This Valentine’s Day, We’re Talking Pleasure!

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we’re talking about the ultimate sexual and reproductive health and rights topic-- pleasure! Having researched how Black women experience and internalize pleasure, Lorraine Lacroix-Williamson, public health researcher, sits down to talk with us about sexual pleasure, how it fits into the sexual and reproductive health and rights umbrella, and how it relates to public health.

Stigma, purity culture, mis- and dis-information and limited sex education act as barriers to honest feelings and conversations about sexual pleasure. These barriers disproportionately impact women; a 2018 study looking at national data found a huge discrepancy in orgasm experience. Heterosexual men experienced an orgasm 95% of the time they engaged in sexual activity, followed by gay men at 89% of the time and bisexual men at 88%. Lesbian women experienced orgasm 86% of the time, followed by bisexual women at 66%, and heterosexual women at 65%. The good news? There’s plenty of resources to use, things to learn, and ideas to explore to define what pleasure means to you.

Links from this episode

Lorraine Lacroix-Williamson on Twitter
Lorraine Lacroix-Williamson on LinkedIn
She Comes First
Come Together
Come as You Are

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Jennie: Hi, rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, it's been a bit of a whirlwind since I last recorded because I recorded everything else a couple weeks ago because I was traveling for work. So things have been just a little, just a whirlwind. There's just no better way to say it. So you all already know about the two Anthem Awards, which I still am just… still feels really unreal and, um, exciting and still really overwhelmed by that. But also, I mentioned I was going to Orlando for work. So I was there for a podcast conference, and part of the conference was, um, for She Podcasts, which is for like women in podcasting. And they had, um, this first year of awards called the Sonic Bloom Awards to recognize, um, women and underrepresented voices in the podcasting community. So not just women, women identifying, you know, it, it's a little broader than that, but any who. So I won another award and I, I knew I was a finalist, so it wasn't like completely out of nowhere, but I guess it still really caught me off guard. Um, it was the Helping Hand Award, and it was given to a podcaster or podcasting organization that consistently demonstrates a commitment to providing helpful and useful resources for their audience. And y'all, this was something that was baked into our DNA from the beginning, it was really important to me when I was creating the format of this podcast that we didn't just provide people with information about what was happening because of… that could be very paralyzing, right? This, we founded the podcast during the Trump administration, and there were so many attacks on sexual reproductive health, health and rights that it just felt like it could be overwhelming. And so it was really important to me that we gave the audience ways to get involved and how they could fight back. And so to get recognized for something that was, that was baked in from the beginning, and it was a core value that was really important to me. It, it just really made me happy. Um, again, I am just so, so proud of all of the work my team has done. Um, again, Rachel and Elena, they have done so much work to help me turn that original vision I had for the podcast into a reality. And so the award may have my name on it, but it is just as much for all of their amazing work as it is mine. And so I just really wanna say thank you to She Podcasts and for this award. Um, and a huge thank you to Rachel and Elena and Meg, our editor, for just all of their amazing work to make this podcast what it is.

Jennie: And yeah, it was really nice to be rewarded for something that it was a value I had baked in from the beginning. So that was like Thursday, of the week. I was in Florida. And then Tuesday, the Anthem Awards became public. And so that was just again, another whirlwind. And after that podcasting conference was over, my friend Rebecca came and met me in Florida, and we went to Disney. And so I had four days in Disney and just had so much fun just getting away from everything. And honestly, what else do you do when you win a bunch of big awards? You go to Disney World to celebrate. So it was a lot of fun and had so much good food and rode great rides and was able to be out in the sun and walk around so much walking, y'all, uh, my poor feet were like, what are we doing? You don't normally walk. I think it was like 23,000 steps a day. It was a lot, but it was so much fun and, uh, really rejuvenating. And I was, uh, mostly ready to come back to work and get going on, continuing to work on the podcast. Now that we have award winning podcast, I am so excited to start thinking ahead for, for what's next for the podcast. And I'm really excited for some of the episodes we have coming up. And y'all, we have like our 200th episode coming up very quickly, and there's just so much to be excited about right now, and I'm just really happy. And so with that, we're gonna do kind of a fun episode today. Um, tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so it felt like a really opportune moment to talk about pleasure. So I'm very, very excited to have a public health researcher on with me, Lorraine Lacroix-Williamson, to talk to us about pleasure. Uh, so let's turn to my interview with Lorraine.

Jennie: Hi, Lorraine. Thank you for being here today.

Lorraine: Hi, Jennie. Thanks for inviting me.

Jennie: So before we get started, do you wanna introduce yourself and include your pronouns?

Lorraine: My name is Lorraine Lacroix-Williamson, and I'm a public health researcher, and my pronouns are she, her and hers, and I focus on sexual reproductive health among marginalized uh, populations. And I also study health equity.

Jennie: So I'm so excited to have you on today because the episodes coming out the day before Valentine's Day, and we're here to talk about the forbidden topic. Woo, pleasure!

Lorraine: Yes, it's forbidden, but yet also wanted by a lot of people. So, you know, this is a good time to have this conversation seeing as we’re in the season of love.

Jennie: Exactly. And it should obviously be part of the conversation. So we should have, uh, pleasure as part of the public health conversation. But maybe can you tell us a little bit about why and how we should bring it into the public health conversation? Because I think to some people it may seem extraneous.

Lorraine: Sure. I mean, I'll say public health itself as a discipline emerged, and one of the focuses was on sanitation, right? So clean water, clean air, clean land. And the overall goal was, is disease prevention. So we're talking infectious diseases at the early stages like cholera, tuberculosis, et cetera. Yet there's undeniably a pleasure in breathing clean air, drinking purified water, and then seeing skies nice and clear and not, you know, blackened out by smog. And so I'll say in the last few decades, um, you know, looking at overall wellness and, um, health from a holistic perspective, um, public health has expanded to include a variety of disciplines that weren't traditionally part of them at their very beginning. And pleasure is one of them. And there's now a concerted effort to acknowledge and measure sexual and reproductive health progress to achieve pleasurable sexuality as well as healthy relationships. And so now we're taking time to look at the nice and fun parts of sex and sexuality, um, with the overall goal of achieving optimal wellbeing. And so, you know, the World Health Organization defines sexual health as a “state of physical, emotional, mental and social wellbeing in relation to sexuality.” Um, and this does not describe healthy sexuality simply from a deficit perspective. It's your right to have pleasurable and healthy sexual experiences. So yes, so that's like in regard to like how we can, how it is brought into the public health space, I believe, you know, and this just reinforces us having not just relationships, which is what I think people focus on when wanting to perhaps achieve sexual pleasure, but healthy ones. And so it's now a big part of the conversation within the comprehensive sex ed space, but now we're seeing it brought up to a higher perspective. How about for everybody? How does pleasure look like? How does it show up? Especially since coming out of the pandemic and people are in isolation and a lot of, you know, not so good feelings, being away from those that we love most and being away from touching one another. Um, I think it's, it's, it makes sense that we're now in the middle of a pleasure renaissance, as I like to say.

Jennie: It's, it's such an important part that just, it doesn't get talked about very often. You know, so much is focused on, you know, uh, sexually transmitted diseases or not getting pregnant or getting pregnant, or the real like medicalization of, of, of sex. And I mean, leaving out, like, one of the main reasons people have sex is for pleasure. Um, and so it's really important to make sure that it's being brought back into that conversation.

Lorraine: Yes. And what I love about pleasure is that, you know, it focuses, it, it inherently includes consent, right? And right now, especially after the big wave, after the #MeToo movement and questions of what is sexual harassment, what's sexual assault? What's this, why is that bad? What can I say? What can I not say? You know, when you talk about pleasure, um, and I go into this a lot when I'm teaching like the youth, like, um, high school and middle school students, but it's really comes from a place of just knowing who you are, knowing your body, and being comfortable with it so that you can tell somebody else, “no, don't touch me there. This is a funny feeling.” All the other parts of sex that we weren't taught about, right? Like the social, emotional aspect of it, the intimacy part of it, and then what do you do with those hormones that make you want to do certain things, but then you may not want to or you don't like it? And so when I talk about pleasure, it's really just so that we can all, um, reconnect with who we're and know ourselves better.

Jennie: Yeah. Somehow in my sex ed from a nun, we did not talk about pleasure, um, did not come up. I don't know…

Lorraine: At all. I mean, I'm a Catholic girl, um, and it's like we didn't talk about sex at all other than man laying with wife. So again, centering men and starting off with that. Um, and then moving on to the secondary, um, you know, player, oh, a woman. And what do you do when you don't fit that narrative? What if you're not married? What if you, it's not sex, gender rather you feel like you don't identify as either man or woman. Um, so what do you do then? And so it leaves out a large swath of the population that, not a large swath, but a significant swath of the population that may not fall into an ideal box that society has to impose upon us. And so anything that involves sex outside of the confines of a heterosexual marriage is a no-go. And that's it. They, they get a lot of the messaging focuses on the physical aspect when it's so much more than that, so much more. And so you have questions about it before maybe you engage in sexual activity while you're engaged in it. After years and decades of engaging in sexual activity, things change. And that's another thing that people don't wanna acknowledge, that it's not a static thing, it changes over the life course. And so, um, different phases and ages of life bring on different desires, wants, needs, um, and then for those that are, are women, you know, we have to think about hormonal changes that come along with it, you know, um, throughout life. Because as we know, women are, we, we change, we're constantly changing. So, um, yeah, those are all things that affect our sexual pleasure and missing from the conversations about sex, what we're taught about it from different areas, you know, whether it be family, a doctor or a healthcare provider, or even, um, a religious leader,

Jennie: Right? And so, like that makes me also think of, um, you know, I, I did, I went to Catholic school, obviously I talked today, I had sex ed from a nun, but I wasn't really like, so it was like, I always referred to it as like the mean girl's version of sex ed, right? Like, you have sex, you can get this horrible disease, you're gonna die. But I wasn't steeped in that like purity culture that I feel like came around a couple years after I went through sex ed, where I feel like the purity culture got much bigger. But I still had all of the, a lot of the stigma. So how do we talk about pleasure and with, um, just this like stigma in the air?

Lorraine: I would say, you know, just to put things into perspective, I like to give historical context to things, right? So if we think about purity culture that really came out of the late 1990s, early two thousands. Um, and it's a term used by the evangelical movement. And during that time that targeted youth groups across the country to live out the American dream, and the messaging has translated into sex should be enjoyment of men, the exclusion of women's pleasure. Um, purity ideology promotes biblical view of sexual purity by requiring strict adherence to sex before marriage, and only recognizing heterosexual married, um, and monogamous forms of activity. So if you don't fall within that, those categories, it's not for you. And so the ethics of purity culture, they span various religious groups, but the teachings themselves have been harmful to women as well as men, you know, um, women by normalizing their oppression of our bodies and restricting our sexual agency and teaching shame as a response to pleasure, “oh my god, that felt good. I should not feel like this. What do I do?” And then alongside of that, for, for those that identify, I always say as male or male leaning, you know, for in terms of rape culture, purity culture also eroticizes male sexual activity. And male sexual activity is the pinnacle and the only version of sexual pleasure and eroticism that should exist. And that is healthy and normal, right? But then inherent in that is that sexual assault is also inevitable because of that stance, right? And it's excusable and, um, so it's perpetuated by purity culture. So it's harmful to everybody that's involved. You know, I remember that, you know, in the nineties, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson had like their pinky promises and they're wearing their rings, which was really prominent in like the teen magazines … but like, they would put it on the cover like, “oh my God, Britney's wearing a, a promise ring for Justin, but she's, you know, holding onto her V card.” And I was like, even then it was embedded in the tabloids, like the literature that we were reading, you know,

Jennie: And like, not just the tabloids, right? Like, there were like major interviews where they were asked about it, which is creepy to ask a teenager.

Lorraine: Yes, teenage girl, A teenage girl at that. It's inappropriate. But you know, you're prepped to answer those questions and what to say as a response. And if that's what the messaging you're being trained to push out, my gosh, how are they internalizing things? I can only imagine. So yeah, during that time period, it was red hot men. I mean, my own experience with sex ed, you know, I'm sure like most folks, it was by my gym teacher and he had a, so that each time you had sex with somebody, it represented a flower petal. But once you pluck off that flower, it can never be reattached. And so do you wanna be a wholesome, beautiful blossoming flower, or do you wanna be an empty stem with nothing left, just stubby and maybe a nice shade of green? Who knows? Let's just, and you know, that was to the girls, right? That was never talked about as like, boys, you're like the, the sticky tape that will not be sticky anymore or whatever. The, like metaphors. This was like really targeted at the, the girls. You know, it just shows the how ingrained it's for us to not be comfortable with anything associated with sex that might feel good. It's just automatic, no shame. And for the boy, it's something to look forward to. It's something to be excited about. And anything's excusable because men for some reason are just completely insatiable and cannot control themselves. And so that is our duty and our burden to carry.

Jennie: So, because there is this purity culture, but we've also talked about in other episodes like this atmosphere of just like mis and disinformation everywhere. Where do women go to get like, good information around pleasure?

Lorraine: Well, as I said, we're part of a pleasure renaissance that I find I, I'm just finding that pleasures popping up in various places, you know, outside of my work, and I love it. I really, really do. Right? And so I think for women, first thing, speak up, speak up to yourself, have a conversation. Hey girl, what feels good? Do we really like the sex that we're having? Do we not? Do we really know what makes us feel good? Or just Google it. Um, you know, when I used to do in-home toy parties, I used to say, I would suggest to the, um, my clients that you should follow a yes/no/maybe list, right? Just Google lists of sexual behaviors and just go through it and see what seems appealing to you, what you'll definitely do. But you're willing to give it a try and definitely know. And so you can do it with your partner. If it's like a long-term relationship, it might be something fun to reignite that, um, intimacy or keep it going if you guys are already having a fabulous sex life, but with the intention of centering yourself and, you know, just asking for it if you can. I know it's hard as women because shame and stigma that's associated with us to speak up because we've been trained to silence sexuality. But it's a, it's, you have fun exploring, hopefully-- that's what I would say. Um, in terms of books, I'm a, I'm a, you know, bookworm.

Jennie: Totally.

Lorraine: And there's a few awesome authors I love. Um, so, and they're also researchers and these are also women all across the spectrum. And right now what comes to mind is Come Together by Dr. Emily Nagoski. She just released the book, it talks about creating intimacy in long-term relationships and how do you keep that going? However, her first book that came out, I'm not sure when it came out, I think almost 10 years about this point, it's called Come As You Are, and it's a book directed for, it's for women and it centers women's pleasure, and it kind of gives you the sex ed that you never got in high school. Just real basic understanding of your body, your anatomy, the hormones, how your brain is your biggest sex organ. Um, it goes into that in great detail. And it also teaches you about, um, it gives you a nice perspective to look at sexuality. And then there's some quizzes in there and assessments where you can learn how to enhance your own sexual pleasure, because there are some folks that are asexual, don't experience pleasure during sex. And actually one thing that women do not, you know, we fail to speak up about is the amount of discomfort or pain that might come along with sexual activity. And again, it's because we're a little bit [dis-infomred], right? We don’t know that information, and I'm telling you, is your best friend if you had not, um, used it or if it's not in your nightstand, it, it's great for and partner play when you're trying to have a comfortable experience. Because sometimes there's this thing of discordance, right? You may feel aroused, but your body may not be responding the same way or your body's responding in a way that would indicate that you're enjoying something, but you know what you may not be. And so, one thing I love about lube, if your body's not catching up to where your brain is, then use it and it'll just make the experience a lot more pleasurable. So books. I would say go and talk to your healthcare provider if you can. Um, you know, sex is even hard for healthcare providers to bring up in the middle of an encounter with a patient, you know, um, even those that are very familiar with women's anatomy, like a gynecologist or an obstetrician, um, because it's just culturally not something that we're comfortable discussing. And so sometimes you have to advocate for yourself in the doctor's office and say, “Hey, hi, hello, this doesn't feel good.” Or, you know, “this is uncomfortable, I feel I need this change.” And maybe you can get your, um, answers, your answers to your questions. And if you have a specific condition you'd like to discuss, maybe something that'll help alleviate, right?

Lorraine: If you don't want to go to the doctor about, I strongly suggest a sex therapist or a sex coach, or talking to a sexologist, someone that's trained on educating other people about sexual behavior and emotions and whatnot. There's plenty that, um, I've come across, um, whose work I admire on, you know, different social media platforms in my work. I was recently talking to groups of women about their experiences of sexual pleasure. And a few of them said they actually have subscriptions to OnlyFans because there's some educational content in the mix of all of the other content that's on that platform. And so, um, people are finding ways to educate other people about sex and sexuality and behavior. And a lot of that includes pleasure. And unfortunately, a lot of us don't think we deserve sexual pleasure, but it's inherently a right. You know, it just, it's a reproductive right. It's a sexual right, it's a human right. And women just, it's not a priority for us. It's not seen as one unfortunately. Um, but it's so important to our overall wellbeing. So I'm always in love with books, so you can, so there's tons of researchers, you can find plenty of podcasts, um, that center discussing sex and sexuality, especially for women along the lines of porn, there's a lot of available ethical porn out there. I know porn is the icky place for some folks, but if you're into visual stimulation, there's lots of options available for women now, um, that center women, we'll put it that way. Um, and that opens the door to a lot of possibilities. And, um, I'll say I'm a fan of the Dipsea Stories app. I dunno if you're familiar with that app, but it's like audio books, but it's erotica and you have different types of voices you could, um, listen to. There's different storylines. So whatever you're into, if you're into heterosexual sex, if you're interested in, um, polyamorous relationships, they have stories with that… like audio smut.

Jennie: And, um, but it's all the good stuff, right? Like how fun is that?

Lorraine: I, I honestly love that app. Um, I came across it from a sex educator and I went and I was like, oh, I like the free stuff. But then, so I got a subscription and they also have meditations on there that will help, you know, with breathing, there's different, um, there's a series in there just on pleasure mapping, so helping you helping work through what feels good on your body. And these, again, are moderated by licensed professionals. It's not just Joe Small. Now on the stories, there's probably voice actors, but in terms of the wellness content, because it's a whole section just for wellness, they have things for meditation, things to help you with your breathing, things to help you reconnect with your body, or if you're just trying to fall asleep, it's just a voice of someone that you would find sexy speaking to you and lulling you off to sleep. And so, um, you know, technology is another way to help enhance your pleasurable experiences. But yeah, those are just some suggestions I have where people can go and talk to your friends, like talk to your, talk to other folks about it. Um, see what the local sex shop in your area is promoting in terms of, of events. A lot of them have free workshops and, okay, you'll be surprised at or not surprised at who else you may run into there. Or if you don't wanna run into folks, you can sometimes call ahead and they'll tell you like the times when it's not so busy where you can go in and kind of have a more intimate shopping experience if you like. But yeah, you know, just, just take a risk and step outta your own comfort zone a little bit if you feel like to be daring and see what could potentially bring you pleasure and have fun with it. Ultimately. That's what I would say, right? Like, have fun. It's such an important part.

Jennie: Okay. So I know one of the other areas that you also focus your research is on sexual health equity. So we have a little extra time. Let's, let's talk about that part of your work.

Lorraine: Yeah. So thank you for giving the space to talk about it. Um, so I again, came into public health working on HIV prevention among urban women. And then from doing that work, I just kept getting tired of talking about sex risk with STIs, unintended pregnancies, sexual violence, sexual assault. And although those are yes, very important parts of, um, sexual and reproductive health to study, I wanted to look at pleasure and especially pleasure for Black women because it's important for Black women to understand that they deserve sexual pleasure. And when I'm talking about Black women, specifically here in the US, and because of the very hard history regarding our sexual and reproductive health, it's imperative that we learn about ourselves because so much education had been denied to us. And so as a way for self liberation, self-agency, how about talking to, um, Black women or helping Black women achieve equitable pleasurable outcomes? Black women have a unique experience, um, given their intersectionality, you know, their gendered racism that we experience, that the history is intricately linked with our sexuality, our history here. And we incur the brunt of how, as we were talking about earlier, purity culture, um, increases that oppression. Okay? And so thus, Black girls and women receive little, if any, messaging around sexual pleasure at fear of being labeled “fast”, meaning, oh, we just wanna run around and have sex, um, or promiscuous within, you know, our communities. And so, um, I, my goal is to really just help Black women understand that they are deserving of, um, sexual pleasure. I think when I was young and thought about the times I would ask questions about sex or questions about my body, no one would tell me, and because I was a precocious child, I would just run to the dictionary. I would find a word, I didn't know what it meant, look it up. And, um, I would find my information.

Jennie: I had the encyclopedia, like I was looking stuff up.

Lorraine: I feel that. And so that's where my curiosity came from. And then also I was the prepubescent girl reading harlequin romance novels. Like I was in love with love, like everything was, oh my gosh, butterflies and stuff. And in there they'd have really explicit text. And I'm like, what do you mean her loins? Like, what, whatcha talking about? And so I would have these questions, but then I got so shamed by getting caught because I was the content I was reading, you know, well, what about this interests you? And you're too young to know about these things and you know, these authors are, are very experienced adults that, that talk about things that you are too young and you should have no interest in being interested in. And I'm like, huh. And just the shame that came over me for just wanting to read about love stories. Kidding. Like, essentially that's where it came from.

Jennie: Like, I just like looked [my parents] weren't around, didn't ask questions because I, I had, you know, that Catholic school shame built in and like, no, you don't, you don't talk to people about it.

Lorraine: Yeah, but then I also thought like, if God created my body and it's so wonderfully made, why should there be shame attached to something like this? You know, when in my opinion, sex and orgasms is the highest form of meditation, you know what I mean? If you wanna talk about getting closer to a higher being, like what do we yell out oftentimes? My god, my God, you know? And so in just, you know, thinking about pleasure and how I, my earliest interactions with it, it was from, again, very innocent space, but such shame and stigma, just wanting to talk and learn about certain things, you know? And so, um, my work really focuses on, um, Black women, but really women in general, you know, I mean, there's a significant orgasm gap, right? Um, I dunno if [you’ve talked about the]Frederick studies, he wrote this like six, seven years ago, right?

Jennie: Definitely worth talking about because we haven't talked about it on the podcast. So definitely worth like diving into real quick.

Lorraine: Oh, okay, great. So this is study put out by Dr. Frederick, uh, back in 2018. And basically she looked at national data, um, I'm not sure which data set it was, but I believe it was outta Kinsey, um, in Indiana where she looked at different genders as well as different sexual relationships to see how, how often were people having orgasms and were there, was there a difference? And so if you've heard about the orgasm gap, this is what that's referring to. And so basically starting off with heterosexual men and ending with heterosexual women, there's a huge discrepancy in the percent in the, in the proportion of orgasms these types of individuals experience. So heterosexual men experience orgasm 95% of the time that they're engaged in sexual activity, followed by gay men at 89%, and then bisexual men at 88%. Then when you start looking at women, lesbian couples, they experience orgasm 86% of the time, bisexual women, 66%, and then heterosexual women, 65%. So that difference between heterosexual men and women is over 30% difference. There's a problem with that. And we're afraid to talk about pleasure, but yet we have Viagra, we have Cialis. So we know that sexual pleasure is important, right? It's a big factor when you identify as a man, and again, you should be entitled to that sexual pleasure for women, not so much. They, they, we, um, our, our pleasure is not, um, considered, and it's quite unfortunate, but there's a, I would say an emergence of, um, new research that's coming out that talks specifically about it. And so, like I mentioned, the Kinsey Institute out in Indiana, there's a huge research, um, institute that looks at human behavior, and it's been there for almost now starting the 1950s…And, you know, there's researchers at that institution, at different institutions around, um, the US and globally that focuses on factors that affect sex and sexuality and partnerships. And here in the US um, there's now a concerted effort, I would say, to actually collect data on Black women’s sexuality or sexuality of Black individuals because we're not really well represented in research, research samples and populations. And so, um, there's currently a big sex study that's being done by Dr. Hargan and Dr. Thorpe down in Kentucky. Dr. Ashley Towns is another great epidemiologist. She's been putting out wonderful work about, um, looking at the prevalence, just getting basic data, epidemiological data on, um, sexuality and women's sexuality. And so it's, it's a good time. Um, I think because we're now at the cusp of collecting such great data, I'm so looking forward to seeing what comes out. But yeah, so when we talk about sexual health equity, it be along the of race, ethnicity, gender orientation, um, but the fact that it's getting any type of attention I think is quite awesome.

Jennie: Okay, so I usually on the podcast asking people, what can our audience do to fight back on these issues? But I think this, this episode, it makes much more sense to ask, what can we do to bring more pleasure into the, the conversation around sexual reproductive health and right.

Lorraine: Well, I think it's important to remember that pleasure goes beyond orgasm. Um, it goes beyond sexual satisfaction. And you can gain pleasure, you know, by engaging any and or all of your senses. And as the contexts change, your relationship with pleasure is going to change, for example, tickling, right? It's different to be by one person versus another, even though it's the same sensation, the same input that's going to your body, if it's not in the right context, you're not going to enjoy it. And so I would say to increase or enhance your pleasure, um, factors that are important for women, I would say would be things like, um, engaging in longer duration sex. The research shows that the longer the sexual activity, the more likely you're to find it pleasurable, engaging in oral sex and engaging in a variety of sexual behaviors. I'm not just what you've been doing, I guess, consistently or habitually, um, up until now. If you're a male and you're sexually active with women, I would say brush up on your anatomy. Um, women's anatomy, it's not that complicated, not that scary. And the same for women too, because unfortunately we're not quite comfortable, all of us, um, you know, connecting with ourselves. And so if you've got a few minutes, hold a mirror up and be like, “Hey, say hi, see what's going on.” Talk to your girl parts, see how they're looking, reconnect. And then if you're a male, you know that Google is a, is a good place to start. Um, you can read up on anatomy, you can read up on women's pleasure. Um, there's a great book called, um, what is it called? She Comes First and it's about helping men learn how to please women. So again, there's plenty of online resources. I would also say extend yourself some grace and compassion, pleasure. It changes based off of where you're in life. You know, pleasure as a part of sexuality is, um, a result of everything around us. Our environment, whether it's us by ourselves and our home, our neighborhood, you know, I'm thinking about ecological models at this point, but, you know, society, policy laws, um, economics, they all affect it. So depending on where you're in life, maybe pleasure doesn't come as easily. Maybe the quality isn't as, um, where you want it be, but understand that it can improve. My heart goes out to a lot of folks that are in the same space with littles at the house because you wanna talk about a hit to your sexual pleasure! It's being a parent to young children. And so I would say if you're in that space, to not expect to have good sex for the moment, and again, it's okay, it's okay. It can change, it can get better, but right now their resources are going to keeping these little beings alive. I think that, um, again, I mentioned talking to a professional, like a sex therapist or sexologist. Um, there's an emergence of support to see therapists as well. It's very important. I think women encountered a lot in the reproductive space, but my gosh, women are coming away so informed and empowered on finding relief for whatever issue, um, they potentially may be dealing with. Dr. Candace Hagins put out an article in Huffington Post last year talking about how her reproductive health affected her sexual pleasure. And so if you have time, I would go and Google that. But she shared her experience of, of her, um, libido going down, you know, due to some reproductive complications. She was experiencing different sensations, experiencing a lot of pain, and how she had to, you know, overcome some pretty sucky times given that she herself was a sex researcher and she wasn't having that much good sex at the time. Um, but again, it changes. Yeah, I think that's it for now. I think I've touched upon different ways that we can all try to enhance our sexual pleasure and I think it just requires, um, getting outside your comfort level a little bit. And as long as you're doing it in a way that you feel safe, um, I would say stay open to the possibility of a great experience.

Jennie: Lorraine, thank you so much for being here. I had so much, uh, fun talking to you about pleasure.

Lorraine: Thank you for having me. This was great.

Jennie: Okay, y'all, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Lorraine. I had so much fun talking to her all about pleasure. And it's so important that bringing pleasure into these conversations. You know, so often when we're talking about sexual and reproductive health, we're talking about, you know, abortions or getting pregnant or not getting pregnant or all of these things. And it's really easy to lose focus on the fact that sex is often is mostly had for pleasure and like it should be a pleasurable experience. And you know, we can't just focus on those other parts. We need to also take time to make sure that we are having fun and having pleasurable sex. I hope you all enjoyed it and I will see y'all next week.