Desire As Medicine Podcast
Catherine & Brenda interview people and talk to each other about desire. They always come back to us being 100% responsible for our desires.
Contact us by email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
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Desire As Medicine Podcast
64 ~ Pleasure as a Path to Fulfillment with Steve Bodansky
World-renowned scientist Steve Bodansky uncovers the secrets to a fulfilling life through the lens of pleasure. In this episode, we explore Steve's fascinating transition from a traditional scientific background to becoming a trailblazer in the study of pleasure and orgasm.
With insights from his collaborative work with his late wife, Vera, who co-authored many of his 16 books with him, Steve challenges societal norms by highlighting pleasure's evolutionary purpose and its potential as a beneficial force for individuals and society alike.
Steve shares the inspiring love story he experienced with Vera, portraying a 45-year journey enriched by mutual support and an extraordinary focus on joy. Even during Vera's battle with Alzheimer's, their relationship flourished, proving that love and pleasure can deepen over time. This narrative pushes back against cultural tendencies to prioritize pain over joy, shedding light on how their unique dynamic and dedication to the study of orgasm and pleasure kept their bond vibrant and fulfilling. Their story is a testament to the power of pleasure in nurturing long-term love.
Our conversation also navigates the complexities of pleasure, sexuality, and the dynamics of romantic relationships. From the benefits of manual and oral stimulation to the importance of communication and feedback between partners, we tap into the nuances of enhancing shared experiences.
Steve's recent venture, "Boy Meets Girl," a collection of romantic short stories, weaves themes of love, kindness, and connection. Inspired by his own experiences, these stories invite listeners to rethink conventional notions of sexuality, encouraging a journey toward deeper connection and pleasure.
Connect with Steve:
extendedmassiveorgasm.com
Facebook
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Email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
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@desireasmedicinepodcast
@Brenda_Fredericks
@CoachCatherineN
Welcome to. Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world. I'm Brenda.
Speaker 2:I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life. Motherhood relationships and my business Desire has taken me on quite a ride and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher, turned coach and guide of the feminine.
Speaker 1:And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married. I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of tired and wired and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker and a forever student, even after decades of inner work.
Speaker 2:We are humble beginners on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1:On the Desire as Medicine podcast. We talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked being responsible for our desire.
Speaker 2:Our episode of Desire as Medicine. I am joined today with a very special guest, who I'm about to introduce we're very excited about this and, of course, my wonderful co-host, catherine Navarro. Welcome, catherine.
Speaker 3:Hey, brenda, so excited for our guest today.
Speaker 2:So our guest today is no other than Steve Badansky. I'm going to give a little intro about Steve. Steve is a PhD and a scientist who's been working with researching and practicing pleasure for over 50 years. When I checked out his Amazon when I purchased his book, I loved your profile, so I'm going to read that. It says I started out as a pretty normal guy studying science and then one day I found out about giving and receiving extended and massive amounts of pleasure.
Speaker 2:I enrolled in a small experimental university in Northern California where I majored in giving women ridiculously intense and long orgasms. I met my wife Vera there and after we taught there for a while, we started the welcome consensus and then the two of us went our own way and started writing books about our favorite topic. We continue to teach and train folks in the artistry of pleasure and now I have written my first novel about pleasure and lots of orgasm. Of course I love how you say. Of course Our books are guaranteed to make you a better lover if you practice what we write.
Speaker 2:Steve, along with his wife Vera, who has recently passed and we'll get into that more because I definitely want to hear about Vera has published 16 books. His 16th book is coming out in November of 2024 in varying genres, which is pretty amazing, including the Illustrated Guide to Extended Massive Orgasm, the illustrated guide to extended massive orgasm, love and Alzheimer's self-pleasure, and his newest and first book of short stories, boy Meets Girl. All of his books involve having more pleasure in your life and in relationships. So welcome, steve. We're so happy that you're here.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much for having me here.
Speaker 2:It's truly our pleasure, yeah, so I thought it would be a great place to just start off. What is pleasure Before we get into it? Because you've dedicated your entire life to pleasure and studying and teaching pleasure, how would you describe pleasure for our listeners?
Speaker 4:Good question. I mean, I've been studying it for my whole life and I still can't figure it out. I think pleasure is things that we like and evolutionary-wise our beings developed to become pleasure-oriented because that made the species more functional and more genetically productive. So it was good for the genes to. So if food didn't taste good and we didn't eat anything, we'd die off. If sex wasn't any fun when nobody had sex there wouldn't be any reproduction. So things that feel good are pleasurable, and for a good reason. That's sort of an answer, I suppose.
Speaker 2:It's a great answer and it makes a lot of sense. Basically, we do what feels good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, and I guess I'm like a hedonist, which means that I, like I want to do what's pleasurable, but you also want to include the rest of the world. So if it causes you pleasure but nobody else pleasure or causes people harm, then it's not really pleasure. It's got to include everybody. You can sell pleasure, but that's not hurting anybody.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. I want to talk about we're going to get a lot more into pleasure, but I want to talk about your wife, Vera, and your love for her. It's so beautiful and so profound and when I was looking at all of your books and looking at Facebook and so much of your work has been with Vera for 40 years. Is that right?
Speaker 4:We married almost 42 years and probably lived together another year or two before that.
Speaker 2:It's really beautiful.
Speaker 4:About 45 years.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful lifetime together and you recently took care of her in her illness of Alzheimer's and you took care of her and I love that you called yourself a care lover rather than a caregiver. That's really beautiful and your Facebook is just filled with pictures of her and your love for her just feels so profound and so beautiful, like you're so dedicated to her and you brought in so much pleasure, even at the end of her life, as you took care of her.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she had a knack, I guess, creating that and having me feel that way. She was like my muse and she was a pleasure-oriented and a happy person. In general People with Alzheimer's often get angry and upset and mean, but she was totally loving and adoring and appreciative. I loved her more and more. I never had any kids of my own. She became kind of my baby in some ways.
Speaker 4:So when we first got together, she was 13 years older than I was and she kind of like helped me out in the beginning more, you know, she had some money and I was like totally broke when we met at Morehouse, at the commune, and she was kind and helped, you know, and then she was a great cook. And then the roles got reversed as we aged together and I became the cook, I became the talker and I became she became, you know, the baby more. So this went through a lot of different parts of the relationship. I loved her more and more as the years went by and I still love her. She still brings joy to me just talking about her and thinking about her.
Speaker 4:I write poetry about her every week. I'm writing a book now about the last seven years. I wrote two books about her. One's a book about a life that we met and about her life before I met her. She's telling me all these stories. What's interesting is that she forgot a lot of her stories as she got the dementia. But I remembered them. So I became. I'm like people are like Steve, vera or Vera Steve that's like my name on my email name and so I'm like Vera, steve now, not just Steve. I'm Vera Steve, so you're talking to both of us.
Speaker 2:I have no doubt I love that and of course she comes through when you speak about her because your work together was so profound together and so meaningful over the years. I'm just so touched by it because you don't always hear that, you don't always hear people married for that long and still at the end of their lives being so dedicated to each other and you were so dedicated to her well, we both trained in orgasm.
Speaker 4:I trained in how to pleasure a woman and she trained in how to be pleasured. We were a good match that is a great match. So, like you know, even though we did pretty much the same routine, it was always, you know, it was just manual stimulation mostly. But her orgasms were like amazing and it wasn't like each one was the same or it wasn't like boring. It was like each one was creative and new and fun, because that's how we learned.
Speaker 2:Can you talk more about that? Can you talk more about how your work together with Vera about pleasure and orgasm? You studied it and you taught it together and you wrote about it together. How did that work? How did doing all of that together impact your love and your relationship with each other?
Speaker 4:Well, it's hard for me to, I mean, I don't know what the other would be like. You know, that's the way we did it. I was with her pretty much 24-7,. I used to say and, and, and I don't know. We were agreed, we were both kind of agreeable people, both, you know. So we didn't have much conflict at all. So it was mostly, you know, it was just mostly love and pleasure. It was just mostly love and pleasure, and sometimes I'd want to seduce her and she'd say no, and then I'd have to become a better seducer and as the years passed, even with her dementia, she'd still resist and stuff, and and I still have to come up with new creative ideas to get her to receive pleasure, even though she wanted it. But she wanted me to at least, I guess, show that I was really interested or something. So I was usually one of the aggressors as far as having the pleasure, but she was the one who usually was pleasured.
Speaker 4:I think in our society it's hard to admit that you want to be pleasured too, because we live in a pain-oriented society. You know, it's kind of based on pain and Jesus Christ is. He was a great person, he did all these wonderful things, but how we view him is like nailed to the cross, and the cross becomes it was a great person, he did all these wonderful things and then. But the how we view him is like nailed to the cross and the cross becomes the, the icon of him. And like you watch the news, the news only has bad news. Maybe at the end of the news I'll have one good story after 28 minutes of cruddy, horrible stories. You know who had the most pain. You know where's the most poverty. You know all kinds of horrible things.
Speaker 2:It's really amazing how much more comfortable we are with pain than with pleasure.
Speaker 4:Well, it's easy to talk about, not society, because we're kind of I guess it's the Judeo-Christian thing, I guess, I think, some other cultures, maybe it's easy to talk about it, although I haven't really met too many of them Some Polynesian place, maybe India, back when the Kama Sutra was being made. But you can talk about your operations and get really into nitty gritty and about how much pain you had and how horrible the hospital was, but you can't ask people how was your orgasm, how was the last time you had sex? People don't talk about that. It's like a taboo in our society.
Speaker 2:It's such a taboo. It really is. Well, I love that you are bringing that out so much. I mean, all your work is about pleasure. So, steve, what would you say in your experience really keeps people from pleasure and self-pleasure specifically, and is there a difference with men and women?
Speaker 4:Well, I think I mean most men masturbate when they were young, you know when they turn not too young, but you know when they can hold enough to do it. They became old enough to do it and I think a lot of little girls maybe do it. But our society also is kind of against women having pleasure. It's changing a lot now In the past 50 years. It's changed a lot, but it still hasn't really A lot of our students, the women, really haven't masturbated a whole lot and they're new to it.
Speaker 4:They're teaching how to do it. Actually A lot of them Some I mean not everybody, but the men, like the men, usually do it just to relieve themselves, not to have the greatest pleasure, but just to at least reduce the tension. It's still enjoyable because orgasm is an enjoyable evolutionary, as I said before, adaptation. So I think there's a difference between the two sexes and women aren't supposed to want to do it. So men have to usually be the seducers, but not always. It's really nice when a woman is equally. I think they can take turns, but women really want it. Women are really more animalistic than men are. Men are.
Speaker 4:I think more romantic than women are. But in order for women to be the animal that she is, a man has to be more romantic towards her. That kind of gets her more in the mood.
Speaker 2:Also, she would have to admit that she wants pleasure. Yeah, also, she would have to admit that she wants pleasure. Yeah, she'd have to admit that she wants pleasure and be willing to back herself in it with, with action and do something about it, as opposed to just being pursued herself.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and self-pleasure too, like I had this one woman who's a student of ours, now a student of mine, and she's taking the course and she hasn't. I give her homework to do and she hasn't done the homework. You know, the homework is doing these different exercises, not even just masturbating, but other, you know, just looking in the mirror and liking yourself, you know, looking for things you like about yourself. It's not really that difficult.
Speaker 2:But it's so confronting. That's so confronting to so many women. We've had guests on who have talked about the practice of looking in the mirror and noticing all the beautiful qualities about yourself and the women and the clients that I work with, and even myself before I started this work. It's just unheard of to do something like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, once you start, though, it becomes a lot easier, and you don't have to like everything about yourself. You just look like one thing to start, and you start like one thing, and you'll start like another thing, and sex appeal is really liking who you are, so the more you like who you are, the more sexy you have. It doesn't matter what you look like.
Speaker 2:I totally agree, and one of the things we've talked about here on this podcast is if you can't love it, maybe you can just appreciate it. Maybe you could just appreciate that body part. Maybe you're not quite at love yet.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Catherine, what's coming up for you here?
Speaker 3:I want to say that the thing that popped up for me was like oh, I wonder if, Steve, if you're working with younger women now, like millennial and lower, and if the selfie age has changed the mirror exercise at all if for the better or for the worse, because we're so many people are used to cameras and filming themselves. I mean, they're not necessarily naked while doing it. Has it adjusted your mirror exercise in any way, or are you seeing no change in people's willingness to practice?
Speaker 4:Are you seeing no change in people's willingness to practice? I wish I could answer that better, but I really, since COVID and since Vera's dementia, I really haven't had a whole lot of young clients, you know, occasionally, and I don't think it's changed a whole lot for people I've seen, but maybe it has for people I haven't seen, lot for people I've seen, but maybe it has for people I haven't seen. I mean there's more information. There's a lot more information about pleasure and good sexuality. I mean even the one taste spread around the world. So there's more information, though I think most people still haven't really confronted it and really delved into it too deeply. But more people have done it before. Thank you for your honesty. Yes, maybe into it too deeply, but more people than before.
Speaker 3:Thank you for your honesty. Maybe it's too soon. I'd love to ask you this question the next time we meet, Maybe in the next few years. I'll be like what about those selfie ladies now?
Speaker 4:I don't think it's changed a whole lot. The students that we used to get that we did get. They wanted more pleasure, so they were willing to do what it took usually.
Speaker 3:I think the thing that I'm wanting to point to is, for you, this is part of your life, the pleasure practice, the pleasure path, right, it's sort of you're in the life, you're in the pleasure path and so, yes, it increases pleasure, it increases love, it increases connection. So it's hard to ask you what would life be like without it, because you've only had life with it. What does life look like without it? Who the heck knows? Right, not your experience, but do you come across other people, whether men or women, muggles, that are like oh wow, steve, you've been able to accomplish, like you must come across people that say to you how did you do this? Or how do you live this way? Or are you just around people that are like this is their norm?
Speaker 4:I mean most people I relate with know who I am and we don't really delve into that topic very much, and people I don't know don't ask.
Speaker 3:Isn't it fascinating that people wouldn't ask you?
Speaker 4:I don't get a whole lot of questions. Sometimes somebody will say I really loved your book, it really helped our relationship, it made a big difference in my life. But I don't get any questions like you know, how could you do this? You know?
Speaker 3:so it's almost like you're part of a speakeasy. You're like behind this door and people just come and give you like the whispered secret. You helped me so much in my life. It's our little secret. I'm not going to scream from the rooftops, I'm just going to let you know. You're the man, you're amazing and I'm going to go now. Peace. That's so interesting that it's so taboo, to the point. Even the people that you've helped their life, their marriage, that they're not more explicit about what that means or what that actually equals for them and how it looks in their life.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't hear a explicit about what that means or what that actually equals for them and how it looks in their life. Yeah, I don't hear a whole lot of feedback. I'd like to hear more, because I really love getting questions Just emails. People ask me questions. I can write a whole book. They're ready to have questions. This is one of the books I want to write, because, after our first book came out, our publisher wanted another book. They could come up with an idea for the second book, and I said how about questions and answers? Because people were asking more questions then, because our first book was very popular, and they said that's a good idea, but something different, something more, though, and so we came up with the illustrated guide, so we had more drawings of pleasurable positions.
Speaker 3:I'd love to go back to this thing that you said about men being more romantic and women being more beast-like, and that, in order for a woman to be okay, animal-like, more animalistic, and that that is actually a door that a woman can tap into when she feels potentially, I guess, safer, maybe because he's being romantic. What is how? Have you seen that, either in your own life or in those that you teach? Because I would argue that women, let me know that men aren't as romantic that we live in a world of. There was this gorgeous article that I read on Substack the other day that they don't want the sex that's being offered, or patriarchal sex, but here we have a man saying actually, men are more romantic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it works both ways. So if she was more, you know, orgasmic and pleasure-oriented, he'd become more romantic. You know, like a lot of my earlier poems, they weren't the best poems but they were about, you know, kind of sexual romantic ideas. You know, after Vera had some really good sex with her, you know I'd write about it. You know, after Vera had some really good sex with her, you know I'd write about it you know, in a romantic way.
Speaker 3:Well, how would that, how does that show itself, let's say, in the early days of courtship, when potentially a woman isn't so ready to be animalistic?
Speaker 4:Well, again, it works both ways. So a man can learn his skills how to be more romantic, how to seduce her, how to have more fun, how to get her to want to have more fun.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 4:Thank you, the better he's at that, then the more pleasure he'll feel and the more romantic you'll feel. So it kind of will build on each other.
Speaker 3:This makes me think of that phrase like don't have intercourse until you're begging for it, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think intercourse is kind of overrated. Manual stimulation and oral stimulation are a lot more precise, especially manual stimulation, which is our go-to.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, are a lot more precise, especially manual stimulation, which is our go-to, I think, when we're talking statistically right for sure, because not all women feel the same through intercourse, as opposed to manual stimulation and or clitoral stimulation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the clitoris is analogous to the male's head of his penis. The head of the clitoris is where the you know is analogous to the male's head of his penis, the head of the clitoris. So the nerve endings are not inside. Hardly any nerve endings heat and cold, I think. Receptors, and there's a few receptors in there, but very few. Some people are different, some people have more, some people have less, but generally women do not have a whole lot of receptors for pleasure receptors or receptors in general inside their vagina. The clitoris is the labia. It has a lot more than the vagina, vagina's like way down there, as far as Now the clitoris. If you can involve the clitoris with you know, with your, with intercourse, that can enhance the intercourse a lot.
Speaker 2:Thank, you for this. Yeah, thank you. You know this brings me to a great thought, one of the questions that I wanted to ask you that you talk about a lot. We talk about pleasure and self-pleasure because you're talking about a woman having more nerve endings on her clitoris, not in her vagina. Yet intercourse is usually the go-to that people think about when they think about sex, and you talk a lot about learning about your own body and knowing what you like and what pleasures you so that you can teach your partner. So can you talk more about that? Like, what is the importance of learning about your own body yourself and then bringing another partner, as opposed to the other way around?
Speaker 4:It's really learning how to love yourself and to learn how. What feels best, what is the most pleasurable kind of touch to you and does it vary? You know, be curious, be experimental, check out your whole body, not just, not just your um, your genitals. You know there's ways to connect different parts of your body to your genitals, like your lips or your nipples or your, your introitus, which is the openings of the vagina. And the more you can do that, the more pleasure you can experience and it'd be more fun for you to have any kind of pleasure with your partner and it's a fun thing to do on your own. And it's a fun thing to do on your own. It's really. I spent the past 50 years living with Vera and also self-pleasuring myself too, and you know you can become really good. I became really good at that and I think anybody can do it, because I don't think I'm different from anybody else. I was that guy, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, you're very, very willing to play and be curious, which is a wonderful quality.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and be playful with yourself. Be curious about your own body. Your body's a lot more amazing than you think it is your body's a lot more amazing than you think.
Speaker 2:It is exactly. Yeah, I think a lot of women run into the issue of not really knowing what they like. And how can you be with a partner and ask for what you want or have the sex that you want if you don't even know what you like yourself?
Speaker 4:definitely. I think it's like it's a a priority to learn how to self-pleasure and learn what feels best and then learn how to communicate that, because some people will even know what it is, but they won't be able to communicate it to somebody, or they'll be afraid to communicate it, or the guy's a new guy and they don't want to freak them out. Exactly, it's better to freak them out early than later Totally. I think that's another to freak them out, then, early than later Totally.
Speaker 2:I think that's another big issue that women run into. First of all, they don't even know what they want. And then, okay, once you know what you want, how do you communicate that to your partner? Right, especially like the dynamic that we set up a man's supposed to know what to do and a woman's maybe supposed to be quiet. Yeah, and men are a lot dumber than women think Well, how would they even possibly know? I mean, most women don't know their way around their own anatomy.
Speaker 3:Like we know more about our phone than our anatomy.
Speaker 2:So how are they supposed to know and how would a man know how to pleasure a woman if a woman doesn't even know her own body?
Speaker 4:no, I didn't know that. I went to college for four years. I graduated, I think I was 20 or 20, about 20, and uh. Then I went to medical school for a couple years in italy and I never heard about the word clitoris in those years and I was married for five of those years. I never pleasured my first wife on the clitoris, I didn't know. You know we had intercourse. I probably sucked her off occasionally, but I didn't really know what I was doing and she wasn't telling me you know so, and the worse it is, the less.
Speaker 4:You're going to do it Totally. Yeah, yeah, it's, you're going to do it.
Speaker 2:Totally yeah. Yeah, it's really. It's really sad People are missing out on so much pleasure and so much connection in their relationships.
Speaker 4:But it's also an opportunity to go from low to high and it's a bigger ride, you know, if you're always up there high. You know, totally Exactly.
Speaker 2:I want to ask you so on this same thread. So now a woman knows what she wants. She's with a partner.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Can you talk about how to communicate what you'd like to your partner, because this is a very sticky spot for women. They don't know how to do it how to do it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's in my first two books. I also wrote a book called Orgasm Matters. I describe it there pretty a lot and it's really simple. It's a training cycle. It's mostly giving lots of positive feedback.
Speaker 4:So, find something good, you know, and the more good you can find, the better. You don't just say one good thing and then ask for something, but say as many good things as you know. You have a nice touch, you have great hands. This is fun. I love being with you. I'm glad that you want to learn how to pleasure me. Anything that's positive gives wins to the person. And then you can ask if they're not doing it exactly the way you like. You can give them an instruction Like would you do it a little lighter? Would you do it lighter, let's say, because a lot of guys use too much pressure and the guy might go a little lighter but it's still not light enough. They don't say you dummy, I mean lighter. You say like you know that's better, that's really, you know, you really listen to it, it's really nice. You know your hands are really soft.
Speaker 4:I like the way they feel. You know You're in a good spot. I like it lighter and you keep doing that until you get the exact pressure you like. And you do that with the spot where you want them to touch you. But you've got to kind of give when a man's training a woman, the same thing, because women some women are more natural, I guess, or it's easier, because the penis is a big thing and they've seen more penises being pleasured. But a guy can, like you know, guide a woman too, or if two women together, they can guide each other.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. That's really good to know. And what is your advice about? So you're, you're telling your partner, you're giving them an adjustment, you're telling them, you're thanking them, you're telling them what's working and then you're also giving them an adjustment. I think another place that women get tripped up on is asking again and again and again, because sometimes you have to give that adjustment a couple of times, because we're just going to say men and women this time. But I think that men really want to quote do it right. They do, but it takes some time.
Speaker 4:if a woman told them in a nice way yeah, yeah, that's when very friends is funny. When very first got married, her grandmother gave her a book on how to train a poodle, and the lesson that she learned was you don't do it with negative feedback, you do it with positive feedback. And Vera didn't have a poodle, she didn't have a dog, so she put two and two together.
Speaker 2:You were the poodle.
Speaker 4:The first marriage. Okay, by the time we were married she knew how to train a guy pretty well, and each guy's. You know, each woman is different and each guy is different. So you know, if a guy learns a one woman and he's with somebody else, he's got to learn how to pleasure the new woman too. And same with the. You gotta train each guy.
Speaker 2:You could train one guy doesn't mean the next guy is gonna know how to do it exactly because everyone's different, everyone's body is different, and it is important to share with your partner what it is that you like, and and training you know you can do what some people hate, the word training Training a dog.
Speaker 4:I'm not a dog, I'm not a stupid. You know resistance to pleasure. But you can do like five minutes of training and then we'll have free-for-all or whatever, and then you can use training or not, you know. So you don't have to do it every second of it, but at least some of the time he wanted some training. And then once you train a person, they'll know you don't have to keep training them and then you can just tell them, wow, it's really good. So the more you know, wow, you're right in the right spot. That's great pressure. I love it. I love it. That feels so good. Oh, you got me, babe. Lots of wins, you know, lots of feedback. A lot of people don't even talk at all during having pleasure. They're kind of like you know, we try to do it in the dark, you know, and not say anything, Not to talk, but that's what you know.
Speaker 2:Exactly because of all the taboos.
Speaker 4:Now, I mean when I grew up you Now, when I grew up people on TV slept in separate beds. They had twin beds. They didn't have one big bed, they slept in one, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I know we're talking about sex. We're talking about pleasure, not sex, not necessarily penetration. We're talking about clitoral stimulation, training our partners, letting them know positive feedback. Oh, I loved that pressure. Thank you so much. Yes, you got that touch just right. I love the way your fingers feel, that sort of thing. You're turning me on, babe. Okay, I'm learning. Yay, and then let's talk about the women, even though the percentage is smaller, for women that do like intercourse, that do actually experience pleasure from intercourse, because there's a whole different rave on cervical orgasm that they call it. Is that something that you also talk about?
Speaker 4:Limited.
Speaker 3:Limited okay.
Speaker 4:You know, and you can still like talk when you're having intercourse and find out what your partner's favorite position is or what kind of how they like to be talked to like they like talk, or they like sweet talk.
Speaker 3:You know everybody's again here different, so yeah okay, I was just curious to know if if there's any sort of adjusting there or not. It's not something that I'm so well versed in, but I have had some communication, like some conversations around it and I'm like, oh, women are really All the rave about that part.
Speaker 4:Okay, you can't feel what the gentle stroke said too much.
Speaker 2:Got it. So what I was gathering from what you were saying before, steve, was you're saying, in teaching your partner what you like, to actually have practice time separate from sex. It sounds like what you were saying like actually having practice time where you're dedicating even five minutes to training or teaching your partner what you like. Is that what you're saying? That's an option.
Speaker 4:I mean everybody can decide what they want to do. Do it for five minutes, I can do it the whole time. You know two minutes Half the time, you know it depends. Half the time you know it depends, you know, if they're training with us, you know the whole time we'll. You know, I pretty much know how to pleasure somebody, but everybody's a little different, so the person doing it can also ask questions, the person who's being pleasured. So we kind of in the training kind of splitting up the roles. So one person is the producer of pleasure, we call the doer, the other one is the receiver of the pleasure, the doee, and so you can train from either position and you can train together position and you can train together. So one person can be asking questions, the other person can be giving feedback. The person asking questions can also give feedback. It feels really good touching you here.
Speaker 4:We like more pressure, we like less pressure, and then you do it incrementally. If they say yes, you do it incrementally and you ask them again until you get the exact. They'll say no. Then you do it incrementally. If they say yes, you do it incrementally and then you ask them again until you get the exact. They'll say no. Then you know your right pressure. But you like it no and you want to ask questions that the answer is kind of yes or no, without the person having to think too much. So you don't ask like, do you like this, does this feel good? Because then the person's got to start thinking if it doesn't feel good, what are they going to say?
Speaker 2:it could ruin the whole scene so like yes, no questions as opposed to open ended questions, easy answer like? Would you like more pressure? Would you like less pressure? Faster, slower, as opposed to does this feel good?
Speaker 4:more to the left yeah, like would you like more pressure? Would you like less pressure? Faster, slower, yeah. As opposed to does this feel good? More to the left, you know or higher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think these are great distinctions and I really appreciate you sharing them, because I think a lot of times people say they want better sex and that's a beautiful desire, but how do you get it, you know? And so I think, when you break down these little things, like it actually takes practice, like you have to be willing to come to the table or to the bed, so to speak, and and practice and show up and say what you want and make the adjustments and ask for what you need, and it's really very vulnerable to do, and so I think it's really important to break it down. I love this conversation so people know, like a tangible, practical thing, that they can do to have better sex and connection in their relationships.
Speaker 4:And again, you don't do that the whole time. You can like have you know you can have like when people first get together they may want to like just you know, not talk with training cycles and all that. But the more you can do the training cycles, I think the better your sex will become and the more fun you'll have. Even though some people think it's like kind of takes the fun out of it, it really adds the fun to it.
Speaker 2:I totally agree. I totally agree. I totally agree. I mean, sex is really vulnerable. So to ask for what you want is really vulnerable and if you feel into your body and you can actually know from all the practice that you're talking about what you want, and then ask for it If you're not sure try different things.
Speaker 4:I'll let you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It makes it fun, Like it doesn't have to be that serious either.
Speaker 4:No, it's supposed to be fun. Fun is more important than anything.
Speaker 2:Sex is more important than anything. No fun, oh fun yeah the fun.
Speaker 4:So, like you know, if you're too serious, you seem to give you this great orgasm. You know you can't, you know you can't be like. The outcome doesn't matter. You have to enjoy the stroke that you're on both people the person giving it and the person receiving it, or or the in between. Whatever you you know, whatever position you're playing, so you can't like be thinking about am.
Speaker 2:I going to get there.
Speaker 4:Am I going to get there? Because orgasm is here now, pleasure is here now and the only goal really is to feel much pleasure again from this stroke, not to be. It's kind of like a meditation really, because you want to be present for that moment. The only time for anything is right now being present with your experience. And if you're in your head thinking about when is it going to feel better, when am I going to have an orgasm, why isn't he doing this, all these thoughts will take you away from feeling. All you got to do is feel the pleasure of the stroke that's happening. It's like in AA, they say one day at a time. It's like one stroke at a time. The better you can do that.
Speaker 4:Sometimes you'll go into your head, of course, because if you ever try meditation, you'll notice how Sometimes you'll go into your head. Of course, because if you ever tried meditation, you'll notice how many times you go into your head and the same when you're being pleasured, you'll be going into your head. But as soon as you notice that, come out and start feeling the stroke again and communicating. And let's say, oftentimes, when a person's pleasuring you and you and you start spacing out, they start spacing out too, so you both kind of spaced out.
Speaker 4:So if you're good at pleasuring somebody, you can notice that you want to notice it before they notice it and you can say oh, I can see, I can feel you just left the building there, and then the person can surrender to you more because they notice that your attention is on them. The goal of being pleasured is enhanced by the more you can surrender to the pleasure. If you're resisting and the person's controlled, then you're not going to have that much pleasure. And in order to produce pleasure for somebody, you have to be able to take control of their body. And some people don't like the word control. No, it's not like controlling somebody, it's controlling the pleasure that's available. And you do that by attention and noticing and communicating what you notice.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. I've heard it say that this could be true for men or women, but a man's, one of his best qualities is his attention. It reminded me of it because you're saying if you can notice that someone's spaced out like a second or two before you can maybe change the stroke, do something different, or you could just call it out and say, hey, where'd you go?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I just stepped out and I noticed you're still out it's a great quality.
Speaker 2:I think that I personally appreciate that quality, like oh, somebody knows me so well and their attention is so high and they're so present that they actually have their attention on me and they notice that.
Speaker 4:I think women like that yeah, and the better you know somebody's body, the more attention you can put on them, because you're not like only into training, you're also into notice, noticing. You know, if you all your attention is on learning, then you're not going to be able to notice as much. So you want to do both, but first you have to train I think and have as much attention as you can muster and then keep adding more attention.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Thank you so much for that. That was really great.
Speaker 4:I think women are just as good as men at attention. I agree. There's no difference in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I think that.
Speaker 4:Men are judged in our society by their production. Men are really good at producing things. You say the men are good at how, but they're good at what. But that also is not written in stone. A lot of women are good at how too, and a lot of men are good at what? How?
Speaker 3:and what Is that what you're saying of? Women are good at how to, and a lot of men are good at what, how and what is that what you're saying? Men are good at?
Speaker 4:how, answering the question how, how, how do I do that? You know, you know, and women are better at like the desire, like you guys talk about the desire and the what what do you want? Guy doesn't know what like. Right. The what what do you want? Guy doesn't know what Like. Right now I'm a single guy. I don't know what I want. I'm getting you know some people's desires, but not feeling them all the time. So I have to kind of go with how I'm feeling and the more I guess genuine the desire is, the easier it is to respond to that, to fill that desire, to create that how or that attention. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 3:I hear you talking about this from, I can hear what Brenda's saying and I care what you're saying as well.
Speaker 3:I think if I were to reiterate Brenda's like, oh, the quality of a man's attention is so beautiful to receive from for a woman, because usually it's the opposite. We're sort of societally trained to put our attention and what he needs, like or older women, right, like did you cook for him, did you clean for him, did you serve his plate? This particular way, there's like a lot of attention and how to nurture a mother, aka mother, a man. And but when a man is able to put his attention on you, it's like, oh, wow, hang on a second, I'm the, I'm the star of this show. This feels really nice, right, sort of the way Brenda's talking about it and then the way you're discussing it as well. Actually, it becomes really easy for a man to put his attention on a woman when she's really clear in her desire, when she's like well, this is exactly what I would like, and he can feel that, whether it's verbal or not, and then he's like, oh, I can bring the how in. I know exactly how to deliver what you're looking for.
Speaker 4:She can say things, but you don't feel it. You kind of there's a mismatch, there's a mismatch.
Speaker 3:Yes, Not all women are able to back what they want with their emotion. They're not fully embodied yet, so they can speak it right. Oh, I would really love for you to take me out versus no. I would really love for you to take me out versus no. I would really love for you to take me out. Yeah, right, there's a different feel. It's almost like her whole body's invested in the request you can.
Speaker 3:You can fill your pussy while you're doing a lot of things yes yes this is your advantage it is an advantage, it is a woman's advantage, I think, to bring her desire into the room. And I, I do want to say for our listeners sometimes that that phrase of like, feel your pussy, as you're asking for the request, isn't so easy if it hasn't been a practice. And I say feel with whatever part of your body you have access to. So if that is your heart space, then I say start there. This is just. I don't know if the others on here tonight today will agree with me, but if you can feel with your heart, start there. If you can feel with your belly, like some of us have, like that gut instinct, start there. If you can feel with your pussy, start there. If you can feel with your actual like arrows, with the, the actual requests of pleasure that you're looking to receive, then, yes, ask from there, like, see if you can tap into whatever root is is firmest or more palpable for you yeah, I think that's great.
Speaker 4:I love the way you said that. You know i't heard that before, but it makes a lot of sense and it comes a lot better from another woman telling a woman from a guy who sounds like he's sexist or some kind of asshole. Throw your pussy.
Speaker 3:You know, different pussies respond differently. Sometimes some women will throb, some women will get wet, some women will feel an electricity. Some women will feel electricity all in their labia or inside of their womb. Some women will feel tingling on their nipples or on their breasts. There's all the sensation that can be felt on on the physical level. But it does take some practice, with some noticing not so much of this man putting his attention on me but me putting attention on my own body.
Speaker 3:Okay, how am I feeling right now? Well, right now I can share that. I'm sitting. I can feel my back really erect and I feel warm. My hair's out, so I'm slightly warm, all right, and that's like the level of practice, right when, what can you feel? And can you feel even more minuscule and can you feel even more minuscule up? And when you feel that you have a felt sense of your body, then ask the request, because it's so much easier for a man to feel you when you can feel yourself Versus, when you're stressed out, closed off, pissed off and you're like I wanted him to ask me out for dinner. Like, just send the flipping text out for dinner. Like, just send the flipping text. It's like well, he doesn't want to ask now. Now's not his time.
Speaker 4:No, but the guy we learned from originally a long time ago. He said the two things you should know about men and women men are dumb and women are angry, and I think it hasn't changed a whole lot. And so if he doesn't respond and a woman will get pissed off if her desire is not what she thinks is, her desire is not met, so it will make her angry and then that makes it worse because he can feel that emotion. It kind of makes him want to pull away.
Speaker 3:This is a great. I've never heard that before. Men are dumb and women are angry. That's, I've never heard that before. Men are dumb and women are angry. But I do want to bring that phrase to something that you said earlier, steve, when you were talking. Is it enjoyable? And if you need for that person to potentially go slower or touch your scalp, maybe, or just not touch your hair, touch your shoulder, how can you enjoy whatever's occurring? What do you like about what's occurring and what don't you like about what's occurring? And just like Steve gave the example of the positive loop, of the training loop, let them know oh, I really like how you X, y or Z and can you ABC right. So getting off on every stroke doesn't have to necessarily be strictly a clitoral stroke. It could be any form of receiving pleasure, like any time that your partner is giving to you. Can you fully receive what's there and available to you? Can you feel into what part of it you like and, potentially, what part you'd like to adjust?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and if you like, you know, look in your eyes, you know, look directly at you, at your face, you can ooh, yeah, I can feel that there's one girl back years ago. There's a story that she went at a party, you know, and she pushed by a guy and she went ooh, ooh. So I feel like, wow, she likes me.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, I feel it. I love that. Yeah, this is great. I want to switch gears a tiny bit, Steve, because I want to ask you about your new book. So you have a new book coming out. We are recording this. It's actually Halloween 2024. And this will probably drop sometime in November, and your book is coming out mid November Boy Meets Girl. It's your first book of short stories. Can you talk a little bit about this for our listeners?
Speaker 4:and after a few months of struggle she was put in a home hospice and they put her lying down in bed so she didn't have to get up anymore and she got really comfortable and she was no longer in any pain. She was happy doing that and I was writing these stories and I read, read the stories and you know and she and she loved the stories and I've been good stories that she understand everything because her dementia. But she just liked me reading to her and um, they were all like it's called boy meets girl, loving, kindness, and there's a lot of guests listening to a lot of Buddhist lectures and doing these short guided meditations and it helped me a lot and there's a lot of these stories about that topic and it's all about men and women or women meeting a man or men meeting a woman and they and how they enhance each other from the get-go and how, how they relate and how what they can, how they talk, and so I kind of create the characters and this is kind of all my novels I read, I think I've written, I've published I don't know four novels and I just finished my fifth novel, but I haven't published that yet. But the short story was like I create the characters and they're and they fall in love and then I kind of let them go and they do their thing and they play with each other. And you know it's a lot of like movies. You know the person comes together and then something happens, they go apart and they come together and then at the end they come together again. You know, but in these stories they kind of there's loving, kindness throughout the thing, so they don't really go apart, they just get more and more loving to the point where it looks like they could have a great relationship. And then I kind of end the story so it doesn't really get into too much.
Speaker 4:I don't think there's any intercourse in the whole book. There is some pleasure, a lot of kissing, a lot of just feeling and a lot of hugging, because that's what I was doing with Vera. I was doing a lot of hugging and kissing. At that point I was no longer rubbing her clitoris or giving her orgasms that way, but I was kissing her all the time. So I think my books kind of shape where I'm at in my life, like the self pleasure book was when I was self pleasuring a lot, and this book was more about this romance, you know, and people all different ages. There's a guy who's having prostate surgery and he meets this cute woman of the same age as him in the hospital because she's having this long surgery and she's been there a long time he's only there for a day and she's been there and they meet walking in the hallways because they both have to exercise and, you know, they start flirting with each other. There's a lot of flirtation and fun.
Speaker 4:I kind of create those characters and they create the words. I don't know. I kind of go into their characters or something. I don't know how it works. I just kind of go to the computer and the words come out of them.
Speaker 4:There's one story of this woman who has trouble with guys and this takes place in the future. It's called you Robot and she goes to this company that creates these men and women robots and the company is called Desirous Companions and you can buy one. They'reous Companions and you can buy one. They're really expensive and you can buy one and they're just like having a man or a woman relationship and you can use them any way you want, so you can have sex with them or you can just use them to talk to. It's about this woman who had trouble with guys and all the guys were, and she falls in love with this. She buys this robot, you know. So you had this woman who had trouble with guys and all the guys were, and she falls in love with this. She buys this robot and she's falling in love with this robot. And how they met and how, you know, it doesn't get too far, but you know, it's their relationship in the beginning. It's kind of cute.
Speaker 2:It sounds absolutely delightful and I love that it reflects where you were in your life when you wrote it and I will say I had the privilege and joy of reading one of the stories. Thank you for sending it to me and I hope that your book does beautifully well. Thank you, I think that people will enjoy it. And have one more question for you what is a desire that you have for yourself, steve?
Speaker 4:I desire to have desire. I think I don't feel like that right now. I'm just kind of going on, probably what Vera set up for me. So I'm just writing and enjoying. I'm enjoying each moment to the best of my ability. And I never lived by myself. I've always. When I grew up a twin brother Not if you know that and we lived in the same room, we were roommates because we shared the same womb and we were like together pretty much 24-7. And then I went to college and I had roommates in college. I went to Buffalo. I had roommates in college. He stayed in. I went to Buffalo. He stayed in City College and I had roommates there. We weren't that close.
Speaker 2:But I did have a roommate.
Speaker 4:And then I met. I dated a couple of women, but basically I met my wife my junior year. I had never had sex before because I went to an all-boys high school and we kind of like met and we didn't stop seeing each other. We saw each other every day and moved in together. It was wild.
Speaker 4:And lived together about five years with her and then she had some kind of psychological problems. So we had it split up and I moved into this commune right away and I had roommates in the commune. It was in Brooklyn and then a couple of weeks in the commune I met another woman who was younger than me and she moved in with me.
Speaker 4:So I've always. And then I met Vera. In 1980 or so we pretty much I had roommates. I had moved out with this other woman out of the commune and we lived in. She went to college. I went to grad school in genetics and she got a pre-med degree and she got into college and we split up after she went to medical school and I moved back into the commune in California this time and I met Vera pretty much right away and I had roommates before that. And then Vera and I moved together and we were together practically the whole time. So it was the first time in my life that I've lived by myself and I'm learning how to. You know, I'm enjoying myself. It's a new experience. So what do I desire? I desire I get more friendship, more people like being interested and you know, calling or seeing me, more students, more people reading my books, asking me questions, More having use for me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that. Well, so shall your desire be for all of that, and maybe even better and wetter and sweeter than you can even possibly imagine. That'd be nice.
Speaker 4:Thank you, you're so welcome. My other books are I don't think hardly anybody's ever read my novels. I read like the Extended Mass of Orgasm, neal's Feared Guide, and there's a couple of books that were published. But my self-published books haven't been read and I think they're. Really I became a. Those are my first two books and my best work has been later Because they're self-published and I'm not good at marketing. It's read by some people but not a whole lot.
Speaker 2:Well, I can attest to. I am currently reading your self-pleasure book and I highly recommend Steve's books. So, to our listeners, check them out on Amazon and thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 4:One more thing. It's been a pleasure. I was also with Vera a number of years ago. We made a live demonstration of a one-hour orgasm in front of a class that we did and it's quite informative and instructional and you can see actually a woman in an orgasm for an hour plus and what I'm doing with her and doing to her body and be able to. We're not training each other because we trained already, but we're still communicating and communicating people asking questions and it's quite, quite interesting. So my website.
Speaker 2:I love that. Well, you are a treasure trove of wisdom and knowledge and we're very grateful, and with that, listeners. Steve, thank you Until next time. Until next time. Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast.
Speaker 1:Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.
