someone who is self
sufficient, which is one of thearchetypes of Virgo and the
fertility goddess, someone whois so knowledge and empowered
about healing and fertility andsex and is sexually empowered
that they are self sufficient.
They do not need pleasure fromothers, which is, of course, the
height of the archetype regularVirgo humans.
(15:43):
It's okay if you're not fullyself sufficient because you're
the human.
You're not the goddessarchetype.
You don't have to be perfect,but you do connect and emblemate
this archetype, and so the ideathat Virgo is a virgin is
complete hogwash.
It was this patriarchalstructure that came through,
needed to establish dominantcultures in certain ways and
(16:05):
repackaged this very powerfuldeity who throughout time, has
always been a very sexuallyempowered person, as a virgin
Because, if you think about it,that's the best way to take away
the divine power and the VirginMary and all of these other
virgin goddesses.
We saw all of these, or they'renot even called goddesses today
, but essentially all of thereligions were repurposed so
(16:28):
that way we were worshiping menand if we were worshiping women
in some way, they were verystrategically contained, they
were not threatening and theywere very much westernized and
whitewashed, because all of thereligions that we have today
actually stole most of theirfolklore from ancient Africa.
So Virgo, in a nutshell,represents a lot.
(16:49):
Right, we got to help her.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Everything you just said was so cathartic like I'm
almost speechless.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
That's why, when someone asked me this question,
I'm like, all right, sit downfor five minutes, we're about to
have a mini lecture, becausethere's so much that happened.
And it's so funny because I, asa professional astrologer, I
just always hated people callingVirgo the virgin.
It was like nails on achalkboard to me.
And it was about four years agowhere I was talking to my best
(17:20):
friend of Virgo and she wastelling me how she's like.
You know, I love it when you doastrology, but everyone else I
hate, because they always talkabout Virgos like we're boring
and all we're good at is beingorganized and criticizing people
.
And I was like you know whatshe's right and I'm a
Sagittarius, so we're the other.
We have the fun posts of likeyou're a horny mess.
Britney Spears, who's also aSag, you know, god bless.
(17:42):
We were over here having aparty and Virgo goes over here
being like why are we not alsohaving a party?
So I was like this doesn't makesense to me that she's a virgin
.
Let me start doing someresearch here.
And the research was justastounding, you know, and
painful to read, frankly.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, clearly there's been a Virgo smear campaign.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
There has been.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I do not appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, 100% of in a strategic one.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So, you know it's, it's not a coincidence,
absolutely Well kind of more onthat topic.
Before we started recording thepodcast, we were getting
already excited and getting alittle bit into the history of
sex and liberation and just Ithink in general throughout
history it's been, and of coursein modern times too it's,
(18:30):
repressed and seen as shameful,forbidden.
So how has the spirituality andthe acceptance of sex evolved
throughout history?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, you know, I like to imagine it as a pendulum
going backwards and forwards,sliding between extremes,
because when we look back,archaeology wise, we have about
50,000 years worth of proof ofhumans gathering together and
developing spiritual practices,and a lot of those ancient
cultures were, I'm going toassume, their sex positive
(19:03):
because sex was one of thebiggest things that they
worshiped.
There are some scholars who saythat one of the reasons why sex
was so sacred in the ancienttimes was because they didn't
have modern biological knowledgethat we have.
So it would look kind of likemagic when women would get
pregnant or people with a uteruswould get pregnant, and that's
sort of what some peoplehypothesize.
(19:25):
That that's where that sacredsex bit started.
I also would want to throw inthere that there's an intuitive
understanding that all humansthat I pretty much talked to
have, where sex is a reallytranscending experience, you
know and you can connect in someways that are quite psychedelic
and out there, just through theexperience of sex and orgasm or
(19:46):
your own personal solo sexpractice and masturbation
practice, and so we see thependulum at like from way back
in the ancient times being very,very sacred sex, sex positive
and then the pendulum started togo the other way as patriarchal
cultures and agriculture basedcultures and cultures based on
(20:08):
land ownership started to rise.
And again, with the rise ofpatriarchy, sex had to be
handled in a different way.
You know a great example ofthinking how the pendulum swung
If you think about sex positivecultures, where marriage was not
a part of the dominant societyand dominant culture.
One of the reasons whymonogamous marriage became so
(20:30):
popular in a patriarchal systemis because in a system where
there's free sex, it's very easyto see who the mother is, but
it's not easy to see who thefather is in that equation,
right?
And so a lot of societies wheremen were becoming into power,
and I don't think that this wasintentional to hurt others.
I think this is the nature ofpower.
If you are in power, you areprobably thinking how do I keep
(20:53):
the power, how do I maintain thepower?
Right, because matriarchalcultures can also be oppressive,
like power can be oppressive.
But with the rise of patriarchythere was definitely a threat
to this idea that you can'ttrace the male lineage.
And so how do we fix thisproblem?
We get people into monogamousmarriages and we make sure that
the last name of the man matters.
(21:15):
So now we can track birth andwe can track all of these things
, and it's really fascinatingtoo.
I was at a summit that GloriaSteinem spoke at a few years ago
, and she said something I'llnever forget.
She said if you can controlbirth, you can control the
population.
If you can control thepopulation, you can control the
economy.
And so, as these differentdominant cultures solidified
(21:38):
themselves and figured out waysto create societies that were
not in benefit of matriarchy orbenefit of people who weren't
men, they had to control sex.
So we're at a different placenow.
I think we are very sexuallyempowered from where we've been,
but again, it's like a pendulum.
The ancient Egyptians actuallyalso worshiped sex.
(22:00):
They believed that they're topgod because they were
polytheistic.
But the top god was named Amenand the way that he which, by
the way, every time we say amen,I wonder if it's just a trickle
down from that but Amen createdexistence by masturbating.
And so the first wife of thePharaoh, because the Pharaoh
usually had many wives and italways had many wives.
(22:21):
But the first wife, the highwife, would also be the high
priestess of the land, and itwas her job every morning to go
into the temple and masturbate agolden statue that had a giant
erect penis.
And she had to do this everysingle morning.
If she did not do this?
Because the ancient Egyptianswere, incredibly, they were
super devout.
So they truly believed if thehigh priestess who is also, you
(22:43):
know, born from the gods,because that's why she's even a
queen in the first place If shedoesn't go and masturbate the
statue, the sun won't rise.
So another long-winded circularroute.
But you know, we've gone backand forth in a lot of ways,
because the ancient Egyptianswere also very patriarchal, very
oppressive, utilized the haremsystem where women were, you
(23:05):
know, really contained andmonitored and used for birth.
So it's an interesting give andtake.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's amazing, and I think earlier we were also
getting into the most liberatedsocieties In your opinion, like
who has been the most sexuallyliberated in history and from
your perspective?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I think the most sexually liberated are probably
the societies that did flat outworship sex, the ones who we
really have their stones thatthey left over their statues of
Venus.
All of those I think areprobably were more sexually
empowered than today.
I know you mentioned ancientRome and Greece.
(23:48):
They were definitely sexuallyempowered.
In some ways, I'd say they weremore pleasure positive, very
Epicurean societies, and so theywere not pleasure negative like
we are now in a capitaliststructure where pleasure has to
be disciplined in order to bevalid.
For them.
I mean, you know, pleasure wasthe reward for all of the things
(24:11):
that they did to gain power andthey love that.
And of course, alexander theGreat was unabashedly bisexual
and had male lovers.
So he, you know, pushed thatenvelope forward.
But when it came to how theytreated people who identified as
a woman or were on the spectrumof queer femininity, I don't
think they were very, ifanything, were probably more
(24:35):
advanced than they are in thatrespect.
But yeah, you know, based onthe limited, infer or not, it's
not that limited.
But we don't have like journalsfrom back from like 10,000
years ago of some princess beinglike I had a great threesome
and then, you know, and I wishwe had that, but we do.
We have proof that thathappened and I would say that
(24:55):
those societies were probablythe more so on the spectrum of
sexual empowerment.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Fascinating.
I have to ask, because youmentioned it earlier, what was
the cult of ISIS and the storybehind that?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
So Cleopatra we all know beautiful, gorgeous
Cleopatra Potolamy, the lastpharaoh of Egypt to ancient Rome
, basically murdered.
It was a suicide, but did thegirl have a choice?
She got way too powerful.
I actually wrote an articleabout it called.
Cleopatra was 100% that bitchand Rome killed her for it.
So if you want to learn aboutthat, you can go down that
(25:31):
rabbit hole.
But the cult of ISIS was so.
It's funny because it kind ofrelates back to Virgo.
So ISIS is one of the mostprominent female or feminine
goddesses and divine femininearchetypes that have stood the
test of time.
Right, and so there were somany different divine feminine
(25:52):
archetypes, but ISIS is the onethat has been around for at
least 6,000 years, maybe more,because actually, the ancient
Egyptians were around for 5,000years and we've been around.
So ISIS has been around forlike 7,000 to 8,000 years in a
major world dominating way.
Now when, by the time CleopatraPotolamy came around,
(26:13):
christianity was about to be onthe rise.
About 100 years later, jesusChrist would be born and do his
nice thing with the Roman Empireas well.
What's really interesting,though, is because of the way
Cleopatra was surrounded andbasically like politically
strangled.
The people loved Cleopatra, andnot just the Egyptians, which
(26:35):
is a really big feat, becauseCleopatra was actually not
Egyptian, she was Macedonian andher family was placed on the
throne by Alexander the Great.
They were usurpers.
So the fact that the Egyptianpeople even liked Cleopatra was
a huge deal.
She actually was the onlymember in her family who ruled
Egypt for over 300 years, tobother learning Egyptian
religious customs and to bothereven learning the Egyptian
(26:57):
language.
But the people loved her.
She traveled far and abroad.
She created really powerfultrade networks.
She ruled Egypt for over twodecades.
People tend to think of her asnot as powerful as she was.
She was incredibly badass, butbecause she was so powerful and
traveled and did all of thesegreat things, people across the
Arab world really really knewabout her and a lot of people
(27:19):
found the Roman Empire extremelyoppressive because they were
colonizing everybody.
So how could you not?
And Cleopatra kind of felt likethis freedom fighter, if you
would like, standing up to Romanoppression.
And when she died and she diedin a way that was extremely
publicized, because she was theonly person to produce a male
heir to Julius Caesar, who wastechnically the heir to the
(27:41):
Roman Empire, so technically sheshould have inherited the Roman
Empire.
That is why they killed her.
But anyway, when she died itreally shocked the world.
Everyone was really upset, andthe Roman Empire.
They murdered her son rightafter and publicized it because
he was a threat to the throne.
And then they publiclydisgraced and humiliated her
children, who were never reallyheard from again, except for her
(28:03):
daughter.
So we don't know if they weremurdered or not or what happened
to them.
And Cleopatra herself becauseshe was so feminine and because
she was so extravagant, a lot ofpeople related her to the
goddess Isis.
So when she died, the cult ofIsis, which existed before.
It was a sort of subsect ofreligion that was truly mostly
(28:23):
devoted to Isis.
After Cleopatra died, the cultof Isis exploded.
It reached all over the ancientRoman Empire.
It even went as far as to hitancient England and Afghanistan
and all over the Middle East.
And what's really fascinatingis that scholars who study the
growth of Jesus Christ andChristianity say that what
Cleopatra inadvertently did forthe goddess Isis had actually
(28:48):
almost the same exact globalimpact as Jesus Christ.
He just had a better PRcampaign and we live in a
patriarchal society, so hebecame a little bit more
mainstream, but it's the cult ofIsis still exists to this day.
It's actually quite a powerfulgroup and, yeah, it's really
interesting.
It's really interesting tothink about Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Thanks for sharing that.
I have to just ask Cleopatrahas long been a personal
curiosity of mine.
Are there any resources thatyou recommend for people curious
on that topic?
I firstly had a really hardtime finding like a good book on
her.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm literally staring at my books right now.
So the first book that I wouldrecommend is when Women Ruled
the World by Kara Kuni.
She's an Egyptologist at UCLAand she the last chapter of this
book is devoted to Cleopatra,and it's quite good.
It's quite, quite good.
And then there is Cleopatra ALife by Stacy Schiff.
(29:47):
This is another good one.
And then this book is notspecifically about Cleopatra,
but it's a tiny little stinkerthat I highly recommend if
you're going to go down thisrabbit hole.
And it's called Women in Powerand it's written by a feminist
scholar who is very well versedon the Roman Empire and because
Cleopatra you know, in the wholeno, no, no, but Cleopatra
doesn't come up so much, and Idon't think she comes up at all
(30:10):
in Women in Power.
But if you are reading abouther in other ways and then you
read that book, it's reallyinteresting to tie it all
together.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Amazing.
Yeah, it's really, reallyinteresting to think about the
tie between women in power andour topic, dejeure of sex and
spirituality.
I'm kind of curious, likewhat's your personal perspective
on spirituality and sex?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, I think that they're very greatly linked.
Whether you come from theposition that it's sacred and it
should be free, or that it'ssacred and it should be
contained, I think whatever wayyou're going about it, sex is
shackled in sacredness andspirituality Shackled in a good
(30:54):
way and bad way sometimes, likesometimes it's the fun kinky
btsm way and sometimes it's thego to the confessional you've
been a bad girl but you're notgetting the spanks you want and
you're getting disciplinedinstead.
But I think they're very, veryclose and, like I even said, you
know, even if someone is anatheist, you can still
experience the transformativewhoa moments that sometimes
(31:18):
happen with sex and pleasure aswell.
Love that.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah Well, one of the things I immediately did when I
found out about your work wasorder your book Sexstrology and
read it by the pool, luxuriatingover the summer.
It was delightful oh, I love it.
And you really explore desireand compatibility and even
secret erogenous zones for eachsun sign, which I thought was
(31:43):
really interesting.
And I noticed on your websitethat you also give sexstrology
readings to clients.
So I just wanted to ask whatare some of the things that you
can glean from a sex perspectivein a birth chart?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Absolutely, I'd say.
If you're going to do ityourself, the first thing you
want to look at is your BlackMoon Lilith.
Where does it fall and does ithit against anything?
Black Moon Lilith representsyour repressed sexuality, your
shadow side and, because of theway that we have been raised to
view pleasure and sex, a lot ofwhat we subconsciously or even
(32:18):
consciously do or ways wesocially behaved are really
influenced by that shadow.
Carl Jung famously said untilyou make the unconscious
conscious, your subconsciouswill run your life and you'll
call it fate.
You'll think it's just what'shappening.
And I like to take that a stepfurther when we think of sex and
say you know, whatever issubconsciously pushing you
(32:41):
forward, whatever needs,subconscious needs need to be
met sexually, they'll find a wayto get met one way or another.
So, for example, if you'reafraid of being abandoned,
you'll probably sabotagerelationships.
Before people can abandon you,you leave first.
This establishes control.
So if you have a Black MoonLilith in specific areas, like
maybe it's in the eighth house,there could be a lot of
(33:04):
transformation, because that'sthe house of sex, death and
transformation, ruled by thearchetype of Scorpio.
So if you have your Black MoonLilith hanging out over there,
sex will probably betransformative in all the best
ways and also all of the tensionproducing ways, right?
So I'd say, look at your BlackMoon, lilith, look at your Mars,
because Mars is the archetypeof sex aggression, anger so
(33:25):
that's going to influence things.
Look at your Chiron because,again, thinking of that
subconscious, whatever'shappening in Chiron, which is
the part of your chart thatshows your core wound, the thing
you'll be healing throughoutthis lifetime Sex is going to
trigger that baby.
And then your identityplacements, especially because
in our current historical moment, we live in a time that is very
(33:48):
consumed with personal identityand use personal identity as a
way to understand yourself andothers, which I think is very
unique, like the way we're doingit today is extremely unique to
the way it was before.
That plays a big role in theway that you're going to be.
So when I look at someone's sexastrology chart, I look at
those things, and then I alsolook at your seventh house,
house of relationships.
So how do you show up inrelationships?
(34:09):
What's happening over there?
Because relationships are goingto be one of the biggest
activators of your sex needs,wants and life.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Cool.
Are there any fun?
Like kinky aspects or anythingthat you've seen.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Virgo, mars, kinky, kinky and Virgo, Blackmun,
lilith.
But Capricorn, virgo,capricorns are big secret
kinksters and Capricornplacements too.
Capricorn is the archetype ofthe patriarch in astrology and
they really love power and kink.
(34:42):
And BDSM at its core is allabout power, playing with power,
doing that in a way that's funfor you.
So, capricorns, it's funny,depending on people's placements
, capricorns can seem soreserved and they may not even
think of themselves as likingBDSM.
But then I'll be like okay, well, do you like to play with power
?
Do you like to give power away?
Do you like to be dominant?
Do you like to do that?
How do you like to feel?
(35:02):
And there's always, there'salways something kinky happening
there that they may not evenrealize.
And and yeah, virgo placementsand then there's also Aquarius
can be quite a kinky placementbecause they rule innovation, so
they're going to be anastrology sign that loves sex
toys.
And then Sagittarius and Geminican also be pretty kinky, but
more so on the role play andcerebral side.
(35:23):
They want you to straddle theirbrain and they'll really like
delayed gratification, which canbe very fun in a BDSM context.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh my God, so many hot tips.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Now.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I feel like I've learned so much.
You know, if you're like, theseare none of my placements, I'm
just a Pisces everywhere.
I'm like you can be kinky too.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Totally.
Yeah, I love to think aboutkind of the another sort of way
to think about it in terms ofthat sort of intersection of
spirituality and sex is like alot of people tend to have like
rituals around sex and sexualactivity and like that can be
also somewhat spiritual too.
And I'm just curious, like whatyour thoughts are about that.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, you should 100% ritualized sex in a way we
subconsciously do.
We all have our arousal processor different arousal processes
that we're subconsciously doing,or we try to assume that the
arousal process taught to us bythe dominant culture is the one
that's going to be right for us,which is, you know, kissing
(36:24):
leads to foreplay, leads topenetration, leads to orgasm,
which is fun, but not true foreverybody or most people, and so
learning your rituals is goingto be really, really beautiful
and important.
You know, whether you use theword ritual or routine, I really
like to think of them as thesame thing.
It is a practice that's gettingyou connected to yourself, and
(36:46):
so, if you're someone who iscurious about sex and sexual
rituals, the first thing I wouldsay is take out your journal
and start journaling the processthat happens when you either
masturbate and get aroused, orspontaneously get aroused or get
aroused with a partner.
Start noticing like, okay, whendo I usually get aroused?
What's usually happening?
Oh, it looks like this is theritual.
(37:07):
And then, once you realize whatthe subconscious ritual that's
happening then start thinkingokay, you know what, why don't
we add this?
Why don't I become more mindful?
Like mindful masturbation isreally really fun.
I teach a class on mindfulmasturbation and then
masturbation is manifestation.
It's all in like one littlething because they're both so
connected and it's all aboutthose routines, it's all about
(37:29):
those rituals.
It's a really powerful thingand it's a fun thing to do with
a partner too.
I like to communicate and say,like, what's your ritual, what's
your routine, what works, whatdoesn't?
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Well, I know that you're currently researching a
new book, yes, so tell us alittle bit about that topic.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yes, I am researching serial killers.
You know hate and love they'reso similar but I'm researching a
little bit about serial killers.
This is more for a fictionproject.
And then, in terms of the sexwork stuff, actually I'm doing
(38:11):
like the Cleopatra deep dive andsome of these other things that
I'm researching.
I was really curious a coupleof years ago as to like, is
patriarchy inevitable?
What is going on here?
Because I was just so sad aboutthe state of things and so I've
been researching a lot ofhistorical stuff partly Virgo,
(38:32):
partly Cleopatra, the cult ofIsis to compile a book of essays
that kind of just give peoplehistorical evidence that shows
that there's other thingshappening.
It isn't just all about thesevery specific dominant gods that
we know about through thedominant religions that we have.
And there's a book that I'mreading right now.
(38:54):
It's huge, it's a behemoth,it's called the Great Cosmic
Mother and it kind of goes backthrough a lot of these ancient
societies and things like thatand a lot of them really
worshipped queer folks, whichwas really nice and like non
binary people and there were alot of non by like we didn't use
that language then, but thereare these gods who were powerful
(39:17):
and known because they did notidentify as a man or a woman and
that was the source of theirdivinity, and you know, and so
I've been doing a lot ofresearch about that.
And then, when that gets boring,I research serial killers,
which, you know, the average,the like top astrology sign of
serial killers, I think, isPisces, which is really
(39:40):
surprising, I know, becausePisces is the archetype of the
spiritual person.
But you know what, if a Piscesgoes bad, you know, watch out.
But no, pisces and Sagittariuswere the two, were the two top
ones which I'm a Sagittarius, Ican see we don't get called
Sagittarius for no reason, but Ihave a funny story about
(40:03):
someone calling me that on adate, not knowing that I was a
Sagittarius, and I was like Iguess I'm not going to tell you
now I did and it ended up fine,but it was a real laugh Anyway.
So that was some fun research,finding out that Pisces is like
the number one serial killersign, and I'm like, but they're
so nice, like you know, they'rejust my dad's a Pisces, my two
(40:23):
friends, if they're eitherVirgos, they're Pisces, they're
one or the other, and so I'mlike all the Pisces I know are
just such sweet baby angels.
What's happening here?
So that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
That is fascinating.
So Lane and I are both Piscessons and I will say and I speak
for, I say this for myself onlylike I absolutely have a dark
side and I've recently just beenlike listening to a lot of like
just kind of random things thatare like would I join this cult
?
Or like, oh my God, I couldabsolutely see myself murdering
(41:00):
somebody.
But I think that's more like apart of the human condition.
But like, knowing myself as Iam, I can just I can see the
sort of the line of descentright.
So yeah, love it.
It's terrifying, but like thattracks.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Maybe that's why you guys are so good, because you're
just so nice.
You know, and people don'trealize you have a dark side
until they're dead, which youknow okay.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
yeah, I tend to blame it on my other chart placements
, but I think I just need toface the fact that, nope, that's
the Pisces too.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah might be.
I mean, I think honestly,everybody has an unhinged side.
I've been noticing recently Ithink Cancer also has a deeply
unhinged side.
I think that's true of allwater signs, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I mean Sorbio, for sure, queens and Kings of the
underworld, but no Cancer is.
You know, if Capricorn is thepatriarch, cancer is the
matriarch and they representemotional intelligence.
So a Cancer that has not beenhealed or you know, is woke up
that morning feeling vengeance.
Watch out world, because allthat emotional intelligence is
(42:16):
going to be put to use.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, it's funny because I'm like it's like at
least Scorpios are out therewith it or is like maybe Cancer
and Pisces are just on the low.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Just chilling, right under the water, just ready to
destroy you.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Make my day, oh that is absolutely my MO.
I'm like ready to fight youlike at any moment.
I'm just like try me.
Come on, yeah, try me.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I love it.
One more thing I wanted to askyou is you've worked with a lot
of folks on their sexuality,whether it's through astrology
or through your coaching.
I'm curious what's somethingthat you would love our
listeners to take away in termsof thinking through their own
sexual health, their own sexualexploration and sexual
(43:04):
empowerment?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Lean into your strengths, whatever those are.
You know, when we think abouthow we want to be perceived
sexually, no one on this earthwants to feel like their average
.
We all want to be the bestanyone has ever had.
The best way to do that is tolean into your strengths,
because then you're going toattract people who are
compatible with your strengths.
I think so often with sex thepeople pleaser in so many
(43:28):
different ways comes out of usbecause again, we want to be the
best that person's ever had.
Some of us will shape shift topeople please the other person
and start doing whatever theother person is doing at the
expense of their own pleasure.
Other people will take controland try to be in charge of
everything and not really checkin, but that's just because
they're trying to again be thebest that you've ever had.
(43:49):
And so I would say you know,lean into your strengths, try to
sit down and figure out whatthose are.
A great way to do that is tosit down and think about what
parts of sex leave you feelinggenuinely energized and what
parts leave you feeling tired oreven exhausted, because sex is
nourishing.
Pleasure is nourishing.
It's why we should beincorporating it into our health
(44:11):
and wellness routines in manydifferent ways, and so if sex is
leaving you feeling tired orexhausted, it's because you are
not leaning into your strengths.
Maybe you're not aware of whatthey are, and so that's a really
good place to start, and thenjust make a list of your
preferences for couples who'vebeen together for a really long
time.
Two questions that I recommendasking your lover tonight is how
(44:35):
do you look and sound whenyou're having a good time during
sex?
How do you look and sound whenyou are struggling?
This is often a question thatcan really elevate intimacy, and
it's one we're not reallytaught to ask people, but we
should, and you know, I'd saystart there.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
That's really brilliant.
I think, you know it's onething to say the words and to
kind of communicate usinglanguage, but I think sometimes
in the moment, it's hard for usto find those words or to kind
of think on our feet.
And being able to read bodylanguage at that level,
especially in such an intimatesituation, is super important.
I love that advice.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Yeah, and you know, don't expect yourself like it's
best to give sexual feedbackwhen you're not having sex, you
know.
So don't expect yourself to belike I'm going to read your mind
and understand everything andit's going to be great.
Expect yourself to talk aboutsex again and again, and you
don't have to be perfect in themoment.
But, yeah, those are some goodplaces to start.
(45:33):
I'm glad that, that itconnected to you too and that
you like that.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
It's been such an enlighteningconversation.
Especially as a fellow justgeneral history nerd, thank you
for giving at least myself Iknow a lane to an opportunity to
just geek out on some of thesetopics.
But if our listeners areinterested in learning more
about your work, maybe booking areading with you or a coaching
(45:57):
session, where can they find you?
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Absolutely, so you can go to PleasureSciencecom or
follow me anywhere at PleasureScience.
My name, nadej, is not easy tospell or pronounce, so I decided
to name my company, somethingthat would be very easy and
simple.
So if you want to book a sexastrology session, you could do
that at my website onPleasureSciencecom, and if
(46:19):
you're interested in coaching,you could check out the Sex
Breakthrough Coaching Program.
And yeah, and then follow me onall the socials, because I'm
always dropping cool new funfacts about sex.
If I'm not reading about sex,I'm writing about it.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
So love that, so so much.
That's definitely like in mymind's eye, like what I pictured
.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
So awesome, absolutely.
That's really cool.
Thanks so much for joining ustoday.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
That's it for our show today, listeners, and, as
always, thank you for tuning inIf you enjoyed what you heard
today.
You can find and follow theOuter Known on any platform
where you get your podcasts.
Keep the conversation going byjoining us on social media.
We are at Outer Known Pod onInstagram and Twitter.
Our home for all things OuterKnown is our website,
outerknownpodcom.
(47:13):
Today's episode was edited byJackie Peterson and produced by
Lane Collins and Jackie Peterson.
Our theme music is by theever-talented Smoke Benito and
our cover artwork is by EricCenteno.
Until next time, stay magical.
I also would want to throw in there that there's an
intuitive understanding that allhumans that I pretty much
talked to have where sex is areally transcending experience.
You know and you can connect insome ways that are quite
psychedelic and out there.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Outer Known, a podcast that shines a
light on the outer edges ofinner knowing.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Just a heads up listeners.
Today's episode contains somespicy language, aka some cuss
words.
Discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Today's episode is one I've wanted to do forever,
and I'm so excited about today'sguest.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
You and me both Something I think that you and I
both take for granted abouteach other, but we've never
quite said it aloud.
But this is a sex positivepodcast Aka.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
We are sex positive podcast hosts and I'm really
excited that we actually get toname that and talk about that
with today's guest we're goingto name, especially as a single
lady, I'm really feeling it andI'm so excited to dive into this
topic.
Our guest today, Nadezh, is soknowledgeable she's done so much
research, academic study, aswell as really open about
(01:37):
talking about her ownexperiences.
She's the perfect guest for usto open up the topic of
spiritual sex.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yes, and I love her whole practice and business is
really grounded in a lot ofhistorical research about the
way that societies have talkedabout practice ritualized sex
and we got a really niceopportunity to nerd out about
that.
Nadezh has some reallywonderful recommendations for
resources if you're interestedin learning more history-wise.
(02:06):
What a fulfilling and justjoyful conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Absolutely.
There are so many things thatwe talked about that just were
so cathartic and I was leftspeechless, talking about
everything from the history tohow we process these things in
the modern day, how we approachsex as a culture.
It's just so taboo still in somany ways, and I'm just so glad
that we got the chance to talkabout it and here's to many
(02:30):
future episodes doing so.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yes, well, let's hear from Nadezh.
Nadezh, welcome to the OuterKnown.
Hello, yay, we're so glad tohave you join us.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Me too.
It's so exciting to be here.
We've already jumped into somefun discussions, so I'm excited
to see what else happens as wego into the Outer Known For sure
, this is kind of a new topic, Ithink, for us.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
We've been going for four seasons and we are really
excited to have you specificallyjoin us, Nadezh.
You are a sex scholar, abest-selling author, coach,
astrologer and founder ofPleasure Science, which is a
mouthful, but a mouthful ofreally cool things.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I know I always have a joke like try saying this
three times fast and then say,like my name and the things I do
, and you know it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So let's jump right into it.
You've said you've started yourjourney because you felt shame
during pleasure.
What's your path been like andwhat have some of your
breakthroughs been along the way?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, well, you know, what really started me on this
path was a personal thing.
I had a really hard timeorgasming with other people.
I didn't have that issue reallyby myself, but with other
people it was just a completelydifferent ballgame.
So I started researching sexbecause I wanted to have orgasms
(03:55):
with other people.
Who doesn't right?
And so it was a very personalthing where I just started
researching and looking upwhatever was sexually accessible
, so porn articles on theinternet, all different types of
things.
At the time I was studyingEnglish literature and I was a
community college student.
I was English lit and I was incommunity college and when I
(04:21):
transferred I got into UCBerkeley still plan to study
English.
But when I got there I quicklydiscovered that I didn't like
the department and I wasstudying all the same people I
had in community college whichwhy am I?
And I was paying for thismyself.
So why am I paying for this?
I've already read these books,I've already learned these
things, and it was all, ofcourse, like we would anticipate
(04:44):
the very same white malestraight curriculum.
And so I got to this universitythat was such a prestigious
university and felt immediatelybummed.
Was I in the right place to doI drop out.
What's the point?
But luckily I took a class onLGBT studies and it was through
the Gender Women's StudiesDepartment and that changed the
(05:05):
game.
I was the only class I likedthat semester I immediately
opted to change my major.
And when I did and of coursethis is so funny because I feel
like when you go on a path youdon't realize you're meant to be
on the path right and so I wentto this department saying I
want to change majors andthey're like well, you're a
transfer student.
Everything you took was to beable to get you to start at a
(05:27):
junior at this level.
So you need all these differentclasses you need.
Like, if you're going to switch, you need an entirely different
background of classes.
But I was always this person,right?
So they look at my transcriptand they realize like wait,
you've studied all of thesesociology, different diversity
studies, like you could actuallyyou totally qualify.
And I was like oh good, I'mglad I decided to study what I
(05:49):
wanted in college and Itransferred my major.
But the other caveat was I hadto start writing a research
paper.
It was going to take severalyears and they were like if you
do this.
You are expected to have thisbody of work by the time you
graduate.
I was like what could I studyfor a couple years and not get
bored?
And that was sex.
And it was incredible.
(06:10):
It just jumpstarted everything.
And actually it was reallyaround that time when I was in
college, studying sex, talkingabout it, that I started having
orgasmic pleasure with otherpeople, and I think the biggest
change was actually just metalking about it, me being in a
position where I could say thesethings without shame.
And it's so fascinating becausewe hold on to the thoughts we
(06:33):
think in our head and our bodyand they can absolutely manifest
in so many different ways thatare really counterintuitive.
And simply talking about sexand learning about it made me
feel much more comfortable and Ialso think it really released a
lot of things I was holding andcarrying because I had started
being sexual, at least kissingwith people when I was at least
(06:55):
a preteen.
I really wanted to have fun anddo things.
So it was a long journey of notreally experiencing pleasure
with other people and by thetime I got to college it was
really nice to finally starthealing that Amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I love that.
In terms of how you workedthrough that shame.
It sounds like there was a lotof sort of almost normalizing.
Oh, this is like a commonexperience that really everyone
works through, and I thinksomething that I personally have
struggled with is how muchinternalized misogyny there is,
even in porn.
(07:30):
And I'll just say it like, whenI look at porn, the first
things I Google are femaleorgasm, because I want to see
something where there's equalpleasure.
Yeah, right, because that is sohard to find and I think it
took me a long time to evenrealize, oh, that's even a thing
that's available.
Yeah, and in my earlyrelationships I didn't even know
(07:53):
how to speak about my ownpleasure, much less not have
shame around it.
So I love how you spoke aboutthat.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, no, it's true.
And you know, when younormalize pleasure and sex, you
can also talk about it with yourlover.
And that's the second biggestway you know to you heal your
body, heal yourself, but alsocommunicate.
Communication is lubrication100%.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
So the name of your business is Pleasure Science.
Yeah, tell us about how youcame up with that and what kind
of philosophy is behind that.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, you know, it was kind of fate.
After I graduated fromuniversity, I started writing
articles.
Writing was really thefoundation of everything and it
still is of what I do.
And about four years ago so I'dbeen writing articles and doing
things and everything was doingwell, but nothing was really in
one place at all and I justsort of had this download I
(08:48):
don't know what better way todescribe it where all of a
sudden I and I think I wasactually in the room I'm sitting
in right now and I thought tomyself you know, pleasure
Science, that would be such agood name for a company whenever
I like feel less of an impostersyndrome and would do that.
And so I had this download ofthis name, pleasure Science.
And then the instant nextthought was well, you're not
(09:11):
credible enough to do that,you're not ready to do that.
And then I was like well, whatthat, what, what?
But when would I be?
You know like I'm doing thisstuff now.
So I had just started workingwith a business development
coach, because I did want totake all the work I was doing
and find some way to reach morepeople and like, do more of this
(09:31):
sex education, and she helpedme look it up on like the
trademark database and on allthe social medias and she's like
this name is completely free.
And it truly felt like fatebecause that is like it's a
pretty good name and I was sosurprised that no one had that
name.
So I decided to trademark itand I started my business and I
(09:52):
put everything under that huband I'm so glad I did, because
Pleasure Science exactlydescribes what I do.
Everything is rooted from afoundation of pleasure and I'm a
scientist, I'm a scholar,that's my background, that's
what I do, what I continue to do, and to me, when people hear
Pleasure Science, I hope it justmakes them feel excited to
learn something and curious,because that's how you should
(10:14):
feel about sex, love, that.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well, I came across your work in a really
interesting way and I'm reallyexcited to talk to you about
this topic.
So I was very curiouslyGoogling, trying to learn about
ancient virgins.
Yes, because I wanted to knowwhat the term like truly meant
is.
I had kind of like heard insome cases that virgins weren't
really virgins in the modern day, like celibate sense, but
(10:39):
rather that they simply didn'tmarry.
Yeah, and I happened to crossan article you'd written about
Virgo as fertility goddess.
Can you tell us more about yourresearch?
And in that historical area, ohmy God.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
This is actually one of my all time favorite topics,
partly because I always becamefriends with Virgos and then
they always hated astrology andI'm over.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Oh yeah, I have Virgo rising for the record.
Pisces Sun but Virgo rising.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Virgo moon oh, that's interesting.
So you're like Yin and Yangright in that identity placement
.
Very much so.
For anyone who doesn't knowwhat that means, every astrology
sign has its cosmic opposite.
It's the Yin to its Yang.
It's the sign that sits 90degrees from your sign in the
sky.
So Virgo and Pisces are Yin andYang signs, which is a very
(11:25):
powerful thing to have in yourchart, but it can create a lot
of personal tension when you'regrowing up and you don't know
how to deal with that.
You don't say yeah, thinking ofVirgo and her as the fertility
goddess.
So a big part of understandingthis is understanding the
creation of patriarchy.
Patriarchy and the dominantcultures that we live in, of
(11:47):
white supremacy and patriarchy,are obviously not inevitable and
not natural.
They were created and they werecreated over the last five to
6,000 years.
Now when we talk about history,we're usually only referencing
the last 2000 years, and so,with the Virgo and her as the
(12:07):
fertility goddess, we haveactual archaeological and
historical proof of peopleworshiping the goddess Virgo as
a goddess of trade and fertilityfor thousands of years.
When you look at her in the sky, her emblem is a woman holding
a sheath of grain.
In ancient times, grain wascurrency.
(12:29):
Grain was extremely important.
Okay, it's one of the reasonswhy the ancient Egyptians were
so powerful for so long, becausethe Nile River grew grain in
abundance more than any otherplace in the ancient times.
So grain was hugely powerfuland people would look to the sky
and see Virgo.
She wasn't always called Virgo.
Other names of hers was Nisaba,isis, demeter.
(12:52):
She was a lot of differentgoddesses through antiquity, but
they were always worshiping herbecause one people associated
grain with pregnancy which funfact.
In 2016, harvard released astudy that proved grain does
help with fertility.
So they were onto something.
How they knew that, I don'tknow, but that's pretty cool.
And then also, grain wasessentially a currency, and so
(13:12):
people would really worship andcall upon the archetype of Virgo
.
Now, for thousands of years, wewere worshiping this archetype
through different communitiesand societies.
However, as polytheisticreligions started to lose gusto
and monotheistic religionsmainly Judaism, islam and
Christianity, started to riseabout 2000 years ago, we saw a
(13:35):
real shift in one the worshipingof goddesses, and how that even
looked.
We used to live in societieswhere people would worship a
male archetypal god and a femalearchetypal goddess.
I think actually, what's moreaccurate is masculine and
feminine, not female and male.
It's more about the energy andthe archetype, because some of
these archetypes were animals,some of these, you know, it
(13:56):
wasn't, and a lot of ancienttraditions really revered
non-binary people, whichobviously is different from what
we do today.
So anyway, virgo sorry I get soon these tangents.
So I hope that's okay and allthe listeners are just as nerdy
as I am and we're all followingalong.
We love that here.
Yeah, sex nerds unite.
(14:16):
So the history of Virgo isreally fascinating because as
monotheistic religions rose,goddess worship became extremely
threatening to the dominantcultures that were rising.
And around the time of the1400s, when the printing press
was invented, this was whenlanguages modern languages as we
(14:36):
know them today got reallysolidified and ancient or
indigenous languages got leftaside and died out in many, many
ways and in many cultures.
And a lot of things happened.
First, the Bible was one of thefirst books, or maybe the first
book ever printed.
Two, the second most popularbook ever printed in the 1400s
was a witch hunting manual thatactually taught people how to go
(14:59):
after female healers andconditioned them to view them
not as a healer but as a witchand as this demonic person and
wipe them out.
Around the time that thathappened, we saw a complete
change and, like you said, theuse of the word virgin.
If you look at the Latin virgin,it does not mean someone who is
celibate.
It in fact I mean it refers toa woman.
(15:21):
That can be argued.
But more than anything, it justmeans someone who is self
sufficient, which is one of thearchetypes of Virgo and the
fertility goddess, someone whois so knowledge and empowered
about healing and fertility andsex and is sexually empowered
that they are self sufficient.
They do not need pleasure fromothers, which is, of course, the
height of the archetype regularVirgo humans.
(15:43):
It's okay if you're not fullyself sufficient because you're
the human.
You're not the goddessarchetype.
You don't have to be perfect,but you do connect and emblemate
this archetype, and so the ideathat Virgo is a virgin is
complete hogwash.
It was this patriarchalstructure that came through,
needed to establish dominantcultures in certain ways and
(16:05):
repackaged this very powerfuldeity who throughout time, has
always been a very sexuallyempowered person, as a virgin
Because, if you think about it,that's the best way to take away
the divine power and the VirginMary and all of these other
virgin goddesses.
We saw all of these, or they'renot even called goddesses today
, but essentially all of thereligions were repurposed so
(16:28):
that way we were worshiping menand if we were worshiping women
in some way, they were verystrategically contained, they
were not threatening and theywere very much westernized and
whitewashed, because all of thereligions that we have today
actually stole most of theirfolklore from ancient Africa.
So Virgo, in a nutshell,represents a lot.
(16:49):
Right, we got to help her.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Everything you just said was so cathartic like I'm
almost speechless.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
That's why, when someone asked me this question,
I'm like, all right, sit downfor five minutes, we're about to
have a mini lecture, becausethere's so much that happened.
And it's so funny because I, asa professional astrologer, I
just always hated people callingVirgo the virgin.
It was like nails on achalkboard to me.
And it was about four years agowhere I was talking to my best
(17:20):
friend of Virgo and she wastelling me how she's like.
You know, I love it when you doastrology, but everyone else I
hate, because they always talkabout Virgos like we're boring
and all we're good at is beingorganized and criticizing people
.
And I was like you know whatshe's right and I'm a
Sagittarius, so we're the other.
We have the fun posts of likeyou're a horny mess.
Britney Spears, who's also aSag, you know, god bless.
(17:42):
We were over here having aparty and Virgo goes over here
being like why are we not alsohaving a party?
So I was like this doesn't makesense to me that she's a virgin
.
Let me start doing someresearch here.
And the research was justastounding, you know, and
painful to read, frankly.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, clearly there's been a Virgo smear campaign.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
There has been.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
I do not appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, 100% of in a strategic one.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
So, you know it's, it's not a coincidence,
absolutely Well kind of more onthat topic.
Before we started recording thepodcast, we were getting
already excited and getting alittle bit into the history of
sex and liberation and just Ithink in general throughout
history it's been, and of coursein modern times too it's,
(18:30):
repressed and seen as shameful,forbidden.
So how has the spirituality andthe acceptance of sex evolved
throughout history?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, you know, I like to imagine it as a pendulum
going backwards and forwards,sliding between extremes,
because when we look back,archaeology wise, we have about
50,000 years worth of proof ofhumans gathering together and
developing spiritual practices,and a lot of those ancient
cultures were, I'm going toassume, their sex positive
(19:03):
because sex was one of thebiggest things that they
worshiped.
There are some scholars who saythat one of the reasons why sex
was so sacred in the ancienttimes was because they didn't
have modern biological knowledgethat we have.
So it would look kind of likemagic when women would get
pregnant or people with a uteruswould get pregnant, and that's
sort of what some peoplehypothesize.
(19:25):
That that's where that sacredsex bit started.
I also would want to throw inthere that there's an intuitive
understanding that all humansthat I pretty much talked to
have, where sex is a reallytranscending experience, you
know and you can connect in someways that are quite psychedelic
and out there, just through theexperience of sex and orgasm or
(19:46):
your own personal solo sexpractice and masturbation
practice, and so we see thependulum at like from way back
in the ancient times being very,very sacred sex, sex positive
and then the pendulum started togo the other way as patriarchal
cultures and agriculture basedcultures and cultures based on
(20:08):
land ownership started to rise.
And again, with the rise ofpatriarchy, sex had to be
handled in a different way.
You know a great example ofthinking how the pendulum swung
If you think about sex positivecultures, where marriage was not
a part of the dominant societyand dominant culture.
One of the reasons whymonogamous marriage became so
(20:30):
popular in a patriarchal systemis because in a system where
there's free sex, it's very easyto see who the mother is, but
it's not easy to see who thefather is in that equation,
right?
And so a lot of societies wheremen were becoming into power,
and I don't think that this wasintentional to hurt others.
I think this is the nature ofpower.
If you are in power, you areprobably thinking how do I keep
(20:53):
the power, how do I maintain thepower?
Right, because matriarchalcultures can also be oppressive,
like power can be oppressive.
But with the rise of patriarchythere was definitely a threat
to this idea that you can'ttrace the male lineage.
And so how do we fix thisproblem?
We get people into monogamousmarriages and we make sure that
the last name of the man matters.
(21:15):
So now we can track birth andwe can track all of these things
, and it's really fascinatingtoo.
I was at a summit that GloriaSteinem spoke at a few years ago
, and she said something I'llnever forget.
She said if you can controlbirth, you can control the
population.
If you can control thepopulation, you can control the
economy.
And so, as these differentdominant cultures solidified
(21:38):
themselves and figured out waysto create societies that were
not in benefit of matriarchy orbenefit of people who weren't
men, they had to control sex.
So we're at a different placenow.
I think we are very sexuallyempowered from where we've been,
but again, it's like a pendulum.
The ancient Egyptians actuallyalso worshiped sex.
(22:00):
They believed that they're topgod because they were
polytheistic.
But the top god was named Amenand the way that he which, by
the way, every time we say amen,I wonder if it's just a trickle
down from that but Amen createdexistence by masturbating.
And so the first wife of thePharaoh, because the Pharaoh
usually had many wives and italways had many wives.
(22:21):
But the first wife, the highwife, would also be the high
priestess of the land, and itwas her job every morning to go
into the temple and masturbate agolden statue that had a giant
erect penis.
And she had to do this everysingle morning.
If she did not do this?
Because the ancient Egyptianswere, incredibly, they were
super devout.
So they truly believed if thehigh priestess who is also, you
(22:43):
know, born from the gods,because that's why she's even a
queen in the first place If shedoesn't go and masturbate the
statue, the sun won't rise.
So another long-winded circularroute.
But you know, we've gone backand forth in a lot of ways,
because the ancient Egyptianswere also very patriarchal, very
oppressive, utilized the haremsystem where women were, you
(23:05):
know, really contained andmonitored and used for birth.
So it's an interesting give andtake.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
That's amazing, and I think earlier we were also
getting into the most liberatedsocieties In your opinion, like
who has been the most sexuallyliberated in history and from
your perspective?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I think the most sexually liberated are probably
the societies that did flat outworship sex, the ones who we
really have their stones thatthey left over their statues of
Venus.
All of those I think areprobably were more sexually
empowered than today.
I know you mentioned ancientRome and Greece.
(23:48):
They were definitely sexuallyempowered.
In some ways, I'd say they weremore pleasure positive, very
Epicurean societies, and so theywere not pleasure negative like
we are now in a capitaliststructure where pleasure has to
be disciplined in order to bevalid.
For them.
I mean, you know, pleasure wasthe reward for all of the things
(24:11):
that they did to gain power andthey love that.
And of course, alexander theGreat was unabashedly bisexual
and had male lovers.
So he, you know, pushed thatenvelope forward.
But when it came to how theytreated people who identified as
a woman or were on the spectrumof queer femininity, I don't
think they were very, ifanything, were probably more
(24:35):
advanced than they are in thatrespect.
But yeah, you know, based onthe limited, infer or not, it's
not that limited.
But we don't have like journalsfrom back from like 10,000
years ago of some princess beinglike I had a great threesome
and then, you know, and I wishwe had that, but we do.
We have proof that thathappened and I would say that
(24:55):
those societies were probablythe more so on the spectrum of
sexual empowerment.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Fascinating.
I have to ask, because youmentioned it earlier, what was
the cult of ISIS and the storybehind that?
Speaker 1 (25:07):
So Cleopatra we all know beautiful, gorgeous
Cleopatra Potolamy, the lastpharaoh of Egypt to ancient Rome
, basically murdered.
It was a suicide, but did thegirl have a choice?
She got way too powerful.
I actually wrote an articleabout it called.
Cleopatra was 100% that bitchand Rome killed her for it.
So if you want to learn aboutthat, you can go down that
(25:31):
rabbit hole.
But the cult of ISIS was so.
It's funny because it kind ofrelates back to Virgo.
So ISIS is one of the mostprominent female or feminine
goddesses and divine femininearchetypes that have stood the
test of time.
Right, and so there were somany different divine feminine
(25:52):
archetypes, but ISIS is the onethat has been around for at
least 6,000 years, maybe more,because actually, the ancient
Egyptians were around for 5,000years and we've been around.
So ISIS has been around forlike 7,000 to 8,000 years in a
major world dominating way.
Now when, by the time CleopatraPotolamy came around,
(26:13):
christianity was about to be onthe rise.
About 100 years later, jesusChrist would be born and do his
nice thing with the Roman Empireas well.
What's really interesting,though, is because of the way
Cleopatra was surrounded andbasically like politically
strangled.
The people loved Cleopatra, andnot just the Egyptians, which
(26:35):
is a really big feat, becauseCleopatra was actually not
Egyptian, she was Macedonian andher family was placed on the
throne by Alexander the Great.
They were usurpers.
So the fact that the Egyptianpeople even liked Cleopatra was
a huge deal.
She actually was the onlymember in her family who ruled
Egypt for over 300 years, tobother learning Egyptian
religious customs and to bothereven learning the Egyptian
(26:57):
language.
But the people loved her.
She traveled far and abroad.
She created really powerfultrade networks.
She ruled Egypt for over twodecades.
People tend to think of her asnot as powerful as she was.
She was incredibly badass, butbecause she was so powerful and
traveled and did all of thesegreat things, people across the
Arab world really really knewabout her and a lot of people
(27:19):
found the Roman Empire extremelyoppressive because they were
colonizing everybody.
So how could you not?
And Cleopatra kind of felt likethis freedom fighter, if you
would like, standing up to Romanoppression.
And when she died and she diedin a way that was extremely
publicized, because she was theonly person to produce a male
heir to Julius Caesar, who wastechnically the heir to the
(27:41):
Roman Empire, so technically sheshould have inherited the Roman
Empire.
That is why they killed her.
But anyway, when she died itreally shocked the world.
Everyone was really upset, andthe Roman Empire.
They murdered her son rightafter and publicized it because
he was a threat to the throne.
And then they publiclydisgraced and humiliated her
children, who were never reallyheard from again, except for her
(28:03):
daughter.
So we don't know if they weremurdered or not or what happened
to them.
And Cleopatra herself becauseshe was so feminine and because
she was so extravagant, a lot ofpeople related her to the
goddess Isis.
So when she died, the cult ofIsis, which existed before.
It was a sort of subsect ofreligion that was truly mostly
(28:23):
devoted to Isis.
After Cleopatra died, the cultof Isis exploded.
It reached all over the ancientRoman Empire.
It even went as far as to hitancient England and Afghanistan
and all over the Middle East.
And what's really fascinatingis that scholars who study the
growth of Jesus Christ andChristianity say that what
Cleopatra inadvertently did forthe goddess Isis had actually
(28:48):
almost the same exact globalimpact as Jesus Christ.
He just had a better PRcampaign and we live in a
patriarchal society, so hebecame a little bit more
mainstream, but it's the cult ofIsis still exists to this day.
It's actually quite a powerfulgroup and, yeah, it's really
interesting.
It's really interesting tothink about Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Thanks for sharing that.
I have to just ask Cleopatrahas long been a personal
curiosity of mine.
Are there any resources thatyou recommend for people curious
on that topic?
I firstly had a really hardtime finding like a good book on
her.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm literally staring at my books right now.
So the first book that I wouldrecommend is when Women Ruled
the World by Kara Kuni.
She's an Egyptologist at UCLAand she the last chapter of this
book is devoted to Cleopatra,and it's quite good.
It's quite, quite good.
And then there is Cleopatra ALife by Stacy Schiff.
(29:47):
This is another good one.
And then this book is notspecifically about Cleopatra,
but it's a tiny little stinkerthat I highly recommend if
you're going to go down thisrabbit hole.
And it's called Women in Powerand it's written by a feminist
scholar who is very well versedon the Roman Empire and because
Cleopatra you know, in the wholeno, no, no, but Cleopatra
doesn't come up so much, and Idon't think she comes up at all
(30:10):
in Women in Power.
But if you are reading abouther in other ways and then you
read that book, it's reallyinteresting to tie it all
together.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Amazing.
Yeah, it's really, reallyinteresting to think about the
tie between women in power andour topic, dejeure of sex and
spirituality.
I'm kind of curious, likewhat's your personal perspective
on spirituality and sex?
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, I think that they're very greatly linked.
Whether you come from theposition that it's sacred and it
should be free, or that it'ssacred and it should be
contained, I think whatever wayyou're going about it, sex is
shackled in sacredness andspirituality Shackled in a good
(30:54):
way and bad way sometimes, likesometimes it's the fun kinky
btsm way and sometimes it's thego to the confessional you've
been a bad girl but you're notgetting the spanks you want and
you're getting disciplinedinstead.
But I think they're very, veryclose and, like I even said, you
know, even if someone is anatheist, you can still
experience the transformativewhoa moments that sometimes
(31:18):
happen with sex and pleasure aswell.
Love that.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah Well, one of the things I immediately did when I
found out about your work wasorder your book Sexstrology and
read it by the pool, luxuriatingover the summer.
It was delightful oh, I love it.
And you really explore desireand compatibility and even
secret erogenous zones for eachsun sign, which I thought was
(31:43):
really interesting.
And I noticed on your websitethat you also give sexstrology
readings to clients.
So I just wanted to ask whatare some of the things that you
can glean from a sex perspectivein a birth chart?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Absolutely, I'd say.
If you're going to do ityourself, the first thing you
want to look at is your BlackMoon Lilith.
Where does it fall and does ithit against anything?
Black Moon Lilith representsyour repressed sexuality, your
shadow side and, because of theway that we have been raised to
view pleasure and sex, a lot ofwhat we subconsciously or even
(32:18):
consciously do or ways wesocially behaved are really
influenced by that shadow.
Carl Jung famously said untilyou make the unconscious
conscious, your subconsciouswill run your life and you'll
call it fate.
You'll think it's just what'shappening.
And I like to take that a stepfurther when we think of sex and
say you know, whatever issubconsciously pushing you
(32:41):
forward, whatever needs,subconscious needs need to be
met sexually, they'll find a wayto get met one way or another.
So, for example, if you'reafraid of being abandoned,
you'll probably sabotagerelationships.
Before people can abandon you,you leave first.
This establishes control.
So if you have a Black MoonLilith in specific areas, like
maybe it's in the eighth house,there could be a lot of
(33:04):
transformation, because that'sthe house of sex, death and
transformation, ruled by thearchetype of Scorpio.
So if you have your Black MoonLilith hanging out over there,
sex will probably betransformative in all the best
ways and also all of the tensionproducing ways, right?
So I'd say, look at your BlackMoon, lilith, look at your Mars,
because Mars is the archetypeof sex aggression, anger so
(33:25):
that's going to influence things.
Look at your Chiron because,again, thinking of that
subconscious, whatever'shappening in Chiron, which is
the part of your chart thatshows your core wound, the thing
you'll be healing throughoutthis lifetime Sex is going to
trigger that baby.
And then your identityplacements, especially because
in our current historical moment, we live in a time that is very
(33:48):
consumed with personal identityand use personal identity as a
way to understand yourself andothers, which I think is very
unique, like the way we're doingit today is extremely unique to
the way it was before.
That plays a big role in theway that you're going to be.
So when I look at someone's sexastrology chart, I look at
those things, and then I alsolook at your seventh house,
house of relationships.
So how do you show up inrelationships?
(34:09):
What's happening over there?
Because relationships are goingto be one of the biggest
activators of your sex needs,wants and life.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Cool.
Are there any fun?
Like kinky aspects or anythingthat you've seen.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Virgo, mars, kinky, kinky and Virgo, Blackmun,
lilith.
But Capricorn, virgo,capricorns are big secret
kinksters and Capricornplacements too.
Capricorn is the archetype ofthe patriarch in astrology and
they really love power and kink.
(34:42):
And BDSM at its core is allabout power, playing with power,
doing that in a way that's funfor you.
So, capricorns, it's funny,depending on people's placements
, capricorns can seem soreserved and they may not even
think of themselves as likingBDSM.
But then I'll be like okay, well, do you like to play with power
?
Do you like to give power away?
Do you like to be dominant?
Do you like to do that?
How do you like to feel?
(35:02):
And there's always, there'salways something kinky happening
there that they may not evenrealize.
And and yeah, virgo placementsand then there's also Aquarius
can be quite a kinky placementbecause they rule innovation, so
they're going to be anastrology sign that loves sex
toys.
And then Sagittarius and Geminican also be pretty kinky, but
more so on the role play andcerebral side.
(35:23):
They want you to straddle theirbrain and they'll really like
delayed gratification, which canbe very fun in a BDSM context.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh my God, so many hot tips.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Now.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I feel like I've learned so much.
You know, if you're like, theseare none of my placements, I'm
just a Pisces everywhere.
I'm like you can be kinky too.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Totally.
Yeah, I love to think aboutkind of the another sort of way
to think about it in terms ofthat sort of intersection of
spirituality and sex is like alot of people tend to have like
rituals around sex and sexualactivity and like that can be
also somewhat spiritual too.
And I'm just curious, like whatyour thoughts are about that.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, you should 100% ritualized sex in a way we
subconsciously do.
We all have our arousal processor different arousal processes
that we're subconsciously doing,or we try to assume that the
arousal process taught to us bythe dominant culture is the one
that's going to be right for us,which is, you know, kissing
(36:24):
leads to foreplay, leads topenetration, leads to orgasm,
which is fun, but not true foreverybody or most people, and so
learning your rituals is goingto be really, really beautiful
and important.
You know, whether you use theword ritual or routine, I really
like to think of them as thesame thing.
It is a practice that's gettingyou connected to yourself, and
(36:46):
so, if you're someone who iscurious about sex and sexual
rituals, the first thing I wouldsay is take out your journal
and start journaling the processthat happens when you either
masturbate and get aroused, orspontaneously get aroused or get
aroused with a partner.
Start noticing like, okay, whendo I usually get aroused?
What's usually happening?
Oh, it looks like this is theritual.
(37:07):
And then, once you realize whatthe subconscious ritual that's
happening then start thinkingokay, you know what, why don't
we add this?
Why don't I become more mindful?
Like mindful masturbation isreally really fun.
I teach a class on mindfulmasturbation and then
masturbation is manifestation.
It's all in like one littlething because they're both so
connected and it's all aboutthose routines, it's all about
(37:29):
those rituals.
It's a really powerful thingand it's a fun thing to do with
a partner too.
I like to communicate and say,like, what's your ritual, what's
your routine, what works, whatdoesn't?
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Well, I know that you're currently researching a
new book, yes, so tell us alittle bit about that topic.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yes, I am researching serial killers.
You know hate and love they'reso similar but I'm researching a
little bit about serial killers.
This is more for a fictionproject.
And then, in terms of the sexwork stuff, actually I'm doing
(38:11):
like the Cleopatra deep dive andsome of these other things that
I'm researching.
I was really curious a coupleof years ago as to like, is
patriarchy inevitable?
What is going on here?
Because I was just so sad aboutthe state of things and so I've
been researching a lot ofhistorical stuff partly Virgo,
(38:32):
partly Cleopatra, the cult ofIsis to compile a book of essays
that kind of just give peoplehistorical evidence that shows
that there's other thingshappening.
It isn't just all about thesevery specific dominant gods that
we know about through thedominant religions that we have.
And there's a book that I'mreading right now.
(38:54):
It's huge, it's a behemoth,it's called the Great Cosmic
Mother and it kind of goes backthrough a lot of these ancient
societies and things like thatand a lot of them really
worshipped queer folks, whichwas really nice and like non
binary people and there were alot of non by like we didn't use
that language then, but thereare these gods who were powerful
(39:17):
and known because they did notidentify as a man or a woman and
that was the source of theirdivinity, and you know, and so
I've been doing a lot ofresearch about that.
And then, when that gets boring,I research serial killers,
which, you know, the average,the like top astrology sign of
serial killers, I think, isPisces, which is really
(39:40):
surprising, I know, becausePisces is the archetype of the
spiritual person.
But you know what, if a Piscesgoes bad, you know, watch out.
But no, pisces and Sagittariuswere the two, were the two top
ones which I'm a Sagittarius, Ican see we don't get called
Sagittarius for no reason, but Ihave a funny story about
(40:03):
someone calling me that on adate, not knowing that I was a
Sagittarius, and I was like Iguess I'm not going to tell you
now I did and it ended up fine,but it was a real laugh Anyway.
So that was some fun research,finding out that Pisces is like
the number one serial killersign, and I'm like, but they're
so nice, like you know, they'rejust my dad's a Pisces, my two
(40:23):
friends, if they're eitherVirgos, they're Pisces, they're
one or the other, and so I'mlike all the Pisces I know are
just such sweet baby angels.
What's happening here?
So that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
That is fascinating.
So Lane and I are both Piscessons and I will say and I speak
for, I say this for myself onlylike I absolutely have a dark
side and I've recently just beenlike listening to a lot of like
just kind of random things thatare like would I join this cult
?
Or like, oh my God, I couldabsolutely see myself murdering
(41:00):
somebody.
But I think that's more like apart of the human condition.
But like, knowing myself as Iam, I can just I can see the
sort of the line of descentright.
So yeah, love it.
It's terrifying, but like thattracks.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Maybe that's why you guys are so good, because you're
just so nice.
You know, and people don'trealize you have a dark side
until they're dead, which youknow okay.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
yeah, I tend to blame it on my other chart placements
, but I think I just need toface the fact that, nope, that's
the Pisces too.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah might be.
I mean, I think honestly,everybody has an unhinged side.
I've been noticing recently Ithink Cancer also has a deeply
unhinged side.
I think that's true of allwater signs, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I mean Sorbio, for sure, queens and Kings of the
underworld, but no Cancer is.
You know, if Capricorn is thepatriarch, cancer is the
matriarch and they representemotional intelligence.
So a Cancer that has not beenhealed or you know, is woke up
that morning feeling vengeance.
Watch out world, because allthat emotional intelligence is
(42:16):
going to be put to use.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, it's funny because I'm like it's like at
least Scorpios are out therewith it or is like maybe Cancer
and Pisces are just on the low.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Just chilling, right under the water, just ready to
destroy you.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Make my day, oh that is absolutely my MO.
I'm like ready to fight youlike at any moment.
I'm just like try me.
Come on, yeah, try me.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I love it.
One more thing I wanted to askyou is you've worked with a lot
of folks on their sexuality,whether it's through astrology
or through your coaching.
I'm curious what's somethingthat you would love our
listeners to take away in termsof thinking through their own
sexual health, their own sexualexploration and sexual
(43:04):
empowerment?
Speaker 1 (43:05):
Lean into your strengths, whatever those are.
You know, when we think abouthow we want to be perceived
sexually, no one on this earthwants to feel like their average
.
We all want to be the bestanyone has ever had.
The best way to do that is tolean into your strengths,
because then you're going toattract people who are
compatible with your strengths.
I think so often with sex thepeople pleaser in so many
(43:28):
different ways comes out of usbecause again, we want to be the
best that person's ever had.
Some of us will shape shift topeople please the other person
and start doing whatever theother person is doing at the
expense of their own pleasure.
Other people will take controland try to be in charge of
everything and not really checkin, but that's just because
they're trying to again be thebest that you've ever had.
(43:49):
And so I would say you know,lean into your strengths, try to
sit down and figure out whatthose are.
A great way to do that is tosit down and think about what
parts of sex leave you feelinggenuinely energized and what
parts leave you feeling tired oreven exhausted, because sex is
nourishing.
Pleasure is nourishing.
It's why we should beincorporating it into our health
(44:11):
and wellness routines in manydifferent ways, and so if sex is
leaving you feeling tired orexhausted, it's because you are
not leaning into your strengths.
Maybe you're not aware of whatthey are, and so that's a really
good place to start, and thenjust make a list of your
preferences for couples who'vebeen together for a really long
time.
Two questions that I recommendasking your lover tonight is how
(44:35):
do you look and sound whenyou're having a good time during
sex?
How do you look and sound whenyou are struggling?
This is often a question thatcan really elevate intimacy, and
it's one we're not reallytaught to ask people, but we
should, and you know, I'd saystart there.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
That's really brilliant.
I think, you know it's onething to say the words and to
kind of communicate usinglanguage, but I think sometimes
in the moment, it's hard for usto find those words or to kind
of think on our feet.
And being able to read bodylanguage at that level,
especially in such an intimatesituation, is super important.
I love that advice.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Yeah, and you know, don't expect yourself like it's
best to give sexual feedbackwhen you're not having sex, you
know.
So don't expect yourself to belike I'm going to read your mind
and understand everything andit's going to be great.
Expect yourself to talk aboutsex again and again, and you
don't have to be perfect in themoment.
But, yeah, those are some goodplaces to start.
(45:33):
I'm glad that, that itconnected to you too and that
you like that.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
It's been such an enlighteningconversation.
Especially as a fellow justgeneral history nerd, thank you
for giving at least myself Iknow a lane to an opportunity to
just geek out on some of thesetopics.
But if our listeners areinterested in learning more
about your work, maybe booking areading with you or a coaching
(45:57):
session, where can they find you?
Speaker 1 (45:59):
Absolutely, so you can go to PleasureSciencecom or
follow me anywhere at PleasureScience.
My name, nadej, is not easy tospell or pronounce, so I decided
to name my company, somethingthat would be very easy and
simple.
So if you want to book a sexastrology session, you could do
that at my website onPleasureSciencecom, and if
(46:19):
you're interested in coaching,you could check out the Sex
Breakthrough Coaching Program.
And yeah, and then follow me onall the socials, because I'm
always dropping cool new funfacts about sex.
If I'm not reading about sex,I'm writing about it.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
So love that, so so much.
That's definitely like in mymind's eye, like what I pictured
.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
So awesome, absolutely.
That's really cool.
Thanks so much for joining ustoday.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
That's it for our show today, listeners, and, as
always, thank you for tuning inIf you enjoyed what you heard
today.
You can find and follow theOuter Known on any platform
where you get your podcasts.
Keep the conversation going byjoining us on social media.
We are at Outer Known Pod onInstagram and Twitter.
Our home for all things OuterKnown is our website,
outerknownpodcom.
(47:13):
Today's episode was edited byJackie Peterson and produced by
Lane Collins and Jackie Peterson.
Our theme music is by theever-talented Smoke Benito and
our cover artwork is by EricCenteno.
Until next time, stay magical.
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