Enjoying the Best Sex Ever in Midlife: A Conversation with Dr. Sonia Wright | Ep 58

This show is about freedom. Freedom from your constant struggle with food and letting the size of your thighs determine your worth. Join me weekly for no hope back unfiltered girlfriend kind of conversations that will inspire, teach and empower you. As we tune into our own body's wisdom and tune out of the diet industry blinds, we can live our most radiant, pleasurable and fulfilled lives. My name is Chanci Dawn. I'm a non diet nutritionist embodiment and mindset coach. But most importantly, I'm a woman on a mission to grow a deeply connected and conscious relationship with food and my body. And I'm here inviting you to do the same. Let's go.

Boy, oh boy. Do I have the interview for you. Today I had the privilege of sitting down with tea with Dr. Sonia Wright, a Board Certified radiologist, a trained sexual counselor, a master certified coach. Rumor has it she even worked at a sex toy store which is so fun. I love that. She received her education from Stanford University, the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Michigan. Dr. Sonia is on a mission to help women embrace their sexuality, as well as in the emotional pain and isolation associated with sexual difficulties. She believes wholeheartedly that all women deserve to experience pleasurable sexual intimacy. Yes, we do. Dr. Sonia, you are right. Dr. Sonia is life goal is to empower women inside and outside of the bedroom. Dr. Sonia has a natural ability to put people at ease while discussing sensitive issues related to sex. She enjoys combining this natural ability with her medical knowledge, sexual counseling skills and life coaching tools to create her unique brand of sex coaching. She tackles the heart issues by normalizing the situation and sharing helpful information while coaching from a caring and humorous perspective. I loved this conversation with Sonia I could have talked all frickin day long. I am so happy you are here to listen to it. And please share this episode with every woman you know in her mid life because we all need to hear this. Thank you for tuning in enjoy

Welcome to it tastes like freedom. And you guys today I have an amazing guest this woman I met quite a few years ago in a mastermind that we were together in and she just lit up the room and her niche. I'm like I'm all over it. I want to talk about this stuff all day long. So we have Dr. Sonia right. And Dr. Sonia specializes in coaching women in their mid life around their sexuality. So welcome to the show, Dr. Sonia and I hope I said that right? You clarify your niche and please just I want to know what brought you to this place in your life where this is your passion. This is what you're doing?

Yeah, definitely. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me here and talking with you. And like we said before we started recording that this is just going to be a girlfriend conversation where we just sit and relax and have a good time. I am Dr. Sonia right I go by Dr. Sonia. I am the midlife sex coach for women. medical doctor, full disclosure, I'm a pediatric radiologist. But I am a medical doctor. I'm a sexual counselor, a transsexual counselor. I'm also a master certified life coach and I am a toy, a sex toy enthusiast. So kind of put that all together and I coach women in midlife around sex and intimacy. That's my jam. That's, that's my purpose in life. This is where I get my joy from is to really help women, you know, from midlife to the rest of their life. Like be able to tap into their sexuality and you know, just enjoy themselves and focus on them so much. And we talked a little bit about this as like, as we are trained and raised as girls and women. There's this outward focus like we supposed to look cute and sexy and things like that. So we're trained from a young age that we're focusing on pleasing others. Yeah, we look by how might be in bed how we could be like a little sexy, but not too sexy. We might be into sex a little bit, but not too much. I call this bullshit but it's about pleasing other people. Right. And what I love about midlife is It becomes time to please ourselves in so many different ways, but we don't exactly know how to do it. We kind of have to learn this process as we go through life. And, and we hit this time and we're like, Hey, wait. It's about me now. It gets to be about me now. And then we're like, oh, but what does that look like?

Yeah. And even like, what does that look like? And what do I even want?

What do I even want? Yeah,

yeah. And I think having that message, and we were talking, before I hit record, we are getting into the conversation. And Dr. Sonia is like, let's hit record. I'm like, I know, the magic magic, we got to stick with the magic. And sometimes, if you talk too much before, then it gets lost. So we were going into it and I'm Yeah, so before the conversation we were talking about just like you said, Be sexy for the pleasing I have others yet. Don't be too sexy, because then your then your slot, then your, you know, whatever, all of these names for women, and we carry that through. And then during the, you know, your childbearing years, it's like you're having your sexuality is to procreate, and for your partners, and then for society to look at you. And then all of a sudden, you start to feel a little or a lot invisible. Yeah, hey, like, yeah, the hair starts growing, where you maybe don't want it. You know, the body, especially if you are where, you know, what we really talked about so much on this podcast as far as loving your body and listening to her cues and letting her go where she should, where she wants to for her health and her vitality and trusting that. And usually that doesn't subscribe to that, like, pleasing. I have other societies message that we have. So it's difficult, you're heading into these years, there's all the things starting to happen. And your sexuality gets to be it's exciting, but also redefined for yourself. Would you say that that's what you're finding?

Yes, there's like so many points here, you know, definitely we get to redefine our sexuality for ourselves. In this invisibility process that's happening. It's kind of one of celebration and one of loss, and a shift in identity. It's a lot of things that are happening all at once. And let's not make any mistakes here. This Invisibility is happening. And it seems to coincide with our fertility, you know, and other things, right? When we get to the perimenopause, menopause stage where we're not, we're not going to get pregnant. It's like society no longer cares about our body, and policing it, and policing our sexuality and things like that. It's like, oh, you're no longer a sexual being. But that's so far from like, really, I gotta just tell all your listeners that your sexuality and your sexual and your sex life, it gets to be amazing, even better than you think it ever could possibly be. Because you first for the first time, you're really focused on yourself, and you start asking yourself, What do I like? What does pleasure look like for me, and when the focus has been so much on pleasing others, and let's get real on focusing on your vagina, where we really need to understand for women, their pleasure zone is their clitoris that is analogous to the penis. And so we start to like, get a chance to really explore our vulva and to get an idea of what our pleasure looks like to us. And recognizing that, if we're talking about penetration alone, then 85% of women do not have an orgasm or a lot of pleasure with that we need some sort of stimulation to our clitoris, right? So we start to be in midlife, and we get to explore that more. And we get to redefine what pleasure and intimacy looks like for ourselves and for our partner. And now, as I say all this, I don't want it to be misconstrued that this means that the focus is all on us. And so the relationship falls apart, or we no longer care about our partners pleasure. When you have your pleasure, a woman's pleasure, it naturally enhances the relationship, the relationship might need to shift and change a little bit. For those of you that are in relationship. Let me also say, I am just like this running monologue. So you got me started. So I love it. Whether you have a partner or not, you're in a relationship. You're either in a relationship with yourself and your solo partner. And I always say like yourself as your best lover and your first lover, get to know yourself. That's so important. Or you might be in a relationship with one or more individuals and that's fine, too. Your sexuality plays a part in whatever situation you find yourself in.

Yeah, absolutely. And can you talk about first of all orgasms because and I'm so I'm 45 So I'm right entering into that like midlife and just turned 45. And it's, I love it so much. And I have never been so orgasmic in my entire life. Yes. And I'm like, so I want to know, because I, so a lot of this is going to be like, This is what's going on with me and my own clients and like, what's going on? Is this is this normal? Okay, and I'm doing that in quotations, obviously. And, but I found that all of a sudden, like, in my mid 40s, I was a lot more sensitive, a lot more, just open like blossomed, because I have fallen in love with myself more, I think that's a big part of it. And it's not for children. And I'm not in a relationship where I felt that pressure, that expectation that orgasm come every time, right like for him. So that has gone and now I'm in this relationship where it's the communication is there. And all of a sudden, my body is just like, Ah ha, ha, like, I actually had an orgasm with missionary position, which I didn't think was even possible for me. I was actually like, what is happening? What is actually happening? And it blew my mind. Okay, and I was just like, wow, so is this what you find often, or, let's talk about that, please,

celebrate, and I love how you turn blooming. And that's why I have the flower behind me. For those of you that are just listening to this, there's like a big red and yellowy orange flower behind me because it represents the blooming sensuality of a woman's sexuality as it blooms and opens up. And so that's what I love midlife because that can occur. And you could be on the path where you have more orgasms. And it could be a freeing and opening of your mind, it can be in relation to your body and shifting hormones and things happening in your body. And so it does happen that way to some women, I became multi orgasmic as I got older, but it doesn't necessarily happen that way for all women, or for most women, you know, there's many different combinations that occur. Some women where as their estrogen is decreasing, they find that orgasms change and they're not as strong as they were otherwise. And they may find that they need more stimulation to their vulva region and things like that. So each person kind of has a different experience with this. So I don't want to I mean, I'm celebrating that women are enjoying themselves in midlife and beyond. And I'm also acknowledging whatever your experience is, for the people that are listening, that it's a normal experience. It's the con, it happens that way. But we do need to, we get to ask ourselves, what do we want, right? Because as we get older, or hormones may shift, and you may need to look into some topical, which means like in the region, as opposed to systemic, which would be like an HRT type of thing, but you may want to look at topical estrogen that's right in the vulva and the vagina region. So some women may find that they need it more in some women may not necessarily need it, but we all get different experiences now, orgasm, I love orgasms. But I also like to put the focus on the pleasure and not necessarily the orgasms, because in our society, we have this concept that it's not necessarily good sex unless there's an organism's right. And that that's that that, I mean, we've all had bad sex, where we've had an orgasm, you know, like, the quality of the sex overall, was not that fantastic, but your body's gonna do what it's going to do. And you're, you can have an orgasm, and we've had interactions that have been beautiful, and, and just so pleasurable and relaxed, and you feel like you're connected at that person. And you don't necessarily orgasm. So when we just put it down to define something, and put a value system on something where it's based on an orgasm or not based on an orgasm, I think that we just have this finite definition of pleasure and sex and intimacy. And so that's why I don't necessarily love to focus on the orgasm. And as our body changes, we may find that it might be easier or harder to have an orgasm. And so if we put the focus on the orgasm, we may get to a place of frustration. So I'm always like, orgasms are great, but at the same time, is there a connection? Is there satisfaction? Is there pleasure, you know, that's kind of where I put my focus.

I just love that. And thank you for that. And I, you know, it really comes back to the same with food and body relationship and learning how to listen to your own body's cues, learning how to tune in and trust your body, what do you need individually, right? And I believe that all the wisdom that we need all the tools we need to learn how to actually arrive in this life, with our relationship with our body with our relationship with food, our sexuality. It's all that wisdom is within and when we're able to wake that up and start trusting and honoring that that's when it's Like, whoa, everything can change. So when you're talking about this, it's yes. What is your body needing? What cues? Or your body is your body showing you? And what does she want? For pleasure? What actually, and when you're talking about the orgasm stuff, I'm like, that so much of that goes relates back to what we were talking about women's expectations. And I know, you know, even through pornography, and just a lot of the societal messages, it's like, how should the women's orgasm is actually for the pleasure of the partner? Right? And not even necessarily real. But often?

Well, yeah, I mean, file can be for the pleasure of the partner or the, like, orgasms can mean so many different things, right. So your partner may interpret your orgasm, meaning that they're a great partner, male, female, non binary like that. There's such a focus on this orgasm, to use it to define, right, but I am like, we're gonna claim and take back our orgasm. What it means is that our body is beautiful and able to express and appreciate and experience sexual pleasure. That's what it means. It doesn't mean anything about anybody else, like ours, and we get to own it ourselves. Right? So yes, pleasure orgasms, I think there's something that are important. But when we put such a focus on it, we also do a disservice to a lot of people, because then there's many women that come to me, and they're like, I'm not able to orgasm, there's something wrong with me, I'm broken. And it may be the case that they're not able to orgasm. Or it may be the case that the orgasm looks different, and they've been orgasming all along. But it doesn't look like what pornography shows it to be. And I don't think pornography is good or bad. But it's something that it's a story. And weird using that as the baseline, it's not reality. And then we start comparing ourselves to pornography and how women should look, look, because it's like, it's like a performance almost, right. It's not necessarily about how we get to be in experience. Pleasure. So when we are looking externally and how things should be, and we're grading things based on orgasms and such, that's when we we have problems, that's when it becomes problematic. But if we're just focusing on ourselves and our pleasure, and the experiences that we have, and understand that orgasms may look different. And then and how a person orgasms may be different. You know, some people may need to be on their stomach, but society says it's an initial, you know, missionary business you take can't even say the word like. Like, there's just so much. It's so much like clout and weight that is put on an orgasm that doesn't necessarily need to be there. And so I'm about freeing up this orgasm thing for you

the orgasm, I Yes. And I love it. So when I think of when I'm coaching women on food and body, pleasure and permission are two pillars, these are two cornerstones and then curiosity and compassion. So pleasure and permission and what I'm hearing from you, it's like the permission to explore and permission to get to know your own pleasure, get to know your body and how she, how she experiences pleasure, and to really like dive into that curiosity part instead of putting expectations on her. This is how it should be this is what should be happening. It's like, let's get curious. And let's have fun and give ourselves a deep permission to experience whatever pleasure is available here. And to look almost like in that curiosity like, oh, wow, this is this is actually pleasurable for me where I thought, you know, wasn't even paying attention to that, because I was so focused on the outcome of an orgasm or whatever. Is that, does that align with you?

Yeah, and I love I love absolutely love coming from this place of curiosity, because it kind of leaves judgment behind. Right? When you're curious, you're in a more neutral position. And then you're more able to say, Oh, I kind of liked this. I didn't know I didn't know I like in a play. I didn't know that that you know, like, whatever it is. But if we're coming from a place of judgment, or looking at what society says things should look like or should be, then we don't give ourselves permission for the exploration. We don't give ourselves permission to be curious. And we don't give ourselves permission to have the type of pleasure that we deserve to have in whatever form it comes in. Right?

No, yeah. And this is such a gift of midlife if you allow that right with that again, that permission of it of now I get to redefine what this is for me. Now. I'm stepping into my power. Yes, there's this invisible invisible ability aspect of societies, you know, looking on women for the procreation aspect or whatever. And now it's like, oh, now that that's not there so much I can step back and really, really get to know myself without those that pressure if those standards,

yes. And you know, that's why I love coaching women in midlife, and we need to recognize that it's like, so often we think, Oh, we're in our 40s 50s 60s, and it's over for us. If we look at our life expectancy, the average person is going to make it into their 80s and 90s. And so when you start thinking about that you're recognized, so you have 30 plus years, you know, yeah. And so you get to really, you're in your infancy, honestly, when it comes around your sexuality, and you really get to explore, be curious to find it for yourself and recognize that it's gonna continue to change over the years. It's not like you do this work now. And then you have a new definition of what sexuality and sexual intimacy is for you. And then you ride that definition, no pun intended for the next 40 years. Right? It's going to continue to change and grow. And that's the fun part of that. Oh, my goodness,

that's so juicy. And yeah, like as you give yourself permission, and continue to get to know yourself and wake up your your cues, and really trust those internal felt senses. And otherwise, yeah, what a journey. What a journey to be able to go on that it's so fun. I just love that. And so with this, can we also talk about how, though a lot of my friends are in their 50s and early 60s, and they're like, I have no interest? I have no libido, I have no interest. They're definitely in a powerful time of their lives. They've never been so empowered, and just grabbing life by the lady balls and go for it. Like I see this. And I just, there's, it's amazing. But there, there's this, I don't have a desire, and I'm really okay with not having a desire. Yet. There's a part of me that wants a desire. Do you know what I mean? Like there's this interesting thing. So I'd love it if you talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, so like when we hit midlife, and we're heading into our 50s 60s and beyond, and you may be seeing this and even in your 40s, like our libido shifts, not always, there's some women that stay in more of a spontaneous libido where their mind and their body is aligned. And you're like, Oh, I think I have some sex today, I think I'm interested in this, Hey, how you doing. But there's also a place where the majority of women are, which is more of a responsive type of thing, which is coming from a place of neutrality. And so if we're coming from this place of neutrality, we think, you know, I don't really have any interest. But what it really is, is that, since it's a responsive type of thing, we get to decide if we want to have some interests we want, but we may have to do a little bit of work to get to that place. Now, when we suppress a part of our ourselves. And we think that we don't necessarily have interest, we're also suppressing a set of experiences, emotions, feelings. So we're blocking off a part of ourselves. And that blocking off of a part of ourselves limits our experience as a human being in this world. Part of your basic right is to this sexual intimacy is to this sexual pleasure. And we don't recognize it. But there's so much vitality and energy and joy that comes from sexual intimacy with ourselves or with another individual. And so when we cut ourselves off from that we cut off from that vitality and that energy. We've all been there at some point in our lives where we've had like a really great sexual experience. And the rest of the day, our day is just like, fantastic. It's like, the colors bloom brighter than they did before. You know, we're interacting with people and not just our lover. But just like the person at the grocery store, like there's, there's a beauty, there's an energy of vitality that comes from you, that you get to experience. We could talk about neurotransmitters and oxytocin and connection and things like that. But we can also just say that it's a different type of experience. And so when we cut that part of our body, our life off, and we're like, I'm no longer interested in this. This is not coming naturally. So therefore, this must be the end of it. We're also cutting ourselves off from that experience in that vitality, and that part of our life, that can be a beautiful experience. So if we're coming from a place of neutrality, we get to decide do we want to do something about this? Do we still want to have the sexual intimacy in our life with ourselves or another human being? And if we do that, we kind of have to figure out how to flip the switch in our brain to get more interested in in sexual intimacy. Oh, Okay, and what would be the first step to switching that, that switch? Yeah, we need to have an understanding of what turns us on what gets us interested in for each person that may be different. For some person, it may be reading erotica, that's us going right? It might be that having a direct physical stimulation to our to our vulva region is what gets us going. It could be clean sheets on the bed, right? Like, there's something that's, that's going to be making us more interested in sexual intimacy. And so I usually advise people to have like a list, not just the one go to thing but a list of things, different things that are gonna get to some people that might be a hot bath, you know, so each person is going to have something, some people, it could be a smell, like a different cologne that makes them into or perfume that makes them feel sexier, or taps into their brain, right? Could be different stimulation, it could be texting on the phone with somebody, right? You know, so you get to decide what that is. That kind of turns the handle and starts things going again.

Mm hmm. And that's where Kirov curiosity comes in. Yes, yeah.

And, and also understanding this concept that we get to work at it, it is okay to work at it, like our mind always tells us that sexuality has to be something that spontaneous like that. It's just there. And if it's not there, then there's something wrong, and there's something broken, as soon as you start thinking, there's something wrong and something broken, you're gonna avoid it, you're gonna be over here. There's shame, there's guilt. There's all this stuff. I can't. But if you come from Curiosity, or from a neutral stance, and you are comfortable looking at it, then you can choose and decide how you want sexuality to be for you.

So individual, and I really, yeah, it just comes again, back to that. Honoring and trust and permission to explore permission to get to know yourself more and to love yourself more. Yeah, so beautiful. So oh, I just there's so many things I want to ask you. Where do we go? I want to respect your time. And I'm also like, can I talk to you all day? I think I need to join your membership. And we'll talk more about your membership soon. Okay, and I really want you to share more about that. But I've been looking at it. I'm like, that looks good. So okay, so one of the things too, when I asked you to come on here, it's like, can we talk about midlife and body image? Right? And we have like it's, it's this has been ribbond throughout all of it, getting to know your body more trusting your body, giving yourself permission to really dive into your own pleasure, redefining that getting curious about what that is. And also, I'd love to have you just share a little bit about for women who are perhaps newly single, or just exploring more now whether you know, they're in a relationship, they're opening their relationship, right? Like, there's a lot of things that happen at this time, I find whether so many of my friends are opening their relationships, where they're like, let's explore polyamory right. Now, and let's like, what's going on with this? And I love it. It's so yeah, absolutely. And I think there's just so again, that permission to go hmm, what do I really want? And what does this look like? And where's my relationship with my primary primary partner going along here? And can we open this? Or, again, am I going to now be single and exploring this on my own? So at this point, there's so many things we could talk about in that, but how do you, Coach? How would you coach a woman to like the very beginning of oh my gosh, I want to explore, I'm looking at opening things up. It's just not going to be my partner. I've been with her for 25 years, or whatever, you know, and I am so afraid for people to see me naked. I'm so afraid because I'm not who I was. When I first started exploring my sexuality. I have, my body has changed. A lot is going on. And I am so scared. What would you say to her?

I'm gonna get this like you have Laird? I know. I know. And that's what I said. Can I talk to you? Okay, I need to come back to the poly thing, right? I'm gonna talk to you about body image in your relationship with your body, but remind me to come back to the polythene. Okay, these two Alright, so let's talk about you and your body, like our body is changing from day one. When we're like three years old, we don't expect that to be the body we have when we're 30. But somehow, when we're 50, we had this one concept of what the body needed to look like. It was like when you're 20 or 25, or whatever, like we each have this concept of how our body needs to look To be sexual, right. And if our body does not look like this, then we don't give ourselves permission to be sexual, or we do with the lights out or some other books like that. Let's get to this place where we get to love our body, and be comfortable with our body, and redefine our concept of what a sexual body looks like. Let me just tell you, if you have the capacity for pleasure, if you're interested in sexual intimacy, you have the right body, then it's time to go. But

yeah, that is so good.

Yeah, like there's so many different body types out there. And all bodies are beautiful and delicious. They're just lovely. And we are you only get one life and you only get one body. What is the relationship you want to have with this body? Like this is your temple. This is how you get to experience being a human being on this earth. You deserve to have all the experiences, but because you listen to the media, and you listen to advertising, and you listen to bullshit that that our society says, we're limiting our experiences, and there's no reason and we are going through life not having a loving relationship with our body. And I can tell you because I have gone to it's at four foot 11 and brown and round. Like I've had to get to the end gray hair, I graded my 30s I had to get to that place where I loved my body no matter what, because society was like, it doesn't fit what a sexual body looks like, or doesn't fit. Like what a woman's body should like or beautiful woman's bodies needs to look like. This is my body. This is the body I have. This is the body I'm going to love. Does this body wake me up every day? Can I walk? Am I strong? Am I healthy? Can I process food? Like, let's start from the basics? How is your body working? If you could talk to your body? If your body could talk to you? What would it tell you? About how you have been treating it? Right? Yeah.

And I believe our bodies can talk to us when we start listening. Yeah, it does in ways, right. Absolutely. Absolutely. So one of the things that I love to practice is when my brain is thinking thoughts, and that really, you know, just frustrating thoughts about my body or thinking oh, that's not good enough. Look at your thighs. I have PCOS. So I have a total hip. Like I have a super hairy bum like my bum cheeks are like super hairy and I used to look at and I would be so insecure about that. So insecure. And now I'm like, okay, my brain has thoughts. And I get to go Oh, sweetheart, that's to my body. I'm not thinking about this about you like this anymore. You have very bum cheeks. There's that's just a small little example. There's a lot of insecurities. I've obviously as a female with a female body. And so you know, there's lots Yeah, but like that one stands out to me. And I've actually was teased about it from different lovers. So it kind of went to me like this is something that's really not acceptable. I don't feel beautiful, you know, and and so when it comes to sexuality, when it comes to like daily stuff, my thoughts my body has more thoughts about right now the size of my arms and my stomach, right? But when it comes to sexuality, and being with another person, it's like my hairy bomb. My boobs that have best, you know, breastfed three babies, my vulva that doesn't look like pornography standards, right? Like, stuff like that. That's the kind of stuff that my brain starts going. So it's the same, it's like, same, same, but different. You know, so what I share, like, I'm sorry, buddy, I'm not talking about you like this anymore. And moving forward, starting with respect. That absolutely is exactly what I've done personally, in the bedsheets as well,

right? Because, like, keep the hairy bum and get rid of the partners that don't like it. Yeah. Your choice and find somebody else, right. But this is my Haribol This is my body. And I get to love my body. Yeah, like that. We do not give up the love for our body for anybody. Right? It just it needs they need to go. And my body is my body. And it is beautiful. And it's amazing. Right? and myself. We did and I want to experience pleasure with it with her. And I want to experience pleasure. And if you're if there's parts of your bodies that you're insecure about, and you want to share your body first of all understand, for the most part, when we have secure insecure thoughts about our body, it's our own thoughts. Know your partner is just thinking that it's an honor that you're sharing your body with them. They're not sitting there all day long making a list of the things they don't like about your body because they're like, Oh, my goodness, she is amazing, I am so lucky to be able to touch this beautiful body and share this pleasure with this person, right? We have thoughts, and then we project them on other people. And we get ourselves in a state where we don't want to engage in sexual intimacy, our partners over there going, Am I doing something right? Like they don't exactly know, they're not hearing this whole conversation that's going on in our head, right? So well, the end result is lack of intimacy, right? So you can obviously work on your relationship with yourself and your body. But you if you are in a relationship with somebody, and you'd like to talk to them about, hey, I do feel a little vulnerable when this comes up. And sometimes it's hard having those conversations, but what we're doing is creating a safety for ourselves, and we get to create a safe place for ourselves so that we can be the person that we want to be because, you know, I bet you've had lots of wonderful lovers in your life, but you're like, who actually complained about to Harry, but

there was a teasing, but they definitely didn't lack interest to

that design to the teasing. Once or twice, you know, it's not like every time they're ready to have some fun, they're like, whoa, bring out the hairy, that's happening, right? Brain latches on to this bullshit, and creates havoc in our lives when it doesn't need to be there. And at the expense of the connection with another human being or more than one, and also at the expense of like, our relationship with ourselves. Right? Yeah,

absolutely. That's so tender. That is so tender. And it's that don't, yeah, don't let your brains thoughts, rob you of living your life and in the full experience of pleasure, and all of the things that are available, because the brain is gonna have thoughts, and they don't. And it's like, are those even my thoughts? Where did those even come from?

Where did they come from? Right? You know, it's it comes from other family members and stuff that said something about our body when we're younger, you know, and we carry that at 4050, we still have these thoughts, right? So definitely get to work on a relationship with ourselves and make sure we had that. But then also, we need to get out of our head and into our body. Because when we're like, up there thinking thoughts, like, Oh, my tummy is too big. And we're sucking in our stomach, try to have an orgasm, we're trying to second your stomach, right? Like your brain is not. It's like you're up in your brain, you're not down in your body feeling that sensations. So give yourself permission to let go, to relax and to learn to love your body in and outside the bedroom. Just

and would you say for someone who is feeling some insecurity with partners, too? I know your answer is going to be yes. Right? But it's like self pleasure and getting to know your body and loving your body on your own. And rubbing your stomach, if there's stuff going on, like mental stuff going on with your stomach, like, make love to your stomach, feel it, rub it like be there. How would

you? Yeah, so I always say like, everybody has a part of their body. They love that, like they might love their smile. They might love the collarbones. Everybody has a part of the body they love. And then there's a part of the body that they may not like. Yeah, think of like, sometimes I've had them do an exercise where they write down all the things and describe all the things I love about this one body part. It's your smile. Oh, it's glorious. It's so beautiful. It's blah, blah, blah, take out smile and put in belly or put in that part of your body you don't like and now you have what you should be thinking about different parts of your body. So it kind of shifts it makes you aware of what thoughts you're having about a part or part of you that you don't necessarily like and helps you to be like, Oh, if I can be loving to my collarbone or my breast or whatever. I can be loving to my belly or my thigh. And can I just say, if we look at this bullshit that most of the parts of the body we don't like are the parts that make us a woman. You know,

you can absolutely thank you bye.

Yeah. You know, it's yeah. Oh, shit. Like, I It's ridiculous, right? Nobody's sitting there going, I don't like my finger. You know? It's all the stuff that makes us a woman and somebody else is defining whether it gets to be good enough or not, and that is just not going to work. So there's that side of things. And then remind me about what the original part of the question. Yeah.

I don't remember what that is, okay, girlfriend conversation, it always goes all the way it goes exactly in the direction it's supposed to. And I love that. And what a neat exercise to put like, because if you the thing is I always talk about how our our branch brain, right, that primal brain will look for evidence to prove itself, right. So if you have those thoughts available that you believe about one part of your body, that's evidence that we can hold on to that that is available with intention as you work on it. about any part of your body about anything. You're attacking about self pleasure, I believe that Yeah, right. Right. Right. Yeah.

So 100% how I, I believe that self pleasure is a requirement for life. We need to know and understand our body. So many women are focusing on their partner knowing and understanding what they like, as opposed to them knowing and understanding their own body, what stimulation works for them. And, you know, it's kinda like, you need to know your body, you need to know the stimulation that works for your body, like, you don't want to, like, try on something for the first time in the middle of sets, like, figure it out ahead of time, see what you like, see what works for you that I mean, and we get to get a relationship with ourselves, which I think is something that's very important. So also, because of that, I would say, there's so many reasons for self pleasure, self stimulation, and health wise, it's actually a very good thing to and may also add, we haven't even gotten into the world of perimenopause and menopause. But as we get older, we need to keep the blood supply going to our vulva area. I like that you

said or your loot or your is that yeah,

atrophy, our vault clusters to atrophy, we need to keep the blood supply going to it. One of the best ways to do that is masturbation. So please everybody here, I am giving you 100% permission to masturbate. There you go.

permission slip granted. Grant. One of the things that I heard about years ago when it comes to masturbation is how most of the the delicious hormones I don't even know what they are, but the ones that really are so health beneficial happen in that build up and not you know, in that pleasure build up before the actual orgasm. So if you're using a toy, sometimes that can skip that this was on her rules radio, Alexandria, I forget her last name, but yeah, years ago, and she was like, be careful using toys because that can skip that build up and then you don't get the real oxytocin. You don't get that oxytocin release as much as you would as if you have that slow build up. So even if you're using, like a vibrator, still allow it to build and start slowly, instead of just like, here's what is your face? And I'm like,

I'm not there's no way in hell, I'm going to endorse that. I don't know thing came from. And so I'm not gonna say completely No, but that's not my experience, or the experience that I have of many people. So in terms of, like, you know, like, anything in the best way to put this, okay, so self pleasure is fine. There's not like a specific hormones that are associated with self pleasure. Yes, there is oxytocin, which is neurotransmitter afterwards, but it's not specifically in the actual, you know, orgasm or in the actual like engorgement phase, I think afterwards, okay. All right, like our body is not, it doesn't have hormones that come up and down in like a 10 minute range, it does not do that. That's not specifically how it works. Some people might say that they use Tories if they use quite a bit of toys, and they may not feel like they're, it might need more stimulation than you needed previously, or something like that. Okay, and so some people say that that's an issue and a lot of people say that's not an issue. If you're concerned about overuse and things like that, I usually suggest people use toys, but also use manual stimulation. So your body gets used to, like different ways of coming with that makes sense.

Absolutely. It does. Thank you for clarifying that. And it's interesting, that's something that stuck in my brain for years. And I would almost like anytime with some pleasure, I'd be like, what if I'm ruining myself? Like what if I, what if I'm not getting the the benefits of all this oxytocin? No, because that's

the benefit of an Argus of whether or not you're with a person, you might get additional benefit because you're got skin touching skin. You You know, so that might stimulate more of the neurotransmitter and things like that. But no, it doesn't specifically work like that we're not ruining ourselves, that's more bullshit that the patriarchy put on us. So that was the time with the penis. And by itself, right, different ways.

Like To clarify, and this is why these conversations, these like, open anything goes conversations have to happen more and more, because there's so much misinformation out there is Miss

there's so much misinformation. Thank you for that one. So I can put it on my list of misinformation. But basically, we're at a stage where we're all adults, we get to leave behind shame, guilt, judgment, anything around sexuality, sexuality, you know, as long as there's consent involved, and it's adult and we're focused on pleasure and things like that, then it's fine. We get to engage in self pleasure, we get to enjoy ourselves. And it's okay. That's all I can say. It gets me Okay, all your thoughts and ideas. Like if you're in a relationship, you can't have self pleasure because you have to save yourself or your partner. Nope, it like it doesn't work that way. There's no saving cells you know, you get to enjoy yourself and you by yourself and you get to enjoy yourself with your partner, right? We were talking a little bit are gonna get back to Poly.

So I'm like do we still have time? I would love to

talk for a second about the poly. Okay, so poly poly works it like there's so many like Polly is part of a continuum for ethical non monogamy right or consensual non monogamy it this is a continuum from one nightstand all the way to polyamory and relationship anarchy. And like anything in between, there could be a one night stand where or it could be like, it just you have like a friends with benefits type of relationship. Or it could be polyamory, which is more than one love. So you have more than one loving relationship. Or it could all go all the way to what they call relationship anarchy where you don't have any type of hierarchy involved with sexual partners, non sexual partners, friends like you, it could be anything like that within polyamory, you may have a structure, each person gets to do this different, you may have a structure where you have a nesting partner, our primary partner, right, and our primary relationship, and then you have other relationships, right? I'll speak on this type of structure. But understand that there's also solo Polly and I used to be solo pilot before I was married. But solo pilot is when you're an individual, and you have different relationships, different partners, but you don't have somebody in your home, you are your own primary part of your primary. Yeah, I'm and I'm not focused on a relationship escalation, where I want to like cohabitate and get married and all that stuff, right. So that's one thing. But a lot of people today are looking into poly, which can be fun. But it is not an answer to relationship difficulties and problems. Let me just say, if you're having problems with intimacy in your relationship, it's important that the overall relationship be a good solid foundation, right? And that I usually say to people, if I'm coaching people on opening up their relationships, start with your primary relationship, if you're in that hierarchical, if you choose to be in that type of structure, make sure that this is on solid ground, make sure it is 100% in solid ground, where you might spend time dating each other, where you might spend time finding that love and making sure it's solid, and it's there. And the respect is that you two or more decide. So there's this concept of like couples kind of making rules and then bringing a third person in, you need to have respect for anybody that you bring into your relationship or you have separate relationships for him like this couples privilege is something that you need to really, really like, look at if you're going to like bring another person into your structure. But if you're keeping these relationships separate and parallel, as they would call them, and you have your primary relationship, and then you have another relationship, make sure your primary relationship is solid, before you start adding on things. I don't necessarily believe in a lot of rules upfront. But I also recognize that people may need rules to feel like more secure, but there's a lot of communication that goes into polyamory or in ethical non monogamy, a lot of communication, a lot of respect, there will be hurt feelings, even if you don't want to be that type of person, that people's feelings can get hurt. So there, you have to be able to talk about this. But make sure the primary relationship if you're in a hierarchical structure, that that is in really good shape. Yeah. I've also seen that when people choose to open up the relationships, especially in heterosexual relationships. There's often a concept that the man has that he's gonna get lots of women, and it's really going to be great. He's gonna have lots of partners and lovers. And what often happens is that he doesn't get lots of partners, but his wife or his, you know, the female start as a couple ends up with a lot of partners. And so then they want to shut it down, then they start this one penis rule, then they have all sorts of bullshit that gets into place. So make sure the primary relationship is in good shape, have discussions about what is what you guys are you people, y'all are okay with what is not necessarily going to work for you have an open mind don't have set rules that can't be shifted, but always have conversations ahead of time. That's the conceptual part of this right? Before you actually do stuff and be prepared to have lots and lots of discussions. Because let me tell you, it's more about discussions than anything else. Yeah,

you think it's all just fun, but it's a really good point. And I love that you brought that up how it's so important to have your primary partnership solid, because I see that a lot where, and I even had that in my own past relationship where I was starting to disengage, I didn't want to be in this relationship anymore. And I was interested in this other person. And he, my partner at the time said, Are you wanting to have sex with him? And we were out for coffee? And I was like, Yes. And I do. And, you know, we he had been in a poly situation before. And he was like, I'm open to opening this up. And, and let's do this, and we almost went there. But I was like, this isn't going to fix us. This isn't me going with this person. And having these experiences as an us opening, this isn't going to bring us closer together. And that's when I realized I want this and it's time to end this relationship. And then I moved on, you know, and that was a huge wake up call. I wasn't like, okay, yes, I because this is where we're heading, I want to really, you know, go to couples counseling and take a Couples Retreat and really work on this and grow this. I'm like, No, I actually want to be with this person. I actually don't want to be with you anymore. Ever, ever again. So yeah, I thank you for bringing that up. Thank you. Because I think it's like looking, where you're wanting to go and why. And then again, permission for whatever it is you desire, if you'd like your reasons for doing so. Exactly. Yeah. Well, thank you so so very much. I love this conversation. You are you are just such a gift, you know, my gosh to the world. So I can't wait for my listeners to hear this. I know you have to go. Do you have time to quickly talk about your membership?

Yeah, sure. Yes. So my membership is called the lip click club. And if you see it on social media, it's common clubs. Yeah.

But it's basically the liquid

club. And it's, it's a platform for a monthly membership, where women can get all the coaching and questions answered that they need, right. So there's sex coaching on there, there's relationship coaching on there, there's trauma coaching on there. There's body image and embodiment on there, there's making your best life or your dream life. There's LGBTQ plus coaching on there. So there's so much that I wanted a place where it would all be in one place for a reasonable price at $97 a month, and that you could get the coaching that you needed. It's also about sexual health so you can get their questions. I can't tell you it can't even we didn't even touch on this. But there's so much of women in midlife around menopause and perimenopause that is not being addressed the information. And so we need that addressed as well. So I will give you the link so that you can put it in your show notes. And you can always find me at Sonya right md.com. So wonderful.

Thank you so very much you have the best day ever. Right? So appreciate you and do you if you would be open to coming back on and talking about perimenopause. Um, and I would I've had requests for that. And I'm like, Who? Who should I invite on and the fact that you brought this up and like this is synchronicity it's supposed to be you. So I would love that. So we will have an encore. Yay. So happy about that. Thank you. Okay, bye.