Sexual Pleasure, Desire and the Impact of Stress with Emily Nagoski

Listen to "Sexual Pleasure, Desire and the Impact of Stress with Emily Nagoski".

We're kicking off season 5 with a real bang as Hannah is joined by Emily Nagoski, who is a sex educator and author of Come As You Are and Burnout. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've absolutely heard Hannah fangirl about her before! Emily takes us through the very important differences between pleasure, arousal, desire, and consent and Hannah and Emily talk about responsive and spontaneous desire and how the model of responsive desire can be misunderstood and cause some ethical problems. They also get into stress and the impact of stress on sexual desire, what the stress cycle is and how you can complete it even if the thing that is stressing you out won't go away. Finally they chat about Emily's new book that she's writing currently, the world of sex research, and arousal non-concordance. Nerd out with us and welcome to season 5!!

CW: rape culture, sexual assault

Read the episode transcript here!

SHOWNOTES

What we chat about…

The changes and updates to the new version of Come As You Are
The differences between pleasure, arousal, desire, and consent.
What is pleasure?
The cis-centric research into arousal and genital non-concordance
How the model of responsive desire can be misunderstood
The difference between the scientific use of the word "arousal" and its common use
Ethical problems with misunderstanding responsive desire
How do you find the line between responsive desire and coercion? (15:27)
How does responsive desire actually work?
Rape culture
All desire is responsive desire
Cis men's desire being more reflected back at them by society
What actually is desire?
What is consent?
Consent is also context-specific
It being okay to stop sex in the middle of having sex.
Human Giver Syndrome
What did Emily learn about stress from writing Burnout that she can apply to sexual desire stuff as well?
What does completing the stress cycle look like?
Letting yourself cry
Identity stress
"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." - Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light
Caring for each other
Managing mismatched levels of desire in a relationship
What advice would you give to a sexless couple where one partner is unwilling to discuss it? (54:15)
What is Emily's next book about?

USEFUL LINKS

MORE ABOUT EMILY NAGOSKI

EMILY NAGOSKI is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling Come As You Are and The Come As You Are Workbook, and coauthor, with her sister, Amelia, of New York Times bestseller Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. She earned an M.S. in counseling and a Ph.D. in health behavior, both from Indiana University, with clinical and research training at the Kinsey Institute. Now she combines sex education and stress education to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. She lives in Massachusetts with two dogs, a cat, and a cartoonist.

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