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- [00:01]
Emily Nagoski
I want you to think about your day so far. You woke up and then what? Maybe you took a shower and paused for a moment to savor the sensation of warm water on your shoulders. Maybe you bit into a carrot and it was like you had never tasted a carrot before. An astonishment of crunch and sweet and earth and rain. Maybe you were waiting in line somewhere and a song came on that just happened to be exactly the song that captured your current mood and in that moment you felt like the whole universe had your back. This is pleasure.
- [00:52]
Mo Labord
Oh my God. I mean, so many things are pleasurable. Honestly, just laying down with my boyfriend in bed, listening to music I love.
- [01:03]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Asmr, at the beach, at the park, reading a book, just being in nature.
- [01:08]
Emily Nagoski
Making ceramics or cooking or painting my.
- [01:11]
Mo Labord
Nails and doing face masks. Like pampering myself.
- [01:17]
Emily Nagoski
What if every choice you made about your sexuality was about following that feeling? That feeling of yes, I'm Emily Nagoski. I've been a sex educator for over 25 years. I'm the author of two best selling books, Come as yous Are and Burnout and my purpose in life is to help people live with confidence and joy in their bodies. And this is the Come as you are podcast where I answer your questions about sex with science.
- [02:02]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Hi Emily.
- [02:03]
Emily Nagoski
Hi there. Hi Emily, I'm calling because I have a question for you.
- [02:08]
Caller 1
I have a question regarding sex drive, orgasm, how can I increase my spontaneous desire again? So I'm just a little confused on that and I kind of want your advice. I would love some help.
- [02:23]
Emily Nagoski
I get questions every day from people all around the world and their amazing important questions that deserve great evidence based answers. So that is what I'm going to be doing on this podcast. Every episode I'll answer your questions and bust myths and misconceptions about sexual but before we even get into talking about sex, we first need to talk about pleasure. Whether you're having sex with yourself, with partners, or not having any sex at all, finding your genuine pleasure is the bedrock of everything I'll be talking about on this show and it's relevant to everybody. In my quarter century as a sex educator, everything I've learned can be summarized in one statement. Pleasure is the measure. Pleasure is the measure of sexual well being. It's not about how much you crave sex, how often you have it, or who you do it with, or where, or in what position, or even how many orgasms you have. It's whether or not you like the sex you are having, whether it's genuinely pleasurable to you and you can only get to pleasure if you know what pleasure feels like for you in many different contexts and if you practice accessing it and you may be saying, Emily, how am I supposed to remember what pleasure feels like in this post Roe capitalist hellscape where our democracy is failing and we're teetering on the edge of climate crisis and totalitarianism? Good question. It's a question I've been asking myself over the past few years. No surprise. And to answer it, I've had to get really specific about what pleasure is and how to practice it. I've had to relearn my own pleasure pathways and reconnect to pleasures small and large in my own life. To help introduce the life changing exercise of pleasure, I've asked for help from a pleasure activist, writer and organizer Adrienne Maree Brown.
- [04:39]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Pleasure. It's not something that just happens to you in the same way. Like no one's ever just going to ride in on a white horse and scoop you up and take you off to Loveland. You know, Pleasure is a practice.
- [04:51]
Emily Nagoski
Adrian's written half a dozen books, including this gorgeous REM dream of a book called Pleasure Activism. My copy is highlighted, written all over and filled with page markers. It is a practical and poetic guide to accessing greater pleasure.
- [05:13]
Caller 2
You ask in Pleasure Activism for readers to consider who taught you to feel good.
- [05:19]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Yes, what Pleasure Activism really is is reclaiming our right to have pleasure and contentment from the myths of supremacy and oppression. And for Pleasure Activism, the lineage is really Audre Lorde, who was a black feminist poet and organizer. In 1978 she published this essay called the Uses of the Erotic as Power and same thing. She really talked about what it means to be satisfiable and satisfied.
- [05:49]
Emily Nagoski
Audre Lorde is the origin story of understanding the connection between pleasure and social revolution. I could spend hours talking about her.
- [06:00]
Caller 2
Work, but I'm just gonna say if.
- [06:02]
Caller 3
You haven't read it, or honestly, even if you have, the Uses of the erotic is on YouTube read by Audre Lorde herself. After you listen to this episode, take a break and give yourself a gift. Sit outside or lay in bed with your eyes closed and listen to Audrey's powerful message. She has the best definition of erotic.
- [06:30]
Emily Nagoski
That I've ever heard.
- [06:34]
Audre Lorde
The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos and power of our deepest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire once we.
- [06:54]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Actually experience true erotic awakening. True. Yes, true. Living our lives to A full yes. It becomes impossible to settle for suffering.
- [07:04]
Audre Lorde
In touch with the erotic. I become less willing to accept powerlessness or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, stagnation, despair, self effacement, depression, self denial.
- [07:22]
Adrienne Maree Brown
It feels like she gave us this key that's like, oh, if you have experienced oppression or if you're experiencing oppression, part of what's been taken from you is the idea that you could be satisfied in this lifetime and that you could have contentment and small pleasures. There's so much about being a body in this world that trauma happens and life happens and oppression happens, and then you reclaim yourself. And what does that mean?
- [07:52]
Caller 2
That essay, of course, is extremely important to anybody who does this kind of work, including me. I quote it extensively. And one of the most powerful things for me is the idea that erotic is not sexual. Erotic isn't even necessarily pleasure itself. It is aliveness. It's aliveness as someone who is in the process of menopause, aging and disability and chronic pain, recognizing that the discomforts of my body, when I can turn toward those with kindness and compassion, patience and a welcoming that acknowledges their passage through me, it increases my sense of like, I'm alive. That sensation is there because I am alive. Which is really good practice for me to recognize pleasure when it comes. That's right, to recognize its passage through me.
- [08:46]
Adrienne Maree Brown
It's my aliveness.
- [08:51]
Emily Nagoski
More after the break. I'm Emily Nagoski and this is the very first episode of the Come as yous Are podcast. It's a prelude, an introduction to the moment. Important concept of pleasure. I know a lot about the science of sexual well being, but science has its limits. In fact, the science of pleasure is very limited. Sometimes the thing that really helps us to connect to our sexuality, our aliveness, is not science, it's poetry. And that's Adrian's specialty.
- [09:45]
Caller 2
I believe in the power of science. I think it's going to be a necessary part of how we make the world a better place. And also the distance science has gotten me as a sex educator is pleasure is the measure of sexual well being. It's not how often you do it or who with, or even how many orgasms you have. It's whether or not you enjoy the sex you are having, but you get all the way to pleasure is freedom.
- [10:09]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Yes.
- [10:09]
Caller 2
Pleasure is the measure of freedom.
- [10:11]
Adrienne Maree Brown
That's right.
- [10:12]
Caller 2
Which is such a more expansive vision.
- [10:14]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Yeah, well, I mean, it's related, right? It's all related. So freedom is what my orientation is as A black liberation oriented person, right. That I'm like, I was born into a context in which my freedom was curtailed. My freedom was like, I knew that I should be freer than I was allowed to be. And both in race, but also in sexuality, in gender, and all these other ways. You know, like, I was like, hold up. I can feel inside myself a different reality than what the world is telling me.
- [10:53]
Emily Nagoski
Even though my job is teaching people how to find pleasure themselves, I sometimes struggle to practice pleasure myself. Too often I fall into the trap of centering my life around productivity, or what Audre Lorde refers to in Uses of the erotic as a travesty of necessities.
- [11:14]
Audre Lorde
The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need.
- [11:27]
Emily Nagoski
Need.
- [11:28]
Audre Lorde
The principal horror of any such system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, its erotic power, its erotic life appeal and fulfillment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities.
- [11:45]
Emily Nagoski
My producer Mo taught me the term chorgasm. It apparently describes the feeling you get when you cross the last thing off your to do list. Chorgasm can admittedly feel great.
- [11:57]
Caller 2
And we live in a world that.
- [11:59]
Emily Nagoski
Defines the good as making a profit instead of meeting human needs. So it rewards us for being productive and punishes us for our aliveness. So I, like everyone, have fallen into the trap of focusing on my productivity and forgetting to notice my aliveness.
- [12:21]
Caller 2
I know a ton about the brain mechanisms underlying access to pleasure. And that doesn't mean I always have access to pleasure.
- [12:28]
Adrienne Maree Brown
What happens?
- [12:30]
Caller 2
So, like, I'm, you know, writing a book.
- [12:33]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Yeah.
- [12:33]
Caller 2
And it's a book about sexual pleasure.
- [12:36]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Yes.
- [12:37]
Caller 2
But I'm like, so focused and so stressed and so busy that I can't let go. And there is a certain pleasure and joy in disappearing into a work project, for sure. God knows. But, like, I have a relationship with a person, I would like to feel glad is with me.
- [12:55]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Yeah, that's right. I think there's this piece, this journey from understanding stuff theoretically into the being in the practices of it. There's this quote from Octavia Butler in the Parables where she says, belief initiates and guides action or it does nothing. And many of us are socialized to be in states of obligation with each other, states of polite lying. We are trained to overdo everything in the spirit of capitalism. And we're trained that our value is only about what we can produce, which is Very unsatisfying, you know, because you can never produce enough. No, I say that as someone who's like, I'm like, producing as much as I can. And I promise you there's no like, click, yes, that was enough. That's not where satisfaction comes from.
- [13:43]
Emily Nagoski
We will all be tempted by the transient reward of being productive. And that's exactly why Adrian is reminding me that we all need an intentional practice of pleasure. Pleasure will take our hand. It will show us how good it is to be alive right now. It will remind us that we are already enough. And unlike the fleeting, fickle, shallow rush of productivity, once we start practicing pleasure in our everyday lives, then, and really only then can we find our sexual liberation.
- [14:26]
Adrienne Maree Brown
It's not enough for me to just believe that I'm sexually liberated and to build a whole system of beliefs around how I should be, but it has to initiate and guide my action. So at various points in my life, that has meant different things, right? But one of them is I have a consistent practice of orgasm, for instance. And not just orgasm, it's really broadened to just self pleasure. Because sometimes I'll find that the most healthy thing for my day is actually to masturbate, but not to have an orgasm, right? To masturbate and just feel the pleasure and feel connected to myself and deepen my breath and notice what is generating desire in me in that day. And sometimes it's a poem is pounding at the door of my mind or the door of my heart, and I could try to hold it off, or I could release it and really feel the satisfaction of like, fuck, I got it onto the page. Like, that's so good. I'm always asking myself how to make justice and liberation the most pleasurable things we can do, the most pleasurable experiences we can have as humans. So. So how do we bring our attention back to like this gorgeous planet we've been given that is fecund and like, we can just go lay in the grass and receive sunlight on us. And like, that is an orgasmic experience.
- [15:43]
Caller 3
One reason I wanted to talk to Adrienne is because I wanted her advice. During the pandemic, I was working from home all day, every day.
- [15:54]
Emily Nagoski
So I spend the entire day writing in my office, and then I emerge at 6pm feeling productive but drained and disconnected from my body. I find myself struggling to get out of the headspace of productivity and planning and into the headspace of pleasure aliveness and connection.
- [16:17]
Caller 3
Adrienne had a suggestion for helping me get into that different headspace.
- [16:22]
Adrienne Maree Brown
You also might Want to give yourself, like, a transition window, you know, Because I think sometimes that's the thing for me is, like, when I finish a piece of writing or if I do a big event. Right. If I'm doing, like, a big event, and especially now in the pandemic, it's like, you might do, like, a massive event, but you're still singing in your house in your pajamas. But I'm still like, okay. But my whole system is flooded with the energy of what I was just doing. And so I need to take five minutes to. You know, for me, my energy is like, sometimes I'll go and just put my feet on the dirt outside if it's warm, and just, like, run that energy down into the earth before I try to interact with anyone. Sometimes I need a full. Like, I need to take a bath, and then I'll be a good human for other humans.
- [17:05]
Caller 2
Yeah. Well, thanks for solving that problem for me.
- [17:09]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Got it. I got you. Anything else we need to attend to?
- [17:14]
Caller 2
I mean, that is, like, the fundamental circling question of my life is how do I bother do a job I love and be a person around people I love?
- [17:23]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Yeah. Every day at the end of the day, I do a gratitude practice. And what I'm offering gratitude for is what pleasure was I able to experience in this day?
- [17:37]
Emily Nagoski
Gratitude is a major theme in Adrienne's work. One of my favorite passages in pleasure activism is a poem titled Radical Gratitude Spell.
- [17:52]
Adrienne Maree Brown
Radical gratitude spell. A spell to cast upon meeting a stranger, comrade or friend, working for social and or environmental justice and liberation. You are a miracle walking. I greet you with wonder in a world which seeks to own your joy and your imagination. You have chosen to be free every day. As a practice, I can never know the struggles you went through to get here, but I know you have swum upstream, and at times, it has been lonely. I want you to know I honor the choices you made in solitude, and I honor the work you have done to belong. I honor your commitment to that which is larger than yourself and your journey to love the particular container of life that is you. You are enough. Your work is enough. You are needed. Your work is sacred. You are here, and I am grateful.
- [19:09]
It's always radical to me that even on the worst days and even in the days where I'm like, I don't understand this world, and it's filling me with grief and despair. But even on those days, there are small pleasures. And even in my deepest grief, sometimes the only pleasure I have is thank you for giving me something I loved so much that I grieve it.
- [19:32]
Emily Nagoski
Yes.
- [19:32]
Adrienne Maree Brown
But even on those days there's something I can notice and that's the practice.
- [19:37]
Emily Nagoski
It's so simple, right? You think of one experience of pleasure you had today and you say it out loud. You express gratitude for that experience of pleasure. But I've been doing this for months now and it has kind of changed everything. It's not just that it makes me more aware of the pleasure in my life. It makes it so that it is so much easier for me to get to pleasure. So that in that moment at 6:00 when I blearly step out of my office, I transition into my aliveness so readily and the world seems so much more vivid to me. I walk past the window where the aglaonema is growing and I see the new leaf that is starting to unfurl. I see my husband in the kitchen cooking dinner for us. And literally he looks more beautiful to me now because I am training my brain to find pleasure more easily, to dwell in a state of pleasure, beauty, joy and love. I highly recommend it. In the rest of the series I'll be answering your questions.
- [21:03]
Caller 4
Are you supposed to have sex when you get that old? What I'm saying? If you want it. I do want it.
- [21:09]
Caller 1
How can I increase my spontaneous desire again? On the podcast, I'd love to hear your thoughts about sex after divorce.
- [21:17]
Emily Nagoski
And as always, I'll be joined by my producer, Movie. Hi Mo.
- [21:22]
Mo Labord
Hi Emily. You want to plug the hotline before we go?
- [21:26]
Emily Nagoski
Do I? If you have a question for me.
- [21:29]
Caller 2
Call my hotline 646-397-8557 or send a voice memo to Emilyushkin FM.
- [21:41]
Emily Nagoski
Tell me your pronouns and name.
- [21:43]
Caller 2
Pick a name, any name.
- [21:44]
Emily Nagoski
Your question might be answered on the show.
- [21:52]
Mo Labord
Come as yous Are is a production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells. It's hosted by Emily Nagoski. You can find Emily on Instagram Nagoski and on Twitter millynagoski. You can also sign up for her newsletter@emilynagoski.com where she writes about everything from the clitoris in your mind to orgasm after having hysterectomy. It's an incredible newsletter. Highly recommend it. This show is co hosted and lead produced by me, Molabord. You can find me online at Molabord and on TikTok odcast slut. Sorry Mom. My co producer on this show is the fabulous Brittany Brown. Our editor is Kate Parkinson Morgan. Sound design and mix by Anne Pope. Executive producer are Mia labelle and Lital Malad at Pushkin. Thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Sophie Crane, Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrell, Julia Barton, John Schnarz and Jacob Weisberg at Madison Wells. Thanks to Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein and Gigi Pritzker. Additional thanks to Rich Stevens, Lindsey Edgecombe, Frolic Mine Media and Peter Acker at Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series was composed by Amelia Nagoski and arranged and recorded by Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional music from Epidemic Sound. You can find Pushkin on all social platforms, Ushkin Pods and you can sign up for our newsletter at Pushkin fm. If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for only $4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions or at Pushkin FM. If you subscribe to Pushkin plus, you can hear Come as yous Are and other Pushkin shows ad free. Very nice and you'll get episodes a week early. Sign up on the Come as yous Are show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.