Summer series: Self-pleasure & outercourse for better sex

Published Dec 25, 2024, 2:00 PM

To celebrate summer, we’re dropping our top Extra Healthy-ish episodes in 2024. Somatic sexologist Alice Childs discussed how to invite more pleasure into your life, the importance of self-discovery for a better sex life, and how to put aside the mental load and focus on you. 

 

WANT MORE FROM ALICE?

Find her @alicechildofficial or see her site here. You can read the B+S online story about relationship sabbaticals here. 

 

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Online: Head to bodyandsoul.com.au for your daily digital dose of health and wellness.

On social: Via Instagram at @bodyandsoul_au or Facebook or TikTok here, or DM host Felicity Harley @felicityharley

Welcome to Extra Healthy Ish, your podcast from Body and Soul. I am Felicity Harley, and to celebrate summer, we're dropping our top episodes of the year. Yes, the team here at Extra Healthy Ish. Well we're out of office, so you listeners loved this one, of course, no surprises. It is about how to well have a better sex life. We talk about at a course and masturbation and self pleasure. My guest was somatic sexologist Alist Childs, and more importantly, how to put aside the mental load and focus on you. Alice, how are you good?

Thank you, thank you.

For coming into Well, Body and Soul HQ.

Of course, nice to be back.

Yeah, well we'll have to have you back. But first let me ask you how do you stay extra healthy ish in your life?

So obviously as a sexologist, I'm going to have the approach of the sex and pleasure version of this answer, and so it's really about prioritizing pleasure. So not just sexual pleasure, but pleasure generally is really good for our mental health, our physical health, and then yes of course our sexual health. They're also intertwined and a lot of people struggle to get out of their head and into their body with the busyness of modern living and modern life. So when I say prioritize pleasure, what I mean by that is really prioritizing pleasure in your body. So doing something every single day that brings my body pleasure and really trying to tap into what it needs each day. So for example, a ca am feeling exhaustion from you know, all of that dancing at the we can today how I can bring pleasure to my body is yoga or stretching, or a cam feeling a lot of fatigue in the eyes from all my screen time today it's you know, eyes shut, you know, gentle lighting and creating pleasure rituals in my space. And yes, other times that's you know, daily self pleasure and masturvation. But really the idea of what would bring my body pleasure.

I love that whole concept and I feel We've had a few people on the podcast talk about pleasure and I just love the way, and we're going to talk more about reframing as well, but I just it's just I just love it, like the concept that pleasure doesn't have to be just what happens, you know, in the bedroom. It's so much more, you know, and you can and just really coming into your own yeah, into your body and thinking yes, like I mean, I do yoga as well, and I love it because it makes me feel amazing and strong balanced, dare I say exactly? And that is a form of pleasure as well.

It is, it is, And all of these different activities they are releasing those pleasure hormones and neurotransmitters, things like dolphins and dopamine that are really good not just from mental health, but our you know, physical wellness as well. So the more we can prioritize our pleasure, we all feel the benefits of it.

Yeah, let's talk about another thing that will hopefully bring us a pleasure, which is out of course. What is this?

So outer course is a great word that's being used to redefine what I think a lot of people would define as foreplay. So if intercourse is you know, sexually enjoyable activities that involve penetration inside the body, out of course, it's sexually enjoyable activities that are outside the body. So yes, kissing, massage, fingering, hand jobs, making out, and actually things which don't even acquire touch at all, like sexting and dirty talk and things like that.

I mean, I freaking love this word, and I almost think, where has it been? Like me decades I've been you know, well I used to write Cosmo sealed sections back in the day, and I'm just like, what how come this word has not been used? How come it's not in the zeitgeist?

I know in the second you hear of course, intercourse and outer course, and it's all sex. Which is what I love so much about it is, you know, often people use the word intercourse interchangeably with the word sex, which you know implies that, you know, the only form of sex is penetrative sex. And not only is that not very inclusive in terms of all different sexualities and genders and sexes, but it's also really boring, you know, it really minimizes the sexual potential of pleasure and connection with yourself and with someone else to just a couple of acts, when actually it's such a huge range of possibilities.

Possibilities for sure. Now, what I thought was interesting, I mean, outer course was one of the trends from the Love Honey Group survey of twenty twenty four. But there was something interesting, else interesting that I saw in the survey, which I want you to talk about we'll talk to us about that. Despite the sexual revolution, the survey found that the global masturbation gap has actually widened from forty seven percent in twenty twenty two to fifty seven point seven percent in twenty twenty three, so ten percent. I mean, this seems hard to wrap my head around because I feel like, you know, over the last five years, women particularly come more liberated. You know, six toys are sold in chemus and.

So this is the gap specifically around people who identify as women identify as men. Yeah, a really interesting stat there, I agree, And anecdotally, speaking from my experience working with clients, you know, I never like to generalize, but it is definitely more common for my female involve owning clients to have been experiencing times of low or non existent libido, And it is more common for when I'm working with men or penis owners to go on the other side of the spectrum, which is they're wanting to learn healthier masturbation habits and decrease their masturbation habits or reduce their alliance on porn. So anecdotally, I've definitely observed, well, quite a significant difference, and I was thinking about it on the way here actually, and I think there's all sorts of potential potential wise, A big one that I come back to is this idea of understanding motivations behind self pleasure. A lot of people, when I ask them, you know, are you masturbating and they say no, and we talk a bit about the why, you know, they often say something like, well, I'm just not you know, no, the mood I don't. I don't desire it, therefore to do it, I just want to go to slate.

You know.

And I think people are waiting for this sort of lightning strike moment of suddenly feeling horny, and if they don't, they don't self pleasure, which makes sense, right. But the less we prioritize pleasure, prioritize sex, think about sex, want it. It's a bit of a spiral. We want it less and less often, and same on the other side. The more we think about sex, the more we're you know, reading dirty novels or watching dirty films or watching porn, the more we think about it and want it. So it comes back to, you know, Emily Nagosky's an amazing sex research that talks about in her book Come as You Are, which is really thinking about your own personal breaks and accelerators. And when it comes to female sex and pleasure, there's been a research that's done that shows that women are more likely to be impacted by with things like stress as a potential erotic break. And so this idea of breaks and accelerators. Accelerators are things that turn you on, that help you feel connected to this part of yourself, your sexuality or pleasure, and the breaks are the opposite and anything that puts a dampener on your libido and your arousal, on your desire. And it does seem that women are more likely to be impacted by these breaks and have what's called responsive desire, which is essentially desire. Isn't this lightning strike moment? If you're just going to sit around and wait for it, it's less likely to happen. What we're needing to do is learn how to prioritize our accelerators and reduce our breaks, giving ourselves the right amount of time and headspace and context and stimulus so that desire can be triggered. And so when I work with women who are not masturating at all and want to want it, you know that's coming to see me for a reason they want to want it. Actually, sometimes that's the time where it's really important to start prioritizing your pleasure.

Let's pick up a bit on that. I think. I think you make some really valid points that many of our listeners are like, Ah, yes, I'm often got so much going on with the mental load. I'm so stretched, I've got a juggle work, I've got you know, you may have kids or not. There's so many pressures on us, more than ever. I mean, i'd argue in our post COVID world, how can we get out of our heads and prioritize Let's talk about, you know, self pleasure.

I think self pleasure is a great, great place to start because often an additional pressure, you know you're mentioning all of those pressures, is the pressure of I've got to do this not for myself, but for my partner.

You know.

Mismatched livedo is one of the main reasons I see couples, and that adds a whole heap of extra pressure. Even if it's accidental, I've got to suddenly find that my sexuality again, and else my partner will be really unhappy. I feel guilty that I'm not getting their needs Matt, and there's all of this additional pressure, and they forget to prioritize this not just for someone else, but for themselves. It's got to come from within. I've got to really want to do it for themselves, not because of someone else. And so, yeah, self pleasure place to start to remind yourself of that, to remind yourself how fun and playful and curious and how much vitality you know your sexuality can give you. And so to find that for themselves first rather than for that partner. There's a great way of trying to remove that pressure.

We'll be back after this shortbreak with more from Alice. Now, one other thing that I just want to talk about is, you know, this masturbation gap is about. The research also also shows that the lack of clitchural education and exploration contributes to women in relationships only orgasm being sixty five percent of the time during sex, versus their male partners who orgasm ninety five percent of the time every time they have sex. I mean, that's a huge disparity. Yeah, talked us about this.

Yeah, I could talk about this for hours. Yeah, there's a huge lack of clinical education in fact to a sexual health conference at the end of last year an obstetrician and gynecologist, So that in seven years of med school and then five years subsequently, the clitorist wasn't mentioned once. What Yeah, and he's an obstetrician and gynecologist. So not only is the cliticists miss missing from sex education, but it's also missing, you know, from medical texperts and education and anecdotally a couple's therapist lecturer, you know, a friend of mine told me said, don't, whatever you do, bring up sex. You don't want to open that kind of worms. So again there's this idea even in the mental health spaces and the physical health spaces, people don't know how to talk about sex, yeah, and don't know the anatomy of you know, of the body as well as they should be. And the impact of this is so so huge, not just in terms of people's ability to have fulfilling and happy sex and pleasure, but also you know, things like painful sex and understanding you know, what's going on in their body when they experience pain. And the clitorists, you know, for anyone listening is not just what's on the outside of the body. That's just the tip of the Iceberg. There's this whole organ this whole network that runs under the surface of the skin. It's all a rectile tissue, meaning you know, women involve owners, we get erections too, but ours is just happening under the surface of the skin, so we don't really see them or think about them. And when we know that, it completely revolutionizes people's what they do during sex to achieve pleasure. And that just takes time on average about twenty minutes to get a clitteral erection. Yeah, there we go back to outer course. Everyone like, just give your body time time to build around.

How so often we just want to jump in.

Yeah, jump in way too quickly. And this is I think where that gap is coming from.

Interestingly, I went to a sex education night with my one of my sons. It's been a school sex a night and it and we my husband, I Tom, and I had to go with him. He'd probably embarrassed if he ever listens to this. But it was actually I mean, as I said, I've written, you know, I've written about the volver and the it all for years, but it was so good for me just to revisit it. Like, you know, they had diagrams up and that was actually actually explained it, I thought very well. But even for me and also my you know, Tom, I was like, yes, that's right, it looks like that. Again. It's good just to refresh.

Also because of how wildly underfunded and under research the clitoris has been over the years. Actually, there's still new information coming out about it. You know, people often, you know, until last year were quoting, well, the cliticus is over eight thousand nerve endings, new research papers over ten thousand nerve endings. So there's still a lot of new information. So it's always good to revisit. Yeah, we are still learning.

No, I think that was a good little so revisit everyone. Just google it and remind yourself of what, yeah, what's going on, and have a look, like get the mirror out. I think that was a big thing that we used to I used to write and cosmic seal sections. Just get the mirror and have a good look.

Absolutely, and you know, I always am not surprised, but you know, it's always a good reminder at how few people actually know their own anatomy and their own pleasure anatomy. Someone think there is this, you know, is this what people we want to spend a whole session with me on Actually people need to know their anatomy and the light bulb are harm moments can be life changing when they realize this is what's you know, they're not broken, it's just that you know, it's just their body and what they've been experiencing. So many other people experience, and there's science behind what's going on for them, and that can really be a huge mindset shift around what's going on and what they've been experiencing, because yeah, they've been rushing ahead to penetrative sex way too quickly, and no wonder it hasn't. At best, that's average. At worst, it's painful.

Yeah, absolutely, Now I suppose one other element of these is, you know, if you are having articles with a partner, I mean, obviously, get to know yourself and what you like first in your own own time, and then communication is important when it comes to outer course talk to me about this.

Yeah, of course people are so I've had it so difficult to ask for what they want. You know, it's hard enough day to day in life, let alone. Then when you add the vulnerability of being in the bedroom and being with your partner, adds all sorts of extra complications I was talking about. Sex is challenging. There's vulnerable and you don't want to hurt your partner's feeling.

So it carries a lot of shame for women. I mean, I feel like we've still got a lot of shame there absolutely who've grown up in perhaps certain type of you know, religious households, stricter households, cultural, you know, they're still.

Shame around absolutely autely. And the words feel clunky and awkward in your mouth because you don't practice saying them, you know. And there's all sorts of reasons why it's heart And then a lot of people go, I don't even not to ask for because I don't know what I like, I don't know what I want to ask for, So there's all sorts of barriers behind that communication piece. I often encourage my couples that I work with to go back to basics, you know, things like central massage in practice and what I call the bossy massage, which is practicing asking what you want in a massage context.

I like that.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun and it gets the conversation going, the communication going, and recognize, oh when someone when one partner does really struggle to find their voice, what helps them feel safe and find confidence finding their voice and making sure both person people get a chance to give and receive and have a bit of a chat about what that was like afterwards, you know what was fun about that, what was challenging, What does that mean that we want to try again next time? And really starting to open up the conversations by going back to basics a little bit. It's actually why I developed an online collection of sex and intimacy games for couples to really help people go back to basics with fun, new, different date night ideas.

So I saw that on your website and about you about getting the fun back, and that's brilliant because there's so many couple who would get to that stage where hang on, where's the fun that we used to have when we first met totally?

And that's often curiosity and newness. You're still discovering about each other. You've sort of got that sort of curious mindset of what should we do next? And over the years you think, oh, we know each other pretty well, but actually there's always more to discover about your own erotic mind, what turns you on and your partner's exotic mind and body what turns them on, and so there's always more to discover. So it's about getting helping people get back to that curious mindset and that newness again.

Yeah, all without of course. Oh I hope that term lives on forever.

I'm sure it will.

Alice, thank you for coming on extra health.

Thank you so much for having me. Well.

I hope that left you with some things to ponder. Perhaps you need to put some more self pleasure time in your diary, put aside the mental load. It's tough, isn't it when you've got so much up there in your head and that list, that to do list, that stops. Anyway, if you do want to read more about our of course, I will eve link to a story on Body and Soul online which we go into it a little bit more. Anything else, head to body insoul dot com dot you. As I said, there are plenty of other sex and relationship stories, advice, tips tricks on that website. If you did enjoy this chat with Alice, jump on rate and Reviewed, or you can subscribe to this podcast and of course share this app with your partner, a friend, anyone else who needs a bit of inspiration when it comes to their own self pleasure. You can also follow us on socials. Grab our print edition, which is out in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow it stakes you Healthy Issue