Know Thyself

S1: On this episode of Everybody's doing It with Miss Lolly. I take a virtual class with self intimacy and orgasm coach Amy Whitefield and report back. I found myself just like taking my clothes off and dancing around the room. There was a gardener outside with a leaf blower. I kept thinking like he could have be able to see this. Join us for the fun. This podcast is about sex. There will be language not suitable for all ears , so be advised.

S2: But then the sixth.

S1: Hi Beautiful's Welcome back to another episode of Everybody's Doing It , where we talk to experts like you about the role sex plays in our human experience and in our everyday lives. I'm your host , Ms.. Lolly. Today's topic is a little self-centered , self-aggrandizing , even. We're going to dive into sex and sexuality with yourself. Yes , masturbation is part of that , but it's not the only part. Sexuality isn't solely about the act of sex. It's also about attraction , identity , and how you feel on the inside. In my conversations with people about how sexuality and sexuality influences how you see yourself , I noticed the word confidence coming up a lot , so I got curious and started asking people about what part sex plays in their overall confidence and how confidence impacts how they function in the world in general.

S3: I am a hired gun bass player and I'm a bartender.

S4: How do you think confidence.

S1:

S3: You can't just , like , walk in and feel sorry for yourself and do anything in life , really. You kind of have to be good at a pretending or actually having confidence. It's it's it's kind of paramount in those two examples of a job , particularly , I think.

S4:

S3: You can have confidence in the bedroom just having experience and knowing what you're good at and whatnot and being , you know , familiar with your partner or whatnot. It can translate over also , it can make you have a good day afterward. Let's just say you wake up and have amazing morning sex. Your partner is happy , you're happy. Then you go about your day and you just have confidence all day long about it. Certain circumstances , they're separate. I think people separate their sex lives versus their real work lives. So it's kind of a case by case basis.

S4: Do you think if you're confident in your sexuality and your sex life that it carries over into just your general confidence.

S3: At least in my case , if everything's going all right with that , then yes , I'm a happy person throughout every other aspect of my life. Yes.

S5: I'm Molly. I'm a bartender. Server.

S4:

S5: I need to know what I'm doing to be able to make recommendations for my guests , to give them the confidence that I'm giving them good quality service , good quality products.

S4: How do you feel that confidence in the. Bedroom.

S1: Bedroom.

S4:

S5: So if you have confidence in the bedroom , you're going to have confidence elsewhere. I feel like having confidence in the bedroom takes a lot because there's a lot these days that I don't know shames people and makes you self-conscious. And it's easy to get kind of trapped in that cycle in the mind of like , not good enough for focusing on the imperfections. So having that confident mindset can empower you as a person which can easily impact other areas of your life.

S4: Do you think when you're having a really like , confident day where you're like , I'm feeling good about myself , I feel sexy , I feel good that you do your job differently.

S5: I don't know. I feel like confidence just like permeates your life. Like maybe it doesn't matter , like where you are , what you're doing. Like , if you feel confident , it's going to show regardless of whether you're working , having sex , hanging out with friends , like it'll impact all of your life. Yeah.

S6: My name is Terry Hoskins. I am a community relations officer for the Mid-City Division , San Diego Police Department , San Diego , California.

S4:

S6: Personally , I feel confident in who I am , what I do , my knowledge of the job. All of that together provides positive confidence in how I look at and and actually try to conduct my my job.

S4:

S6: I'm very confident in what I like , what I want , and that does bring me positivity , which gives me confidence in who I am and what I do. And being respectful and appreciation of everyone's own sexual orientation helps with the understanding of all of this , and it definitely provides me with confidence in who I am.

S4:

S7: I'm a bartender in San Diego.

S4:

S7:

S4:

S7: It has to , right ? Because like , if you have a nice time in the bedroom , it kind of like you come out of that , like feeling like energized , go to your job or you hang out with your friends and you're like , you have a little more like life to you. You could go back out there in the world and like kind of like almost like spread joy in a way. You're a little more happy. You know , my personal experience , having a good night , doing a fun night or even it was kind of weird. It's still fun. You get back out there in life and you're just like. I'm always a little more happier.

S1: After many of these short conversations about sexiness and confidence , one name kept flashing in my head. Betsy McKeel. Betsy has a thriving boudoir photography business and she has taken the idea of feeling sexy to the next level. Stick around and find out how you're listening to. Everybody's doing it with Ms.. Lolly. At one time or another. We've all heard someone say confidence is sexy , but what exactly does confidence look like on you ? Betsy McCue can show you. I first met Betsy ten years ago at a favorite spot for drinks and conversation , and I've been following her journey ever since. Betsy has made a career out of her passion for photography for the last 17 years. She credits her camera with pulling her out of the darkness after the shocking loss of her husband and business partner in 2016. Betsy spent a year traveling the world with her camera , exploring soul searching and ultimately finding within herself a new voice for her art. She returned to San Diego to rebuild a new version of her business in life when she unexpectedly fell in love again. She let love and art move her to Kalamazoo with her now husband , where she supports and encourages women of the Midwest to fall in love with themselves.

S4: My name is Betsy McHugh Gibson.

S8: I'm located in Kalamazoo , Michigan.

S4: So first things first. What is your job ? What do you do ? I've been a photographer.

S8: For 17 years. My photography studio name is Besame Pictures. I do boudoir photography nowadays , and I've been doing that the last four years going on five. The specific boudoir vein of my business. We call it grit and grace. We take empowering photos for women that are really focused on their entire being and pulling that inner beauty outwards so that they can see what everybody else gets to witness in this world. And we forget about ourselves and send them through a transformative process. I get a lot of clients that are seeking that kind of grounding themselves or reconnecting with themselves based on various things that have gone on in their life or just life. You know , it just kind of those can be things that just kind of get chipped away at wanting more confidence or finding that more self-assuredness is definitely one of the top reasons that I see people come to me. It's also one of the things that gets in the way of people doing this because they think that they need to have the confidence to do it , but the confidence actually comes from the process.

S4: Can you describe the process of it ? What we do here is a little different.

S8: I have a whole journey that I send my clients through from the time that they book up until the shoot and beyond. It's really kind of a self-discovery journey , really helping people get in touch with their why so that they can deeply connect with what they can make out of this , that we're worthy of spending time on ourselves , right ? We're worthy of investing in ourselves. We spend so much time , I think , especially as women in our culture , focusing on everybody else's needs and not really focusing on our own , ever. And we can't just we just can't work from an empty cup. We have like a whole process that we send our clients through during their journey before the recession because we want them to be logistically , mentally and emotionally prepared for their session.

S4: And some of these pictures are very intimate. I've seen boudoir pictures in there. And what I've seen from you is less posing , wearing , you know , sexy underwear and more exposing a very intimate moment with either themselves or with themselves. And the person looking at the picture , there's something that you're doing differently to get your clients to be able to do that with you.

S8: So I actually have been formally trained. I've been training with my mentor is Denise Birdsong , and she has an art of emotion methodology. It is body language , breathwork and facial expressions. This is actually like physiology going on in mine. Like it's actually like neuroplasticity , right ? It actually kind of fires all those synapses in the brain that actually you're feeling those things. It's so amazing and so powerful for my clients because if we do these things , we build that muscle memory in the shoot that day. They move forward with that. They know that they actually have that residing within themselves and they can pull it up and conjure it anytime they want.

S4:

S8: Then I get attached to like , I want to know , like , what do they do next ? Because I'm so proud of them. I think a lot of people come to me when they're kind of in that tipping point , kind of like change , or you're in the process of like kind of figuring more stuff out about yourself. Those people really go on and kind of catapult after this because we've kind of built up that whole tank of self confidence and self-assuredness.

S4: Yeah , they're able to connect with themselves and that's carried on to connecting with other people and not just other sexual partners. But it sounds like just the world in general.

S8: I've had people go on and they're like , I have been wanting to raise for five years and I haven't asked for it. I went into my boss's office and like pretty much told them five reasons why I'm so awesome and why I deserve a raise. They did that like within two weeks after their session. I'm like , That's so cool myself. Like growing up , I guess I was always kind of conditioned that I was waiting for somebody else to tell me I'm sexy. I needed that affirmation , external affirmation of some kind. And when I started my own boudoir journey , when I started having my photos taken. I discovered I can pull that out. That became a very powerful concept to me , that idea of sexiness and like pulling it up and being able to wear it confidently and in a genuine way , no matter what size I am or age I am or anything. It's really about attitude. And it's sprung from that confidence within , right ? Yeah.

S4: Somebody pointed out to me many years ago that there's a whole industry that makes money off of you not having confidence in yourself and in you thinking that your appeal , your power , your sexuality , that that is all tied to the way that your physical body looks and how other people perceive your body ? I was challenged to ask myself every time I thought something bad about the way that I look. Who's making money off of that thought ? Whatever I was thinking about myself , there's always an industry there that is going to reinforce that negative thought of yourself because it's an industry , and I love the idea that you are creating a space to counteract that. This online community you created , it's beautiful. You can see people actively battling the story that's told to them by the outside world and by society and doing it for each other.

S8: The group on Facebook is the Grit and Grace Collective. I really wanted to like create a place where people felt like they could share. Community is a very important part of my life , always has been. And when I started that group , it was kind of a little bit of an experiment. In the beginning. I invited women who are friends who I respect and kind of fall into that same category of people that I would like to work with , you know ? And I was pretty transparent with everybody when I started. I was like , you know , I just thought this would be kind of cool to try out. And eventually I'd love to invite my boudoir clients here , but for right now , I just kind of like to see what happens when we mix all these different women from all over the world and all different walks of life. So it was more of like a curiosity. I had a goal. But the thing about community is you can't dictate it , right ? Like , I can foster it , but I can't create every little bit of it. It needs to have an organic element to it. And I checked back in with everybody was like , okay , we've been doing this for a while. Is everybody okay ? If I start inviting like , complete strangers to this group for you ? Everybody was amazing. It was , you know , it was like the more the merrier. And it's quite an interesting mix of people in there and people can be kind of amazing , you know.

S4: Especially if you are in a community that was specifically designed to be supportive and not to be competitive. And I think there's a big need for that in a lot of people's lives.

S8: I've carried a lot of shame and discomfort , I think , with like my sexuality on a , you know , an outward level for a lot of years. And so I think all of this has helped me personally immensely. I can really , truly relate to what my clients are going through because I've been where they're at.

S4: You're going you're on this journey with them. Exactly.

S8: Exactly. My clients tell me like they're in therapy , but something that's come out of this is that they've gotten to feel some of those things that they've been missing. And then they turn around and they have photographic evidence of it. So there's no one who can refute it. If you're sitting there looking at a photo that shows you being magnificent , it becomes undeniable.

S4: You're giving to people an experience that's helping them know themselves better and be able to function in the world with a deeper understanding of who they are. It's just a beautiful thing.

S1: We often think about sex as a way to connect , explore and play with others. But can it also be a fun and magical way to discover and connect with ourselves ? Amy Weiss , Feld of Joyful Self Love says absolutely. Amy is a somatic sex educator and a psychological body worker , as well as a member of a sect , the American Association of Sexuality Educators , Counselors and Therapists. And she's a certified Betty Dodson , body sex facilitator and orgasm coach. But orgasm coach was not Amy's original plan for her life. By 40 , Amy had been disappointed with many other career paths , and she had been raising a family who was growing up and didn't need her as much anymore. Then one day , while on a snowy vacation.

S4: I went on a.

S9: Ski trip that was not a ski trip. It turned into a drinking adventure because the snow was so terrible and my kids were getting older and didn't need me quite as much. And on this trip of mine , somebody made a pass at me and it was an unmistakable pass. And I was just kind of like , What ? I'm just this 40 year old mom. I felt fat. I did not feel inspired , even though my husband would tell me every single day , You're so beautiful , Amy. I just could not believe it. It didn't land. I couldn't absorb it. Right. And so sort of had this experience of dying a little bit , you know , feeling deadened , not through anybody else's fault , but my own. And society's stealing from me , my radiance , my light , because we live in a sex negative , sex shaming , patriarchal sort of culture. Right. And this is what the lived experience of many women is just a sort of deadening and a in. And so these three things that all happen sort of in conjunction woke me up and caused me to say like , what is missing in my life ? What could be better ? Am I living the best life I possibly can be living ? And the answer was no. And I had no idea what was missing. Something propelled me to take a body sex workshop in New York City with Betty Dodson in 2015. And the whole time I was like , What am I doing ? I'm just this 40 year old woman. I'm getting on an airplane , I'm going to New York. I'm exploring my sexuality. Like , what ? And yet there was just some little internal seed of knowing that said , You need to do this for yourself. And I went to this Betty Dodson workshop and I came away from that. I literally wanted to shake every woman I saw on the streets and be like , Are you alive ? Do you know what's possible ? Are you living your best , most orgasmic life ? And that's how I ended up in this in this field , this crazy field of somatic sex education and psychological bodywork and being a masturbation and orgasm coach , I.

S4: Find it interesting that as a 40 year old woman , it sounds crazy to explore your sexuality like it's only reserved for teens and 20s and past that you should just put it on a shelf someplace and and just let it be whatever it's going to be and let it collect dust and crazy that you would want to know more about yourself in that way. And not only.

S9: That , but we are indoctrinated. People in female bodies. Well , all bodies really. We're indoctrinated to make ourselves small , to put other people's needs in front of our own. We have been told to be the good girl or boy. Right. And to give , give , give , not to fill ourselves or light ourselves up. Also , in female bodies , it can be really dangerous to be radiant. So we dim ourselves to avoid sexual assault. We dim ourselves to avoid shame. We dim ourselves to avoid people telling us we're selfish.

S4: Which is kind of contradicts the other message of your worth is in your beauty and your worth is in how others want to have you. See you , you know , turn it on. But not to high up. Turn it down , but not too far down , you know.

S9: And it's that Madonna whore complex. There isn't a lot of space for anything in between. You're either the virginal woman and white saving yourself for your love or you're the other end of that spectrum. And you're , you know , you're the loose woman. You're a whore. You're you're giving yourself away too loosely. And then there's a lot of societal pressure to not do that. There's also a lot of societal pressure to have a certain level of beauty , but it's never for us. The major shift that I've noticed is less related to body size or image. My own journey into this was really one of body shame , and I see a lot of people still struggling and suffering with that. I also see a tremendous number of people struggling and suffering from performance anxiety because we have these very narrow constructs of what it is to be a man or what it is to be a woman. Right. And we're just now starting to expand whatever that means to be a woman or a man to like all of the sort of rainbow of gender spectrum and sexuality that falls between what used to be two very binary positions. I also see sexuality being an important part of. Of our healing and holding in life , particularly for female bodies. But unfortunately , I don't see a lot of shifting around body size. There's still a tremendous amount of fatphobia. There's still tremendous amount of privilege to folks given to folks who fit within whatever we , you know , society deems as like beautiful labia. Plasti is the fastest growing surgery in the world and we have a lot of feeling in our labia. So to think about cutting our labia because it doesn't fit into somebody else's standard definition of what our lady bits should look like , right ? What our vulva should look like , what our labia majora and menorah should look like. It's frightening for me as a sex educator. Why do you think.

S4: Sexuality is such.

S9: An important part of who we are as humans ? It's an important part of feeling the full range of human emotion and feeling good in these beautiful bodies that we have. You know how plants turn towards the sun , right ? They're looking for their nourishment. They automatically sort of track and turn towards the sun. I feel like our bodies also want to turn towards health and wellness. And I believe that sexuality and feeling good in our bodies and bodied pleasure. For some people , sensuality is enough. It doesn't have to be having sex with another person. But this whole concept of sensuality and sexuality for me is foundational to feeling whole as a human being.

S4: Yeah , I think the the main focus for me is usually just the word play. You know , being an adult who.

S9: Likes to play.

S4: We have so many things in our lives that weigh us down that we have to do the long to do list. And life can seem kind of like a grind , but then you get this play time , whether it's with yourself or with somebody else or multiple people. I think that just really makes life worth living. Whatever , whatever that play is sensual or sexual in nature.

S9: Shame is basically saying there's something fundamentally wrong with me. I'm broken. I'm not enough guilt is I did something wrong. Of the two , shame is a little more insidious than guilt. It's important to remember that all of these feelings that we have , there are biological reasons for them , right ? Like biologically , there's a reason for shame. Shame is meant to keep us in the group. It's meant to keep us safe and part of the group. What was the worst thing you could do as an early hominid ? Early peoples , whatever you'd be banished. Was the worst punishment you could possibly receive , right ? Because you couldn't survive out there by yourselves. Right ? So shame is important and it becomes a habitual way of being in the world. That confidence and joy and play and laughter and intimacy and connection can all help combat. There are ways of being that get stuck in the body and then become habitual negative feedback loops. And when we allow ourselves to turn towards pleasure because optimism and pleasure are choices , right ? When we allow ourselves to remind ourselves to do that through things like confidence , through things like body positivity , we lower the vibration on the shame and we rewire using neuroplasticity and increase our body's ability to feel more pleasure.

S4: The way you talk about shame is very similar to the way a lot of people talk about trauma. Yeah , feel like shame and trauma really do go hand in hand and shame can be traumatizing , especially , Right. It has been. It started when you were really young and you're all you know is to feel shame about your body , about how you behave , about your eating , your thoughts.

S9: I think , you know , in terms of like , what can we do to ditch shame ? Just allowing ourselves to be who we are , not needing to fit ourselves into this narrow construct or this tiny box of what somebody else says we should be liberating ourselves from. Shame comes from embracing our authentic selves. And it's not about producing or doing anything. It's about feeling loved and accepted for exactly who we are.

S4: Which is authentic love and acceptance. And if you're not who you are , the people around you who love that person , they don't really love who you are. They love this , right ? This character you. Created.

S9: Created. And it's so vulnerable to allow people to see you and to embrace yourself , too , Right ? Shame , I guess , is sort of the fear of disconnection. And we're all wired to feel connected. That's a primal need. So being vulnerable , which is often viewed as a weakness , is actually a strength that naturally sort of melts those barriers between people , creates a real heartfelt human connection , and that deepens intimacy with ourselves and with others. The whole reason I went to my first Betty Dodson body sex work. Shop is because I felt I wasn't sure if I was having orgasms. I wasn't sure. And I sort of thought , well , if I'm not sure , maybe I'm not having them. Maybe I'm , you know , this frigid person , maybe I'm not capable of orgasming like other people. So I went and learned that actually I was having orgasms , but they were teeny tiny. They were small. They were like Betty called them sneezes. They were sneezy orgasms. Right. I used to call them peaks. And I would go up , up , up. And then I would just kind of fall off. I didn't have a big , huge release and I had lowered my own pleasure ceiling. When you start to chase orgasm , it's like a cheetah. It's just going to go like running away from you as fast as it can. The way to have bigger , better , more full orgasms is to follow the tendrils of pleasure in your body rather than chasing the orgasm. And you're simply saying to yourself , What would make this feel even better in this moment ? And now. In this moment. And now in this moment. Right ? What would make this feel even better ? Not. Oh , I'm taking too long. I need to get to orgasm or oh , my God , what if I lose my erection ? So a million other things that come to mind for us around orgasm. But I think one of the most important pieces is don't chase it. And the other piece is they don't fall from the sky. So you really do have to take some action not to chase the orgasm , but take some action to allow yourself to open to more pleasure. And the things that I typically talk about are mindfulness. Where are we focusing our attention movement ? How much movement are we inviting it to the body ? Mindfulness movement , breath , sound , touch and talk. How we talk to ourselves and how we talk to others.

S4: Yeah , I'm curious about that. Talk to others. Peace Communicating with your partner that you're thinking like , Oh my God , I'm taking too long , You're going to give up on me. And that's , I guess , kind of the purpose of a fake orgasm is to be like , You did it , buddy. Yay. Good job. You know , like , and.

S9: I don't want to have sex anymore , so I want to go to sleep. Okay , Now I've paid that water bill. I can just go to sleep , right ? People talk about it like you got to pay the water meter. It's obligation.

S4: And it's also. It's for the other person. That's right. Yeah. What would the conversation look like for somebody to tell their partner ? You know , it might take me a minute or I might not come and I still want to play with you.

S9: Open , honest , vulnerable conversation. I used to be afraid to tell my partner some of these things , and then I slowly worked up the courage and starting telling my partner. And then what happened was I was saying it in a way that was shutting him down because I would say like , Oh , I don't like that , or don't touch that or don't do that , right ? It was all negative. So learning to say and I had to practice this , I still practice this. That feels good and this would feel even better in the moment is awesome. And then talking about your sex both before and or after is that opportunity to say , you know , I sometimes have a hangup that it takes me too long or I feel like if I have to pee in the middle of having sex , you're going to feel badly because you're going to lose your erection. And that's going to be frustrating , right ? So having those sorts of conversations where we talk about like what's happening in our sex life and not being afraid to ask for what we want and say what's happening for us is a big piece of creating more authentic intimacy and connection. What you just were referring to is this thing about like , I'm performing for my partner and they I'm also not only my performing for my partner , but I am by not asking for what I want. I'm training them to do something that I actually might not like. They're getting the signal , Oh , she likes this or he likes this , so I'm going to do more of that. And before you know it , nobody's getting what they want. And everybody's in this negative play acting , you know , experience when it could be so great if we were just honest about what we wanted.

S4:

S9: Sometimes there's pain. We don't have any practice. Nobody has modeled this for us. I'm afraid if I ask for it and I don't get it. What does that mean ? What ? What's the meaning ? What are the stories I make up about that ? What does that say about me ? And then the things that we do Instead , we hide. We become passive aggressive. We pretend we don't want it. We substitute with alcohol , drugs , food , other people. Right ? You name it. That's sort of all the kind of shadowy behavior that our adaptive survival mechanisms that we use that keep us safe and that help us in the world. But when it comes to sex , they become ways of hiding. They lend themselves to inauthentic connection that just doesn't feel juicy or fulfilling or nourishing for most of us.

S4: Out in people's lives In so many ways it does.

S9: And it's related to so much more than our sex lives. It's related to our relationships with our parents , our friends , our children's , our colleagues , our employers. And what's so exciting about that , I think , is that when you start to work on your sex life , some of my clients will come to me. They're like , I just want to work on this one little thing , right ? It's one little thing connect. I want to have more confidence or I want to have harder erections or I want to , you know , learn how to ask my partner for what I want or I want to solve this libido mismatch , whatever it is. They think it's this one little thing. But it's like , you know , you pull on this one little thing , it's like a sweater. It's like a thread and a sweater. You pull on that and then the next thing you know , like your whole sweater unravels and you're like , How did I get here ? But once you start to knit that back together , you find that like , you walk through the world differently and you're going to get that race that you deserve at work , you're going to fix that relationship with your with your parents. You're going to be a better parent to your own kids. You're going to be a better friend. You're going to be a better partner. Right. All of these things. Because when you start to work on your sex life , it affects your whole life. It's a it's the it's a vibrancy. Right. That's connected to you.

S4: One last question for you.

S9: I have this phrase saving the world one orgasm at a time because we often think our sex lives are superfluous. They're extra. They're not important to pleasure in general is often viewed as who's got time for that ? I'm busy raising my kids. I'm busy making a living. I'm busy paying for food and medicine right When we don't allow ourselves to feel pleasure , we're just we're sort of flat. We're not living our best lives. So I feel very honored to be a witness and be a facilitator for helping people along the journey that I myself am walking. I do this work because I'm on my own healing journey and it's radically transformed how I live my life. And I want to help other people light up. And it's like this Olympic torch. That's how I think of it anyway. It's like when you see somebody who is lit up , you're like , Oh , I want what they have. And when you see that , that somebody else has confidence and how sexy that is and you allow yourself to feel lit up as well , that just lights up the next person , right ? So we the more of us who can light up and embrace our healthy , whole authentic selves , the more we create that in the world.

S1: So after that intriguing talk with Amy , what do you think was the very next thing I did ? Well , you guessed it , I signed up for her 90 minute masturbation coaching session. I mean , I had to do it and report back. Right. I'm just going to tell you. Can I just , like , look at you and tell you what happened ? Is that okay ? Sure. That's my producer , Parker Edison. I didn't really know how to tell the story other than to just tell it. So what do we do ? Okay , so the first thing she did was she had me kind of place an intention on what we were going to do and what I wanted to discover. I didn't really know what I wanted to discover just yet. So we worked on that and figured out that there were some blockages I had been trying to to work on. So we did this grounding exercise that was really unexpected because I found myself having a really big emotional reaction just with these breathing techniques. So she had me get big and she had me get small , and when I got small , she directed me to think about a very specific childhood memory and instant waterworks. I did not expect this. I instantly just started bawling. I stayed in that position for a while and she invited me to just stay there until I was ready to get up. Once I got up , she created this really great space for me to process what had happened , and we did that for a while. And honestly , I had been working on trying to find where this blockage had been coming from and not just in sex in like other aspects of my life. And I had been working on this in therapy for a while. And here just doing this breathing exercise with this woman over Zoom and there it was. It was instant. There it was. I finally understood that I had been carrying around with me since I was a little kid. This idea that I'm too loud , too big , my energy's too much. And it was just too much for my really anxious family members. And so I have just been walking around feeling kind of squashed. And then we went into the next stage of things , which was kind of like this erotic guided meditation for me. She kept reminding me not to endure. Like if it doesn't feel good , don't endure it. She invited me to turn my camera off. So I turn my camera off and all of a sudden I felt like I was free to just kind of move around and be playful. She guided me through this energy work that I found myself just like taking my clothes off and dancing around the room , you know , and. A gardener outside with a leaf blower. And he was going around where I was , and I kept thinking like he couldn't be able to see this. And and that was part of it , too , for me , was like , if he does , I guess he does whatever , you know , she helped just move this erotic energy through my body and then invited me to touch what I wanted to touch and move , how I wanted to move. And by the end of it I was just giggling. So the whole experience went from being stiff to crying to having fun and laughing , to just feeling like a veil had been lifted. And I have been kind of more playful in my every day since that , and I will definitely do it again. In fact , I'm already signed up for another one. Your sexuality is for you , with or without others. It can shape how you see yourself and how you move in the world. After hearing these stories , maybe it's a good time for you to ask yourself , What is my sensuality and sexuality when no one is looking ? How do I discover and connect with myself sexually ? Dig deeper , beautiful's and know thyself. See you next time. Everybody's doing. It is produced and hosted by me , Miss Lolly for Bad for Media. Our executive producer is Parker Edison for Meridian Arts and our head editor is the talented Chris Reyes. I am so grateful these two don't blush easily. Adrian Villalobos , Media production specialist. Liza Jane Morissette is director of audio programming and operations and John Decker is senior director of Content development. You can subscribe and find our newest episodes on Apple , Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This programming is made possible in part by the KPBS Explore Content Fund. Have fun out there. Beautiful. And thanks for listening.