Why So Many Women Feel Disconnected From Their Bodies with Emma-Louise Boynton

Women spend so much time trying to change their bodies, but how often are we taught how to actually experience and enjoy them? In this conversation, I sit down with Emma-Louise Boynton to explore what happens when we begin reconnecting with our bodies through pleasure, presence, and curiosity rather than constant criticism. We talk about body image, intimacy, sex therapy, self-pleasure, mindfulness, and the small everyday practices that can help you feel more at home in your body. Because your relationship with your body affects far more than how you see yourself, it shapes how you experience your life. _ MORE ON EMMA-LOUISE BOYNTON Pleasure: The Reclamation of my Body by Emma-Louise Boynton https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Emma-Louise-Boynton/274870141Instagram: @emmalouiseboynton https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-louise-boynton-55014754/LinkedIn: Emma-Louise Boynton https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-louise-boynton-55014754/Substack: @emmalouiseboynton https://substack.com/@emmalouiseboyntonPleasure: The Reclamation of my Body Audiobook: Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/63XKYRMENBJNU9hZK3bjTAWebsite: emma-louseboynton.com https://www.emma-louiseboynton.com/For more resources related to today’s episode, visit the podcast episode page: drmindypelz.com/ep367 https://www.drmindypelz.com/ep367/ Connect with Dr. Mindy: Join Reset Academy https://resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/reset-academy?utm_source=libsyn&utm_medium=podcast&utm_term=&utm_content=loc-description&utm_campaign=reset-academyWatch the episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DrMindyPelz?sub_confirmation=1Follow Dr. Mindy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr.mindypelz/Subscribe to Dr. Mindy’s newsletter https://www.drmindypelz.com/ Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, fasting routine, or lifestyle.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mindy Pelz?

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• 1:27Mindy Pelz?

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• 2:07Mindy Pelz?

  Hey, Dr. Mindy here. And welcome to the Live Like a Girl podcast, where I bring you icons, disruptors, educators, scientists, and doctors that show you what can be possible when you love and celebrate the female body you are blessed to live in. Let's dive in.

• 2:31Mindy Pelz?

  I heard a version of this sentence almost every day in my practice. A woman would say to me, I don't actually feel comfortable in my own skin. I feel disconnected from this body that I'm trying to heal. I don't even know how to receive touch. And I definitely don't know how to access pleasure. It's as if somewhere along a woman's journey, enjoying our bodies became optional. Here's what I've come to believe after years of asking women about their relationship to their bodies. The world we live in has taught us to fear our bodies.

• 3:17Mindy Pelz?

  Fear the number on the scale. Fear the food on our plate. Fear what happens if we stop controlling and start surrendering. And what's most profound about this is that it's in the letting go that so many of us invite back into our lives, pleasure. Pleasure isn't just about a burst of oxytocin that makes you feel all warm and yummy inside. It is actually a direct line to calming fear. Seriously, how many of us are controlled by fear?

• 4:01Mindy Pelz?

  And we didn't get the memo that the new research is actually suggesting that the opposite of fear isn't calm, it's pleasure. Which means a woman who had never learned how to feel good in her own body isn't just missing out on something enjoyable. She may be missing out on one of her most powerful tools for overcoming fear. I think about food a lot in this context because I watched so many women turn to food as their only accessible source of pleasure. And it makes sense. It's dopamine, it's immediate.

• 4:44Mindy Pelz?

  It's available at 2:00 in the morning when nothing else is. But over time, it doesn't open anything up. It actually closes things down. It becomes a way to numb rather than to feel. And the more a woman leans on it, the further she drifts from pleasure. Pleasure anywhere in her life, in the bedroom, in her work, in her own skin. This is why I have brought you Emma Louise Boynton. Emma Louise has spent 17 years living with an eating disorder, cycling through anorexia and bulimia, completely at war with her own body.

• 5:30Mindy Pelz?

  She tried nearly every kind of therapy there was. And what finally ended it after 17 years wasn't another diet protocol or another round of talk therapy. It was learning to reconnect with her own pleasure and her own sexuality. That healing became the foundation for her new book called Pleasure. And for the work she now does, helping women rebuild their relationship with their bodies, with sex, and with intimacy. In this conversation, Emma Louise and I get into what pleasure actually is.

• 6:11Mindy Pelz?

  How can we start to slowly, through simple, even non-sexual touch, fall back into love with ourselves? And most importantly, how healing your connection to your body can unravel patterns that talk therapy alone can never touch? If you've ever felt disconnected from your own body, if you are looking to invite pleasure back into your life, or perhaps for the first time, I think this conversation will rock you. Emma is funny. She's easy to listen to. She's inspiring and she brings us loads of simple science,

• 6:53Mindy Pelz?

  backed by techniques you can use to fall back in love with all of you, even the part of you who has silenced pleasure. I am so honored to bring you this conversation. Let's dive in. Emma Louise Boynton. Enjoy.

• 7:15Mindy Pelz?

  Okay, Emma Louise, for starters, this is gonna be a spicy conversation. And I'm sure a lot of people tell you that. So let me start off by just welcoming you to my podcast and to my YouTube channel. So excited to have you here.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  It is an absolute pleasure to be here, which feels very appropriate today. But I absolutely love what you do. I just think you are such a light and a beacon of hope and inspiration. So I'm absolutely, I feel so privileged to get to be here today.

• 7:42Mindy Pelz?

  No, thank you. So it's interesting in researching your book and researching pleasure, there are so many conversations we have on my podcast, on my YouTube channel about fear and overcoming the fear of, of, you know, whatever, life or stress or body image. And in all the research I did, it was fascinating to see that the opposite of fear isn't necessarily calm. The opposite of fear could be pleasure. So one, what I want to start this, this conversation with is what is pleasure? How do we access pleasure and why is it so important?

• 8:26Speaker 01

  God, first of all, I absolutely love that framing of the opposite to fear being pleasure, because I think that encapsulates so much of what the essence of my book is about and what my research is about, in that fear is such an embodied visceral state of being, is it not? As is pleasure. And I think for me, pleasure is being able to be in your body, experiencing joy and sensation and presence in your body, which sounds incredibly simple. But I think oftentimes, we think that if we're seeking to work on any part of ourselves, on our life, that isn't quite working in the way that we want it to.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  And we'll, I'll explain in much more detail momentarily about how my own kind of friction when it came to my connection to, to sex, to intimacy, to pleasure. But when we think about kind of there's a part of our life that we want to, to work on, oftentimes it can feel daunting in terms of how much we have to work on, how much we feel we need to change. So for me, the thought, you know, a few years ago of trying to work on what felt like my broken connection to sex, to intimacy, intimacy to pleasure, felt totally overwhelming and impossible. And what I learned quite quickly in the sex therapy room initially, I went to sex therapy. And then in the many, many conversations I had thereafter on my podcast and live events, my interviews, my book,

• 9:51Speaker 01

  what I learned quite quickly was that oftentimes change isn't as gargantuan as it can feel in the first instance. And for me, it often just begins with a conversation. And begins with a conversation that begins to allow you to tackle the fear that you've just acknowledged. And with that, the shame that often accompanies it.

• 10:15Mindy Pelz?

  That's a big one.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly. And begin to acquaint yourself with a, you know, part of your life with an issue that has felt kind of off bounds. And so I go back to, when I think about pleasure, I think of bodily presence. I think of joy. I think of being able to occupy my body with a modicum of peace, where historically I only knew how to be in my body in a kind of painful, self punishing sort of frame of being.

• 10:43Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I deal with a lot of women who find pleasure in food. And in the pleasure of food and of eating, it actually long term disconnects them from their body, which means they can't find pleasure anywhere else. They can't find pleasure in the bedroom. They can't find pleasure in even work, like their main pleasure source is food. And so when we look at that pleasure from a wide lens and we look at the the necessity to access pleasure in the bedroom, you have to be in balance, in relationship with your body.

• 11:26Mindy Pelz?

  How do you, how do you go from hating your body

• 11:31Mindy Pelz?

  to loving your body, to wanting your body touched? That's a long journey for a lot of women.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  I mean, isn't it a lifetime journey for most of us?

• 11:41Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, right. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Can I just ask on that point, though? When you, when you talk about women who find a lot of pleasure in food and that becomes prohibitive in terms of them accessing pleasure, kind of in a sexual capacity. Is it that they're finding pleasure in food? Or are they finding a kind of uncontrollable, kind of almost like kind of hedonistic relationship with food that actually isn't quite pleasure? It's more of a feeling of actual, it's actually more numbing than it is a source of pleasure.

• 12:13Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm gonna ask my audience, as you guys are listening to this, put in the comments, because I can only tell you from my clinical experience that it's both. That it is dopamine. So women go to food because they are having a bad day. And so they want that dopamine. So in that moment, that dopamine gives them joy, which would, you know, would translate into this feels pleasurable. But then it also is numbing because I keep going back and back and back for more of the food to give me what I'm not getting in another aspect of my life. So food, you know, I was recently chatting with a woman who wrote a book called Mother Hunger.

• 12:57Mindy Pelz?

  And she was saying that one of the things that we forget is that our first relationship to food comes from our mother. So, because our mother was the source of food. So whatever emotional state our mother was in is what we now attach to food. And so it's food and women is very complex. It is so complex.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know a single woman who doesn't have some sort of complex relationship with their body and their food, or at some point in their lives have had some sort of issue. And that doesn't need to be like a full blown eating disorder, as I had, but just have some sort of friction that has been there. And I think that's fascinating that you highlight that connection with in terms of our mom's, you know, connection to food. Because, I mean, I know I've definitely inherited, I grew up with an eating disorder. Uh, so I was very anorexic and then I was very bulimic and just had a very just complicated and disruptive and hectic relationship to food.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  I didn't know how to just have a, that kind of peaceful, balanced relationship to food that you spoke about before. My relationship to food was so emotionally driven. It was so challenging and a lot of it did, you know, in part stem from my mom's own, I think, issues in her um, kind of earlier life.

• 14:24Mindy Pelz?

  Of course, yeah, we passed, I, I, me too.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  We passed on, yep. Of course. And I think that, and so I think when you, when you note there that kind of it's, you know, isn't it kind of a long journey that we end up as women particularly having to be on when it comes to recalibrating our relationship to food and to our bodies? I do sort of think it's almost our life's work of trying to unlearn and unpick all the damaging um, kind of societal, familial, cultural mythology we inherit about our bodies and about what food represents, what it symbolizes. It's kind of a life's work, learning to unlearn that and learning to just be within our bodies in a state of calm. And for me, I think the really big shift happened in doing sex therapy and learning not necessarily to kind of fall in love with my body.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Um, as someone who had kind of grew up with, as I said, eating disorder from age kind of 12 years old, I'm now 34. Being, kind of falling in love with my body didn't feel that accessible to me. But learning to have a kind of degree of neutrality with my body that allowed me to inhabit it with a sense of peace was transformative. And that really started in the sex therapy room. So I was 28 years old.

• 15:33Mindy Pelz?

  So you go from hating your body to feeling neutral about it. And then I'm, I'm thinking from there you went to feel, feeling good about it. Is there like, it's like a, it's like a journey.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  It's a journey and I think it's one that I will personally forever be on. I think people's, um, I know everyone's perception on whether you can fully overcome the eating disorder is very varied. I am personally of the view that you almost, you establish a sort of dance with the eating disorder from my perspective. And you're forever in a dance with that, that thing that has been so defining of you in your life. But you learn to take the lead. You learn to be the one that puts a foot forward, that really becomes a choreographer. So it no longer dominates your life. You are in charge. You are in control. And for me, that's definitely the place that I've got to with regards to my own connection to my body and to the eating disorder that was so, that really kind of typified my relationship to my body and to my life for so many years.

• 16:30Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. So I'm thinking about one of the more surprising conversations I've had with patients when I was in clinical practice was so many women would come in and want to lose weight. And um, I would start to scratch under the surface and say, why do you want to lose weight? Why, why, why? And when I got to the core, many women would say, because I want to feel comfortable undressing in front of my spouse. I want to feel comfortable being in bed with my spouse. Like, I don't actually feel comfortable in my own skin. So therefore I don't know how to receive or to be touched um, and to access pleasure.

• 17:14Mindy Pelz?

  So how do we help that woman? Like where, I know you went to therapy for it, but that's the woman that I know is listening to this and is like, yeah, I need to, I, it's, it's, it's not about the partner, it's about me and what I'm willing to receive.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Hmm. I mean, first of all, I have so much empathy for that woman. I was that woman for so many years and I have met so many women along this journey who, for whom that story, that is their story too. Um, I should say, when I first started sex therapy, I was, so I was 28, so it's now six years ago, which feels like a lifetime. How time does fly. But the first thing I said to my sex therapist was, I'm broken and I don't think you'll be able to fix me. And that was because I just had this tortured relationship to my body. I didn't know how to just be in my body. I wasn't able to orgasm and partner sex. I didn't enjoy sex. Intimacy was this kind of, felt this kind of off limits realm to me, which was just riddled in anxiety and so much of it was rooted in my body image issues.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  So the moment you evoke that scene of a woman feeling like she wants to feel good, you know, in a sexual scenario with their partner, but, but doesn't have that sense of peace and connection with their own body. I always say you have to go back to how you connect your body on your own. Because before anything is, before we can think about how we kind of relate to others, we have to think about how we relate to ourselves. And I think it's a really important point to emphasize because when I first started sex therapy, a lot of friends said to me, Emma, you can't do sex therapy. You're single and you're not having sex. We were in the, going in and out of pandemics. I did it online. And I was like, wow.

• 18:48Mindy Pelz?

  You have to have sex. You gotta have sex to be able to go into sex therapy. It seems logical.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  I was like, well, I was like, thanks so much, guys, for reminding me that I'm single. I'd like totally forgotten. And thanks for reminding me that I was going through a dry spell. But their point was that you, that their perception of sex therapy and kind of healing your um, connection to intimacy was always relational, that your connection to sex is always, you know, in partnership with someone else. And actually, what I discovered very quickly was that your connection to sex starts first and foremost with your connection to yourself. So if you're not able to nurture yourself, to look after yourself, to give yourself pleasure, to give yourself bodily pleasure on a day to day basis by yourself, then it's going to be very difficult for you to suddenly be able to snap into the headspace in the context of a partner, where often things are more heightened, there's a greater degree of vulnerability.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  To suddenly be able to snap into that headspace and be able to, as you say, receive pleasure. But more than just receive pleasure, ask for what we want. Be able to identify what we need in a sexual context to feel cared for, to feel desired. And sometimes we don't even know what those desires, what those fantasies are, because we haven't spent any time on our own exploring our own sexual needs, exploring what our yes feels like. And also importantly, what our no is, what our boundaries are, what, what kind of turns us off. Emily Nagoski, brilliant sex, uh, research, talks about this in terms of the accelerators. I know, I know. She's just, she's, she's fabulous. Her research is so fascinating. But she talks about this in terms of breaks and the accelerators. And I think it is so fundamental in being able to understand

• 20:22Speaker 01

  what your, what is the context that you need to feel turned on? What are your accelerators? What do get you, get, like, get you in the mood versus what is your, what is your break? What turns you off? I think that is information that we really need to kind of discover ourselves on our own, outside of the context of intimacy with another, so that we can bring that self-knowledge to the context of partnership.

• 20:42Mindy Pelz?

  Could you microdose pleasure? Like, like do little small steps to, because again, I'm thinking about the woman I've sat with that, and I'm thinking about all the perimenopausal women that are like, I'm not sure I want to be touched. Um, and yet I, you know, I, I'm interested in the idea of receiving pleasure. Are there like small little steps we could take to like, practice pleasure?

• 21:10Speaker 01

  One hundred percent. And I love that you've brought this up because again, I think often a barrier to entry to people tackling whatever issue around intimacy, whatever hang up around intimacy they may face is feeling like, oh, it's this huge, big scary problem. I don't even know how to address it. It's a very taboo topic. Don't know how to talk about it. We're oftentimes not taught how to talk about sex and we're actually kind of forbidden from talking about it.

• 21:32Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Um, so yes, there are loads of things that we can do, those small steps, again, kind of lower that barrier to entry and get us used to getting out of our heads and back into our bodies, which is where we need to be to experience the depth and breadth of pleasure our bodies are capable of. So one of the, I think the best things that I did early on with my sex therapist, which I have since just done a lot of research into and recommend to anyone that I'm working with, um, kind of from an intimacy coaching perspective, is around keeping a pleasure journal. Really simple task, again, low barrier to entry. Now, early on in the sex therapy room, I thought I would be, you know, prescribed a, go and do these kind of self, you know, masturbatory practices, X, you know, three times a day or whatever, and, and you know, be off with you. And I was, you know,

• 22:17Speaker 01

  thought that'd be totally overwhelming. Instead, my sex therapist said to me, I want you to keep a list every single day of three to five things that bring you pleasure in your body in a non-sexual context.

• 22:31Mindy Pelz?

  That's it. Yep.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Because it's about learning to feel your body sensations, to feel present in your body. That's presence, which I said at the beginning is so important. It's kind of our, you know, it's the, the first step towards accessing pleasure. But it's about learning to get to grips with just what are those sensations I feel day to day that, you know, I'm, we live in a society that puts, you know, measures our, you know, tells us we constantly need to be productive and our, you know, success is measured through our output. So oftentimes we're living in our heads and not in our bodies. We're thinking about what we're producing, creating the money we're making. And actually, pleasure is often found in very simple things. You know, it's that sip of hot coffee in the morning and how that feels move down your throat. It's, you know, shower water as it falls down your body.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  It's how you moisturize cream into your legs when you're just getting ready. There are so many points in one's day that if we just slow down a bit and we just become very mindful of what our body's experiencing, that can really help begin to build that connection with our bodies. And for me, that was transformative in beginning to see my body as something that I was able to enjoy, rather than something I was constantly looking to punish, to discipline, to over exercise, to under nourish. Cause I'd only ever learned to see my body through that pain led lens. And so I think beginning to keep that pleasure journal was a way of just slowing down and recognizing all the access points to pleasure that I had in my day to day.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  So I really recommend that for any woman listening to this, for anyone listening to this, just start with that.

• 24:10Mindy Pelz?

  How many of you felt your brain go offline the minute you hit your forties? When my brain started to go offline in my early forties, I was crazy scared. I went from being the woman who could hold everything together to not being able to get through a full workday. The positive thinking that had always been my superpower, it just disappeared. Worst case scenarios replaced it. Anxiety I didn't recognize, aversion of myself I didn't sign up for. I thought something was deeply wrong with me. And then I went looking for answers. What I found didn't just help me, it changed the entire way I understand what it means to be a woman

• 24:51Mindy Pelz?

  moving through this season of life. Your brain is not broken, it's remodeling. That's why I wrote Age Like a Girl, to really lay that out for all of you. It's part science, it's part my own story, the messy, humbling, ultimately beautiful story of a woman who had to fall apart a little before she could figure out who she actually was. If you're in that right now, I want you to know you are not alone and this is not the end. It might just be the beginning of the most powerful chapter of your life. So Age Like a Girl, it's available now at drmindypelz.com/books.

• 25:34Mindy Pelz?

  And please know, I am always cheering you on.

• 25:39Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, it's interesting. I've been teaching my audience how to do havening, where you just rub your arms like this when you're in a, in a stressed state. And it actually really works. There's science behind it. And it's like giving yourself a hug, but you're, you're like nurturing yourself. And I never, I look at it more as if you're in a state of fight or flight, you're, you're in a crisis moment. Like you can start to calm your own nervous system, but you just took it one step further and said, can you enjoy putting lotion on your body? And, and what I'm, what I'm thinking is it could be as simple as slowing down

• 26:18Mindy Pelz?

  and being aware that you're putting lotion on your body, because most of us would rub lotion on and just be like, okay, I'm done. Like, I'm just hydrating my skin. I'm not actually trying to make this enjoyable.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  And also how many steps in your day, as you rush around trying to get a hundred million one things done? Do you rush? Cause you're always kind of looking to get to the next thing, the next thing. And if you just slow down a bit, can actually be really wonderful points of pleasure. And I'd say earlier, going back to, um, you know, when we're thinking about women's connection to food and to their bodies, actually slowing down when you're eating as well is a really wonderful way of being able to appreciate the food, allowing yourself to experience the deliciousness of the food you're eating, really relishing that pleasure, but also helping to keep that balance. So I know when I was in the throes of my eating disorder and its many manifestations that it took.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  When I was in the throes of it, I really, my relationship to food was so tortured that I would kind of rush eating or I'd kind of always be thinking of, you know, when I was in very bulimic, I was thinking about what I would do next. I was, I was so lacking in any presence in my connection to food. And I think it's the same sort of thing when, in order to be able to appreciate sexual pleasure, we need to be able to slow down and have that presence. In order to be able to appreciate pleasure from food and try and heal our relationship to food. Again, it's about slowing down and really like noticing those, like noticing all the different tastes, noticing how it feels in my body, building that awareness. And really it comes often back to mindfulness. There's a brilliant book by Dr. Laurie Broto,

• 27:58Speaker 01

  which is all called mindfulness, um, in sex. And she's done extensive research on the benefits of mindfulness based practices as a way of addressing a myriad of sexual dysfunction. So she's done a lot of, um, research specifically with, uh, cancer patients. So women who, uh, previously had gone through, you know, very traumatic, um, cancer treatment, which obviously can be so disruptive in terms of one's connection to one's body. You know, so, so painful. And actually by doing mindfulness based practices, just that slowing down, doing meditation practices. There's one fabulous exercise, taking, I put note this in my book where you, you take the raisin, you feel the raisin, you let, you smell the raisin, you kind of anything that allows you to, and then you eat the raisin and it suddenly feels so deliciously tasteful.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  So I write about that by, write about that in my book because it was a practice for me that I loved. Actually, over a few weeks' time, almost everyone in her control group had a, were able to really connect their body in a deeper way. And it had a direct impact on their capacity for sexual pleasure and then for orgasm. So mindfulness based practices are such a phenomenal way of, as I say, getting out of our heads and back into our bodies and expanding that capacity for bodily pleasure.

• 29:08Mindy Pelz?

  That's so beautiful. And I'm going to encourage my listeners to think about that because we eat and we, and back to your original question, are we eating for pleasure? Are we numbing ourselves? I think most people listening to this and put in the comments if this is you, is we are, are, are eating without even thinking about it. We're not even recognizing that we're eating. Like it feels good, we get the dopamine, but we're off, we're on the phone or we're taught, we're completely checked out. So what you're offering here is a moment to come back and experience the pleasure of food in a slow way, which then leads you one step closer to experiencing other pleasures. Is that, did I hear that right?

• 29:51Speaker 01

  One thousand percent. You summarized it perfectly. And I think really what is at the core of that is that we can always be practicing our capacity for pleasure. We can always be deepening our practice and pleasure in all pockets of our life. So it's not just about, you know, I always say is, you know, your connection to sex is never just about sex. In fact, it's seldom actually about sex. It's all the things that happen in every other part of your life that invariably show up in a kind of concentrated, magnified way in the context of intimacy. But in turn, that means we can always be deepening our connection to intimacy and how we move through our life day to day and how we inhabit our body in that kind of, that our capacity to slow down and just appreciate how something feels just for a few moments.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  It doesn't have to be a huge big shift, but we can always be essentially cultivating that skill that is directly transferable, which then when it comes to intimacy, we've already kind of got better at being more present, which then allows us to kind of have a more, you know, expanded connection and capacity for sexual pleasure.

• 30:56Mindy Pelz?

  Do you think women have been given permission to have pleasure from our society?

• 31:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:05Mindy Pelz?

  Can I just say? I just want to point out the obvious here. Thank you.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  No, with a full stop. Absolutely not. I think, gosh, I mean, where do we even begin? I, so throughout my book, I mean, I did so much research in the process of writing my book, that stretched back to the 15th century to a group of peasant women in, in France, who were sitting together and collating their, their wisdom. They'd appointed a local scribe to note down what they were saying because they couldn't read or write. And they were all talking, seeking to kind of pass on their bodily wisdom. Because it was still then a taboo topic. It wasn't something that they had kind of public recourse to. It wasn't something they were taught about. And I think, you know, whatever pocket of history you drop into,

• 31:51Speaker 01

  you see plentiful examples of women being shamed for their sexuality, disconnected from our bodies, punished for being sexual, punished for our desires, punished for even the insinuation of having desires. But I take a huge amount of comfort in noting that no matter what pocket of history you drop into, you see this disconnection, this bodily disconnection, this punishment around pleasure. But you also see women resisting, women pushing back, women organizing, women collecting.

• 32:22Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, give me an example. We need this now.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  My favorite example, I mean, obviously, right now, me hosting sex talks is really, you know, is, so I run a platform called Sex Talks, in which I gather women live in events. And I've really, kind of the past five years, I've always wanted to be in person. So live, sitting shoulder to shoulder, because I think collectively, we can begin to shed the shackles of shame that are so inhibiting to our capacity for sex, for pleasure. So for me, it's always been really important that my, my work is, you know, in situ. It's in person, so that you can just see, oh, I'm not alone in this. I'm not alone in feeling this, this shame, this disconnection. But I'm not original in doing this. You can look back to the 60s and 70s as an example. When you have the wonderful Betty Dodson, sex educator,

• 33:09Speaker 01

  who was taking what Gloria Steinem was doing in terms of the consciousness raising groups that feminists were organizing then, so coming together in person, getting women to talk about issues that they were coming up against, and kind of forming their feminist principles in person. Betty Dodson was gathering groups of women to talk about sex, to do vulva show and tells, to learn how to masturbate in person. She was pretty out there. And I think, you know, I look at her as, as one example amongst many of women who have sought to push back against the restrictions that have been placed on women's bodies, our kind of, you know, the stigmas typically attached to our pleasure, who could fought back and said, no, actually, pleasure isn't a luxury.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  It is not bad. It is not shameful. It is a birthright. And so I really take huge comfort and in turn inspiration from these women throughout history who have really paved the way for us to be able to today, push back against the inevitable, you know, continuation of the, of the stigma of the shame, the punishment that continues today. But we have, you know, a blueprint for how to push back on that.

• 34:20Mindy Pelz?

  In, in your research, how, did you find anything around the health benefits of pleasure? Because pleasure is a moment, but it can continue on in helping build a healthy body, which is a large part of what I do here on my YouTube channel.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  I mean, totally. I mean, before we came on, we talked, we touched briefly on stress and

• 34:45Speaker 01

  I'm in two minds about this because, you know, the research is plentiful that shows the impact that orgasms specifically, but just being, you know, but sexual, but engaging with sex generally has on our stress. I mean, you know, we release so many wonderful kind of happy hormones when we orgasm. It is such an amazing stress reliever. Again, it's a way of getting out of our heads and into our bodies. And in a society which is, we're so hyper stimulated in our society today. We live in a society that, you know, puts productivity on a pedestal and it's constantly asking us to be in our heads and not in our bodies. But our bodies is where it's really at. So I think, so I think, you know, there, there, there's plentiful research

• 35:25Speaker 01

  that showcases the direct benefit of, you know, sexual pleasure on busting stress. But I, as, as important as that, as I think that is, I also think we need to just appreciate and valorize the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake. Because actually, I think that's what's been so demonized.

• 35:44Mindy Pelz?

  That's the point of pleasure, is that what you're gonna say?

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because obviously, I mean, and I, I want to just absolutely recognize, there are so many health benefits. There's so many stress busting benefits. But you know what? It's also just fabulous in and of itself. And actually, you don't need a reason. You don't need an excuse. You don't need a justification. We get one body in this life and you best try and enjoy it as much as you can. Because we're here for a finite amount of time. And we have been, we have been loaded with so many deleterious myths, sex negative myths, that to do with shame and guilt. You know, there's so much steeped in misogyny. Our sex culture is so steeped in misogyny. And I think there is such a wonderful, refreshing rebellion

• 36:31Speaker 01

  entailed in pursuing pleasure for pleasure's sake. So if anyone listening to this needs an excuse to spend a bit of time today, tomorrow, this week, just giving their body pleasure, whatever that looks like to you, take this as your permission slip and I encourage you to go forth and pursue pleasure for pleasure's sake.

• 36:50Mindy Pelz?

  What I see in my community is these women that want to get their food right. They want to get their fasting right. They want to get their, their exercise right. They want to be an amazing mother. They want to be an amazing wife. They want to have an incredible career. They're so focused on what we have said matters in society, that pleasure feels like one more thing to do. And so part of why I wanted to ask that question and bring it up to my audience as they're listening to this is, in all of my books, I wrote about something called the hormonal hierarchy. And we've got, at the bottom of the hierarchy, we have the sex hormones, your estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.

• 37:35Mindy Pelz?

  And above that is insulin. And so if you master insulin, you can balance your sex hormones, which is such a huge part of my books, my YouTube, is like teaching women how to master insulin. But above that is cortisol. And cortisol, if you're in a stressed state, will make you insulin resistant. And when you're insulin resistant, your menopause symptoms, your fertility, ability to get pregnant, PMOS, all of that is going to start to be much more turbulent. But here's what's cool, is that the very top of the hormonal hierarchy is oxytocin.

• 38:16Mindy Pelz?

  And so actually, and I really want people to hear this, and this is such a reason why I brought you on, is because we do so much work at the insulin level. We try to meditate so that we, and do all these like mindfulness tools so we can lower cortisol. We take, put patches and creams on to try to balance our sex hormones. But at the top is the most powerful hormone that you get from pleasure. So if you are missing out on pleasure, you are making that whole journey so much more difficult. And I want people to hear this.

• 38:56Mindy Pelz?

  Because we put aside, ah, even if you're gonna go masturbate, which we can talk about in a moment, even if you're, you know, in, you know, you don't have a positive sexual relationship, whatever you need to do to find oxytocin is going to make every other health habit so much easier. Which is why we are having this conversation about pleasure.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think, you know, you mentioned there's self pleasure. And I think it is something that we should, that we should address.

• 39:29Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, let's dive into it. Yeah.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  You know, I think it is, again, it's such a shamed kind of piece, isn't it? I mean, I grew up where we took for granted that the boys wanked, but did the girls? Absolutely not. And I, you know, I grew up in a quite religious household. I thought kind of God was always watching me and if I dared touch any part of myself, then I would be smited the next day. That was very much what I, what I kind of understood from a young age. What a stitch up to be, to be taught to be scared of our own bodies. Because as you've just said, oxytocin, which is a kind of, I love the way you describe it, at the top of the hormone pyramid.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  It is so easy for us to access. I think often, kind of for years, I was so alienated from my own body. It was, as I said, I was, I saw it purely through the prism of this eating disorder as something to punish and discipline, not something that I could enjoy. When I learned, not just that I, you know, could masturbate, you know, at like 28 years old, that it was something that I, you know, was, was okay, was not shameful, was not guilt ridden. But actually that I should, that self pleasure is kind of the way in which you nurture your connection to your own body. And that's a relationship that we have for life.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  When I made that shift, when I kind of recognized the importance of cultivating a sexual relationship with myself, so again, outside of the context of partnership. It was a game changer because I think having an erotic connection to ourselves, it is something that we ought to be cultivating throughout our lives. As our bodies change, our hormones change, as we go through different kind of hormonal cycles, there is a constant and that is our connection to ourselves. And I, I remember very distinctly when I began to make this kind of shift and to explore my body more. I remember having my first orgasm from masturbating and thinking, wow, this shit's free.

• 41:23Mindy Pelz?

  That's how it's supposed to feel. Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  But it's free. In our capitalist society, everything's expensive and charged and it's just, and this access to pleasure, this stress busting joyful pocket of time is free for me to access at any point. And I, my mind was blown. And you know, that's on a personal level. I also think one of the key ways in which we can deepen our connection to intimacy, improve our connection in terms of partnership is to better get to know our body. So to know what it is that we like, to know how we want to be touched, to know what the kind of height of pleasure feels like to us. And you know what the best way of doing that is? To do it ourselves, to begin exploring, to use our hands.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Try it yourself. Begin, and it allows, you know, the kind of most offset thing about, um, you know, the, sorry, the most often cited tip when it comes to, to improving your connection to sex is communication, communication, communication, communication. You know, in the context of partnership, you want to be communicating with a partner before, during and after. You know, sex should be something that we have an open dialogue with our sexual partners about. But I really think that begins before we're even in communication with a partner. It begins with knowing ourselves, knowing what makes us tick, knowing what makes us work. And self pleasure is really the, at the core of that, the foundation of that.

• 42:45Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. I'm thinking back to your raisin example, like I'm wondering if there's steps, like start by experiencing the pleasure in your mouth. Then move to the experience of touching your, your calf or while you're putting lotion on or your face or combing your hair. Um, and then move to masturbation. And it seems like if you could start down that path, then you could be more open to communication. And, um, because again, I'm gonna, I've sat with so many women that are like, I don't want to touch my body. I don't even want a relationship with my body. And I think if, I love this idea of like stepping it until you can actually receive it.

• 43:30Mindy Pelz?

  Which receiving any, you know, we can't even receive a compliment as women.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh. It's like, no, no, no. Oh my gosh. No, not me. Oh, it was really cheap. Oh, you know, I'm not actually like, like fed it off really quickly. Totally. I mean, learning to receive, again, it's, it's, you know, it's such an important skill and it's not one that we're taught. It's, you know, it's one that you really have to kind of learn through trial and error. I love what you said just there about building this kind of sequence, um, of habits. Habits aren't the right word, but the kind of sequence of events that can lead you to, um, eventually being able to be more comfortable with self pleasure. I want to say to any woman who is, as you've just described, thinks, I don't want to touch my own body. I don't want to be in my own body. I, I was you. I sometimes will am you. I totally, totally hear that.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, we do live in a society that teaches women that our value is tied to our youth and our beauty, our fuckability and our impregnability. You know, our use value to men. We live in a patriarchal society that so ties our, you know, connection to our body to our desirability to men. So we're always looking outwards and looking, kind of seeing our body through a third party perspective as opposed to seeing it as something that is kind of first and foremost for us. So again, that's kind of first bit of conditioning that we're having to grapple with at all times anyway. So I totally empathize with any and every woman who feels like, oh, my body is the last place I want to be. But I think as you say, you can begin slowly. And I think a lot of this work is about beginning, so like going tenderly.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  And actually that's kind of, that's the joy of it. That's part of the learning. So I think beginning to, as you say, maybe being mindful in how you eat. So slowing down and letting yourself enjoy the taste of, of that food, whatever it may be, being really, what does that taste, what does that feel like in my mouth? What does that smell like? Really engaging your senses. Again, kind of really trying to build that relationship to your body sensations. And then it could be moving to touch. So it's again, going to the moisturizing, you know, when you're putting on moisturizer, really allowing yourself to kind of, to massage your body. To really, and to try and remove that, that negative inner monologue that I think so many of us have, which moves very quickly to criticism to, oh, you know, have I put on weight here? Oh, what does that feel like? You know, it's.

• 45:44Mindy Pelz?

  Right. Don't touch me in this spot.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like, oh, you know, why have I done that? Oh, I shouldn't have eaten the chocolate. And you go, it's not going to spill. Be really mindful of those thoughts, acknowledge them, they're there, and then just let them go and try to move that place of neutrality. Of just, I'm not going to judge my body. I'm going to leave the judgment out the door and I'm just going to allow myself to really, what am I feeling? When I moisturize my leg, my leg, what am I feeling? Oh, that feels really good when I, when I squeeze my thigh there. Oh, you know what? I'm going to lean into that. Oh, that feels really, I'm going to lean into that. And then we can great, we can move on to, for example, having a bath. Which sounds so simple. I didn't have a bath for like, like 10, 15 years. I showered. It was very clean. But I hated, just before anyone looks, oh my gosh, this woman.

• 46:26Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, right. They're like, wow, you look really good for not showering, you know, not showering in 10 years. Yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  But because of my eating disorder, I hated seeing my body submerged in water. It was such a trigger to me. I just would look down and I would be so hypercritical of what I saw. So one, well, in the process of doing sex therapy, one of the things I did after a few sessions was, my sex therapist said to me, seduce yourself. I want you to spend a night seducing yourself. And that wasn't straight to masturbation or anything. It was take time, lighting a candle, running a bath, doing a kind of romantic setup, but just for you. And really try and allow yourself to enjoy it. And so something as simple as running a bath and letting yourself enjoy it can be, again, such a gear change.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  From if you're used to running a hundred miles per hour, trying to be the perfect wife, the perfect daughter, the perfect mother, the perfect, all these things. Just allowing yourself again, that time to slow down and enjoy something that's just for you. And try again, leave that, you know, approach that with, with a kind of degree of body neutrality. And then if it feels accessible to you, begin to touch your body. And it doesn't have to be, you go straight to your genitals. It can be slow touch. It can be moving your hand. You know, you said before, that idea of like hugging yourself can be so powerful. It's an amazing way of kind of calming the nervous system. It's also one of you just can run your, your fingers along, like very softly along your arm. Just find, beginning to see where does, where does my touch feel nice? Where does that?

• 47:50Speaker 01

  And just really trying to engage, again, engaging with your body sensations, engaging with what you can really kind of feel, what those pleasurable sensations can look like. And so what we're doing is we're kind of building these kind of building blocks, these foundations of connection to our body. That then when it begins to over time, and maybe that takes days, maybe that takes weeks, maybe that takes months of doing this stuff. Then eventually we get to the point where we think, okay, you know what? Actually, I do want to move to my genitals. I do want to maybe just begin to touch, to see what that feels like. To see, and maybe it's just with the one, your hand, maybe it's something very gentle and soft and it's nothing aggressive to begin with. You don't have to go and buy a ginormous dildo. And then you begin to touch and you see, okay, what feels good? And maybe it's bringing in a vibrator. So you just take it really slowly.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  And it's kind of almost like getting, imagine you're getting to know your body for the first time. If you grew up knowing your body in one way, steeped in criticism, negativity, all the kind of crap that society loads us with. Now you're starting from scratch. I always talk about this idea of kind of self authorship. So imagine you kind of, you're, you're writing the story of your life. And the first few chapters are written for you. They're ones that were penned by those around you, culture, society, your parents. And oftentimes when it comes to our connection to intimacy, these chapters can be steeped in a lot of shame, negativity, kind of guilt, all the things that we've discussed in this conversation. But you are the author of your own life. And at any point, you can go back to those chapters that were written for you and you can begin to change them. You can pluck out the things that don't work for you and you can begin rewriting.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  You know, and part of all these, this process is part of kind of these mindfulness based practices that help you engage the body is around rewriting your intimate story. Rewriting your story as it pertains to your body. And you really have the power to do that. So I think, really think of yourself as beginning to reestablish your connection to your body from, from scratch.

• 49:39Mindy Pelz?

  I want to invite you to something that I am crazy excited about. This October 3rd and 4th, I'll be joining an incredible group of speakers at Empower Your Life. A live event at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. We'll spend two days exploring health, personal growth, mindset, and practical tools to help you create meaningful change in your life. I'll be there alongside speakers like Suzy Orman, Jim Quick, Jamie Kern Lima, Brendan Bouchard, Nancy Levin, and many more. It's going to be an amazing weekend filled with learning, connection and inspiration.

• 50:23Mindy Pelz?

  I'd love to see you there. I'd also love to give you a big hug. And you can grab your VIP or general admission ticket by visiting hayhouse.com/DrMindy. That's hayhouse.com/DrMindy. I can't wait to see you.

• 50:45Mindy Pelz?

  I'm thinking about the woman who's had sexual trauma, which feels like almost every woman.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Every single woman I've ever spoken to.

• 50:54Mindy Pelz?

  Exactly. So her body has been touched in violent ways and in ways that she didn't want to receive. And what I'm learning from this conversation and what you just said is you can take that back by starting to touch yourself and re-pattern touch. And now it's your touch, not somebody else's touch before you can move into having somebody else touch you.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 51:19Mindy Pelz?

  Have you, have you, and just because my audience loves science and research, have you seen any research on sexual trauma being healed by somebody not just caressing themselves, but actually masturbating and enjoying sexual pleasure just with themselves?

• 51:38Speaker 01

  It's a really, really interesting point. And I'm just trying to think, I read so many studies early on in my book, and there was one specific that looked into, I struggle to recall the details, but it looked into exactly this. And it looked into a case of, I mean, really harrowing, childhood rape and sexual assault and the healing modalities that were entailed thereafter, actually through sex therapy initially. I can send you the link to the, to the paper afterwards, because it's, there were a couple actually that were deeply moving. Because I think this is something that we oftentimes can feel broken if we feel, if we've had a traumatic experience early on where,

• 52:20Speaker 01

  which feels like it's confirmed a lot of our worst ideas about our connection to sex, you know, that it's shameful, that it's something that happened to us, that's kind of, we're dirty, there's a lot of things can come up when it comes to sexual trauma that we have to be able to, again, address and unlearn. So I think the first thing is to be able to acknowledge the trauma that is actually there. Because I think for a lot of women, actually acknowledging trauma, first and foremost, particularly sexual trauma, can be really difficult, particularly when we haven't oftentimes been handed the language with which to talk about it. I remember sitting with a friend during the Me Too movement, so when it became, when it went viral in 2017, and speaking about our respective sexual traumas for the first time. And it was like we were being handed the,

• 53:03Speaker 01

  the words, the language and the permission to identify what had happened to us respectively, and talk about it and call it out as wrong. Because when we don't have language to articulate a thing, when we don't feel, have, you know, recourse to language to talk about something, it's really hard to be able to address it, to acknowledge it, and then to move on. So I think being able to acknowledge sexual trauma first and foremost is, you know, an incredible first step. And then beginning to actually address the shame that's often attached to that. And a lot of that, I mean, I think if you've had any sort of particularly violent sexual trauma, I'd always say,

• 53:44Speaker 01

  go and see a professional, go and see a therapist, go and see a psychotherapist. But I know also anecdotally, I'm, I'm in the process of doing a intimacy coaching qualification. And I've been really struck by how many people on that course have their own quite extreme sexual traumas that they are actively working through, through the work that we're doing in kind of the coaching training. And again, it comes down to being able to talk openly about sex, about intimacy, sometimes the first time for people. So I think that's huge power and relief, just in that, being able to name the thing, be able to name the thing that happened to you, to then acknowledge that it's happened to you, and then be able to tackle the shame associated with, and begin to make your way back to your body oftentimes for the first time.

• 54:29Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, that's so well said. And again, I've sat with so many, like you, I've just sat with so many women that don't even realize they're disconnected from their body because of a sexual trauma. And where my brain is going and what I'm going to start educating my community is to come back to just touching your body and loving that. Because a lot of women, like especially like belly fat, seems like every woman going through menopause is very concerned about belly fat. And I have thought about this a lot. I'm like, why does everybody care so much about belly fat? And it's like, because we've seen the pictures of the women who, who have flat bellies and they have, you know, four pack abs, and we want to be like that. And we're not supposed to have fat

• 55:11Mindy Pelz?

  around the belly. And I'm wondering, but yet, when you go through menopause, it's actually really natural for the hormonal changes to move fat to your belly. And I'm wondering if the first step to getting rid of belly fat is actually to start touching it and to loving it and to accepting it. Like, you just gave me a whole, like, expanded way to think about that, that maybe the, the door in to getting rid of belly fat is you actually starting to have a relationship with it through touch.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  It also feels kind of like integrating parts of your body that you've been at war with, that you've learned to hate, that you've been, which, which cultivates that disconnection. And also, I think it's even just when we become fixated on a part of ourselves we've learned, we've been taught to hate, that's the thing we're always focusing on so heavily. That's where the attention goes. So our brain is always looking at that thing that we've learned to hate. So I think if you can begin to cultivate a practice that almost integrates that part of yourself, and allows you to almost like make peace with that part of yourself, I almost wonder if that also then shifts attention away from that place that you, that you don't like. And I think, you

• 56:28Speaker 01

  know, when we think about how that shows up, for example, in the context of, of sex, and we learn to kind of have that quite critical gaze with which we see our body. There was brilliant research by Masters and Johnson, Johnson in the 1970s, who coined the term spectatoring as a phenomenon that they noticed were happening very frequently amongst their patients, whereby people who had, most commonly, body image issues, but it could be a state of other issues as well, were basically in the context of having sex, were almost stepping out of their bodies and viewing the situation from a third party almost bird's eye perspective, and tending to be quite critical of what's going on. So that's when you get it stuck in your head, you're thinking, oh, you know, how do I look? How do I look back? Yeah, who is, what is this person thinking? Am I doing enough? Am I not doing

• 57:09Speaker 01

  enough? Is the person I'm sleeping with looking at my belly fat? Is this something they're fixating on? And as soon as you're having that kind of, that disconnected, that kind of spectatoring position in the context of intimacy, again, we're not in our bodies. And so it's much harder to access orgasm. So this was really linked to sexual dysfunction. So issues around orgasm, desire, pleasure. So I think whatever kind of relationship to our, to our body, we're cultivating, we're establishing day to day, is going to show up in the way in which we enjoy or don't enjoy sex. So again, it's worth seeing that kind of critical view we take on maybe our, our belly fat and thinking, oh, is this actually prohibiting me from being able to enjoy intimate pleasure? And if so, am I okay with that? Or is this something I want to begin? Do I want to work on

• 57:54Speaker 01

  that critical voice? Do I want to work on that spectatoring and actually try and, you know, integrate these parts of myself so that I can actually enjoy what my body is capable of?

• 58:01Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, so beautiful. How much of an orgasm is mental? And how much of it is the body?

• 58:09Speaker 01

  It is so psychotama, psychosomatic. And I think it's why it's so commonplace. I mean, this is why kind of, again, there's really interesting research that looks into how body image issues affect capacity for orgasm, which again, sounds obvious to say, but I mean, for years, I had no idea that my issues in connection to my body were affecting my connection to sex, that to me, they were kind of two separate kind of thing, these two differing camps. But of course, they're so intimately connected. So if you have body image issues and you are, you know, at war with your body, it's going to affect your capacity for orgasm, it's going to affect your libido, your desire, it's going to affect even just your capacity for orgasm, because orgasm is

• 58:50Speaker 01

  so much about being able to be in your body and be able to actually be able to experience what your body's, you know, your body's kind of capacity for pleasure, as I said previously. So I think when it comes to, I think this is particularly for women, our ability to orgasm is really in our heads. And it's really, which in a way, I think is actually quite a comforting thing to recognize.

• 59:16Mindy Pelz?

  Agreed. Well said.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Because if you're struggling to orgasm, if this is something that's not accessible to you, and I've spoken to so many women who have struggled to orgasm, are trying to struggle to orgasm, I've spoken to many women who have never been able to orgasm and feel so much shame around that. You're not broken. There is nothing physiologically wrong with your body. There's probably just something coming up in terms of anxiety, you haven't like learned to feel, you know, at ease enough with your body to be able to access that point of pleasure. So it's something that is, I don't want to say fixable, because it's not broken, but it's something you can 1,000% work on.

• 59:50Mindy Pelz?

  I want everybody to hear that because it was, I had an interesting experience. I led a women's retreat in Ibiza and with a bunch of women and somehow it came up about erotica and erotica stories. And all these women of all different backgrounds, many of which you would not even, you couldn't even imagine that they were, that they were listening to erotica. They started to share an app that had erotic stories. And it became the conversation of the whole retreat, all these women from housewives to, there was some actresses there to, you know, to career women were like, oh yeah, I do erotic stories. I do erotic stories. They're like, that's what

• 1:00:33Mindy Pelz?

  gets me in the mood. What tools do women have for expanding their mind and opening their mind other than porn? Or is porn, is there an acceptable amount of porn that a woman should dip into?

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  It's so personal to you. So what, again, it comes back to getting to know what turns you on. What other thing, what is the context that you need to feel turned on? And I love that you'd mentioned audio erotica, which is a phenomenal resource and I think a great, excuse the pun, but entry point for people who want to begin to kind of exploring what a kind of erotic talent could be. We've seen a massive increase in people engaging with more kind of erotic fantasy novels, for example. It's a genre that's popping off hugely. And I think, you know, women tend to be less kind of visually stimulated, but more kind of story led and more about kind of the context

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  which can be created through audio, for example, which can be evoked through literature. So I think it's about really finding what for you turns you on. So that could be finding erotic literature that really gets you going. That could be finding that audio erotica. That could also be engaging with porn. I think porn is so, a lot of mainstream free porn that is accessible on tube sites is steeped in misogyny. It is steeped in racism. There's a lot of problematic porn that's out there. However, porn is not a monolith. There are so many pockets of the porn space that I think also being done incredibly well. So for the book, I spent four, five days on a feminist porn site, seen with, run by Erica Lust, who is an independent porn creator.

• 1:02:15Mindy Pelz?

  Oh, you were like actually on the filming of it?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  I was on set. I was on set.

• 1:02:18Mindy Pelz?

  What was that like?

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Well, it was a fascinating experience. And so I think unlike what you would expect it to be like, I went in thinking it'd be very titillating. I'd never been on a porn set before. I've never been a big watcher of porn personally. But for me, it was really important to see firsthand how porn could be made differently and how porn could be made with female pleasure as a priority, rather than not even an afterthought. A lot of mainstream porn, female pleasure doesn't even come into it. It kind of, you know, a lot of times promotes violence. The, you know, the stats are kind of shocking in terms of the prevalence of sexual violence that is so commonplace on a lot of the mainstream porn. But I was really keen. I wanted to see how it could be done differently.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  And so you take something like Lust Productions, which Erica's been running for, I think, 20 or so years, which she set up in order to do exactly that, to prioritize female pleasure in kind of the erotic genre. So I spent five days watching, I think, four or five erotic films we made. I arrived just in time for anal season, which was an absolute education for me. I was like, wow. But what I found particularly noteworthy in that experience was, one, the set was predominantly female run. So I was just surrounded by women. The way that Erica does this, and she's one example amongst many, there are lots of independent porn creators who are creating intentionally,

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  you know, not misogynistic, kind of female focused, very showcasing a lot of diverse bodies, very inclusive in terms of sexualities being displayed. There's a lot of examples of independently created porn that I think is actually, you know, giving us, you know, a wonderful resource for someone who wants to explore their erotic pleasure. But I think being on Erica's set, I saw, you know, one example of that. And there was lots of women on set. They really seek to ensure that performers are at ease, that it's kind of really led by the performers. They have an intimacy coach on set who has a conversation with the performers beforehand, which really, I think the practice there is something we should take into all of our sex lives. Having a conversation before you engage sexually. What do you like? What are your boundaries? What do you not like? What's going to make you feel good in this interaction? And then that intimacy

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  coordinator is sitting there watching the whole shoot. And if she can intervene, if anything, if anyone seems to have broken a boundary, if anyone looks uncomfortable. It goes really slowly. I actually had to admit, I write in the book, but I got kind of bored at one point.

• 1:04:43Mindy Pelz?

  Oh, that's so funny.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  After 45 minutes.

• 1:04:45Mindy Pelz?

  Like, oh God, they're doing that thing again.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Honestly, and I found myself actually like, I was kind of like hungry. I wanted a snack. But I thought, actually, this is, this is, sex is supposed to be slow. And I mean, so much of porn is so rushed. It's so much about the ending. It's about kind of the climax around, you know, it's inherently, it's titillating. You know, in our attention economy, that is designed to be so, to capture our attention. But actually, you know, sex intimacy should be slow. It's something that we should luxuriate in. And I think seeing Erica Lust Productions, I was like, wow, you guys really walk the talk in that. As these scenes were kind of, you know, they were long and they were luxurious to the point of sort of boredom on the sides watching it. So I want, and I think it's important to note, to note that, because I think generally the conversation around porn tends to be quite

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  black and white and say kind of all porn is bad. And I think it might not be for you and that is okay. And I do, I have an issue with a lot of porn that I see online. But I think it's also important to know there are pockets of the industry that can actually might be for you a fantastic resource that's worth exploring, that can really help you learn about and navigate your own connection to sexuality.

• 1:05:52Mindy Pelz?

  That's what I'm thinking. And what I want women to hear at this moment is perhaps your imagination and what could be possible in a sexual interaction is limited. And so going to something like what you just mentioned, actually can expand that. I, I had a really interesting experience when I was a sophomore in college. Everybody told me, you got to take this human sexuality course. And I went and I, I was at a big university. I go into the first day and there's literally 500 students in the lecture hall. And over the course, a man taught it. You could see how he wanted us to have

• 1:06:34Mindy Pelz?

  a different relationship to our bodies, to sex. And over the course, and this is in 1996, like over the course of the semester, he literally showed us every single type of sexual interaction. Like it literally was like watching porn. And then he would break it down and he would say, wow. Yeah. I was 19 years old. He was like, this is safe. This is not safe. It was the first time I was encouraged to ever masturbate because my mom was like, good morning, save your virginity till you're married, kind of, kind of mom. And this, I don't even, I wish I knew the man's name

• 1:07:13Mindy Pelz?

  because doing a full semester of watching all the different ways in which sex can, you know, people can interact sexually. And to see it through that lens gave me not just a wider lens for myself, but it gave me compassion for people who have all different sexual backgrounds and desires and understanding that pleasure can show up in many forms. So.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  Love that. Sorry. Can you bring that back? That, I have to say, my, my sex education consisted, my sex education consisted of two things. Don't get pregnant and don't get an STI. There was no mention of pleasure. There was no discussion whatsoever of pleasure. And that never changed. That was, that was it. And I think, you know, when we're not taught, when we're taught from a kind of very fear-based stance about sex, so when we're really taught about sex through kind of the prism of fear and danger, it sets the bar so extremely low as to what we can then expect when it comes to our sexual.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Experiences. And so when I first, you know, we touched on sexual trauma early on in the conversation. When I first started having sex and it was, you know, consensual sort of, but I did, you know, and there were experiences that absolutely weren't. My bar was so low. I didn't think that sex was for me, that it was pleasure, that could be pleasurable for me, that it was something that was as much for my enjoyment as for the person I was sleeping with. I thought sex was something I did for a man's pleasure, not my own. I didn't, and I didn't know how to explore my body.

• 1:08:53Mindy Pelz?

  In heterosexual relations, yeah.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I think so, so hearing your experience of having someone actually be able to set out a kind of, was it like a roadmap or kind of, you know, set out a, you know, example of all the different wonderful, varied forms that sex can take is so refreshing. And I think we'd all benefit so much from that. Because also what it does is it removes the shame and it moves, it removes the taboo. It says, your body is something that you can explore and it's worth exploring. And actually, that's kind of the first piece. And so going back to, to your point there about, you know, erotic content perhaps being the gateway for some people and being able to actually expand their sexual repertoire. I think that's incredibly valid because if, if like me and like, you know, like a lot of people listening,

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  you've never had anything close to sex education that says, this could be something you can enjoy this. How are you supposed to know? And so I actually think it's like, you know, looking to where can you get that information? And where can you get the erotically inspired, particularly when so much mainstream media has portrayed sex? And one, a very hetero, heteronormative dynamic. And two, I mean, growing up, everything I saw was basically, meet a person, you start kissing, no one says anything, there's no communication. You fall to the floor and then suddenly you're shrieking in post-coital bliss and you're like fabulous. And not a word was exchanged. Everyone's happy. And you're thinking, that is the, that again, a stitch up. That is, you know, not a blueprint for, for, for good sex. So I just think anything that can give you inspiration

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  for what a more fulfilling, varied connection to intimacy could look like is something to be embraced rather than feared.

• 1:10:31Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. Yeah. And, and a, a big hope for me with this conversation for my audience is that they can start to come back into a healthy relationship with their body. And I really think like what we've mapped out here is really fascinating because it's small little steps to get to the, the big stuff that actually could be incredible. The other thing I just want to point out is we haven't really even talked about a partner. And, um, you know, how do you communicate with you, with your partner? But what I'm thinking is everything we've laid out here is a prerequisite before you go

• 1:11:11Mindy Pelz?

  and have a partner conversation. Do you just have any tips for people who are like, my spouse, I don't even know how to bring it up. I don't know how to say what I want. Like, where do we go with that group?

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  I mean, first of all, to just kind of reiterate what you've just noted there. It begins with you. How do you ask for and pursue what you want if you don't know what that is? And when you have such a kind of barrier to entry and even feeling comfortable exploring your pleasure, it's, it really begins with you. So I think what we've laid out in this conversation, really beginning to build those foundations of your connection to your body, your capacity for pleasure, all that create transferable skills that we can then take into the bedroom with us. So I think what we've laid out as the kind of foundations is, is critical. When it comes to then communicating with a partner, if sex is not something that you've ever actually spoken about, it's just something you've done, you've kind of followed a societally imposed sexual script

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  that neither of you have necessarily like critically engaged with, you just kind of play out, you've never talked about. It can feel really daunting to actually bring up that conversation for the first time, which is why it's so wonderful listening to conversations like this, because often, um, a great tip is to, is to reference something you've listened to. Oh, I read this article of the day. I listened to this podcast of the day. Oh, I watched this thing of the day where it's like a third party suggestion that says, oh, it was really interesting. We're talking about pleasure. They were talking about porn. They were talking about, um, kind of the mutual pursuit of pleasure and it got me thinking. So you begin, you kind of bring in this kind of third party piece of information in the conversation and kind of use that with a partner to start the conversation. It feels kind of lower stakes. You're not saying, hey, let's sit down and let's talk about our sex life.

• 1:12:52Mindy Pelz?

  I've got some things to say that I've never said to you before.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's a kind of soft way. And you say, what do you think about that? Oh, actually, I'd love it. I'd love to send it to you. I'd love your thoughts. You know, I wonder if this is something that you've thought about because suddenly I realized I've never had these conversations before. So you kind of can begin to integrate it through, through that kind of, that, yeah, that third, um, party in, input. And I think, you know, it's worth, worth noting, I think often we feel, or it's very easy to feel, I've kind of heard this from so many people I've spoken to and definitely experienced myself, but it's really easy to think that we're alone in feeling disconnected from sex, that we, we want to kind of hide our, potentially our kind of perceived brokenness from our sexual partners, like we're alone in that.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  And often when you begin, when you broach that conversation, it's a relief to the other person because they're also carrying their own anxieties. They're also carrying their own shame. They're also carrying their own issues with regards to their body, to intimacy. And actually, if you can bring, kind of stoke that conversation, you're creating an environment which vulnerability is welcomed. And that vulnerability can really be something that actually allows the other person to say, oh my gosh, yeah, you know, this is something I, I've really struggled with. And you kind of can then kind of be able to kind of co-create a sexual discourse, you know, that kind of sexual dialogue that can be the foundations for, you know, the mutual pursuit of pleasure, which at the end of the day is what sex should always be.

• 1:14:16Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. I love that. And I, I think you, you, the thing you said about share, like I listened to this podcast or, you know, my husband and I do this all the time where he'll send me something and say, I really want to listen, want you to listen to this so that we can talk about it, variety of topics. And, um, and sometimes I'm like, just tell it to me. And he says, no, I want you to hear it from this podcast or this video. And it really does have a different impact. So I love that recommendation when you're going to invite somebody into the experience and to have a different experience.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  I've heard you speak about the joy of book clubs. I think you've joined a book club recently. I heard one of your podcasts.

• 1:14:57Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah, I love your clubs.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  I love a book club. I, I mean, said I absolutely love it. But I think it's kind of in the same way that a book club, everyone reads the same material and then you all bring your different perspective on that same material, which obviously has been informed by your own experiences, your own traumas, your own joys, your own perspective. You begin, you bring those, um, perspectives to a group discussion and it tends to be so much richer as a result. And I think the same is true when it comes to our conversations around sex with a partner. So I love that with you and your partner, you're saying, no, no, I want you to listen to this and then let's come and discuss it. Because then you're both bringing your varied, your differently shaped perspective to the table.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  And it's going to lead to such much more enriching dialogue when it comes to that, yeah, that intimacy piece.

• 1:15:45Mindy Pelz?

  Yeah. So fascinating. I could talk to you forever. Like I have so many more questions, but, but I really want my audience to understand that pleasure is not optional. And I think, and it's a large reason why I brought you on is because so many women can't access pleasure. And yet you go back to that hormonal hierarchy, every single problem you're trying to solve with your health begins with oxytocin. So where are you getting oxytocin from? So I just, I just, I love that thought. And I love what you're up to and the way you're redefining it for women. So thank you for that.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Well, thank you so much. And I just want to say to that piece, because I haven't mentioned it kind of thus far, but I never thought I would have access to sexual pleasure. I didn't, I thought I was broken. I couldn't orgasm and partner sex. I was very, very disconnected from my body and I didn't think those things were accessible to me. I just thought people were either a sexual person or a non-sexual person. And I was a non-sexual person and I was broken and that was that. Going to sex therapy completely transformed my life. I was not someone who grew up talking about sex. I did not have good sex education. I was not in a household in which we ever spoke about this topic. You know, my background's in politics. I worked in the newsroom. Going to sex therapy changed my life.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  But it didn't just bring back my orgasm, which was, you know, in itself wonderful. That oxytocin, as we've said, is so important. It ended seventeen years of bulimia because it was the first time in my life where I learned how to be at peace with my body, where I learned the benefit, the joy of being able to just exist in my body, to appreciate the wonderful sensations it's capable of. And it really was learning to connect to my sexual self that was the beginning of that healing journey. And, you know, I, nothing else worked. I'd been to other different types of therapy. I'd, you know, tried lots of different things to try and tackle this eating disorder. And it was mending my relationship to sex.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  That ended the bulimia and set me off on this, on this new course. And I say that because wherever you're at with your connection to your body, to sex, it can get better. And it changes the way you walk through the world. When you are at war with yourself in your private realm, it's really hard to show up as your full self in the public realm. But when you begin to mend that relationship, you walk through the world differently. You walk through the world whole. So I so encourage everyone listening to this. Make the time to work in your connection to pleasure because I promise you, it changes everything.

• 1:18:25Mindy Pelz?

  Hmm. And therein lies why I brought you on, Emma Louise. Because this is the plight that I am trying to help women with is to fall back in love with their bodies. And I hope what people have learned today is pleasure is, is an incredible door in. The, the, there is a phrase that I use often that I'm trying to rebrand and take back, which is like a girl. And we use like a girl in a derogatory way. And I'm working really hard to rebrand that and make it a, a beautiful statement. For you, what does live like a girl mean when you hear that statement for you personally?

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  Live like a girl means live in my power, live in my body, live in my essence, unperturbed by the societal script that's been handed to me, living life on my own terms, according to my own script and fundamentally embodied, living and loving this body that I get to inhabit, not that I have to, that I get, that I have the privilege of getting to exist in.

• 1:19:34Mindy Pelz?

  Hmm, that's so beautiful. Okay, where do people get your book? Because the other thing I just want to say is your book is written in a very story format, which makes it so easy to read. So thank you for that.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  So much. No, I really, I mean, I rewrote it about a hundred times because I wanted it to begin because I think this topic can feel, yeah, it can feel, you know, a difficult one for people to engage with the first time. And I wanted, I've interviewed so many women over the years. So I've interviewed lots of women for the book. There's loads of research that went into it, but it's also, it's a, yeah, it's a really good story. It's a story of transformation that I think, I think really, I wanted everyone reading it to feel like, oh, this is my starting point. This is where everything can begin to change. Um, so my book is available on, a lot of listeners people are listening to it on audiobooks. So it's available on Spotify, wherever you listen to your books.

• 1:20:21Mindy Pelz?

  My audiobooks sell more than my hard copy now. I think a lot of people are doing audio.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  I think they are. I think especially for nonfiction. I think it's really, it's where I listen to a lot of nonfiction. I read a lot of fiction. So it's kind of how I divide my, um, as well. My book is actually out in the U S the beginning of next year. So it's going to be out there. You can buy it. I've had a lot of DMs from people in the U S who have managed to find it somewhere. But it's out officially at the beginning of next year, but it is now out in the U K available anywhere you buy books, um, and available online. And you can find me on Instagram at Emma Louise Boynton. Um, I also do a Substack in which I talk about bodies, sex, everything. Um, and yeah, follow along because I, yeah.

• 1:21:03Mindy Pelz?

  And you talked about, yeah, about a podcast, Sex Talks. You have a podcast?

• 1:21:08Speaker 01

  Yes, so I run a podcast called Sex Talks. It's been on pause. I've been writing the book, but I am restarting it. And I do a lot of live events, a live event series in London called Sex Talks. So if you are in London, although I will actually be taking them to the U S in the autumn, the beginning of New Year, um, with the book. So yeah. Just I basically post everything on Instagram, so you can follow along there.

• 1:21:27Mindy Pelz?

  We have a very large London audience. So, um, so yeah, so you know, those of you that are listening from the U K, go check Emma Louise out. So you can go see her live, get her book now. Um, so it's almost like reverse. So many times that, you know, it comes out in the U S, like my books have come out in the U S first, and then they get put out in the U K, usually about a month later.

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  I know, we've done it backwards. So we've, we've done the reverse. Well, because I wanted to come out in the U S and pay back, because I think payback tends to be more accessible for people. So it comes out straight, it's going to pay back in, um, the U S. So, but yes, if you are London based, please do come to Live Event. I'll be restarting them from September and they are such, I really do believe that healing and communion is the most kind of beneficial and important thing. Often a lot of self-work can be around kind of quite solitary, but heal and communion, and that's what Sex Talks is all about. So yeah, please do join.

• 1:22:16Mindy Pelz?

  Amazing. Well, I love this conversation. Keep up your, you need a megaphone. Keep, keep bringing pleasure to everybody, but especially women. And, um, just thank you. Yeah, thank you for this. This is, my audience is going to be touched by this. So if you're, if you made it through this far, put a comment in and how this impacted you and go find Emma Louise on Instagram. So please do.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  Well, thank you so much for your work. I just feel so privileged to get to be here and I feel so grateful that you're doing what you do. So thank you.

• 1:22:44Mindy Pelz?

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:22:47Mindy Pelz?

  Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.