Release yourself from the male gaze: How to have more orgasms!

It’s National Orgasm Day on July 31st, so Fearne is listening back to Happy Place conversations about female sexuality, fantasy, and – obviously – orgasms, so that we can reclaim our bodies and desires as our own... In this episode – - Crystal Hefner describes what it was like living as a sexualised woman at the Playboy House -Emily Ratajkowski unpacks how we can remove our sexuality from the male gaze -Dita Von Teese gives her take on nudity and building confidence in your body -Gillian Anderson chats about what she learnt from collecting essays on women’s fantasies -Miranda July explains why she included a particularly taboo fantasy in her novel All Fours -Florence Bark talks through how to get to know your own anatomy better, so you can properly lean into all that pleasure your body is capable of Listen to the full episodes here – Crystal Hefner https://pod.fo/e/21c59c Emily Ratajkowski https://pod.fo/e/14f0e9 Dita Von Teese https://pod.fo/e/2f6c61 Gillian Anderson https://pod.fo/e/26738b Miranda July https://pod.fo/e/27b9a0 Florence Bark https://pod.fo/e/17fbd0 Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service. Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:29Fearne Cotton?

  Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. July 31, did you know, is National Orgasm Day. So today, we're going to listen back to some of the conversations we've had on the show about female sexuality, fantasy, and obviously orgasms.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  What's really cool about our clitoris is that we have 10,000 nerve endings.

• 0:55Speaker 03

  I think that women talking to each other about sex is the only way that we can protect ourselves and also have better sex.

• 1:02Speaker 04

  Okay, they all have implants and they're all have sex appeal and they're dressing sexy. Like, okay, that's what you gotta do to be powerful.

• 1:10Speaker 05

  What makes one person feel empowered may make another person feel degraded. And I think the ultimate feminism is respecting each other's choices, even if it's not for you.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  If you actually take a moment and really do some deep breathing during masturbation, you'll be so surprised at the change in the pleasure capacity.

• 1:30Speaker 06

  To know two people have been that intimate and maybe I never will.

• 1:34Speaker 07

  There's a lot of women who talk about wanting their partner to see them for exactly who they are for the body that they have.

• 1:41Speaker 06

  Like, here we are on earth, it seems worthwhile to be so vulnerable.

• 1:49Fearne Cotton?

  Right, so we're gonna unapologetically look at female sexuality today and try to get stuck into some of the conversations around why we might have such a complicated relationship with our own desires and bodies, when really, we all deserve the space to express ourselves and feel pleasure completely uninhibited. Now, if like Me, you're in your mid 40s, you more than likely grew up in a time where, oh it's bloody complicated time. On one hand, you had sort of like pop stars who were really overly sexualised. So there was a lot of imagery of young people wearing very little, writhing around. There was a lot of lads mags with women with their tits out. But equally, we were sort of shamed

• 2:31Fearne Cotton?

  at the same time for whether it was just our bodies, being a body and having a body that looked a certain way, or whether it was expressing ourselves sexually. I think the sort of feminist chat came into this as well, that it was seen anti-feminist, to be overtly sexy and sexual. And I think, thank God, times have changed massively from maybe 10, 20 years ago. And now I think we're really embracing that feminism means so much more and that we should be able to enjoy our sexuality, express ourselves and dress ourselves however we deem fitting. Our bodies, I mean, there's maybe slightly more acceptance in different body shapes, thank goodness, and we're hopefully feeling

• 3:14Fearne Cotton?

  less shame or less insecurity when it comes to our female bodies. But I think we've obviously still got a long way to go. I think luckily with aging, a lot of that stuff seems to fall by the wayside. I certainly, in my mid 40s, feel so much better in my own skin, so much more comfort, and I'm so much more knowing about what gets me going, what makes me feel good. And that's why I think all of these chats are incredibly important. We need to get rid of shame. We've got no space for shame at all at Happy Place. We want it gone. I went through huge periods of feeling such shame about certain things in my life,

• 3:56Fearne Cotton?

  and it is an emotion that you drown in. It is a joy sapper. We want shame gone, especially from this conversation when it comes to sex, bodies, expressing yourself, and orgasms. And we also know there's still a huge gender orgasm gap that we need addressing as well. So that will happen within this little podcast montage. Let's talk about who we're going to hear from. We're going to be hearing from Crystal Hefner, first of all. She was Hugh Hefner's third wife. To get a sense of the type of female sexuality so many of us were sold growing up. Emily Ratajkowski begins to unpack how we can remove our sexuality from the male gaze.

• 4:37Fearne Cotton?

  And Dieter Von Teese picks up on that thought with her take on building confidence in your own body. Absolute legend Gillian Anderson chats about what she learnt from collecting essays on women's fantasies. And Miranda July explains why she included a particularly taboo fantasy in her novel All Fours, which was a bit of the book that I still talk about now. And then we'll wrap up all of these thoughts with some practical advice from sex educator Florence Bark on how to get to know your own anatomy better so you can properly lean in to all that pleasure your body is capable of.

• 5:19Speaker 08

  Because you didn't just say, how can I provide these investments? You'd be, how do I holistically provide everything? How do I bring in the legal, the accounting, all this? And do it at a price point no one else is doing it.

• 5:28Speaker 09

  Learn more about how we approach wealth management at creativeplanning.com/integrated.

• 5:35Speaker 10

  That's the sound of the Big Bang of country music. It was 1927, Bristol, Tennessee. The electric microphone meant producers could visit Appalachia and record folk songs for the first time. What they captured launched a genre. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect.

• 6:03Speaker 11

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• 6:36Fearne Cotton?

  Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

• 6:59Fearne Cotton?

  You say in the book that, growing up, you learned, maybe from various sources, that to survive, you needed to be appealing to men. Where was that messaging coming from?

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Well, when I was growing up, the celebrities at the time were Pam Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, Carmen Electra. So you're like, okay, they all have implants and they're all, you have sex appeal and they're dressing sexy. And like, okay, that's, that's what you gotta do to be powerful. That's what I assumed, is be appealing to the opposite sex. So yeah, I started on that journey. I thought that's what would make me happy or powerful.

• 7:39Fearne Cotton?

  And how do you feel about that today? Like, obviously, very beautiful and you like to have your hair a certain way and makeup. I'm the same. I love getting dressed up. I love wearing certain clothes and experimenting with different styles. There's still this murky debate where women can only be one thing. So you can't appear to be sexy and have a brain. You can't appear to be sexy and have an opinion about something. I think that still really stands. And there's many people that totally would disregard everything I've just said. I'm one of them. But I think that there is still this general consensus that how can a sexy woman have an opinion? Or how can a beautiful woman who wants to show off her body or dress in a certain way, have an opinion on anything?

• 8:24Fearne Cotton?

  How do you navigate that today?

• 8:27Speaker 04

  I think it's, it's hard and you're right. Like, it could be both. You know, I was coming to the UK and I called Benny. I'm like, Benny, I need hair and makeup and for, yes, I'm gonna be on camera. But as soon as I leave, I'm gonna get home and probably not wear makeup for two months. So it's, you can be both. And I do think more people are realising that, that you can be both. You can be blonde and intelligent.

• 8:55Fearne Cotton?

  How did the experience of living in the mansion, of having a relationship where there were huge conditions involved, well, rules, let's be blunt about it, around everything to do with how you operated, where you were, how much of your attention went on to your partner slash husband, sex, all of it was conditional. How has that affected how you think about relationships now and intimacy?

• 9:26Speaker 04

  I think that, I don't know, now I have to just feel very safe with somebody. And I was in a few relationships that were not very good. And now I'm in a relationship that's very happy and healthy. And I know that this person respects me and respects women, so I think that's very, very important.

• 9:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, safety seemed to come into it a lot, you know, you say even when you entered the mansion, realising that you were a permanent resident at the mansion when that moment happened, that you felt safe for the first time in ages. So I'm imagining that's something that you still seek, but in just very different ways.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, now, now I actually feel safe. There it was, was an illusion, just, you know, just like the mansion itself.

• 10:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  So strange.

• 10:16Fearne Cotton?

  How was it reflecting on everything in the book? I mean, you go into great detail in all areas. Was it liberating? Was it a painful experience to go back there?

• 10:26Speaker 04

  I think it was liberating. It was hard to talk about sex and death, but I think it had to be in there because it's a big part of the story. And yeah, it's liberating and I'm, I'm very happy. And, you know, I was quiet for so long and so I appreciate getting the story out there.

• 10:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. Do you feel any guilt around speaking the truth now?

• 10:48Speaker 04

  No, I do see old photos of Hef and I and I think, oh, that was when I didn't know any better. But I don't, I don't have guilt anymore.

• 10:59Fearne Cotton?

  None, it's gone.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  No.

• 11:02Fearne Cotton?

  It's a good thing. It's freeing.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:04Fearne Cotton?

  You don't want to lug that around.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's nice to to talk about it and be able to be honest finally.

• 11:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. I mean, I guess times have changed so hugely in terms of even ten years ago, but certainly looking back twenty years ago, how Playboy had a place in culture, such a prominent place in culture, and how women were seen, has changed so hugely. It does feel like what you've documented is that shift. You lived through that entire shift of the demise of it, and it, you know, I mean, it still exists, but you've explicitly said it's not what we think it is.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's definitely not. It was Hugh Hefner's Playboy, and beauty is subjective, and he would only put in certain people in the magazine. And it was Hef's world. And I do think and still wonder, like, did he hurt things by creating that magazine, or did he help? He supposedly thought he helped with freedom and expression, but maybe he hurt the world a little bit, too.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  I think that women talking to each other about sex is the only way that we can protect ourselves and also have better sex and just change a lot of the, you know, things that happen with women around sex, like, just just make it more enjoyable for women. So I do think, you know, there is a taboo, but I think it's super important that we we change that.

• 12:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, I was listening to the stats that you were discussing around women having orgasms and it being very, very low.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, seven per I brought this damn statistic up so many times.

• 12:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  And what's funny is I had a dinner with like five of my girlfriends, and they were like, oh, my God, only seven percent of the time that a woman, first time she hooks up with a guy, has an orgasm, only seven percent of the time. And one of my friends was like, those women are lying.

• 13:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's literally a no percent job.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  He was like, no, it's it's lower than seven percent. And I was like, oh, my God, wow. So it was just so bleak. It's so bleak.

• 13:11Fearne Cotton?

  It's so bleak, but you're right. You know, we need to talk about it and have really healthy conversation about it. And I was I was so, so excited to talk to you today for many reasons. But your book, My Body, which I have a right here.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Oh, nice. You've got the paperback, too. Great.

• 13:26Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, I I loved reading this book and it, oh, my God. I mean, it made me sit and think about so many things that have happened in my own life and it made me really consider, I guess, my own body, but also all of the misinformed assumptions I've made about the female body and the judgment that I still have that I need. I want all of it to just like rise to the surface. And your book was certainly a catalyst for a lot of that. And I think.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Oh, that makes me so happy.

• 13:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, I had certainly one personal conclusion, which was that I'm obsessed with the female body, but equally as sort of terrified of it at the same time. And that's that's something I've been mulling over a lot. And I think it's informed a lot of how I've acted over the years and how I've expressed myself. So say in my twenties, I did what's called over here a lads mag. So it's basically like you do a sexy shoe. You're wearing like a PVC outfit and then, you know, men read the magazine. And I've now in my forties, looked back and I've sort of spoken openly and said, oh, yeah, I've got, you know, regret about that, or I felt shame. And then I, after reading your book, I thought,

• 14:43Fearne Cotton?

  but but do I? Or do I just think that I should say that? You know, do I actually feel that bothered about having done that? And I don't, I don't think I do.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Huh, that's so interesting. I'm definitely obsessed with this kind of idea of. Being, you know, you both obviously feel the pressure to, you know, or this is the world we live in where you are objectified. You, you know, do, you're sexualized at maybe very young, even if you're a woman who's, you know, done a bunch of amazing journalistic work, like there is kind of this push to be also hot and celebrated in that way. And then on the other side of it, there's this sort of shaming that comes with it of like, well, now nobody's going to take you seriously because, you know, you're a slut, quote unquote. Or even from feminists, I think that there's this feeling of like, well, now you've, you've played into the male gaze. So therefore you're not progressive, you're not helping women.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  And, you know, that's really what the book is kind of dealing with, because that's been my experience even before I was a model or in the public spotlight. Just, you know, as a 13 year old, getting dressed and kind of like having a new body and having a woman's body for the first time. And feeling the attention from men when I dressed a certain way. Um, also like feeling afraid because of the attention, also feeling validated because of the attention. Then, you know, having teachers snap my bra strap and feeling like I was typecast in a certain way because of, you know, the, the way I was presenting myself. So it's complicated and I think it's something, um, we just get it from all sides, really.

• 16:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. And, you know, is there a conclusion? Cause I think that's the question that I kept asking myself when I was reading your book is, but wait, can a woman, and I, and I want the answer to be yes, as a feminist, but can, can a woman show her sexiness? Can she express her sexual desires, dress in an overtly sexy way and be listened to and be taken seriously? And be respected? I, I don't know if that is true in the day and age that we're in today. I think surely as feminists, which I'm sure most women would a, align with the ethos of being a feminist. It's all about doing what makes you feel good.

• 16:55Fearne Cotton?

  And of course, if you're, you know, looking into these subject matters and, and we can all predict that somebody might say, you know, you're not being progressive by showing your body or whatever it might be. But that depends on surely where the control lies. But also there's assumptions afoot there because what if you're not, you know, getting your boobs out or wearing something sexy for men? What if you're doing it because it makes you feel good? It's about you, it's about you expressing your. Your sexuality and your desire. So I think there are just so many layers of assumption that need to be removed.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  It's hard because I do think sometimes the reason that those things make us feel good is because of the culture that we live in that is, you know, really defined by males desires and, and, you know, what it looks good and whatever. But yeah, ultimately, I mean, my goal for women is for them to feel unburdened and happy and free to make choices. So, you know, when you have to kind of think about not only how you're going to be judged and perceived by men and written off and whatever else, but then also think about whether or not, you know, your personal decisions are politically progressive for women, like it's exhausting. And I, I do think that there's a younger generation who

• 18:17Speaker 03

  just isn't concerned about this, you know, like they're, they've surpassed this and, you know, a woman can have an OnlyFans even and be a feminist. I mean, I think even if you're choosing not to be sexual or not sexualize yourself or self-objectify, or, I mean, there's a million different ways that one could describe this sort of expression as. You're still responding to what women deal with, right? There's this amazing Margaret Atwood quote that I'm going to butcher right now, where she says, like, everything, everything we do is a response to sort of like the patriarchy essentially. So even deciding to cover your body and to present yourself a certain way is still responding to men.

• 19:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  So like, when are we going to be free?

• 19:03Fearne Cotton?

  I know. Well, I was blinded.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  And I do feel that way.

• 19:06Fearne Cotton?

  I was blinded to that. I, I had, I didn't realize that until I read your book. And I was like, oh, no, no, I'm, I'm, I am still reacting to that. And, and often in ways that feel impossible to articulate. And it's, it's really disempowering feeling. And, and my producer and I were talking about this before we logged on to speak to you today, Emily, because, I mean, I, I have very small boobs. I have a flat ass, flat tits, flat ass. Producer Anushka. Doesn't have very big boobs. But we were talking about friends of ours, women that we know, who just happen to have boobs. They just happen to have boobs, they just happen to have hips. They could be wearing any type of clothing, but they have that sort of desirable, female,

• 19:49Fearne Cotton?

  beautiful body that you would assume men would then stare at the boobs, stare at the balm, make a comment, whistle, and it's like, that's just their body. They just, any clothes are going to accentuate. If you've got big boobs and you've got hips and that sort of classic silhouette that we're so bombarded with, and that, you're so disempowered in that moment, you're completely out of control. And then I think that's where people then start to hook into shame, self-loathing, wanting to cover up, hide their body, because it all, it seems to all boil down to, to control.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  I mean, I think whether or not you have a body like that, I mean, my friends, it, first of all, nobody feels like they have the ideal body. I mean, that's just, that's the truth. You, as a woman, you're critical of yourself. But, I mean, so you both, I think women in general, no matter what you look like, you feel like, okay, here are these things that I know can be sexualized about me, like this element, that element, whatever. And then on the other side, you know, like, I hate all these things about myself. And I don't know, I just, yes, of course, those women in that particular, but I feel like all of my friends, no matter their size or shape, experienced this in some ways.

• 21:04Fearne Cotton?

  Stripping is such an interesting topic because everybody is quite a punchy subject to talk about. And some people see it as empowering, you know, artistic, beautiful. Others will see it as degrading, sleazy, whatever. You know, obviously your take on it is going to be positive because you've dedicated a part of your life to it and it's evolved into something very beautiful. But how, how do you feel about the whole topic?

• 21:28Speaker 05

  I mean, you know, having like started in a certain era and it being one thing, like when I first started, for sure, like I was a Playboy model, I was like a fetish queen and like. I had a lot of male followers, you know, and then when I wrote my first book, it really shifted because I wrote a lot about why I love glamour and what it makes me feel for my confidence. And, you know, so my first book really like flicked the switch on women following me. And certainly, I think, I think, um, I mean, I think about striptease. You know, I, I know that, you know, my understanding of striptease and its history, especially in America,

• 22:08Speaker 05

  the burlesque show, which was like American burlesque, like that idea of deliberately stripping to music with a band or, you know, it on a big stage is like soup, it's an American thing.

• 22:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 05

  And, um, I, you know, like I think about Gypsy Rose Lee and Lily St. Seere and Sally Rand and all these like ladies. And so I have a different connotation for it or a different context and knowing the history. But I can understand if somebody doesn't really know that there's a history behind it. But I do think it's like, it's like art, you know, like you can look at a painting on the wall and be like, it's ugly. It's beautiful and everyone's going to have a different way of looking at it. So what makes one person feel empowered may make another person feel degraded. And I think the ultimate feminism is respecting each other's choices, even if it's not for you.

• 22:57Fearne Cotton?

  Hey, hey.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  And also like I've watched, like I've listened to people talk about what I do. And it's like, if you haven't been to the show, sit down and shut up because like it's eighty five percent female in the audience. And the dudes that are in the audience, they're either gay.

• 23:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 05

  They're like, what am I at? They're, they're there with their wife was like, she wanted tickets, you know? I don't understand why she wants to, you know, why does she want to come to a show like this? And then I have a stack of letters from men who are like, listen, I didn't know what this was. And we got there and the curtains opened and for some reason my girlfriend is just like tearing up about like this space you've created.

• 23:33Fearne Cotton?

  And I think, you know, that's exactly what you've done. You have created this space in this world where women want a bit of that. I think most women and certainly women, you know, sort of our age, want to feel good in their skin, confident. They want to feel sexy as well. And I think that's a really interesting one is sexiness because I guess like the drudgery of mundanity of everyday life that we can all slip into of, you know, going to work or whatever, going to the supermarket. You don't necessarily feel that sexy. I mean, I'm generalizing, but I think many women just feel like. That maybe slightly wanes as you get older. You might not feel as sexy as you did in your twenties or whatever. It's it's

• 24:15Speaker 05

  Or you feel more sexy, but now you don't. Now you know how to handle your sexuality.

• 24:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 05

  It's important for me. Like, I see role models of like, beauty and sensuality of women that are older than me. And it means something to me. So it was like a point where I was kind of like, I gotta walk the walk. Like, if I'm going to say, if I'm gonna believe that we should all be, if I want to see other women be sexy and embrace their sensuality so they can inspire me, I have to do the same. I have to be willing to do the same thing. And it's not always like that easy, you know. But, you know, I think that it's important. It's important for me. And I think, you know, it's one of the reasons people keep coming to the show.

• 24:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, completely. I mean, what do you do if you're not feeling sexy? What makes you feel confident? What makes you feel good? What gets you on that stage?

• 25:02Speaker 05

  Well, a lot of it is like controlling the circumstances, right? Like, you know, I am creating a show where it's like, I'm wearing what I feel good in. I'm wearing the makeup that I like. I'm got the lights are all, you know, built for glamour. And you can kind of, you can do the same thing around your house, too.

• 25:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 05

  The only problem is as soon as you leave, you're sort of like, oh, boy, I thought I looked good and now I'm in this lighting. But, you know, I love like all these, like, having all these like colorful lights that I can put dim or high or, you know, lamps everywhere, like thinking of ways to make your like, space feel like sexy. You know, I push a button. It's like, oh, sexy lighting.

• 25:36Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, you've got sexy lighting in the house.

• 25:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know all those like, lights you can program with colors.

• 25:40Fearne Cotton?

  I've got a lot of lamps, but I don't have a sexy light. I need to do that.

• 25:43Speaker 05

  Well, you have to put like these smart light bulbs in your lamp. So you can be like, I'm gonna put some like, pink light.

• 25:48Fearne Cotton?

  Pink, yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 05

  You do lavender. I'm gonna put some blue light. Ooh, I'm gonna put some red light. So I have those everywhere so that I can like make it, or joyful for a party.

• 25:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. And it's for you. It's for you to feel good about yourself.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  I love it.

• 25:59Fearne Cotton?

  That's also the shift, isn't it? Is rather than going, this is for the male gaze, or anyone else's gaze, quite frankly. This is for me to feel good about myself.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  I mean, it all has to start there. Like, it did for me. It's like, certainly did for me because I, when I was like, you know, in my twenties trying to figure it out, I certainly could have like pandered and I You know, there was definitely points where I was trying to, you know, audition for, be in Playboy magazine. They're like, "You do not look like a Playboy girl." And I was like, "So, that's why you should have me there." And it was very like, "I'm just gonna stick with what I am." I always thought there was a value in being a little bit different, so. Yeah. And I think people, it's easy to forget that.

• 26:43Speaker 08

  Because you didn't just say, "How can I provide these investments?" You'd be, "How do I holistically provide everything? How do I bring in the legal, the accounting, all this? And do it at a price point no one else is doing it."

• 26:51Speaker 09

  Learn more about how we approach wealth management at creativeplanning.com/integrated.

• 26:56Speaker 11

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 27:28Speaker 12

  It's time. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween!

• 27:36Speaker 13

  And you guys know we don't do Halloween by halves. Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat. And I'm the chef. It's our Ratatouille special. Ben, we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches.

• 27:49Speaker 13

  We've got a spooky hotline caller. An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert. And your tarot card dilemmas. Listen to our Halloween specials. Search for The Girls Bathroom.

• 28:05Fearne Cotton?

  Right, let's get immersed in some fantasies then. Here's Gillian Anderson, Miranda July, and Florence Bark.

• 28:13Speaker 07

  There's something, I think, very interesting about the freedom that anonymity enabled the women to write with because they are very, very honest, very detailed, raw, sexy.

• 28:29Fearne Cotton?

  They're so sexy.

• 28:30Speaker 07

  They are sad. There are some are sad, very moving. There's a lot more. Tenderness than I would have expected somehow, that may be just me. Women wanting to be seen for who they actually are. There's a lot of women who talk about wanting the person that they're having sex with, their partner, to see them for exactly who they are, for the body that they have. And that that is what they want, that that's what's being desired. There's a lot more shame than I would have expected for twenty twenty four.

• 29:07Speaker 07

  And to me, I was surprised how challenging women still find the topic of sex, fantasy and pleasure in discussing with sexual partners.

• 29:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 29:25Speaker 07

  How difficult they still find it to ask for what they want in the bedroom, which I have to imagine equates to asking for what one wants in life, even though it's more taboo to, you know, there's certain, you know, getting to a place where you feel confident to ask for your sexual needs to be met. I, you know, there's, there's a real power that happens in the alchemy of that assertion. And I, I do wonder whether, if we felt freer to assert ourselves in that, in that private intimate way, whether it would be easier to, to

• 30:07Speaker 07

  ask for what we want and we need in our everyday lives.

• 30:11Fearne Cotton?

  Pleasure is such an interesting one because I guess there's just so many different sides to that conversation. When it comes to women, like, some of it might be, we don't believe we deserve it. We haven't been told that it's even an option.

• 30:25Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 30:26Fearne Cotton?

  And I think that counts for when we're talking about sex, but also outside of sex. We're just like, we deprive ourselves constantly. We don't think we're deserving or we think that it's very, very far down the list of priorities. And maybe also, like you say, all the things that you've listed, whether it's porn and how that's, you know, through the male lens,

• 30:45Fearne Cotton?

  or just the lack of equality that we still see in the world in terms of sort of power distribution and who's ruling the world, that women still don't feel they can exercise their right to say, I'd quite like to enjoy this, please.

• 30:57Speaker 07

  Well, it's very much trivialized. Pleasure's trivialized or something that is, you know, as much a dirty word as anything else. When, actually, when you lean into pleasure, whether it's pleasure around sex or pleasure in other areas of our lives, there's so much joy that can come from experiencing that or, you know, embracing it, encouraging it in our, our lives, our conversation and, and everything.

• 31:23Fearne Cotton?

  I realise, reading this, there is a huge divide between fantasy and actual desire. And I don't think I'd ever given that a thought before reading this book. There are many circumstances, and definitely with my own sexual fantasies, where it's something that can really get the juices going and get you feeling great, but you would never want it to happen in real life. And that, to me, is fascinating.

• 31:46Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 31:47Fearne Cotton?

  I wonder how much you believe these fantasies tell us about the individual, bearing that in mind, because sometimes they are so out of this world, so unrelated to real life, that actually, do they say anything at all about who we are as people?

• 32:03Speaker 07

  I think that's a very good question. And I don't know the answer to that. I don't know where, for instance, the alien tentacle fantasy comes from and what that has to do with the childhood of the woman who...

• 32:15Fearne Cotton?

  The doorknob.

• 32:15Speaker 07

  You know, who knows? And again, I'm not a therapist, but I can't help but be curious about those things and want to ask those questions. But I think what this does, what the book does, is it starts the conversation, starts people asking themselves what it is, not only what are their fantasies? If I were to have a fantasy, what would it be? Is that something, do I actually want that to happen? Is there any element of that, that I would actually want that to happen? Is that what actually happens in my, said, oh, I've never thought about that. So my fantasy is about, you know, having sex with 15 people all doing this particular thing to me, that, do I even have that experience of one person doing that to me?

• 32:59Speaker 07

  Well, maybe I should try and find somebody who wants me to do that to me. I don't know what it is.

• 33:05Fearne Cotton?

  It's so interesting.

• 33:07Speaker 07

  It is. It says so much about, I think we get, you know, there's a lot of, I think we can find out a lot about ourselves. And also potentially, if you're open to having conversation with your partner, a lot about your partner.

• 33:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that's, that's an interesting one, isn't it? If that, if it becomes, you know, something that isn't so private, because I guess the tantalising nature of sexual fantasies is that, is that they're so secret, they're so private.

• 33:34Fearne Cotton?

  And you've obviously submitted your own anonymous fantasy within the pages of this book. Did you find, or do you think that the other contributors will have found that their fantasies slightly diluted from just even putting pen to paper, fingers to laptop? Or is it still, has it still got that amazing titillating nature, even though you've written it down?

• 33:56Speaker 07

  That's a very good question. I have to say, from my own experience, nothing has changed since I wrote it down. I did find it hard to write down. I did, I was surprised. I assumed, because I find it so easy to talk about, and, I mean, not specifically my fantasy, but sex in general, and I can, I feel like I can hear and discuss anything and not be swayed. And so, one, I put it off for a long time. And then, once I started, I, there were certain words that I struggled to write, which was so weird to me. I was actually, like, I was shocked. I was shocked at myself.

• 34:41Fearne Cotton?

  And what was the feeling, like embarrassment?

• 34:44Speaker 07

  No, it wasn't. It somehow, somehow it felt, when trying to describe things, that normally is just an imagery.

• 34:54Fearne Cotton?

  Mmm.

• 34:56Speaker 07

  It's actually putting a word to something, and then the word equating to, what other word from that, is there than that for me to use it? Because that word, I don't like that word. That word feels, it's dirty, or it takes something away from the, or it doesn't, it's not right. It's, it felt, it almost felt like I was writing smut, rather than my...

• 35:22Fearne Cotton?

  One of the most interesting bits that me and many of my friends have discussed is the tampon moment. And again, it was so interesting because it broke down so many barriers that we experience when it comes to menstruating, and that we've been conditioned to feel a level of shame about it, that it's all going to be extremely secretive, and it's this sort of... Weird little dirty thing that happens once a month that we have to conceal from the outside world. And the fact that you brought that into this sort of hot and loaded moment was just astonishing. And it kind of once again was quite confronting for me

• 36:03Fearne Cotton?

  to read because I was like, this is so sexy. But why was my initial reaction like, oh my God, what, what's going, what, he's taking a tampon out? And I, and I think when me and my friends were discussing it, it's the level of intimacy that makes it so incredible that you know, the protagonist has never let anybody remove a tampon before for her. That hasn't happened. So although there wasn't any sort of like hot sex, like, you know, they're both fully clothed apart from her having her trousers down, you know, to take the tampon out. There's something so incredibly sort of sensual about it, as well as it being

• 36:43Fearne Cotton?

  really hot. How did that idea come to you? And why did that, because I'm sure there were moments where, you know, as well as addressing menopause and perimenopause, you want to look at the shame we feel around periods and menstruating and how to sort of break down those barriers.

• 37:02Speaker 06

  Yeah. You know, um, I read a, okay. So the book, Call Me By Your Name, not the movie, but in the book, or maybe, maybe there were two books and it was in the second one. There's a scene where it's these two men in love and there's a scene where one of the men, young, the younger guy is taking a shit and the, and the other guy, his lover, just puts his hand on his stomach while he's doing that and feels, and it's like,

• 37:44Speaker 06

  feels what's happening. And it's, and I could imagine, like, anyways, I'll just say, when I read that, I felt really sad. I was like,

• 37:57Speaker 06

  That's, it's not that I exactly want to do that. It's just to know two people have been that intimate. And maybe I never will. Like, will I?

• 38:10Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 38:11Speaker 06

  Um, well, I, like, here we are on earth. It seems like worthwhile to be so vulnerable. You know, and we have these bodies and, and to only interact in certain ways, you know? So that I've, I'd had lived with that for a while and just, in fact, I'd talked about it with a few people. Like that, that book would come up and we'd be like, oh, wait, not the movie, but in the book, there's the scene. And they'd go, yeah, yeah. And it was the same, like sadness, you know, erotic and there's, yeah, but, but.

• 38:54Speaker 06

  And, and so I think I just, not super consciously, like by the time I'd, um, was writing my tampon scene, I think I'd kind of forgotten that book. I didn't, um, but I've since remembered like, oh, this is my version of that. Like something where they're so close in a way that you never thought and never even wanted. But now that it's happening, you can feel how alone you've been your whole life. Alone with your period, alone with the, the sort of ugliness around what the body does or shame, you know?

• 39:35Speaker 06

  And to have someone just right there with you, that to me seemed like, well, if we're writing fantasy, you know, essentially like when you're writing sex, like that's, I wanted to go all the way into the fantasy. It's not just like, he just fucks her, you know? It's like, um, to access, yeah, that, that, that longing.

• 40:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that's why I love that part one of the book so much because every sex scene that I've ever read in fiction specifically, I feel like they're all getting so the same these days, like the same sort of languages used, like stuff that makes me feel a bit.

• 40:20Fearne Cotton?

  A bit like cringey, I don't know, it doesn't feel sexy to me anymore because I've read all the same phrases. It's like, like he touched her sex or he pushed this into there and it's all just like, oh, I don't know, that's not really doing it for me. Whereas this, I was just, I don't know, it was just sort of overwhelmingly tantalising and amazing and it's just so clever how you've articulated it.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  What's really cool about our clitoris is that we have 10,000 nerve endings in it compared to men who only have 6,000.

• 40:59Fearne Cotton?

  So why do, because I love that fact in the book, why do so many women still have real trouble having an orgasm, probably more during sex, if we have thousands more nerve endings down there?

• 41:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the clitoris is what's under your little hood at the top and quite often during sex, we won't incorporate that. Um, even though that's where we feel most of our pleasure. And if you don't know about your anatomy, then you're not really gonna know which parts are the pleasurable parts, which, which one has all the nerve endings. The clitoris is this really cool thing and it kind of looks like a little wishbone. I wish I could like show a little diagram or a picture right now.

• 41:43Fearne Cotton?

  We'll put a picture on Instagram. I can tell Amelia's already Googling something as we speak. Drawing a picture in a notepad.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  And this is the thing that holds all this pleasure. So if you then know what that is and what it looks like, you can kind of navigate, okay, well, then maybe if during sex, we incorporated a sex toy, like a vibrator on the clit, or if you, if you position maybe a pillow underneath. Where you're having sex, then the clitoris will be tilted up in that way, where your G-spot is, which is a kind of like, that's a weird subject in the space, because some people are like, the G-spot doesn't exist, it's a myth. And other people very much believe in it. But all we really do know is that the clitoris does exist, and this is where the pleasure is.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  And because you have the parts that kind of go down around the side as well, and you've got bits that are inside behind, that could be the G-spot. And that's the bit that you need to pleasure. But it's just learning about yourself. Actually, someone came on our podcast a very long time ago and said that they had almost like a sex education session with their partner.

• 42:59Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  With one of their partners. And they would sit naked together and just explore their bodies and explore like what parts felt good. And I was like, that's what we should all be doing.

• 43:10Fearne Cotton?

  That's very sensible, isn't it? It's a very sensible idea.

• 43:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's fun.

• 43:14Fearne Cotton?

  And fun, sensible and fun. That doesn't happen very often.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  And it feels good, too.

• 43:19Fearne Cotton?

  It's so good. I always wonder with the female and male anatomy, with that sort of fear of, especially when you're younger, inserting a tampon or anything going inside.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:32Fearne Cotton?

  Because male sexual organs are all on the outside. It obviously is a very different experience. And I think anything in the body, to me personally, feels very emotional. There's a real emotional attachment and an emotional, it's very hard to articulate, but an emotional feeling. I think that a lot of the time, there's fear there.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:53Fearne Cotton?

  And when we look at stress and tension, physical tension, when we're tense and stressed, our muscles are contracted. And that's something else that we don't talk about, that we need to be relaxed to feel pleasure. We need to physically and mentally be relaxed. And that's something else that you touch on in the book, is that, okay, we can cover all the physical side of things, we can look at the anatomy, we can look at what does what. But actually, our minds are such an important part of this whole process, whether it's to do with sex or masturbating.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, we need to be in the right mindset for it. And there's so many things you can do for that as well. I think there's a lot about like setting, setting the mood and making sure you're actually like. You know, taking a little step away from the stress in your life, like maybe making sure you don't have like, you know, loads of tasks hanging over you just before you're like, okay, like, I'm gonna like slot this in to a really already busy day, like, that's not gonna work. You need to like make sure that you have the time and you're not stressing about the outside world to really enjoy your inside world. And, you know, there's, there's so many things that you can get involved, like, I don't know, putting some like relaxing music on

• 45:08Speaker 02

  or lighting your favorite candles, or maybe you're doing it in a bath because you can touch yourself in the bath. I've touched myself in the bath many times and it's a great place to do it because it's a super relaxing place. But yeah, we get, we get a lot in our heads about sex and I think male, male pleasure and female pleasure is very different in that way. Like, I think men could probably orgasm from just doing the action and women can't. We need to really focus. I mean, I'm sure we've all had that moment during sex. You're just about to orgasm and suddenly something happens and it completely distracts you

• 45:48Speaker 02

  and you have to start all the way from the beginning again. And that's because our minds are in charge of our pleasure. So in that case, we need to practice, I guess. And I think that's what kind of my book is encouraging as well is just like, just start taking some time and it's okay if it doesn't work out at the beginning.

• 46:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:08Speaker 02

  Just take a little chill and.

• 46:10Fearne Cotton?

  But that's why the stories, the meditations are good because your mind is then focused on something and you're, you're involved in the story and you're letting your mind go there rather than, oh my god, I need to go to the supermarket because we have no milk for tomorrow. Or whatever bullshit your head's, you know, moving towards is actually. Making sure that you prioritise your headspace and where your head's at before you, if it's sex or masturbating, that your head is in the right space. It's so important. And another thing, which is a very wellbeing thing to talk about, and we've spent loads of time talking about it on this very podcast, is breathing. And I don't think I've ever heard breathwork being used within this conversation. So how is that helping us?

• 46:54Speaker 02

  This is actually game changing because I think a lot of us have sort of learnt, maybe from porn as well, that you hold your breath or it's short, sharp breaths for sex. But if you actually take a moment and really do some deep breathing during masturbation, you'll be so surprised at the change in the pleasure capacity. I like to put some of my hands on my lower stomach to really like focus in. And you want to take a deep breath through your nose or your mouth and just like, almost like bring the breath up to the top of your head and then back down again. And if you're touching yourself, you will

• 47:35Speaker 02

  feel the pleasure kind of like grow and expand when you're breathing. I guess it's like when you get really lost in like a good sex session with a partner and you're like, no one cares what they look like or what they sound like anymore. And it's just all this like deep animalistic breathing. And it's like, yeah, you're fully in your body. And I think breathing is the way that we can really connect with ourselves. I mean, we all know how incredible breathwork is. It's really, really life changing.

• 48:06Fearne Cotton?

  I mean Florence, with just so many good, very simple, practical tips. I love that episode so much. So there you go, gang. Changing the way you breathe could make all the difference to your orgasms. I'll leave you with that one. We can all do it. We can all breathe. There'll be links in the show notes to all the full episodes you heard, snippets of today, if you fancy going back and listening to them fully. All right, back here in just a few days with an episode we've recorded live at the Happy Place Festival in Gunnersbury Park. It's a very funny one, I'll tell you that much. In the meantime, a massive thanks to all the women you heard from today, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, and to you, I love ya.

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• 50:32Speaker 12

  It's time. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Halloween.

• 50:40Speaker 13

  And you guys know we don't do Halloween by halves. Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat. And I'm the chef. It's our Ratatouille special. Then we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches. We've got a spooky hotline caller. An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert. And your tarot card dilemmas. Listen to our Halloween specials, search for The Girl's Bathroom.